Opinion: Requiring new development to pay its own way
The policy that “growth should pay its own way” was in the original Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan, approved in 1970. I’ve been a proponent since my first campaign for Boulder City Council in 1985. But the city’s implementation has been sporadic and incomplete. Our city utility tap fees are quite accurate, but the charges for general fund departments like libraries, and parks and recreation, are less adequate. The charges for transportation and affordable housing come nowhere near what’s needed to prevent increased traffic congestion and to provide housing for many of those who come here to fill the new jobs. In my observation, the real profit in the development business comes from “privatizing the profits and socializing the costs.” An analysis I did of an annexation in a neighboring city showed that essentially all the profit came from avoiding paying just the costs associated with meeting the demand for transportation and schools; paying for affordable housing would have made