Steve Pomerance

Much of what has made Boulder such a great place to live has been the work of people half a century ago. These people recognized what I call the “ ratchet effect ,” that bad development decisions cannot be undone, so policies needed to be put in place to prevent, or at least limit, the damage that a growth-at-all-costs majority of the council could do. These policies include charter limits, like the Blue Line that prevents city water for development from being supplied above a certain altitude, the 55-foot height limit that has prevented high-rise development from cutting off our views, and the open space referendum process that allows a 60-day window for citizens to challenge disposals of open space. Other constraints include the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan’s requirement for Planning Board agreement for land-use changes in the area inside the city limits (Area I) and additional agreement by the county commissioners and county Planning Commission for urban development further

Because the discussions on this subject are all over the map, I thought it would be useful to summarize what I think would be an appropriate approach. A reasonable goal would be to maintain some level of economic diversity in our community. But that doesn’t mean that everyone who wants to live here and every business that wants to expand here can do so. We have finite resources: our streets, our water supply, our views, and our Open Space are limited in their carrying capacity. Besides, trying to build more market priced housing won’t work. The market has already priced this housing out of range of anyone even somewhat above the area median income . So just adding market rate housing will just add more people with high incomes or net worth, and leave out the middle and lower income folks. Also, the demand is so huge that it cannot be reasonably satisfied: There are over 60,000 workers that commute in every day, and together with their families, they would double Boulder’s pop