Opinion: Boulder’s ‘new experiment in democracy’ is off to a shaky start

The first meeting of the group of 48 volunteers to discuss “15-minute neighborhoods” was Saturday, May 10.

According to one of the many pages on the city’s website devoted to this subject, “15-minute neighborhoods are neighborhoods where daily goods, services and transit are within a 15-minute walk (about a 1/4 mile) of where people live or work.”

Unfortunately, because much of the city’s material comes across as being biased towards establishing these neighborhoods (which require massive densification of most residential areas), the people who volunteered were possibly biased toward that outcome. But the rest of us will not know, and have no way to determine, the extent of such bias in this process, because the meetings’ locations, names of participants, agendas and materials are secret. So, those of us who were not among the chosen cannot attend these “Citizen Assembly” meetings even as observers. I think that is terrible. A process this consequential should be done openly!

The argument for establishing these 15-minute neighborhoods is based on a few sections in the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan’s policies. For those of you not familiar with the BVCP, these policies run on for over 80 pages. So, you can find support for almost anything. And in this case, there is support for both “15-minute neighborhoods” as well as for “neighborhood preservation.” 

As a result, the defined objectives for the Assembly are self-contradictory. The first one, “To learn about the costs, benefits and disadvantages of 15-minute neighborhoods in the Boulder Valley, including our community’s shared and contrasting values, concerns and desires,” sounds quite balanced.

But the second one, “To develop a community vision of complete 15-minute neighborhoods in the Boulder Valley and discuss the implications for land use, transportation and mobility, infrastructure and services,” is obviously skewed toward massively changing Boulder’s neighborhoods. It’s as if those who wrote these objectives had already decided that the results of the cost/benefit study would support implementing this concept, and thus support the massive densification required to create such neighborhoods. “Come hell or high water, we’re going to implement them, whatever the damage.”

The underlying problem with this whole conceptual framework is the self-contradictory assumption that we can have commercial centers in neighborhoods that provide an adequate variety of goods, services and transit, all within 15 minutes of where people live, but still keep our relatively low-density neighborhoods intact. This is simply not supported by the economics or the geography.

Looking at the physical layout, even with a maximum travel distance of 3/4 of a mile (three times the 1/4 mile discussed above), because of our mostly rectangular street grid, we would need commercial centers on a grid with 3/4 mile spacing. (People might have to walk 3/8 of a mile north, and then 3/8 of a mile east, etc.) So, for example, on west Baseline, that means a center near Chautauqua, one at the south end of Viele Lake in Table Mesa, etc.

As to density, remember that each of these centers must have enough population nearby to be able to support the stores’ economics. For example, dividing Boulder’s population by its number of supermarkets, each “15-minute neighborhood” would need a population of roughly 10,000 people. Otherwise, the stores won’t survive. Recall the relatively recent closure of supermarkets in Basemar Shopping Center and at Arapahoe and Broadway. But that would mean multiplying the existing density in most areas.

So it’s clear, my intention is not to beat up on the use of these Community Assemblies in general, nor on the three people hired to run them. I saw nothing in their May 2 guest opinion to indicate bias, and they didn’t ask to keep the meetings secret and closed to the public.

The excuse I heard for this was that some other consultant thought it would make the participants more comfortable, or some such. But since the 48 participants were picked partially randomly, they will be strangers to most or all of the others. And there will be other people, including consultants, extra city staffers, etc., in the meeting. So, I cannot fathom why allowing other citizens in to watch the proceedings could hurt. Nor do I see any reason at all why the materials, minutes, etc., which the participants receive, are not made public at the same time, so the rest of us can at least know what’s going on.

But the fundamental, bottom line question is: Why don’t we who live in these neighborhoods get to make the choice between the alleged convenience and the guaranteed massive densification?

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