Opinion: Crowded, congested and dry – the future of Boulder

Last week, the Boulder City Council voted 7-2 to proceed with looking at annexing an area of currently rural land north-east of U.S. 36, called the Area III planning reserve. It’s approximately 500 acres, part private and part owned by the Parks Department, bought decades ago for eventual use as playing fields, etc. The Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan states that expanding the city into the Area III-PR “will only be considered if there are priority community needs that cannot be met within the existing Service Area.” Sensibly, the Planning Board voted 4-3 against looking further at this time.

The basic argument being made is that we need more housing. More, more and more housing. A friend did a detailed look at coming housing growth inside the Boulder city limits. Here are the numbers:

There are about 27 projects at various stages, totaling over 15,000 new units. That could increase to potentially over 20,000 new units because of densification allowed under Ordinance 8666 (the “big, beautiful, vibrant neighborhoods” ordinance) passed last year. Boulder already has over 47,000 housing units, so 20,000 more units represents over a 42% increase, and potentially about a 40% increase in population. But the council has yet to pass legislation to significantly improve the affordability of much of this. Apparently, the developers drive the process — profits over affordability.

Think about all those additional people for a moment. Want to go for a hike on Open Space? Well, get in line. Drive to run an errand? Better allow a lot more time than now. Thinking “15-minute neighborhoods” will be better? Given the paucity of people walking now, don’t expect much …especially in the Area III planning reserve, which is far from everything.

The planning reserve could add up to 8,700 more units. If the airport ever gets redeveloped as housing, that could be an additional 2,000 units. So that’s 20,000 plus 8,700 plus 2,000 equals 30,700 total more units, about a 65% increase! Boulder currently has about 2.2 people per unit. Dropping that to 2.0 to account for the new units being smaller, that’s two times 30,700, which equals 61,400 more people! That would bring our total population close to 167,000 people.

No surprise to me, the council majority has never done a detailed price-elasticity study, which would look at the potential price effects of adding more housing. I suspect that it because it will almost certainly show that there is little to no affordability benefit from this numerical increase.

Our streets are already congested. On almost every expedition I take to Boulder’s commercial denser areas during the weekdays, I end up waiting multiple light cycles at least one intersection. But don’t expect new development to contribute to solving the problem. The council has refused to make “growth pay its own way” to cover the costs of increased transit, intersection improvements, etc., to a level adequate to prevent congestion from increasing. We don’t have any more capacity on our roads, and, irrespective of our great bike lanes and paths (and with e-bikes making it easier), cycling still only covers a very small portion of trips.

Our Open Space is jammed with people. Parking at Chautauqua is hopeless on the weekends. And at the gate near the top of Flagstaff, cars line the road up as far as the eye can see. Lesser-used areas have lots more people now than in years past; even bouldering and climbing areas are crowded.

But the real unpleasantness will come when we are forced to ration our water supplies. According to analyses previously done by the city’s water utility, we’re already close to “crisis” mode, where we must cut back our usage like 30%. This would include outdoor watering, but limitations on interior domestic use would likely be in the pipeline, so to speak.

I suspect that’s why the utility recently circulated material about “water budgets.” I think that they’re trying to accustom us to the idea that we won’t be able to use what we have previously, and that the screws will be tightening even more. Having paid a tap fee for water service when your residence was built does not guarantee you a specific fraction of the system’s yield.

Our “water budgets” will shrink as the third of our water that comes from the Colorado River basin dwindles. And less snowpack and earlier runoff will reduce the yield of our reservoirs on Middle and North Boulder Creek. 

So, nearly 60% more people, and 30% less water! That’s our “progressive” future. Thanks, but no thanks!