Steve Pomerance

“The people’s representatives will reach their destination, invested with the highest confidence and unlimited power. They will show great character. They must consider that great responsibility follows inseparably from great power. To their energy, to their courage, and above all to their prudence, they shall owe their success and their glory.”  — Translated from decrees of the French National Convention, May 8, 1793. By now, most council members must have figured out that their notion that the whole council could design co-op legislation from scratch just using public hearings but without adequate problem definition, alternatives analysis, or data collection, was ill conceived. Prudence, as the French advise, would direct the council to own up to the mistake and take a different tack, as I suggest below. I believe it would produce a more satisfactory result in less time, even starting at this late date. Here are some parts: The council needs to consider other alternativ...

I recently read through the latest draft of the co-op ordinance. Unfortunately, it is still a mash-up of ideas that sound good but have significant flaws. And it is still disorganized — general requirements are mixed with specifics, concepts show up in multiple places, and some terms, including “limited equity cooperative,” “certification,” and “privilege,” are undefined. One of the biggest problem areas is the “permanently affordable Group Equity Cooperative” (GEC). I’ll focus there, but it is not the only problem by any means. The ordinance allows up to 12 people to live in a co-op in low-density zones, and up to 15 in higher-density zones. But if the Planning Board so recommends, the city manager can increase the upper limit for a “permanently affordable” co-op like a GEC. The Planning Board must consider impacts, crowding, parking, and the co-op’s “mission,” but there are no actual rules for the board to follow to calculate their recommended number. So no one can challenge the ...

From my perspective, many of the current hot political issues have angles that haven’t been adequately discussed. Here are a few: Amendment 71 is an attempt to make it extremely difficult for any but the most well-funded interest groups to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot, much less get it passed. The argument by Colorado’s “We know best” power-brokers is that we need more stability. But in Switzerland, one of the most stable countries in the world, it’s easier to petition to amend their constitution than to amend Colorado’s. A far better fix for Colorado would be to better protect statutory initiatives by only allowing them to be changed with concurrence of two-thirds of both the Senate and the House and consistent with their stated purpose. This would make this type of initiative more attractive and thus limit the use of constitutional amendments, and the Legislature could fix any technical problems discovered after passage. Propositions 107 and 108 support open pri...

Boulder’s current draft ordinance for co-operative housing units (“co-ops”) has a very long way to go to balance the desires and concerns of the various parties while preserving Boulder’s neighborhoods. There are big problems with trying to allow co-ops to operate in rental units. It is almost impossible to objectively distinguish a co-op from an over-occupied rental. Saying, “I know one when I see one,” the current city mantra, does not provide a bright line for enforcement officers or the courts. Allowing a third party that promotes co-ops to “certify” them is crazy, because they are likely to approve questionable groups just to gain constituents. Requiring the co-op groups to be incorporated will just create a cottage industry to do the paperwork, no doubt funded by landlords interested in higher occupancies and rents, but providing no particular benefit to the neighbors. Finally, allowing rental co-ops will accentuate the conflicts between landlords and neighboring owner-reside...

Last summer the previous council pushed for reducing lanes on Folsom and other streets to solve some ill-defined bicycling problems by making some untested roadway improvements. The result was a public relations disaster, ending in total reversal. The notion of allowing a large number of cooperative living units in single-family neighborhoods has equivalent potential for disaster, because it could create a high level of uncertainty and negative impacts for existing Boulder residents. The good news is that the council is actually asking for hard information first; the bad news is that there is far more research to be done and understood if the benefits are to be realized without most of the downsides. I’m not opposed to co-ops. In the early ’70s, I lived in a single-family house, owned by a friend, who allowed a number of his friends to live there. We called it a commune, in the style of the time. It worked well for a number of years, mostly because we maintained pretty good relat...

The name “Housing Boulder” should give you pause. It’s hard to imagine a city project name that could be more of an overreach. And the project reflects just that — lots of hype, but not much solid analysis. One of Housing Boulder’s original goals was, “Create diverse housing choices in every neighborhood: Facilitate the creation of a variety of housing options in every part of the city, including existing single-family neighborhoods.” But it’s not possible to build even an affordable four-plex on a lot that costs $800,000 to $1 million, as many do in the neighborhoods west of Broadway and in other parts of town; that’s $200,000-$250,000 per unit for the land alone. The only place this form of densification has a chance of working, even in the short term, is where housing prices haven’t yet skyrocketed. This means in the neighborhoods that are still relatively affordable. So the Housing Boulder goal is tantamount to identifying these areas as sacrifice zones. OAUs (“owner access...