Steve Pomerance

“Bedrooms Are For People” lost at the ballot box, saving months or years in court attempting to resolve the disparity between the title and the ordinance. But many on the new Council want to take up the occupancy issue anyway.  That’s fine, but this is not a simple issue, and I hope the council recognizes this. The Council members need to start by discussing what they realistically want to achieve, and what they see as appropriate conditions and constraints on their goals. Having some reality in this discussion is critical, since the kind of one-liners tossed around during the campaign are not much use in doing good policy work. For example, there was the idiotic statement that, “Everyone who wants to live in Boulder should be able to.” But what if there are a million such people? We don’t lack for legitimate issues to be explored: For example, it seems reasonable that two single women with two kids apiece could share the house that one owns that is currently zoned for a family...

Councilmember Sam Weaver made some pretty strong promises to neighborhoods in his 2017 re-election campaign material, “I support sub-community planning, which includes neighborhood-level stakeholder engagement to explore what the local desires are regarding the potential for additional density through zoning changes.”… “I believe that any policy changes that enable increases in neighborhood density must be created in close partnership with the residents of the neighborhoods they impact.” ( sam4council.wordpress.com/responsible-planning ). Councilmember Mary Young also strongly supported direct involvement by affected residents in the Daily Camera story on her re-election campaign. The Camera said: She’s for “thoughtful redevelopment” that’s informed by sub-area planning in neighborhoods. Where some would argue this approach gives veto power, or something close to it, to neighbors resistant to change in largely single-family zones, Young sees it another way.  “I believe that w...

The debate around allowing more accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in Boulder neighborhoods has ignored a number of fundamental issues, and so has unnecessarily turned into a pitched battle. First, the objectives are not clear. City staff cherry-picked from the endless list of comprehensive plan goals to target having a “variety of housing types.” Some council members want ADUs to be permanently affordable, in spite of the difficulties created by state law’s prohibition on rent control. Others argue that ADUs that rent at market rate will help keep people in their homes in the face of skyrocketing property taxes. (Boulder Valley School District and county commissioners could address this by matching tax revenue growth to inflation rather than property value increases.) And then there are the undercurrents — more people should have the “right” to live in single-family neighborhoods, Boulder is mainly “rich, white, and privileged,” Boulder should be a big, dense city, etc. What is una...

I want to catch up on a number of Boulder topics where significant progress has been made, and to acknowledge the majority of the City Council for making this happen. I’m serving on the elections working group. In just two meetings we’ve resolved the basic issues around the municipal initiative process that was upset by ballot issue 2Q. It appears that we will have a process ready to be put on the ballot as a charter amendment this November. It will be similar to the one that existed prior to 2Q but with some significant improvements. We haven’t started on the effort to shine light onto “dark money.” But given the council’s clear direction to push the envelope on this one, I am confident that we can come up some good strategies that will reveal the big money donors behind the ads that push certain candidates but avoid saying the magic words “vote for” or “vote against” that would trigger their being regulated. The council majority has kept its promise to increase the jobs-housing...

The stimulus to write this came from a recent article in the Camera about how the developer of Pearl West — the huge office building at 11th and Pearl — allegedly didn’t have the money to finish the theater that the developer promised when the site review was approved by the Planning Board. What good is a promise if there is no requirement to deliver? The problem is that there is a fundamental flaw in Boulder’s planning process. Developers of projects, other than small ones, are required to go through the “site review” process, where the judgment of a majority of the Planning Board as to whether the project meets vague criteria is substituted for actual numerical rules about height, setbacks, density, etc. The bounds are much looser, and the Planning Board almost invariably approves structures considerably larger than the underlying zoning would allow. This size inflation generally has a negative impact on the neighbors, so the only guaranteed outcome is a giant fight. And because ...

My motivation for this piece came from attending the Planning Board hearing on the proposed annexation of the Hogan-Pancost property — 22 vacant acres near the East Boulder Community Center. Frankly, I was appalled at what the city staff were recommending — that the property be annexed and zoned without a detailed, binding site plan, and without full analysis of the off-site impacts. This is not the first time the staff has been off base. In 2013, the staff-supported annexation proposal was voted down 7-0 by the Planning Board. Under the staff-recommended approach, if the city and the developer cannot come to agreement on the site plan and appropriate mitigation, in particular for the apparently unsolvable groundwater issues, then the city would be in a serious bind: The city has no process for de-annexing the property, and so would have given all the leverage to the developer. This would put Boulder citizens at financial and hydrologic risk. Then, during the hearing, a consultan...

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 current Boulder City Council should be acknowledged for taking on the “pops and scrapes” issue (also called “compatible development”) and trying to finish it during their term. We should commend this group of our peers for their willingness to struggle with a very difficult issue that has many citizens on each side, and even some on both sides at once. Yes, there have been mistakes made in the process, and the council should definitely avoid making them again, but at least they are making the effort. The criticisms made by Mark Ruzzin and Leslie Durgin in a guest opinion (Camera, Sept. 15) were disingenuous. His council abandoned their attempt to deal with this issue by passing a Floor Area Ratio limit of 0.8 that accomplished essentially nothing. I know Leslie quite well — she was mayor when I was on council — and I believe her concern for a careful process is honest and well intended; however, in my opinion, given the work to date, the council that started this effort needs t...