Steve Pomerance

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....

On Thanksgiving, it seems appropriate to look back and try to appreciate the good things that have happened, while at the same time looking forward to what might be. When I was in college, my worst skill was writing, and all through my youth, I really disliked listening to people talking politics. Now, I really appreciate that I have mostly gotten past both those blocks and have the chance to write about our local political scene, though I’m still more interested in policy than politics. For example, I appreciate that Boulder now has its own fiber network, and we won’t have to rely on private providers with their own systems for internet. But regarding the recent contract signed to give ALLO-Communications a 20-year lease, I note that, per a person at the Institute for Local Self Reliance, some of the best systems are municipally operated and are right here on the Front Range, in Loveland, Fort Collins, Estes Park. Maybe next time… On a larger scale, I really appreciate the work of...

Given the push for more development dominating the Opinion Page lately, I thought Daily Camera readers might find it useful if I laid out some of the numbers related to Boulder’s growth, since they provide a quantitative basis for evaluation. But these numbers also need to be embedded in a long-term historical perspective, especially in this age of rapid climate change, with its serious questions about the sustainability of human life at our current population level. As I said in  my March 16, 2021 column about humans being the most invasive species , it’s worth looking at a graph of human population over the millennia ( https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth ). Human population grew very slowly from 10,000 BCE until 0 BCE, averaging around 0.04% per year. It then averaged around 0.09% per year until 1800. Since then, we humans have been growing at an average of almost 1% per year, increasing by around eight times to almost 8 billion humans on the planet. So it’s no s...

In my almost 40 years in Boulder politics, I have never seen a project create such controversy, and it’s no surprise: CU South is the size of downtown Boulder both in acreage and development potential. The proposed “100-year design” flood detention pond is inadequate given climate change and the limited pond size, which cannot reasonably be expanded once CU develops the nearby area. The deal was negotiated without investigating a land swap with city-owned land north of the city limits. Condemnation of the needed property was apparently not even looked at. And it was done without a proper flood control master plan to evaluate the costs and benefits of projects on Boulder’s many creeks, determine which ones were worth doing, and then prioritize them based on the most benefit (including life/safety) for the least cost. Boulder’s politics have worked best, and created the least conflict, when the processes are open and the citizens can observe and engage as matters proceed. Sometim...

Boulder City Council is meeting on Tuesday to consider how to address the loss of middle-income households in Boulder. To make sense of their material, I needed to make explicit some implicit assumptions and conclusions: The council’s goal apparently is to try to have Boulder’s income distribution approximate that of the county or state, to keep from becoming more elitist. The proposed solution is to ensure adequate affordable housing for a large segment of the population. Boulder’s housing programs will no longer just be about providing for “low-” and “moderate-” income people; the target population will now include the “middle” — households of 80 percent to 150 percent of Area Median Income (AMI). So the housing programs will potentially serve the majority of residents. It would not be equitable to use general revenues for funding this middle-income program, since that would be taxing and then subsidizing people in similar financial situations. And because “median” means half a...

The Boulder City Council held its annual retreat last weekend, and as usual, many of the items brought up were ones that have been discussed many times before. Having been involved in Boulder politics for now almost 30 years, I thought I`d offer up my take on a few of these topics. The “Planning Reserve,” 680 acres north of Jay Road and east of US 36, is once again being considered for annexations. It is the last significant area where new development could be allowed under the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan. So it has become the target for everything from big box stores to sports complexes. The history of the Planning Reserve goes back to when I was on the council. To limit sprawl, many council members and civic organizations wanted to declare most of the unincorporated Boulder valley off limits to urban development. But this not-so-small portion was kept potentially open to assuage the development-oriented members of that council. Now some council members are pushing for a f...