Steve Pomerance

In the June 20 Camera, Mayor Suzanne Jones is quoted instructing citizens who came to speak about the huge senior living complex proposed for 311 Mapleton, “The decisions are whether it meets the criteria, or not, not whether or not we like it.” I appreciate Mayor Jones’ thoughts, but Boulder’s site review process, which is used to evaluate such large projects, is fraught with subjectivity, fundamentally because the “criteria” lack objective standards and limits. The first step is that the council must agree that, “the proposed site plan is consistent with the land use map, and the service area map, and, on balance, the policies of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan.” But as was noted in the recent consultant’s review of the BVCP, policies can be found that support whatever anyone wants, making this policy requirement meaningless. And each “land use” allows multiple zoning categories, so existing zoning can be changed, as this proposal requests. (I have serious questions as to w...

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 ...

The stimulus to write it came from a recent article in the Camera about how the developer of Pearl West – the huge, totally out of place office building at 10 th and Pearl – didn’t have the money to finish the theater that was promised when the site review was approved by the planning board. How is is that a developer could promise something but could not be held accountable?. The problem is that there is a fundamental flaw in Boulder’s planning process. Developers of almost all projects, other than the very small ones, are required to go through the “site review” process, where their project is supposed to meet thousands of words of incredibly vague criteria. But there are no minimum rights or maximum limits that would properly bound the project’s size and impacts. So the only guaranteed outcome is a giant fight. And the staff’s paranoia about violating someone’s 5 th Amendment rights prohibiting the “taking of private property without just compensation” has left the planning ...

When I heard about the Attention Homes project at 1440 Pine, now under review by the Planning Board, something about the large size and high number of at-risk young adults that would be housed there didn’t ring true to me. Then I learned that this was the result of a “ density transfer .” I couldn’t remember ever hearing that term in my 10 years on the City Council, so I inquired as to what was being proposed. What I learned was, frankly, pretty bizarre. This proposed “density transfer” first calculates the amount of residential development that would be allowed on the whole block, including the 1440 Pine site, as if it were all bare ground, even though most of this block is already developed and so there is no space to build anything close to that amount. Then it “transfers” this block’s worth of development “density” rights to about one quarter of the block. So the existing buildings remain on three quarters of the block, and extra new residential development gets built on one co...