Steve Pomerance

Our governments, both state and local, are suddenly freaking out about the “housing crisis.” Given the level of hype, you’d think that we were in Turkey, with earthquake-collapsed buildings in all directions. But no one seems willing to dig into the underlying causes. Instead, as has occurred many times before, they just push for more growth, while ignoring critical concerns: Coloradans actually want less or no growth; continuing to grow indefinitely is not sustainable; and the COVID “bump” was just that — people shifted to working remotely in more desirable living situations. Recent surveys say most Coloradans don’t want lots more people moving here. To quote one article, “Rasmussen Reports surveyed over 1,000 ‘likely to vote’ Coloradans to gauge their feelings on the matter. Overwhelmingly, the answers showed they want to limit population growth. In recent years 92% feel that the state has become more crowded. 90% desire a future where far fewer people move to the state. 59% prefer a...

It should be obvious, but apparently isn’t, that the doubling of the number of humans on the planet, from 4 billion in 1974 to 8 billion now, has overstressed our planet’s ability to support our presence in all sorts of ways, from the rapid increase in greenhouse gases leading to likely runaway climate change, to wiping out other species on a massive scale, to droughts threatening our ability to thrive. For example, arctic temperatures are rising almost four times as fast as the global average, potentially releasing hundreds of billions of tons of methane and carbon dioxide, according to some estimates, as permafrost melts. But our governments keep promoting more growth, as if that is magically going to solve our problems.  Locally, the latest is the push by both our governor and our city council for more and denser housing to allegedly help with the affordability issue. But at the same time, our state government’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT) subs...

What will happen to us chickens if our lot is redeveloped? “We are chickens who live in a family’s backyard and supply them with eggs, to help them deal with rising costs. If the politicians have their way, their lot may be redeveloped with ADUs or condos or whatever. What will happen to us? And what will happen to the garden that they have so carefully nurtured that supplies them with clean, locally grown food?” “I’m a mouse that lives in the weeds at the edge of a flood channel. If the lots owned by people upstream are turned into buildings and concrete, making almost all the land surface impervious to water, flood levels could dramatically increase and the city’s flood control work will become inadequate, and my burrow will be washed out. Where will I go then?” “I’m a wise old owl and have suffered from the ever-increasing air pollution due to excessive traffic growth. I wonder how the humans I live near will feel when their taxes go up to cover RTD’s increasing costs of supplying m...

In June 2022, Rasmussen Reports did a poll of 1,024 Colorado voters regarding their attitudes toward growth and development. Per their summary, 61% of voters say Colorado has developed too much, and only 8% say too little. That’s pretty overwhelming. The Legislature should take note. I’ve pulled a few quotes from their survey statement below, with the response statistics. “The U.S. Department of Agriculture calculates that Colorado, over the last four decades, has turned more than 1,250 square miles of Open Space, natural habitat, and agricultural land into housing, shopping malls, streets and other urban development.” 62% of voters say that, on balance, this has made Colorado a worse place to live, with only 14% saying it is better. “If recent trends continue, Colorado demographers project that the state’s human population of 5.8 million will grow by another 1.8 million by 2050, joining Colorado Springs, Denver and Fort Collins together into a single “mega-city.” 76% see this as negat...

Many of you are probably familiar with Lorie Smith, a website designer, who asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block enforcement of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act. This Act would have prevented her from refusing to create wedding websites for same-sex couples. Apparently, Ms. Smith’s objection comes from her religious beliefs, and the case is being argued regarding whether her combined First Amendment rights regarding freedom of speech and free exercise of religion are being violated. Rather than jump to a conclusion, I’ve tried to sort out the arguments being made. But the analogies and parallels that I’ve read get increasingly convoluted. Finally, I found a government website called “Constitution Annotated — Analysis and Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.” Reading through the First Amendment section, it became clear to me that even the most extensive and sophisticated arguments will not resolve such issues. So, I tried to step back from the details and asked myself what the ...

 I’m sure many of you read in the newspapers recently that the Earth’s population of humans has now reached 8 billion. To put this in perspective, human population reached 1 billion in 1804, 2 billion in 1927, 3 billion in 1960 and 4 billion in 1974. The UN projects there will be 9 billion by 2037, and then (hopefully) stop increasing at around 10 billion in the 2080s (data per Population Connection’s white paper). The planet’s human population has doubled since many of us first became aware of the existential threat of global warming due to excessive emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. In the early 1800s, carbon dioxide emissions were relatively small. But by 1950, the world’s carbon dioxide emissions totaled around 6 billion tons per year. By 1990, this had almost quadrupled, reaching more than 22 billion tons per year. Now, emissions are over 34 billion tons each year, according to Our World In Data. As a result, Earth’s temperature has risen by 0.14 degrees F...

The city council recently took up the issue of allowing more “accessory dwelling units” in single-family neighborhoods. An ADU is a self-contained apartment within a single-family house or in a separate building on the same lot. Currently, Boulder has significant limits on ADUs, including requirements for off-street parking and density limits, like allowing only 20% of houses in a 300-foot radius to have ADUs. These were carefully worked out several years ago. Now, some council members are pushing to allow all single-family homes to have ADUs, both internal and external. That would allow three units on every lot — two ADUs plus the main unit — though with the proposed 900-square-foot size limit, this could look like a duplex plus another house. And even with a constraint of, say, a maximum of five unrelated people, it would effectively turn every lot into a small condo development, since ownership could be through an LLC whose members change with whoever is living there. Interestin...

I spend a lot of my time hiking and scrambling in the mountains. I find it immensely rewarding to focus on where I put my feet and hands, and look at the scenery, landscape and geology, which is more-or-less like it was before humans over-occupied the planet. And I think that the risks, however slight, add to the experience of being just a small piece of nature. Coming back down to our current political reality in Boulder is always a shock. But being in the mountains gives me some perspective — at least I hope it does. My observation is that although big decisions may engender strong feelings, they do not have to be so highly polarizing as they are now. Fundamentally, having the full set of real facts and proper analysis kept in the public view has always reduced controversy, narrowed the set of realistic options and made it more difficult to take extreme positions. I offer the CU South controversy as case in point. In my opinion, the problem started with the lack of consistent awarene...

Proposition 123 is a state-level initiative to direct taxpayers’ money into affordable housing programs. Ignoring the myriad details, Prop 123 doesn’t institute the preconditions I would require before supporting using state taxes for affordable housing. First, any state-level affordable housing funding should have as a prerequisite that the region is adjusting its zoning to balance jobs and housing growth. Simply put, if a city continually adds more and more job development (office, commercial, industrial, etc.), then it needs to balance that with an adequate amount of housing. And for those who think that continually adding jobs makes a place better off financially, Boulder’s seminal Jobs/Housing Study twenty years ago showed that, at best, it’s break-even regarding operating costs and a net loser when you consider growth-related capital costs. (By the way, Boulder failed to do this balancing with the East Boulder Sub-Community Plan — a missed opportunity.) Second, all job develo...

Please find the full presentation at the following link: CU South debate PPT v3.pptx