Steve Pomerance

In the almost 60 years I’ve lived here, Boulder’s housing has always been more expensive than surrounding areas. So various city councils have tried to provide more affordable housing, including imposing “inclusionary housing” requirements (a percentage of new units be affordable, 10% in the mid-1980s, 25% now), having new business development pay “jobs-housing linkage fees” (now $30 per square foot for office space), pushing dense housing developments (the tree-barren Boulder Junction on 30th Street, Liquor Mart site, etc.), allowing some ADUs with rent control, instituting a buy-down program (providing down payment cash in exchange for limiting appreciation), etc. Most councils were realistic and implicitly aware that housing issues were not ultimately “solvable” — that is, Boulder was never going to come close to fully meeting the demand, and so prices and rents were never going to stabilize and be as affordable as in other places. This is doubly so because of CU’s ever-increasing s...

This November, Boulderites will vote for mayor. It’s important to remember that the whole city council, including the mayor, will still vote on all ordinances, resolutions and motions. The mayor’s most visible role will still be running the meetings. But an elected mayor could make a big difference in how meetings are prepared for and how outreach is handled. Improving both processes would improve both how Boulder’s government is perceived by the citizens and the quality of the council’s decisions. An example is the recent decision by the council to allow e-bikes on certain Open Space trails. The vote was 8-0 to allow e-bikes. From council members’ lack of response to the strong majority of speakers who testified against allowing e-bikes, it appeared that council members had made up their minds before the meeting. So, testifying was apparently a waste of time. (I spoke, and the experience was like talking to a wall.) What difference could an elected mayor have made? For example, he/she...

I’d like to acknowledge Boulder City Council members Bob Yates and Tara Winer for showing up at the discussion of the proposed homeless day center at 1844 Folsom. Per the Camera’s story on Wednesday, many residents of Horizon West next door raised a lot of legitimate concerns. What’s interesting to me is that the process for selection of the site did not involve talking to the residents of the various possible neighborhoods prior to the site selection. This put the city staff person in charge in the unenviable position of having to justify this lack of early input; that criticism should properly be directed at the council members who approve the site selection criteria as well as the process. This process will no doubt be repeated when some neighbors wake up one morning to find out that the house next door has been purchased to become an addict recovery home, with something like eight recovering addicts and five staff members, as the city was planning to do some months ago. I realize t...

Some of the current Boulder City Council are considering asking the citizens to increase the council’s pay. To me the real issue is whether the council’s performance is up to snuff. If it is not, then paying people more money to perform the same way seems rather foolish. In my opinion, it would be far better for the council members to first work on improving their performance. Having served when meetings ran to all hours with zero pay, and council members (other than the mayor) only putting in around 20 to 25 hours per week, I know it can be done more efficiently. This brings me to the unprecedented spate of formal complaints that have been recently filed against various council members, including at least one against the whole council, for violations of the city code, charter, etc. Why do Boulder citizens feel the need to take such serious actions? Maybe they think that council members won’t pay attention otherwise. Interestingly, many of these complaints were about the Police Oversig...

 You can find the most current bill under consideration here: https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb23-213

Trying to keep up on the latest nonsense on SB23-213, Gov. Jared Polis’ land grab bill, is brutal. The bill keeps getting amended, first in the Senate and now in the House, and no doubt more to come in a joint session. The Denver Post captured the basic flaws perfectly in their Wednesday editorial: “Colorado lawmakers’ attempt to completely overhaul planning and zoning in almost every municipality across this state with a single piece of legislation was ambitious, drastic, and rushed. “We can think of nothing this session that would have affected the lives of home-owning Coloradans more than the original proposal in The Land Use bill to eliminate single-family-only zoning across the state in favor of more density. And sadly, we are not convinced by the data that it would have made housing any more affordable for those who are still struggling to buy.” In short, the whole bill was built on fantasy thinking, unsupported by the data.  An earlier amendment to completely eliminate occup...

As I was preparing to write this column, I read the news reports on 18 amendments that were made to HB23-213, the Polis land grab bill. This is the bill that would have rezoned essentially 100% of the single-family areas in larger Colorado cities and resort areas to allow up to sixplexes. These amendments now reduce that 100% to 30% (and sixplexes to fourplexes). The committee vote was 4-3, apparently with serious reservations about still allowing even that much densification being expressed, including by some of those voting “yes.” Now the bill only focuses on densifying areas near transit and trains, and not on multiplying Colorado’s population. I guess it’s now a “transit crisis,” not a “housing crisis.” But the bill still doesn’t distinguish families from unrelated folks in determining occupancy. So, single-family houses can still be replaced with rooming houses. The legislators focused on standard, fixed-line mass transit. No consideration was given to alternatives, like charging ...

A March 19 Camera staff editorial contained inaccurate assumptions about landlord behavior, if Boulder increases occupancy limits. The editorial suggested, “…allowing an additional person into a home would allow tenants to split the rent another way and hopefully relieve some financial stress.” That statement’s obvious, giant flaw is the assumption that somehow, the rent will remain static and unchanged if the landlord is allowed to rent to more unrelated people. Our current City Council also voices this naive, false assumption. It’s pure fantasy that landlords will keep the rent unchanged, if allowed to rent to more people. Landlords know how to use calculators. No knock against landlords, but let’s be honest, it’s a business and income source for them! Like most businesspersons, landlords understandably seek to maximize revenue and profits, not altruism. Bedrooms Are For People (BAFP) failed partly because there was no lever within the ballot measure to require affordability. Voters ...

The conversation we are going to have on April 20 regarding Governor Polis’s housing bill, SB23-213, has, to a considerable extent, been preempted by the position of the City Council’s Intergovernmental Affairs Committee, and likely to be supported by a majority of the members of Council. The Committee has adopted a position of “Support, while requesting amendments.” The scope of that position is unclear. Staff has proposed a number of amendments to improve the bill and make it more adaptable to the particular interests of the City of Boulder. What is not clear is what happens if the Council majority’s proposed amendments are not adopted. Are we expressing support for the bill no matter what its final provisions are, or will we oppose the bill if those amendments are not enacted?  I know that this legislation is near and dear to Governor Polis, but I suggest that the interests of the City of Boulder – which should be the   exclusive  interests of this Council – outweigh t...

So … what do we do with Gov. Jared Polis’s land grab bill? A friend told me that to influence some of the politicos, I need to put forward fixes to this horrible, damaging bill.  So, I’ll try. But first, a critical point: For those who think this bill’s overly loose state-imposed rezoning of single-family areas will lead to only incremental changes and only over a long time, think again! Once the first house on a block goes on the market, the big-money speculators will be making offers “too good to refuse.” And when it’s converted to a multi-plex built to the bill’s ridiculously excessive 125% of the currently allowed maximum size, the rest of the neighborhood’s residents will be running for the hills. Then the neighborhood could quickly convert to dense, almost treeless development since anything not built on will be needed for parking spaces because there will be none left on the street. Back to the bill:  The fundamental problem with this bill is that it is structured backw...