I've just spent too much time conducting interviews and reviewing media accounts about Boulder city politics. Now you won't have to, lucky you. My conclusions follow, in another of my now-infamous lists:
1. We're not all that divided. Now that a law was finally passed by the Boulder City Council Oct. 6 -- and despite 18 months of stormy Council meetings and highly entertaining public comments on the Daily Camera's website -- Boulder will survive its battle over "compatible development," aka "pops and scrapes," aka limiting giant houses on small lots. The debate took too long, but the final law's restrictions, which take effect Jan. 4, will probably work pretty well. As in so many cases in the past, Boulderites debated fiercely, then settled on a compromise.
2. The big-houses issue is subtle. Those on both sides of the 4-3 Council vote to enact the law were responding to legitimate concerns from citizens. Both sides have pretty compelling concerns -- from the one side about greedy speculators building "McMansions," from the other side about middle-class families being prevented from adding on a few rooms, either because their lots are too small or because they can't afford the added fees of lawyers and architects that the complex new law may entail.
3. Conspiracy theories flopped. Yes, some developers probably did give financial assistance to the two groups that led the charge against the law (FairFAR and Leave My Home Alone). And, yes, the Daily Camera was a little off calling either opponent group a "grassroots" effort. But it's an overstatement to call the groups "proxies for the real estate mafia masquerading as actual outraged citizens" (to quote one Camera website commenter). On the other side, the law's critics now realize it isn't communism driving the critics of the McMansions; rather, that it represents a long-observed strain of egalitarianism in liberal Boulder. One Camera commenter caricatured the thoughts of poor Mr. Richie Rich deprived of his McMansion: "Where will I put the 12-seat home theater with full bar and jumbo gumball machine?"
4. It's yesterday's issue anyway. A drive around the Newlands neighborhood in North Boulder, where spec-home builders have been busy bees, reveals that a lot of the most out-of-scale McMansions are empty and for sale. It may well be that, given America's economic crisis, we may never revisit the mood of opulence that the speculators were catering to. Rich people will still favor Boulder, but most aren't show-offs.
5. The Council election looks good for incumbents. Mayor Matt Appelbaum may have mad-professor white hair, and he may be Clinton-like (Bill) with his long-winded hyper-analyzing of the issues as Council sessions drone on toward midnight. But he's also incredibly smart, has huge institutional memory, and obviously relishes his work. Suzy Ageton, though a bit officious at times, also has huge experience, poise and intellectual acumen. Macon Cowles can be a bit stern and moralistic, leading to his being caricatured by developers as Boulder's Robespierre (in truth, he's been supportive of the business community at many turns while still standing tall for the environment). All three will probably be reelected Nov. 3 (ballots for the mail-only election go out next week). Whether the Council will reelect Appelbaum as mayor is less clear.
6. New candidates as weather vanes. The viable non-incumbent candidates divide fairly cleanly into pro-business folks (KC Becker, Fenno Hoffman, George Karakehian, Barry Siff) versus more of those famous Boulder Progressives (Valerie Mitchell, Tim Plass, Jyotsna Raj). The election results will be a strong indicator of where Boulder voters stand -- in particular, after enduring the somewhat polarizing debate over house sizes.
7. And the winner is... Though Boulder's electorate can surprise, my prediction is that the three incumbents will join the attractive, liberal retired lawyer Tim Plass in the winner's circle, with the fifth contested seat hard to call. That result will put progressives in control, with newcomer Plass joining Appelbaum, Cowles, and three liberal incumbents not up for reelection (Lisa Morzel, Crystal Gray and Susan Osborne) to form a solid progressive majority on the nine-member council. This will leave Ageton, incumbent Ken Wilson and either Barry Siff (who's not only a businessman but is also a celeb in Boulder's endurance-athlete crowd) or KC Becker (who has focused her campaign on fellow-parents) to be the business-lovin' minority on the Council.
8. This all may look a bit silly. As one Daily Camera commenter put it bitingly, "Only when the wealthy argue amongst themselves do you get these kinds of discussions [like "compatible development"]. Meanwhile, most of the rest of the world grapples with issues like clean drinking water and reliable food sources. The Boulder Experiment continues." Well! I guess that puts our little Camelot and its squabbles into perspective.
Follow Bob Wells on Twitter: www.twitter.com/boulderbob
Here is issue you've missed: Boulder is going through a generational shift, from the old guard, long in the tooth, and increasingly earning the skepticism of younger folks that see the shell game being played with false and misleading use of normally good things like "sustainability", "afford ability", "compatibility", "livability". Many of the up-and-coming younger folks have the maturity and respect to tolerate differing tastes and lifestyles - unlike the "yesteryear" fetishists that continually seek to freeze Boulder in sepia tone and amber.
The people you call "famous" or "attractive" (with no basis for saying so) are the very worst of the worst when it comes to shutting the proverbial gate ....now that they've got theirs. This younger generation doesn't have a problem with the size of Macon Cowles' very large home, or Appelbaum's, etc., we have a problem with the size of the hypocrisy of those that take from us - without asking.
We will do everything we can to see that fundamental principles like "yours", "mine", "ours" - and asking permission before taking something that belongs to someone else - don't get tossed aside because "the ends justify the means."
For many of us, our homes are our single largest asset - to which we tie our hopes, plans, and dreams for our lives here. Taking those things from us, without permission, is no less offensive than building a home without considering the impact on your neighbors. Two wrongs don't make a right. Council should have asked for permission via the ballot.
3. LMHA is grassroots. We have hundreds of members from all walks of life and both ends of the political spectrum. I'm a founding member of LMHA and native of Boulder, and I'm not an architect, Realtor, developer or contractor, I'm not wealthy by Boulder standards.
We simply don't want a retroactive HOA that takes something from us without our permission. Council went too far, we'll take it back via the ballot in 2010.
I'm trying to raise a family, improve my energy-inefficient home, care for my parents (when that day comes) and do it efficiently on the property I can afford. I'm not trying to build a mansion - I'm trying to bring my home into the modern age as best I can.
5. The council seats are typically filled with activists that take advantage of a relative vacuum due to low voter turnout. Boulder can blame itself for this apathy / malaise. Extreme agendas from either direction get to run wild with each swing of the pendulum.
When asked "Some recent construction in my neighborhood is too large”: 58% of responses expressed new construction is not too large, or didn't care. 45% disagreed (21% strongly), 13% expressed no feelings, and 43 agreed (21%strongly). 58 to 42, that's a landslide, and certainly doesn't fit with your opinion.
When asked "the character of my neighborhood is being negatively impacted by recent construction"
70% of responses expressed recent construction is not negatively impacting the neighborhood. Only 30% agreed, a vast majority either disagreed with the statement or expressed no opinion. That totaled 70% - with 55% specially disagreeing and 15% did not care. Only 13% strongly agreed with the statement.
When asked “Bigger houses can fit in if they are well designed”. 62% agreed, 17% no opinion, with only 20% disagreeing.
2) Subtle? The basis for concern simply isn't big enough to justify taking so much from over 13,000 property owners. Fewer than 100 homes of the 18,700 in Boulder are 6000+ sqft. - most of those were built before 1950.
Furthermore, no two people can agree on what is "too big" or "ugly" or "compatible". These are VERY subjective terms - and if we're going to defer to the taste of 5 people on Council, they'd better have a mandate. It would have been subtle and wise to go after the worst, obvious "offenders" and left everyone else out of the crossfire, or put it to
Plass was advocating a .25 FAR, and has floated locking house size in certain neighborhoods as a way to increase affordability. A .25 FAR is where many of us on post war 7000 sq. ft. lots are right now. You only have to examine individual house sales data for Boulder to understand that locking sizes is not going to increase affordability. The most recently remodeled houses command the premium price - even when they are smaller and un-popped, over other larger houses in the same neighborhood. Austin has discovered the hard way that tight housing restrictions did not increase affordability and they still have a family with children outflow issue
http://www.newgeography.com/content/00781-how-austin%E2%80%99s-rise-became-a-tale-two-cities
The regulations don't stop big houses. If you have a large lot - you can still build a large house. The reason homeowners, like myself, fought so long and hard for concessions is that the original proposal was completely biased for lots in Newlands.
I've been around boulder for 23 years. Tim's a local. Hardly newcomers rubbing our hands in glee over profit opportunities. We are long time residents debating what the Boulder of 10 years from now should look like, problems with proposals claiming to be solutions, and what's the best way to get there. I am all in favor of progressive. I am not in favor of liberal authoritarianism posing as progressive.
Here are some factual inaccuracies:
Boulderites did not settle on a compromise. Council loosened up a bit due to the protests of groups like FairFar and LMHA, but there was never compromise.
Folks in Martin Acres aren't worried about where to put their 12-seat theater (that's your and Mr. Plass' Newlands and Mapleton Hill stomping ground0; they're more worried about fitting clothes in a 2x2 closet.
A comment like "most out-of-scale McMansions" sit empty... is typical. This is based on your conjecture. First, on what defines a "McMansion," and second, on real statistics that support your asinine claim. The macro-economy has much more to do with the slow housing market than some distaste for the homes built in Newlands. The city and folks like yourself have misused stats for the past two years - in defining a problem as less than 1% of all housing stock and in claiming one quesion on a push poll supports a position.
http://www.answers.com/topic/grassroots-democracy
1. People or society at a local level rather than at the center of major political activity. Often used with the.
2. The groundwork or source of something.
FairFar was started by and for Boulder homeowners that are outside the Boulder power structure. Chris is an electrical engineer, lives in a small bungalow on 9th street and has put enormous amounts of his time into analyzing the problems with proposal. Tim teaches computer science, writes software and lives in a Martin Acres tract home. Two Boulder high graduates starting an organization to address an identified , bias towards homes not like the ones used by the city in their examples, how is that not grassroots?
Please define progressive as you are using it here. I define progressive as "the political orientation of those who favor progress toward better conditions in government and society"
How is the money spent on plan check fees and complicated conflicting requirements for small additions, that could be better spent on energy efficiency upgrades under Green Points, progressive? How is pointing out where the regulations are overly complicated, create strange outcomes on smaller than average lots, burdensome to owners fixing up decrepit ex-rentals in neighborhoods like Table Mesa and Martin Acres, and won't prevent overly large houses on large lots "pro-business"?
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I see on your website that FairFAR's endorsed Council candidates are precisely the same people I identified in the article as the more pro-business candidates. This confirms my article's slant about where FairFAR is coming from. I'm on the other side ideologically, the side of the "progressives" - an odd term since most of the "progressives" in this case are people with a longer history of living in Boulder and appreciating that it's a place where - unlike in large parts of America - corporate greed is not in control.
That said, maybe it's time for both sides to chill a little. I'm convinced that the Council made more than enough concessions in negotiating with FairFAR and others so that homeowners who want to do reasonable remodels (ones motivated by accommodating their families rather than rubbing their hands with anticipation over the money they'll make when they sell) will have no trouble doing so.
Your column is both factually wrong and distorts the compatible development debate in the City of Boulder.
First, FairFAR has taken no money of any kind, from developers or others. It is the work of volunteers, entirely funded out of our own pockets (expenses to date have consisted of $10 for a domain name registration) and neither Chris nor myself is involved with Boulder real estate industry. We are genuinely grassroots, founded by two liberal, progressive Boulder PhDs who graduated from Boulder High in the mid-1980s. We have a mailing list of several hundred and our home size calculator has recorded over 1500 entries, about 60% of which would have been restricted by the house size limits (most frequently by the building coverage limit).
Second, we have not led the charge against the ordinance per se but are opposed to the unintelligent consequences of it. As we clearly state on our website, FairFAR is not opposed in principle to the idea of reasonable regulations on this issue. We are opposed to specific parts of the proposed regulations, and to council's rushing the ordinance through half-baked in order to get it passed just before the elections.
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Finally, the compatible development ordinance as written favors the wealthiest and most exclusive neighborhoods in our city at the expense of our revitalizing middle class neighborhoods. FairFAR is particularly concerned that the ordinance will make it even more difficult for the young families to purchase a home in Boulder and renovate it fit to their needs. That is important because Boulder does not house enough of its workers--right now such families typically purchase homes in Boulder's suburbs and commute to jobs in Boulder by car, which only increases our traffic, pollution and carbon footprints.
I do hope you re dead wrong about the next Boulder City Council elections. We have an excellent crop of environmentally-minded candidates running who don't fall into the rigid business versus the environment trap you preach. Readers of the Huffington Post should check out our endorsements in this election at http://fairfar.org/wpb/2009/10/08/fairfar-2009-boulder-city-council-endorsements
--tim r.