[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: First Reading Questions/Comments: Occupancy Limits for People 62 and Over

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Young, Mary

As part of a fellowship that I am wrapping up, I have been conducting a literature review on the transportation preferences of the older adult demographic. 

There is widespread agreement in the literature (including one report by AARP) that the current cohort of seniors' preferred transportation mode is driving and that their least preferred mode is public transit. Walking, when their location permits, is preferred over transit. Paratransit rates even lower than public transit. Most of the literature (scholarly papers and policy reports such as AARP's) recommend that efforts be made to help keep people driving for as long as possible. 

The staff memo states that older adults in shared housing will drive less and own fewer cars. While people do drive less the older they get, retired seniors actually take more trips than their working counterparts.  Ninety percent of trips for those over 65 are taken in an automobile either as driver or passenger; that figure climbing to 95% after the age of 75. 

Seniors are a very heterogenous population. The older the cohort, the greater the heterogeneity and the less information that can be gleaned from an individual's chronological age.

Neither of the papers included in the packet supported either a preference for shared housing or a preference for transportation modes other than driving for people over the age of 62. Local research would be helpful and could disprove nationwide findings.

My recollection from the Housing Strategy study session is that Council wanted the co-op ordinance to be reviewed and modified for an early win.

Here are my first reading questions/comments:
1. How does allowing a higher occupancy limit for those over 62 help us resolve the code issues that disallow co-ops?

2. Did staff meet with the county's Area Agency on Aging, human services non-profits that work with elders and/or conduct at least cursory focus groups to find out if shared housing is in fact a preferred housing option?

3. The memo itself says that we don't expect many takers on this, so how was it concluded that this could be considered an early win?

4. The proposed ordinance sets 62 as the threshold because 55 would require age verification. Wouldn't 62 also require age verification at some point by someone? If a co-op is established by a non-profit such as Boulder Housing Coalition, would it be possible to make age verification part of their process and include that in the ordinance language?

5. Under the proposal as it currently stands, would it be possible for a third party to tear down an existing house, build a house that would accommodate 6 or 10 people, add 6 to 10 off street parking spaces, and then use it as a profit center? If so, are there other places in our code that would need amending in order to prevent this?

6. Did staff consider allowing this occupancy limit exception based on proximity to this demographic's desired destinations (e.g. grocery store) rather than by zone? This is one thing that the attached report (and other papers) does support.

7. If it is necessary to leave off the owner occupancy requirement for the purpose of allowing a non-profit to organize and establish the cooperative, why not include language that states this intent?

8. Would it be possible to, once a non-profit assembles the co-op, have it go before the Planning Board for review and final approval (a simple process not to the scale of a site review)?

9. With this ordinance in place, if I were a senior looking to share my house with five other people over 62, what would I need to do?

10. We received an email that had the number of households by age. If this housing option were preferred wouldn't we have seen many households of three?

11. If we looked at the number of households by age for a lower age group, my sense is that we would indeed find more households of three. Would it be possible to obtain that data?

10. My preference would be to fix our current co-op ordinance to remove barriers and provide affordable housing for those that actually have a preference to live in a co-op. The current proposal is an occupancy limit/co-op housing hybrid that accomplishes little. Co-op households  would likely attract diversity and be more inclusive to people of all ages, races and backgrounds. Co-ops would, in addition, also be inclusive of seniors and in an inter-generational environment that would be even more supportive for years to come.

Thank you.

Mary Young