[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: PLB Neighborhood Initiative - a word version with line numbers

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Cowles, Macon

Mike, thank you for helping me find the map of 65 neighborhoods that you referenced in your email below. I was able, with you help, to get to this map among the City’s GIS layers. However, this does not end the inquiry.


The label on this map is Neighborhood Associations, which are not the same as neighborhoods. I am placing below a screen shot of the Neighborhood Associations to which you directed me. This map displays GIS layers, and the Neighborhood Associations layer has been checked, and is displayed below.

Neighborhood Associations are not legal entities with specific jurisdictional boundaries. Neighborhood Associations are a concept even looser and less inclusive than an HOA. At least with an HOA, you know who the members are and where they live.  Members of an HOA are bound by covenants to which all have agreed.

The word “neighborhood” is not a defined term in our Code. It is a commonly used word, by all of us. We all use the word loosely, sometimes to describe an area of town; more often to describe a block face where we live. In the Pomerance-Livable Boulder Initiative, the term “residential neighborhood” is used. This further confuses, rather than refines, the issue. Is a commercial area part of a residential neighborhood? Is a commercial area part of a residential area when it is mixed use, but excluded when the commercial area is not?


So: I will repeat the assertion that I made. I am not aware of any map of the 65 “Residential neighborhoods" that are listed in Appendix A of the Pomerance-Livable Boulder Initiative.


You copied Council on your email. I am widening the circle to the Hotline, so that other interested community members can see the conversation.


Thank you for walking me to the map you have used for reference.


Macon Cowles
Boulder City Council Member
1726 Mapleton Ave.
Boulder, Colorado 80304
CowlesM at bouldercolorado.gov
(303) 638-6884

On Aug 19, 2015, at 10:40 AM, Mike Marsh <mgmarsh1 at juno.com> wrote:

Dear Councilman Cowles,

At last night's meeting you said you'd never seen the neighborhood map on the City's website, on which the citizens' neighborhood initiative was based, and that the initiative would ask Council to come up with a list of 65 neighborhoods. 


Actually, the City has already come up with a list of 65 neighborhoods, and has depicted them for quite some time.  It appears that the neighborhood initiative was simply based on the City's own work on this.  The initiative takes its lead from the City, rather than the other way around.  

In addition, at each of the five "Neighborhood Workshops" hosted by the Planning Dept. in May, City planning staff handed out, to attendees, maps of the particular part of Boulder that was the subject of that particular night's meeting.  (i.e., North Boulder, Central Boulder, etc.)  

As I write this, I'm looking at the map that was handed out at the North Boulder meeting. It shows, to a surprising level of detail, the different neighborhoods in North Boulder.  For instance, I never knew that there was a neighborhood called Forest Glen that is east of the Wonderland Hills neighborhood, but west of Broadway.  But the point is, the City knows.  You can see quite clearly from this map that Forest Glen's borders are 1) Broadway to the east 2) the Wonderland Lake open space/park/greenspace to the north 3) Wonderland Hills Ave. to the west and 4) Linden to the south.

I saw you at one of the Neighborhood Workshops.  If you kept the map that was given out, you can refer to it, for whatever quadrant of the City that was, and see the same(or similar) thing.

Thus I feel it's inaccurate to say that the initiative would require City Council to come up with 65 neighborhoods.  The City has already done that.  The initiative simply follows the City's lead regarding neighborhoods.  I would think that an initiative dealing with a subject like this needs definitions, and it appears that the initiative merely looked to the City's own work on the subject, rather than presuming to come up with its own, or requiring new work from the City on the subject.  The only thing citizens of a community can do, is work within that city's own vernacular, to the best of their ability.  It would seem bizarre if the City were to suddenly disavow its own definitions and lists. 


Last, here is the link to the location on the City's website that lists the neighborhoods. 
http://gisims.ci.boulder.co.us/website/pds/pds_eMapLink/viewer.htm? Once on the page, look to the left and click on "Neighborhood Parks" and then "Neighborhood Associations," which is really a misnomer because what it shown is actually neighborhoods.  Up until a couple weeks ago, it was possible to zoom in very closely on this page to see the same level of detail as was revealed on the maps the City handed out at the Neighborhood Workshops.  Today, for some reason, I'm having trouble zooming in.  It could be my browser experiencing problems.  Or, the City may have recently changed this page.  Fortunately, I understand some people took zoomed-in screen shots of the neighborhoods from this page, some months ago.  At any rate, you can still still click on the icon at the left entitled "Map Legend (pdf)."  If you do that, you will see the City's list of 65 neighborhoods that the initiative was based on.  There are actually 66 neighborhoods listed on that Map Legend, but one is CU and of course that's state land and thus was excluded from the initiative.

This information from the City has been out there for a while.  I fully realize that the City's website is quite large and not always the easiest thing to navigate, at least in my experience.  So I hope this clarification is helpful. 

Thank you,
Mike Marsh
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