[BoulderCouncilHotline] Occupancy limits

[Weaver, Sam]

Fellow Council Members and HOTLINE followers,

Jill Grano recently responded to an email from Lindsay Nichols of the CU Student Government regarding occupancy limits in Boulder.  I found Jill's response thoughtful, so wanted to share it on HOTLINE (with her permission) as well since this is an area of broad interest in Boulder.  I also had a few resources to add which can be found after Jill's thoughts.

And for what it is worth, the CU student government will be holding a hearing on a resolution about occupancy limits on Thursday,  Dec 7 at 7pm in room 247 of the UMC.


Jill wrote to Lindsay (copying Council):

Your interest in occupancy limits is of particular interest to me.  I find the topic fascinating from a historical perspective because it goes without saying that humans have evolved for centuries living in community and with many people living together in one home.  Occupancy limits are truly a construct of modern American society that (in most cases) began in the mid-century and really became popular in the 70s and 80s - occupancy limits certainly do not represent America's roots.  I had the pleasure of taking the 7th grade class of The Watershed school on a history and civics tour of Virginia and DC.  The houses in our early settlements and later early cities were essentially large co-ops.  Only the wealthiest members of the community isolated themselves into a "single family" home (often as a sign of their wealth).  Boulder has a rich history of community living as well.  I work in residential real estate here in town and once helped buyers purchase a beautiful home on Mapleton Hill, built in 1900.  In researching the home for my clients at Carnegie Library, I found that for many years 12 - 20 seniors lived together in the 5,400 sq ft home.  Of course, that's illegal now (unless for a maximum of 12 you undergo a fairly arduous and highly regulated process).  Today, the same house on Highland that has a rich history of community living is now home to only two individuals who live in Boulder part time. This touches on another great irony: research shows that for the last 40 years American homes have been getting bigger and BIGGER, while occupancy limits have been getting stricter.  In my research I have found that occupancy limits and vehicle proliferation are intrinsically intertwined in American history.  Limiting traffic has become conflated with limiting community living.  I have done some limited research on occupancy limits in wealthy European and Scandinavian cities/countries and can't find many - if any - regulations. The wealthier a society becomes, the more people choose to live in small numbers (and feelings of social isolation follow these trends), but I cannot see places in Europe where it is mandated that people live in small numbers the way that we mandate it in Boulder (and much of the US).  I have attached a chart of European occupancy trends for your reference.  Among American cities, Boulder is among the most stringent when it comes to community living with our 3 unrelated maximum. Here are some examples from other cities based on my research (please note that this has been ongoing research I have done for a couple years so some numbers may have changed): Bend, OR: No limit;  Seattle, WA 8; Vancouver, WA: 7; Portland, OR 6 (may be 7); Cambridge, MA: 4; Eugene, OR: 5; and to my understanding, CA uses a "rule of thumb" formula of "two plus one" which is 2 people per bedroom, plus one additional person, so in Santa Barbara, for example, you could have 7 people in a 3 bedroom house.

Have you done any research of your own?  If any of my colleagues have information that is contrary to what I have presented here, I would love to know.  Again, I am passionate about this topic!

Jill Adler Grano

Boulder City Council

Sam's addition:
The resources that I would add to Jill's thoughts are in the links below.

https://create.piktochart.com/output/6028982-untitled-infographic Moving a cursor over the map reveals occupancy limits in one college town in each state.

List of college towns with occupancy restrictions and their limits as of 2008:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0ahUKEwjikvyIv-TXAhVR8mMKHRzzA2oQFggyMAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hancockna.org%2Fwww%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Foccupancycollegetowns.pdf&usg=AOvVaw022_j6OQjDIFENAizU-FBr

All the best,

Sam Weaver
Member of Boulder City Council
weavers at bouldercolorado.gov<mailto:weavers at bouldercolorado.gov>
Phone: 303-416-6130

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