[BoulderCouncilHotline] East Boulder Subcommunity Plan

[Wallach, Mark]

Motivated by my colleague Matt Benjamin’s interesting questions relating to the East Boulder Subcommunity Plan, I thought I would add a few of my own. Those questions are as follows:

1) On Page 45 of the Station Area Master Plan (Attachment B) there is discussion concerning providing incentives and financial subsidies to developers to foster redevelopment in accordance with the Plan. This leads me to ask the following:
   i) What types of subsidies, and in what amount are such subsidies contemplated?
   ii) In an environment of constrained resources (see our recent conversation regarding the Library District for an insight into such constraints), what is the rationale for paying developers to develop? Is their business insufficiently profitable?
   iii) In particular, as more and more development in Boulder is being undertaken by well-funded national companies, how can we contemplate using scarce financial resources in this manner? This strikes me as a proposal that seeks to solve a problem that may not exist, and, even if it does, should not be prioritized over the many other needs in the community for financial resources.

2) Quick comment: the emphasis on Adaptive Reuse of existing buildings deserves the attention given to it, and it is a more environmentally conscious form of development.

3) On page 74 there is a statement that building smaller housing units, offices, studios, and retail spaces is a way to promote affordability. Is this the sole strategy for providing affordability? How is this responsive to the need for housing for families with children? What components of the housing market are small apartments intended to address, and what components of the housing market will not be addressed by this strategy?

4) Page 5 of the staff memo refers us back to the Middle Income Housing Strategy from 2016 as the document to guide us through the creation of middle-income housing. I read this document, which is fairly general in its strategies for increasing middle-income housing, and it appears that we have not implemented much of it.  The 2016 report projects the creation of 3,500 middle-income units by 2030, 2,500 of which were to be market rate, and 1,000 of which were to be deed restricted. We are now 40% through the 15-year period contemplated in that document. How many middle-income units have been created so far? In addition, at the time it was projected that 60% of all new homes would be targeted to serve middle-income households. Does that comport with what actual experience is demonstrating? If not, I would question the reference to that study, which is several years old, and may not be entirely applicable to conditions in 2022. Is there any reason to believe that the market rate housing produced in the Station Area Master Plan will actually be accessible to middle-income families other than those who want to live in greatly shrunken apartments?

6) Additional comments on page 5 of the staff memo: I am pleased that we will “encourage a mix of unit types and sizes, including units that will meet the needs of families…” The sentiment is excellent, but what is lacking is much detail as to how that will be accomplished, particularly as the market to date is failing to provide that housing, except at the ultra-luxury level.

7) In wading through several hundred pages of information I may have missed it, but where is the discussion of the projected total number of new jobs and new housing units to be created in the Station Area? And while there are many references to BVCP policies and goals, nowhere did I find any discussion of the current jobs/housing imbalance and the impact the Station Area redevelopment will have on that imbalance. My concern is even greater when I read the statement (page 76 of the Station Area Master Plan) that building new housing is likely to be very difficult in the early years of the plan implementation. Therefore, for some period of time, all that we will be creating will be additional jobs and NO housing. In fact, the very next paragraph discusses the Parc Mosaic as typical of the type of housing that we can expect in this area. Precisely what housing objectives will be achieved by creating more housing of the type and expense of the Parc Mosaic?

8) One last point: Page 8 of the staff memo includes a statement that Planning Board requested an acknowledgement of the future of the airport as part of their suggested revisions to the document. In fact, I believe that Planning Board recognized that this is a separate, and contentious, issue and did not wish to address the subject.  We have not yet had the community conversation about that facility and its future, and it is an issue that is not relevant at this time to consideration of the plans before us.

The overall objectives of the plan are fine, but postulating that we will create large amounts of middle-income housing, and housing suitable for families, without demonstrating exactly how that will be done is a key gap in the document that I would like to see addressed. We need more Holiday neighborhoods and fewer Parc Mosaics.



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