Embalmed

Last month, I argued that housing affordability in Boulder is not as great a problem as it might seem because so much of the City's housing stock is permanently affordable by design. Boulder's condominiums, townhouses, and roughly 10,000 tract homes will remain affordable by near-median income households.

My list was too short. There is another permanently affordable group of homes, and my method of discovery has been one of life's little practical jokes. On me.

After seven years in a nice, southeast Boulder home, kids now four and nine, we thought we would add 220 square feet to our kitchen and family room. Blessed by a quarter-acre lot, the house nowhere near its setbacks, I couldn't imagine an approval problem.

Fool.

Our neighborhood of 114 detached homes was built between 1983 and 1986 as a "PUD" (Planned Unit Development). PUDs are the results of deals cut between developers and the City which increase density in favor of amenities: parks, playgrounds, pools, tennis courts, enhanced parking, and so on. If market acceptance is any guide, PUDs have been a terrific success.

Buried in all PUD documents is some limit on the number of homes which can be built; and usually a limit on the aggregate square-footage of those homes, sometimes total, sometimes just the "footprint" on the ground. If all the square-footage in your PUD was used in development, you may never be able to add on to your home.

To my astonishment, my home falls in the maxed-out category together with all 113 others nearby. We are allowed to build up to the 35-foot height limit (how very attractive), but not an inch out from the existing walls. I will remain in ketchup-splashing range of the four-year old until he goes to college.

How many PUDs are similarly maxed out? "Most" is one cautious City answer (Shanahan, Wonderland, Meadow Glen...). How would a citizen find out if her or his home is maxed -- or a home they might want to buy? Your builder was supposed to tell you about any limitation (City Development Agreement for PUDs: "...Owner agrees to and shall affirmatively notify subsequent purchasers...."), and so is the re-sale seller ("...binding upon the owner, and the owner's heirs, successors....").

Don't bother to check your deed, because the PUD restrictions do not show there; nor do they show in your homeowners association covenants or bylaws, nor in zoning, nor in title insurance. You might find them as a footnote on the subdivision plat. Maybe.

City Planning is the only authentic source: 442-3270 -- but don't call 'em all at once, or motion down there will stop altogether. In their treatment of me, the planners didn't deserve their reputation: they were interested, available, and downright kind. However, most of the PUD max-out wisdom is an oral history handed down from the Department's eminence grise, one Gary Kretschmer. You'll see little in writing, and hear a lot of "Let's see what Gary says". In my case, the hearsay oracle was wrong the first two times, correct (unfortunately for me) the third.

The original purpose of maximum footprints in PUDs was to maintain density and open space. However, the larger effect is to reinforce efforts by some at City Hall to limit the size of additions to existing homes -- in the name of affordability.

Hoist by my own petard, I am: an unintended contributor to built-in, permanent affordability.

It's hard to argue with the restrictions on PUDs, as there was a quid pro quo which resulted in the development in the first place. However, proposed floor-area-ratio ("FAR") regulations and renovation excise taxes on existing single family neighborhoods are pernicious schemes.

Modest additions to square-footage are a crucial component to the economics of updating and renovation: a fly may be well-preserved in amber, but houses fixed in size will continue to age and deteriorate. There is a limit to how much money it is wise to spend on renovation without adding to size, and the benefits of an embalmed housing stock are likely to have unintended costs.