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Briar Patch
Once in a while, people ask how a real estate philistine like me -- a mortgage lender of all things -- can believe so strongly in open space and growth control. Peers in the real estate business sometimes poke pretty hard: "What happened to you, Barnes; you turn into some kind ofÉ Leftie?"
Give 'em a simple answer. Keep altruism, values, and the environment out of it: growth control is good for business.
There is no better way to ensure a continuous gain in the value of our homes than to maintain a community with a high quality of life, and limit the supply of housing. I'll even argue that commercial down-zoning in Boulder will increase property values in the long run by preserving the quality of life and adding to scarcity.
I hate to spoil the fun for the hard core no-growthers, but there is a segment of the real estate community out here waiting eagerly for the next round of controls. "Please, Mr. Pomerance! Don't throw ol' Br'er Rabbit in that briar patch!"
Given demand from the continuing wave of families moving here, and an insanely healthy local economy, housing prices should be rising fast. But they're not, and the villain is new construction: nearly one home sale in three in Boulder County last year was a new home.
Where might us ol' hares get some relief from all the new construction?
Boulder is drum-tight already. Nothing can be done about Rock Creek. Louisville doesn't have enough developable land to worry about. Broomfield is headed east. Erie is too small to matter (this decade, anyway).
That leaves Lafayette, still debating the wisdom of its vote for controls, and not enforcing them; and Longmont, the County growth gorilla, almost one third of Boulder County home sales last year.
Lafayette is laboring under a growth control ordinance which allows less construction than the city has already approved. If Lafayette stopped granting new building permits altogether, existing projects would more than exceed the ordinance ceiling.
A report last week said public opinion in Lafayette might be drifting toward repeal of the growth controls. Terrible news. Save that briar patch!
If you want the inside skinny on Boulder county public opinion, ask Tom Miller's Boulder-based National Research Center. Tom, who used to be the statistical maven for the City of Boulder, explains that there is a red hot, evenly divided debate in Lafayette about modifying the current controls. However, the debate is not about the need for growth control, but how to avoid lawsuits from developers whose approved deals are suddenly un-approved.
In NRC surveys during 1996, Miller measured attitudes toward growth. 70% percent of Lafayetters (Lafayites?) felt that population growth was "too fast" or "much too fast." 70% is a lot, but is it enough to preserve growth control? For comparison, in the arch-capital of growth control, how many Boulderites thought growth was too fast?
Seventy-three percent.
Now we're getting somewhere. When growth worries hit the 70% mark, your community either has growth control or soon will.
What about Longmont? Miller's data provides a surprising answer, best shown in a shift of opinion over time. In a 1994 survey, only 53% of Longmont respondents said its population was growing too fast. In 1996? In the dreaded control zone, clear up to 70%.
"What will be the toughest problem facing Longmont in the next five years? "Growth" got the top award (30% of respondents); "crime" took second place (12%), and "traffic" came in third (11%). A clean sweep: three out of the top three, all growth-related.
Mercy! I'd sure hate to be in the real estate business in Longmont, or own any property up there. Why, growth control is coming any minute now. Terrible-lookin' thorns in that briar patch.
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