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Commercial Control Armageddon
In the early 70's, hostility to growth in the Boulder Valley and County Comprehensive Plans guaranteed a crash for Boulder's economy. No businessperson would risk similar downzoning in the future, nor such a limitation of private property rights.
In 1976, the passage of the Danish Plan doomed Boulder to village status, and ruined its prospects for jobs and tax base.
In 1980, Boulder gave a negative reception to System Development Corp., a high tech outfit which wanted to build a big, beautiful ("campus like") facility one ridge south of Eldorado Springs. Though the site was in County land, Boulder stopped an SDC end run to County approval, and SDC soon left in a huff. Business leaders knew that refusing SDC would disqualify Boulder as a center of high tech employment. No computer company would risk similar abuse, and Boulder was condemned to a future of low-quality jobs.
Not long after, Neodata could not find an expansion site in Boulder, and left 33rd Street for pastures east of Davidson Mesa. If there were no large parcels of land for business expansion, all of Boulder's big, quality outfits would inevitably leave, and Boulder was sentenced to a future as a bedroom community.
Had enough?
I have. I used to believe in this booster-doomerism, but reality has intervened. Boulder's efforts to protect itself from excessive growth have inevitably enhanced its attractiveness. I remain deeply unhappy with the ham-handed interventionists at Nanny State Central; however, bureaucratic misbehavior should not be confused with necessary management of growth.
Though the free market is normally preferable to regulation, commercial construction at four times the rate of new housing is unsustainable. The traffic problem is obvious; more insidious is the change in commercial neighborhoods.
Consider the "McGuckin Block" (Folsom to 28th, Arapahoe to Canyon). Here is the worst gridlock in town, and without intervention, Boulder's future: there are now guards (not yet armed) to enforce parking allocation. ("Hey! You goin' to the movies!? Git outta that space!). The free market conclusion of this block is coming soon: a residence project is planned for the northeast quadrant, on the site of the last, no argument spaces.
Free market, hell bent for leather construction of Boulder's last 7,000,000 commercial square feet may finally validate a prediction of doom -- by creating so much visual and automotive congestion that people no longer want to shop, work, or live here.
Certainly, a top notch County transportation system would change the equation. That pig will fly as soon as we are willing to tax ourselves to pay for it; and Boulder, with the greatest tax base benefits from commercial growth should bear the heaviest burden.
Of the two commercial control measures before us, the City's tentative step is by far the better. Just slow things down: over five years, from the current 550,000 foot average down to 385,000 feet per year. If the controls are a mistake, change or drop them; if they don't go far enough, add to them.
The Slow Growth initiative is a cobbled-together fiasco. It is a four-parter: first a 250,000 foot commercial limit, unalterable for five years without a vote of the people. Second, a 1% per year limit on residential construction (which has been in effect for years); third, a measure to make it more difficult to annex Area III land (annexations of anything are about to be history, anyway); and fourth; a vague provision that growth should pay its own way. Of course it should, but you would never know how from Slow Growth.
Vote "no". Instead, screen Council candidates for reluctant willingness to manage growth. Watch out for knee jerks.
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