Density, Growth and Housing
How Big Do We Want To Be?
Is all our recent growth by design? If so, how much community input and intelligent, thoughtful planning actually went into these decisions? …Why do we continue to encourage growth in jobs that result in impacts from in-commuting when the workers who fill these jobs can’t afford to live in Boulder? …Why do we continue to approve development that only provides one unit of affordable housing for every four unaffordable, market-rate units, digging the unaffordability hole deeper with each approval? Do we think building an ADU on every available backyard or stuffing more people into neighborhoods that weren’t designed to handle it will fix the problem? …Do we think these issues will magically resolve themselves?
“Increased density doesn’t automatically equal
affordable housing”
“Increasing occupancy limits is not a solution.”
“We were not prepared for the avalanche of new
businesses and increased student population”
Now our current council majority is constantly sounding the alarm that we have a ‘housing crisis’. We disagree. We believe we have a GROWTH crisis - brought about by a GOVERNANCE crisis.
Any future decisions that lead to increased pressure on limited housing stock must include solutions from proponents and developers to address these impacts. And these solutions should not be at the expense of over-densifying our existing neighborhoods or allowing multi-unit dwellings to force out families.
