Please help with the campaign!
Saturday, Oct 7: Assemble packets
Throughout october: walk neighborhood for lit drop
HAVE A FEW HOURS TO HELP WITH THE CAMPAIGN? WE SEEK VOLUNTEERS TO HELP WITH THE ‘LIT DROP,’ WHERE (PAIRS OF) VOLUNTEERS VISIT BOULDER HOMES AND LEAVE LITERATURE ON THE CANDIDATES AND ISSUES. EACH LIT PACK WILL CONTAIN INFO ON BOB YATES FOR MAYOR; TERRI BNRCIC, TARA WINER, JENNY ROBBINS & TINA MARQUIS
FOR CITY COUNCIL, AS WELL AS ‘YES’ ON SAFE ZONES FOR KIDS.’
If you could volunteer a few hours in October for this effort, please contact:
Trish Emser: trish.emser@gmail.com OR Crystal Gray: graycrystal@comcast.net
Or perhaps you have time this Saturday to collate materials? Collation Date: Saturday, October 7th 9:30 am - 2 pm. 4820 63rd St. #100-just west of Avery Brewing. If you have specific times, please indicate that as you RSVP to Crystal or Trish above. We would like to finish up and have volunteers and candidates
take precinct boxes/bags with them by 2:00. Thank you!
Sign our petition supporting local rule and opposing SB23-213!
Click Here to sign
We Oppose Giving up Boulder’s Right to Control Housing and Land Use Policy
We support local control and therefore oppose SB23-213.
SB23-213 represents the most sweeping attempt in recent Colorado history to remove local control and home rule authority from elected leaders, professional planning staff, and the people of Colorado. The bill dramatically expands state authority by imposing top-down zoning and land use standards on municipalities, and it puts those decisions into the hands of developer interests and unelected third parties.
For a century, the State of Colorado has been committed, both in statute and in the state constitution, to the local control of land use planning and zoning because local governments are closest to the land and to the people who occupy that land. Let’s keep it that way.
A state-wide “one-size-fits-all” policy cannot address local issues, such as infrastructure demands, fire risks, and unique market conditions. Numerous proposed amendments demonstrate the impracticality of properly legislating for the entire state.
Simply “building more” undermines our climate change goals with no guarantees of helping reduce housing costs in high demand markets like Boulder.
We support our Mayor and City Council retaining their responsibility to listen to Boulder Advisory Boards and constituents, to carefully design land use policy for our city, and make decisions based on what is best for our city.
We agree with Denver Mayor Hancock and City Council President Jamie Torres: “A one-size-fits-all approach that strips away local control in managing these critical land-use decisions is not the best approach.”
The bill is being advertised as an emergency measure to address housing affordability. There are better ways to accomplish this goal. We support the Metro Mayors Caucus (comprised of 39 Denver metro area mayors): “We would support state and local partnerships to: offset infrastructure costs; lower insurance premiums for condo developments; fund fast, frequent, and reliable transit service on key corridors; help cities apply for grants and technical assistance; and finance deed restricted ADUs.”
We agree with Gov. Jared Polis (then a Congressman) when he filed an amicus brief in 2015: “Local governments are best suited to meet the unique land use needs of their community through transparent public processes. Local planning involves widespread citizen input and broad stakeholder involvement. When addressing contentious issues, local governments have more opportunities for public participation than a state or federal government. As such, land use tools allow local governments to act consistently with their constituents’ expectations.”
State-Enforced Housing Legislation is Wrong for Colorado
By Peter Mayer (Subsequently published as an opinion piece in the Boulder Camera)
“Citizens, staff, and local governments spend thousands of hours every year carefully planning for the future of our communities. These local efforts are extremely important for infrastructure planning, water supply planning, and environmental protection, which all require local knowledge and thoughtful action.
Proposed new legislation, Colorado Senate Bill 23-213, would unleash unrestricted, market-rate development across Colorado’s sensitive landscape without thought, care, or planning. Colorado communities have a right to determine their own destiny and density. This legislation ignores Colorado’s long, proud tradition of local control and will result in more expensive housing, increased congestion, damage to the environment, and loss of community character across our state.
Draconian state-enforced housing policies that completely override local government, local decision-making, and community preferences, have no place in Colorado and PLAN-Boulder County has taken an official position opposing the Colorado Senate Bill 23-213.
This bill is titled “Land Use,” but it is fundamentally a massive change to local and state governmental roles and responsibilities across the state. Senate Bill 23-213 dramatically and egregiously expands state power over local governments – including counties, cities, and towns where most Coloradans live – by pre-empting numerous roles and regulatory processes historically assigned to local government.
The bill does not just preempt local “land use” policy, but subverts local housing policy, planning policy, water policy, transportation policy, and growth policy. The bill represents a large-scale power grab to eliminate Colorado’s proud heritage of local control and replace it with the type of “central planning” more common in authoritarian governments.
While the bill’s focus is to increase housing “affordability” by increasing housing density in cities across the state, the bill includes no identifiable or proven provisions to reduce costs. For example, according to the 2020 Census, Boulder and Denver are already the two most dense cities in Colorado, and both are already very expensive. Trying to reduce housing costs by simply forcing high density urbanization violates factual experience – the densest cities are already some of the most expensive places to live in Colorado.
There are many reasons to oppose Senate Bill 23-213, but here are a few you might want to mention to our state senators and representatives. This proposed legislation:
Overrides decades of citizen input and local planning.Forces high density urbanization – up to 2 to 4 times greater than currently exists in single-family neighborhoods – across cities in Colorado while doing almost nothing to increase affordability of housing.
Contains nothing to address the localized mismatch between job growth and housing that is needed to keep demand and supply in some kind of balance that can reduce commuting.
Does nothing to improve transit while encouraging density in already congested corridors with minimal transit.
Imposes increased occupancy rules to pack more people into crowded housing. Disallows a minimum square footage requirement for a housing unit.
Glosses over and/or ignores impacts on water, wastewater, transportation, and other municipal infrastructure required by forced high density housing growth.
Disregards the environmental impacts to Colorado’s air, rivers, open lands, wildlife habitat, and mountain landscapes of forcing increased population growth.
Local control matters. Senate Bill 23-213 makes a mockery of local planning, local government, and local democracy.
If we want to create land use and housing policies that actually improve affordability, reduce congestion, and increase transit use while reducing emissions of GHG, and preserve open spaces this is not the way to go. Senate Bill 23-213 should be withdrawn, and we should start over.”