Boulder, CO--There is no denying the beauty of this place. Drive 30 miles northwest from downtown Denver, past the plains along U.S. 36, and you will stumble upon Boulder, a golden little 103,000-person city where historic architecture and alternative culture merge in the foothills of the Rockies. But nowadays, only certain people get to enjoy Boulder. Because of its characteristics, there is extreme demand for living here, and because of regulations, little new housing gets built. As a result, Boulder has become a smaller version of the over-regulated, over-priced big cities found more commonly along America's east and west coasts.
According to Zillow, Boulder's median home values are $635,000, which is $449,000 more than the national median. While flat-lining before and after the recession, median prices have gone up particularly fast in recent years, increasing by $212,000 since November of 2011.
The causes are heavy demand for living in the city, but not necessarily heavy population growth. In the last 12 months, Colorado has been the 4th-fastest-growing state by population. A lot of this growth is going in and around cities where there are good jobs and proximity to the mountains, such as Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, and Denver. Boulder would theoretically be one of those places, and in fact serves this role during the daytime, with an outside daily commuter workforce of 60,000. But between 2000 and 2010, the city proper grew by less than 3,000, which at 2.9% was its lowest rate since the 1920s. These statistics imply that many commuters, who instead live in nearby towns like Louisville and Lafayette, would live in Boulder but can't afford to.
And that is the result of regulation, something described with refreshing clarity by Boulder Weekly writer Joel Dyer. He explained that there are three things Boulder could do to increase its housing supply--build outward on virgin land, raise its height limits, or embrace infill strategies like allowing more units within existing structures. But the city establishment won't much allow any of these.
Outward expansion is limited by a greenbelt that prevents traditional suburban growth. This open space preservation program was instituted in 1967, and by 1998, had applied $116 million generated through a 0.4% local sales tax increase to buy 33,000 acres. The government turned these areas into parkland, creating an artificial barrier that remains around the city. Upward expansion isn't feasible either, since the city has a 55' height limit written into its charter. And the Boulder establishment has been mostly unwilling to allow even incremental density increases on infill lots. To preserve single-family character in the neighborhoods, the city has made accessory dwelling units--such as garage apartments--illegal in most areas. Even more mystifying, there is a rule preventing more than four unrelated roommates from living together, including in medium-density residential areas. Such regulations are especially nonsensical in a college town like Boulder, since it illegalizes the very type of housing that college kids need. This would be like a North Dakota oil boomtown illegalizing temporary residential hotels, even though those are where oil workers often stay.
Collectively, writes Dyer, this regulatory bubble that has been placed in, over and around Boulder has preserved its exclusive status.
When you have a small island of land surrounded by open space that prevents outward expansion, and you couple such a severe restriction with height limits in order to make sure that the view of the Flatirons remains unobstructed in perpetuity, and you do this in a highly desirable town with a worldwide reputation for food, culture, natural beauty, safety and affluence, it is simply impossible to hold back housing price escalation.
These regulations are justified by locals, inside and out of politics, as something needed to preserve the city's character. Build more housing, goes the thinking, and the city will harm its natural beauty, which is the very thing that makes its economy, its property values, and its quality of life strong.
“We could be Colorado Springs,” said John Tayer, an executive committee member of the local smart growth group Better Boulder. But instead, “we don’t have sprawl development that goes up the hill, we don’t have roadways that are just creating horrible pollution.”
At the same time, continues Tayer, who also heads the local chamber of commerce, Boulder needs more housing, so that teachers and carpenters and service workers who work here can finally live here. His Better Boulder organization recently hosted the first annual YIMBY conference (YIMBY stands for “yes in my backyard,” as opposed to the NIMBYs who stifle development nationwide). The conference was meant to advocate for more construction both in Boulder and other destination cities. He said that Better Boulder's area of focus is neither to build sprawl, nor to challenge the height limit, but to explore milder density, such as allowing accessory dwelling units, lifting the unrelated-tenant cap, and zoning for multi-story buildings along transit corridors.
“The tricky nut” for Boulder, he said, is figuring out “how do you maintain an environmentally attractive community, but at the same time allow for a diversity of housing stock that doesn’t make it an exclusive enclave for wealthy white people.”
Of course, the definition of "attractive community" is subjective. To many people in Boulder, the non-intensive, single-family character of many historic neighborhoods is what makes the city great. To other residents--including some I spoke with at the conference--this has created an under-whelming built fabric. The city may have an interesting downtown, but bike a quarter mile out, and you are faced with the same strip-mall development found throughout America. This didn't result because Boulder was "over-developed", but because density in an otherwise hot market was never allowed, meaning there is minimal pedestrian traffic or mixed uses. In these areas, lifting the height limit might be a boon, not a bane, to Boulder's urban character.
But however it decides to grow--or perhaps not grow--Boulder will need to add housing if it wants to reduce its cost of living. The conversation among residents about how to approach this will undoubtedly be rooted in architecture, aesthetics, and quality of life. Hopefully it will also include economic thinking.
