Hogan/Pancost Area Map

This is the first in a series of presentations discussing issues surrounding the Hogan/Pancost development in South Boulder. Versions of these presentations were given at the January 19th, 2012 Concept Plan Review at the City of Boulder Planning Board meeting.

These videos show the impacts on wetlands that excavation and ditch maintenance activities had in 2008. More information is available at the Hogan/Pancost website.

WATCH Part I (6m 31s)

WATCH Part II (7m 40s)

“The authors specifically call out new construction that is significantly controlled by comprehensive plans or through more restrictive land use regulations “referred to as ‘compact development,’ ‘urban consolidation,’ ‘growth management’ and ‘smart growth.’” The thesis is that these places create housing that is unaffordable. And conversely, the places ranked as affordable – Phoenix, Atlanta, Las Vegas – tend to be areas associated with sprawl development.”

Read the entire article at The Atlantic Cities: The Most and Least Affordable Housing in America.

Root ball of a tree knocked over in a windstorm exposing the water table near Hogan-Pancost property (photo by Jeff McWhirter)

At a presentation sponsored by PLAN-Boulder County on Friday, January 13, neighbors of the proposed Hogan-Pancost development, in opposing the project, acknowledged that high groundwater levels and flood hazards probably should have kept the City of Boulder from ever permitting the subdivisions in which they currently reside. One such resident, who was a member of the presentation’s audience, claimed that she had assumed when she bought her home that the city had determined that the area was suitable for residential development. But she indicated that time and experience have proven that the city’s approval had been a mistake.

The presentation was conducted by 14-year area resident Jeff McWhirter. He implied that the city should not compound the errors it had made decades ago in approving the Greenbelt Meadows and Keewayden Meadows subdivisions by approving the Hogan-Pancost development.

The Hogan-Pancost property covers 22 acres south of the East Boulder Community Center and to the west of South Boulder Creek. McWhirter said that it has been designated as Area II (potentially eligible for annexation) since the inception of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan and that it has been subject to various development proposals for decades. Its current owner, Boulder Creek Commons LLC, bought it in the fall of 2007 for $4.5 million, McWhirter said. McWhirter related that the principal owners of Boulder Creek Commons are Mike Boyers, Lou Della Cava, and Woody Eaton. The company declined an invitation to participate in the program on January 13, although Eaton sat in the audience and commented occasionally on statements made by McWhirter or other audience members. The city’s planning department also declined an invitation to participate in the event.

The Boulder Creek Commons’ development proposal is to build 121 residential units on 19.5 acres on the west side of the property, with 2.5 acres on the east side to be preserved in an undeveloped state. Fifty of the 121 units would be part of a senior congregate care facility, six would be part of “affordable duplexes” for seniors, two would be “affordable” single family homes, and 63 would be market rate houses. The concept plan for the development will be heard by the city’s Planning Board on January 19.

McWhirter claimed that some of the neighbors had “grown old and died” fighting development proposals for the Hogan-Pancost property. He declared that the opponents are weary of the struggle and want an end to it this year, preferably with a decision by the city to re-designate Hogan-Pancost as part of Area III (which would preclude annexation to the city); but, if not, with approval of the current proposal. He asserted that, if the property is not annexed, two houses could be built on it under current Boulder County regulations.

McWhirter noted that the whole area lies in the alluvial plain of South Boulder Creek. It was all inundated in a major flood in 1969, which he showed photographs of. Current city flood plain maps show the western edge of Hogan-Pancost, which is bordered by the Dry Creek Ditch No. 2, to be in the 100-year flood “high hazard” zone. McWhirter commented that the Dry Creek Ditch No. 2 alignment seems to follow an old channel of South Boulder Creek and that flood waters will naturally flow there.

McWhirter related that city regulations require the lowest part of any structure in a “high hazard” zone to be situated at least two feet above the expected high water mark. He said that Boulder Creek Commons proposes dumping 80,000 cubic yards of fill dirt on the property.

McWhirter observed that most of the Hogan-Pancost property, including the site of the proposed congregate care facility, would be covered in a 500-year flood. He asked rhetorically, “Is it wise to place our most at-risk population in a high-risk flood plain?”

McWhirter acknowledged that studies conducted for Boulder Creek Commons affirm that flood hazards can be successfully managed on Hogan-Pancost. However, he said he disagrees with their conclusions.

One of the residents, Jeff Rifkin, claimed that Boulder Creek Commons proposes to divert flood water out of the northwest corner of the trapezoidal-shaped property on to the Manhattan School property and the homes in that area. Rifkin and others attending the presentation contended that the developer’s plan would to some extent shift the damage from flood waters to those downstream in the South Boulder Creek alluvial plain.

Audience member and geochemist Alison Burchell related that several years ago she and legendary CU geography professor Gilbert White had secured $500,000 (which ultimately grew to about $1 million) from FEMA for a flood study along South Boulder Creek. She decried the “piecemeal” development decisions that have occurred in its flood plain, and argued that the Hogan-Pancost proposal should be viewed in the larger context of the entire plain. “Upsteam impacts are never considered,” she commented. Burchell and others at the session observed that due to changes in the South Boulder Creek flood maps, Frazier Meadows Manor, a large complex for seniors along 47^th Street, sits in the high-hazard flood zone—hardly an appropriate location for a relatively vulnerable community.

McWhirter recounted that Hogan-Pancost has been the subject of seven or more groundwater studies. He said that the water table is just one to four feet below the ground surface, depending upon the season. He stated that many homes in the adjoining subdivisions need sump pumps and that one resident, Ron Craig, pumps out 40,000 gallons a day. McWhirter asserted that the amount of groundwater afflicting the residents increased dramatically when the East Boulder soccer fields were created; and, since groundwater is a “squirrely beast,” development of Hogan-Pancost could be reasonably expected to aggravate the problem in the adjacent neighborhoods.

McWhirter also claimed that the Hogan-Pancost proposal would burden local streets with unacceptable levels of traffic. He stated that studies indicate that 700 to 1,300 car trips a day would be added to 55th Street, which already carries a lot of vehicles. Kewanee Drive, which would provide access to the development, is a small neighborhood street, he remarked; and he asserted that a connecting street, Manhattan Drive, was deemed by the city 25 years ago to be overloaded.

McWhirter also raised the possibility of harm to the Prebles jumping mouse resulting from the development of Hogan-Pancost. He noted that the South Boulder Creek corridor, which lies relatively close to the eastern part of Hogan-Pancost, is the most important habitat for the mouse in Boulder County and one of the most important in the state. He questioned whether changes to the groundwater on Hogan-Pancost and to its vegetation might impair the mouse’s ability to thrive in the area.

McWhirter, Burchell, and others suggested that the Hogan-Pancost property might be an appropriate acquisition for the city’s Open Space and Mountain Parks Department. He asserted that the developer had recently offered it to the department for $8.5 million, but that the department had rebuffed the approach. Eaton defended the price, declaring that Boulder Creek Commons has spent $8.2 million on the property, including over $400,000 for studies, and substantial interest costs. Of course, if the city re-designates Hogan-Pancost as part of Area III, its development potential would apparently be limited to two houses– without any expenditure of city funds.

The sidewalk in front of some relatively high-density residential development near downtown Boulder (photo by Zane Selvans on flickr)

Over the last year or so, I’ve been involved with the planning and design of the public space that will accompany some of the first re-developments in the Transit Village/Boulder Junction, mostly Pearl Parkway between 30th St. and the railroad tracks.  I’ve primarily given feedback as a cyclist and pedestrian — someone who uses our streets under my own power.  Even in Boulder, those of us who don’t own, and only very rarely use private motor vehicles are still unusual.  Nevertheless, the long term goal of the TVAP is to have 60% of all trips in the region done by foot, bike or transit — anything but the much loved and loathed single occupancy vehicle (SOV).  I was particularly taken by something Tim Plass said in the PLAN-Boulder election forum this fall when asked to envision Boulder 30 years in the future: Every once in a while you’ll see an electric car on the road, but mostly it’ll be bikes and pedestrians and transit.  I agree with these goals; we should pursue them vigorously.  But the city being described by Plass and the TVAP is very different from the status quo today, and it’s difficult to take the steps necessary to realize it.  Sometimes I think of myself as a time-traveling constituent from this future city, describing what it is that we will want then, when the majority of people aren’t driving a private car everywhere they go.  One thing that I’m confident we won’t want is so much “free” parking.

How Much Does “Free” Parking Really Cost?

Parking often plays a surprisingly central role in our transportation and planning decisions.  Without it private automobiles are rendered useless, but it requires a lot of precious urban space, and it’s fabulously expensive — each parking space in a structure costs $15,000-$40,000 to build.  Surface parking is cheaper of course –$8,000-$15,000/space — but it destroys the fabric of cities by pushing places of interest away from each other, making car-centric cities hopelessly unfriendly to pedestrians, cyclists and transit users.  Yet somehow, despite its enormous impact, copious “free” parking is generally treated as an inalienable right by both developers and cities.  Its cost is hidden and almost completely socialized.  Each of us pays roughly the same amount for parking regardless of whether we own 4 cars or none, because the cost of parking is bound up in the cost of nearly all the goods and services (not to mention real estate) we purchase.  Broad ignorance of the real value and cost of parking results in some surreal discussions.

An example: the first agenda item at the Transportation Advisory Board (TAB) meeting last Monday was the expansion of the Neighborhood Parking Program (NPP) district on University Hill.  The problem is that lots of students, faculty and staff at the university don’t want to pay for an on-campus parking permit, preferring to park in nearby neighborhoods.  This ends up making it difficult for residents to park in front of their own houses.  The district has been slowly expanding for years, forcing “commuters” (many of whom actually live in Boulder and could bike or ride the bus instead) to park ever further from the university.  Residents purchase an annual neighborhood parking permit for $17.  At that price, the program can’t even pay for the signage and man-hours required to run it.  Commuters may also buy neighborhood permits, for $78 per quarter ($312/year).  Some members of TAB were concerned by the ad hoc nature of the University Hill parking district’s ongoing expansion.  “When will it stop?” they asked, somewhat incensed.  Staff had no answer, and that’s the surreal part, because there’s nothing mysterious going on here.  The parking district will stop expanding when the cost (inconvenience) of parking for free just outside the parking district on the Hill and walking (or biking, or taking the bus) to campus, is slightly greater than the cost of buying a CU permit. (Remote lot parking permits at CU cost about $120/year; more convenient spots go for closer to $600.)  On-street parking is finite and valuable, and it’s being given away for free.  It’s not surprising that this results in queuing (think Soviet era bread lines).  There’s some participation in the commuter permit program, but it isn’t as popular as the city would like, probably because people feel that buying a campus permit or walking from outside the parking district is a better value.  Of course it might also be convincing people to use their RTD pass, or bike to CU.  We can hope, anyway.

Valuing an on-street parking spot isn’t easy.  There’s only so much curbside space to be allocated, and demand is often large, because they’re so convenient.  Just as a point of reference, a metered space downtown brings in around $7,000 per year, most of which is re-invested in the downtown business district’s infrastructure.  I’m not some kind of market zealot — I believe in the value of some public goods — but here I just don’t see the case.  NPP districts continue to give the parking away essentially for free, but restrict its use to only the people who live right by it, functionally converting the public right-of-way into private property.  Ironically, the city is often usurping private property in the first place, in order to provide that right-of-way.  It would be simpler to just give the property back, and let the owners store their vehicles on it.  Or not — they might decide to use that space in some other way instead.  Neighborhood permit parking also fails if you try and scale it up, city wide.  If you’re allowed to park in front of your own house but nowhere else, then you can’t actually take your vehicle anywhere!  Whereas letting anyone park anywhere for free results in queuing, NPP is the equivalent of preferential rationing.  It’s a centralized and inflexible resource allocation decision.

One obvious solution is to meter the parking, and keep increasing the price until you have some target occupancy rate, allowing those who wish to pay to park to find a space easily.  One could also imagine a hybrid metered/NPP arrangement, in which residents can park at home for free (with a meter exemption permit for that block), but they have to pay the going rate when they park in other neighborhoods.  In the case of University Hill, the equilibrium prices would end up reflecting people’s willingness to walk from distant parking, the price of the permits for on campus parking, and their willingness to eschew the car altogether.  If the meter revenue were dedicated to improvements within their neighborhood (as it is with the downtown general improvement district) residents might not even complain about it too much.  Again, we can hope, anyway.

Planning the Parking in Boulder Junction

In the Boulder Junction/Transit Village area the city is managing parking in a slightly different way.  Within the area covered by the TVAP, residential units are subject to parking maximums.  That is, each residential unit will have no more than one parking space associated with it.  So the 319 unit apartment complex at 3100 Pearl Parkway will have only 319 parking spaces in its underground garage.  Another 70 unit development will be built by the bus terminal and plaza to the north of Pearl Parkway.  It will have 70 designated spaces in a shared district/RTD parking structure.  In this one block, there will be about 400 residential units, housing perhaps 1000 people.  According to the developers, at least 600 parking spaces will be needed to service this population.  The plan is to satisfy any additional demand with parking spaces that are shared between RTD, the planned hotel, and the district at large, within a single structure.  The city has been incorrectly referring to this arrangement as “unbundled parking.”  It’s really “shared district parking,” and it ought to reduce the number of spots that need to be provided overall.  This is because the times of peak parking demand for RTD, the local residences, the hotel, and retailers will be somewhat different, leading to more complete utilization of a very costly resource.  Clearly, this is an improvement over having two huge parking structures across the street from each other, one of which (the Park-n-Ride) is full during the day, while the other (associated with the apartments) is full only at night.

However, truly unbundled parking is far more potent.  It completely separates (unbundles) the finances of the parking spaces from the uses they serve.  Assuming you need a parking space, you’d sign two leases — one for the apartment, and one for the parking space.  This does two things.  First, and most obviously, it frees those of us who have no car from an unfair obligation to pay for other people’s parking spaces.  This can easily reduce rent by 10-20%, maybe $1000-$2000 per year.  This is significant, especially for low-income households.  Second, and more importantly, it creates a price signal for both developers and would-be drivers.  If a developer builds 500 parking spots in a 319 unit development, at a cost of $20,000 each and can only get $500/year for each space, they’ve built too much parking, and are unlikely to even recover their nominal investment over the lifetime of the building.  If, with only one parking space per unit, the rent per space goes up to $1000/year, then suddenly they’re making money.  Not much though — that cashflow represents an internal rate of return of only 3.8%.  To make the 8% or so that they’d like would require charging about $1700/year.

Now, if you’re a motorist, I suspect you’re thinking something along the lines of “I would never pay that much for parking!”  You’d just live somewhere else, right?  Somewhere with “free” parking?  Except that you would pay that much.  In fact, you probably already do.  The other place has exactly the same parking costs — you just don’t have any choice as to whether you pay them.  The developer is still going to spend $20,000 to build each parking space, and they’re still going to make their 8% return on the project over all.  If their marginal investment in parking underperforms, they’re just going to make up for it by charging higher rents.  Worse, because residents have no incentive to use less of the valuable parking resource, apparent demand will be large, and will help to perpetuate the belief that lots of parking is required, and providing all that parking drives up the cost of future developments.  With the TVAP the city has gone from imposing minimum parking requirements to imposing a cap, but without having any idea what the real demand for parking is.  Without a transparently priced market, it’s impossible to know.

The city has no control over how the 319 parking spaces within the 3100 Pearl development will be managed; it’s up to the developer.  What if they were enterprising capitalists, and decided that voluntarily unbundling parking costs from residential rents was likely to make them more money than bundling it all together?  How would people respond to seeing the real cost of a parking space?  In the University Hill parking district they’re apparently willing to walk several blocks each day to avoid paying the $300/year that an NPP permit costs.  Those who wish to drive would surely be willing to do the same to avoid the $1700/year that an on-site underground parking spot at 3100 Pearl actually costs.  They might park at Whole Foods or Target, and let those stores’ customers foot the bill.  Even more conveniently, if the Boulder Junction Park-n-Ride ends up being managed like the one at Table Mesa, then they could just park across the street for free, so long as the vehicle gets moved every day.  Even if it doesn’t, each additional day is only $2 — far less than the real $5/day cost — meaning RTD would be subsidizing their vehicle storage instead.  And then there’s the on-street parking…

The Futility of On-Street Parking for Residents

In the 3100 Pearl Parkway block there will be a grand total of 12-16 on-street spaces.  They will be managed by the Boulder Junction General Improvement District (GID) via its Transportation Demand Management (TDM) and Parking advisory boards.  These boards will be made up of local property owners and citizens at large.  Throughout the design process, the provision of on-street parking has been held sacrosanct.  The developers threatened to walk away without it.  The city sees it as a way to bring activity to the street, and wants it to serve the short-term parking needs of nearby retail/commercial developments.  Meanwhile, the developers want on-street spots to be available as overflow parking for their residents, whom they cannot believe will really make do with one vehicle per unit.  These goals are mutually exclusive.  If the spots are managed as NPP, and are essentially free, then their convenience, combined with the sheer number of residents in the area will ensure that they are always occupied, and that turnover is very low.  This will render the on-street parking incapable of supporting local retail, and minimize the activity it brings to the streetscape.  Serving those two goals means high turnover, and consistent availability of at least one spot per block, and the best way to do that is by metering the spots.  Otherwise, these free spots will cannibalize demand for paid spots in the shared district parking structure, and encourage resident drivers to cruise for an empty spot on the (supposedly) low traffic, pedestrian friendly frontage streets.

I’m not just speaking hypothetically here.  In Pasadena, where I used to live, a similar transit oriented development was built straddling the light rail line to downtown Los Angeles at Del Mar.  It too had restricted parking, and in Pasadena all on-street parking is permitted overnight, and available to residents for a nominal fee if they can demonstrate they don’t have sufficient space to store their vehicles off street.  The city was shocked (shocked!) to discover that many residents simply requested permits, and so the reduced on-site parking had no impact on the number of cars per household.  This resulted in curbside parking adjacent to the development being completely occupied, much to the displeasure of the neighbors and nearby businesses.  This is a completely predictable failure, which we should avoid.

Zipcar parking, Portland Oregon (photo by Rosa Say on flickr)

If we really wanted to use the on-street parking to serve residents, the only way to make it significant would be to dedicate some of it to carshare vehicles.  Zipcar, the largest carshare company in the US, estimates that each shared car substitutes for 15-20 private vehicles.  Incidentally, this is also roughly the number of people who can be served by one parking spot converted into a bike corral.  A single parking space in front of 3100 Pearl, if dedicated to car sharing, would do the job of all the parking spaces combined when they’re dedicated to private vehicles.  Our own local non-profit car sharing company, eGo CarShare has surveyed their membership and come to similar conclusion: a large proportion of their membership either gets rid of or avoids buying a second car as a result of the service. San Francisco now mandates by law that all new developments (either for rent or for sale) larger than 50 dwelling units unbundle their parking and provide on-site parking for carsharing.  The Bay Area’s non-profit City CarShare has put together a great selection of best practices and case-studies (PDF) looking at developments that integrate both of these strategies.  When I mentioned the possibility of a dedicated car share spot to TAB they were supportive of the idea.  Planning Board raised the objection that this would amount to allocating public right-of-way to private use.  Even if it’s true legalistically, this strikes me as somewhat disingenuous.  Neighborhood permit parking has the same effect, but ensures that the limited parking resource serves many fewer people.  Anyone can join the car share, and it means the limited parking resource ends up serving many more people.  If you want on-street spots to serve residents, it’s clearly the best option.

Thy (Unbundled) Parking Structure Overfloweth

The biggest problem with making the true cost of parking transparent is that it’s difficult to do in isolation.  You can’t effectively charge for something when someone else is giving it away for “free” next door — hence the issues with overflow from the NPP on University Hill.  To really work, all of Boulder Junction will have to have a unified parking market — the on-street parking, the shared RTD structure, and the underground lots associated with the residences need to have comparable prices, adjusted for how desirable they are.  Otherwise, people will simply flock to the underpriced, subsidized options, and leave the ones which are appropriately priced vacant.

Imagining a restaurant that was run the same way may help clarify the absurdity.  The normal “free” parking arrangement in the US is analogous to everyone in the restaurant ordering whatever they want, with the bills from all of the tables getting added up and divided equally between all the night’s patrons.  The 95 lb vegetarian waif and the 500 lb sumo wrestler gorging on sashimi pay the same amount.  Making parking costs transparent and unbundled in just one location is the like telling a single table that they’ve got to pay their own check, but that they’re free to go eat food from other tables.  This table then orders nothing for themselves, and wanders around grazing, letting the rest of the patrons pick up their tab.  Neither of these arrangements is fair, and both encourage people to order more expensive food than they normally would.  This is why most restaurants tend to charge people for the food that they themselves order.

Overflow isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if it ultimately results in transparent pricing being implemented in adjacent areas.  Eventually, as with the University Hill NPP district, the parking market becomes large enough that people just bite the bullet and start paying, or biking, or taking the bus.  This assumes that they’re really committed to their destination within the parking district.  The fear on the part of the city and developers is that people aren’t particularly committed to their destination.  Faced with the cruel injustice of being forced to pay for their parking in an obvious way, people might decide to go somewhere else instead and pay for their parking in an obfuscated way.  Fair enough.  We don’t have control over parking policy in Broomfield or Longmont.  Actually implementing transparent parking prices might drive some people away.  But we get something in exchange — we get a different kind of city, that will attract a different kind of citizen to replace those drivers.

Note From a Future Citizen

Freiburg, Germany (photo by adeupa de Brest on flickr)

Those new citizens are the educated, innovative young people driving us toward “Peak Car”.  We Millennials are less interested in having “stuff” than having access.  We’re dreaming a new American Dream that looks less like a McMansion and more like a neighborhood that makes you feel at home, with all your day-to-day needs met within a five minute walk.  When you aren’t driving you never even think about parking.  If we’re planning for a future when 60% of trips aren’t done by private car, when “every once in a while you see an electric car, but mostly it’s bikes and pedestrians and transit,” then we’re planning for a future in which most of the time, most people don’t care how much parking there is or how much it costs.  Allowing our durable urban form to be dictated by current expectations about parking is politically expedient, but a mistake in the long run.  It’s expensive, space intensive, and precludes us from building a truly livable, sustainable, human city.  If we simply allow people to see how costly parking really is and give them the freedom to make transportation decisions based on that information, we will have made a surprisingly large step in the right direction.

If you’re like us, you know Dr. Seuss – you’ve either had his stories read to you, or read them to your own children.  Woven into the whimsical illustrations and sublime rhymes are some pretty serious lessons.  One seems very timely, with the proposal of a concept plan to develop what’s known as the Hogan-Pancost property in Boulder.  It’s The Lorax.  You know the story:  The Once-ler comes to town, and, happening upon a pristine land full of Truffula Trees, he sees green – money, that is.  He chops down every last tree, builds a factory that pumps out Thneeds (which nobody really needs), making such smogulous smoke and Schloppity-Schlopp that everything leaves – the Brown Bar-ba-loots, the Swomee-Swans – even the Lorax himself, the only one who would “speak for the trees.”

There are 22 acres of Truffula Trees, so to speak, just outside the city limits of Boulder, adjacent to the East Boulder Recreation Center.  The area, known as the Hogan-Pancost property, is home to wetlands, wildlife and lots of water.  It’s in the South Boulder Creek Flood Plain – “high hazard” for flooding.  And, since the recent building of soccer fields and parking lots near the rec center, those of us whose homes line the west boundary of Hogan-Pancost now have sump pumps in our basements.  In peak wet season, our pumps remove tens of thousands of gallons of water from our homes’ lower levels each day – water that didn’t enter our homes before the land was disturbed for building.

Location map (click to enlarge)

The land is part of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan, and can be annexed into city limits.  It’s the last large parcel of land in Area II that can be developed.  But we say just because it can, doesn’t mean it should. Developer Mike Boyers, whose plans for developing Hogan-Pancost have been turned down several times in the past, is trying again.  The concept plan for his Boulder Creek Commons development will be discussed at the City of Boulder Planning Board meeting tentatively set for Jan. 19, 2012.

At that Planning Board meeting, city officials are sure to hear from many of us Boulder residents who, like the Lorax, will speak for the things that cannot speak for themselves:  the trees, the wetlands, the wildlife… the very fabric of our neighborhood, Keewaydin Meadows.  We residents of Keewaydin Meadows are concerned about the consequences of building at least 120 new residential “units” on Hogan-Pancost.  But really, ALL Boulder residents should be watching this decision closely.  After all, we all trust city officials to uphold the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan, which states:

The overall effect of urban growth must add significant value to the community, improving quality of life. The city will require development and redevelopment as a whole to provide significant community benefits and to maintain or improve environmental quality as a precondition for further housing and community growth.

Does the Boulder Creek Commons concept plan uphold these values?  NO.

Concerns

Compromised Child Safety:  The safety of Manhattan Middle School students as they face substantially increased traffic at already-congested peak drive times.  In addition, children playing at Keewaydin Park, adjacent to the middle school, will face increased traffic in an area already heavily-used for after-school sports events.  Parked cars line Manhattan Drive for blocks during such events, making it difficult to see small children as they attempt to cross the street.

Compounded Residential Traffic Congestion:  The impact on Kewanee Drive – a short, dead-end street with a dozen or so homes with driveways connecting to the street – would be devastating.  Even the developer’s conservative estimates of six to ten car trips per household per day add up, when you consider a minimum of 120 new “units” at the end of the street.  The other access street, 55^th, is what neighbors call a “slow road to nowhere.”  It jogs around the East Boulder Rec. Center and borders open space, not any shops or services.  It’s reasonable to assume that most traffic in and out of Boulder Creek Commons would use Kewanee Drive, severely impacting residents.

Wetlands Destruction:  The proposed destruction of wetlands, even with a developer promise to re-create them somewhere else on the Hogan-Pancost land, is suspect.  Why destroy what nature intended?  Isn’t protecting fragile habitats a core value of Boulder city officials and residents?

Increased Flooding:  The western and eastern portions of the Hogan-Pancost property are in the designated 100-year flood plain, with some areas deemed “high hazard,” according to a city study.  According to the City of Boulder’s web site, Boulder is the #1 flash flood risk in the entire state. The site says: “It only takes three inches of rain over a few hours to trigger a 100-year flood.”   Those of us who lived through the 1969 flood in this area saw the land behind our homes become a fast-moving river.  That same land would become Boulder Creek Commons.

Groundwater Drainage Issues:   Groundwater is a huge concern among those of us who live on the western border of Hogan-Pancost.  (Remember our sump pumps?)  Many of us had no water in our basements prior to the nearby soccer fields and parking lots being built.  We are extremely concerned that increased development will only make the situation worse.

Broken Promises:  A memo from city staff in 1992, discussing the possibility of making Kewanee Drive a through-street, connecting to future development, promised us it would never happen.   Here’s a direct quote from that memo:  “…staff and Planning Board made assurances to the neighborhood on Manhattan Dr. that this connection would not be made in the future.”  Area residents trusted city leaders then, and hope they can still trust them now.

Residents of Keewaydin Meadows are entrusting city officials with the symbolic last Truffula Trees in Boulder.  We want the Hogan-Pancost property to remain undeveloped.  We’re hoping Planning Board members heed the lesson of The Lorax.  In the book, the Once-ler says,

You’re in charge of the last of the Truffula Seeds. 

And Truffula Trees are what everyone needs.

Plant a new Truffula.  Treat it with care.

Give it clean water.  And feed it fresh air.

Grow a forest.  Protect it from axes that hack.

Then the Lorax

and all of his friends

may come back.

Take Action

• Take the city survey about the proposed Boulder Creek Commons concept plan.
• Speak out at the Planning Board meeting, tentatively set for Jan. 19, 2012, at 6:00 p.m., in City Council chambers, 1777 Broadway, second floor.
• Join the Southeast Boulder Neighborhoods Association (SEBNA) www.seboulder.org.
• Read more about the development of Hogan-Pancost at www.hoganpancost.org

“Scott Remmert of the Remmert Group of Colorado Landmark Realtors said it’s frustrating to not have more homes to show prospective buyers, while James Simpson, with Fuller Sotheby’s International Realty, said it can work in a Realtor’s favor. ‘A limited inventory creates a high demand, plus it gives you the opportunity to pitch developers on the idea of spec-building houses again,’ Simpson said.”

Read the entire article at the Boulder County Business Report: High-end home inventory up for debate.

Reference to these commuters is often made in Boulder’s discussions about such issues as housing, transportation, jobs, parking, traffic and sprawl. We refer to them in mass as if their wills might easily bend all at once to our well-intentioned wishes. I wanted to associate faces and real life situations to this number and drill down into some personal stories about why they live where they live.

Here are four stories.

The Artist

The useful life of artist Priscilla Cohan’s car came to an end. Without the financial means to buy a new one, she decided to go car-less. That was almost two years ago. Her decision would be unusual if she lived in Boulder, but it is even rarer than that — she lives in Lyons.

Her job downtown at the Boulder Art’s and Crafts Gallery makes her eligible for an EcoPass, but her comfort level in giving up her car mainly came as a result of the Lyons Community Bus Program. According to Boulder County Alternative Transportation Coordinator, Scott McCarey, Nederland has also received funding for a community wide bus pass that will likely start that in January, 2012, assuming RTD gets on board. The county is also working with the City of Longmont on a similar program.

The Artist, Priscilla Cohan

She doesn’t see the half hour commute into Boulder on the Y bus as cramping her style, rather she cherishes it as it offers her downtime she wouldn’t otherwise afford herself. She uses it to read the New Yorker, the subscription paid for with money saved by not owning a car. She’s also purchased a B-Cycle membership which, along with her personal bike, supplement her transportation options while in Boulder. Her entertainment opportunities are enhanced by the generosity of friends who lend her a car now and then and allow her to spend the occasional night in Boulder.

Years ago while working at the Boulder Public Library, her decision not to buy a house in Boulder was based on her desire to live in a more rural mountain setting. Lyons appealed to her for two main reasons. First, it had more of a community “feel” than Boulder. It was a good balance between the quiet of a rural town, yet compact enough to allow easy access to neighbors. Second, while she considered Nederland, the commute up and down Boulder Canyon did not appeal to her.

“I never tire of the drive between Lyons and Boulder, it’s so beautiful!” she remarked during our interview. Aesthetics trumped the cost of a commute, indeed, cost didn’t even enter into her decision.

She lives in the small apartment over the garage in the rear of her little house in Lyons, which she rents to a young couple. The improvements that Lyons has recently made to its downtown have made the community more cohesive. She volunteers and participates in many community projects in Lyons such as The Clarifier Project, writing grant proposals for the Lyons Historical Society and Confluence Community Arts.

“I would love it if my life were more Lyons centered,” she says, “but there aren’t any jobs there. So I have to go to where the jobs are.”

The Non-Profit Executive

David Dadone’s partner thinks he should hire a professional scheduler. As the Executive Director of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMOCA), he attends many meetings that can be held anywhere in the metro area and some require a suit and tie.

He also enjoys hiking and yoga classes in Boulder. Consequently, his car doubles as a locker with changes of clothes always available to respond to unanticipated events and spontaneous activities.

The Nonprofit Executive, David Dadone

He tries to take the bus twice a week into Boulder from his home in the Highlands Neighborhood of Denver, but it’s often difficult because of time and location constraints of his many meetings. When he does take the bus, he finds it relaxing. “It’s time I can use to catch up on emails, work or sleep.” Museum employees all have EcoPasses and access to an eGo CarShare membership.

A native of Argentina, David grew up in Buenos Aires. Well, not actually IN the city but in one of its many suburbs, and ended up in Denver by way of a relationship. While working on his bachelor’s degree in Buenos Aires, he commuted for one and a quarter hours on the subway followed by a walk of ten blocks. “This is not an uncommon routine in big cities,” he says. That’s part of the reason that he doesn’t flinch at his forty minute driving commute into Boulder.

“Boulder is simply part of a metro area that extends from Castle Rock up to Boulder.” he says, “So, when considering where to live we considered the whole metro area.” As they narrowed it down they felt that “Lafayette and Louisville didn’t offer the kind of amenities that the Highlands Neighborhood has and, for five more minutes of commute time, we could live in a more vibrant setting.” His partner, a Denver native who commutes to the Denver Tech Center, selected the neighborhood, and though David would have liked to live in Boulder, splitting the commute was a higher priority.

The little craftsman style house he and his partner own is divided into two dwellings, affording them some revenue from leasing out the second unit. David tends a garden there and another one in one of Denver’s Urban Gardens community gardens. “I feel very fortunate to own a house, though higher density buildings instead of individual houses would provide more affordable housing.”

According to a January 2011 City of Boulder memo, Land Use Tools and Affordable Housing, higher density results in increased affordability only when coupled with Inclusionary Housing benefits in the form of permanently affordable units or cash-in-lieu.

Does the commute cramp his style? “No, we go out for entertainment wherever there is entertainment, if it is in Morrison, we go to Morrison. We come into Boulder, too, especially since the coffee here is better!”

The Analyst

Lori Krager and her husband had tired of living in apartments. They wanted a house with a yard so they could have a dog. Four years ago, at the age of 30, she and her husband set out to find one. At the time, she worked for Boulder County in the GIS department (still does) and her husband was working in Lakewood. They wanted a place located somewhere in between, so they chose Westminster. Boulder was never in the running as a place to live. They wanted a single family house and just assumed they would be priced out.

The Analyst, Lori Krager

According to AAA, it costs about $54.10 for every 100 miles driven. I asked Chris Ketterhagen, a Boulder realtor, how much more you could afford on a mortgage by giving up one car. According to him, a widely accepted number for miles driven per year is 12,000 which translates to $541/month in vehicle expense. At 5.5% interest, a full point above today’s rates, over 30 years, $541/month maintains principal and interest on $95,000. With a 10% down-payment, that $541 would maintain an additional $85,000 in mortgage.

Her husband now works in Boulder and, though Lori takes the bus to work most of the time, he drives every day. They don’t carpool because of their different schedules. Lori estimates that the bus commute costs her one hour each way, factoring in the drive to the park-n-ride, parking, walking over the highway and waiting time. However, she really likes the down time that riding the bus affords, “I’ve never read so many books or listened to so much music,” she exclaimed, “on days I drive, I miss my down time.”

“Most of our social life happens in Boulder after work. This as an advantage because it keeps us off of the turnpike during rush hour,” she explained in response to my question about whether or not her commute time allowed for activities outside of work and family.

A few times during the summer she will venture to work on her bike even though it is logistically challenging. The eighteen mile ride requires a change of clothes, brought to work and prepared a day ahead, and a shower afterward. She has a membership at the downtown gym that affords her a comfortable shower and changing space.

Does the commute cramp her style? “No, not really, we’ve been doing it so long we don’t think about it.”

The Designer

Colorado native Mac Bernhardt and his brother bought a house together six years ago. “We chose Broomfield because it is between Denver and Boulder.” says Mac, “Jobs in our field are either going to be in Boulder or in Denver, so a house in between made sense.” Mac is a designer for 505Design in Boulder. As an artistic and tech oriented professional, he sees himself as an undeniable member of the “Creative Class.”

In his book The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida defines the Creative Class as consisting of two components “the super creative core” and the “creative professionals.” The former includes scientists, engineers, academics, artists, novelists and entertainers as well as the society’s thought leadership: non-fiction writers, editors, cultural figures, analysts and opinion-makers. The latter works in “knowledge-intensive” industries such as high-tech, finance, law, medicine and business. According to Florida, the Creative Class adds economic value through their creativity.

The Designer, Mac Bernhardt

After graduating from the University of Colorado-Boulder with a degree in Environmental design, he attended graduate school at the University of Colorado-Denver, after which he got a job in Denver, worked there for a year then moved to a job in Boulder. He’s changed jobs four times in ten years. So when he and his brother, a high school baseball coach and teacher, bought their house, it was based on the idea that frequent job changes are a part life and that since most jobs in his industry are either in Boulder or in Denver, a community halfway in between would make a manageable commute in either direction.

His is one of the many single occupancy vehicles heading west on the turnpike every morning. “The bus is not really an option,” he asserts, “my home is not convenient to a transit stop and it would take an hour to drive to a park-n-ride, take the bus and get to the office (just north of Downtown Boulder).” The dollar value of his time trumps the dollar cost of an average thirty minute driving commute.

His extra-curricular activities revolve around softball teams and games that are usually after work in Boulder. The Orchard Town Center, a quick drive from his home, offers many amenities such as restaurants and movie theaters. He doesn’t feel that the commute cramps his lifestyle. Would he like to live close to work? “It would be nice to live close to work, but with the turnover of jobs in the design industry and the struggling economy, it’s hard to predict where my career will take me.”

His brother married and moved out of their house three years ago and the house that he currently shares with roommates will soon become a perfect place for the next stage of his life, Mac is getting married next spring.

Conclusions

These four profiles begin to reveal the intricate nature behind individuals’ housing decisions. By acknowledging the myriad of complexities that rule people’s lives, perhaps our conversation about how to deal with the in-commuter problem can shift from one of numbers to one of understanding the fuel behind these complexities.

Solutions to quell in-commuting such as building more affordable condominiums inside Boulder City limits might help but are over simplified and not a panacea. We need to acknowledge and address the two-worker household phenomenon and the transient nature of modern jobs.

Innovations like exploring allowing workers to clock-in on the bus and city-wide EcoPasses coupled with an educational campaign about the true costs of commuting could encourage more use of public transit. Boulder County recently installed giant locked bike cages as an option to putting a bike on the bus to help with the “last mile” connection. On the private sector side there are technologies already in existence to help make ride sharing easier, while making offering rides a source of revenue. Policy changes that would allow additional housing solutions such as carriage houses and basement apartments that can also boost household revenues would put owning a single family house more within reach of middle class incomes.

Near the end of The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida lists three types of high-tech communities: nerdistans (like Silicon Valley), latte towns (like Boulder) and old urban centers (like New York’s SoHo). Leading Creative Centers, he says, provide all three options. In fact, he points to the Denver region that combines the assets of Boulder and the urban character of the LoDo district to create its “nerdistan.” His view is that Denver is a region that includes Boulder and communities in between and beyond.

The four people profiled here can all be considered part of Florida’s Creative Class and, like Florida, understand that Boulder is part of a region. In striving to solve the in-commuting problem, we should, too.

 Thanks to Priscilla, David, Lori and Mac for their generosity in granting me an interview. I’d also like to thank Scott McCarey for helping me develop a set of relevant questions and Chris Ketterhagen for running the numbers. References are linked to directly.

The idea of living close to work still seems to be completely alien to most people I’ve met. While I would personally consider it far more important than even the salary or the work performed, most people put commute distance below house price, perceived school quality, and neighborhood preference. With such a low threshold placed on commuting, most people don’t even put a reasonable effort into creating a nice local lifestyle for themselves. As you saw with the couple in my example above. They were willing to go from their existing negligible commute, to an Insane Asylum 80 minute round trip, just because they liked the scenic and neighborly vibe of my neighborhood.

Read the entire article at Mr. Money Mustache: The True Cost of Commuting.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the Denver Voice and is posted with permission of its editor. — Mary Young.

When we’re sick, a warm bed, steaming soup and some medicine puts us back on our feet, usually within a few days. But what happens when there is no bed. No soup. Not even a shelter from the bitter cold or soaking wet?

Allison, who is 30 and lives on the streets of Boulder, would know. Last summer, suffering from illnesses related to Crohn’s Disease, she almost gave up.

“Last summer I just laid in my sleeping bag and accepted that I was probably going to die,” she said. But this year was different.

Allison, who requested that we not publish her real name, was one of eight people that used a new program called Medical Respite Boulder that opened in March in Boulder. The program offers a motel room to people without a home so they can nurse themselves back to health. Clients also have access to medical and emotional support.

Anne Doyle, director and a key player in the founding of the program, visits with the patients every day (as do volunteer nurses). She takes them medicine, drives them to appointments and arranges personal food boxes, not to mention offers her generous listening ear and support.

“It was nice to have someone check on me, make sure I was still alive,” Allison said of her time in the program. “I guess emotionally it’s very supportive as well. Not just the food or the shelter, warm place to sleep, but to have someone care. For a lot of people that doesn’t happen often.”

Doyle, who was a consultant in the healthcare industry for 10 years, started working with healthcare professionals regarding the respite program last fall, when she surveyed the homeless community to find what was needed in homeless healthcare.

“It’s the kind of thing that falls through the cracks,” Doyle said. “Often-times when people get sick or have an injury, they don’t have any place to go to just get better. … That’s why we decided we needed respite care.”

With two donations from Project Revive and Clinica Family Health Services, as well as some private donations, the program launched and is in its pilot stage. And so far, so good.

Eight people have used the program, and Doyle expects the number to grow once the cold weather sets in. To get in the program, patients have to be referred by a clinic or hospital, so Doyle said that would help control the number of people they take in. Also, because the program houses people in a motel, they cannot serve anyone with addictions—yet. Her dream is to have a house with a staff member at all times, and/or a clinic to help treat anyone that needs the place to stay. But that’s for when the program “grows up,” she said.

For now, the respite-program-that-can is helping people on the street, like Allison, one by one.

“It’s a long road when you get out of the hospital with an illness. Finding someone to help them with their medications, finding a way to get food, finding someone to check on them everyday, I mean it’s a long process to heal without help like that,” said Allison, who plans to volunteer with the program and is serving as an ambassador for the program on the streets.

“For a lot of people that I know on the streets, it’s probably a lifesaver because people die for little things like [a respiratory infection] out here. …There’s a lot of health problems out here, so there’s a need for a program like this for sure.”

For more information, visit www.medicalrespiteboulder.org. Several organizations in the Boulder homeless health community contributed to the start of Medical Respite Boulder, including Boulder Community Hospital, Boulder Shelter for the Homeless, Carriage House Community Table, Boulder’s Clinica Family Health Services and Boulder Outreach for Homeless Overflow (BOHO), which provides emergency warming centers for the homeless when shelters reach capacity.

Waterview Concept Plan (http://tinyurl.com/3qbm4ow)

A handful of new housing projects in east Boulder, some just being completed and some only in the concept stage, promise to shift the city’s population center eastward and could significantly change the character of their surroundings.

In rough order of expected completion, the projects are:

• Two Nine North (formerly called the Residences at Twenty Ninth Street), 238 rental units at 30th and Walnut, currently renting and expected to be completed this year;
• The second phase of the Peloton, about 190 condominium units that will be built inside an already completed shell at the project on the north side of Arapahoe at 32nd St.;
• Junction Place Village, 319 rental units on Pearl east of 30th St. on the current Earl’s Saw Shop site that won city approval late last year;
• Eighty permanently affordable units that will be part of the RTD transit station development at Boulder Junction (aka the Transit Village); and
• Waterview, 288 rental units on an empty site on the north side of Arapahoe just west of South Boulder Creek, which was given a chilly reception when the Planning Board considered a concept plan this week.

If all the projects are approved and completed at their proposed scales, they will add up to over 1100 new units that could come on the market within the next few years.  The result could be a marked change in the character of an area that currently is dominated by industrial, office, and some retail uses.

All five projects are within or very close to one census tract, bordered roughly by 28th St. on the west, Arapahoe on the south, 55th St. on the east, and the Diagonal and Independence on the north.  In the 2000 census, this tract had a population of 6,125 and an average household size of 2.0 people, with a 50-50 split between rental and owner-occupied units.  If the new units also averaged a household size of 2.0, they would bring an additional 2,200 people to the area, raising the population in the census tract by over a third from the year 2000.

This could add energy and vitality to the east end of town, parts of which are almost deserted at night and on weekends, and could give a boost to local stores and restaurants.  It could also add to the traffic congestion in an area whose urban design is still heavily auto-centric, with large roads at wide spacing rather than the denser grid found in older parts of the city.  And it could increase pressure on city services in the area, such as the East Boulder Recreation Center and nearby fire stations.

The city has planned on significant growth in the eastern part of town for some time.  The Boulder Junction design calls for a total of 1400 to 2400 units at build-out, and the current update of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan focuses on changes east of Folsom.  But these projects are among the first to start making the concept a reality.

The city has also tried to address the downsides of the growth.  According to information from city staff, “There was concern initially about increased traffic with the redevelopment of the Boulder Junction, and as a result, [the Transit Village Area Plan] calls for a high percentage (55 to 70 percent) of all trips to be made by non-single occupant vehicles.”  The plan uses parking maximums, managed parking, increased bike parking, and other tools to try to achieve this.

Although the city says it hasn’t received any application materials for the second phase of the Peloton, Michael Brunette, a salesperson for the Peloton, says the project will start “soon,” most likely this year.  The shell of the buildings is complete, so the phase 2 project just involves completing the interior build-out.  Brunette said in his observation, the siting and design of the Peloton were successful in allowing residents to reduce their use of cars, saying many of the residents walk to King Soopers for groceries or to 29th Street to shop.  Asked if he was worried about the competition from other new housing projects that will be coming to the area, he said no.  “We fall into our own niche,” he said.

Waterview Site Map (http://tinyurl.com/3qbm4ow) Click to enlarge

The Waterview project’s future is uncertain at this point after a lukewarm response from the Planning Board.  Waterview’s site is particularly challenging to plan.  It has the benefit of bordering South Boulder Creek and the parallel multi-use path, but its only street access is to Arapahoe, which in this location has six lanes and fairly high traffic speeds.  To its west is a self-storage facility; to its east, across the creek, is a car dealership.

In the view of city planning staff, “Both the Peloton and Waterview provide opportunities to create a finer grain [street] network and [bring] residential uses into industrial single-use areas which often have a more suburban form.”  However, creating an attractive design that maximizes the benefit of the creek and multi-use path and minimizes the effects of the industrial surroundings, while anticipating the possibility of future redevelopment of neighboring properties and the creation of a street grid in the area, will be a challenge for the architect and city planners.

Residential use is allowed within industrial zoning districts, with certain restrictions and subject to city review.  As a result, other large swaths of east Boulder that are zoned industrial are ripe for redevelopment with housing, particularly those with older and smaller buildings and those adjoining Boulder Creek, South Boulder Creek, Valmont City Park, or open space.