Most people in Boulder are pretty normal. A bit more liberal than the country at large, but politics is not something they even think about that much. And those of us with kids, our top priorities are how are they doing in school, how are they doing with friends, is there a problem with drinking or drugs, and - oh my god they have a boyfriend and I'm not ready for that.
Against all that, the family, the job, sports, music, the dog leaving a present on the carpet, what the Boulder City Council does is so low down that most people here are barely aware that we have a City Council. And part of this stems from the fact that the stupidity of most council actions are not important enough to be worth the time to truly research the candidates before voting.
But not always. When Crossroads Mall had totally tanked and was sitting there empty. When people had to drive further to shop and libraries were on reduced hours, then what the City did was enough of a problem that it did require people to pay attention. And so we saw the election of Tom Eldridge, Mark Ruzzin, Suzy Ageton, etc.
And with a council where several members lived in reality, the City got down to working to come up with a mall that would be financially successful. And they did. The new mall has boatloads of tenants and is contributing sales tax once again.
And to reward that success, the voters zoned out in this last election. So we got a bunch of wing-nuts again. It's like national politics where we elect a Republican administration, they wreck everything, then we elect a Democrat to fix it. And once it's fixed, we elect a Republican to screw it up again. Here in Boulder we do the same thing electing people way out in la-la land (so far out I'm not even sure you can describe them as liberal). Then we elect grown-ups to fix their mess.
So we now have a small segment of the City that wants to tell everyone how large their house should be. Because every one of these people knows that there is no reason to have a house larger than theirs. Of course, even among this group they each have a different opinion. But that's ok because they know they are right.
First lets look at the historical part of this. The human race over the last several hundred years has gone from the entire family in a 1 room shack to larger and larger homes. This is what is known as progress.
And this is a key point. You don't see anyone claiming that we should go back to the standard residence of even 100 years ago. What people are doing is picking an arbitrary point, of about 30 years ago, and saying that that point in time is where we should freeze our advancement in our homes.
If you want to see what a town that is frozen in time looks like, go visit Charleston, S.C. It's a nice place to visit but it's only real industry is tourism. If Boulder is to remain an intellectually curious community, a center of research laboratories, hi-tech startups, and alternative energy companies, then it needs to continue to evolve.
The mindset of the Luddites that want to freeze Boulder in place are the antithesis of the intellectual vibrant community that is the Boulder of today. We need to respect our history, but not freeze our historical evolution.
Second, lets look at the mechanics of this. We do have some ugly houses being built. But many of them fit well within the guidelines, they're just butt-ugly. Second, one person's ugly is another's dream home. After all, no one spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to build something they dislike.
And then when people do need to remodel, what are their alternatives? If the extra space is very important to them, are you telling them they should then move to a new home? That destroys the community that develops when the same people stay in a neighborhood long term.
Not to mention, this mostly pushes out families with children. Nowadays most families want individual bedrooms for each child, and a room they can hang out in with their friends. What happens to a community when it has no children? More schools close, businesses close, the tax base is reduced. But even worse is the shuttered businesses and schools (more Washington school fights), a community with no children has no eye on the future. Why would it with no one to pass it on to.
We also have buildings here that make no sense, from Lolitas Market to homes in Chautauqua that are by today's definition too small for a couple with no kids. With housing prices squeezing the middle class out, do we want to exacerbate the problem even more?
Third, you want to preserve Martin Acres? Martin Acres? Do you know what Table Mesa and Martin Acres are? They're the Rock Creek of 40 years ago. It was thrown up as tract homes in the suburbs of Boulder. If these homes need to be preserved then we have become Charleston where nothing can be touched.
All the pops & scrapes in this part of town are doing is upgrading it from the tract homes of 40 years ago to the tract homes of today. This is not changing what this part of town is, it is merely being brought up to date.
Do we need some constraints? Yes. But it needs to be a reasonable thoughtful set of rules that lets us evolve our housing stock. And one that understands that there is a vast difference between Chautauqua and Downtown on one hand, and the vast stocks of 40 year old tract homes on the other.
And on this issue the City needs to pay attention to what the populace of Boulder as a whole wants, not the small loud contingent that wants to tell us all exactly how we must live our lives. Because if you start telling voters that they cannot change their home, and that through your actions you are depressing the worth of their largest asset - trust me, they will once again pay attention to who they elect and replace you with grown-ups.
Finally, a well deserved hat-tip to both the Planning Board and to Ken Wilson - voices of sanity. (I assume Suzy and Angelique have a sane view on this too - but they were not quoted in the Camera.)
ps - I have no plans to pop/scrape my house (it's already large enough).
