Housing Proposals
The Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan (BVCP) update is a major city and community undertaking, and provides significant opportunities to support smart, sustainable, equitable, and affordable housing development. In particular, we believe the plan update needs to make it easier to build multi-unit buildings, to foster more mixed-use developments, and to focus future development near transit.
What problems does this proposal aim to solve?
The BVCP constrains policies like legalizing duplexes / fourplexes, as well as transit oriented development, including specific density limits for residential land uses. Even though it clearly states that these limits are not to be applied on a per-parcel basis, that’s how they have been used. There’s a clear need to move to a different way of regulating intensity, such as floor area ratio (FAR).
The BVCP land uses should also allow for a richer mix of uses, to less rigidly separate housing and retail, for instance.
The BVCP most directly regulates development through the land use map. A change to the land use map allows a property owner to request a zoning change to a zone district aligned with the new land use. There are many opportunities for land use changes that over time would allow for more housing, particularly in areas surrounding CU, along arterial streets, and low-density areas that aren’t covered by a subcommunity or area plan.
What can we learn from other cities? The way that Minneapolis 2040 is organized makes the plan feel more actionable than the way the BVCP is currently written. Worth noting are the table of contents pages, the sections on Housing Policies and the graphic depictions of data. For example, each page in the Housing Section, shows a concise policy goal, often supported with a brief description, data and graphics, and action steps.
Social Value of Projects language could be added to the BVCP. The UK has a Social Value Act that brings social, economic and environmental goals together with urban planning policy.
Change language around 15 minute neighborhoods to something else-housing near where people work, to prevent pushback from people who don’t like that language.
Develop plans for neighborhoods that don’t have neighborhood plans yet like South Boulder, and update the ones that have not been updated in a long time, develop new ones like Area 3 plan.
Revise affordable-low, mid and moderate housing targets-HHS video on city website says goal is 4,000 by 2035. Is this enough or can we do more?
Develop a Housing Crisis Emergency Action Plan Section which could also include things like safe camping sites, new areas where manufactured housing could go, transitional villages-some sort of document to acknowledge that we have a current housing crisis that will take time to solve by built solutions but that we have a plan to address our current needs.
Engage or incentivize professional and groups such as small developers, Colorado Green Building Guild (CGBG), Architects AIA, to participate in planning process and provide ideas, staff/council workshops at AIA North meetings, workshop at CGBG, workshop with real estate professionals, etc.