I can't help it - those Eagle Place condos on South Boulder Road still make me shake my head with confusion. Who chose those colors? Then over the weekend it struck my how the article in last week's Lafayette News about the family that will be evicted because they live in a non-conforming home - a typical designation in zoning terms. A place that has been used off and on as a residential rental, (or forever, depending on who knows what they're talking about) is going to be removed from rental stock in town while we build more elsewhere.
If affordable housing is truly a priority, this decision to boot them out should be reversed. If the property owner perceives there to be enough reason to develop the property as commercial, he'll do so. To let it lay fallow when someone is willing to pay to live there is bureaucratic nonsense.
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I agree with your comments here Dan. Maybe this is something the city council could look into.
What Lafayette really needs is more vacant buildings on S. Public.
Is there a hidden (or not so hidden) agenda the city is acting on here?
I can't believe there is any hidden agenda; it is a mixture of robotic planning regulations and wishful thinking - if you zone it commercial, they will come.
Just building it won't draw retailers. There isn't enough traffic on S. Public to interest smart retailers. S. Public needs a draw to attract more traffic, then the retailers will come. A bunch of vacant buildings does not qualify as a good draw.
How about we get CDOT to reroute Hwy 7 down S. Public then east on S. Boulder and north on 120th? Since the city doesn't think the traffic on Baseline is too bad, let's maximize the use of that traffic.
D-B,
I have argued the traffic on Baseline is reaching major gridlock stage. The W*M traffic study professional done according to federal guidelines back in March, 2005 says as much.
So now add this from today's DC:
http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2007/jul/24/wal-mart-cuts-prices-on-school-items/
As for the Hwy 7 by-pass, wait 10 years. The point is that retail traffic from Erie and Anthem CO is going to be headed east, even more so when W*M builds their store at I-25/Hwy 7 (they have the land).
If there is a hidden agenda regarding this building, please let me know what it is.
So why doesn't this family qualify for Eagles Place? I was told that's what it was built for. Or perhaps on further inspection not?
Longmont has "affordable homes" in a community called Sundial. The price was set too high - at the market peak in 2002. As of this moment, homeowners cannot sell to "qualified buyers" whose income is 80% of the AGI for Longmont. Why not? Well, LENDERS will not approve of the loans for the homes. Faced with foreclosure, savvy folks are abandoning their homes as we speak. Why pay the lender and the city? So much for that program.
Eagles Place is low income rental units.
The "unwelcome mat" house is completely boarded up now. I will guess that the owner is concerned about valdals now that the house is vacant. A boarded up building is not going to help the image of Public Road.
Considering the recent Arbordale Acres Sr. Park issue, I think the scope of consideration needs to expand beyond new construction. Sr. Mobile home parks are a viable and desired alternative. While some folks live there because of economic reasons, others choose it for the sense of community. While building new is an alternative, we should not ignore what already exists, and find ways to support it. If it works, don't fix it!
Nice theory, Frank. Just not sure what kind of support would work to keep the Sr. Mobile Parks viable.
Just like ag land became too valuable for development to remain ag, Sr. Parks, and other existing affordable housing, are in the same situation. Economic forces will convert them to new uses.
Boulder County and several area communities "solved" the ag problem by creating Open Space that in many cases is leased back to farmers.
Open Space tax is apparently popular in Boulder County because it just keeps getting approved.
Should we create a similar way of paying for affordable housing?
The high end residential areas love to have Open Space adjacent to them, but I doubt they'll be as willing to have affordable housing right next door.
Protecting affordable housing via some sort of tax will not pass without some heavy lifting. Perhaps by protecting existing units, but not funding additional units. The fear of having an affordable housing complex pop up next door would scare a lot of people. But, I believe there is enough sympathy for protecting what's already there.
DB, support of existing housing does not mean financial necessarily. For example, in California they have had trouble with a number of the parks going Condo (the residents can buy the land under their mobile home) with the consequence of many of the residents not being able to afford the price of the land and being forced to move. Smart zoning can insure the continued viability in that case. We have an affordable housing ordinance that requires x% of a development to be priced a certain way. No reason council cannot decide to expand that to include x% is specifically designed as Sr. Housing. Once you commit to the concept, all types of options can be considered. With the building of Anthem we are no longer chained to the paradigm of growing our own rooftops to attract business (talk about an unintended benefit of a deplorable development) so we can be even more selective. Despite growth management future residential developments are stacked up in the planning process like planes over O'hare on a bad day.
The look and feel of Eagles Place will turn off any off any abutting neighborhood to the idea of affordable housing. Opponents will simply say go take a gander. Do you want that next to you?
What continues to be overlooked is that residents east of Lafayette are going to be drawn east to I-25/7. Especially when the new Wal-Mart gets built there (two years?). Just like folks east of Boulder started spending their dough in Louisville, Superior, and Lafayette.
Permits here aren't being drawn because of the sub prime mortgage fiasco. Ironically Lafayette was spared most of that due to its growth management policies. The idea of hitting developers with more and more restrictions is just another way to stop building all together. Sketch plans and PUDs are just paper until the ground breakings which are being delayed longer and longer. The stock market droppoed 5% in one week due to the situation.
Mobile home parks are breaking as time wears on and the rents go up faster than Social Security. Owners scrimp on the maintenance and residents get caught in the middle.
Having lived in Northern California, it's a different work. No comparison.
All the available permits have not been pulled since growth ordinance was enacted, at a time when all you needed to be able to do was sign your name to get a mortgage, so I don't buy more recent explanations as the cause. At some point mobile home park owners will be forced to upgrade their facilities, and from a business perspective they might decide it is more economical to sell the lots and put the burden back on the owners than plow in more capital investment. The market may differ in price, but not in concept. Once the development wave passes those with solid growth management practices will be in a better position than those who are not. Inherent in the growth management concept is that you are weaning yourself from building permit revenue. I prefer a smaller level of pain now than the pain I think Erie is going to feel in about 5 years.
Let's revisit history. The original growth management ordinance was passed back in 1995. But the city ruled it could grandfather all the permit requests submitted prior to that. McStain also had a prior commitment of 150 a year for Indian Peaks. Lafayette became the 5th fastest growing city in Colorado during the 1990s. The original growth cap had no effect at 200 a year or 1200 for the six years of its duration. Depending on who one talks to, around 2300 units were built because of the "grandfathering". In the past six years or so, add another 500 to 700. (Indian Peaks added around 350 or so. How do I know? I have done the HOA budget since 1998). The growth cap was extended in 2001 by the voters.
This year 20 permits have been pulled to date. So the city is getting weaned off of permit revenue regardless as the subprime fiasco has hit and folks buy east of town. With growth management in place to limit growth for 12 years to 2400 units, the city has added around 2700 to 3000. (Hmmm......)
Unfortunately, those who live in mobile home parks have virtually zero equity in their units so unless they have a nest egg somehow, moving out is not in the cards. That's why the park owners can stick it to them. But just like Shady Acres, sooner or later, some one is going to buy the property and developer it.
As for the "pain", 2008 is going to test how much pain the city can absorb.
Frank, more government interference via more restrictive zoning regs will not solve the problem. Such things tend to raise the cost of doing business, so developers just shy away.
If this is the path we take, the existing units will just sit and deteriorate, until we can designate them as blight and do something about it at a big cost.
The only way to protect senior/affordable housing is to offer incentives for builders to provide such housing, not additional restrictions. So, I believe the only way is financial.
Lafayette will gain from the SuperCenter, Lowe's, and perhaps Target. Give these a 15-20 year life, and then what? Maybe not even that long. Look at Louisville. Thought they were in the cat bird's seat with the retailers on McCaslin. Worked for awhile. Now, revenues are dropping as those shoppers are given other options.
The "deplorable development" to the east will get other options as well. Don't count on them for Lafayette revenue, except for a very short time.
And, what exactly makes Anthem "deplorable"? It looks like every other development, including most built in EastBoCo over the past 20 years.
I'm afraid the solution is financial, and I don't see a viable way for any small town to pay for this.
DB,
You have a good point on zoning, and I agree. What I did not articulate well was that I did not mean more restrictive zoning, but remaining vigilant on rezoning requests and fully understanding the impacts.
You are asking the same question I have been pondering in regards to 'what then'. I recently heard a presentation at the CML annual conference on The Future of Municipal Finance by two different cities (Aurora and Boulder) who did independent studies that came to the same conclusion. In summary, as the population ages spending on goods goes down and spending on services goes up. So based on how cities currently get most of their revenue (sales tax), you need to keep expanding to break even, or move to a more use tax oriented system. Perhaps (and I said this tongue in cheek to the presenter from Boulder in front of 400 people) it would explain Boulder Housing Authority's sudden interest in creating substantial Sr. Housing in Lafayette.... Got me a good laugh, perhaps I should do standup... Anyway I suspect in the future we will see substantial pressure for revenue sharing between communities and some consideration of new types of use taxes.
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