David Driskell, a former City of Boulder planning director who has since worked as a planning consultant in Berkeley and Seattle, was invited to the city’s Housing Advisory Board this week to discuss how housing policies being considered in Colorado are being implemented in other cities.
For instance, Colorado lawmakers have proposed a bill that would make it easier to build accessory dwelling units (ADUs), similar to regulations that have been in place in California for years. Property owners can build ADUs by right in any single-family neighborhood in California. Fees are capped. Cities cannot impose owner occupancy rules, which typically require the property owner to live at the property for a certain number of days per year.
“ADUs are basically creating more affordable rental housing in existing neighborhoods, which I’m a huge fan of,” Driskell told the board.
He responded to the concern raised by some Colorado residents that, without owner occupancy requirements, developers would have an incentive to buy properties and resell them for greater profit, thereby gentrifying neighborhoods.
“There hasn’t been much of that. I mean, the thing that’s driving gentrification is not enough housing and high land costs,” Driskell said. “If you want to stop gentrification, build more housing.”
He added: “If you want to kill ADUs, then require owner occupancy.”
In 2023, the City of Boulder revised its zoning to allow duplexes and triplexes in single-family neighborhoods. A similar change took effect about a year earlier under California’s Senate Bill 9, which essentially eliminated single-family zoning.
Despite the change, Driskell said, developers are not buying up single-family homes to build multifamily properties.
“The biggest trend in housing has been tearing down small single-family homes and building big single-family homes,” he said. If the City of Boulder wants more duplexes, triplexes or smaller homes, “then make those the easiest thing to build. But if the easiest thing to build is a 5,000 square-foot single-family home, well the market is happy to pay for those and people are happy to build them.”
Why do we even have Housing Advisory Board? The issues it considers are already considered by Planning Board. Let’s hope when council reviews the recommendations on boards and commissions reform, one of its decisions will be to eliminate this board.
I regrettably agree this is true somewhat. They should be integrated. Duplication of effort is wasted space. So far as David being pulled in for consult, why didn’t that happen at the Planning Board? As to ADUs themselves, it’s a big deal and I’m divided. There needs to be a more iterative process with the residents.