This commentary is by Macon Cowles, former Boulder City Councilmember and co-founder of Boulder Housing Network.
Boulder County recently announced plans to sell its 17.5-acre campus at the intersection of Broadway and Iris. Currently, the site contains the offices of the Boulder County Child Protection Services, the Area Agency on Aging, Workforce Boulder County and the Public Health Department.
Any buyer of the site will be motivated to redevelop the property in a way that represents the highest value and best use of the land. The location is in close proximity to schools, stores, services and recreation. It’s just three-quarters of a mile from Lucky’s to the north and Ideal Market to the south, 1.2 miles from Safeway and about a mile and a half from the Pearl Street Mall. It has decent transit service: The Skip bus runs every 15 minutes in both directions. The walk and transit scores are mediocre at 41. But the bike score is very good at 89, and it will improve after completion of the Iris Avenue Transportation Improvement Project, which will include a two-way protected bike lane on the north side of Iris all the way to 28th Street. Foothills Elementary School is just across Broadway.
The North Boulder Little League baseball players, their coaches and families are heartbroken at the prospect of losing the Joel Greenstein Ball Fields. They may be even better served, however, by new ball fields and facilities on dedicated park land (owned by the city but not yet developed) in the Planning Reserve just northeast of Violet Avenue and US 36. This location would allow for room to grow and more space for batting cages, practice fields and additional baseball diamonds.
Returning to the North Broadway Campus, the county should not sell this property. Housing can be created on this site for virtually zero land cost, which dominates development costs in Boulder. Given this incredible opportunity, the county and city should work closely together to create several hundred middle-income homes — of which virtually none have been built since Boulder adopted its Middle Income Housing Strategy in 2016.
We have not been able thus far to fill this void: building great and affordable housing for middle-income, frontline workers in schools, clinics, government, and the retail and service sectors. But we can do this on the North Broadway Campus and with a pilot project in the Planning Reserve.
The city and the county together should use the “social housing” in Vienna as well as in Montgomery County, Maryland, as a model. Their housing is distinctive because it serves a broad cross-section of society rather than only the lowest-income residents. Middle-income households can qualify for social housing too, which helps prevent the stigmatization often associated with public housing in the U.S.
Our permanently affordable housing (60% of area median income and below) is financed largely by the city’s inclusionary housing requirement: One of every four units created by a builder in Boulder has to be permanently affordable to low-income people. If you build four units, one must be permanently affordable. The affordable unit is a loss to the builder of $200,000-$300,000.
The builder’s loss is even greater if the affordable unit is middle-income (80-150% of AMI), because there are no state or federal funds available to subsidize middle-income units. The builder will recoup these losses by increasing the price of the other three units.
These challenges to building permanently affordable housing in Boulder mean that an opportunity such as that afforded by the county’s Iris site should not be wasted. Simply put, the county must not sell this property. Instead, the county and city should work together to create social housing at this superb, in-town site — and the city should create a new place for improved Little League ballfields in the Planning Reserve.
Now is the time to let the county commissioners and the city council know that you want them to seize this important opportunity.
I totally agree with these great, thoughtfull recommendations about housing.
At the risk of stating the obvious, more middle income housing does not create more middle income housing it Boulder. Macon said it himself: (lacking the subsidies for middle income housing that low income housing is provided): “The builder will recoup these losses by increasing the price of the other three units.” He counters his OWN argument. This is how middle AMI rises (due also to the service jobs from the project that add to the population of those who cannot afford to live here), spreads the wealth divide and, with a $380M COB budget deficit, fails to provide city services like the South Boulder Rec. Center as they come to the end of their life , OR the services offered in this VERY parcel for child protection, aging, workforce, public health and non sprawl/NON-COMMUTE baseball for kids.
That’s not how it works, Lynn. Macon is saying there are not subsidies currently for middle income renters like there are for low income renters through housing vouchers. In a social housing model, middle income tenants pay more, a percentage of their income, thereby subsidizing the units for lower income residents who also pay a percentage of their income. The way it works now with housing vouchers, only low income tenants qualify for a subsidy.
I fully endorse the common-sense suggestion by Macon Cowles for the City to work with the County to retain ownership of the north Broadway site and build middle-income homes. A terrific opportunity to serve the housing needs of Boulder.
Ah yes, the oft twisted “highest value and best use of the land” that always concludes on removing city and county infrastructure that people actively use.
This argument can be abused to no end; any piece of open space or park can easily be quantified on a market basis where it will be shown that it should be converted to housing. The entire green belt encircling Boulder should be developed under this mantra.
Keep the ball fields, redevelop the buildings. Seems like a great compromise, but few who repeatedly cite “highest value” as their guidance seem to be open to any concessions.