A group of Boulder residents has ended its campaign to place two housing-related measures on the November 2025 ballot, citing delays by the City Attorney’s Office as the main reason for abandoning the effort.
One proposal would have required developers to pay new fees associated with the public infrastructure costs of their projects. The other would have mandated affordable housing commitments when single-family homes are converted into duplexes or triplexes.
Emily Reynolds, the campaign manager, alleged the City Attorney’s Office used “delay tactics” by taking the “maximum amount of time to consider our rewrites,” which she said cost the campaign valuable time. Ballot campaigns often work with city attorneys to finalize language that complies with city code and avoids legal issues.
“We knew it was a heavy lift with so much going on nationally, but the City Attorney’s Office delaying our effort by a full two months, forcing rewrite after rewrite, was the chief reason we weren’t able to get the initiatives on the ballot,” Reynolds wrote in an email to Boulder Reporting Lab.
Reynolds said the group first submitted its ballot language on Feb. 10, but final approval took until April 7. To qualify for the ballot, petitioners needed to collect 3,401 signatures from registered Boulder voters by May 28. The campaign used paper petitions, citing technical issues with the city’s online signature-gathering tool.
City officials dispute the petitioners’ timeline and allegations. They said the city was notified of the intent to circulate the development fee measure on Feb. 20, and it was approved by March 5. The affordable housing measure was submitted on March 3 and approved by April 1.
“In short, the Clerk’s Office met all timelines required by Charter and in some cases responded in a shorter time period than the Charter allows,” Sarah Huntley, a spokeswoman for the City of Boulder, told Boulder Reporting Lab.
This is the second campaign this year to drop plans for a 2025 ballot measure. Earlier this month, proponents of a measure to close West Pearl Street to cars announced they were pulling their petition, citing economic uncertainty.
Meanwhile, Boulder City Council is considering referring three measures to voters: one to give council more control over term lengths and eligibility criteria for certain boards and commissions, another to extend the existing 0.3% Community, Culture, Resilience and Safety sales tax, and a third to create a new property tax to fund capital projects in public spaces.
Update: This story was updated on May 13 with a response from the City of Boulder disputing the petitioners’ timeline and allegations.