Bob Yates is a regular opinion columnist for Boulder Reporting Lab. He is a former member of the Boulder City Council. Every month since 2016, Bob has published The Boulder Bulletin, a newsletter about local government and the community.
Dear Marta, Claire and Ashley:
First, thank you for serving as our Boulder County commissioners. Having served eight years on the Boulder City Council, I know what you do is hard work. Your efforts are appreciated.
As county commissioners, you have decided to sell the county’s 17 acres of land at Broadway and Iris in North Boulder, where you currently have an 11-acre campus of county offices and the six-acre, county-owned Iris Ball Fields. Since 1957, boys and girls have played baseball on those fields, and neighbors have enjoyed the parkland. To sell your 17 acres, you solicited bids, and you have now received proposals from five developers. You are considering which bid you will accept.
Some of the bids you have received propose preserving the six-acre ball fields, building housing on just the western 11 acres of your land, where county offices now sit. However, other bids propose destroying the Iris Fields so that all 17 acres can be built on. I urge you to consider only bids that protect the baseball fields, for four reasons:
1. Zoning Problem: The county land at Broadway and Iris is zoned “public” by the City of Boulder. Only certain things can be built on public-zoned land as a matter of right, including hospitals, schools, museums and, of course, government offices and baseball fields. Without special permission from the city, housing cannot be built on land that is zoned public. This means that a developer who wants to build on the baseball fields must first convince the Boulder City Council to change the zoning from public to an alternative zoning classification that permits housing. That won’t happen.
In the June issue of my monthly newsletter, The Boulder Bulletin, I quoted a majority of the members of the Boulder City Council (and the two council candidates who are on the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board) as saying they want the Iris Fields to be preserved. They would not support a zoning change that would allow housing to replace the baseball fields. So, while I suppose the county could tentatively accept a lucrative bid from a developer who wants to build housing on the ball fields — contingent on a zoning change by city council — that change simply won’t occur. You would be wasting the developer’s time and your own, annoying the rest of us along the way.
2. Lack of Fields: The City of Boulder’s Parks and Recreation Department stands ready, willing and able to incorporate the Iris Fields into its citywide network of baseball diamonds, preserving the Iris Fields forever. As noted in my June newsletter, the city’s Parks & Rec staff acknowledges that Boulder’s “level of service” for baseball fields is below state and national averages.
Even including the four county-owned ball fields, Boulder has only 2.3 baseball diamonds per 10,000 residents, while the national and state averages are between 2.5 and 2.9. If a private developer tore up the four baseball fields at Iris, we would be left with only 1.9 diamonds per 10,000 Boulder residents, well below state and national standards. Nearly 5,000 residents have signed a petition, telling you this is unacceptable.
3. Parkland: Except for a few small pocket parks, Iris Fields are the only parkland or open space within half a mile of Broadway and Iris. The surrounding neighborhoods of North Newlands, Hawthorne and Melody Heights (where I live) have relied on the Iris Fields as their parkland for decades.
If Iris Fields were destroyed and all 17 acres of county land were developed, that would create a massive new neighborhood of more than 300 units, with no park space. Residents of that new 300-unit neighborhood (let’s call it the “Kids Used to Play Here” neighborhood) would have no nearby parkland, and residents in the surrounding North Newlands, Hawthorne and Melody Heights neighborhoods would lose theirs. I’m pretty sure you don’t want your legacy to be the county commissioners who destroyed neighborhood parks.
4. History: For more than a century, the Boulder County commissioners have been good stewards of the 17 acres at Broadway and Iris, which were donated to the county by W.W. Wolf in 1918. Since 1957, you have used six of those acres for ball fields, where four generations of Boulder kids have played baseball.
While there is certainly a need for more affordable housing in our community, aren’t the 11 acres on the west side of your parcel enough for that? More than 200 units of new housing could be built on those 11 acres. Do you also want to destroy the 68-year-old Little League fields and wipe out community parkland, just so some developer can build 300 units instead of 200?
County commissioners, the decision is yours. You can sell the western 11 acres of your land to someone who will thoughtfully build housing, while transferring the six acres of baseball fields on the east side to Boulder Parks & Recreation for permanent preservation. Or you can sell the entire 17 acres to the highest bidder, who will plow under the baseball fields for a profit. Make good choices.
Sincerely yours, Bob
200-300 housing units? Wow, what ever happened to responsible development in Boulder? Shameful.
Thanks Bob, as always, for your thoughtful and well researched comment. I’ve wondered if the commissioners have a legal obligation to sell County property for the greatest amount possible. Could a losing bidder sue the County for accepting a lower bid?
Eric: I believe that price is only one of the factors that the county commissioners will consider. Thanks for reading. And, if you like the free service that the nonprofit Boulder Reporting Lab provides, considering making a tax-deductible contribution to them. – Bob
Bob is right. Council should keep the ballfields for the kids. What good is housing without a play area for residents and their children?
Kathy: I agree with you. But it is not the Boulder City Council that will make this decision (they have already said that they want to preserve the ball fields). The Iris Fields are owned by the county, and it will be up to the county commissioners to decide whether to sell the land to someone who will preserve the fields, or to someone who will destroy the fields. Let the county commissioners know how you feel about this. – Bob
Well stated, Bob. The “affordable housing crusade” is doomed by market forces. Adding a few random houses won’t change anything other than perhaps traffic congestion and urban density.
Thank you for your thoughtful letter. Would hate to see the ball fields be sacrificed in the name of housing at the expense of spaces that make Boulder a nice place to live. Unfortunately, the “problem” of the land currently being zoned as public will unlikely be much of a barrier/protection as City Council had no trouble rezoning public land adjacent to critical Open Space and residential area to allow for building a manufactured housing factory-
A clarification: I definitely agree with preserving the fields for recreation by transferring 6 acres to the City Parks and Recreation, and fully support building housing on the 11 acres where county offices currently exist. This is an urban area (although like all of Boulder, is low density), and the corner of Broadway and Iris is an ideal location for housing.
A further clarification is those 6 acres are great for “recreation”, which is IMO is an essential service, but I would not stipulate this property must forever be used specifically for baseball. The low numbers Bob cited for percentage of baseball fields sound appropriate to me; baseball was certainly my default youth sport, but I can’t remember the last time I’ve even seen a baseball. My children and now my grandchildren are driving all over the state playing soccer, I’ve tried and confess to really liking pickleball, so let’s always stay current with the times.
Baseball is still an active sport for young and old. Boulder is loaded with soccer fields. We need to allow baseball to continue in a form that is usable. Technology has replaced a lot of book uses but would you ever consider closing libraries or not teaching children to read? I think the people who claim to have moved on from baseball are making thei choose but not necessarily a universal choice. It is not a defunct sport, no matter how poor the Rockies have done. The children who will use the fields may want to play baseball for the rest of their lives. Let’s give them space to learn not only the game but teamwork and skills useful in life and for good health.
Buzz: Thanks for your comments. I live about three blocks from Iris Fields and they are ALWAYS full of kids playing baseball there, even in the winter. So, while soccer and pickleball are certainly popular, so still is baseball (Go Dodgers!). In any event, I think that the call is for the six acres of recreation fields to be transferred from the county (which doesn’t do parks & rec) to the city of Boulder’s Parks & Recreation Department. Whether Boulder Parks & Rec always uses them as baseball fields will, as you suggest, depending on usage and demand. That could change over time. – Bob
Yes, well stated. I would like to add a bit more history. Another reason to preserve the ball fields is their association with the County Poor Farm — built in 1920, and the complex’s oldest building. The county housed its indigent and homeless population in that building, in return for their work in the fields. Then, the fields were used for baseball after the Poor Farm closed. The building and the fields belong together, and both should be preserved.
The proposal to preserve the ball field and build middle-income senior housing on the rest of the site would be a win-win for Boulder. I hope the Commissioners don’t let this opportunity slip by to address an unmet need in the community, which would also likely result in middle-income seniors selling their relatively modest homes in Boulder. As of now, we have mostly very high-end senior housing vs. subsidized housing for lower-income seniors within the city limits, putting longtime moderate-income older residents, who do not fit into these categories, in a holding pattern.
I completely agree that this what the County Commissioners need to do. It’s for community good to save these fields.
They are not going to save those fields. At best the city and county can collaborate to find a new permeant location for the Little league fields in Boulder
Jann: Thanks for reading. I guess we’ll find out over the next few months whether your prediction turns out right. – Bob
I agree that the Iris fields section should be kept as park space (maybe while allowing the other 11 acres to be denser and mixed use) but don’t think it should be kept as baseball fields. Fewer and fewer children play baseball and it has always been mostly for young boys of a very specific age. There is also the trend of kids only playing sports in organized scheduled activities rather than spontaneously with friends. So the diamonds sit unused outside of those specific times. It would be better for it to be a big playground with some open park, a dog park. A soccer field and maybe one baseball diamond more like north Boulder Park which sees way more use.
Lettie: Thanks. I think the key is getting the six acres of recreation space into the hands of the City of Boulder’s Parks & Rec department, so they can be preserved forever. Parks & Rec can then decide the best use for the land, whether that’s ball diamonds, a park, a soccer field, or some combination. And that recreational use may change over time, as needs and desires change. But, I think it would be a real shame if the existing parkland was destroyed by whomever buys the land from the county. I hope the county commissioners consider this as they decide between the various people who have bid on the county’s land. – Bob
Thanks Bob. I think in the end if Parks and Rec gets to make a decision, they will make a good choice. In case the writer was unaware, kids do still play baseball and we have lots of soccer fields.