The City of Boulder and Boulder County are nearing the finish line on a sweeping update to their shared land-use plan, but a last-minute fight over how to describe Boulder Municipal Airport could reignite a broader debate over the facility’s impact on surrounding communities.
At issue is a proposal to acknowledge lead pollution, noise and other impacts from Boulder Municipal Airport on nearby mobile home communities. The Planning Board and Boulder County commissioners approved the change, but the Boulder City Council rejected it, potentially prolonging a planning effort nearly two years in the making.
The Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan, a long-range land-use document shared between the city and county, guides growth and development and is updated every five to 10 years.
Officials expect to adopt the updated plan this summer, but the airport dispute is one of several issues that must still be resolved. The city council must also reconcile disagreements with county commissioners over a proposed land-use map change in areas surrounding the city, as well as with both the Planning Board and county commissioners over language related to affordable housing.
The airport debate centers on language approved earlier this month by the Planning Board that would identify “inequitable impacts of airport operations” on neighboring communities. The proposed change also states that the city and county will “provide education and outreach to residents most impacted by aviation lead.”
Aside from beginning the process of making unleaded aviation fuel available, the city has taken few concrete steps to address aviation lead. Acknowledging its impacts in the comprehensive plan could mark one of the city’s strongest policy statements yet on the issue.
Dozens of homes sit within a half-mile of the airport, including the Vista Village and San Lazaro mobile home communities, which researchers have identified as disproportionately Latino and low-income. Planning Board Chair Laura Kaplan and others have long raised concerns about the health effects of lead pollution.
Studies from Michigan, California and Colorado have found statistically elevated blood lead levels among children living near general aviation airports that serve small piston-engine aircraft burning leaded fuel, such as Boulder Municipal Airport. No dedicated blood lead study has been conducted on children near Boulder’s airport. Health officials say no level of lead exposure is considered safe for children, and that even low-level exposure can affect brain development and learning.
“This facility, that is a city-run and city-owned facility, has incredibly inequitable impacts on the people who live closest to the airport,” Kaplan said at a recent Planning Board meeting. “They are inequitably impacted by lead pollution, they are inequitably impacted by noise pollution.”
Kaplan, who championed the proposal, also helped lead a 2024 campaign to repurpose the airport into a mixed-use neighborhood. She said many of the proposed amendments were about describing the airport “in a more balanced way” and “calling attention to the fact that we care about equity.”
The Planning Board approved the changes 5-2. The vote came as a condition, meaning the council would have to approve the language or send its preferred language back to the Planning Board. The Board of County Commissioners also approved the change.
Kaplan said the Planning Board “does not want to get into a battle royal with city council,” but said she did not want the changes dismissed.
City officials said they preferred keeping the existing airport language but acknowledged the proposed language would “not implicate future actions, budget or methods of on-going support for the airport and surrounding communities.”
The Boulder City Council did not support the change.
During a special meeting June 25, the council informally voted to reject the Planning Board’s language and keep the original draft. The decision sends the matter back to the Planning Board before revised language can return to the council.
Councilmember Matt Benjamin, an airport supporter and former pilot, called the change a “last-minute binding condition” and proposed language supporting the transition to unleaded aviation fuels. His proposed change did not mention lead impacts.
“The process by which these changes were introduced, without public engagement or prior discussion, is itself a reason for rejection,” he wrote in a Hotline post to colleagues.
In response, Kaplan, Planning Board Vice Chair Claudia Hanson Thiem and board member Mark McIntyre wrote to city officials and the council requesting that the City Attorney’s Office affirm that the Planning Board’s actions related to the comprehensive plan were “legally sound.”
Separately, after the Planning Board vote, Jan Burton, a former councilmember and outspoken airport supporter, filed a code of conduct complaint against Kaplan, citing the airport language specifically.
The dispute comes as the council debates the airport’s long-term future. Some residents want to close it and repurpose the land for housing. Others see it as a valuable community asset. The council plans to hold a public hearing on the airport July 23.
