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The Best Business Ideas Shaping Boulder's Future January 20, 2015

Re: Proposed Height Limit Moratorium

Dear Boulder City Councilors,

Tonight’s agenda item regarding how to manage exemptions to the 35-ft height ordinance has been

reported as focusing on a possible 2-year moratorium on applications covering a significant percentage

of the city. In general such a notion is a blunt tactic that presumes to inexplicitly silo one facet of the

city’s built environment.

Our concern is based on process as much as the substance of the proposed moratorium. The standing

protocol is intentionally structured to make a height exemption an explicit decision based on the details

of a proposal. To broadly deny hundreds of property owners from even requesting such consideration

belies our current reasonable process. This also creates arbitrary zones of decreased opportunity for

innovative and reasonable designs – designs that come forward with various city goals already in mind,

i.e. affordable housing, walkable neighborhoods, access to alternative transit, etc. For example, the

proposal includes sweeping restrictions covering all the area east of the Foothills Highway, all around

55th and Arapaho and all along 28th Street.

The evolution of the city’s built environment deserves a comprehensive conversation that does not

prejudge and restrict reasonable options already in place. We ask that you be clear in your commen ts

tonight about the problem you are trying to solve and your sense of how height plays into this. Note: the

draft ordinance includes this rationale: “This ordinance is necessary to protect the public health, safety,

and welfare of the residents of the city…”. We should be arguing just the opposite - via a moratorium of

any kind we are certain to delay and inhibit creation of workforce housing, 15 minute neighborhoods,

increased mass transit efficacy and smaller per capita carbon footprints. Height exemptions are

approved per the collective positive attributes of any given building application. In this way, the

proposed ordinance does more harm than good.

As a group with a mission to bring business insight to policy questions we look forward to providing

ideas during the broader upcoming Comprehensive Plan and related public processes.

Thanks for considering these thoughts,

Dan Powers

Executive Director

Boulder Tomorrow

About Boulder Tomorrow: We are a 15-yr old, non-profit organization providing research, policy statements and

events highlighting the positive impacts of Boulder's businesses and how our members are shaping what Boulder will

look like Tomorrow. Read more at www.BoulderTomorrow.com.