Sender Spense Havlick
Subject HOTLINE: Boulder Creek commons near So. Boulder Creek
Date 030916
Staff Reply Required n/a
Date Reply Received 020101
Response Required No
Body >>> Spense Havlick 9/15/2003 11:36:17 PM >>> There is 
circulating around planning department and around town a proposal 
to put 139 residential units on 23.6 acres of non city land near 
the East Boulder Community and Rec center. It has some fine 
designers involved but there are serious shortfalls that should be 
reviewed carefully. There are wetland issues. There are flood plain 
issues . No traffic study has been done to show those 
infrastructure impacts. I remember how we agreed to close Kewanee 
Drive when the Rec and Community center was built. This projects 
wants to open that street with Manhattan Middle School right 
nearby. Forty percent senior affordable is the lowest guideline and 
we should ask the developers to plan for 60-70 percent permanently 
affordable, including some for families what with the school within 
a stone's throw. Furthermore no project of this size should ever be 
built that is not 100% active and passive solar for each unit. 
THESE homes for poor and rich should be designed to be the lowest 
use of fossil fuels, and take fullest advantage of renewable 
energy. This complex should be a non auto village where the car is 
last in terms of transportation options. Bikes, footpaths, and two 
transit routes should be the key mobility features. Car parking 
should be reduced and density should be raised from 4.2 units per 
acre to 15-25 units per acre if the transportation alternatives are 
done well. Recycling, low water use, full solar energy and other 
environmental requirements should be required IF THIS LAND IS EVER 
TO BE ANNEXED. The day of traditional, phony new urbanism marketing 
should be past in Boulder. The full impacts on our water and sewer 
systems, the extra needed police and fire protection, solid waste, 
night lighting, etc. should be evaluated before this curious 
proposal gets very far. Most important of all is perhaps the 
requirement that this commons project must wait until the South 
Boulder Creek flood hydrology and the flood risk studies are 
completed 18-24 months from now. We are asking the university to 
wait for its unknown building and athletic structure projects until 
these two flood hazard studies are completed. We should insist that 
a private developer follow the same prudent land use planning 
safeguards as our major public institution. Besides the 139-350 
unit housing project asks permission of the city to bring in fill 
up to 4 1/2 feet to avoid drainage and flood problems. Guess where 
the water that historically crossed those wetlands and meadows 
would go after 24 acres or so would be raised with land fill 
material ???? There are 1200 homes in this flood plain north of the 
site that have a stake in how the lowlands near the East Boulder 
rec and Community Center are filled, managed, or keep as a natural 
flood retension area. This looks like a very poor place to sprawl, 
and put seniors or low income families, or anyone at risk of floods 
and inadequate drainage. An example of Area II that should probably 
stay that way for a long time.
Item Number 03-091602