Land Use, Growth, and Open Space

What I said I would do as commissioner:

Throughout the county, we benefit from programs that created open space and recreational trails, and protected the views across the foothills. I will actively support efforts to acquire more open space and preserve the natural beauty throughout our county. I will continue to seek an appropriate balance between non-motorized recreation and habitat protection on open-space lands. And I will continue to work for limited growth in the unincorporated rural areas of the county.

At the same time, I will work to develop a more open and more predictable land-use review process and a respectful relationship with landowners and homeowners. We need to help people understand, from the outset, what they can do, and to assist them in developing plans that will work. I will also actively engage the Larimer and Weld County Commissioners in a dialogue on how best to cooperate in the management of growth in the areas adjacent to Boulder County.

What I did as commissioner:

True to my campaign promise, we have purchased more than 5,700 acres of land over the last three and a half years which will be preserved, in perpetuity, as open space. This includes beautiful mountain landscapes such as the Benjamin property; historic agricultural land like the Zweck farm near Longmont; and important recreational land like the Olson property near Lyons. We also focused on protecting community buffers through land purchase such as the Stephenson/Nelson property east of Lafayette.

Aside from what we are doing to preserve undeveloped land within Boulder County, we are mindful of the threat that massive sprawl development along our borders poses to the integrity of our open space system. That is why we have taken steps to protect open land parcels at our doorstep. For example, we purchased conservation easements on beautiful agricultural lands between Boulder Creek and Saint Vrain Creek. We also worked with the town of Frederick on an intergovernmental agreement to preserve important lands in Southwest Weld County.

In order to maintain our capacity to preserve more lands, I joined my fellow commissioners in placing an issue on the 2007 ballot that extends the Boulder County open space tax for 20 more years. The passage of this initiative allows the County to continue acquiring open space, preserving wildlife habitat, and preventing urban sprawl.

During my tenure, we also have improved recreational opportunities across Boulder County’s open lands. In total, we built an additional 14 miles of new trail since 2005. This includes the new wild Turkey Loop at Heil Ranch and the new trail connection from Heil Ranch to Lyons. These trails have improved options for hikers, mountain bikers and horseback riders.

At the same time as we are protecting open lands and creating more recreational opportunities, my fellow commissioners and I are working to address important land development concerns. I began my tenure by initiating a major rewrite of the land use code, to more effectively preserve the rural character of the county while treating individual property owners fairly. One of the first steps in this process was to repeal the mountain mergers rule. The previous rule had unfairly burdened a small group of property owners by merging the titles of separate lots. Our rewrite of the land use code also loosened restrictions on selling farm products in agricultural zones, helping to make farming more economically viable.

More recently we have begun clarifying the regulations that address the size of new houses in unincorporated areas of the county. Over the last few years, there has been an explosion in the size of new homes, with permit applications for dwelling units running as high as 15,000, 20,000 and even nearly 30,000 square feet. The average size of homes constructed in unincorporated Boulder County is now over 6,000 square feet.

Residents have complained for years about this trend toward larger homes, as this new construction can have significant impacts on view corridors and neighborhood character. Homes of such large proportion also consume enormous resources. The new regulations we developed address these concerns by mandating that large homes have no net energy impact. We recently adopted regulations that set a clear standard for neighborhood compatibility. Finally, under new regulations , developers that build very large homes must offset their impacts by purchasing transferable development rights that preserve open lands or existing small homes.

What I have left to do as commissioner:

I will continue working to preserve the open areas of Boulder County. There are crucial lands which still need preservation – such as important community buffers west of Longmont and throughout Eastern Boulder County, key habitat in the foothills, agricultural lands between Boulder Creek and the St. Vrain River. I will work to ensure that the open space program is well funded and can continue its important mission.

I also will work to continuously improve open space management by using more of our agricultural lands for local and organic food production, restoring native habitats, and reducing pesticide use. And I will continue to work to provide more recreational trails, in appropriate locations, that maximize the recreational opportunities while minimizing environmental impacts.

Finally, I will continue my efforts to improve our land use code. The code must be a tool for preserving the rural character of Boulder County while, at the same time, treating individual property owners fairly and providing greater certainty in land development guidelines.