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What happens to us chickens when the land is redeveloped?
“We are the chickens that live in our family’s backyard and lay eggs to deal with rising costs. And what will happen to the gardens they’ve cared for and served up clean, locally grown food?”
“I’m a rat in the weeds at the end of a spillway. When land owned by upstream people turns into buildings and concrete, and almost all of the surface becomes impervious to water, water levels rise dramatically and the city floods.” It’s working poorly and my burrow could be washed away.So where are you going?”
“I am a sensible old owl who has been plagued by increasingly severe air pollution due to excessive traffic. I wonder how the people I live near would feel if taxes were raised to cover the increasing cost of RTDs to provide their services.RTDs are mostly tax-funded As a result, more and more riders are unable to earn enough to cover their increased costs.”
“I’m a dog who lives in an area that is slated for densification, presumably to solve the ‘housing crisis’. This is the inevitable effect of flawed planning in multiple areas. No zoning requirements to balance work and housing growth. Lack of impact fees sufficient to fully cover development costs including roads, schools, parks, utility lines, pipes, supplies, etc. Inadequate requirements that business development contributes sufficiently to the provision of affordable housing. Why are human politicians refusing to acknowledge these multiple failures, likewise failing to make the necessary changes, ignoring the impact of severe water supply shortages and growth on Colorado’s open lands? I’m wondering if they’re just barking about “housing growth.”
“I am a cat and my human pet continues to subsidize job growth through tax cuts where our state government doesn’t need it, creating excessive demand for housing and driving up prices. State economic development agencies, for example, are giving businesses millions of dollars in tax incentives to add. About 500 jobs in Boulder County, could exacerbate the “housing crisis” in the region. This isn’t the first time this has happened in the Boulder area. Another was just a few years ago. I do not understand. Why haven’t our human legislators restricted such giveaways to areas of actual unemployment and not to areas of excessive employment growth? We don’t need to raise taxes (to compensate for tax cuts) to increase the demand for free!”
My point with all of this is to hopefully bring greater awareness to this urge for more humans. To ignore this finiteness is to the detriment of both the human condition and the rest of the natural world, which sustains and nurtures us without which humans cannot survive. In other words, you can’t keep adding more and more. there must be an end. And we may already be past that tipping point.
At a more local level, we continue to create what we call resource debt. We authorize more and more developments without having the means to address the needs it creates. Some of these needs can be addressed with more money. This means higher taxes and development impact fees. But some things, like open spaces and wildlife, are finite and irreplaceable.
There was one positive move recently at Fort Collins. Their city council has approved some new planning rules that are spurring housing growth and disrupting single-family neighborhoods. Many citizens did not like the event and collected enough signatures for a referendum. But instead of forcing a vote, the council wisely abolished their own ordinances! And they decided to have broader public participation!!
One city councilor sees the contradiction of having a single, simplified goal for housing: It’s an impossible job, not a government job,” he said. According to Colorado“That doesn’t mean we’re not working on affordable housing. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t sound and improved land-use practices, but that’s a pretty high hurdle and we’re not getting anywhere.”
Steve Pomerance is a former Boulder City Council member. steve pomerance@yahoo.com.
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