Colorado Cities Create Strategies to Cope With Burgeoning Population

This university city nestled against green, undulating hills and set off by the gray, sloping cliffs of the Flatirons is both revered and reviled for its growth controls.

The community of 96,000 about 25 miles northwest of Denver has a thriving pedestrian mall, flourishing high-tech companies and a greenbelt that provides hikers, deer, elk and bears room to roam in the mountains.

But critics say the 20-year-old limit on residential growth has boosted prices and forced out some families, despite a requirement that developments include inexpensive housing.

Boulderites have tried to maintain their scenic backdrop and urban amenities with small-city convenience by restricting residential growth first to 2% and in 1995 to 1%, based on the number of housing permits issued the previous year.

But sometimes even when you don’t build it, they come.

“Growth is continuing, in fact it’s flourishing,” said Deputy Mayor Spenser Havlick, who championed growth controls first as an activist and then as a council member.

People and businesses, drawn by the lifestyle, moved in. About 45,000 people a day commute to their jobs in Boulder, aggravating traffic and parking problems.

“The net result of 10 years of this or 15 years of this was that we were not taming growth. In fact, in some ways, we were exacerbating it,” said Havlick, a professor in the University of Colorado’s planning and architecture department.

He says encouraging a blend of commercial and residential development with better public transportation is one answer to the continuing growth.

Colorado, with an estimated population of 3.82 million people, was the fifth fastest-growing state last year.

Other cities are joining Boulder as projections show the population increasing by 700,000 in the Denver metro area and to 5.2 million statewide by 2020. Aspen, Lafayette and Golden have residential growth limits, and there is a move in Superior to follow suit.

Gov. Roy Romer began his “Smart Growth “ program, with its “bottom-up” approach to land-use planning, with a statewide convention in January 1995. A council was formed to coordinate efforts in 11 regions, and state task forces were appointed to discuss specific problems.

The emphasis, though, is at the local level. Romer hopes encouragement and help from the state, including grants and training, will spur cities and counties to draft land-use plans and forge joint agreements.

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Efforts to mandate regional and statewide programs in the 1970s met a lot of opposition.

“There’s a Western ethic that your property is your own and an ethic that you want government that’s local,” said Romer, a Democrat in his third and last term as governor.

Some issues, however, require a broader approach, he said.

One example is management of the 3 million acres of state trust lands. Romer campaigned for a constitutional amendment approved last year that sets aside 300,000 acres of the land for open space.

The shift from getting the most money possible from sale or lease of the trust lands was a recommendation by the Interregional Council of the Smart Growth and Development Initiative.

The council’s recommendation for a study of Colorado’s transportation needs produced a report identifying a $13-billion shortfall in transportation needs over the next 20 years. A 5-cents-per-gallon gas tax to raise $2.4 billion is proposed for the November ballot.

Many of the accomplishments have been at the local level, advocates say. Annual awards recognize local successes, such as a task force of Gunnison County ranchers, environmentalists, developers and residents that explored ways to preserve open space and provide low- and moderate-income housing.

Charles Unseld, program manager for Smart Growth in the state Division of Local Government, was a Black Hawk city councilman when he participated in the Front Range Project created by former Gov. Richard Lamm. There was little follow-through on the 1984 report’s suggestions, he said.

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After years of battling over turf and tax revenue, cities and counties in the Denver metro area are close to agreeing on a growth boundary. The Denver Regional Council of Governments’ “Metro Vision” would be a land-use plan for the metro area through 2020.

The nearly 50 cities, towns and counties are still trying to pare the area from 720 square miles to the targeted 700 square miles.

Considering that the starting point was 1,200 square miles, a lot of progress has been made in about five years, said Longmont Mayor Leona Stoecker.

Agreeing on a boundary could be easy compared to the next one: implementation of the plan. Flexibility and making the plan voluntary, rather than mandatory, are key, said Stoecker, head of the Metro Vision Policy Committee.

She said the regional council studied Oregon’s approach and decided it wouldn’t work in Colorado.

In 1973, Oregon passed a law requiring local governments to draft comprehensive plans. Four years later, Portland-area voters created Metro, an elected body responsible for planning and transportation.

“This is much more of a bottom-up approach than Portland,” said Scott Woodard of the regional council staff. “When we started working with local officials, they were adamant that they didn’t want the Legislature doing it.”

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The Western Slope is the fastest-growing part of Colorado, say state demographers, largely because of the ski areas.

In Montezuma County in far southwest Colorado, the population was 18,672 in 1990 and 21,820 in 1995.

The influx, small by Front Range standards, has had profound effects on the traditional farming and ranching communities, said Cindy Dvergsten, a county planning commissioner.

Clashes erupt when newcomers complain about longtime residents’ chain-link fences, trailers and what they consider junk in yards and fields.

“What they don’t understand is that pile of junk out there means a lot to some people,” said Dvergsten, who lives near Cortez.

Former city dwellers also don’t understand that ranchers sometimes need to cross their property to track down stray livestock or get to an irrigation ditch. A county handbook explains some of the realities of country living.

The county has also written its first land-use plan after more than a year’s work by a diverse group of residents. The plan relies more on voluntary compliance and community responsibility than those in urban areas, Dvergsten said.