New Partners for Smart Growth Conference in Denver, Feb 13-15

"The challenges of the 21st century will require an unprecedented level of collaboration and innovation. Working together across disciplines, we can create communities that are resilient, prosperous and equitable. The New Partners conference will connect you to diverse experts, new strategies and cutting-edge tools that will help create positive change, starting with your community."  

— Kate Meis, Executive Director, 

Local Government Commission

Learn more . . .

Curbside Chat with Chuck Marohn

Chuck Marohn talks about Strong Towns at Glenwood Spring Community Center

Chuck Marohn, author of Thoughts on Building Strong Towns (Volume 1), the primary author of the Strong Towns Blog and the host of the Strong Towns Podcast, presented to 35 residents from the region about the Ponzi scheme growth and development experiment that has dominated communities across the U.S. since the 1950s. 

The main points of his presentation and ongoing work focus on these tenets: 

• Current path that cities are currently on is not financially stable,
• The future for most cities is not going to resemble the recent past; and
• The main determinant of prosperity for cities is the ability of local leaders to transform their communities.

Thanks to Channel 10 for taping the presentation.  We'll post it shortly.

Read Aspen Daily News article prior to the event 

Beyond the Boom

The Rocky Mountain News did a series on the energy boom rocking parts of Colorado and how communities are enjoying, coping, and mitigating the impacts (or at least trying to). The series offers a a number of perspectives and the challenges involved in local-state-federal policy making and planning.

The day 1 article in the series, entitled "The billion dollar question: What if?", is particularly interesting because two state legislators have taken seemingly opposite positions from the ones you would think they would take given their respective political ties. Their perspective is likely influenced by their location place in the state and the energy boom.

Representative Josh Penry, a Mesa County Republican, is witnessing the energy boom first hand and is a big supporter of creating a permanent trust fund from oil and gas severance taxes - similar to what Wyoming did a decade ago. Chris Romer, a Democratic Senator from the Denver Metro area, favors the more measured approach of analyzing how taxes are currently collected and allocated before the state tries to set up a permanent fund.

Who's the conservative in this debate?

Read the entire series

Economies collide with nature

The natural resource based economy that dominated the Western Slope of Colorado for so many years is making a come back.

As Jason Blevins writes in the Sunday Denver Post, mining is coming back to a number of communities due to increasing demand and prices for precious minerals like molybdenum.

If the recent natural gas boom in Garfield County offers any crystal ball, more Western Slope communities are due increasing revenues, stressed infrastructure, a quick disappearance of affordable housing, and a shortage of workers.

The natural amenity and natural resource economy are colliding and the only thing they have in common is a reliance on nature.

Garfield County sees explosive growth

Garfield County received front page space in the Sunday Denver Post due to the energy boom driving the county's economy.

Jason Blevins story captures the essence of life in Garfield County since the boom began five years ago. As New Castle Mayor Frank Breslin says, “It's just all happening so fast out here. I just dart around like a bumblebee.”

The economic growth has been a boon to a county mired in a slump cause by the overnight departure of Exxon (Black Sunday) in 1982 and the county now has more jobs than it has workers. The challenge for the public sector is to try tokeep up and pay for the infrastructure to support the increases in traffic, homes, and wastewater while competing with the gas companies for workers.

Blevins quotes Christy Hamrick, the finance director for Garfield County's 4,500-student school district, “We pay drivers $14 an hour, and they pay $22 an hour. We have to compete with that, and we've seen lots of turnover. ”

Communities innovate to provide health insurance

The lack of leadership at the national level to provide health insurance to the over 45 million Americans that do not have it, has driven states like Maine, Massachussetts to create programs for the uninsured within their borders. As Kevin Sack writes in the New York Times, some cities are becoming local laboratories for health insurance innovation.

[...] Healthy San Francisco, is the first effort by a locality to guarantee care to all of its uninsured [82,000 resident], and it represents the latest attempt by state and local governments to patch a inadequate federal system.

It is financed mostly by the city, which is gambling that it can provide universal and sensibly managed care to the uninsured for about the amount being spent on their treatment now, often in emergency rooms.

After a two-month trial at two clinics in Chinatown, the program is scheduled to expand citywide to 20 more locations on Sept. 17.

Whether such a program might be replicated elsewhere is difficult to assess. In addition to its unique political culture, San Francisco, with a population of about 750,000, has the advantages of compact geography, a unified city-county government, an extensive network of public and community clinics and a relatively small number of uninsured adults. Virtually all the city’s children are covered by private insurance or government plans.

Read the full article . . .

Counter intuitive approaches to managing traffic

Many people in the U.S. have heard the expression "changing the rules of the game." In some European cities, however, traffic engineers are just about eliminating the rules of the road and removing all the streets signs American drivers are so familiar with.

As Matthias Schulz writes at Spiegel Online:

The plans derive inspiration and motivation from a large-scale experiment in the town of Drachten in the Netherlands, which has 45,000 inhabitants. There, cars have already been driving over red natural stone for years. Cyclists dutifully raise their arm when they want to make a turn, and drivers communicate by hand signs, nods and waving.

"More than half of our signs have already been scrapped," says traffic planner Koop Kerkstra. "Only two out of our original 18 traffic light crossings are left, and we've converted them to roundabouts." Now traffic is regulated by only two rules in Drachten: "Yield to the right" and "Get in someone's way and you'll be towed."

Strange as it may seem, the number of accidents has declined dramatically. Experts from Argentina and the United States have visited Drachten. Even London has expressed an interest in this new example of automobile anarchy. And the model is being tested in the British capital's Kensington neighborhood.

TOD can save the planet

Transit oriented development is gaining traction around the U.S. (it's already popular in many other countries) because it can address many community issues -- provide affordable housing, increase transit service, prevent loss of open space, create public places -- at the same time.

And now, in case you needed another reason to support TOD, it can also save the planet. As San Mateo County Supervisior Adrienne Tissier writes,

The solutions to global warming are found in modern urban planning and zoning and three little words: Transit Oriented Development. Build well-designed, affordable housing within walking distance of efficient mass transit, and the air-fouling traffic jams will unclog themselves. Better yet, build well-designed, affordable housing within walking distance of jobs, schools and retail, and car use will plummet.

It is nice to know that something good for a community has a global benefit as well.

Carbondale's educational challenge

Combine a diverse student body, two charter schools, a well known private high school, a number of private elementary schools, and a statewide open enrollment policy and you get a number of challenging educational and community issues in Carbondale.

A couple of weeks ago, Town Trustees heard various opinions about a proposed state bill to create more accountability for state approved charter schools, which brought up issues of segregation in Carbondale's elementary schools, and now parent concerns about enrollment and academic standards at Roaring Fork High School has reached public attention again.

Perhaps, as an editorial in the Valley Journal suggests, it is time for a meeting of the minds on the Carbondale's school.

Basalt wrestles growth

When you are the first town downvalley from Aspen and Snowmass Village, and stradle the boundary between Pitkin and Eagle Counties, you would expect some challenging planning and community development situations.

Nowadays, just about every where the Town of Basalt turns presents another significant challenge. For example:

• Last month, one Basalt's two downtown affordable hotels, The Green Drake Inn, sold for $4.4 million to an investment group that could repeat the trend in Aspen of converting small lodge and hotel rooms to fractional ownership luxury units;


• The town is working to connect the older part of town to the newer south side with an underpass, since the 6-lanes of State Highway 82 presents a formidable barrier between two parts of town;


• The booming second-home market is creating a shortage of affordable housing and every undevelopmed parcel in Basalt's urban growth boundary has a development proposal in the review process; and,


• The town hopes to complete the update its of 1999 urban growth boundary and master plan by this summer.

No wonder a recent Aspen Times Weekly article by Scott Condon asked 'What's happening to my small, quirky town?'

System versus Silo Thinking

Neal Peirce writes about the the "green revolution" happening in America's cities and towns in the January, American Prospect. 

Peirce describes a number of cities (Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle) that are re-connecting the commons (parks, roads, rivers, and everywhere there is public investment) through public infrastructure investments to create heatlhy places.  The projects are bold, exciting, and hold promise for state and national policy.  But, he points out, the work ahead requires a change it the way we think and approach problem solving.  He writes,

"[...] there's the challenge to the professionals -- the architects, planners, designers, engineers, builders, utility representatives, city and county housing officials, and others engaged on the front line of building and reshaping communities. Historically -- and often, still today -- they have worked sequentially, first doing the land planning, then the underground pipes, then roadways and buildings and so on.

In a smart 21st century, that won't do. It costs too much and it misses opportunities for better aesthetics, energy efficiency, and quality of life. The time's at hand to move from silos to systems [emphasis added]. It's the right moment to ask the professionals to start thinking more broadly, to work closely with colleagues from the other disciplines from start to end of any project."

No Parking: Condos Leave Out Cars

A recent NY Times article highlights examples of condos being built without associated parking spaces. Although this practice goes against the codes in many communities, planners are realizing that "free parking" might be a reason why housing has become so unaffordable to middle-income families.

The article quotes Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at the University of California at Los Angeles and the author of The High Cost of Free Parking, "In the United States, housing is expensive and parking is cheap. We’ve got it the wrong way around.”

Although condominiums without parking are common in Manhattan and the downtowns of a few other East Coast cities, they are the exception to the rule in most of the country. In fact, almost all local governments require developers to provide a minimum number of parking spaces for each unit — and to fold the cost of the space into the housing price.

The exact regulations, which are intended to prevent clogged streets and provide sufficient parking, vary by city. Houston’s code requires a minimum of 1.33 parking spaces for a one-bedroom and 2 spaces for a three-bedroom. Downtown Los Angeles mandates 2.25 parking spaces per unit, regardless of size.

Today, city planners around the country are trying to change or eliminate these standards, opting to promote mass transit and find a way to lower housing costs.

Read the full aricle in the New York Times . . .

Basalt rejects Roaring Fork Club plan

The Basalt Town Council's decision (5-1) to instruct its staff to prepare denial documents on the Roaring Fork Club golf club's expansion proposal is the most significant decision for the board since the election of three new board members in April. The board members Amy Capon, Gary Tennenbaum, and Chris Seldin were elected, in large part, due to concerns over the proposed expansion and its relationship the the Town's Master Plan. All three ran voicing their support of the current Master Plan. As Scott Condon writes on the decision,

The council majority said they didn't believe the application by developer Jim Light and his partners complied with the Basalt land-use master plan, a blueprint for where and how the town wants to grow.

Council members cited the application's request that the town annex property outside an "urban growth boundary."

The Roaring Fork Club is east of the Elk Run subdivision. It has an 18-hole golf course and 48 luxury cabins. It applied to add 32 cabins, 18 single-family homes and 36 affordable residences.

To a large degree, the Roaring Fork Club was victimized by a changing of the guard on the council and a poor decision by the council in June 2005. Here's the sequence of events that led to Tuesday night's denial:

• The project is submitted in August 2004.

• After months of debate and opposition from a citizens group, Light suggests on June 21, 2005, that the town place the Roaring Fork Club application on a shelf for up to eight weeks. That would give the town time to work on an update to the master plan in the area where the club wants to expand. The council and the town planning commission decline the offer. They say the review of the application and the update of the master plan can occur concurrently.

• The council's decision motivates a citizens group to oppose the project on grounds that the master plan is being ignored. That group stayed engaged in the process throughout the next 17 months.

• In April 2006, three new council members are voted into office. Tennenbaum, Seldin and Capron pledged in the campaign to the uphold the master plan.

• The Roaring Fork Club clears its first hurdle. The town planning commission grants first-round approval. However, the commission doesn't debate whether the plan complies with the master plan. That left the threshold issue to the council, and on Tuesday night the hammer fell.

Rappaport and Dows acknowledged, to some degree, that they voted to let the review go concurrently with the update of the master plan back in June 2005. That process "failed," Rappaport said. He and Dows also said they have heard from numerous residents in public hearings since then that the master plan must be upheld or changed via a process that allows all citizens to participate.

Public hearings on the master plan update are expected later this year or in early 2007.

Read the full article by Scott Condon . . .

Summit County votes for affordable housing

This summer, when Summit Housing Authority Board decided to put a funding question on the ballot, the polls did not look particularly good.

The proposed combination of a new sales tax and impact fees - fees assessed on new construction based on square footage - was the most popular scenario among respondents, but garnered support from only 47 percent of those surveyed.

The sales tax increase of 12.5 cents per hundred dollars will raise about $1.4 million. The graduated impact fees start at zero for smaller units and go up to $2 per square foot for units bigger than 5,000 square-feet, generating an expected $2 million the first year.

With projected funding of up to $3.4 million the first year, the new Multi-jurisdictional Housing Authority (MJHA) hopes to gear and build up to 50 units of affordable housing per year.
Read the full article by Bob Berwyn . . .

Carbondale aims to be renewable energy Mecca

While the western portion of Garfield County is booming with oil and gas development, and the associated environmental impacts, the eastern end of the county is looking in a different direction for energy production.

Carbondale Question 2F on the Nov. 7 ballot will ask voters to allow the town of Carbondale to issue up to $1.8 million in Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBs) to construct and operate two large-scale solar systems.

The proposed systems would provide about 250 kilowatts (KW) of power. One of the systems would be the largest solar system in western Colorado.

Voting "yes" on 2F will increase the town's debt, but will not raise local taxes. Revenue from the solar systems will pay off the bonds over the next 20 years. And, under a provision of the 2005 Energy Incentives Tax Act, the interest on the CREBs will be paid by the U.S. Government.

Carbondale trustees unanimously decided to pursue the CREBs after the town's advisory environmental board produced the Carbondale Energy Plan earlier this year. The plan outlines specific ways Carbondale can reduce its contribution to global warming.

The CREBs will fund two separate solar projects, one for 50 kilowatts (KW) and one for 200 KW. The 50 KW system will be located at the Carbondale Elementary School (the town is in negotiations with the school district to purchase the property) or the new recreation center and the larger system will be located either at Colorado Rocky Mountain School or at the town's Roaring Fork water plant.

Read full article by Gina Guarascio . . .

Meanwhile Boulder considers a Carbon Tax . . .

Trees for the urban environment and community equity

Trees in an arid environment such as Denver cannot be taken for granted. But it is not only rain fall that determines the type and number of trees - commuity income plays a factor as well.

A 2003 Denver park study showed lower-income neighborhoods have less than 5 percent canopy cover while higher-income neighborhoods had more than 15 percent cover.

"It's pretty remarkable when you see the disparity," said Patrick Hayes, director of the Park People, which plants more than 1,000 trees a year in poorer neighborhoods.

Adding trees to a semi-arid steppe ecosystem isn't natural, but neither are concrete, asphalt or Kentucky bluegrass, said Dan Binkley, a professor in Colorado State University's department of forestry, rangeland and watershed stewardship.

"The trees will use water," he said. "It's similar to the amount of water on lawns. But there is more of a cooling effect and more noise abatement."

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper wants to raise the metro area's shade coverage to 18 percent in 20 years by planting 1 million trees over the next 20 years.

That comes to 137 trees being planted every day - 50,000 new trees every year.

"It's a question, like anything, of who, where and when," Hickenlooper said about the proposal announced in July as part of his Greenprint Denver plan.

Read the full article in the Denver Post . . .

Multi-family affordable development opens in Steamboat

Fox Creek is a new development in Steamboat Springs containing 30 deed-restricted, affordable housing condominiums, designed for families and homeowners with low to moderate incomes.

The ribbon-cutting marked the culmination of three years of work by the Yampa Valley Housing Authority, which planned, managed and spearheaded funding for the $6 million development.

Most Fox Creek residents will close on the purchase of their new homes later this month. Most of the units at Fox Creek have two bedrooms and two bathrooms. With grant assistance, all homebuyers will pay less than $200,000.

Read the full article in the Steamboat Pilot . . .

The Small-Mart Revolution

When Michael Shuman presented at Healthy Mountain Communities', 1st State of the Valley Symposium in 2003, he presented an alternative approach to economic development that focused on local ownership and import substitution (LOIS) rather than the export model so common today.

Now he has completed The Small-Mart Revolution, which details the reasons why 'local' is working across the U.S.

As the publisher summarizes, The Small-Mart Revolution:

• Shows exactly why locally owned businesses are far more beneficial to their communities than massive chains like Wal-Mart


• Outlines specific strategies small and home-based businesses are using to successfully outcompete the world's largest companies


• Advises consumers, investors, policymakers, and organizers on how they can support the the local entrepreneurs who contribute to their communities

Read more or order the book . . .

Crested Butte tries 'horizontal zoning'

The Crested Butte Town Council passed an ordinance that restricts the types of businesses that can operate along Elk Avenue, the main drag, but some think it’s too much, too soon. About 60 people showed up at last week’s council meeting, and many of them were opposed to the new ordinance.

The goal of the new “horizontal” zoning ordinance is to add more sales tax to town coffers by encouraging retail businesses, while discouraging businesses on the street that collect no sales tax.

The ordinance would only affect ground-floor businesses and those below street level with display windows on the street, but would not affect businesses on upper floors. Existing businesses would not be affected until they change hands and businesses set back from Elk Avenue more than 40 feet are exempt.

Mayor Alan Bernholtz, said the ordinance is needed because the ski town has a tourist-based economy.

“It’s not a unique issue. Every resort town is dealing with it, and many have enacted similar regulations,” he said. “When a town like ours runs off sales tax, that money is what we need for our services. We are just trying to stimulate that, and this is just one piece of the puzzle we’re working on.”

Read the full article in the Daily Sentinel . . .

It's boomtime in 'Bondale

Carbondale has more develoment in the pipeline than debating the pros and cons of the Crystal River Marketplace. A flurry of new construction of retail, commercial, industrial and residential developments is either already approved, going through development review or nearly ready to do so.

Some of the projects inlcude:

• American National Bank is planning to move to the corner of Dolores Way and Hwy 133 next to the site where the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority plans to build a new park-and-ride lot.


• Farther up the highway, the in the old Sopris Shopping Plaza, once home to the town's only grocery store, Circle Super, and soon to be old the Paint Store location is to be torn down and replaced with what town officials expect to be a two-story, mixed-use building.


• In the downtown area itself, right next to Town Hall, the new Carbondale Recreation Center is expected to start going up next year on property now occupied by a parking lot and a small house and yard along Colorado Avenue between Fourth and Sixth streets.


• Across Colorado Avenue, developers Ed Podolak and Bill Smith are planning to build another mixed-use, three-story building next to the Thunder River Theater building. It is to be similar to the one they built earlier at the corner of Fourth and Colorado.


• On a vacant lot at the corner of Main and Fourth, formerly owned by Dale Eubank but now owned by an investment group led by architect Charles Cunniffe, town officials are expecting another two-story, mixed-use project, possibly by next summer. And next door, another former Eubank property, European Antiques, is about to get a second story, according to the building's owners.


• Across Fourth Street, the old Mountain Aire apartment complex, now owned by developer Don Ensign, is to be demolished and replaced by a three-story mixed-use project, with retail and residential on the ground floor and residential above.


• Farther east along Main Street, the old yellow wood frame house next to Miser's Mercantile disappeared recently, torn down in a matter of hours, to make way for yet another mixed-use project.


• Heading south along Highway 133, 52 homes are planned for the Kator Grove subdivision. Next door, at Cerise Park, another 40 homes are anticipated once annexation is complete and the developers submit their plans.


• Ongoing construction of the new Roaring Fork High School, the adjacent Carbondale & Rural Volunteer Fire Department training facility and the Crystal River Elementary School.


• The Colorado Department of Transportation to start work next year on the intersection of Highways 133 and 82, and a new Highway 133 bridge across the Roaring Fork River at the north end of town.

The the development is not likely to end soon, according to Town Manager Tom Baker, explaining that as the baby boom generation retires and seeks nice places to spend its declining years, Carbondale seems to be at the top of many lists.


Read the full article in the Aspen Times . . .