Washington Village
Nov 2nd, 2007 by nghbr
The proposed co-housing development at the site of the former Washington Elementary school continues to be a hot topic locally. Due to the high level of exposure in the local media (I, II) we have been focused on other issues affecting the community. Recently, however, Shawn Coleman, a candidate in the upcoming City Council election, offered to share his thoughts on the project. With experience in Boulder’s city government, and having served on the board of the Nomad co-housing project, Shawn brings up some interesting points about the potentially flawed process that brought the project to its current, controversial state:
Washington School:
A Case Study in Competing Community Goals.
Preface, this piece is not intended to imply an opinion of the City Council decision, but simply a case study to begin the discussion of how to address competing community goals.
The City of Boulder in the year 2005 entered a lease agreement with the Boulder Valley School district, to lease Washington School. The rationale was to prevent the School district from selling the land to a private entity who would likely raze the school. The City used it’s money to forward a community goal, historic preservation. A condition of the 2 year lease was to have a process where projects would come forward and would be judged on criteria not limited to 1.Preservation of the school building (objective), Added community benefit (subjective), and Affordable housing (quasi-subjective). I say not limited criteria because for the project be approved it would also have to meet the following criteria:
BVSD: The entity would have to be able to afford to buy the land at established value.
Private Entity: The project would have to be bankable as well as profitable, (remember loaning institutions and investors are less interested in subjective matters like “community benefit” and very interested in objective matters like “how much return will I get if you develop a project without disturbing a large school in the middle of the plot of land?”
With this very high bar to reach, and with so many competing agendas to satisfy, It is clear the outcome that we have (only one project moving forward to site review) was the only outcome available from such an inherently flawed process. In the context of the rules of the game the City itself outlined, there was no alternative outcome.
We have decided as community to pursue myriad ambitious and conflicting goals. Each of these values are important enough to a critical mass of the electorate that they have become policy, irrespective of the fact that each goal individually also has a critical mass of people who adamantly disagree. Each goal, while providing a subjective community benefit carries an objective community liability.
In an affluent community that values economic and ethnic diversity, A growing community that values open space, a modern city that speaks of energy efficiency and historic preservation in the same breath, and a City that demands an extraordinary level of municipal service while the demographic changes to a service (non-taxed) driven economy, we need to revisit some of our goals and truly decide which direction we’re going to go. Boulder is a great City, but it is only a City and it simply cannot be all things to all people. And in order for Boulder to continue to be a great City we will need to continually evaluate and reevaluate our goals. Change and growth is inevitable. The questions are: How do we manage change and growth, and to what end do we continually pursue goals that are in direct conflict? While it is vital that those in positions of leadership understand the broad picture, it is also vital that in the realm of public discourse that the trade offs of policy are fully explained and vetted so the public has an opportunity to make an informed choice. We also need to understand that Boulder, is a City, in Boulder County, State of Colorado, and we are affected by what happens socially and economically in the state, and try as we might we are subject to realities beyond our control. The only opportunity for long term maintenance of the quality of life we have come to enjoy in Boulder, is a balanced equitable, and wholly normal approach to municipal government. The angst of this project comes from economic realities that we have actively pursued. There is no value to blaming the outcome, it is the process that got us here, and to the end that we choose not to make changes to our municipal priorities, and come to terms with a reality that may not be any individuals personal vision of Boulder’s future, we will certainly be in this predicament again, and soon. Boulder is not alone in inequality, Boulder is not unique in lacking diversity, and Boulder is not special in it’s inability to please all the people all the time. Boulder is special because of how we handle these challenges, and though the solutions and outcomes are not always the best, we should have some sense of pride in that we at least attempt to be equitable, diverse and amicable. We do far more than most communities, and though our challenges are great, there is also great opportunity in those challenges. We will not all agree on all things, but we must make the effort to continually upgrade our civil discourse, ask the hard questions, and make the tough choices. We must take a hard look at our competing, and conflicting community goals, and realize that we simply cannot do it all. And with compassion we have to understand that doing what is popular is not always the same as doing what is right.