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The Best Business Ideas Shaping Boulder's Future

May 16, 2016

To: Boulder City Council

Re: Co-op Housing Policy

Dear Boulder City Councilors,

The broad issue of housing in Boulder includes the paradigm of co-operative housing; your decisions at

the May 17, 2016 Council meeting should enable the best forms of co-ops to thrive as options for a

subset of Boulder residents who find this to be their most practical and desired manner of living.

In January we prompted you in advance of your Goals Retreat to create a goal for more workforce and

middle-income housing to be achieved via flexible zoning changes. Co-ops are one such option. With the

proposals you’re considering, you have the chance to at least “legalize reality”, to the extent various co-

ops already exist by design or default in Boulder already. In addition, the modest number of new co-ops

that you could allow with the proposed language is nominal. You can consider them to be another

version of a “living lab” – worth trying.

The versions of ownership and residency type - private equity, limited equity, rental and non-

profit – should all be allowed, in equal amounts of licenses per year. If it becomes obvious a

certain category is most effective (or causes the least problems) that can help shape future

approval protocols.

The ability to inspect and otherwise regulate co-ops like rental properties is a double-edged

sword. For safety and certain building codes this is helpful - but recognize that by its design and

by the self-selected characteristics of a multi-person/multi-family residence certain regulations

are not realistic nor relevant. For example, the water budgets assigned to a residential property

per existing water policy would need to allow for the density of the site.

Thank you for taking on this topic as one small part of our housing challenges. Please be supportive of

this reasonable evolution of Boulder's housing options.

Sincerely,

Dan Powers Executive Director

Boulder Tomorrow

720-222-9602

dan@bouldertomorrow.com