May 11, 2024

Daily Camera Guest Opinion by Mark Wallach

Mark Wallach is a member of the Boulder City Council. He wrote this piece in his personal capacity, not on behalf of the Council.

In this piece Wallach makes the economic case for converting the airport to neighborhoods.

Here are some of the points Wallach makes in his piece:

The main driver for housing costs in Boulder is the price of land.  Market-rate housing is mostly rental and costs $1,000,000 and up.   This is why it is almost impossible to find housing in the  $600,000 range.  

It is far easier for Boulder to provide low income housing because it receives subsidies to do so.   However, “there are no subsidies for middle-income housing, and, given land costs, no developer ... can build unsubsidized housing for sale and suitable for families in the range of $500,000 to $800,000. But this is the housing we so desperately need.”

Boulder airport land is owned by the city and could be used to provide housing subsidies via the price of the land.   The city can sell to developers at a rate that obligates them to build housing in the $500,000 to $750,000 range.  The units will be deed-restricted, to keep them affordable for future generations.   These units will likely be attractive to some of the 60,000 drivers currently commuting to Boulder.  He says: 

“The point is that we do not have a housing crisis; we have a crisis in providing middle-market housing for those who fall in the gap between qualifying for our affordable housing programs and having a prayer of ever buying a home for $1.5 million. These are the people who have been squeezed out of Boulder. They work for Boulder, they serve Boulder, but they cannot live in Boulder. This is simply wrong.”

The airport could be converted into 15-minute walkable neighborhoods.  Wallach feels this is the highest and best of the property, far better than “a place where 120 hobbyist pilots (only a portion of whom reside in Boulder) can store and enjoy their planes.”

Wallach points out that every candidate in every election promises to deliver a more affordable Boulder.   The airport property may be the last opportunity to actually fulfill that promise.