McMansions

McMansions on the Chopping Block?
Residents of unincorporated Boulder County may soon no longer be able to build homes as big as their dreams.

The county commissioners are expected to vote this fall on regulations they believe would mitigate the impact of large homes on the county’s rural character and resources.

At the July 10 meeting, th
e commissioners asked staff to draft regulations that would prevent homeowners from building homes on the plains bigger than between 6,500 and 7,000 square feet or from adding on to existing homes to make them bigger than that without purchasing development rights/credits. For the mountains, residents would have to purchase development rights/credits to build or expand homes that would exceed between 4,500 and 5,000 square feet. Both proposed sizes include garages and basements and are about twice as big as what was previously proposed.
The move comes as the median size of a new home in unincorporated Boulder County grew from 5,189 square feet in 2004 to more than 8,000 square feet this year.

The commissioners’ argument is that bigger homes – even those built using green building techniques – are still not sustainable because of the amount of resources associated with both their construction and on-going use, said Michelle Krezek, manager of special projects for the county. As such, those homeowners should have to off-set that resource use by buying development rights/credits that allow the county to purchase open space elsewhere.

County staff members also are researching unique thresholds for Special Character Areas, such as Gold Hill, Eldora and Allenspark, as the board wants to provide them with particular protection, Krezek said.

The commissioners also want to allow property owners who either hav
e or want smaller homes the opportunity to not only sell a portion of their “unused” square footage for a one-time payment, but also have lower ongoing tax assessments on their smaller homes, she said. Doing so will diversify the housing stock and allow people of “varied means” to own homes in Boulder County.

Krezek said the growth of the median size of new homes, along with homeowners substantially adding onto a smaller home – such as building a 6,000-square-foot addition on to a 2,000 square-foot home – or demolishing an existing home to replace it with a much bigger home, is affecting the diversity of housing in the county.

However, the proposed regulations are meeting a fair amount of opposition. Many homeowners, concerned with how the regulations will affect their ability to build their dream home or add on to their existing homes, have spoken against the proposal.

But Ken Hotard, senior vice president, public affairs, of the Boulder Area Realtor Association, said the issue goes beyond individual property rights to the appropriate process for addressing the problem.

“I frankly don’t know whether they should or shouldn’t do something like this,” he said, noting the county already has significant control over home size through zoning, planning review and other regulations.

“Tools exist today that if they were revised they could materially affect home size in an appropriate context that is in relationship” to neighboring properties and the character of the area, Hotard said. Go to http://www.baraonline.com/news/insite/y2007/july/wk12/n1181770336_360399 for more of Ken Hotard's position on the proposed "McMansion regulations.

By RE/MAX of Boulder, Inc.

IBM - New Gunbarrel Facility

IBM Boulder expands data center
Just what the expansion of IBM’s Boulder facility's for a “green” data center will mean for the community in terms of future employment is still not known.

But what city and state officials and economic experts do know is that the expansion will bur
y IBM’s anchor deeper into the economic waters of the community.

The $86 million project involves retrofitting 80,000 square feet of an existing 100,000-square-foot building on IBM’s campus
to data center space, said Dan Willis, spokesman for IBM Boulder. Combined with the existing 225,000-square-foot data center, it will be one of IBM’s largest data centers in the world.

The center will use high-density computer systems with virtualization technology, as well a
s IBM’s Cool Blue portfolio of energy-efficient power and cooling technologies. This, along with energy-efficient design and construction, will reduce the center’s impact on the environment, thus earning it the title of “green” data center.

Willis said since some of IBM Boulder’s existing 3,400 employees will work in the data center and the company is still determining who will work on what projects, how many new workers IBM will need to hire once the center is built out in April 2008 is still in question. Data centers are not labor-intensive, and an expansion does not require as many additional employees as a new company opening or relocating, Willis said.

Nonetheless, “this is a major investment by IBM in the Boulder site," he said. “We hope that it will bode well in the future for both projects and jobs.”

Frances Draper, executive director of the Boulder Economic Council, said despite the unknown job impact, IBM’s investment is substantial for the community.

“For them to build it here is huge because they’re on the forefront of what IBM is doing and they successfully competed” for the expansion, she said. “The fact that they’ve agreed to put $86 million into this community is putting a huge anchor in for IBM and shows that they’re willing to invest” and would likely invest again in the Boulder site.

“It is a very good anchor that they’ve put down.”

The center will allow IBM Boulder to handle “mega, mega, mega data of companies,” she said. “It really changes the dynamic of the kind of business they can take on.”

The fact that the city of Boulder agreed to give IBM a $100,000 rebate through its pilot business incentive program and the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade awarded IBM $632,000 and will work with IBM to establish a training program for the new data center work force proved that the community cares about having IBM here and made a big impression on company executives, Draper said.

And Boulder will see the impact of the new data center through the multiplier effect as visitors from the company and its customers visit to check out the “showcase” data center or to work on projects, she said. Those visitors will spend money on hotel rooms, food and more, and the center could lead to more suppliers and spin-off companies locating in the area.

By RE/MAX of Boulder, Inc.