Board suggests relaxing house-size limits in proposed ‘pops and scrapes’ ordinance

The Boulder City Council will soon hear the Planning Board's recommendations on a proposed "pops and scrapes" ordinance that limits the size of remodeled and new homes in established neighborhoods.

The ordinance addresses the issue of remodeling homes to increase their size as well as "scraping" of an old home to replace ("popping") it with a new, bigger home that doesn't fit in with the character of its established neighborhood.

The Planning Board’s recommendations, according to the Boulder Daily Camera, are more relaxed than what the city staff had suggested. Among the changes the board is recommending:

- Increase the floor-area ratio – the finished square footage of a house divided by the total lot area – allowed from the staff-recommended 0.45 to .5;

- Increase the allowable footprint of a home from the staff-recommended 30 percent to a 35 percent;

- Exempting barns, sheds or other structures from all restrictions, including floor-area ratio and footprint, if the city designates them as historic landmarks;

- Limiting restrictions to the Residential-Low 1 district, the zoning for single-family houses, and not including zones for mixed-residential and residential estates. The board suggests re-evaluating the issue after a year to determine whether to include other districts;

- Excluding 150 square feet of covered decks or patios not on front patios in floor-area ratios, whereas the draft ordinance also allows for 300 square feet of front porches;

- Increasing restrictions on wall length and design, adding rules for wall articulation and substantially increasing permit fees.

The City Council will have its first review of the proposed ordinance 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 4, in the City Council Chambers, 1777 Broadway. The final review and vote is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 18, at the same location. For more information about the proposed ordinance, visit the city of Boulder’s Compatible Development in Single-Family Neighborhoods Web page, http://ci.boulder.co.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9051&Itemid=22.

To provide feedback on the proposed regulations, visit http://ci.boulder.co.us/files/PDS/compatible_development/comment_sheet.pdf or e-mail johnstonj@bouldercolorado.gov.

Boulder home prices remain steady in face of uncertainty

While many U.S. communities are experiencing depreciation of their homes – some even in the double digits in coastal states such as California and Florida – Boulder’s home prices have held steady over the last year.

Recent numbers from IRES shows existing-home prices within the city of Boulder increased 3 percent in the third quarter of 2007 compared with the same period last year. And the latest figures from the National Association of Realtors showed that while the median price of existing homes in the Boulder-Longmont area has fluctuated slightly since the third quarter of 2006, the median price for the third quarter of 2007 remained unchanged from the previous year. The median home price for the U.S. dropped 2 percent in the same period.

Ken Hotard, vice president of public relations for the Boulder Area Realtor Association (BARA), attributed the local market’s strength to the absence of rapid appreciation of home values in past years that occurred along the nation’s coasts.

“We never really did have a bubble,” he says.

Boulder also remains a popular home town, with its location offering a plethora of indoor and outdoor recreational opportunities, open space, federal laboratories and a healthy entertainment environment, Hotard says.

“Basic economics 101 will tell you that simple supply and demand plays a role here,” he says, noting Boulder’s high quality of living makes it a desirable place to live, but it has a limited ability to grow and, therefore, a limited supply of housing.

A recent study of Boulder’s affordable housing by BARA, in cooperation with the University of Colorado Real Estate Center and Leeds School of Business Research Division, showed clearly that the city of Boulder has a wealth-based housing market and local economy, Hotard says.

In other words, the city’s residents’ median income of $80,000 would not support the median home price, he says. In fact, 30 percent of all homeowners in the city of Boulder have no mortgage, which means they either paid cash for their homes or they have lived here long enough to have paid off their mortgages.

Nonetheless, Boulder-area homes are not appreciating as much as they have in years past because of the slower economy and less job growth, Hotard says.

“There’s been some but there hasn’t been like there was in the ’90s,” he says.

From 1990 to 2000, the average appreciation of Boulder homes was just over 10 percent, Hotard says. However, a housing study under way now shows that over the last 25 years, the annual appreciation rate for homes in Boulder city limits is 6.2 percent, and for Boulder County homes it is 4.8 percent.

Hotard says a 4 percent to 6 percent appreciation rate represents a healthy, sustainable market that makes purchasing real estate a wise long-term investment.

A 3 percent appreciation rate, though not as good, reflects a stable market, he says.

“That covers inflation,” Hotard says. “You’re not losing money but you’re not gaining much.”

Hotard predicts that the appreciation rate will remain stable and relatively unchanged until 2009 or 2010 in the absence of economy-impacting positive or negative events.

Once a new president and Congress are in place in 2009, it will take a while until it is clear how those changes will affect the real estate market, Hotard says.