December 8, 2025

Dear Mayor Brockett, City Council Members, Boulder Planning Board Members, Boulder County Commissioners, Boulder County Planning Staff, and Boulder County Planning Commission Members,

Better Boulder appreciates the opportunity to contribute to the ongoing BVCP major update process as it unfolds. We are sharing additional thoughts in advance of the joint PB/CC study session on December 11th, 2025, beyond those in our letter to you dated July 15th. This additional input is based on what we have heard to date as well as the staff presentation to Planning Board on September 26th. It is our understanding that a draft revised plan may be available in March of 2026, which is exciting news.

This BVCP should allow for flexibility and changes that move the city into a more sustainable, walkable city with a variety of housing types linked by transit. We believe that the update process is heading in a positive direction with the proposed framework and approach, and that the work is generally aligned with the key priorities below.

Thank you. Continue to think big!

Key Priorities Expressed in the Better Boulder July 15th Letter:

  1. Envision a bold, compelling, and realistic future for the Boulder Valley.
  2. Improve regional planning for transportation, housing, and employment.
  3. Update the BVCP to remove outdated regulatory barriers so this vision can be implemented.
  4. Increase transparency in governance, budgeting, and visioning.

Current Feedback:

We appreciate the new Land Use Map and Land Use Designations of Neighborhoods, Hubs, Networks, and Institutions. We see these land-use designations as aspirational rather than prescriptive. Do not allow existing zoning, area plans, subcommunity plans, or concerns about creating nonconforming uses or regulatory inconsistencies to limit this fresh vision. Do not view the policies and regulations as restrictive, but as encouraging.

Greater simplification of the Land Use Designations may be possible by removing delineations between some subcategories, allowing for more clarity of intent and greater flexibility in implementation. Walkable 15-minute neighborhoods occur at a finer scale than the land-use map areas, and we rely on the innovation of individual property owners in achieving this goal. We need to make small businesses in private homes legal, allowing small scale neighborhood-serving commercial to grow in some residential areas (around public parks or at key intersections, perhaps) and even to evolve into new hubs. We also need to add incentives and clear approval paths for dividing commercial spaces or transitioning them to residential uses. We need to encourage more mixed density in residential zones, anticipating a land-use code that no longer has a limit of lot size per dwelling unit, but instead relies on floor-area ratios, open space, and public realm improvements to guide projects.

Make the positive changes you’re envisioning viable and easy to bring about. For example, ensure it is easier and more profitable to build diverse, community-friendly housing than to max out single-family footprints. Streamline approvals. Make it easiest to build what the community wants. Align review processes with desired outcomes while conserving staff time. Automatically implement the new BVCP into the Land Use Code and zoning rather than relying on individual property owner’s application processes.

The new BVCP and changes to the Land Use Code should be easily understandable and legible to the general public without the need to hire a professional. There is a question of equity that arises when the only way this information is available is through spending money, and people have the right to know what can happen on the property or in their neighborhoods. Easily legible land-use maps and designations will lead to more transparent and effective land planning and development and help streamline the development process.

In light of the creative thinking that’s being revealed through the BVCP update process, we recommend that you undertake a “blue sky” audit of the Land Use Code with a potential outcome that it is broadly revisited.

Underscoring Prior Recommendations:

While we feel that the process is moving in the right direction, we wanted to resurface a few of the comments we made before as they still feel relevant:

  • Embrace housing everywhere! Support diverse housing types across jurisdictions including innovative typologies (duplex, triplex, quadplex, small multi-unit, patio homes, pocket neighborhoods, coops, cohousing, condos, and agri-villages) within the City limits and also in unincorporated areas to address the ongoing housing affordability crisis and to allow people to live in connection with the region’s agricultural lands.
  • Plan beyond the BVCP boundaries. Our regional commuter shed extends outside Boulder County. Addressing housing, transportation, and livability requires coordinated regional action.
  • Design the BVCP for flexibility. Encourage buildings that can evolve in use over time, supporting economic resilience and reduced vacancies.
  • Enable walkable, mixed-use, 15-minute neighborhoods to seed into the existing neighborhood fabric. Retrofit our existing auto-dependent neighborhoods so that in the future car-free living is a preferable option for a higher percentage of residents.
    Better Boulder Vibrant. Liveable. Connected. info@betterboulder.com www.betterboulder.com
  • Focus on the public realm by prioritizing urban design elements that enhance both livability and community, including porches, trees, shared green spaces, woonerfs, and walkable streetscapes, and placing less focus on prescribing uses, building design, and inflexible engineering standards.
  • Update height definitions to allow parapets, mechanical screening at the building facade, rooftop access with stairs and elevators, and renewable energy structures to exceed the maximum allowable building height. Use midpoints rather than peaks for measuring gables and sheds. Consider allowance of height modifications east of Foothills Highway, particularly where the result will support mixed-use development and affordable and middle-income housing on and along transit corridors.

Thank you,
Better Boulder