When Boulder developers are given total free rein

The people promoting “Family Friendly Vibrant Neighborhoods” mean well. They honestly believe that giving developers free rein will lead to a reduction in housing prices. They are misled by studies that say adding expensive housing moves the wealthy out of more modest housing and frees up modest housing to reduce prices in the middle market. These studies do not apply when we bulldoze modest houses to build expensive dwellings. In that case, we remove less expensive housing from the market and prices go up.

We have seen what happens when developers are given free rein. Maximum profit comes from building luxury condos. We got multimillion-dollar redevelopment on Canyon Blvd and on Broadway in Old North Boulder.

“Family Friendly Vibrant Neighborhoods” grants density with no demands for affordable housing in return. It will lead to tearing down modest homes and replacing them with $3 million condos.

— Teddy Weverka, Boulder

When the house is burning down, let go of decorum

With the situation in “Israel/Palestine,” and especially Gaza, being what it is, there’s no acceptable story about allowing the continuing mass murder of children.

Because of that circumstance, people who have attended recent city council meetings have expressed emotional upset — at times with a “lack of respect for council’s rules of decorum.”

The question remains, what does “decorum” signify when the issues actually are life and death? Put another way, and with respect to current tragic events in California, if the house is burning down, do you gently nudge the children to wake them up? Or do you skip the “decorum” and do what might be needed to wake them up as quickly as possible?

Gaza, right now, is a house burning down to the ground — it’s up to all of us — all of us humans — to be as good as any lesser species — and put it to a complete stop.

It really shouldn’t matter what ideas or affiliations our monkey-minds might possess … there are beliefs that we all simply must share for the sake of humanity itself; one of which happens to involve taking a stand against children and their families being murdered at an industrial scale.

It shouldn’t be quite as controversial as it seems, which is why myself and others have approached council and attended council meetings with repeated requests.

The response of several on council suggests a lack of moral fitness for elected office; however, people everywhere should absolutely continue to speak out against genocide.

“Not in my name” … or yours, or anyone else’s.

— Rob Smoke, Boulder

Expansion lacks tangible community benefit

As a resident and business owner in downtown Boulder, many of us have serious concerns about the new St. Julien expansion on the Civic Use Pad. While it was originally approved for 35,000 sq ft in its original form, it is now at 60,000. We are encouraging the City Council to either alter the proposed design or reject it.

We love the St. Julien, but this is a fully for-profit operation with no community-use space. It doesn’t provide any tangible community benefit for the height variance of 55 feet (but with the mechanical structure, it will be 67.5 feet tall). The project also doesn’t meet the Site Review Criteria with mass and scale.

As designed, it is not good for downtown. It will significantly increase traffic problems on 9th and Walnut. Where will the deliveries and trash go once the alley is closed off? Plans call to create an additional trash area in the alley next to residential buildings.

What amazes many of us downtown is that there has been no public meeting or any outreach at all to the community. There is overwhelming public support against this project — with over 80 people contacting the city. Only one person appears to have spoken in favor of the project — the GM of the St. Julien.

20 years ago, when the St. Julien was being designed and built, it was always the original intent of both the city and the St. Julien to reserve this for true civic use. That is not what is happening here. Boulder can do better.

— DJ Johanningmeier, Boulder