by Osman Parvez
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From the Daily Camera

The City Council voted 7-1 late Tuesday night to ask the city’s planning staff to start working in the second half of next year to come up with possible changes to the circumstances in which developers are allowed to exceed 35 feet and go up to the 55-foot ceiling.

Completely ignoring soft market conditions, City Council continues to do their best to damage the real estate market and end the downtown renaissance. And I thought President Bush was clueless.

Elected leaders, she said, should change the way they think of the space above buildings more than 35 feet off the ground.

“I’d like you to think of a little something radical … and think of that airspace as public airspace,” she said.

City Councilwoman Lisa Morzel said she thinks that’s a reasonable way of looking at the issue. If developers are going to be allowed to build higher than 35 feet, she said, they ought to give something back to the community.

Reasonable? This is what it sounds like to me:

But City Councilwoman Espinoza disagreed. There are plenty of other things elected officials should be worrying about, she said.

“I can understand that many of you have constituencies whose main concern is height and (density) bonuses and not changing Boulder too much. I have yet to hear a person who is a peer of mine come to speak to that issue. … I’m not with you on this as the most important thing to do. I think we spend way too much time on this stuff.”

Espinoza, I couldn’t agree with you more. Thank you for having the courage to vote against the rest of the council.

Remember, the 55 foot limit is in the City Charter. We already have many restrictions that developers have to surmount before building to that limit and nobody is pushing for higher buildings right now. The market is struggling, even downtown. So at a time when the economy is in the worst condition in 30 years, does adding even more restrictions make sense?

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