WELCOME TO GOOSE CREEK COMMUNITY LAND TRUST
When oil was a good thing: Initial suburban housing going up along US 36 in Boulder in late 1950’s-early 1960’s. 4 homes per acre. $15,000+ per house! However, this fossil-fueled housing model creates climate disruption, health impacts (air pollution, traffic deaths and injuries and social isolation) and income and racial segregation nationwide and in Boulder. Let’s do better!
Let’s meet our urgent housing crisis! Let’s prototype a Hopeful, Sustainable Future with an Urban Village at Alpine Balsam.
Write City Council and insist:
City Land at AB provide maximum social and financial return to ALL.
Be a promised “new model”, not a “barbell” city of rich and poor:
Offer significant for sale, permanently affordable, modest sized, middle income units with shared vehicles and affordable offices for local NGO’s etc
Reflect our values of equity sustainability and resilience
The Future at Alpine Balsam: An architecturally accurate view of potential housing less than the 55’ Boulder height limit that provides more housing and a better return on taxpayers’ investment than current City scenarios (Looking south from Balsam Ave onto site). Potential average unit size 700 sf. Mostly for sale, permanently affordable to broad spectrum of families and local workers now in-commuting. Prices: $150k to $400k including shared cars! Boulder can be affordable!
Help us develop a positive vision that both meets the natural concerns of some neighbors about the AB project impact AND meaningfully dents our urgent housing crisis. For example, by providing transportation almost entirely with alternative modes and shared vehicles, project-generated auto traffic can be significantly less than traffic when the hospital operated. More info here.
Lessons from the recent April 17, 2019 Housing Dialogue with Jim Leach, Cohousing developer: In the late 1960’s Boulder city planning efforts resisted cookie cutter production home builders and encouraged Jim’s innovations of narrower streets, common green areas and other amenities that brought neighbors together. Despite his insistence that quality design featuring walkable-nature-connected plans with mixed housing sizes would create successful communities, neighborhood opposition was fierce. His many enduringly popular developments through to the recently sold out Washington School Co-housing, demonstrate the broad affection for diverse communities. His “lessons learned” can help us navigate from today’s period of displacement of middle income residents to a housing future demanding a response to the twin crisis of climate-environment and emergency and income inequality.
Let’s follow Boulder’s many other innovations in land use: Open Space, Pearl St Mall, Bike Greenways, Holiday Neighborhood.-NOT halfheartedly! We didn’t plan to develop an open space oasis around HALF of the City!
OUR MISSION
To ensure our land widely benefits generations of today and tomorrow, we will create, preserve and advocate for housing that is permanently attainable for a diversity of income levels.
NEWS
After nearly 4 years of consideration, $4 million annual interest/upkeep payments and consistent citizen feedback about the need for the site to meet urgent housing needs, City Council recently blinked before beginning a $12.5 million deconstruction of the main former BCH hospital building but then resumed an Area Planning process. This summer is the opportunity for a citizen-led redevelopment vision (Get Our Money’s Worth) and Case for Density) that optimizes social return with significant middle income housing and affordable office development. Please email us to volunteer for small, satisfying and deeply impactful tasks to ensure AB becomes a highly livable, transformative project in the best tradition of Boulder innovation.
Hold the McMansion, Bring on the New American Dream! 750 North St. Single Family Split
Want to invest?
Want to reserve a spot?
Tired of the long commute, Kardashian housing prices or impossibility of aging in place? Goose Creek will soon propose to Planning Board the first Innovate for Impact housing pilot: converting an old duplex into 8 permanently affordable, small, mixed income condos in the footprint of the legally allowed mcmansion. Transportation will feature shared electric cars and bikes and no private fossil-fuel car parking on site or in nearby streets for residents. More here.
“He would have been brutally frank that the city is still not as diverse as it needs to be, and in part it is because of political decisions made that have escalated the cost of housing tremendously so that it limits who can afford to live in the city, which impacts the ability and the potential for diversity.”
BOULDER LAND USE POLICIES INHIBIT DIVERSITY
