Boulder, Colorado

Preservation of the Chautauqua Meadows saved a spectacular view of The Flatirons, the red sandstone slabs that rise 1,400 feet above the City of Boulder.

Boulder lies at the base of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of 5,430 feet. Although only 25 miles northwest of downtown Denver, Boulder has managed to retain its unique character and permanently preserve its spectacular mountain setting.

Between 1950 and 1970, the population of Boulder grew more than threefold, from 20,000 to 67,000, fueled largely by growing enrollment at the University of Colorado and a growing appreciation for the Colorado lifestyle. Alarmed at this rate of growth, a group of citizens began working together and ultimately founded the organization PLAN Boulder in 1959. The early sparkplugs of PLAN Boulder included Robert McKelvey, Ruth Wright, Albert Bartlett and Kurt Gerstle. In its first effort, PLAN Boulder spearheaded an initiative to prohibit the delivery of municipal water above a so-called “Blue Line”, the elevation of the City’s reservoir. The Blue Line campaign consisted mostly of letters to newspapers and hand-written postcards. “That was our ‘high-pressure political machine,’” joked Bartlett in a 2002 interview.* But it worked. In 1959, the voters overwhelmingly approved the initiative, putting a sizeable speed bump in the path of vertical sprawl to the west and giving PLAN Boulder the encouragement to tackle other projects.

Surrounded by public land offering every conceivable outdoor activity, Boulder is essentially a city within a park.

Boulder’s first general plan, prepared by Frederic Olmstead Jr. in 1908, called for greenways and greenbelts surrounding the City. By the 1960s, Boulder had picked up properties here and there and the members of PLAN Boulder began looking for a way to realize the greenbelts envisioned in the Olmstead Plan. An initiative was crafted to appeal to a wide range of voters: a one-cent retail sales tax, with 60 percent going to transportation improvements and 40 percent for greenbelt acquisition. PLAN Boulder orchestrated the campaign, distributing copies of the Olmstead Plan and hanging posters showing children frolicking in the Chautauqua Meadows with the red sandstone slabs known as The Flatirons rising behind them. The poster caption read: “Greenbelts are for the children…and for their children.” The voters approved the measure, making this the first time citizens of any US city had voted to approve a tax for open space acquisition and maintenance.

The Boulder greenbelts are supplemented by state and federal lands, like El Dorado State Park, a favorite for rock climbing.

Over the decades, Boulder voters have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to tax themselves for open space preservation. To date, over $150 million have been spent on open space acquisition. Today, Boulder’s Open Space & Mountain Parks protect over 43,000 acres, featuring wildlife habitat and outdoor recreation on 130 miles of trails. The parks form a greenbelt that contains the City boundaries and helps define Boulder as a separate, distinct city. As a result, almost 100 years after adoption of the Olmstead Plan, this college town of just over 100,000 people has largely succeeded in accomplishing that vision. PLAN Boulder’s Robert McKelvey puts it this way: “Even though we had a big concept, it has succeeded in a way that I think none of us could have dared to hope. In the middle of this enlarging Front Range megalopolis, Boulder managed to somehow remain the same.”*

Boulder open space provides habitat for abundant wildlife as well as rare species.

Surrounding the City of Boulder, Boulder County is famous in its own right for open space protection. The County has its own open space acquisition funding from the following sources: property tax ($3.6 million annually); proceeds from lottery funds; a 0.25 percent county-wide sales tax passed in 1993 (which supports $135 million in bond sales); and a 0.10 percent County-wide recycling tax (allowing another $80 million in bond proceeds.)

The County uses no fewer than 11 different preservation techniques including fee simple acquisition, subdivision dedication, purchase of development rights (PDR), conservation easements, bargain sales, purchase of land without development rights, purchase-leaseback agreements, donations, joint city-county purchases and two forms of transferable development rights (TDR). In one of these TDR mechanisms, seven incorporated cities have voluntarily agreed to allow increased density within their city limits in order to reduce development potential on land under County jurisdiction. These inter-jurisdictional transfers allow the cities to implement their goals to protect farmland, critical natural areas, greenbelts and community separators.

Today, about 66 percent of Boulder County is protected: 171,500 acres - Forest Service, National Park, BLM or other federal; 1,400 acres - state park or state land board; 68,000 acres - County – 51,000 acres as County Open Space (with 87 miles of trails) and 18,000 acres in conservation easement ; 7,100 acres are joint County/City open space or conservation easements with Boulder, Lafayette, Louisville, Longmont and Lyons; 13,000 acres - regulatory conservation easements; 33,000 acres - City of Boulder open space and conservation easements; 11,000 acres - municipal watersheds; 1,700 acres - Lafayette, Longmont and Lyons open space; and 3,000 acres - private conservation easements.

As Ruth Wright sums it up, “Every time I drive in from Denver and I come over the mesa and look down at Boulder, I know that all that beauty, all that open space and the mountain backdrop will be there forever. We have done this for the children…and their children…and their children. It’s forever.”* Curt Gerstle puts it this way. “In 100 years, we will be long gone and everything else we have done will be forgotten except for one thing…that open space.”*

* Quotes are from interviews conducted on 6/26/2 and 10/4/2. They are provided by the Maria Rogers Oral History Program of the Carnegie Branch Library for Local History, Boulder, CO.