Emergency Vote On Housing For City Council

BOULDER, CO -- City Council will take an emergency vote tonight on whether to temporarily ban the building of large houses–or at the very least, make it more expensive. The item was added to this week's program after a request by councilwoman Lisa Morzel at Monday's agenda meeting, reports the Daily Camera.

The proliferation of McMansions has been a topic of concern with council members recently. They discussed different ways to promote the building of smaller homes in a study session last month.

After today's meeting, council members Jill Grano and Bob Yates sent a message to the city's Hotline informational email list with a specific proposal for increased fees on larger homes rather than banning them outright They proposed that a placeholder fee of $100 per square foot be levied on any new homes built with greater than 3500 square feet while a study is conducted to determine the precise proper fee.

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"While we are in complete support of moving forward with the conversation around large lot subdivision and the possibility of allowing higher density on large lots...We feel that a moratorium would have numerous unintended negative consequences," wrote Grano and Yates in their proposal. "Therefore, we would like to propose an alternative."

Today's meeting, now including the vote on a potential housing moratorium, will begin at 6 p.m. at the council chambers downtown.

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