CU and the City Planning Ahead

Author: Julie Gordon

While stories in the local media give the impression that CU-Boulder and the city aren't able to work together, City Manager Ron Secrist and Chancellor Richard Byyny, speaking at Boulder Tomorrow's first luncheon of the year on Jan.25, painted a different picture. They said the university and the city do indeed have a good relationship. Their message was that CU-Boulder and the city are not at odds with one another and can work together to get things accomplished.

Secrist described the relationship between the university and the city as being "warm" and based on respect and understanding. Working together on what will become of the Grandview Terrace land has built a stronger relationship between the university and the city, Secrist said. "Not everybody got 100 percent of what they wanted, but we came out with a plan for a better community," he said.

Secrist also pointed out that CU-Boulder and the city are collaborating to make the University Hill area a better area to live in. And that they are joining forces to iron out transportation issues.

"It's absolutely imperative that the people who are privileged to occupy the positions that Dick and I occupy, that we work on that relationship on a personal level because that's what makes a relationship," Secrist said. "People make relationships."

Secrist said the university and the city do very well communicating on the informal level, but need to improve communication on the formal level. There are still some areas CU-Boulder and the city should work harder together on, such as housing, Secrist pointed out. Recognizing that the university population has grown and will continue to do so in the future, the city would like the university to add more housing to accommodate the growth, Secrist said. "What the city is saying is not that you can't grow, but if you grow, to have housing commensurate with that growth," he said.

The city considers the CU south property (or Flatirons or Gateway property), which is located just south of the city outside the city limits, to be an environmentally sensitive property and is concerned about the types of development that occur there, Secrist said. The development will impact the increase in transportation from the campus to that area, he said. The city would be interested in purchasing all or part of the south property, and if that's not possible is still willing to work with the university to reduce the negative impacts, Secrist said.

A big issue in the university and city relationship is sovereignty, Secrist pointed out. Public universities, being state- sponsored, are hesitant to say that they have to comply with local zoning and local land use criteria, he said. "Land use is usually the rub between the two institutions," he said.

Secrist, who has spent his entire career in university and college settings, said the relationship that exists between CU and the city is not any worse than any of the other locations he has been. He said that in all of the communities he's worked in, land use and growth management has been the main issues.

Secrist earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Florida and his master's degree from Indiana University.

Byyny pointed out that the university and city are working together on a memorandum of understanding about how to develop Williams Village in order to accommodate the university's population growth. Currently there are 6,000 housing units on campus, so the university can house 100 percent of its freshmen class, he said. But if the university continues to grow as projected, additional housing will be needed, he said.

Other issues the university and city have collaborated on in addition to the development of Williams Village include public safety, public transportation (such the Ecopass program for riding the bus and the HOP, SKIP and JUMP bus system) and parking, Byyny said. "We're as concerned about parking issues as much as the city is," he said.

CU-Boulder has revised its Master Plan for the next 10 years to limit the uses on the south campus to recreation and athletic facilities, and this is very compatible with issues raised by the city, Byyny said. He said that although the south property may eventually be used, there currently isn't a definite long-term plan as to how it's going to be used, and it's not for sale.

Like Secrist, Byyny said the university and city have to collaborate on housing. It's gotten so expensive to live in Boulder that more than half the university faculty don't even live in the city, he pointed out. "That changes things," he said. "It changes your community."

Byyny was appointed chancellor of CU-Boulder in 1997. Prior to that, he served as interim chancellor, and vice president of academic affairs and research and dean in the graduate school. He was also executive vice chancellor at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. He's authored books and articles that discuss elderly women's health care, health care education and general internal medicine. He earned his bachelor's degree in history and his medical degree from the University of Southern California.

Boulder Tomorrow President Earl McLaughlin stressed that CU is vital to Boulder. "CU is Boulder," he said. "If you extract CU from Boulder, we're another Golden at best. We need to serve the university."

City Councilman Gordon Riggle found Secrist's and Byyny's discussion to be upbeat and optimistic. "Ron's talk about town gown relationships was wonderful," he said. "I enjoyed his insights about relationships with universities and their home towns. I'm very optimistic about the possibility of a better working relationship between the university and city...I found it to be a much more balanced presentation than can be found in the media. I found it positive and encouraging on both their parts." Bert Dougherty of Taggart & Associates, an independent insurance agent, also said that it was nice to hear that contrary to what he's read in the media, the two are working together.

Peter Aweida, with Westland Developers, said he also enjoyed Secrist and Byyny's discussion of the university/city relationship. He said the university and the city both must be willing to compromise for anything to happen.

Boulder Tomorrow's next meeting will be on February 22, again at the Angel Pines Country Club, 5706 Arapahoe Ave., from noon to 1:30 p.m. David Gehant, president and CEO of Boulder Community Hospital, will discuss the hospital's expansion plans, what the hospital is doing in the community, and how the community can help the hospital achieve its health care goals.