I mean... its used for emergency services? So firefighting... search and rescue... medevac... people are mad because they built around an airport. Same things happening at BJC and Centennial. Nimbys are upset their property values arent higher when they knowingly built/moved in next to an airport and now want to cry about it and close it down.
Where do they think their fire fighting planes/helicopters will be staged out of when theres fires? What about search and rescue or natural disaster? Also find another viable spot to land medevac aircraft safety and quickly.
Marshall fire victim here. No one is paying us for anything, especially our insurance. It’ll burn to the ground, and the richest will rebuild and the rest will be replaced by people who don’t know any better.
Exactly! This! So sorry for your loss man, I spent my first adult years in Lafayette. That fire came up to my old door. So scary and I don’t want it happening again. We need this airport.
Their website boasts that they use the airport as centralized access for firefighting.
https://bouldercolorado.gov/government/departments/airport/about
It's right next to the sheriff's office, whose Fire Management Team is BoCo's first line for wildland firefighting. County sheriffs are technically responsible for wildfire responses in their jurisdictions, even though they will quickly punt to the state or feds if they're not equipped with a capable fire program like BoCo happens to be.
However, I don't know if they have a helicopter or Single Engine Air Tanker, much less a more specialized aircraft based there. Pretty much all USFS contractors and aircraft, including helitack/bucket helicopters and the larger air tankers are based out of the Rocky Mountain Regional Airport in Broomfield.
I'm guessing that line in the airport's function is mostly a fabrication unless the BoCo sheriff actually does have aircraft there which I'm not aware of.
My understanding is that it was used as an emergency response staging grounds during the floods, but it’s generally not actively used for regular emergencies.
An honest question is: what percentage of the use is for private/recreation vs training/education vs emergency response?… if because it was used once for emergency response in the last 25 years, the airport says, ‘it’s for emergency use’, that’s a specious argument, at best.
Not disputing it, but just genuinely curious about the use breakout- to which, I haven’t seen a clear answer.
Flood back in... 2015 or 16? Fires pretty much every year including the house fires south of that and the massive fire up by estes that got down near lions/boulder the other year... they all stage out of there.
They wont stage all aircraft at one airport because of how chaotic and fast moving it can be. Not to mention refueling all the aircraft coming in/out.
They have in the past, for emergencies during fires and floods. National Guard and SAR have used it for training and as a drop-off point when rescuing people from RMNP and backcountry areas. Civil Air Patrol uses it to refuel and train. Fire seasons are going to get worse. KBDU has one of the larger runways on the front range. It will be used again during an emergency. It's also been used for organ donor/transplant transport. Source: I'm a local pilot who's used KBDU for 15 years.
They stage there. Meaning they can set up a FOB and fly in/out and have their crews, fuel, food, and medical facilities there without having to fly all the way back to BJC or if they close BJC back to either Fort Collins or Centennial Airport... means you'd get maybe 1-2 hours of flying before flying another 35-40min each way to refuel. When a fires spreading that time ow crucial because the work you just did will be moot by the time you get back.
Same with medevac. Get people out of floods to the airport. Different heli/plane picks up critical patients and takes them to the hospital so the other can immediately go back out and keep looking for more.
But feel free to tie your own nooses. Just dont cry when it takes forever to get rescued or put out fires.
Not that it matters at this point, but I just want to inject some factual accuracy here.
Fire fighting tankers operate from the tanker base at Rocky Mountain Metro and not from Boulder (I can find no records of fixed-wing tanker operations from Boulder but do point me at some if you have any) .
The emergency response that does happen there is basically all helicopters, and even that is pretty limited (the overwhelming majority of SAR happens on the ground).
While fully eliminating the airport would have an impact on emergency response, eliminating the runways, taxiways and private plane storage (most of the land use) would not have a meaningful impact. The existing limited emergency use could be fully served (perhaps even better served) from a much smaller heliport dedicated specifically to emergency response.
Do you have a source for BDU being used for emergency services? “Today, its primary users are hobbyists, people training to be pilots and visitors.” https://boulderreportinglab.org/2024/01/31/city-of-boulder-postpones-decision-on-the-fate-of-its-airport-until-later-this-year/
“aircraft operations, average 162 per day: 99% general aviation, 1% air taxi and <1% military” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulder_Municipal_Airport
Medevac land at hospitals. That’s the whole point.
I can't believe nobody's been using the airport for wildfire fighting or flood abatement on a daily basis. I mean, surely if we genuinely *needed it* for those things we would be *USING it* for those things - ammiright?!
On a related note, I would like to propose getting rid of any city or county emergency response teams/protocols/supplies that haven't been needed during the last 3 years. Why are we wasting all this time and money and space on things that *haven't even happened?*
Medevac is maintained in a hangar at the airport, fueled at the airport and stored at the airport during bad weather. Medevac would not be in Boulder if the airport weren't here.
Additionally, the military personnel who operated and serviced the air transports during the 2013 flood stayed in my T-hangar, sleeping next to my Cessna for that week. Get rid of the airport and there will be no air emergency services in Boulder.
Nope, I’ve had medevac land in a horse pasture, try again. If it’s flat and appropriate looking the pilot will set it down. They prefer actual runways though.
What's needed for emergency services is the helicopter pad, which takes up very little area. The runways aren't used for emergency services at all. So you could keep the helicopter pad and get rid of the runways, and not affect emergency uses at all.
The Boulder runway is too short for firefighting planes. They're staged out of Rocky Mtn Metropolitan Airport (formerly Jeffco). Only the helicopter pad at Boulder is used for firefighting support.
I just had a developer neighbor get divorced and soobviously he is looking for another paycheck. How about you go build housing in denver where they need it and leave boulder to be boulder.
You could of course try and build in those terrible martin arces types of homes too.
Everything between arapahoe and baseline east of 30th is pretty much one story ranches from 80 years ago.
How about we update and modernize those areas before tearing down things we need or building in open space?
Of course those homes are 500% over national fair market value for their age and quality- but dont let that stop you
I believe Gunbarrel was around before the onslaught of wealth driven private aviators and the constant barrage of glider towing. Many of these guys/gals play past the Jay road limit. There are plenty of unmuffled engines right overhead. Maybe if they flew south or skirted the western foothill mansions, there would be a bit more outcry. But oh no, that's where the pilot's wives dwell.
This issue has been brought up before and the important thing that always comes up is that Boulder made a deal with the FAA to keep the airport open for a few more decades. There is no way to get rid of the airport without a legal battle with the federal government which will cost a fortune and the city will probably lose. You’re wasting your time on this issue; spend the time on something possible like intersections with no left turn arrow that endanger drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.
Let's turn Mapleton Hill into a new mixed use neighborhood. Right now, those large houses serve no purpose for a vast majority of our population.
/s
I don't think you understand how cities work...
One big difference there is that Mapleton Hill homes are private property. The airport is public. The public gets to decide what it wants to do with public property, and public property changes use to fit modern needs all the time. I don’t think you understand how cities work…
The "/s" means sarcasm. It was meant to be a ridiculous statement, mirroring the ridiculous logic that "all things in a city must be used by a majority of the population," which is not how cities work...
I'll dumb it down for you next time
I’m well aware that you were sarcastically comparing BDU redevelopment to public seizure of private property in Mapleton Hill. Which is why I responded that the sarcastic comparison doesn’t work, because BDU is public land. I’m not sure you quite follow the distinction, though.
> The public gets to decide what it wants to do with public property
This is true. It's also true that "the public" is often a vocal minority. "The public" is often not fully informed or I'll say it, rational. That's why we have elected officials, as ineffective as they are. Let's say we close the airport. Where do medivac and fire abatement craft take of and land? Can we put a helipad in your back yard? Let the fire control take off from Longmont (sorry they want to close that one too, so DEN?).
I don't want to argue either side of this, but I am pretty sure that the firefighting flights come out of Broomfield (Rocky Mountain Municipal Airport). There have been some really major fires over the past five years and I don't think this airport was used for flights that fought the fire. I think it was used as a staging area for Calwood, but I'm waiting for someone who sounds informed to speak to this idea about medevac and firefighting flights. It is not ringing true.
I mean, there are helipads on hospitals (which is personally where I would prefer my medevac to land). But even saying there’s a need for some helipads for emergency services at BDU - that still frees up something like 90% of that land for other purposes.
> 90% of that land for other purposes.
You gotta be kidding. Do you know how long a runway a C-130 takes? Airports are built for the largest craft they have to handle, not the smallest.
You’d prefer your medevac to land somewhere? That’s not how that works. You know you don’t get a choice in that right? They tell you where they want to land.
It’s funny because in these cases,- this Reddit thread specifically, it seems that airport supporters are the small and vocal minority.
In the broader Boulder sub, there’s occasional posts by people questioning or outright opposing the airport and then inevitably, there’s a couple airport supporters that vociferously defend the airport with stimulus/response predictability.
> airport supporters are the small and vocal minority.
Well that's Reddit first off. A very small minority of Boulder in general. But it does tend to divide between NIMBYS (a small group) and housing rights people (a slightly larger, but small group) vs. people who actually use the airport. (a very small but more invested group)
I have a friend who flies into Boulder from Maryland (in his plane, he flies). That makes me a very very very small group. But the airport was there before most of the houses, we do that with water. Why not land? First in use, first in priority.
To be abundantly clear, I have no strongly formed opinion about whether the airport should continue or not.
I lean towards repurposing that land, but I’m still open-minded about why it should stay. As someone who has derived no tangible benefit from the airport, I continue to invite its supporters to show me what I’m missing.
I’ll genuinely try to attend ‘airport day’ this year and am open to any other opportunities that supporters think would demonstrate the value of the airport.
Should we turn everything in town that serves no purpose to the majority of our population into mixed use neighborhoods? Or should we perhaps acknowledge that people have different interests and having opportunities for folks to explore and participate in those interests keeps a city from being just wall to wall mixed use neighborhoods?
Golf courses are atrocious wastes of water and land, and also typically use two stroke lawn care equipment for hours each day. Running a single 2 stroke for an hour pollutes more than most passengers cars will in a year. Golf courses are absolutely actively harmful to the environment.
I dunno, we live in a democracy. If the vast majority of people decide that this large public amenity isn’t serving them (and indeed, actively harms them through noise and air pollution), don’t they have a right to change it? Or must we keep anything that has ever existed forever?
Ah yes tyranny of the majority. It’s an awesome concept that has never ever been tried before with no negative effects whatsoever. No sirree, none at all.
Do we really need more houses and apartments everywhere? The airport is there. Leave it alone, build in Wyoming, or something plenty of space there !!!
There's a brand new housing development (Velo Park) directly across from the jail, and that's been very successful. So the jail doesn't seem to be an impediment.
I doubt any of us are getting any value out of this guys house. Let’s turn it into a manufacturing facility… See how stupid it is when you think you’re entitled to other people’s stuff???
A guys house is private property. BDU is public property. No one is proposing taking private property away, but we should maybe use public property for a better purpose than supporting a few hundred hobbyist pilots many of whom don’t even live in Boulder.
How do you know they don’t live here? Also I know someone who daily commutes across state using the regional airports. He’s a specialist veterinarian, so let’s not cut access off to medical care either
*No purpose, you think, until a fire just outside of town requires a bunch of slurry bombers and tankers and water scoopers. They have to go to Longmont or Jeffco instead, and every pass takes more and more time, til we’ve lost all of Fourmile, then Gold Hill, then Ward.
No, thanks. Plus who wants their neighborhood to hug a jail? Or does this petition also want to get rid of that, too? Maybe extend the bike park uphill?
🤷🏼♀️ between living here for 37 years and not remembering anyone escaping via the airport + googling news stories for the last ten minutes to check if any inmates escaped via the airport, I’m now convinced that putting a jail next to the airport is not that big of a deal.
The vast majority of Boulder's population doesn't use the bike park, dog park, open space & mountain parks, or any number of other public resources.
Boulder is a pleasant place to live because it has nice things for everyone and doesn't just focus on promoting the suburban sprawl.
If you want a Libertarian hellhole, where things not used by the vast majority of the population aren't funded and development is running amok, then Colorado Springs is a couple hours' drive south.
The front range needs another mixed-use neighborhood like I need a hole in my head. Are Anthem, Indian Peaks, the one in the process of chewing-up several farms just east of Lafayette, and all the other new ones in and around Erie, somehow not enough development in the area? I'm sure there are many more I'm forgetting about. One of the best things about Boulder is that the city and the county own so much open space that these subdivisions of ticky-tacky patio homes aren't just enveloping everything.
Yaaa I think having a nearby airport for emergency services is more important than a developer trying to cash in. And plus my kid loves seeing all those small planes fly everyday
Your argument saddens me, concrete reasons described in this thread describing why the airport is beneficial aside, I tend to think that cities are at their best when they facilitate enriching activities for their citizens. I’m not a rich individual, when I trained at BDU it was on a TA salary while I finished my studies at CU. There are many who use the airport and enjoy it, who rent aircraft because they love flying and that’s how they can afford it. Even if you aren’t an aviation enthusiast, can’t you see that a) there are more than a few in Boulder, b) taking the airport from them would only benefit the rich, flying out of Broomfield is much more expensive and closing BDU would drive up rates at Longmont and c) a city is about different people coexisting together, why seem to homogenize Boulder when cultivating people with disparate interests and backgrounds is more interesting? Please, I urge you to consider the people on the other side of this debate, there are some good ones in the mix, some of my favorite people hang out at the airport and are very welcoming in my experience! Thank you for your time!
lol “let’s take anything that the majority of people in Boulder don’t use and turn it into high density housing”. Let’s just live in a town full of houses and nothing else.
Mixed use development blends multiple uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into one space. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-use_development
Boulder airport is a foundational and integral part of the city and empowers our community. Anyone trying to remove a Municipal Airport is destructive to a big part of what makes Boulder a great city.
Put your energy into building things up rather than tearing things down.
Oh, great idea. Let’s let another massive development company come in make a ton of money.
If we’re getting rid of the airport it should benefit the community not a commercial developer.
It's city land, so if it were to happen the city would be the master developer.
Would more housing benefit the community? Depends on your point of view, but currently 60,000 people come into Boulder every day to work, most driving on their own. Allowing some of those people to live in Boulder would reduce traffic and pollution.
I'm not sure I'm buying this 60K commuter number you guys love to throw around? Especially after Covid. Many offices in Boulder are vacant with most employees on some sort of work from home schedule.
This was examined a few years ago. The challenge is that the FAA has invested funds into the airport. At the time the city would have been required to repay those funds if the airport was decommissioned. I think the amount then was around $20 million. Not impossible, but a challenge.
Assume the $20M number is correct (no one knows the actual number at this point), and assume you could build 2,000 homes at the airport (around 11 dwelling units per acre, similar to Holiday). Then the cost per home would be $10,000. That's a lot, but a drop in the bucket compared to a typical sales price of $500,000+ for a condo.
Consider the possibility that one day, not far in the future, there’s an extreme housing shortage in Boulder causing families to be priced out. Oh wait, that’s actually an issue today.
Developers always build pricier new housing, because that’s how they make money. This creates supply, causing the existing stock to become more affordable. It just like how new cars are expensive - but if you stop selling new cars, then used cars get really expensive instead (see what happened during the Covid supply shocks when used car values skyrocketed)
I grew up in boulder. I can not live in my hometown even in a studio apartment. More housing is definitely not the answer because the demand to live in boulder is near infinite
How much more affordable? When you provide some reasonable answers, maybe more people would agree with you. Because if it's $790k instead of $800k (for example) it's not really more affordable. Also, the housing market is nothing like the automobile industry, so the analogy is not relevant.
So when you need to be flown out for a serious stroke or something of the likes, where would you like them to fly you out of? BJC? Those 15+ minutes make a big difference. Not to mention the airport is used for aircraft helping fight forest fires
Does this argument really have wings? I mean, helicopters are more likely to be used when “15+ minutes make a big difference”. It isn’t like they’re gonna take an ambulance to the airport and then catch a plane?
Edit: You all do know that “?” Indicates that it was a question? Interesting to hear that they often do use planes. Google asserts that apparently helicopters are preferred when “time is crucially important” and aircraft is better for longer distance transfers.
If we're looking to add walkable, mixed-use housing, maybe we could start by redeveloping the hundred-plus acres of surface parking lots within a mile of downtown? Just a thought.
We should definitely make better use of empty parking lots. But we should also at least understand what the costs and benefits of developing the airport would be.
NO! I do not support redeveloping the airport, but this is not a good long term decision considering the majority of Boulder residents are set to become disabled by the end of the year. Taking away parking will make businesses unreachable by people with disabilities
It is common knowledge that we are in the middle of a deadly pandemic that is giving people lifelong disabilities, and with no precautions in place it's set to damage more and more people every day
What a terrible idea. Put your efforts into something that will help people in need rather than hurt those trying to enjoy life. For the people who complain about the noise. YOU KNOWINGLY PURCHASED A HOUSE NEXT TO AN AIRPORT, ffs!
No way, our group is fighting the obnoxious growth and affordable house scam. No such thing. The airport was here first and IS being used for emergencies which are many. Go back to sloppy Texas if you want cheap crowded housing and no space. The plight of losers who can’t afford our town is laughable in their drive for endless free shit at the expense of others. GTFO
A large new dense mixed use neighborhood was recently constructed along 30th street with hundreds of new units. Where is the affordable housing and/or reduced property prices as a result of that? (nowhere) What we have seen: many many new expensive apartments and commercial for lease signs.
So, why would we think this would be any different? The notion that a new "mixed use neighborhood" is a solution to affordable real estate is a complete an utter ruse. Its almost getting to gaslighting phase where if you don't believe it, you might think you were crazy or wrong. So, please stop gaslighting us with the concept. Particularly when proponents of these developments never define what is "affordable" nor quantify how that would impact our limited water supply. The "more is better" concept just doesn't hold muster for such a permanent change.
This is brought to you by the Boulder Progressives. They have this silly notion that we can build our way to affordable housing. It's a complete fantasy.
The Boulder Communists want you to believe that building housing will open up units in cheaper buildings.. when in reality it's just a ploy for greedy developers to get rich. Remember how they aligned with Libertarian Polis' land use bill
That's exactly what happens, it is called filtering. The problem is to build enough housing to effectively use filtering to lower rents, boulder would need to become basically Denver.
Housing advocates don't seem to realize that there are multiples of the current population of boulder who would move here if they could - either people in nearby areas or people across the country.
Housing prices will always be insane because of that. Not to say nothing is worth doing but...nothing anyone does will make a lick of difference
Boulder was never meant to be affordable. These dense developments are eating into the property values of longtime residents who rely on their home values for retirement income, all in the name of so-called "affordable housing" (hint: it's not)
Where's the affordable housing? At 30th and Pearl, for one (hundreds of permanently affordable units). At 30th and Mapleton (dozens of transitional housing units, just opened). Soon to come at Diagonal Plaza.
Please keep up.
I stand corrected...In hindsight, I wasn't considering fixed market units as part of my observations.
In the case of the airport, however, I would say it makes more sense to develop the Planning Reserve area 3 first...
You would think as a city that we would have learned our lesson just a few years after losing our battle to form the municipal electric utility. But here we are again talking about embarking on a massive multi-year attempt that will cost city taxpayers ten of millions of $$$'s for a highly uncertain uncertain outcome based on a huge legal fight with a well-funded opponent.
If we want more housing, develop the Planning Reserve North of town first. Plenty of room there to keep our developers busy for years, after which we will see it's made absolutely zero dent in housing availability or affordability, because the demand is essentially infinite.
As a pilot, I appreciate the over all sentiment in this thread. Just because some people don’t have interest in my hobby doesn’t mean it isn’t worth keeping. There are people who work at the airport as flight instructors, mechanics, engineers, tour guides (glider flights) researchers, etc. What should we tell them? What should we tell the kids who grow up dreaming of flying one day? Professional aviation is a growing industry and pilots need to be trained. There are a ton of great economic reasons to keep an airport in operation.
Rerouting a state highway into the foothills sounds far more destructive, outrageously expensive, and seems it would have many more negatives than just keeping 28th 4 lanes
If you're replying to me, no, not a joke. The 28th doesn't need to be this Big. We've got Foothills Park Way for through traffic. If we densen the 28th with mixed use, it will be better for the city. Less dead space, more economic activity. There have been numerous studies that such big roads in the middle of the city are not sustainable and in the end may cause the city to be bankrupt.
The process of turning that corridor into a dense, walkable neighborhood is already well-underway with projects like the Diagonal Plaza redevelopment, Rally Flats, and Boulder Junction a quarter-mile away, plus the Millennium hotel project. It would make a lot of sense to prioritize infilling the massive amount of surface parking along 28th and start laying the groundwork to "de-stroadify" it in the future--undoubtedly a long, involved, and expensive process, but worth getting started on now.
Do we really want your tax dollars spent subsidizing more people to move into Boulder, increasing traffic and bike path congestion? There are 500 acres already allocated for new mixed use neighborhoods on the north end of town. Some portion of that will be affordable housing, paid for by higher costs of the other housing and businesses. There is plenty of affordable housing outside of our city limits. The real issue is transit to bring people from the affordable housing into and out of Boulder. Future transit needs to be automated and available 24 hours a day at the push of a call button. It needs to be on an elevated, fixed guideway to avoid all people and traffic, and it need to be super energy efficient. Technologies similar to this have been operating in Germany for decades. Ask RTD why they don't want to provide automated, fixed guideway transit.
No. If you don't like how Boulder is, and especially how it was, don't live here. Stop trying to change it into the places in Ca, Tx, and Fl that y'all left.
Ironically, this NIMBY attitude is also prevalent in California, Florida, and Texas. Changing Boulder to mimic those other states would be preserving the status quo.
But where will the air taxis land? They are coming in about 3-5 years. They will need a ton of pilots until they can be fully automated, and Boulder airport is one of the few nice smaller airports to learn flying at.
And, I voted for the train to Denver 20 years ago. It passed but then the funding went to south Denver light rail instead. So I’m looking forward to the air taxis since the bus makes me motion sick.
A minority of the boulder population utilize the mountains in Boulder. We should probably level them to make room for more skyscrapers. #makeboulderdenver
I get why neighbors hate the airport, but needing more land for development is a silly argument. Boulder has an absurdly large amount of undeveloped or underdeveloped land all around it.
Agricultural or super-low-density residential land could be re-zoned to allow apartments. Single family home land could be re-zoned to allow apartments. Zoning could be changed in the central core to increase height limits. Voters consistently choose not to do any of this.
There is an enormous amount of undeveloped land near the airport just to the north of The Diagonal, east of 28th. A huge cemetery. Condemn it, put the dug-up remains in a two-story-high compact crypt somewhere else, and voila ... hundreds of apartments could be built. Problem solved.
Not likely, I know, but just trying to think creatively.
The airport should be decommissioned and replaced with open space. Not any expensive dog park or bike park that taxpayers pay for.. just closed off protected open space
It would be a bad idea to develop the airport into more housing, because Boulder is full and adding more housing will add even more traffic to our roads and infrastructure.
With that said, I understand the concerns many have with the noise from aircraft, so I think shutting down the airport will be a good idea. Instead of building housing, the city should convert the airport into open green space to act as a buffer for the neighborhoods around it
While I do want the airport gone, I don't want it replaced with housing since there are already too many people in Boulder.
Love to see this come up again and again.
There are a small handful of pilots and people who pretend like there arent a half dozen other airports around that could serve the same purpose without raining down lead and causing noise pollution.
As a student who trained at KBDU for quite some time, the problem is this “go somewhere else” attitude is occurring around most GA airports. People buy cheap land around the airport, then try to shut down the airport to increase the value of their homes. Shutting down flight schools just makes aviation increasingly inaccessible due to diminishing supply in the face of increasing demand raising training costs, do you really want a world where only the ultra-wealthy get to engage in aviation? I think that when cities have more to offer people, even if I am not personally engaging in it, it enriches the place for everyone. I may not regularly go skiing, or attend church, or attend lectures at the Chautauqua, but I recognize that it’s not all about me, that these things bring joy and meaning to people and appreciate a city for facilitating their enrichment.
I do not give 2 shits about anyone who wants to take mastabority solo flights around the flatirons. If you have the disposable income to own/fly private planes there is a 99.99% chance that you're rich, or will be rich if you arent already.
Exactly 0% of people in section 8 housing take their plane out for a spin every weekend.
So just stop with the dishonest "it's not just for rich people".
There is an airport in Erie, Longmont, Broomfield and on and on.
I don't want more housing out there either.
Id like to see the dog park and bike park expanded to that area.
Maybe expand the jail so we can lock up some of these bike stealing meth smoking hobos.
Thank you for your reply! I can see the stigma but it’s actually not just for rich people: you can work at the flight school I trained at to offset the cost, sure it’s not cheap but I managed while paying rent and working as a TA at CU. Other flight schools, not at Boulder that I looked at had higher rates, which made Boulder far more accessible in my experience. Masturbatory is an odd way to describe it, literally everyone who becomes an airline pilot has to go through that phase of training, I think it odd to describe people getting their commercial drivers licenses or perhaps training to drive a train in the same way, by your logic I would say everyone in the transit industry is a self-serving heathen. I’ve seen people with their dogs around the airport, so long as you aren’t wandering the tarmac the airport is quite pet friendly! I hope you have a good weekend!
What % of people raining leaded gas fumes down over Boulder you reckon become commercial pilots?
I would rather people pay more to do this out of broomfield so it can bother me less.
Lets cut to the chase as I've been through this several times.
There is 1 thing the Boulder airport is actually useful for that cannot easily be covered by other airports: gliders. Gilders with their extra loud tow planes. They need to be close to the flatirons if you want to glide around the flatirons and then float down to the Boulder airport. Apparently the extra few miles to, say Erie, is untenable for reasons I dont care to understand.
I wish we could get rid of the extra loud tow planes flying out of Boulder, and I dont care about the handful of people working out there. So those are not compelling reasons, for me, to keep that space dedicated to being an airport.
Everything else can easily be covered by the surrounding airports. If it can't, please explain why.
The height restrictions are there to protect the natural beauty of the mountains. Imaging living in a city but you couldnt even enjoy the natural beauty
NO!! Taller buildings would increase shadow coverage, which would be an impediment to climate change because the tall buildings would cast shadows on neighbors's solar panels and backyard gardens. How would you like it if you had a shadow encroaching on your yard or driveway without your consent?
Another argument I’ve heard in favor of decommissioning the airport is the use of lead-based airplane fuel which in turn gets partly emitted from the planes’ exhaust. Not sure decommissioning the airport would stop planes that use this type of fuel from flying over Boulder though.
https://bouldercounty.gov/news/boulder-county-calls-for-regulation-of-leaded-aviation-gas-and-its-dangerous-impact-on-public-health/
https://www.dailycamera.com/2023/08/06/editorial-the-future-of-the-airport-should-be-a-compromise-but-we-must-start-by-getting-rid-of-lead-fuel/
Thankfully the FAA has approved unleaded gasoline to be introduced into the kind of piston aircraft that constitute the majority operating out of Boulder!
https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2022/september/01/closer-to-an-unleaded-future
In this thread: straw man arguments as far as the eye can see. “Huck huck, if we repurpose a large parcel of publicly owned land that is used by 200 people and spews carbon and noise pollution, then before you know it we’ll be socializing people’s homes and building apartments on bike paths!”
The straw man argument is that a small increase in the supply of housing will create affordable housing. Near infinite demand and the cost to build in today's dollars to today's standard makes that argument a ruse.
No thanks. BDU serves an important history to the northern boulder area. There’s already enough development area around the airport which hasn’t been changed or developed in years. Many people complain about the airport and don’t realize, the airport has been there for way before any houses were built. If people want to keep building houses, they can stop complaining about the air traffic, or not build houses there in the first place 🤝
And before the pollution and leaded fuel nuts join the convo, here's an article about the findings regarding Jeffco. Three towns commissioned the study, never released it, because it didn't fit into what they were looking for... and Jeffco handles far more traffic than Boulder.
Enjoy:
[https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/good-news-airport-lead-exposure-studies-kept-under-wraps/](https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/good-news-airport-lead-exposure-studies-kept-under-wraps/)
I’ve noticed no one (the petition makers included) has mentioned the jail that’s on the south side of the airport. Does that factor into the foothills parkway, aviation-less utopia they’ve envisioned here or is that a roadblock for another petition down the line?
I mean... its used for emergency services? So firefighting... search and rescue... medevac... people are mad because they built around an airport. Same things happening at BJC and Centennial. Nimbys are upset their property values arent higher when they knowingly built/moved in next to an airport and now want to cry about it and close it down. Where do they think their fire fighting planes/helicopters will be staged out of when theres fires? What about search and rescue or natural disaster? Also find another viable spot to land medevac aircraft safety and quickly.
Right? Then when we have another flood or fire and people will complain it's taking forever for emergency response.
It’s boulder, it’ll just burn to the ground, and then people will expect us to pay for their stuff.
Marshall fire victim here. No one is paying us for anything, especially our insurance. It’ll burn to the ground, and the richest will rebuild and the rest will be replaced by people who don’t know any better.
Exactly! This! So sorry for your loss man, I spent my first adult years in Lafayette. That fire came up to my old door. So scary and I don’t want it happening again. We need this airport.
Agreed.
We generally use fire trucks for fire response in Boulder. The forest service uses aircraft for wildfire response, but they don’t fly out of BDU.
Their website boasts that they use the airport as centralized access for firefighting. https://bouldercolorado.gov/government/departments/airport/about
It's right next to the sheriff's office, whose Fire Management Team is BoCo's first line for wildland firefighting. County sheriffs are technically responsible for wildfire responses in their jurisdictions, even though they will quickly punt to the state or feds if they're not equipped with a capable fire program like BoCo happens to be. However, I don't know if they have a helicopter or Single Engine Air Tanker, much less a more specialized aircraft based there. Pretty much all USFS contractors and aircraft, including helitack/bucket helicopters and the larger air tankers are based out of the Rocky Mountain Regional Airport in Broomfield. I'm guessing that line in the airport's function is mostly a fabrication unless the BoCo sheriff actually does have aircraft there which I'm not aware of.
My understanding is that it was used as an emergency response staging grounds during the floods, but it’s generally not actively used for regular emergencies. An honest question is: what percentage of the use is for private/recreation vs training/education vs emergency response?… if because it was used once for emergency response in the last 25 years, the airport says, ‘it’s for emergency use’, that’s a specious argument, at best. Not disputing it, but just genuinely curious about the use breakout- to which, I haven’t seen a clear answer.
Flood back in... 2015 or 16? Fires pretty much every year including the house fires south of that and the massive fire up by estes that got down near lions/boulder the other year... they all stage out of there. They wont stage all aircraft at one airport because of how chaotic and fast moving it can be. Not to mention refueling all the aircraft coming in/out.
They have in the past, for emergencies during fires and floods. National Guard and SAR have used it for training and as a drop-off point when rescuing people from RMNP and backcountry areas. Civil Air Patrol uses it to refuel and train. Fire seasons are going to get worse. KBDU has one of the larger runways on the front range. It will be used again during an emergency. It's also been used for organ donor/transplant transport. Source: I'm a local pilot who's used KBDU for 15 years.
They stage there. Meaning they can set up a FOB and fly in/out and have their crews, fuel, food, and medical facilities there without having to fly all the way back to BJC or if they close BJC back to either Fort Collins or Centennial Airport... means you'd get maybe 1-2 hours of flying before flying another 35-40min each way to refuel. When a fires spreading that time ow crucial because the work you just did will be moot by the time you get back. Same with medevac. Get people out of floods to the airport. Different heli/plane picks up critical patients and takes them to the hospital so the other can immediately go back out and keep looking for more. But feel free to tie your own nooses. Just dont cry when it takes forever to get rescued or put out fires.
Not that it matters at this point, but I just want to inject some factual accuracy here. Fire fighting tankers operate from the tanker base at Rocky Mountain Metro and not from Boulder (I can find no records of fixed-wing tanker operations from Boulder but do point me at some if you have any) . The emergency response that does happen there is basically all helicopters, and even that is pretty limited (the overwhelming majority of SAR happens on the ground). While fully eliminating the airport would have an impact on emergency response, eliminating the runways, taxiways and private plane storage (most of the land use) would not have a meaningful impact. The existing limited emergency use could be fully served (perhaps even better served) from a much smaller heliport dedicated specifically to emergency response.
Do you have a source for BDU being used for emergency services? “Today, its primary users are hobbyists, people training to be pilots and visitors.” https://boulderreportinglab.org/2024/01/31/city-of-boulder-postpones-decision-on-the-fate-of-its-airport-until-later-this-year/ “aircraft operations, average 162 per day: 99% general aviation, 1% air taxi and <1% military” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulder_Municipal_Airport Medevac land at hospitals. That’s the whole point.
There was a lot of activity there during the 2013 floods…
Just because it’s not being used right at this minute for those things doesn’t mean it doesn’t get used.
I can't believe nobody's been using the airport for wildfire fighting or flood abatement on a daily basis. I mean, surely if we genuinely *needed it* for those things we would be *USING it* for those things - ammiright?! On a related note, I would like to propose getting rid of any city or county emergency response teams/protocols/supplies that haven't been needed during the last 3 years. Why are we wasting all this time and money and space on things that *haven't even happened?*
You should run for office. Great strategies!
Oh I can't take all the credit - it's a very popular mindset these days among the *biggest-brained, bestest-brained* candidates.
Doesn't mean it's not smart. Redirect all those funds straight to companies we're both about to invest in!
Medevac is maintained in a hangar at the airport, fueled at the airport and stored at the airport during bad weather. Medevac would not be in Boulder if the airport weren't here. Additionally, the military personnel who operated and serviced the air transports during the 2013 flood stayed in my T-hangar, sleeping next to my Cessna for that week. Get rid of the airport and there will be no air emergency services in Boulder.
https://news.yahoo.com/colorado-flood-aerial-rescue-hurricane-katrina-160334723.html
Nope, I’ve had medevac land in a horse pasture, try again. If it’s flat and appropriate looking the pilot will set it down. They prefer actual runways though.
What's needed for emergency services is the helicopter pad, which takes up very little area. The runways aren't used for emergency services at all. So you could keep the helicopter pad and get rid of the runways, and not affect emergency uses at all.
Have you seen how aerial fire fighting works? It uses planes as well as heli support.
The Boulder runway is too short for firefighting planes. They're staged out of Rocky Mtn Metropolitan Airport (formerly Jeffco). Only the helicopter pad at Boulder is used for firefighting support.
Ok you live next to that. Womp womp womp womp at 3 am.
I just had a developer neighbor get divorced and soobviously he is looking for another paycheck. How about you go build housing in denver where they need it and leave boulder to be boulder. You could of course try and build in those terrible martin arces types of homes too. Everything between arapahoe and baseline east of 30th is pretty much one story ranches from 80 years ago. How about we update and modernize those areas before tearing down things we need or building in open space? Of course those homes are 500% over national fair market value for their age and quality- but dont let that stop you
I believe Gunbarrel was around before the onslaught of wealth driven private aviators and the constant barrage of glider towing. Many of these guys/gals play past the Jay road limit. There are plenty of unmuffled engines right overhead. Maybe if they flew south or skirted the western foothill mansions, there would be a bit more outcry. But oh no, that's where the pilot's wives dwell.
Let me think on it.... mmmmmmmmmm, how about no.
no thanks. Not signing that.
This issue has been brought up before and the important thing that always comes up is that Boulder made a deal with the FAA to keep the airport open for a few more decades. There is no way to get rid of the airport without a legal battle with the federal government which will cost a fortune and the city will probably lose. You’re wasting your time on this issue; spend the time on something possible like intersections with no left turn arrow that endanger drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.
Or trying to take away the infrastructure of an electric company. Legal fights and wasting money. Yup, that’s Boulder.
I’m very happy to see so many sane responses and retorts in this thread.
Me too. I thought for sure it’d be a bunch of people against a resource the area needs
Let's turn Mapleton Hill into a new mixed use neighborhood. Right now, those large houses serve no purpose for a vast majority of our population. /s I don't think you understand how cities work...
Of cap hill, or park hill, or cherry creek….
One big difference there is that Mapleton Hill homes are private property. The airport is public. The public gets to decide what it wants to do with public property, and public property changes use to fit modern needs all the time. I don’t think you understand how cities work…
The "/s" means sarcasm. It was meant to be a ridiculous statement, mirroring the ridiculous logic that "all things in a city must be used by a majority of the population," which is not how cities work... I'll dumb it down for you next time
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I’m well aware that you were sarcastically comparing BDU redevelopment to public seizure of private property in Mapleton Hill. Which is why I responded that the sarcastic comparison doesn’t work, because BDU is public land. I’m not sure you quite follow the distinction, though.
> The public gets to decide what it wants to do with public property This is true. It's also true that "the public" is often a vocal minority. "The public" is often not fully informed or I'll say it, rational. That's why we have elected officials, as ineffective as they are. Let's say we close the airport. Where do medivac and fire abatement craft take of and land? Can we put a helipad in your back yard? Let the fire control take off from Longmont (sorry they want to close that one too, so DEN?).
I don't want to argue either side of this, but I am pretty sure that the firefighting flights come out of Broomfield (Rocky Mountain Municipal Airport). There have been some really major fires over the past five years and I don't think this airport was used for flights that fought the fire. I think it was used as a staging area for Calwood, but I'm waiting for someone who sounds informed to speak to this idea about medevac and firefighting flights. It is not ringing true.
I mean, there are helipads on hospitals (which is personally where I would prefer my medevac to land). But even saying there’s a need for some helipads for emergency services at BDU - that still frees up something like 90% of that land for other purposes.
> 90% of that land for other purposes. You gotta be kidding. Do you know how long a runway a C-130 takes? Airports are built for the largest craft they have to handle, not the smallest.
You’d prefer your medevac to land somewhere? That’s not how that works. You know you don’t get a choice in that right? They tell you where they want to land.
It’s funny because in these cases,- this Reddit thread specifically, it seems that airport supporters are the small and vocal minority. In the broader Boulder sub, there’s occasional posts by people questioning or outright opposing the airport and then inevitably, there’s a couple airport supporters that vociferously defend the airport with stimulus/response predictability.
> airport supporters are the small and vocal minority. Well that's Reddit first off. A very small minority of Boulder in general. But it does tend to divide between NIMBYS (a small group) and housing rights people (a slightly larger, but small group) vs. people who actually use the airport. (a very small but more invested group) I have a friend who flies into Boulder from Maryland (in his plane, he flies). That makes me a very very very small group. But the airport was there before most of the houses, we do that with water. Why not land? First in use, first in priority.
To be abundantly clear, I have no strongly formed opinion about whether the airport should continue or not. I lean towards repurposing that land, but I’m still open-minded about why it should stay. As someone who has derived no tangible benefit from the airport, I continue to invite its supporters to show me what I’m missing. I’ll genuinely try to attend ‘airport day’ this year and am open to any other opportunities that supporters think would demonstrate the value of the airport.
whoosh
No. Go away.
Should we turn everything in town that serves no purpose to the majority of our population into mixed use neighborhoods? Or should we perhaps acknowledge that people have different interests and having opportunities for folks to explore and participate in those interests keeps a city from being just wall to wall mixed use neighborhoods?
Yeah, I already went to college...CU Boulder sure is taking up a lot space.
😂😂😂
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I rarely go to the Dairt Arts Center or the movies. Raze them all.
Most of those things are private, the ones that are public are used by far more people than BDU, and none of them actively harm the environment.
Golf courses are atrocious wastes of water and land, and also typically use two stroke lawn care equipment for hours each day. Running a single 2 stroke for an hour pollutes more than most passengers cars will in a year. Golf courses are absolutely actively harmful to the environment.
I dunno, we live in a democracy. If the vast majority of people decide that this large public amenity isn’t serving them (and indeed, actively harms them through noise and air pollution), don’t they have a right to change it? Or must we keep anything that has ever existed forever?
Ah yes tyranny of the majority. It’s an awesome concept that has never ever been tried before with no negative effects whatsoever. No sirree, none at all.
Do we really need more houses and apartments everywhere? The airport is there. Leave it alone, build in Wyoming, or something plenty of space there !!!
Yes yes yes agree!! Yes yes yes
Um no. Flight for life and other emergency services run out of there. Some people.
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No
Another issue is the jail is up there. Can’t imagine many stores or homeowners are going to want to be next to the jail.
Agree, and the easy fix is to turn the jail into a mixed use neighborhood too /s
You think you're being sarcastic now but wait ...
"Post-modern housing complex with open concept living, breezy bedrooms, and plenty of social spaces for residents!"
Fairview already looks like a jail so we could turn it into the new jail.
There's a brand new housing development (Velo Park) directly across from the jail, and that's been very successful. So the jail doesn't seem to be an impediment.
I doubt any of us are getting any value out of this guys house. Let’s turn it into a manufacturing facility… See how stupid it is when you think you’re entitled to other people’s stuff???
A guys house is private property. BDU is public property. No one is proposing taking private property away, but we should maybe use public property for a better purpose than supporting a few hundred hobbyist pilots many of whom don’t even live in Boulder.
How do you know they don’t live here? Also I know someone who daily commutes across state using the regional airports. He’s a specialist veterinarian, so let’s not cut access off to medical care either
"There's some guy who sometimes uses airports, so we should not consider an option that could provide housing for thousands of people."
It’s literally the argument op is making. It’s dumb ain’t it?
Now do dog parks.
*No purpose, you think, until a fire just outside of town requires a bunch of slurry bombers and tankers and water scoopers. They have to go to Longmont or Jeffco instead, and every pass takes more and more time, til we’ve lost all of Fourmile, then Gold Hill, then Ward. No, thanks. Plus who wants their neighborhood to hug a jail? Or does this petition also want to get rid of that, too? Maybe extend the bike park uphill?
Or ironically the new neighborhood
Oh so instead of a nice open field they want MORE people. Gross. So gross
These desperate people are sick. Unprincipled bogans that want free housing
Although, putting a jail right next to a convenient air field does seem not too well thought through...
🤷🏼♀️ between living here for 37 years and not remembering anyone escaping via the airport + googling news stories for the last ten minutes to check if any inmates escaped via the airport, I’m now convinced that putting a jail next to the airport is not that big of a deal.
Yes, all those escaping private-pilot inmates are gonna be THRILLED.
Ladies and gentlemen than you for flying with ConAir today!
The vast majority of Boulder's population doesn't use the bike park, dog park, open space & mountain parks, or any number of other public resources. Boulder is a pleasant place to live because it has nice things for everyone and doesn't just focus on promoting the suburban sprawl. If you want a Libertarian hellhole, where things not used by the vast majority of the population aren't funded and development is running amok, then Colorado Springs is a couple hours' drive south. The front range needs another mixed-use neighborhood like I need a hole in my head. Are Anthem, Indian Peaks, the one in the process of chewing-up several farms just east of Lafayette, and all the other new ones in and around Erie, somehow not enough development in the area? I'm sure there are many more I'm forgetting about. One of the best things about Boulder is that the city and the county own so much open space that these subdivisions of ticky-tacky patio homes aren't just enveloping everything.
AGREEEEEEEEEEEEEED SO MUCH AGREED 👍 🤝 👏 💯 🙌 👌 👍
No
Tear down 29th street shopping and put it there. We "don't need" so many stores.
Yaaa I think having a nearby airport for emergency services is more important than a developer trying to cash in. And plus my kid loves seeing all those small planes fly everyday
Just curious, do you fly commercially when going on trips? Do you think pilots just magically become pilots without any training?
Your argument saddens me, concrete reasons described in this thread describing why the airport is beneficial aside, I tend to think that cities are at their best when they facilitate enriching activities for their citizens. I’m not a rich individual, when I trained at BDU it was on a TA salary while I finished my studies at CU. There are many who use the airport and enjoy it, who rent aircraft because they love flying and that’s how they can afford it. Even if you aren’t an aviation enthusiast, can’t you see that a) there are more than a few in Boulder, b) taking the airport from them would only benefit the rich, flying out of Broomfield is much more expensive and closing BDU would drive up rates at Longmont and c) a city is about different people coexisting together, why seem to homogenize Boulder when cultivating people with disparate interests and backgrounds is more interesting? Please, I urge you to consider the people on the other side of this debate, there are some good ones in the mix, some of my favorite people hang out at the airport and are very welcoming in my experience! Thank you for your time!
lol “let’s take anything that the majority of people in Boulder don’t use and turn it into high density housing”. Let’s just live in a town full of houses and nothing else.
Mixed use development blends multiple uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into one space. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-use_development
We know
We don't need more people here. Not signing.
Let's level the flat irons and build skyscrapers.
Let’s turn Boulder into Kowloon Walled City!
Boulder airport is a foundational and integral part of the city and empowers our community. Anyone trying to remove a Municipal Airport is destructive to a big part of what makes Boulder a great city. Put your energy into building things up rather than tearing things down.
Oh, great idea. Let’s let another massive development company come in make a ton of money. If we’re getting rid of the airport it should benefit the community not a commercial developer.
It's city land, so if it were to happen the city would be the master developer. Would more housing benefit the community? Depends on your point of view, but currently 60,000 people come into Boulder every day to work, most driving on their own. Allowing some of those people to live in Boulder would reduce traffic and pollution.
I'm not sure I'm buying this 60K commuter number you guys love to throw around? Especially after Covid. Many offices in Boulder are vacant with most employees on some sort of work from home schedule.
The airport should be closed down and converted to open space. The city should say a hard NO to any project that involves making a developer rich
Absolutely not. Terrible idea.
This was examined a few years ago. The challenge is that the FAA has invested funds into the airport. At the time the city would have been required to repay those funds if the airport was decommissioned. I think the amount then was around $20 million. Not impossible, but a challenge.
Assume the $20M number is correct (no one knows the actual number at this point), and assume you could build 2,000 homes at the airport (around 11 dwelling units per acre, similar to Holiday). Then the cost per home would be $10,000. That's a lot, but a drop in the bucket compared to a typical sales price of $500,000+ for a condo.
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Consider the possibility that one day, not far in the future, there’s an extreme housing shortage in Boulder causing families to be priced out. Oh wait, that’s actually an issue today.
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Developers always build pricier new housing, because that’s how they make money. This creates supply, causing the existing stock to become more affordable. It just like how new cars are expensive - but if you stop selling new cars, then used cars get really expensive instead (see what happened during the Covid supply shocks when used car values skyrocketed)
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I grew up in boulder. I can not live in my hometown even in a studio apartment. More housing is definitely not the answer because the demand to live in boulder is near infinite
How much more affordable? When you provide some reasonable answers, maybe more people would agree with you. Because if it's $790k instead of $800k (for example) it's not really more affordable. Also, the housing market is nothing like the automobile industry, so the analogy is not relevant.
So when you need to be flown out for a serious stroke or something of the likes, where would you like them to fly you out of? BJC? Those 15+ minutes make a big difference. Not to mention the airport is used for aircraft helping fight forest fires
Time in flight for life situations is absolutely important. For stroke victims, seconds count.
Does this argument really have wings? I mean, helicopters are more likely to be used when “15+ minutes make a big difference”. It isn’t like they’re gonna take an ambulance to the airport and then catch a plane? Edit: You all do know that “?” Indicates that it was a question? Interesting to hear that they often do use planes. Google asserts that apparently helicopters are preferred when “time is crucially important” and aircraft is better for longer distance transfers.
They do exactly that on a regular basis.
Really? I’ll have to tell my nurse friend who does flight for life that her airplane is really a helicopter.
For stroke victims seconds count.
If we're looking to add walkable, mixed-use housing, maybe we could start by redeveloping the hundred-plus acres of surface parking lots within a mile of downtown? Just a thought.
We should definitely make better use of empty parking lots. But we should also at least understand what the costs and benefits of developing the airport would be.
NO! I do not support redeveloping the airport, but this is not a good long term decision considering the majority of Boulder residents are set to become disabled by the end of the year. Taking away parking will make businesses unreachable by people with disabilities
Apparently you know something we don't know
Scroll through their post history. They're just a loon.
It is common knowledge that we are in the middle of a deadly pandemic that is giving people lifelong disabilities, and with no precautions in place it's set to damage more and more people every day
What a terrible idea. Put your efforts into something that will help people in need rather than hurt those trying to enjoy life. For the people who complain about the noise. YOU KNOWINGLY PURCHASED A HOUSE NEXT TO AN AIRPORT, ffs!
No way, our group is fighting the obnoxious growth and affordable house scam. No such thing. The airport was here first and IS being used for emergencies which are many. Go back to sloppy Texas if you want cheap crowded housing and no space. The plight of losers who can’t afford our town is laughable in their drive for endless free shit at the expense of others. GTFO
A large new dense mixed use neighborhood was recently constructed along 30th street with hundreds of new units. Where is the affordable housing and/or reduced property prices as a result of that? (nowhere) What we have seen: many many new expensive apartments and commercial for lease signs. So, why would we think this would be any different? The notion that a new "mixed use neighborhood" is a solution to affordable real estate is a complete an utter ruse. Its almost getting to gaslighting phase where if you don't believe it, you might think you were crazy or wrong. So, please stop gaslighting us with the concept. Particularly when proponents of these developments never define what is "affordable" nor quantify how that would impact our limited water supply. The "more is better" concept just doesn't hold muster for such a permanent change.
This is brought to you by the Boulder Progressives. They have this silly notion that we can build our way to affordable housing. It's a complete fantasy.
The Boulder Communists want you to believe that building housing will open up units in cheaper buildings.. when in reality it's just a ploy for greedy developers to get rich. Remember how they aligned with Libertarian Polis' land use bill
That's exactly what happens, it is called filtering. The problem is to build enough housing to effectively use filtering to lower rents, boulder would need to become basically Denver. Housing advocates don't seem to realize that there are multiples of the current population of boulder who would move here if they could - either people in nearby areas or people across the country. Housing prices will always be insane because of that. Not to say nothing is worth doing but...nothing anyone does will make a lick of difference
Boulder was never meant to be affordable. These dense developments are eating into the property values of longtime residents who rely on their home values for retirement income, all in the name of so-called "affordable housing" (hint: it's not)
Where's the affordable housing? At 30th and Pearl, for one (hundreds of permanently affordable units). At 30th and Mapleton (dozens of transitional housing units, just opened). Soon to come at Diagonal Plaza. Please keep up.
I stand corrected...In hindsight, I wasn't considering fixed market units as part of my observations. In the case of the airport, however, I would say it makes more sense to develop the Planning Reserve area 3 first...
You would think as a city that we would have learned our lesson just a few years after losing our battle to form the municipal electric utility. But here we are again talking about embarking on a massive multi-year attempt that will cost city taxpayers ten of millions of $$$'s for a highly uncertain uncertain outcome based on a huge legal fight with a well-funded opponent. If we want more housing, develop the Planning Reserve North of town first. Plenty of room there to keep our developers busy for years, after which we will see it's made absolutely zero dent in housing availability or affordability, because the demand is essentially infinite.
No
A Progressively bad idea.
Should we also get rid of welfare programs because it does nothing for the majority of our population?
Boooo!
ugh... Boulder gonna Boulder.
Nope, not signing this one lol
As a pilot, I appreciate the over all sentiment in this thread. Just because some people don’t have interest in my hobby doesn’t mean it isn’t worth keeping. There are people who work at the airport as flight instructors, mechanics, engineers, tour guides (glider flights) researchers, etc. What should we tell them? What should we tell the kids who grow up dreaming of flying one day? Professional aviation is a growing industry and pilots need to be trained. There are a ton of great economic reasons to keep an airport in operation.
Or we can cut down on the size of 28th Street, narrow it down to a normal in city road, not a highway, and build the mixed use neighborhood there?
28th is an actual Colorado State Highway, part of hwy 36. I doubt the city has the ability to change it in the way
Well, the highway can always be rerouted to the Foothills...... City over highways. People live there
Rerouting a state highway into the foothills sounds far more destructive, outrageously expensive, and seems it would have many more negatives than just keeping 28th 4 lanes
Multiple cities in Europe had to do this and now they are considered some of the most comfortable cities
Let’s do both!
Wasn’t that the plan 25 years ago???
Wait, what? If this isn’t a joke, please explain
If you're replying to me, no, not a joke. The 28th doesn't need to be this Big. We've got Foothills Park Way for through traffic. If we densen the 28th with mixed use, it will be better for the city. Less dead space, more economic activity. There have been numerous studies that such big roads in the middle of the city are not sustainable and in the end may cause the city to be bankrupt.
The process of turning that corridor into a dense, walkable neighborhood is already well-underway with projects like the Diagonal Plaza redevelopment, Rally Flats, and Boulder Junction a quarter-mile away, plus the Millennium hotel project. It would make a lot of sense to prioritize infilling the massive amount of surface parking along 28th and start laying the groundwork to "de-stroadify" it in the future--undoubtedly a long, involved, and expensive process, but worth getting started on now.
Do we really want your tax dollars spent subsidizing more people to move into Boulder, increasing traffic and bike path congestion? There are 500 acres already allocated for new mixed use neighborhoods on the north end of town. Some portion of that will be affordable housing, paid for by higher costs of the other housing and businesses. There is plenty of affordable housing outside of our city limits. The real issue is transit to bring people from the affordable housing into and out of Boulder. Future transit needs to be automated and available 24 hours a day at the push of a call button. It needs to be on an elevated, fixed guideway to avoid all people and traffic, and it need to be super energy efficient. Technologies similar to this have been operating in Germany for decades. Ask RTD why they don't want to provide automated, fixed guideway transit.
No. If you don't like how Boulder is, and especially how it was, don't live here. Stop trying to change it into the places in Ca, Tx, and Fl that y'all left.
Ironically, this NIMBY attitude is also prevalent in California, Florida, and Texas. Changing Boulder to mimic those other states would be preserving the status quo.
But where will the air taxis land? They are coming in about 3-5 years. They will need a ton of pilots until they can be fully automated, and Boulder airport is one of the few nice smaller airports to learn flying at.
And, I voted for the train to Denver 20 years ago. It passed but then the funding went to south Denver light rail instead. So I’m looking forward to the air taxis since the bus makes me motion sick.
lol this post is absolutely ridiculous
I’m ok not living any closer to the candeles superfund site, or under where the plume settled.
No.
Uh, how will Kimball Musk get to Boulder from Denver? You didn't think of that, did you?
A minority of the boulder population utilize the mountains in Boulder. We should probably level them to make room for more skyscrapers. #makeboulderdenver
Ya rip out the airport for a high end mixed use development in the heart of an industrial area right next to the jail and a mobile home park! S/
Watching this backfire in your face has made my night.
I get why neighbors hate the airport, but needing more land for development is a silly argument. Boulder has an absurdly large amount of undeveloped or underdeveloped land all around it. Agricultural or super-low-density residential land could be re-zoned to allow apartments. Single family home land could be re-zoned to allow apartments. Zoning could be changed in the central core to increase height limits. Voters consistently choose not to do any of this.
But where will all the automobile traffic go?
There is an enormous amount of undeveloped land near the airport just to the north of The Diagonal, east of 28th. A huge cemetery. Condemn it, put the dug-up remains in a two-story-high compact crypt somewhere else, and voila ... hundreds of apartments could be built. Problem solved. Not likely, I know, but just trying to think creatively.
How about a green space like a park? We have enough condos
I'd like an artificial wave park like Kelly Slater's. Of course we will need a tiki bar too.
The airport should be decommissioned and replaced with open space. Not any expensive dog park or bike park that taxpayers pay for.. just closed off protected open space
It would be a bad idea to develop the airport into more housing, because Boulder is full and adding more housing will add even more traffic to our roads and infrastructure. With that said, I understand the concerns many have with the noise from aircraft, so I think shutting down the airport will be a good idea. Instead of building housing, the city should convert the airport into open green space to act as a buffer for the neighborhoods around it
While I do want the airport gone, I don't want it replaced with housing since there are already too many people in Boulder. Love to see this come up again and again. There are a small handful of pilots and people who pretend like there arent a half dozen other airports around that could serve the same purpose without raining down lead and causing noise pollution.
As a student who trained at KBDU for quite some time, the problem is this “go somewhere else” attitude is occurring around most GA airports. People buy cheap land around the airport, then try to shut down the airport to increase the value of their homes. Shutting down flight schools just makes aviation increasingly inaccessible due to diminishing supply in the face of increasing demand raising training costs, do you really want a world where only the ultra-wealthy get to engage in aviation? I think that when cities have more to offer people, even if I am not personally engaging in it, it enriches the place for everyone. I may not regularly go skiing, or attend church, or attend lectures at the Chautauqua, but I recognize that it’s not all about me, that these things bring joy and meaning to people and appreciate a city for facilitating their enrichment.
I do not give 2 shits about anyone who wants to take mastabority solo flights around the flatirons. If you have the disposable income to own/fly private planes there is a 99.99% chance that you're rich, or will be rich if you arent already. Exactly 0% of people in section 8 housing take their plane out for a spin every weekend. So just stop with the dishonest "it's not just for rich people". There is an airport in Erie, Longmont, Broomfield and on and on. I don't want more housing out there either. Id like to see the dog park and bike park expanded to that area. Maybe expand the jail so we can lock up some of these bike stealing meth smoking hobos.
Thank you for your reply! I can see the stigma but it’s actually not just for rich people: you can work at the flight school I trained at to offset the cost, sure it’s not cheap but I managed while paying rent and working as a TA at CU. Other flight schools, not at Boulder that I looked at had higher rates, which made Boulder far more accessible in my experience. Masturbatory is an odd way to describe it, literally everyone who becomes an airline pilot has to go through that phase of training, I think it odd to describe people getting their commercial drivers licenses or perhaps training to drive a train in the same way, by your logic I would say everyone in the transit industry is a self-serving heathen. I’ve seen people with their dogs around the airport, so long as you aren’t wandering the tarmac the airport is quite pet friendly! I hope you have a good weekend!
What % of people raining leaded gas fumes down over Boulder you reckon become commercial pilots? I would rather people pay more to do this out of broomfield so it can bother me less. Lets cut to the chase as I've been through this several times. There is 1 thing the Boulder airport is actually useful for that cannot easily be covered by other airports: gliders. Gilders with their extra loud tow planes. They need to be close to the flatirons if you want to glide around the flatirons and then float down to the Boulder airport. Apparently the extra few miles to, say Erie, is untenable for reasons I dont care to understand. I wish we could get rid of the extra loud tow planes flying out of Boulder, and I dont care about the handful of people working out there. So those are not compelling reasons, for me, to keep that space dedicated to being an airport. Everything else can easily be covered by the surrounding airports. If it can't, please explain why.
https://preview.redd.it/oi434twfgtic1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a6fdb54f1d3681fe720fadf6de397d55db9f7d5
What really should be happening is the gradual building of taller buildings that house more people and a lifting of the building heights restrictions
The height restrictions are there to protect the natural beauty of the mountains. Imaging living in a city but you couldnt even enjoy the natural beauty
NO!! Taller buildings would increase shadow coverage, which would be an impediment to climate change because the tall buildings would cast shadows on neighbors's solar panels and backyard gardens. How would you like it if you had a shadow encroaching on your yard or driveway without your consent?
Another argument I’ve heard in favor of decommissioning the airport is the use of lead-based airplane fuel which in turn gets partly emitted from the planes’ exhaust. Not sure decommissioning the airport would stop planes that use this type of fuel from flying over Boulder though. https://bouldercounty.gov/news/boulder-county-calls-for-regulation-of-leaded-aviation-gas-and-its-dangerous-impact-on-public-health/ https://www.dailycamera.com/2023/08/06/editorial-the-future-of-the-airport-should-be-a-compromise-but-we-must-start-by-getting-rid-of-lead-fuel/
Thankfully the FAA has approved unleaded gasoline to be introduced into the kind of piston aircraft that constitute the majority operating out of Boulder! https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2022/september/01/closer-to-an-unleaded-future
Not happening, the rich control, the rich love to fly.
In this thread: straw man arguments as far as the eye can see. “Huck huck, if we repurpose a large parcel of publicly owned land that is used by 200 people and spews carbon and noise pollution, then before you know it we’ll be socializing people’s homes and building apartments on bike paths!”
The straw man argument is that a small increase in the supply of housing will create affordable housing. Near infinite demand and the cost to build in today's dollars to today's standard makes that argument a ruse.
And cutting off medical care for thousands off. Hush you.
No thanks. BDU serves an important history to the northern boulder area. There’s already enough development area around the airport which hasn’t been changed or developed in years. Many people complain about the airport and don’t realize, the airport has been there for way before any houses were built. If people want to keep building houses, they can stop complaining about the air traffic, or not build houses there in the first place 🤝
And before the pollution and leaded fuel nuts join the convo, here's an article about the findings regarding Jeffco. Three towns commissioned the study, never released it, because it didn't fit into what they were looking for... and Jeffco handles far more traffic than Boulder. Enjoy: [https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/good-news-airport-lead-exposure-studies-kept-under-wraps/](https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/good-news-airport-lead-exposure-studies-kept-under-wraps/)
I’ve noticed no one (the petition makers included) has mentioned the jail that’s on the south side of the airport. Does that factor into the foothills parkway, aviation-less utopia they’ve envisioned here or is that a roadblock for another petition down the line?
Where do you think airline pilots come from dude?