Top 10: No. 4: Boulder occupancy limit reform
Dec. 28—Editor's note: The Daily Camera is counting down the top 10 news stories of the year, as selected by the newspaper's editors.
The Boulder City Council passed a landmark occupancy reform ordinance in August that changed the number of unrelated people who can live in the same housing unit.
Previously, only three unrelated people could live together in many parts of the city. The new ordinance allows up to five unrelated people to live together citywide.
This ordinance did not deliver the change that Bedrooms Are For People organizers campaigned for in 2021. The failed Bedrooms Are For People ballot measure would have allowed up to one person per legal bedroom plus an additional person to occupy a home.
However, advocates celebrated the change as a step toward easing occupancy limits that they say have made it unnecessarily difficult for students and others to find housing in Boulder.
"The goal of the (Bedrooms) measure and organization was to stop the city from using discriminatory housing laws that are based on the relationship status of people living in a home," said Eric Budd, a co-lead of the Bedrooms initiative. "The policy that Boulder City Council passed, it still regulates people in housing based on family and relationship status, but it relaxes those laws in significant and meaningful ways."
The decision also angered some community members. Some suggested the council had overridden the will of the voters who rejected the Bedrooms initiative. However, a legal expert interviewed by the Daily Camera opined that the new law is substantially different from what the Bedrooms initiative proposed, and that City Council approved the new law through legitimate, democratic means.
Six council members — Mayor Aaron Brockett and Councilmembers Matt Benjamin, Lauren Folkerts, Rachel Friend, Junie Joseph and Nicole Speer — voted in favor of the ordinance. The other three, then-Mayor Pro Tem Mark Wallach and Councilmembers Bob Yates and Tara Winer, voted against it.
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Top 10
No. 10: Boulder residents protest modular home factory on BVSD land
No. 9: Boulder voters approve Safe Zones ballot measure
No. 8: Frozen Dead Guy joins his namesake festival in Estes Park
No. 7: CU Boulder Education dean quits after departure of four women of color faculty
No. 6: Continuing upheaval on Boulder's Police Oversight Panel
No. 5: The homelessness crisis in Boulder
