For the first time ever, Boulder has an overarching document to steer its nationally lauded, 46,000-acre open space system surrounding the city.

City council on Tuesday unanimously adopted a comprehensive Open Space Master Plan outlining goals for the system and dozens of specific strategies, tiered by three levels of emphasis and the ability to fund each, to achieve over the next decade.

Those goals involve:

  • Boosting the massive open space portfolio’s ecosystem health and resilience.
  • Preparing current and future tenants of the city’s more than 14,000 acres of agricultural open space dedicated to local food production for likely local impacts of climate change.
  • Fostering responsible recreation, stewardship and enjoyment of the land.
  • Growing community education and inclusion opportunities within the system.
  • Securing financial sustainability for open space.

But the plan acknowledges challenges lie ahead for open space, namely the continued warming of the planet and its potential damaging effect on agriculture, heightened visitation to open space properties as well as an uncertain funding future for the open space program.

“Our agricultural legacy is also facing disruption to the way we have traditionally worked the land for the last century,” the plan states. “While more carbon dioxide may lead to more crop yields, these gains will likely be offset by higher temperatures, lower water availability and increased winter survival of pests. The timing and availability of forage for cattle also will likely become less certain, making ranching operations more difficult.”

Open Space and Mountain Parks properties saw about 6.25 million visits in 2017, up 34% from 4.7 million in 2005, according to the plan. But there is a select group of areas, mainly the city’s most iconic, that are bearing the brunt of the system’s growing popularity.

Out of the roughly 1,200 respondents to a city survey, 88% believe crowding is a problem at Chautauqua and 67% said the same of Sanitas, while only 27% and 11%, respectively, felt crowding was an issue at Marshall Mesa and Boulder Valley Ranch. In general, open space lands in north Boulder are less visited by non-city residents, with roughly 60% to 80% of all visits systemwide made by residents, the plan said.

“These findings suggest the need to develop planning tools that provide site-specific, coordinated solutions over time, especially where congestion issues may emerge in the future,” the plan states.

Planning Board member Sarah Silver last month wondered whether the plan is specific enough to address the visitation concerns.

But Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks Senior Planner Deryn Wagner at the time said decisions on whether visitation thresholds or carrying capacity limits for certain areas should be set need to be a part of future talks. The issue did not come up with council.

As a partial result of heightened visits, Boulder’s open space department is facing a multi-million dollar backlog of maintenance issues, and is set to endure a $10 million hit to its approximate $30 million budget next year due to an expiring tax, although council on Tuesday finalized sending a 20-year extension of an 0.15% open space sales tax to the ballot for potential voter permission.

The plan has identified that about 20% of the assets that make up the open space trail system need major repair, and 40% need preventive maintenance.

But during public comment on the plan at Tuesday’s meeting, Alan Delamere said he has walked approximately 30 miles of open space facing repair needs according to the city, and he believes some of those stretches are up to par, while other areas that are not labeled as in need of maintenance are in more desperate need than some of those that are.

“I think we’re at the stage when I’m not quite sure of what it really means when you approve this plan, of what you as a council are committed to,” Delamere said, suggesting the funding needs for open space are greater than the 0.15% sales tax for which the city will ask voters. “I don’t think any of us know what the real cost of implementing all these different (strategies) involved.”

Council members credited the lack of an “angry mob” of public speakers at Tuesday’s meeting to city staff’s thorough outreach as part of the plan’s drafting process.

City staff this fall and winter will create a more illustrative document for the plan, which is mainly a language-based, 220-plus page document. Staff also will begin to integrate work plans to carry out the mandates and goals created by the plan.

“A key part of our master plan process over the next 10 years is how do we track and report out on successes,” Open Space and Mountain Parks Interim Director Dan Burke said. “… We will be developing a sort of reporting out process for the community so they get to learn and follow our process annually through progress reports on individual strategies.”



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