Boulder design firms: Bring us your pops, scrapes

At least two Boulder design companies are using the city's impending house-size ordinance as a marketing tool, encouraging prospective builders to get their plans in before the rules change Jan. 4.

But city officials say they still aren't concerned about a so-called run on the bank for building permits.

The Whitten Design Group, based in east Boulder, has mailed out 8,500 post cards advertising its services and warning homeowners that they have little time left to build sizable additions.

"If you have been thinking about adding to your home, the time may be now," the postcard reads. "Whitten Design Group has the ability to transform your ideas for your addition into construction plans that can be submitted for a permit prior to the January 4th deadline, avoiding the new ordinances and protecting your property rights and values."

The City Council on Oct. 6 approved a suite of new rules aimed at limiting how large houses or remodels could be built. The rules restrict the ratio of finished square footage to lot size, the footprint of a building on a lot, wall lengths and building height.

For most of the 13,000 homeowners in the city, the new rules mean a home's total square footage can't exceed 3,500 square feet on a 7,000-square-foot lot. The scale increases for smaller lots and decreases on larger ones.

But the rules don't kick in until 90 days after the council's vote, giving builders time to submit plans that fall under the existing, less-restrictive code.

"Time is very short"

Karl Whitten, owner of Whitten Design, said he believes the new rules will be a nail in the coffin for Boulder's construction industry -- and for some homeowners' property rights.

"There's a tremendous amount of properties, I believe, that are affected by this ordinance," he said. "I think it potentially cripples the construction business in Boulder. In a lot of cases, it may undermine the land values."

The company's post card tells recipients that the firm has "analyzed sample properties in your neighborhood and found additions may no longer be possible on a high percentage of lots."

Whitten said the firm took samples from its client base to see how large of additions could be built under the new rules, although he did not provide specific examples.

"There's a lot of properties that are sort of near, at, or over the limit on some of the floor-area ratio and building-coverage issues," Whitten said. "We've actually looked at some fairly large properties that are seriously impacted."

Because the city requires a complete set of plans before a builder can begin the permitting process under the existing rules, Whitten said anyone who wants to build big needs to do it soon.

"We believe that time is very short," he said.

City Councilman Ken Wilson, one of the three elected officials who unsuccessfully opposed house-size rules, received one of the post cards at his University Hill home. He said the company is probably right to assume that most people don't know how the rules will impact them.

"I think it's unfortunate that we didn't tell people exactly what the impact was on their lots," he said.

Wilson said he doesn't expect a run on building permits, though.

"The city is going to require complete plans," he said. "Nothing partial is going to get through. That's fairly difficult to do in this time frame."

So far, eight building permits that add net square footage to homes have been pulled with the city since the council passed the ordinance. There was no data available on how large the projects are.

City Councilwoman Angelique Espinoza, who also opposed the compatible-development ordinance, said "one or two" big houses might squeeze in past the city's deadline, but, "I doubt it will be because of a postcard."

"It's so biased"

Gwen Dooley, a homeowner in Boulder's Mapleton Hill neighborhood who has supported the new rules, said she received one of the cards last week. She took offense to its message.

"The language is pejorative," she said. "It's so biased."

Dooley said the Whitten Design Group has no basis from which to claim that property values will be hurt by the city's ordinance once it goes into effect.

"I think that's totally incorrect," she said. "Having character in a neighborhood is what makes people want to live there. It really stabilizes your property."

Peter Heinz, owner of PEH Architects in Boulder, is also capitalizing on the impending rules.

His firm has been sending out messages this week via Facebook telling Boulder residents who use the social-networking service that "there's still time to beat these new regulations."

Heinz said he's working to make sure the company is "positioned to help anybody" who wants to build an addition before the rules change.

"I think that the compatible-development ordinance added another layer of bureaucracy to obtaining a building permit, and most architecture firms in town are gearing up to deal with that bureaucracy," he said.

Heinz said he hasn't had any response to the online ads, but he isn't worried about the city's regulations hurting future business.

Contact Camera Staff Writer Heath Urie at 303-473-1328 or urieh@dailycamera.com.