Name game could be key to growth issue.

AuthorRUNDLES, JEFF
PositionEconomic development

DESPITE THE RECENT ECONOMIC DOWNTURN, and continued prognostications for a poor economy I remain concerned that growth and sprawl will wreak havoc on Colorado.

With the special session on the topic already having started, and the vaunted Interstate 25 T-Rex project ready to spill traffic into neighborhoods, which means normally pleasant residential areas will hear and smell the ugly side of growth up close, now is the perfect time to revist the issue.

We've been having these growing pains for years.

Last year, we voters defeated a growth-control initiative on the November ballot with hopes that the legislature and the governor might take the lead on handling growth problems. Neither did, of course, meaning that we have no growth plan in place, and problems associated with sprawl will only be worse when and if we do get around to them.

Also, I read with interest recently about the formation of the Front Range Alliance, a group of high-tech millionaires who believe in "responsible growth" and who are willing to put their money where their mouths are. That may mean they'll be headed to the courts to fight what they see as irresponsible growth, and you can bet other independent groups will try similar strategies.

Of course, we could have avoided most of our growth-related ills had we bothered to plan properly.

We could have done things like build our roads first -- and make developers and the developments pay for them. Or we could have passed local laws that mandated certain aesthetic qualities concerning housing. We could have done a lot of things, and if we did, we probably would still have nothing but scenic rural land between Denver and Boulder.

But we never do the things we could have done. Growth, and especially profiting from it, are too much fun, even for governments. So here we are again.

Only this time, I have a plan.

This is a bold move, no doubt, but believe it or not, it won't cost a dime and it will give us all the...

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