Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story misspelled Michael Leccese’s surname. The story below has been corrected.

Timing is everything.

That was the perspective of some Boulder slow-grow proponents who took issue with a report released last week. The report pointed out environmental advantages of increasing housing density in some areas of the city.

The 50-page report, focused on Boulder and titled, “Growing Greener,” was put forward by a group of nonprofit researchers in the state: Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, Colorado Public Interest Research Foundation, Environment Colorado and Frontier Group. Boulder-based environmental nonprofit Innovo Foundation is also listed as a contributor to the report.

Its authors argue Boulder’s land use and housing policies have led to under-use of a strong public transit system for a city its size. It also said those policies contributed to the city’s traffic congestion problems and spurred environmentally degrading regional suburban sprawl.

“Boulder’s lack of housing is one of the factors contributing to regional vehicle traffic, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions,” the report states.

It contains data cited to various sources, including the city, the U.S. Department of Labor and academic papers, across 13 pages of footnotes, showing 60% of jobs in Boulder are held by nonresidents. It said 77% of the 63,900 non-resident employees in the city get to work alone in a personal vehicle. The driving amounts to 245 million more miles each year on the road by non-residents than would occur if those employees lived within city limits, the report states, emitting 99,000 tons of additional carbon dioxide.

Vehicle travel as a whole accounts for 31% of Boulder’s County’s nitrogen oxide and 24% of its volatile organic compounds emissions, which react together to form ozone. Ozone levels have been a concern along the Front Range, the report states. If a third of Boulder’s nonresident employees moved into the city and drove as much as current residents, who have been shown to walk, bike and use public transit more often than non-residents, it would equate to taking up to 6,392 vehicles carrying only one passenger off of Boulder’s streets during commute times, the report said.

Its contents were reviewed by the city’s Senior Transportation Planner Chris Hagelin, former Boulder mayor and current Colorado Energy Office Director Will Toor, Boulder Chamber CEO John Tayer and Urban Land Institute Colorado Director Micahel Leccese.

Skeptics of housing density and supply-side economics as a solution to Boulder’s affordable housing and transportation issues raised questions about Hagelin’s involvement, though, as well as the timing of the report’s release at the kickoff of Boulder’s city council election cycle.

City attorney dismisses concern

Gary Wockner, a part-time Boulder resident who advocates limiting Colorado population growth as an environmental protection method, emailed Boulder officials concerned about Hagelin’s review of the report and that its authors were aiming to influence the election without having to officially register with the city as a committee.

Chief Deputy City Attorney David Gehr addressed Wockner’s inquiry by saying he did not believe any rules were broken by the report’s release, according to publicly available Boulder emails.

“City staff members are frequently interviewed by the media, industry groups and nonprofit organizations, and are often asked to review sections of reports to ensure information is conveyed accurately,” Gehr stated. “Staff make every effort to accommodate these requests when information is readily available and is their area of expertise.”

On Wockner’s electioneering worries, Gehr explained it does not amount to a campaign violation. He said it’s because the publication does not mention city council candidates by name and there is a state law exempting registration of “communications made in the ordinary course of business.”

“The city cannot control what other people write and the city staff strives (to) provide information to members of the public without respect to their views,” Gehr said.

Jobs growth outpaces housing

Authors Danny Katz and Matthew Frommer, of the Colorado Public Interest Research Foundation and Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, respectively, said the report did not examine accelerating economic development and job placement opportunities in the areas east of the city in Boulder, Broomfield, Weld and Adams counties as a means of declogging local roads.

“Boulder has not been adding enough housing to accommodate its growing workforce and this trend is projected to continue,” the report stated. It used numbers taken from city documents showing Boulder added 4.2 new jobs for each new housing unit between 2010 and 2017, and currently has the ability to add 54,760 new jobs but only 19,270 new residents within city limits based on current zoning rules.

But former city council member Steve Pomerance, who has argued for limiting the pace of Boulder’s growth, said the addition of jobs nearby Boulder, and even the departure some from the city, may be a positive development that could help alleviate traffic congestion.

“It makes far more sense to address the jobs/housing imbalance by moving jobs — both new ones and some existing ones — to where people live,” Pomerance said. “This makes everyone’s lives better — reduced commuting traffic, less pressure on housing prices, more even regional distribution of sales tax, and, very importantly, the impact on finite, irreplaceable resources like open space is lowered.”

Municipalities nearby Boulder “deserve to be more balanced themselves,” Pomerance said. “… By ending the growth spiral, we will be able to develop a sustainable economic balance and maintain a livable city.”

The report highlighted the Red Oak Park neighborhood, where Boulder Housing Partners is building 41 more permanently affordable units, and the Boulder Junction apartments project as examples of the “compact development” that could help infill Boulder’s available land, boost public transit use and keep undeveloped land along the Front Range in agricultural or natural uses.

It also contended greater flexibility in city rules is needed to add accessory dwelling units to properties designated as single-family to boost densities closer to the seven-units-per-acre mark that fosters use of public transit and reduces driving. Central Boulder, at a density of 8.87 units per acre, is the only of Boulder’s five densest neighborhoods to meet that threshold, according to the report. Southeast Boulder at 6.93 units per acre, South Boulder at 6.52, Gunbarrel at 6.46 and North Boulder at 5.96 round out the list.

More efficient water and energy usage in compact development is also touted as a benefit of compact, higher density infill development by the report. It suggests increasing or eliminating the limit of three unrelated people living together in low-density residential zones and four in medium residential zones, lower or eliminating parking requirements for housing units and raising building heights to foster the type of development it considers environmentally friendly.

“There is no policy to house all of the people who work in Boulder here,” Assistant City Manager Chris Meschuk said earlier this month at a neighborhood meeting on possible city redevelopment plans for the former Boulder Community Health hospital site. “It would not be feasible.”