Limiting Limitation

Resting in the foothills of the Rockies, Boulder, Colo. (pop. 85,000), has been called "the nicest small town in the U.S." It wants to stay that way: last year it put a quota of 450 on the construction of new houses as a means of limiting population growth to 2% a year.

The surrounding county, too, is concerned about holding down growth. Says Walden Toevs, chairman of the Boulder County commission: "We would like to avoid becoming an Orange County [Calif.], where every inch of space has been developed and where the orange groves that gave it the name are gone."

For a referendum held this month, Toevs' commission devised an unusual plan to keep the landscape unchanged. It proposed a new .5% sales tax that would raise $3 million per year to fund the purchase of nearby farming and grazing lands. The move aroused spirited opposition. Farmers who feared being dispossessed and individuals concerned about rising housing costs argued that the new legislation would give too much power to the county commissioners, interfere with the right of towns to expand, and add to already excessive taxation. In the end, they won; the proposal was defeated 23,419 to 15,761. So there are limits to the limiting of growth after all.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.