CoPIRG's `Anti-growth' Amendment Harmful, According to Howard Gelt, Environmental Activist and Political Leader.

Business Editors/Environmental & Government Writers

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 23, 2000

An environmental activist, political leader and co-founder of CoPIRG (Colorado Public Interest Research Group) today criticized the "anti-growth" constitutional amendment sponsored by CoPIRG and the Coloradans for Responsible Growth organization.

Howard Gelt, former state chairman of the Colorado Democratic Party and a long-time leader of the state's environmental movement, characterized the constitutional amendment as "the most burdensome, cost-inducing, bureaucratic proposition seen in years," and a proposal that "will drive up costs of housing, cause dispersal and sprawl and exacerbate current land use and congestion problems."

Gelt, writing as both an individual and board member of the Jefferson Economic Council, framed his opposition in a letter to John Fielder, leader of Coloradans for Responsible Growth and Rich McClintock of CoPIRG.

Gelt said the amendment will create what he characterized as troublesome and counterproductive "unintended consequences."

Here are some of the "unintended consequences" he outlined:

-- Increasing government beaurocracy and delay which will ramp up 

the costs of any development. "In Jefferson County alone,

before a project will be approved the County will need to

enter into at least 103 Intergovernmental Agreements which

would sharply increase the costs of government and place a

burden upon the consumer of housing and commercial/industrial

space."

-- The amendment would promote rather than reduce sprawl because

of the impact of exemptions created by the amendment. "Some 47

of Colorado's 64 counties will be freed of the requirements

laid out in the amendment and this will lead to development in

those very counties and a tremendous increase in sprawl."

-- The amendment is already causing a "gold rush" of development

applications. "The proposed amendment has caused applications

for development to skyrocket all over the state. Counties have

simplified the filing of development applications in order to

get in under the amendment's effective date of September 13,

2000. In Jefferson County alone, applications for development

approval are up more than 300% from last year."

-- Politicalization of development. The amendment will "make

every growth decision a matter of political power and not a

matter of thoughtful and professional analysis by elected

public officials."

-- A financial meltdown. "Requirements for central water and

sewer service will adversely impact a large number of

investors, large and small, that bought bonds from the many

special districts that exist in Colorado. These special

districts - and their bondholders - depend on the income

derived by providing services to their communities. We could

see massive bankruptcies, with a result in the loss of faith

in financial instruments emanating from Colorado."

Gelt summed up by calling the amendment "the wrong answer to a terribly difficult problem.

"I plead with you, withdraw your Constitutional Amendment from the November Ballot. Work with the impacted areas, governments and agencies that are addressing the problems, in a manner that allows our governmental agencies and our citizenry to maintain flexibility, and to allow Coloradans, whether here now, or coming soon, access to homes, stores and schools without the burden of expanded sprawl (more highways, more stores, more traffic, less infill), the biggest unintended consequence of your proposal."