Marpa House redevelopment overcomes opposition to win Boulder City Council support
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A plan to redevelop the historic Marpa House at 891 12th St. in Boulder into student housing is moving forward despite an ongoing uproar from neighbors concerned about student behavior and community character.
The Boulder City Council mostly supported the proposal Tuesday, although several conditions were foisted upon the developer in advance of a final vote on a non-conforming use review in two weeks.
Developer John Kirkland, along with a group of investors who purchased the Marpa House in 2019 for $5 million, intends to “reconfigure and reconstruct the interior layout of the building to replace the high-intensity group living quarters and large party rooms with 16 separate and self-contained residential units,” planning documents show. Each unit of the building now dubbed the Ash House will be three bedrooms.
“The current staff are really impacted by this work, partly because there’s not enough resources to do it all,” Kurt Firnhaber, director of the city’s Housing and Human Services department, told council members during the study session on April 27.
The other three proposals, which weren’t universally supported but were ultimately approved, included creating a pilot ambassador program that would provide more “eyes on the ground” for law enforcement; funding two unarmed park rangers to help police public spaces and issue citations; and adding six specially trained police officers to support both teams and to be present during encampment clearings.
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Jennifer Schubert-Akin
In his famous âI have a dreamâ speech in 1963, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of looking âto a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.â
What would Dr. King think of current efforts to award jobs, promotions, and contracts on the basis of skin color rather than on merit?
The answer to this question should be obvious. Yet, here we are in 2021, witnessing a disturbing nationwide movement to weaponize race and make employment decisions based on skin color under the imprimatur of equity and anti-racism. Â Â