By Alan Katz for The Denver Post, November 14, 1995

Kiki Wallace was wondering how to develop his 80-acre tree farm when he saw a Wall Street Journal story about Andres Duany, leader of a movement to revisit the American small town and neighborhood.

Repelled by suburbia, Wallace wanted to use his land to make a statement about community, but he didn't know how. After reading the article, he hired Duany, designer of Seaside, Fla. and Kentlands, Md.

Dale Bruns, an experienced Longmont developer, also threw in his hat.

What the three men are planning at Colorado 287 and Pike Road will be a testing ground for future neighborhoods in the metro area.

So will traditional neighborhoods now being proposed for Broomfield, Boulder, Fort Collins and Denver.

Tentatively named the Wallace Addition, streets oriented to maximize mountain views. The town center, five minutes on foot from the neighborhood's edge, would have stores and offices with living spaces upstairs.

Despite the fact that the project violates a whole range of city code ordinances, the Longmont Planning Board unanimously approved it last month. After the vote, one member of the board announced, "I hope the development community is listening, because this is what people want."

Among the Wallace Addition's major supporters is Longmont Mayor Leona Stoecker.

"Ours is a family oriented community, and our residents want to keep our small-town atmosphere. I'm excited that Longmont will be one of the first local communities to have this urban village concept," she said.

One potential stumbling block was overcome last week when voters rejected in a 1 percent growth cap. The next step is the City Council's vote on January 23.

Wallace says he has pre-sold 35 lots out of 63 in the first building phase, and he adds that bands have been receptive. Once the neighborhood is built-Wallace believes it will be finished in five years-other area developers may weigh in with traditional neighborhoods.

Colorado Springs developer Steve Schuck already is planning one across the street from Wallace's.

Not to be outdone by Longmont. Broomfield's residents have been attending workshops headed by Peter Calthorpe's San Francisco urban planning firm. The purpose is to design a master plan for Broomfield's future.

Since 1970, the former farming community's population has grown to 34,000 from 8,000. In another 25 years, it is projected to reach 70,000 with many of the newcomers settling on recently annexed land near the Weld County line.

Had recent development trends continued, Broomfield might have seem more cul-de-sacs and subdivisions with big houses dwarfing small lots. But at the workshops, the citizens called for something else.

"They asked for tree-lined median parkways like Denver's. They wanted commuter train service on existing tracks that link Boulder to Broomfield to Denver. Instead of subdivisions, they wanted intimate neighborhoods connected by a network of calm, landscaped streets with diverse housing types built for a wide range of incomes.

Together with residents, Calthorpe's firm has fashioned a master plan that includes a second town center to the north and a series of mixed-density neighborhoods connecting the two downtowns, each with its own neighborhood center.

"We're not doing these things because the planners are so visionary. We're doing them because people are demanding it, " said Assistant City Manager Kirk Ogelsby. "Calthorpe's got some great ideas, and he articulates them well. But if people weren't ready for them, they would reject them outright. Today, people are searching to restore this lost sense of community. That's at the heart of a lot of this stuff."

Nothing sounds warmer and cuddlier than "community" but the process of planning one can stimulate anger and fear. Witness to the proposed redevelopment of north Boulder, which has a couple of New Urbanist factions fighting among themselves.

Currently, a jumble of wealthy enclaves, low-slung warehouses, an iris farm, mobile home parks, a topless night club, subdivisions and vacant land, north Boulder still retains some rural character. It's one of two areas where most of Boulder's growth will occur.

The North Boulder Subcommunity Plan is steeped in New Urbanism. It talks of "mixed housing types," "proximity to services," "no new cul-de-sacs," "walkable neighborhoods," and "sustainable communities."

The plan attempts to confront issues that have nagged Boulder for years: affordable housing, density and growth. Although the city is considered a liberal bastion, affordable housing brings fears of dwindling property values and loss of exclusivity.

As one resident puts it, "I've learned a lot about my neighbors by talking with them about this issue. I'm hearing things like, "If people can't afford to live here, they should go somewhere else."

Urban sprawl is another sincerity test for Boulder. While many Boulderites may say they hate it, the city's slow-growth policies and high housing costs have encouraged sprawl along the once-pastoral Colorado 36.

Besides calling for 1,700 new housing units, many for low-income residents, the North Boulder Subcommunity Plan endorses and mixed-use village center at North Broadway and Yarmouth Street on land owned by Safeway.

Initially, the grocery chain wanted to build a strip shopping center with a 62,000-square-foot supermarket. Neighborhood activists fought back.

"We could see North Broadway turning into another 28th Street, which is just an incredibly ugly, heavy traffic strip," said Lisa Morzel, a feisty neighborhood activist, who was elected to the city council last week.

While demanding that Safeway scrap its design, Morzel and a coalition of neighbors drew up their own sight plan, which featured a mixed-use town center with small shops and a grocery store one-third the size of Safeway's.

"Safeway called us a bunch of no-growthers and NIMBY's, which wasn't true," Morzel said. " We will accept growth if it is planned properly. We would love to have a village center, but we think a 20,000-square-foot grocery store is big enough for the neighborhood."

The coalition also has expressed a preference for a local grocer and local retailers.

Safeway responded by hiring Calthorpe to design a radically different kind of village center, one that retains the large store, but incorporates housing and civic uses. The preliminary design calls for the parking lot and the Safeway to be hidden behind a Main Street configuration of small stores and windows fronting Broadway.

Calthorpe views the project as nationally significant-an opportunity to re-introduce corporate America to mixed use.

"It would be the first time a major retailer said, "OK, we'll build a more pedestrian-scale environment,"" he said. "It would be so exciting. Instead of taking the traditional 10-acre strip center, we'd have small stores where people could actually walk by and window shop without having to enter a parking lot."

"We'd put live-work units in it, a village green, plazas, a day-care center, we'd have small stores and maybe even a branch library. That's a pretty remarkable mix of things rather than just a strip shopping center."

Morzel fears the large, mixed-use Safeway will attract shoppers from outside the neighborhood, increasing traffic. Calthorpe contends that the supercenter will minimize car trips by competing with a cross town King Soopers: where many north Boulder residents now shop. And he adds, "How are the small stores going to work without an anchor?"

One thing seems certain: With Morzel now on the city council, both Safeway and Calthorpe will have to contend with her. The proposed project could be in trouble.

Pat and Joe Gillach, who wouldn't know a New Urbanist from a creeping socialist, are having the time of their lives. Several years ago, they built a two-story Victorian in Walnut Hollow, a one-block housing compound on a narrow, dead-end road near 20th and Walnut Streets in Boulder. The compound is bunched on one acre.

For his model, developer Bill Coburn used the Dutch woonerf , a street that puts the car and pedestrian on equal footing. He set aside tight lots for nine houses with detached garages. Five of the houses are new, three were renovated, and one was moved from another site. The results are so charming that Walnut Hollow has earned plaudits in national magazines such as, "Metropolitan Home" and "Better Homes and Gardens."

"It's a great little community with advantages for people our age," said Joe Gillach, a retired insurance salesman. "You don't have a lawn to mow, and you know who your neighbors are. We walk to church, to the post-office and grocery store. We walk to the Buffs football games-20 minutes and we are in our seats! We walk the city at night and feel safe in doing so."