City may force land to be annexed

boulder» The Boulder City Council is set to consider a most unusual action at its meeting Tuesday night, involving the annexation of 15 parcels near the corner of 55th Street and Arapahoe Avenue, despite the protest of many of those parcels’ owners.

The main event at Tuesday’s meeting will be a public hearing on a proposed ordinance that would enable the creation of more co-operative housing in the city. It’s likely that public comment on that issue will run for several hours, and possibly even bump the annexation discussion off the council’s agenda.

But if the properties are indeed annexed, the move would represent Boulder’s first forced annexation in the modern era. Some on the council aren’t OK with that.

“I’d like to see the annexations tabled for now,” Councilman Aaron Brockett said. “I think we’re moving forward too quickly.”

Brockett’s fellow freshman council members, Jan Burton and Bob Yates, have also publicly voiced similar feelings.

The city has been seeking annexation of these east Boulder enclaves — most of which are home to marijuana businesses — in an effort to bolster its application to the state Public Utilities Commission. The commission has held that Boulder would improve its chances at a municipal electric utility, separate from Xcel Energy, by clarifying its city limits so as to avoid potentially serving county customers after municipalizing.