Boulder County

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PROCESS TO UNMERGE BUILDING LOTS SHOWS LIMITED RESULTS
In August 2004 the Boulder Board of county Commissioners approved text amendments to the land use code to create an administrative process to unmerge lots that were automatically merged in the mid-1990’s requiring that multiple, contiguous parcels, under single ownership, and those filed on a single deed be deemed one, not multiple building sites. Since the unmerge procedure was enacted only a dozen applications to unmerge have been submitted, according to a recent review by the Land Use Coalition, a local watchdog group. The LUC also reported that of those submittals, only five have been approved, five have been denied and two are pending. When the State Legislature passed a new law in 2004 declaring the automatic mergers illegal, prompting the County to create the unmerge process, it was anticipated that several hundred parcels would qualify for unmerging. The low rate of submittals suggest that the current unmerge process is too restrictive and cumbersome for most affected property owners. Newly elected Commissioners have pledged to correct that and will consider rescinding the automatic merger rule or creating a simpler procedure to unmerge.