Downtown Improvement Project

Please preserve the historic beauty of our downtown, while still allowing for expansion, modernization, and development. We need more affordable housing and locally owned businesses. We have enough chains! I'd like to support my neighbors and their ventures.

I am a suburbanite but would love to visit downtown more often to go to restaurants and cultural amenities (I love the museum!). Unfortunately, the parking is inadequate and the public transit almost non-existent from where I live. I'd be happy to have a bus or a train option, but currently, I visit downtown only a couple of times each year.

I believe that we can make our downtown area appealing again. We should take a look at the successful transformations that have taken place in cities. Here is the Mission Statement from the Livable Cities Initiative:
"Livable Communities Initiative is a plan to address our housing crisis by building homes as fast as possible, and at far less cost, while making the city beautiful at the same time. We do this by combining Gentle Density and walkable Complete Streets along our job-rich commercial corridors to create lovely, livable communities with deeply affordable and dignified car-light housing options for all who wish to live this way."

Downtown has changed too much. I don't like going there anymore because of the trash and all the corporate chains. I remember when downtown was a sanctuary growing up here but I avoid it now. I dislike all the traffic and I can't ride my bike there easily.

Suggestion: The affordable housing units associated with the new housing would make a greater impact if targeted for people who presently live or work in the community, such as seniors, teachers, life safety, healthcare, people who work in our grocery stores, maintain our landscapes, clean our houses and offices, etc. They definitely should be able to live here, as they will integrate with and care about the community. Best to "qualify" the lottery so it requires an existing community connection, as that ensures integration and continuity.

Thank you for all your good work and the information you have made available to the community. Hopefully it will counter some of the misinformation out there. People need to realize that not only does our town have a moral obligation to assist in solving the housing crisis, but it is mandated by State law to do so and that there are penalties for non- compliance.

I have really enjoyed participating in the Heritage Rd- Hwy 6 intersection meeting. The online presentation is great, and the voting and immediate feedback is very engaging. As someone who has never participated in civic meetings like this, I really appreciate this method. I hope to attend more on-line meetings like this, rather than in-person meeting. Some of us are hesitant to engage during in-person meetings, but are encouraged to express themselves in the online forum. Keep up the great work!

Please allow for the future. Don't return Golden to the past. Don't preserve the status quo. Golden was stuck from the 1960's through the 1990's. Don't preclude development, infill, accessory units, set back exceptions in the core, variances and more. Allow for zero lot lines in alleys, higher densities, higher building heights and other infill towards affordability, walkability, sustainable, green, and minimal turf. Don't promote exclusivity and NIMBY. Allow for the special existing character of the urban core to change and get denser. Thank you! Jerry