Survey: Longmont a good place to live, but cost, transportation major issues

Dec. 16--Longmonters are increasingly worried about their cost of living but also willing to pay a little more to alleviate transportation and affordable housing issues, according to the results of the biennial city survey.

The City Council commissions National Research Center Inc. to do a survey of residents every other year, assessing their constituents' opinions on everything from marijuana to snowplow frequency.

For 2016, the council added specific questions about taxes that could show up on the 2017 ballot and questions about what, specifically, Longmont residents lose sleep over.

Of 3,200 randomly selected households, 806 returned the surveys, according to the NRC report. The survey results have a 4 percent margin of error and the responses were weighted to more closely match Longmont's demographics in terms of home ownership, race, ethnicity, gender, age and housing type.

Overall, 84 percent of respondents rated life in Longmont as good or excellent. Respondents said Longmont is a good place to live, raise children, retire to and work.

Only 29 percent rated Longmont as a good place to shop, however.

Additionally, only 55 percent of respondents rated transportation planning as excellent or good. Street repair and maintenance rated at 54 percent, while timing of traffic signals dropped to 51 percent.

When asked about three potential challenges looming on the horizon for Longmont, 46 percent of respondents mentioned "growth, overpopulation and planning" while "traffic, transportation and parking" garnered 39 percent and affordable housing was mentioned by a third of respondents.

Access to affordable housing, health care, child care, transportation, parking and job opportunities all fared worse, with more than half of respondents saying they would not say those aspects were 'excellent' or 'good.'

The theme of tight wallets continued in a new section, where respondents were asked what they worried about in the last year.

Two-thirds of respondents said they were at least a little worried about "paying for unexpected costs, such as car repair," while 60 percent said they were at least a little worried about paying for dental and health insurance.

"Residents between the ages of 18 and 34 were more concerned about making housing cost payments, finding housing they could afford, paying for transportation expenses, paying for unexpected costs, paying for child care and finding a job or finding a better paying job than older residents," the NRC researchers wrote in the survey report.

People reported they were generally satisfied with the fire department and police department, but between 94 percent and 95 percent of respondents rated crime, homelessness and drugs as at least minor problems facing Longmont.

About 61 percent of respondents to the NRC survey said they would be willing to pay an increased sales tax of 5 cents on every $100 to generate $1 million annually that would go toward workforce and senior housing. The hypothetical tax would sunset after 10 years.

Only 54 percent of respondents said they would support a lesser increased tax (2.5 cents on every $100 that would generate $500,000 annually) as a permanent tax to support senior and workforce housing.

About 71 percent of respondents said they would support issuing new bonds but no new taxes to pay for the rehabilitation of crumbling city buildings such as the Civic Center, the Library and the golf courses with aging irrigation systems.

Although the bond would not require a new tax, it would use tax money.

Residents were generally supportive of increasing Longmont's sales tax to construct and operate a new recreation center.

"Older residents (55+) tended to be in less favor of supporting a sales tax increase to construct and operate either of the new facilities compared to their younger counterparts," NRC researchers wrote in the survey report.

Respondents were also generally willing to pay an increased street sales tax rate to continue the free local bus program in Longmont and to have every street plowed during a snowstorm (crews currently generally plow main streets and leave neighborhood streets to melt over time).

People were less likely to agree to an increased street sales tax to "eliminate trains sounding their horns in ... Longmont," although the money would really be put toward crossing mitigation measures that would allow the engineer some discretion on when to blow the train horn.

Only 44 percent of respondents said they would at least somewhat support a train-horn-mitigation tax.

The city also asked respondents if they would support "limited retail sales of recreational marijuana" in Longmont. The city has banned retail marijuana within city limits, although two dispensaries exist just outside city limits in unincorporated Boulder County.

More than half -- 56 percent -- of respondents said they would support limited retail sales, with 31 percent of that saying they would strongly support lifting the ban.

Residents in Ward 2 (southwest Longmont) were more likely to support retail sales than others and people in Ward 1 (northeast and southeast Longmont) were more likely to oppose it.

White residents between the ages of 18 and 34 years old were more likely to support retail marijuana than their counterparts, NRC researchers wrote.

Respondents almost overwhelmingly said they thought Longmont is growing too fast in terms of population -- 71 percent felt it is either much too fast or somewhat too fast, 27 percent felt it was the right amount and only 2 percent of respondents felt it was somewhat too slow.

That sentiment increased considerably from the 2014 survey, when 52 percent of respondents thought population growth was either much too fast or somewhat too fast.

Respondents felt the opposite about job growth, however, with 65 percent of respondents saying it was at least somewhat too slow and only 2 percent feeling that it was either somewhat too fast or much too fast.

That's correlated somewhat with a list released Thursday by SmartAsset, a financial company that offers data-based insights about real estate, insurances and taxes.

SmartAsset rated Longmont as fourth on its annual list of the top 10 U.S. boomtowns. SmartAsset analyzed unemployment rates, Gross Domestic Product growth rate and the number of people moving in and out of cities to come up with the list.

Fort Collins ranked second on the 2016 list, with SmartAsset noting that northern Colorado is one of the fastest growing metro areas in the country.

Karen Antonacci: 303-684-5226, antonaccik@times-call.com or twitter.com/ktonacci

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