Community voices, concerns surface at Modus Playback event for Boulder Valley comprehensive plan

Boulder — Dozens of residents, nonprofit leaders and planners gathered for a Modus Playback Theater event hosted as part of outreach on the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan, sharing personal stories and priorities for the plan and pressing officials for clear next steps and equitable outreach.

The two-hour session combined theater-style “playback” performances of audience stories with small-group conversations. City Manager Nuria Rivera Vandermeid opened the program and said the initiative was intended to “make the city inclusive” for future generations. Modus organizers led warm-ups and staged re-enactments of audience members’ reflections.

Why it matters: The comprehensive plan will help guide land use, housing, transportation and climate policy across the Boulder Valley. Attendees at the Modus event used personal testimony to surface the kinds of issues they say should drive the plan: housing and density, threats to immigrant and trans communities, climate resilience and water supply, the needs of mobile-home residents and seniors, and mistrust that engagement will reach decision-makers.

Several participants tied housing and affordability to…