October 9, 2018 — City Council Study Session

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:07] [Music] [Music] [Music]

[3:12] okay we saw boards l okay welcome everybody we're gonna get started with our Boulder City Council study session of October 9th 2018 we are used to have special guests with us we have two topics tonight and the first one being Cu self it has anything I don't have much other than to introduce Phil Kleiser from our comprehend comprehensive planning division of our planning department and Phil's gonna kick us off with this presentation go ahead yeah so thank you very much for your time this evening I am joined behind me with several staff members from Public Works utilities as well as open space mountain parks and director of planning and sustainability Jim Robertson to my right we have some

[4:01] guests with us this evening from the University of Colorado Boulder LV Henson is directly to my right legal counsel for the university followed by Francis Draper and please correct me Chancellor of strategic relations strategic relations and Derek Silva director of real estate and and so as proposed at CAC we would like to recommend that we begin with kind of a brief background kind of T up to presentation from staff followed by an opportunity for the university to address counsel and then we would kind of get in and getting into the topics for tonight's discussion the overall intent of tonight's discussion is really to facilitate a conversation among City Council members as well as university officials around potential next steps for annexation of the university's south campus known as Cu South up to this point really the conversation has really been centered on drilling down into a engineer and engineering concept for the flood

[5:00] mitigation structure and so this discussion really comes on the heels of councils decision on August 21st and then confirmed on August 20th to select a flood mitigation concept for the South Boulder Creek to move forward into that preliminary design phase for an engineering concept that anticipates using a portion of the Cu South land and so again tonight is really to gauge councils expectations on some of the topics that should be addressed in the annexation application in the future those topics that may need some further discussion or analysis as well as an anticipated review process and so again you know this will just be a brief introduction followed by see you and then we'll get into the kind of the meat and potatoes of the discussion the questions for Council as we're posed in the memo really center around the topics as well as the review process and now just a little bit about the background on the site I think everyone's aware that University purchased the site in 1996 the city does

[6:01] not own acreage on the site but we do own open space owned and managed open space directly adjacent to CU south and while there's currently no protected open space on CU south as it exists today the university has allowed for some informal public use for runners dog walkers and when conditions exist possibly soon cross-country skiers and so a little bit of background and you've and some of you have heard some of this before but just to make sure counsel and everyone watching in the audience and at home is aware the university does have some short has communicated their near range and long range plans for the site near range being up to the next five years and those include partnering with the city on implementation on implementing the flood project within some of that detention area within the flood project seeking to create some low-impact recreational and athletic fields in the flood detention area that

[7:00] could also serve as a shared community use they'll also be within that five-year period conducting some maintenance and improvements on the trails and so you'll if you were out there and this this area LAN image on the slide also shows some of those informal trails that traverse the side and kind of go around the perimeter as well you'll see the tennis courts and the maintenance buildings highlighted there and then finally the university is interested in making some near-term investments in the recreational facilities restrooms enhancing the locker rooms of the tennis facilities etc in the longer term though the university is interested in developing a portion of cu South for the in the style of apartments and townhomes for cu-boulder faculty staff graduate students and non first-year students as well as some small-scale academic instructional and research facilities that could serve the University and the and perhaps a community at large as well the site's

[8:00] currently under the jurisdiction of Boulder County and as as we do we partner pretty closely with our colleagues at the county whether that be the commissioners Planning Commission and our and our colleagues as staff and we would anticipate continuing that tradition moving forward with this process even though the staff unfortunately we're not able to make this particular meeting tonight the CAC did ask for a one slide on annexations in general and so just a few notes on annexations and that would be as you know it's a legislative process and land can be considered for annexation if it complies with the Colorado annexation statutes and is consistent with the policies of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan and so there's generally three ways to initiate an annexation process one would be the landowner petition and so in this case that's what we would likely be anticipating as to use the property owner for the site the second would be a land an annexation election which we haven't seen in quite a while in Boulder

[9:01] up until recently with the potential election of the Norwood subdivision on the western part of the city and then third is the unilateral annexation of enclaves and municipal owned land once an application is submitted we do look at things like eligibility requirements and so at a state level most commonly referred to as the contiguity requirement of 1/6 of the perimeter being along the city boundary but more frequently we hear about our local framework for annexations and so in Boulder we have a long tradition of established of an established service area concept for how we grow in the Boulder Valley and that's done through the Comprehensive Plan and so the map to the right shows the city of Boulder as area one and they're areas that currently have urban dove level development area to being sites that are close to the city and are eligible for annexation and when we do our master plans for the city or utility

[10:02] plans etc we plan to serve those areas at some point in the future with urban services CU south is designated as area two meaning is eligible for annexation and lastly area three which we work with our colleagues in the county in the county to preserve as rural as a rural landscape and open space you type uses and a lot and and lastly you know annexation agreements are typically less complicated than the ones we're talking about tonight and they're typically done at a staff level where we're able to use our existing policies as a framework for establishing that and suggesting and recommending initial zoning and then ultimately that's brought to the Planning Board who recommends the City Council approval denial or approval with conditions with City Council making the ultimate decision on those applications quick question could you go over the required community benefits as a result of annexation so

[11:05] the comprehensive plan does have a policy and I'm pulling it up right now policy 1.16 and I actually have a copy of that if council would be interested in seeing that this evening that does talk about community benefits though it's a bit broader and less specific especially considering the recent conversations around community benefits with height and and density and so on but generally speaking we annex properties with a lot of development potential only if they can bring significant community benefits to the city of Boulder and so with community benefits oftentimes an overriding factor is affordable housing and sometimes it's other things like trail dedications and open space dedications and so on but that's something that is always looked at with annexations even relatively minor and small annexations but then we can pass these out in just a moment if

[12:00] you'd like this is just a note that you know since the earlier days of planning there the city in the county in this area has historically included some sort of mix of residential and open space on the Cu South site you know back in the in the 70s it went from a largely low-density residential and then refined in 77 to be largely open space and Mountain open space and parks with some medium density residential and northern on the northern part of the site and low-density residential as kind of an extension of that single-family neighborhood to the southwest and that's sort of how it remained on the ride up until last year and so in 1996 after the university purchased the site there were several requests to the city to look at these land use designations and think about changing them the public to match the university's intent for the site as well as consider annexation and so really since the 90s we during those request

[13:03] deferred those conversations until we had a plan in place for the South Boulder Creek flooding issues so in 2015 when that plan was accepted that prompted staff to initiate the process through the comp plan of looking at the land use designations and ultimately the guiding principles and so that's what sort of initiated that process back in 2015 and 2016 and so really dating back to the 90s flood mitigation going forward flood mitigation has really been a central theme and protecting life and property through that process you might also recall that through the comp plan there was some hesitation around changing the land use designations without a better idea of what might happen on the site and for that reason the city and county partnered to create the guiding principles that were established in the comp plan so and it took a map based approach in trying to identify what happens in specific areas of the site and so that's how we've been

[14:00] we've been looking at these sorts of this presentation and the materials through the lens of those guiding principles and my last my final slide in the background section of this presentation before handing over to see you would be just a note on a high-level timeline moving forward and so the the box to the left is really just to illustrate that we're able to build this process off of a library of information that we have now including the South Boulder Creek flood mitigation master plan the guiding principles and the concept evaluation approved by council last are selected by Council last month the high level timeline just shows on the top some of the key milestones for the flood mitigation process and on the bottom the annexation process and so what I'd like to highlight here is that in that blue section over the next year we anticipate the preliminary design including those conversations and

[15:00] approvals through the regulatory bodies as well as starting to reach those landowner agreements taking about a year what we're proposing and we'll get in more into this in more detail later is within that year timeframe would be when we would have the discussions around the annexation process through that process and ultimately come to terms on an annex with an annexation agreement and ultimately those things would come together through public hearings in about a year if annexed we would anticipate the final design for the flood mitigation project taking a year with a two-year construction period following that and then around the 2021 and I believe C hue is going to get into more detail with this they would be completing their campus master plan around that 2021 timeframe and so as staff we've begun looking at a potential agreement down the road as an opportunity to provide some criteria and at times bookend some

[16:01] things and have certain constraints on the site and opportunities for the site that Cu can use and work within in their future master planning for this site if that makes sense and so with that I'd love to hand it over to our colleagues at the University thank you great and thank you very much Phil so first of all I just want to say thank you very much for inviting us to join you in this study session tonight we really appreciate and I think week say we represent the university the Chancellor in the regions and that we appreciate the partnership from the city and being willing to continue to discuss this in a way that will meet the fiduciary requirements for both of our organizations so that's really huge and I think we're a good demonstration for many other communities actually in recognition of the urgency of your deliberations around selection of a flood mitigation project we did work very quickly to get through our process we're not exactly the speediest crowd over there and see you but we did try to

[17:02] work through this so that we could provide you with some answers about what are some of our requirements might be and also really provide you a list of what the benefits are were bringing to the community so that was something that we ran through a variety of departments our chancellor's office the president's office and ultimately our region so that we could provide you something that you could actually rely upon so I want to make clear that the university does view that it is the business of the City Council to select the front flood mitigation project that you feel is most appropriate for the community and we want to work to partner with you on that and we tried to frame these things in such a way that you could just calculate it into the decision you make but it wouldn't necessarily bar you from making one decision versus another we need to we would not have gone to this process just yet as you know if because we do we

[18:03] are starting the long process of our campus master plan and we would not have brought forward an annexation petition probably until after that was complete and we had more definitive plans about the site but we're happy to bring these forward because of the urgency of the situation of really getting something moving here I just want to mention that the campus master planning process is a multi-year process we've just hired a consultant to help us and one of the things that we do is we meet with all of the colleges the schools the Institute's the labs the operational units to find out what they see in the future and as Sydney can tell you she's been through this process that's very laborious but we really need to ask them all to see how they think education might be changing over the long term and therefore what their needs might be so what are we going to need in the way of housing in classrooms and

[19:00] Technology and meeting spaces and operational spaces and how is technology going to change all of that so it's really a big process and we want to engage the city and the community in that process which we did in 2011 and I think that process itself offers an opportunity for us to sit down and talk about what would be an acceptable process from the city's point of view to get that engagement and input from the community in the city as to what we should be thinking about as we develop that so that's one key thing once that's done then 20/21 figure towards the end of 2021 we need to get approval from our Design Review Board the Colorado Commission on Higher Education the office of the state architect and our Board of Regents and at that time then we can begin to bring forward the actual designs and plans for actual buildings which would require also an approval by

[20:00] the Design Review Board in the regions and the governor's office and the state legislature so while we're not able to provide a site plan or what those buildings are today we want to provide you clarity on our requirements for the ization and how what we expect to do and then offer that process for your input when we do get to that stage that mirrors what we've already agreed to for the conference center so we realized hey we've already done this we've come to terms on this and we're giving fairly detailed plans at that time to get city comment and so literally we took that provision that we've all agreed to and just change the name from conference center to the South Boulder campus and we think that provides us a good entryway to ensure that down the road there is input from the city on those buildings as we plan them so we see ourselves as a partner in this process and achieving the construction

[21:00] of the flood mitigation project which we agree we have an ardent interest in getting that done and making sure that the safety of the community comes first and we strongly believe there's a lot of common ground here and that we can meet the goals of I think the city and the University as two separate governmental entities we've done it before and I think we can do it again so thank you thanks Francis yeah I'm sure we'll have questions Lisa so Francis thank you so much for that and for everybody being here tonight I when I read your letter and or and went through all of the different boards and the legislature and the read how I was just wondered is are those are being done in parallel with each other or are they sequential how what's the timeframe we're talking about so generally they are sequential so they

[22:01] don't operate in parallel so we would want to go to our own Design Review Board first for instance if they really take exception to the way we've designed something and don't feel it's consistent with the universities image they'll let us know and so we need to go to that process certainly our region's through subcommittee and regular and then through the state to make sure that we get approval at the various boards and legislature and is the state architect the same as see use architect are they very different and different and we're what role does the state architect play in terms of saying yes or no to see you you know I don't know the details and Derrick might have more information but what they do is provide guidance and input if they see that there's something that they think is materially in question and a for instance might be if the state architect is aware that the legislature is concerned about buildings

[23:01] on campuses in general that have aspect to them he may raise that or she may raise that but or if there is some major issue they see with the design that they would recommend against or that kind of thing but we it's a hoop we have to pass through so does the state what's the state architect involved in si use law building back originally would have been in that planning process okay thank you just to I'm sorry just clarification involved in the master planning process part of it but not in the actual building design process so the state architect is yes in the master planning process and in fact why don't I hand out we did a little list of how this works because it's hard to keep in your head and we thought you know it might be

[24:01] helpful so I'll just hand those around to make sure everybody has that to refer to thank you I'd notice I didn't think there was anything that would make our city processes look quick and simple but thanks for that for that statement and appreciate the university as a good partner in this process I just had a curiosity question what how often is the master planning process done when was the last one completed every 10 and 10 years so in 2011 was the last that's when you finished the last one so it takes three years to do something every 10 years is that what correct so I guess in terms

[25:00] of process you all sent us a very meaty letter and staff was why do you explain that what comes next so we can sure absolutely Thank You mayor so this was a you know it was it's a if there's a lot of topics here and there's opportunities to go and I think a lot of different directions with this discussion what we have done given the timing of the memo for this meeting the memo actually went out before we received the letter and so it talks about the anticipated letter and so since receiving it on Monday what we've done as staff is to do kind of a first take at a pretty high level of looking at the bullets included in si use letter and then put that side-by-side and do a quick analysis around the guiding principles counsels decision and direction on the flood mitigation and the open space Board of Trustees recommendation and start to flush out whether or not there's points of alignment and there's points where they may not be aligned as well and so how we've structured these topics that

[26:02] you see on the screen here and we have a slide for each of them is you know and I'll come back to this in just a second but they're basically yellow red I'm sorry green yellow or red and so green being we think at a high level we have some pretty we have some alignment given our existing policies not aligned or things that we kind of want to bring to your attention we may need to come back to you in the near future and then kind of a different shade of yellow being what do we need clarification was something just not mentioned and see use letter but it's in our guiding principles and we just have to kind of close a loop on that and then things that need a bit more analysis and discussion and so we have that structure set up that we've made over the last few days after receiving that letter that we can kind of key up these different topics for and Percy a C's Direction the goal tonight would be really more about process and less about the content and whether or not we wanted counsel takes a particular position on one of these

[27:00] issues but in looking at the different topics the things that we are suggesting that we we try to get through tonight would be on the left and that would be the level of application detail so that's been something that's been discussed about having a site plan or not the review process that Cu has proposed flood mitigation levee removal in an open space but again we can you know we can probably move some of those topics to the left hand side if those are things that council would want to do and so that's how we staff have thus far suggested you know to structure the conversation but I'm curious you said you have a slide on each one of those bulleted points but we would only suggest right now you going off or those ones on the left but as a backup slide we can talk about any of them well I guess I don't know what people think to me there are some certain things that were listed right at the beginning like 129 acres and 30 acres here and just

[28:01] kind of a hey are we in to look at a map ago okay how many acres are here and I mean I just get a sense of of that as a starting point would be useful to me you guys just just see how close we were on some of those basics do you guys have a slide on that I'm just showing the existing conditions the basic numbers the city for flood mitigation 129 acres for the development and you south there's a discussion of 50% of the land 50% of the land it's 154 acre site I just have some basic questions about the numbers that were talking about because in that letter it becomes pretty firm about the the numbers when in fact my understanding was these were kind of

[29:02] estimates engineer estimates of how we move things around so so I'd like some discussion none is that an okay place to start yes I I have the same questions all right so yeah you gave us some magic numbers how do they compare to reality the numbers the diagrams you see here the figures this is just the the variant that was that was presented at the meeting last month and so on the right you see that overlaid the flood mitigation area overlaid with the land uses and so what was approved through the Comprehensive Plan process was 129 acres of land being public 109 teen acres of land as open space other and then the remaining I believe it's 65 acres of land as parks urban other can you just say all those we get what you got to write this down so say that again start over it's we can we calculate it

[30:04] pretty exactly because of our mapping it's it's it's fairly easy and I can give a little bit of context of why those lines I can't okay so the public designation on Cu South is a hundred and twenty nine acres I know that's the number referenced in this thank you letter the parks urban other which is large portion is really the flood mitigation structure is 65 acres and then open space other the remainder of that being 119 acres and so how we got those shapes during the comp plan was the open space other generally aligns with the what's called a what's called a area protected by the levee that's on the site right now some people refer to that as if the levee wasn't there it would be the 500-year floodplain and

[31:00] then the parks urban other was based on that option D that came out of the 2015 study and so that's how those lines were drawn during the Comprehensive Plan process where'd the last five acres go yeah I mean I there's some right-of-way that's along that northern part C dot right-of-way that's off to net it out at night that's the typically the difference between the 108 to 115 the 108 the 308 maybe really just to the north of that flood structure where the you see the road structure coming into the site some yeah so okay so then let's talk through what you said in our letter Oh yep in terms of acres so fill um the parks urban other you said that that was based on the

[32:01] option D yes ma'am has staff looked at the difference between parks are for for parks herb another given that we did not go with option D and how does that compare with the option that we did go with so in looking at what was selected by council last month it generally does follow those lines pretty pretty closely and I think that this is you know not the final boundary of that but it does not include that area to the north of the V Lee channel up in the north and so that's probably the biggest difference that and this is a topic for just for to notify council tonight again and circle back around is the area of excavation and the open space other is also a change if that and and that's a topic we're gonna bring up tonight right and given that the design isn't final we've

[33:01] just gone into the preliminary design I guess I I well this is more of a comment yeah I guess so my understanding was staff was gonna look at okay here's what's in the letter here's staffs response analysis to it did you do that for the acreages for the acreage is what we're talking about did you go say yep we can do what they've asked for it or not we can't except for able to take this moving or we did yes and so for a portion of that relating to the flood mitigation and this could be the first thing that I could perhaps bring up to council is is this the area that this was the area that was discussed at length during the recent hearing with or the recent agenda item of council and this is one of those areas where we we don't feel that there's necessarily alignment with right now and this relates to what I think was called Little Italy during the meeting

[34:02] councilmember Moore's L and I don't know if this is the point that you were they were speaking of or not with the acreages but in this you know our our team has done the analysis and has done as much excavation as possible and that parks urban other area and there's still six acres left of land that needs to be excavated that land council's direction was to don't impact the tennis courts and don't impact open space other in order to get that six acres though we'd have to go on to either the public or the open space other and so this is one of those items because in the letter from the University it does one of the requirements is retaining that a hundred that that public acreage of one hundred and twenty nine acres and so this is one of the friction points as an example and I think this is the acreage point that you might be talking about is we're gonna probably have to come back and

[35:01] have have guidance from counsel and see you around what to do with this remaining six acres yeah I just add a little clarification to pass please it was not that the public 129 needed to be retained it was that 129 acres of developable land needed to be offered wherever you end up wanting to put it so if you decided you wanted to use the entire public area but turn in the oso area into the area we could develop we can discuss that we're just saying 129 acres doesn't have to be within those perfect lines and so we have a whole line of respond to Francis do you mind Francis does the so that you know the the newest flood mitigation plan there's that sort of northeastern section that's designated parks urban other-- a little tab over there would that be an area that the university would consider available for development it's the the little green

[36:03] tabbed teapot that currently has a pond in it that I think has been there for quite a while and we can discuss what a wetland is or isn't but I'm guessing that's one that probably qualifies right so there probably isn't any developable land in that section right you gotta count that out in other words yeah okay and then I had a question Frances in in the first point it says use up to 80 acres of cu-boulder properties to provide land in the most optimal location for the city's critical flood mitigation how does that 80 acres work with 129 119 the six and five I can answer that so when we went originally speaking about this well you were you had approved option D and that was what was on the table an option D we were

[37:00] estimating at the time required about give or take 80 acres so we decided 80 acres was roughly what we would contribute we went to everybody and said let's offer to do that and so now another one is on the table that might require less acreage but what we're saying is again you pick the site and where you think is most appropriate we've got up to 80 acres for you to use for that purpose that we've pledged to the project so again you could completely we've seen other configurations where it takes over the whole oso area maybe that's the 80 acres but again you tell us you may have already said this fill but the variant that we chose uses up roughly how many acres do we know we're not sure the exact acreage offhand but I believe it's

[38:01] probably over 50 acres oh but it's it's well under 80 because it's less than the parks urban other by a moderate amount so the consultants will have those numbers around the November just chill okay so it may be we don't have to discuss this because that's not a ceiling we bump again but if we were you're gonna choose whatever flood mitigation we want maybe this is a semantical point don't we need whatever acreage it takes for the flood mitigation we need so is that a question but it may be a moot point because it sounds like we'd be able to maybe in last point but what we've said is based on what we had known previously and in order to stop washing around the tub so to speak in terms of we were asked what is the university looking for we were trying to be definitive and saying we've got 80 acres for you and you can use those for flood mitigation now if you know I've seen some other scenarios put forward where it was the whole park Syria and the Oso at that point we come

[39:00] to you and say we're going to give you the 80 acres to use as we said we're gonna have to talk about purchase price on the other okay but is it for her to say that as we go forward and designing the flood mitigation that whatever acreage we need to build what we think is necessary is negotiable but it may cost or it may need to be make up somewhere else but just so you know you have 80 to deal with and then if you went to 120 let's say then you'd have to look at we said come up with a valuation of land mediated by a third party to come up with the value for that additional purchase but as a principle we could deal with that he could talk about it yeah so all those things that Xan said but the farm line is that 129 acres of a developer land remained no matter what and is is this portion because of the existing levee because

[40:02] that's an interesting curvature to that line I'm just wondering if we can make up some of those six acres up there what's why does that go in that direction it was generally that's the general location of that area on the FEMA map that's protected by the levee and so I can show you one example this is the the FEMA map here you see how it kind of jogs up that gray area in the middle kind of jogs up and cuts to the site that's generally the location used for that Oso and so we would anticipate in the future - that that would likely if the levy was removed would likely be converted to a like a 500-year floodplain so there's there might be some some issues with critical facilities at the University may or may not be able to use that area in there possibly okay so we got the 129 we've

[41:02] clarified the 80 129 is their request or maybe more than a request whatever you call that there was also two other figures used one is that 50% of is it 50% of 129 can have buildings on it what 50% of 308 I think I think what you're referring to statement where we said cu-boulder has agreed that develop a development of habitable and academic structures will occupy less than 50% of the university's entire property that's that hundred and twenty nine okay okay so that's okay just got very confused about that because we all know what the given my property is and well I think the reason we raised it is because we're often I asked what do we need and of course we have a three hundred and eight acre property and the question is what does the city need but in these

[42:00] negotiations and going through the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan process where there was a lot of public input and input by the various boards and bodies there was a lot of interest in maintaining some land for open space flood retention playing fields and so we've agreed that we will develop less than 50% of our total property is it's just more of an overall state moving okay it's just confusing but now I think we got it there's also a 30 acre figure around athletic fields I guess that's all easily a compliment go ahead and that's something that we want to bring up today - okay so so far I'm just gonna you guys interrupt a few of questions so so far we know that we have six acres to talk about in terms of excavation and so are we just identifying these things that's that's the point of tonight is to go yep we got a those things don't align we got to discuss exactly okay everybody agree with that must be

[43:01] discussed okay um so as I mentioned we did you know we are attempting at a high level to find those areas of alignment in areas that we needed to do a little bit more work in and one of the things that we've heard you know come up during the comp plan process as well as recently is around the level of detail and so this this particular topic is you know typically in an annexation while one moment there is no so there's no requirement for a site review and annexation application but most larger-scale applications do do provide some sort of site plan and sometimes those are preceded by a concept plan review as well through the plan through through the city's process and so in their letter the university outlined in a requirement which is on the screen that the city would not require a site man the site plan submission with annexation and so if counsel were to

[44:02] move forward with that in agreeing with that requirement this particular annexation would be less of a site plan based review and more of a performance-based application and so instead of having a site plan like you see on the screen here which was the recent annexation of the old silver saddle site what we would see is an agreement that would be memorialized and include things around density and intensity a transportation program a utilities program but it wouldn't look like you would typically see it and so this is one of those areas where we don't know if there's agreement or not so we've identified it as something that needs to be addressed so so yes so hang on one second so do you want us to go yep this needs discussed or are we supposed to discuss it no I'm a little baffled by this process it means that if we say this is a point of contention

[45:00] then one and if you have any guidance for us moving forward because this will in the next steps of they're proud of the their process of what they are gonna propose to the city okay I do have one question or them for Cu and then Lisa oh you go you go first so so we have this 129 acres then and you don't want a site plan and I get that you know it's a lot of detail and you don't even have a concept plan at this point right but I guess I am somewhat curious in terms of the density on 129 acres you know the permeability all of that stuff it's not like I'm complaining about your campus now because it's a beautiful campus but I'm just curious in terms of you know what would we would all hundred and twenty nine acres be

[46:01] 100% covered I doubt it you know and so what not our style what do you see in terms of coverage so I would urge everyone to try to let go of what do you see how dense is it how are the buildings rearranged we've already agreed to a number of things that were limited height village style gradual increase in in the height those kinds of things what we really should talk about is the process you would like to see to have input to our campus master plan as we go through that and then knowing we will come back to you with the process we've already agreed to for the conference center and we'll do the same thing on these buildings so as they get planned you have an opportunity to review them give us input feed it all back if you want to have public sessions have public sessions but constantly going back to say what's it going to look like we're only gonna have to tell

[47:00] you we don't know and you know we know it's frustrating for everybody it's just we simply don't know at this point and we envision this to be a two phased approach so there's the input that would be with the master plan which would include a master plan for the South Campus and then additionally for each facility that's developed you would have that hotel conference center model for review so I guess my question is but what about something in between a bubble diagram a that gets towards a concept review or you know like something that lays out likely ish even if it's in vague terms when you add up all those things you said you would do what does it leave us with I meant just because it's really hard for the public and us knowing that this is the time with greatest leverage

[48:02] to just say you know trust us in a few years with a different regions with a different Council well it'll be figured out then it doesn't feel very reassuring so idea what about something so maybe think that what we've heard from our regions and others is we've gone pretty much to the brink of allowing another governmental entity to tell us how to build by restricting what we're doing by offering that input process and so getting that to go further than it has which was still another pace forward with the conference center is gonna be a very tough road to hoe so I thought on that is so I appreciate the commitments that you all have already made is I think the important thing we'll be writing an annexation agreement that includes those in some kind of follow a bull bindable kind of way right so like the village

[49:01] style for example well you probably needs to be quantified a little bit you know what does what does that mean well housing might be arranged around courtyards or something you know said I think there would there would the direction I would I would asks of the staff and of see you would be there as these negotiations are moved through is to think about how these commitments that you're willing to make can be put together into a binding agreement that we can all point our residents and say look you know they've committed to this and here's how it will work out and I think we can some things in about that input process to the master plan to having that give-and-take on to the process that we've proposed as Appendix A in the letter we sent the difficulty is we still need to actually survey our faculty and staff again to say what's your interest and depending on the product so my interest in one product may be zero but in another product might be laughs I might be

[50:00] interested in that if you could do it at a reasonably close to market rate and and so we don't know that we're gonna build it around a courtyard I was using that as an example you've said the village style right so what does that mean right and so that just by itself is probably too indefinite you know so totally get that you not sure if it would be stacked flats or townhouses or what and that to me that's fine but I think that I think we would probably be looking for some kind of definition written into the agreement that we can all kind of point to as we go forward and I guess Cindy and then so I just wanted to remind us sitting here that the university was in formation before Colorado became a state by the University I mean cu-boulder and so it's old and it I don't think they're hedging or fudging when they say

[51:01] they don't know and it's and we also don't know what education is going to look like in future so it may be more remotely achieved they may not need as much housing down there or they may not need as many faculty buildings although that's difficult to imagine but I to my mind the things that are really crucial to our community like transportation how are we going to deal with transportation what levels of service are we going to maintain going forward on this particular site that we want to work with the university with early on and have a public process about so that people and get something that we feel that we can agree on so that people feel that they have been heard on this so just in terms of application detail you think transportation Trump's that is that what you're saying I do okay I do could I just offer one addendum to what

[52:00] I said before is that yeah I could imagine the annexation agreement having you know what if scenarios say well if it's going to be housing it it would need to be going to these constraints if it's going to be academic writing to be a commitment that we will do these things but say well if we're going in this direction it would have these criteria placed on it something like that some so not not to the level of site plan not even the level of bubbles but just some things to say if we go this way we'll it'll look roughly like something like this yeah I was gonna ask first for you know what does it mean a village type style so I guess that's a that's a question I think all that was meant at the time is we're not going to build chunky dormitories that's really the extent of what it meant but somewhat compact and interconnected or right but but yeah so now we're going into details that we don't know but mainly it was

[53:01] just we're not gonna build you know a ten story building in a chunk with an elevator and and and house you know hundreds of students there so I guess one of the questions you know that would be very important to me and I agree with Cindy we probably in that first list Philip that we'd probably want to bring transportation over to the left side I guess uses are really important at least from my perspective what goes on there and I know it's really premature or early in this process to figure out is it going to be what percentage is going to be housing what percentage is going to be academic uses what other uses and each one of these have different issues and I and I know a lot of people in the community and me for one you know would really like to

[54:01] see more housing there and academic uses more on the main campus but again you have to do your survey to figure out whether than what you need and I think there's a lot in flux right now how do you teach and you know who's gonna be the next you know field biologist or and how do you do that okay we're gonna speed up a little bit so no no no anyway I guess I'm when my question is would there be a way in this process of us being able to get a better sense of what kind of housing we're talking about and what kind of academic and maybe maybe it's too premature pre or too early I don't know and I actually was going to come here tonight and say I don't know I mean after reading your letter there's I have a several points that I want to go

[55:01] into and I think we'll get into them but I want this to be a constructive discussion and there are some points in there I think there's no way the city can do it and you can't we can't be held accountable for those and I don't want to get into a back and forth back and forth but I guess I would like to know you know how much academic is gonna go there and how much housing and okay things like that something they're gonna really important okay so that's that's a request as Jill nearby we're gonna try to wrap up this one Mary yep I just I'm gonna jump on I agree with Cindy I think it's premature for us to set any thing that you guys should be doing everything changes I think we need to keep in mind that were the ones who came to you you this is premature for your planning process and you know I know that we like to micromanage development and Boulder but I think the university has done a

[56:00] lot better job than the city of Boulder it has in terms of their development I think the university is the most beautiful part of our city far better than what we end up with our land use regulations all throughout town and so sorry Jim that's not a reflection on you you're great give me any day and so I just think that it's in their best interest to create something beautiful and useful and that will last you know hundreds of years so I guess I'll kind of jump on with Aaron a little bit but then also Cindy I think they're for staff there needs to be something that we need to bring into guiding you with or if we go in this direction or if we go in this direction what are we gonna do and maybe have some

[57:00] very rough open-ended well not maybe open it rough rough guidelines because again we talk about things where even just the playing fields and not building large-scale stadiums but large scales what because 6,000 is still pretty large to me so yeah it might not be 20,000 but maybe you noticed some from very gentle guidelines there but then I would agree with Joe that yeah you have the most beautiful buildings and I wish all of our buildings looks like that so as long as it stayed within that design guidelines I mean I'd be thrilled to have that so kind of a combination if we can okay so I would agree with what's been said so far I just wanted to understand different things have been said things okay what what Jill said what Lisa said what Cindy said and what bear by said so and Aaron detail that's

[58:05] what we want to know well I just that's my question is there are some questions that I have that are under the category of cu-boulder annexation baseline requirements and I just want to make sure that if we move away from this I asked them I didn't ask them in the right place or I want to make sure if I need to ask them now well I think so so let's talk about this well some people are okay with hey they build beautiful buildings let's go on I think there's a bunch of stuff in the principles and there's I think if we we I'm gonna go out on a limb here there's things that were in those principles that are really important and some of them need to be further fleshed out when it comes to sight detail so do you want us we're in this flow did you want us to

[59:00] talk about that I think at this point this was a kind this was such a big kind of go no-go if you're comfortable moving forward with knowing that we're not going to have the traditional site plan but we will have more performance-based standards like you're talking about where some of the principles need to be further defined and flushed out and more analysis needs to happen in order to get to a level of detail that compensates that gets your comfort level to a point where you you're you're comfortable moving forward in a process because it compensates for the lack of a site plan okay I think so I guess we're not weighing in on all those just right now okay but I guess so so let's see if everyone agrees we've been told we're not getting a site application can we live with that assuming we have you said performance based I think I've also heard the requests are also some more descriptors about some of the principles and in some

[60:03] of which we may want to talk about further yeah and some quantifiable sort of standards okay and maybe those get to some of the specifics we're talking a little bit on just and then we can move on is we know you as neat housing and that's not gonna change and so I guess this whole what we don't know what we'll need yes we do we're gonna need housing you guys need housing we all know we need housing so I think that that is not going away and that being able for this the the university to commit to a substantial amount of housing is not an unreasonable request so we did do that in the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan we agreed to a limit that was placed on us of 1,100 units right it also talks about the the academic non-academic mix well yeah so I

[61:01] guess to me that's a place where I don't think we're going out and all them to Florida the guiding principles also specify that the predominant use will be housing a residential and so I predominate to me means certainly more than half so let's say that most of the development out there would be housing and that's awesome thank you that's very hopeful when you say more than a half more than half the acreage more than half of the square footage more than yeah that's the kind of thing I think is helpful to us good yeah and just thanks for bringing it up in the guiding principles and and that's what I'm talking about in kind of let's make sure that we translate the things we've already agreed to on the into this next of the process okay good enough for now this is something that's probably a quicker discussion and so while the comp plan didn't actually identify a review process of establishing one for the future it is a topic of interest and as

[62:02] the university mentioned we've kind of already have discussed this and to some extent during this meeting but in generally speaking the university's letter proposes throughout their process prior to construction submitting a number of documents to the city the city would then have an obligation an opportunity to include council planning board and the community in a process and within a set number of days provide comments back to the University we view this as needing a little bit more analysis through the process really to understand councils and the community's preference and comfort level with the approach and to determine whether or not we need to refine it at all to to be responsive to counsel's interest in a future process you asked two questions let me have the whole one is we've talked a little bit and I think it might be useful to remind the public and maybe some of us the conference center process

[63:02] that's being alluded to could maybe somebody just sort of remind us of what that is and then and then another question for you guys well maybe we'll start there okay good I just request as part of that if you could just give us the acreage at the conference center oh gosh do you know that creature it's just over three acres I think the more importantly it's in the heart of the city and it's on your main thoroughfare and it will be a defining building for the sitting city in terms of what we look like as a community so I think we spend a fair amount of time coming up with this process at the time because of exactly that to have a little more input and influence and time to provide that input so all we did in this process is we currently have this agreement executed between the city and the university that we simply change the

[64:00] names to reflects you south so then as we bring forward our plans it would be things such as excuse me prior to construction of any facilities oncea boulders south property the university will submit to the Planning Director or designee for review and comment sets of each of the following one estimated construction timelines two building plans and specifications three site plans for grading plans five water wastewater stormwater management and flood control plans six landscape plans seven shadow analyses eight energy and lighting analyses nine emergency vehicle access plans and ten site circulation transportation and street plans so it's fairly comprehensive down to you know sort of the size of the underwear kind of thing okay so that is and if I might add to that to a lot of the design related parts of the conference center plan its review in common it's not a regulatory

[65:01] document and then you know if you had a chance to read exhibit age to the letter that see you sent they they took they basically took that out of the conference center mou and you know it basically says here's here's how you get to interject into a review process and it or or less defines whose codes they're going to use when they build things so they're not going to use our building code they're going to use the state building code on and on and on on all of their development standards okay so that what you have in the appendix a is taken from the agreement I just want to make sure so for anybody that's following this that's where that is okay so you your question to us is yeah but the 45 days part essentially we're identifying this is something that in a

[66:00] future engagement process and in future discussions we'll probably need to possibly I don't know if we will need to refine it or not but it's something that might need some additional analysis around yeah and I would assume that it will need to be refined as we move forward in our talks with the university you know this this was designed for a certain kind of urban problem you know very well-defined urban project of course this we're moving into something that is greenfield and suburban it's we're probably going to want to look at it a little bit differently than we did the conference center and I think just a you know consider that the 129 is 32 times bigger than three acres so I think that that will have a different kind of impact I'd you know I agree that that that area where the conference in hotel are going to be are pretty impactful but this is also pretty

[67:02] impactful and by its sheer size I think it will merit some revisiting and I would just point out that this agreement is for the facilities as they become planned and designed so you would look at them as they come forward it wouldn't be a one quick look at the site at a high level it's looking in fairly detailed specification at each building as it is designed that's actually I got a cue but I guess a question then is the 45 days because to me that there's the concept review sort of discussion and then there's the site we I mean so you it seems to me 45 days depending on what you're talking about it's pretty fast depending on how much of that you're trying to cram in so I guess there's the larger site plan and you know what are the words how it connects and how you get through it and those sorts of things

[68:00] which are different then here's what this building is gonna look like today so part of that is gonna be that master plan input process and then as we begin to get more firm on the plans I think that the planning department would keep and advised and I think we can talk about you know if we have a whole site plan that's been put together we can sit down and do that same sort of review of the city and then go to the buildings as they come online so that's the kind of thing I think we'd want to flush out okay we got Cindy Lisa I'm I'm good I'll pass I I was just gonna ask David when he said more refinement in terms of analysis is whether or not these are the kinds of things that Francis has been talking about that you would find to be agreeable I would want to defer a little bit to our technical staff to start with but second I do think that that we can use the conference center MOU as a

[69:03] template for going forward but this is a different project and I think that to assume that we're going to use it exactly as is presented in the in the conference center MOU is probably not realistic just given that it's a much different type of development that's going to be occurring and there will probably be issues associated with how we engage our community and with you know with a 45-day review period that that may work with a three acre site that is intended to be more of a staff level review if there's if we're anticipating more public engagement or perhaps soliciting input from you know even if it's in the context of comments from say our planning border or design advisory board as well that we would probably want to build an extra time for that type of thing Lisa then yeah I guess my question has

[70:02] this along those lines in that this site has it's much larger than the conference site but it also could entail different boards with different expertise so we have our Planning Board our water resources our open space our parks I don't know if it all would have to go to every single one of these boards I think it would depend on where we are in or where Cu is in its development and so I'm just curious in terms of the turnaround time so that those boards whatever boards those are have an opportunity to apply their expertise give us their advice and then we can I don't I might I just don't know how that would work so this is where I give you a gentle reminder that the university does not view itself to be subject to all of those bright bright so if that is something that the city in its 45 day period wishes to consult with absolutely

[71:01] no problem that would be something you would give us all those feedback along with public comment but we are not subject to that process we're offering to compromise and provide an opportunity to do that but not to set cycles where we go to many boards and we're subject those things no I understand that and that's in part my question is to our staff you know what does it what does it take for our boards to look at these different aspects of whatever part of their plan and see you isn't subject to that I recognize that but you're asking for our the City Council's the input and we have I don't know 18 21 boards that we depend upon for their advice so I guess the question is and this is more for City what would be the turnaround time to get the adequate input we need from our various technical boards so that they could tell us so that we're

[72:00] saying yeah we're on board with this or we might want to look at this a little more seriously so that's our staff question well I so first of all there's two things there's matters of regulation which I would agree with Francis that see you probably has some ability to avoid city regulations but there's also matters of contract which is what an annexation is all about and what we're looking at is a contractual arrangement and as a matter of contract I think that we can probably make requests that are consistent with whatever we think whatever the city thinks is in the best interest of this the city with that said even in a review and comment context you know 45 days is probably something that is more in line with a staff level review and there's probably not enough time to do get something to a board or Commission I think that you know if we

[73:02] wanted to have a board and Commission to provide comments on something and I will ask our Planning Director to correct me if I'm miss speaking but I think you're probably looking more at 60 to 90 days to do any that type of review just in terms of notice and memo preparation analysis and you know and then actually getting it before a board and Commission I'm sue couple additional thoughts on that sue are you gonna disagree I think David the the time frames David outlined are correct obviously you know we could work out details the our ability either whether whether we're

[74:00] talking only about internal staff review whether we're talking about the participation of the public in some form of way or boarding Commission review one of the big variables is how much advance notice do we have when we're gonna get the submission from Cu because for example taking a border commission we have to get make sure we can get it on their agenda and they plan their agendas sometimes fairly far ahead even our own staff in terms of resource time it helps us if we can know in advance we're gonna receive the submission on a certain date therefore you need to preserve time you know a significant portion of your time in the following two weeks or something like that so I do agree with David his rough timeframes and looking more towards sixty to ninety days if you're talking about board and Commission review or a significant public review one of the ways we could streamline that or at least make sure we hit those deadlines would be the advance notice as well so yes some additional thoughts I

[75:00] mean I appreciate the willingness to share the level of detail here but I note speaking from my experience on planning board that when that's like for us a site review level of detail and you certainly can put conditions on it and change it but things are really fully baked at that point and so you you know we could offer some technical comments you'd probably be receptive to some level of it but if we said oh gosh you know actually from a solar shading perspective or something like this if you shifted them around like this you know and you'd say well we've already done all the plans we can't just ship suits to that point if we could build in an opportunity for a little bit more open-ended feedback earlier in the process I think that would be very helpful again non right taury non-binding totally get that you're not subject to our regulations are required to do what we mentioned but if if maybe you can lay out a couple of tiers of public engagement where it sounds like you're gonna have public interaction around the master planning process and that's great maybe we can

[76:01] mention that somehow but that when it gets more down to the the details of this site but before it's about designing a building to every detail that there'd be an opportunity for public and city input at that point and I think that could be more constructive than this kind of later stage so I'd love to see us work through an opportunity does that seem potentially feasible yeah I think that's something we can certainly discuss okay I do it I think that I want to see if people agree because I that's the thing I was trying to get at earlier is this kind of sort the concept site bigger picture stuff I think matters a lot to people you do build beautiful buildings and so probably that stages maybe okay and then the last one is that also to consider a heads up that's the there's the time frame that we need to respond to comments in but hey if you give us 30 or 60 day notice oh we're getting close these things are coming that would be really helpful yeah I think we can certainly build that into the process thank you okay so anything else we have

[77:03] Cindy Mary and then we'll move on to the next one well again I'm gonna go back maybe I'm misunderstanding what the performance review is but I would think it would be around things like you know the the transportation the issue can I get to the presentation okay the issues that are our flash points in the community rather than whether or not and not to use this Erin critically but the University is very conscious about energy and has become more so with each passing year so there's a random example they pay attention to these things they design these buildings they're safe through this through that you did cetera so what I wouldn't like to see is to get mired down in detail to the point that it halts the process right so I think we're talking about getting in on the concept review site layout that kind of stuff very I think just enough time to maybe not

[78:00] have go through the board cycle but I think if we had something like abort boards that are down what's that called a coal meeting with like say three different boards or something and and there was an opportunity for the public to come provide feedback in something like that you know what might the timeframe look like and maybe provide some options as to how that input could look like and how those different scenarios of input provision would impact that 45 days give or take or probably give or take I'm not sure but how much that would have to vary but yes I agree with Aaron's points okay we pretty good here good next one so we actually see quite a bit of alignment with on the topic of flood mitigation

[79:00] and so just to kind of run through these those two topics we just covered are probably some of the more meteor ones and so we can probably get through this one a little faster there's you know there's general alignment that you know yes we're gonna implement the phase one of the flood mitigation study there's alignment around obtaining the necessary land and easements to build and maintain the flood structure around groundwater monitoring around the aesthetic design around available site access to CU south given the location and design and the flood mitigation infrastructure as well as future claims and damages that was that was mentioned in C Hughes letter where we see some areas of clarification and analysis needed one of those points would be around the location of project wetland and habitat mitigation and so the city will have to secure all the necessary environmental permits to mitigate for the projects direct environmental impacts in sea use letter

[80:00] they did state that the city will be responsible for mitigating the impacts to any jurisdictional jurisdictional wetlands that are damaged or displaced result of the flood mitigation including the permits and mitigate the loss of wetlands with a wetland Bank credits or land or land the city otherwise owns and so in this case when we looked at that particular item we thought that clarification was needed to determine whether the university would end up agreeing with allowing the city to purchase any of the land designated open space other for flood mitigation wetland habitat mitigation purposes and you know if we have to mitigate there may not be room on for example if we had to mitigate for the pebbles Mouse habitat should there be any need to do that it'll be difficult to find land outside of the Cu South property to do that and so this issue will will generally need to be resolved probably in the near term in order to keep proceeding down the path of the preliminary engineering and

[81:00] so that was one thing clarification that we're gonna have to make and probably in the near term the those next two bullets are in regards to the 30 acres that the university is requested for recreational uses in the flood detention area and so in the in the letter you know the guiding principles are in alignment that we'll explore that the letter does request at least 30 appropriately graded acres available for construction that provides sufficient drainage and so what we need to do is further analysis the determine if 30 acres will fit into that detention area and further discussion will be needed to determine if other locations are needed if it if it won't fit so these are some of the areas that we've identified from their letter and from what we know now as we're gonna have to to do a little bit more work and I guess what we would ask is that just counsel you know agree with this and other other flood related items that we haven't discussed thus far that you think should rise to the level of future

[82:01] discussions okay nice clearing clarifying question on the 30 acres if we assuming we are able to leave the tennis courts there does that count towards the 30 acres so this was our estimate based on our prior conversations about creating recreational fields in the detention area maybe clobber lacrosse or soccer or whatever it is that's enough so no it did not include the tennis acres acreage okay so this was a best estimate that we had at the time since we were hurrying through our process I think we could spend some time with staff be finding that a little more numbers okay that's helpful Mary this is where I had that question that I went to bring up in this probably most appropriately for fill them in one of the requirements it says that where's my question the city will

[83:03] ensure that flood detention area used for recreation no that's not it the city will ensure yes that is the one engineered to sufficiently drain with a reasonable period of time to ensure that the fields can remain functional after a flood doesn't Colorado water law give you that provision as to what that drainage period should be that's a question I will punt it Arthur so yeah we will have to consider the drain time from a major flood to ensure that we don't run into water rights issues I think the interest was more can we design these things so that it won't be regularly out of use that will probably be more challenging now that we're doing more excavation than with the earlier concepts we probably had a little more flexibility to stage things in tear things when we were working with

[84:00] this smaller volume so that's those are conversations we'll have to have because it is it's a relatively normal thing to combine athletic fields and detention ponds but as we work through the details of how it's going to work at this location there will be conversations we'll need to have yeah and so there was the the following point I believe too was talking about ponding so so those are I guess things that need to be discussed I would I would just add to that this is a floodplain it was mined and we're going to excavate it even more so that was one of the points that I made it some time back about I think that I'm not an engineer but I don't know if we can guarantee that I mean I know you have expectations but it's a floodplain and it's been mined and so there's when the groundwater is really shallow so it's I don't know if that's a

[85:00] reason if that's reasonable that's how ponding so I think that those are all reasonable things for staff to discuss further and I'll note that I believe your letter said in the fields would be available for public use so that in some ways community benefit thank you very much so yeah any more on this one then there are other flood things that we haven't I feel like we've covered flood pretty thoroughly the last few meetings and this was the one other that you've all I've kind of discussed a little bit earlier in the meeting and so we don't have to cover that again yeah this one needs to be figured out I think we're all agreed the other one that we saw some general alignment as well as some other some other things to consider would be the removal of removal of the levee system you know that was discussed a lot in the comp plan there's a lot of interest in it and there's alignment on both sides that it should be that we can

[86:01] look at removing the existing Cu levee there's also the provision in the letter around future claims and damages that we won't go into but the cities you know staff are in alignment with that as well the clarifications and then the the non-alignment piece just to go over impacts to the floodplain designations on CU south and so the CEOs letter does have a point in there around as a that the floodplains won't increase on the site due to the flood mitigation infrastructure or removal of the levee system and so that was something that will have to that will be analyzed as we move forward in the process what we know right now is that the map on the right is the FEMA flood plain map lines on that map that show the boundaries of the 100-year floodplain the area protected by the levee those are not anticipated to change as we move forward in design of a floodplain mitigation structure as well as removal

[87:00] of removal of the levee though the designations within those areas likely will change for example that levee area protected by the levee will change to a different designation likely the 500-year floodplain the other point this is the the red button is to determine a use of the levee fill material so the initial project cost for the flood for the flood project included using that material as part of the project see you in their letter did state that the university would be provided the first option to use or sell that material and so we need to estimate the project cost if we were not able to use that and that's something that we'll have to figure out that won't impact the preliminary design schedule but it will impact cost to an extent and so that's another thing that we flagged from letter do but we don't know how much we do not it I don't believe by dirt so we don't know

[88:04] at this point I think the other consideration would be just public impacts associated with construction if we're able to move fill on the site that means we won't be driving trucks in and out so I think it would it would be in our interest to work with the University and try to not be bringing material in and out of the site so it's just a topic we're gonna have to do you I just wanted to know if you have an estimation of the volume that we're talking about I don't and again we're we're in this process of taking the concept that was landed on and bringing that up to just the basic standard of the other options side well I would hope we could nose work well together on this material and it from all perspectives it makes more sense to leave that material on the has been trying to get it off although I

[89:04] will also add that we have not done a thorough analysis at this point to make sure it's suitable right I don't for so it will be a it's not engineered at all is it so we don't know for certain it was FEMA approved it for levee purposes which hopefully is some indication of what's there but there i'm item we will have to discuss further but you don't know the composition of the soil there's swelling clays in those soils or not at this podium so you know just agree with Lisa and just encourage you if we can work together to see like what are the the needs to you know build this thing with and could we use the soil on-site and then can is that like a third of the levee film and you guys get all the rest of it or something so maybe we could do more engineering figure out how it might work and then and then talk more about it is it here's a question see you would like it because to show another it's

[90:03] possible but since we don't have any plans that's why we held that in reserve because maybe we want to use it to build up some of the land to make sure we stay out of the floodplains or if we end up you know we decided with the plan that you selected we need to use some of the Oso area maybe we need to put some fill that who knows well speaking of that though I mean if there's gonna be a few a few years we're gonna build this thing in the next few years the flood mitigation and then you guys aren't gonna build for a while we might not want piles of dirt lying around right I mean how does that gonna work well we did bank bringing piles of dirt that filled that site when then this facility was built so but I mean on that site I might point be you won't want to leave it in construction mode for years and years till you get around building I don't know it's just something to think about is how do you make the site look nice something to discuss yeah sure okay

[91:04] anybody disagree with discussions on levee fill material okay around open space these were areas that we think you know basically neither either some clarification or some analysis needed down the road really around open space conveyance restoration activities and around dry creek ditch number two and so this map and I have a large copy of the map if any council members wish to have that on September 20th Council stated a preference for implementing the July open space Board of Trustees recommendations and those recommendations included conveying several areas of the open space other site that are outlined here in this map forty-four acres east and outside of the levee and that's that orange area conveying 40 acres west and north of the existing CU levee to OS MP and restoring

[92:01] 17 acres as part of the flood mitigation project that's that blue area and then finally the purple area support through the annexation conveyance and permanent protection of the remaining open space area and in their letter the CU did state that any additional land requested for open space or other uses would need to be purchased by the city with the university's agreement and so we'll need some clarification around to determine whether or not in to what extent the university would be willing to entertain any of those discussions to implement the board of trustees recommendation to you additionally the restoration activities you know OS bt did recommend that all of the open space other be conveyed to OS MP or permanently protected as open space and there's a conflict there with some of the guiding principles and what university has indicated they'd like to do in some of those areas that are less sensitive and that would be around like community gardens some recreational activities and

[93:02] solar gardens and so on and so there's a little bit of a conflict there that i think we're gonna have to get some clarification around and then lastly the analysis needed around the relocation realignment and potential water rights for the dry creek ditch number two the OS bt did recommend realigning the ditch and that's very conceptual through the middle there almost as a demarcation line of that open space other and that's not an official placement of that by any means in the letter the university did say if they agreed the the city could at its sole cost realign the ditch and acquire or lease the university's rights and so we'll have to have some clarification and some analysis around the objectives of where that would go and the feasibility of that configuration moving forward and so these are some of the issues that we've identified with open space in your letter you did say if the university agrees you can do it I didn't quite understand what that meant I meant it in

[94:04] terms of the realignment just hard the sentence was worded if the university agrees then will allow you to go forward so I think everybody was from the University anyhow I think it would be a discussion and particularly if we turn over rights and those kinds of things that's a regent approval item that has to be taken to a vote of our Regents okay that's helpful yeah how do you see those discussions going or how would we what discussions are we referring to so just as this one where you have two bullets if the university agrees the city may at its own cost realign dry creek dry creek ditch number two and then your second bullet is if the university agrees the city may acquire or lease the university's water rights in dry creek number two so my question is how would those discussions occur and

[95:01] when do you see those occurring I mean we would probably like to have our staff estimate how much does it cost to realign dry creek ditch number two you know what's involved but and where do you see the university in the city having that discussion so I think we could have more definitive discussions with staff around that and what it looks like you know one of the questions we've got to ask for the long term use of the water rights are those something that we need to help manage the property and the water usage on the property once it's developed and therefore said something new at least now as opposed to sell and then take this on entirely back to our Regents - I think when we were you know in the open space Board of Trustees discussion I think they were also talking about making sure that the special species there had water in

[96:01] perpetuity you know so that they could reclaim some of the land there and not reclaim it but restore you know a key ecologically and so that could be that any way I see this as really a critical point two points so that would be another discussion I think of the if the goal is to restore you know ecologically that portion of the university's land with those what I was doing that and we you know what's it affecting what are we so I think that's a longer probably discussion right it's a critical discussion that we're gonna have to have I mean I I don't know exactly how to take this letter if we say well there's this part of it we just have a difficult time with or does is it gonna require more discussions amongst the individual

[97:00] parties this part specifically that the water rights will require a considerable discussion because those are valuable rights and will become more valuable over time I think we can all agree and so for us to give those up now is giving up something that was gonna have increasing value over the future so it's not something that we can certainly agree to today and as far as the the realignment as opposed it just matters what the path of the realignment is mmm-hmm that's the main thing I can see there and if if we are retaining some use of that pink area is it crossing and then interfering with that use those are just a couple of examples of considerations well that seems to be discussed in anything else on these so that was the last topic that we had proposed in citation yes and I was going to say a council member our interest in that everybody agree that we should touch on that well you know yes but I had a question on that last item on page four of your letter

[98:02] where it talks about the waste water wastewater service agreement of January 1997 just somebody explained to me what that is so this was a request by one of our engineers and my understanding is that there's a certain agreement of about rates of water that applied to the main campus and so we would like this to be this campus to be designated as the main campus so can apply that contract would apply which is what we've done on the conference center site and I believe also the East Campus site this is consistent with those so just to provide a little more detail what we do with cu properties in general is we master meter at the perimeter of the property and so even though there might be multiple buildings on the site we treat it as one customer they have one water budget they acquire an investment fee to serve it as

[99:03] a whole and so as they do individual things on the site or not then they they own and maintain the utility infrastructure within the site as well so it tends to be more efficient moving forward but it's different than a typical property where you would have a separate account and arrangement for each and every building and where the city would maintain the infrastructure within the campus so what this is saying then is to add this to that contract basically yeah and we'll have to look at the details and actually the the water rights issue we just talked about probably fits in that same conversation because typically through an annexation the city would be acquiring any water rights the annex and property had in exchange for providing our own water rights to deliver potable water to the site so we would be probably looking at at that as a whole in terms of what CEO is seeking from us in terms of provision

[100:01] of water service and but water rights we would be using for that and so that's kind of our our seat at the table in terms of the conversation about dry creek dish number two so with the dry creek ditch number two water rights come into this sort of analysis yeah I think we would look at it as a whole and again we'd have to as we move forward we'll get a better understanding of of what the likely needs are within the property and but we would look at that holistically because it might be that there is some some trading that makes sense and is in everyone's mutual interest Lisa touched on it but I just wanted to reiterate that it's very important for open space habitat preservation in case that dam at the highway does not permit water passages and that was the thrust of the realignment of Dry Creek ditch too and having water in it so just as a backup for to be sure that that habitat

[101:03] would be protected in particular the government yes just okay underline that so great so just the time check we wanted to talk transportation and then we still need to talk annexation process and we're supposed to get to Hogan paying costs at eight so we're getting there are quite a few points of alignment that we're seeing you know the comprehensive plan talked about performance-based standards and so the university did indicate and in their letter that they're interested in partnering with us to further develop those you know we've done some initial research around you know there are other universities that have done similar things out there that we could start looking at an initial study throughout the comp plan identified a potential location for a multimodal hub on the site and that's something that we're in alignment with as well as a connected multimodal system connecting to our system as well as not having a bypass through the site some of the things that

[102:00] we think we'll probably need to further refine is the impacts to the neighborhood's related to transportation and so a lot of the you know those density numbers were in part developed through the land use designations on the site at the time but also there was an indication that the old number will be guided by an additional analysis for the carrying capacity of our transportation system and so we'll have to do a little bit more analysis on that and there's also we heard some concerns around you know there's a school nearby there's some neighborhoods nearby that could be concerned around parking spillage and so on and so you know we'll have to probably look at some more fine-grain approaches to managing the university's trips and the subsequent impacts to the to the neighborhood in our transportation system so intro city so it's been managed I mean we're already hearing from the neighborhood's have been hearing for decades from the neighborhoods about the level of service of transportation in that area I mean it's poor right now and people have a

[103:02] difficult time just coming north or going east so I would hope that the university really would look ahead at connecting its campuses doing something maybe the Colorado that seed out right away would be a place where some small fixed rail could go and maybe the city could get into that again looking ahead this is looking ahead that we should explore Bob's gondola these kinds of different things could be looked at that really might start to move people and goods instead of just putting more cars on the roadway because they're not going anywhere soon much as we may think that that would be a good thing it's not going to happen soon unless oil dries up you agree with Cindy there and because

[104:01] obviously transit is gonna need to be a huge part of the transportation plan here and I really hope that we can work together and do some joint transit and those we've got the table mesa park and ride right there and there are so many people I'm sure who could use some additional ways to get from there into downtown or to the Cu campus or things like that so I'd love to see us collaborate on circulator routes to this to this site so hopefully we can build some of that into this negotiation process one thing I mentioned the I absolutely support the note bypass we don't want cars going through there and over but we can we consider allowing maybe some buses to go through I mean that might actually be a good mobility option if you put one bus every 20 15 minutes from side to side that wouldn't violate I think the spirit of the no bypass role so I'd want to hear from the public about that I'm not going to try to do that unilaterally but it's it's I think an idea worth considering if you can get better transit by allowing the

[105:00] occasional bus through that might be worth considering yeah yeah I would just like to say that we are absolutely on board with collaborating on transit options and that's part of the guiding principles as well yep fantastic things beginning there you go and I was just gonna say the same thing that Aaron just said that I really hope we can see this as an opportunity not just with this property but I think looking into the future see you the city Boulder County we need to do something about transportation and I don't think we can look to Denver for leadership and so I'm hoping I personally think we're gonna have to have a whole lot of sidebar conversations and I really hope we can have a very fruitful in on that you know as derrickson I think we agree excellent let's talk about it okay so I'm just

[106:03] keep annexation process so that was the second question to council the purpose statement the city's engagement framework does suggest clearly defining a purpose statement early on in a process or a project that's really intended it's kind of like the project's mission statement this was the statement that was included in the staff report I also did want to note you know Mary and Sam did provide some additional language which I have on another slide if council is interested in that but this is one of the things that we wanted to bring up to council for any input and even words thing if you so chose to and just said in terms of process what else are we trying to finish on this topic the only other thing is to talk about the touch points with the community during the actual annexation process with all due process I actually think that was really important and then we can come back and

[107:01] wordsmith this is perfect on Alaska yep and so this is just a reminder that we're really at step one kind of defining the issue before embarking on this process following the input tonight we'd be developing and further refining you know our understanding of the affected parties and engagement plan as we move forward typically in a conventional annexation process there are several steps that take place including a pre-application meeting with the applicant and staff sometimes a feasibility study the applications submitted and written comments typically the annexation agreement would be refined during that process and once it's finalized and ready for primetime it would go to a Planning Board and City Council what the staff report suggests considering is really building upon the guiding principles and the input briefs we receive at tonight's study session we would be holding some additional meetings with the university the university would be submitting an application for annexation and through

[108:01] written comments we would seek to move some of those areas in the yellow as we've been talking about them tonight sivan which areas move into the green which areas still have that are unresolved or that have different varying options of different ways to address them and we would bring those to city council during a study session with an plan for engagement following that we would have an engagement process and as well with the city and probably county boards and then share that input input with council at a study session and then head into the board hearing process so in a nutshell that's what the the memo for this meeting detailed and we would be this is kind of a first take at it and so we're interested with any any kind of input that council may have very the order the items after written

[109:01] comments I would just like to kind of get a feel for my colleagues about it seems to me that we might want to get board engagement ahead of our study session and what I'm getting at it'd be great if they dove in more deeply to that and then provided some feedback to Council that a study session so that's just a suggestion I have and I just wanted to put that out there okay why don't you guys responded and add whatever you were gonna I agree Mary I didn't know you're gonna say that so at that point question for you feel me or maybe it's for Jeff I'm what extent are there dependencies between this annexation process and the engineering the plenary design work that you're doing are there are there are there any points where one is gonna affect the other or do they work completely

[110:01] independently I am hoping that that film might have a slide in the deck that just shows how the two lap and if you do not then so so basically they have to line up at the end for sure we we don't want to make a decision on annexation or or flood without knowing they both work I think the plan is to be checking in with Council at key milestones through the engineering and if we hit something that is gonna require a policy decision or a change in direction we would need to bring that up and make sure that we don't get things out of sync their updates on your side yeah there's a there's a process laid out on one we would see updates and the idea was I think to try to integrate those best we can but it really there's a there's a

[111:01] variety of different critical path items in the preliminary engineering and if we hit a snag with any of those we will want to coming back and regroup so we don't get ahead of ourselves with this so I get the the fact that these half-day and at the same time and sounds like you don't know if there's gonna be dependencies between the two other than the facts for the bumps in the road you let us know along the way I'm I think at one point I'm and the last mother to you told us that you thought the preliminary design work would take about a year that's the ballpark kind of the next big milestone is we're expecting in December to have the consultant to have brought the option that was selected by Council up to just even the standards of the previous options you've looked at so that will hopefully give us some insight if any fatal flaws have been identified and then Phil are you gonna try to slot this process in during that same year so that they be more or less in at the same time that's our goal yes sir great thanks Jill that Erin and Cindy so my

[112:02] question was also about timeline so this whole thing takes one year that's what you're saying that's the goal that's our hope okay so I do agree with you Mary that we should change it and actually here's my big concern this is been a great meeting and there's a lot of head nodding here could blow up and it's a hot topic in the community we've already heard from hundreds of people that they don't want anything to go there orange is processed on us stock and I agree nine ten months from now because of because of public process personally

[113:10] it's some point we need to have something with some specificity for both the public in the boards to respond to you because that's when the rubber hits the road is when you fill in the details so how long do you think do we have enough details for people to respond meaningfully to and the boards to respond and that's probably as soon as we get there that's when we should have it I think we would hope that we'd have some options for that first council study session the idea would have been if there are friction points between at least the policies we have this at the city and the university that were able to identify them and at least identify some specific paths forward and that's what we would be presenting that we would go out to do engagement around at that council study session that's do you

[114:00] think that would be like six months five months at the first quarter of 2019 Oh likely and that also depends on on you know work with the university as well so we don't want to put Dayton out there that based on the written City comments identify issues that bring them to a council study session and then based on councils direction then take it out to engagement that was our thought okay but by the first quarter you think we'll be there by the end of the first quarter it could go to boards because it will

[115:00] probably be things perhaps around transportation perhaps around planning open space and maybe that's where you know a joint meeting with them might be good too before you come to council so that they can do the deep dive in there I mean I think that that makes sense that there could be a joint board session could be a good idea before we have our next study session and this is we have some more specifics to look at and and then you go up for public engagement after that right so then we're talking about like open houses with the public's things like that we'd probably look at beerwater a larger public event and probably some smaller focus groups as well great which is I think really useful and then and then I think we should consider making that Second Council study session of public hearing I put that out there like I'm a little worried about getting to our very first public hearing on the issue when we actually have an annexation agreement in front of us that we're about to consider proving it's probably a little

[116:00] late it is a little late so loudly okay so I encourage us to have a chance to hear from the public as a council before we get to that end point exactly yes a clarification around the board involvement I've heard I think I've heard a couple of different things would council prefer the board's way in prior to that first study session or or after one that was what Mary was proposing okay I guess here's the thing is it depends I think if we hit some snag if it's about if it's a technical snag and there's different ways to solve technical stuff yes and it's a wrap but if it's a political one where you want us to say hey we want to run this by the public that's us so I guess depending I'm with you but it depends on the nature of the options that you want to float by us there's a

[117:02] judgment IP at the end of the year to kind of tell you where we're at and I had one more thing but we can keep talking about this okay Mary and then Lisa I just wanted to put this out there perhaps we would like to have a process subcommittee we could just throw the current complan process agree and give them this one to not complain that Landy's could open space what it was what were you gonna say is it relevant to this part we know I mean you said if you say no it's not relevant then don't say it say what am i answering simply when we want to go to boards before after the study session with us is there

[118:02] anything else on that I think it would be good to go before look at the way yeah yeah but maybe with if there's a threshold political question send it to us first sound right to everybody okay we're gonna go back to Aaron finish good okay where Bob was going in terms of how the flood planning and and this process works together just very much want to make sure that we don't unnecessarily hold up the flood work so I mean I can imagine a scenario where flood is kind of working along and they're like oh we actually aren't quite ready for this because the annexation thing isn't quite ready and then you end up in a holding pattern for two months you let us know you know if something like that seems like it's coming down the pike let's see if we can work to avoid that because I think we want to make sure that the flood engineering work doesn't take any longer than it has to and so I mean we have to work through the annexation problem process we have

[119:00] to do a good job with that in a thorough process there are job on that but to the extent that we can avoid having that hold up the flood work please and come back to us if necessary the slide that Jeff was hoping that you had that you don't know can you make us one that shows how they're gonna link up and where the updates will make sure that we're still in alignment oops we're getting out of alignment so that we can intervene that would be helpful I think okay Lisa your other thing okay well anything else on the process then if there was oh sorry yeah just a question so we have applications of middle and maybe Phil you can answer this we get written common back about where we're in alignment and not and we resubmit if it then goes to all of the engagement boards and then

[120:01] city council study session it just continues on we never take advice from that and consider what we might be willing to change and resubmit or yeah and this this figure doesn't include that but in the memo it we did have a you know following the study session there would probably be some additional our attorneys and your attorneys would likely need to be as well as staff mapping out the agreement yeah and then actually mapped out agreement would then be before the final hearing yes that would be the final agreement but typically at the written comments stage we are identifying kind of what the conditions of annexation are gonna be and where there is alignment with the city staff and the applicant so that's after that written comments stage when

[121:01] you start to move into the process that's where that will start to emerge but if I can just say I would hope see you stays involved in all of this and when our boards make comments or something that you certainly have an opportunity to see what those boards are saying and have an opportunity to weigh in I think that's really important I mean I assume we should be working together all the way through the process yeah yeah and isn't there gonna be a draft or at least pieces of a draft that that's what this public is responding to right yes that will be that will be emerging at that after the written City comments you know it's part of that process that's where the city the city will kind of stake out its position the city staff law yeah so what can

[122:03] you remind me what the Second Council study session is for because I see that it what I've heard so far is that you look at you're looking at moving the engagement before the council the first council study session and the second one think of that as a public hearing we were looking at boards before the first day session and then public engagement in between the study session and the public hearing you would have input from your your boards and commissions prior to having that study session on those those key issues we would go out to the community and have additional link as that havoc engagement and then that council public that council study session would turn into a public hearing and would really be looking at a potential path forward with those key issues and weighing in on that and then does it end in a board

[123:02] hearing well here you know we had included the boards at this stage of the process but really this would be kind of moved up up here and that and that may include the open space board if they're given that there's open space issues transportation advisory board and so on and then the final public hearing with the Planning Board and council so too bad we can't move this around on the fly yeah maybe the caveat that if it starts we may have to tinker with this if there are some key issues that we're going to just take more public process or something right absolutely and the final thing that we had and we're not too much over our time was that purpose statement and whether or not council wanted to dive into that tonight or if that's we were remain ready maybe you guys had proposed some changes and to me the word

[124:00] smithing is less important and then the concepts that you want it to change and I don't know if the discussions that we've just had like okay so we're not doing site review but we want more detail whether that affects what you're proposing or not but either way maybe you could talk to the key things about this that you wanted to change kind of at the principal level not like every word one of the things that Sam and I spoke about was that this one the purpose of this process is to annex and I you know that is something that that the public would react to and so we wanted to change that to define the conditions of annexation as opposed to presuming the end result before it's gone through a process so

[125:01] that's one of the major things and then the language that followed from there was wood instead of well so that's another major principle I guess and then finally the involvement of the community so those are the things and I guess I'd like to understand exactly where your concerns Francis were so we had written the response to this and and really it was would include but not be limited to agreements that clearly define the building standards and uses transportation access and connections flood mitigation ecosystem protection and land stewardship responsibilities all of that is something that we wouldn't want to define in the

[126:01] annexation process itself we would want to agree to a process in the future to engage the city in providing feedback on those things when we get to that stage but not in the annexation agreement itself defining those standards so that those items kind of the general principles guiding principles in the comp plan the the agreement topics oh and I'd then I think we could say should be guided by the 2015 guiding principles and then period [Music] it's for nothing I mean we like the original and that the staff recommended but this is your purpose statement well I guess one question one question is do we need to list all the topics after and the principles or not the people have thoughts on that the principles are

[127:00] pretty extensive and we all agreed to them and yeah I just think it you know to belabor it I think it's already said so I just put a period after principles okay so that takes us back to the other one what about this notion of the purpose of this process is to define the conditions versus the purpose is to annex yeah depends on which process we're talking about it seems to me the purpose of the process is to ultimately annex the property for the benefit of the city and its flood mitigation project and for the benefit of the university yeah it's but it is how we get there and what the agreements are that we make to finalize that have yet to be fully determined that needs to be worked out between our legal counsels and others other thoughts/opinions yeah I'll jump in here I don't think I don't think what you're saying Francis and what Mary is saying are mutually

[128:00] exclusive I mean I think we all get that there can be no flood mitigation unless there's annexation so I think I think the assumption is that this will end up in an annexation I think what Mary the point Mary's trying to raise is what are the what are the terms of that condemned that annexation and none of us know where we've talked about some tonight there's probably some yet to be talked about and so I think what Mary and Sam were saying is is the process is about what are the terms and conditions of that ultimate annexation and so I don't think you all are I think that's I think that's right and and I I think I would agree that it's not mutually exclusive and I also think that this language is more cognizant of the importance of this project to the community so maybe I've got a proposal here which is I think I think you're you're in Samms initial sentence is I think broader and I think works well for

[129:00] the needs of the process and and in general and then I wonder if we might go from that first sentence back to the original purpose statement is that this original purpose he only has two sentences and so maybe we take your first sentence and then the original purpose statements second sentence which dude can you bring that back back up so so this into the first like half of that first sense would be replaced by st. Mary's and then we keep this second sentence which has this sort of clear will be great guided by the sea of South guiding principles and then it's clear that it's a modified annexation process that provides opportunities to influence the terms so with that it begs another question this one talks about balancing and I noticed that Mary you and Sam took that out as a concept and just says

[130:00] we're gonna meet both I think that you guys do that on purpose it's more aspirational really because this one is we know that there's going to be give and take but I think that in the proposal its we're gonna aspire to get to a point where we meet everybody's needs I'm just gonna state a preference which is this one because I like it cleaner rather than not just shorter and more it leaves room in there but at the same time it's also has specificity what about the first portion of your sentence of the first sentence here's the purpose of this process is to find the condition of annexation for the parcel is Cu South which is fine and in so doing a lot I

[131:01] mean to me just said it is a it is a balancing right so I think admitting that there's gonna be some trade-offs and there's some give-and-take is being most clear so but I like your first part of your sentence what about that so if you go back to the other purpose statement this is completely a matter of semantics but it's where it says University of Colorado's potential South Campus we consider it already our South Campus I think it's after Cu South go to the other so just use the portion of this what a drop-off words you say oh so that so we could avoid that that makes sense so we get to see it again and make sure that summary of the study session

[132:03] then will included in that that specific language okay that work for people and we can touch on it there's some somebody's really ask you but it's sounding like we are having a meeting in the mind so that might be good enough thank you that was a lot to cover in two hours we really appreciate your time this evening though well I would just like to say to see you really appreciate yeah well actually I think you requested to come in I think that was a great idea so really appreciate your engagement this is a great way to have a conversation well thank you very much for doing this we really appreciate it I'm speaking sincerely for the whole University that we think this has been a good process and you know I think we are good partners we are good models for other cities and universities that haven't quite got it as together as we do

[133:08] [Applause] [Music] possibility but I'd like to

[135:49] [Music]

[136:19] so I think Dan should sit near that computer I was told to sit here but mines on the order of the presentation so Dan we're gonna have you sit by the computer me you and you're gonna need to

[137:02] run my slides okay yeah it was annoying that somebody would ask you it's such a lady would be funny maybe I should give morning

[138:02] 30 all right we have five of us shall we begin yeah we're gonna be Gabby but it's just refueling but we can hear you in there too okay and obviously we're here to talk about potential uses for hope and cost of property that the city recently purchased at the direction of Council [Music] you requested that we return to Council after purchasing it in October so here we are to talk about potential uses for the property and we have brainstormed I thought you could see we try to think of

[139:02] all sorts of different uses that we could make of this demo piece of property I think it was a brainstorming effort and we're gonna rely on counsel to narrow things down those potential uses a plan area two and now which uses you select other areas in the complan and then we're going to ask you to narrow the potential uses so before I go further you do a piece of paper on your desk which was also in the memo we're gonna ask you to do just to follow along and to help yourselves really figure out what you want to do as we go through each use think about whether or not you

[140:00] want to do it or you don't want to do it and then we can talk about it later you will see that under number two ecological or amenity management uses use for it already says yes that's because the minimum that's the minimum that we feel we should do is the owner of this property we do need to maintain it so we've already selected that at least we have to do that through the general fund so on the slide we also contained a very short description of what's been going on on the property for the last year as you well know this property has a long and storied history that we are not going into but just in the last year the council considered an annexation application a year ago it was ultimately withdrawn and then the council made the decision for the city to purchase the property and we have been carrying through with that in the early parts of 2018 and the property was ultimately purchased on April 20th we're

[141:01] returning now six months later with some ideas for its use not to the next slide so our questions for you are going to be first of all you have any questions about what we're presenting but then do you have any suggestions for use of the property that we haven't thought of that there are probably are other things that you may be thinking about are there any uses that we've suggested that you think should be eliminated and then after eliminating on the ones that could be used do you have any additional information that you want us to provide that we can come back to you at a later time and then do you have any specific questions about the potential uses so on we go the first presenter is going to be Dan Burke and you can see our many staff members lined up in the order in which they're going to present so we've asked each person to present their own section of it and Dan Burke is going to talk talk about agricultural and ecological uses Dan thanks Jay so over the past many years open-space

[142:01] staff of egg has actually had the opportunity to assess the values the property has in fulfilling the open-space charter purposes several times most notably in 2008 when the landowner actually approached the department to enquire about her interest in acquiring the property in 2016 when the site development review application was before the city and again most recently and late August early September in preparation for the City Council meeting and so our most recent assessment which was done by staff about a month ago so really concentrated on these two open space related uses which is agricultural and ecological so in terms of its Ecola in terms of its agricultural uses overall staff felt staffs opinion is that the potential of this property is relatively low from an agricultural perspective and it has to really do for several reasons it's rocky poor soils its size shape and residential setting the conditions of

[143:01] the irrigation system the current use of the property for horse grazing aborting the likely that of the likely of having low interest we'd receive from a potential rancher or agricultural tenant to manage the property and the fact that the capacity would take to bring this property into the our portfolio of agricultural lands would divert resources from higher priority agricultural projects that are now before us however staff did develop an approach if council did determine that Inka cultural use is the highest and best use for this property and what this would look like is that this approach would be a limited agricultural restoration that would ultimately result in small-scale grazing and hay production to do this that would require removing the current structures adding and repairing the fencing repairing the irrigation system which is dilapidated and relocate the prairie dog colony and eventually it would involve renovating the pasture grass and reducing the presence of invasive weeds on the property we

[144:01] estimate that the upfront costs for this to get it ready for agricultural use could be as high as about two hundred and forty thousand dollars when and after that with annual maintenance costs of ranging around twelve thousand dollars a year so with this option with this limited agricultural use option agricultural use to a small degree could be reestablished the aesthetics of the property could be improved and the invasive weeds issue would be addressed however this option would be expensive and we will likely find it difficult to find an agricultural lessee or tenant a rancher or farmer to take this to take this on and again it would divert our limited resources our cultural staff is of three manages our 15,000 acre system under agricultural portfolio which is actually a third of our open space portfolio as it exists now yeah you know in the last time it was farmed that perfect well right now there's horses boarding on the property but I mean many years ago it was part of a larger system which it was

[145:04] it was a viable acre cultural property you don't have any information on when the last time they used next staff assessed its ecological or and amenity management conditions and it's very similar to the agricultural aspects staff determined that that it provides low potential for possessing significant ecological benefits and it's relatively and that's the fact that is due to that this it's surrounded by residential use and on two sides and urban park uses on the third side the condition of the property and and the extent of the invasive weeds really limits its potential and its current conditions of ecological viability and the likelihood that only generalists wildlife species would ever exist here due to the do to the setting of the property however staff did develop four possible

[146:00] approaches if council did determine that managing the site for its ecological services the highest and best use for the property so I'll briefly go through those four first option is a limited or what we would call light ecological restoration projects that would be under the auspices of open space in mountain parks and this would require removal of the structures fencing repair or possible replacement and mowing of the weeds we estimate an upfront cost of about sixty five thousand out of up to sixty five thousand dollars to do this restoration this light restoration result in the management of the weeds and would result in aesthetic improvements to the site however it would divert staff resources away from higher priority restoration projects and in the end would result in only limited ecological benefits due to the prevailing conditions of the property the second option which would be it would be more of a full or intensive ecological restoration initiative again under the auspices of open space and

[147:00] mountain parks and this would involve many of the scenarios that I just brought up under the light under the minor restoration but it would also involve additional activities such as site grazing plantings and wetland West restoration in an intensive restoration project could cost as much as four hundred ten thousand dollars and will result in aesthetic improvements and improved habitat however such a project again would divert our limited restoration related capacity away from higher projects and really the staff felt that the rate of return versus investment costs would be limited so looking at a third option which would involve OSP restoring incorporated into the OSP system a portion of the property and those would be the three acres lying to the east of 55th Street and there is a poster board up to the right that in red which would show those three acres that could be incorporated into our system and doing a restoration on those

[148:00] three acres it is our staffs opinion that of all the 22 acres that incorporating these three acres into the system makes the most sense due to its connectivity to open space lands that are adjacent to the east there's actually about 75 feet that have a common boundary on the far east side of the Hogan pankot property and under this scenario OSP would also take a minor take carryout amount of restoration project and finally we did also look at what we will call an amenity maintenance of the property and Jayne alluded to that a little bit in her opening remarks and this fourth option is it would be similar to a light ecological restoration project but it would not be carried out under the auspices of OSP but another City departments such as Public Works and it would be done to more of an urban standard as opposed to a city managed open space this option result primarily a more frequent mowings of the property which would result in better aesthetic improvements in line

[149:00] with a more urban open area setting you can think of an HOA type of common lands that type of setting however it should be pointed out that even with amenity maintenance they that would divert contracting dollars away from other community maintenance needs but as Jayne did allude that probably is a primary responsibility to at least do that amenity maintenance on the property so those are the options that we looked at and sort of a summary of staff's assessment of the property so we can entertain questions on on this section at this time option four can you just tell me how that um what does that do for the noxious weeds and the prairie dogs if you're constantly mowing I mean is it gonna help mitigate the weeds and is it going to impact the prairie dogs yeah the the mowing definitely will be a weed mitigation process the prairie dogs would be able to be stayed on-site I would imagine yeah the prairie dogs oh

[150:04] I'm sorry dawn damico open space mountain parks so the prairie dogs could coexist under this scenario the mowing really wouldn't affect their ability to persist there thank you so in terms of the use number three given those three acres the open space system you said there's about a 75 foot contiguity on the eastern side is there any other private land use to the east of that parcel to the east of 55th where's it really all open space as you kind of go east and northeast yeah if you would walk on to the open D viewed if you would go across that 75 foot border on to open space it's it's pretty significant open space lands from that that point forward great thank you someone tell me how many are in the

[151:00] colony the prairie dog colony well we estimate about 8 to 10 acres right now is occupied with with prairie dogs I don't know if we've done an estimation or a count of and in terms of the vegetation there it's I've been out there recently but it's kind of denuded or rocky and so I guess I'm wondering if there would I went to this she can stay down there I went to a really cool eco cycle fundraising type thing where it was had a farmers ranch and then next to it was open space an open space is doing an experiment right now and on that property I guess it eventually could be agricultural and Lauren Kolb mm-hmm was there and she was explaining this key line technique that had been

[152:00] very is seeming to be very successful on that property and in fact to the point that it's been able to irrigate the soil enough so that when you cover it with a cover crop or a variety of different cover crops which is I think what they did in the experiment to see who's who's going to do better those cover crops seem to keep pace with the prairie dogs and and so I'm wondering if some kind of treatment like that would be beneficial to improving the look of the land as well as maintaining the prairie dog population and keeping it vegetated so it's a question yeah my understanding of the pilot project on the Bennett property which is just the single project that is that is going on right now and we'd be happy to update the Council on and the results of that it's

[153:00] a couple years project but we'll be starting to get some results in and pretty soon and we'd be happy to update the council on that that is that particular site was selected for a couple of different of all it had the soils were were blowing away essentially in the case of the Hogan pan cost there's poor rocky soils but that is generally because that's the condition of the soils in general in that area being in that location where the Bennett property is has lost a lot of this soil cover and therefore cannot hold any irrigated water and let cetera we also benefit from the fact that the adjoining rancher or farmer family is taking on a lot of the actual work in order to so a lot of the people powers is being done in partnership with a rancher so it's not to say that this site has ruled out it wouldn't be it could be considered for something like that but there are certain conditions that are happening on

[154:00] the Bennett product property that isn't repeated here but in talking with Brian Anika from our staff who's leading that project he said in general there's nothing that would rule out this site for a potential pilot project of carbon sequestration soil rejuvenation type of thing so thank you yes so um thank you for the presentation I heard you say that basically the only part of this parcel that could become open space is the ore that would be acceptable open space would is the part on the other side of 55th Street that three acres and and so that being the case it sounds like the other options if we kept it in area two would be either utilities or parks as that is that correct yeah we'll hear

[155:02] about all the options I just want to clarify that we did present options one and two which would involve the full 22 acres but staffs assessment is that the most appropriate portion of the property to be incorporated is the 3 acres but the other the option one and option 2 that we purchased as well as the agricultural option would involve the full 22 acres so it's I wasn't meaning to eliminate open spaces ability to acquire to take on the rest we just fell from a staff perspective that it the eastern 3 acres is what makes that would make the most sense from the staff perspective ok that clarifies it thank you yeah sorry just one other question um in the memo it stated that the land was as Lisa stated denuded and from the prairie dog racing and horse great grazing teasel or whatever that is but

[156:00] it's way high just just so we're clear so which seems to be the majority of the landscape am i correct yeah the majority of the land is noxious weeds yeah okay hey just one last question on this it seems to me that we might say hey we could do some of this some of this some of this it's a big site would it be appropriate if we chose some of these uses to do the remainder restore it or try out a carbon sequestered a table meant with compost and see if you couldn't rebuild the sort I mean is there a aside from the three acres for the rest of the site is there a size at which you wouldn't bother yeah I think that's what after tonight if we get clarity that you would like more definition of which types of uses could go could they go together and if so how would it look that's what we would come back to you and and provide some more detail I have a question about this specifically because it's this three

[157:00] acres of land we got a letter from someone named Joe Kent who talked about wishing to purchase this three acres and saying that he would do something it sounded like to the a conservation agreement has that been entertained I mean the for the city to sell that if there is in conservation easement on this is the first we heard was that email so we have not pursued it at this point well I would hope just thinking about it since this is kind of marginal land to begin with if he would leave that open that that would be something that we would look at if we can get a concert if council would like us to we can totally look at it mr. Ken had never contacted us before that email it came today or yesterday but if any but he has contiguous to the property and is looking just to have access to his process to his property if I understand it right I just read the

[158:04] letter I just read the letter - right that's a nice offer okay why don't we keep going contestant number two so I'm Jeff Haley with with Parks & Recreation and so similar to open space in mountain parks we've explored a lot of brainstorming ideas and as we were just mentioning a lot of the uses we've considered would complement other uses or be standalone probably most importantly we've looked at the adjacent miss Boulder Community Park to see what uses could be that don't exist there now could be improved on the site so just to start to a brief context setting this area of Boulder southeast Boulder is actually pretty well served by Parks and Rec amenities the rec centers they're the East Boulder Community Park several different neighborhood parks and so we're meeting all of our service criteria about proximity how close is a

[159:01] park to the neighbors that sort of thing you know there's other parts of town that are not served as well most notably Gunbarrel some areas in North Boulder so we started out just with that aspect and looking at what amenities don't exist and what should we do to serve this area and so we're pretty well parked so to speak in terms of this area of town the other thing is we also refer back to or Parks and Rec master plan that really is our guiding document as we've discussed a lot over the years and it really includes our capital investment strategy in terms of what amenities need to happen throughout Boulder based on the neighborhoods and the residents and so we've taken that into account as well and then finally I just mentioned before we get into the actual options we've explored we really do have this goal of taking care of what we have it's over the past several years since that master plan was adopted we've been spending most of our capital dollars on taking care of existing assets I simply mention

[160:02] that because any new amenities within this site would be new assets that we would need to understand what that full operational cost would be as the slide indicates we look at cradle to grave and you'll see in a moment we included capital costs as well as what it would take to operate certain types of amenities so we won't always keep that in mind as we're considering capital projects so with all the options as open space and mountain parks described we've also looked at what would need to happen with each of these so regardless of the option presented if council again with all these departments presented if there was interest we would need to look in much much more in depth at the feasibility related to the site each one of these options may require additional amenities such as parking infrastructure utilities that sort of thing and again what the the capital opportunities would

[161:00] be in terms of funding are we building an amenity that's already planned for another location in town what that impact might be on that neighborhood etc so for all of those instead of repeating that over and over that's just kind of the overall considerations we explore so first off skate parks and pump tracks so there's a couple of different amenities that we don't have in Boulder that much a scott Carpenter park we do have a skate park and of course the valmont bike park we have pump tracks but these are both amenities that are highly desired across the community they serve a growing population of all ages a lot of folks in our community are asking for more skate parks pump tracks basically these are opportunities that kids adults etc can participate in sports individually or with groups and so these are opportunities that could be improved on the site and serve a lot of those needs and trends that we're seeing these are

[162:00] improvements that are planned currently for valmont's that you park within some of the future phases so that might have an implication on how quickly we get to that plan and that project but in general we look at if we were to do these improvements it would be about 1.7 million in terms of capital costs that includes the skate park the pumptrack and a lot of associated infrastructure and likely be about 50,000 annually to operate that and again these are rough estimations based on initial analysis you're presenting them as they go together this would be an idea that could go together 1.7 is for both of them but they could also be split up true exactly are you saying that there's a skate park eventually plan for a Belmont Park correct we've explored you know adventure type of sports similar the bike park that's near there now we do need another skate park and new and improved skate park and Boulder that would be the location but you're not thinking another come track at Belmont

[163:01] Park there with the one right across the street or maybe correct yeah it's about the skate park that you're thinking about that's right yeah thanks for the clarification okay disc golf and pickleball courts so again just a supplement or complement rather the East Boulder Community Park disc golf is also a highly valued sport within our community we have a course at Harlow Platts Community Park as well as Valmont but again this is a sport that could be provided or accommodated here on the site neither a nine hole or an 18 hole course basically nine holes would require about 10 to 12 acres 18 holes require closer to 20 acres so it takes a fair amount of land both of these sports that similar to skateboarding and pump tracks with bike tracks these are new not necessarily new but current trends and sports and activities within Boulder and really across the nation again each of these amenities would complement the community park right next

[164:02] to the north and what we've looked at for the cost on there would be about two million probably for capital now that sounds like a lot but that really incorporates design permitting infrastructure utilities some small parking area plazas some shelter drinking fountains all these types of amenities that go along just to get the infrastructure completed and then about 40,000 annually for court repairs and maintenance keeping the baskets updated and that sort of thing question is they raised I thought the ones that Morse pulled a record yeah so the North Polar rec center behind there is a platform tennis court and that is the raised court that you're thinking of yeah well I guess so

[165:02] per the drainage issues on the site correct I'm just curious whether a raised platform you can play pickleball on anything you play on the street right in fact right now we we provide pickleball at the rec centers so we striped the indoor courts the basketball courts and allow folks to use that there's a strong desire and demand for pickleball courts a specific courts within the community we we do some retrofitting of tennis courts to provide that but this would be a new area where we provide full on pickleball that don't that doesn't exist no we do have some question is is there a way to do it on this site that doesn't involve drainage issues like a race court we would have to explore that that goes into some of the feasibility so we would have to look at the ground water situation the soils report at a minimum we would likely be him excavating and importing fill to have the appropriate soil content for

[166:00] quartz and I think it could be provided here with further analysis when we put in the soccer fields that's what we did didn't we we had it filled at the East Boulder Community there was some grading on the site and additional measures because there's synthetic turf fields that we had to provide a certain subsurface condition with gravel and other things yeah okay thanks yeah I'm so mentioning the the rectangular fields that's actually another option we've considered currently there are two turf fields at the East Boulder Community Park as well as a couple different just multi-use turf fields we did an athletic field study a few years ago and looked at the demand and provision of all of our fields both diamonds and rectangles there is a need and desire for additional fields as always Pleasant View provides a lot of opportunities that's our premier field but this can

[167:01] certainly be another option for the site just to give a sense the scale if you know if you look behind at the poster you can see that the two green squares or rectangles are you just kind of see a sense of the scale of what that would require even if we just didn't put another one in are you guys wedded to doing those artificial turf fields not necessarily yeah yeah so you know and there's a lot of debate back and forth most a lot of folks actually prefer the natural turf versus synthetic it provides a more maintenance-free longer duration you don't have to rest the fields and that sort of thing but it does the rubber the synthetic material yeah Jeff can I interrupt you there yeah I see on you three you have listed just rectangular fields did you eliminate diamonds or is that still a possibility we with this option we basically looked at rectangle just given the constraints

[168:02] of the site and given that there's already a lot of rectangular sports occurring with the other two it would make sense to have another rectangle just because you have them all those sports happening there we could explore depending on the size and the arrangement of that it takes quite a bit more room but we we didn't provide that in this option but that's certainly if council would like we could explore this as well you did your own field assessment did you determine there was also a dearth of diamonds as well and then in the city there was a shortage of diamonds good evening Council Yvette Bowden Parks and Rec in addition oh my goodness in addition we did look at the need for one large diamond in the city we don't have a lot of large capacity diamonds the things about diamonds to consider aside from the amount of space that it takes up much to what Hayley was pointing out is

[169:00] it has a very limited use if you're going strictly for baseball the entire area would also have to be irrigated differently and managed differently we would need fencing around and so a lot of the infrastructure requirements are the same you are correct the athletic field study does call for a diamond and that initially in our plans was something we were looking at Adam Watson and we also want to consider kind of the implications that go along with who's using diamonds today and where they're using them so I would want to look at that as well thank you so another option is a running track and so this we don't currently have a public running track in Boulder associated with our department cu provides tracks Boulder High School District has tracks increasingly we're hearing from the residents of Boulder and our customers basically that access to those tracks is being more and more

[170:00] limited so this could be an option in fact back to the Belmont City Park plan there is a track on that current concept plan to serve the community we have a lot of runners in the community as you know and and other field athletes so this could be an option however it is expensive likely about two two and a half million dollars to construct a track again there's a track nearby Manhattan middle school I believe in fact the exhibit behind you over here you can see it they actually just improve that this year so there's one nearby but again this is just in terms of brainstorming ideas this is another option to consider it would take up a fair amount of the site however and yes so Jeff do you know at I think this is Manhattan middle school be VSD did a whole bunch of new tracks and new fields do you know if this particular one is synthetic field I believe it is and they

[171:03] improve that along with Centennial middle school right I think they are synthetic yeah I know the one it's and Centennial is so I'll save that for my flood question okay so then the final option that we've explored obviously community gardens are an option that we could consider in most sites across Boulder there are community gardens in the general area of southeast Boulder that are managed by the neighborhoods or by growing gardens other organizations but typically this is a amenity that could be improved and provided to the site we estimated likely to be about half a million dollars to build a nice garden area similar to what you see a Hills Community Park or of course the Long's Gardens the area where growing gardens is located as we were mentioning earlier about the soils and some of those discussions we would likely have

[172:01] to bring in a lot of good topsoil or do the raised beds like you see most importantly with this option we'd really as a department would seek to partner with an agency or the neighbors or whomever to really program and really make this successful that's when we see obviously community gardens be the most successful is when they are managed and operated by the community but again like many of these options it could be explored as in partnership with other uses as well what do you do where the nearest community garden publicly available community garden is to this point there is Hickory Gardens I believe just it's it's right off of Foothills Parkway and off of baseline on Hickory Street yep it's just to the east yeah just east of Phil's Parkway in this in the general area Oh so my question is is so I worked for

[173:04] growing gardens and um actually put in the gardens designed and put them in so I was wondering you these typically he need irrigation and they're typically you put in just faucets to to serve a couple of plots and stuff so what I'm wondering is the groundwater is really high in this area and could that groundwater be used as the water source as opposed to city water I might defer to the other utilities to respond to that or even bring that up and your portion of the person I'm actually looking at Don is the guy in the room that probably knows the most about plants I imagine to a point but it would I assume it would depend on what you were growing and what the water table was at any given time well I mean how would you how would you not in terms

[174:02] of can you use it to grow the plants but can you use it to irrigate and if so how would you harness that groundwater to use it to irrigate if you were gonna actually pump it out and use it you'd need a water right and that would be a fairly elaborate process I was assuming you're meant is there not ground water that the plants would pick it up and I couldn't tell you that there Mary the property has been acquired with three shares of Dry Creek ditch number number two that is a fairly good water right it would turn on around May first it typically would turn off in late July sometimes it would extend into early August so it would be appropriate for especially for early season vegetables maybe a marginal for late season but it does have water rights associated with the property what's what's the range in size that we

[175:02] might be talking about I mean it could be depending on any size we would like I would say probably three to five acres would be a large area it could be an acre depend on how many folks are participating how large we want it and we could certainly consider irrigation and those sorts of things no that would be half a million right and we're just estimating that based on you know the like you mentioned irrigation and bringing in soil yeah some site work likely to provide that again walking paths etc that the half a million is kind of a rough estimate just based on a development cost could you just say how big the community garden is that that photos is that an acre set two acres it's probably closer to two acres I don't know exactly are you talking about

[176:01] it's someone up at foothills it's pretty fancy it's really cool that's actually that's what I had in mind when we were considering this in terms of the infrastructure again we may provide a little parking area you know a few things just to make it viable that's where the half 550 thousand came from I'm looking online it looks like there's a great garden there 20 by 20 foot plots and there's 28 of them and interestingly they ran out at $100 a plot too so they're pretty potentially incompetent adolfs at your capital outlay right correct if you charged that's the chicory by growing gardens yeah not necessarily it just covers operating costs it wouldn't well but it's it's more than zero we agree on that more than zero all right okay I think we have been asking recreational issues I guess one the

[177:01] question I have is all of these like if you added a field you know you said Oh we'll need bathrooms and it's right next to the rec center right so you you wouldn't necessarily if we were just gonna hog meant with one add more field and I guess this is a question it depends if we were gonna create lots of baseball diamonds yeah parking lots all that stuff but if we were gonna just add an incremental one more or two more things near the closest to the rec center don't we forego some of those other amenities that were listed and cut down on some of the costs we could certainly explore that it's interesting how people don't want to walk too far and get to restrooms and parking but certainly if council would like we could explore what the minimum cost would be and look at how we could get those fields such as close to the park as possible but just to clean and that's just general park design and

[178:00] planning we look at you know when you have a certain amenity all the associated features that go with it just based on you know what's accessible to the folks I just was wondering how much we can piggyback on what's already there yeah we could certainly explore that okay any other questions about okay good evening Council I'm Kurt for an hour director of Housing and Human Services so I'll be talking about four different options for housing and this it's really based on sort of a concept of trying to do a lighter touch some of the earlier developments that were proposed we're really trying to maximize the land with with the housing and so we're taking a lighter touch on both the land as well as ensuring that any any approaches would would be good uses of the energy

[179:04] for them as well all of these are sort of scaleable so they could they could be combined with other uses like Gardens as an example they could take up a portion of the site a larger portion of the site and there's also sort of a critical mass for a lot of these as well which is sort of required we also looked at both 100 year and 500 year flood plains so there's there's almost 18 acres of land that could be developed outside of the 100-year floodplain in almost seven yeah seventeen point nine acres in almost 87 acres outside of the the 500-year floodplain also where we looked at housing choices that could serve a diverse populations within the

[180:05] city as well so the first one we looked at a tiny home village there's sort of two different categories of tiny homes there's the small ones and then there's the smaller ones and typically the the ones 800 to 200 square feet often don't have plumbing in them or they don't they don't have kitchens the larger ones will have smaller kitchens and bathrooms the idea around tiny homes though it's really a it's really a social community approach to housing where the the tiny homes are often integrated with some sort of common facility where you could have you could have bathrooms they're common kitchens really sort of a cohousing type approach to housing so

[181:04] some of the things that would have to be considered I think you can go to the next one there so there would be there's some examples there so you can see they vary widely when under the definition of tiny homes but if they're fixed foundations one of the considerations would be that we would have to look at the codes and regulations around that particularly minimum sizes if they're on if they're not on fixed foundations they actually fit under sort of a a state requirement for the for the codes and that not the city requirements because it gives them a lot more flexibility and they can serve many different population types they can serve from a supportive housing they can serve seniors and you

[182:04] know various groups that make sense from a from a social standpoint as well as from from a housing standpoint so either one of these we would have to explore sort of the the impacts on our regulations and what changes would need to be made in order to accommodate this approach and again it's it's scalable so it could be it could take up a couple acres or it could take up you know six or seven acres what I found typically in working with Co housing type communities that an ideal community is typically between about 20 and 35 homes once you start getting larger than that it works but they you start creating almost sub communities and so the council could consider you know

[183:00] different types of sub sub communities one set of tiny home one tiny home village could be seniors another could be perma supportive housing and you know different different populations that meet this we've also seen up and veiled that you know they've had this for teachers so there are you know different populations that can use this housing type it's not a question but I think it's relevant but it's not a comment either it's not like opining I just was like sharing of information that I didn't have time to do on High Line is that okay yeah just really quick I didn't have time to shows but I just met with a group of elder orphans who are defined by anyone 55 and older who have no spouse no children no parents no siblings so no one would care for them and totally unrelated to this idea this meeting was and they said we have they

[184:00] have like documents already a group it's actually all women who have all come together they want to create a tiny home village in Boulder that they would live in and to move the houses would be for free for a caretaker and they've got all the people signed up all the plans HOA fee I mean everything dialed in they would upon death leave their home to like it would be free go back to the city so it rolls over and she said you know the leader of his group said is there any possibility for us to do this this is we're also low-income and she said look at you know I'm wild sage is the only co housing for seniors in our community and the home prices are 650 to 899 and there's a few affordable ones but they're really few and far between so I just thought keep that in your minds as you're listening to this there's there's a group already formed and so excited and they're all they're orphans especially it is silver sage

[185:01] there's the senior goes okay so we also looked at modular housing and this this is a very broad category you can build apartment buildings with modular housing you can build mobile home communities with modular housing one of the interesting approaches to this is you can actually create you know Net Zero type housing units with this approach but because it's such a wide variety it's it's it was hard for us to sort of construct an image of what this would look like on this site and it's sort of a housing approach that that could actually support any of the options that we're looking at so we also looked at mobile homes and City Council has a long history of supporting the

[186:02] concept of mobile homes one of the challenges we face though there's there's different components of a mobile home community there's the land the infrastructure and the housing and if we don't control the land we also don't control the infrastructure we don't control the costs of renting within a mobile home community at Mapleton you know the city came in and purchased that we're working in partnership with thistle on that property but it's very difficult to secure it as permanently affordable housing it's also difficult to have influence on the quality of the housing so this would be a unique opportunity to create a mobile home community from the beginning and get a lot of those ingredients right there's different ownership types we mentioned cooperatives condominiums and and

[187:00] nonprofits ownership the land really becomes the approach that you use for controlling the the the permanent affordability aspect of the project I would also add that a mobile home community could be integrated with a tiny home community on the same site I think having doing 17 acres of tiny homes would probably be too much for this site it would be a lot of units but mixing it with other housing types could be you know could be the the right scale what would be maybe a typical unit per acre for a tiny home development I think in the range of 20 to 30 at least per acre yeah well yeah okay and what about for mobile

[188:02] I'm sorry I don't know that off the top of my head but this is Tim yeah Jen yep that would make sense the other thing that I add about about mobile homes is if you're gonna if you're going to invest and go down the road of creating a new community there needs to be some scale to it if you're doing you know 20 mobile homes it just doesn't make sense and the infrastructure costs become quite high we looked nationally what the trends were for the smallest parks and we actually reached out to Rock USA you know they think that anywhere between five and ten acres is sort of the starting point for the size of a mobile home park that would make financial sense so the other yeah so that's what

[189:02] I've just mentioned here the other thing that I would add about all of these housing options they would all require storm sewers because it's a it is a development so you're increasing the ability to control stormwater the other the other common theme that you will have seen here is that we're looking for something on as a light touch on the land so mobile homes don't have to be on fixed foundations tiny homes don't either but even if they are in fixed foundations it's a light touch to the land foundations are typically a response to what what's sitting on top of them so the bigger the structure the bigger the foundation and the deeper the foundation so typically these housing types have a very light touch on the land and the impacts of groundwater and

[190:01] that sort of thing as well have youth so I know in the previous proposal that was before us that didn't ever come before us finally they had houses with no basements trying to do this lighter touch but they also had quite dense or wasn't I think was LR but I guess my question is have you thought about roads and the infrastructure and how that would affect the light touch yeah so and again it depends on how much of the site you do develop obviously roads would be required for each of these developments but because the number of units would be substantially less than what was there before the amount of roads would be would certainly be less than the

[191:01] previous developments that were put forward and I don't know well we'll continue this discussion I have an idea and then this site it's actually below the neighborhood around it right so we're talking about groundwater flow like it rarely flows upward I'm not aware of water flowing upward okay okay water mostly doesn't flow out very good so you mentioned the storm sewers that supportive housing villain died out look at Jeff here if you were putting some of these uses on the eastern portion still west of 55th but the eastern portion of this site would the there be the ability to route that water into the creek where where would storm sewers ago from here do you think they would have to eventually get to a creek and we haven't

[192:01] gone to that level of design but you know they ultimately have to discharge somewhere I'm sure but I mean the top hugger I mean yeah it would so the terrain generally in the city slopes northeast right so Boulder Creek and south polar Creek converge and run into the South Plaza everything sort of tips that way so presumably you would try to get if you were toward the east side of the site you would try to get that to south Boulder Creek if you were along the western portion you might be able to go north or or north okay we'd have to figure out interesting system we haven't looked at that so the the last option that we'll look at and the reason we put this in as a light touch is because you could do something like this on just a couple acres of land so again this could actually interface with or integrate

[193:02] with other housing types so the example we gave was the the high Mar senior housing which is just up the road from here it's it's 40 some units just over 2 acres and this could be the reason we looked at senior housing here is because there are senior services at the east wall direct center there's trails it's close to public transport and it's a high need in the community and a growing need in the community so we thought we would put this forward as an option in combination with other housing approaches as well so those are the the four options if you have any further questions so roads were mentioned and storm sewers and other infrastructure needs and what their displacement on the

[194:02] water table may be so presumably there would also be water and sewer typically when you can construct utilities in areas with high ground water the challenge becomes that when you dig those trenches it creates a path for the water to follow so you actually end up with more a challenge of how does it deal water so if you put a sewer line in and you you dig up soil that's been there for a long time it's you're probably not gonna get it compacted back to the level it was before so the water table would often tend to follow that and be reduced and follow the sewer line until eventually finds its way back to the creek or finds another path of least resistance so they would work to do the area that is typically our experience is that when you install utilities it the biggest

[195:03] concern we run into it often happens with annexations and some of the more rural areas of towns and people worry that their well is gonna dry up so I'm gonna talk a little bit about the existing flood zones on the site and potential utility uses and want to clarify up front that what we'll be discussing is based on the existing conditions on the site and does not reflect the direction we received a few weeks ago related to upstream mitigation so the tale and I'll talk a little bit about how we might unpack that but just for clarification this is existing conditions so this map shows the regulatory 100-year flood plains on the site the dark blue is the 100-year floodplain which is a 1% chance of happening in any given year and you can see on this site it is the far left on

[196:03] the western side there is an area of 100-year floodplain and then on the far east side there is also an area of 100-year floodplain so development in the hundred year flood plain for residential it requires that the lowest finished floor be elevated 2 feet above the base flood of elevation for non-residential it's the same elevation but there's also an option to build things to be flood resistant so it's either elevated or it has to be flood proofed the city also regulates two additional zones within the 100-year floodplain one of those is the high hazard zone and simplest way to explain that is they took a bunch of people up to a flume in Fort Collins and basically experimental we saw it or take to knock people over and so that base Stickley is a combination of depth and velocity that would sweep people away and on this site it's limited to basically the alignment of dry creek dish which is along the western edge the

[197:01] other zone that we consider is what's called the conveyance zone or the floodway and that is basically if you can imagine that you took the floodplain you just started squeezing it in from either side in basically by adding filler structures and whatever it would take to cause that water level to rise six inches that would be where you would draw those lines and so basically areas that are in the conveyance zone is where there is a greater standard around development because it has potential to cause impacts to other properties the conveyance zone on this site is live into a small portion of the blue area on the far eastern side east of 55th so the other area is under our current regulations you could add fill you could add structures and you would not have to provide offsetting flood capacity based on the existing mapping the other thing that's shown on here is the 500-year

[198:00] floodplain and those are areas that have a point two percent chance of being flooded in any given year the city has a critical facilities ordinance that's the only regulation we have in the 500-year and basically that requires certain uses if we were going to consider a school or a fire station we would look to have the lowest finish floor of that or elevated one feet above the five one foot above the 500-year elevation and Jeff that would affect the critical facilities ordinance would apply to senior housing I think it would depend on the specifics if it was assisted living probably if it was just a jurist objected not necessarily it would we'd have to look at whether people were ambulatory so the consideration but I think the line is drawn like a congregate care yeah so so anyway with any of these

[199:03] scenarios we've talked about they would need to meet the existing floodplain regulations so the next slide down please so this is zoomed out a little farther and provides some context about where this property sits relative to the South Boulder Creek floodplain so the main stem of South Boulder Creek is to the east of it and then the site is also impacted by the West Valley overflow that we've recently talked a lot about on the other side so the South Boulder Creek mitigation study that was adopted in 2015 looked at two potential opportunities in this area so one is that blue arrow that's going north to south and that was identified as improvements to dry creek ditch number two the other thing that was considered was a detention facility and that study recommended that facility

[200:01] be in the general area of Manhattan middle school and then the red dots to the north of that are the structures that were expected to be removed based on that mitigation so just to clarify that that location is based on protecting structures downstream and not those structures upstream and adjacent to this property some chip I knew you said you were gonna talk at the end about the what were the flood mitigation were proposing but when this was originally done was it assuming that the West Valley overflow was mitigated to the hundred-year level yeah so so when the mitigation study was done at that point we were looking at option D and 100-year flood mitigation and so we have not gone back and revisited that at this point because we don't actually have enough data about the option we're pursuing so to maybe cut to the tail end

[201:03] of this one thing we might want to consider is we are anticipating that the consultants working on phase one will have an analysis to bring that concept up to the standard of the other options you've looked at hopefully in December and we could take that analysis give it to another consultant and have them go revisit the mitigation study and figure out how that may impact Phase two and it could cut a couple of different ways it might it might make phase two unnecessary it might change the amount of this site that that would be logical for detention facilities so what we have from the 2015 study and what's described in the memo is we had pretty good confidence that we have an interest in doing something along dry creek ditch

[202:00] number two regardless of how the rest of this plays out that's a flow path and could use some investment and we've proposed a hundred-year 100-foot easement through that corridor the 2015 study didn't recommend doing detention on the hog and panco site but it also was under a different set of circumstances than we may have following mitigation so I have a question about middle school and it was the same one that I asked Jeff and I'm familiar with the synthetic turf because I live right next to one and it's a mess when it rains and I and running field with it is a mess too and there's some real concerns about flooding on that and so

[203:02] I'm curious in this particular situation with Manhattan middle school that study was done before the fields were put in those fields were just put in last year at once so I think it would behoove to look at what I mean they're big fields and I think it would behoove us to look at the implementation or construction of these synthetic fields and if we still would consider that as where our preferred detention site so the other end of that dilemma is is that this project is not in the six year CIP I couldn't necessarily say that it will make the cut for the 20 year CIP we've got probably a hundred years worth of projects and about 170 million dollars worth of stuff in the queue so the concern and so what would happen is if

[204:01] at some point in the future we had funding in the CIP we would go through a see process we would look at conditions at that time and we'll look at a range of options so what's tricky isn't it's difficult to say what will even be on that site or in the area by the time we may have funding to proceed with this right I mean I guess I would kind of throw that out and the fact is right now we're talking about you know building a 40 million dollar dam at CU and that we're talking about phase 1 phase 2 phase 3 and it seems logical to me to put phase 2 in with this phase 1 at this point in time and to at least consider it and whether and that's what I would like to know is if it could be considered and if if it turns out that it might be the preferred

[205:00] detention place we might want to change some funding priority and that that's exactly the thought is that particularly given if if with the 500-year mitigation to the higher standard the concept that we landed on involves some arrangements with VA channel and Dry Creek digit number to feel like it would be worth at least looking at yeah before we go do that should we look at some of these phase 2 elements it seems reasonable to also look at how much water will be there and does that change where the recommended location may be so one of the considerations with the preference for the Manhattan site versus Logan pan cast area was it was arguably better aligned with the flow paths under current conditions but with the upstream detention that may not be the case and hogan pan fest might be more suitable in that scenario or we may need less detention or not need detention in that

[206:00] corridor we just given that it's new information and the engineer hasn't really even turned the crank on right phase one we haven't been able to to get someone to take a fresh look at phase two so formal process standpoint then if we said well heck I mean public safety first we said okay yeah look into this does that just hold things up for a year and a half so again our thought would be we should at least be able to take a quick look and see what the options might be so we were thinking potentially if we get stuff from the phase one consultant in December hopefully by the end of first quarter we'd be able to have some sort of high-level report we would probably send it back to CH to him he'll that did the 2015 study because they could hit the ground running there they have the the modeling set up they would take the new information from rjh and see if it changes their previous

[207:01] recommendations and would at least be able to give you some idea high-level I mean the other thing that may come out of this is some of these flood risks that are identified on the site with 500 mitigation may also be reduced and we don't know Marian and Aaron so I think that considering that makes a lot of sense that map that you sent today thank you that overlays the the the jurisdictional non-jurisdictional wetlands on the 2013 flood extents kind of shows that at least in the 2013 flood there was flooding looks like dry creek ditch number two on to hope and panko so it seems to me that that's worth looking at that may also III do think that that is worth exploring the time and again you know Nate the the

[208:01] neighborhoods came both while I was on planning board and and con council talking about all the times that that area has flooded so I think it would be responsible and responsive to check out that area for flood detention at the you know for for them were spending forty million dollars to to address flooding over in the West Valley I think it would be it would be more holistic oh sorry sorry real quick question well so do you have more I mean is that either is there another so you actually I think caught most of what I had left the only thing I was gonna add and we actually covered a little bit earlier was dry creek ditch number two we picked up some shares in that through the purchase from a utilities perspective a potential use for those

[209:01] might be to go through water court and change those to be able to use for in streams flows in south Boulder Creek South Boulder Creek gets super dry in the summer you know and we've we have an in-stream flow program on Boulder Creek basically you end up decreasing the the rights over to the state because there are the only ones that are allowed to manage that and you have a kind of a contractual arrangement where you could get them back for their purposes but if it ended up that we were gonna use the site for something that would have used for for ditch water on site that would be a reasonable option as well so I think that you've that may be a great idea but I'm just wondering is it since we're talking about the same ditch and it's the same ditch owners and yeah at CU and this property could could we also use the ditch rights

[210:00] we got on Hogan pain pencast war water it seems that potentially there's still a water court process so right has got a point of diversion in a quantity and I use so we would have to we'd have to evaluate whether we could get things changed to move them around okay so now we get a give opinions but you know you know what this is the most exciting part [Music] [Laughter] Carl gather with planting now that the council has heard all the potential land use options on the site I'm gonna touch upon what the regulatory paths forward look like just so the council has a sense of what would need to happen to make these uses happen on the site so just as a reminder in the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan we have the three area designation so planning area one is

[211:03] basically urbanized areas within the city limits of the city area to our areas that are eligible for annexation and then area three are those areas that we call rural preservation areas so looking at the first option this is what we're calling kind of the land banking option this is where the council could leave the property and its current use for the next couple years or so it would remain in agricultural use in our day it would have it would be still be subject to Boulder County land use regulations so there would be potential if the city wanted to to allow the development of two single-family homes under the county zoning so again this would be no change from the current condition it would still be eligible for annexation and it would be City Council's decision the option number two that we have up there is if we were moving towards developing the site with permanent affordable

[212:01] housing the recreational uses that were discussed as well as the utility purposes some of which that Jeff talked about so this would require annexation of the property this would go through a process similar to what we've seen on the site before except that the city would be the applicant there would be an annexation agreement drafted up as part of the whole process and engagement with the neighborhood's this could be done at any time so that's that would ultimately result in the site being planning area one another option would be to explore or move towards the open space uses some of which that Dan talked about this would make it more like the open space areas around the city so this would be what we call a service area contraction that would ultimately result in it being planning area 3 this is a slightly different process and that it would have to be done during a midterm update so our next update is coming up in 2020 and

[213:01] it would be a four body review so it would have to go through the City Planning Board City Council as well as the County Board of Commissioners and the County Planning Commission so another option an option number four is if the council wanted to move towards designating the site the planning planning reserve so the council is aware that there's a there's an area east of us 36 that we have as as the planning reserve this is an area that's like a rural preservation area but it's designated for a possible location in the future for future uses that the city finds to be compelling enough and a priority enough that the use cannot be met within the service area of the city so this is basically a pretty high bar if the council wanted to call this site the Planning Reserve this is something that would have to meet certain criteria and there would have to be a lot of

[214:00] evaluation and depending on the use so this again would leave the site open for potential future housing recreational or utility purposes and the other thing to consider for putting it in the planning Reserve is that this can only be done during a major update so if the council wanted to move towards us we would recommend that it be changed to planning area three at the next date and then it'd be moved to planning Reserve in 2025 as part of a major update so the last consideration is at the bottom of the matrix is that depending on whatever land use the council chooses there we would expect that there would have to be a land-use map change designating the chosen land uses on the site so that could result in a public land use open space land use or potentially residential land use so it's kind of a high-level review of the potential options and can answer some questions there's no rush to do any of this until we wanted to do something

[215:00] yeah I think we'd want to know specifically I mean it could be a combination of these options we want to know exactly what the council wanted to move towards and then we would start those processes okay any questions on this okay it has a process just in terms of next steps and Jeff what you could present it about the updating the the flood study based on our new flood mitigation option that we've chosen and then looking at the implications for Phase two to me it seems like is the critical next step before we think about what to do here because if this turns out to be a really workable place for Phase two flood detention then to me that's clear highest and best use of the land and if it simply doesn't work to put flood detention here well then that's really important to know to think about what else we might do here instead or what the flow levels would be to say how much flood detention would you need so to my mind it seems like that we really need

[216:00] that information before taking a real next step so to see what council thinks about that I totally agree with there and and that would be the only option I would consider at this point in time and let Jeff get that consultant to do that study and get the results and then we would have another conversation about what do we do so let's I'm just kind of curious a check from staff I would that feel like a massive pond to the ball or really they're all gonna be mad at me because they'll have to come back again from a utilities perspective it's something we needed to do anyway it's just it's we're moving up the timing and we discussed today I don't feel like it's we can pull off a scope in that time well just so much affects what other uses we might put there too and just I just might add that the amenity maintenance might go hand-in-hand with until we have an answer because there is a big weed

[217:01] problem that needs to be dealt with and mowing at least the very minimum for aesthetic improvements and ecological provements will go hand-in-hand with waiting for results to marry and also there's that three acres okay very in then Sydney yeah that's what I was gonna bring up the three acres so that seems like that is sort of separate from the rest of the parcel so it seems to me that if that could move into open space or maybe explore the Joe Kent thing yes very that's what I was going to suggest I basically agree with Lisa and Erin and you and I'd like to see it explored before we talk about moving it into open space if we can put conditions on it and Bobby even had an asking price so that we would really expect that we would explore that very carefully so that we

[218:00] at least it went oh is it down to a smaller part and since all four of these groups I know are just dying to have this property they're gonna have to do some yeah some real dickering over it well so let's just clarify that those three acres explore both options open space and mr. Kent and then come back to us is that what we're saying typically if it was a conservation easement that probably I look to Jane but probably would be overseen by open space mountain parks we would probably hold the conservation easement when it was being considered for development those three acres were on the table for that as well and we were exploring both the conservation easement concept or an ownership and so we were at that time exploring the conservation easement concept even three years ago well so it sounds like something that might already be teed up okay does anybody disagree with exploring those those two options for the three acres east of 55th okay and then about getting

[219:02] an answer back on the flood study before we decide additional uses okay going going gone yeah the balls in your court I have one other thing I'd like to say which I really like Kurt's presentation on this small tiny houses village concept and there were regulatory issues in there they're not existent the so the city I take it doesn't allow those kinds of things at this point in time or did you mean with that specific no it means tiny homes or yeah I mean in the land use covered right now the tiny homes are necessarily defined we don't have any specific regulations for them I think the way the zoning code would look at it at this point is like a single-family house I think there might be some building code issues and I'm not necessarily familiar with that we would have to look at further but the other consideration to take into account as you know as an

[220:00] annexation we would be able to address some of those concerns I wasn't thinking about it at this on this particular place because it doesn't make sense to me that we would build anything that would affect the water table given that one of the reasons the city bought Hogan Pancoast was to allay the concerns of the neighbors so you know everything but I was just bringing it up because even if it's not there I would like to see us go ahead and formulate some kinds planning retreat question okay because we have a long list on there housing okay the other thing I just was and this is just a really quick one there was nothing mentioned in here about putting up solar or you know using and I'm just curious is that because it wasn't thought of or just you know we don't need it here they have that's the only thing that I was surprised not to see we we did think of it okay I'm pretty sure we were thinking about it early on and I

[221:01] think we were worried about the prairie dogs my recollection vague recollection was that the we might also have enough solar at East Boulder rec to meet at the load [Music] having something on site so after we turn on 90 could be wrong on that but I think they came out all right excellent all right good enough for tonight all right thank you [Music]

[222:07] acts and go home Indonesia's government reluctantly accepted international aid last week but on Monday night it issued a statement restricting for an NGO activity the new rules forbid foreign citizens working for NGOs to conduct activities on affected sites and advised those already deployed