March 2, 2021 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:01] SLE present W present Weaver here Yates here and young present mayor we have a quum excellent very good and with that I will turn to Sarah Huntley to walk us through the details of language interpretation for tonight Sarah evening Council my name is Sarah Huntley I'm the director of communication and engagement for the city of Boulder um because of the important public health safety information we have to share tonight the city is making Spanish interpretation available so I want to just spend a minute letting people um know how they can choose their preferred Channel if you'll bear with me for just a moment I'm going to SL share my screen to show a quick slide okay can somebody give me a thumbs up if you can see the blue welcome to this Zoom meeting slide terrific okay so we're going to encourage people um to

[1:01] click on mute when not speaking to limit background noise because we're essentially going to have some people in an English Channel and some people in a Spanish Channel this evening the way you choose your language is by looking at your horizontal menu bar it's usually a black or dark gray bar that stretches across the bottom of your screen and you should see an icon that looks a little bit like a globe if you click on that Globe it will give you a drop-down menu and you can choose either en n for English or e s for espanol the interpretation will continue throughout the covid briefing and then we will resume to English only for the rest of the meeting uh the mayor or I will try to announce when we make that switch um I do want to give a couple of tips for um people who are maybe new to simultaneous interpretation it's really helpful for our interpreters if you speak slowly and clearly pronounce your words a good tip

[2:01] we like to use is to tell people to take a breath in between each sentence please don't interrupt the speaker it's very challenging to interpret multiple voices at one time if you own a headset with a microphone it's very helpful for clarity for you to use it we know we probably have some multi-talented individuals who can speak more than one language it's easier for our interpreters if you choose the language that you're most comfortable in and stay in that language and I would just encourage English speakers to avoid using some of the phrases and idioms that are familiar to us but might be very challenging for somebody um speaking another language such as quit cold turkey or be under the weather or have something on your radar um try to speak as clearly as you can using simple phrases now because not everybody perhaps has understood this to be able to switch channels we're going to pause for one moment so that Manuela

[3:00] sentes my colleague in the language access program can quickly do our one moment of consecutive interpretation after that we'll switch to the language um that people have [Music] chosen very good thank you I think we're good to go Sam thank you Sarah thank you Manuel appreciate that um our only order of business before we move on to our Public Health briefing is we need to amend the agenda to add a declaration

[4:00] honoring the Boulder Police oversight implementation team so if I could have a motion move move and a second anyone opposed to adding this item to our agenda seeing none I think we are ready to move on to our covid um Public Health briefing and here tonight with us um we have Jeff Zak and others from Boulder County Public Health I just wanted to mention before we get started um Jeff has been giving us these briefings once a month since last year and um this may be his last briefing to us because Jeff I believe that you are taking retirement at the end of the month so thank you so much for all the hard work you put in and we look forward to what you have to tell us tonight thank you Sam and thanks council members and it's it's always been a pleasure um to come here and talk to you and uh to see the dedication that you all have to helping improve this this

[5:00] whole disease progression so it's been a pleasure thank you I'm going to share my screen and the information that I have to present tonight is good our data still can I still I need screen sharing uh our data is with me I can do that for you thanks Sarah Sarah I think we've got the presentation for Jeff if uh we can just pull it up I'm sorry presentation computer has it or we need to make Jeff be able to share uh Jeff I assume it's the presentation that you guys turned in which uh either way is fine Taylor can you please pull that up thank you thank you so much so overall our the the the uh presentation I'm goingon to give you tonight is good I'm gonna cover a couple things I'm going to go over the latest data and what it looks like and then I'm going to talk a little bit more about where we are with vaccinations

[6:01] what we can expect moving forward and then in Dr andir gal is going to talk in much more detail about what we're doing to address some of the disparities that you're going to see in the data that you've also uh seen presented to you here in the past next slide this is our Metro data as you can see we've been declining we do have a little bit of an uptick that you'll see when I checked the slides this afternoon that did start to come back down so we hope that that is a short live up tip tick right there that you see next slide we are still yellow on the state dial and as you can see two of our three indicators are in blue we're actually in day six I believe of the incidence rate being in blue and our positivity being in blue so we are headed toward a blue category we will be waiting for the

[7:00] state to make contact with us uh once we are eligible but our data again is headed all in the right direction next slide please this is our our 7-Day average number of cases uh again this is going to be a common story good news we're at 44.5 can certainly handle this number of cases much more readily than we could when we were up in the 100 so all headed in the right direction next slide this is the number of cases in the 18 to 22 year olds um and then the the orange uh line graph there is the percentage that account for CU students and you can see that's at about 35% um we did have a downward Trend over this last uh week so that is that's a good sign as well we are hearing some reports of parties on the hill we've been working closely with the University of Colorado and thank thank you again to

[8:00] the city of Boulder folks who uh especially Maris and her staff who are really helping us ensure uh that we are following through on trying to do everything we can uh to make sure that we are keeping parties in check it we would not be able to be successful without the support of the city so thanks to all of you next slide uh this is the disparities um and are disparities increased in cases and what it basically represents here let me first describe this that bottom line that's green um above that line you would see a disparity and below that line a a disparity doesn't exist so what you see here is several different um uh line graphs the first one is case relative risk that's in dark blue we still see disparities between our non-hispanic white folks and our Hispanic folks and that disparity as you can see has come down but it is still a

[9:00] disparity that exists for us the second one is relative to hospitalizations and you can see that's come down but it's also still above that green line indicating a disparity exists and the last one is death relative risk which has come down um in is a positive trend and is now below that green line next slide please this is the total number of tests per day again I this is I'll say this message once here and once at the end but we have ample testing capacity um and again thanks to the city of Boulder for supporting the stazio site I've really appreciated all the support from all of you to make that site easily accessible um we have free testing there you can go to our website and find out testing dates and times for all of the sites across the county we really need people to continue to test uh for two reasons number one um again 50% of the folks who are positive don't even realize they're positive so we want people to know if they have the virus

[10:01] you don't have to be symptomatic you can get a free test uh at any of the at several of our sites in Boulder County uh and the second reason is a portion of those test results get submitted to cdph and are looked for for the variant so we want people to continue to test throughout uh this entire uh time that we are getting vaccinations out there and until the time when we have her immunity in our community it's going to be important to continue to test so please do take advantage of the free testing in Boulder County next slide please this is our hospitalizations you would see the same Trend uh for the state as well hospitalizations both locally and across the state are decreasing although it's a slowing Trend you can see the line was fairly steep um and it has now tapered off a bit so we want to continue to to think about those prevention strategies like masking maintaining social distancing uh as things open up more next slide

[11:00] this is our D also on a declining Trend and I'm going to talk more specifically about long-term care facilities in the next slide next one so you can see here that our long-term care facilities as you all know have been um a significant challenge for all of us um and it is it is not at the fault of the long-term care facilities we had a lot of Staff coming in that were asymptomatic late in the disease progression and we knew that the best way to be able to help control this disease was to get vaccines to these facilities and we have since seen a signif significant decline because vaccine has been provided to the facilities that are out there and that's making a huge difference next slide so this is from the Colorado School of Public Health and it's from their report that's dated February 24th and what I they they ran several models so this is a follow-up to the conversation or the models that I presented to you last month and they've run several models but the the the main model and the main thing I wanted to

[12:00] show here is that transmission control does make a difference as we move forward um it says vaccine one and I just want to make sure I'm clear on what that scenario means so the scenario that's showing here is that 40% of coloradans would have at least their first shot of vaccine by June 1st 2021 and that there was 70% uptake in all the area in all the categories that had coverage so that's the assumptions that are being modeled here there's multiple other scenarios in the report but I wanted to use this one just to show how much difference again transmission control can make um on the bottom of that slide I don't know if we can I don't know if it's just on my screen that's cut off or not um but there's a blue there's a blue dotted line and there's three different transmission control categories the first one is 76% transmission control which is where we are today so if you remember last month when I presented to you we were at 80 3% we've come down in terms of transmission

[13:01] control from 83% last month to 76% this month the projections that are there are 76% 70% and 60% and the top line as a worst case scenario is that 60% scenario um with the assumptions that are built into this model so you can see in that that we're approaching total active hospitalizations at the top um on that top graph the one on the bottom left is active ICU patients you can see that we exceed that in this scenario uh with the most updated data this week uh and the projections that they've run and then you can see and this is where I think it's really important to focus is the cumulative deaths if we continue our transmission control at 76% we're at that very bottom line that's dotted so very little change in deaths if we relax our our strategy we don't wear masks we

[14:01] decide that we're going to get together in large groups um and the disease spreads before we have vaccination out then we can expect to see more deaths um and a significant more deaths in a in a low low transmission like 60% so it's an important message to just keep telling folks that the work that we've been doing to keep our transmission control high is critically important moving forward and we just need to keep doing those things wear masks social distance um don't Gather in huge large groups um if we can just do these things for a few more months I'll talk a little bit in a second about what vaccine we might see in the months ahead which is positive news and if we can just get through these next several months we are going to be in a much better space than than where we've come from so want to keep encouraging that next slide please um so I think probably everybody's heard that Phase 1 B3 starts on March 5th and there

[15:00] is more detailed uh data on our website and on the state's website about what each of these uh categories include in Phase 1 B3 but it's now people age 60 and older it's Frontline essential workers in grocery stores um and Agricultural and when we're talking agricultural it's things like JBS meat packing think about the places where it's there's large congregate areas where there was lots of outbreaks early on um in those scenarios and then people 16 to 59 with two or more highrisk conditions and again the list of high-risk conditions is on our website and the state's website next slide we've been doing really well on vaccinations we've got almost 60,000 vaccinations to Boulder residents uh and if you go to the next slide we can look at what that looks like in the categories and the ones I want to highlight are those bottom two um we know that the older categories are going

[16:00] to have the greatest impact which is why uh the governor started with those prioritizations and you can see in that far right column that go if you go all the way to the bottom you'll see 51% and 84.2% in the 51% those are 65 to 69 year olds who have had at least one vaccination at this point and the 70 plus year olds are at 84.2% that have had at least one vaccination at this point we are doing uh phenomen L well comparative to the rest of the metro area uh and a lot of this is because we have incredible providers we have 32 providers in our community that are doing incredible work um and they're really helping us get these vaccines out the door we have capacity now for 20 to 25,000 vaccines per week we're still getting only around 7 to 8,000 uh and we are building capacity to closer to 35,000 per week so there's been a lot of work that's been happening with with the anticipation that we are

[17:00] going to be receiving a significant amount more vaccine uh towards the end of March and the early part of April you've probably seen some of those predictions um on the national news we keep hearing this from the state and we do anticipate that we are going to receive uh more vaccine next slide please uh regardless of the disparities that you saw in the previous slide we still do have disparities in getting vaccine out uh andir is going to talk about this in more detail but you can see uh in that in the white non-hispanic space population is 90.8% but that population has received 93.5% of the vaccine in the Hispanic as an example latinx Community you can see the population's 5.3% but they've only received 3% of That vaccine that also is a disparity in our Asian uh and Pacific uh uh uh non-hispanic population as well well so you can see there's still disparities that we need to address as

[18:01] we move forward we have been planning um and working with uh City Partners across Boulder County and again Ander is going to talk some more about that I'm almost to the end here next slide uh this is again that Metro graph that shows our 70 plus percentage of our population overall in the Metro we've we've done 71.3% of the 70 plus Boulder County is leading the pack there with uh as you saw on that previous slide almost 85% next slide we we do have some persistent low vaccination areas we've been looking at this map on a weekly basis it's produced um by Denver public health and we've been using this map to look at where are the areas and and just to orient you the dark red is better than the light the lighter the color it means there's less vaccination in that space so the darker red means more vaccination the lighter

[19:01] colors mean less vaccination so we're using these maps to look at areas that we need to that we need to increase uh access to vaccines for and using the map as a planning tool to be able to do that not just um for Boulder County but also across the metro and with our hospitals and I think I have one last slide and then I'm going to turn it over to Ura and that's just again you've you've seen me say this over and over but don't let up on the prevention we've been doing great work um we were at an estimated one in 230 some odd people uh last time I presented we've dropped a little bit because our because of our um transmission control going from 83 to where we currently are at uh at 76% so we want to make sure we are focusing and keeping ourselves moving forward by following those preventable steps down below again wearing masks washing hands social distancing um and as I've mentioned before if you

[20:01] haven't done it yet if you go to adour phone.com uh the exposure app is great because if you are in close proximity to someone who is a known positive you will receive instructions on what to do next and how to make sure you are protected yourself and again uh keep the Hope up because there is light at the end of the tunnel we have vaccines being distributed they are increasing slowly and we're going to see more as we move forward so en encourage folks to hang in there with us a little bit longer and we're going to be back to a space that feels better to all of us and I'll stop there and turn it over to endira thanks Jeff um I'm not sure Emily if you have my sides okay learn I think she does oh perfect thank you Sarah um I

[21:00] just want to say first uh before I get started about the vaccine update that um I'm really I'm really happy to see that the city of Boulder is going to be honoring those first cases um on March 5th and and I just want to say thank you as a city of Boulder resident um that is something I do plan to participate in because I think it has been a long year and there has been a lot of loss so thank you okay well I'm going to quickly go through um just what's happening with the new phase distribution approach because it's created a little bit of confusion and I want to make sure that everybody understands what's happening in each phase and then I'm going to share some Equity uh strategies that we're working on across all of Boulder County and that includes our municipalities um city of Boulder City of Longmont Lafayette and others um because we cannot do this alone and it's going to require all of us to work with our Community

[22:00] Partners next slide so this is probably our fourth iteration of our phase distribution plan um the good news is is that phase 1A which was those highest risk healthare workers and those long-term care facilities those are completed so that's great we are about 85% as Jeff presented today um done with our first doses of 70 plus so um that's a real good Milestone to reach and we're doing a great job in Boulder County all of our enroll providers which include our five area hospitals or king supers and Safeways everybody's pulling their weight and as soon as those vaccines come in they're getting out and and I couldn't be more proud to work with such a dedicated group of people we're also doing a phenomenal job with all of our First Responders and our moderate risk healthare workers we will be running our last Clinic um this week and we should have wrapped

[23:01] up all of the moderate risk healthcare workers in Boulder County so that's that that's a lot to celebrate on Phase 1 b.2 we're making tremendous progress uh 51% as Jeff presented of those who are 65 to 69 in Boulder County have received their first vaccine and I reached out to our education Partners today and they said that uh most if not all K through 12 teachers and Frontline education Partners along with ECE have had the opportunity to sign up and register for a first dose so uh some of them are going to be looking at second doses quite soon so that's very very exciting um and I know that our schools were really eager and excited to get back to school on March 5th we which is this Friday we'll be entering into this Phase 1 b. 3 which again as Jeff said opens that up to people who are 60 and older those Frontline essential workers in

[24:00] grocer Grocery and Agriculture and there are very kind of prescribed definitions of what this looks like as Jeff said it go to the website and then individuals who are 16 to 59 with two or more chronic conditions and they have to be high-risk chronic conditions will be offered the vaccine and they will sign an attestation um at say a doctor's office or wherever they're getting their vaccine from what we know is for Phase 1 b. three we are looking at an estimate we looked at some of the estimates that the governor provided we think it's close to 58,000 if we extrapolate what those numbers look like you know across the state and we extrapolate to Boulder County it's around 58,000 um individuals that will be eligible in Phase 1 B3 and if you think about it we get about 8,000 uh doses a week so that's going to take us um probably close to a month to get

[25:00] them all done and hopefully with the J&J vaccine coming on board and we see more uh allotments there we'll be able to get more people vaccinated and then phase 1B point4 in April I'm going to talk about just a little bit more but that is close to 2 and a half million individuals in Colorado which is estimated around um about 151,000 people in Boulder County next slide please so this is just an explanation of that 1 b. three prioritization list that's going to go into effect on Friday um and it just has a lot more information about you know um who actually qualifies next slide and here's the estimate for the whole state it's almost a million people that fall into this 1B point3 um estimated number and we estimate you know that we re represent around 6% % of the population so close to you know 58

[26:01] to 60,000 people next slide please and then this is 1B point4 and this is actually a very long list of prioritization so it then opens up and this is the one that starts in April so people ages 50 and older those who are student facing higher education faculty and staff so that will impact our CU Community where their facult and staff will be able to get vaccinated and the good news is that CU has um built the infrastructure to be able to handle like as a closed system to be able to handle their own faculty and staff with their vaccinations so that's great then we also have Frontline essential workers in food and restaurant Services um essential workers in manufacturing postal service next slide please um public transit uh Public Health Human Service workers so a lot of uh what we have

[27:00] fielded lately is questions from the Human Service Partners who are definitely on the front lines and and unfortunately they this has pushed them back into that April uh vaccination date this also includes Faith leaders and people who are providing direct care for anyone who's experiencing homelessness so um anyone who is serving the unhoused population next slide please it includes journalists and one thing that they have added is the continuity of local government so we'll have to learn more a little bit on that continuity of uh state government and then anyone who received a placebo during the covid trials will be offered the vaccination along with people who have one or more high-risk condition who are the ages of 16 to 49 so as you can imagine this 1B point4 is a very large group of people and we are hearing that that large group of people will open up

[28:00] and that we will also be receiving a lot more uh vaccine allotments with as Jeff said so that should coincide nicely with us being able to get people vaccinated as fast as we can next slide please again there's that 2.5 million people next slide please and then um The General public actually is that phase two so they did away with phase three and now they just have phase two so um I'm happy to answer questions after we after I finish my presentation but there are a lot of changes and I do encourage everyone to take a look at the State Health Department's website on the new phase prioritization next slide please next slide so I'm going to talk a little bit about our vaccination strategies

[29:00] um so most of the vaccination strategies where we've been serving the the the most amount of people are around these traditional clinics so that's where someone has the ability they are a Community member that has the ability to operate um it a computer they have Wi-Fi they have the ability to sign up with their phone or their computer and drive themselves to go and get a vaccine and for the majority of the public you know these are uh this traditional Clinic of going to a hospital or a clinic or you know a pharmacy is what most uh people use but what we have realized in looking at all of our data and we knew this going into before the vaccinations became available is that there are some groups within the population that one may not have the ability to uh be mobile so these might be

[30:01] individuals who have limited mobility and are homebound due to health conditions and so we do have one of our big Equity clinics is around mobile clinics and right now we're focusing on people who live in independent living so if you remember I think I shared a few months back that people who live in long-term care or assisted living that they were getting vaccinated through that long-term care partnership by CVS and Walgreens but there are people who live within those same residential communities who live in independent living and they unfortunately did not qualify to be vaccinated so but there are many that have some mobility issues so we have been working really closely with our housing Partners to make sure that individuals in living independent living and individuals are homebound um and individuals living up in the mountain communities that that is one of our priority population groups and we're targeting them using mobile clinics

[31:00] which are usually fewer doses than 250 the second Equity based strategy that we're using is a community clinic where is 250 doses or more these are considered long-term and sustainable and our goal with these is to take those areas that Jeff um presented and use the data where we're seeing less uptake particularly among certain neighborhoods and making sure that we create Community clinics that are available within those neighborhoods to ensure that people have access to the vaccine but it's not just access next Slide the it's not just access to the vaccine that's important it's also addressing vaccine hesitancy and so on the right there we have uh Dr Sheila Davis and you've probably seen her on TV she is our Health Equity educator she's also what we call uh CDP pH our State Health Department vaccine champion and so

[32:01] Sheila is actually working across the state and across regionally and and locally here to really talk about vaccine education so she's been doing this through a series of town halls um and Elizabeth Mendoza is also supporting these um they're doing them in English and Spanish and what they're doing is creating the space for people to ask questions um if who might have questions about the vaccines so that addressing that hesitancy is kind of our long-term goal we also have the um clinics that we're running the mobile clinics and then of course our community clinics there and we have different partners from across the county because uh we need everyone because this is a big heavy lift so we need all Partners to support us next slide please so I believe I shared with you at the last city council meeting about our Equity strategy our overarching goal is to eliminate vaccination disparities so that everyone

[33:02] has equal access and equal opportunity and feels comfort in being able to receive the vaccine as I said our long-term goal is to address vaccine hesitancy and we need to leverage our trusted Community Partners to do this so you know it's one thing to be a government institution and say yes you should trust me but the reality is is that uh people do trust their community partners and their community members and so we're operationalizing our Equity strategies through shared leadership which means that we are empowering Community to help determine where do we set up clinics who do they trust as trusted partners and and how should we do this with the community members to get people to feel comfort in getting the vaccine next slide please and some of the survey results that were done prior to the vaccine show that the willingness to be vaccinated this was this was done but of about a

[34:00] thousand people back last fall before the vaccines were even available but we knew that the willingness to be vaccinated varied by race ethnicity and gender in particular women in particular are less likely to have trust in the vaccine as compared to men and we see this across both uh with African-Americans and and the latinx community where um somewhere some of it is almost down to 50% and the oneall boulder um out Boulder provided a similar survey that they did locally and their LGBT survey did show almost the same very similar results with the same kind of gender uh variation next slide please so this brings us to our vaccine Equity strategy flow so the first thing that we have to do is to address vaccine

[35:00] and improve vaccine confidence among all populations in across Boulder County to ensure that people um know that it is a safe and effective vaccine and this includes addressing vaccine concerns rumors and myths uh raising awareness of the availability and letting people know where they can go in order to get vaccines in addition to that we have What's called the vaccine Equity coordination where we are working together with uh a group that we're calling our community ambassadors so these are individuals who are in the established Community who support uh vaccinations and are being trained to be able to answer questions and support the community with questions along with our city Partners our vaccine managers and individuals such as you know our health systems who provide the vaccine and our goal is to make these vaccine connections and our vaccine connection is really to develop a system to

[36:01] identify people to register for vaccines and providing um clinics that are available in Native languages culturally responsive and um have make sure that languages are available and then the last column represents the three strategies of vacine distribution which I discussed before next slide please right now we're currently working on our vaccine Equity connection it starts with strong communication um leveraging our influencer groups which include our cultural Brokers um our diverse Community connectors to schools and which schools have a very strong influence um in the community and then also uh making sure that these cultural uh these Community ambassadors are connecting with cultural Brokers to to work work together to leverage and get the word out about where vaccines can be

[37:01] made available answer questions and help people get registered either through a traditional vaccine Source or through one of the community clinics that are being set up or um through a mobile clinic next slide please and this just describes the difference between the ambassadors and the influencers with the ambassadors having actual training in vaccine safety and Effectiveness and that's really important because you could ask anyone like hey Sam Weaver what do you think about vaccines and Sam's going to tell you what he thinks about vaccines but Sam may not have training in safety and effectiveness of vaccines and so part of the community Ambassador group is to make sure that we have a central point for training and that has to be ongoing uh training because the vaccines are always shifting where adding new vaccines and of course the phase distribution is always shifting so we're

[38:02] adding different people into different groups and so part of that is to centralize that information in community ambassadors next slide please um right now the Boulder County Public Health call center it does help individuals with limited uh it and English proficiency uh get registered so if you know of someone that wants to get registered at Kaiser Permanente or a Safeway or king supers um give the call center a call and they can help connect you and get get them registered um you don't have to have a computer you might have to have a phone a landline is fine too next slide please and I just want to reiterate and end um today by just saying what Jeff has said it really is going to take all of us to continue doing what we need to do so so socially distancing masking making sure that we're not gathering

[39:00] with groups um and and keeping everybody safe so that we can get our virus levels and our case counts down to a suppressive level thank you great thank you and de and thank you Jeff Jeff are there any more folks that you would like to have present tonight no that's it we do have Drina on the line as well for questions if there's any super thanks very much thanks to both of you so much for the information super helpful um council members looking for any questions you might have I'm missing a raiseed hand function so I'll just do it the manual way okay um so uh I'm not sure who to direct this towards maybe orbina but um I noticed that there is a vac V ination uh tier for people who are Frontline workers uh

[40:00] helping people experiencing homelessness but I noticed that there isn't a tier at all for people just experiencing homelessness and uh I realize that you guys aren't setting the uh the tiers themselves as to who needs a vaccine before one another but I was just wondering if you have any information about since people experiencing homelessness tend to have more health issues in general and we've been hearing that an toally people aren't going to shelter because uh they're worried about catching Co within a shelter where there's many more people in a congregated environment um is there any reason given why that wasn't a tier itself and why that doesn't deserve Advanced vaccination and dar do you want to take that or do you want me to take it yeah um it is a really important um

[41:00] question and and it's unfortunate that we cannot go in and vaccinate every shelter individuals who are on house that definitely goes against our Public Health values what I can tell you is that people who are meeting the criteria for two or more uh chronic conditions or are in those age groups that we can go in and vaccinate them and we are exploring about what the Johnson and Johnson roll out will look like because that is a one dose and that it might be a little bit easier to navigate so we are not only looking at um using that methodology for individuals who are unhoused and the staff that serve them but also potentially for the jail and other areas where uh we feel that those congregate settings might make them at much greater risk for covid Jeff anything to

[42:03] add no just that the only other thing I would add is that as you've probably seen Adam there's been a few recommendations and requests to the governor's office but he has turned those down at this point so thanks I appreciate that from both of you I I totally understand you're not making the decision as to who gets them but just was wondering about the background there and uh thanks for the follow-up answers obviously I think that's a little bit shortsighted and not helpful since uh people experiencing homelessness tend to have even more health issues and it'd be better I think for the whole Community if we were being proactive but um yeah any PLL you have there with the governor you can pass that along for me great thanks Adam Rachel yeah um thanks to Adam for bringing that question up um and and advocating for us

[43:00] to to use whatever um advocacy power we have to to um tip the vaccine roll out in ways that are more Equitable um and to people who are vulnerable and I just wanted to follow up on the um Johnson and Johnson vaccine that someone mentioned and and that maybe that would roll out more easily to people in one dose um and and I've read a little bit of like pros and cons on um you know the efficacy rate is not as high and I don't want to open a can of worms with worrying people around that because I understand it is still very high but just wanted to um maybe give the opportunity for for you all to describe That vaccine and um why people should take it if it's the one offered I I personally plan to take it if that's the one should I ever be lucky enough to have a number called up for a vaccine I will take the one offered um but just wanted to to give an opportunity to speak to that if anyone's interested Chris do you

[44:01] want to take that or endure sure I'm happy to start with this and certainly join in andira uh as you know there are three available vaccines that have all been emergency authorization two vaccines that you've heard most about mod and fizer have shown to be 94 95% effective reducing moderate to severe disease and likely to be protective against passing the infection although those studies aren't actually done the newest vaccine the as the Johnson Johnson vaccine is a totally different platform it's an adov virus viral Vector platform which has been shown to be safe as well and highly effective the good news about the as you already uh uh alluded to Rachel is that it's a ond dose vaccine and it's been shown shown effective around the entire world which I think is tremendous because it's been exposed to um people who have gotten the vaccine as well as the placebo have been exposed to the multiple variants out there the Brazilian variant the South

[45:02] African variant as well as the predominant strain currently as as well as B1 1117 which is the UK variant so that's that bods well for the one dose vaccine because it's been tested and and people have been exposed to those multiple variants and so when you talk about decreasing Effectiveness it's because it's been exposed to multiple variants and that is a good sign being that effective at produ and the estimates are anywhere between 75 and 80% effective against monitor to severe disease death and hospitalization which is a very good Effectiveness so you can't compare vaccines and say well this one is better than that one because it was tested on a different population and still highly effective against all those variants so keep that in mind and it's also one dose which I think is also good people as in alluded to earlier people particularly people living with homeless homelessness you know AR are hard hard to follow they would not come in for a second dose maybe and although I support

[46:00] Adam's concern about getting those folks vaccinated one dose vaccine will help work with them still as Jeff alluded to I'll stop there and just see if if that if there are any follow-up questions about that Rachel okay very good thank you Rachel thank you Chris um next we have Mary and then Bob Mary thank you Sam um thank you Jeff and endira and Dr Arina for being here with us again tonight and Jee congratulations on your retirement um my question um I'm going to follow up a little bit on the um Johnson and Johnson vaccine um which is already my question has already been partially um answered but um the another feature of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is that um the refrigeration requirements are a lot less stringent um than the other two vaccines so I'm wondering what kinds of um

[47:02] changes in your Equity strategies you that particular vaccine will have if any I'm going to leave that for andir if she's still there if she knows more about our vaccine Equity roll out in I'm sorry go I'm sorry Mary I missed the last minute of that I should I have kids okay no worries I I understand my um the the short question is um what kinds of changes in um strategies especially where um Equity is concerned are are planned with the um Johnson and Johnson vaccine coming on board and yeah yeah I think that's a really good question um with the Johnson and Johnson part of what we have to do is learn about the

[48:01] vaccine um in terms of being able to see the emergency use authorization and the recommendations that come from asip so they'll give some recommendations about what uh priority populations we might want to you know focus on with the window it's definitely very appealing for uh populations that are a little bit more transient and may not be able to get back to that second dose or you may lose them lost a followup for a second dose just because we know that the effectiveness for that one dose seems to be much higher than if you just give someone a fizer or a Mna one dose where the effectiveness is not going to be as High um that is something that we are exploring as we learn more about the vaccine but yes we would like to apply it for our Equity based strategies and figure out which populations might be um best to address and make sure that they get the vaccine and accessible make it easy and

[49:01] accessible thank you andira um my next question is um about any kinds of so obviously we've been struggling with um the whole pandemic over the last whole year and we've learned a lot and a lot of things have surfaced in terms of um just how our society works or doesn't work and so I'm wondering what kinds of long-term change are being planned um as we move forward and out of this pandemic um Jeff do you want me to talk a little bit Yeah so I do think that this systems and the structure that we're setting up for addressing these uh Equity based strategies for vaccinations could be a long-term approach to handling disparities of all kinds not just of P related to co covid but any type of Health outcome um pre- pandemic when you look at Health outcomes and

[50:01] risks and behaviors and factors like smoking and things like that you know you can see disparities that exist across the whole community and so the the question is can we use this type of approach where it's very community-driven and where Community is helping to solve problems um and ensuring to help create trust to get people to doing things like doing vaccines is that a long-term sustainable approach that can help us Post pandemic with addressing larger disparities that we might see hey Mary I could add just a little bit to that too so I think you know that the county is focused on developing uh an office of equity and uh I'm sorry I can't remember the name the exact name of it but it's an office that's focused on equity and one of the things that we are learning learning from what's happened with this pandemic that I know is being carried forward is to really

[51:02] look at what is community engagement at a different level mean and how do a lot of the things that we're learning from the surveys um from the interactions with our cultural Brokers from the folks who serve these communities is that we need to make sure that when we approach our communities that our communities are deeply involved and what that approach looks like um so we we are taking some of those lessons forward not just from covid but to carry on into other things as we move forward in the county thank you both andir and Jeff appreciate that and then my final question is um Ander you you mentioned in your strategies that you're going out into the county and Mountain communities and um addressing people who are Homebound and I'm wondering how you find the people in Mountain communities who are homebound yeah so um it's a really good question and you know we know that we

[52:00] hear that there are estimates of up to 3,000 individuals in the county that are homebound but when when we work with part we have to actually work with Partners who work with individuals who are Homebound and then ask them to help us you know put people in touch with us who might want to be vaccinated so there's two questions there you know um so a a partner might be um it's Harvest of Hope is a good example they have a mobile clinic where they serve people who are homebound where they deliver food right so they're a local community based organization and they reached out and said you know we do this mobile clinic and we serve people to who you know have mobility issues and can't get to uh to us and so we said okay well if you have a if you have people that are interested in getting vaccinated let us know and then we can and if they're of this criteria of a certain age and you

[53:00] know all this all this is changing of course but um we can get them vaccinated and so they become a key partner in helping to say to their clientele that they serve hey if any of you are interested in being vaccinated because of your mobility issues will come to you and so that's kind of how we're working is just leveraging the Partnerships that exist I also heard that the state uh health department and the governor's office I think this recent uh phase distribution plan did put something out in the news about working to support people who are homebound um but right now it's our focus is we have about 70 more people who are living in independent living and once they're done we're working on homebound now I will tell you that in talking to Boulder Community Health they have you know existing individuals within their system who are Homebound and they know who they are and so they're actually putting out a team to go and actually get them vaccinated on their own and so you know

[54:00] we work in partnership with all of our enroll providers um because that's what it's going to take it's going to take all of us you know working collaboratively but we just want to make sure that those individuals have the ability to get vaccinated thank you that's all I have thank you Mary next we have Bob and Mark Bob first I just want to thank Jeff for his um cool and dispassionate presentation of information over the last year I think you you helped um um many people in our community um become informed uh not become unhinged or panicked and I I just really like the your dispassionate um presentation of the facts but you're passionate please that we uh that we comply with the health orders and I think Jeff you um deserve credit for saving lives in our communities I really want to thank you for everything you've done in your years of service to the community and and for all the times youve uh shared your um wisdom with us here on city council so that's the first thing I want to say I

[55:00] want to thank you very much Jeff um I have a question for indir probably and this relates to um how how folks sign up for vaccinations and I know we talked about this in your presentation last month um and it kind of seemed to be in a little bit similar situation and this is probably nothing the Boulder County Health can do much about but I just wanted to again flag it you know if you go to the Boulder County Health uh website you guys have very helpfully provided a list of 10 vaccination providers in the county eight of them are kind of Health folks like Boulder County Community Health and Kaiser and Clinica and Centura and with links to how to sign up with those organizations and then also you've got uh two uh pharmacies king supers and Safeway yet when people go to these facilities they get or these links they get one of two responses generally one is um thanks will get get back to you and then with king supers and Safeway the answer is there's no vaccines available and I guess the question

[56:01] really is is is there what's the strategy for people if they're if they if they now have become eligible because they they're 65 or they're 60 or they're in the one of the categories do they just go and sign up at all of these places and then just grab the first vaccine that becomes available or what what do we tell people it would be really great if there was one portal and people could sign up at one place but it seems like there's not there's like 10 places and you just keep shopping and keep shopping and keep shopping and and sign up for a lot which seems like a pretty inefficient system and and the risk of course is that you end up with multiple appointments um and you only need one one one U provider for two shots and and and then you're going to end up canceling stuff is is there any plan to do a central portal or any way for folks to sign up in just one place and then wait for the the next available shot yeah I we have heard this you know over and over from the community and it's really hard because every enrolled

[57:00] provider does have their own centralized system I know that Chris Campbell who is our um emergency manager is actually looking into this to see if this is a if there is a system um that will be able to support people just being able to sign up once rather than having to go shopping for you know uh for anybody who can get them registered so um that is being explored and we do have a group that's meeting weekly and so hopefully we'll have some more information that to come back to Chris meesuk and our uh agency administrator meeting I don't know Jeff if you have anything or Chris anything to add I would just say that it was brought up today at our agency administrator meeting and we are bringing it back to the Thursday conversation one of the challenges that uh I think I've shared before with all of you but I can't remember for sure is that we have

[58:01] independent distributions occurring from the federal government directly to Providers we have uh distributions from the state that goes to centralized ordering for some of our large Health Systems and then they distribute from their centralized location to certain locations so that's been part of the challenges in terms of trying to coordinate and again it's why we meet weekly with all of our 32 providers to try to understand what vaccines they're getting what they're looking at in terms of distribution of those vaccines and we're trying to coordinate in the interim from that perspective so that we're linked together and know what's happening in our community well thanks guys and hopefully you'll have some good news to deliver in the next few weeks as you kind of try to work on this coordination as we move from from hundreds of thousands of vaccinations in our state to Millions I I I think we're going to have to come up with some centralized systems and if you guys can figure this out uh you you'll be heroes for for a lot of um a lot of residents I'm sure thanks thank you Bob Mark yeah I I want

[59:02] to start also by thanking Jeff um you've been a calm voice of reason during the past year your presentations have always been clear and informative and you've done this community a great great service um um I'm sorry we're gonna we're not going to have you presenting again uh I look forward to the day when presentations themselves will not be necessary uh but while they are yours were were terrific and very very helpful and I thank you um I want to um further what Bob said um that was really the question I was going to ask the times this week did an article on the difficulties um seniors and those who are not it competent were facing uh in New York uh in order to get registered and you know many people were actually just giving up unless they could get a a somebody with with greater competence to get them registered um on the theory that this is not the last

[60:01] pandemic that we may see in our lifetimes I would hope it is but but it may well not be um I think it's extremely important not to have this kind of balcon ised system where um you're going to 10 or 12 uh providers I I went to four or five before I got lucky um and that's that that is just crazy I understand that the logistic are difficult but um as a public health matter I think we we really need a centralized One-Stop shopping system for people to sign up get in the queue and you know using whatever algorithms you need to use um get their uh appointment in as short a period of time as possible um so I would really urge you to to put great efforts towards that because we need it now and we're going to need it again in the future and uh the system that we have is is I really don't think is adequate for uh the needs of the

[61:01] community going forward so thank you thanks Mark I see Chris Erb has his hand up Chris yeah to uh Bob and to um um let me lower my hand to Bob and to uh Mark these are very important comments but I wanted to share with you one important piece that I I think people forget in this whole process if the providers had all the available vaccine that they needed to schedule those appointments we wouldn't really have this system whether or not we had a centralized system or not there then everybody could go to their provider or could come to the health department or could go to wherever they wanted to go because that vaccine was available because of the shortage it creates this in huge bottleneck that the providers can't really schedule an appointment

[62:01] unless they have the vaccine so I just wanted to point that out we don't want to lose sight of that yes it would be great to have a centralized system yes it would be great that we we had it clearly lined up but without vaccine we're stuck with this and we we forget that that's really the holdup with this and I I I hear your concerns but but as That vaccine becomes available then we won't really have a challenge with getting people signed up just keep that in mind just to throw in a last comment my my concern Chris is as much with the future as today and I'm not sure when the next pandemic arises that we will have no bottleneck again because it takes time to develop a vaccine it takes time to produce a vaccine there's always going to be a startup period and um not having a better way of of getting people registered and uh getting vaccines allotted to the individuals who need needed the most in the order of priority is is likely to occur again and it's

[63:00] critical agreed and I think as if we put more support into public health and prevention clearly we would be a lot further along and so I as you as you vote for that pass it's going on hopefully we put money into prevention and public house so we can fix the better system waiting for the next pandemic to occur Chris you're preaching to the choir and and de I see your hand up as well yeah no I just wanted to say thank you to Mark I I think Chris is right it's going to probably take a lot of resources for us to move in this direction and it probably will take a lot of commitment so I I do think in the future when opportunities come up to invest in it systems um such as one like this please consider and remember the pandemic I also wanted just to mention that uh the city of Boulder in particular is doing incredibly well with their 70 and over uh there are many census tracks and we can share the Denver Public Health um

[64:00] census-based approach where they show you the data but there are many census tracks in the city of Boulder where there are 100% of individuals who are 70 and older who have been vaccinated in fact I think I was looking at it this afternoon one of your lowest uh vaccination mates may be in the 70% so um I just want to reiterate that a lot of people have been able to navigate the systems that they you know that have been put put out um and it is unfortunate just due to what Chris said that just the number of doses hasn't been available and with the way that the system that has come from the feds to the state to the local level um that has not given a lot of our health care uh hospitals and enrolled providers the ability to plan as as much as they want so they're they're doing also their best within the system that's been given to them so just wanted to keep that in mind um I want to celebrate because I think

[65:01] we're doing a really good job and we just need to keep it going but I hear you we need resources thank you thank you andira um I don't see any more hands up from Council Members oh and de is that a new hand no going away very good I don't see any more questions here so I will once again thank all of you Jeff and de Chris for being here Jeff enjoy your retirement we really do appreciate the time you've shared with us so thank you very much and with that I think we're ready to move on we have a couple of declarations we will start with one presented by council member Brockett very good all right so um I'll be reading a declaration um about rare disease day which just happened on February 28th so the this announcement is a little retroactive but uh we didn't have a meeting right on the 28th so uh please um join with me and listening to

[66:01] this important declaration so there are nearly 7,000 diseases and conditions considered rare each affecting fewer than 200,000 Americans in the United States according to the National Institutes of Health while each of these diseases may affect a small number of people rare diseases as a group affect almost 30 million or one in 10 Americans many rare diseases are serious and debilitating conditions that have a significant impact on the lives of those affected while more than 450 drugs in biologics have been approved for the treatment of rare diseases according to Food and Drug Administration 90% of the known rare diseases are still without FDA approved treatments as such millions of Americans still have rare diseases for which there is no approved treatment individuals and families affected by Rare diseases often experience additional difficulties such as diagnosis delay difficulty finding a medical expert and lack of access to treatments for ancillary Services while the public is familiar

[67:02] with some rare diseases many patients and families affected by less widely known rare diseases bear a large share of the burden of funding research and raising public awareness to support the search for treatments so the National Organization for rare disorders organized a nationwide observance of rare disease day on February 28th 2021 and we the city Council of the city of Boulder Colorado declare February 28 2021 as rare disease day and urge all community members take cognizance of this event and hope that you participated fittingly in its observance and I also mentioned that um we lit the Band Shell um in honor of the day in the colors of rare disease day and we have Lindsay Kane here who I'm very grateful for making the request to council for this declaration who can share a few words with us and also tell us about the beautiful house was also lit up

[68:00] in yes thank you um first and foremost I would like to thank the council for inviting me to speak tonight on behalf of the rare disease community and for their support and recognizing the 28th of February as rare disease day in Boulder Colorado i' also like to express my appreciation to Anna Saleem of the downtown Boulder partnership Natalie shans of the Boulder County Commissioner's Office and to Chef Hosea and Lauren Rosenberg of the nonprofit organization Sophie's neighborhood um for helping me to amplify this message it is truly an honor um as uh Erin said my name is Lindsay Kane and in December 2019 I was diagnosed with Superior mesenteric artery syndrome a rare disease affecting as few as 0.13% of the population uh despite the challenges that came with that diagnosis I soon learned how fortunate I was to have been accurately diagnosed within just 24 hours of first experiencing symptoms according to the Tim Timothy syndrome Alliance for many rare diseases an accurate diagnosis can take 5 to 15

[69:02] years with 40% of patients being misdiagnosed for me the journey started with a diagnosis but for many getting the right diagnosis is a journey itself that's one reason why spreading awareness is so important to the rare Community to let others know that having a rare disease isn't just dealing with symptoms of that disease but also the struggle to receive a proper diagnosis find information and get access to treatments it's the struggle of trying to find care only to realize that there are few if any Specialists that treat and that you yourself are often the expert in the room for your own condition but where there is struggle there too is hope hope that by spreading awareness more people will become engaged with the rare community and will be inspired to use their resources to help others find and develop treatments or even cures for rare diseases with Community Support like that which we have received through Boulder's participation in light up for rare and

[70:00] tonight's rare disease day declaration we can and will lift one another up to raise awareness and save lives thank you great thank you very much Lindsay and thank you Aon for reading the Declaration um and then I would just like to make a quick announcement that language interpretation Services um ended with the covid Public Health briefing um so with that we will also move on to one more declaration tonight that will be presented by council member young thank you Sam this is a declaration in honor of the Boulder Police oversite implementation team's service to the Boulder Community March 2nd 2021 on February 2nd 2021 the Boulder City Council approved the appointment of the first first nine members of Boulder's new civilian all civilian police oversight panel this would not

[71:01] have been possible without the dedicated work of the police oversight task force and implementation team specifically Todd Conlin Jr Michelle da Madeline Woodley sha Ray pasaka Michelle Simpson and Pam jck their Collective efforts resulted in the development and passage of ordinance 8430 establishing the police oversight panel in March of 2019 the Zade Atkinson incident captured local and national attention bringing the issues of policing and racial Equity to the Forefront right here in Boulder City Council quickly convened a community meeting to discuss how the Boulder Community could move forward with more more robust transparency and accountability for police operations Council subsequently convened

[72:01] the police oversight task force in May 2019 to assist in developing options for Council to consider based on the task Force's research analysis and final report Council adopted an initial ordinance in October of 2019 directing the establishment of a hybrid model to include an independent Monitor and an all civilian panel in addition Council also established the police oversight implementation team which was composed of existing task force members joined by City staff to focus on finalizing the implementation details for the new model and passing the final police oversight ordinance the implementation team began meeting in early 2020 and included Mr Conklin Miss D Miss Woodley Mr Paka Miss Simpson and miss jnck these six individuals jumped into work with

[73:02] passion and seriousness of purpose they brought different life experiences and perspectives to the discussion each with their own strengths and each of them contributing to the difficult work necessary to build Boulders police oversight institutions while developing the oversight model they had to process their own trauma as well as the community's trauma they were creative persistent and not afraid to break new ground they developed an inclusive and thorough hiring process for the independent Monitor and then worked with the new monitor to finalize the police oversight ordinance for ultimate adoption by the council in November 2020 upon adoption of the final ordinance the implementation team then then transitioned into the selection committee to interview and select the initial nine members of the police

[74:00] oversight panel the team invited local nonprofit organizations to provide representatives to be a part of the selection committee further broadening the team's representation by incorporating individuals from Boulder County's Islamic Center and NAACP into the selection committee this committee then reviewed all 53 applications that were submitted and interviewed a total of 18 applicants before selecting the panel's first nine members the police oversight panel held its first meeting oh first the police oversight held its first meeting on February 11th 2021 and their work is now actively underway we thank the original implementation team as they have come to be known for their passion their intellect their grit and their desire to build an institution that improves the

[75:01] provision of Public Safety for everyone while the effort to ensure and maintain constitutional policing can never end the efforts of Mr Conlin Miss da Miss Woodley Mr pasaka Miss Simpson and Miss jnck have produced a venue a sustainable institution which allows an even requires Community involvement and police accountability and provides public transparency into policy police policy and disciplinary process we the city council of city of Boulder Colorado declare our City's appreciation to the implementation team for engaging in this extensive and difficult work and for building an institution that will carry their values and spirit forward long into the future thank you all great thank you very much Mary and

[76:00] thanks very much to the police oversight implementation team I see Aon and then Rachel Aon yeah Mary thanks for that declaration really appreciate you bringing that forward and just as uh the person who along with Mary that helped select that initial uh implementation panel I'm just so grateful to everyone involved it took an extraordinary amount of time and so much effort and wisdom and intelligence and so just very grateful thank you all for your work thank you Ain Rachel yeah I wanted to thank the implementation team too and Mary as well and also wanted to kind of take it back maybe another year before that and thank the community members who showed up at the council meeting asking for the creation of an oversight panel there was um a lot of community input on the front end that I think led to this happening and so just want to thank um people who got involved early and uh used their voices to help us get to this um good outcome so

[77:01] thanks thank you Rachel okay very good with that we'll move on to open comment and before we go there I thought I would turn to Sarah Huntley and see if Sarah could present the ground rules again good evening uh Council again um I just wanted to let folks know who are signed up to do open comments this evening that we do have um a few ground rules and I also wanted to explain how the mute unmute function will work unfortunately I can't get my slides to project at the moment so I'm just going to cover the ground rules quickly uh in a verbal format so um the important thing to know if you are providing testimony tonight is that Council provides testimony through audio for these meetings your video will not be turned on uh your name will appear when you're speaking and everyone will be able to hear your comments what will happen is the mayor will call your name in the order in which you're on the speaking list and I need just a second

[78:01] to toggle a switch that allows you to mute and unmute yourself um you should be able to see a mute or unmute button show up as soon as I've toggled that switch and we ask that you unmute you are um asked to speak for the allotted time only and for open comment that is 2 minutes per person I believe for the public hearings tonight we have a short list so I believe that will be 3 minutes per person Sam's nodding that I'm correct on that um so uh once we get near the end of your time the mayor will ask you to quickly wrap up if you're in mids sentence and then we will turn you off and go to the next speaker to make sure that we are providing Equitable access this evening uh we do ask that people um use their full names there's a couple of people who entered the meeting under initials and I have tried to reach you in the chat box um I will need you to send me your full name if you're in here on initials in the Q&A box so I can

[79:01] rename you and it makes it easier for the mayor to call on you uh no pseudonyms will be allowed this evening I think that's the basic Sam if you want to go ahead um we can start calling on individuals very good and I just have one more short announcement um this will represent the first open comment over Zoom where um speakers who are confirmed have the opportunity to show presentations to council so from here on out um if you are confirmed as an open comment speaker you can send any um slides that you would like shown where you speak to this email address city clerk office bouldercolorado.gov and with that I think we are ready to call people um we have a couple speakers who have withdrawn tonight so we will start with with Lisa Lauren Hillary Griffith and Mark George Lisa bear with me for one moment while I

[80:02] find Lisa I am not seeing Lisa Larn in the meeting this evening Sam um Lisa if you are in this meeting it's possible you're in the meeting in under a different name and that's challenging for me to determine as the facilitator so I want to invite you to respond to me in the Q&A box and let me know that you are in fact here and tell me what name you're under and we will Circle back to you I do see Hillary Griffith in the meeting so I think we should go on to her for the time being perfect you should be able to unmute Hillary there can you hear me okay we can okay good oh well members of council thank you for your time um I'm here to encourage city council to call up the planning board's

[81:00] decision about 891 12th Street otherwise known as the marpa house um there were mer many irregularities in the handling of this use review and I feel it's important that Council weigh in on a project of such immense significance to the community for the last 18 months our neighborhood has been organizing collaborating and working to protect this important structure which is to be converted from a quiet co-housing unit to 16 likely undergraduate apartments in anticipation of the planning board's meeting the neighborhood submitted over 300 pages of letters about risks of this project during their first meeting it seems the planning board recognized these concerns the majority of members stated in an informal poll that they would oppose the use review however in an atypical move city council or city staff rather rejected inter interjected before a decision was made and encouraged the planning board to

[82:00] consider approving the project with conditions which city staff would compile uh Not only was this irregular for staff to interject in advance of a no vote the procedure cut off public comment entirely the developer could discuss conditions for approval with staff but the neighborhood the people actually affected by these conditions couldn't communicate with the board at all put differently the conditions for approval Were Meant to ease the worries of the neighborhood but with staff's procedure they were given no voice as to what those conditions would be as a member of the community one who is a native of this community I can tell you that people feel dejected and silenced by this atypical handling of the use review so I urge Council to call up the planning board's decision about 891 12th Street the m house to evaluate the merits of this project and to help all those who have been silenced to now feel heard so thank you for your time

[83:01] and if you would like you can reach out to me any time thank you Hillary next we have Mark George suelen Harrison and Barbara Apple Mark you should be able to unmute Mark yeah I'm here yeah this is Mark George I'm gonna actually have my wife speak for me thank you um it's already started can you go back to start hi this is Donna George I live at 4661 T hoo Court as stated on agenda packet page 210 of the December 15 2021 Boulder City council meeting about the 2020 Boulder Valley confence midterm update it says based on direction from the planning board and city council about the future of the subcommunity planning program for Boulder in 20 19 staff proposed multiple revisions and additions to the subc community area planning descriptions the full document

[84:00] detailing these changes was not available to the public until the December meetings of the planning board and city council when they voted on the bould valley comp PL 2020 midterm update these detailed listings deleted and added text to the subcommunity and area planning chapter were not present in the preliminary meetings agenda packets concerning this midterm update so the citizenry did not get the information until these final meetings during a very busy holiday time of year for most people I thought since both Incorporated unincorporated land Parcels are present in sub these subc communities especially in gumber where the majority of the residents live in unincorporated Boulder County that the county would be able to vote on these changes concerning subc community and area planning in the subc community area planning chapter it specifically states that Boulder County is involved in development of plans that affect land in area 2 or area 3 since these are are Parcels they are Parcels in various subcommunities that are both in area 2 and in Area 3 then the county

[85:01] should have a vote on these numerous changes in the text of the sub community and area planning chapter some of the new language that was added is the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan describes the city's core values principles and policies to be implemented across Boulder and potentially included in the scope or change related to the newly adopted plans are changes to the city comprehensive plan land use regulation and Capital Improvements program I thought the Boulder Valley comp plan was a jointly adopted plan for both the county and the city of Boulder not just a city comprehensive plan to implement City principles and policies thank you Donna thank you oh my God you're kiding I'm done you're done Donna thank you very much we appreciate your comments next we have suelen Harrison Barbara apple and Connie Brenton suellen can you hear me we can we can thank you uh my name is suellen Harrison I live at

[86:01] 8412 street I'm also here to encourage Council to call the plan board decision I'm Mara house decisions of this magnitude should be made by city council not by an appointed board we elect you to make the hard decisions and due to the potential for huge changes to the character of our neighborhood the proposed development should be called up for your consideration and ultimately denied it also it's not just because this is a major decision but because there were numerous failures in the process there due process and procedural errors their factual errors and decisionmaking that occurred without adequate information examples include the occupancy level and parking you're going to receive emails from the neighborhood about all these failures um I know you'll take the time to read them but for instance on the parking

[87:00] just to give you an idea of the problem planning board approved 12 parking permits for marpet for the proposed development but there's no indication how they interact with the NPP parking program on the 800 block there's no explanation as for whether marpa house gets any permits one permit 16 permits we don't know whether we're going to get four more cars 12 more cars or 64 more cars so the kind of of clarification we need presently there are no apartment building south of uclid let alone south of Aurora and that alone should give you pause one planning board member even stated that it just doesn't belong here proposal clearly does not meet the city's criteria for approval other than a rule 10 six action you are the only recourse the neighborhood has to address the errors and make the appropriate determination for the mara house thank

[88:01] you for your time thank you suellen next we have Barbara Apple Connie Brenton and Tamar Larson Barbara yes hello thank you um we have seen firsthand what is what having no conf consequences leads to individuals committing crimes on the Fly laughing at the face of police when they arrest them in the past year or so we have seen our community trashed downtown Parks the creek are littered with needles feces and garbage citizens gripe on next door that their homes were broken into again and that their bikes were stolen from their garages again and nothing is being done about it kids at Boulder high are being harassed offered street drugs and accosted right outside of the school property as a teacher I recently had to evacuate an RTD bus with 404th graders because a man who appeared to be Beyond meth rattled his pockets and said he had bullets in one pocket and a gun in the other he proceeded to repeat that he was going to effing blow our heads off

[89:01] walking by the municipal building we were approached by individuals who also appeared to be on meth the students asked me questions like aren't drugs illegal isn't it illegal to litter at the new park outside of the library we had to leave 5 minutes after our arrival when two of my students found two separate needles one of which was covered with dry blood and still had drug inside of it it literally could have killed him I have pages of incidents of things that have happened to my family students friends and colleagues I know parents that no longer take their kids to the park I know many people in Boulder that no longer will even go downtown at all which as a boulder native is a very sad statement how are we allowing this to happen in our community no consequences has led to more Brazen crimes many of the victims of these crimes are poor people or people of color I know of a woman who lives in a trailer park who had her bike stolen that was her only way to get to work she didn't have the luxury of saying ah it's just stuff I can go get another this woman couldn't afford to

[90:01] buy another bike these crimes are life-altering for people who are living in poverty who are trying to work hard to feed their families maybe a car theft is just a cute petty crime for those with money but it could mean an entire paycheck to someone who works a minimum job a minimum wage job thank you thank you Barbara next we have Connie Brenton Tamar Larson and lope Vander mer Connie hi I'm Connie Brenton I was born and raised in Boulder and I've owned artart on the Pearl Street mall for over 30 years I'm here to say that the Pearl Street Mall is becoming an increasingly dangerous place a year ago we were burglarized the police found the perpetrator in the building he went to jail for8 hours or so and then was released even though being a self-professed sex offender it is significantly worse now than it was a

[91:00] year ago we were burglarized again two weeks ago along with two other downtown businesses another business was burglarized twice last week my staff who are primarily young women attending Colorado University have been both verbally and physically assaulted they don't feel safe they aren't safe the perpetrators at artmart have been arrested and released multiple times we know them by name there are no meaningful consequences or deterrence and thus it continues pretty much all the merchants up and down the Pearl Street Mall have suffered the same experiences area businesses are closing at an alarming rate I've heard from many Boulder residents they no longer will shop downtown because of safety concerns we will lose our tourists next repeat criminals must be kept off the streets We need regular police presence security

[92:00] cameras no electricity on the poles outside the courthouse I have personally reached out to this Council many times sending very disturbing videos and I have had limited or no response the city council must address the crime and Public Safety in our community now failure to act th far has nearly destroyed the Pearl Street Mall and areas in Boulder we can't afford to keep looking the other way something horrific is going to happen and you as a council will carry blame thank you Connie next we have Tamar Larson lope of Vander and Patrick Murphy Tamar hi can you guys hear me we can thank you uh my name is Tamar Larson and I live at 9210 Street I've actually lived in this very house off and on since

[93:00] 1994 um regarding the marpa house I see a really negative change in this lower shiaka Upper Hill area as it becomes more permissive of high density student housing um there's a whole bunch of things I want to say but I better condense this the applicant uh the developer did not integrate the concerns of the neighborhood and we've been voicing these concerns since the fall of 2019 starting with Grassroots conversations in a local park uh We've contributed our considerable communal energy by writing letters by showing up at numerous City Council meetings and in person and Via Zoom I ask that you please hear us and not allow high density student housing to be developed and built in our neighborhood to change the entire Timber of the neighborhood um the city values this beautiful local neighborhood as a desirable place to live live our neighborhood is a quiet peaceful and lovely place and as it becomes more undergraduate focused in terms of student housing there is an increase in

[94:00] noise throughout the day and night broken glass on the sidewalks loud music and this is such a huge problem affecting the quality of life for those of us in this neighborhood I'll actually consider selling my house if this high density development is approved because it clears the way for future ones uh in this neighborhood as the quality of life is clearly affected I know of five other homeowners who are also considering selling their homes in this neighborhood because of this particular development and this just reflects the frustration that we're experien uh that we're experiencing and and I ask you to hear us and to Value all of the meetings and notes and and showing upness that we've all done um at the city council meeting right now you have the ability to profoundly affect the quality of life that we get to experience here so I ask you to please listen to all that we've written and submitted regarding the particular development of the mara the house into a high density place thank you so much thank you toar next we have lope Vander Patrick Murphy and Ellen

[95:00] Morris lopa you should be able to unmute now can you hear me we can great hi my name is lopa I am a mom of two young boys and an entrepreneur with a business here in Boulder that employs 18 people like many moms um I'm on several Facebook mom groups and uncanny timing I woke up this morning to a Facebook post asking in a mom's group about um what it's like to live on the hill with children and there were 23 comments on this post only four were positive and each of those said specifically that there are certain areas where it is lovely and feel safe to live but there are many that are not I have some Choice quotes for you guys um one said to be brutally honest it was a nightmare our final straw was a

[96:01] college kid high on acid naked in our front yard screaming and trying to break into our house at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday and then being tased by the cops we were looking for new homes the next day another said one day I found myself vacuuming my yard in order to clean the glass so my daughters wouldn't cut themselves after someone stole a light fixture from another house and threw it on our steps there was also a day when a drunk 20s something peed on our front bushes in the middle of my daughter's fifth birthday party exposing himself to 30 a.m. but it was game day another said coming from a two-time CU grad I love the hill when I was in my undergrad I love that area so much the history the architecture but I did not enjoy living next to the frat house party scene my car got vandalized twice and the noise is all hours of the night there not not just the weekends um there are some parts with mature residents that would be lovely but I would not recommend the bopping College Parts as a mom with a young kid for your own sanity this project the marpa house

[97:01] project is ultimately proposing turning one of those lovely quiet familyfriendly areas into one of the more one more of the bopping College Parts the idea that this is going to be good for the fabric of Boulder feels profoundly unfounded and smacks of the kind of short-sighted capitalist opportunism that quite honestly is Boulder and most of humanity at its worst but definitely not at its best and Boulder we have so much best to give can we do better I know we can thank you lopa next we have Patrick Murphy Ellen Morris and Alexia Parks Patrick I believe you also have a presentation my name is Patrick Murphy I live in Boulder Red Cross has clearly stated that the devastation of climate change far exceeds the devastation of Co time is of the essence in both cases but if you miss the fact that climate change is actually more important next slide you forgot the smoke warnings of

[98:01] last summer next Slide the last present uh you skipped one the last presentation was a path to Quick carbon reduction using wind incentives this presentation provides a path to fast carbon reduction using solar next slide rooftop solar may not be the absolute cheapest path but it has the least environmental impact of all Alternatives only about one in seven rooftops are appropriate for solar but huge industrial roofs are also available in Boulder these incentives are obviously for the middle and high income so only a fraction of the available resources should be dedicated to this remember I got solar for no cost and a lease rate that saved a few dollars a month going through Tesla I did this 10 years ago without a Muni next slide one of the best options for Boulder would be excel's Renewables connect it's a subscription with a waiting list and we should be on that list Boulder is

[99:02] currently collecting over $7 million annually in carbon taxes next slide it's worth noting that to cover all of Boulder's current non-renewable electric usage would cost us 4.6 million to be 100% Renewables today the cost would be less if if we estimate the Renewables Excel will be putting on the system over time any one of these Alternatives could have us at 100% Renewables today it'll be a mix of solutions that get us to our goals fast start with LED street lights like all our neighboring towns did years ago in an LED giveaway to lower income homes the planet Burns floods and dies are we just fiddling thank you than you Patrick next we have Ellen Morris Alexia parks and Val K Ellen hello can you hear me yep thank you for this opportunity my

[100:02] name is Ellen Morris and we live at 875 11th Street one block from the marpa house I offer the following points for consideration that were overlooked by the planning board and the city staff as such I request that the city council call up the planning board's decision the neighbors and community members are mobilized to unanimously oppose the student housing per proposal under a non-conforming use review despite the fact that there are 300 pages of comments and robust Community engagement the planning board did not consider any of these concerns and instead rubber stamped the owner's plan at the last meeting they seemed to listen to the various viewpoints but at the end of the day the planning board did not require any changes this in light of the fact that they knew that the owner had paid people $100 each to speak on his behalf this has not been a transparent or fair-minded process I'm highlighting three points of many but I urge you to review the large body of input opposing this project as is one the property owner and his team made no effort to consider the range of reasonable

[101:00] concerns that have been articulated by community members the plans in the building configuration have not been modified at all regarding use tenant Behavior parking noise and traffic the marpa house is quiet area with mainly single family homes and without changes it will significantly affect everyone's quality of life this should not be approved student housing but rather could be designed for families and people working in Boulder if it is approved as a student dormatory then an on-site house manager should be required this was not made mandatory by the planning board but it is clearly necessary to monitor behavior and assure accountability three enforcement of noise and garbage complaints will be up to the neighbors which already does not work the monthly revenue on this property will be at $70 to $8,000 so the typical fine will have no impact and nothing will be done by the property owner to ensure compliance there should be a combination of very high fines and Rental license forfeiture bottom line during a use review it is a job of the planning to work towards decreasing

[102:01] non-conformity by requiring a plan to be more conforming therefore I request Council thank you alen thank you we appreciate your comments next we have Alexia Parks Val kendan and stepan vender Alexia hi there my name is Alexia parks and I live at 9 Fifth Street and I've lived on the hill since 1965 I have lived next door to students and now I live in a familyfriendly section of the hill I too am here to strongly encourage city council to review the planning board's decision about 891 12 Street which we all know many of us know as the marpa house this is a massively important project to the neighborhood and to Boulder as a whole uh I just want to remind you it's not an exaggeration to say that if it is approved as is it will forever change the lower shiaka neighborhood and not I

[103:02] repeat not for the better think noise think traffic think litter noise traffic 00 a.m. in the morning just for fun and it wakes us up and we do work I I still work even at my age as a senior it's no surprise that community members wrote over 300 pages of letters to the planning board to impress how significant this use review really is a project of such importance in my opinion deserves Council review and I think I'm not alone I know I'm not alone in this especially given how strangely this case was handled by the planning board and others have mentioned this before me my request please call up the planning board's decision about 891 12th Street for review at your next meeting and we'll all be there to cheer you on thank you thank you Alexia next we have Val

[104:02] kendran Stefan Vander and Mark Meyer and I believe Val has a presentation you don't have to put up my presentation but that's all right okay um this is regarding Mar marpa house my name is Valerie kran at 1212 casc Avenue I'm I've owned that home for 30 years and I'm a boulder native and we've noticed that over the last three to four years in our neighborhood um it's been increasingly and adversely affected as far as number and frequency of loud and boisterous groups walking running skateboarding up and down our streets 00 a. and because of this we are exhausted and we Fe feel we are at a boiling point this truly negatively impacts the historic nature of this neighborhood and the ability of us full-time residents to bond with each other and form a sense of community yes we call the police but they can't do much they

[105:00] do their best I knock on doors asking the tenants of rentals to please be quiet and ask the late night groups to please be quiet and quite frankly it's getting dangerous for me to do that I've worked with sergeant Tom Dow and the university but they can't respond to everyone disturbing the peace they just can't do it these are our homes we live here we take pride in ownership the tenants use the rentals as temporary housing and then move on unaware or uncaring of the Havoc they've created and even if there are conditions in their leases please don't be fooled they do not care and there is no fear of eviction sometimes we feel like we are being terrorized especially by the fireworks recently it's like an epidemic and with the addition of 45 more tenants at 8911 12 the shenanigans will only increase there's only one reason for the applicant to be asking for the special use permit and that is money so if pass he will line his pockets at the expense of our peace but we shouldn't have to be the victims from the behavior of these tenants again something needs to be done

[106:02] we need to tip the scales back to a peaceful place so that the proposed project has no greater impact to our neighborhood than the marpa house had and approving the special use permit is a step in the wrong direction so I implore you to please call up the planning board decision I appreciate your time and hope we have all been heard thank you thank you Val next we have Stefan Vander Mark Meyer and Diana Gonzales Burton Stefan my name is Stefan Vander council members thank you for your two minutes for me and for your hundreds or thousands of hours of service to our city I grew up in the city and I'm raising my two young boys here I would like to share with you some information I feel is important for you to consider I live next to marpa house in 891 12th Street what has happened with marpa house is anything but an ordinary course of business in Boulder the daily C camera chronicled with extensive documentation of the developers emails and voicemails how he lied to Mara

[107:01] residents in order to collect information to outbid them for their own home this is in line with his past Behavior this was not the first negative article about the developer in the day the [Music] camera the developer time in recent years for contempt of court in a civil case where he was accused of Fraud and for she was ordered to pay a six-digit settlement just down the street from our city council building the developer employed a private investigator to collect information on neighbors and has targeted individual neighbors for intimidation as well as made threats to the neighborhood as a whole at the last planning board meeting on marpa house there was a hot mic moment where a speaker in favor of the project a few moments after her public comment said to someone else seemingly in the room with her I did my thing I earned my $100 end qu people were paid to speak in in favor of this project nonetheless in the Spate of procedural errors decision made based on inaccurate data presented by the developer unusual moments of staff and board confusion and exhaustion as the

[108:00] meeting stretched on to midnight and ignoring the massive neighborhood push back against this project planning board approved this project with no meaningful protections for the neighborhood a community of 30 quiet Buddhists living together B being changed to 48 student bedrooms spread across 16 Apartments is going to be a devastating change for our neighborhood especially in the hands of a developer that we cannot feel we can trust without any Co any rules to keep him in line I find this outcome at odds with common sense and code vastly increasing non-conformity and the product of a process that went haywire we are counting on you to review this decision and reverse it thank you thank you Sten next we have Mark Meyer Dean Gonzalez Burton and Evan rabbits Mark good evening council members thank you for the opportunity my name is Mark Meyer I reside at 1177 Cascade just at the end the south end of the block uh from 8912 Street um I'll be brief um I'm

[109:03] asking you to call up the planning board decision uh on 8912 at your next meeting on the 16th I sent you a letter earlier this week uh over the weekend and uh there were a number of issues and uh process problems with the application that you heard already from people far more eloquent than me so I'll I'll I won't go through them here um but it's important that you're not influenced by the 7 to nothing vote of the planning board the issues in question related to this case and to the overall policy of the city warrant a further public hearing I recognize this is a challenge for you given all the time constraints on council's time but you need to hear firsthand in detail specifics on the gaps in the use permit which unduly impact the neighbors with little or no enforcement teeth excuse me further the broad broader public interest in the process issues need discussion where the

[110:00] most uh where the most impacted Community was not allowed to comment on the conditions being proposed once the planning board decided to continue its meeting at the end of the day the goal is to find a solution that works for everyone but that limits the impact to the neighbors and the overall character of the neighborhood the plan use as approved by the planning board is completely opposite from what has been the use at that location for decades and certainly for the 22 plus years that I've lived at my present address please call this matter up for further review and discussion for the good of the neighborhood and for the good of the city of Boulder at large thank you thank you Mark next we have Diana Gonzalez Burton Evan ravitz and Brian Travis Di good evening uh my name is Diana Gonzalez Burton and I live across the street from the marpa house I encourage you to call up the planning board

[111:00] decision regarding marpa and reverse the approval um call up is appropriate because the Neighbors in the area as you've heard from many already universally oppose the conversion of the marpa house into 16 three-bedroom apartments catering to undergrad students which is what the planning board approved to understand the ENT of the neighborhood's opposition alluded to by others the city council need only review two documents one is a summary of the 300 pages of comments submitted by neighbors to the planning board staff through October 2020 and two the January 2021 Consolidated neighborhood comments to the planning board signed by about 127 neighbors these documents are in the planning board record and I submitted them to you in an email today the applicant has indicated that this property is a multi-generational investment which means that the neighbors will have to live with the decision of the city for decades or move out of the neighborhood

[112:03] the city council is the elected body that should make such a significant and far-reaching decision other reasons you should call up this matter and reverse include the planning board and staff made numerous factual legal and procedural errors in approving the project and esta ing conditions an example is the occupancy as marpa house staff and planning board assumed 50 occupants based on the rental license in fact the number was at most 36 and submitted the neighbors will detail this um in uh in written comments and the errors allowing a 48 student apartment in this neighborhood change the character of the neighborhood importantly the proposed student housing would represent an increase in the non-conformity of the use as compared to the quiet contemplative use of the mar house for the last 43 years without city

[113:00] council action to call this up the other recourse is judicial review thank you you Diana thank you um our last three speakers are Evan rabbitz Brian Travis and Rachel mcke Evan Hi Sam asked us to honor the people who got Boulder ready for Co I'd like to thank the no eviction without representation ballot initiative folks the bedrooms are for people ballot initiative folks and our working group that got online petitioning for ballot initiatives too bad the city delayed the last two by a year something is wrong when eight City department heads leave their jobs in 20 months the police police chief the transportation director the facilities director the city spokesman the city clerk the city IT director and the top two the city manager and soon the City attorney one

[114:02] reason Boulder has long gotten by on looks and public relations in the late 90s the longest playing city council member Spence havick said on camera here truth is not so important as people's perception of it elegantly phrased and he lived up to it deceiving me and the public but he skated not anymore young people who hate deceit and hypocrisy are more active than since the 60s the reason for deceit is simple the city pretends to represent us but like everywhere in the US according to the famous Princeton Gillan and Page study you represent the wealthy while while putting on a show about community and Equity state representative Edy hooton told me she consults with stakeholders the factions the founding fathers warned

[115:00] us of stakeholders appear nowhere in the Colorado Constitution unlike constituents who appear dozens of times in the Boulder City Charter stakeholders appear once describing a member of the downtown management commission voters appear dozens of times but are treated is a nuisance to be snow jobed thus our need for ballot initiatives so we can fix the sorry ship of State ourselves thank you thank you Evan next we have Brian Travis and Rachel mcke Brian hi everybody thanks for having me um my name is Brian I live in the downtown Whittier neighborhood where crime has been pretty out of control recently um at the recent January 19th meeting a few members on Council that opposed the camping ban suggested were their comments that some of the citizens may

[116:00] be uncomfortable or intolerant towards the unhoused community I I thought these comments were somewhat offensive and dismissive of the concerns being expressed by the community and I wanted to share a few reasons why I'm uncomfortable uh the stabbing incident next to Boulder high this January and the murder by the DAR Art Center made me uncomfortable it makes me uncomfortable that 0.3% of Boulder's population unhoused committed 37% of the serious crime in Boulder in 2020 not including um 39 felony medicine incidents it made me uncomfortable last fall when a man apparently burglarizing our neighborhood walked by our house with a butcher knife fortunately I saw him just as my teenage daughter was heading out the door and I was able to have her remain inside until he was gone it made me uncomfortable last Tuesday night when we had police all over our neighborhood looking for a man with a machete this man had threatened a

[117:00] neighbor a few blocks away from our home from the officer's report quote the male pulled a large two- foot long machete from his backpack and told the victim he was going to chop him into little bits so I think based on the data that Chief Herold presented on the 19th in my own experience it's it's pretty reasonable to feel uncomfortable we have an addiction and a violent crime problem among a small subset of the unhoused which our unfortunately our housing first policies don't address so as we debate a broader strategy I I beg you um please focus on efforts to get violent repeat criminal offenders off the streets our neighbors being being terrorized please help we can have thank you Brian I'm sorry Brian your time is up we appreciate your comments if you'd like to email the rest of them to us try

[118:00] counil bouldercolorado.gov thank you very much and our final speaker tonight is Rachel mcke it looks like Rachel M was in the meeting I attempted to allow her to unmute herself and now she's out of the meeting so I don't know if she hit the wrong button um here she's back in again let me give it a try are you there I'm here terrific hi thanks sorry about that I've got a little bit unstable internet I guess um so yeah thank you guys for taking the time to listen to all of us tonight I too am calling in to request that you call up the planning board's decision about 8911 12 also called marpa house um I live two blocks from the development and have been very engaged with the process since the first meeting with the developer in the fall of 2019

[119:00] and despite numerous opportunities to integrate and make changes based on the community's feedback the project is largely the same as when it was first proposed I'm a little concerned that this case might be being viewed is um like the neighbors versus the developer or neighbors versus students but we're not anti-student or anti-development we really just want the development to move closer to conforming use and to integrate some of the 300 pages of concerns and requests that the neighborhood took the time to send the planning board um the approval of a planning board even with the few stipulations that they put in place doesn't meet the use review criteria and those stipulations are really almost impossible to enforce they don't integrate some of the most important neighborhood requests like designing the development for more than only a student demographic to reflect the neighborhood having an on-site manager like the building as a fraternity or large scale student housing would have originally had and making sure that the property is

[120:00] being treated as one entity for violations so um again like a single property would have been dealt with historically so this is a large development it'll have significant impact on its surroundings a 48 person apartment building in a quiet residential zone of mostly single family homes and long-term residen is a big big development and a big impact um again the property this project really moves the property further away from conforming use of the building not closer so we really need city council to step in and help get this development more aligned with zoning character and the tone of the neighborhood thanks for your time please do consider calling up the planning board's decision thanks again guys thank you Rachel and with that we will bring open comment to a close and I will turn now to City staff Chris do you have any comments about what we heard tonight nothing for me tonight thank you Tom nothing for me Sam thank you very good

[121:02] and I see a few hands uh Bob and Aaron Bob thanks Sam um I think my question is for either Chris or or the or chief of police if she's on um we heard from several um community members who are concerned about crime downtown and near downtown in the Civic area I know that we talked about this at the January 19th meeting and I believe we're scheduled to talk about it again in a few weeks but Chris I'm wondering if you could let us know or maybe the chief what um steps have been taken um recently to ensure that the police have all the resources that they need to address crime uh in that area I real I think we all realize that the jail is largely closed to um many uh to receiving many people that otherwise would have been arrested but for covid so I think we all kind of can bookmark that part of it but setting that aside can you talk a little bit about what steps have been taken in

[122:00] recent weeks to ensure that the police have the resources that they need sure Bob I can I can answer that and Maris is not in the meeting right now but um uh there there was another incident downtown early Saturday morning uh and um both uh Maris and her team as well as vet and her team have been engaged with the the downtown business Community um to start to uh look at other ways that we can address things uh um in addition uh uh Chief Harold has has mentioned that she has met with the sheriff uh she has also uh um begun directed patrols downtown um and we're continuing to talk through I'd be happy to uh have both of them here uh maybe on the March 16 meeting if Council would like a more in-depth briefing uh of some of the steps that we're taking uh to try and address the the concerns of what's Happening downtown well you know I I would I you

[123:01] know I can't speak for my Council colleagues I I would welcome that if if that's that's the will of council um I know we're scheduled to speak about this at the end of April but it does seem like we have a a more immediate concern and if there's anything that you were the chief needs from Council um either tonight or um if if you want to wait till the 16th when the chief's on that's fine too but uh it sounds like we've just got a a pretty dire situation there so I I would say to the I'll just speak for myself to the extent that you or the chief needs anything from um Council um please ask for it either tonight or in our next council meeting so that we can provide you with whatever guidance Direction funding that you need to address the the current situations without having to wait for for scheduling so I'll just speak I'll just say that to CAC if there's other council members that um agree or disagree with that perhaps we can at least um te tee up a discussion for the next council meeting which is I think two weeks from tonight thanks Chris thank you Bob next we've got Aaron

[124:01] Adam Mark and mirbi Aaron thanks I was actually going to bring up the same concern that Bob raised just that the really troubling additional reports of uh violent and threatening behavior uh which are very concerning you know the things like the person threatening people with a machete or that kind terrifying story of the the teacher who had to evacuate a bus with her with all of her children because of someone um saying that they had a gun was going to blow their heads off so seems like those are you know really significant criminal behaviors that that you know need some real attention so i' I'd welcome the chance to hear more about what steps we're taking about those those kind of violent behaviors thank you Aaron next we've got Adam I'm GNA a third that um one point of Distinction though I think it's important we not conflate our meeting about people experiencing homelessness with an update about crime specifically

[125:02] just because I think they're separate issues and we shouldn't conflate the two so I'm I'm interested in an update on people committing crimes and a update on what we're going to do to address uh people experiencing homelessness um Chris one point I would add is um it's my understanding at least anecdotally that positive activity often offsets negative negative criminal activity So the faster we can get to a sort of normaly where people are vaccinated and can go out again and go downtown we should see a corresponding decrease in this type of activity um and I'd love an update uh as part of the update from you and chief Herold whether or not you think think that's the case thank you Adam Mark yeah I want to also jump in and request that earlier update uh from

[126:00] Chief or from Chris um I was a couple days ago I was in correspondence with some of the restaurant owners uh on the mall um they are apoplectic and more importantly they are rightfully apoplectic as to the conditions in which they're trying to operate their businesses they've gone to Great length to survive covid um and now they're in danger of being put out of business uh because their staff isn't safe their customers don't feel safe uh and people are not going to want to frequent um restaurants in an unsafe area um so this is something I I think we're getting into a different uh territory here in terms of the conditions under which our businesses are operating as well as our families um and you know uh again I I would agree with Adam this is this is not a um a homelessness uh conversation this is a public safety conversation and I think we we need to have it and be able to

[127:02] address some of these very legitimate issues and concerns thank you thank you Mark mayby yeah I just want to throw my hat in the ring as well um on this topic and um I think most of what I wanted to say has basically been said by my colleagues but just to the community that we're hearing you I'm very sorry that you've been having to deal with this situation on top of the co issue and um I think you clearly have everyone's attention so um I think as soon as we can get this on our meetings um the better very good I see no more hands up I will concur I will also say that it's clear we have a majority of council that's interested in this Chris so we will bring this up at CAC on Monday and then we will talk about um how to schedule it in for an update on the 16th and then just a reminder the general um discussion about um cleanup enforcement

[128:02] ambassadors and encampments will be April 27th and then we'll have an additional discussion on May 4th which is concerned with potential policy and ordinance changes so with that I will bring open com um completely to a close and I will turn to council and suggest this is a convenient time perhaps to take a f minute break um tell me if you don't want to all right you see thumbs up so 15 we'll reconvene at 820 thank you all

[133:46] for

[134:02] 21 if you're around if you could turn on your camera very good we are waiting on nearby there she is very good uh with that I will turn the meeting over to Alicia all right sir next on our agenda is the consent agenda items a through H very good do any council members have comments or questions Aaron so I part of those is appointing members to committees and that some of that has fluctuated so could we just

[135:00] call out please who we're appointing to what committees as part of this thank you Aon I believe who who we at least tentatively have is for the City attorney recruitment subcommittee I believe Bob and Rachel um have been um nominated for that and then for the CU South process subcommittee I believe Mark and Aaron have been nominated for that Rachel I see your hand yes I had a couple of um comments on consent and so one was like do we need to amend the consent item like 3G do we need to change that to SA friend and Yates as an example um and then 3H also maybe need some verbiage change before we vote that sorry that that would that

[136:00] would be the motion so whoever makes the motion to just include adding those names to those blanks okay um and then also let's see under threee um just a question we it talks about um sort of needing some on the um the mobility options and having um electric scooters on on paths and things and and uh it mentions in there uh needing to have signage and and sort of public awareness about um the speed limits and things like that so I just wanted to flag like is it possible that as we're looking at these um ambassadors that might be downtown could we look at rolling those two job duties together at all like could the ambassadors who are going to be going up and down the creek also be um made aware of of speed limit changes and things so just wanted that to be flagged

[137:00] for maybe discussing um at second reading super I think that's noted okay and then um just one more on the um C South subcommittee I just wanted to impress that um when I first got on Council I actually had asked that we maybe think about disbanding the subcommittee because it had been so easy to Veer into substance and not stick to process on it so whoever the new subcommittee members are I just wanted to flag that um uh it it is a space where people have a lot to say on it and it's so easy to um go into substance and and just wanted to make a request that um the new subcommittee really um uh take note of of The Limited nature I think that the um in in the verbiage it says it reminds us the purpose of the CU South process subcommittee is to Monitor and provide input um to staff on

[138:02] public engagement um and discussion of policy issues annexation terms or flood mitigation design will not be part of the purpose so just wanted to flag it as as we're kind of um changing membership because that's easy to get lost because again there's just such um deep deep beliefs on this issue and a lot of people want to talk about the the substance a lot so that's all thanks thank you Rachel uh I see hang on let me pull up my notes Here Ain and the Mir by Aon thanks for that Rachel and I just wanted to say you know thanks for enumerating the names listing those names Sam of who we're appointing and because there was some concern from some community members at our last meeting about what we were appointing people for with regards to cu cu South and so just to be clear that the action that we're taking uh this evening if the consent agenda passes is that uh Mark and myself

[139:01] would be appointed to the C South process subcommittee and that's it um and then uh Rachel thanks for those words I understand that you and Sam have both done an exemplary job at keeping the committee focused on process and not on substance and I pledge do my best to uh continue that tradition that two of you have set up thank you Aon Mir by I just had a question I guess probably for Tom um around and just um I've had Council or uh community members reach out about this saying that it's bypassing Charter requirements so can you explain problems with I mean I've just heard from a number of community members that they're very unhappy about this process um many of the people around the CU South area and how we're appointing this so I'm just before voting on it I'm just concerned that I want to make sure we're not doing something illegal here by appointing the people you're not

[140:02] and I I don't believe the concerns were over the process committee the process subcommittee follow all the meeting rules because it's a designated Committee of councel sorry that oh then I'm sorry I apologize it's around the the one that Sam and Rachel are going to be on but I guess that's on consent agenda then because it's not a committee they were invited to advise the city manager on negotiations and okay so seeing is it's not on consent agenda then it's not a discussion we can have here then I guess well yeah okay all right I'll bring it up then at some other point then apparently thanks sorry about that Tom okay very good so um I think any other questions or comments about the consent agenda if not um I would invite a motion and in the motion please name the people um the council members for g& Bob yeah I'll make a motion I move the

[141:00] entire consent agenda and with respect to the CU South process committee I I um the the appointment should be for um Mark and Aaron and with respect to the uh City attorney search committee it should be Rachel and myself okay we have a motion in a second and I believe this is a show of hands so I will ask it in so everyone who approves the consent agenda please show your hand okay any opposed no uh nearby would you like to vote is that a yes okay so unanimously the consent agenda passes and Alicia we're on to the next item all right sir thank you everyone we have item number 4A which is a call up consideration for a concept plan review

[142:00] and comment for a Redevelopment of the property located at 77028 the existing Boulder Best Western motel into a mixed use project with 90 to 95 student Apartments units along with ground level restaurant or coffee shop use common areas and below grade parking along with landscape and shared open space improvements to the site and the existing office building located on the East End of the property at 777 29th Street the existing five-story office building will remain it is reviewed under case l220 D6 thank you Alicia turning to council do any council members have interest in calling this up or questions for staff great seeing none I think we will not call this up and we're ready to move on all right sir next we have

[143:03] it sorry oh sorry to interrupt I just um just before we move on just to be clear in case it's not 100% uh clear that this is not the marpa house Redevelopment that so many open comment speakers were speaking to we considering whether to call that up in two weeks that's correct eron um Council will have the opportunity to review the um non-conforming use review proposal for the marpa house on the 16th of March thank you very good thanks for that Aaron all right Alicia back to you next we have our public hearings the First on tonight's agenda is item a the second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt ordinance 8444 design ating the property at 9779 Street as an individual Landmark for section 9-1 11-5 of the boulder Revised Code 1981 great and for this item Marcy

[144:01] Gering from planning and development services department is here to present these designations all right good evening Council um we do in fact have three designations in front of you tonight and so I will go through the Quasi judicial procedures um for this first one um but to cover all three oh I will share my screen um could I have permission to share my screen please uh Taylor should be able to put your presentation up uh on the screen Taylor if you can pull that up all right okay if you could go to the next slide please okay so the um procedure for quasi judicial hearing uh starts with a staff presentation followed by um uh the

[145:03] applicant's presentation the public hearing is then open for public comment and after everyone from the public has spoken the owner will have a chance to respond to anything that was said the public um hearing is then closed and city council discusses and a motion requires an affirmative vote of at least five City Council Members to pass next Slide the criteria for your review is found in chapter 9115 of the boulder Revised Code which is to determine whether the designation meets the purposes and standards of the ordinance in balance with the goals and policies of the Boulder Valley comp plan that is whether the designation would protect enhance a building site or area is important to our history or provide significant examples of architectural styles of the past next Slide the options in front of you

[146:00] tonight are to approve the designation modify and approve or deny the designation and next and then um this case started back in August when the property owner submitted the application in December the landmarks board unanimously voted to recommend designation first reading was earlier in February and um tonight is the public hearing next Slide the property is located on the northwest corner of ninth and uid in the identified potential University Hill historic district next um this Gothic Revival building evokes old world charm but is deceptively Innovative the building is positioned at a 45° angle on the lot with a split level plan um called Boulder's first split level house uh built 1899 to 1906 with large windows so that every room in the house received sunlight at different times during the

[147:01] day it was designed and built by Benjamin Franklin Greg who also designed the Octagon House near the academy and other houses in University Hill he owned the boulder cement company and the caps on the castellated parapet are a very early use of the material and he built this house with his son who hand chiseled the bricks and dipped them in a Maron stain there um were quite a few interesting characters that lived here over um the last century there's an early city council member an author a groundskeeper at shiaka and lesie Kelo who's been described as a Pioneer Boulder mortician next slide in your criteria for review in chapter 911 looks at the property's historic architectural and environmental significance next so um this house is what early preservationists had in mind when

[148:00] writing the landmark designation criteria and it checks nearly every box it's historically significant for its state of construction and its association with lesie Kelo the mortician and local author andc Professor Jane Fitz Randolph the house has been featured in Jane Barker's book 76 historic homes of Boulder County and was recognized by the landmarks board as a structure of Merit in 1987 and the building is potentially eligible for listing in the National register of historic places next slide so um in terms of its architectural significance it is an excellent example of the Gothic Revival style and for its association with Benjamin Franklin Greg the house represent presents a skillful skillful integration of design materials in color which is of excellent visual quality and demonstrates Superior craftsmanship the house is unique in Boulder um and probably Beyond Boulder

[149:00] is this castellated variant of the Gothic Revival and for its innovative in very early use of concrete and then the brick was sourced from the Austin Brick Company in Boulder and the Sills are made of local Stone next slide and then in terms of its environmental significance the lot is prominently located on the corner of ninth and uid and oriented to maximize the natural light and as a visual Landmark within the neighborhood um and also located within an identified potential historic district next slide so the proposed um name for the house is the castle house which is what it has been known um for for at least 40 years and the boundary is very straightforward as it follows the property lines and then the last one um with that staff recommends that the city council designate the property at 977 9th Street is the castle house as an individual Landmark under the city of Boulder's

[150:00] historic preservation ordinance and um Lori Schuler the owner who has owned the house for the longest time um in this House's 120 year history um is here to speak to the designation tonight and Marcy could I ask a quick question um have we stopped the requirement for being sworn in before landmarks cause the judicial hearings it's my understanding that Council does not swear in um speakers for landmarks that's right Council made that CH change a while ago okay thank you Marcy I'm not seeing a Lori Schuler in the meeting I do have a Lori with a different last name do I need to be um allowing that person to speak um yes she may be under Lori Lucas she is okay I'll go ahead and bring her into the meeting thank

[151:15] you hello hello hi is it my turn it is okay um my name is Lori Lucas Skyler I live in the castle house uh uh thank you Mar I think Marcy pretty much said it all um it is a unique house and um because I lived in Europe before I

[152:01] lived in Boulder I really appreciate the house the wood the fog panel doors um the house and the garden are really uh quite spectacular uh after sitting in on the last hour of the meeting uh and hearing talk of covid and crime I really feel that talking about my house is seems rather trivial at this point so I'll keep it short um does anybody have any questions or comments about the house most most people know it if you've ever driven up or down 9th Street you've seen the castle house and I'm the crazy lady who dresses the Gargoyles so today the

[153:01] Valentine hearts got taken down and the St Patrick's Day hats got put up um I see couple I see Mary and then Bob Mary Lori thank you very much for being here tonight and for um landmarking this house it is indeed a boulder landmark and um I look forward to being able to see the inside of the house and one of historic Boulders holiday home tours which hopefully we will get to have sometime soon again so thank you very much I I would like to respond to that if I may my my email is Lori L ri. luucas LCA at colorado.edu and if you would like to

[154:00] contact me I would be happy to arrange a time for you to come and see my beautiful house super thanks and just a reminder to council um it's a Time for direct questions or responses to the owner um Bob and then mby bobor I want enjoy Mary and thanking you for for offering to Landmark this this property I go by it all the time and I've always wondered about the history so it's great to hear hear um Marcy share that with with us I just have a question for you Lori um how much of the I know the house is about 130 years old how much of the um of the interior of the house are there are there elements in the inside that um are original the house very very old okay great question uh the house was completed I believe in 1905 1906 so it's about 115 years old um it

[155:00] has all of the original wavy Windows it has the original Old Yellow Pine Floors and um much of you can maybe see be IND me some of the wood uh the oak wood um so the people who lived here before me Pam and Bill schen I believe they lived here for about nine years and um I think they spent most of those nine years I think Bill's passed away now but I think they spent it kind of refur refurbishing and revitalizing the house but not really changing it um and so there's a wonderful balance in the house of the old the antique the history and

[156:00] yet modernized to make it convenient and livable uh and then I have in it a combination of furniture that I found on the street and that comes from design Within Reach so there's a funny combination again of the old and the new of the antique and the modern uh and I would say that pretty much describes me well thank you very much Lori for uh for preserving both the inside and the outside of this beautiful home we really appreciate it thank you thank you all and seeing no more questions I think we're ready for the public hearing and we have I believe one person signed up that's correct you have ly seagull signed up this Mee this evening I can go ahead and unmute her very

[157:04] good support I best like the fact that this house is angled 45 degrees that's pretty cool thanks thank you Lyn seeing no other people signed up for public hearing I will close the public hearing bring it back to council for discussion or a motion Aaron I did have one followup question did I hear that a an early city council member once lived in this house yes that's correct well I'm afraid I feel like we should probably deny it on that basis alone then just kidding just kidding no no this is so exciting Lori thank you so much for bringing this to us it's an iconic building I enjoy it every time I I walk bike or uh drive past it so I appreciate this very much I'm happy to put a motion on the table if that would be appropriate I I think it would be fine

[158:00] and we can have people speak to it great so I move that we adopt ordinance 8444 designating the property at 977 9th Street to be known as the castle house as an whoops sorry it's all good second all right Aaron would you like to speak to your motion oh I already did this is just it's very exciting thanks again La very good um then I'll go to Mark and then mirabi Mark yeah for me this checks all the boxes uh I think it's a unique structure it's got historical uh qualities to it um if there's any structure in in town that ought to be landmarked uh I would say this is certainly it um so I'm I'm very supportive of that motion and I hope we will uh decide to go forward you mark meby Lori I didn't have a question for you but I just wanted to say uh being a boulder native uh this is actually my

[159:02] favorite house in Boulder um I've driven past it I don't even know how many times and every time I've always wondered more just the hit the stories you know imagining what that house has seen um I did I think I read at one point that it was actually haunted and there's the university had put out a book or somebody had put out a book about the haunting haunted houses in the area and that was one of them so anyways I'm I'm just extremely excited I'm actually shocked to find out it wasn't uh already landmarked so I'm very excited and I hope you enjoy living there because it is what a house very good thank you meby seeing no other hands we have a motion in a second I will go ahead and call the vote all those in favor of landmarking the house and supporting the motion raise your hand we need to do a roll call for this oh is this roll call thank you reminder

[160:00] for the next three items okay all right great thank you um we want to start with council member Yates hi young yes rocket Hi friend yes Joseph yes Mel hi sweetlick yes wall hi and Weaver hi ordinance 8444 sir is hereby unanimously adopted very good thank you moving right along we have item 5B which is also a second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt ordinance 8445 designating two buildings and a

[161:00] portion of the property at 90 arapo Avenue as an individual Landmark per section 9-1 11-5 of the boulder Revised Code 1981 excellent and um one more note on the castle house I made very few site visits in the last year but going to meet Lori and um photograph that house on a beautiful September day was hands down one of my highlights of the year so um really incredible and and um this next one also has um a good partnership link to it and so um Taylor if you could go to the next slide um the criteria for your review is this the same in chapter 9115 next slide and um your options are also the same to approve modify or disapprove the ordinance next one um this uh application has a longer history having

[162:01] been submitted in 2017 um as part of the um annexation agreement along with the property at 96 arapo the application was put on hold in agreement by the property owner in the city until the um development was approved and in 2018 the landmarks board approved the rehabilitation and um construction of additions to the motel to to the two buildings that are in front of you tonight in December the landmarks board unanimously voted to recommend designation of the property and um first reading was earlier in February so the property at 9 arapajo is located um at the West End of arapo near the mouth of Boulder Canyon um as I mentioned the property was annexed together with 96 arapo which will be coming in front of you as uh also an individual Landmark um and this Landmark

[163:00] designation was part of that proposal next slide there we go this property with its 1940s Motel office and cabins represents a later chapter of Boulder's history than the castle house and is part of the city's growth related to automobile tourism as cars became affordable for more people road trips became a popular way to Vacation EBG Fine park located next to this site opened as a municipal Auto camp with cooking facilities and water in the 1920s the Silver Saddle Motel was built in 1948 and operated until 2015 the simple cabins are designed in a rustic style providing the mountain charm for visitors heading west into the Rockies um this slide is just showing the two different buildings on the property the four Motel cabins there on the upper two slides and then the um Motel office building was repurposed as a house most

[164:02] likely built in the 1920s it was moved on the site and used as the office building and um blanch Taylor operated a hair salon out of the building for many years next slide so there were a number of buildings on this property um a number of which were approved for Demolition and these two buildings uh the cabins and the office building were identified as potentially eligible and um incorporated into the Redevelopment plans so this rendering shows the approved plans for very sensitive additions um to both the motel cabins and the motel Office Buildings um and it took a pretty Creative Design design approach to adapt these buildings and it's shaping up to be a pretty neat adaptive reuse projects and some of the units will be permanently affordable so the criteria for your review um looks again at the historic

[165:02] architectural and environmental significance and so for its historic significance um it's uh significant for its state of construction around 1920 and then um remodeled in 1948 which is when the cabins were built it's significant for its association with Thomas and blanch Taylor who opened the Silver Saddle motel and the motel was in continuous operation until 2015 and then for its distinction in the development of the community as it's related to automobile tourism um and this was one of uh many kind of cabins or motel sites that um we're here to bring automobile tourism tourism to Boulder so for its architectural significance it's a rustic Motor Lodge um and that's a pretty rare building

[166:00] type in Colorado I used to be on the state um historic preservation review board and uh the state historian actually brought this building up as uh one of the few remaining motels of this era with these integrated carports um uh still existing and then finally next slide would be its environmental significance um which retains its historic character in its setting at the edge of town as complimentary to its use as a motel and part of its history associated with the automobile era in Boulder and then Taylor if you could Skip One More slide there we go um so the landmark boundary is a little unique in that it uh is around a tw- foot buffer around the footprint of the building on the west and north side and then follows easements on the um East and the South Side so while best practices is usually to follow the property lines this

[167:01] boundary was um is a balance between the different competing needs and staff still feels that it will protect the buildings um adequately and retain the the site's historic character and then the proposed name is the Sil saddle motel and so with that um staff recommends that the city council designate a portion of the property along with the two buildings as a local Historic Landmark to be known as the Silver Saddle motel and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have H Adam thanks Marcy is the motel sign going to be required to stay um there's actually three Motel signs on the proper property and so the two um older neon signs will stay but the bigger uh all red all caps Motel one is proposed to be removed that's unfortunate I like that one but I like neon a lot too

[168:04] so uh Mark um yeah um are you aware of any other properties of a similar nature that have been landmarked um you know automobile tourism oriented motels let's see not off the top of my head I know Statewide there are some and there's also a historic context report written specifically for Boulder County about automobile tourism sites um and a lot of those early motels have been demolished um but off the top of my head I can't think of another one in Boulder um that that has similar significance and my second question is um as the boundary for the landmarking

[169:00] is not the property line but but a just a small buffer around the property itself uh the subject property um how big a property uh remains outside of that it's rather large and um Taylor if you could go all the way back to slide 20 and as an Associated question are there current plans for the balance of the site right and the um the applicant or the owner's representative who's here um Tim Laughlin might be better uh prepared to answer the questions about the rest of the development what's up here on the the screen shows the footprints of the buildings some of these have already been demolished but where the black marker is is um that's the motel cabins and then the motel office is to the west and then the yellow shaded area is the rest of the property um which has been approved for

[170:04] redevelopment okay thank you very much so I guess if there are no more questions we're ready for the applicant presentation can everybody hear me now yep okay the the downside of having two mute buttons um good evening council members I'm Tim Laughin from surround architecture and just wanted to say a few words tonight about the Silver Saddle Motel um so this project started back in uh 2015 with an application for annexation and concept review and in 2017 both 90 and 96 arapo property adjacent to the east were successfully annexed into the city um both properties played important roles

[171:01] in Boulders history and um this fact was recognized during the annexation process and you just heard from Marcy um you know that that history so if we fast forward now um past uh our site review our landmarks alteration certificates our rideway vacation Tech docks final plat we find ourselves uh here today completing uh another important step uh with the designation of two of the original Silver Saddle Motel buildings as historic landmarks um these two buildings form the Gateway into what is to become the the Saddle Creek neighborhood um so the rest of the property there are 46 units in total um these two buildings will have six of those 46 units um and out of all of those 46 units 19 of them are affordable units um that site review has been approved Tech docs have been uh run through and the final plat and

[172:00] subdivision agreement are are being circulated for signatures within the city right now um so a few years ago this uh Landmark designation was you know really a milestone somewhere way out on the horizon and you know we're obviously very excited to have finally arrived here um but we wouldn't have been able to get here without help um there are many individuals to whom we are thankful um and without help and input in patients uh from staff from board members and from many others during this journey we would still be looking at that Milestone on the horizon so um we do have uh a big thank you to all those individuals um we're very grateful for your help and your input along the way um the city's gaining an important historic resource with this designation and um all the work and effort that that goes into that uh is is worth it um you know to preserve these buildings for the next few generations and and as we just heard from Marcy

[173:01] there's there's not very many examples of these buildings uh out there that have had a designation like this thank you great thank you very much Tim do we have any questions for the applicant Adam uh are any of those units permanently affordable units um purchasable or are they all rental they are all purchasable none of them are rental so the entire development they're all um for sale permanently affordable units wow that's super unique thanks thanks for that Tim yeah Harry thank you Tim for um your patience in going through this long process um I my question is similar to Adam um except I want to ask what the um um Ami percentage of the uh for sale units will

[174:02] be so this project I I don't know if it's the first but it's relatively unique we have um different levels established and that was part of the annexation uh agreement so so um there was the first you know kind of group of units available uh are are for low and moderate so there's five units that will be low moderate income the next level up five units for 80% Ami and then the next level up five units for 100% Ami and then four units for 120% Ami thank you that that would cover some in the missing middle so thank you for that good thank you Mary any other questions for the applicant great seeing none I think we're ready for the public hearing and I

[175:01] believe we have one person signed up for the public hearing that's ly seagull support mostly I like to get on public hearings because I prefer this portal but I have seen this and the castle house at landmarks already and had a lot of comments that I could have said at the other thing but I thought you just want to move ahead so um yeah and it's interesting that Mark wallik brought up that there was a second thing because I remember something close to this one maybe it's on Phil Nev's project um a little bit east of there and some of those buildings but I remember a second thing too and I don't know where that came up with Mark but that's interesting and what fascinates me is those imagery that

[176:01] you have Marcy from 19 early 1900s um the of all the folage you know it's so desecrated back then and now there's so much growth it's just like I'm from Seattle so I get all the growth stuff and it just it's totally because we've watered this place out so much it's amazing to look at but yeah support great thanks thank you Lyn and I think technically we turn back to the applicant to see if you have any comments on the public hearing no no comments super uh [Music] Adam yeah I'd like to make a motion I think we're ready for that um motion to adopt ordinance 8445 designating two buildings in a portion of the property at 90 arapo Avenue to be known as the Silver Saddle Motel as an

[177:02] individual Landmark under the city of Boulder historic preservation ordinance second okay we have a motion in a second Adam would would you like to speak to your motion yeah I I've gone by this property many times and I've always wondered the history of it and it's super cool that it coincided with my time on Council that we get to land market so um and a major added benefit is that permanently affordable for sale housing which is so so missing uh in our town so I really appreciate that as part of this um really cool project super happy to be able to put that motion forward awesome and then I didn't catch who was the second but would the second like to speak to this it was Bob and uh I I couldn't say better than Adam just did all right very good I see no more oh there's Rachel Rachel yeah I just wanted

[178:02] to um say thanks to Marcy and staff for following up on all the questions that I had at first reading and getting um answers and information into the packet so I really appreciated uh the additional information and uh helped me understand why we're landmarking so thanks much thank you Rachel um seeing no more questions or comments um Alicia I think we might be ready for a vote all right sir thank you council member young HP me off guard yes that's what I'm good at Brocket hi friend yes Joseph yes Nel hi slick yes wallik hi Weaver hi and Yates yes sir ordinance

[179:07] 8445 has passed unan I mean has adopted unanimously very good thank you Alicia next on our agenda is 5C which is a second reading and a motion to adopt ordinance 8446 designating the property at 2230 20th Street as an individual Landmark for section 9-1 11-5 of the boulder Revised Code 1981 all right so um last one this evening um Taylor if you could go to the next slide there we go um the criteria is the same and your options are the same so if you could go forward to the process slide so this one um started back in July when the landmark designation

[180:01] application was submitted similar to the Silver Saddle Motel this also came in through the discretionary review process because this um property is a planned unit development and the owners were seeking an amendment to that agreement and so because the house is potentially eligible um submitting a landmark designation application was um part of the approval so the landmarks board saw this um last month in February and then it went to First reading um February 16th next slide and this property is located in the Whittier neighborhood on the east side of 20th Street just north of Wittier Elementary next in this house I think these three properties in front of you tonight show um a real range of the landmarks that that are in um Boulder's program and also of the um history of of the

[181:01] different styles and different time periods um that make Boulder unique and so this is a relatively small house but rich in detail um it's an excellent example of a Craftsman bungalow house and it's um very visually prominent uh because there's an alley that runs along that South Side so um in the neighborhood you really get a full sense of this um of this house so um the house contributes to The Eclectic character of the Whittier neighborhood and it was built in 1924 and um over its last hundred years or so it was owned by two main families the Barnes and the gards in next slide there we go so in terms of its historic significance it's um significant for its 1924 date of construction and its association with both of those families um Eugene uh

[182:00] Barnes was born in Iowa and moved to Boulder in 1903 and he was an employee for the mountain states telephone company for um 40 years until his retirement in 194 2 and he was involved in um many different fraternal organizations he and his wife blanch married in 1904 in Colorado Springs and she was also very active in the community and um their 50th wedding anniversary was celebrated in the newspaper um which I don't think we see quite as much these days but it goes into great detail about the color of the flowers and the number of guests um the property's longest residents were William and Eva Gallard who purchased the property in 1942 and lived there for 42 years and William worked for Boulder County's road muts department next slide so in terms of its architectural significance as I mentioned it's an excellent example of the Craftsman

[183:01] Bungalow style um which you can see it was popular in the 19s and 1920s um and is relatively simple in design but it's very well preserved um with its tapered columns its traditional windows and its double Gable um front and then lastly is its environmental significance um as I mentioned visually prominent because of the alleyway and very um traditional in terms of a residential lot um in this part of town and it is located in an identified potential um historic district in Whittier and so next next slide um the the landmark boundary follows the property lines and the uh name is proposed to be the barn Gard house and so with that staff in the landmarks board recommend that city council um designate the property at

[184:01] 2230 20th Street to be known as the Barnes Gard house as an individual Landmark under the um historic preservation ordinance I'm happy to answer any questions about this one thank you Marcy any Council questions for Mercy I see none so I think we can move on to the applicant Marcy can you give me the names of the applicant or applicant so I can move them into a panelist position yes it's Laurel and Mark okay I see them here let me go ahead and do that thank you

[185:02] h a video with there hi hi everyone hello okay good hey thanks Marcy um great presentation we don't have really formal comments we're happy to answer questions and um even though it's no castle house we are excited to help contribute with a more modest uh dwelling um and we are excited to also even restore that back to you know its beautiful Craftsman charm on the inside and outside as well so but I'm happy to take questions from you guys if you have any for us I I have a quick question for you um I was curious what motivated you to submit this is for landmarking well we so it's really close to our house and we knew the owners and we had told the owners a long time ago it had been owned for about 10 years and there was there was renters there um and we wanted to find a house for Mark's mom to live in

[186:00] in town so that was our original motivation we didn't know it was a PUD at the time so that all came as a bit of a surprise but we didn't want to do a whole lot to it anyway so it kind of was a mutually beneficial situation super well thanks very much yeah absolutely any other questions for the applicant from Council great seeing none I think we'll move on to the public hearing and I believe we have one person signed up for that Lin seagull yay that's it super thank you ly well I think we bring it back to council for discussion or AEM motion if somebody could put up the uh motion language I'd be happy to make a motion ra Rachel's got her hand up

[187:02] Rachel okay great gonna say the same thing I'm happy to make the motion but I I needed the language um and I will you know we can't all live in castles I appreciate it that sentiment um okay so I will make our hereby move to adopt ordinance 8446 designating the property at 2330 20th Street to be known as the Barnes Gillard house as an individual Landmark under the city of Boulder historic preservation ordinance very good we have a motion in a second Rachel would you like to speak to your motion I just uh support staff's uh presentation and the uh property owner support of landmarking and um I'm I'm happy to move us forward in that direction super thank you mirb anything you want to say just excited to have another uh beautiful home landmarked and and preserved for history super thanks and I'll just

[188:01] comment that this is a few blocks from my house and it's great to see all these Craftsmen homes being landmarked there's a few I'm on 23rd Street and there's a few just down the street from me and so it's great to see so thanks very much for bringing it forward it's great to preserve these and Alicia with that I think we're ready for a vote all right sir start with council member Brocket Hi friend yes Joseph yes Nel hi wli yes yes mik hi Weaver hi Gates yes and young

[189:00] yes sir ordinance 8446 is hereby adopt it unanimously very good thank you guys for bringing it Forward congratulations thank you thank you and Bob I just have a question for Marcy Marcy have we ever done three landm markings in one night no uh we have not um as I I did put in the 90 arapo memo that um staff is catching up on a bit of a backlog of these especially the ones that came through um discretionary review so um you will see more of them um this year though um probably not for a couple more months but three is uh more than we've ever done in one night well congratulations thank you Marcy yeah call it a call it a historic hatrick was it our first one with neon too because I think that's pretty important okay so the other automobile

[190:01] related one um that I thought of after Mark's question is the Holiday Drive-In movie theater sign which does have neon on it so I think this is at least the second we're getting there then I have to say you know that sign is is two blocks from my house and for several years I had the honor of getting to turn it on a few times a year for special occasions and there's nothing like sitting that sign lit up okay so I think that um Alicia we're ready to move to our next one all right sir thank you thank you Marcy next we have item 6A Matters from the city manager which is the community benefit and site review criteria checkin great thanks Alicia and for this item uh will'll welcome Carl guer and

[191:00] Charles pharoh from planning and development services thanks very much Chris Carl guer is gonna present staff's update this evening as well as the questions for Council thank you Charles uh good evening council members I'm Carl Gyer with planning and development services uh we're here for an update on the community benefit Phase 2 project so the purpose of tonight is to update City Council on the progress of the project since the August 2020 study session uh we want to present the staff proposals that we have on the project and also request some feedback on the proposals and get direction on the appendix J map before conducting more Outreach uh and drafting an ordinance so we basically want to check in and see that if we're still on the right track with the project so just a recap on the study session from August 2020 um most of the council was favorable towards the three additional Community benefit options moving forward uh there was one council

[192:01] member who questioned moving forward with the new options with the concern that it may dilute the focus on permanently affordable housing um the thought was that maybe the program should be more weighted towards affordable housing nevertheless most of the council agreed uh with the approach uh they found that the program should be predictable and flexible uh it should be developed in a way that's feasible and incentivizes developers to take advantage of the program uh in terms of process uh Council felt that the on-site Community benefit uses should be required in perpetuity like affordable housing requirements uh there should be penalties applied when uses are not replaced after ceasing oper operation but there should be some flexibility in the program to encourage some uh comparable Replacements that are consistent with the goals of the program and then with respect to the site review criteria Council uh at the time was uh favorable towards the approaches that staff was taking towards those

[193:03] changes so tonight we're going to talk about uh an overview of the project real really quick uh I'm going to give a summary of the Kaiser marsten Associates analysis uh that we've recently received I'm going to cover the the community benefit Phase 2 staff proposal uh the staff proposal on the appendix J map changes as well as some other intensity changes uh that we're proposing giving an update on the site review criteria and then we'll conclude with questions for city council so real briefly you know we've given this presentation a number of times I think you're all familiar with kind of the history of the project but there were some concerns uh in 2015 particularly with the number of buildings that were going up around Boulder um that were four and five stories and there's been a long conversation about you know the city should be getting something in return for granting that additional intensity

[194:00] and height to building so the appendix J map which you see up on the screen was adopted at that time it basically limited where heypee modifications could be requested in the community you can see it was limited to mostly adopted area plan areas where additional height and intensity was envisioned um and then in 2017 there were some new Boulder Valley comprehensive plan policies that were developed to uh basically provide guidance on community benefit so there's the 1.11 enhanced Community benefit 2.35 Building height those are the things the policies have been guiding us through this project so one thing I want to point out as we move forward is that the appendix jmap is set to sunset on May 31st of this year so we did want to check in with you before moving forward but there's a lot of progress that we still have to work on so o overall the program is meant to incentivize benefits to the community

[195:00] Through development proposals that propos to add floor area above F limits and limited circumstances or additional height above the height limit up to the maximum of 50 5 fet in the city so phase one was adopted in October of 2019 that Focus was on permanently affordable housing but we also did add a um alternative Community benefit that allowed for essential Community facilities to be proposed as well so now that we've moved into phase two we're focusing on below market rate non-residential space so as we've talked about before this is a focus on um small businesses charitable businesses Arts and Cultural spaces and human and service spaces that are in great need in the city of Boulder so you've seen this graphic before basically what you see in Orange is the areas that we would consider bonus floor area the area in blue would be by right so basically anything that's

[196:00] over the F limit or in a fourth or a fifth Story as part of a height modification would be subject to this program uh no buildings would be any taller than the 55t height limit um these particular areas shown in the orange would have a higher requirement for uh as part of phase one for permanently affordable housing a higher percentage or if it's a non-residential project they would pay a higher commercial linkage fee so you can also see the appendix J map when this was uh adopted in 2019 council did add um some to the map so the Alpine Balsam area was added as well as the rh3 zoning districts so this slide shows all the Outreach that we've undertaken since the beginning of the project you can see there's a number of different ways that we've gotten the word out and gotten feedback on this um we we talked about the Koda paloa open houses that we did in 2018 2019 we had be her Boulder

[197:01] questionnaires we had a number of different focus groups um and some of you are familiar with the Uli webinar that we did on community benefit in October of last year but in moving forward um obviously because of the pandemic we're still doing our Outreach online uh we intend to get feedback from Council tonight and then reconvene our site review focus group and neighborhood representative focus group we want to do some targeted Outreach to stakeholders in the community we're thinking about doing a more targeted uh beard Boulder question that would focus predominantly on the appendix J eligibility map and then we're also talking about doing office hours where we would be available to answer questions from the public um on the ordinances that are in development so like I said we've recently received the um economic feas feasibility summary um from Kaiser Marson Associates um this is informed

[198:01] the staff proposal that I'm presenting tonight um this is located in attachment uh in attachment C I believe in the in the memo um this was developed to inform the phase two options making sure that they're equivalent to or greater than the value that was approved uh as part of phase one we didn't want things to be diverted away from perally affordable housing we wanted to be as equivalent as possible the other Focus was really to make sure that you know if we develop these these regulations that they should be viable they should be feasible uh for developers and and incent them to want to come in with projects um so that we do get some Community benefits um what you can see in the table here is that there's a percentage of bonus floor area that would be for the community benefit use and that's linked to the percentage of what the market rate would be set it so I'll talk a little bit more about that in the staff proposal and

[199:02] Carl before we move forward I just wanted to point out that both David Dosa and Kevin feny from Kaiser marsten um our real estate uh economics advisory firm are on the call this even in case there's more detailed questions about the analysis so K is also um recommended an off-ramp option uh which I'll talk about again uh payments would have to be equivalent to or greater than what would be paid at the start of a project they've also uh put some recommendations out there on on penalties so moving on to the the staff proposal um looking at the particular uses there would be a requirement for a restrictive covenant much like what was done at 30 Pearl um basically trying to Define what these particular businesses are so we we've listed inside the memo small businesses um that would be limited to 50 employees or we're looking at a cap of 2.5 million uh for an

[200:02] individual business um we're looking at charitable businesses that would be subject to 501 c3s in the IRS code uh we're also looking at businesses that provide affordable or inclusive goods and services um according to the Citywide retail strategy we've listed a a variety of Arts and Cultural uh spaces like performance venues Studios and we've also come up with a definition that we're still working on but for human and Social Service uses I know there's been some concerns on planning board and Council about for-profit type uses like nursing homes so we've written that in a way that it would be targeted towards those uses that would uh accept Medicare for like nursing homes so inside the memo you'll see the more detailed presentation of that with respect to the the floor area and rent rate require requirements it would be basically again in perpetuity if an applicant elects to have the rent

[201:02] rate set at 75% of the market rate there'd be a minimum requirement of 9% of the bonus floor area um as a community benefit use uh if they elect to do 50% of the market rate uh there' be a minimum requirement for 6% of the bonus floor area um so this would be something that would be put inside the restrictive covenant uh and then we're also looking at staff level reviews for use change outs and Reporting so every three years there would be a reporting requirement so make sure that the the applicant is demonstrating that they're still charging the you know appropriate rents for the space and what the tenants are um we want to make some flexibility so there' be administrative reviews for change outs we'd be looking at that for consistency with the program if there are situations where they're having difficulty renting those spaces we would have um payment for

[202:01] prolonged vacancies like a penalty fee so there' be what we're looking at is a three-year grace period to allow them to get a different use in there we could choose a different um timeline for that but after that period of time there would be a monthly penalty that would apply to the project until they get a new tenant in there so I wanted to also say that this is New Territory you know obviously we're trying to base this on like what is done for affordable housing uh in this case it would be something that would it would be a program administered by Community Vitality so I wanted to point out that the community Vitality is also here um the team is is here to answer answer questions as well if there are questions on this moving on to uh fee options we wanted to get some feedback on this um one idea is to actually replace the commercial linkage fee requirement that we adopted in Phase One and replace it

[203:01] with a a requirement for Onsite affordable commercial spaces and in doing so it allows the possibility of doing an inlo fee that would be directed toward securing more affordable housing spaces or helping um more of those spaces in the city through an in Luffy fund so we wanted to get some Council feedback on that we're also looking at the offramp option that the kma report uh talks about so basically you know again trying to offer some flexibility in the program if there's a situation where someone can't Market their space and they can't get somebody in there and it just doesn't seem to work out because of Market conditions we're talking about an off-ramp option where they basically would pay the the the full inlo fee uh based on the square footage at time of construction to leave the program the reason it's recommended to be the full and Luffy is that it we we don't want to create a program that just incentivizes

[204:02] people automatically doing in luies or provide or as as the kma report talks about having a long-term affordable commercial space that could be viable but over time it's just easier for them to just do an you know an En Luffy that's been reduced to just leave the program so that's why it's proposed to be the full in Luffy to to leave the program so moving on to the appendix J map uh attachment C has a pretty detailed analysis of all the different zones in the city to help city council um in their decision about what to do do with the appendix J map um as we say in the staff memo the map has been useful at directing where height and intensity uh is in the city uh by having it in these limited areas uh but the you know the the downside of that is that it has limited the viability of the community benefit program because of the limited

[205:00] areas so part of the K report talks about how obviously opening up more zoning districts or potentially repealing the map and going back to the conditions Prior to 2015 would obviously you know allow more projects to come in and more Community benefit uh but if Council wasn't comfortable with doing that and wanted to take an incremental approach that's why we provided that Zone by Zone analysis in the memo um so if it were not to be repealed uh these are some of the recommendations of staff so um adding most of the br1 Zone which is uh in the vicinity of 2019 Street basically the areas north of of arapo and um east of 28th Street based on some concerns about taller buildings in Gunbarrel we've revised uh that particular area in our proposal to just include the br2 zoning District which is the core of the Gun

[206:01] Barrel Community Center up up there next place would be diagonal Plaza in to encourage and incentivize development of that area and more affordable housing um we're recommending the ball Aerospace site uh that's located next to an area that's already mapped by the Boulder Community Health uh ball Aerospace has already gotten approval in the past for taller buildings some of which uh they've not undertaken but they do have some expansion plans it is in an area that that has that has buildings that are 55 feet so we're recommending inclusion of that particular area in addition to that we've recommended a number of different zones like BMS IMS and the mu1 and mu2 zones up in in North Boulder these are zones um where you could add the eligibility to these

[207:03] particular areas what we're recommending is if there's concerns about compatibility we could start with like potentially a 45 foot height limit um just to try to get some smaller buildings that are more consistent with the scale of buildings in that area um for those particular zones but part of this analysis has raised some other changes in the zoning code that we wanted to go over so one we've mentioned to council before is we've heard from the development community that one of the biggest barriers to um additional housing particularly affordable housing is in the br1 zone when you look at the the the Boulder Valley comprehensive Planet talks about the br1 area as a predominant Focus FOC Focus area for more affordable housing so one way to do that is to allow the current density limitation that we have in that zone which is one unit per 1600 square feet

[208:00] of lot area by waving that for any project that has uh permanently affordable housing so if there's a building or or project that's all affordable housing you could put it in the code to wave it and that's one thing we're we're recommending we're also looking at that for the BC zones it doesn't necessarily mean that you know we could allow additional height in those areas but it would incent um permanently affordable housing in some of the neighborhood centers by allowing that uh to be added to the code there's also some recommendations in the code for and similar to what we did in Phase One there certain zones that are less than 1.0 f um that where it wouldn't be as feasible for them to take advantage of the program so K has recommended um that those particular zones be increased as well to 1.0 and that's the BMS IMS the mu1 and mu2 uh we also have some recommendations for the dt4 Zone uh there's already not

[209:00] to increase the floor area but just adding Community benefits as an option for getting that additional floor area right now in the code um there's different types of uses that allow you to get to the 2.7 maximum we're recommending that that could just be you could add the community benefit option to downtown as well so that uh we can get some of these Community benefit uses in the downtown uh lastly the dt5 zoning District the most intense Zone Downtown uh you can get up to a 2.7 right now in this case we're recommending you know you could make it 3.0 downtown if there's Community benefits associated with the project I know that's a lot of information to swallow um so lastly we're going to talk about the site review criteria so again um the site review criteria changes are quite complex um we're we're drafting them uh at this time but because of the complexity it does require some more time so we're not thinking that the site

[210:01] review criteria changes would be done in the short term it probably be more towards the end of summer um attachment D contains a description of how the criteria are being updated right now we expect to do some more Outreach um to get some feedback on the changes but one thing we wanted to get um feedback on from Council tonight is the view protection issue this was one of the goals of the project um was to make view protection a little more um predictable in the code um one analog that that we've been looking at is is Denver they do have view planes from public spaces like we've been looking at um they basically have a view plane that starts from a public park towards the mountains that limits the height of buildings we wanted to see if if Council wanted us to continue looking at that obviously in Denver we're talking about much taller buildings in these areas um but I think if we do move forward with this particular task we probably would ask for some assistance from a consultant to

[211:02] do the mapping and view plane analysis so we wanted to get some feedback on that tonight so I'm going to just read through the questions and then we'll talk about next steps and I can come back to the questions so the first question is does city council support the staff proposal as specified within the memorandum that's related to the community benefit piece and then more specifically on the non-residential projects instead of applicants paying a higher commercial linkage fee for the bonus floor area in commercial buildings as established in phase one should a requirement for on-site affordable non-residential space be created with an option to make an inlo payment that would be used to create additional affordable non-residential space and to cover um the program and then secondly we're asking should an inlo fee be created as

[212:00] as as an offramp option for the non-residential projects that are unable to lease their below market rate commercial spaces the third question is does city council generally agree with the staff recommendation for the changes in in appendix J We're not asking for any decisions on this item tonight if there's additional information that Council would need to help with that decision we're we're all ears and then lastly uh on view protection should staff develop options for implementing a view protection uh ordinance in the city of Boulder so I'm just going to go to next steps and we'll come back to the questions um after we do um clarifying questions so as far as next steps uh we expect to do additional community outreach like we talked about on the slide we're going to continue development of the ordinance uh if we can keep to the timeline before the appendix jmap expires we're going to tryy to get to planning board if we can by April and then before Council in May

[213:01] to uh bring these changes related to the community benefit before Council if it looks like we need more time we may have to extend the appendix J Max um if needed so that oh and then uh the ordinance for site review criteria as I said before would probably be coming late summer early fall so that concludes my presentation happy to answer any questions and again we have kma here and Community Vitality to help with with questions super so I'll just start with a quick comment thank you very much for the great memo and the um great presentation very clear and I also want to say that I appreciate the timeline this is on because it looks like we're going to move through Community benefit as well as site plan review criteria this year so I just want to say thank you to staff for all the hard work and for keeping us on schedule with this uh with that for questions um I've got mirb juny and Mark

[214:01] mirbi thanks for the presentation and yeah I appreciate all the work as well um I don't know if this is okay to ask right now but I'm I'm hoping we can just help out um the gun barell Community here um because I've received a lot of emails about pendex J as it sounds like you guys have as well so could maybe you go over um it sounds like you've changed it to the br2 um Zone only and so can you explain a little bit more in depth what what that means does that mean that only in that area they can a developer a developer can ask for a height increase if they provide the community benefit or does that reach outside those zones just can can you give a little bit more detail for the residents here yeah if Council were to limit it to the br2 it it would be that the community benefit program would only apply to that particular Zone in Gun Barrel where they could ask for hype modification and they would have to provide Community benefit uh what we've said in Prior meetings obviously is the gun bar Gun Barrel

[215:01] Community Center plan is actually pretty clear about taller buildings in Gun Barrel so if anybody asks for a height modification it has to go through whole process with the county um and they have to sign off on it as well so it's a higher tier review than other parts of the city um I worked on the gun barrel center project out there they had a railing that was a little bit over the height limit and it was a pretty involved review uh just to put it in perspective okay great yeah I think that's just good with with this being you know something that not everyone deals with on a day-to-day basis I think it's helpful to help clear it up with them um can you just one other question regarding this because again a lot of the residents have said this uh due to the unique nature of Gun Barrel many of the people who live and use the facilities here and have their quality of life experienced here unfortunately don't get a vote in the city of Boulder due to being in the county um which by no fault of their own um they're just

[216:02] not not in our city um is there a possibility I understand you're saying that if a height increase was requested it would then be required to be worked on with the county is there any other safety you know they're just basically saying they don't have a voice here so is there any workarounds as we do this that would allow the county to to be more involved to have more conversations with us um and work with us on this a little bit further I mean we can I can certainly you know work with our colleagues in the county to to make them aware of this project again there's a memorandum of understanding between the city and the county for that gun barrel area um I haven't looked at thatou in a while but I know that if they do ask for an additional floor above three stories it does open up the review to their Board of Commissioners and their Planning Commission and there has to be hearings and and recommendations from the county side so they they should I I

[217:02] would expect have a voice through that process before it even comes to city planning board and and city council okay great I just appreciate you clarifying again it's just so the residents can can hear this as well um coming from City staff um and hopefully have some of their uh fears assuaged so thanks thank you mirbi next we have juny Mark and Bob juny thank you I had a question I believe it was when you were talking about on slide 11 when you were talking about small businesses and you mentioned businesses that are I guess worth no more than 2.5 million and I was wondering where did this estimate came from that was something that was suggested by Community Vitality I don't know what that metric was was based on but maybe I I can defer to them for on that one sure this is Jennifer penso and

[218:01] um that 2.5 million refers to the annual revenue of a company so that's one of the measures that we use for size and that's based on um what what we used the county just used for small business grants programs we've also used a similar measure uh when we look at our Boulder microloan program so typically u a company that has less than 2.5 million in annual revenue or sales tends to be on the smaller end of the scale thank you yeah it's just when I when you hear 2.5 million you don't think of small small businesses but thank you for clarifying and I think also I have another question um you mentioned when you were talking about the floor area and the rent rate I was slightly confused I didn't fully understand um I

[219:00] didn't fully understand the ratios when you were talking about them so I was wondering if you could yeah so um if an applicant were to elect to have a community benefit space restricted to only 75% of the the rent rate they would have to provide more floor area so there would be 9% of the bonus floor area would have to be the minimum that they provide um based on that when you go to the 50% um it's it's a smaller percentage so it goes to the 6% because they're obviously their the rent rate is even lower so it's trying to obviously go deriving from the K report what makes sense Fe for this to happen Okay thank you could I tag on to um jun's first question please um I I just want um was wondering on

[220:00] that two and a half million does that account for um number of employees as well and um does that look at expenses how how do you determine is it just Revenue yeah so so we would be looking at businesses with up to 50 employees and we would also be looking at or or or revenues of that that amount and so that does not include expenses so that's before expenses and that would be on the the top end and and I guess um so the the the two and a half million was um a cap on who could be eligible for the um the um reduceed rate commercial correct and um and do we have we thought about at all about what

[221:02] happens if during their tenure in that affordable commercial um their revenues um up wildly yeah yes yeah that's that's a really good question that's something we're still exploring and thinking about I mean the idea is that we W to really set this up to help a company um be successful and so um the question becomes if you have somebody who is very successful and they've built a business that's very dependent on a particular location um we may not want to tell them they have to leave so we're we're in the process of thinking through what what some of those options might be and and and it may be that those are written into the Covenant so that we've got some flexibility based on a particular

[222:00] location um and market conditions thank you Jennifer I look forward to hearing what the what you come up with thanks I I should also just quickly mention that as we're developing these programs both on the um Citywide retail study as well as on this program and and other small business support programs we'll be coming back to council later this year with updates thanks much very good thanks Mark and then Bob Mark s coule oh I'm sorry juny I thought you were done go ahead juny thank you I just had a question about the enl because I understand enl when it comes to affordable housing when it comes to residential and I didn't fully understand why would it be advantageous

[223:02] to have inl as opposed to onsite well I think that's a policy decision for Council I think as we did phase one Council was comfortable with doing the enloy for permanently affordable uh housing so now we're at phase two so the question is is Council comfortable with that uh right now we have the commercial linkage fee which goes to affordable housing obviously but this would be new territory so if we create a requirement for on-site commercial then the question is should we create an in or should we just keep it with the commercial linkage fee and then secondarily it's should be if if there is an inlo based on that amount of of square footage should the offramp option be available or it could be just commercial linkage fee so does that

[224:02] mean I think part of my question is do we have the programming for that because I understand with residential affordable housing that we are you know that we have the programming for that but do we also have the programming for that as well for commercial or is that gonna be like a new project that will be set up just for it would it would be set up through this project this is new territory thank you if I could just um and I'm apologizing for not having my camera on because I don't want to lose connection I also want to introduce everybody I think you've met him before Mark wolf who is helping to lead this effort as well this is evet Bowen assistant city manager and director of community Vitality Junie thank you for your question um you'll be seeing us back I believe in May on the retail strategy um with an update for you and then later on the business support

[225:01] programs and that's where we' look to finalize how that would roll out in concert and we appreciate the collaboration of Carl and Charles and everybody on the team so far so some of it exists today and would be enhanced some of it would be new thank you so much is that it juny thank you Sam thank you okay super um then we've got Mark Bob Mary and mirabai Mark yeah I want to start with just a comment on on jun's comment um uh in response to inl fees you know in in housing um we do it because there are sometimes financing or other logistical issues with providing onsite affordable housing uh none of those issues are really present uh in uh commercial context and I think it argues a little bit against having an inl fee um in that context in terms of

[226:02] questions my first one is is the community benefit structure supposed to be in lie of the entire linkage fee for a project or just the The increased linkage fee allcable to the additional height I I think what we're recommending is that there not be an in for affordable commercial and an increased commercial linkage fee um at the same time there would still be a commercial linkage fee applied to the non-residential space below the height limit got it above the height limit you have that increased rate that we not have that and the inlo um you could have the inlo for the offramp and keep the commercial linkage fee but not okay in ly at the onset of the project okay my next question um arises out of a concern about picking

[227:00] winners and losers um through the program if we have 2 200 square fet of commercial space affordable commercial space and we have five applicants um who might meet our criteria how are we going to select one above others I'm a little uh troubled by having our economic Vitality Department making those selections um and I I don't understand what criteria we would be using to make those selections maybe and the secondary question is if we're setting up if we're standing up a whole new regime to um manage and uh deal with these kinds of issues uh how much additional staff would we need that's the Lesser question the larger question is um how exactly are we going to um use our uh our governmental agencies to pick and choose appropriate

[228:00] tenants for commercial projects when if there's more demand than there is space I think the thought process was that you know just like affordable housing uh an applicant would come in and they would have a tenant in mind for the space and that we would review it through the to make sure that they're eligible I might have to turn it over to community Vitality to talk about the ongoing you know election of who who goes into the space and I I they find at this juncture that they would have the Staffing to handle these but obviously if we see the frequency of these increasing there might have to be a need for additional staff okay well let me give you yet another kind of related question have have we done any kind of survey of what our arts groups are paying now if you look at the say the 2019 retail rates you discount them by

[229:00] 25% you end up somewhere in that $20 a foot range um and as I understood the program the the the developer um is not obligated to give away free rent and he's not obligated to to give away tenant Improvement allowance and so how many of our arts groups for instance I I regard them as sort of the most vulnerable of the candidates um are prepared to pay $20 a foot rent and not get any free rent and have to develop and fixture their their property um and so have we done done any canvasing to to make that determination as to what they're actually paying now and whether they can step up to these these levels we've done a fair amount of Outreach to the Arts Community I don't know that it got into the details of what they were paying and and things of that nature I think obviously that this report is relatively fresh so I I I anticipate

[230:01] talking to the Arts Community about the findings I'm just urging you to take a look at that because it would I'd hate to set up a program uh that the arts groups can't afford and and we're looking to provide affordable commercial space for arts groups among others um last question for the moment um uh with the respect to appendix J um the F increases that you propose on a Zone by Zone basis seem to be all over the lot um it's 62% over the base F and DT 4 40% over the base F in mu1 52% in dt5 and 33% in uni Hill what's the operating principle um well to be to be clear it's not increased above um the existing limit in dt4 um the logic for the other zones is

[231:01] that it was basically looking at any of the zones that have around a0 five or a six or 67 F and just increasing that to 1.0 that's what was done in a number of zones in phase one so we were just applying that logic to other zones that have that same aair limit understood okay thank you thank you Mark next we've got Bob Mary mirb and Rachel Bob I have two questions one as a follow to Mark and on of Hal to junis um with respect to um the comment that Mark just made about about about um Arts Community I'm sure the math works out as far as these discounts on rent um and you know this being fair to a developer and maybe that's a point of agnosticism for them but um if we haven't already I really encourage us before we bring this back to go out there and figure out what um these communities are actually these um these perspective tenants are actually

[232:00] paying in other words I think if you said to the artist Community hey would you like to have discounted rent the answer is going to be yes and then if you said hey would you like to have discounted rent at $20 a square foot they may say oh my God no I I got $12 a square foot right now so I just like to have an understanding about what the reality is because these numbers like look swell you know 7 75% of market rate or 50% of market rate but but many of the prospective tenants may already be paying effectively 75% or 50% of market rate because it depends on what Market you use to apply the discount to so I'd really if you haven't done it already I'd really encourage you to go out to the the types of tenants that you're talking about here and find out what they're actually paying in rent if you know that that's great and if you think these think there's going to be a land rush for these types of uh spaces that's great but what I'd hate to do is go through all this effort and then have someone put up a building and have no one show up and they sit there for the the requisite three years um so that's just I guess more of a comment or or request for information following on marks with respect to the um with

[233:03] respect to the inl the 50% and 75% those are caps right in other words a land landlord could if it wanted to charge less than those Amounts is that correct I believe so yeah it would just be a cap right and so the landlord builds the building they build it tall they set aside let's use the 90% they set aside 90% of the bonus floor area and and put up a big sign that says 25% off market rate come and get it and no one shows up and so they start to reduce the rent how about 30% off how about 40% off 50% whatever because right now they're not collecting any rent right they can't they can't rent it out at at Market at some point in time um they're going to hit the three-year Mark um is that offramp is that discretionary in other words is that they can come to the city and say you know what I tried for three years I've I'm giving up um I'll pay the fee in L because I've done the math on this and it's better for me to to write the city

[234:00] a check uh and then then being able to go and and then being allowed to go to 100% or or do we force them to pay the fee in L if they if the if the properties if those relevant spaces sit empty for three years basically we wanted to build some flexibility into the program so if somebody is is really struggling to get someone in that space we're proposing that they would come in um with an administrative review and they would have to show some due diligence that they've of how they've been trying to get tenants in there and if they can demonstrate that then it would be that they would they would just pay the full and Luffy to exit the program at that part I understood but I'm trying to understand whose option is it in other words could they could they if they didn't want to do that could they go to year could they have the property sit there empty for year four and year five force them out of the program if the if the property if the relevant space sits vacant for three years or more if it goes more than three years there would be penalties that apply so if they're

[235:01] willing to pay those penalties because they they really want to get someone in there that's that's their decision if they after five years then determine that it's still not working what the proposal would be is that we would deduct those penalty fees from the inl fee payment to exit the program okay let me try to play that back to you so during the during the the three years where they're having difficulty during the first three during those three years of having difficulty they could come to you and say you know what I want an offramp I'll write you a check how much is it and they're out of the program if it goes longer than three years with vacancy you're going to start imposing penalties as is that right that's correct okay and is it three in other words I don't know we're getting in the weeds here but you want us to tell you what to draft so I'm trying to ask some questions um is it three uh consecutive years in other words if they have a tentant there for a couple of years a tenant moves out does that start a new clock running uh I believe it would I mean

[236:01] because we would be monitoring you know when the tenant change outs occur so we could it's when there when that the the tenant stops operation in that space is there a minute minimum tency like you say it's got to be at least six months or a year or something like that uh we don't have that in there no it just seems to me there's a lot of ways to game this right in other words you get your brother-in-law to come in there you charge him a Dollar rent he's there for a week you start a new clock running since there's no there's no minimum rent right so they can charge his brother andlaw a dollar he could be in there for a week since there's no minimum tency and it starts a new threee clock block running if it's if it's if it's to their advantage to have the property sit empty which obviously defeats our purpose of trying to find inexpensive space for for for nonprofits then it seems to me there's a lot of ways to kind of gain this I I just want to make sure that we've thought about all the possible permeations here and and that that the the penalties in the off-ramp work um

[237:02] you might want to give some thought to whether you have you want to have a minimum rent you want to give some thought to whether you want to have a minimum tenant um I don't know I don't want to over engineer this but it seems to me there's a lot of ways for people to get out their calculators and figure out what's best for them which may not be what we're trying to achieve here that's a good point okay that's all I have Mary and then nearby and then I will go thank you Sam um I have kind of a combination of questions and comments um on the um the br1 where you're we're looking at the one unit per 1600 square foot density um have you thought about other zones in which that there's a a similar problem presents

[238:01] itself yeah I mean it comes up in a lot of the higher density zones that have that same one per 00 s foot limit um there's a lot of zones that have no limit at all so I think in our mind obviously there's a lot of other regulatory factors that keep a development in check in terms of parking traffic bulk and height and and Landscape requirements open space requirements but um if a developer can't build a certain number of units they're just going to walk away so there's certain zones where it's very flexible you know where they can they can do as many units as they want there's all these other factors that keep the development in check br1 uh is one of those areas where we want to direct some of those units and that is a big barrier so we'd basically just be waving that for permanently affordable projects and making it not unlike some other high density zones that we have in the city um great and I'm just wondering if

[239:02] it if it might be worth as we go through the site review criteria to look at those other zones where there is you know the minimum square footage per unit and if it might be beneficial to um reduce that square footage by through the provision of affordable housing so it's it's something to consider and perhaps look at as we move forward and we're we're also recommending BC zones because they they both the BC zones have an open space per dwelling unit requirement and and a one per 1600 square feet of lot area that could also be limiting um so you could apply that and that's what we're recommending for the BC zones it may be at a future time but that's something we we put out there as well okay thank you and then

[240:00] um mostly I'm going to be asking questions about the site review criteria is that okay sure um all right um and then so in the in the site review criteria um section of the memo there was a suggestion to remove the reference the first Criterion which is a reference to the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan and um and then there's a there's a couple of questions or one of the suggestions that was made was that's because the master plans kind of cover some of the the the policies that that come up in the comp plan so I'm wondering how you would reconcile the fact that the master plans would likely be changing at a faster rate than the site review criteria so how would you reconcile those two things I think what you're referring to

[241:01] is is removing the language on balance is that your question on the policies um no there was a there was a comment about removing the the the Criterion about the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan um no I mean we're not looking at removing that Criterion it would still be in the criteria it just would be made more specific um the way it's written right now it mentions just broadly that it meets bbcp policies I think what we're trying to do is be a little more specific to to um some key policies instead of one of the things we keep hearing from the community is is obviously through the site review process is making this more predictable and one of the more challenging Criterion in terms of predictability is that one that talks about on balance like there's so many competing

[242:00] policies that an argument could be made for against any project so we're looking at trying to make those Boulder Valley Comal plan criteria a little more specific to key policies like affordable housing or or Environmental Protection um rather than having that on balance statement have um a Criterion in there that requires consistency with any area plans so we're we're not looking to remove that just make it more clear okay okay good and I I really when I read through the remov moving the on balance I thought that was a really great idea um let's see um on the language updating language I think there is some real um outdated language within what we're looking at and I was wondering another question is um have you given any thought to perhaps having um Amy can um

[243:03] and the racial Equity um group look at some of the Lang and make sure that it meets some of those goals I have been working with that group um we are looking at some ways where we can try to address the racial Equity plan through this project still um unclear kind of the legal grounding for it so we're still keeping that option on the table uh it might come up through the the community benefit piece or it could be coming later in the site review criteria but we'll definitely talk with them more about it okay great and then [Music] um moving over to a question about the affordable commercial space um one of the arts and culture um businesses that could be allowed perhaps in the affordable commercial are art

[244:00] galleries um how would you address like say I mean what if sopies for example wanted to come in and have an art gallery in one of those spaces because they're an art gallery um how would that be looked at and evaluated we have talked about this I mean if the space is purely an art gallery it would be considered retail sales what we've tried to incorporate into the definition for art is that it would only permit accessory sales so it can only be an accessory component of an of another larger uh art use so in other words it might be like a uh I don't know um a craft store or something and they have art for sale additionally yeah we're thinking like it could be an art studio where they make

[245:01] pottery or something and and most of the space is allocated to the actual Studio but they could have some smaller area of that space where they sell the pottery that would would consider accessory sales okay got it thank you um let's see there was in um in the site review under site design and open space in that yellow section um there was a comment about for larger projects of 100 or more units um or only require only require open space buffers on Lots next to City open space or Parks could you what does that mean well I I think one of the issues

[246:00] we're dealing with in the site review criteria and thank you for reading that whole section also um basically there's a lot of criteria that come up for smaller projects where we're like oh this is more like what a a bigger project is trying to accomplish like if it's the bigger project is going to have an impact on the smaller project that there's some sort of buffer um or or one of the criteria we have is like a project that has a certain number of of units would have to provide active recreational uses you know that wouldn't apply to a small smaller project they're not going to be able to put in a pool or a tennis court so in trying to make the criteria more predictable we're trying to put more measurable metrics in there like threshold when this particular uh Criterion would apply so I think that's what what you're asking is you know there might be a case of a larger project that needs to be buffered from a

[247:01] a smaller Zone next to it you know that allows less density there should be a buffer but um I guess the the part that's confusing me is open space buffers on Lots next to City open space or Parks so for big projects you would provide them more buffers because they're next to open space or Parks well there there's already a Criterion in the code now about how something transitions to a city park or City open space I think we're just trying to be a little bit more specific about what that buffer would look like and the and the the current building setbacks wouldn't cover that transition not always I mean it depends on the Zone uhhuh because to me it seems a little bit like double dipping but um just a comment

[248:01] um and I think that is all I have um and then finally a question on appendix J um in appendix J it's we decided that it would expire in May of 2021 is that correct that's correct and then um one could you remind me what the conversation was like um the last time we touched appendix J um as I recall we were trying to figure figure out whether it should become permanent or what we should do exactly and yeah I mean the options for counselor that it could be it could remain in place as it is right now we could extend it or it could be repealed which means that then the the height modifications could be

[249:00] requested Citywide or it could be modified where you add to certain areas or ract from certain areas add more zones those are the options so I think with this particular check-in we provided more information to council to be thinking about that change um The Zone by Zone analysis that wasn't completed at the last check-in so there's more information there just to help with that decision but again we're not we're not asking for a de decision on that tonight but if there's you know a certain additional information that Council would need need to help with that decision or if Council wanted to give us an idea of what we should be working on for the ordinance that that would be helpful okay thank you and that's all I have great thank you Mary mby and then I'll go I just had a few more questions um just statements to Bob's Point um I

[250:02] think that if we're going to be working on this we should make it as fullprof as possible as strict as possible so that as he was saying we you can't rent it to your brother-in-law for a week me this is we have a chance to actually do something that's possibly in some people's eyes going to provide Community benefit and if we're going to be doing this we should make it as absolutely foolproof um so that people can't jump through hoops to to play the system so just a comment on that um second I guess here's one question I think that we've been played a lot in the in the past about Community benefits and um obviously the one that's always used the most is the development on Pearl Street is there a way um with doing this that we can stop developers from doing cash and L in the last minute after you know we think they're going to be doing one thing and then all of a

[251:00] sudden I mean because again I think cash and L is the last option this isn't what we're really truly trying to get at is you know getting money I think what we're really truly trying to get at is some affordability and whether or not it's residential or um retail but is does staff know is there is there a legal way something that we can do to make sure that if they're going to do cash and lo we know what's happening up front versus thinking we're going along the project and then boom all of a sudden something changes and all of a sudden they have to do cash and L well I mean I I think this project is different than that Pearl Street example because at that time there was no actual community benefit requirement so there was no recourse at all they they could promise something in the development a use or a space and then after the fact they could put something different in there that's consistent with the site review but there is no Community benefit requirement so in this case there there would be a community benefit requirement um I don't know that we can

[252:02] necessarily prevent them from later doing an in Luffy I mean if really honestly struggling with keeping a particular use in that space you know we think it's appropriate to have an out for them but at least at the end of the day there would still be a payment that would go into something that would fund affordable housing or or affordable commercial spaces where in that site review example there was no recourse no and I and I understand that part but am just where I'm going with this is I understand down the road if they can't build a space and they have to go cash and loop but I'm talking about right after the development so they say they're going to come in they're going to do some form of community benefit and then the whole building gets built and then all of a sudden oh no I'm sorry we can't do that here we're just going to pay into it is there a way right during the development you know that we could cause that to not

[253:02] happen does does that make sense look into that a little bit further I mean I I think that's why in the K report you know they they suggested the full in Luffy you know we're trying to look at Monetary you know ways of of trying to avoid a situation like that I Cally on that question yeah but then I I have more so okay yeah just really quickly the um so I guess Carl the question would be whether if a if a developers proposing you know an on-site affordable commercial could you make it a condition of approval that they execute that that promised on site since since we would have the community benefit ordinance to back us up I I think that's the intent of this is that with every site review that that's what'll be different is that there would be a condition of approval that would hold them to some sort of to meeting the community benefit requirement again I think just down the

[254:01] line you know there's still I think there needs to be some flexibility if they can't make it work oh yeah I'm I'm not addressing that I'm just I think miraba is getting at the initial bit right that that they have a site review proposal it includes onsite commercial and then like the day after they get their building permit they say you know what let's just write a check well I mean the thing is is that what what we've been talking about is that they have to demonstrate that they've used due diligence to to do to use the offramp so we could have that they have to at least try to market the space for a certain period of time I mean three years or yeah so I'll just throw in one quick comment that might give it back to mirb it's worth considering in the program about ways to essentially require them to to stick with their commitment at site that they made at site review for at least some period of time thanks mby yeah of course um so I

[255:02] just have two more questions and I don't know if this is possible well one more question in a statement I don't if this is possible to answer but I'm going to jump us back to Gun Barrel do you know in the past I'd prefer 10 years but I'm sure that's kind of a difficult um question to answer on the fly but I'll just ask it that way do you know in the past 10 years how many uh height modification requirements or requests came in for the br2 area in guno that's in um appendix J right now I don't believe there have been any um to my knowledge okay um all right that but then that's where I'll leave it right now super thanks meby so I will go now um with a few questions my first one since we have Kaiser Maron folks here I will turn to them and ask um are there other communities that you're aware of or working with who are looking into affordable commercial I know that lots

[256:00] of folks look for affordable housing but I was curious what your experience with this in others cities might be I think it is a pretty unique program that you're embarking on I I know that Portland Oregon does have kind of a pilot program that you know Carl is is aware of but aside from that I'm not aware of another one doesn't mean there isn't one but I'm not aware of one I don't know if Kevin Kevin pie also Kaiser Mar Marson if you are uh no not not structured and something so standardized um you know there's other communities that have negotiated affordable commercial for a specific development but not as part of a a standardized program like what we're proposing here I see and since you probably talk with other city planners and planning departments a lot do you hear conversations in in high rent

[257:00] cities and high cost cities about doing something about um preserving small businesses and have they what have you heard for other ideas for achieving the same ends I mean I think I think there's other cities that have I mean I don't I don't know if I have any Brilliance to bring you to be honest with you but there's like small small business Assistance programs and things of that nature not nothing nothing about delivery of space quite in this nature there's in California we've had these Redevelopment agencies that would be sort of Project Specific assistance with with conditions around the delivery of of those specific development projects but not I guess as a broad Citywide policy like is being contemplated here or policy that would be open to develop developments within specific

[258:00] zones I mean I think the other the other area where not just for small businesses but for nonprofits as well um you know I think there's a growing concern in the number of communities on displacement of nonprofit small businesses and I think the other approach that you know that some communities have experimented with are acquisition funds um for nonprofits smart small businesses Arts organizations to purchase older spaces um which you know which requires a funding source of one kind or another um but because you know because it's already built space the values are a little bit less so um you know the the actual Subs that you have to put in is is not terribly significant um and it you know it provides the same meets the same objective of long-term affordability um but in an ownership model and we've we've seen that here in the Bay Area um in in a couple cases

[259:02] super thanks that that's those are great answers I appreciate that perspective um then back to Carl um talking about replacing the additional commercial linkage fee so we're talking about um bonus floor area in um higher intensity buildings um you talked about replacing the commercial linkage fee um with either inl or um with uh affordable commercial did I get that right because you're talking about saying no additional affordable housing linkage will use these other things correct that's correct we're we're basically just trying to avoid um an unnecessary redundancy in the ordinance you know there might be you pay commercial linkage fee for the first three floors and then to have two then options for inl of affordable commercial space or

[260:00] the commercial linkage fee just raises questions about where does you know where does the money go how how do we actually get a successful in luy program for the affordable spaces so it just makes sense to if an inl is going to be created um as something that they could request when they come in with their application then we would recommend that the commercial linkage fee uh be taken out the the the additional um we're not saying that that precludes the offramp option but it just seems odd to have two different options for how to pay for that extra space I agree with that so just to make sure that I'm tracking if there's a building that's 100,000 square feet and we've got 30 bucks a square foot um commercial linkage fee is kind of our standard then that building would pay three million into affordable housing right so the the

[261:00] base commercial linkage fee 30 bucks a square foot would apply to the entire building and then in the bonus area um that would be used for commercial only so either affordable commercial or inlo for affordable commercial is that your proposal yeah I mean phase one would be you pay the 43% higher got it equivalent to that would have to be an inlo fee that would go into affordable commercial got it okay no that clears it up completely because I agree and I see the point now I just wanted to make sure I understood the proposal so thank you for that um and then um I could ask a bunch of questions along the lines that Bob did um and I think those are very interesting questions um but I think it's well worth taking a look at what the demand is for these discounted spaces um and so it's just a comment about what would be helpful to come back

[262:00] with because it is my sense having you know searched for as cheap a commercial space as I could find over the years that if you're offering discounts of 25 or 50% off of Market you will have a line of people wanting to get into that space now a difference here is I was always looking for kind of more Warehouse Flex space and this you know a lot of it might be commercial because it's in newer buildings so um I would just have you you can talk to the Arts folks but um this brings up kind of an existential question about program design I think what um small businesses might be able to afford in stomach you might have a long line of people um from startup small businesses who'd be very excited about a discount but it might not be good enough for art spaces or for nonprofits because they might have even more restricted budgets than um small businesses so I think there might be a

[263:02] challenge here wrapping those all up together and I would because you may have different budgetary requirements from those sectors so um I agree with Bob that it's worth asking but you probably want to look at all three main sectors that you're talking about which would be cultural spaces uh social services so nonprofit social services and uh small businesses because it could well be you would have one of them jumping at some program where the other two might not be able to so that's just kind of when you come back it would be very helpful if you've learned like what what each different segment would require um and then I wanted to get back to Mary's question about anything that has to do with dwelling units per land area or open space per dwelling unit um I I I won't go into all the different Zone districts that have it but I I

[264:02] would just point out that it's well worth I think if you bring us back the site plan review criteria um proposals when you bring them back to us I really think we would want to know all of the Zone districts that have that form of perverse incentive to build larger units because I think you know at the end of the day the the reason that um I for instance find that to be a objectionable way of doing land use is you end up getting bigger dwelling units even even though you'll have the same intensity so that was just a request for more information when you come back um if you could flesh out for us what all of the Zone districts are that have that kind of um requirement and then so the other question I've got is you've got some requirements for the

[265:02] kinds of um entities that might want to use these affordable commercial space and you've outlined them pretty clearly but I could easily imagine something that doesn't fit neatly into one of those categories right there could be an Enterprise of some kind that doesn't fit into the categories that you've listed and the criteria that you've made so have you considered how to think about those like would you have a staff level review that could be called up by planning board like how would you do the all the other stuff bucket that don't fit neatly into it but might be things that the community is interested in I think we'd have to look at it I mean when you the phase one piece has the alternative Community benefit option it might be something that could fit under that and then we would bring that through the process through a discretionary review I see okay that's a great answer um I've got a some comments but I think that's

[266:01] all of my questions so we got for hands now we got Adam Mark juny and Mary Adam is there going to be a specific comment period because mine is just a comment I I was going to try and and have a separate comment pass but it it's up to council do do other council members still have questions mark juny and Mary are yours questions the comments mostly okay so comments Adam lead us off with comments thanks Sam so my biggest concern definitely is one that b Bob brought up which is uh essentially gaming the system and my suggestion to that is um bringing in a couple of trusted developers maybe a former developer council member and a couple of planning board members um sit down in a zoom meeting for four hours and literally poke holes in every

[267:00] possible outcome because I can think of a few just off the top of my head you know somebody starts an LLC that has two employees and no income but then contracts out to a major company and they utilize the space somehow something along those lines you know there there seems like there should just be a step in this process that is literally poking holes with a a wide array of people um in the room that's my major suggestion for uh for feedback at this time super thank you Mark yeah um you know I I was the council member who was not supportive of branching out into this area but as it is the will of council to do this my interest is in getting the a robust Community benefit and I think my major concern with the program as it is currently constituted is I think we're shorting ourselves um I I took a look at at you know the the um the Daily Camera

[268:01] building um which has a bonus area of 29,5 580 ft if you do a new construction let's assume you're doing an office and you can rent that space out probably for $50 a foot and if you can do that you would get a, 479,000 of additional rent for your bonus area every year in contrast you've got 2600 square feet plus minus of affordable commercial space and let's say probably at the maximum you're going to get a discount of $20 a foot to what the the landlord uh could otherwise rent it and that would be about $53,000 a year so if you compare those numbers the landlord is getting almost a M500 th000 a year and we're effectively taxing him at about 4% with that additional income

[269:00] I think we're short changing ourselves in terms of the benefit we ought to be getting for the the revenue benefits that we're conferring um and I I can't tell you exactly what that right number ought to be but you know effectively taxing the landlord at a 4% rate if I'm a developer I'm jumping up and down and and and throwing a party um for the privilege of of of getting that bonus space um a couple of other comments um with respect to appendix J I'm I'm fine with the ball Arrow space and diagonal Plaza um I am concerned with with greatly loosening the strings on Gun Barrel um and my general approach with with with that would be my my notes from the last meeting remind me that the Outreach performed by staff indicated that 60% of respondents were not in favor of height modifications and only 25% were this

[270:00] doesn't mean there should be no modifications of appendix J but it does argue a bit a for more community outreach and B for a cautious approach and let's you know do some modifications and see how things go um so you know diagonal Plaza ball Aros space uh a couple of other areas are probably appropriate to expand the map and let's see how it works um but I'm not really in favor of a um a broad-based revision of um appendix J and we don't know what what that impact is going to look like but again my my biggest concern is I don't think we're getting enough Community benefit for what we're giving away and we're giving away you know two top floors premium space and we're getting you know a very modest amount of affordable commercial space under conditions we're not even sure what they what they're going to look like at this point and and I want to also second

[271:00] Adam's comments on um looking at ways to prevent gaming the system because right now this thing has many many many holes in it and it doesn't mean it can't be tightened up but it needs to be tightened up thank you Tom I see your hand would you like to respond to something right just it concerns me um this is not a tax it's a fee which is why it's constrained which is why we have a consultant working on this i i c be very careful about using the word tax taxes require voter approval I I am I am using that in a more colloquial sense it is a we are essentially charging the developer a rate of 4% on the the amounts of Revenue that we are uh providing him I don't it's not really a tax it's it's simply the fee that we are charging is 4% of the revenue um and I am my comment is that I think that is awfully low for the benefits that we are conferring upon the developer I just urge caution using

[272:01] words like I will use any language you desire but but the economic desire you call it a fee because that's what it is it's not a tax if you and the line between a tax and a fee in Colorado isn't all that clear so we work really hard to stay on this the fee side of the line I will use your recommended language thank you it is a fee it is a very very small fee and and that's what I'm commenting on thank you my pleasure juny Mary Aaron nearby and Rachel juny thank you Sam I wanted to go back because I did have one question that I wanted to ask because I'm still trying to find the I guess the adventage of having cash andl when it comes to Affordable and my question is from my understanding of cash andl when it comes to affordable housing do you know if for instance um developers would face the same Financial

[273:00] challenges when it comes to getting loans so I'm trying to figure out why is again why is having this cash in Lo is advantageous or are there any constraint to having those you know the commercial affordable in the same space as market rate I mean I I know that you know affordable commercial is is something that the community has said is a primary Community benefit and so that's the approach we've taken with with this and uh trying to make it similar to affordable housing but um I'm not sure maybe I'll pass it over to community Vitality um on whether the spaces would it would be beneficial to have them together sure I'll take a crack at that

[274:01] I I think there's probably very few uh inst in would be appropriate I I can think of uh areas where the business mix might U not be appropriate for a retail tenant for instance uh but given the um uncertainty in some of the details we thought it was important to leave a certain amount of flexibility yeah thank you I I didn't feel that you answered my question but again it might just be a hard question to answer because again we're just trying to figure fing this out together um I would say for right now I don't understand first of all I just wanted to go back I think um Mark mentioned earlier whether Community Vitality will have the bwith to implement a program like that and so far I didn't hear anything that prove otherwise and also from my understanding from call it is up to council so it is you know it is not

[275:03] something that um I don't think the advantages have already been fleshed out in a way that would tell me to say yes when it comes to uh having the cash and L and when I think of again you mentioned the advantages of having small businesses or market rate and affordable commercial in the same space and I can I was just thinking to myself in a time in a time right now where for instance we're dealing with economic crisis and if you have you you know small businesses or uh businesses that need the help in the same building or in the same um building as a market rate you know there's probably more traffic and and that probably will help a small business if they're in the same area as a more affluent business so I think having that diversity within that same building I think is important so I think because of

[276:01] that and I didn't fully understand the advantages of the cash and L so I would say I wouldn't I would not support it and I think mayby mentioned something earlier about having probably more constraint I I don't support the cash in L but I would support it if there were more constraints to it basically Dam can I respond sure Tom so so I don't want to drag this out too far but one of the reasons we allow cash and leou is to avoid a take claim if the the person can't do it and then they have to leave the space empty so there's no viable economic use we could be subject to a takings claim the the cash and L gives them an all so there's never a possibility of takings claim because there's always some valuable economic use of the property the other thing is these restrictions are untested in the courts and we'd like to keep it that way our our affordable housing program has worked successfully for many years and

[277:01] has has never been challenged in the courts we'd like to avoid that given developers a somewhat easier out that's just a money thing they can pencil in helps protect the program so those are two reasons we've always advocated for a a cash and L but obviously it's your choice no thank you Tom I think that that's really helpful to know that thank you thank you Tom um Mary so kind of um go thinking about the the line of questioning that juny just had um um one of the in in trying to make the inlo option more bring it into alignment with affordable housing cash andl one of the advantages of the cash andl and affordable housing is that it is then leveraged to get more affordable housing so um if we can think about how we might

[278:01] be able to take that in Li money and use it to somehow leverage more of something else um maybe uh maybe what it goes into is a um a tenant finish loan and that is paid back and maybe it's always a fund that is available for for tenant finishes in those affordable spaces um so that's that's just kind of trying to think about how that inl can be leveraged in a similar manner as the affordable a housing and lose um and like juny um I I I think I could support it if we can figure out a way that it is um leveraged in such a way um and then I just wanted to add that I um support Adam's idea about um getting a group together to try and poke holes in this

[279:02] um and I think as we move forward I think it's important to keep in mind that what we don't want to do with this program is cannibalize affordable housing so above everything else we want to be able to have affordable housing and this needs to be sort of a just another option that does not make it easier I guess um um anyway I think you understand what I'm trying to say and then um with respect to to um appendix J um I would like to know more about how so one of the reasons that appendix J went into place as I recall was that um there was a lot of construction going on all over town and it was a big boom and there were these buildings that were going up to 55 fet everywhere and so then came appendix J

[280:02] um and so if we were to LIF appendix J as we have said we're going to do um I'm just wondering um with that just kind of reignite that boom that was going on then um so I'd like to know if there's to what extent there is that demand that would suddenly we left appendex J and suddenly we'd be right back where we were prior to appendix J so I want to know more um and and to decide whether or not it makes sense to just lift it all at once or to um do it in a phased manner that addresses [Music] um um needs that there might be out there for development and balance that with not

[281:02] having a rush on a bunch of um building construction so um that's all I have Mary would you mind if I call it quick just briefly um just on the history I believe that the concern that we expressed back then when we were talking about um the building boom that was going on was that there was no Community benefit so if you recall at the time we had no commercial linkage fee and that the complaint that I recall that I was one of the ones making it and so were you was that this building boom was going on and there was no benefit recapture really of any kind there was no commercial linkage fee and there was no affordable commercial or the other options for space so I just wanted to put out there that I think that the complaint at the time was that commercial buildings which were going up did not contribute back in the same way that residential did so I'll just put

[282:01] out there that was my recollection no thank you for that reminder Sam appreciate it I add a bit as well the you remember you I think you did it at pxj originally in 2015 yeah um it's been extended twice in 2017 2019 in 2019 you added Community benefit requirements to the hyp uh permissions in in appendix J so what appendix J does it says you can only go to 55 ft in these specific areas originally that was it and then you in 2019 you added a requirement of 40% affordable housing to get that benefit if attend appendix J expires what will happen is that will apply to through the city so throughout the city you could go to 55 feet if you had 40% affordable housing so that that's what would happen if you don't extend it to March 31st great and Tom just to follow up if we approved a community benefit

[283:00] ordinance that had alternatives to the additional rate on the bonus area then we would have effectively required Community benefit anywhere in the city yes okay thank you um Aaron mayby Rachel and Bob Aaron right so uh thanks everybody staff for your hard work in putting together a comprehensive proposal on some complex issues and I appreciate kaer Marston's assistance as well I'm going to try to walk through your questions really quickly I mean I do think um that that you're going in the right direction with this I was impressed by the analysis and and I feel like you're on the right track I'm really glad that we are adding um affordable commercial and arts and nonprofit spaces to our list of potential Community benefits I know there's some folks who've been working very hard for years for the Arts component to be a piece of this program so appreciate their advocacy and that we're getting somewhere on that um so yeah I think we're we're going in the

[284:00] right direction um for your number two about the non-residential projects I I think the what you're talking about with the inl is fine um I appreciate you Carl's points about you want to make sure that the you have an economically viable space and that we give people an an out but to jun's point about that what we would most like is the on-site affordable commercial maybe we can have a some criteria that people have to walk through before they could pay an inl so instead of it being 100% just oh i' prefer to write a check check that we could say well you know you have to at least say that there are a couple of reasons why the affordable commercial wouldn't work in your particular project um and and then if you that's the case then you could do inl instead so I'll just put that out there and you can think about whether that's viable Tom you could may you talk to them about it but see if maybe we could put some some guard rails on that um could we go to

[285:01] the next page of questions please and your offramp is fine um on the pendex jmap i i Sam I totally agree with your memory of it and Analysis of it I mean I I was it was a little before I got on ccel but I remember following it closely from planning board is that that um the not allowing for height modifications was while these Community benefit projects were undertaken right the the linkage fee and Then followed by the community benefit requirements and it's we're coming up on you know you know five and a half six years later and wow the end is in sight you know of these projects and so then my understanding the intention and what makes sense to me is that with these um Forward Thinking and pretty comprehensive Community benefit requirements we could let appendix J go away because it would just mean that you would be able to offer Community benefits uh in throughout the city in

[286:00] return for you know a slightly larger or taller project and and if people do some of that then we get additional Community benefits which is something that would be beneficial by definition to the community so I I I would advocate for letting it uh letting it lapse since we're finishing the project now um after about six years and then I I would not um undertake a separate View CT or protection ordinance I think we've done that well when we've done particular area plans like Boulder Junction you know protected particular views but I think it requires that level of really detail deted site analysis to do that well so as we do some more detailed area plans over the years like we doing with alpine ball some or like we might do with futur in the future we could add in some view protection uh requirements to those very specific um area plans but unless we're doing that level of analysis I would not do a general ordinance on the on the topic and um I wanted to congratulate

[287:02] Mary as well for for the her detailed review of the the site review criteria proposals I have to uh confess that anticipating we were not really talking over those details I didn't get to that level but I look forward to the discussion of the site review criteria details uh later on this year when we get back to it that's all I got thank you eron I'm gonna give you the prize tonight for being the most direct and concise congratulations um Mir by Rachel and Bob so can we go back one page just to the first part of the question thanks so my my comments on this are just going to be that um I appreciate staff's work on on moving this forward uh I also think that adding in the Arts is fantastic um I'd love to see more affordable commercial space for some of our specialty um areas of of this

[288:01] community that um struggle with the high rents that we currently experience uh in general I'm not a fan of linkage fees period I think it's an easy buyout um I understand the legal necessity for them as Tom explained but I have a hard time um supporting much of them so I'm not quite sure the workaround but I do think a lot of this needs to be tightened up quite a bit I think there's way too many outs um where developers can wiggle their way around things so um anything we can do to increase increase um protection that we truly get what we're going for here uh I would like to see um I'm not a fan of getting rid of appendix j i I won't support that I think that there's too many in this community that are concerned with the height modifications and I think that there's many people who it doesn't matter and kind of myself included that um there's not a lot that can cause me

[289:00] to want higher buildings in this community um there's not a lot you can of this community that I I think weren't having higher buildings I'd prefer to see us subsidize uh arts and work on using linkage fees in a different manner to create more housing rather than continuing to build higher and especially in areas outside the appendix J map um even though it sounds like Gun Barrel has been removed from having too many requests for height modification I'd like to see Gun Barrel taken off of this completely per resident requests to me uh just because one I think a lot of people didn't feel like the engagement back in August even represented their questions but two uh until a sub community plan uh can be done for the whole area that creates a robust Community engagement having that on the table makes many of the residents here feel quite uncomfortable especially as many of them are in the county um and so if appendix J were to go away I guess I may support a view protection um ordinance but for right now if appendix

[290:01] J stays in place I think that I would be okay with um not having that be implemented so I hope that gives a clear guidance for St thank you mayby uh Rachel and then Bob Rachel um thanks I wanted to clarify Tom mentioned um a March 31st Sunset date but I are we really talking about May 31st for appendex May 31st May okay I just wanted to clarify that um either either I heard it wrong or it was stated wrong and we weren't under a 20 someday deadline here um I guess on appendix day it does seem very complicated um the the options that we have um I appreciate Carl staff giving us options but it does seem like you know um in terms of making it more uh less convoluted and more user friendly it would be better if we just had one set that applied to the city um if if we

[291:00] Shore up the community benefits and can roll that out it seems like um I could get behind um just letting the appendix Sunset but one thing that might be helpful in the next presentation would be um what that actually looks like you know obviously um I'm not going to have a five-story building going next to me where there is a ranch housing and residential zoning right now so that's not going to be changed if uh that sun sets but like a visual map of you know what exactly you know the the color codes that you had in there like if a J drops where all are we talking about in the city um having this uh reverting to the standard height limit where all does that apply if that makes sense right now we've got all those different bubbles of you know option one two and three and then just another option of if we let it lapse where all are we looking because I think a lot of the um a lot of uh the areas will not be included because they are residential if I'm following the map

[292:01] correctly so that would be helpful um and then you know in terms of opting individual neighborhoods out like um Gun Barrel or somewhere that would I would be uncomfortable with like carving out really specific Pockets um because that that just doesn't seem um like very um good governance in terms of of you know opting out and carving out and that's part of why I think I I favor just overall eliminating appendix J um and if I heard you correctly it sounds like maybe Gun Barrel gets extra protections because they also have this County layer of review maybe I heard that backwards but if so then that makes me a little bit more comfortable about gun barrels um level of review um and I also wanted to ask I know we've only been at this a year plus or something but with um with the affordable housing being eligible for the extra two stories

[293:01] last time I asked there had been no applications for that have there yet been uh any applications for getting those extra stories on on affordable housing planning board planning board just approved 100 units of permanently affordable housing at the former rally software I'm sorry rally Fitness um at near 29th in Bluff and that'll be coming before Council for call up here soon so that was our first one so we've had one that's good um I guess I just my point there is that I'm not super worried about it being like abused and the floodgates open if we do it well I think it should be um more of a a steady drip of people who actually use this because it should be giving us a community benefit so we do want the affordable housing and we do want the affordable commercial space um and art space and um Human Services space so I I understand that we don't want to you know sort of give the farm away but we do want to create a program um that people opt into

[294:03] so we don't want to have a a deao 35 foot um limit because we've made it too difficult to to utilize any form of this program um and then on cash and L I guess my sense on the housing side is that sometimes you are getting more bang for your buck as I think Mary mentioned um when you can bundle together um and and use it differently rather than on site so I would not want to um toss out the possible benefits of what the cash and lo could bring um I could see a situation where if I'm paying 75% of the Premier new building that's going to still be more than if the if the city were able to have a pot of money that was giving me 20 25% off uh you know somewhere else that was more affordable to rent so I just I would hate for us to to toss that aside without really seeing

[295:01] what the benefits could be in terms of a cash and loop program I understand it's new and we have to look through it but um and and I understand the concerns about abuse but I I don't think that's a reason not to to do something like we can put up the guard rails and um not throw out the baby with the bath water so I think those are my thoughts thanks thank you Rachel Bob and then I'll go okay um um with I I like Adam's idea first of all about um poking some holes in this and trying to find out where the where the gaps are I I think I think this is a good start I just think that we need to kind of think through put ourselves in into the the shoes of a prospective developer and and and see where his incentives or their incentives might be um to go certain directions so let's just make sure that this um delivers to us what it what we want I what we want is is either permanently affordable residential or or uh below Market um

[296:03] commercial commercial and let's just make sure that that that's what we're getting we we not looking for a a payment of money we're looking for um these things so let's make sure that that's that our that our desires and the developers incentives are aligned um with respect to I want to back up a little bit because um as I think both Erin and Sam pointed out um first of all it's not appendix J that we're talking about we're talking about moratorium appenx J is the exception to the moratorium moratorium was put in place in 2015 um with the promise that um as as Sam correctly pointed out um that there would be a community benefits codification because up to that point in time even though these projects had all had to go through site review neither the planning board nor Council had really a road map for which to apply um Community benefits and so it was kind of subjective and so a lot of stuff was getting approved and so we

[297:00] kind of we the prior councils kind of didn't trust themselves so they said you know what we're going to prevent ourselves from approving something until we have some criteria by which to approve it and so they impose that Council in 2015 imposed upon itself a moratorium with the exceptions carved out in exhibit J saying that give us 12 to 15 months or 18 months and we'll figure out what the community benefits are well unfortunately 12 to 18 months turned into six years I think Tom we've actually extended it three times since I've been on Council um and each time we come back and say well we need another year or so we need another year or so so here we are six years later and we're almost there which is great um my goal would be to actually um to lift the moratorium I don't know if we're going to be make May 31 we may need to extend it a little bit but I think if these are really the things that we want it should be Citywide uh if if there are parts of town or certain zoning districts where we don't want these things then we should flip this over and have an

[298:01] appendix that says you you can't ask for uh these things in these zoning districts or these parts of town I don't know what that is something can come up with that list but if these are really things that we want then it should be Citywide if these are not things we want I don't know why we're having this discussion so so let's get what we want and then let's apply it Citywide subject to uh another appendix which would be the exception appendix if there is one but it's not a pendex j that's terminating it's the moratorium that's terminating um I I agree with some prior comments that that trying to um uh extend the moratorium indefinitely first of all doesn't keep Faith with what we said back in 2015 and secondly making an appendix J that's really really really long we every time we extend this moratorium we add to appendix J and the laundry list proposed by staff if we kept the moratorium is just I mean I appreciate the work they you put into it but it's it's it's it's a Swiss cheese

[299:00] with more holes than there is cheese and so um let's just get rid of the moratorium when when we're ready it may not be many and and if there are exceptions that people want to exclude buildings between 35 and 55 not withstanding the community benefits we'd get then then let's look at it from that perspective I think that's the right way to approach it and then finally uh on The View protections I agree with Aaron this sounds like a I mean sounds really clever and sounds really great this seems like it's a years long project um so I think eron's approach is right let's not um let's not include view protections and the site review criteria um I think the right time to look at view protections is on an area by area um basis when we do area plans um uh you know and I think we did list a little bit of this uh uh with I'll plan ballom didn't we back up across Broadway and say you know what what views are we wanting to protect so let's do that um when we get to an area plan rather than trying to do it Citywide because I I get to see that all sorts of rabbit holes being being uh fallen into and I just

[300:03] see a situation where we're going to have a lot of disagreements in the community about whose park or whose corner or whose backyard we need to be looking up at the mountains from so I wouldn't even I wouldn't even go down this path at this point in time that's my my feedback on that thanks all right Bob well thank you all um I will go down the questions first as well um I do generally support the staff proposal I think you've done great work I mean as we heard from Kaiser marsten this is not being done everywhere so we are kind of plowing new ground here and I think our motivations are um the right motivations and I think that we are um approaching a way to address a problem in our community which is that um whether they're nonprofits or arts or um startup businesses that otherwise have um difficulty raising money we would like space for them in our community and um I am not as concerned as Adam and Bob

[301:00] and others are about gaming the system though do think it's well worth taking Adam's suggestion trying to poke hes in it and one reason for that and I think this is where it would be interesting to have some developers speak about this is this is going to be a relatively small space if it's onsite in a larger project and so it is not going to affect the cash flows even if we told them they had to make it free right if it's 2 200 square feet in a you know 100,000 foot project or something of that nature it's going to be you know matter of it's not going to affect their cash flow in a negative way and then all they have to do is figure out how to manage the issue so I I think we should try and put holes in it but I think it's going to be easier typically for a developer just to follow through on what we're asking for than to fight it um really hard um I I also like the idea of in commercial buildings if we're getting a um contribution to affordable housing from

[302:01] the linkage fee that applies the entire project I think we have we have hit the requirement of helping affordable housing and mitigating the demand that's created by that space and I would like to take staff's suggestion about having the the additional bonus Comm Community benefit be only commercial so a I like the idea in 2A of it being commercial um and I really like Mary's concept of trying to think of other things to do with the inlo payment so if there is an inlo and I agree completely with juny that the first um the first option should be that it's on site um if there's some reason we need to legally to have an inlo payment and or there are cases where it's just going to be hard for the developer I think we should be creative about what to do with that inl money now if there's a way to lever it um through government other tax credits

[303:01] or the way we do with the for housing fantastic if there's not I think we should be creative with things like tenant finish so TI or tenant finish I think would be an interesting way to have a grant program um that ties into the affordable commercial um off ramps that gets back into the gaming the system kind of thing I don't really like off-ramps but I you know if the offramp is that they have to pay the entire inl and we do have an inl program in place then if they can't do it in a certain amount of time I guess that's okay and then appendix J I just want to say put our minds back in 2015 commercial buildings were favored over residential buildings because they weren't providing Community benefit and that's what the Pearl West project showed in Spades and we we have beaten that horse to death but that's why we launched down this path is because there were developments

[304:01] occurring in different parts of the city which were um getting all the benefit of additional intensity and were not paying anything back to the community for that additional intensity and I feel like once we've now have the commercial linkage fee in place and set to a rational amount and are going to add on um uh affordable commercial I feel like we have done what we said we were going to do I would lift a pendex j entirely I don't want to muck around with a whole other layer of development review requirements that are going to be complicated um unnecessarily because I don't think they're going to get us much more um so I'm pretty much where Aaron is on this and Bob that the whole point of moratorium was so that we would get things in place which would get us the community benefit uh as benefit recapture so I would lift appendix J

[305:00] entirely I'd get rid of the moratorium and I don't think there's any way to do a good view protection ordinance um you know if there were skyscrapers there might be a point to that conversation here but I really just don't think that would be a good use of our time if we're going to put a bunch of planning time into something I think there's a lot better things that we could do with that and then on to um the site plan review criteria I just want to you know everything Mary said about dwelling units per land area I think we should have all that in our sites for modifying in a way that um gets us smaller units that are affordable as opposed to bigger units which are unaffordable and for the wealthy um I also agree with Mary about keeping the comp plan referenced in the site plan review criteria now there are creative ways to do that because there are many many policies in the comp plan as Carl pointed out that really don't

[306:01] have anything to do with the development and the way that we're talking about in sight plan review so I think narrowing that Focus would be good um so I agree with the narrowing the focus and one thing that um Mary and I talked about earlier thinking through this uh was it could be that specifically um policies that have not been implemented in code because we make comp plan policy changes and then it takes some years to actually make their way into our development review criteria so you could reference the comp plan policies um to be interpreted at site plan review that have not yet made their way into code um so I think that's it I guess I want to say thank you for working on this so hard it is a novel program um and I think it's one that addresses a community need with that we've got a bunch more hands M uh let me check the order here real quick because that

[307:01] doesn't do it we got Mary Rachel and eron Mary thanks Sam and um yeah I just wanted to go ahead and um weigh in again on appendix J now that I've had my memory refreshed on what it was why we did it and what we said we would do once we did the community benefit so um I would be in favor of after we get these Community benefit ordinances in place place to go ahead and lift it um I also agree with Rachel about just pointing out what that would look like um and and however staff um comes up with that is a fairly straightforward way to illustrate that I think that could be helpful to the community um I think it's important to do what we said we were going to do um and then um with respect to the view

[308:00] corridor I agree with with um Bob and Aaron that that's probably something that's better done at the area plan um level than rather than trying to come up with one view cordor ordinance that covers the whole city um so just wanted to make sure I waited on those two things thank you thank you Mary Rachel um real quick should I make a motion to extend the meeting ah sure please do so moved and there a second second all right anyone object to extending the meeting for a few more minutes seeing none it's extended thank you Rachel um so I just wondered like I I was putting myself in staff shoes a little bit and like walking away from this meeting and being like L I'm not 100% what you know sure what to do with the appendix J you know in preparation for the planning board and and may meeting so I didn't know if maybe it would be helpful to do straw

[309:00] Poes on that or the view protection because some of us didn't speak to it or if maybe that's a silly idea but just wanted to make sure we were giving staff whatever they needed on this I will turn to staff and say do you need a straw pole have you heard enough what would help you better to take the next steps car think okay we'll do a straw poll then um Aaron would you like to comment before the straw pole sure yeah I'm going to endanger my concise award here I just realized there was one more thing um that I hadn't said which was I really appreciated uh staff about you bringing up the open space for dwelling unit uh requirements uh because those I've had my high on those for many years and they do incentivize larger units over smaller ones which then inevitably end up more expensive so I fully support you bringing back revisions to that so that we could encourage um smaller cheaper units so that's it and I'm fine with

[310:01] straw okay we'll do a straw poll when we're done commenting Bob just I'm just want to frame the straw poll in the correct fashion the question that we should be asking is do we want to let the moratorium go because if if if if appendix J goes away there's no exceptions to the moratorium right just want to make sure that the question that we ask is shall the moratorium expire at some point in time not shall exhibit Jay go away at some point in time yeah that Bob you had to correct me twice on it and learning I I think Bob is correct we would and I bet staff would interpret it that way too but we will ask we'll try and ask the straw pole correctly here so no more comments so we'll take a straw poll um who would be in favor of letting the hype moratorium expire uh which would obviate the need for appendix J if we get the community benefits that are being discussed tonight in place by the end of May who would be in favor of

[311:02] lifting the moratorium if we put these Community benefit requirements in place can I can I just amend that Sam to when we put them in place so like it might not be may but like just yes when when we put them in place together yes I count one two three four five six s and who would oppose I see Mark and mirb so so there's a straw poll for what it's worth and Rachel's amendment I think I I would agree with that if we don't have the community benefits definition done I would not want to lift the moratorium Bob like to ask staff the now that we' we've done that I'd like to ask the staff the question so we we've given you a lot tonight and I I suspect we won't be able to get this done by the end of May which is fine um and so what we would need to do is we would need to extend the moratorium a little bit

[312:01] longer my question to staff is how much longer would you like and don't say 12 to 18 months um to get this done uh is this is this something you think you get done by end of June end of July what what time frame would you like so that my my hope is certainly to complete it in that timeline June or July um we've been working on this for a while and I think we're making a lot of progress and I think we've gotten a lot of good feedback tonight that can help us kind of zero in a little bit more think that's probably enough time yeah I think this has been really helpful I wouldn't think past August we would need to extend it so I might suggest that's helpful guys so I might suggest that that Tom comes back with a with a slight extension to whatever staff wants sometime in the summer and that we pass that sometime in the next couple of weeks um maybe even on consent um that extends the moratorium take a little bit of pressure off of Staff but not too much pressure off of Staff um so that we

[313:01] get this wrapped up sometime this summer thank you Bob Aaron yeah good idea Bob I might just say may we go to keep maybe to the end of July and just put it on consent and um since we've all agreed to it essentially here and then if we need one more month we could do one more month on another consent but hopefully we wouldn't have to well Aaron perhaps it would be best to just go to the end of August that's three months it's another 90 days so that gives staff the flexibility of having July and a little slippage because sometimes times things slip over the summer that that's fine but seems like we could be put it on consent anyway since we've talked it through tonight and I think first reading would have to be the first meeting in April and second reading the second meeting to have it in effect by the by May 31st because of the 30-day requirement so we'll get something like that done excellent thank you Tom okay so staff do you have any more questions from us did you get what you needed I think so all right much this

[314:02] has been incredibly helpful and um getting us through the last uh piece of this we look forward to coming back with um something in ordinance form here awesome well thanks to um you all as well as to Kaiser marsten and I see Rachel has our closing comment just I didn't weigh in on The View protection so I will just say I I support the comments that I think Bob and Aaron and maybe Sam all made on that one I might be overstepping with Sam but definitely Bob and Aaron we didn't do a straw poll there okay very good thank you all very much um so with that I think Alicia I think oh Adam yeah um just council stuff real quick uh I noticed we don't have any instructions or any game plan for going into our um our meetings on Thursday um

[315:00] for boards and commissions who's going to ask questions you know we usually had like a little pre-meeting or something in regards to that so if we're just going in at five o'clock and we're there I have some concerns about how the process is going to go well I will say this I will say that in the past we have always just rolled the dice and somebody asked a question and then off we went with that but the the challenge we have of course is the restrictions that we've got um on seral meetings and so on so we could assign people to ask a question for each one of the boards um but I see suggestions from Bob and Rachel well I was gonna raise the same point that Adam did so Adam thanks for raising that and and I do agree that assigning questions is a good idea I don't care who who who asks what questions I trust all of you guys but what I've seen in past years is when questions are made up on the Fly sometimes they're not the best of

[316:00] questions and so I would just say randomly and I'm happy to let Alicia do this and pull names out of a hat tomorrow morning and just send notes to each of us and say all right Sam you've got open space and and Mary you got planning board and Bob you got arts or whatever and and and maybe it's two council members because we usually get two questions in um and and have so that way we come with thoughtful questions again I don't care so much what the questions are just as long as they're thoughtful I think if we're given a day or two to think about them they're going to be a lot better than if they're made up on the fly during that kind of awkward silence when no one knows who to go so I would be in favor of assigning questions to whomever thank you Bob Rachel yeah I love that um and it feels Equitable too if Alicia is pulling it out of a hat and it's just you know Bob you have the you know a question for these four boards and Adam has these four boards because with two members and a gazillion boards we'll have more than one question each um but that it did feel awkward last year and a little bit inequitable that

[317:00] like you couldn't tell if you if your question was going to make it through or or you know if if nobody was GNA have a question that fell awkward so I really like and support Bob's idea Adam last thing I'll say I'll offer up that the third question of how many of these board and commission meetings you've attended takes about two seconds to answer and I think it provides a whole lot of information in that two seconds so that might be a standard question I would appreciate it jery oh thank you I I was just thinking last year I thought we did get the questions from I'm not sure from coun from um your office Alicia so um I'm not sure if I'm happy to make up questions for four different boards and the meeting would be on Thursday so if I could get the questions already made up that would be much much better much more helpful and I think it probably would be more efficient as well better questions as Bob mentioned

[318:03] Aaron uh just if we're going to ask people how many meetings we've attended we have to make sure that we've confirmed that they do have uh viewable meetings on the internet we ended up with an accidental gotcha question last year because of that good point Rachel was a little bit fun um but I think maybe I understood this a differently than juny did for what Alicia would be doing I was just thinking Alicia would tell us there are a number of you know you will ask you will make up questions for these boards because council members made up questions the the candidates were asked questions in the written format but then in the in the um oral interviews we asked as I recall two questions total and so I wasn't thinking that Alicia would have to make up those questions but sounds like there's a a difference in opinion here so just thought we should talk through that too Alicia I just wanted to say it's my understanding that no we don't have any

[319:01] idea what the questions are is my understanding that the council members made those questions up but I'll be happy to do a random selection to assign the boards and commissions to each council member just so you'll have time to think of those questions that that would be super helpful and I agree that we should have two questions per board and so if you want to depict two council members for each board and commission and get a list out to us with that um Adam to your point I would suggest that we only ask that question if they were televised so that we avoid the gotcha Point um so we can go through and make a Mark or Alicia you can tell us which boards um have publicly viewable meetings um so online or television um and is everyone happy with that two questions we usually say introduce yourself and you say a couple of words

[320:02] and then question one go around question two go around and then for the right ones we ask Adam's lightning question is everybody good with that Rachel I'm sorry if I just missed this but it might be easier like last time there was it seemed like one council member was in charge and then we changed who was in charge you know each new interview group that came through we do that yes I just wonder on Zoom like it's things are so clunky is it better if you just take charge I'm I serve at the will of council so however folks would like it I'm happy to ask questions or to introduce folks and then turn to council members to ask questions is that your suggestion it is my suggestion that just one person you know does the intro stuff and so we're not going down the line the way we did because that just seems like it's going to get I don't know I are funky enough already yeah okay

[321:02] very good Mary I was just going to agree with that um there's usually when we hand it off to a different person it's in the changeover there's not going to be much of a changeover right okay in that case I will I will just do the introductions hi um we're gonna ask you all two questions can go around say your names Rachel's got the first question aon's got the second question okay very good I appreciate that thoughtfulness that's very helpful okay um any other wrapup Chris staff anyone um one more suggestion um if we could in the introduction I'm wondering how people feel about you know one of the things that we talk about with boards and commissions is how we have not done a good job of

[322:01] onboarding and um making sure that people as they get on um boards that they understand what their role is and so maybe as part of the introductory piece um that Sam would make at the beginning would be to say um make sure that folks understand that um should they be appointed to a board that they become public officials and then have to abide by um um what a public official um takes a no to do so just just a little bit of of trying to open up the the door to um to a more deeper onboarding process super Rachel one more um do we um need to ask any board um any boards any specific conflict of interests questions um that that

[323:01] uh May apply for projects coming up and do we want to tee that up or will Tom Tee that up at specific boards have anys I won't be there but I would suggest that you consider whether um for planning board anybody who's working for CU considering CU souths in the pipeline and going to be crucial in the coming months isn't that isn't conflicts a standard question on all the applications or mostly applications it is it is but although I don't know it calls out any specific um you know specific Employers in town um and would that also apply to osbt or just planning well planning is the one that has um three and then there'll be two people conflicted out right now so uh it would be helpful if if whoever you add it doesn't have a conflict okay I think so might be helpful to ask that question at least for that board

[324:02] so um ask the question do you work or have any professional relationship with CU for planning board is that what you meant Rachel yeah just a employment or conflict with CE I think for people applying to planning board would make sense unless Tom would advise different language no that's fine okay very good I'll do that I I think it's also worth asking open space as well just so we know um for for what it's worth juny yeah I'm slightly concerned about having to draft the questions especially that we just had a discussion about not having gacha questions and I don't know what could be considered a gacha question because if I'm writing questions and I bring them on Thursday and that's the first time I guess you

[325:00] you heard of it and that's probably the first time the candidate as well will have heard of that question and if it's a question where they stumble on then how do I know the difference because at the end of the day there's no formalities on how to draft those questions so juny I I was the one who said a gotcha question it was something very specific which was we asked how many meetings that you had attended um and uh as it turned out there were meetings that were not televised and people people said that they had watched them so it was just that that was a very specific like kind of tricking them to see if they were you know and generally any kind of question you would ask about a board's purview is is fine I think thank you and I would maybe add you know if if anybody doesn't have time I assume we can just call anybody up and say do you want two extra questions right like nobody has to draft them probably you can Sam's nodding Sam will take them I was going to suggest that very thing

[326:00] before we were done with this which is if you get picked for a question that you don't want to ask because you don't know what the board does very well or you think somebody would be better for it as long as Council agrees I think you could just reach out to another council member and um say could you ask this question or trade with them I mean I think all that really matters is that we get the questions thought of ahead of time I think that's the key Point here so horse trading I think is fine with individual council members unless people object all right we'll start out Alicia will give us our assignments if you don't like your assignment see if you can barter with another council member um and then there was one other oh Bob will not be present for a few of these so Bob do you want to tell all of council what your restrictions are so that Alicia doesn't give you a question where you won't be there yeah I'll be late uh on Thursday night um so I'll be

[327:00] there for the second half around under 45 or so so it' be better if I had questions for the for whatever's um the second session I'll be there all night Tuesday and then Thursday kind of depends on how late you all go um it's I have the same conflict every Thursday 30 45 but based on the schedule looks like you might be done by then so um but second half of Thursday night very good so you'll you will be gone the second half of Thursday I'll be I'll be gone in the first half I'll be available first half okay be gone the first half of Thursday night but available all Tuesday and you've got that Alicia right yes I'll just give in questions on Tuesday no perfect no that that's right that's right you can do that all right any other issues counsel or staff going once going twice seeing none I'll gel this meeting closed at 11:35 see you all in two days thank you all right good night everyone

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