July 27, 2021 — City Council Study Session

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] we can throw up those slides i'll run through them very quickly first of all uh cobia 19 vaccinations for more information on getting your vaccine in for signing up for notifications go to uh the website indicated there second um we're uh in the mid-year of our boarding commission appointments we make our board and commissioner appointments in march and then right around this time of year we take a step back and look at vacancies we have some vacancies in the beverage licensing authority on two boulder junction access district boards one for parking commission one for the uh travel uh demand management commission uh one for the downtown management commission and one for the older excuse me the housing advisory board so if you'd like to apply to any of those boards and you're over 18 and resident of boulder please go to the city's website at awards and commissions and then finally tonight we're going to be reviewing uh draft versions of two master plans but there's a yet another master plan that's actually in the works and that's the police

[1:02] master plan uh judy and i are serving on the process committee on that and and that is referred to as reimagining policing and uh we're going through the first window of our community engagement for that that runs until july 31 so if you would like to be heard uh on the first the first go around on the police master hand plan go to be heard builder and sign up either for a survey or to be uh to be interviewed by a staff member and with that i think we're beyond the announcements and we will go on to the study session itself we have three items for tonight's study session we'll spend about 90 minutes uh checking in with the parks and rec uh department on their master plan which is nearing completion um we'll then check in with the planning and transportation groups uh on their east boulder sub community plan which is about 60 of the way down and they will have a few questions for us and then that'll take about 90 minutes as well and then at about 9 o'clock we'll spend

[2:00] a few minutes at the end of our meeting uh with a report from rachel and jen sprinkle on our city attorney recruitment process so with that we'll start with the parks and rec master plan check-in i just want to give a quick preview before turning over to nuria to introduce her team the presentations are relatively short for parks uh they will have sprinkled throughout their presentation about six questions um so please give them a few minutes for intro and then the first two questions will be in the slides seven and eight uh another question will come in around slide 11 and then their final three questions will come in around slides 13 through 16 and then they'll bring us home so with that mary i'll turn it over to you to introduce the parks and rec staff sir i'm excited to um uh for everybody to see this presentation and to um hear your comments as we move forward i will ask ali rhodes our director of parks and rec um to get us started and to introduce everyone that she's got with her

[3:01] thank you nuria it's going to be a waterfall of introduction here so i'm ali rhodes i'm the director of parks and recreation uh the 2014 master plan has led us to great success and city council accepted it and in the past year and a half it's provided critical guidances we've made very hard choices amidst the pandemic we're really looking forward to hear from you tonight and from the community what is most important next for boulder parks and recreation i'm honored to lead a team of incredibly talented professionals and so from here we'll hand it off to my colleague our planning and ecological services manager jeff haley all right thanks sally and yes let me just echo uh council it's great to be back with you as we talk about our needs assessment specifically this evening as ali mentioned our master plan is critical um it guides our day-to-day operations as well as our long-term policies and investments you know it's very actionable we use it all the time our existing plan in fact

[4:00] there's many current initiatives happening now that city council is engaged in where it's a direct representation of the the outcomes and success of our plan such as the capital infrastructure tax some of those investments we're considering our ongoing budget discussions and how we do our day-to-day operations and and the various work you see across the community so again we're excited to be here this evening you'll hear in just a moment where we are exactly in the process and then where we're headed next but again this evening is really focused on that needs assessment phase during this phase we we've spent a lot of time as a staff team and our consultant team diving into a wealth of data and research about what our community has in terms of our parks and recreation services programs and facilities and we've been looking at also how we compare to other peer communities both within the state as well as nationally and certainly taking taking somewhat of

[5:01] a deep dive into our finances into our budget because those resources are really what drive most of all the the programs and services we deliver and so tonight we'll be sharing a pretty high level overview of some of those topic areas just as bob mentioned um and we will be pausing um as we go for questions um but tonight uh is certainly your chance to to give us your thoughts we're anxious to hear from you um and to have you weigh in on some of these areas that we've we've brought forward but this isn't the last touch by any means and council will certainly be engaged as we move forward later this year and into next year so there's plenty more opportunities for your involvement on the horizon let me just give a special thanks right off to our parks and rec advisory board as well they've worked very hard with with us and our team over the past several months to help support and inform this plan

[6:00] and we want to just mention them and i'd like to just highlight our our project team that's with us this evening um so regina elsner is our project manager one of our planners uh in bpr and morgan gardner is also one of our planners that's supporting this process and then we also have our design con design workshop consultant team here with us and that includes sarah horn and eric krongold who will be supporting the presentation this evening so i did want to mention also we have a variety of information you'll see at any time though as we're in the dialogue and discussion portions feel free to ask us uh questions if some of the information if you'd like more in-depth information or clarity this is about sharing information and hearing from you so please let us know how we can best support that and so at this point i'll turn it over to regina to share where we're at in the

[7:00] process thank you jeff i appreciate that so we were last with council in december and since our last discussion with you the project team has completed our research and trends phase of the project which culminated in a system overview snapshot you were a link to that document was included in your packet that document is really a high level capture of the current status of boulder parks and recreation using national and state level trends to identify the path forward for this master plan update the research and trends phase also included our first window of community engagement where we were able to confirm the key themes that were identified within our 2014 master plan are still relevant and important for this master plan update this engagement window also confirmed for us that both equity and resilience are important issues that our master plan update should include but it clarified also that those should both be issues that are woven throughout

[8:01] all of the work of the department and are not stand-alone issues as jeff mentioned we are currently wrapping up our needs assessment phase that included a significant amount of data gathering and analysis which we'll be diving into a little bit more tonight following the needs assessment phase we'll be moving into our implementation plan in the coming weeks and months during that phase we will be identifying and prioritizing the strategies and initiatives for the department to focus on for the next five to seven years there will be as jeff mentioned at least two more touch points with council after tonight one later this year during implementation plan and then again sometime in the first half of 22 for a final plan acceptance this master plan update process relies on the same three-pronged approach to planning that the department's previous master plan relied upon this approach includes input from research policy in the community

[9:01] to form the basis of the recommendations contained within the master plan this input does include coordination with other city departments to ensure that our work supports those other cities initiatives as well as larger city-wide initiatives the master plan recommendations are considered through both the lenses of equity and resilience to ensure that they are meeting the city's goals related to both of those issues during this needs assessment phase we had a significant window of community engagement this included a statistically valid community survey some quick polls on be heard boulder to complement that larger survey as well as a public open house the first hosted by the city since the start of the pandemic the project team has also been doing some targeted outreach with youth through both growing up boulder and the youth opportunities advisory board with our latino communities as well as with people experiencing

[10:00] homelessness all of this input has influenced the findings and discussions that we'll be talking about this evening at this point in time i'm going to go ahead and hand the presentation over to sarah horne with design workshop she's going to start our conversation with one of our key themes community health and wellness thanks rodina hi everybody i'm sarah it's very nice to meet all of you even though it's virtually and i want to thank you for taking the time to discuss this update with us i'm going to briefly highlight as regina mentioned a few of the key community health and wellness findings i'm specifically related to parkland and park amenities then i'll ask you a couple of questions to help us move forward and after that eric will discuss the next key theme findings and so this slide as you know bpr manages a lot of park land and other recreation facilities all in it includes more than 1800 acres of urban park land and 138 000 square

[11:00] feet of facility space and we've been finding these spaces are very well used in fact talking to bpr staff we found that they've seen high levels of increased use of outdoor facilities during the covet 19 pandemic along with an increased use of these spaces by members of surrounding communities who don't have as many resources available and this trend is being seen throughout the country so this increase in use along with boulder's popularity as an outdoor mecca for tourists from around the world adds an additional layer of complexity to how bpr operates and manages its facilities and while high use in many ways is a good problem to have it does strain o m resources and capacity and this in turn impacts staff's ability to continue to provide high quality core facilities and services at the same time we're hearing from community feedback that more facilities and facility types are desired

[12:01] if this holds true the need for access to a wide variety of facilities and programs will likely increase and with boulder again being one of the premier places in the country to play outside this trend will only be amplified with limited ability to add park land the city has to decide how to continue to best serve current and future community members as well as visitors so to do this we think reassessing how level of service is measured and looking at alternative ways to better serve the community with available park land are worth exploring so regina if you could go to the next slide sorry hold on okay yeah so this chart illustrates the relationship between population and parkland acres over the next 20 years and the red line is population and that's steadily increasing the blue line represents total park land h acres which remains flat and the green line represents developed park land

[13:01] acres which are expected to be fully built out by 2040. so it's basically showing that acreage isn't keeping up with growth so if that does prove to be the case it will result in a continuing continually dropping level of service for parkland as currently measured based strictly on acres per capita and even with full build out an additional 226 acres would be required to maintain today's level of service the good news is that bpr park land acres per capita currently exceeds the trust for public lands median level of service for urban park lands and even with an increasing population in the year 2040 that will still be true will still be higher than the median average or the median level of service and boulder also has 43 000 acres of osmp space just outside the city that offers community members additional places to get outdoors so that's the good news in terms of

[14:01] parkland in terms of proximity to neighborhood parks and playgrounds which is a second metric that bpr uses the department's meeting the standards of the boulder valley comp plan that being said when considering equity and resilience as regina mentioned as lenses to view services exploring the use of additional metrics based on community values to supplement existing measures could we think could be very useful and many cities across the country are exploring this looking at new and tailored ways to measure a level of service because every community is different and two examples of metrics that we think could be used to provide a more comprehensive picture of level of service include accessibility and quality of facilities for example you might be near a park but is it easy to get to do you have to cross a highway in really dense areas of the city just being close to a park might not be enough a neighborhood park could be close but can you walk there in 15 minutes or so

[15:01] or ride your bike or take transit is it accessible to people with ability or mobility issues is park signage in more than one language those are just a few questions we could ask under accessibility and in terms of quality do facilities offer the things surrounding community members need are they well designed and maintained so we think looking at selecting a combination of metrics to measure future level of service can help establish a more complete and comprehensive understanding of level of service based on community values address current and future gaps more meaningfully and help the city better serve diverse and changing needs and then regina you could go to the next side please so with those thoughts in mind and looking to you for policy direction we have a couple of questions so the first question is a lower number of acres of parkland per capita metric acceptable and following that should bpr focus on metrics related to equity of access considerations

[16:02] so we'd love to hear what you all think so please let us know okay this is the time for folks to raise their hand and weigh in uh maybe i'll kick us off sarah with a question back for you you mentioned that there's a um that there's a nationwide standard out there that measures um acres per capita um both of developed land and undeveloped land can you um shoot those numbers out to us you have those off the top of your head um i don't have them right off the top of my head but i can find them um and come back to that okay that's that's fine while you're doing that we've got a couple of hands up um aaron you want to weigh in on this one sure um i'll say that i think the the primary thing that we need to focus on is access to quality uh parks and recreation facilities rather than acres per capita because i think you're going the right direction here

[17:01] in my experience over the course of my lifetime i i don't know if it's ever happened that i've gone to a park and it's been too crowded for me to enjoy uh work so but but having a park not be nearby definitely means that you hire someone else might not go use it so within limits i think um it's it's trying to focus on the uh access uh rather than the per capita number and i also really like where you're going with the equity of access not just as the crow flies but you know is there a you know if if the park is right across foothills parkway you know you can't just walk to it right so and also uh looking at um access for our some of our underserved and lower income populations would be important as well so i like where you're going thanks aaron we've got uh mark then married and sam mark yeah um by the way if my notes are correct i think our numbers are at about 18.59 per thousand

[18:00] um that that may or may not be correct i'm not a great note taker mark you i'll chime in and just add you you nailed it our current acres per capita is 18. the tpl median the trust for public land median is 13 13. for our benchmarks it's 17. so we're above both the tpl median and the benchmarks my question is when you develop these these metrics um do you take into account in in any way the fact that we have the 43 000 acres of open space um and westminster has um westminster's ratio was 26.52 per thousand okay but i would be hard-pressed to say that they are better off than we are um because we have open space and i know it's separate facilities separate uses um and there's not you know a perfect overlap

[19:00] but shouldn't that factor in in some way in how we view um our resources i'll i'll chime in this is jeff uh mark that's a great point and i would say that that does factor in um you know what what we try to do is look at i'll just use the metaphor apples to apples and oranges to oranges so when we measure park land we're really looking at those amenities and kind of the intended use and purpose of those parks do they have play areas do they have multi-use fields so they have those types of facilities that support the community through all the benefits that that parks provide our community and so when we look at the the metrics and the the data we're trying to stick with those kind of similar properties and and areas with within parks um but you're correct that's why sarah mentioned that

[20:00] you know at the end of the day we do have a much larger amount of open space which is a whole different type of use more natural passive type of recreation but we're trying to achieve at least those median numbers similar to other communities where we do provide our residents those specific park amenities and i'll let the other team chime in as well that covers it for me thank you yep great thanks tomorrow thanks jeff we have mary and then sam thanks bob um yeah i would agree with what aaron stated and to that i would just add and i think i've brought this up last time that we touched on this topic um you're talking about accessibility or access in term in its five dimensions um which is the you know accessibility

[21:01] certainly is one of the dimensions but you're also talking um about the availability which is the metric that you've been using um the accommodations such as signage in in spanish and acceptability how welcoming is it and affordability which you know these parks are generally um don't have fees associated with them so um just to make sure that we cover those five dimensions as we're looking um going forward thanks very much sam you're up turn to do that mute thing um so it looks to me like we're pretty good out through 2040 um from the metric of acres per thousand residents so i think it's probably appropriate to be looking at other things it doesn't look like that's the main driver for us

[22:00] in addition to all the equity considerations mary just put out there all of which i think are well worth tracking closely and kind of a better way of looking at things i think one of the points that um we hear about is what amenities are around light ball fields and so another thing to think about might be you know something like number of ball fields per thousand resonance or you know you can list whatever the amenities are that people like soccer fields softball fields and so on and track that as well and see how we're doing relative to the median so rather than it just be you know kind of a gross acres per thousand residents are the amenities what people are asking for and how are we doing with those relative to the median so i think you know parks are very different than open space and so for density relief i think all those acres of open space are very helpful but as far as the amenities available that's a different question

[23:00] and i think that's another area to be looking at in addition to the equity concern but generally to me it looks like for the scope of this master plan acres per res acres per thousand residents is not you know a big flag at the moment that's it bob thanks thanks sam and i'll i'll jump in here then i hope we have adam i think um i i was on the parks board about 10 years ago when we last did a master plan and i do remember uh as sam indicates um there were a lot of metrics it wasn't just acres for a hundred thousand people it was number of dog parks for a hundred thousand people it was number of ball fields and i suspect that in this master plan that you all are putting together will have a lot of those metrics and uh but the one that stuck out for me a decade ago was uh was uh dog parts per hundred thousand i think the uh the national trust uh number was the average was one per hundred thousand and at that point we had three so we were we were killing in in that area and i suspected sam observes or kill it in some other areas as well so um

[24:00] i'm with with the prior speakers i don't think we need to focus exclusively on um number of acres we should also focus on some of the other amenities we provide and if somehow we can annotate at least near near in open space maybe that's just a footnote in your master plan open space that's readily accessible to people um in walking distance or short bike ride that would be nice to note as well we've got adam and then and then rachel thanks bob uh i'm going to travel down the path sam started and that is about particular amenities we don't have very many of um particularly in the lens of equity so you know we only have one major reservoir we only have one golf course but those are also pretty high fee areas and that's a little bit concerning going forward because there aren't other opportunities or options within the city to partake in those activities especially for people with lower incomes so we have to make sure we balance

[25:01] access in those very unique resources with what people are capable of paying thanks adam uh rachel yeah just following up on some previous points around open space and i'm sorry if this was tucked into the presentation and they just missed it um but when we are looking at equitable access do we look at like if you've and i guess flowing from like i think aaron's example we've got across foothills highway to get to a park if you've got open space at your back door say versus you live somewhere where there's no open space no park nearby and you have to cross the highway is that all sort of factored in and looked at because it sounds like we sort of have a discrete box that we're looking at with parks and rec and then separately open space so just wondering if those two come together as you're looking at the equitable access question

[26:03] maybe that's to ally i don't know who to direct it to yeah no i can take that here's the the simple answer is yes historically proximity just looked at a radius from a location and was their access the more nuanced nuanced and better work is to say is it truly accessible to your point is there a highway in the way or if an area so when when sarah mentioned earlier that we meet proximity standards that's when we include hoas and schoolyards right so we really are thinking about we don't care who's providing the playground do kids have free and easy access to a playground um we haven't taken that nuanced look for parkland but i do think that would be the next work if this is the approach we're going to take where we look at quality of amenities rather than acres per capita i mean you say parkland do you mean open space land both i would be public lands right and then to the other nuanced point there is a conversation around amenities right playgrounds is one we've already discussed but when you look across the different in in

[27:00] the needs assessment is the chart bob is remembering about our wreck facilities and where we stand up when it comes to dog parks and diamond ball fields and other things um that's on page 26 of the of the needs assessment you'll see that we're all over the place when it comes to those amenities so but the short answer to your question is rachel is yes we would want people to have access to some type of land we would want to consider what amenities you know this is where 15 minute neighborhoods and that more nuanced evaluation of what is available is important and that's part of the next work okay all right thanks um i i'll just add to that too in terms of like gis and mapping like we can overlay a lot of those different metrics and then see where there are gaps um and you know we worked on a plan oh recently in vancouver where they did that you know they were interested in certain things so we could turn on layers and um and like ali said a more nuanced and just kind of more comprehensive look at exactly what

[28:02] kind of park land and what do they have and are are the things in that park meeting the needs of the surrounding community not just you know based on benchmark communities and just number so yeah okay cool thanks great i don't see any other hands up so let's move on to the next question sorry you're on mute i had a dollar so the second question relates to amenities um and then just before i dive into the question i want to mention we did talk to prabh and we've prioritized the options that i'll read off based on an understanding of ease of implementation capacity of bpr community desire and meeting the goal of providing adequate amenities to everyone in the community and so i'll read the question and just a

[29:00] reminder that they're in rank order based on what we know and we want to hear what you think so the question is which of the following options before providing new park amenities are the most impactful or the most beneficial to the community and are there any that should not be prioritized or raise any flags with you so a ensure existing facilities are more resilient and built to support higher use b partner with other public entities such as school districts or municipalities to develop joint use facilities c plan and potentially construct future phases of existing parks d repurpose existing park sites to include more or different types of amenities to fill current gaps and future gaps e partner with private organizations to develop facilities and programs or allow boulder residents to use those facilities f purchase additional land for parks to be built on so we want to know what you think of

[30:01] these options so and sarah those were prioritized by staff and crab is that right from a through f yeah and based on community feedback staff and then you know allie and jeff and regina and morgan you know their thoughts based on working every day with staff okay and so you're looking for for council to weigh in on on whether there are some things there that are missing from this or whether the rank ordering should be different or even even if there's something should be eliminated entirely is that right yes all of the above great uh i see sam with his hand up see turned up my mutant button before starting speaking it's a new thing um so i have a question really i believe that we have a large amount of land available in the planning reserve that is technically owned by parks and what i'm curious about

[31:00] for your question 2f is are we land limited i mean that land is all in the planning reserve so it's not really accessible in the short term but in the medium to long term it is so i guess my real question is is there a need for additional land um writ large like can you speak about that because um it seems like that is a kind of entry-level question because land involves very expensive and so if we could take f mostly off the list or keep it down at this low priority it seems like there's more resources than for the other things so i guess could you just riff a little bit on our need for land and how we plan to use the planning reserve to meet some of that i can touch on that um that's actually a really good question and we've heard that similar um consideration from our parks and rec advisory board and others um and the and the quick answer is that we are limited in land and that's where

[32:01] you know it's kind of a similar question to the first one where if we look strictly at park acreage and how many acres of parkland do we have you know you that's where sarah showed the chart that we are going to see a decline in how many acres we can provide our residents as the population might increase um and so we do have limited abilities you're correct as we all know land in boulder is at a premium and so that's why this list was somewhat generated and populated to look at alternative ways to provide those new park amenities or new parks and so yeah the the area 3 planning reserve you all might remember most recently during some of the cu south discussions i believe a couple years ago we we started engaging city council and kind of looking at that area in particular it is a large amount of land um in area three that that is set aside for for future park

[33:00] use and i and i will say that that amount of property was taken into consideration with that amount of available parkland acres so sam just you know to your point that that number that we mentioned earlier does um assume that that parkland would be developed at some point um but in the meantime it it really comes down to just as everyone was mentioning what are the amenities that are provided what is the proximity that people have to parks so there's kind of different metrics um instead of just simply additional acreage or additional land if that starts to support the or answer the question yeah it begins to answer the question i mean i guess to me it seems like since there is i believe almost a couple hundred acres available i don't know what park's portion of that is but it's a large portion of that it seems like there's plenty there for one big regional park and maybe some neighborhood serving types of parks there

[34:01] so i guess i'll just answer this this question it seems to me like the two most important for me are a and c like resilient existing facilities just take care of what you you already own and make it you know substantially uh robust going forward for both you know climate impacts but also use impacts as our population goes up and then planning and constructing future phases i think most of what i hear from council for folks not finding enough um of what they're looking for at parks has a lot to do with types of things that are not offered or not offered close to them so things like soccer fields and ball fields pickleball you know things of that nature so it seems to me that of these the preserve and make more resilient existing facilities and go forward with future phases that we already have planned that people have expectations built around

[35:00] then i guess i would de-prioritize additional land um given that i think we have quite a bit and we're well above the mark you know for the kind of raw uh land per thousand people and then partnering with other public entities i mean i think that's important in coordinating with open space probably first and foremost and you've heard that and you you understand that and we obviously don't build improvements on open space but to the extent that some of the desired amenities are available on open space whatever they may be we certainly don't need to repeat those and we can lean on open space to emphasize those but i find a and c in this list of six to be the most important thanks sam mary thank you bob um i'll start with a question about um the about e partnering with private organizations

[36:01] and in the typical i guess what what is envisioned in terms of partnering with private organizations um by way of examples ali do you want to touch on that sure uh there's lots of ways that parks across the united states are using public private partnerships to not only develop facilities but to operate them examples are things as simple as the central park conservancy right that's a new york city park one of our nation's most well-known parks but it's operated by the central park conservancy and so there are um many models like that across the country where there is some type of uh you know private doesn't necessarily mean that it's not a not-for-profit but they're operated by some kind of a partner um and so public entities you nailed it you talk about osmp bvsd is a really important one for us as well and we're updating our joint use agreement but for

[37:01] private organizations it could be private or not for profit when you look at partnering for either development or operations did that help mary yeah it does um so i guess i'm wondering if if there's a possibility that we could kind of expand how we think about private organizations in terms of say for example um i know that there are um folks out there that don't feel welcome in the rec center say for example and so they go and they start their own um little business um and the particular one i'm thinking about is um zumba and you're familiar with this one ally um and and then do it find a place where they can have really cheap rent and then just conduct these classes so in terms of thinking differently about that is thinking about entrepreneurs such as

[38:01] in this particular case who you know see a need out there and then fulfill it and how can their entrepreneurship that touches on a community that's underserved be leveraged to provide um [Music] that that amenity by way of classes or whatever um to folks that for whatever reason you know don't feel so welcome in in our rec centers and so would it be um and then so it could be such that they go out to different sites um i'm thinking about like boulder housing partner sites um a lot of the the bhp sites have really nice community centers and so to to provide classes in those spaces but to think a little bit differently about who these private organizations are um not just like the ones that you

[39:00] mentioned but you know small small small um little businesses that are just there to meet an identified need so so that's that's one thought um i'll agree with sam about the priorities um but i also think that partnering with public entities and specifically like other municipalities um and this kind of touches on what we'll probably be talking about in a little while um the the financial piece of it where um or or whether or not people who don't live in boulder should pay a higher rent or a higher fees to end to use the amenities um maybe there's some partnership with um other municipalities that that we can play off of in order to make that work in a better way such that we're not charging people higher fees

[40:01] that work here or you know that want to use the facilities i know that a lot of people do drive in to boulder like for example from lions to use our pools because there's nothing there um so just to i think that one is an important one for me to to look at the partnerships with other public entities and then to think differently about um how what private organization means but other than that i i guess i would put purchase additional land for parks last um in this stack just as you have it so that's all i have thank you great i don't see any other hands i'm going to agree with mary's last statement i say purchase additional land for parks is probably my lowest priority as well all the other things above as sam and mary have already said are high priorities and we can argue over what's first second or third

[41:00] but i think these are things that we should all be doing in parallel uh anyone else on this question otherwise we'll move on okay folks take it away regina could you switch the next slide please great good evening good evening everybody my name is eric rongold and uh with design workshop so for the next theme taking care of what we have um this theme remains a very important value uh to the boulder community as part of the master plan update process the community was surveyed on how they would choose to allocate 100 for competing parks related priorities the community chose to allocate 48 of the 100 to maintaining and renovating existing facilities versus only 27 to acquire parkland and construct new facilities this indicates a strong desire that bpr's focus should remain on maintaining existing facilities as well as renovating and enhancing existing facilities the importance of

[42:01] maintaining existing assets becomes increasingly critical given the fact that parks and recreation facilities are having to work harder to accommodate the city's growing population and outside visitors next slide please well bpr has done a great job at prioritizing funding for capital maintenance and improvement uh additional funds are required in order to meet industry best practices for capital expenditures as part of the 2016 strategic capital plan bpr established the current replacement value of this asset portfolio since 2016 the current replacement value of bpr's assets have increased due to the construction of new facilities cost inflation within the construction industry material cost increases and an overall better understanding of assets since the 2016 plan using the using bpr's updated 2021

[43:00] crv its current maintenance backlog of occur of approximately 20.5 million dollars uh we can calculate an updated fci or facility condition index of 0.068 this score places bpr in the good to excellent range of the fci scoring criteria bpr's updated 2021 crb numbers also enabled the department to set new goals around annual capital maintenance and improvement spend using the industry benchmark of two to three percent of current asset values and this benchmark is something that's seen across a variety of different industries it was set uh in the late 90s by the academy of engineering science and medicine using this benchmark bpr will need to spend approximately six to nine million dollars on capital each year significantly higher than the department's current expenditures of four to six million dollars per year if the department is to maintain the current condition of assets the table shown on this slide illustrates bpr's capital shortfall each

[44:01] year when adjusted for updated 2021 capital expenditure goals based on updated cip information through 2027 in almost every year bpr will fall short of its minimum capital expenditure goal next slide please so with this in mind our question for you all is should bpr continue prioritizing and maintaining and enhancing existing assets first while providing new amenities as funding opportunities become available okay folks this is our third of six questions i see mark's hand up first just a quick question can you go back to the previous slide what accounts for the uh sharp drop-off in projected expense expenditures in 2025 jumps back up again in 2026 it just sort of sticks out there that what is going on in 2025 that

[45:02] causes our expenditures to drop precipitously so the fluctuation that you see is a direct response to how much bpr has budgeted for capital expenditure in that year so because capital expenditures vary on a yearly basis the extent to which the shortfall or the size of the shortfall is relative to that year's capital expenditure 2025 in particular has a lower budgeted capital expenditure than prior years which is why you see that jump but is there something that causes that i mean there ought to be something to which that drop is attributable can you tell me what that might be i'll i'll chime in to clarify markets just based on the project spent in any given year so the funding parks and rec often will stockpile capital to fund the larger more expensive projects an example is the flatirons golf course right so in the years preceding it we spent less and that money stayed in fund balance and the permanent parks and recreation in 0.25 funds so that we could spend it when it was time to do the project

[46:00] and so it's not a reflection of funding the funding is consistent it's you know based on it's the spending that fluctuates based on the projects that we can handle in any given year thank you that's a good answer can we go to the next slide then back to the question um since i've got the floor for a moment um my answer to that would be uh yes that one seems rather simple to me the funding is available you know by all means you know expand opportunities and expand facilities but until that occurs i i think the priority has to be maintaining and enhancing existing assets that would be how i do it thank you thanks mark we have adam mirabai and then rachel adam thanks bob i agree with mark's take but i have a question in return i realize that our expenditures just to

[47:00] maintain what we have are going to continually go up what are the anticipated funding mechanisms to meet those needs adam are you asking how we plan to address increased o m costs yes and in the face of capital that's one of the strategies we're going to have to develop if you think of our key themes financial sustainability is the next one that we're talking about and we do have a lot of hard conversations because as you note o m costs are rising for both park land and recreation services um and and we do need to develop a new financial strategy we don't have the answers right now we have a lot of questions a few tonight and even more as we go into the next phase of the master plan and are we going to talk about that in the next question i or otherwise i'll say a piece right now financial sustainability is the next theme and we do have questions about how to allocate funding and spending as we look to the future awesome i will hold off until then thank you ellie great we have uh thanks adam we have

[48:00] mirabai and rachel so yes to this question i think that the biggest cost to me is is building and working on a facility in the first place so if we already have those um i think maintaining it is going to be the next important thing because if we don't then you have to start over from scratch and that's a huge outlay so i think as the funds are available that's going to be the most important thing is taking care of what we currently have and i think that's one thing in this world that a lot of people don't do and that's why we have so much waste so i i strongly support number three thanks nearby uh rachel you're the last hand up yep just a quick yes as well on this that's all great anybody else that was an easy one back to you guys thank you so this chart illustrates bpr's total revenues and expenditures by years since 2016. just as a note this chart does not

[49:01] include capital expenditures due to their year by year variability bpr's fund revenues have remained almost entirely flat since 2016 with a total average annual growth rate of negative 0.4 percent meanwhile bpr's expenditures continue to rise with a total average increase of 0.35 since 2016. these increases in expenditures are due to rapidly rising personnel maintenance energy materials and operations costs as well as aging infrastructure and facilities and an overall growing demand for partisan recreation amenities while bpr has increased cost recovery targets and fees methodically the existing imbalance of fund revenues versus expenditures pose a risk to the future financial sustainability of the department next slide please the trend rising departmental expenditures versus flat fund revenues is projected to increase through 2026.

[50:02] through 2026 bpr's expenditures are projected to increase on average 5.8 percent or projected funding is only expected to increase on average 2.8 percent the imbalance added to the funds required to meet the 2021 crv repair and replacement goals and annual operations and maintenance spend goals 20.5 million dollars in backlog maintenance and 177.9 million dollars in unfunded capital projects creates a future situation in which bpr will be increasingly challenged to continue to serve the community and operate its facilities in a financially sustainable way to mitigate flat revenues and rising expenditures bpr must be prepared to identify and implement other revenue generating activities strategies and possible partnerships in the coming years to both supplement its current funding sources and enable the department to continue to offer high quality facilities and programming to the community next slide please so with that to

[51:02] maintain financial sustainability are there any options listed below that should not be prioritized and of the options listed below which should be explored further re-evaluate subsidy provision and allocation determination reduce services increase fees for select programs or demographics seek a combination of new funding and fee adjustments implement high fee programs or facilities increase fees for all or other alternatives not yet considered so these questions just get tougher and tougher don't they um uh i don't see any hands up so i'll just kind of jump in here uh one thing i remember back when i was in the parks board uh jane brodigan was was um ruthless about programs paying for themselves and and our our least um profitable program was the pottery lab at the time it was beloved but the pottery lab was

[52:00] one that we lost we lost plenty every time somebody walked in the door and so um rather than shut down the program which was not particularly popular with the community it was actually outsourced there was a non-profit that agreed to pick it up and uh con continues to run it to this day studio arts they do fundraising because they're a non-profit they can go out and ask for money where the city generally can't they still charge for their their classes but it seems to be a success story and i guess the question for for the parks department is are there are there other programs out there that um are um not quite um paying for themselves that you all are thinking about either either shutting down or or um like the pottery lab outsources to a non-profit that might be able to do a better job at it i'll take that one bob so since 2014 we have spun off many programs to to community partners that either specialize or have more capacity there are many examples boat rentals at the

[53:00] boulder reservoir are offered in partnership with rocky mountain paddle you mentioned studio arts boulder we have a booster club that runs the competitive elements of our gymnastics program we have spun off dance so that a community partner is providing the recreational level dance in partnership with us while doing more competitive aspects on their own there is no more ling low hanging fruit not even low hanging fruit it took a lot of work to get there we don't have a stockpile of programs that we think we should be spinning off and actually as we review the needs assessment i actually think there are gaps in the community that we should be filling and so in my opinion when it comes to service delivery where we really need to be looking is where you started is are our programs paying for themselves are the ones that are providing community benefit getting the right amount of subsidy and and that's what's most important next and i do think at this point we have spun off the programs that we have or discontinued programs that we should where there's either so much redundancy in the community or

[54:00] it's just not something we were doing well and it wasn't worth it thanks kelly if amir by then i'm adam i think bub um ali can you explain to me i'm under d it says oh no i'm sorry uh under c increase fees for select programs or demographics what do you mean by demographics does it mean um right there right off the top of my head i would think of age based so right now we have age based discounts for youth and seniors adults pay full cost recovery we could pursue a policy direction if that was of interest to folks where adults are paying cost recovery plus in order to generate more subsidy in our last planning process uh the community told us that they did not think that fee should be providing subsidy however i think that's an important conversation to be having now amidst our that last graph you saw where the growth in expenses is outpacing the growth in revenues even when we have tried to methodically and carefully increase fees so okay um

[55:01] so i get now that i understand that i mean i guess the only thing i would yes i'm fine if you guys look into that and most of this i'm fine if you look into i guess the biggest thing i'd be interested in looking into as well and i don't know again the percentage and i'm sorry maybe i missed miss seeing that on a graph um but the the cost to people who are outside of the city because again a lot of our residents are paying taxes and and whatnot and i know that a lot of times um residents who are in the county have to pay a higher rate to use the wreck facilities and whatnot but you know again even people who are coming from areas that are outside of even boulder county because because maybe their area is not providing the resources so i mean that's one thing i don't know if you guys are looking at but if we could open it up to even and you know looking at it that way because that's one thing like with open space i've always wanted to tax people who are not city um residents on on that because it's putting a strain on the system so that'd be interested in

[56:00] and then um you said implement high few uh fee programs or facilities can you explain that a little bit more sure that would be building on the other model that where we talked about where you could have specific demographics that are playing cost recovery plus you could implement programs i'll give a really easy example is um more and more golf facilities are adding simulators a size down approach of the whole topgolf thing and those would be revenue generating is that a business that we should not specifically that but that's an example of things um organizations do to generate revenue okay perfect that that clears it up then then yeah then i i would say i'd be open at least to researching a through g on on my part so thanks miraby we have adam sam rachel and aaron adam thank you bob um well i don't want to count anything out i am worried about the idea of our parks and rec services um being run like a business to some

[57:00] degree where we end up having these tiers where access is dictated based on how much you pay and that just doesn't feel super good to me you know i i want to keep as wide and diverse a set of uh programs and different uses as possible and i understand that they that's going to require fee increases but i think those fee increases we should just be as upfront as possible about when they're coming and time them so that they're small increases every year rather than big increases every five or something to the point where a program is going to get totally just axed because you know they had five good years and now the prices are unsustainable for them so um i just really want any fee increases to try to be as transparent as possible as planned for as possible and uh in as small increments as possible

[58:01] thanks adam you have sam rachel aaron and mary thanks bob um i think it's interesting to go back to the how would people spend a hundred dollars question because i think there's some clues in there and you know a quarter of it was to remove financial barriers for underrepresented communities and then another quarter of it was maintain what we have and so i think those are two really important pointers for this question so how so um i think you know i don't know how we do means testing and financial assistance but i think writ large if we do a good job of supporting folks who have limited means or more limited means then i think increasing fees kind of across the board make sense so assuming that we've gotten rid of most of the big money losing programs so that we have fees

[59:01] relatively balanced with costs i don't see a real problem increasing fees if you do it the way adam suggested as long as what we're doing is being careful that we're not pricing people out of our services so i think you know first and foremost that needs to be kept in mind and it's clear from the how to spend a hundred dollars that people are willing to pay more you know to be able to make sure that everyone has access so i guess i i'm not personally i don't think it's clear that we shouldn't increase fees as costs go up we should but we should do so in a way that we support the folks who don't have the money to manage the fee increases as well so i don't know what that looks like um this isn't really an area that i've got a lot of competence in but if you can do that i think you should avoid reducing services you know from from the standpoint that per bob's question we've gotten rid of most stuff that you

[60:00] either don't do well or or is losing money and so i would in be inclined not to reduce things unless we really are having to put something on the chopping block to make ends meet so i guess raising fees to me seems like the obvious thing to do um and you know for demographics i think it's who can pay best and so i think you know generally it's hard to to sort so your adult sorting makes sense right but i think we have to couple that with good support for people of limited means i'm also kind of interested in the way mary teed up the charging people from other communities i think we really should be charging people who aren't paying taxes here more than people who are paying taxes here with the caveat that if we can come up with exchange programs where another community like westminster has more of x you know service and amenity than we do

[61:01] we have more of why than they do is there a way that we can have their users use those services and our users use the services that they have so generally okay with increasing fees as long as we're watching out for people who have less means generally okay with charging folks from out of the city more money but also very interested in exploring kind of exchange or not duplicating services that others have nearby that's all thank you very much thanks sam we have rachel aaron and mary yes bob i think i'm pretty aligned with sam on this um i would prefer not to reduce services b if possible um i think one of the things that's great about the rec centers is it is one stop shopping you know you get your your annual pass and you can um you know do from yoga to pick up all the swimming to gymnastics so it is i think great if we can keep a robust

[62:01] um slate of services um i am very worried about the uh i'm sure it's on the graph that you just showed but the the wages for staff they're being too low as is right now in the city and that resulting in us not being able to um open some pools we couldn't hire lifeguards and and staff right so i think that's part of the financial sustainability piece um and and i think we need to be able to pay staff a livable and competitive wage so for that reason i think it does make sense to look at some high fee programs and facilities that might keep us competitive so i appreciate adam adams point that we don't want to turn into a for-profit model but it seems like we have to um have some way to pay for this to be sustainable and to be able to to hire um staff and pay them what they're worth um let's see and then in terms of i think maybe a and c the subsidies

[63:02] and the fee increases you know when when we look at the the blanket kids and older adults having um discounts i think i appreciate the the um the rationale for that but if if somebody is wealthy i'm not sure why they would get 25 off you know when when somebody else can't afford to you know who may be a little bit um not able to scrape that money together then they can't come in so i i would suggest that we have it more um means tested than just across the board if you are a um a family that can afford it and you know just happen to be under 18 or over 65 or whatever the numbers are i'm not sure that makes a lot of sense to me so that's all my feedback thanks thanks rachel we have aaron mary and then i'll go thanks um yeah i thought uh sam's comments were right on targets i pretty much agreed uh with all of those uh thanks for that sam

[64:00] and um and also the mirror vice point about that out of city residents was was a good one seems like a reasonable place to potentially um increase some fees um subject to sam's caveat about possible exchanges um i think and as well as rachel's bit about the higher income folks that we don't maybe we means test some of those discounts uh and of course it's really important that we we continue to offer some discounted passes for folks with lower incomes but one other thing i'll additional come out just add is when looking at the high fee program or facility just to make sure that there's not like a segregation of you know users of our facilities based on income like just like imagine opening a super cool new splash park in a rec center that costs like 50 bucks a day and like all the little kids are like oh i want to go do that thing my parents are like yeah we can't afford that one like you know so uh i think we want to be careful to the extent that we add

[65:01] those that they're that they're ones that are you know not creating real disparities in terms of access and from um things that would be kind of universally interesting to everybody i'm not expressing that perfectly but just the sense of maybe it's off to one side or you go there separately or i'm not sure exactly what but we i just think we need to be careful about how we might approach that that's all thanks thanks aaron mary mark and bob thank you bob um so i'm going to start with a public service comment about how the picture that was just painted here with respect to um the financial sustainability in particular um capital maintenance costs repeats itself over and over across most all departments within the city and i cannot stress that enough and i cannot stress enough the dire need

[66:02] that is within all the departments um as like i said this picture repeats itself across the whole city which is why the financial strategies committee um recommended the 10 percent i'll leave it at that um but i will support what the rest of my colleagues have said to this point thank you that's all i have thanks mary uh mark and bob now i i want a second what mary just said strongly in terms of the specifics of this department i i need to say that that this is a conversation we've had with respect to other departments we could have the same conversation with respect to almost any department in the city um and you know we simply don't have the resources to do everything for all people at all times

[67:00] especially if we want to protect those who are most vulnerable and and insulate them from price increases which i think is something we need to do so my basic comment on this number four is all of the above um i would obviously like to reduce services least of of these alternatives but i'm not sure anything can be off the table because the cavalry is not coming over the hill to rescue us here we are a very very high sales tax town we are a high property tax town um and we have services that we want to provide and and probably more services than we possibly can provide so i'm not sure i'd eliminate anything i would obviously like to reduce services the least um i think uh if we can properly structure

[68:02] fee increases and i want to reference adam's comment that they'd be transparent and gradual when where possible so people understand what's happening um i uh you know i second sam's comments on uh trying to protect those who are economically more disadvantaged and and more vulnerable um but with those caveats i would not take anything off the table although i reduce services in smaller print but other than that everything needs to be discussed and looked that because uh you know this is an ongoing conversation on a department by department basis and uh these are simply the financial realities you have to grapple with again i want to thank mary for raising that that the issue of funding our capital needs um and i support everything that she said on that so those are my comments thanks mark uh and

[69:02] i'll go last i want to echo pretty much everything that's been said i don't think that there's a lot of inconsistency among council members we do have some pretty big capital needs we'll be talking about those over the next few weeks we already have um with respect to programs which i think was what this question really focuses on i do agree with with sam that subject to subject to ensuring that we are providing affordability for uh families in need that we do continue to increase fees i agree with adam that gradual increases are better than the dramatic ones uh intermittent um i agree with a statement by mirabai that out of city residents should pay a higher fee for programs unless we have a special deal and then there's a reciprocity arrangement but absolute reciprocity i think that in in in-city residents who are paying taxes and subsidizing a lot of these services should uh receive the first price break um one thing we haven't talked a whole lot about is ad revenue

[70:00] i know that we have some pretty tight rules when it comes to advertising but i would hope that the parks department would continue to look at advertising as a source of revenue can be a good source of revenue some people find that distasteful to have the name of a company affiliated with a service and maybe it's something we don't want to do but i hope that we don't completely foreclose that because that is a good potential source of revenue a lot of cities do it a lot of cities will allow branding of their various city amenities including their park services and we should at least explore that within within boundaries of taste and then finally ali mentioned alternative revenue sources i think there are some great revenue sources out there on things that are that have a very high return on investment my brother happens to operate a a golf simulator shop in new jersey um and for sixty dollars an hour you can come in and

[71:00] you can have your swing analyzed or you can uh play just about any course in the world including st andrews um and they make about fifty nine dollars per hour on it it is just a highly highly profitable business and those types of businesses those types of partnerships are certainly things that the parks department should look at uh whether they're branded or whether they're just simply um a white label service where there is a a guaranteed return on investment and where we can provide a service to our community and also make money to subsidize some of the programs that are not quite as profitable i think i don't see any other hands i think everyone's weighed in on this question so a good good generator of ideas here let's move on to the last two questions does city council have recommendations or preferences of funding sources for initiatives that support city climate goals and i i can give a little background on this question it's kind of

[72:01] abrupt but you know a lot of the work we do and we have an overall lens of resilience and focus on our climate with the climate emergency and so a lot of the work we do whether it's capital or our operations and programs relate to those cities climate our city's climate goals and so as an example like when we redo a recreation center or enhance a pool you know if we're looking for new infrastructure or new innovation how we reduce energy consumption and those sorts of things that's typically paid with just our typical funding sources that we do all capital improvements so that's kind of the background is really seeing if council has any thoughts or recommendations about specific funding for those initiatives um yeah thanks jeff uh any uh any weigh-in on that one sam you know i think the city does a pretty good job at using energy

[73:02] service corporations to you know basically fund things for us they're low cost financing so i think generally we do that so to the extent that we're not looking at escos we should be using eskos i think that's really a facilities thing and and um beyond that i guess i would look at pools you know um generally speaking water takes a lot of energy to heat and cool and so you know how we're managing our pools and i think could be one place to look and i guess you know another place just thinking about this is how we manage the reservoir what we do out there with the reservoir that's another big area that comes to mind but but largely i think the the approach that the facilities department has taken at the city is pretty good um if you've got any feedback to that jeff happy to hear it but i generally have

[74:01] felt like the city's done a good job with this subject right thanks sam anybody else if not we'll move on to our final question oh mary and then then we'll move on to our final question and a wrap up from staff before we finish at 7 30. mary thanks bob no i just wanted to tag on to what sam said with respect to pools and um ali please correct me correct me if i'm wrong but i think that um during the presentations that were made to the financial strategy committee the three polls use up something like 80 percent of the city's energy um or make up 80 of the city's energy expenses is that the right percentage that number sounds very high to me considering waste you know other facilities that are high users i can tell you that pools as sam mentioned it is it is energy intensive to heat and

[75:00] treat hundreds of thousands of gallons of water and we have hundreds of thousands of gallons of water um and so identifying the technology to heat and treat water for a community that loves lap swimming is one of the not only financial challenges we face but technological challenges the technology does not currently exist to heat 500 000 gallons of water through renewable resources i think it's about 50 of our natural gas usage comes from some of our pools i think that's part of the percentage but i also get confused on the percentages as we go about so okay well it was really really high and that's yeah it was really really high and um that was one of the the the projects that was presented i think was presented by facilities as as one of the climate um one of the things that we could do cap capital expense wise um to addre to meet our climate goals so i just wanted to bring that up

[76:02] thank you thanks mary um and adam thanks bob uh we've talked about this topic with medians and people's front lawns and things but i realize a lot of our park space is green grass watered usually non-native species are we looking into areas that we can have native species that still maintain that you know nice park-like aesthetic and the ability to run on it and all that type of stuff so we can balance that a little bit more so we have less water intensive uses on our park spaces absolutely our team is actually our urban parks manager this is a subject he's passionate about and so addition to what you said about introducing more native species you can notice in some of our newer parks the edges have less maintained manicured areas right and so elks park even the new civic area has a lot of areas that have natural plantings the other thing is that we have entire

[77:00] and turned over almost the entire system to um smart irrigation systems that we can control remotely from park operations they they you know they sense rain when we get it we and so it's it's not just about what's planted it's about how you operate it and our team is regularly looking at both that's really cool thank you ellie thanks adam sam bring us home on this one i i just couldn't resist because ali you brought up technology um we have a partnership with excel and i'm hopeful that we can do interesting things with that there are two areas um you jeff mentioned natural gas so immediately i go to one thought is renewable natural gas can we figure out a way to do a contract where it comes from anaerobic digesters which is cow poop or there's other ways that natural gas can be produced or captured in a way that's not fossil so a i would look at that b heat pumps right so and this is where

[78:00] excel comes in even more at the top of the list because one of the challenges with how we heat and cool our buildings is that heat pumps are right on the edge of being economical and so for homes anything small it's hardly worth the capital expense however with lots of water and lots of heating needs for water it sure seems like a heat pump would be more financially feasible so i would say two things renewable natural gas and heat pumps would be places that i would think about and i would bring that to the partnership team with excel i want to chime in with that because sam i think those are great ideas i as i mentioned before the technology in this is is new and emerging and so i do think boulder is going to have to get comfortable with trying some things and looking for some r d partnerships perhaps to help identify technology it would be amazing if we could get anaerobic digesters for goose waste and then we would be solving problems across the organization so that's where i'm going to put my

[79:00] money yeah i would just add to a lot of the discussion about climate goals and how we can address our climate goals that's one of the areas too i just want to highlight for the benefit of city council our integration with other departments such as our climate initiative staff our facilities team that sam i think you mentioned so um we didn't dive deep into that this evening um but that is one of the areas that is an overarching lens of our whole plan and when we come back to council later this year um that's probably one of the areas we will be having a lot more discussion and information but certainly these are great ideas and we're working across the organization too to understand what opportunities might exist to solve some of those issues it wouldn't be a steady session without reference to poop let's move let's move on to um our sixth and final question and then wrap it up by the bottom of the hour perfect thank you so for our sixth question we have a twofer with regards

[80:01] to who is served in equity how should bpr consider serving those who do not live in the city of boulder and how should bpr ensure increasing fees do not create additional financial barriers toughest questions for last ideas on this one folks i'll just chime in woven into one of the last questions we heard i i feel like you all have addressed 6a and so unless someone has something to add to that i think we could focus on 6b which again you all have already started talking about to soften the ground i'll mention our recording program right so this is a program funded through health equity fund dollars that right now is providing a hundred percent free access to anyone who qualifies something we'd love to figure out is a sliding scale program right we there we know there's a cliff effect when it comes to social services i would suggest that same thing happens with our services where you make just over those numbers and you don't qualify for

[81:01] support for our programs but it still might be out of reach and how hard would it be to to implement a program like that ali where there's a sliding scale um if someone will write a check we will figure it out bob right so it's it's all about how do you pay for it so i think implementing it wouldn't be complicated we have the mechanisms now to do the means testing and it would just be about establishing tiers or metrics and i have confidence that our partners in housing and human services they're they're so talented at that type of work it would be how do you pay for it because we we still would have costs for serving those folks great thanks sally mary thanks bob i think um the the requity pass is really great i'm just my question is um how difficult is the application process and and is it possible to streamline it more because i think that's that that can be a barrier you may qualify but it it can be cumbersome um

[82:02] to apply let me say this we have gone fully online since the pandemic for that application process and since 2014 we've reduced i think the page count for the process in half we've worked with many of our partners such as boulder housing partners to have one door so if you qualify for boulder housing partners assistance you qualify with us the um the program developed in partnership with the google fellows that directs people to services and the name is a skip boulder for me right that program directs people mary what i think our best next step for financial aid is to actually talk to some of our community members that are participants in the program and find out did they find it cumbersome where was it complicated where was it tricky and continue to improve the user experience based on their feedback um i don't think we've had capacity for that in the last year and a half but that would be a great next step thank you ali thanks mary if there's no other uh

[83:03] reaction to this question perhaps we could ask the parks team to um wrap things up bring bring us up to speed and talk a little bit about next steps hello again everyone so i'll just quickly um just mention that um the last three key themes which were determined in 2014 are still important to community members and we didn't see any critical areas of misalignment and bpr is continuing to address these so just to briefly touch on teens and youth um the community members feel that these are important groups the gra i mean a majority 87 and 86 percent feel it's important to provide programming for these groups um and specifically for teens um there were there are increasing concerns about their physical and mental health especially when considering increasing rates of depression and anxiety and challenges related to covid

[84:02] among this age group and that's a trend we're seeing throughout the country so community members expressed an interest in looking at focusing programming more towards their specific needs and for youth bpr had a nature symposium natureplay symposium in 2015 and kids are still very interested in that and are excited about the possibilities it offers in terms of unplugging and just getting out there and getting wild so bpr plays a major role you know engaging youth building social connections helping them get exercise and recognizing the value enviro of environmental stewardship um serves them throughout their lives and bpr is critical to that so um and then for building community and partnerships uh bpr has been doing this successfully we talked about some of that ali mentioned some of that um that being said as the population grows and changes and resources are stretched the department will need to think creatively

[85:01] about funding which we already talked about but a majority of respondents to the statistically valid survey feel that it's important to partner with public entities and private organizations and they also think that continuing and improving existing partnerships and establishing new relationships are key to supporting equity and inclusion and they specifically ensuring more new and different voices are heard um expanding those partnerships i think mary touched on that in terms of like smaller businesses and entrepreneurship things like that um and also establishing a resilient community network um so bpr can successfully address social pub public health and economic concerns and challenges and environmental challenges in the future and that will just help boulder be more resilient so and with that regina is going to quickly talk to you about organizational readiness [Music] thank you sarah so again continuing to

[86:01] just to talk quickly about organizational readiness continuing to support a talented and modern workforce is critical to ensuring the demands being placed on the department continue to be met for the community business management practices that leverage the use of new technology data-driven decision-making and collaborative decision-making tools are important for the department to respond in meaningful ways to changes occurring within both the industry and our community due to cover 19 in 2020 the department laid off 10 full-time staff while an additional five employees retired overall this represented a loss of 200 years of service to the department and institutional knowledge and in the coming years our challenge will be to build back that capacity loss to meet the needs and expectation of the boulder community a period of staff engagement just wrapped up yesterday asking staff to weigh in on how the department has been supporting them prior to the pandemic and what areas need to need some focus in the future and these

[87:01] staff engagement results will help us shape the strategies and initiatives developed in the next phase of the master plan update related to organizational readiness and so with that we've really come to the end of our discussion this evening and moving forward the project team will be working to incorporate your feedback as well as the prabs into our final needs assessment deliverables and then we'll be as i mentioned earlier moving into the implementation plan phase of the project and during this phase we'll be identifying the specific strategies and initiatives the department will focus on for the next five to seven years as well as the metrics we'll use to measure our success there will be a third window of community engagement that will help us prioritize which strategies and initiatives should be conceived should be pursued excuse me and that next window of community engagement will really be a key to our future success and we're working now to develop the strategies to ensure that

[88:00] our outreach is resulting in broad community input on those implementation initiatives to pursue and as again as i mentioned earlier we will be coming back to council both later this year or early next year with our recommendations and a draft plan for your review and input and with that we have come to our time end of time this evening and thank you for your time well great well thank you so much to the the park staff and their advisors ali did you and your team get everything you needed tonight i think we did i appreciate council being concise and pointed in your comments that this really will help the next phase uh we look forward to talking to you again as we develop our implementation plan great well thanks so much and i think you guys are excused for the evening we're going to turn our attention now to the east boulder uh master plan east boulder sub community plan i should say um we've got a team of people from both the planning department and the transportation department uh ready to

[89:00] present uh their 60 plan um with the goal of bringing back about a 90 plan towards the end of the year so they want to check base with us they have a lot of slides i'm just going to go through very very quickly um and then i'd like to suggest to allow them to to keep their flow going on the slides we let them get through their slides quickly and then to kind of save our questions for staff to the end and then they have about three or four questions back for us and so if if there's no objection why don't we uh why don't we handle that way and turn it over to nuria to introduce the staff that will be presenting this um the sub community plan draft sure and and again thanks for all your great input uh for parks and parks for such a great presentation for now i'll turn it over to jacob if he wants to frame it and if not we'll head straight to kathleen great uh thank you noria and good evening uh councilman reigns mayor weaver members of council um this discussion tonight is really a milestone and a two year long effort to create the east boulder sub community

[90:00] plan and i'd like to thank you all in advance for your input tonight um as we're getting very close to a final draft and i'd also like to give thanks to the many many community members who have given input into this plan and especially to the members of the east boulder sub community plan working group for their ongoing contributions that have shaped the work that you'll see this evening and with that i'll turn it over to the project manager for this plan kathleen king thanks so much good evening thank you for having us tonight um as mentioned my name is kathleen king i'm a senior planner in comprehensive planning and i'll be joined by my colleague gene sanson from transportation we also have some guests joining us from our consultant team on the 55th and arapahoe station area plan so jay renkins and mark de la torre from mig and rachel shinman from eps um i think tonight marks our our seventh meeting with council on this project so we're excited to share the latest project progress on the on the sub community

[91:00] plan and hear your feedback taylor i'll just give you a nod or say next for advancing slides so go ahead and move to the next slide so we're going to present some key features of the 60 draft plan and then we'll dive into greater detail with mig at 55th and arapahoe and wrap up our presentation talking about next steps for engagement um as bob mentioned we'll have time for any clarifying questions and then really hope to hear back from you about the key questions we've outlined next please to give you an idea of where we are in the schedule we've completed the first four phases of work and are now going back out to the community to confirm that major recommendations are in line with community vision and start planning for implementation we'll spend some time analyzing community feedback and making updates to the draft sub community plan and then be back at boards for recommendations towards the end of this year and looking for council

[92:01] adoption in early 2022 this council has provided amazing guidance and feedback throughout the process on this project and has helped keep momentum through the challenges of kovid so um you know tonight we'd love to get your thoughts on the major components of the plan and hope you can provide the next council with guidance on the plan's adoption next please so here's the the key questions for tonight we'll be going through each of these components of the draft plan and then also want to know um what input we can solicit from community members in order to update the draft in a way that's most in line with community vision next please so um we'll get into it the 60 draft includes as i mentioned these major components of the plan and then an upcoming engagement window this fall will offer community members the greatest opportunity to weigh in on changes included in the plan and help prioritize strategies for

[93:01] implementation so that's why we call it the community review draft next key features include the vision for the sub community a land use plan and a connections plan both deliverables that will guide future development inform future work on zoning updates and capital investments next as a a quick recap of how we arrived at this milestone there's been a great amount of participation in the project from the community and the major components i just described represent what we've heard from community members is their priorities and desires for the evolution of the east boulder into the future next please our last major engagement window included the presentation of various land-use scenarios including a no change option two community members and collecting input about trade-offs and impacts the feedback we received during this engagement window has guided much of the working group and staff teams iteration

[94:00] of the land use and connections plans next we heard from the community that there is a desire to balance areas of no change with making a few targeted changes from office or industrial uses to mixed-use neighborhoods when asked about preferences for changing land uses in the east boulder almost 40 percent of respondents would prefer to convert a few areas from office or industrial to mixed use and that's that purple bar around 20 percent preferred no land use changes from current plan to result in limited new housing and 18 wanted to maximize where mixed use could be allowed to encourage and fill the um that's the blue bar next please so that input really guides the vision for east boulder over the past two years we've learned a lot about the people and places that make up the east boulder sub community it's a great business center hosting a wide variety

[95:00] of small to large businesses it has a small but significant residential community at san lazaro and there are a great number of natural and and recreational assets that have the potential to play a more significant role in the future of this place next our mission in sub-community planning is to evaluate each sub-community and find ways to implement these six focus areas of the boulder valley comprehensive plan into the area for east boulder we think we've landed in a great place that balances trade-offs while still making important contributions to citywide goals next so the vision for east boulder is to evolve in a way that the sub-community will thrive as an innovative working industrial sub-community of boulder where all community members have access and options for living working and playing this is really you know it's not a small idea the vision describes a place that maintains its industrial nature

[96:00] but welcomes new new uses the most significant being residential we believe that with the community's input we have a draft plan that is designed to be strategic about change but flexible enough to take advantage of opportunities if they arise next so that vision is partially implemented through the land use plan the land use plan includes changes to existing land use and those are areas those areas are outlined in yellow redefining what some of those land uses mean adding a new land use designation and pursuing the annexation of important areas such as the san lazaro mobile home community to help create more cohesive neighborhoods we reviewed a version of this when we met back in april and council gave great feedback that helped us make some key updates like extending the reach of a mixed use in the industrial land use to the 55th street corridor and reserving land adjacent to koa lake for community

[97:00] industrial uses next please so how do these changes compare to what is currently planned in the bvcp um this graphic compares the amount of land designated to each kind of land use in the bvcp land use map those are in blue to the recommended land uses which are in orange so you can see that the most obvious shift is in the redesignation of light industrial land to mixed-use designation so we'll take a look at those next please the bvcp land use map includes a designation called mixed use industrial however the the definition of this designation is relatively vague and it leaves considerations about key characteristics to other guiding tools so using community feedback we've received about how mixed-use industrial neighborhoods should look and perform in boulder we're including a revised definition for this land use in the draft sub community plan next we're also adding

[98:02] a new land use designation that will help guide redevelopment in the 55th and arapahoe station area this recommendation is also meant to provide guidance for other areas of the city into the future as we continue to plan for transit-oriented neighborhoods and shifting travel behaviors across the city next please the plan also includes some other tools that will help provide greater detail and guidance to future work in the area next one such tool is what we call place types so this place types diagram for the areas of change in east folder in combination with the place types descriptions and performance standards provide a greater level of detail about the design quality and placemaking expectations for east boulder next each place type combines expectations about uses building heights and densities with transportation oriented features like access and mobility

[99:00] this tool will guide future implementation work including potential code updates rezonings and the potential creation of new zones or considerations for form base code in the sub-community next please the draft plan also includes a vision for integrating new residential opportunities in teas boulder next based on the land uses and place types the team generated we could expect east boulder to contribute between 2 600 and 4 400 new homes to the city's housing stock that range is entirely dependent on private redevelopment using the 25 requirement of new residential development allocated for affordable housing this could contribute between 580 and 1100 new permanently affordable units next please so you'll remember last fall um we presented three different land use scenarios to council and the community for evaluation and feedback comparing this draft plan with

[100:02] those scenarios i think we've landed at a pretty healthy balance between the options a major reason for this is our strategic approach to identifying key neighborhoods where residential density could be well integrated into some of these business-oriented places and also help to create 15-minute neighborhoods next and that you know that 15-minute neighborhood strategy is a key component to our efforts for supporting local businesses in east boulder being able to build a great network of business workforce and customers in east boulder will help the area thrive and businesses grow next please additionally the land use plan does maintain a significant amount a significant amount of land that will be prioritized for industrial use we made no changes to general industrial land in east boulder so we will still have a place for those heavier manufacturing sites and businesses in the sub community

[101:00] we slightly increased the amount of community industrial land in the sub-community by identifying key areas where small businesses and small business space can operate freely but still have great access for transporting goods while the land use recommendations do change other areas of the sub-community from land industrial use to a mixed-use industrial category the intention is to bring greater access and allow for more density in these areas so that we can integrate residential into industrial neighborhoods in a way that supports a solid network of residents businesses and workforce so they all experience success together next please so supporting that network of businesses and new residents includes some major recommendations contributing to our access and mobility goals i'm going to turn it over to gene sanson from transportation to talk through those recommendations thank you kathleen and good evening city council if we could go to the next slide so the connections plan included in the

[102:02] 60 draft has three major components what we call the big moves some new connections in key areas of change that i'll review with you and enhancements to our existing network that we have proposed in the next update to the transportation master plan these recommendations help to support the vision that kathleen's described in the land use plan while also responding to the many community comments we've received about transportation needs and upgrades in the area next please so first i'm going to start with the big moves you know the 2040 vision for east arapaho transforms one of our city's busiest travel corridors into a complete street with better travel options both for the commuters that are there today and for the greater number of people who will be working and living in east boulder into the future and a cornerstone of this transportation improvement will be the high frequency high quality regional bus rapid transit that's been referenced that will serve arapahoe which is state highway 7

[103:00] connecting boulder to communities to the east as far as i-25 and brighton the next big move involves the hop so the hop service will be expanded into the east boulder area in the future residents employees and visitors can conveniently travel via hot between east boulder and destinations throughout the rest of the city this may take the form of fixed route transit or a transit concept whereby buses run on a more of an on-demand flexible schedule throughout east boulder so transportation staff will be closely monitoring travel patterns as we come out of the pandemic to best meet the needs of the area and provide this high frequency transit service into this part of our community the next big idea includes integrating micro mobility options throughout east boulder and i think this is familiar with many of you one of the biggest challenges travelers have when deciding whether to take the bus or use other forms of transportation is how to get to their destination or how to get from their destination when

[104:01] things feel a little too far so for example when deciding how to travel between destinations any folder like between the fire and business park and ozo coffee the distance can feel too far to walk so as you all know later this year we'll be contracting with shared e-bike and e-scooter vendors to provide community members with these shared devices that will be easily accessible and affordable and are expected to be deployed throughout the east boulder sub community the next big move relates to curbside management we as a city are looking at curbside management strategies and programs to manage this new combination of industrial office and residential uses throughout the city and specifically east boulder as a hub for industrial and commercial facilities a large number of goods and freight vehicles move through and load and unload in the east boulder sub-community each day and we expect to do so into the future in addition to ensuring freight and good vehicles can continue to safely navigate the roadway network it will also be important for the city to address the

[105:00] growing competition for curbside space and ensure that it's adequately managed to support changing land uses and finally the fifth big move includes a regional mobility hub and satellite hubs at the 55th and arapahoe bus rapid transit station area one of the keys to attracting people to transit and other modes of transportation is creating places where a variety of transportation options are centrally located and our consultant team will dive more into this concept in the next part of this presentation next please but before we get to that we'll look at some of the new connections that are included in the draft plan so these new connections are intended to support planned land uses by improving access into and out of areas of change expanding the pedestrian and bicycle network in the sub-community and creating opportunities for street activation and vibrancy in these evolving neighborhoods this diagram shows how the proposed connections are integrated into the existing network both existing and planned of roads and

[106:01] bicycle and pedestrian facilities and with that i will turn this back over to kathleen thank you thanks so um you know how do all of these pieces come together and what could this evolution of east boulder neighborhoods really look like next please i'm gonna attempt to demonstrate this for the area of change we're lovingly calling the park west neighborhood which is located on the west side of belmont city park next please so this is the park west neighborhood as it is today this is a bird's eye image bird's eye image from google earth so you see the the goose creek greenway on the um that's the south side of the site and then we're bound by pearl street foothills parkway belmont road and then belmont city park next please

[107:02] so this is that same area with the the place types diagram applied so the light green on on this diagram is that parkside residential the purple is the main street industrial that reddish color is the hands-on industrial and then that orange color is the trail oriented live work place type next please so this would be that parkside residential opportunity we're standing just south of belmont road in the park and you can see how these town home units front onto the park and these new residential homes would have this great access and connection to park space so working group members have identified these areas as having great potential for creating that missing middle format of housing next please as you make your way south we're now standing at sterling drive and this incorporates our ideas about

[108:00] upgrades to this street as well as the potential for redevelopment and a key connection between the neighborhood and a more eventful entry into and out of the park than what's there today next so now we've actually walked um all the way beyond the south end of the park and you can start to see some of that trail oriented live work um place type along goose creek greenway integrating residential opportunities with existing light industrial and taking advantage of the different formats of of access for pedestrians and cyclists next please today the the goose creek greenway includes some flood control facilities and a multi-use path it has some great views to the west but it's not a particularly attractive stretch of the greenway and it doesn't offer a ton in the way of amenities so the vision for this area is to make that a real centerpiece of the neighborhood where businesses and residents on either side could really

[109:00] enjoy the green space in this industrial area and then this image also shows some of the recommended street upgrades to pearl street next please this image takes a closer look at how we're thinking about live work buildings of a more industrial nature in this area and repurposing space that today is um you know kind of a really really long driveway for more of a boardwalk where some of these light industrial businesses could actually start to incorporate a retail component next please um another bird's eye view demonstrating upgrades to pearl street and those live work buildings and how we're hoping to build in great active public spaces as part of redevelopment to create those third places in the neighborhood that generate um great activity and help create local destinations for community members next please and so you know this plan is is really about

[110:02] evolving these neighborhoods and um evolution is a process that builds off strengths and little by little over time becomes something greater next please the draft plan includes a variety of recommendations to give the east boulder sub community greater opportunities for achieving citywide goals and contributing to positive change as boulder evolves into the future next please i'm going to turn it over now to jay and mark from mig who will take us to another area of change the 55th in arapahoe station area thanks so much kathleen next slide please so i'm gonna try and summarize you know a year a year plus worth of work into a very short kind of piece here just to make sure we're respecting else time the section that we'll be speaking to here in the next few minutes is at a very very high level going to touch on the existing conditions kind of technical analysis and community engagement for the stamps specifically as part of the larger sub-community plan and they're really

[111:01] going to focus the meat of the conversation and presentation from our perspective on land use we're going to wrap up with urban design to kind of talk to the character and feel their spaces next slide please so as i mentioned starting with existing conditions next slide please and engagement next slide well thank you so the uh 55th and arapa stationary master plan as y'all recall from the prior day dams that kathleen had up on the screen there is a smaller 60-acre chunk of the larger sub-community area on the south end they're focused really around arapaho avenue and 55th street as the name of the stationary suggests next titles through the technical analysis and through some of the initial engagement at a very high level some of those takeaways as it relates to land use and transportation really focused on leveraging the transit investment and some of that came through the creation of the mix abuses through a better utilization of land use and zoning policies and then really thinking about the the larger connectivity increasing that for both pedestrian bicycle and then thinking about how better to augment

[112:00] potential redevelopment with supporting mobility hubs last piece note that's really important as part of that takeaway is the concerns of gentrification you know not all change is good so the management of that change with the provision of new amenities is certainly part of as we dove into the greater level of detail mix of land uses the types of connectivity that was appropriate how we would best satisfy that moving forward next slide base from the market standpoint as you all well know there is a demand for a lot of different uses especially in this area between office multi-family retail industrial flex the biggest thing that we're seeing though from a reason as to why isn't changing today is that there's no real incentive for redevelopment a lot of the existing returns for the facilities and uses throughout the site are fine as is so there's not really going to be an effective change from a larger site standpoint without some sort of either greater entitlement or consideration to how best to provide new amenities or new elements for the community that might be tied to new development obviously this is all kind of couched within this kind of larger opportunity for growth and change to better respond

[113:00] to the evolving needs of holder next time please and uh like i'm not going to try to read most of the stuff on the slide suffice to say we engage in a rather robust engagement process that ran parallel to the sub-community planning process and built off of that so doubling up where we could and digging into detail with other subgroups throughout that process with a subcommittee from the working group various community meetings focus groups and parallel engagement on be heard boulder next slide please start still the last kind of rambling down into a single slide all that really resulted in the guiding principles which helped guide how we engaged uh the community how we ask questions what questions we ask and how we thought about conceptualizing different concepts and conceptual recommendations for land use for redevelopment for connectivity and at a larger level and that begins with prioritizing transit supportive strategies from prior adopted plans and into the evolution of both this plan and the larger sub-community plan uh some of them were thinking about incremental change that

[114:00] um just because we say any land use is declined doesn't mean that that's going to change overnight or perhaps every now these are privately owned property it's up to the owner's discretion there but thinking about how best to achieve change over time was an important part of that process and that was achieved through ensuring that flexibility both in the development framework as well as and means of achieving different goals from the focus areas established as part of the boulder valley comprehensive plan with that said i'm going to say next slide hand it over to jay and i'll talk to you on a few great uh thank you mark so as mark said we're going to touch on land use first and then two other additional topics quickly so next slide as part of that robust engagement process that mark spoke to and working with kathleen and gene and others of the city we did a large engagement window in the spring where we actually presented different alternatives to the community as well as our working group and a committee focused just on the stamp area next slide coming out of that discussion

[115:03] we landed on a preferred concept as we call it um in this preferred concept uh what you're seeing in the colored polygons kind of the bubbles are a variety of place types which correspond to the place types for the larger sub-community area so those i'll go over in a second here on what those entail but it's a combination of mixed use aligning with the tod mixed-use or mixed-use tod land use designation being recommended in the larger sub-community plan and then thinking about the different amenities particularly on the transportation side that will be necessary to support those new uses in the area so right now there's certain portions of this stamp area although it's not a especially large area but that are relatively disconnected um you know it's difficult to get from point a to point b if you're not in a car and you know maybe driving several blocks around

[116:02] we're also showing on here with the purple asterisks mobility hubs similar to what gene samson was mentioning so having a presence obviously at the station itself at 55th and arapaho but then a distributed strategy and then thinking long term about the future rtd mobility hub that could come along the rail line as well with regional connectivity next slide so the different uses and we'll show you once we introduce you to those these we will show you where these land again on that concept diagram but flex in essence is office and industrial similar to what's in the flat irons business park today and portions of the stamp area flex mixed use which would allow those same light industrial and office but with some retail and supporting services that could both serve those local employees as well as neighbors nearby

[117:00] or new residents in the area a residential mixed use designation which is predominantly residential but with ground floor retail and personal services again serving both new residents as well as nearby existing residents and finally probably the most different from what we've heard so far this evening is innovation mixed use and it does it's sort of a play on the light industrial mixed use but with a an intent of uh developing a residential and office above ground floor light industrial maker space and retail space next slide so when we think about those different designations the residential mixed use is really uh along arapahoe for the most part and at the station area 55th in arapahoe innovation mixed use which is the last designation i just spoke about is to the north transitioning to the mixed use industrial designation up at

[118:00] the flatirons business park and then as we head west towards ball and the medical campus transitioning to flex and flex mixed use with the flex mix use being along the arapaho corridor next slide so this is illustrative i just want to make that very clear um you know one thing that's sure for sure i think is that you know when if we did an aerial photograph in 20 years which is the planning horizon that we're talking about it will not look just like this but this is a way to explore different intent think about setbacks setbacks open space in relationships as well as the connectivity that we're trying to create so generally we're looking at structured parking long term versus surface parking today we're looking at a relatively intact grid network building on what's there today but making some important key connections um and then i think the what is probably most

[119:00] different from looking at the existing condition is the green thinking about landscaping thinking about step backs where we can have these landscape kind of public spaces trees throughout the area which are really lacking today which will help with the heat island effect help with aesthetics and help with place making next slide we start to think about how is this realized and again this is even more of a shot in the dark in terms of which building does what but we think there's four categories in essence of how redevelopment could occur or or this vision is realized i should say so one is that nothing changes um you know this vision actually works if you know a certain percentage of these existing properties don't redevelop second we think that there's an opportunity for people to invest in the existing buildings that could be for adaptive reuse or expansion third would be looking at potential infill opportunities maybe on some of the surface parking lots

[120:00] and last would be actual redevelopment where you're taking down an existing building and putting up a new structure a series of structures so we're depicting a sort of a proportion of all of those here but again they could happen all different ways in all different places next slide here we're being a little more directive in terms of thinking about the heights across the site mark mentioned the entitlements that might be necessary to help motivate or facilitate the realization of the vision so we're in essence showing with the darkest blue here or even purple you might call it five-story development within that 55-foot height limit but really kind of maxing that out again at the station along 55th um then looking at some four-story structures particularly as we uh sort of emanate out from the station particularly as we head north but you can see a handful distributed throughout and then stepping down to three or fewer stories as we head west and south in particular

[121:02] next slide [Music] so really quickly i want to elaborate on the mobility and circulation concepts next slide we have a series of goals around mobility and circulation i don't have to read all of these but in essence the idea is to connect people to the amenities including transit of course so we want to think about the transit amenities how do we get people there and how do we get people not just in the stamp area to this area but the neighborhood to the area and people who are maybe working or living in this area um outside of the area next slide so k key piece of that is thinking about that street network we talked about instituting more of a grid which would may be made up of a hierarchy of streets and a variety of bicycle and pedestrian facilities an important new connection that really helps to establish that more intact grid would be an extension of conestoga court we may not call it a court in the future since it would be

[122:00] more connected but heading east and west about one block north of arapahoe avenue that then provides connectivity across 55th we want to enhance those crossings of 55th where they currently exist with a new connection across at western crossing 55th but also along arapahoe um even crossing at ozo coffee thinking about the 55th and arapahoe intersection not really great places across feels uncomfortable and so we want to make sure that people do have that choice whether they're driving to the area taking transit walking or biking here that once they're here they can walk bike take an e-scooter an e-bike like gene was talking about really comfortably and very safely next slide so all those different lines on the map correspond to different types of streets that we're looking at um so one that we're talking about as i mentioned was conestoga court or that extension so an activation street we really think this could be a signature element

[123:00] of the area but we don't want to disregard the other streets so next slide so we've introduced a series of different streets that do have amenities have buffered sidewalks to really create safe places for people to walk and traverse shared bike lanes in this particular instance with landscaping next slide we're looking also at a multi-use path configuration that we think would be work really well in certain instances next slide there's also neighborhood streets and so or residential streets excuse me which would be sort of smaller local streets but again with nice amenities adding to the tree lawn condition i mean think really thinking about that interface of the building uh fronts with the streets themselves next slide the last uh street type that i'll highlight is just the pedestrian bicycle emergency access street i don't think anyone would use that terminology but the important piece here is that we can look for opportunities to create uh connections for bicycles

[124:01] and pedestrians without always introducing cars uh in particular gamers to the south uh indicated that they would really like a way to travel east and west um south of arapahoe without being on arapahoe itself so this is one opportunity to do something like that so it could provide access for service vehicles emergency vehicles so on and so forth we could look for other opportunities particularly as we head east towards the planned trail alignment along the drainage there on the last couple slides mobility i'll turn it back to mark gene mentioned mobility hubs in addition to the e-bikes these scooters connections to transit we want to be thinking about car share we're going to be thinking about the shelters and amenities parking for bikes for vehicles how do we manage that i'm using transportation demand management strategies uh how do we provide retail opportunities next slide while we don't know the exact shape and you know and location of all the

[125:01] different types of development we can use sort of this typology on the left thinking about uh where the brt station is thinking about it a district parking garage thinking about residential and then these other uses and the types of mobility hub features that would be distributed throughout so rather than one large complex which i think there was a misconception in the spring that we were talking about you know some big parking structure and all the all of these different amenities kind of being loaded in in this one location the idea is to really distribute these different amenities throughout so the mobility becomes really seamless and uh interrelated throughout all of the development and with that i'll turn it back over to mark to hit urban design quickly thanks jay and just to wrap up here knowing that as we uh next slide engaged have engaged the community continue to engage the community the conversations around land use and redevelopment can feel a bit foreign sometimes we wanted to make sure that we thought about the experience for the user itself next slide please so here

[126:00] looking to the north at the intersection of 55th and our apo taking those hypothetical development blocks taking those hypothetical um you know that layout and then building into the the more detailed stories and setback considerations we want to start thinking about the environments that those create how those can help augment or really increase the quality of the experience in the area next slide please more further down 55th thinking about you know further north-south connectivity some of our conditions today uh within the existing curved curve do accommodate you know multimodal trap we think about ice bikes heads but sometimes as you all can see it's not the the nicest of conditions perhaps or the safest for that matter next slide please so when we think about redevelopment on our edges we want to think about better ways of accommodating the slower speed mobility along with that redevelopment so redevelopment really tying into the increased quality for the experience for all user groups next slides please and when we think about the types of development that jay have noted you know we don't achieve this through just redeveloping everything scraping it put it back up it's it's things staying

[127:01] in place it's it's parking lots and filling next slide please and when we think about the industrial kind of flavor and character of the area it's keeping some of those existing building existing building stock that contributes to that that kind of the the flavor of this area or the boulder mystique as we as we heard numerous times throughout our engagement process and finding ways to insert development that's appropriate and allows for the creation of new publicly oriented spaces and with that that wraps up the 55th and raptor portion kathleen thank you thanks mark um we just have one more section of the presentation thanks for your patience i will try to get through this material quickly um next slide please we're planning on another major engagement window this fall to share the community review draft and collect input from the broader public next over the past year we found that virtual engagement has been a great way to expand our access to community members and has allowed for greater participation in long-range planning

[128:01] projects among other city engagement efforts community members have really built their capacity and have come to expect the ability to weigh in on their own time and terms so we're building on that to offer a variety of online on-demand learning and feedback tools we will focus the in-person engagement on helping those who don't engage as well in a virtual environment um and where that interaction or exchange of information will be better facilitated in person so that will include two meetings with east boulder property owners to facilitate discussion about concerns or questions um surrounding recommended changes to or near their properties um we also are planning for a meeting with the san lazaro residence that will be designed with the help of our community connectors and then a series of of office hours in east boulder for um those who may want to talk in person

[129:01] rather than engage in that online participation next please we'll be asking the community to confirm that the major components of the plan are on the right track and that the draft offers recommendations that balance our citywide goals in a way that's context appropriate to ease folder next please so far we've gotten some more specific input from working group members about the types of feedback that would help them move forward including asking questions about housing does the plan make a contribution to city-wide housing goals that's appropriate for the area industrial land and local business does the plan balance the interest in new housing for the area with needs of local businesses and then implementation what recommendations included in the plan should be prioritized for near-mid and long-term implementation next please so um just just recently on july 15th planning board and transportation advisory board held a joint board's work session to

[130:01] review the draft and in general the group expressed general support for the connections plan and much of the the 55th and arapahoe station area concept but wanted some more data and discussion around impacts to the city's industrial land jobs to housing ratio residential project product types and impacts to climate so i just i have some of that data to share now next questions around industrial land um we took a a look at trends over the last 10 years related to the city's inventory of industrial land since board members expressed concern about a perceived loss of industrial space in the city um we found there's there's actually been a slight increase in the amount of land that is designated for industrial uses um over the last 10 years the most significant being in our ig zones um we've seen a small amount of im an ims zoned zoned land that has changed to other uses

[131:01] in that same period of time but overall um there is more designated industrial land in boulder as a whole than there was 10 years ago next please related to housing um boards members wanted more detail about the types of housing products that might be built in east boulder and how we could regulate for these in the sub community plan the land use plan and the place types tool will provide really important guidance about expectations for residential housing types but the plan will not include specific zoning recommendations sub-community plans are really intended to set a clear vision for the future of a defined area and then you know any code changes rezoning or application of form-based code to regulate specific product type would be a future pnds work plan item and considered part of the plan's implementation work following adoption next please thanks and then um there was also interest from boards about how the plan will contribute to climate impacts so

[132:00] there's a variety of policy program and project recommendations that staff and working group members will be evaluating to incorporate in our resilience and climate commitment recommendations but we believe one of the most impactful aspects of the plan will be how the changes in land use and transportation recommendations impact the number of single occupant vehicle trips into and out of the sub community by offering options for those who work in the sub community to actually live in the area by creating 15 minute neighborhoods and increasing access to high frequency transit and offering new modes for first and last mile connections next please so um we just want to make sure we address those topics and concerns before diving into the questions but that is it for our presentation thank you for um your your attention and your patience um staff and the consultant team are available to answer any clarifying questions and then we'd love to get your feedback on these four key questions well great thanks so much

[133:01] kathleen and team for that uh 83 slides in 43 minutes uh that's going to be a new record so thank you for being uh presenting a lot of information i know that the the community team that you've been working with has provided you with a lot of guidance probably some of it not entirely internally consistent and so thank you for for uh walking those lines and presenting faithfully what you heard from community members but also your your own recommendations so we really really appreciate you giving us a lot of information in a short period of time this of course is not our first touch on this this is not going to be our last touch on this this is the 60 plan um you're looking for some feedback tonight you'll come back in a few months with the 90 plan you'll take some more feedback from us so we look at this as a very iterative process let's do this uh council colleagues let's first ask questions of um of the staff and their advisors and get all those questions exhausted first we've still got another

[134:00] uh 45 minutes allocated to this and we don't have to take the whole 45 but let's uh let's take the next few minutes on those questions make sure that we're clear on everything that's been presented very very quickly and then we'll um go through maybe council member by council member and ask answer the four questions so we have a hands up for questions from aaron then sam then mary then mark then rachel erin you're up great well thank you for the uh very thorough presentation and a lot of great ideas there's clearly been a huge amount of work put into this and uh it's really exciting to see this starting to come to fruition so appreciate all that you all have been working on uh just a couple questions um the place types i thought that there was an intriguing idea there you know something that's sitting in between land uses and zoning with some additional kind of guidance in there but like it did also have some numbers in that like far numbers like some of them would say far one to two which i think of as more like

[135:00] when you talk about far numbers it feels a little bit regulatory to me but let's say in the future there's a development proposal put forward in one of those place types like would they have to kind of rigidly adhere to the descriptions in there or would it be used more as kind of a guidance when the project is reviewed yeah so sub-community plans are used um for guidance in development review and then for those far numbers or density numbers included in that place types tool um we did provide sort of a range and so you know i think um for a lot of projects as they come online it's great if in the site review process we get opportunities to kind of negotiate about um the best the best design for the area the best ways to incorporate um community desires and hopefully you know this place types tool and the sub community plan provides that

[136:01] guidance for development reviews review staff to have those kinds of conversations okay thanks so it sounds like a bit of a mix that things would be like expect to be broadly compliant but not necessarily hit every checkbox maybe i think that's right yeah great and then my other question is uh so for the stationary master plan which looks fantastic uh is that going to be a separate approval process uh at some point or are we gonna at some point approve the east boulder subcommittee plan and the stationary master plan all at the same time so um we're hoping to bring them for adoption under one process so because it that the projects have been running parallel and um they're incorporated in the same area we would like to adopt them at the same time okay that's good that's helpful i got a few comments but i'll wait until

[137:01] that phase thanks thanks erin great questions um we have sam mary mark and rachel for questions dan yep thanks bob and i will gush a little bit later about how great this process has been but thank you all for bringing it i have essentially two questions um one is on slide 15 you talk about mixed use industrial and the you know that's a pretty big designation that you're putting across a lot of different areas including you know a flat iron business park which is obviously huge uh as far as employment base goes and the uses definition here says light industrial use will predominate supporting uses allowed include residential retail service and commercial how what regulatory tool are you planning to ensure that light industrial use will

[138:00] predominate because when you allow a menu within a zoning district a lot of people often pick whatever will produce the most profit that's the way our system works so what what regulatory controls do you envision to make sure that if we did this kind of rezoning to mui that we would have light industrial use predominate yeah so i think um part of what we're hoping helps during these development review processes are are those place type tools and so we've got a couple of different place types that are applied to the flat iron business park for example um but then you know it came up in planning board last week or two weeks ago is there um a percentage mix that we want to start to [Music] incorporate into our code that might indicate the type of use that

[139:00] should be on the ground floor versus uses above the type of um horizontal or vertical mix that we might want to see and i know jay we had talked about this a little bit earlier so i wonder if you wanted to chime in at all yeah sure um some of the we are actually developing case studies looking at this because it's the innovation mixed use that we talked about for the stamp area has that same risk of kind of the pendulum swinging too far if you allow it to start to and so as we're looking at different case studies around the country and some projects we've been involved in some of the tools are making some of the uses accessory to the light industrial prominent use we've seen really successful instances of only allowing those additional uses beyond light industrial supportive uses you know i think is the

[140:01] term that's used in the place types um based on proximity or adjacency so it could be along certain street types so maybe along the you know the major street um it could be along rail you know things like that um and so there's a there's a host of tools that we'll be looking at and recommending for exploration and kind of the next step in actually creating the regulatory tools to address exactly what you're discussing okay thanks for the answer i'm going to dive in just a bit deeper you mentioned place types and you mentioned the the stamp area so if we go to slide 18 um you know the the area at the intersection of arapaho and 55th particularly the northwest corner you have this transit oriented flex and so that's like one place type but when i look you know right in there there's the the properties that are along arapaho and 55th which will be

[141:00] easy to access and you know possibly want to have retail there somewhat and then you get in further into western and places that right now have things like coffee roasters in them or very small robotics firms those feel to me quite different than what you might have on 55th and arapaho even though it's all within your place type of transit-oriented flex so i'm just curious as you think about that particular corner in that area which is you know that's where differently than flatirons business park that's where there are a lot of um startups and they're a little grungier in the sense that you know the coffee roasters smell a little bit and the robotics firms need to test hardware rather than just software so how are you thinking within that for example how you might get the mix that you showed later in the presentation of you know three four and five story buildings like how would you approach that i know it's pretty much asking for

[142:00] more detail on my previous question but i'm trying to focus where you've done a lot of thinking and examples like how would you think about making that end up where you're hoping it will and not just gentrified housing at the end of the day with some software firms yeah um i can respond to that so the the transit oriented flex use shown in pink um later in the presentation i don't know what slide it is but we do show the place types a more detailed version of the place type so we actually break that area into two actually three so excuse me three different designations so there's the innovation mixed use which is uh kind of north uh the northern portion so so not to interrupt that slide 51 just if we want to go to it but yeah you're right thank you helpful yeah thank you and then um flex and flex mixed use as well so uh providing more nuance i think is critical um

[143:00] you know in response to your question and so the idea would be that the place types um what we've done in other communities is that the place types end up corresponding to you know a handful of zoning designations and our design guidelines so that again it would be a next step after this vision is established and the policy is adopted looking at those specific implementation tools but but we have provided more nuanced guidance for how that works based on the differences with 55th and arappo versus being kind of deeper you know into the site it's awesome and i saw that and then the the concern that it raised there is around the designation for innovation mixed use um you know the the picture that you showed looked fairly gentrified to me you know the exemplar picture that you showed for innovation mixed use and um i think you've answered my question i'll come back to it but i appreciate this kind of

[144:00] fine-grained approach because it allows us to dive into those specific questions so that's all i've got for questions bob thanks sam uh questions from mary then mark then rachel mary thanks bob um my first question um goes to kathleen um kathleen you mentioned in one of your presentations um the sound loss at a mobile home park and how there's been outreach done to the residents and um there will be more outreach that will be conducted and that's fabulous um one of the things that stands out for me about that area is that it is out of the city so my question is um what consideration has been given to a possible annexation and um is that or could that be a goal of the area plan

[145:03] so annexation or the sub-community plan sorry yeah annexation of of that area is a recommendation included in the in the draft plan and um you know it's it's a privately owned property um that property owner has expressed interest in annexation um historically in the past um but i think everybody knows annexation is pretty expensive and so right now what we're working on is um looking at ways to come up with some co-benefits for the city that property owner and then certainly the residents of that community to be able to upgrade some of the facilities that are there some of the infrastructure that is there and get those residents access to city services because that's one of the

[146:00] um major things that we've heard from the residents in that area that they're really interested in great thank you um and my next question is for jay um jay in your presentation you were talking about how things will change slowly and that there are several ways that things will change by either by adaptive reuse or um or redevelopment or all these various potential ways that it could evolve and one of the things that you mentioned is that um that one of the reasons that the area has not changed at all is because there's really no incentive to to change and that one of the ways that you can create that incentive is through greater entitlement um so my question for you is um what thought has been

[147:04] given to as um the city provides greater entitlement [Music] obtaining some of the benefit capture or considering benefit capture as we provide greater entitlement yeah um i will also tee up rachel um who's on our team as well she might want to contribute to this but um quickly my response is uh we're absolutely thinking about it um and and one thing that clarifies um sort of increasing entitlements doesn't always necessarily mean additional height um so it can be used that is actually you know has a greater return um like was mentioned previously um also it could be greater density on the site far without height which could be done through greater lock coverage so on and so forth

[148:00] but we are absolutely thinking about and tracking along with your all's conversation about community benefits and how to look at kind of creating a win-win situation right for the ultimately the developer needs to have a certain return but how can the community also see certain aspects that could be related to public spaces could be related to we've talked about art and culture amenities public art as well as looking at small business incubation um all being different components rachel anything you want to add on that front [Music] i would just add that that's been a part of the conversation from the start um we haven't really talked about greater entitlements without the flip side of the community benefits and really capitalizing on the strength in this area and then also as jay mentioned you know looking

[149:00] at things like affordable housing or art and also looking at the concept of a district and as redevelopment happens sort of formalizing those benefits whether it's centralized parking or public art localized micro mobility options and just creating that structure for redevelopment so it's the expectation that those benefits are provided great thank you very much um and that's all i have thanks mary questions from mark and then rachel now i want to follow up a little bit on some of the questions that sam raised i want to get a better understanding of the mixed use industrial zone how are you contemplating this visually are you thinking in terms of a residential building across the street from a woodworking shop or are you thinking in terms of a residential structures on top of a welding shop i'm a little unclear as

[150:02] to how this plays out in the real world yeah so so yes and both um horizontal mix of uses so as you described residential component across the street from an industrial component potentially but also a virtual vertical integration within one building so maybe there's retail on the ground floor um some kind of light industry on the second floor office or residential on third or fourth floors i mean how is that going how are those uses going to be compatible with one another i mean there are industrial uses that create odor or noise and i find it perplexing that we're going to actually try to put residential uses right on top of it or even perhaps across the street um you know there are businesses that that have heavy equipment that they have

[151:01] to leave in their yard um vans or whatever um i'm just is there a precedent for this are there other um mixed industrial residential neighborhoods that that have been successful that you're aware of yeah so there's certainly precedent for it um you know i think locally one of the areas that people look at um has been how um the rhino neighborhood in denver has transitioned over time um to incorporate more residential but you know i think some other places are areas that have more of an industrial focus maybe than than what we've seen in rhino in in recent years is um the east central neighborhood in portland um jay knows a lot about that one so i might ask him to describe it a little bit more but um you know our use review process will

[152:00] allow us to um uh help negotiate some of that and determine the the um best places for different types of uses and how compatible they are but certainly there are combinations of of light industrial uses that can live peacefully and friendly with with residential uses my next question is about the parkside residential will that be displacing industrial businesses and if so how many and what types are they i mean it's a very nice slide that shows the residential but what is it in fact displacing so the parkside residential place type yes it has a more intentional residential component so the areas that it is applied to um

[153:03] does intend that some of those areas would transition to residential uses over time the specific businesses that would be displaced i don't i don't think we could say right now you know the idea is that this would evolve over 20 years time so um businesses and property owners and and um interest in development changes over time and could we at least do a calculation and a categorization of those businesses we know we know the boundaries of the area would seem to be a fairly simple test say it's going to be x number of businesses and and uh these are the types that are that the community is going to lose i i think that should be a knowing decision an intentional decision yeah we can definitely um come up with those numbers okay i'd appreciate that thank you those

[154:00] are my questions at the moment if i could respond super quickly on the compatibility um issue um i think kathleen was absolutely right it's about the type there's a lot of different flavors of light industrial in particular and we're seeing more and more kind of clean clean manufacturing clean assembly clean tech uh be a piece of that um and even you know some sorts of which some people like to smell some people don't but if you think about brewery or distillery um you know those actually do have you know some nuisance effects but a lot of people like being proximal to them um but the idea would be to regulate those types of light industrial uses manufacturing uses that they're not the ones with the large layout spaces and outdoor storage because that wouldn't fit within the larger place type consideration room form well i can tell you that i would be happy to live across from a brewery um me too all right thank you

[155:03] thanks mark we have uh rachel for questions and i'll have a question and then i think if there's no more questions from council we'll flip it around and have questions directed to counsel rachel questions all right yeah um thanks bob and thanks for the awesome presentation everyone um i think i have two questions we had um looked at previous concepts that had a higher volume of potential new housing units um and i think that community feedback had supported a higher number of new units so i just wanted to clarify or confirm why we lowered our target or sort of the range of potential housing that could land here um and perhaps that was in response to council's last check-in i think that's to kathleen probably yeah so we did we did look at a range of different capacities in those scenarios last time but it's it's not accurate that we heard from the community that they wanted that

[156:01] highest number the the feedback that we got was to really be targeted and just change a few areas to mixed-use neighborhoods and so you know i think in our survey process in in that last engagement window we we had an option that um asked people do you want to maximize the amount of housing that we can incorporate and and that one was not a popular response yeah no i was thinking that there was the one that was most popular was in the five thousands for the number of units and a high of four thousand so that's i'm just trying to figure out why if that's accurate why it went down from fives to a maximum of four yeah i think i i think based on the the feedback that we heard we really tried to um balance the types of changes and then we ran that model to see kind

[157:00] of where we were landing and and um that's that's where we've we've ended up as is at the high end i think it's about 4 600. and of a range of like 2 20 600 or something to 42 something like that um and then i guess a related second question is what is that and i don't know if this is even an answerable question but like what is the density required in this region to make a 15-minute neighborhood feasible in terms of you know the number of people that will need to sustain extra ridership and routes and i would think more robust um rtd and hop um travels out that way as well as businesses retail being willing to open to support them so we have the data on on what the target number of new units is to sustain that in this area yeah so we have i i don't have the

[158:01] numbers um off the top of my head but i know our community vitality group um has approached a number of different types of retailers in the grocery or market space which is really an essential component of that 50-minute neighborhood um and so they have some density numbers around that i might let jean sanson speak to what we know about density required to support transit stations i'm here i'm just trying to turn on my video that might not work but you can hear me okay see and hear you yeah um yeah so ritd has has different density standards depending on the type of service whether it's a local or regional service and we can provide that information to you and then they have certain standards as to when they would provide a bus stop and what type of amenities they would provide at that bus stop so

[159:00] i'm happy to provide that information to you but um just from a ballpark and looking at the types of density numbers and fars that are included in these land use designations we would expect to see a much greater demand for transit in the area as is already planned for the east boulder sub community so we feel pretty confident about that again caveat caveating caveating all of this with we are tracking post-pandemic levels of ridership and doing what we can to work with rtd to bring back as much as we can as soon as we can knowing that we have a lot of constraints including driver shortages but again in looking at this plan as a 20-year long-range verizon we feel pretty confident that we're going to have the numbers to support robust transit okay um thanks for that that's helpful and maybe i don't i don't know exactly what form it comes back to us in but i think having that that data that that we're landing on the right number to support the 15-minute

[160:00] neighborhood would be helpful yeah i would just i i might just mention that um there's a residential component to support that 15-minute neighborhood but then certainly there's a workforce and jobs number component because that makes up such a big piece of making those 15-minute neighborhoods successful making retail areas successful and and certainly the use of of transit facilities and and these different ideas about micro mobility that we have yeah it's a a bad term of art but um frequently in in transit planning we use the term activity units which would be students employees and residents would have all added up and so typically there's a 20 activity unit per acre designate like sort of minimum threshold um kind of used as a rule of thumb um so we would be looking at sort of to kathleen's point across the board um looking at employees and

[161:02] residents great i'm going to jump in with a question um about five years ago we set for ourselves a goal of creating 3 500 units of middle income housing um we haven't done a whole lot towards that other than a plan that's on paper that sam and i put together a couple years ago for middle income down payment assistance program which hopefully will get launched next year but um what uh you guys were really great in running the numbers for us you know the numbers that you shared with rachel as far as the number of housing units that could potentially come out here and then and then did the math on how many of those would be low income which was great how do we incentivize middle income housing units in this area whether it's owned or rental i think that's a great question and and we're certainly working closely with housing human

[162:00] services staff to think up different options and strategies as part of our implementation planning i probably don't have a great answer about that right now but it's certainly something that the working group has um really expressed a great interest in and um you know been a topic that um has come up in all of our community engagement sessions as well that's great well i'll just leave it with you if as you guys continue to work from 60 to 100 if there are some really brilliant ideas that somebody comes up with whether that's sizing or regulatory incentives or regulatory disincentives or other things that would cause a developer to want to create a middle-income product there in addition to their inclusionary housing low-income housing that would be really really swell

[163:00] because it would be a shame if we end up with a bunch of really expensive condos uh and then some cash and blue payments so to the extent that you you folks need something from us from a regulatory or legal standpoint um to make this plan work and drive as much middle-income housing as possible that would be great uh if i can just jump in on that question um we did include in the market analysis we did look at multi-family and other residential and it's a challenge from a market perspective it's it's really challenging just to make it pencil and we've seen with park mosaic which is the most recent residential property in this area it's rents are really expensive um and so it's i you know either using the the cash and loo payments and having a dedicated system to reinvest them in the community um whether it's partnering on a housing development um or encouraging land set

[164:01] asides and then having whether it's non-profit or other developers giving them incentives or other assistance to develop that on-site but it definitely needs to be focused and targeted to make sure that that reinvestment happens in this area um because the the market won't provide it on its own great i assume not uh well thanks for that rachel uh we have questions from uh mary and then sam that i think will turn to questions to council yeah thanks um i have one more question that i neglected um when i had my turn um in i think it was uh kathleen that talked about um in response to a question i think from mark about industrial zoning and the concern that the planning board had about the diminishment of that one of the and you said that it

[165:01] increased it's actually increased throughout the last few years um the biggest slice of that increase was in ig at 17 acres and the thing about ig is that housing is allowed in ig which is great um but my but i'm wondering if in your analysis of that you took that into consideration that part of that ig of those 17 acres could be um housing and therefore not an industrial use yeah we really looked just at um zoning changes and so yes we're we know that housing is allowed in that ig zone um but we did not look at um we did not run analysis at um the level of detail to evaluate

[166:01] specific redevelopments across the city um but you know i think we have um that type of data tracked and so that might you know if there's interest in that that might be another level of analysis that we could provide great thank you um and that's all i have and um yeah i guess we can move on to comments thanks bob yeah i think we have thanks mary we have a question i think from sam and while sam is asking his question maybe somebody could put up the questions the four questions to council so that we could uh t council members up to uh to respond to those so bob i don't actually have a question i'm ready to comment on greg put up questions to us and sam you go first followed by aaron all right so i do want to commend everyone on this team for such a great job i mean the boulder hasn't done a sub community plan in a very long time and this is setting a great standard

[167:01] um the way that it's being approached kind of from high level vision all the way down but including things like development mix and connections as you go down and get more and more granular is fantastic and the community engagement has also been extremely positive and i thought this presentation it was extremely long but extremely rich in substance and detail so i'm glad you put it all out there i'm impressed you got through it as quickly as you did um so i i do have a a lot of specific comments but i do want to start at the highest level just like you guys did and recognize that this is land use changes that you're proposing and not zoning changes so there's flexibility underneath things like mui and i get that um but the concern will then just drop down to zoning that we have with some of those mui comments so however we get there we're gonna have to address some of those major concerns

[168:00] and to rachel's point about housing unit count i think it's useful to go back and i always try to every year to to our community profile so we have our community profile and if you look out from 2020 to 2040 our expectation is about 6 000 units of housing and that's before any of this land use or rezoning happens so the fact that we're looking at something on the order of 2600 to 4400 new units that would come from these kind of changes is pretty substantial it's not doubling what we're talking about but it is a substantial increase wherever it lands so i think that is much needed in boulder right now and i i think you know as we talk about the changes we get really concerned about what we're losing but we also have to keep in perspective what we need and what we need really is a lot more housing and not much of an increase in employment so i think this plan

[169:00] has really clearly focused on what boulder's needs are and these unit counts you know i don't particularly see need to quibble over where we end up landing because anything in the mid 3000 new units is going to be a huge change in our plan so i think that is really good it's important and it's what we've asked for so i guess i'll start with the um connections because you got to get here if you're going to enjoy the housing of brewpubs or work here or whatever and and i am totally bought into the change in arapaho you know we've been lobbying as hard as we can to get highway 7 improved and better transit going all along so that is a clear focus the whole northwest mayor is really focused on that i'm a little concerned that not enough attention has been paid to uh pedestrian and biking connections so i've said it before and this may be my

[170:01] last crack at it but how we can make better connections like right now if i want to bike on goose creek path and get to flat irons park i end up stuck right i come out and if i go more take goose creek path down and and head a little south i end up in parking lots and so there's no good easy way to connect over to western there's a two super block set of parking lots in between so our connection plan needs to figure something out there i've always said it would be great if goose creek could extend the goose creek path could extend straight across over to 55th we've got the railroad tracks there i don't know if there's some easement that we can get along the railroad tracks because that would be another way to get from that kind of dead end area over so i'll just raise that again that that that connection and and you guys know this you pointed it out but

[171:00] the other connections besides 55th and arapahoe are pretty crucial and it's one of the reasons why everybody ends up in a car so to that point i think it you know having worked out there for a dozen years having a bunch of e-bikes available that are just easy to get to like having the stands for the e-bikes would totally change people's perspective at getting over to where they want to eat lunch or meet with people or have coffee or whatever and so i i think that that should not be given short shrift and so anything that we can do to kind of saturate that area out there with those other mobility um options i think people will take them i think they would be very happy for them the other thing i will say about 55th and arapahoe is i'm a little nervous that if we're not careful we end up with a bunch of housing we need housing but we don't preserve our neighborhood centers so when i think of community plaza i think where ozo is and so on

[172:01] we have to be super careful that those not only remain but improve and become focuses because a neighborhood would use a good grocery store there and all the people who work out there would love to have more options rather than what's available largely space constrained so when you think about redeveloping that corner i think it is critical to keep in mind that the focus needs to be a community center first and then housing second and as you move elsewhere i think you know the housing should indeed dominate um to mark's point i think one big concern is how you make sure that those uses that aren't light industrial are compatible so i agree that there's a lot of assembly tasks for instance in light industrial a lot of development and flex space tasks that would be very comfortable having housing nearby and there's some that would not and i think it is important to make sure that

[173:02] we preserve space for those which are not that compatible and so that means that maybe housing doesn't mix in everywhere and we kind of use your guidance and i think you know this sub community plan at this level is a great way to give that guidance on where we want this loud smelly parts and where we want the you know easy like the pop sockets assembly kind of parts right so i think that's another key to success here is figuring that out and then the last really big part is we have to be careful about gentrification somebody brought up park mosaic i mean not only is it super expensive but it wiped out a bunch of affordable middle-income housing it was rental but it is gone now so i think you know as we go forward i think we should be careful not to have everything be like super space age visualization

[174:01] because it looks like we're going to three to five story buildings everywhere and it looks like there's high bays so it could be industrial but then you got housing on top and i've always been curious about how that really looks there are people who have live work in boulder right now it's just illegal and so they're happy to you know live in a relatively small space that doesn't have great views of the flat irons or anything so that they can afford it so um and so that's a bunch of stuff just to throw at you um but but i think that this is a really really important visioning exercise and i i think you're totally on the right track with where you're going with it i i think the devil will end up being in the details of how you don't end up chasing out the industrial that we have and and particularly concerning to me is people who want to start up businesses and need low rent you know that's what the

[175:01] gentrification will push out and so i'm i'm really concerned that you keep that in mind so and maybe it's part of the like what what is next to what as you go out there i think that's all i've got but i really appreciate the hard work you put in i think this is a great product thanks sam uh just a quick time check for folks it's i'm 8 55 we were scheduled to to wrap this up at nine we'll um we'll undoubtedly go a bit past nine uh and i think that's appropriate in light of the fact that for some of our colleagues on council this may be their last opportunity to weigh in on this plan so let's uh let's take a little bit a little bit of time make sure that they they and everyone else has an opportunity to weigh in and let's just shoot to wrap this up around uh quarter past the hour if we can we got aaron and then mary and then mark all right um well can we bring up the the east boulder lane use plan map please because it would help for a couple of my comments and while you're doing that let me just

[176:01] say again that how great a job i think you've been doing this is an exciting opportunity east boulder has almost no housing and lots of jobs but very few retail opportunities and i think this this plan is moving us towards like a mixed-use walkable neighborhood where you know there's retail opportunities and housing opportunities all mixed so i think it's it's an exciting step forward so i'm glad we're doing this and looking forward to the next steps um there we go okay thanks so much so um i i think it is appropriate that the plan has a mix of things that are not changing and a mix of things that are proposed to change and we got that feedback from the surveys and i do think that that makes sense i did want to highlight a couple of possibilities that currently aren't labeled for change that i think could uh benefit from being included in these areas of change here so i'm going to

[177:01] call it just a couple of specific places so on the west side you've got area number four which is like the park west um i think you're talking about that and it ends uh at um goose creek slash old pearl street on the south side it seems to me that carrying some of these changes across goose creek to the south could be really beneficial you know that's an area where the infrastructure is not in great shape and the roads aren't in great shape and you've got some older buildings there and i really like your idea of the trail oriented development land-use type i think that's really cool it seems like the edge uh the the southern edge of goose creek could also use that designation so i i would suggest maybe combining some of that some of that trail oriented uh type place type with maybe some of the um with some additional mixed use industrial on uh kind of mirroring that

[178:00] that number four area on the south side and the other one that i would point to is uh to the east of the the mixed-use tod the stamp area there's a section of industrial land before you get to number seven the mixed-use residential i think that that's another place where you know there's there's some older buildings and and it's a lot of big parking lots and things like that that strikes me as a very reasonable place to extend the mixed use industrial designation as well because it's it's an easy walking distance to the transit oriented development and could really take any redevelopment over there could take advantage of those transit opportunities you know as we're going to get with a bus rapid transit along arapahoe and i think you know we definitely need more housing in our community and um this this version of the plan does have less proposed additional housing than some of the other ones and it seems like we could add back in a

[179:00] couple more opportunities in targeted ways in areas that that could benefit from some of those changes so so those would be my couple recommendations um on the um on the land use plan and is it also possible to pull up those place types that other map or the place types that's why i'm making a lot of demands here hey erin your lighting did get better at the sunset i know it worked out thank you uh so i asked a couple questions about this on on email and kathleen thank you so much for your responses on that um one thing i thought was interesting is if you look in the um the along central avenue um just west of south boulder creek there's a purple section there which is mixed-use industrial i'm sorry main street industrial and i was like well it's kind of off to

[180:00] the side was that main street industrial and kathleen had a great answer about how they're thinking that central avenue on that east side could start functioning more like a main street and have become a focus of the the neighborhood over in there which i thought was a really intriguing possibility and to that point i just wonder if you might extend the main street industrial place type across central avenue so that if you're getting central avenue working as a main street that having that place type on both sides could really help then push it in that direction of a mixed use walkable you know main street so that was my my one place type comment so yeah thanks thanks very much for that so then moving on to the connections plan i think you're very much going in the right direction i thought sam had some great comments about the connectivity extensions and keeping a very careful eye on the pedestrian and bike connections and since i do have a little bit more time on council i i'm gonna wait for another bite at the

[181:00] apple um as i i didn't parse every single individual connection so maybe when we get this back again in a few months i'll go on for another 10 or 15 minutes with uh individual comments you can uh but i'll stop on that for now um and then the the stationary master plan i think looks fantastic i think you've done a really finely grained job of thinking that through and it's an exciting opportunity for that area um and so my my only comments here are on the packaging of it you had a labels about the potential heights and it included some five-story buildings and i don't know that that's really appropriate to put on the height map it can scare people when you talk about the five-story building but we really uh very rarely get five-story buildings in town it's almost only in hotels and very occasionally like on the back side of residential buildings so you might you might label those also four stories or four to five stories

[182:02] uh because i think even the image that that was shown of that corner had it as a four-story building even though it was labeled five and the potential heights so maybe just soften that a little bit and then the other was uh sam commented on this there were a few images of the changes and i i really like that idea of saying here's here's what it is now and here's how it could transform um but the first couple though i think they didn't to me capture the the mixed-use potential that we're talking about here i mostly saw taller office type buildings in those pictures and so just as we move forward i recommend maybe thinking about those future opportunities is showing a little bit more of the street scape with uh you know a retail or coffee shop or deli or something like that and and people uh benefiting from from that sort of a thing i think the third image had a little bit more of that um uh kind of um a little more character to

[183:02] it so just a thought as you're going out and i'll call that part of my feedback on the engagement plan uh that uh i think there are ways it could be captured in a way that uh portrayed it in a way that captures people's imagination um people's imagination a little bit more and that's all i got great work and i'm really excited to see the final phases on this thanks much aaron and we'll hear more from you soon i think uh mary what are your parting thoughts on this writing thoughts indeed um i will agree with what sam and aaron have um provided us feedback so far except for taking another bite of the apple later um that aaron mentioned um i i am interested in i won't get to see it but in looking at how what percentage

[184:00] of that 17 acres in ig might really end up as industrial i i suspect that it's fairly high because that there hasn't been much of um too many takers on the housing on the ig so um that's the first thing and then um i would like to see the go going from a recommendation to a goal of annexing san lazaro and here's why they have had tons and tons of water quality issues that's one of the places in town that really does i mean it's not really part of the city right now and we have been doing a lot of engagement with the community and the sentiment is that they want to be part of the community and i think annexation is the way to do that so it should be a goal rather than a recommendation and so because that would address the

[185:01] water quality issues gaining access to city services the other reason is that this is a golden opportunity to take perhaps some of the arpa funds or the infrastructure bill money to leverage that for this particular use and um and partner with um the current owner of the site um it seems to me like that has a really good chance of qualifying for those funds um so those are two reasons and one of them is a golden opportunity that i don't think we should um let pass by um my other comment is about the the benefit capture you know we've been doing that you've been tracking the community benefit and the community benefit right now

[186:01] provides only for heights above the zoning the loud zoning height and so we don't have anything for increases in entitlement and so i think that part of the recommendations perhaps perhaps would be to make some changes to the boulder valley comprehensive plan in 2025 that would set some policies that would talk about benefit capture in in the case of increasing entitlements and that might also be the way in which um we get more affordable housing um we get exactly what we want in terms of um getting getting some buildings to do adaptive reuse um and not necessarily being wiped out and then being rebuilt and totally gentrified

[187:00] um i um i just wanted to also just uh mention that who knew that some folks really consider east boulder a recreation mecca and an arts and culture mecca um so that was that was a surprise to me but i i get it it's at valmont city park and then um all of the little organizations out in east boulder which are um part of an area that won't be changing so the reason they're out there is because of the low grants um but i want to thank you all for the work that you've done this is our first sub community plan since like forever and it is setting the stage um really well for the next one um and i think you've set up a great process template that i hope that we capture and move forward with the next one so thank you all that's all i have

[188:02] well thanks mary we have comments now from mark rachel and then mirabai thanks bob um yeah i want to thank uh staff for the work that's been done on this project there's a lot of it that is really very very uh very very good work and reflects a lot of effort and i appreciate all the work that has gone into this i i'm very supportive of the stationary master plan and the transit oriented development i remain concerned oh before i continue i would be supportive of aaron's suggestions to take a closer look at some of the parcels of land um for other opportunities to create housing uh it's worth at least you know providing an analysis of that and taking that closer look um my main concern remains the mixed use industrial designation i think to the extent that we allow commercial or retail uses in that

[189:03] zone we will be driving out the messier but necessary industrial uses that we rely upon whether it's a again a a body shop a woodworking shop these are things that are necessary for us we need them you know air conditioner repair and i don't know how compatible they really are with um residential and if there's an alternative to that i'm quite sure that developers will key in on the alternatives uh in to the exclusion of the uh industrial uses especially those that are again messy but necessary so i'd ask you to take a closer look at some of that and to make sure that we don't lose those uses because they

[190:01] are necessary to this community and when they're gone and we're all traveling to longmont um to uh you know to get a set of tires um we will regret that loss um so that those are my comments again i thank you for the work um and uh i hope you'll take a closer look at that mixed industrial zone thanks mark uh rachel then nearby um thanks bob i will echo what um council member wallach just said i've spent a lot of time this summer out in the industrial zone um or spaces out in east boulder my son's working at a marshmallow factory which has moved from east boulder to farther east boulder and uh so i've just been around it and and agree that we need to support those local businesses and make sure that nothing we're doing tonight um causes that that to collapse

[191:00] um and then it's so great to have three former planning board members here and those of you who won't be here to weigh in again your voice will be missed because you always have very helpful comments on these sorts of things so i'm grateful and i won't repeat nor could i um match what you've said when when aaron mentioned like look at this little bottom um you know these two bottom portions of the map i was thinking i i would like to look at those and so i'm wondering like could we do a field trip for those of us who are going to be weighing in on this again i think it might be helpful to uh you know if it has to be just two by twos or i don't know if we could go since it's educational as a bigger group for those who want to but i think it might be good to actually go out and and see what exactly we're talking about um with people explaining it in real time so that's my request between now and the next time thanks and thanks for all the hard work thanks rachel um the last two people to hear from before i wrap it up will be mirabai and then adam

[192:01] thanks bob most of what i have to say i guess has already been mentioned so i'm just going to reiterate a little bit because these were some points that um i i thought were important uh so i'll just seeing as it was just mentioned about the industrial i think that's incredibly important that we continue to protect and keep that as we continue to push jobs and types of businesses out of boulder it's difficult to keep our climate agreements if if we're having to drive out of town to procure the services that we need so that i'll just put a bid in for that um i appreciate what aaron said regarding the height i know a lot of people including myself always get concerned about height so i will say that i hope we can kind of adjust how that is on the map but i'll also say that i hope as we work on the developments of the 15-minute neighborhoods and everything that's being proposed we can also take into account of adding in more of the pitch roof and using some of that height so that these can look more homey

[193:01] instead of these weird ugly square buildings that we always always always get nowadays um and so trying to make them again if we're gonna make these 15-minute walkable neighborhoods and live and work um to continue on with um trying to create again the more european style village uh and adding in more beautiful architecture so um in terms of the connection points i'll just say especially for the area i don't work out there like sam does but i i'll say i love the idea of the e-bikes i'm out there a lot randomly just for um during especially during lunch times here and there and just the insane amount of traffic so if we can continue to offer modes uh that will allow people not to use their cars but the e-bikes and something they can access easily even if they're in work attire so that they can go in their meetings without having to can you know get the area more congested by being in their cars i think that is going to be one of the most valuable things we can do for that

[194:00] area um especially during those really busy lunch times which tend to last seeming from like 11 till two so um let's see here oh and then i'll just a second what mary said i really think that annexation would be wonderful um to fix some of the water issues and this is just as she saying a golden opportunity so i'd like to back um what she said on there but other than that i really wonderful job i look forward to continuing watching this world and getting feedback and engagement and i think it's really exciting that we're moving quickly thanks nearby adam bring us home here we go home uh i don't have that much to add i think a lot of my council colleagues really covered it well i will say in response to mark um i don't have as much fear about the industrial uh mixed-use zoning where people could live there as well just because

[195:00] believe it or not some people like to live greatly um it does happen and actually that does keep some rent rates and uh housing costs down to some degree um and there are people who are capable or even enjoy living near spaces like that so uh i don't mind that quite as much and the nicest thing is uh most places don't work past five or six and most people don't get home until five or six so the use is you know kind of work out that way um yeah i i really enjoy where this is going um i too have some interest in what we might be able to do in terms of additional housing especially in a diversity of housing because this is one of those spaces where i think it would be beneficial to just have such a wide range that many different people of different backgrounds and incomes could

[196:01] live here and work nearby um i think this could be one of the overall most diversified types of land use in boulder um and we have the ability to do that here and create that here whereas most of the rest of the town is pretty locked in so that that seems like a really cool opportunity and i'd like to capitalize on that like uh like everyone else here i don't have nearly as much to talk about in terms of connections there are people far wiser than me so i'll leave that to the sams and the errands and the rest of council and that's about it i appreciate the presentation it's really helpful and a lot of information in a short amount of time adam um i uh in the interest of time i won't add any comments i think everything's been said that needs to be said um other than i will underline rachel's request for a field trip i think it would be great to get some of us out there um and uh seeing things with feet on the

[197:01] ground so kathleen maybe that's something you can organize for the uh the fall or early winter uh with that i think everyone has weighed in everyone's had their questions asked kathleen and team thank you so much for a great presentation we ran a little bit over but hopefully you got everything you need kathleen is there anything else you need from uh from council tonight no i don't think so thank you so much um to everyone for the great feedback and and just um the the guidance over the last couple of years with this council has been really really helpful during you know crazy times so i i really appreciate all the time and effort everyone's been putting into this project and um thanks to all our staff who who joined tonight as well great thank you everybody with that we're going to turn into our final topic we've scheduled about 15 minutes for this and this is a kind of part two of the discussion that rachel and i kicked off as the process subcommittee last week

[198:02] on the city attorney's search we recommended and council agreed that we should continue looking at candidates and so rachel and jen will lay out a timetable for the second part of the search second phase of this search and also has have a few questions for council if you all could answer those tonight so that we could get on with things over the next couple of days with that i'll turn it over to rachel and jen i think there's a bit of a presentation and uh rachel jenn i don't know who's going to lead this part of it but i'll leave that to since i'm facilitating me and i'll leave that to the two of you too thanks bob uh jen's gonna kick us off with a couple slides great thanks jim good evening council jenn sprinkle hr director i will um just sort of recap what bob said and we had a conversation at last week's council meeting and then on thursday you all received an email with the position profile and that's redlined um

[199:00] and we'll have some conversation about that in just a bit but before we get to that i wanted to sort of briefly go over this proposed timeline and process for the city attorney recruitment so um right now we're in physician review as i mentioned you received a red line copy of that which we can discuss tonight and so that step is in progress and as we think about moving from the position profile to active recruitment we would like to kick off a new visibility campaign and outreach uh starting on july 30th and that will be done by the recruiter we will have um applications um and a job posting open through the month of august and so closing on august 30th from that point uh the recruiter would provide candidate materials uh through this candidate review process um we're recommending that be presented to the hiring subcommittee and so that the hiring subcommittee

[200:00] could select finalists from there we will proceed um with a virtual semi-finalist interview process and so what we're recommending here is that there is a um a group of stakeholders the hiring subcommittee city leadership representatives the city attorney office representatives and they conduct an interview process from there um the hiring subcommittee will solicit feedback and hear from all those groups and how the semifinalist interview process went uh we would like to provide you counsel with the semifinalist candidate materials in a packet so you could review those and then the hiring subcommittee could share feedback with you about how the semifinalist interviews went and answer any questions that you might have about the candidates and that would position the subcommittee to recommend finalists you all and you could select and vote on finalists at a council meeting in september we're thinking september 21st would be ideal

[201:00] and then from there we suggest that we move to the in-person finalist interview process this would again be council interviews 2x2 um and the hiring subcommittee would solicit your feedback on how that interview process went and and moved to make a recommendation on the final candidate in october and um hopefully in the meeting on october 5th is what we're thinking so that's the general timeline and process that we're proposing certainly um more conversation and we can move to the next slide and i'll turn it over to to rachel really to help facilitate a discussion uh among you um around the position review and this proposed timeline and process and i'm certainly here rachel so calling me at any time for any of these questions thanks jen um and thanks for laying that out so um neatly and cleanly for us so we just have a couple questions that we are

[202:00] hoping as the subcommittee that um colleagues will weigh in on tonight the first two are on the position um the job description itself so number one question that we want to confirm is is council comfortable waiving the residency requirement for this position um previously the city attorney has been required to reside in the city of boulder um if council chose to waive this requirement we think it might possibly broaden the candidate pool um it's it's uh the subcommittee's understanding that previous councils felt pretty strongly that the or felt strongly enough to make it a requirement that the city attorney should reside in the city so that's question number one for people to weigh in on and i think we will stop and take feedback at the end of each question um and some feedback that i've gotten or that bob and i have gotten is if we did waive this we could still have like a a county or certain radius residency

[203:00] requirement so with that can we get some all right aaron bob do you want me to call on people or would you like to go right ahead go right ahead all right i see uh aaron and mark on residency yeah well i'd i wouldn't wave it entirely but i mean we could allow for exceptions maybe we could have something like um a city boulder residency strongly preferred but um you know exceptions would be considered on a case-by-case basis i do think there's a value to having the city attorney live in the city thanks aaron mark uh yeah i would prefer to have the city attorney live in boulder but if the trade-off is getting a better uh set of candidates uh i would be supportive of a boulder county residency requirement um uh i don't know that there's a particular harm in having somebody live nearby if that's

[204:01] their choice um it's preferable that they live in the city but i i just i don't know that it's such a benefit in terms of the kinds of candidates we don't forget um all right thanks mark i'm i can't see the hand order so i'm sorry if i'm calling on you out of order but i think sam's next thanks rachel um i i think this is pretty important but i don't think it should be inflexible so one you know we offer a housing low income sorry low interest rate loan um for folks and i think there's a housing allowance as well i would be interested in considering something like uh within a certain period of time to be a resident so in other words maybe within three years of accepting the position the city attorney would need to reside in boulder uh and you know as far as the county

[205:02] goes to be quite honest there's folks who can get to the city of boulder quicker from broomfield than from northwestern boulder county so i don't know that the county requirement does too much that's necessarily positive on that so i guess i'd put out there that i wouldn't i'd be okay with not making it a hard requirement but a super strong preference and if it were going to be a requirement one way to soften it would be within x years of being hired thanks uh mary i like um aaron's suggestion of creating and doing it on a case-by-case exception basis um and not putting a geographical um limit on it except for like i want to live in vail and do my job remotely i don't think that would be acceptable i will note that

[206:00] very deep in the memo for the east boulder sub community plan um there was there were people that work in boulder asked that if boulder built certain types of housing out in east boulder would they move and they said no i already have my dream house i don't want to move to boulder so you know that's that's the thing is um if we found a candidate um that just totally fits the job description to a tee they already have their dream home somewhere else that they're willing to drive from to the job then i think we should consider an exception um so that's what i think thanks all right miraby i have no problem with it simple thank you adam yeah i'm willing to open up on the

[207:01] residency requirement because most of city staff doesn't live in boulder most of our workforce doesn't live in boulder uh if that means finding the right candidate who lives a little bit outside of boulder that's totally okay and i think sort of realistic at this point thanks uh anyone else who hasn't weighed in yet maybe maybe telling you bob well i mean what i think of what i heard was with maybe the exception of sam it sounded like most people were pretty flexible about the person not living in boulder sam's approach was a little bit more chronological than it was geographical which is it'd be great if they lived in boulder within a few years i think everybody else was a little bit more relaxed with a preference towards boulder residency but a willingness to consider well-qualified candidates who lived outside of boulder if i could recap accurately yeah i think it's a it's a

[208:01] probably should go in the job description if i'm hearing it correctly is a strong preference and exception could be made to to not live within the city is that i heard that as well and i think that will work if anybody disagrees with that assessment will you raise your hand speak now or forever hold your peace great okay um so the second question that we need to answer is um everyone received a redline version of the position profile which had been slightly edited so just want to see if anyone has feedback or concerns about the new positioning profile yeah i only had one question all the changes look great to me um the only question was there there was an addition that the candidate should have supervised five other practicing attorneys or something like that so my question is what was the thinking behind that in particular you wanna take it jen yeah i can take

[209:00] that one um and so the idea is that the city attorney staff is is fairly large and so really thinking about someone who has experience managing a team and so maybe five isn't quite the exact requirement we could be a little flexible with that but i think the idea there is does this has this person managed a team of professionals so i you know i agree that's an important characteristic and so i would just make at least five a little more general you know however you want to phrase it you know direct leadership experience managing you know multiple other attorneys or something like that five just seemed like an interesting cut off and maybe too specific everything else looked great to me thanks sam uh any other feedback on the new position profile going once twice all right um and then the last question is around the new timeline and process

[210:01] i think everyone has had a couple days to think about it and so subcommittee just wants to confirm whether uh council supports the proposed timeline which is obviously ambitious and condensed in the hope that we will get this wrapped up with the current council um so is that supported the timeline and process i see adam and then mark yeah i definitely support the timeline only one process suggestion was uh if we could record the semi-finalist interviews so other members of council could watch them if they so wanted to i think we could get a lot more out of how they answer questions rather than having the subcommittee relay how they answered them if we can watch them ourselves as well jen can can we do that um i want to check on that because i i know that only the finalists materials are subject to open record um and so typically uh folks if they're

[211:02] semi-finalists may not be notifying their current employer and um may not want to notify their current employer if they're interviewing and not finalists so i would love to just get a little bit more uh information before um answering that question if we can do it or not and and if that's not possible could we um allow other people to just join the zoom no we can't because then it'll be more than two people can't like tune in and watch okay we'll get back to you on that adam it sounds like mark i i support the proposed timeline i do have a question with respect to the process are we doing anything different during the active solicitation period than we did last time are we simply hoping that we'll get better results different results yes i can i can take that one um so as we think about what the active recruitment process looks like this the sourcing process um the strategy will shift a little bit and i mentioned this a little bit in

[212:01] last week's uh council meeting but really the idea is to think about cities with similar council agendas and community engagement to boulder and that could be larger cities than um than this city and so really kind of looking broad and going a little bit more national in that sourcing strategy and initially we were looking um we were hopeful that we might get uh someone who was more local had colorado experience really understood um the city but i think if we do a broad uh sourcing strategy will cast a wider net if i could if i could jump in also mark um we've received commitments from several of the uh people in the senior leadership in the city uh including the city manager but also some of the people that report city manager who have relationships with people in other cities who would could be contacted directly based on those

[213:00] relationships and so i think the idea is that using our city staff and our networks we would caster wider net than simply relying on our recruiter great excellent thank you any other questions concerns mary yeah just a quick question um in i believe in one of the emails i saw that um there's been a change in the consultant or we added a consultant um has that changed no it hasn't so the the contract is with rap telus that's the sort of legal name of the entity uh however the novad group is um what you will you probably commonly know the recruiting team as okay that explains why i was puzzled thank you and we did internally add

[214:00] um someone else to the email so that might have been it as well yes we recently hired a senior hr business partner that supports the city attorney department as a as one of her client groups her name is sheri martin and she's engaged with me in this process any other questions we want the process to move fast but don't want you all to feel rushed so i'll give it another second sounds like we're getting no hands i'm going to turn it back over to bob well great well thanks rachel and thanks jen and thanks to council for your support in this we as as rachel said we will move quickly but we will not be rushed we will keep you apprised every step of the way i will probably ask cac for periodic check-ins uh rachel and i with with you if not every every week every other week for the duration until we get to early to mid october when we hope to have

[215:01] uh a recommendation to you to um to uh extend an offer to someone and if it doesn't work then we're gonna keep on working at it because this is an important hire and we're not going to settle we're going to do the best we can and we're going to um we're going to find the right person and we've uh we really appreciate the offers of assistance from uh the city manager and her senior staff and helping us find those those right people out there around them around around the state and around the country so thanks for everyone for their support on that and uh this feels right to me i think uh absent anything else from council members we are ready to adjourn our meeting at 9 36 anything else from anybody i just want to say thanks to you and rachel for all the work you're doing on this it got extended so appreciate you sticking with it very very good work thank you okay thanks dan um with that i think we're adjourned see everyone next week see you next week good night