November 30, 2021 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[8:30] JY hey Miss [Music] juny right it is it is 6:00 do we have um Channel 8 ready to

[9:02] go evening Council Channel 8 is all ready to go looks like we have all our council members here I'll begin recording all right well good evening everyone and welcome to the Tuesday November 30th special meeting of the Boulder City Council uh before we get started uh we have one announcement uh which is about covid-19 vaccinations and for more local information on getting your vaccine and to sign up for notifications visit the URL on your screen which is www.bouldercounty.org families disease-9 vaccines so if you haven't done that yet you can get going now and that's our one

[10:03] announcement so um we need to move on into Alicia do we do the roll call or the uh agenda Amendment first we do the roll call sir and establish our quum makes sense okay please proceed all right thank you and good evening everyone council member Benjamin here mayor Brockett present council member fuls present friend here Joseph present spear present wallik present Wier present and Yates happy to be here mayor we have our Quorum fantastic so first order of

[11:00] business is to amend the agenda so we have a few changes we're taking item 2B which is approving the election returns to 2A and taking the previous 2A about the easement on the castler open space property and moving it to 2B and in addition we are adding item 5A an update from the city manager on occupancy enforcement and also 7B a council check-in on CAC time adjustment would anyone like to make a motion about that so mov second very good we have a motion to a second I'll say is anyone opposed seeing no one opposed we'll call that approved unanimously uh so now we need to move into our first item Alicia do you want to take this away our new 2A on the coordinating municipal election I most certainly will sir thank you very much item 2A on tonight's consent agenda is the consideration of a motion to approve the election returns from the 2021

[12:00] coordinated municipal election held on November the 2nd the steps we will follow tonight in accordance with this process first we will motion to convene as the central cin scene and election board for the city of Boulder coordinated municipal election then we will go into a roll call of the general canvin scene and election board we will administer the oath and discuss the signing of the Same by the board members we will will also go into a consideration of a motion nominating a member to chair the board and we will then do a submission of the following to the board which is found in your attachments in the packet the statement of votes the summary of votes the Boulder County audit Reconciliation Report and certification and the statement of election results and certification for the Colorado Department of local Affairs then we will move into a consideration of a motion motion to approve the election returns

[13:01] and if approved we will make sure the certificate of the general canvasing and election board is signed and then we will then motion to adjourn from the general Cen scene and election board for the city of Boulder coordinated municipal election and reconvene as the Boulder City Council so with that being said Nu if it's okay I will go ahead and proceeded absolutely thank you you will see on your agenda the presentation of the short agenda that we just went through and so again for this item we'll be convening as the general canvasing an election board which is compromised of previously seated council members who were not up for reelection the city council sits as the general canvasing and election board and I as the city clerk will serve as the Secretary of that board and as the designated election official for the city to begin may I please have a motion to convene as the general canvasing and

[14:00] election board for the November 2nd city of Boulder coordinated municipal election please Madam Secretary I move that we that U mayor Brockett mayor protm friend um council member uh Joseph and I convene as a general ceny and election board second thank you council member Yates and council member friend I will need to take a roll call for that motion so we will begin with mayor Brockett hi Council mayor protim friend hi council member Joseph presentent I'll take that as a yes and council member Yates yes president and I thank you all right thank you that motion to convene has been approved by the general camine and election board we will take again a roll call of

[15:03] that board for the record council member rocket pres mayor Pro Tim friend here and I apologize mayor Brockett I'm getting used to that Council council member Joseph present and council member Yates president thank you thank you at this time we'll go ahead and administer the oath and if you would please all raise your right hand and you do and say I do once the oath is completed no need to repeat the oath after me we the UND sign do solemnly swear or affirm that we will perform the duties of the general canvasing and election board for the November 2nd 2021 coordinated municipal election held in the city of Boulder County of Boulder state of Colorado according to the law and to the best of my

[16:00] ability do do do all right thank you now we will ask for a nomination which council member Yates has already done for a person to serve as the board chair for this meeting and we have a nomination of Mayor Brockett second thank you any opposition or anyone oppose of that nomination so approved unanimously by the board mayor Brockett you will serve as the board chair next slide next slide Taylor please you will see the election returns on the screen the five candidates elected to council were Mark wallik for four-year term with 17,682 votes Matt Benjamin for a four-year term with a total vote count

[17:02] of 1651 Nicole spear for a four-year term with a total vote count of 16,28 for a 4-year term again Lauren farts for a four-year term with a total vote count of 15763 votes and Terry W Tara Wier with a total vote of 15,25 for two-year term the active city of Boulder electors for this election was 68,800 for official results you can visit the bouldercounty.org elction website and the certification and summary of those official results are included in your packet next slide please Taylor we will also go through the ballot issues that were appearing on the

[18:02] ballot for the city of Boulder we have ballot issue 2i which is the extension of the community culture resilience and safety and sales use tax which was a Taber item that item passed with yes vote of 27,9 4 and a no vote of 4,421 ballot issue 2J which was the bonds to be paid from the extended Community culture resilience and safety sales and use Tac that passed with a yes vote of 2,46 and a no vote against 461 I mean 6,159 ballot issue 2K which is in regards to council committees that item passed with a yes vote for of 2,154 and a no vote of 7,036 ballot issue 2L regarding the clarification of signatures for

[19:00] petitions passed with a yes vote for of 26458 and a no vote against 3,947 ballot issue 2m concerning the council payment schedule passed with a yes vote of 24,48 and a no vote against of 6,196 next slide Taylor the ballot questions representing the city of boder was question number 300 regarding the bedrooms are for people initiative that item failed with a yes for vote of 15756 and a no vote against 17,29 the ballot question 301 in regards to the Humane clothing act initiative passed with a yes vote of 16,1 163 and a no vote against of 15,520 3 valid question 302 in regards

[20:01] to the let the voters decide on the annexation of Cu South that item typo failed with a and I will correct that with a yes for vote of 13,871 and no vote against of 18224 and for the record to be clear ballot item question 302 failed I would like to also present to you and again those documents are in your packet the certificate of the public notice that was published for the November 2nd 2021 election the certificate of the approved ballots and the certified statement of election results and official summary of those and again the you have in the actual 2021 city of Boer had 600,000 68885 active voters the official result results as well as the historical information for

[21:01] the record are available on the Boulder County elections website could I please have a motion at this time to approve the election returns for the city of Boulder 2021 coordinated municipal election held on November the 2nd 2021 and to adjourn from the general canvasing and election board and reconvene as the Boer city council um I have a question before that motion is that okay yes of course happy to make it but just want to make sure we don't have to include any um magic language in this motion to correct the slide that was inaccurate on the 302 measure so I would I would uh move but would want to make sure that we don't take some action that that gets that wrong and has any impact no because that was a slide that I had put together for this presentation so it's not the official results the official results are maintained in your packet so and I do apologize again for that typle no

[22:00] that's okay I'm not I'm I I you know I just don't know how how important the the words are on the page okay um so then do I just need to make a motion to approve the election returns yes ma'am for the city of Boulder 2021 coordinated municipal election held on November 2nd 2021 now it's so moved second Al righty I will now take the vote of the board mayor Brockett hi mayor protim friend yes council member Joseph yes council member Yates yes the election returns for the city of Boulder 2021 coordinated municipal election held on November 2nd 2021 is hereby approved by our Canin sing board an election board now we will reconvene as the Boulder City

[23:01] council at this time thank you everyone and if there's no more questions we will proceed and I see Nicole has a question yeah I just have one quick question um I was noticing the totals for um the uh ballot measure um active voters and the um ballots cast was slightly different for the um Council candidates and for the uh ballot measures and so I was just wondering um um if somebody could explain that difference on the slides yep okay Taylor would you pull the slides back up for me please well while we're getting there I'll just make a quick note that uh this is a solemn Duty we're performing here tonight you know we have free and fair and safe and secure elections here in the city Boulder we're very fortunate that's the case and it's uh it's it's an honor to perform our little part in that

[24:03] process and I and again I do apologize for that one typo so where was the discrepancy I'm Sorry Miss Nicole oh yeah no it's on so this one and then if you go to the next one the active city of Boulder electors and the ballots counted those numbers are slightly different when you're looking at the um candidates versus the ballot measure issues and I was just wondering ah I didn't transcribe those yeah those are the those were from 19 oh okay so those will be corrected as well as and again this is part of my presentation I was doing it when I was coming on vacation so I do apologize um but yeah I will correct those no I'll correct those for the record I do apologize for those two typos I'm I'm normally meticulous with those things but I will correct those because the accurate count is the one previously where the candidates are and that is the 68885 and the 33772 and that's what is included in your documents but thank you for pointing that out for me yeah no well

[25:00] thank you for all your work on this yeah was again coming off vacation I still have vacation brain but I do apologize I'm not really big on typos but thank you for your understanding no no worries at all Leisa and very very sharp Nicole spotting that um we we did have a motion to approve the results I don't know that we actually had a motion to adjourn and reconvene uh would anyone like to make that motion from the four of us I'm I move that we adjourn as the general an election board and reconvene as the Boulder City Council second I did I did read it as part of the motion language so I I that's why I didn't bring it back up again so mayor so anyone opposing to reconvening to the uh Boer city council so moved and we will now reconvene as the voter city council thanks so much Alicia all right that was not as bad as I thought it was going to be all right great thanks every again for everybody for your patience on

[26:00] the typos again I do apologize all right so mayor if you want me to go ahead and move on to our next item on the uh consent agenda um or do we want to move to approve the item separately because this is the first time we've had two separate actions so we do have the consent agenda Item B which is next and that is the um we don't normally read those so do we want to just talk about the consent agenda Item B I move uh consent agenda item 2B do you have a second second very good okay we have a motion in second to approve consent item 2B anyone opposed seeing no one we can move on past the consent agenda all right thank you sir thank you everyone next we have on tonight's agenda our callup and check-ins item 3A

[27:00] is the callup item for the vacation of a 17,488 square foot utility and drainage easement at 2200 colar Drive which is referenced by ADR 22-13 3 doeses anyone have any interest in calling this item up wait I have a quick question because we switched a consent agenda A and B do we need did we and then this is call up check in item a so did we skip one of our consent agenda items so 2A was it's a great question Mar 2A was the approval of the election results which as its own whole little thing so I don't believe we needed to separately approve it on the consent agenda Alicia correct me if I'm wrong there no we approved it we had to approve a council member fer as the canvasing board we couldn't approve it as the city council so that's why we went through those steps to be the 65 foot ement yeah we

[28:02] just motioned Bob yeah we just motioned to approve item to be on the consent agenda we didn't do a roll call Vote or anything so it would have it it may have just like sailed right by it's good question Lauren does that does that answer your question yeah great it wasn't required for this item mayor protim friend that's why I didn't um do the Roll Call and yeah we asked if there was anybody opposing so it felt like you know we didn't we didn't stop by no criticism taken I'm learning too trust me these are all new steps for me so I appreciate everybody's patience so I'm sorry mayor Brocket you had the uh question on the floor if anyone was interested in calling up the item 3A 3A the vacation of the easen anyone anyone all right see no one I think we can go to 3B all right thank thank you item 3B tonight is the callup

[29:00] item regarding the concept plan review referen through L 2020-33 for input on a proposal to demolish the existing hotel at 1345 28th Street and redevelop the property with three four-story buildings up to 55 feet in height the development is proposed to contain 295 residential apartments in a mixed of 1 2 three and four bedroom configurations a 46% parking reduction is proposed to allow for 387 parking spaces where 712 are required for the underlining zoning the applicant intends to maintain a portion of the existing tennis facil facilities on the C side of the creek great and I think we have a short presentation on this item I see we do mayor Stone Walbert is here with

[30:01] him bring up my presentation all right is everybody seeing that great okay so um good evening members of council my name is SL Walbert and I am a senior planner in the planning and development services department so the purpose of tonight's item is for Council to consider whether to call up a concept plan proposal to redevelop the property at 1345 28 Street and call it up for a public hearing for consideration concept plan review is necessary based both on the size of the property and the amount of floor area proposed and that needs to be done prior to an application for site review this presentation will just be a brief overview of the proposal to help tea up the conversation so for some background on

[31:01] the concept plan process conceptual plans have been submitted for review and comment no formal action is taken on the part of Staff planning board or counsel this step in the process is meant to be a dialogue between the applicant staff the community boards and city council if so desired and the purpose is to determine the general development pattern for particular SE and to help identify key issues in advance of a site review submitt it's also intended to give the applicant an opportunity to solicit comments from the planning board early in the process as to whether um the development concept is consistent with the requirements of the city um as set forth in plans ordinances and policies so the nearly 16 acre property is located west west of and adjacent to 28th Street south of arapo Avenue

[32:01] Boulder Creek runs through the site and the site is located on the southern edge of the Boulder Valley Regional Center which is one of the city's three regional activity centers identified in the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan the site contains the Millennium Harvest hotel which was originally constructed in 1958 which is proposed to be demolished the Boulder Creek multiuse path runs through the site and the property contains 15 tennis courts that were originally constructed in 1977 the courts are located on both sides of the creek but the courts on the North side are covered with a temporary cover in the colder months other small businesses are located within the cottages on the south side of the creek including a small daycare center um Boulder Creek serves as an urban stream Corridor and Wildlife Cor coridor in this area um the Boulder

[33:00] Creek Corridor is protected by public easement over the multi-use path and there is currently a fish Observatory with an Amphitheater the creek which is shown on the screen the site is impacted by the 100-year high Hazard Zone and conveyance Zone flood planes of Boulder Creek the areas surrounding the creek are considered high functioning wetlands and the project would need to demonstrate that they meet all flood and Wetland regulations at the site review stage the site is owned business transitional one the description from the land use code is shown there on the screen the concept design locates the buildings in the central area of the site outside of those High Hazard and conveyance flood zones and in the same general location as the existing Hotel structure vehicular access would remain on 28th Street and the existing cross access um on the North side would remain to provide connectivity to fome

[34:03] street parking is concentrated in two surface parking lots one on the east side of the street or the east side of the site and one on the West Side fronting on 28th Street uh the proposed buildings are four stories and approximately 55 feet in height the buildings feature some um long arm features that reach shelf to the creek which creat some programmed internal Courtyards and some walkways between buildings the building design is contemporary um in style the plans show the existing tennis courts accessory structures and parking to remain on the South Side the existing multi-use path would be realigned and pulled further into the site to better align with the existing Creek Bridge and and the north side of the creek is proposed to be improved to create some passive and active recreational areas both for residents and for members of the public sort of

[35:00] reminiscent of the Civic area the proposed use of the development um is residential with 295 units for rent on four levels um the development is designed to serve the city's student population and would consist of one two three and four bedroom apartments in the mix shown on the screen uh the plans include the provision of 387 vehicular spaces and based on the number of bedrooms proposed a minimum of 45.6% parking reduction would be required at the site review stage um so this slide just shows the overall City processes that would be required for the proposal as I mentioned the proposed buildings are 55 ft and exceed the permitted Building height in the land use code so at the time of site review The Proposal would need to comply with Community benefit standards in the form

[36:02] of either on-site affordable units or an increase in the inl fee contribution to the affordable housing fund and use review would also be required to allow a residential use on the ground floor facing the streets and also to document the Athletic Facility as part of the development that was a very quick overview I'm happy to answer any questions that team is also available um as well thanks lone any questions before we make comments or discuss the Callum yes Mark thank you um just a couple um the project is intended for students is it restricted to students um my understanding is that it's not but Danica I don't know if you you want to speak to that sure hi Dan Capal with Trestle strategy group and it

[37:02] is a focused student housing project but there's no restrictions on who can live there in fact you know neuropa students could live there graduate students fam seniors but it's a you know a student housing facing project but there's no restriction from the lease standpoint and are the rents intended to be um geared towards students and and their financial capabilities as opposed to the market I guess my question is is there anything that bars the applicant uh at a later stage from vastly increasing the rents and turning it into a non-student facility um well from a regulatory standpoint there's no um criteria or condition that speak to the rent um The Only Exception would be if

[38:01] they decided to do on-site affordable units um but that at this point that is not the intent I don't know Danica if you have any comments on that yeah you know the rent control in the state makes it difficult to do this especially with students so we'll be paying $15 million in cash and L that will go into the city's fund to fund affordable housing the the rents will be Market rents there's nothing to constrain or prevent those from going up but you know they are primarily four bedroom units which creates more affordability in general because students are sharing common facilities versus having a one-bedroom two-bedroom or being in a house I guess just to finish up um has staff vetted other projects by this applicant uh to see how they have managed issues of um

[39:01] uh I guess maintaining uh quiet enjoyment for Neighbors Etc have other projects by this applicant um been well received and and functioned uh accordingly um so since we're at the concept plan stage um we haven't vetted other other developments um and I I don't think we would do so unless there were specific concerns about that okay well I would so I'm representing the developer Andrew and Rob are here um if they want to talk about some of their other student housing projects yeah hey everyone this is Andrew from Landmark um so we're an an Institutional property owner we manage about 56,000 student beds um so we have a on-site property man management team that uh is available should there be any

[40:00] issues we manage Behavior through our lease documents so there's a Code of Conduct in our leases if our residents do not adhere to that code of conduct they're penalized and uh potentially evicted and so uh we find that that kind of our experience in managing these types of projects all over the um all over the country um as well as through kind of strict guidelines uh controls any sort of Behavioral issues we're also willing I think it's a little uh I guess early to discuss this but we're also willing to do a good neighbor agreement some sort of formal agreement that uh formalizes how we will interact with our neighbors and what our responsibilities are thank you Andre that that would be very helpful uh that that those are all my questions thank you okay thanks Mark uh Tara and then Nicole I have a question about the 45.6 reduction of parking spots tell me how

[41:00] you came up with that number and can you explain if if there are more cars in that are they not allowed to be there or like or in other words how are you going to decide or stop more cars from being there and where would those cars go if there is no way to stop more cars from being there because it seems it seems like a pretty low figure especially it's you know it's graduate students as well so I'm just curious yeah so what we did is we we surveyed um similar properties in the Boulder area and we looked at effective use of parking so not necessarily the number of parking spaces that were available on site but we talked to property managers and asked you know how many of your parking spaces are are actually used and using that data we came up with what we feel is the appropriate amount of of parking um in terms of how we manage that the parking will be be uh we will charge for our parking and we will manage it through our management company

[42:01] our management team that's on site and so uh if a resident would like to bring their car any car that's on site will be registered with us they'll pay for parking they'll have a sticker on their car we'll have a um a member of our property management team that will walk the parking lot and if a car is there that is not registered they'd be towed we've also been proactively reaching out to our neighbors in the area saying we want to be a good neighbor uh if you see an impact from one of our residents uh or a guest of our residents we want you to let us know um something that we're willing to commit to something that we've done elsewhere is a essentially maintaining a towing agreement so if a neighbor has an issue with uh a one of our residents or guests they could either call our property management team uh they could reach our our our team through a 247 you know 24h hour a day 7 day a week hotline that will get in contact with our team and so they can either call the towing

[43:01] company directly and have the car towed uh or they can call our team and we we'll do it on their behalf um so we intend to be a good neighbor uh we are as I said earlier with the The Good Neighbor agreement we're totally fine formalizing that agreement um and we operate you know these types of projects um and it's our it's our strong desire to be a good neighbor and to fit into the community and we've started proactively reaching out to our neighbors to ensure that that's the case here just just to add on a little bit um currently there's a 42% par parking reduction on this site it's very Central to Transit it's very Central to CU it has a bus stop it has you know great Regional Transportation as well as local and so one of the things we will do in site review is you know justify that parking reduction through our TDM strategies so that'll look like you know more than Eco passes how do we provide excess parking for bikes or how

[44:01] do we really encourage people to not bring a car that can be managed through the leasing but also through proactive behaviors and so um I've had experience working on some other student housing projects to really you know show that you don't need a car when just to store it at campus you can have different options when you get here um and and just to you know the the parking there's a ton of parking there now and so we're retaining some of that it's in the flood plane and that's a big restriction as well that drove some of our parking we can't go underground we can't go up so this is probably a great place to show what a parking reduction could look like thank you Danica great is that it Tara okay so Nicole then Matt then juny yeah thanks um I think this project is looking really beautiful I'm really excited excited about the parking reduction my question kind of follows on that topic um which is is there I'm

[45:02] wondering if this is a place where Transportation Advisory Board might be able to give some feedback at some point in the process because this is such a prime location for living without a car student housing it's right next to the university it is right by transit they bike paths everywhere it's very walkable um could we do more parking reduction you know could we go um even farther in really trying to encourage people uh to live Carree um but you know we have so many options for micr mobility and car shares and all kinds of things so um I'm just this I think is maybe not necessarily a question for you all but more for City staff and um for us on Council just me trying to understand is this something where Transportation Advisory Board could give us feedback that could help us think um if we could um have even fewer cars here um so that that was a question I don't actually know the best person to answer that I apologize that's okay can answer it um so Council has the ability to refer it to the transport

[46:01] Transportation Advisory board if that's so desired okay thank you I appreciate that um so yeah I think that just is something I'm curious about um I don't know how other others feel about that um and then I was just wondering if somebody could talk a little bit about the neighborhoods that are nearby um so when I think about this place in my mind we have the shopping center with the Safeway um we have a lot of other student housing and apartment buildings um just wondering what else what else is in the area um is there anything else other than more student housing and the the shopping center and the university obviously um so sort of across 28th Street to the east there are some homes sort of sprinkled in with commercial uses there there's also um south of those student housing and the senior housing is an additional single family neighborhood I think it was defaed in the 50s or 60s I'm um blanking on the name of that so there is

[47:01] sort of an established um residential neighborhood there as well but they they are buffered by those existing high density developments okay thank you Nicole I can add on we've actually done a study to look at that because there's actually not really any on street parking in the neighborhood so we wanted to understand what the parking lots were some were privately managed there's actually a neighborhood parking program to the south of us as as you get closer to the university you have to have the pass and then we have met with all of our neighbors there's a few dentists across the street on 28th that are interested in making sure we don't impact their parking there's a carolon which is a senior housing facility so we're we've met or meeting with them there's an apartment project to the West so I think that's really important we're just digging into that now but understanding there actually isn't really any on Street par parking anywhere nearby but we want to assure our neighbors that we're not going to

[48:01] push people into their private parking lots basically or their neighborhood parking program y absolutely yeah and that that was my sense as well I just wanted to make sure that that that was accurate um so I had another question um I read in the documents that there was consideration for having a boulder Poli department officer on site um and I'm just wondering uh if this is typical of the types of properties um or if this is something unique about this particular one um so from a staff perspective I I'm not sure where that may have been um I think there there's been some discussion with the parks department on how we that um sort of private public open space would be managed and that might be where you were reading that of how um it's currently sort of issue and how that would be managed in the future as well this was something about um it was

[49:00] somewhere in the documents uh that the developer provided I'll see if I can find it um but it basically referenced having a a boulder Poli Department Officer living on site and about that let me I'll try to find it and see uh if I can get that yeah it was H page 34 in the document um says yeah yeah so pining approval um that we can do this what we've done in other places is that we've offered a a unit um free of charge to a uh a local police officer um it's not meant to be like a sub a substation or an outpost of the police department but instead um to offer an affordable unit uh for the police officer and they'll typically do some kind of what we call Courtesy walks so they'll take a walk around the

[50:01] property Ure um you know that there's no behavioral issues just to be seen on site um and so we we see it a benefit as an affordable unit um plus we like having that that police presence uh on site okay yeah I think I'm likely to have more questions about that at some point just to understand that a little bit better um but I don't I don't know that this is necessarily that that point um the one other question that I had and this may be a question not sure if it's for City staff or for the developer um there was discussion of how the cars can be flood risk um being in in a flood prone area um what about the um the canopy kind of thing for the tennis courts is that a potential flood risk as well and I was just wondering if you could speak to that uh potential risk so um I I can a little bit um there was a lot of discussion at planning board about the Dome the tennis dome um the current plans are showing

[51:02] the removal although I think that's still sort of up for discussion um but the existing Dome is under um like a seasonal flood permit and they did not have to do any um indepth flood analysis for that so there there's a chance that it would meet the flood regulations but that analysis hasn't been done to my know okay thank you have any other yeah no thanks and I just um I think this is just a comment rather than a question um I think because this is 100% rental um there is no affordability requirement for the units themselves so we'll get cash and Li um for affordable housing but I just kind of want to call out for us as Council to really you know think about this issue that I think you know Mark you raised this as well um there are a lot of students in our community who are struggling with our housing issues as well um and how how can we support them particularly since a lot of these folks are the ones who are working

[52:00] in our restaurants and grocery stores and kind of keeping our city running in the background so um just more of a I think just a general comment for us thanks for that Nicole um we've got Matt now and then juny Lauren and Bob thanks mayor Brockett and uh thanks for your comments Nicole I wanted to maybe piggyback on on uh one of them with regards to the parking you know we think about our longer term climate goals and our Transit goals and certainly see that pavement sort of baked in there and it makes me think that the one I love the idea of certainly that we have an initial parking reduction but I do think of a facility that's going to last 20 30 years that maybe there's a phased plan to phase out parking as it becomes less needed in our community right there's a need now but is there a need 20 years from now for that amount of parking so I'm kind of curious if it's traditional or if there's even a way to think about do you phase out 20% of the parking over 5 10 years at each trunk to that 30 years from now we get to a place where

[53:01] we just don't have much left and we can build those like maybe public spaces in there so that that's just a thought but also curious if that's something that's even done or or been sort of thought baked into that just given our climate goals and and being on Transit arteries in close to a 15-minute neighborhood um so I think in some projects that's been discussed typically it's a structured parking situation where um we ask them to demonstrate how that could be converted to additional units for example in this case um it would certainly be possible if they could demonstrate that it's not being utilized or needed um I think it would be pretty easy to convert that to open space or um you know a different use if that's that's possible for the flood regulations uh thank you um another question I have uh kind of comes back to really mechanisms for affordability I think Danica you mentioned shared spaces and I was kind of curious you know with each of these units are they sort of self-contained as a whole as a four bedroom four bedrooms with their own

[54:01] baths kitchens and and they're self-contained and I'm thinking if these are generally students is there a way to maybe sort of liberate with some creativity more shared space and in doing so that may create greater opportunities from some for affordability and lower some of the barriers of entry into some of these units um Andor for some individuals and so I'm wondering in a sort of market-driven environment if there's ways in which that type uh use U would would Foster that that's a great question I think we're limited by the zoning which allows four bedrooms per unit so that means four bedrooms one kitchen one I don't know how many baths but basically it's comes down to Kitchen um I think you know the idea is that there's a lot of shared amenities on site so there's not you know lots of excess open space or balconies or backyards the Open Space is really a more of a public open space and so what maybe is different about this is we have the luxury of the flood plane to

[55:01] give up all that open space I think it's um 50 55% of the site so and and as you probably have heard there's a big open space requirement per per unit in a lot of our zoning codes so this works in this situation so that open space is being put into more of the public Arena along the creek there will be some private open space in the courtyards but as far as I know the zoning would restrict us from creating more communal spaces I know planning board brought up the idea of dorms but I I don't believe that's um allowable or po part of this equation today but understand the question H thank you um that's hands are tied on that I get that U my my final question um having has to do with really sort of that redesign of the creek there you know one thing I've noticed um not far from where that uh fish Observatory is um is that there's a lot of sort of pylons in places where a lot of high school kids and others tend to sort of jump in the river it seems to

[56:00] be sort of a de facto fun recreational spot um which is nice because it's not in that main Corridor really from you know the outlet of Canyon um you know right towards maybe you know the municipal building where most of our River Recreation occurs it's a little bit further Downstream and that's a fun area that I see a lot of uh kids and youth enjoy and so I'm wondering in it is that going to be disrupted or is there a way to either build on that or leave that in place it just it's a nice unique spot um in that great little area and so I just sort of curious because I didn't see that is that sort of thing going to be remaining or or enhanced uh for sort of that fun recreational stuff in that capacity yeah we're I mean yeah there's the they're jumping from the fish Observatory and doing backflips which um is awesome and super scary depending on what age kids you have um but it's a deep spot I think the fish Observatory has probably lost its day in time but I think the idea is to retain that public

[57:02] access and if there's a swimming spot or a deeper hole that I love Rivers so I think that's definitely something we can look at we have a incredible landscape architect we have a lot of people to work with on this we have um like Urban flood and drainage we have the city we have parks and rack we have open space there's a lot of competing factors on how that edge is maintain but our goal is to create more Recreation opportunities and to offset what we're seeing as more formal or maybe more shallow stuff Upstream so I'm I think that's a great suggestion that we can work with our engineers and Architects on or Landscape Architects thanks an that pretty much does it I'll just end I'll just say that one I just appreciation to planning board also appreciation to developers and Architects I think this is a this is really in a good spot at this stage so just I just want to say thanks to all that have gotten to this place I just good credit to all of you for working together and and meeting those those needs for our community in that capacity

[58:01] so big thank you right thanks Matt now we have juny Lauren Bob and Rachel thank you very much Aon I have a question so I'm be liing the uh the discussion on uh parking and my question is what percentage did you say again was reserved for parking or it was lied to so there's no limit um necessarily I I was just based on the calculations what they were proposing and 45.6% 45.6% is that based on a parking minimum so that was just solely based on the number of bedrooms proposed that's not taking into account what the tennis facility would need or any other uses so that would that would all have to be considered as part of the site review okay and juny more specifically

[59:02] there's 536 spaces there now and we're proposing 387 but the reduction goes from 42 to 45 um based on the use but the parking will be reduced overall because of the type of use okay okay um just from our conversation here and from a comment I believe made by uh my fellow council member Matt Benjamin um I'm thinking and also I think Nicole also mentioned the same thing what are you doing to decentivize the use of parking spaces and I think for college for young college people uh and I recently graduated as well so I I'm kind of an expert on Council on college students in a way um when I was at CU I think uh parking was a big issue for me as well because I was communting into Boulder and I did not want to pay parking and I think maybe one way to

[60:00] decentivize the use of parking is to charge people who will be living there with a car more and I know that's again you could think of it many ways and say hey I don't want to penalize people with cars but if you're a college student and you don't live that far away from campus I don't see the reason why you would need a car and I actually lived in that area while I was in law school here at CU Boulder and I used to walk actually to class it only takes about 25 minutes and I work very very slow as slow as a turtle so you know you can decentivize the use of cars by charging more for the parking space in the area and I think as well another thing as was mentioned by Matt Benjamin is to use this area um the parking parkings for green spaces right the more green space we can have in that area the better and I actually know this site pretty well because I was living at

[61:00] the graduate student housing which is not too far from there and that's something I can tell you there's not a lot there's the creek path which is very beautiful and very natural but beyond that there's not a lot of green spaces in that area because there's 28th Street and there's Arapaho um so I think creating that using that parking space for more green spaces might be a a best utilization of that of that space so thank you thanks junnie uh Lauren Bob and Rachel thank you guys for putting together this thoughtful concept plan for us um and I thought you know planning board did a great job looking at this too my main question is kind of a basic one which is just sort of you talked about the four bedroom units being a higher percentage to kind of of create some intrinsic um sort of

[62:00] affordability and I guess I was just wondering you know in general how you got to sort of the number of units that you're at right now and what the sort of pressure points are in terms of um you know you said you're not pushing up against open space requirements but sort of what other um things this would might have been pushing up against well we we are still pushing up the open space requirements I think it's nine n and a half acres that's required out of a 15 Acre Site so um it's still a consideration we're we are asking for height modification to allow three to four stories um there's you know we're also elevating the building for flood protection parking is probably the biggest constraint that we're pushing up against to be quite honest um in that open space consideration I certainly I'm sure more units could be built here if those two things were eliminated but

[63:01] I'll let Andrew finish off his thought as the developer I'm not the developer yeah I would just add that we're severely constrained with building footprint on this site there's uh High Hazard Zone um flood plane as well as conveyance essentially surrounding the entire building so um we're very limited in the ability to to kind of change or expand the footprint of the building uh as well as being respectful of the the height um limits in the area thank you right thanks Lauren uh Bob and Rachel thanks um I don't want to repeat what's already been said I do want to Second however um the suggestion that Nicole made that um that this be reviewed by the transformation Advisory Board um I would I guess I would also and and these two suggestions are would be in lie of any call up I I rather than calling this up and having Council

[64:00] further review which I think we're kind of doing tonight which is great i' I'd like to see Transportation Advisory board weigh in and I'd also if Lauren thinks this would be helpful have the design Advisory board weigh in because I know that oftentimes there's input on on design issues maybe that's already happened but if it hasn't happened and if if the the team and Lauren think that would be helpful I I would suggest um also getting their input that's all I had thanks Bob Rachel um yeah I was going to ask if it was okay to turn a discussion we're we're more or less there we might have evolved into that so um and I had a very similar uh request as Bob's which is I would like to ask for a formal not aive I think to refer this to Tab and dab because I don't think we can refer to tab without that so would like to do that if this is the right time to do it um I think it is beneficial right at concept and then I just am not sure if that would come back to us before site plan because I like Bob I also don't want to call it up I

[65:00] just want to invite that and process that feedback and I don't know if it's helpful to the applicant for us to get it back one more time after we get that feedback and weigh in on that or not because we haven't done that um much at this stage and then also I'm not sure if there's anyone that we can invite um staff Advisory Board just to help us navigate the possible loss of tennis courts um in that area and I understand that's that's um you know private property and uh not not exactly within um the purview of the applicant to figure out where tennis courts can be located in Boulder but is there something that we can do uh to get feedback on that aspect as well so I don't know if I need to do anything else to trigger a not of five on the tab dab referral I'll I'll I'll come back to that Rachel but um thanks for the suggest Jacob do do you want to address I don't think this would come back to us if we don't call it up right but do you want to address those questions

[66:00] yes well thank you mayor Brockett and good evening uh members of council Rachel first of all to answer your question regarding the referral to council what the ordinance says is that Council May solicit the opinion of the transportation Advisory board that is the extent of the ordinance powers and should you solicit the opinion of the transportation Advisory Board it would come back to you it would not go to the applicant directly so my interpretation um is that first of all that power is really reserved for policy matters and for issues over connections Road Connections things that are within the purview of the transportation Advisory Board should you solicit their opinion regarding a concept plan in order for it to come back to you it would it would seem to me that you would also need to call it up because you would all you would need to receive that opinion back in a forum in which you can uh deploy

[67:02] that opinion of tab the other thing that I would say is that the parking reduction itself I would like to urge caution in this regard because that is a specific regulatory power and it's not something that um the tab would have jurisdiction over so the parking reduction itself would uh not be within their purview however you could solicit their opinion on other matters related to Transportation or generally regarding their opinion on the concept plan which should come back to you should you call it up so that's sort of a general uh General opinion and I know our city attorney's office may have additional guidance in that regard but I will say that the ordinance is fairly vague but in order for you to receive their opinion you would need a forum in which to do it um so so I'll leave it at that and we'll answer other questions as as best I can and and I'm happy to I'm happy to speak to that too I think this is only the second time that um anything would be

[68:02] referred to tap under this provision that Jacob just described um and we discussed that process a few weeks ago with with the former counselor and Jacob is right that code is it doesn't describe very well what that process would be but I think what you could do is you could make a motion to seek tab's opinion on something that's within tab's purview as as Jacob Des cribe a transportation matter and then tap could provide that opinion and that could then be provided by staff in the memos that go to the planning board when the project comes back so the planning board has tap's opinion in front of it when it makes a decision on the site review application and then any site review application that planning board acts upon comes to you for call up consideration and you would have that opinion then in front of you as well thanks for that and and would it be the same process for for dab like would would there be any different considerations or if we want to invite

[69:00] yes you you could do that with that there is a little bit more flexibility because um planning board the city manager and Council all have the authority to refer to D so usually whenever either planning board or city council says we would like it to be referred to dab and and even if there's just a few head notes to that then then staff would make that happen so it can be a little bit more informative thank you for that maybe just a follow-up question to Dana or the applicant um what is most useful like I'm just thinking if I'm the applicant and we've referred this to Tab and dab and then it's all the way until site review when it's maybe a little bit late to incorporate that possibly like is it better to for us to call it up and and have that discussion or over to site is site review uh review just as good from applicants perspective well I I believe we have to go to tab anyways or some version of that because we're we're

[70:01] moving a multi-use path that's shown on the Boulder Valley Regional Center and I staff can correct me if I'm wrong but I think we're we were planning on a pretty rigorous path with Tab and transportation um and we're very much going to lean into that we're hiring hopefully Fox Tuttle to do a parking study and really do a deep dive would be it would be hard for us to do a dab review now because we don't have architecture we just have massing and scale um similarly with tab it's a little early so I think we would be happy to work with them and visit with them as many times as necessary during our site review process and that would all go into the record with staff and be part of you know planning board's perview as well as yours if you decide to call it up at the end but it is a little little early for us to do a deep dive um with those two boards because of the early stage of the project but I do

[71:01] think we will be visiting with them anyways because of our multi-use path alignments great thanks for talking all that through all right so from a process perspective I see Mark and Nicole you got your hands up I we've done a a full circle here I just want to pause here for a minute we've given a pretty thorough working over so far but just want to see do people want to further call this up um or are we good with the qu and people can make additional comments before we're done here tonight just to be clear but is there any interest in in calling it up now our our questions have been answered and I'm not seeing nodding heads here looks like Mark we got a my interest in calling it up is is basically only contingent upon um getting some input from tab I I did like that suggestion by Nicole and getting some input at the appropriate moment from from dab uh as per Bob suggestion and if we can do that without calling it

[72:00] up I'd find uh with not calling it up um otherwise I would have some interest um because I do think both of those boards should weigh in on on the um the issues within their within their competence and purview I also have one question if I might ask the the applicant uh with respect to the parking you are providing um are you going to be providing charging stations for electric cars I believe that's required by code and so yes we will be and it will be managed parking using some principles so it will be paid for unbundled ETC but I believe the parking we would fall under the parking code which requires a percentage of charging stations thank you okay and so I'll just to respond to Mark I'll make a suggestion then Nicole get to you in just a second in terms of dab and tab sounds like there's some

[73:00] interest in those referrals I I have interest in those as well maybe what we could do is give direction that they should be um consulted at the most useful time in the process so uh as you're going towards um site review to consult with those bodies when you know you've gotten some distance along the path of design where their input would be most valuable and then that feedback can then be sent to you as well as to planning board and included in the eventual memo for um our potential call up for S review how does that sound to folks it and Dan and staff does that seem reasonable absolutely I I think that was plenty board definitely recommended dab and we're happy to work with tab I know that's a newer thing but I think it's absolutely appropriate in this location and so I think that's and like I said we'll work with them as many times as we need to through the process this is the site review will be a lengthy process I imagine it will be in it for at least a year so that's

[74:01] fine okay that sounds good then um so we have Nicole and then Lauren and then I have a couple comments and we can wrap it up thanks aarin um I just had just one more uh comment for the developer um which is just around you know again this issue of providing um some housing for you know essential worker in the community who could provide some support to the students who are living there um in my mind what would be um especially beneficial given this is a student population um is maybe not so much law enforcement but maybe mental health related so a counselor um potentially EMT person or you know somebody who can provide um support for some of the behavioral issues that's not necessarily requiring um a law enforcement response um I've have heard our police chief say that you know the one of the best ways to um address problematic um behaviors in in um these High um high density High student areas is really to have property managers on site which is what you know

[75:00] you're already planning to do with I believe uh Community managers is how you refer to them um so I would just love to think about if you're going to be having um a a unit for someone who can provide support to the students who are living there I would encourage you to think about that being a counselor somebody who can provide mental health or um some other sort of medical support thanks that Nicole Lauren and you're muted no you're muted Zoom um sorry virtual is so fun um so I really appreciate that you guys are doing um making some interesting connections through the site you know the bike path going north south through the site um is a connection that I actually use around the Millennium already and even though it's a weird one I appreciate that you caught that and are doing it um I appreciate the parking reduction um and I would really

[76:02] encourage when you go to Tab and or with this tab reviews to kind of be experimental I think this site has I would support a heavy parking reduction here especially if we can look at any shared car parking spaces or other um you know bike shares bike repair rooms those kinds of all those other parts that could help make that easier for people um I think it's great that you're kind of doing a variety of outdoor spaces um and I also really appreciate that you're going to go through the effort of trying to you move the multi-use path that doesn't you know it's not something you need to do and it's definitely extra process but that's um a kind of weird connection right there and I really appreciate that you guys are going through doing that um I do think that right now the massing on one side were pretty

[77:01] monotonous with sort of the the arms of the building coming towards the creek and then on some of the other sides it's pretty um those are some pretty long expanses and so my feeling is even though it is at that massing stage it does to me feel like a good time to try and get um some dab feedback because it seems like the easier I see some potentially bigger moves um and it seems like it's better time to have that discussion earlier um yeah thanks s now we got Tara and Matt and we'll I'll go after that Tara first of all I wanted to say that I used stayed the Millennium back in the day when I used before I moved here and so I'm so excited about this property because we had a a great time being so close to the creek and I'm excited about also the amount of biking like Lauren said I'm going to agree with her on that

[78:00] I'm gonna ask and I don't even know if it's appropriate or not I hope it is I want to talk about bike security and I'm wondering I'm thinking about that a lot of people are going to be biking and if there is some sort of a plan for an more bike security I would say so that those bikes are more protected um it's hard for people to buy another bike especially uh you know the student population so that's my first question and secondly I'm going to agree with Lauren on the design element did you want that answered now Tara yeah okay so so the so the a significant portion of our bike parking will be inide and it has to be locked hello sorry um and so I don't have the number of bike parking spaces it's signicant and sorry is that are you

[79:00] hearing that too yep just keep going okay keep going thanks Zoom um so I I don't know the number of bike parking but a significant amount of that will be inside the building so that's where the the more expensive bikes will go the people who's who are riding every day and then the guest parking is outside that also has to be in well lit spaces near the entrance to buildings so like in an any new project there's a huge amount of bike parking I think it's 75% inside to 25% outside and it's a percentage of the auto parking um we won't be looking for a parking reduction on the bike parking so that will it will be significant and you know we're totally open to looking at bike sharing and other ways to you know promote that Transportation Element no knowing that kids already have Ecco passes as students so we really need to take it up a notch and encourage Alternative forms of transportation or even think about

[80:00] like car storage like versus you know you know how can we tandem park or do different things with parking because people aren't moving the cars around so we're open to all of it like I said we're going to um hire hopefully hire Fox Tuttle to really help us dig into the parking equation um we haven't gotten there yet but that's going to be significant Dan Matt thank you you know uh Danica brought up something that just seems to not uh Finish Well which is there's Ambitions for affordability for working for student housing in a ripe area for some some good infill and it seems like some of that creativity is stifled because it's restricted by zoning um and so I I don't know if this is the place to have that conversation but it does frustrate me that that we can't maximize the use of necessarily this space for the people it's intended for or at least unleash some different options because

[81:01] the zoning limits our capacity to do that so I don't again I don't know where that that that dog gets to bark but it just it just doesn't sit well again given that this is an amenity for students that we're going to have for a couple decades so I don't know if this is here or some other conversation or one for future stuff that we do in our community but H it just doesn't sit well with me um but I just want to flag that for wherever it does have an appropriate place to come back up and I'll say thanks for that Matt I'd say bring that dog to The Retreat um so because I think that's the place to talk about where our rules are working and where they aren't and how we might change them so somebody else has another thought on that okay well I'll just be real quick here um we've given this a project a good thorough work over um couple comments I think youall are headed absolutely in the right direction um I support the parking reduction except I think look at going further because this is as good a side as it gets for Transit bikeability walkability etc etc and so

[82:00] look forward to hearing what you come up with there and I think the height is appropriate it's great to see uh the housing for students we know how deep the need is for housing in our community for students and I think this will be a positive step forward um and just one little little detail thing is I know you you need that parking lot on the east side because of the flood reasons but if you can just really landscape it super super well so it can be as attractive as possible from the street side I think that would be fantastic all right and with that not seeing any other hands raised um do we have anything else Dan or slan that um you need from us okay great oh Rachel's got a hand well I just want to make sure that we adequately for the record authorize dab and tab to weigh in great point do we need a motion on that um or was that direction sufficient I believe we have enough Direction unless Hela tells me otherwise um if if there is a I haven't looked it up but if there is a requirement that tab make a

[83:01] recommendation before there is a change to the um transportation plan in that area then then the item would have to go to tab for that purpose if you wanted to go to tab for more than that then I would recommend you make a motion about it and give some direction on what you would the feedback what what would you what you would like the feedback to be on you want to do that sure um I would like to make a motion that we uh refer this callup item and project to both Tab and dab transportation and design advisory boards um to give us holistic feedback on improvements that um could be implemented at the site to to make it more um uh alternative to car friendly basically and um transportation friendly as well as um design um the the best and most beautiful possible

[84:01] design second great got a motion to Second uh any disagreement on that motion okay not seeing any I think we have the unanimous approval on that okay well thanks everybody for a thorough and productive discussion and uh Alicia you want to take us on to the next item all right sir thank you next on tonight's agenda we have our public hearings item 4A is the second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt ordinance 8511 approving supplemental Appropriations to the 2021 budget and setting forth related details thanks Alicia and mayor I think we have Mark wolf here um to give a short presentation before we launch into good evening Council uh just one second while I get the screen

[85:09] up all right can you see that okay yes we can great so first i' just like to extend my um welcome and congratulations to the new Council from the entire budget office uh we look forward to working with you again my name is Mark wolf I'm the city's senior budget manager and tonight I'm covering the final supplemental Appropriations to the 2021 budget to help uh provide some context for new council members I'll walk through our uh typical budget cycle provide an overview of the 21 adopted budget and the adjustments to the 21 uh budget to dat then I'll provide an overview of the proposed adjustments for your consideration this evening and last I'll touch on a a few future touch points with Council um on budget uh this

[86:03] year so I know some of this content has been provided in uh Council orientation materials but thought it would be helpful uh for context uh so this this slide or graphic uh represents our typical annual budget cycle uh first we Center our budget process on CommunityWide goals reflected in our sustainability and resilience framework in January Council conducts the annual Retreat and sets policy priorities for the year which staff utilizes to guide work planning and next year budget development guidelines it is during this period of time that departments with the support of the budget office are are planning operating and capital budgets for the following budget year we also typically provide council with an update on our overall financial performance including Revenue projections for the upcoming year to help help guide budget Planning in May we present Council the first adjustment to base or budget amendment this typically covers operating rollovers and other carryovers

[87:01] from the previous budget year to reflect work that is ongoing and Crossing fiscal years during May and part of June the budget office is working with departments to put together a b budget package for a review by our executive budget team or EBT this internal team includes our city manager Deputy city manager and rotating Department directors to help provide policy guidance ensure alignment with city-wide goals and te up policy considerations for Council in the recommended budget during August or September is when we take a deeper dive with Council into the recommended budget uh this is the best opportunity to ask questions make recommendations discuss additions subtractions to the budget in advance of the public hearing and Adoption of the budget in October and in November just like this evening uh we typically consider a second adjustment to base and we'll cover uh there are times where we need uh based on special circumstances additional adjustments throughout the year and the last note on this I I'll

[88:00] say is we we truly look at this as a cycle meaning we are always attempting to build in an intentional review of the previous budget process and look for ways to continuously improve next uh we'll take a look at the adopted or base 2021 budget the 2021 budget was approximately 341.50 including a general fund budget of 146.940 so Revenue projections and the corresponding budget structure reflected a very cautious approach including Staffing uh in service reductions while attempting to maintain basic Services as we saw faster than expected economic recovery from the pandemic we began to gradually restore Services throughout the year a quick note on budget amendments or adjustments to base you'll hear those

[89:01] terms used interchangeably uh every year as outlined in the budget cycle slide we schedule two adjustments atb1 and two anticipating likely changes the annual adopted budget provides us with spending Authority up to a certain amount for each fund if we need to make transfers across funds for example from the general fund to a special dedicated fund or if we need to exceed the spending authority of of a fund for some reason then we need to amend the current year base budget due to the rapid changing economic environment 2021 saw a total of four budget adjustments including atb2 this evening the first special adjustment was to implement the voter approved funding for legal representation provided in cases of eviction sense renamed eviction protection and rental assistance Services fund or eess for much shorter acronym uh this special adjustment included funding from the general fund to Kickstart Services prior to the long-term ta rental tax revenue being

[90:00] realized and this funding will be repaid to the general fund over the next few years atb1 the first regularly scheduled adjustment is typically used for those operating carryovers where we need reauthorize reauthorization of spending in May the adjustment included the beginning of phase service Restorations based on revised Revenue projection and new spending for encampment Management in the ambassador program another special adjustment in September was necessary to continue service Restorations again due to better than expected revenues and to accept and appropriate initial American Rescue act dollars in several areas under consideration this evening is ATB uh in atb2 or the fourth adjustment uh the total Appropriations requested is just shy of 18.5 5 million including approximately 6.2 million uh in general fund spending appropriation requests generally fall into two main

[91:00] categories those that are supported by additional revenues realized throughout the year and those supported through the application of existing fund balance or reserves a full list of all requested Appropriations by fund is included in the council packet and attachment b as highlighted in the item memo we will touch on a few specific requested Appropriations to assist with the consideration of the total package first we are seeking a $1.83 million transfer of funds from the Telecommunications fund to the computer replacement fund this reflects the organization's move from a traditional enterprise-wide phone system to utilizing a Microsoft teams based platform uh future improvements to equipment will be more appropriately made out of the computer replacement fund thus the need for the transfer the the amendment is also seeking the appropriation of $330,000 to continue workplace transformation towards a hybrid work environment with the purchase of further

[92:01] equipment this year the next highlight is continued overtime cost increases uh in in fire rescue uh this reflects a few factors first being covid related Staffing reductions created limited flexibility for the Department to address natural turnover and retirements combined with the the macro Workforce shortages that we've been seeing and the longer lag time for new hires to complete Academy all of those factors generally drove up overtime costs this year Additionally the overtime budget for fire was reduced in 21 as a part of covid reductions so while other services that we have across the city are are able to uh absorb and plan for such reductions minimum Staffing standards and Emergency Services prevents much flexibility in the special adjustment to base in September as a part of our general service Restorations Council approved additional fire Staffing of three FTE and reinstated the overhire program to help with with turnover while

[93:02] this will improve overtime costs the full impact won't be felt in until 2022 and there will there will be additional overtime uh costs associated with the recent fire We Believe 250,000 is adequate to cover maximum cost for the remainder of the fiscal year last in alignment with the recent uh Council accepted facility's master plan staff is seeking approval to appropriate funds to purchase a vacant parcel at 5125 Pro Parkway adjacent to the city's Municipal Services Center this purchase reflects the recommended strategy in the facility's master plan of consolidating City operations into primarily two campuses a west campus at Alpine balam and a second Eastern Campus at the municip municipal service center while a specific site plan is still ways off this represents a strategic opportunity to acquire land adjacent to the site to maximize our future flexibility while the future plan will

[94:00] drive specific uses it is likely that the Departments of Transportation Mobility utilities and Facilities Fleet will all be users of the site thus the proposal is for these three departments to split the funding of the purchase and that is reflected in the recommended adjustment we do have staff available to answer any specific questions related to this item the last content slide this evening uh on this item is to highlight future uh to to preview our future budget conversations with Council uh first the voters as you heard earlier tonight approved the community culture resilience safety tax from ccrs we will need an adjustment to reflect that tax revenue and appropriate to initial projects we are scheduling that in the first quarter of 22 as well as our continued uh uh updates and appropriation of arpa dollars we will be looking at uh our first scheduled regularly scheduled adjustment to base in May uh of of 22 and we start talking about the 23 budget cycle again

[95:02] pretty quickly the first touch point in Q2 to talk about those financial projections uh and some likely budget process improvements with that we do have a recommended motion slide when you're ready uh we are happy to answer questions uh before then thanks so much Mark council do we have any questions for Mark I'm seeing one from Mark Mark to Mark yeah okay just just a couple um when we draw down on fund balances how are those balances replenished it's a good question um so generally uh that is through our revenues that come in uh we make projections every year I mentioned that we are doing that periodically early in the budget season to develop our our general base budget for the following fiscal year so like what happened this year and obviously this year was unique uh we had we consistently revised our

[96:02] projections and kept seeing better than expected results in Revenue which was great it also allowed us to make further Appropriations to restore services and so we're trying to keep our our expenditures in line with our revised revenues as we go throughout the year that's part of what we're doing uh through the adjustments uh to base and that is reflected as we're projecting into 23 now some of or excuse me in 22 now some of those adjustments in in atb2 those adjustments in atb2 weren't reflected in the 22 adopted budget uh but we will show those as we start getting into the fiscal or the financial projections early in in 22 projecting out the 23 year if that if that makes sense basically we we continuously uh uh show our revised projections to council and with that any excess Revenue goes into fund balance and is reflected there one of the things I did not see in this is you know a very substantial portion

[97:01] of this ATB is from fund balances and and we don't get to see what the remaining fund balance is on a departmental level I mean are any of the Departments completely drawing down their fund balance or or getting to a point where they are dangerously low we we don't have the capacity to see that we we can certainly provide that information to council just from a a matter of of fiscal policy we certainly wouldn't recommend polling from fund balance to to fund ongoing items even one time one-time items if it put a particular Fund in a difficult financial position so we're trying to balance each fund's uh Financial Health uh against those requests and that's part of the review process that we go through each time the whether it's through the normal budget cycle or through these adjustments to base I'm very conf able with with your process it just would be useful for us to understand which funds are being drawn down more than others and and what the remaining balances are

[98:01] um you know just for our information and my my other question um is with respect to the Pearl Parkway acquisition do we have a supporting appraisal to to establish value on that I I believe we do we have something very similar to that and I'll uh and Phil airspace because I see Joanna Ken uh coming on on board to answer questions yeah hi I'm Joanna cran the director of facilities in Fleet and again welcome to the new council members yes we we do have something um that's equivalent of that from the Brokers that we've been working with um so they did take a look at other surrounding properties okay and other like properties in terms of comparisons and my last question is it's just sort of hyper technical it um when I was looking at the $250,000 for um for Fire and Fire Rescue

[99:01] overtime um unless I misread it it didn't seem to show up in the ordinance but only in the chart and attachment B is that just a am I misreading it or was that some kind of an oversight let me double check on that Mark and you don't even have to get back to me if it's if it's needs to be there please put it there and if it doesn't need to be there and I've misread it you know all well and good yeah I believe that'll be a part of the general fund appropriation and somebody from our team can correct me if I'm wrong on that that's why you don't see it in the ordinance okay thank you that's it Nicole thank you um I just have one quick question which is just a more of a clarification to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly ly um the extra Revenue that we kind of have above and beyond what was initially expected um this is largely coming from sales tax revenue is that right as well as grants

[100:01] that um departments have received and then just sort of moving moving money around in the background I think um is that correct yeah it's from a variety of of sources for the general fund you you are right it's especially this year it's typically because of that increased sales tax revenue that we have in of our original projections uh we typically atb2 uh the second adjustment is when we we reflect all of the grants that come in throughout the year donations Etc okay thank you I just I wanted to offer some Kudos then uh to all the city departments that received grants thank you for all your work to to get us some additional funds for some of this work um and then also just to Big kudos to the business Community um because I know how hard it has been to keep businesses going during the pandemic with all the safety restriction RS that we need to have in place to keep each other safe um and I'm just really grateful uh to our business Community for giving us this extra Revenue as well as the um residents workers and students who have

[101:02] been spending their money locally um I think this is something I didn't realize until getting um closer to to getting on Council was just how much of our um city funding comes from sales tax and so thank you to everybody in our community who's been spending their money locally um so that our city has some extra funds well say Nicole Lauren do you have a question more of just a quick comment um seeing the 700 oh sorry so Lauren I apologize interrupting but generally we'll do questions then the public hearing then comments if you don't mind just holding that for just a little bit longer any other questions all right seeing none I think we're ready to go to the public hearing and Ryan did you want to talk about our speaking guidelines sure thing thank you as we move into the public hearing we appreciate you being here to share your perspective this

[102:00] evening and want to be clear that the city has engaged with commun members to co-create a vision for productive meaningful and inclusive Civic conversations this Vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members staff and Council as well as democracy for all members of our community next slide please following our examples of rules of theorum found in the boulder RIS code and other guidelines that support this Vision these will be upheld during this meeting all remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to City business no participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person obscenity racial epithets and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability to conduct the meeting are prohibited participants will be speaking uh using the name they're commonly known by uh and only audio testimony is permitted

[103:00] online at this point Thank you and we can move to our first Speaker great I believe we have one speaker today and that would be Lynn seagull is Lynn handy Lyn is here and Lynn I'll open up your mic and you have three minutes well can hear you are do you hear me yes okay might be sales tax revenue that we're living off of but we're not living off of a jobs housing imbalance that M stresses our budget severely and the project that you just looked at positively CU is not a the city of Boulder is not a suburb of Cu you not student housing has taken over this town like tentacles this hurts our

[104:00] budget hurts our budget CU needs enrollment cap the cost of housing in this community is unreasonable and the developers know they can get away with murder case in point 1024 Marine the other day I went by there student coming home with his car Nicole with his car from the mountains because he wants to drive up there 2700 bucks without internet but everything but internet is paid for a two-bedroom two bath and that's going to be redone and you know what it's going to go for afterwards at least 5,000 there's no limits to the cost of housing in this community and that's where your money's going down the drain of the developers

[105:00] not sales tax revenue down the drain of the developer CU is like an octopus it's taken up the olive downtown with student housing from Chicago this project tonight is from Atlanta these people have no interest Boulder they have interest in the Holy Buck that's what they have Best Western see you housing gos Grove marpa from one part of town to the next it's like an octopus tentacles everywhere with a limited size which Boulder has eventually it will be CU exclusively and the 1% what you need is a master plan that's how you deal with a budget that's how a

[106:02] master plan how many students do you want here do you want this to be student from one end to the other because that's what you're aiming at students everywhere that's our hotel at the Millennium now it's going to housing hey what happened to all that sales tax revenue from our hotel the city of Boulders Hotel Best Western city of Boulder student housing now Lyn your time is up thank you for your comments all right um and so I believe that's our only public speaker so we can now bring it back to council for comments starting with Lauren thanks Aaron um so my comment was just on the fire rescue portion when I look at you know $740,000 of overtime I question a little bit if 3 FTE is enough

[107:01] to sufficiently address that but that's sort of just a small question mark I don't know if you want to address it but I'll say Lauren I appreciate the comment it is something we are working with with both Fire and Rescue It has been a historic um concern about overtime and frankly they also have to plan for the unexpected we certainly did not expect the fire that happened recently but we believe that is their request as they move forward we'll continue working very closely with them this year um but at the moment I believe that uh that is sufficient as they have a prolonged period of Recruitment and training um for that longer term Horizon Mark have I Mis uh spoken in any of that not at all I'll just expand mentioned the over hire program and I see Chief

[108:00] calderazzo here as well that that will help that was authorized in September so what that does is essentially give them the authority to put bring in new recruits with that that lengthy recruiting process and so as they're seeing that natural turnover it's not a formal uh extra staff member but it certainly does help when there is a vacancy to plug right away that that program was suspended uh due to the covid reductions that we all had to take on across the organization so um again that hasn't been we haven't felt that impact yet but I don't know if Chief you you think we'll start um feeling the positive impact in terms of Staffing and overtime in the in the new year and apologies I didn't see you Chief all good good evening Council Mike Al of fire chief yeah I snuck in but um I'll just say that that this sort of gets us a chance to figure fure out what are what the right balance is between overtime and the right number of firefighters to keep all the trucks on the road so so we're going to look at this really uh with with budget and HR

[109:01] over the next year and these three help us at least uh get uh get to a better place because we've traditionally done the over hire as Mark was saying um just to sort of plug the gaps because we can never at it this is a problem with many like Public Safety agencies where it takes a six to nine months to bring somebody on and if someone retires um I I basically go without that person for quite some time um there's they they give us two weeks maybe a month and then I have five months of lag and so so we have that and we've had some long-term leave issues as well and then Co has not helped us one bit um we've had exposure issues and and had to put people on 10day quarantine so it's been a pretty rough year so so we're going to try to hopefully we can use next year as a normal year somewhat to to to study um our our leave use and uh and be able to get the right right balance so um that's

[110:00] that's kind of where we are right now thanks for that Chief um all right any other comments or someone could make a motion if they were so inclined anyone oh Tara Tara's got her hand up but you're muted okay all right I'm going to make this motion motion to adopt ordinance is this the correct motion yes motion to adop motion to adopt ordinance 8511 approving supplemental Appropriations to the 2021 budget second okay we have a motion in a second um Tera do you want to speak to your motion at all no Bob nope very good well then we will just call for a vote and Alicia is this a show of hands no sir this is required a roll call roll call

[111:02] okay all right we'll start with council member fuls I approve mayor Pro Tim friend yes council member Joseph yes speak here yes wallik hi Wier yes Yates yes Benjamin yes and mayor Brockett yes mayor ordinance 8511 passed unanimously unanimously great and let me just say a huge thank you to all the city staff that are involved in this process I know it's enormously time consuming but always incredibly professionally done and we are uh very grateful to you for your efforts thank you Council thank you m okay we got another public hearing

[112:01] Alicia should we get that one started yes sir next we have item 4B which is the consideration of a concept plan review and comment for the Redevelopment of a 2.33 acre parcel that includes the addresses noted Below located primarily at 25 504 Spruce Street with 63 residential units and an exercise room for residents The Proposal is for a two-phased project phase one is planned with 16 town homes and two apartments phase two would include up to 45 Apartments of varying sizes and bedroom counts this is reviewed under case number l20 202- o16 great thanks for that and before we get started a couple things somebody uh needs to come into the meeting I believe Chris shears who's going to be one of the um applicant Representatives so if somebody could let him in and then um I

[113:00] believe we we may need a recusal on this before we get started Lauren do you want to address that yeah I would like to recuse myself from this project um my office has a relationship with the developer thank good thanks for that we'll miss you but we'll see you after this this item and with that alen do you want to take this away you bet happy to um thanks so much mayor and council members I'm happy to be joining you and the new members this evening I'm going to share my screen and it might take a minute to to boot up a little bit um and I'd appreciate it if you told me once it is um ready to go do everybody see that almost almost and I actually am going to go off camera because I've noticed it actually helps well we can see your screen now very

[114:00] good so uh to begin with um concept plan as Sloan described earlier is really just intended to provide um feedback and comments to the applicant team and so of course no formal actions required for this evening wide range topics um but we do tend to focus on land use um and the arrangement of uses circulation patterns Etc and for this evening we also have some key issues to help direct the conversation so uh starting with the planning context it's instructive to look at a broad comprehensive planning level um for starters and in this case the sit's part of the Boulder Valley Regional Center that's considered one of the city's three regional centers and centers are defined in the comp plan as generally places with potential for infill and Redevelopment and are higher intensity compared to established residential neighborhoods and as a

[115:01] regional center the bvrc along with downtown and the university um it's defined as having a wide range of activities the bvrc is further defined as an area that should invite walking with a pedestrian orientation and a human scale and uh as you see on the map the sites in the northwest corner of the bvrc and as such it is subject to design guidelines for the area so because of the site location within the bvrc in near downtown it's pretty uniquely surrounded by a significant variety of services from retail to office Recreation and schools of course 29th Street malls just east of here and then as part of the um bvrc there was a connections plan that was adopted with the intent to improve access and Mobility through a multimodal grid essentially among other goals for the site the connections plan

[116:01] illustrates a north south multi-use path as you can see in then an East West secondary Street on the south side of the site we'll talk a little bit more about that in key issues the site's quite Transit rich as most of us probably know it's uh within a half to a quarter mile of doz of bus stops serving multiple local buses and within a mile or two of um regional Bus facilities at downtown and Boulder Junction and then the site's also highly walkable and bikable it's surrounded by on street bike Lanes within easy access to several multi-use paths and that's further exemplified with the transportation Master plan's walkable access tool that identifies where areas have the best walking access to goods and services um and as is evident the site is in a pretty prime location the comprehensive planned land use designations primarily mixed use residential it's defined as

[117:01] predominantly residential uses with neighborhood scale retail and personal service uses allowed and then there's a couple fractional areas of the site that are mixed use business and general business and we'll also discuss this a bit further in ksue one the site's zoning is bc2 that's defined as business areas containing retail centers and serving a wide number or rather a number of um neighborhoods where retail stores predominate and in this case residential uses are permitted by right in this particular bc2 location density is determined by open space and lot area per dwelling unit and there's residential zoning to the north as you can see in commercial to the South so this is sort of a transitional site so to speak this the surroundings reflect the zoning um with retail uses to the east there's a four-story retail building um off to the South as you can see along the bottom right there along

[118:00] with a marijuana dispensary across pulum is the green leaf Park and iron Flats mixed use the boulder White Rock ditch parallels the site on the west along fulam the site itself consists of several warehouse and Retail buildings with auto repair a scooter shop a furniture store and a thrift store and at the northeast corner you'll note the 2546 Spruce it's currently the mecca Fitness building and it was recently surveyed and determined to be eligible for a local Landmark designation and we'll expand on that a little bit further in key issues as well so onto the existing site the applicants proposing to re redevelop the property with residential consisting of 63 attached residential units in two phases and that includes 16 town homes and 47 Apartments an exercise room a north south multi-use path and East West sidewalk connection to the site along with roof decks and other open

[119:00] spaces so drilling it a bit more to the concept plan um this is the first floor and you can see that it's uh there's a parking structure that's wrapped on the North and East with apartment units you can see the town homes on the west side and as we go up to the second and third stories you'll note that above the parking structure there's units that face private roof decks the applicant also provided architectural precedent images that illustrate contemporary building forms with use of pattern brick and wood and then um for key issue one it's intended to look at U mechanisms that um might be available to add residential density to the site and key isue one really originated from council's interest during the callup consideration to understand how additional density could be achieved on this site um this prompted staff to look closely at why the BC zoning today differs from the mixed use residential land use since

[120:01] zoning is based on the bbcp land use designation occasionally we've come across um situations like this where the land use and Zoning aren't consistent uh with one another and that usually prompts additional research so in looking back at City archives it was evident that the land use had changed over time and that up until the late 1990s as shown on the map on the left the site was designated as general business and then starting in the early 2000s the land use differed so going back to the year 2000 comp plan update and excerpts from Council study sessions at that time um it um indicated that the site that you can see circled in red on the left there was part of a comprehensive land use change study for targeted areas of the city to increase affordable housing opportunities and improve jobs housing balance promote mixed use Redevelopment on uh essentially commercial sites like this

[121:01] one um and in turn protect the character of existing residential neighborhoods this site at the time was referred to as 1D and it was identified given the surroundings with the residential commercial that neighborhood park across the street and then the high frequency Transit and the analysis suggested housing prototypes um including mixed juice urban town homes and multifam units as is actually proposed in the concept plan so it's important to note that there was no concurrent rezoning that occurred to bring the existing zoning on the properties in compliance with the land use in this um ordinance and study rather the intent was to allow for rezoning at the time of Redevelopment and it's also important to note here that rezoning is not not proposed by the applicant as part of the concept plan um and it's also not required to be implemented although the applicant is open to discussing options so knowing that our predecessors

[122:02] establish mixed use land uses on the site for future rezoning it's important to review the rezoning standards of the code and as you can see the city's zoning is a result of comprehensive appraisal of present and future land use and it's generally discouraged so to be appr approved a resoning um has to be consistent with the bbcp PO U goals and policies and then also has to meet one of six code criteria generally it's Criterion one that's applied to resoning and that is it's necessary to come into compliance with the comp plan map so therefore if the applicant wanted to pursue resoning there are opportunities in this case um and there's one of three compatible mixed use zoning districts so as provided in your packet this table is a comparison of the three mixed use zones um M1 two and three with the existing bc2 zoning and it's really

[123:00] intended to show a rough approximation of the yield that could be generated by each zoning district and this really should just be uh looked at as a guide for relative differences between the different zoning districts um and as can be seen in the mu3 um it's defined as areas of the community that are changing to a mixture of residential and complimentary non-residential uses generally within the same building that permits up to a 1.0 F floor area ratio and it would likely generate the most units about 74 dwelling units and so in all cases in that column on the right um the table assumes provision of a the required 25% of all um residential units as permanently affordable M1 and M2 you'll note produce the same number of units unless the applicant increases the number of affordable units to 35 and then there's just a slight density boost

[124:02] um however it's important to note the applicant's not proposing greater than the required 25% and then also it's important to note that there is no code requirement that units be built on site rather the units can be provided at the time of building permit as cash and onsite offsite or through land dedication or a combination thereof and then because consistency with the comp plan land use goals and policies would be required if rezoning staff does note that there's several specific policies that indicate the city's desire to add residential density particularly within the uh Boulder Valley Regional Center so then it's important to note if pursuing resoning the applicant would also need to request a land use change to Mu for those other two fractional uh pieces on the site so that the rezoning could be supported um and this could be done essentially as a concurrent um land

[125:01] use change with a rezoning and at the time of site review and so just a brief word about the use of an ordinance that council could adopt to amend a standard of um the code to increase density the Ci's used this mechanism from time to time and most recently it Al Plaza if the applicant um makes such a request it would be um to address a unique need or specific comp plan policy it's typically used if uh related to provision of a greater number of permanently affordable residential units or to ensure on-site affordable units and in the memo staff noted that the applicant could request an ordinance to modify density standards and that may increase the number of units however that is assertion didn't take into account the requirement for open space per dwelling unit and so uh the number of units that were cited of 124 is probably unrealistic unless unless you modified that open space per

[126:02] dwelling unit standard to so then um just a few more um points with regard to key issue 2 um and a couple more key issues um this one's related to Historic preservation most of the buildings on the site are older than 50 years and in staff's review most were found to be likely um as C candidates for demolition um the exemption is um I'll go back one slide um is this Mecca building that after recently being surveyed in architectural inventory it was found to be eligible for designation as a local Landmark as a good representation of um essentially late post-modern commercial in Boulder and staff and the planning board encouraged the applicant to look at retaining the building as it would add character on the Block and tied to the um past and it also would address uh comp plan policy

[127:01] 227 you see there uh then the applicant did present a sketch at planning board that illustrates how they could retain the building on the corner and they can maybe review that with Council regarding key issue three as would note as was noted the uh transportation connections plan for the site within the bvrc as those two connections um and in that regard um the applicant noted that the secondary uh Street plan line that East West plan line um along with preservation of the mecca building could result in losing units about 17 units and so at the time of the colip um city council recommended a visit to tab which the the applicant uh did in October and tab concluded that this is a fairly unique circumstance that unlike other um Alleyways this connection would essentially just

[128:00] terminate at fulam and so it would be limited to an right in and right out there's a median there's four lanes of travel on fome and they also noted that it would require bridging over the open Boulder in White Rock ditch and that turning Vehicles would impact that existing on Street B Lane fome so they concluded that they could support a change to the connections plan um through the process to eliminate the connection at site review and then just quickly for key issue four in the memo there's a preliminary consistency analysis with the bvrc design guidelines and so in the interested time I can answer any questions uh you may have about that analysis there's additional steps to go through so just to wrap up it's important to note that public notification uh requirements were met and there were a couple of comment letters received prior to planning board then at the planning board hearing there were five members of the public who spoke for seemed to support the proposed

[129:02] plan and also recommended augmenting density on the site and since that time of course as you know um council's received a number of comments by email indicating similar support and with that I am happy to answer any questions s great thanks so much Elaine and we will have a presentation from the applicant as well I believe but let's start with questions for Elaine um while we have her any any questions from Council Nicole thank you thanks thanks for this thoughtful presentation um and all the great notes that helped at least me as a new council member understand this better um so my question is around uh the landmarking and the kind of consideration for landmarking of this um old tire shop as I understand it um an old Big O Tires was what it was initially developed as um are climate um

[130:00] and Equity goals considered in thinking about the landmarking process um I'm just wondering kind of what what goes into that decision sure I'm going to suggest that uh James hwit with historic preservation join the conversation because I think he could probably answer that a little bit better and uh hopefully James you're on the call good evening Thanks James huitt historic preservation yeah good questions both um certainly in terms of equity historic preservation is uh striving to achieve equity in in all ways um in terms of recognizing properties that are associated with underrepresented groups um but as well providing the ability for all to use buildings that represent the culture and history of the city um the other question was about um could could you

[131:03] remind me question was I'm sorry no no worries um it was around um just thinking about climate goals and I think specifically I'm just thinking about tradeoffs um and choosing you know a landmarking route um uh what what we're losing in terms of um specifically equity and climate is what I'm thinking of um like you know to gain housing instead of a landmark building for example yeah well good question and um certainly in terms of of you know making a building like this energy efficient there there are many ways to do that so I think that they're not necessarily um you know those goals are not mutually exclusive and we certainly do see a lot of um examples where buildings are brought up to our current energy code um and I think that that probably would be you know the case here you you could do that um quite

[132:00] reasonably so and then of course you know just the you know the amount of embodied energy that that comes from keeping an an existing building and not adding more um waste you know to um landfills and such so I guess from that standpoint yes uh preserving this building I think would meet that goal thanks for that James any other questions right yes Tara so I'm I'm wondering if we have how important is it to have this landmarking maybe it would be better to not landmark and instead use the extra space for more housing how do we determine that or is it just a council decision or well so one of the considerations maybe and this was something we talked about at planning board maybe to take the massing that would have occurred on that corner parcel and relocate it to other

[133:02] portions of the site and in particular on the Southeast uh portion of the site it's adjacent to a four-story building that is um presents uh four story massing in that area anyway and so that's one of the considerations there's U Community benefit implications um that come into play when you move um or increase height and mass of a building um that are relatively complicated and we may not want to get into that at this point but it has to do with um provision of permanently affordable housing and a percentage that can go into what's essentially um um considered extraneous or or um additional floor area above the height limit so it's a a little bit complicated of an equation but you could

[134:01] the applicant could consider moving some of that mass Elsewhere on the site I guess my question is is do we have to make this a landmark if I could be so blunt is it that is it important and how important where whereas uh like Nicole said the trade-off of having more housing maybe would be more important James do you have any thoughts on that I I I do know that quickly um planning board did weigh in and um suggested that it adds um some inherent Urban Design value and a um Link to the Past as well as providing that character it's a relatively small portion of the site and um you could like I say move some of the massing around but James do you want to um address that sure sure I can try well I think that you know when uh a project is in the site review process it it is a a question of

[135:00] balancing the community Bel benefit or benefits in this case of which there are potentially you know several here um and where you know where the historic um significance of the building and preserving that building you know where that where that fits into that balance and how heavily you weigh that against other things um you know to my knowled to my understanding anyway um preserving this building as elain has explained wouldn't necessarily um result in a a big loss of housing units but I I can't speak super intelligently on that now in terms of recommendation that we make as staff to the planning board the planning board can you know approve that recommendation or they can say no we don't think that that that's a good idea um and I'm not sure if that's happened in

[136:00] the recent past but certainly that's that's the way the process is designed I think and elain correct me if I'm if I'm wrong about that yep that sounds about right okay thanks Bob yeah staying on the same thread James when you responded to Nicole's question you said something that I wanted to follow up on um you you said that destroying this building putan housing there would um would destroy embedded energy and would would create landfill uh contributions but aren't we just aren't we tearing down at least five other buildings on the side I mean what what what percentage what percentage contribution does this building make as compared to all the other buildings on the side that would be demolished and removed well you make a good point um certainly there are buildings on the property that um there's not a desire to repurpose them and yes they will be lost but I guess I I was sort of responding

[137:00] to the you know the issue as it relates to the preservation of historic buildings so yeah but that your your point is a is a good one okay okay and then second and final question I do I still want to follow up on the questions that that Nicole and and Tera asks I'm I'm a little surprised that we don't know or maybe the applicant knows maybe we should just let the applicant speak we don't know how many incremental units there would be here is it two is it five is it 10 is it 20 I mean surely somebody has some sort of like order of magnitude um are we just are we just supposed to kind of take a little cookie cutter on that and overlay it where the other buildings are and just kind of guess I mean somebody must have done the math on this no and in fact I you know I think there was a slide presented that indicated the number of units that um the applicant had determined would impact um the site I think it was like eight units but I would need to go back and find that slide yeah I thought I thought there was a number somewhere and

[138:00] then then people seem to be reluctant to answer the question so I was thinking it was six was the number I had in my head from reading the memo six I agree six okay okay that's that's helpful just so we know here we go okay Mecca impact um six market rate and to compact okay great thank you that's that's all I have great um okay so it looks like we're ready to go to the applicant for their presentation and yes if you could wouldn't mind addressing this head-on in terms of the impact of the landmarking to housing unit counts in your various plans that would be very helpful hello everyone it's great to see you all I'm um Ali getar do I need to give you my address every time I speak it's 1910 7th Street um uh you Ryan Meeks from um Shear Atkins rockmore just turned on the presentation that we're gonna run

[139:01] through really quickly Elaine thank you so much for the comprehensive presentation as always and I see Chris shears is also on Chris if you whenever you want to make a comment just stop me otherwise I'll keep rambling on all right I'm here just to support you uh Ali and comment is necessary and answer questions okay thank you um so Ryan let's go to to the first slide um elain elain was so uh comprehensive in her presentation so I just wanted to point out that we did um obviously work on this project from the beginning meeting all the zoning code requirements um and we've been working with denov construction whose offices are on the next block west from the site so they're very close and we're actually um collaborating with them on a project right now on East Pearl but anyway the the studies that we've done with them

[140:00] the scheme that we have is financially feasible next slide please um we we had we put the site under contract last January I just wanted you to know that up till now um we have spent about $300,000 to get to this point so for a small time guy like me that's a significant investment and um also all our um projects are co-funded by um you know friends and neighbors and all that so everybody's local to Boulder and we do small increments of Investments to make the whole thing work next slide um yeah and just to point out we you know we're happy with vc2 we don't need any special dispensation um and you know our goal is to do as good a project as is possible that's why you see um Chris she's here and Ryan and Andy rockmore is a partner over there that's also part of the team

[141:02] and uh we're excited about what we can bring to the table and for all of us to be proud of next slide uh yeah Elaine already showed this particular slide but I was just going to point out the basics this was the first scheme that we started with um and it's the first floor let's go to the next slide oh um this um this is the second floor and as elain pointed out um we're planning on roof decks and then on top of the podium where those v-shaped spaces are that's an outdoor usable space that will be useful to the residents this is on the east side of the property where the apartments are and then on the right on the left side I actually had a couple of little notes um added on to this where one of the communications that came from somebody we all like and love uh pointed out that the town homes were $3 million

[142:01] they're not nowhere near they're 2.4 is the maximum price that we think we can get for the today's market anyway I wanted to point that out too next slide please um you you saw the slide so this is the original scheme it assumed that it wouldn't be a mecha building next slide and here's the Mecha building and we are supporting staff's decision to save the building I think that you know we kind of had a hard time with it but we came around to actually liking the building a lot if I can Al if I can just add we were surprised uh when staff determined that this was eligible uh but frankly we've become attached to the building so we um we feel that this is actually an asset to the project as long as we can make up some of uh those residents residences elsewhere next

[143:00] slide and in response to saving the building this is just a diagram that shows what would happen if we were allowed to go up to the fourth floor and um bring those eight units that we would have lost otherwise to the to that location next slide and here see what that the effect of that would be with that fourth floor um just to point out and I'm sure Chris will want to jump in on this one we uh this is a complete diagram and it's obviously done as you know quickly so that we can convey the idea but don't focus on the details some of you have heard me say this before and it's just the nature of a concept plan submitt that the architectural expression is it's not really communic ated you haven't uh spent enough time on the design at that point you saw that recently on the the last project which is also a project we're involved with the Millennium uh project but you've also seen these concept uh kinds of uh

[144:03] presentations on the for example the hill hotel and pearl West and Macy's U and I think you all understand that a lot of development will occur from this point on months of design and of of course Very rigorous review process by the city and and by ourselves so uh this will evolve quite nicely over the next number of months and go through the site review process next slide uh yeah I just put the slide in because it sounded like um well we felt like we had support from the three groups that you see on this slide as we've gone through this process in the past nine months or so next slide um what we've always tried to deliver and I keep saying this is that we want to provide nine affordable units on site and it's actually the number um I when when we first did the

[145:03] zoning analysis I it was my fault I actually rounded down the number of units to end up to end up at 63 and then Elaine later corrected me and it's actually 64 that has resulted in actually triggering nine affordable units on site not eight and I've been in communication with Michelle Allen on that so anyway she's made those Corrections the point is that we're it's looking more and more difficult we're still holding on to hope that we can you know have those affordable units um for sale on site if we can next slide please um yesterday I met with Bob and Tara on site and we walked around on the site and as part of the conversation Bob suggested that I show some inkling of where the costs are and what how it uh influences what we're doing so this

[146:01] first slide we just sat down after I met with Bob and Tara and we we sort of pulled together the numbers and for uh just just for your information for an 1150 foot units that's affordable it actually costs 200 94,000 to the project that's after collecting the uh the uh funds from the sale of the affordable unit as well as the savings from not having to pay the IH fees associated with that unit if it wasn't on site so anyway the true cost is somewhere around 850,000 roughly but and then this is so this actually ends up being a real cost next slide please this is an important slide I think this is actually this is the other one that Bob asked for and what we're attempting to do here without revealing too much of our sort of proprietary numbers um is U

[147:02] we're using the $100 per square foot number as a base cost for the cheapest part of the project and that's the tow houses um so if we Peg that at $100 per square foot and you can see the image on the left describes the wood framing over a sort of a shallow Foundation system which is what we'd have to do over here as well then that's what the cost would be the second column describes what happens when we're looking at the apartments that need to fit on top of the podium and you can see that in that image the wood framing you can see that large concrete platform and then the columns that support it so here the costs begin to increase there's there's a $9 per square foot cost associated with that Podium and the concrete columns and the structure that is needed that's pretty heavy concrete below grade and that's why that number is pretty large and then the other components that

[148:01] affect this are um soft cost um increase for Consultants because they um actually have a larger um exposure to liability and so we would they they look do to help them with that insurance coverage and then um the other one is just the general liability and Builders Risk insurance that is also an extra cost per square foot and then worst of all is the right hand column this is the condominium uh model and you can see on the on the image on the right hand side that what you have is steel framing and concrete slabs that float on top of that Podium so when you look down that col colum the second number down $175 per square foot uh represents the cost the upcharge for doing this versus wood framing and then the other two items below it are the same as the apartment

[149:01] column so basically what this is telling us is that the to to be able to do for sale we'd have to go to a better construction standard and the cost increases 30% that's really significant and that's that's going to be tough to overcome um any I guess we can come back to questions if you have any but this is probably the most important slide I have in here next slide yeah and I I'll just mention it looks like you're on slide 14 of 33 we may need to pick the pace up a little bit oh actually the next ones are going to go really fast okay you want me to stop I can no no no keep going we question by the way there's only 20 slides or so the the rest them are extras in case we need to look at things okay great um so anyway this I put this slide in just to explain quickly that insurance premiums for for sale condominium projects are are crazy expensive right now it they're about four and a half percent of the construction cost and the

[150:02] typical project is probably about 2% so anyway it is significant next slide please um so if we aren't able to do the for sale model then we're going to have to go to the rental and and then either that or 100% cash in Loop so we're kind of we're not sure how that's going to work out yet initially um we were told that um BHP I think you've heard this before wouldn't want to manage so few units on site but subsequent to that a state law has been passed where private developers can also manage those units just so you know okay um so um anyway this I'm going to just jump into the mu3 scheme we we've spent very little time on it about 10 days working days basically to kind of do some sketches and try and cajo uh the

[151:00] denov guys to give us some pricing so it's incomplete schematic and and but you know what we know it doesn't look good next slide please and this is this is the plan that we've come up with where you know we're taking this s form and and the reason for this s form is that we're trying to limit the amount of mass of this building because you know the site is pretty large right so this this shape allows for slots in the in the building so that it diminishes the length if you like and also this allows us to have open-ended elevated Courtyards between the wings and need can see that in this image yeah next slide yeah and you've seen this so this is this is just looking Southwest and what it would look like if it was a four-story building with the town homes to the east next slide U I just put this in as a as a quick reminder of of the numbers the important thing is that wec 264 units

[152:00] and nine nine affordable units within those within that number and on on the right hand side mu3 74 units and 10 affordable units on side next slide um anyway I I think at this point the unknowns are great enough that I I think we're leaning strongly towards the bc2 um anyway and the rest we've talked about next slide there we are we look forward to your direction that's the end of that than that did go quickly there appreciate that um so questions uh for the applicant I'm guessing there's at least a couple there's Mark yeah just one question um in the prior slide you said rental option is likely um I had thought we were doing four sale units here yeah when you're saying the

[153:02] rental option is the likely scenario is that for the entire project no there would be the the town homes help to support the apartment building financially and and so they would always be for sale and they and they they can be for sale because you don't have to uh deal with the construction defects all quite to the same level and that's the difference um I'm not I haven't given up on the for sale for the apartments yet either I'm just saying that it it's not looking good that's all I'm saying but I'll I'll keep you guys informed as we progress I don't want it to be a surprise and that's why I apologize for being wishy-washy but it's just the way it is right now one of one of of our great needs is for purchase options at an affordable level and that to me was one of the driving uh attributes of of this project and and I'd hate to see that go away I

[154:01] agreed uh any other questions well I'll jump in here I've got a couple here I'm going to jump in and ask one real quick so just to clarify on the unit count that um your revised proposal I don't think it's this drawing but another one um includes the is it the mea building uh landmarked but then adds additional height and so you end up with the same number of units is that correct so you're still doing the maximum 64 Allowed by that zoning correct yeah and that's what this yellow dashed area shows okay and then it sounds like you're not terribly interested in that mu3 but um I guess we can make some comments later on I've heard your point so yeah I'm kind of on the fence almost falling off on that okay Matt then Nicole well thank you for the the presentation and you know what what you're trying to do in this space um you

[155:01] know one thing that that does come up to mind is I know you're not asking for um that Conformity for zoning and land use but it just does seem weird to kind of just leave that hanging in The Ether um when we're at this point here and wanting to sort of bring that conf it in when we have the chance to do it so you know that that's something that that I just think for future proofing but also just consistency makes makes some sense but I do understand the constraints that you do have cost and that those town homes in many ways are subsidizing some of the apartments I I just think the overriding urge certainly I have is this is in such transit-rich environment it's near walk it's walkable it it's just such a great place for support of individuals of families and work and and profession I'd love to see more people be able to be in this space and so i' really like to see how we can get more than the 64 units I know you're saying mu3 is not feasible I just I really want to push you on that and really push the envelope because I think it's really important

[156:00] for us to do so I I'm personally less interested in the landmark because I do think it liberates space and hopefully that does create some flexibility to make the numbers work for you um but but more people in this great Rich environment to is for me a big goal that I'd like to see us try to attain while still making sure we don't then lose that to go to rental and still keeping a purchasing capacity as Mark mentioned I think is also really important for our community okay and Matt great points I will say uh let's focus on questions right now and then do the public hearing and then we can give more feedback to the the applicant uh Nicole you um I just have a couple questions with this point um I was just wondering you know if um you as a developer would be interested did um if you were able to get six more units um at the site where the um tire shop old tire shop is as well as the additional um units on top if that would be something of interest to you or if

[157:00] you're really just a an either or so that was my first question um the second question that I have is just around um having the uh the size of the Town Homes um just having you the I think it was 2600 square feet for three bedroom um 1,600 square feet for a two-bedroom um it seems like we have a lot of those kind of sized units already um in you know 2600 foot homes and things like that so I'm just curious um as well about um the the sizing and it just it seems large and so I was just wondering if you could speak to the need that that's um kind of filling in the community sure um the first question I think you're referring to what we're looking at on the screen right now is is that right I think that what we're doing right now with this diagram is just showing that you know those eight units that we lost because of a mea can slip up on the top of the building but doesn't mean that we couldn't pack the entire floor print of what you're

[158:00] looking at with units so it doesn't need to be this limited so there could be a scenario that I can see if if you know we label this M3 as an example and we maximize what we can do with the e half of the site right I don't think that's going to be much different in terms of what we're looking at cost wise I don't know if that answer that question yep I think so yeah thank you okay and then on regarding the town homes um 2600 square feet for a three bedroom three and a half bath family room um kind of program is reasonable now I understand that you know we've we've heard a lot from the community about why they so big why are they so big but it's a in a way it's an efficient way to generate Revenue again to pay for these um the

[159:02] apartment building and the size of it you know it's it's just what seems seem to fit and also in terms of when you look at the volume on the east side of the site and how it kind of occupies and that total square footage and the revenue that it generates is what is really driving that honestly so that's what it is if um just can I can I follow up on that question really quickly um if it were um say to be a you know a top and a bottom um unit right um that it wouldn't be it wouldn't generate enough Revenue if I'm understanding correctly for spping slipping back into a condition where you have different owners um living on top of each other and that's what triggers the issues with um defects law and things like that there's a lot more likelihood that there

[160:01] might be issues that way versus when the the party walls are vertical and cut slice right through the building entirely so they're separated in that in that way it's Nicole good enough for now y thank you Bob and then Rachel thanks um Ally I I I want to follow on on Mark's question because I didn't I didn't quite follow you when you were saying that um that you were you were leaning towards um rentals for the affordables rather than for sale was that for only if you went to mu3 or is that in in in either instance whether it's bc2 or mu3 yeah no it's either instance it's just the cost of con that higher level of construction that we need um to ensure that the building is going to perform long term that pushes us into that really expensive construction type so that the building is solid doesn't um there no cracks

[161:01] would appear that the floor separating the units are concrete and not wood so that there wouldn't be complaints for noise transmission vertically so these are elements that begin to become important when you go from rental to for sale and I have a f question then to that um when you took this to the planning board for their um input on the concept plan um were were you telling them that that these affordable units were going to be for sale and that change in position has happened since then or did you tell them the same thing that you're telling us now that these are probably going to be I don't remember what I told them and I don't remember at what point it it came to us that that type of construction is going to be necessary I think it was after planning board and Chris may remember this because we were in his office when U this discussion came up I I can't I can't remember the the moment uh but Ellie's right the

[162:02] construction for for sale is significantly more expensive so it changes the development economics of the project okay thanks Rachel yeah um thanks for the presentation and I don't know if my question is for the applicant or staff so I pre-apologize but we've had a lot of um community outreach and advocacy that we have more units and more affordable units and more onsite units um and ownership units so I just want to make sure I understand for um for this concept review and eventually site review given the criteria that we are limited in looking at if the applicant does not want to do mu3 or does not want to um raise the mid-century building what what can we you know really ask for I just want to understand you know in the feedback that we're getting that we're giving if the applicant is telling us

[163:01] not interested in mu3 are we um kind of what what are our boundaries and and what can we uh expect to be um acted on if we give advice feedback elain do you want to take that one I am and I'm also going to suggest Kurt ferer uh jump on uh the call at the moment just because I think we are a little bit hamstrung to a certain extent based on um the state laws um for affordable housing and rent control and so forth uh but I think the council has gone a long way by adopting a 25% um requirement many communities don't have as robust a requirement for permanently affordable um as part of the development so uh I am hoping Kurt has some other advice on this or Hela perhaps about legally what we can

[164:03] require um an applicant to do um in the realm of affordable housing uh good evening Council Kurt fover director of Housing and humans Services um so so great question Rachel um so so typically um the council um doesn't direct um the applicant on the particular um approach to the affordable housing um and that's a a choice that the developer makes um It's Not Unusual for us to negotiate with the developer around the different options for some period of time um and then we don't actually know what the outcome is going to be until they they pull their permits um in in this particular case I think the the applicant has been very active in trying to find um affordable

[165:01] housing solutions for this site and has explored um different approaches um and as far as the the for sale side of the site I'm not sure what what direction they've decided on but at one point they were talking about creating um uh I think it was two units of for sale um affordable within the within the 14 so maybe they could uh respond to that the the challenge with the with the other side of the site being rental is that um uh as as many of you know the the affordable rental is created in part part by the contributions of the developer and but but the big the big financing aspect for rental generally is is uh low-income housing tax credits They Don't Really Work low low-income housing tax credits don't work if you're

[166:01] trying to do you know 10 or 12 or even 15 units um interspersed within a a market rate development um you're not going to get tax credits for a project like that um typically tax credits um fund projects that are about 40 units and higher that's why we typically see them on 100% affordable uh projects and um so the the finance mechanisms become a challenge um and as well the applicant has talked about the um the construction approaches um also become a challenge um so I I think one of the options that they're looking at is is to provide two for sale units and then provide uh cash and L which we would be able to actually create more more units either through preservation um elsewhere in the city or in other 100% affordable projects um we

[167:01] would get more uh more units in that approach um in the end um but it's I think what's tantalizing about this this uh this project is the idea that they've been looking at um uh for sale thanks that cor and H I see you turned your video on did you want to say something yeah I think one aspect of Rachel's question was about BC zoning versus maybe mu3 zoning and and generally a development has to be reviewed against the standards that are in effect at the time the application is filed so it comes down to what zoning applies at the time the C application is filed and unless the zoning changes it's going to be BC then the applicant could apply to do a rezoning and association with the site application the other option that exists would be that the city initiate a rezoning that that's not

[168:00] very done very done very often individually but it is possible under our code as well but that would also have to be completed before a s application was filed and while the policies are from mixed use zoning one of the review criteria also requires that the development is consistent with the land use designation of the comp plan which is for mixed use residential here so in some circumstances that could limit what could be done under the zoning that was put in place before the land use map changed but but in this case I think the the intent of that zoning of that land use designation could still be met under a BC zoning depending on what's proposed for the site and here it's mostly residential which seems consistent with what the land use map designation shows and I forgot to ask you can you introduce yourself please oh I'm sorry yes um H penck I'm

[169:01] assistant senior attorney with the city attorney's office thanks so much R have a followup and then we have Nicole no um well I guess just I think that that helped appreciated both of those answers but um just as a again General premise like with our um comp plan and the criteria that we look at could is it within our rights to say you know sort of we demand that you switch to mu3 and knock down the the mid-century building and only then would we um approve the site review or is that would that be going outside of General criteria that we can look at you would have to review the site plan that comes in front of you based on the the law that's in effect so you can't for us an application be filed to Res but as I said the city could initiate the zoning council could or a planning board could and then we wouldn't have to

[170:00] start the process and um do public hearings and do a resoning ordinance to put that into effect with regard to the landmarking yeah I think if the building is proposed you would have to essentially find that the historic the remaining of the historic building uh did not meet the site review criteria that would be the the only way to require that it be taken downn okay thanks Nicole I just had a question um that I think it's partly uh for staff partly for developer and the question is around um what could be done around Chang ing zoning um and you know I think that we really recently did this at diagonal Plaza um where we changed the um open space per unit requirement um to enable more units to go there and I was just wondering if something like that changes

[171:01] anything um from the development perspective around the um kind of uh cost feasibility of um having more units so I think that question is probably best answered by um the applicant in terms of feasibility we did do the special ordinance at diagonal Plaza to amend um a specific aspect of the density provision and essentially the open space uh in this particular case it it could probably be done as well um but the difference between what was done at U diagonal Plaza in this site is diagonal Plaza had a little bit more policy Direction in terms of wanting to redevelop and partner with a BHP uh affordable housing provider that um findings could be made that it would

[172:01] be consistent with the comp plan this is a little different because we don't have that um we don't necessarily have that planning policy that we can rely on to do that special ordinance here uh but it is an option that is available um it's fairly infrequently utilized and mostly utilized for provision of more affordable housing on a site um and then Ali I don't know if you have any thoughts on that as well you know I think that um you know the the short time that I've had to study the mu3 I don't think that there's any downside to it to be honest meaning that um it offers um flexibility in not being capped the site not being capped at 64 units that it could go

[173:01] higher um it doesn't necessarily have to be the form that you saw earlier in the presentation where it was a double s instead of the single s format for that apartment building so it to me I I think that if it doesn't um impede the progress of the site review process and it can be done on a parallel platform then that's and then to fix going back to Matt's question to fix the underlying land designation at the same time I mean I'm not I'm not opposed to that at all okay Nicole's answer your question yes thank you great well it looks like that's it for questions so why don't we move on to the public hearing uh we have I believe 11 people signed up which means that each person gets three minutes to speak and our

[174:00] first three speakers are David Adamson Andrew Harris and Jerry green you in and note that David Adamson and Jerry green are not present so we move first with Andrew Harris all right Andrew you're up and then Laurel Harden and Janet heimr Andrew your mic is open you'll just need to unmute okay great can everyone hear me okay yes okay fantastic Kyle thanks for the introduction I'm a six-year resident of Boulder who's experien the city both as a graduate student on a really meager stipended uh actually living up the street from a proposed development uh and now as a young professional working in the city of Boulder actually uh somehow less able to afford to settle down here uh I hope it's not a surprise to mention that Boulders housing prices have really reached a crisis Point uh in April I think the median sale price in Boulder

[175:01] actually passed $1.6 million uh so even on like an upper middle class salary uh you can't afford to live in Boulder you can't afford to start a family in Boulder uh it is simply impossible um even local communities around Boulder that have previously served as our uh quote unquote actual affordable housing program uh are following suit rendering the entire area kind of economically kneecap by housing prices alone on top of that uh I don't think that I'm alone here in uh panicking about the climate crisis uh I would really like to stop having Smoke Filled Summers and currently uh with the emissions trajectory that we're on and contributing to uh that is not going to happen for myself or for generations to come uh so I think in light of these kind of uh concurrent economic and environmental crisis uh it would be negligent for us not to push for the most infill that we can get at sites like this that would provide new

[176:00] residents with opportunities to walk bike or take transit to local businesses uh and further support the community um as a result I strongly advise Council to call for development on Fone to ensure that additional unit of housing are added to the site plan as is reasonable and in addition to focus on ensuring that the resulting development prioritizes pedestrian cyclist and Transit user needs over the needs of cars I noticed in a couple of the plants that there's a through Street uh that would empty out onto uh Fone um again as someone who used to bike up and down that every day I cannot think of a worst thing to put right there so I I strongly oppose that um and again with the background being this kind of uh huge uh equity and environmental crisis I think it's uh perhaps a little silly to talk about uh providing historical preservation for what was essentially a

[177:00] strip mall at the time uh so again to do anything less in this moment of Economic and climate crisis is you know quite frankly negligent from my perspective uh thank you for your time I I won't use the whole three minutes thanks Andrew and we have Laurel hearen and then Janet heimr and ly SE good evening members of city council my name is Laurel hen and I am the co-director along with balen pargas Solis of the Immigrant Legal Center of Boulder County we are located at 948 North Street in Boulder which is between 9th and Broadway just south of the old Community Hospital we've been at this location for the past 15 years and can tell you that affordable housing has become an absolute crisis The Immigrant Legal Center is a nonprofit Law Firm that represents

[178:00] lowincome immigrant community members before the US Department of Homeland Security I am sure that you're all familiar with at least one DHS program known as DACA the deferred action for childhood arrival program in the past 3 years alone we have submitted 248 DACA applications on behalf of residents of the city of Boulder we see our DACA clients regularly and we hear very consistent themes among those themes is the struggle to find affordable housing and the long commutes they face as they move away and each year more and more do move away because Boulder is just not an affordable place to live DACA recipients serve as a proxy for Boulders essential workers since these are immigrant Youth and Young adults who were born between 1981 and 2007 many graduated from Boulder high

[179:00] school and are key cultural brokers in our community they work in Boulder but increasingly they are forced to live outside of Boulder due to the cost of housing affordable housing is also a critical issue for our staff Maria Gordo via our director of community engagement is herself a boulder high school graduate she has been struggling to move back to Boulder from Broomfield in order to be closer to work and better in tune with the community Maria was recently selected to be a resident at Boulder's new affordable housing project at 30th in Spruce Street she feels extremely fortunate to have won this housing Lottery because there were more than five 100 applications for the 20 units in our new building the Immigrant Legal Center feels fortunate as well and I suspect that every nonprofit has a Maria on staff an employee that needs to live right here in the community given the need and the demand it makes sense for

[180:02] the city of Boulder to maximize the use of available land to provide lowincome and Workforce housing Spruce and fulam is an ideal location it is centrally located with excellent access to Transportation including those newly installed bike Lanes I ask that Boulder City Council re-evaluate the 2504 Spruce site so that it better fits the true housing needs of our community thank you thanks Laurel you you win the exact amount of time award very nicely done uh Janet Heimer next and then ly seag Philip aan hi I'm Janet heimr and I want to support the project on Spruce Street I would like to see more affordable housing I think it's very important that we have the affordable housing available we know there's already a need for that

[181:00] so I don't need to address that further the thing I will talk about is the luxury units that are in this proposed project and I really don't think we need the number of luxury units that is proposed here we already have more than enough luxury units in Boulder there's plenty of them I know that people want to make more money but that's not what the need is we do need more units so I totally support more units on this housing site and I would like to see that most of them be affordable however if it can't work out that it's more affordable at least we get more units for the regular family here in Boulder and not somebody who can afford a large um place to live we I'll just

[182:04] close with that that's all thank you you I will say one more thing go ahead am am I still talk you can hear me okay I I really don't go for the rental housing it's like this was not proposed as rental um and I did speak before the planning board so I would not want to see rental here thank you thanks Janet ly seagull Phil vren and Kurt NB back Retail Services is where are they where's Arts Co-op where's everything but a high-end restaurant and $2.4 million condos no just say no just say no we don't need worse jobs housing imbalance

[183:03] I'm missing a meeting at save see you South right now for this my God what are you doing what more and more high-end 25% Elaine mlin says that's good no 95% 95% affordable housing until we balance this this isn't working Lauren explained it everyone explained it no one can afford to live here but that 1% stop already stop she unbelievable hosi motor 30 years I've taken my car there now I don't do anything but ride my bike where am I going to have to ride to to get to the local thrift store which was also taken out at 21st in Pearl the scrap sisters Richard Freeman yoga The

[184:02] Mattress Store the furniture store there's another furniture store here what are you doing aiming to get rid of all the furniture stores and the thrift stores is that your objective infill infill more and more housing housing housing high-end restaurants that's it housing and restaurants you can't cook as good as I do at my house anyway just just for saying but this is this is not this is not a normal situation you know it's see you it's a town you know like I said earlier this is the octopus effect see he's driving it all up that kid in front of 1024 Marine he didn't think anything of 2700 bucks a month and he's not going to care about 5,000 parents are footing the bill gravy train that's what this town is the gravy train stop CU enrollment cap it no on CU

[185:05] South no no no no way we can't control it the way it is retail establishment there gone this town has no soul anymore what are you guys gonna do because there's not a thing you can do for a developer Oli got his four fourth story there on Pearl because of the mecca ironically he's got a fitness center in his project he doesn't have to recreate it it's there at the mecca already it's a fitness center right thanks Lynn your time is up okay next we have Philip augen Kurt nordback and Evan

[186:01] Fring can you hear me yes hello my name is Philip ogren and I'm a resident of Boulder I'm here to speak out against the proposed plan to build large luxury condos at this through Street site under consideration building Compact and affordable housing near downtown is one of the most important activities we can undertake to address a number of challenges that converge around land use and housing policy compact energy efficient housing near jobs creates opportunities for people to live with low carbon Footprints including car light or even car-free Lifestyles to address the climate crisis we are going to need to get out of our cars and learn to live in dense tight communities where walking and cycling for most trips is the norm affordable housing near jobs creates opportunities for Frontline and essential workers to live close to work and is a way that we can welcome people who cannot afford multi-million dollar luxury condos but still have much to contribute to the life of our city we

[187:01] want to welcome A diversity of people to live work and play in the heart of our city and provide the benefits that acrew from short commutes and walkable neighborhoods these values are all consistent with if not explicitly stated in the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan using a large portion of the Spruce Street project to build 14 multi-million dollar luxury condos is completely toned deaf to this moment in history which calls us to stop business as usual and reorient and redirect our energies to address the climate crisis and to address our Collective failure to meaningfully improve diversity equity and inclusion those 14 condos should be replaced by many more units that would allow many more people people to enjoy the surrounding thriving residential and business district let's come together to get creative to figure out how this extremely valuable land could be both a profitable development but also break out of our current business as usual model by changing the zoning constraints which make Financial feasibility

[188:00] difficult without those large condos finally I love the notion of preserving the Historic Landmark on the northeast corner of the project so that my children and grandchildren can glimpse a notion of what it was like for my parents to buy tires but I wonder for the sake of increasing the amount of housing if perhaps the roof which seems to me as the Striking architectural feature of the building could be repurposed for some other kind of building or use that's it for me thank you thanks Phillip now we have Kurt nordback everan Frick and micking Kohl's hi Kurt nordback 777 Delwood Avenue there's some new housing being built at fim and pine just one block north of this site if you go down to that corner you'll see they've put up a sign to advertise it it reads in Foo High letters six exclusive Town Homes if anyone can credibly call the

[189:01] new homes they're building in Boulder exclusive that seems to be a pretty serious indictment of our policies as a city we say we don't want to be in exclusive and yet we kep keep getting housing that most certainly is exclusive this concept plan as proposed is also exclusive phase one in particular with 2400 and 2600 foot three bedroom units and 1600 foot two bedroom units priced at $2.4 million that's exclusive so I urge you to convey to the developer that we want more smaller less expensive units of the options presented to you modifying the density for the bc2 zoning analogous to what was done for the diagonal Plaza project seems the best alternative especially if it were contingent on meeting inclusionary zoning with on-site units the comp plan has plenty of policy guidance to to justify this I think it's becoming quite clear that neither bc1 nor bc2 is giving

[190:01] us the outcomes we really want in terms of much needed additional housing so I would suggest using a special ordinance for this site as well as the recent special ordinance for diagonal Plaza as a Launchpad for changing the intensity units for both BC zones across the zones because what we don't want when construction starts on this project is a sign hanging on the fence saying exclusive thank you thanks for that Kurt um and I'll note that David Adamson is back in the meeting we'll let him go at the end if that's right so next we have Evan frck making Kohls and Claudia hi this is Evan frish I live in downtown Boulder um it's certainly been an interesting process listening to the comments by the new council members and also listening to the development uh I spent a good deal of time working on

[191:02] diagono Plaza and as the the folks who were in The Last Council know my main theme was to Leverage The develop ER in um increasing the affordable housing requirement since the developer was getting almost four times the number of units than they were legally allowed to this developer surprised me a great deal by not wanting really any more units and I think the council asked some very good questions that may increase the number of units making it possible and attracting that to the developer um one of of the things I want to remember is that the Armory development which is one of our latest new developments and this is very important for the council to be mindful a three-bedroom unit there rents for $6,000 a month a two-bedroom unit rents for $3,000 a month and a one-bedroom

[192:02] unit rents for um $2,000 a month a studio apartment there is maybe about 1,700 or so and relatively small square footage is for these units I think that the council's conversation about this has pointed out that maybe the city needs some more tools to generate more affordable housing as we do density um one of the tools um is to really look again at the community benefits program and to come up with a formula for a density bonus when we have increased numbers of units over the use by right so for instance with each new unit you have to provide a04 40% higher uh affordable housing uh unit to it um because again when a developer buys the property he's buying

[193:02] it based upon the zoning that would give him a certain number of units when he gets more units there's a bit of a windfall there and he can provide more affordable housing I also think that the council should put on their work plan looking at rent control regulations as another tool in creating more affordable housing in our area and I think that's going to take some time to figure out how it might apply for Boulder so I support more density but also more affordable housing which seems to be lacking in the conversation at times thank you Evan and Junie I see you have your hand up did you have a question for one of the speakers no not right now after public comments thank you okay thanks uh we have now making Kohl's Claudia them and David Adamson good evening Council my name is mon Kohl's I live at 1726 Mapleton

[194:03] Avenue I want to start my contribution toward this discussion where Tara and Nicole left off when they asked J huitt to answer to what extent Equity or climate goals are taken into account with landmarking and the an the answer to that to their questions is that those questions have never been asked before in the context of landmarking but then again we have never tried to Landmark a 1972 Oblong Box gas station that is called the quote Googy style before in the history of our city you might want to ask James to check me out but that site while it is quote eligible for local landmarking is not eligible for either State historic preservation or federal historic preservation landmarking so it falls in line with the

[195:03] way in which in part in part and at times landmarking in this community has been used to stop things rather than to preserve valuable historical artifacts and pieces of our culture of course when the developer put forth this Prospect uh this project they're not going to ask at the same time to alter one of the connections plan in the bvrc and to L get rid of a a a building that's eligible for landmarking at the same time to change the zoning because it's too expensive and frankly our processes are so cumbersome that people who are brave enough to say we're going to support some affordable housing just say let help me get through the process but the key to the evaluation for this I

[196:01] think should be from the city standpoint is a perspective that we do not need we emphatically do not need 14 more condominiums that are priced at 2 .4 million or more and if we force developers to build those in order to pay the cost of the other um requirements that we have under our land use regulations there's something wrong with the land use regulations at a fundamental level so what I want to ask you to do is to make room for more housing on this site don't let landmark be on autopilot as it is right now let the developer use this space for more units let them have more height make this zoning consistent with the land use designation in the comp plan permit more people to live in this Transit Rich

[197:00] environment we really need this your town your your time is up appreciate those comments Claudia theme and then David Adamson CL your mic is open and it looks like you're unmuted oh hello sorry the audio cut out and I just heard David adamson's name sorry about that good evening members of council this is Claudia Hansen theme I live in North Boulder um it's good to be with you for this first concept plan review of the new Council and while the project at Spruce and fulam is on the small side for this level of scrutiny um I think as we've seen this is a really important location that opens up a lot of questions about how we do infill housing um I think this is an outstanding place to do housing and to do a lot of it it

[198:01] has excellent access to employment education retail Recreation and bike and bus infrastructure and with Town Homes currently being constructed on full both to North and to the South um it will actually contribute to a glowing growing housing cluster and move this Corridor towards mixed use and some after business hours Activation so with that context in mind um my comments tonight Point towards maximizing that housing potential um as you know the project currently in front of you is a proposal for 63 units of housing that's the maximum allowed on the site under bc2 zoning but given the large unit sizes proposed for the town home portion of this site it seems like we could do more and we certainly should try to do more given what we know about the ingredients of walkable bikable Transit friendly and mixed income neighborhoods I spoke about increasing housing at planning board's concept review back in September I just want to

[199:00] reiterate a few of those points here first I hope you'll be friendly towards a full or partial fourth floor on this site this is an important means of adding housing um and there'll be very little impact on views given the primarily commercial development to the east of this site second I think that creating a minor Landmark to car culture no less is not worth reducing housing potential in this location if landmarking the old tire store is truly a community priority please Embrace flexibility in other aspects of the project to make up for that housing that might be lost um third with regard to the East West Street or the pathway way required in the connection plan if our current incarnation of tab says we don't need it we don't let's use that space for homes and green space and then finally there's this question of resoning I really appreciate the work that City staff did between planning board's review of the project and this discussion here tonight um they look at additional zoning options shows a way to get more homes on the site and more

[200:01] permanently affordable homes into our city-wide inventory as it stands staff is threading a needle they are looking for discrepancies within the bbcp um but as we recently seen we've had some flexibility with zoning and density at diagonal Plaza it's a site not wholly unlike this one so could we try something similar to achieve more housing here maybe I don't know how you do this work with a reluctant applicant that's really a wild card tonight but my thoughts on rezoning are let's try it thanks for listening and I'm looking forward to your discussion thank you Claudia and David Adamson you can wrap us up all 15 North Street and the executive director of Goose Creek Community Land Trust and oh my God I am encouraged by this conversation I the key to a boulder is

[201:03] The Talented diverse people we have here our land use laws are attacking that and we need to make the laws and the process subservient to our goals we have beautiful goals in the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan and with secret participation of our former planning director David Driscoll a bunch of citizens were able to get that neighborhood Intel criteria in there and then we worked through the midterm upter update process Bob suggested we go through that and we suggested a way to deal deal with this process by if you wanted to really meet High Community benefit goals then you can shape a project that is Fe financially feasible unfortunately we couldn't consider staff's that's such an important project such an important idea

[202:01] within the midterm update I'm looking at my beautiful friend Ali as he worries about going through more and more and more process so let's make this project the first High Community benefit pilot we've you know we described it a lot of you council members we presented it to you the basic idea of it is that if you serve what the community really needs you get to have lots of flexibility and you get to make money doing what the community needs the idea is that that then folks can in the community can look at these Pilots we can say oh we should change this or change that and then we can scale that project up that process up so we get the the housing we need and not more luxury right now that's all there's going to be and people de cry developers doing that it's not the developers fault it's our fault citizens and Council people who didn't have Mark Wallock the the courage

[203:02] to confront the the the wrong there's a lot of good things about people worried about development but the idea that we can't have have what we want a diverse Community while seeing those beautiful mountains with less pollution greater Mobility etc etc we can do it and you guys tonight showed that we can we have the talent to do beautiful things like this the comments of all the folks were were beautiful so my ask is let's use that pilot idea to create a way for Ali to create a financially feasible project that we actually need thank you very much thanks David and I've confirmed that Jerry green is not in the meeting so that brings us to the end of our public hearing so now it comes back to council for discussion and we've already got Junior's hand up I'll I'll just maybe

[204:02] put out a couple thoughts as we discuss as we all know this a concept plan so we're not making a decision tonight we're giving broad feedback on the key issues surrounding the project so um staff has teed up four key issues for us one is about uh the density and the possibility of changing zoning or other things to increase or change the density one is the potential landmarking of the building on the northeast corner one is whether uh we agree uh with tab about the that it's okay to remove the East West Street um that runs through the um the parcel and then the last one is compatibility with the regional center guidelines and so what I might suggest is that people can all say their peace but consider organizing your comments with those key issues in mind and then feel free to bring up anything else that you feel like is important to talk about so does that generally work for folks see not disagreement a little bit

[205:01] of a frown from Mark but that's all right um okay so uh Jenny you want to kick us off thank you Aon thank you very much um I think I'm grateful for all the people who just spoke as well tonight and I just have a question I've been listening to the conversation and my question is to Ali can you tell me if this proposal that you know for tonight if any um has improve from our last discussion because I remember in our last discussion when we were talking about the phase one one uh the condominium the 14 condos um I get a sense I don't want to put words in your mouth that you were there were thoughts of going back and thinking about increasing density and and I'm wondering if tonight from the last time

[206:02] we talked um if that has changed if the density had improved um I I want to start by acknowledging all the comments I've heard tonight so I'm very moved I think that my hesitation for jumping in and saying that M3 and all apartments is a doable thing today I can't say that that's why this is my position right now but I will tell you that I will be studying what happens if we do all apartments and no Town Homes I will do that it's going to take a little time but what I do ask is that I have an open door with council members so that I can run ideas by you and try to make this go as fast as

[207:01] possible um it's expensive going through this process and that's that's what hurts right now and and so need that help from you guys to be able to do this okay so the issue and I really wanted to do the for sale but if the economics just don't allow it I just don't know what what I can do I mean I'm kind of my back is up against the wall so if we can't do that but we're still looking for maximum density then it may have to be apartments for rent which for me is not the best way to go personally but but you know and it's not about me it's not you know we're all kind of transitional beings in this environment anyway that's it no I appreciate what you just said and and and I welcome them and as

[208:00] someone who's a supporter of Workforce housing um in this community and as a workingclass person as well I fully support this idea of creating more more affordable housing and and density and and I can hear just by the way you talk that it's a great challenge because of cost and you know and I understand it's it's it's not a nonprofit business that you have right and and the thing is we need to support you as much as as we can because we or our our values or our needs are not Divergent we all want a community where people can live here live and work in Boulder and we have to do what we can to support you on that um and and I just want to make the comment as well from the last time that we talked when you were here I think it was back in September it's been so long September or octob um or August and um I I'm my comment about landmarking back

[209:00] then was that we should not um we should not take on landmarking that preclude us for maximizing or or housing Vision or access to housing in in this community and you know I I from what I'm hearing from you is that you support the landmarking but um I would strongly suggest that we don't go that route because if at the end of the day based on what I'm hearing from you it's hard to maximize on on housing because of cost and all these other things I just think the landmarking adds to that and also again I just feel like this particular landmarking is really in just opposition to our values as a community because we want to provide more housing to people yet we if we Landmark this property we're GNA lose six right six unit of housing I just don't see the value in that I understand

[210:00] this idea of landmarking and we've heard as well from community members from mck Cole today who just told us that you know when you think of LM marking opportunity it's not it's not available at the state or the federal level so why as a community are we taking those stenes that somehow you know preclude us from creating more housing for our community members I just don't get it so I I'm not I mean I I I would say I I I would strongly suggest that we don't go that route of landmarking that uh part of the property in and removing you know taking away that extra housing that we could have um again I think I I I would support the project but I just don't feel or believe in this particular land Mark L landmarking um option and I think there was another question about the East West removal of the street again I

[211:00] I would support that if that really would make the project better it would in provide housing again I think what's really important to me is the density in the house and anything that takes away from that to me I think it's to the detriment of the project itself thanks for that juny who wants to go next Nicole thank you and um Ali I just I just want to say how much I appreciate your feeling of urgency because I feel that as well um as folks are um leaving our community because they can't afford housing anymore and so where I'm coming from is really a place of valuing as much housing as possible and as much um affordability as possible in whatever form that takes um and you know I think about this space particularly and how much it would allow people to live carfree cars are a really large expense

[212:01] to own to buy to um pay for gas which is only getting more expensive the upkeep um I think that there is a lot to be said for allowing people the opportunity to live carfree and I want to make sure that um the folks who have that opportunity are not just the ones who can afford to buy a $2.4 million um town home um that that feels really important as we're thinking about ways to achieve our Equity goals um as a community um so I am 100% in support of um increasing the density here in this location because it is such a prime location for us to have people um living together in community in uh higher density capacity um as far as landmarking I think I've already made my feelings on that clear um you know when I think about right we think about six units it doesn't necessarily feel like that much but I think about six units and I think about the people that we could bring into our

[213:00] community who could live there that is at least six people who could join our community not have to commute in every day um cut down on carbon emissions to me every little drop matters um when it comes to housing and to reducing Inc commuting um for our workers and our students um I think the other thing regarding the street I would personally kind of like I said in the previous comment um I really see this as being a place where um people could live without cars and so for me taking away a a vehicle straight um that that sounds wonderful um and yep I think I think those those are the main the main things that I'm thinking about right now but just thank you for you know feeling that sense of urgency too regarding the mecca building it's not my decision it's your decision so I will completely defer to that and the East West cut through was a very bad idea to begin with even in 2002 so I

[214:02] think we all agree that that was a nonsense thing that it was is easy to get rid of if I could just actually Ali I I believe with as as it is your property you can propose demolishing it or not demolishing the building you know so but but we certainly it can give you the feedback and the city would have to be the one to Landmark it but of course it is up to the property to decide what to bring forward those Erin my understanding is that if um I put it an put an application for demolition on that building that it'll hit ht's desk and he would turn it down so that's why I'm saying it's it's your decision I'm I'm neutral on you know I'm not married to that building um initially we we obviously didn't think there was much Merit to it and we as Architects designed the site without it so in that respect I'm afraid I'm gonna have to put that back on your

[215:01] plate got you I by us I guess I was speaking in the city council there is a s of separate process for whether a building is allowed to be demolished but it doesn't go straight to us as a body so but good point that it's in the city's Court thanks for clarifying that okay great um we've got Rachel Bob Mark and Tarot I'll just say quickly on landmarking since that was up last I mean my understanding is like if a if a building's 50 years or plus old um then it does trigger aam Mark review if it's if an application is submitted for Demolition and then we're into quas judicial territory so I'm a little bit um confused about like some of the discussion and you know if that may come back to us as a separate quasi judicial matter and having that tonight I do think that in general um you know and I've mentioned several times before when we Landmark something we were sort of locking in something that's old and not maybe the best current use of of land in in terms of our current Equity

[216:00] Transportation environmental goals and that's the the landmarking ordinance that we have in place so that's on my retreat um list to look at at just landmarking in general but I don't know that we can kind of um hold any individual applicant to a standard that's different than what we have Curr currently in our code so I'm just mindful of that's going to be a separate I think quasi judicial matter um and and I did recommend to the last one like can we if that building's that important can we look at like moving it somewhere else if it's if it's really that impressive of a building which I've I've heard from some public comment that like maybe it's not uh that at least we could just move it somewhere else so that we could maximize housing on that particular lot um so I would you know and I imagine that that maybe the applicant has been open to landmarking because we've said that's kind of where you have to go with it and so then they got on board and got attached to it and now we're like we don't want to Landmark it so it's just I think we need to give applicants like a a a road map and then not you know like

[217:02] re redirect the road and and so I imagine it's a little bit frustrating um in this moment for the applicant uh so just it's okay Hing that um and then in terms of yeah I support as well uh maximizing housing where it's it's most useful and certainly along a Transit Corridor that we can have great walkability that's a a prime spot to do it um I my understanding is that we fund our affordable housing program through essentially luxury condos so for us to say we don't need any more luxury condos I think the way we are currently set up we would then be saying apparently we also don't you know want to do much with um affordable housing next year because that's how we're going to fund it so I think we have to be careful about really bashing that when that is currently the way we have set up to get to our affordability so we are sort of building in inclusivity in a weird way you know I didn't I didn't create that that pathway but that is how it is now so if that's

[218:01] how that you know the The Columns check out to get us to affordable housing I I just want to be mindful that that is how we currently do it so um my feedback would be uh I'm I'm certainly not wed to uh landmarking that to the extent that I can Telegraph that before it may come back quas judicially another day and I don't want to cross any lines there um support uh maximizing density especially if it can be affordable and recognize that the applicant and City staff can kind of work together to to meet those goals um as they move forward with this feedback and that we can't Maybe um demand uh you know a zoning change that the applicants not going to go for if the current uh information that they have is that they can go down this path I don't think that legally we can then you know shift things around and demand it we do have to kind of honor the way that the current codes and and systems are set

[219:00] up thanks for that Rachel um I did you want to respond to something yeah I just wanted to say to Rachel that um I think that um given what we've talked about tonight that I'm open to looking at the mu3 in fact I'm going to like I said a little bit earlier I'm going to start looking at it as an entire block thing if that's what you if if you the council are saying that the Mecha building isn't that precious and that we should be looking at maximizing the site then I can look at it that way if your decision is that no that Mecca needs to stay then I'll look at it with Mecca there so I just need directions so that we can spend precious time that we have targeted towards coming up with a solution that might work to satisfy our needs in general appreciate that and appreciate your flexibility thank you yeah thanks for that and let's get through the rest of council comments and then I'll leave

[220:00] if you have any further statements we can do that at the end okay thanks okay great uh Bob Mark Tara Matt and I guess I'll go then yeah before I give comments I have a question that's probably either for Kurt fover or Hela um you we we've had a number of situations here over the years where um you know somebody comes in and they they say they're going to do on site and then the project gets approved and then when they pull the building permit it's not on site or they say it's GNA be for sale and we approve the project and I know that's not a site review criteria but um we get excited about that and that it doesn't happen it sounds like there's some slippy chapping here I think um planning board heard um for sale and we're now hearing maybe not for sale which actually is a change even in the course of callup which is a little bit weird that we're commenting on a different project the planning board commented on um so here's my question for Kurt and Hela um I I've always been frustrated by the fact that a developer doesn't have to tell us until they pull their building

[221:02] permit whether it's going to be on site or not whether it's be for sale or not why is that is that is that a rule that we can change or or is there some something about law outside of our control that that that requires that and that puts us in this kind of M mystery box maybe I'll jump in first and let Hela take it um probably the majority of that question but that that's currently how it's um documented in our uh inclusionary housing ordinance um and um uh I think it's it's similar to to how other IH programs work um and because they have a choice um that's sort of the natural trigger for that um but I'll refer to Hela from a from the legal perspective and hel before you answer that question but my question really thanks for that cirt my question is can that trigger

[222:00] happen sooner like at site review in other words must we go through site review and approv a project and then find out later that what we got was what not what we we thought we were approving well I it seems like the trigger could be earlier although there are reasons why it is set up the way it is um and and I don't know if it would make sense to move it earlier in time considering how it is is applied right now it's a general zoning requirement that applies whether a project has to go through site revieww or not it applies to every residential project so a lot of projects don't have to go through the site review process um it was set up that way because I think the city wanted it to apply to every project and there were also other considerations um I think one of them

[223:02] was thinking about um the takings Clause the Constitution and taking the discretionary aspect out of it and making a firm zoning requirement so if we moved it up and said it had to be decided before you file a site riew application um then it may still not be part of the site review criteria if I could add one more thing Bob as well the other sort of real life situation that we we um often see is a project will come forward with the intent of um as an example being an ownership project um it took them two years to get through the process let's say um the entitlement process the markets have changed the financing has changed and they get there and they're like the project doesn't work as ownership any

[224:01] longer or it starts off as rental and they change to ownership because it does um so I think that's the um sort of reflected on that a little bit as well um but those are some of the challengers challenges from a developer standpoints as well yeah I guess I'm going to push back on that a little bit because lots of things change and developers take that risk I mean construction costs change interest rates change lots of things change and so I'm I'm not sure that I'm I'm going to agree with with that that's a risk the developer has to bake into his numbers but but let's take that offline I it's a frustration of mine I've seen too many projects that we've approved uh under the assumption of a and then we ended up getting you know what I'm talking about Kurt we've we've all been through that before and I'm a little frustrated that that we're now slipping away from ownership units um which I thought was what we were told in the application and what planning board was apparently told and apparently that's not what's going to happen so that's going to make me less um I don't know if that's a site review criteria but I'm just going to say that I'm going to be less enthusiastic about this project uh generally whatever site

[225:01] review criteria I have to pull in um is as far as getting back to the concept plan um I'm agree with the prior speakers that um density is important here this is is is in a Transit Corridor this is we don't have this many opportunities this this close to downtown on a Transit Corridor and so I I I I I guess my feedback to the developer is as much density as possible which means I I think mu3 sounds like it's going to be something that you should really seriously take a look at and retain that fourth floor um you know those are not either or you can do both of those things um and I I I'm not hearing a whole lot of enthusiasm and you're not going to hear it from me about landmarking that building if it's going to cost as six more units so I guess that's where I'm at um you know the road sounds like we're all alignment on road and I have no comments on design so those are my my feedback points thanks Bob uh Mark chair and Matt yeah I want to start by seconding Bob's comments on this process uh it's something that's been bothering me for

[226:00] quite a while I I hope perhaps we can discuss it at our Retreat is as something we need to look at um because it's becoming a little bit of a shell game and you know it leaves us rather unhappy and and dissatisfied that that which we thought we were getting we're not always getting and that there's no I am not convinced that ingenious Minds cannot look at this process and find a better way to get commitment from developers as to what it is they're actually going to give us um and so I hope that's something we we can address uh um a little further down the line um with respect to the the project itself um I I I first think we we need to understand a little bit about what's going to be built here other than the specific affordable units not one of these units um whether they are for sale or rental units are going to be remotely

[227:01] affordable um you know the the developer is projecting about 900 bucks a square foot maybe a little less for the um the tow houses generally as your units shrink your per square foot prices increase so we're going to be looking at if it's a For Sale Project um we're going to be looking at $1 million two-bedroom units that's that's simply the economics of it and so I I think we need to at least have a more realistic understanding of what we're getting here we're getting either um uh 18 units of affordable housing under mu3 uh or 16 units under bc2 too but those are the only affordable units we're getting this is this is not going to make much of a contribution to the affordability of Boulder to most people um you know three four $5,000 two-bedroom rental units are going to be out of reach for almost everybody so let's not have a misunderstanding as to what we're going

[228:00] to get whether the we increase the density or do not increase the density um and with respect to that I I have no conceptual issue with increasing the density but it's not the only value that's involved if you go back and look at that slide projecting the 74 units it looks like the same kind of block architecture we got at Boulder Junction which to me is a nightmare and you know just just having that kind of stacked flat um uh block construction uh to me is is is not advantageous to the community it's not the only value to get the last unit of of housing um it's an important value but it's not the only one um and I guess my last comment is that once again we're we're taking a recommendation from staff we're taking a recommendation from planning board and saying You know despite the time you've spent on this we in our infinite

[229:00] knowledge know so much better um and we've come up here you know we've read the packet spent an hour or two doing that now we're spending an hour so on this and we're we know so much better than than people who have been immersed in this subject and have worked on this subject and I I again wonder why are we why do we have a staff and why do we have a planning board if we have we give so little weight to their recommendations um it's a bit of a mystery to me and I think it's it's something we need to at least discuss among ourselves um this is not the first time we've done this with respect to planning board I expect it not to to be the last and I I believe they supported the project by seventh or nothing read the read the minutes of their meeting um but yet once again we're setting ourselves up as um you know all knowing and allseeing and taking their recommendations and basically throwing them out I have a problem with that I think we ought to have a problem with

[230:00] that um so those are my comments thank you right thanks Mark Taran Matt well Mark said it all but I just want to say as I was listening to this conversation that it's very easy to get excited about all all these new units but like Mark said I'm sitting here thinking how is that different than all the two expensive rental units now that we have that people can't afford so what are we gaining from this and so I agree with Mark that we need to just take a step back and think about that the sale the the part about them being for sale was super important because we just don't have enough things for sale a million dollars is like a deal right now one of the people said our median house prices are what million five I'm not saying it's a deal I'm only kidding but doesn't sound that bad and at least it's something that people can buy and not just rent because the rents are just

[231:00] going you know I don't see how that's a like a the greatest thing that ever happens in top liver I mean it just doesn't sound like that so I agree with Mark that we need to need to rethink that's all thanks chair Matt um you know this has been a pretty interesting uh dialogue I um see the pressures that we have with regards to needing more housing and and I think to Mark's point I'm certainly not suggesting that we're scuttling this in any way I think we're just trying to nudge to gain a little bit more than than that and I still think that what planning board did was a great job in recommending this and I think we can stay true to a lot of that while still nudging it in some important directions um you know so so I mean a lot of great things were said I I don't think we need to touch the transit the the corridor I think that's a that's a foregone conclusion um the landmarking I said my piece a little earlier you know I think

[232:01] just to kind of qual qualified a little more I just don't know if it's improving Our Community Values as much as it's h in him by not being focused on climate equity and and you know and housing as a whole so I just I'm don't think it meets that muster and I'd like to see us you know allow that space to be used more focused on those values um in terms of zoning I do want to see us increase that zoning and I do think getting in parody even though I know the the applicant is not asking for it I just feel weird having this non-conformity between land use and Zoning I do think we want to build that in um and that does give flexibility that word's been thrown around a bunch tonight is providing flexibility and I think as Alli said he's capped at 64 with the current piece so why not provide the flexibility for us for him to go up there if he has the capacity to do so so I think building flexibility in is the right way to go um and if that helps us to do sort of a concurrent change of land use and zo I think that's the right way to go um and

[233:00] that's kind of um all I got great well I I'll go next and then Rachel has her hand up for another round but um yeah so great comments uh folks I really appreciate the discussion um I'm going to join in with the comments that have been made about looking for ways to get more and smaller units on the site so you know as Matt said it seems like rezoning it at least to mu3 uh bringing conformance with the land use designation and giving you the flexibility to add more units um is is a positive thing and then um hopefully you can run with that and do more so I you know we can't force you to do a different project like to to ask for extra but I think what we can do is is say that we're open to it right so that if if you are open to the that we're open to the rezoning we're open to more units we're open to tweaks that could um add additional smaller units is is what I'm hearing from the majority of council

[234:00] and I agree with that and and mark to your point I think planning board gave some great feedback we're not dismissing the planning board's feedback but saying you know but here are some additional thoughts you could go a little bit more um but not rejecting their their fundamental comments at at all so whatever you can do to creatively to to um to to move in those directions I agree with what my colleagues have said about what a central walkable um accessible site this is that that we can take advantage of you know with with regards to the the building um you know it if it were still there it would like add a little variety to the streets Cape which could be kind of fun but I thought junnie said it really well that if we're we're valuing that building over additional place for people to live in our community I think that's the wrong tradeoff right so um so I I wouldn't make that tradeoff in terms of uh less housing um for the landmarking um and the the street corridors it's fine to

[235:01] get rid of so um yes so I'll just leave it at that and we've got a couple additional comments from Rachel and Nicole and then we wrap up yep I'll try and be brief not to be a broken record but um Mark's statement about you know we're going to get another boxy building just made me wonder if we want to ask dab to weigh in on this as well and you know maybe there's a way to incorporate that cool you know mid-century building and you know put housing up over and around it and you still get I I don't know I'm not a not an architect or a design person but maybe we want to give a you know out of five to pull them in as well on this m can cqu I think that's an excellent suggestion thank you Nicole yeah I just my comment was similar um so maybe call Quil as well um but just that there was a note in the packet about um um variety and roof forms um which you know I think would address some of these concerns because

[236:00] I've heard them from lots of folks in the community as well but um this really is just an area of concern I think it would feel up nicer for the community if we could have um a little bit of difference there and I understand that there may be some um allowances that we may need to make in order for that to happen um but it seems like if we can do that it might be worthwhile thanks for that and so it sounds like there's some interest in seeing this sent to dab that's something an interest I share would do does the majority of council feel like that would be a valuable thing so moved all right um I don't know if we need a motion on this one I think maybe just Direction hel can we just give direction on that one yes direction should be enough on this one great and and if I can just colly a little bit with what um someone said about design uh one of the speakers in the public hearing mentioned that

[237:01] that the a great deal of what's unique about that building is that roof form I kind of like that idea of incorp the roof form in the project even if the building itself does not stay in its current form thought that was a cool idea I'm no expert so um so Ali I feel like the direction has been relatively clear do you you do you feel like you've gotten useful feedback from us or do you have any Fallout questions I think so um Chris if you have um any insights or questions that you'd like to ask I'd welcome it I think if I'm still not clear as to what we're doing with the historic building on the corner the mecca building because again I will be studying along with Chris and Andy at his office what will happen with an all mu3 all apartment scheme and see what we

[238:00] can come up with and get it priced up and uh come back to you guys maybe not in a formal session like this but maybe in groups smaller groups or even if we can set up a video chat and show you what where we're at um I'm totally up for that I am overall concerned and worried that um getting forced into the rental model as some of the speakers have already spoken and told us ends up creating a whole bunch of units that are super expensive and I'm not sure how that's going to help us in terms of meeting this great need that we all feel I don't know if there's a way and and and I think it was Kurt who mentioned that it's difficult to finance a structure that has permanently affordable units spread out amongst regular units that that makes it very

[239:01] challenging I haven't done it so I'm I'm taking his word for it and I don't know if there's a way if there's a creative way to set it up so that certain units um on site could be at lower rent somehow so that it doesn't cause problems with the financing part of the equation I if that we can do that then that's great everybody wins and we can move on and you know we'll have um expensive units supporting the the more affordable ones I'm totally open for that but I'm just not sure if that's going to work and and that's part of what I'm going to study this week what what I appreciate is the U this really interesting discussion I'm glad it's been recorded I'm glad you're having a study session the not too distant future this could be a great subject and on almost every project we do and we work on a lot lot of projects um we have a lot of pro

[240:02] residential projects in the office and affordability is Central to everything we do and I frankly I don't know anyone who's really solved this problem on a large scale uh but I appreciate uh this discussion which has led us to understand we have a lot more flexibility and I've always thought that the more flexibility that a developer and designer has the better the project can be so I appreciate that as far as the the the Mecha building is concerned I said that we have grown attached to it and I think part of the reason is that we felt there really wasn't an alternative and we also recognized that in order to eliminate that building requires a demolition permit and that permit has to be a decision by the landmarks preservation Advisory board so U we'll have to go through that process ultimately you have a you can make a

[241:02] decision that can overturn a decision that they make so we do have to go through that process as well well but um in in summary thank you for the discussion thank you for the time that you've taken to help us and understand what direction we can take from now on that's the whole point of concept review and I think that we've accomplished that objective thank you it's good to hear Nicole did you have a followup thought I did I was just wondering if thinking about that um what Oli talked about as being a hard problem of how to embed more affordable units into a larger group um is that anything housing Advisory Board could help us think about or do we have anybody who could help with that and realizing again that there's some urgency here and we can't just um keep doing this for years at a time Kurt do you want to weigh in on

[242:04] that yeah thank you Nicole um I I I think some of the challenge around this um uh takes expertise in the field um particularly in things around how the financing Works um uh and um the housing Advisory Board um aren't necessarily those experts um but they do obviously provide valuable Community inputs um around you know setting the priorities um but um you know figuring out some of the questions that came up tonight um um I I think we can also have further discussions with the applicant um as staff to understand if we can um come up with some other Solutions as well um I think Council gr gave great um Direction on many things and it's it's created um options as chier as has said

[243:02] um to to explore different different approaches thank you very good well I think that pretty much wraps it up so um thanks so much to Ali and Chris for presenting and um for staff for your excellent analysis appreciate it very much we look forward to the next iterations here um and then I would just say we're way behind but still how about five minutes we've been sitting still for a long time thank you thank thank you all really appreciate your time thanks have a good night thank you um okay okay I'm hearing agreement so let's p.m.

[244:07] Sharp [Music]

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[248:59] all right we are at

[249:02] [Music] 10:00 we are missing let's see Lauren has not come back yet um oh there she is so we at can I make a process suggestion please do I'd like to suggest that we defer our committee assignments tonight um it is not time sensitive it will take the full hour that CAC scheduled fors we've been through this before you and I both know that it takes the better part of an hour to get through all that and um we have an important report coming from Nua which will probably take at least 20 or 30 minutes and and not sure that starting a new hourong thing at 10:30 at night is all that healthy so I'd like to suggest that we and it doesn't affect staff because I don't think there's any staff members were otherwise not going to stay at the end of the meeting who are affected by our committee deliberations so I'd like to suggest that we postpone that to either December 7 or 14 uh CAC can kind of sort

[250:01] that out I I love that idea Bob because we we are going way over I would really rather us not hit midnight uh tonight with our with our meeting are council members all right with that change okay I'm seeing nodding heads there may be a couple of interim meetings that we need to kind of have people volunteer for um but that's fine we can just handle those as they come up if necessary okay well then um Alicia what's our next item all right so next we have the under Matters from the city manager item number five on tonight's agenda 5A the update from the city manager on occupancy enforcement thank you so much Alicia and mayor and council members um I do believe that we have a short sort of a quick little update we've said some of it in hotline already but I imagine that the conversation certainly will take some time so appreciate the

[251:01] flexibility um to move the other matter to another time um at our last meeting we spoke a bit about the topic of occupancy and you asked that we come back with a sort of a quick um update clarifying a bit of what our current status is on enforcement and perhaps speaking to what staff has been working on with regards to occupancy I'll add to that while the focus of this most recent conversation has been occupancy I'd argue that there are a variety of complex issues that go with it that go beyond the number of applicants that we've been hearing about uh in a singular dwelling unit but also just the impacts of occupancy in general such as the impact of density on traffic or noise or other quality of life issues and some of those were actually looking in other areas as well I mentioned in a recent hotline post that currently due to Staffing and Staffing constraints and concerns about the pandemic and specifically not

[252:00] wanting to displace folks unnecessarily during the covid crisis staff has limited their enforcement to complt based issues where there are truly in those instances where there are truly life safety concerns the safety of all residents is important and that's why I support staff's approach of really continuing to respond to such complaints and assessing whether there are indeed significant life safety issues that need addressing and where there are such concerns I believe staff has been really deliberate in trying to mitigate any disruptive impacts by working with tenants and their property managers or landlords to address the issues that hand certainly staff's intent is never to displace any tenants and they have been particularly sensitive during the pandemic as the topic came up during last year's Retreat I'll add to that staff had been performing some Pier City uh research during the past year and is ready to present that work in the near future at a future study session uh as

[253:00] well as sharing what the department has been thinking about their for their own work plan um they have already been discussing some Notions about uh addressing occupancy and some other perhaps quality of life issues that have come up in the past and we plan to share some of those more details on all the staff work plans at the January 14th meeting and hope to hear from you all on areas that we have an alignment or additional areas that you would like staff to consider during next year's Council Retreat for more on this as well as any additional information I may have missed on how staff responds to the complaint we're going to ring every last last bit of goodness out of Jacob before he bitterly departs uh and we'll let him talk to about it and then take any questions you may have about our um enforcement practices so Jacob well thank you norri I I appreciate that introduction um I'll maybe just elaborate on a couple of points that Nia has brought up in her introduction and I'll talk first about our enforcement

[254:01] processes and then a little bit on some potential policy Solutions and how we can arrive there so first and foremost in terms of our enforcement practice as many of you know last year in response to the governor's request for leniency in enforcement due to covid um we did create a covid occupancy enforcement process and the most important aspect of that was was that we avoided the displacement of tenants because of pandemic concerns so we are continuing those same covid enforcement practice practices and we will not displace tenants during this time we will however continue to respond to complaints continue to inspect properties to document zoning violations and to observe if major life safety issues are present now what does

[255:00] that mean there's been question about what does that mean to look in into life safety issues what that means is looking for major obvious hazards to life safety and health such as windowless bedrooms that don't have an obvious egress route in case of a fire that's a major obvious Public Health concern bedroom basements uh bedrooms in basements in areas of noon flooding Hazard these are the kinds of obvious and clear egregious um challenges to Life Safety that we're looking for they're not there looking to see um you know if uh if you know details of building code have been overlooked that that is enforced by a a separate uh inspections team that focuses on building code that's not what we're there to do so that's what it means when we're talking about life safety we're talking about just making sure that our citizens are safe and protected now

[256:00] um I guess the other thing is going forward we will continue to monitor um pandemic conditions and for with Boulder County Health as we always do and work with our city attorney's office to look at how our enforcement policies change in the future should pandemic conditions change so that's the first piece on enforcement the second piece that I'd like to address is really regarding a policy change should Council be minded to do that so in terms of our department um planning and development services has just come off of a work planning effort um in fact we finished the most Rec recent round yesterday and we are planning for occupancy study in 2022 we have heard clearly that it's something that needs to be looked at our ability to deliver a viable solution to you is going to be dependent on the scope of work how big is that project going to be looking at occupancy and the scale of

[257:01] public engagement those are very time consuming or can be timec consuming depending on on how much we ask for the scope of work and the scale of public engagement and I would advise you as council members to be prepared for potential tradeoffs in our department um on other work plan items because we have a very finite working capacity in terms of number of staff and the hours that they can dedicate last thing I'll say is that um we are prepared for more in-depth discussion on this topic and we will look forward to briefing you further during your retreat as you are thinking about work planning or during a future uh study session if needed um and nor did mention a little bit of that work that has been done on pier cities and we are uh happy to present that to you as well so I'll conclude on that and uh we can take questions and discussion as needed thanks so much for that uh Jacob and nura and um I'm just realizing Jacob

[258:01] this is the the last council meeting that we're going to see you at which makes me very sad but um that was very well very well spoken but um so what I would suggest is if we have uh questions for Jacob berera um that we start with those and then if people have any follow-up comments that they'd like to make uh to do those after questions so um I'm already seeing Junie and Matt I have a question about you mentioned life safety and um issues so so my question is if someone calls about over occupancy does that mean the city doesn't respond to that and only respond if it's a if the complaint as part of the complaint there is life safety issues does that make sense that does make sense thank you jnie um the answer this is our practice

[259:01] if we receive complaints about any zoning violation um we do investigate those and that includes occupancy of course in investigating the occupancy complaint if it's determined that there is over occupancy the staff would observe conditions and again if there is some egregious violation or obvious violation where there are unsafe conditions that would be noted and it would be something that we could follow up on but uh yeah so that's that's uh I can go into further depth but I'll leave it at that Jacob I'm sorry juny before you would it be fair to say that part of the reason is that you investigate is because even if we get a complaint on over occupancy which we don't get a lot of that we don't know what the conditions are until we actually go there to see it and so we are mindful that once we get a complaint about something that we have to go take a look at it but to your point we don't enforce if it's just simply or we won't be enforcing or we don't enforce whether it's just an extra person who's there and there are no life safety issues

[260:00] that's correct would that be fair okay yes so I do have another question um as a city do we have other reg regulations for instance you know this idea that we use this complaint process to investigate life safety issues to me it's it's a bit strange is there that's for lack of a better term okay uh I'm not an expert in building code and people living together but my question is are there other mechanism to evaluate these things other than this idea of people calling the city on their neighbors to complain about how many people are living together and then

[261:00] somehow that leads to a life in safety violation does that make sense because in a way this is we're having two separate discussion we're having a discussion about life and safety and we're having a conversation about occupancy and somehow this life and safety part of the discussion is really taking over the the the the real issue that we're dealing with so my question is is there a way of enforcing another way of enforcing Life Safety other than having people calling and complain about the number of occupant living in a house well it's a great question juny I don't want to paint a picture that somehow we are using occupancy as some method of discovering whether there are unsafe conditions that is not the case the point is that in the very very rare condition that staff are called to observe over occupancy and they find

[262:00] that something is unsafe that people are unsafe um for fire or flood conditions we want to take steps to help correct that so that people are safe and that is not a common occurrence so I don't want to paint an impression that somehow we are using occupancy to enforce building code issues that is not true um there is a separate process of reporting building code violation that is not an especially common process we don't often get calls because often that's related to things that are on an interior of a building so it's not common that we receive um calls to investigate uh building code issues those are typically done in the process of certifying a building for new construction or after renovation you would go in and inspect for building code so I don't think this is a widespread issue the point is that we want to make sure that the community are safe and that um there are not obvious uh conditions where people are living in bedrooms without Windows where they can't get out if there's a fire or flood but those are not common and I want to

[263:01] emphasize that fact again um we have uh relatively few of these to enforce on a yearly basis and the numbers I think bear that out thank you mayor Brocket that those were my only questions thank you thanks juny for that we've got Matt Bob Nicole and I have a question as well Matt do you mind if I jump the que and just ask a question of Staff um to follow up on jun's point go for it um Jacob and Nia um it seem I believe that we have this is not the only type of um law that's enforced on a complaint basis I think we have lots of laws that we we don't go around and and look for violations I think a couple that come off top of my head is you know barking dogs and I think our sign code we don't go around looking for signs to to tag we wait till somebody complains isn't it true that a lot of our laws are complaint-based not just this

[264:00] one that's exactly yes that's exactly correct Bob and I'd say you're not the only Juris that does that that most cities particularly with code enforcement that have and and I used to lead one of them that have Staffing constraints a lot of them do come as a complaint basis and and separating those issues out what it is it it's it a lot of it just comes to staff capacity great that's all I had thank thank you Matt appreciate it no problem um uh thanks Aaron and and for one uh thank you Jacob um we I am new to councils so I am going to miss you even though we haven't had a chance to really work together um but you're going to be sorely missed Jacob so best wishes to to you and your endeavors so I know this is your last meeting I just want to say that in front of everyone but also to you directly um so my my question kind of centers around a little bit of an equity question um because you know I I look at certainly the sort of life safety concerns with regards to

[265:01] over occupancy but on the flip side I think of you know a family of six in a three-bedroom house and two kids living in a room that doesn't have egress and and that just that that exists in this town without without issue um and and so I'm a little concerned about just where does the equity lie in terms of just because they're unrelated there's a path of consequence that's more direct in this instance but a family of six and a three-bedroom house seems to kind of just Float On by so so I I don't know what the answer is to occupancy it just worries me that there is a disc congruity um in the equity of situations that are the same and the only difference is relation well thank you Matt that's a great Point um and thank you for the kind words as well you all are going to be in great hands with the staff of P&S so um you got great folks serving you I would say um first and foremost that I don't want I again don't want to paint the impression that somehow the discovery of an obvious Life Safety violation is a pathway to eviction that

[266:01] is not the case I want to be clear about that our goal is to resolve those issues so that people can dwell safely in their dwellings that is the the purpose and again um we are using our covid era enforcement policies we will not be displacing tenants so I just want to be very clear about that and in all cases our goal whether it's in a single family home occupied by a single family or whether it's in a multif family structure or an office or anything else is to be sure that buildings are built according to code and they are safe to dwell in or to occupy that's a blanket condition which is true true in any condition in any case um and it's obviously very important because Boulder like all other cities does suffer from disasters we have recently seen fires we do have floods it is always our goal to preserve safety the occupancy zoning ordinance is not some kind of backdoor um method that we are using to displace tenants because of the discovery of life safety violations that is not the case I want to be very clear about

[267:01] that and if I could follow up there just this is Matt that's a great question um but but I assume that that let's say that that you know uh people were doing an inspection in a home for some reason and they discovered a a family who were related where there was a an unsafe bedroom like a like like Matt was describing I assume that that's something that we would flag and say hey you're you're out of compliance with code that's not safe you know we got to fix that is that a fair statement that's correct Erin and the way that that would work is that it would be the remedy for that would be taken up with the owner so if it's occupied by the owner they would be responsible for remedying it and if it's occupied by tenants the owner of the property would be responsible for remedying that condition okay thanks for that Nicole Man

[268:02] line sorry it's getting late and I'm forgetting to unmute um I had basically the same question as Matt and I just I'm not sure that I fully understand um yet the the sort of Distinction because you know if if it's a related family right who's living and they have um some of the people living in an unsafe room right um we're not sort of telling them you can't live there right um or or or finding them another place to live that's safer um so it just in that way it feels very inequitable um that relationship is basically determining what happens um in this circumstance and I I just and I I want to emphasize I am not at all saying that staff is going around looking for people to you know con convince of or um say that they have life and safety violations or anything like that I just I really I appreciate all that you all

[269:01] are doing um to make sure that people are staying housed especially during this pandemic mic um where the risk of moving homes um is so much greater so thank you for that just want to be very clear I'm not not stating that in any way and Nicole before Jacob jumps in if he's good a J in I'll say I appreciate that right because I I think that that's a difference in a distinction we have to be mindful of and hopefully that is something that we have more conversation about uh at The Retreat about uh where you would like us um to think about occupancy and and see if that aligns I won't I don't know the circumstances here because I haven't been here long enough to know those cases where they've happened but having led a department that does this work in a different city I'll say that we actually treated both families and non-related folks with life safety issues in the very same manner because I have seen folks I think I mentioned in a post we have seen folks in basement with no egress windows or next to a boiler and it doesn't matter

[270:00] to me if that is a renter or if that is your child that's that's just an unsafe condition no matter what uh and I would expect that staff flags that no matter what it is because it's about the condition and the safety of the particular room not necessarily the occupant who's there if we're going into it with a life safety issue yeah and I I appreciate that and I think you know that um some of the concerns that I've heard from folks is really around um when people are unrelated um they're they're at risk of somebody kind of drawing attention to the fact that there might be something there right in a way that's not there when people are related um I don't well you all would know are people calling saying hey there are six kids and I think some of them are living in you know a basement closet or something absolutely and I would I would even agree that that happens with home ownership where cities don't inspect homes as a regular basis because that's not what most cities do but there could be conditions that are concerning for

[271:01] life safety issues that we don't get into because they are homeown versus rental right and so those are interesting conversations and policy discussions to have Lauren then Rachel so I just had a question about you're good rose for a second on my end um about uh how you're avoiding displacement so it was like are we adding windows to the windowless base room basement or like how um when you're seeing these life safety issues how are we avoiding displacement well it's a good question Lauren I I'll just be clear I'm not prepared to discuss details of cases um specifically but I will say this that the staff have have always tried to and continue to work with the landlord to resolve the specific configuration that may be taking place to avoid displacement so they always

[272:00] work with the landlord to try to figure it out that's the goal every time and in terms of the specifics of how that's worked out in case it's is something that I would need to come back to you all on and we're not always at Liberty to discuss specifics of cases but the goal is to work with a landlord to remedy those conditions without displacing any tents that's what we always try to do thank you Rachel yeah um I have a a comment and a question so I'll ask my question and then if I can launch into a comment if it's the right time I give me to go ahead but just wanted to check like if a complaint is filed that's going to trigger some action by the city and and we've gotten some feedback that at that point some people are being evicted so it doesn't really matter what the city does you know that we're not enforcing that it's sort of Auto um resulting in evictions because as soon as a landlord gets notice then they're asking someone to leave so do we have any knowledge of how that plays

[273:01] out or are there steps we could take to say like we're inspecting you but we're really only looking for life safety stuff so don't evict anyone so first and foremost if staff receive a complaint about a zoning violation that's investigated and that regard that's uh the same with any kind of zoning violation occupancy is one of them if violations are found to be the case then the city notifies the owner of the violation and it is the owner's job to remedy that should the owner be unable to remedy that then they are the ones who can bring the eviction process and that is handled through the county through the Sheriff's Office and that is a process that again we seek to avoid at all costs and to work with the owner and with the tenant to do it it is exceedingly rare that those processes actually go to that

[274:01] point and result in an eviction process um and again have you know some numbers to to kind of bear those things out but the city again as we said before um the city does not perform the eviction process nor do we seek to have that uh as a as an end result we seek to work with the owner to um either remedy the conditions or compassionately house those uh who are over occupying the structure the last thing I'll say is that staff have routinely worked with the owner and the occupants to extend to wait until the termination of a lease before re-evaluating the occupancy of a dwelling or bringing into Conformity so always working to make sure that we are not um forcing the eviction process or insisting upon it with the owner that's not something that we do that oh sorry go ahead noria I I was just going to add this to because I I understand this is like the the complexity of this and the timing of it and I'll say that part of the reason that we're because while we don't

[275:00] initiate eviction proceedings I can see the argument that if we're issuing a citation then what a landlord may say is you're too much hassle to me and I'm just gonna you know I don't want the city breathing down my neck for whatever reason right and so I can see that there could be a a unintended consequence um I still believe strongly that we have to um preserve the right to go address life safety issues but that is one of the reasons I appreciated um the intentionality of Simply documenting and not citing folks for the moment and then what I'd also say is that because we have so few cases and I wouldn't ordinarily necessarily offer this um for myself but in those cases that you hear of what there is um some case of someone saying alleging that they're they're being evicted because of a staff visit because of um some documentation and staff has come in then I'd say please let me know because then we'd want to go intervene we'd want to go investigate I

[276:00] want to make sure that that's not happening because that is not what we're we're up to do I offer that because it doesn't happen that often and because we l really want to make sure that if it's accurate that it is somebody who is trying to evict somebody based on a staff visit that that is not a pretext right so we'll offer that and I don't know what we'll be able to do about it but we'll at least all know and commit to following up could I appreciate that could we like I understand we not you know we notify the owner could we also send a letter to the address that's being investigated like hey we've received a complaint but FYI the city's not um following up on occupancy violations unless there's a a life safety issue which would just be to protect you all so uh you know if if you were asked to leave based on this violation please contact Maria or something like that like is it is it possible that we could give tenants some some notice of of how we are performing these inspections as well as owners you you

[277:01] don't have to really answer tonight but no putting that out there and then um I do want to speak to the the importance of of Life Safety and also touch a little bit on the um notion that uh if you're a homeowner you just kind of are are scot-free um as a I think that if you are living uh you know in poverty or are a vulnerable individual in our society you are going to be subject to complaints whether you are a renter or an owner unfortunately I I mean uh it's not a good thing I just think that's the reality and I will say that as a former Guardian ad lium I had a lot of uh issues where people um complain about kids living in unsafe houses so you might not get evicted but you can actually have your kids taken away so it's not like um there's no I think everywhere in life we are trying to make sure that people are living in safe environments and I don't think we are unfairly targeting people um who are

[278:00] renters and owners I think we are unfairly targeting people who are not wealthy and that's that's happening universally so I just want to make that distinction and also um on my street I live on a a high Hazard flood flash flood Street um and and I know for a fact that people who own homes here do not allow people to sleep in the basement when it's raining and I know for a fact that renters do not get that warning like I will tell people don't sleep there but that's where their bedrooms are so there it's it's a real issue like we don't want to set the city up to um to not investigate that and to not alert people that they are really In Harm's Way if it starts a big downpour so I just want to say I think there is a subtle difference if you own and know your neighborhood versus if you're living here for six to 12 months and nobody tells you um you can be in higher a higher degree of harms way thanks thanks for that Rachel and I've got juny and then I'm I'm going to make a comment if it's

[279:03] right yes thank you I have uh two questions and I think they were brought on by um the conversation my question is when a resident or Community member reach out to the city and complain or make a complaint what do we say to that person who's the complainant what what do we say to them I guess I'm I need a little bit more information juny is it about this particular issue about any issue and it may depend on how that complaint comes in because sometimes it can come in written form sometimes it can come through inquire Boulder okay yeah no I just wanted to know when when you investigate do you come back to the to the resident and and give a report back H how is the process how does that go when someone Mak makes

[280:00] a complaint oh to the complainant yes so I'll Jacob I'll ask you what you do in the complaintant I know in my other cities we do not go back to the complaintant we receive a complaint and we investigate to make sure their life safety but we don't necessarily go back depending on what type of complaint it is um we address it because how we address it with that particular landlord or tenant is a different thing but I don't know Jacob what you do here yeah that's correct same practice for us yeah I think in line with with can I make a comment now eron go ahead I think we're I think we're moving into comments now so go ahead and comments now okay I mean you've all seen my hotline the one that I sent couple of days ago I still support very much very strongly um a formal temporary suspension of the occupancy uh because of I've had conversations with community members and

[281:01] I've laid down in the hotline the reason why it's very important for Equity reasons I have laid that down and even based on the discussion tonight I'm not convinced that the complaint process is the best way to engage community members on life safety issues I think as a community we can definitely do better and we should do better especially in a place like Boulder Colorado where we believe that we're truly one of the best cities in the world and we're one of the most Progressive and I think our actions have to align with our values and in this on this particular issue or actions or not being in Alliance with our values so to me the best course of action and I hope that you know the rest of my fellow council members will take a stand on that will speak on that you know and we will we should we all should give or

[282:01] take and and go from there and I would like to request as I think that was the when this discussion came forward back on Tuesday was to give a not of five or at least to figure that out so that staff can start make making a decision or taking a step forward in that direction and I think we should we should still go ahead with that tonight and my comment as well is you said if it is not I think based on what I'm hearing tonight I think the city also should make a take a strong position that if it is not life safety if it's not a life safety concern in a Community Reach Out Community member reach out then we should not enforce that because from what I'm hearing from you is we only enforce Life Safety then if somebody's complaining because there's four people in a five-bedroom house we should not be enforcing that and and that's my

[283:00] position on that and and and you know I know as a city we're doing a lot and sometimes we look at the fact that we're doing a lot as a community because there are so many communities that are less Progressive than us and we think we're doing enough but we can do better thank you thank you for that Genie this uh it's very well spoken um I uh I hadn't intended to speak just to speak after you I was just I was trying to get um get in some words on the topic so I'm not not just trying to speak um uh to just address what you said but thanks for that um talking about how we can do better because I agree I think we we can do better but just to clarify from from what Jenny was saying Jacob my understanding from what you were saying is that right now that if if there is no life safety issue we are not displacing people right I mean you you said it in a few words you said it very clearly maybe

[284:00] you could you could repeat that that's correct aarin we we are currently working with our covid era enforcement policies and we will not displace tenants during this time thanks for that so that to me is is the the fundamental goal right is that to not displace tenants you know during covid uh first and foremost so I'm very appreciative of that approach I think it's it's appropriate um I am very much um interested in taking up this question about what about our occupancy limit rules could be changed to improve equity and accessibility of housing for our community members um who are don't happen to be related to each other and so uh I know we're going to be um taking this up at the retreat in a couple months I I will just speak for myself I'm very interested in getting this on the work plan um at The Retreat um and

[285:02] you know taking on the question of you know how can can we do this better um how can we have more equity and accessibility for housing in our community so I'm very interested in doing that and N I appreciate the fact that staff is already um has already done some research and is already laying groundw work for that so that we can hit the ground running but while also Consulting with the public right that we want to hear um the perspectives of um you know of the community on how we can you know improve things and do that in a collaborative process and uh both about occupancy limits themselves but also about you know how how do we deal with um you know landlords that that aren't taking care of their tenants correctly right who who aren't taking care of their properties who aren't providing the best living conditions for their tenants you know so I think that's a huge part of this whole discussion and I think we have a lot of improvements we can make in those areas as well um that

[286:00] I very much want to take on um if not either at the same time or in parall tracks yeah um because because this is like Jenny said we can do a lot better I think as a city than we are right now and I think it's really important um to many members of our community and and myself and I think many members of council to to work on that that's what I had that I Nicole and then that thank you um I just wanted to say juny I really uh appreciated your your comments um as well as your uh hotline posts and um you know I think this U this point about the complaint process not being the best way to engage uh the community on life and safety issues is is a very good and valid one um and um you know I think this idea of sort of a a formal suspension so as I understand it please correct me if I'm wrong we've basically been an informal in an informal suspension for the last year

[287:00] plus is that is that correct yeah I mean staff has been directed to really move in a different direction and they continue to be under that direction so yeah so and you know and I'm just looking at um there was a boulder reporting lab um story that had some data on uh some of the violations and things it's actually down quite a bit in 2021 so I realize that the year's not over yet right um so that that may uh influence it a little bit but it doesn't doesn't really seem like it had a really big effect and you know what I um what I hear is that there's a lot of fear in the community of people who are currently living over occupied um that um you know some some people just don't know they just don't know that we have occupancy limits they're living or occupied those that do know are kind of constantly living in the state of fear that um that they're going to be evicted at any moment if somebody you know complains about you know the house being over occupied or something like that um so you know this this where to me that

[288:00] formal suspension does does make a difference you know for a chunk of of folks who are living in our community so um I just just wanted to um offer at that point um and I want to U plant a seed that Erin um you know you already started around just this issue um there are valid concerns in the community about um homes that are um where you know people are setting up firecrackers at night um where they're not clearing their sidewalks when it's icy and snowy and um just in other ways not sort of keeping um not being great neighbors uh I guess or you know um connecting to the neighborhood that they're in and so Aon I just wanted to um follow up that I think this is also something um to look at as well because these issues of occupancy and new sense they are they are separate they're related but they're separate and we really need to think about them as separate because we do a disservice to um both concerns when we conflate them

[289:01] and put them together I I just want say Nicole I just appreciate the the general conversation right like I I appreciate that people are concerned right and living in fear I've seen that in um tency all over the country right and figuring that out on a variety of levels I think is important I just had a meeting with um some folks uh lowincome folks who are concerned and worried about property management in general and it's not about fear of eviction as much as um threatening and bullying behavior and how do we as a city step into that right we're having conversations about quality of life issues and life uh quality of life noise complaints traffic and the impacts perhaps of over occupancy and while they're separate there are some linkages in that bend diagram right of of what a density could look like and what that means and what what are those values to us to jun's point as a city moving forward those are the very

[290:01] conversations I am hoping that we're going to be having at The Retreat and figuring out how best to move us forward because I do think that you know um there are really the the majority of property managers and landlords in my experience are tremendous and really want to have um apartments and homes that are habitable and protect their tenants but there is always that 10% that are not and figuring out how to have better teeth and enforcement um tools to move that forward is a conversation we've been having with the hill it's a conversation we've been having with San Cent it's a conversation we need to have across the city and I'm really excited to have those conversations generally moving forward um because that fear abounds in a variety of sit of situations and lack of knowledge about where tenants can turn to for assistance is an important piece of

[291:00] that thank you um and I just have one more question if I may ask that now um for this jacob um around the the discussions that you said staff has already been having around some of these occupancy issues um we we just finished a very contentious election um where folks were airing a lot of their concerns and issues with um occupancy changes and so um I'm just curious of some of the discussions that staff has been having have included um some you know ways that we could respond to that um because we're not talking about implementing uh a failed ballot measure but rather taking all the feedback that was gathered um and using that to create something that I think much many people in the community were asking us for um so is is that have staff been assume that you have but just wanting to to ask that question if you've been um incorporating some of that feedback it's a great question Nicole uh the answer is that the work that we've done was

[292:00] conducted prior to the ballot measure uh much of that was included in uh an information packet that went to the council I believe it was in April of this past year so most of that research was conducted before the before the the vote and the current uh the state of that vote and the way that that plays out is not something that's been incorporated into our discussions but we would look forward to that again during the work planning process and during your retreat and I just just one more thing to jun's point I think from your hotline um is is where I'm getting this Jenny that um there is some value while this is all still fresh people's minds of trying to capture some of that knowledge um now could potentially save a little bit of work um down the road I don't know how to do that just saying that great Point um Matt and then Rachel well I I think I think we're there's been a few points leading to it and and I'll just maybe try to uh speak to it uh a little bit more and I think this is really in generally in in really

[293:01] speaking to the community as a whole here given um coming on the heels of a vote in into the meeting talking about occupancy thinking about work plan and enforcement that what I see certainly my motives are and it sounds like many of my colleagues are is this is not a regurgitation of the bedrooms are for people ballot measure um that lost and I think it's important for us to separate the bedrooms are for people ballot measure from the conversation of occupancy and I do think that over the last two years occupancy has been at the Forefront of a lot of Community conversation which is great because that's allowed this community to have a lot of conversation and a lot of participation as to what is and isn't part of that issue and I just want to say that as we get closer to the retreat and a work plan my commitment is to focus on Aus occupancy reform while also looking at many of the guard rails associated with some of the issues that voters brought up with that ultimately voted no on it and I want to point out having run a recent campaign a lot of

[294:01] the folks that decided to vote no on bedrooms admitted that they they appreciated the Merit of actual occupancy reform they just didn't see that there were enough guard rails in that measure to meet their needs and and and so I want to be very clear with the community that we have heard that um especially for those of us on the campaign Trail heard it all the time and so we want to honor that and I think that's where we want to lead to the work plan to really focus on those guard rails while doing occupancy reform and making sure we can have a solution that works for everybody in a meaningful way because right now the status quo isn't working for everybody so I think it's important for us to know that so I think it's just an important thing to sort of succinctly put out to the community given the emails and everything that's been happening that this is not going to be a regurgitation of bedrooms this is going to be a clean look while leveraging the conversation and narrative that we've had over the last two years thanks that Matt Rachel yeah before I forget I want to say goodbye to Jacob too you will be sorely missed and I did get to work with

[295:00] you so um I'll will miss you a lot thanks for your efforts over the past year um be too nice to him I'm a little bitter about it I mean that's fair we're all a little bitter and heartbroken um so I guess I just want to like pan out a little bit and and say that um I think eron and I both asked for this to be added to our work plan occupancy at The Last Retreat and um it was declined I think we may may have been a seven- two vote um but it it the time to add this is at the retreat um and and that is where we you know lay out all of the puzzle pieces and see where it fits and you know what quarter it could be done in and and how we get there and know as Jacob said like what it's competing against for placement on the work plan so we have to sort of know what all is in the running when we add occupancy limits so I'm I'm also very supportive of it um but I I can't read tea leaves and and don't know what else people are going to bring and

[296:00] and if it will rise to everyone's your to enough people's top so I I I just don't want to put the cart before the horse on this um and and uh commit in in any way that is different to everything else we're going to be putting on the work plan so um I think I'm hearing a lot of support for occupancy reform that is uh not um just a a polishing and repackaging of bedrooms are for people um so just want to be mindful that we don't want to take actions tonight that that really um under mind that process and it it is like I'm not somebody who believes in Tradition for tradition's sake or process for process sake um but there are a a lot of fires to put out in the city like you know um there are you know several things I might want to suspend or um you know activate very quickly but if we um do those things out of order kind of I think we lose Community Trust and we end up with a a

[297:00] sort of um inferior work product because we're rushing through things so um I think that in this case we have basically a an informal suspension of of occupancy and the goals that um I wanted to achieve when I've asked for us to suspend occupancy in the past or achieved like we are taking pains not to evict people and to safeguard you know health and safety issues so I'm I'm delighted I don't quite understand when that happened that's that's mysterious to me um I'm glad that it has happened and I appreciate that staff has taken that direction and I would like um some some confirmation and that's not going to change when we're not looking and that we are maybe going to send out those letters to tenants to say or or something that that makes it very clear that you have um you know an ability to contact the city manager or the planning department or someone and we will help make sure that during covid you are not evicted and and we're only talking a

[298:00] matter of weeks like six or seven weeks I think until the retreat we can then um tether a formal suspension to a work plan item and that is to me uh the the right process and and steps and way to do this in a way that um does not upset the community that we are violating democracy or Democratic principles or process so I would really caution us to do this in a way that is is trust building and not corrosive to trust and still s you know protects people and allows people to to not live in in a a fear or or to be In Harm's Way from being evicted in in um time of a pandemic when when there's a lot of instability going on in the world already thanks thanks Rachel H juny thank you Aron um you know I just want to make a

[299:00] comment on I'm I mean I doubt that when Rachel brought that issue forward it was a 7 to2 but even if it were back then it was a 7 to2 I've changed position and moved because of what I've heard from community members and also all the work that's been put in by the bedrooms or for people and also I just wanted to iterate what Nicole Spears said earlier my colleague as she said even if there is an En formal process a lot of people are not aware of that informal process and sometime having an informal process is almost like a stick for people who understand that process they know how to engage it but for community members who are who don't have the time or who are not aware of that informal process as was mentioned by Nicole earlier it's they still very fearful so in a way

[300:00] there is this informal process that can turn formal at any time so it's almost like people don't know where they stand so to me having a formal suspension would say hey 100% unequivocal here's the rule here's what we will do and what we will not do but this idea that as a governing as a governing body that we have an informal process that some people know about that can be enforced that might be enforced that might not be enforced I think to me sound very inappropriate and it should not be you know I think it should be a more formal process that says hey here's where we stand and here's where we are and also I just want to add I would like to get supposed to just having discussion because I think because this is something that is important to all of us all of us on Council have a stake we care about the community we care about where we live as well because we live here you know this is not Washington where people fly in

[301:02] and you know just come in and make comments we live here in Boulder this issue impact all of us right so to I would like to see to as for um just to Aaron I would like to see maybe um can we vote on whether we should have a vote tonight on suspending the occupation does that make sense Aaron it it does so well Jun I'd say from a process perspective um so thanks for your words the um we did not bring forward like a request to take a a formal action tonight so I I think um I personally would say and and people can disagree with me here I personally would say that it's it from a process perspective it's not um necessarily on the table to make a change like that

[302:00] tonight um I'm hearing Maybe eron U po you may have something to say about that that's correct since it's under matters um a vote should not be taken but general direction could be given and also just a heads up that we're getting close to 11 o'clock and the council rules say that the meeting will be adjourned unless it's extended by a vote of two-thirds of the council members present right at 11 o'clock yes okay thanks for that that heads up there so so yeah I don't think we can take a a formal action tonight um but I I think uh if a majority of council wanted to we could um schedule a you know a consideration of a formal action at a subsequent meeting um eron does that sound like the correct process it does thank you so uh okay so Lauren you had something

[303:01] you want to say thank you um you know I agree with what everyone says in terms of I think this it's really important for us to look at the look at occupancy um not to implement a failed ballot measure but to really try and work on this important issue with the engagement of the community um but I also have some concerns with where we're at I think that we got Where We Are are right now through a lot of well-intentioned actions um but a complaint-based process is not an equitable process especially when we aren't enforcing for the underlying complaint um you know a police officer can only pull you over for specific things they can't pull you over for things that are not illegal right so there's like a certain I just have

[304:00] a the way that this is being um implemented right now feels fundamentally problematic to me um not that we're enforcing it really heavily but just the fear that it's creating and I understand that it's not a lot of people potentially but for me it's it's still a problematic issue um I think we absolutely should be proactively addressing life safety concerns proactively addressing nuisance issues um I think that we need to engage the pro to engage the community on these issues and um move forward on these processes in a timely manner but um for me you know I share a lot of jun's concerns and um and I think that you know we have a lot of community interest in this issue and in in a way that's a benefit because

[305:00] we already have started a lot of engagement we have a lot of people interested and active to participate with us um on these issues right now La um and I agree that we absolutely do uh we probably need to call for that that vote um somebody wants to move to extend the meeting I move to extend the meeting second anywh second okay uh all those in favor I guess just raise your hand see I think we count to six here okay so we'll keep going for a little bit um let's see I kind of lost track here from that Nicole and then Rachel I think yeah um my question at this point is really kind of around um process and governance so let me just State what I understand somebody who's been on Council longer or staff please correct

[306:00] me if I have this wrong so we have we have um a code in place no more than three unrelated people can live in a home um last September I believe uh Council voted and said You know despite the governor's recommendation we want to keep enforcing um that and then at some point I think Rachel you alluded to this sort of a mysterious process um now we're at a place where we actually haven't been enforcing and so to jun's point but from a slightly different perspective um it does kind of feel important that Council gets aligned with the city formally um on this and I don't somebody who's been on Council longer please correct me if that is a misunderstanding but it feels like we're at odds with what council decided and what what is currently happening ner do you may you want to comment on that yeah I mean I I believe and I and and Jacob can correct me if I'm wrong that what council decided was

[307:00] just to continue our practice and that practice is not just based on um sort of the pandemic but also just on Staffing constraints when staff when we don't have with the furlows that we had and we when we don't have enough staff to do something there are times when cities suspend some other action and we we move forward in that direction I do think and I take your point about how do we communicate this out right how do we um move that forward and I do think I want to think about what are those ways in which when we do um move forward on a complaint that we are able to share with people what options or what this means for them I also will say that um two things one is if there is um a conversation to be had about complaint-based uh code enforcement which certainly other cities have done and and this is a community that can certainly we can do that we'll also have have to talk about what resources mean for proactive enforcement because there are a lot of units here as we think about that and the frequency of that so

[308:01] we have to develop a whole rubric for what that looks like um and then I'll say that I to me a lot of this is is can be addressed somewhat by um really figuring out communication mechanisms or um some sort of notice the the issue I have with a suspension that has a Time clock to it um is that I don't know when CO's going to end and when we have sort of new variant coming forward then that concerns me because everybody will be watching that clock that's arbitrary as we think through it so I do think a better mechanism at the front end for when we do um visit and and complaint-based is what we have right now and happy to discuss what as a policy matter you all want to do moving forward but right now this is where we're at um is figuring out how to better address the fear uh or concern about what

[309:03] happens now and what do I do because some things are just out of our control what a landlord is going to do or not what is important for us is that if we do get a complaint we have no way of knowing if there is a life safety concern unless we actually visit the property and that's just a reality so do you mind if I follow up on that um so it's a it's a great Point Mara about the the communication thing because I think Jenny's point was a good one about like that people won't NE necessarily know how things work or how they won't work and so that that fear can persist can we add some additional communication you know in in these you know rare instances where there's a complaint and they're they're investigated can we add kind of additional communication to to both the um you know if there is if if there are renters both the owner and the Tenant um about the current situation you know with uh with covid and and

[310:01] keeping people uh in their housing so that that people do have that um knowledge and and comfort that you know that they're not in danger of being kicked out by the city y to the risk of Jacob's team killing me as I as we leave this meeting I do think that that's an important thing that we can think about about what happens when we visit and is there you know in other cities I've seen folks use like a postcard it's just this is you know we're visiting this is what we're doing if you have a concern or need some support here's a resource we gave a number uh previously for um HHS support is that most forward um and then again we can figure out what that looks like I just don't know what it looks like today but I get the point of communication and want to figure that out with you know minimal um additional burden on staff because if we print something out that's an easy one when we go to visit to say this is what's happening and and what we look at

[311:00] so well I'll definitely think about that and take that direction thanks for that um Rachel and then jimy yeah real quick um I think to jun's request like I don't know exactly what the process is but I think maybe it's a a request for an out of five to see if people want to have a vote on this at a future meeting so don't want to have that lost in the in the shuffle um so I don't know if uh I'm happy to I have one more comment but happy to just request the not ofy vote so that that happens um and maybe or or second junis um and then just in terms of my comment about you know I don't remember what the vote was at the last year Retreat it's just that I felt clobbered on it and like it wasn't an emergency and so that's why I think given it was such a non-emergency a year ago I'm sorry about the cat Elmer's it's so much better to be in council chambers for multitude of reasons cat is one um just that given that it was it was you know so not an

[312:01] emergency last January that we didn't even get a majority or or it seemed like near a majority to lift it up on a you know as a as a work plan item it just feels like it would be um an odd thing so close to the retreat to to have this as an emergency suspension when we're just weeks from when we can do that in a way that's Tethered to a new work plan item so if we suspend occupancy now but we haven't even committed to work on it yet it just feels unmowed and in that way um just just not super crisp governance so that's my concern um I think that given it's not you know we're essentially not enforcing now and and hopefully Nua can Shore up the communication so that there's even better communication and understanding from tenants than there is now whether it be informal or formal um and we can get to the retreat you know we're going to be into the holidays it's the I don't I just don't think much is going to happen um between now and then for for work or you know

[313:03] or probably uh enforcement so to me it's just cleaner given what happened at last year's Retreat our commitment to do this now to do it at the at the at the next Retreat and I'm going to hopefully mute for the rest of the night now because that cat is crazy thank you your your cat clearly has strong opinions on occupancy limits so um and yes Rich I I and jiny I have not uh forgotten your request I was just figuring that uh I would let folks comment and then we would come back juny to your to your request has not forgotten for sure let's see so I now we've got Bob and juny uh people are okay Bob Mark Lauren terara I just want to agree with something Rachel just said um we are very close to the retreat um and for those of of you who want to schedule a vote and that's we're not taking a vote tonight but those of you want to schedule a vote sometime in the next few weeks um under a a question to enforce

[314:02] to suspend occupancy enforcement I would just caution you to think about what that public hearing is going to look like um we've seen the types of emails we've gotten in the last couple of weeks and um it it is going to blow up at least an entire meeting so as a matter of fact we probably blow two meetings because I'm not sure we'll even get to a vote after a three to four to five hour public hearing so that's not a reason to do something or not do something I just want us to be as Rachel said we're coming into the holidays we the retreat's only a few weeks after that so as as you think about whether you want to demand a vote on suspending occupancy enforcement also think about what that does to all the other things we're working on because we're either going to have to call one or two special meetings in late December early January or we're just going to have to stop doing the things that are on our schedule right now than Tom mark

[315:03] thanks Aaron um since we're only enforcing with respect to uh life health and safety issues uh a moratorium at this point would prevent us from dealing with life health and safety issues um we're not talking about enforcement on a broader level we're talking about not being able to enforce only on the narrow spectrum of issues that we currently address and I think that's a a policy mistake I agree with with Rachel in terms of of where this ought to be best addressed and there are so many moving pieces to this conversation in terms of uh guard rails and protections and changes um this needs to be done holistically uh not in a um in a reflexive manner where we simply

[316:00] um uh state that we're going to put a moratorium on enforcement and not address any other component of the problem um and I I know this is not a a popular concept at the moment but since 177,000 some odd people um voted in effect to support our existing occupancy limits um that doesn't mean we can't change them and ought not to consider changing them but simply to say the ordinance no longer exists effectively because you can't enforce any portion of it um is to some extent um in my view disrespectful to to those people I think we can bring many of those people around to a um to a different regime a different way of looking at things um but to Simply say the ordinance that you supported with your vote um no longer exist because no

[317:01] portion of it will be enforced I I think is is simply an inappropriate thing to do we have a retreat coming up we're going to deal with this in it in its uh extraordinary complexity and hopefully we will be able to coales around a series of measures that will properly address uh the concerns that many people have and properly address the concerns that the remaining um residents of of Boulder have and and try to bring the community together as opposed to taking a step that will be by itself extraordinarily divisive and I would urge us to to deal with this issue in its full measure of complexity at The Retreat and take it from there and and try to look at it as a whole as opposed to bit by bit thank you thanks Mark more on then Tera um so I had a question that I think

[318:00] I know the answer aners to but just for fun Jacob um does staff have any time between now and the retreat to address any of this the answer is no quite frankly um and I do want to emphasize um that these matters are handled um essentially by two staff members within the department there's a third staff member who is pulled in to assist so this is um we are minimally staffed in this regard and and uh there is no capacity in the next few weeks however as I said before we are budgeted in 2022 this is one of our work plan items that we have flagged for 2022 and we do have capacity to address it in in some way because we know we're going we're going there but not immediately unfortunately thank you um and then I had another one for Nuria um do we you know you talked about potentially changing having a letter or something with changing some language around um

[319:00] what we're telling people when we notify them of um investigating do you need a nod of five to change that or do you feel like you have the direction from us to that direction sorry I do not I feel like we've got Direction and I think it's it's a good thing to do to add more um to more uh communication on that I'm actually brainstorming with staff as we're speaking about other possibilities to do that as well but I I hear it and we're moving forward and I will Circle back with all of you about what we've decided to do and what to put in place thank you ter well everybody knows where I stand but just for the sake of I haven't said anything yet tonight I'm just going to say that the majority of this community voted no on 300 and I know everybody's hearts are good I do know that and I I

[320:02] already love you all and we hardly know each other that well but I will say that if we if we suspend occupant if we uh do this moratorium on enforcement we are telling the people that voted no on 300 who cares about you we know better and I feel like we are going to lose the the community's trust and I feel like we have a great Council here with all sorts of one some of the discussion tonight most of it actually all of it was fantastic so I am begging you all to please just wait until the retreat and then we can have a good robust discussion and talk about how the community would feel and bring everybody together as opposed to pushing people apart and having like the next all of December be an email disaster you know what I mean so I am going to take this time to just beg you all to just hold

[321:00] off on doing this and talking about it until um The Retreat that's that's all I have to say terara Nicole yeah thanks Tara um and I I I do appreciate this I mean we've all are our inboxes have been filled but they've also been filled by people um who've been telling us things like you know what I I voted no um but I actually really want you to look at occupancy reform in a thoughtful way or i v voted yes but I was holding my nose because I actually have concerns about um just you know blanket increasing occupancy uh without having some guard rails and so I think it's really important as you know even as we're talking about this amongst ourselves that we are very clear about that distinction because it's critical and I think given January 6th especially um we have people who are very concerned about people overturning votes and democracy and all of that and so you

[322:00] know I hear these concerns and I would really appreciate if you know as you know my colleagues that you wouldn't talk about what I'm talking about with regard to pursuing occupancy reform um as something that's needed as a part of better housing policy um as being something that's going to you know overturn our election um that those are they're kind of fighting words and and so I'm just asking that we can maybe um help bring down the um kind of vitriol and what's happening in the community right now post election um and specifically around this conversation by not saying things like you know we're talking about overturning the election um that's not what we're talking about we're talking about occupancy reform which was not actually what what was on the ballot um there was a measure to do it a specific way and that was on the ballot that's what people voted on we were not voting on should we engage in a

[323:00] thought um process around occupancy reform so I would just like to note that distinction those are two separate things um and just ask my new colleagues I'm very excited to work with um that we keep those separate um and understand the occupancy reform is not the exact same thing as ballot measure 300 that failed thanks that Nicole if I could just respond to that real quick and then Matt will'll go go to you um I think the there are two points in there that I think are are really important and one is that um bedroom so for people did not pass and we are not going to legislatively as a council try to enact it over the will of Voters right I don't think anybody here wants to do that we're not going to do that is my very strong understanding and your other point also very important that we can still undertake other kinds of occupancy reform in ways that are not disrespecting the will of Voters and that can be done and can be done in

[324:01] collaboration with the community to find other paths that are different from that so agree with you on those points Nicole thanks for that uh Matt I want to Circle back to I think where where Rachel was alluding to and I think what's really important at this early juncture of this council is regardless of the issue whether it be occupancy or our unhoused residence or open space it does doesn't matter what really I think is going to make this body successful is standing on great process and good governance and to me I think we have a great opportunity to get off on the to get on the right track where we can set ourselves up for that success for the next two four and Beyond years for however many of us stay on this body and I think we could derail that by not sticking to a process that we already have to be know in front of

[325:01] us that we know will work um and that is bringing the community into the conversation in the best way we can to achieve these great outcomes and so really to Echo where Rachel was was going with that is let's stick with the process we have in front of us because if we set that up for Success the outcomes will only be better for the community and I think we run a foul of what I think some of our certain campaign commitments were just a few weeks ago was to really stand on good governance and good process and I think this is a chance for us to do that and do it well and set ourselves up for a lot of success on an array of issues and I think the moment is for us to make that choice pretty quickly do we do we stand by that process and so I want to focus on that that's going to be my goal I think at The Retreat is the time to take the action be it support occupancy and evaluate whether some suspension or greater things need to happen based on what we deem is appropriate or how long that process will take but I think we have to get to that place

[326:02] first okay thanks Matt um I'm not seeing any other raised hands at this point so juny I need to come back to you I you're um interested in doing a a vote of a kind I think what we could do tonight um if you would like as a straw poll on whether to schedule at an upcoming meeting the question of um doing a um an official I guess moratorium on occupancy enforcement is is that what You' like okay do you want to maybe you should do it in your own words because this is your um I want to give you the um the floor to go and do that no I think you said it correctly it's you know get a sense of whether Council wants to uh have a vote in the future on occupancy on the suspension of occupancy limits so I thought you said it well um

[327:01] okay so so yes we have I said it but it's really jun's um jun's proposal is is to schedule a consideration in an upcoming meeting about whether to Institute that um formal um moratorium so I guess we have a have a straw poll here so I guess all all in favor of scheduling that consideration at a future meeting of a formal moratorium I guess raise your hand and I've got two and so we let's we'll call that um two votes for that and so well Nicole if I could just say something then I'll call you the um juny I really appreciate the the passion for making our community a better and safer place that brings you to that proposal so really want to honor that and how you're speaking up for folks um I'll just speak for myself and say that like I feel like real occupancy reform is within our grasp in a relatively short

[328:01] period of time and something that we can do in collaboration with the community and um and I look very much forward to tackling that in the upcoming handful of months and Nicole you put your hand down Jin you got your hand up me yep okay Jun yes please juny thank you I just want to say even though Council had no appetite for this I still very much believe in this Council I still believe that we can do a lot of great work together and we will and I think it's a matter of you know us together being courageous I know there are times that I've been on Council I've not been as courageous as I could be right and I do believe because of the people who are on Council this time around it's going to be very much more much more different right it's going to be I'm very hopeful so and I do respect the will of council um my

[329:03] comment I wanted to make since council members want to have this discussion at The Retreat and I've been on Council for two years and I kind of have an idea of how Council work right even though I'm still learning as well just as much as you know my new colleagues I just hope that this discussion is not lost on all of us that let's say we put it on the work plan and other things are being prioritized in two years from now some of us are leaving Council wondering oh what happened we didn't really tackle this issue so I really hope that we don't just bring this forward and put it somewhere in the work plan and it gets lost I hope that once we get to that point as Rachel mentioned hopefully um you know one of the suggestions that I have maybe creating some kind of council subcommittee so that we can have council members either a council member or community members from both perspective to really look at this issue and help

[330:02] guide us through it so that it's not something that is completely lost on us and then after once we've you know get to the point where we have a solution then we can disband that special committee I I believe um the the hospital site had one and bab was on it so I think you know my my my hope is that when we get to that point at The Retreat we really come up with a robust process whereas as you know we're not completely lost or just completely forget about this issue because something else come up thank you thank you for that Nicole and I just um I just wanted to ask I mean you know in line with the the governance aspect um of just having a way nor you know you mentioned about communication just being really important um that it it just does feel

[331:00] really important that Council and you know the city are aligned on issues that clearly this one is very important to our community right um and and I so I just want to make sure you know that we have a process in place um so that we can be um aligned that that was part of what appealed to me um about the idea of taking a formal vote I recognize that it would have exploded things absolutely um and I think that that alignment between Council and city is City staff is really important I appreciate that okay well it looks like uh we're wrapping up here um so um I will just say I appreciate the robust discussion it's uh complicated and and you challenging issue one that's very important to our community there's a wide diversity of opinions but I will say I for one am confident that this is an issue that this Council can make real progress on um very soon very soon so um

[332:00] ner any last thoughts on on this issue I'm all good and I just appreciate the conversation I know it's a complex issue and just appreciate your thoughts and know that it's all coming from good places right absolutely and uh we have one last little item but let before we do that let's give a a send off to Jacob Jacob it's been a pleasure working with you for the last year and best wishes in your your next Endeavor Ain thank you so much um working for the great city of Boulder has been an incredible privilege I only wish that it could be longer um thank you for all the kind words and uh you never know you might just hear me in the open comment in an upcoming meeting I look forward to it take care all right Alicia I believe we have one last matter is that correct yes sir um we did defer just for the records item 7A to a future meeting so we will address item 7B with which is

[333:00] under Matters from the mayor and members of council it is the council checkin on CAC time adjustment so I guess I'll speak to this one because I've been sort of pioneering or leaving the charge on this uh it was 00 am uh the 8 AM start time to the week is fairly punishing for many of us it's also makes it harder to get kids to school on the typical um child drop off schedule um so brought this up uh with Nua who ran it by staff and my understanding is that generally staff um maybe not of one mind but generally likes the idea or is willing to to accept that is that right in area I would actually say staff is mostly of uh one mind and uh we have a couple standing meetings that we need to move so we'd asked perhaps that this go into effect at the first meeting in January because we only have two more um between now and your break but and that gives us some time to move some meetings around

[334:01] but we this is one you have the majority of Staff uh support on great and I so I I want to get feedback from council members but I do want to acknowledge I know juny that the 9:00 am time is not great for your work schedule but I also understand that you're going to be doing CAC at the end of 2022 we may well be on a completely different Cadence by then the Thursday meetings but just to promise that wherever we are with that we'll make sure and accommodate your work schedule thank you so this is just a check in to see if council is is okay with this um with this scheduling change are people all right with that okay I'm seeing seeing thumbs up I know Bob's more of a morning person so maybe a little less enthusiastic but um I appreciate everyone's um willingness to consider it so it sound sounds like direction from Council is that this will work so Mar first of the year sounds like a great time if that works for staff yeah great we'll work it out and we'll figure out notice requirements for

[335:01] community and the public and so forth so we'll get that set up thanks so much Elicia will be the happiest of them all yes up and as a process note we haven't sent out the CAC schedule because we were waiting to see you know what the decision was so with that the decision being made we will get those rotation schedules out shortly Rachel got your hand up I have a different council members matter is this a good moment I think Bob remind me we had our Retreat committee this morning meeting um and we just wanted we we weren't sure that we had flagged for the new Council that we were thinking about doing one thing different so wanted to just do a check-in before it's too late to change or shift gears on it but um previously the retreat has been like one night focused on sort of process stuff and then four hours on the second day focused on um the work plan and and the

[336:03] retreat committee had recommended um that we put all of our time basically into the work plan since it's going to be such uh a kind of wide open work plan and we wanted to have a lot of hours available to talk about the the substance and then have uh us talk about process ideas at the midterm like mid year check-in I think in June or July so just wanted to make sure that that was still accept acceptable to the new Council or if there were issues with that um but let's flag them now before the before we plan more juny and Matt and Matt I just have a question for Rachel I think maybe I'm just not I don't understand what you mean by process because I think the last time as well it could be I didn't understand it again because I'm wondering is it do you mean as process

[337:00] in the way things are done on Council or process as it relates to the retreat so I'm trying to figure out it's a good question I can't say that I'm any more expert than you because I've also been confused for two years on exactly what goes in what bucket but my my experience of it is like if you have an engagement idea or like a thing that we can do differently as a process for Council that that we've been spending time on that there boards and commissions changes would come up under that but then things like occupancy or housing or like you know the homelessness Solutions things like that are in that other bucket and so we thought as the retreat committee that given that we got through so much of the work plan in the last two years we're going to have a pretty wide open um you know slate here and wanted to make sure that we left enough time to talk about the the substantive issues and then Circle back pretty quickly to process but or as a steady session or something like that

[338:00] does that answer it it does it does yeah if from what for my understanding like you said it's process on how things are done on different committees I suppose it is okay but I think of course the drawback is because a lot of our colleagues are new if they get this process six months from now I think they will be at a loss because even though we are both still learning chances are we are you know a few step ahead probably not from further ahead than Matt Benjamin because he's been around for so long um but I I I I think they might be there might be some constraint but yeah as long as they agree to that and they think it it will work um there's some drawbacks but like you said there are some benefits to it if I could just clarify all we're talking about is changes of process in other words process is like we meet at Tuesday nights at six o'clock or um um we we don't vote on on um on M on things under matters and things like that those are

[339:00] process points and so the idea is is um quite frankly it would be unfair to new council members to ask them what changes do you want in process when they're still trying to figure out what the process is plus we as Rachel said we have a lot of substance as we just heard tonight to talk about as far as the work plan so so we wanted to break it up and say let's focus on substance and the work plan at The Retreat and then later in the year this could be a series of study sessions or it could be a midyear retreat by then folks will understand what of our process proc works and what doesn't work and and it could be a very short discussion it could be hey all of our process works we don't want to make any changes where people by then could have a list of things that they want to change and so I think we just wanted to break that up rather than talking about process changes in January Matt and then I'll say something uh thanks for that clarification uh Bob and and Rachel on process and also your thoughts juny I you know as as as a new

[340:00] newbie here um I will say that I I I still stand on the foundation that our process is a mechanism for our best successes and I would hate to see process get pushed six months after we set a work plan I think a lot of things how our the success of our work plan is based on our process um and and I even though it might be just changes to the process to me I also lean on our more experienced council members to kind of give us guidance as to what has been working and what hasn't and and be okay with those changes so I'd much rather I'd prefer to see study sessions on the heels of that work plan to then start to really nail the process so we don't start halfway and then change halfway that that would be my preference it also allows in the conversation of pros and cons of process to me that's almost great that's where I get greatest learning about the context of why we have a process to begin with um as was mentioned earlier we do things for the sake of doing things and that's not necessarily the best process so that that'd be my My Hope Is that it's on the

[341:00] front side but but I do like the idea of focusing on the retreat for mostly work plan issues thanks I'll just chime in I I I would want to retain the ability to you know maybe bring up a handful of process things earlier in the year rather than middle of the year so if there's some burning ideas maybe we have a study session in you know February or March or something um so just Reserve that but other than that great let's focus on substance at The Retreat that's my two cents okay well I'm seeing no more uh it is 11:32 apologies uh not getting off to a great start here on timing but boy we had a lot of um substantive and um important discussions tonight so I really appreciate everyone's time and input and extremely um thoughtful statements uh any other last thoughts before we wrap it up

[342:01] all right uh seeing none I will gble 33 p.m. good night everybody good night [Music]