November 10, 2022 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] [Music] thank you foreign [Music]

[1:35] thank you thank you

[2:11] thank you I am mayor Pro tem Rachel friend and thank you for joining us for the Thursday November 10 2022 study session of the Boulder City Council we have up for tonight two agenda items number one an update on the transportation core arterial Network pausing here to say thank you to Sarah Huntley for hitting record button uh and number two discussions around how to schedule and prioritize our work over the coming year on planning and development services and then I think we're also adding a third item which will be a quick staff update on vote results from Tuesday um so the first two items might not sound that exciting but honestly this is where uh local government lives and breeds buildings and Roads and how we

[3:00] help community members to move around safely um and and get people housed so we've got a lot of exciting stuff to cover but first an announcement and I think we have a slide for that thank you okay so it's just a reminder about covid testing and vaccinations now you can go for you can go visit boco.org covet testing or slash covet vaccine for more information on either testing or vaccinations both of which you can still get for free and I believe that's all of our announcements for tonight yes um okay so now we're going to go right into the meat of the meeting the first item up will be the core arterial Network you will also hear us refer to it as can for short this is slated for discussion for 75 minutes so staff will give a presentation and then council members will have a chance to ask questions and then we will discuss and offer feedback I will note that council

[4:01] member Matt Benjamin is absent tonight but he did send in feedback via hotline and if anyone watching does not know how to access hotline Communications you're welcome to reach out to any of us or to the clerk Elisha and we can help you out and then I'm about to turn it over to our city manager Nuria Rivera vandermeid to introduce our first item but before we do that I also just want to um take a moment for all of council to have the chance to congratulate one of our own Junie Joseph for winning a really big and important election on Tuesday so jazz hands for Juni thank you you're welcome anyone else before over to neria I'm sure we all join in congratulating you Nuria batan thank you very much um I uh thanks Council for I think we've got two great items today and also I

[5:00] know that a lot of folks have been watching the results of our local elections so happy to chime in at the end I'm going to send this over to our wonderful interim director of transportation and Mobility Natalie Stiffler to kick us off but I also just want to mention um we received and I know council did as well a great letter from tab our transportation Advisory Board and wanted to publicly thank them for their support of staff's work this has been truly a collaborative effort and I am super pleased to see this work move forward and showcase all the great work staff has done but know that that has also been done in collaboration and conversations with tab as well so just wanted to say that out loud uh Natalie I'll send it over to you thanks Maria good evening Council as Nuria said I'm Natalie Stiffler the interim director of transportation and mobility and I wanted to introduce Valerie Watson the transportation planning division manager she'll be presenting the update on the core arterial Network efforts to date with

[6:00] you this evening and I also just wanted to take a moment to say how proud I am of our department for the pivot they took to expedite our focus on McCann over the past year and I really want to express my gratitude to Valerie Garrett and Devin and the entire department for their impressive work that I think you'll also find impressive tonight so with that I will hand it over to Valerie all right thank you so much and I think um Council staff will be putting the presentation on the screen momentarily all right thanks so much good evening mayor and members of council Valerie Watson Transportation Planning manager with the city of Boulder I'm joined tonight by Garrett Slater principal traffic Transportation projects engineer and Devin Jocelyn principal traffic engineer next slide tonight I'll be offering an update on the Department's work plan for the core arterial Network along with some updates on active can Corridor efforts and where

[7:01] we are at with Community engagement and design for our Baseline Road priority Corridor followed by an update on our funding strategy lastly we'll talk about next steps next slide all right let's take a look at our work plan first next slide this map remains our North Star the canned corridors and study areas prioritized by art for our department by Council in January of this year that we will work to initiate or complete over the next five to seven years next slide we have updated our work plan schedule to reflect more detailed information on active Corridor progress since our July presentation you can see both the original April version and the revised September version in the memo attachments of note for our conversation this evening we've broken out Baseline into two phases now that we have successfully secured funding for the project through

[8:01] Dr Cog Transportation improvements program or tip call too we've also tentatively adjusted the timeline for Folsom Street and the downtown Mobility study with Folsom currently a candidate for tip funding this affords us an opportunity to rethink the timeline and the overall canned funding as well plus as you'll hear from our colleagues in planning and development services later tonight there are you know a number of planning efforts ongoing or upcoming that focus on connectivity land use and the public realm downtown moving up the schedule for initiating the downtown Mobility study component of the can work plan allows us to get a jump start on dovetailing with related City efforts being led by other departments and Community Partners and we'll talk about this a bit more later in the presentation next slide all right now let's take a quick look at some project updates next slide

[9:02] we're on track with our priority corridors and kudos to the department staff and Community Partners who have worked diligently this year to continue this accelerated Cadence and a big thanks to all of our members of the community who have provided feedback throughout our summer and fall engagement activities for Baseline Road earlier this year we launched our community engagement and design process for Baseline Road and we'll go into detail tonight on the progress with Baseline staff are ramping up internally to initiate Community engagement and design after the new year for Iris Avenue so we're now in the pre-designed phase of project development for Iris and Folsom is now a candidate for tip call four so we're seeking funding through the Dr cogg Transportation Improvement program for design and Community engagement and we will be bringing this project along with other staff recommended projects to counsel for endorsement at the December 1st city council meeting if awarded those funds would allow us to initiate that project

[10:01] as soon as quarter four of 2024 and free up the local dollars that we need to address our current efforts along Baseline and Iris more on funding later next slide and we're also on track with other active projects along the can which is really exciting as detailed in the memo there's a lot of ongoing work that we will see final construction activities for over the next three years for example early next year we'll celebrate the completion and full opening of the 30th and Colorado underpass and protected intersection next slide all right now that we have a feel for progress on the overall can initiative and work plan let's take a look at where we're at with Baseline the first of our three can priority corridors next slide as we presented previously there are a wealth of community assets and populations along Baseline we've been

[11:00] working to reach people with the lived experience along the corridor to offer their insights on what it's like traveling along Baseline today next slide in line with the city's racial Equity framework we also met with the City's community connectors and residents in September we gain valuable feedback on our engagement plan and local contacts and business owners in the neighborhood the community connectors and residents also provided feedback on their personal lived experience of traveling along the corridor that we will also take into consideration in the design process next slide here's where we're at with Baseline we're now in the conceptual design phase of the overall project development process as we synthesize the community feedback we've received to date combined with our existing conditions analysis and pre-design work we will start to identify potential project elements for either phase one or phase two of the project and a little more on those phases in a moment next slide

[12:01] first let's review what we've accomplished so far with Community engagement in August and September we had a questionnaire and information materials online and this questionnaire on be heard Boulder closed September 30th we have reviewed over 400 responses from that next slide we also hosted our own events and tabled at other events in the neighborhood where folks could fill out paper versions of the questionnaire or mark up maps to document their experiences traveling along the corridor in August we held a Transportation safety fair for children and adults partnering with Boulder Community Health to distribute free bike helmets and lights along with nurses who help families with helmet fittings there was music ice cream face painting and balloons and Community cycles and Boulder Police also joined us to connect with people at the fair next slide we were joined at the transportation Safety Fair by John simmerman from

[13:00] active towns a prolific journalist who captures walking and bicycling culture and Street design issues across the country and here are some vignettes he put together of what he captured we're going to play you a quick video bear with us for a minute Council we're having to switch screens to get the video up hi there I'm Nathan Pope with the city of Boulder and we're out here at the back to school Baseline Transportation safety Fair we got bike lights we got Maps we're asking folks how they got here today and if they need any lights or anything else for their uh bike Journeys we also are kicking off a project where we're looking at improving safety along Baseline Road so whether you're walking biking driving or taking

[14:01] the bus we want to hear from folks and really looking to improve safety for everybody on Baseline Road no there um but yeah if I have the option if there's not a lot of pedestrians or anything I'll ride on the sidebar yeah as opposed to in the street how come not the bike lane um not doesn't feel safe it doesn't feel safe ah gotcha yeah we had a little protection in there a barrier between the travel Lane and that would definitely help okay great well I wouldn't travel on Baseline with these guys in tow um there's you wouldn't you know the cars are going really fast okay yeah they're definitely exceeding speed limit so you're down on the bike lane there I I would do that on my own if there was a barrier protected bike lane where there's extra physical barrier between you and the traveling yeah would you then ride it 100 from a safety standpoint uh somebody earlier was explaining to me that one of the things would be to potentially improve the separation between anybody who's on

[15:01] a bike or or a pedestrian in the cars yeah and and so I think if there's a way to put up maybe a concrete bear or something to make that a clear delineation and it probably is a good move safety Wise It's had a lot of comments from parents and kids about places where they'd like to see improvements for crossing um and they've been describing how they feel unsafe drivers might not always presentations that people are riding their bicycles because they're not feeling safe all right thanks for your patience while we bring that presentation back up all right thank you so much to stuff for helping out with that so you could hear those voices

[16:01] all right moving on in September we were a part of the CU Boulder bike fest where we were able to connect with a ton of Cu students we also help Community walking and bicycling tours inviting some of our Community Partners at Boulder walks Community cycles and Center for people with disabilities to co-host as mentioned before we were also able to speak with the City's community connectors and residents in September next slide early November we released a slew of information materials on the project along with summaries of what we've heard from the community a virtual on-demand open house at the Baseline project website folks can access these materials and arcgis online story map that walks you through background on the project the Project's phased approach what we've learned from the community and how it's being folded into the design process and what might change on the corridor specifically what

[17:01] project elements are under consideration we also feature an online comment form for the community to give additional feedback and offer office hours online with City staff for those who prefer to give feedback through conversation with the project team next slide to keep too many members in the project area engaged and invite their participation with the on-demand virtual open house we have sent mailers to over 3 000 residents in 168 businesses and those should be hitting mailboxes as we speak we've also shared an informational flyer with our key Partners like CU Boulder and offer to print and distribute these if that works better for reaching folks we also created a Spanish language project fact sheet that's available for download and in print next slide so what have we been hearing there are several themes that are emerging as we continue to synthesize the feedback we've received and consider it as we

[18:01] make progress on the conceptual design for phase one of Baseline folks are noting their perception of high vehicular speeds and large volume of vehicles traveling along Baseline and how that relates to safety for other people driving walking rolling and bicycling several responses noted that as drivers they feel afraid turning onto or off of the corridor because of other drivers speeding they're afraid of being rear-ended or sideswiped we're also hearing an array of comments about Street Crossings things like not having enough time to cross the street long Crossing distances being difficult to navigate with all the people walking riding bikes scooters skateboards and such and the relatively narrow crosswalks comments have also indicated that people driving are not always yielding to people walking in crosswalks with the right-of-way and that there is a lack of Crossing opportunities for long stretches of the corridor in terms of bicycle safety folks are reporting that they do not feel safe in the existing protected bicycle bicycle lane with the

[19:02] roadway striping and flexible delineators those white posts they're instead writing on the sidewalk or taking circuitous routes through the neighborhood to avoid Baseline we've also heard comments about the game of LeapFrog while bicycling that happens when buses are passing and then pull over to the curb for passengers next slide community members have highlighted that it's difficult to get to destinations along Baseline and also difficult to connect to surrounding infrastructure folks have noted that the sidewalk and roadway pavement condition is poor which is particularly noted in relation to the bicycle lane and crosswalks in terms of Transit folks have noted that there's a lack of basic amenities that Transit stops and sometimes poor visibility when waiting for the bus due to vegetation growth in general many responses noted that the roadway noise and lack of comfort walking along the corridor and waiting for the bus which is an indication that vehicular speeds are contributing to an inhospitable

[20:00] environment next slide all right so much amazing feedback to work with and thanks again to Our Community Partners so now let's talk about how this project will roll out since we are successful in our Dr Cog tip call to application for Baseline that will allow just under 4 million for comprehensive multimodal Capital intensive enhancements we are approaching this project in phases in phase one which we aim to complete next year local dollars will be used to add physical protection or hardening and strategic prioritized locations to upgrade the existing bicycle lane that is today demarcated from the adjacent travel Lane with striping and flexible delineators pavement resurfacing will also be completed in Phase One along with these upgrades to the existing bicycle lane we will also have the opportunity to restripe the roadway to narrow travel Lanes a proven safety countermeasure to reduce vehicular speeds we're also looking at how to improve the buffer

[21:00] along the existing bike Lanes West of 30th to 28th Street although local dollars are limited for phase one staff are currently synthesizing existing conditions analysis along with Community feedback to prioritize the Strategic locations where the bike lane protection upgrades will have the most impact for safety and comfort for people bicycling as well as better organize the street for all users the intent is to implement these prioritized locations for bike lane hardening next year as an interim measure to gain the safety benefits now while a city awaits that availability of the Dr Cog tip funds for phase two as early as quarter four of 2024. there are also some related safety projects at spot locations that will happen concurrent to phase one funded by hsip which I'll cover in more detail on the next slide then phase two the award of Dr Cog tip funds for Phase 2 offers us the opportunity to deliver more comprehensive multimodal Capital intensive improvements such as

[22:00] completing the bike lane protection implemented in phase one additional intersection and pedestrian enhancements in transit efficiency improvements next slide we also wanted to cover that there are some related safety projects at Spotlight looks either recently completed or slated for next year the completed projects were implemented from 2018 to 2021 including a race Crossing at 29th Street protected left turn phasing at 30th Street and Center Line hardening plus a leading pedestrian interval for pedestrian head start at mohawk next year we'll likely see the implementation of two Federal hsip program projects which will begin design later this year one will close a driveway in order to realign and signalize an existing pedestrian Crossing at Canyon Creek and another will Implement protected left turn phasing at Mohawk needless to say this Corridor has already been on the radar for our transportation operations engineers and these related projects

[23:00] will complement the bike lane protection upgrades and other improvements currently in design for phase one next slide okay now let's talk a bit about funding and how that relates back to our updated work plan schedule next as you remember from July we repurposed funding from local streets specifically for our three priority corridors next as we have advanced further in the design process for Baseline we have now started to assign funds for specific priority Corridor efforts in general the approach for the canned funding strategy is to use local funds for design and Community engagement we will generally seek external Grant funds for construction where we can we will use our repurposed local budget for some initial installation of prioritized Design Elements such as the upgrades to bike lane protection in Phase One of Baseline that we talked about earlier this will likely be the approach for

[24:00] Iris as well but additional Grant funds or local dollars may be required for the IRS initial construction budget once the project design is initiated and the corridor needs and feasibility considerations are explored in Greater detail pinning the results of the Dr Cog tip call for application to be submitted in January for Folsom Street design and Community engagement staff are considering how to initiate design on this Corridor in the event that this application is not successful in that case staff would consider requesting funds in the 2024 departmental budget or seek future grant funding opportunities next slide so we've really focused a majority of our grant funding efforts this year in response to the can most if not all of our grant Pursuits relate directly to canned corridors for example the cycles of Dr Cog tip are focusing on key Connections in the can such as 30th Colorado and Folsom considering the projects that have been

[25:00] recently implemented or are already in final design we've made tremendous progress on securing the future of these efforts next slide and we secured over 6 million in grant funding for the cans so far this year and our hopeful our applications for remaining Corridor segments and tips call 3 and 4 are successful as well we just heard that one of our two can related applications in call 3 was tentatively recommended for funding this week and we're recommending several canned corridors be submitted in call Four next slide other external grant opportunities on the horizon could offer additional funding for remaining canned corridors such as Federal Safe Streets for all cdot's Transportation Alternatives program revitalizing main streets safe routes to school and Federal Highway Safety Improvement program grant funding and we'll continue to look for moments where we can integrate can work with our ongoing programs such as pavement

[26:01] management and vision zero next so as we mentioned earlier if our tip call for application is successful for Folsom we will see that funding become available to start that effort up in quarter four of 2024 at the earliest which pushes this Corridor a little further out on our work plan schedule for consideration tonight we'd like to hear Council feedback on the idea that we discussed in the memo to advance the downtown Mobility study a little sooner it was previously slated to start in 2024 to sync up with other city-led planning efforts around town that you're going to hear more about from planning and development services later tonight but we could get a head start on this towards the end of next year if our schedule on Folsom is relaxed while we don't have funding secured for the downtown Mobility study yet that is something that we can look into once we have a better sense of timing and we would need to request local funds for that in 2023 or 24. next slide

[27:03] right now let's talk about immediate next steps for the can initiative next slide we'll be continuing work on Baseline gearing up for Iris and assembling the tip call for applications next year we'll initiate our public process for Iris and we're looking at summer for implementation of Baseline phase one next slide again we're interested in hearing feedback on the updated work plan and funding strategy this evening as well as your specific feedback on the downtown Mobility study schedule shift that's contingent on the Folsom pre-design effort being successfully funded under tip and with that we're now available to take your questions thank you so much for that presentation okay I'm gonna move my screen so I can see Hands who's got questions

[28:02] this would be a first and I feel like I'm failing there's really no one have a question thank you Mark Wallach saving me this is just for you um will the Baseline improvements um involve shutting down Baseline for any extended period of time yeah thanks for that question um anytime there is pavement resurfacing that comes along we will have periodic lane closures and we'll make sure to notice um you know the the community members and businesses are immediately impacted by that um to make sure that everyone is aware of what that schedule would look like um Garrett or David is there anything you'd like to add this is Garrett Slater principal Transportation projects engineer so that's a a matter of practice we generally try to avoid total closures if at all possible and if we do as is evidenced by the recent uh closure that

[29:02] took place at 30th and Colorado intersection we try to keep them as short as possible to limit the impacts of the adjacent residents businesses and general Community or Baseline we don't fully know the scope of work that might entail the various construction impacts to the road but right now we don't foresee any full closures and as Valerie indicated most likely it will be intermittent lane closures okay the the reason I ask is uh looking at Broadway um during the construction for the hotel um you had real traffic jams I felt like I was back in New York um at various times of the day and to the extent that we can minimize that I I think it would be very valuable for the community I appreciate that feedback and recognize that that was uh definitely an inconvenience okay thank you thanks Mark Tara yes my question is and I think a lot of

[30:02] the community members like me who write up and down Baseline on our bicycles um would have the same one I did learn something new I believe Canyon Creek is a street I never heard of but is that right it's actually right near that crosswalk that flashing crossbar so look I learned something new awesome tell me if you're gonna keep that flashing uh light um situation how do I even put this that is so dangerous because cars never kind never see the it's hard to see those flashing lights so there's always a possibility of an action are you going to be updating that or is that the way it's going to stay so the uh there is a capital project that was identified on one of the exhibits that Valerie shared and so that Baseline of Canyon Creek which is actually located uh sort of uh to the east of 29th and uh west of 30th right it uh it will shift the location of that Crossing and thereby the uh the the

[31:01] flashing beacons that will be accompany that Crossing and the intent of that is to increase the visibility visibility of The Crossing for uh approaching Motor Vehicles that's great and you said in your presentation you're going to close one of those openings I guess in the Sprouts parking lot is that it because there are so many openings correct and I think Devin has an additional comment there yeah good evening my name is Devin Joslin I'm the principal traffic engineer and uh my team is overseeing that project and Tara that project will actually be uh replacing the uh flashing Beacon there the rrfb with a full pedestrian signal so it will it will become a full traffic signal that pedestrians will need to push the button uh wait for the signal to change and then cross the street but it it will control traffic in the same way as a regular traffic signal I'm so excited that's my last comment

[32:01] Tara Nicole yeah this is a process question that maybe uh more for noria or Natalie perhaps um and we got this email um from tab that really highlighted a lot of the things that are going well um on this project I think our lack of questions also highlights that too and I mean my question is more of sort of a process question around how what did what did we as counsel do right for this to go so well or is this just you know staff being amazing as as they are but I'm just you know I'm curious about this because it seems like we're ahead of schedule we're talking about adding work um this this seems pretty phenomenal I'll jump in quickly before Natalie does because I want to just say that part of it is staff is amazing um but I'll say too and Natalie I'll let you kind of continue it here from from

[33:00] the initial conversations when you all were discussing this at least from my perspective one of the important things and we don't always do this well is that we agreed to stop doing some things right it wasn't an and conversation it was uh this actually seems more of a priority it will impact more people what do we need to do to make this move forward and I think that was really helpful with your support at The Retreat as we were talking about it and then that really enabled staff to um sort of pivot as they did and then work closely with um tab to move that forward but at least from my perspective that is a critical component of doing some of this work and and really sort of adjusting to new priorities as they emerge but Natalie I'll send it over to you yeah I'll just build on what Nuria said that it definitely is I would say one of the primary reasons is because we were very clear that we needed to stop doing a few things if we were going to Pivot to this work

[34:01] um and I and I think the data right supported that pivot um but I'll also say that hasn't been easy and I know several of you get these messages and staff gets the messages I mean we're on a weekly basis still with folks in our community that really want to see speeds reduced in their neighborhoods as well and it's hard because we have to tell them that's not our Focus right now um and and we're not we're not making improvements in that area and the data supports that but it is not an easy thing to do so you know this all looks amazing and it is amazing but there still are those hard conversations happening you know on a weekly basis regarding that trade-off um and I would say the another piece of it is also that so much of what we were we were already doing so much of this work it was the story that we you know I think struggled to tell um and now we've been able to really coalesce around a story and so a lot of

[35:03] the amazing work that we've been doing now you're hearing about it um the community's hearing about it and we're doing it in a strategic way so I think that's also a big piece of it and certainly Valerie Garrett and Devin you know feel free to add to that thank you it was really helpful um just to get get that sense thank you Nicole okay seeing no other questions let us um turn to discussion and answering staff's questions so um maybe we can just start with a question well see if anybody wants to have a general discussion item first show of hands is it okay if we just move right to answering staff's questions bad okay so question number one does council have any additional questions about can priority Corridor progress in

[36:00] 2022 I'm gonna assume that's a no because no one had any even general questions we usually just ask okay so question two does council have any feedback on the updated work plan and funding strategy who's got feedback once twice God awesome any feedback on the question of advancing the initiation of work on the downtown Mobility study component of can from quarter 3 2024 to quarter four twenty twenty three contingent on successful funding of Folsom redesign application um and Dr Cog tip Monies any feedback on staff moving that up a year Aaron then Bob and Tara's got a thumbs up already thank you Tara Aaron yeah it makes total sense um it sounds like a good idea and I'll just while I haven't said that also say just how much I appreciate the amazing

[37:01] work that you've done here in tab sent us that email earlier today basically just talking about the 14 different ways that you all have done a phenomenal job on the Ken Network and just want to add my thanks on that and then also to highlight what Natalie said about uh you know part of how you get a success like that is by letting some things go right it's it's always there's always trade-offs there's always hard choices and I think we're going where the data leads us in terms of you know safety and and for travel in our community and and you all are doing a phenomenal job and the some of the successes on getting the Dr Cog money are just just amazing so um yeah so I think you're just 100 on the right track and really appreciate all the amazing work that I did thanks Aaron Bob what Aaron just said I'm just wondering I know that there was some of this in the memo and some of this in the presentation I'm just wondering if since we're running away ahead of schedule if if staff can take a few minutes and elaborate a little bit more on what the mobility study will cover and kind of what the scope of that that might be if

[38:00] you want to just maybe say a few more words about that Natalie do you want to to start with a Preface on on that sure I'm happy to and and then others can chime in um so we haven't we haven't scoped to this I'll say that that's my big preface um what I I think some of the things we've talked about as a department is that um and with our colleagues you know across the organization is that there's an opportunity to look at um all of the one-way streets you know is that something that we want to continue to have as a strategy for our downtown circulation um and then also looking at how do we if we want protected bike facilities within the downtown how do we accommodate for that where does it make sense to have protected bike facilities in the downtown um really just and even thinking about Transit right where does Transit fit into the downtown we certainly have a history of the Hop serving downtown

[39:02] um and I think there is an opportunity to just kind of ask our ourselves what we've had for an access and Mobility strategy for the downtown for the last several decades is that still relevant um and so that would be I think at a high level what we would be thinking about thanks Cindy that was helpful and well part of that I know you haven't you're just starting to scope it now but we'll part of that also include maybe connectivity to the hill or adjoining areas absolutely great thanks Bob anyone else on question number three to answer so I mean I I agree I think this is a testament to staff that this is is humming coming along marvelously so thank you all for the work and I also want to give a special shout out to Alex Weinheimer from tab who really helped it helped us to um Forge the whole concept of can and brought the data and in some of the

[40:01] initial um uh visualization of it so I think Nicole you know to your question that's part of what what the magic was too so thanks to everyone I I think we're done with this agenda item unless staff has any questions for us Natalie I presume you and your team have what you need we are good I think so thank you thanks Natalie thanks everyone um and you know while transportation is here I I got a text just now that says that there's a light out at Baseline and foothills which seems like an important light to have on so bass lines up again so reporting that right on it together thank you very much yeah we'll get on that I don't know if it's even true but it's here so now you have it um okay so let's move let's let's hope the second agenda item is just as as fantastic as this one in terms of beating our pace and all all of us getting along and paddling in the same direction so second one is going to be

[41:00] planning and development services and how to schedule and prioritize our planning work items over the coming year we have two hours and 15 minutes scheduled for this so um I guess buckle up or do the opposite and stretch your legs um and we'll have the same format as before we'll get a staff presentation then we'll have Council questions and discussion or not if it goes like last time so um back over to Nuria please for introductions great thank you so much and I'll say well we have all that time we don't need to take all that time so uh feel free though uh save some time for post-election wrap-ups right um this has been and this is not new right we have talked a lot about um all the projects on um pnds's plate and I'll say that some of those projects actually involve as Natalie was saying some of our other departments across the organization and hoping that we can through this conversation that a you'll be able to to see all the amazing work

[42:00] that pnds is doing it is a phenomenal amount of work that they've had both that was already started and as they're coming to some of those to a close I think you'll see some of that and then trying to find ways to accommodate some of the new work plan items knowing that um Council certainly has an interest in um in pushing us forward in really interesting and novel ways to make um some changes for our community for the benefit of all so with that I will ask our director of planning and development services Brad Mueller to take it away thank you so much Nuria and good evening mayor Pro tem friend and council members we are truly excited to come forward to you this evening and be able to have a discussion around around these many items and we appreciate the time and space to be able to talk about this this is truly a collaborative effort in every sense of the word uh we are going to

[43:01] deviate a bit from the norm and do a lot of tag teaming so you're going to hear from many of us um as Nuri mentioned I am the director of planning and development services but we will also uh hear from Charles Farrow who is our senior planning manager for development review uh Christopher Johnson who's senior planning manager for comprehensive planning current book going guyler who is our senior policy advisor uh Lara curse who is a principal city planner at Lisa Howe who is also a senior city planner we're going to be tag teaming it as I mentioned along the way please Advance the slide really we would encourage you to think of this in two pieces we are going to be doing a bit of a deep dive on Accessory dwelling units and Boulder Junction of phase two uh you'll recall that we were in front of you a couple months ago about Boulder Junction phase two where

[44:00] you gave us uh Direction on the scope and we're going to give you what that looks like uh now that we have that direction and moving forward an accessory dwelling unit similarly has a long ramp that's led up to the state so we're going to do a deep dive there and then the other part of this presentation will really be speaking to the other six items that we've listed as well next slide please we wanted to have this presentation um at this study session really so that we could have an honest conversation with your Council about how we can best deliver a win a win for you a win for the community a win for the Department as well with five of the 10 counts of priorities that you sent last January being within planning and development services we have worked hard to make sure that we develop an approach that we achieve as many of these as possible um in the spirit of uh on his

[45:01] conversation and transparency uh we need to admit that we lost some staff capacity this last summer uh and actually into the spring already we lost four senior planners um for for good reasons a couple retirees and one moving to another department uh which we always support that personal growth and we did anticipate a couple of those changes and were able to replace them um but uh that replacement uh took some time from from our overall effort maybe about three months or so in in Practical terms um I really want to give a shout out to Charles though we were able to film uh all of those positions uh in very short order with senior staff and in fact three of those four are returning staff members from uh previously working at Charles was beating the bushes and just very successful on behalf of the department and City and bringing those

[46:01] folks uh Sarah who you'll hear from tonight uh was that fourth person and she's hitting the ground running to it where we couldn't be happier to have her with us we also have had to work in an environment where development review and building permits have been as high as they ever have that has been tough and we've had to make some decisions um in that regard regarding workload as you know um we've been hearing from the public about the turnaround times on those and made the decision to have staff Carl in particular who you'll hear from tonight move over to do development review and try to just balance that so we're also addressing that very urgent need as well I will say to council that we very much appreciate the additional staff that you approved as part of the budget the additional Consulting dollars we um actually jumped ahead on trying to get those additional staff hired even before if I'm allowed to admit this the budget was fully uh approved and you're

[47:02] not supposed to share all our secrets uh please retract that last statement yes and no that's I think we even made an offer of one of those today so we are working hard to be able to hit the ground running both with experienced staff coming back and hiring as quickly as possible uh we absolutely Council have the bias towards action and completing things but again we want to have an honest conversation with you about what we can balance part of our presentation and you saw this in the memo two was showing where we can do intermediate wins um that are possible as well so next slide please uh some of these are geographically based you can see that on the map here many of them are not so this is just the broadest overview possible and if going to the next slide please we will conclude with three councils to collect uh three questions to council rather about both the scope of adus uh the scope and any further comments on

[48:01] Boulder Junction phase two and then the larger recommendation and alternatives for Alternatives I should say about prioritization so with that I am going to do the first of several handoffs to uh Visa who will present our the first of our two bigger topics and we'll continue from there thank you all right thanks Brad good evening council members my name is Lisa hood and as Brad said I'm a senior city planner with planning and development services and I have the honor of uh several slides related to our Adu code revision updates so I'm going to go through those as you know the adus were identified as a work program priority at the beginning of this year at your retreat with the objective being to increase the allowance of adus in our community specific specifically the direction we got from Council was to do targeted updates specifically specifically on

[49:01] removing the saturation limit and also allowing both attached and detached adus on one lot we also received direction to analyze potential remaining barriers to Adu construction and how we did that over the last couple months is we completed an evaluation of the most recent changes to the Adu regulations that were approved back in 2018 and put into place in early 2019 so over the last few months we've been doing a lot of data analysis conducting internal stakeholder interviews with all of the staff that work on adus in the city and then we also had a survey of all of the Adu owners in Boulder starting out with some background adus have been in place in Boulder since 1983 when the first Adu ordinance was adopted so you can see through this chart the number of adus that were approved each year since then and kind of the major regulatory changes that happened uh along the way you can see over the last

[50:00] few years there's been a huge spike in the number of adus approved after those changes were adopted back in 2018. so we've been seeing record numbers of accessory dwelling units being approved and built in Boulder over the last few years even through the pandemic for that evaluation we really dug into those last few years to try to understand what changes really made the most impact on Accessory dwelling units in Boulder so we looked at the time period from when those changes went into effect on February 1st 2019 through kind of mid-summer and the total was 280u applications that were approved in that time we've had 96 adus that have been completely built there are 44 currently under construction and 32 in permit review since we kind of had that stop date of July 31st I just checked today just to see how many have been approved since then there's been 12 additional approved since July just for reference but in the evaluation we looked at that time period and we looked at a number of

[51:01] characteristics of these adus to understand them better almost two-thirds of adus in that time were detached which means they're separated from the structure the of the main house on the lot and then 83 of those were attached we looked at the average size of accessory dwelling units and that was coming up and these are the ones that have been approved since 2019 that comes up at about 640 square feet we do have different allowances for detached and attached so the average sizes for those differ as well we also looked at the affordability of accessory dwelling units and found that 67 of those approved were affordable adus and 133 were market rate they also focused on the saturation limit knowing that that was specific direction that was given by Council to understand because in 2018 one of those changes that was made was an increase in the saturation limit from 10 to 20 so what the saturation limit does is set a

[52:01] cap on the percentage of adus allowed in a particular neighborhood area and so in 2018 it increased from 10 to 20 percent we wanted to understand what that change what impact that change had on the number of adus approved over the last few years about a quarter of those adus are in districts that don't actually have a saturation limit so that changed an impact them and then over 50 percent over half um actually still met the previous saturation limit of under 10 so that change didn't impact them however 41 accessory drawing units in the last three years had a saturation limit between 10 and 20 so those are adus that would not have previously been approved prior to those changes in 2018. we while we looked a lot at the data for the these approved adus we also wanted to understand what the barriers might be for Adu Construction in Boulder uh for the people that might never go forward

[53:00] with an application but might be submitting inquiries to the city or considering an accessory dwelling unit what we found by looking at the inquiries that we received through our customer service portal in choir Boulder is that the majority of questions that we get related to adus is about saturation limits so this is definitely a part of the code that is poorly understood by our residents it's information that homeowner is not able to get on their own so they have to reach out to the city and the city then has to a staff member has to calculate the saturation limit for them for them to understand if an Adu is even possible on their property so that's just one of the main concerns with saturation limits I included some quotes from these actual tickets that came in just to give you kind of the flavor of what people are asking people do seem to understand that there is a saturation limit but because there is no way for them to know what the saturation limit is of their neighborhood and particularly their parcel they aren't sure if they're even

[54:01] able to you know dip their toes in the water of building an Adu so I think the one in the top right really represents a lot we would like to consider an Adu over the garage of our home but we need to confirm that the location is not saturated first how do we do that without submitting a full application submitting the fee things like that so that's really where we're getting a lot of questions about saturation limit and spending a lot of Staff time answering those questions and calculating that limit in addition to completing the Adu evaluation we've also been doing a lot of research on comparable cities around the country there's a whole Matrix in your packet that you can take a look at for over 30 cities and what their Adu regulations are but I did just want to highlight a couple key takeaways the first being that we cannot find another city in the country that has a saturation limit for adus and I so I think that that's important to reflect on uh the saturation limit

[55:01] has been in place since that original ordinance for adus in 1983 and while certainly 40 years ago adus were a new land use concept and there were concerns about potential impacts of introducing these accessory dwelling units into our cities we now have over 40 years of experience with adus and like many cities these impacts can be mitigated in other ways such as zoning standards or compatible development standards all of the other things that ensure that any potential impacts are mitigated also a couple key other key takeaways only a few of the other cities that we looked at actually have a minimum lot size for adus definitely the cities that have undergone recent updates to their Adu regulations seem to be going away from having a minimum lot size so that's kind of a common Trend almost all cities do limit uh it to only 180u per lot so that was interesting uh relative to the

[56:01] specific direction that was given Boulder's maximum size of detached adus is actually we found that to be smaller than most other cities in the country although if you look at the maximum sizes in Colorado a lot of the cities in Colorado kind of tend to the smaller side but generally Nationwide typically it's closer to about 800 square feet or they use a percentage of the principal structure there's a lot of variation on cities and the parking requirements for adus often it's either zero or one some cities will waive the parking requirement if the location is close to Transit almost all of the Cities say that the ADH cannot be sold separately and about half require owner occupancy so there's a lot more detail in the full Adu evaluation and I encourage you to take a look at that that's something that was always planned to occur when those changes were adopted back in 2018 and to inform future code changes so that's why it made a lot of sense to do

[57:01] it as we were thinking through this upcoming work program priority but this is kind of an overview of the conclusions that the evaluation comes to so looking back at the changes that were made or adopted in 2018 we found data to support that the changes that really did reduce barriers to Adu Construction in Boulder included the changes to the saturation limit increasing the maximum size for the saturation limit as I mentioned about 40 additional adus were built because of that increase in the saturation limit for the maximum size the increase in 2018 was only 100 square feet larger for detached adus but we saw that over three quarters of the detached jdus that were built actually exceeded the previous maximum size so that had a really significant impact on the amount of adus that were allowed minimum lot size had a more limited impact about 16 properties that would

[58:00] not have previously been able to put an Adu on their property were able to once the minimum lot size was reduced from six thousand to five thousand square feet in 2018 and a couple additional zoning districts were allowed to have adus back in 2018 and that resulted in two ads that had wouldn't have been previously allowed the evaluation also illuminated several remaining potential improvements that we think as staff would further reduce the barriers to adus that exist in Boulder and really meet the objective of this Council priority number one as noted eliminating the saturation limits we think that that would reduce a very significant perceived barriers for homeowners around Boulder as well as a real administrative issue and burden for both staff and Property Owners just in the overall timing and efficiency of the process I also recommend um or some of the other improvements that we think would further reduce

[59:01] barriers would be reconsidering floor area and the way that adus are measured I won't get into the nitty-gritty zoning details but adus are measured differently than any other structure in the zoning code and so that creates some inefficiencies and confusion with applicants and homeowners that could be clarified additionally considering an another increase in the maximum floor area we think would result in additional adus some other things like extending the length of time that Adu approvals are in place before they expire we think would help as well as adding an option to increase variance or at to increase height through a variance uh process as we've seen several recent applications run into issues when they're trying to adapt an existing structure um that is over the height and then you'll see in the Adu evaluation there's a lot more detail about the code clarification and process improvements as we went through all of these

[60:00] stakeholder interviews there are a number of issues that are pretty minor code clarification cleanups that could be made that could fix some common problems and really increase user friendliness so things just general things like reorganizing using some different language a lot of the language remains from 1983 so just updating it making it more modern and in line with how the rest of the code is coming up to up to date there's also some things that aren't code changes is that could really make a difference so process improvements such as streamlining and Expediting approvals that we think could make a big difference in regards to community engagement on the project so far so we worked with our great colleagues in housing and Human Services to put out a survey of all of the Adu owners over this past fall early fall September and October and housing and Human Services has done this survey several times so we have comparable data from both 2017 and 2012. so it's a

[61:00] really interesting way to see how attitudes about adus have changed over time and how these AVS are being used in our community we got 1200 212 responses which is a 48 response rate so that's a really great representative sample of these Adu owners and again there's a lot more detail in the Adu evaluation but some highlights that I wanted to just feature is that compared to previous years and previous surveys there is a greater percent of adus currently that are being used as space for visitors or relatives rather than additional housing units we also found in that survey that are we asked why what the reasoning was for someone pursuing a the affordable route the affordable Adu and 40 of owners chose to do affordable instead of market rate in order to reduce their parking requirement finally we asked if uh owners would be interested in pursuing a second Adu and 77 over three quarters said they would not be interested in a second Adu on

[62:01] their lot I did also want to highlight that the housing Advisory board has been discussing adus over the last few meetings they did come up with a recommendation which was included in the packet and then we've received several public comments which you all have received as well through email from various community members related to this as well and the engagement plan will be further developed based on the scope of the Adu changes as the conversation emerges tonight so just a final Slide the staff is recommending to continue along with this targeted scope that was recommended from the beginning but to change a little bit of the main topics or slightly tweak the main topic so focus on eliminating saturation limits as discussed at the retreat but also adding in a reconsideration of floor area this is something that came up in almost every Avenue of this evaluation as something that remains a barrier to additional Adu

[63:00] Construction in Boulder so whether that's increasing the maximum floor area or simply fixing the measurement the unique measurement Quirk of of adus that's something we think could make a big impact and so and then also the code clarification improvements that I mentioned on a previous slide and process improvements that's where we think that the greatest impact could be made in meet in reaching that objective of increasing additional adus in our community we are recommending delay to Future consideration maybe a future project the idea of allowing more than one Adu per lot and I wanted to explain why because I know that was one of the main directions from The Retreat earlier this year in completing all of these different routes that we went through for this Adu evaluation we just didn't see a lot of evidence that that was something that was you know standing out as a barrier to Adu construction and so

[64:00] in order to really make the most impact with these code changes and keep them targeted we thought that those four items recommended as a focus would have more of an impact on the number of adus in the community there's also some more complexity and complication that comes up with that um that item because we would have to think through whether there would be additional changes to the occupancy restrictions for adus how that would affect parking restrictions it just brings up a lot more questions than the ones that are recommended as a focus which are really quite targeted also one of the housing advisory boards recommendations was to eliminate parking requirements for adus that was certainly something that we've seen other cities do recently I mentioned that there's some variability in those cities we've looked at on whether they require parking or not however we think that the way that the code is written now requires one parking space for an accessory dwelling unit however if the owner chooses to do an affordable Adu

[65:00] they're Exempted from that parking requirement so we do have the option right now for people if they need to um to to go forward without an additional parking space as long as it's an affordable Adu so we think that there's there's currently an Avenue to do that but the idea of eliminating parking requirements entirely we believe that that would be a more complex change to make less of a targeted change and something that would probably require more robust public engagement the items the top four items are all things that were kind of discussed in that previous round in 28 18 and these would kind of be new conversations so with those targeted changes we would recommend a public engagement level of consult and really rely on our existing formal practices such as the housing Advisory Board planning board and the public hearings that would be in place for the ordinance adoption and that in that way we could keep it on target to be adopted in the second quarter of 2023.

[66:00] so that's all I have for you tonight on adus we have many more topics to go through so I'm going to pass it over to Christopher to talk about Boulder Junction phase two thanks so much for that Lisa um before we move on I have a question um for Brad and then I see Bob has a question as well okay okay yeah uh your question well okay I'll go first Bob if that's okay my questions just might it be more helpful for us to ask staff the Adu questions now in that they're very fresh are they going to come up again you know we actually thought about that and we think that it would be better for us to do the full flow because we're going to find out that there's kind of intersection between some of the topics all right Bob was that your question as well all right thank you on then thanks so much oh we'll go ahead and have Sarah continue that thanks Brad yeah thank you Lisa's and good evening council members

[67:01] I'm Sarah force a principal planner in the comprehensive Planning Group and I'll be doing an overview of the Boulder Junction phase two projects so next slide so quick reminder this project is the implementation of the second phase of the transit Village area plan which was originally adopted in 2007. um when we look at the initiation of phase two it should be based off of three criteria that's been identified already so the first is to demonstrate phase one has been substantially completed right now pnds staff are currently preparing a phase one outcome report and we're working on that with other departments as well we should also confirm that there's markets Market support and support for the land uses proposed in the phase two area and then the other criteria is that we should develop a plan for providing infrastructure improvements outlined in the tbap implementation plan next slide so if you remember at the study session back in September 22nd city council was presented with two different options for

[68:00] the scope of work for phase two the first option was essentially to just implement the plan as it stands today the second option included an evaluation of the proposed land uses and Mobility Connections In The Phase 2 area to ensure that they're aligned with the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan Market Tran market trends as well as current Community needs so city council directed us to move forward with the second option so that would include a slightly extended project schedule to incorporate a more robust Community engagement process to discuss alternatives to develop a preferred approach as well as look at kind of the preferred approach for land use Mobility connections and then to move forward with an adoption of a plan Amendment so council members also reiterated the importance of utilizing racial Equity instrument as part of the process engaging the community that now lives or works in the phase one area to understand what's working as well as what's not working today and to also evaluate the place making and Urban Design Elements in a plan Amendment for

[69:00] the phase two area so finally there was also request for staff to analyze the scope of work to see if there might be opportunities to phase the project to gain efficiencies and to also shorten the general time frame of certain tasks now next slide so to address council's request staff explored a geographic phasing strategy so for example we looked at starting from the area south of pearl Parkway and then moving to the north it was found that this approach may not necessarily create efficiencies in the schedule and it also might lead to repetition of multiple tasks when we move from one area to the next so instead we're proposing to consolidate tasks and to sequence the project in a way that distinguishes the planning updates so tasks one through three from the implementation steps tasks four and five for example the goal is to reach a meaningful Milestone and initiate the adoption process for the planned amendments as well as updates to the bbcp land use map by late summer 2023.

[70:00] then implementation steps such as zoning updates potential expansion of the general Improvement districts and infrastructure phasing that will then occur once a planet amendment has been adopted and there also might be some tasks that can overlap without adoption process as well so the overall schedule we're anticipating that both the plan Amendment as well as the initial implementation steps such as zoning updates will be completed in approximately 18 to 21 months next slide so this project is unique since it now includes a potential plan amendment in addition to implementation of the phase two area so I'll go over a few of the elements of the community engagement approach but please keep in mind this does not include specific Outreach and engagement for each task our Communications and engagement plan will provide more detail for that so in general we plan to do broad Community engagement especially for understanding Lessons Learned From phase one evaluating potential alternatives for a plan Amendment and then also reaching consensus on a preferred approach for a

[71:00] plan Amendment in general we plan um so sorry we also plan to have focus groups that may be engaged throughout the entire project we anticipate around four different types of focus groups and we we want to have four different focus groups to ensure diverse representation of community members and to also have community members who can offer technical technical expertise and to also have those that might be stakeholders directly impacted by the project so the four groups that we anticipate are looking at having people that represent daily users property owners and businesses or business owners advocacy Representatives as well as developers and design professionals and then in addition to that we'll also be engaging representatives from relevant City boards throughout the project next slide so when we think about engagement as a whole for this project we know we want to be strategic and ensure we are clearly communicating engagement opportunities and how they are aligned with the scope of work we also want to approach engagement with the diversity

[72:00] equity and inclusion lens using the racial Equity instrument throughout the project will help us do that and we want to make sure engagement is accessible and flexible by providing information that's interesting and offering different ways for people to be conveniently participate in the process so lastly we want to make sure that we're building in flexibility and to be able to adjust the community engagement approach according to project needs and to look at how we're meeting our engagement goals as well next slide so we look forward to hearing any additional feedback we have um that we receive from you on this updated scope of work and schedule um we'll plan on taking this information to planning board on November 15th to receive their comments and input before we finalize the scope of work and the community engagement approach um and then lastly we'll plan to formally kick off the project early next year so thank you for your time and now I'll pass it off to Carl thank you Sarah good evening council members I'm going to be I'm Carl geiler

[73:01] with pnds I'm going to talk about other pnds priority projects that are at various levels of completion and some that are yet to be started um I'm going to talk mostly about the code change items and then I'll pass it back to our comprehensive planning team next slide please so council is familiar with the site review criteria update this is a project that is pretty much coming near the Finish Line It's the final component of the community benefit project which commenced in 2018 we came back to Council on August 25th as part of a study session to get some direction on the drafting of the ordinance we've been revising the ordinance we now have an updated draft that's now ready for public review so we're now in the process of reaching out to design Professionals in our neighborhood Advocates that we've been talking to and Architects across town to get their feedback on the latest change and we're already scheduled to go to planning board on December 20th and

[74:00] we're looking to come back to Council on in January and February of 2023 on first and second reading um so like I said this project is is nearing completion our next slide please uh council is also familiar with the use table and standards project as we also talked about that on August 25th uh this project is also approaching completion um if you look at what we've accomplished um from 2018 to now uh in 2022 we've been making a lot of progress on phase two you'll remember in June we brought forward module one which was an ordinance to do some simplifications clarifications and reorganization of the use tables to make it more usable and understandable so that was adopted in June we are now in the process of bringing through an ordinance on module two which is uh looking at making changes to add more mixed use in the industrial areas of the city as well as doing some steps of implementation of

[75:02] the East Boulder sub-community plan so this is scheduled to come to Council in December so the next stage for use tables and standards is module three which is what we talked about in August 25th which would focused on mixed use and 15-minute neighborhoods more in a residential context in a neighborhood center context um so we're anticipating that that would have an ordinance coming through uh towards the end of quarter two beginning of quarter three uh next slide please so the next project and I know it has a lot of interest among council members and those in the community is occupancy reform um people will remember that a year ago pretty much from today there was the bedrooms are for people initiative which was on the ballot in Boulder that initiative did not pass but it was by a close margin we did some Community surveys that showed that there was strong Community interest to make changes to occupancy in Boulder to allow

[76:02] more affordable housing housing options um so that's why it prompted Council to ask that staff look at as part of the retreat of updates to the land use code that might be different than what was proposed on the ballot but might accomplish it in different ways so the project did commence in 2022 but as as Brad had outlined there's been some staff reassignments that we've been dealing with that has delayed the project but we do anticipate coming back to council uh in the in the end of the first quarter to bring some of the options that we've seen and also come with a community engagement plan to get council's feedback on that we have been looking at peer communities and are putting together a document we're in the middle of the analysis so we'd like to come back with some recommendations at that time the goal is to bring an ordinance back to council with targeted changes in the land use code by the end of quarter two or start of quarter three next slide please

[77:00] so another project of interest is what we call the Zoning for affordable housing uh project this is something that kind of grew out of some projects that weren't able to meet their density goals or affordable housing goals based on some limitations in the zoning code we were requested by council at The Retreat to look at targeted changes to the land use code that would remove some of those zoning barriers so particularly there's some zones of the city that are anticipated for additional housing as growth areas like the Boulder Valley Regional Center and some of our neighborhood centers these tend to be in the BR and BC zones uh see these are some zones that have some density limitations that in some senses are kind of suburban they have 1200 square feet of open space per dwelling unit or 1600 square feet of lot area per dwelling unit what we've heard from the development Community is because of those lot sizes and the fers that exist on those sites it tends to drive a a

[78:00] product that is a large larger floor plate units rather than smaller more modest sized units so we'd be looking at targeted changes that would revise those density limits maybe even waving them if there's a certain amount of affordable housing on the site or maybe just changing them all together just so that we can get more of a yield of units on the site so that we get a higher percentage of affordable units out of projects in areas where housing is anticipated so we're looking again just like occupancy to come back to council with potential options at the end of quarter one we would have a draft scope and language at that meeting so that council could say yes move forward with this or change this or look at this and then again the goal is to bring forward an ordinance by the end of quarter two beginning of quarter three to accomplish this change uh so with this that that covers our code change uh things that are on our docket I'm going to pass it back to

[79:00] comprehensive planning which is Christopher Johnson to talk about the area 2 planning Reserve great thank you Carl good evening city council as Carl mentioned that Christopher Johnson and the comprehensive planning senior manager uh there are two additional projects here on the on the list um that we want to discuss this evening uh this first one here the area 3 planning Reserve service and study if you recall that was also discussed briefly at the study session on September 22nd uh where we did the initial review of the Boulder Junction a scope of work at that meeting Council expressed the desire to go ahead and move ahead with the urban Services study in order to ensure that it was completed prior to the next major update to the comprehensive plan so staff are prepared to proceed with the development of that scope of work for the urban Services study early next year I will note as a precursor and to really help us refine the approach to this study staff is ready to move forward immediately with an analysis of the

[80:01] existing development capacity within our current service boundary so that would include areas one and two uh that Capacity Analysis will ultimately assist uh staff of reclining that preliminary scope identifying what consultant tasks are needed and also estimating our budget needs for the project and we would anticipate coming back to Council in early Quarter Two of next year to review that Capacity Analysis and also the preliminary scope of work and that would serve as an interim milestone for this project to continue to move that forward as expeditiously as we can next slide please so this last item well not identified as a priority project per se City leadership and staff have recognized that there's really an unexpected alignment of multiple planning efforts uh in a lot of community interest in the downtown area that covers really many

[81:00] different aspects of creating a vibrant successful Community core that includes land use Mobility parks and public spaces historic preservation safety and economic Vitality this is particularly important as the community continues to emerge from the impacts of covid and really sets a course for how downtown can continue to serve all of our residents and visitors successfully we have already initiated work on the streets as public Spaces Project that's evolved out of the conversations around West Pearl and as you know we've already established a process subcommittee with council members Winer and Benjamin so that project in particular is is moving ahead very rapidly and we anticipate immediate sort of interim milestone for that piece of this work is to hold a study session with Council in March of next year to review those preliminary recommendations for some spring and summer opportunities to activate certain locations downtown

[82:00] but looking at this more broadly there currently is no formalized oversight or project management structure that would ultimately monitor it's really a full complement of projects and ensure close coordination among the various departments that are involved of which there are many and rather than executing each of these projects independently we would encourage Council to consider the need for this larger strategic framework that really facilitates collaboration across all of these projects in particular due to the Synergy of all the project schedules landing at relatively the same time and really the importance of this work to to downtown really to Boulder as as a community as a whole so with that I'm going to pass it back to Brad to walk through some various options for the priorities and sequencing of all of this work thanks Christopher appreciate that um we're going to come back to this slide so I'm just showing it as a quick snapshot right now uh ultimately it

[83:02] reflects the same Matrix that we provided on page 41 of 92 in your packet um to just Orient you though very briefly to this this is a completion time frame so while we talked about period of three for example in terms of starting this would be a completion date and if there's a blank to the right of the date that means it would be the same carrying over in these various options next slide please option one is our recommended uh series of time frame as we indicate that you can see that we still achieve a meaningful number of items within this coming year uh really three out of uh depending on how you wanted to characterize it three out of four making meaningful interim steps along the way

[84:02] uh that does presume the targeted scope that we talked about for occupancy reform and the Very uh thin sliced uh elements for Zoning for affordable housing uh that were in line with what the council Retreat discussed uh and then you can see how this does play out as you go further I would also Point your attention to page 24 of 92 in the overall packet where these interim steps are identified as one of the columns in in a bit more detail uh and we do have a slide uh in our Hip Pocket if we want to go to that uh scenario with some of that detail as well next slide please we've labeled this next option as the expansion of the Adu scope and you can see the elements that would move forward under this General premise of those that would be put on pause

[85:02] um Carl gave a really outstanding overview of where we are already tables and standards and a clear understanding too of the occupancy reform and where we are in those but this would contemplate again putting that on code on hold for some period while these other items um which could be described as the recommended scope plus the other items that were identified by Lisa as possible thanks next slide please option three is a requirementization of the project so again reflecting in the more specific Matrix that's in the packet uh various ways that could be mixed and matched and still maintain uh meaningful Milestones as we indicated in this scenario adus

[86:00] would be put on hold some of the completion of site review and use tables would be put on old and area three would be put on hold um I will note that part of the reason for a recommended a big part of our recommended one is recognizing that the horse so to speak is really out about barn door already on site review and use tables the amount of resources and additional time on the back end later to you know lasso the horse bring it back in and close the barn door and then reopen it a year later really does represent some inefficiencies in terms of our staff user use of our staff resources next slide please so this is a return to the overall Matrix of summary we positioned it this way not to imagine that these are the only iterations and we understand and welcome a full

[87:02] conversation around this but just to give some operating order to the discussion this evening again you can see that in the recommended option one with the scope that we described in our presentation being able to get many of these items done in 2023 um not shown on this slide but the interim conditions for some of the others as well and then the trade-offs that come with a heavy emphasis on all aspects of adus or a complete pause on some of those items that are already well underway in many cases but giving complete emphasis on some of these uh other items further down the list briefly on the next slide if I may these are the questions we presented at the beginning upon reflection um I I suspect we'll of course have discussion around this it may be easiest

[88:01] upon reflection to answer number two and I can imagine Council answering number one and three kind of in tandem but of course we'll we'll follow council's lead in that regard if we could go back one slide and maybe have that as a reference line for the discussion uh that completes our presentation at this time um council member friend mayor for Tim Fenn and uh happy to answer your questions thanks so much Brad and everyone else who contributed to that presentation so first we'll start with questions that we have for staff to clarify and then we will go into discussion and answering staff's questions so um questions I see Junie then Bob then Tara Junior you're out but you are still muted can you hear me now yep

[89:00] thanks I have a question on saturation so I have two questions I mean I notice in the memo I mentioned how long Bolder we've been doing adus almost before I was born um but my question is whether it matters if the properties and a flood Zone which a lot of Boulder is so whether removing the saturation limit for adus will cause any type of safety concerns in the future I would say that the saturation limit and the flood regulations are would not be tied in any way so the changing the saturation limit wouldn't have any impact necessarily but the flood regulations and restrictions that ensure safety would remain regardless of the saturation limit

[90:00] okay thank you for that and then um I have another question about the or maybe that sounds more like a comment I've had the opportunity to uh when I was delivering a lot of literature for for um voting this election I end up going to a lot of the neighborhoods walking around especially in the Cosgrove area I was very surprised to see some of the sizes of the adus they are really large homes which was very very surprising to me and then I think part of it too it was hard for me to find the Adu I would be walking around trying to find the address so it was hard to find so that was one thing that I find challenging with that um but my question is I suppose it's not one or the other but

[91:02] I'm wondering instead of limiting or removing the saturation limits what is what is your department doing in allowing more duplexes and triplexes instead of creating these adus which I was very surprised as I mentioned to you the sizes and yeah I I I was just surprised by that when I was walking around that neighborhood and I heard from from you know a few community members on some of the challenges of having these adus uh in these neighborhoods uh councilmember Joseph maybe I can take a first stab at it and then hand it off to Lisa and Carl I think this gets to the bigger question of adding uh my right units on individual Lots we would really see that under the category of Zoning for affordability expanded so beyond the scope that we

[92:01] presented this evening it's a very good question and thanks for for asking that it does get into issues of carrying capacity of the infrastructure existing property rights um a relationship to the comprehensive uh plan and items like that um so with that kind of umbrella concept to Lisa Carl either one of you pick it up in the library yeah I can talk about it um some council members might remember the the large homes and lots project which um kind of went down that same road of exploring whether areas that typically don't have duplexes or triplexes could we could introduce those into those areas uh we did come forward with an ordinance to make some changes but it does present some challenges when it comes to consistency with the land you with the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan there

[93:01] are land use designations that have specific density limits so in order for us to change the zoning like the land use would have to change to support that so we found that you know adding duplexes and triplexes in certain areas of town they would have to have very large lot sizes to even have those types of housing types unless the zoning were were changed and the land use before that um and and like Brad said there there were some infrastructural things that came up in that analysis as well I mean areas that are typically more rural residential um or residential estate in character were built with infrastructure meant to support single-family homes there would have to be some sort of analysis in upzoning those areas whether the infrastructure is available or sufficient to support that additional density so this is something that we we looked

[94:00] at it in quite a quite a bit of depth back in uh 2018 and 2019. thank you for that I have one last question question Rachel thank you and this is more on the line of having conversation with Community as well and that's one question because we're talking about adus and we're talking about access to Affordable more affordable units housing units and my question how do you ensure that that adus being used for affordable housing is there a process or do we just go on the what's the word um we just hope that you know once it's created that this person will just do the right thing and rent it for affordable housing we do have representatives from HHS here and I believe and I've gone out on a limb this is a new question for me but I believe that those deed restricted or um

[95:01] are subject to the same program that we do for others but um I will defer to HHS or other staff hey Kurt can add more from hhf's but when we approve a affordable Adu that goes into at document a legal document called the Declaration of use that's recorded with the property and so they sign something that says I'm keeping this at the affordable limit every year the city sets the maximum rent table for affordable adus um so I think uh a one bedroom's about sixteen hundred dollars I think if I remember correctly right now for this year and so they are swearing to keep it at that and then there are some code there are some code language which Kurt can help me with that provides for penalties if they do not abide by that foreign well thank you for that this is this is

[96:01] good to hear um that there's a process whether that's upheld that's different um I have heard or at least from my conversation with Community where um adus are created and the owner of the property moved into the Adu and then rent their main housing so again that takes that Adu out of the market um although it seems that we've created affordable housing for other people to move into but not necessarily so thank you for that thanks Junie Bob and Tara well thanks Jenny that was a nice tie up to some questions I had um I want to talk about AV use as well um So Lisa let's continue that thread that you started to go down with the Declaration of use um so it's I remember and Aaron will remember this too from 2018 when we put this all together it liberalized the Adu rules that we really have two flavors of adus right we have regular or market rate adus we're

[97:00] the um owner can charge whatever they want whatever the market will bear then we have the separate type which I think we're calling affordable Aid to use with the Declaration of use is that is that right Lisa that's correct great great and as you you flashed up on a slide really quick but I wanted to make sure that I got this right for the affordable adus the ones where there's a declaration of use and the and the owner is swearing that they're keeping the rents below a certain level I think that level is is um that which would be affordable to somebody who makes ad or less than 75 of the area median income do I have that right right and um the reason that or the trade-off I'll say because rent control of course is not allowed in Colorado and so we have to kind of contractually get to it which sounds like we're doing it and I think I saw on your slide that about a third of the 280 us that have been created since we liberalized the rules four years ago about a third of them um or through the owners opted for this affordable Adu and then two-thirds went with market rate is that right roughly yeah he went with affordable and about 130

[98:01] went with market rate great yeah okay good good um and and so the the quid pro quo then that we do with a property owner in order to entice them to um to sign this declaration of use and swear that they're only going to charge rent up to the 75 Ami level is I think we give we give them a couple of of Graces or a couple opportunities one is is we don't require um off street parking is that right for for the affordable a use correct and the other I think there's a maybe a size differential I think we've let them build a little bit bigger too is that right yeah for uh detached data use the typical limit for market rate is 550 square feet for affordable it's 800 square feet and for attached it's a difference of a third of the structure and a half of a structure right so it sounds like that enticement's kind of working if a third of the people are kind of opting and some of them may have to because they maybe they can't provide parking but it sounds like that enticement's kind of working I remember back in 2018 we put this together and we had no idea if

[99:00] anyone would go down the affordable route and we might just get crickets but it sounds like at least a third of the 200 are going down the affordable path is that right yeah yeah I agree with that characterization we also asked that question in the survey of Adu owners to try to understand why and that's what I was saying 40 said they did it to reduce the parking requirement the next most common though was 34 said that they were doing it just to provide affordable housing so which is which is just absolutely great and I really appreciate people doing doing that to meet this need so I I understand that we have kind of a little bit of a fork in the road here on the scope of the edu work one would be kind of uh focused on those areas that staff had recommended and the other would be an expanded scope which I think was your option two which could include parking and size and so on and so forth but that would take longer understandably if we were to eliminate parking for all adus a parking requirement for all adus and and it had both market rate and um affordable adus have the same size requirements what

[100:00] would be the reason other than maybe the goodness of someone's heart why they would go down do the Declaration of use and commit to keep the rents below a certain level I mean wouldn't that kind of take away one of those the incentive to do that incentive to reduce the part if the parking requirement is zero there is no something that we're seeing with the affordable adus currently right so we might get more adus but we would get maybe less or fewer affordable adus technically affordable yes and one other part of the survey that we implemented was asking what the rents are that people are charging and we're finding that even the market rate rents are you know under that affordable limit too so that's an interesting uh conclusion that we came to as well from the service yeah yeah have you guys tried to forecast out a few years to see what the trends might be in other words if some of the market rate ones are actually currently just um they're affordable but there's no as Jimmy pointed out there's no guarantee that they would be affordable in the future if the market

[101:01] kind of Rises they could charge whatever they wanted to if they didn't have this declaration of use of that right there is there okay good that's that's helpful Lisa thanks so much thank you I'm gonna uh colloquate on that if I may okay I just you know I'd like to use that word with you um so just following up on Bob's question it made me wonder if we were to um remove the the parking minimums and make units larger for adus such that say one that's affordable now because it um it has the the larger amount and fewer parking would they then like Legacy out of that program or would they like could they start then renting for non-affordable have we thought about that does my question make sense yeah it does make sense I don't think we've thought about the logistics of that they do have a signed declaration of use that says that they have to remain at those limits so I we'd have to connect with our city

[102:00] attorney's office and see what would happen um if changes affected that okay like if we if we just made it you know by right not part of the affordable program you know 1200 and one or zero parking spots I think we would have to maybe uh I'd be very curious to know it at a future update what what the impacts are what we could maybe offer people you would hate to see somebody get locked into something you know that was a previous Incarnation that's now easier under future um rules and so yeah I'd just be curious what's happening to there thanks Tara so I have two questions about adus and then one about the options but it sounds like we're just talking about adus do you think I should leave my option question for later I think let's just do the adus for now make some sense okay Rachel so my first question is going to be we had some very interesting letters from the neighborhood associations particularly one from Martin Acres so

[103:00] tell me is it possible to exempt certain neighborhoods perhaps from uh I think saturation limits I agree that they should be removed but I am worried also about the neighborhoods that are adjacent to CU East Aurora and gas grove where you know as Juni said everything the houses are way smaller and closer together also Martin acres is like that really small houses and smaller Lots um and also of course the hill so is there a possibility for some type of exemption and if we change some of the ad requirements in some areas do we have to do a all size one size fits all for all of the neighborhoods we certainly do not have to do [Music] that would create a lot of inefficiencies and confusion for property owners and in many ways would just replicate the issues that we already have with the saturation limits of people not understanding if they're

[104:01] in the right area we also have many uh features of the land use code that differ based on lot size or things like that and make sure that development nearby is compatible and so we have a lot of assurances that would mitigate any of those potential impacts and also be kind of tailored to whatever the specific characteristics of those lots within those neighborhoods might be okay and the second question I think some community members might ask is we uh there was notes in our packet about hype modifications can you go into the details of what exactly that means yeah so we um it's actually we've had a couple recent applications where somebody is attempting to put an Adu in an existing structure so the structure is already there um but it happens to be over 25 feet of which is our height limit and there's not currently a variance option that would allow you to modify past 25 feet so um in the interest of balancing you

[105:00] know adaptive reuse of an existing structure often if it's an existing structure it's going to have less of an impact on neighbors because it's already been there and we do have variance options in an established public process for something like that so just providing that option to allow for height modifications for existing structures is something that was raised so it doesn't it wouldn't be for any new structures now no it would be limited to just providing that flexibility for existing structures thanks for clarifying that yeah I'm changing my mind please ask all your questions well the other one has to do with the Civic Center which just has nothing to do with this conversation so I'm not going to ask that list I don't think it should these are staff questions this is your moment for staff questions all right well that's option one option two and option three which sounded like um we used to go eat in a Chinese restaurant very long time ago back in the day and we picked from different menus but are those menus that you gave us we have to use one of those three for

[106:02] instance I am particularly interested in the Civic area because so many things are happening right now the the um you know to do everything at the same time besides being consistent and organized and having um uh economies of scale I didn't see that in all of the different options is there possible way to do ads and also do um the Civic area downtown in the Q3 uh sooner rather than later so can we pick and choose from these menus or how can we let's say how can we do whatever we're going to do and also prioritize the Civic Center just because we're doing the hotel yeah so many other things at once so it would seem like the greatest thing in the world and plus the pedestrianization and we're talking about West Pearl so wouldn't it make the most sense to do all that at the same

[107:00] time just have a grand plan as opposed to ad hoc yeah thank you for that question uh councilman Weiner and to your first basic question of do you have to pick one of these three absolutely not um you know mixing and matching uh using this as kind of the uh buffet and picking bits and pieces but we did want to at least um frame up the the issues and help explain try to explain the trade-offs uh we can iterate on that and so to your specific question of could we do the Civic area downtown uh which is really a whole uh you know whole group of different projects earlier than uh what it's set for which is really just ad hoc right now in terms of doing that one scenario as we have there in option three would be to start then in quarter three um and put a fine date on it the year and a half from now another would be to

[108:00] do it uh immediately but then other things would need to drop off and we'd have to talk about which of those to do or have a complete um ramp up to some additional resources for that that would just in Practical terms probably take three to six months uh the reason we put it in this whole mix of discussion uh because it is a little bit of the outlier from the others is because it just is is an emerging set of issues that comes forward but this one as you know from from first option a column really is on no time frame at this point I don't know if that helps answer your question or makes it more accomplished more complicated but that's okay thanks Tara Alberta council member Wallach no I I thought Lauren was the first I don't know the hands on my screen show

[109:00] Mark then Lauren all right Lauren would you like to go sounds like you've been promoted uh either way I appreciate it Mark I did take my hand down and then put it back up again so I'm causing chaos over here like always um let's see I guess I'd be happy to go for it so um first I want to check in Click Carl are you you're doing plans reviews and heading up three different sections here um do we have Physicians approved to help you I feel I'm concerned this seems like a lot yeah we appreciate that and Carl please do speak for yourself and maybe Charles you can chime in as well yeah I'd be happy to um and I too am very concerned for Carl and so I appreciate that um we're um in the throes of filling

[110:00] some key positions right now um we've made some key hires very recently that are gonna start taking some of these pressures off of our staff that are kind of doing dual uh Duty right now so help is on the way great thank you um then I have a couple questions about so you kind of clarified right now that the Civic area to get it to not just be ad hoc we would have to prioritize it right now it's sort of not considered to be to have someone overseeing all of it in a comprehensive way yes you know deciding now is probably a matter of discussion and you do have uh the check-in a month or two later as well um that right now the component parts of

[111:01] that that we listed uh only a couple of them already on any kind of start time frame uh the rest of them are all at the fox so it would be it's a bigger discussion about uh whether Council wants to find a way to prioritize all of those and find a way to kind of get them ramped up in a in a similar starting manner for a umbrella kind of approach um but that really is a little bit of an outlier on the side okay and what's related to that I mean we have different kinds of planners who take on different kinds of projects could you kind of overview like the grouping like which which ones of these items are really sort of using the same staff the same sort of group of staff sure I'd be happy to do and the rest of the staff girls in KJ just going down the list that's on the screen right now from The

[112:01] Matrix Adu is handled by our policy group and development review older Junction by comprehensive planning site review by the policy group use PayPal by policy group occupancy reformed by the policy group Zoning for affordability is the policy group period three is part of comprehensive planning and Civic areas really hard to characterize because it's involving transportation and parks and others but would be uh heavily most heavily involved by the Bible okay thank you um and then I also wanted to touch on a couple of questions I had that kind of came up around land use and the comprehensive plan um I you guys referenced that um

[113:01] large lot study oh but it seems like not all because it's sort of related to juni's question about duplexes or additional units versus um adus and I just wanted to kind of get a little bit more clarity there so the large lots are in our lowest density zone right under our comprehensive um sort of number of dwell units per acre other residential zones so they only allow two units per acre and other like like rl1 which is our largest land use area um allows up to six dwelling units per acre is it possible that we might be able to

[114:03] make some change and sorry my understanding is also that the comprehensive plan wants these restrictions are applied holistically and not on a per lot basis and so I just wanted to clarify that there might be some flexibility for doing duplexes or something like that potentially in some zones but maybe not all zones is that a fair assessment if you can't speak to this or sure God good enough please go ahead I mean in terms of housing types that's relatively easy to make a change in the in the land use code to put a good comparison they allow two to six dwelling units per acre but they do it differently the The rl1 Zone only permits single-family homes and has a minimum lot area and rl2 allows all different

[115:03] types of housing types but uses open space so in rl2 zones you'll actually see little apartment buildings or duplexes triplexes even though it's low density but there even though their their unit types are different the density is still the same as rl1 it's when you start introducing those housing types and adding units that go above the six dollar units per acre that it then begs to changing the Boulder Valley Commerce of plan so right now if we were to look at rl1 as a whole within our community are you saying that we are close to hitting more than six units per acre in all of our rl1 zoning or would be if we allowed additional units I think a lot of the city is very close if a lot of those subdivisions that were

[116:01] done in the 70s and the rl1 zones maxed out that six dwelling units per acre not saying everywhere in the city but I'd say most most of those developments maxed it out good to know um the other question I had related to that was you were talking about utilities and utility capacity um and I was just curious because a lot of other communities have done you know made these kinds of changes and I haven't heard a lot around you know Minneapolis having significant issues with their utility capacity and so I was just wondering is this something that other communities were just extra prepared for or how how is it that other communities are able to manage um kind of making some of these changes with their existing utility infrastructure

[117:01] or or is this a problem that I'm just unaware of I mean I don't know that I have a good answer for that I mean obviously we consulted with our own you know engineering and Public Works staff and they know the utilities that exist uh throughout the city they know the areas where it might have capacity and May and other areas that don't I I can't really speak for other communities whether they did that analysis uh at all but it's something that we have to defer to our engineering staff on thank you or do you mind if I calculate on the large Lots question please um so Carl it Peaks my curiosity too and um you may recall we we overlapped I was in like a work group and Phil kleiser were like in the in the uh all these memories are flying back at me yeah I'd forgotten all about large Lots until today um but my question is as I recall in 2018 and 2019 we got all the way up I

[118:00] mean I wasn't on council at the time but as a city we got all the way up to um our first reading like there was a a packet with a proposed ordinance and there was a ton of community engagement so and I think the proposal was maybe for duplexing in our e and rl1 and rl2 is that or no it was it was actually um it was focused on RR and R that's what I meant yep and NRE right it's like it was the okay sorry my my computer just uh blanked there for a minute so anyhow when we got there like to Lauren's point of of pairing capacities and and changes how did you how did we handle that was it is it a different conversation because it was the RR and re and those are didn't have the issues that we're talking about other places the thing about the the ordinance that was brought forward is it didn't require a Boulder Valley Conference of plan

[119:01] change because the change still was consistent with the underlying land use so it allowed it changed it proposed to change the code to allow duplexes and triplexes but it did work still required the lot area necessary to achieve those units so on a 15 000 square foot re lot if they wanted to do a duplex they'd have to have 30 000 square feet of lot area so we we also but one thing we we did propose as an alternative was that because the re zone is the same land use designation as rl1 and rl2 which allows two to six dwelling units per acre there could have council could have advised to change the ordinance to allow basically a doubling of the density in re without changing the land use designation

[120:02] okay that didn't move forward obviously right is it your recollection though that that that the 20 in September you know right before an election in 2019 that that Council said something like let the next Council pick it up because you know we're about to change guard is that I mean didn't get voted on and rejected right it just got punted yeah it didn't pass first reading I I can't recall whether or not they said the next Council should take it up or not I I don't recall that's okay thanks thanks Lauren for letting me cut do you have more questions okay over to mark thank you I'm going to sort of Jump Around out of order um you had referenced I plan one uh outcome Report with respect to Boulder Junction when are we likely to see that so you'll like order one of 2023 so kind of around the same time that we're going to kick off the project and

[121:00] what will it be looking at so the substantial completion report is pretty much like an analysis of looking at what did the transit Village area plan recommend and now that it's been 15 years later and we've had developments and it's kind of reaching completion what is actually implemented today so it'll do a little bit of a comparison of what's in the plan and what was the actual outcome today and provide that information as well will there be any analysis of what we think has worked well versus what we think has not worked well well there's any critical analysis of the outcomes themselves yes I think with the substantial completion report um our team talked about this a little bit it might be a little bit more factual of what's there today but the the phase two project Boulder Junction phase two would start with that conversation of in you know kind of beginning Community engagement with that conversation of what's working well or not in Phase One

[122:00] and use that to kind of inform a potential plan Amendment and the implementation strategy as well good thanks my next question is with respect to the Civic area um uh how does the Civic area master plan phase two implementation differ from the Pearl Street 50-year refresh what where do they overlap or not overlap hi Christopher do you want to take that life I can I can speak to it as well I am yeah I'm certainly happy to take a stab at that and I don't know if Allie Rhodes is still on the call or not but that would be wonderful if she's available to check in but uh as I understand the Civic area uh master plan phase two implementation is specific to um to the park itself in the area around the Band Shell The Atrium building the east book end and that that sort of area

[123:00] the Pearl Street refresh is as you would expect is specific Ally focused on Pearl Street itself okay thanks now I'm going to jump to adus um do we Track adus by neighborhood when CU adjacent neighborhoods come to us and say um please be cautious of what you're doing in our neighborhood because it's going to have an adverse impact do we do we have the data that says you might be right or you know you're you're off base you're not suffering a disparate impact track and Max I I looked at the map but it's the quantification that that's eluding me I can't just pick all the dots yeah yeah understood we could definitely do that yeah that would be very helpful

[124:00] um and I I noticed in looking at the map that there was a a almost no adus between Arapahoe and Jay Road East of 28th is there a particular reason for that I mean is it destruct me yeah I would need to look at what the zoning is out there but there are some neighborhoods where adus would be allowed but they're they have HOA covenants that don't allow adus so there's some kind of quirks of areas that you might not see a lot of adus but it might not be a city reason okay um and one of the complaints we got on adus from neighborhood letters was to caution us about the transformation of neighborhoods from residential neighborhoods to investor-owned neighborhoods exclusively and are we looking at that in terms of how we're approaching the Adu issue and

[125:01] and where adus are going to be sprouting up and obviously the four CU adjacent neighborhoods are probably the ones that come most to mind you've got the hill which is now becoming largely investor owned anyway so an owner has to live on site in order to have an Adu and we do confirm that when the Adu is applied for and as well when the rental license is applied for there are some like clarifications that would be helpful in the code language I know there's been some issues raised with people that have maybe LLCs that own the property so there's opportunities to clarify that however the owner occupancy requirement we're pretty confident ensures that there's a lot an owner living on all of these sites and it's not an investor property thank you um and my last question is with respect

[126:00] to occupancy limits which I I think we're we're due for that conversation and we ought to have it um but for staff to what extent are your deliberations informed by um the fact that we had a referendum on occupancy just last year and the community was was not supportive that doesn't mean you can't have changes to occupancy limits but I I would think that you would be keeping that in mind as you move forward yeah this is not the case yeah thank you for that question and Alice crawling Charles to maybe jump in as well but I would say we're very mindful of that voting and uh respectful of it uh we do find it um interesting that some of the feedback that's surveying um still points towards an interest around that and ultimately um just based on Council inquiry over the last year and such we know that that's a topic that you all would like

[127:02] to explore more what's that again I don't dispute that I'm I'm just saying that you're correct 47 of the people voted in favor of changing occupancy limits but 53 percent did not and I think it it doesn't mean you can't have changes to occupancy limits it just means that there ought to be some I think some level of caution about how you do it yeah yeah we understand okay and those are all my questions thank you so much so um back to maybe Carl on the large Lots which has piqued my interest today um if we wanted to move forward with some of the large Lots work that came so close to the Finish Line um and that is in keeping with some of the missing metal stuff that we're talking about

[128:00] um what it you know would we move into like a consult stage of Engagement or like how could we pick that up where we left it off um and dusted off what would that look like well I think again we'd have to see you know what exactly the scope of the project would be and where the changes would occur and who we would need to reach out to um I think consult you know probably makes sense if we're not going drastic in a drastically different direction but it has been you know three years you know things have changed or people might have different opinions or people might have moved or moved in you know so we'd have to you know spark up the Outreach again obviously this is kind of a um a new Factor being put on to the work program so we'd have to also look at other code change projects and what would have to slow down or stop if we were to do something like that

[129:00] okay but if we were to take like you know not expand it at all but contract it just uh you know say only you know X Y or Z portion of this code that was brought up as interesting to this Council or um you know makes sense because it was it was so thoroughly um worked over three years ago is that is that a feasible thing that we could you know we have an ordinance that's already done I mean it certainly makes it I mean a little bit easier for us to pick pick it up again I think you know we've already spent a lot of time drafting an ordinance you know and looking at the code we would have some of those changes already ready uh we might still have to you know tweak them for a while and think about any unintended consequences and um but it certainly would be easier not some of that work has been done okay um thanks for that Tara just a real quick question and Brad and everyone

[130:01] you're so wonderful but I'm going to ask you to speak in East Coast not Midwest language So when you say we've had we've done 80 percent are you saying we don't care if you switch it around or are you saying it would really aggravate us can you really be so you had a few different things where you said we've done almost everything but if you want us to switch we'll switch how should we read that would you rather not switch do you not really care I I will do my best to remember my time in school in New York to answer um for the site the criteria and the use table in particular we are very far out out in towards the Finish Line on that it would very much be our preference to get that done because of the loss of efficiency that we would have in needing to pick that up six months 12 months 18 months down the road we also do have

[131:00] citizen groups and boards and such that are teed up and engaged so we would lose a lot of momentum on that um for the other things as we demonstrated in um the one memo Matrix and maybe Lisa or whoever has the slides can get that uh hit pocket slide that we have with that shown um uh prepared um for the other ones there would be the trade-offs so I appreciate Carl's answer for example regarding uh Reviving the large lot ordinance um uh based on what I've learned very recently I agree that that would be a fairly uh surgical thing but I think what he's alluding to is we would still have to prepare that we would still have to bet it at some minimum level and there would probably not probably there would need to be a trade-off then on uh call it three months of timing on one of the other items on here

[132:00] um this slide is really just an expanded version of um what was in your memo as well but but really highlighting those inner Milestones with the recommendation which again we're happy to deviate from but it's probably this finer grain uh level of detail than that we would would need to talk about kind of trading out work efforts does that answer your question okay thank you thanks Tara okay I think that we go into discussion now and what I would propose if we are okay with it is um discussing just staff question number one first on adus is that like I think we're going to get to the Adu discussion that kind of thumbs up on that as a right okay Lauren was your hand up on ideas okay um so the the the question from staff and then we'll welcome any discussion on it is does council approval staffs propose scope and engagement level for

[133:01] the updates to Adu project or have any questions um about the evaluation so um would love to hear probably gather for my question some trepidation about going down the path of waiving parking for all adus because I'm afraid we would lose the affordability declaration that we talked about um that could be done in a phase two as Lauren suggested or hotline you know six months or a year from now uh uh some degree of examination as to whether we will lose the affordability um uh component if we simply make all adus the same um and I would I would hope we would consider seriously keeping some distinction in size and parking requirements between affordable adus and regular adus getting a third of the adus to be

[134:00] affordable is better than we get in almost any real estate development project in town and I'd like to keep that going but yes I I think the scope is very very appropriate thanks Mark Lauren thanks um let's see I similarly support the scope that staff has laid out I would like to make the argument for um doing a phase two or keeping a phase two kind of on the books or in the plans for the future just because I think that a lot of the work staff has done and that we've heard from boards and commissions has been really valuable feedback and I think that keeping in mind sort of what these next steps might be and having that on the back burner ready for if the next Council decides to take that up um you know I know that that's something that I will still be hopefully on

[135:00] Council in several years and something that I would be interested on um so just making sure that that is not that we're not losing track of those items as well don't go anywhere Lauren folkerts um okay Erin yeah I'm going to agree with with my colleagues and just add a little bit more the so I think you are on the right track I appreciate the analysis that you did about what you thought would be the most impactful kind of that most do implementable and impactful and I thought that was really compelling so you you got my buy-in because I thought the analysis was was really good even though it didn't did include you know one of the options that that I put in the list originally but but great arguments there and then I'll just agree with uh Lauren about that phase two um keeping that uh on the on the books as well I I may well not be on that Council but I think it's a great idea to keep it there and but to not I thought you had a good set of things but also Lauren suggest some additional things that are I think worthy of consideration

[136:01] so uh I don't think we should talk about exactly what that phase two should consist of but just to make the point that it's probably worth once future Council gets to it sort of checking in on what the scope of that would be because you might want to open the funnel out a little bit wider for a bigger initial uh one and if that that comes thanks thanks very much thanks Aaron um Tara then I'll go I agree with what everybody said so I'm going to move on to the Civic area and I'm just going to ask that we remain nimble because it is a different department as Lauren brought out there there are different parts of the planning department which she knew but I didn't know so being that the Civic area is a different than what was the process committee I believe I'm hoping that we can be ready and prepared should the rest should parks and uh Community Vitality any other departments be ready to uh go with the

[137:02] Civic Center and especially in light of the um hotel that we are also Nimble and ready and able to move if if and when we can combine and do a grand plan versus ad hoc Terry you're not gonna like it but this is really only Adu question right now so what what we're just on question one you can tell them I bet staff took that in so we'll reincorporate it we're going to pick that back up on number three so focused I'm sorry we know we know where your head's at um but I on 80s I agree with um all of my colleagues I do wonder is there anything that Hab recommended that we haven't captured in either this first sweep or in Lawrence um proposed like phase two because they had I liked all of their recommendations and I didn't know if any of those should are easy to sweep into phase one or are they all phase two and were any of them things that staff disagreed with or this Council disagreed with so

[138:00] um that's feedback and a question so for the most part the housing Advisory Board recommendations are very similar to what the staff recommended scope is one of the or I think the two deviations are eliminating the parking requirement which we're recommending for a later study and they also recommended um if this wouldn't really be a code change but implementing some pre-approved plans for adus so that could be something that could be a future study as well okay and is that in that like are we sort of green lighting Lauren's future study list here and was that on that list I'm sorry there's just been a lot of different things coming in I haven't tried that maybe just to clarify I think Lawrence list really spoke to a number of zoning changes which we would put in the category of Zoning for affordable housing a couple that were related to edus is Lisa indicated um but I think maybe some of the other ones that you're alluding to are more in

[139:01] that bucket but yeah I guess I just want to make sure that we all we are we all think we're putting the same things in the same buckets before we move on so um and I don't have like a really good side-by-side analysis of what's saying are the three things we're gonna get done or however many it is right now and then phase two and then Lauren's phase one and two list and then halves yeah Lisa why don't you bring up that slide that had the essentially happen to and we can review that I think the second column on that does include a few of the things that you indicated Lauren but then the other ones again are part of this uh zoning changes for portability I think one maybe one slap oh there it is yeah Lauren anything on your list and not trying to skip you but just so we make sure that lists are kind of good here learn something on your list it's not on this slide yeah so let's see

[140:01] like yeah so the delaying sort of the future consideration the minimum parking which talked about being on Habs list um I also had the creating pre-approved designs on my list I had some extra things like um potentially looking at allowing separate ownership of adus and then and potentially looking at more than one Adu per parcel along with some of the zoning or some of the other code cleanups but I think those code cleanups were all staff is all considering those as part of the recommended scope okay thanks could um I'm gonna go to Aaron can we leave that slide up though until the rest of this part so Rachel and I uh I tried to address your your question in my comments to say that that I I like the phase two idea I thought Lauren had great ideas that

[141:00] should be you know penciled in for that phase two potentially but that we should also not be setting the phase two list in stone right now but determine it like at the time that we got to that project so that was just my my I think that got to what you were saying but I appreciate that I guess I just didn't want the ideas that were in here to get lost so as we have a list of I agree we shouldn't set it in stone but we should also so that the next Council knows what all we considered and thought was was worthy of future consideration so it seems like you know in the delay to Future consideration maybe the the pre-approved models and separate ownership would be the two things to add that's correct um anybody disagree with that and then uh Juni I see your hand up everybody good with that the focus on for now for and then for other ones Juni is that a hand sir thank you Rachel uh I was gonna just said yes I support the

[142:01] general direction of Staff the only thing is with the removal of the saturation limits is to have to ensure robust Community participation because I can't imagine some communities will just not well they will have some strong reaction to that thank you thanks Judy okay Nicole yeah just um kind of a quick follow-up to that I think um one of the things Lauren you had suggested in your hotline post was um what the level of Engagement is that we're thinking about for this initial one because a lot of this stuff has had a lot of Engagement to date we have some nice data that staff presented to us um you know Steph's been in touch with Adu owners and so I'm just I'm curious about if we need to start at Consulting

[143:00] kind of what our guidance is for staff in terms of how we're proceeding with engagement because I thought Lauren's points and hotline were really um good about how to potentially expedite that a little bit is that maybe a question for Brad yeah okay thank you thanks for clarifying yeah consult is is um is kind of the second tier of Engagement and at least I know you've had conversations with Communications and there may be even some staff uh from Communications here to speak to that we could characterize that a little bit but we understand and um agree that there's been a good amount of Engagement uh both structured and unstructured if you will an organic uh in the Years leading up to this Lisa do you have anything there no just to say that the idea with the consult is that we would use our

[144:01] established boards and commissions process and of course the adoption process through city council and that would be kind of the the way that we would be obtaining feedback and that's the way that we would be able to complete this by the second quarter of next year thanks for clarifying thanks Nicole Tara then Lauren sorry I'm speaking so much um in light of what Juni said have we I'm thinking about what Juni said in terms of the community have we had Community engagement on saturation we did so uh as I mentioned the saturation limit was increased from 10 to 20 in those 2018 changes so these were questions that we asked at that time as well so we are thinking that we can look back at that engagement that was done you know four years ago and then supplement with the additional you know Adu surveys that we've done this year the evaluation of those changes and then this consult level of Engagement through the board of the commission process this year

[145:02] I'm not saying I'm against saturation but I am saying that there's a big difference you need 20 saturation and no saturation so my question is is did you ask people about no saturation do you think it's appropriate or do you not even think we need to do that you know I'd have to look back on are you okay with 10 to 20 I think it was a more open-ended conversation but I will confirm with that that's great thank you so much thanks and Lisa just uh I'll go to you next Lauren but clarify that that's the thing that no other city has right like we're the only city in the country that has a saturation limit I've been trying my hardest to find another one and there I can't um helpful uh fact Lauren be clear I'm not against saturation I mean yeah I'm not against lifting saturation just to be clearing

[146:02] Lauren I I also just wanted to give a quick shout out to you know my favorite board which is not that there are favorites but design Advisory Board I noticed is not making it on to some of the lists of boards and commissions that we're checking in with and it feels like particularly on um some of these it would be appropriate fabulous point Thank you Nicole sorry I forgot one more thing I was going to mention um that I really loved about Lauren's hotline post was the idea of scheduling kind of a regular um or scheduling a check-in some ways out in the future as well so that future Council can take a look at the changes that were made and have kind of a similar analysis to what you all gave us tonight um just so that we have that scheduled in because it feels like that's something that may also help the community understand that we're not just going to try to change something and then walk away from it but that we will

[147:00] be looking at this tracking some data and coming back to it um at some distance out in the future so I just like the idea of building some of that in as well thanks Brad just to understand the scope and that so we're on the same page so that would be after a couple years of allowing construction and such thank you all right uh Steph do you feel like you have what you need on 80 use thank you we do thank you awesome thanks for that discussion okay um so I would propose um that maybe we jump to question three first because uh you know how we prioritize might um impact how we answer Boulder Junction phase two is everybody okay with going to phase to question three first I'm open to being rejected there Bob um I'm reading question three so I'm not

[148:01] sure if I understand it I wanted to um call it Korean on Tara's point on um downtown planned is it would question three um handle that or do I should I say that until question two well so um I guess I just read question two is just specific to Boulder Junction and you're saying that downtown would incorporate that or no I don't think it does I just at some point in time a question two or questions yeah I guess I think if question three is like a catch-all and we're gonna prioritize and figure out like what the order is of everything and so if we say Boulder Junction is you know not going to be done in the in the coming year I don't want us to have spent a whole lot of time talking about question two until we know where we're putting that I guess yeah so I'm not gonna talk about Boulder Junction but I do want to talk about downtown at an appropriate time whether that's now or later okay um well let's let's see if it fits in question three and we can do a catch-all discussion if if category three doesn't

[149:00] feel catch-all enough to everyone but um three is does council agree with staff's recommendations regarding prioritization of the work planning items or do we want a different sequence of projects so Bob would you like to start maybe making a pitch for the downtown sequencing well sure I'll talk about everything other than downtown I think what staff has proposed in option one is great and we just tackled adus I'll talk about that time in a second I think everything else is in option one column is just right and just fine so I support option one and staff's recommendations with respect to downtown I want to kind of build on what Kara said and what Brad said earlier there's a kind of an interesting convergence of a whole bunch of stuff that's that's happened at the same time and it's relatively uncoordinated um and and just to kind of recap some of it for those who may not know first of all downtown Boulder partnership has been working on a vision plan for probably at least a year maybe a little longer the city is funding part of that several staff members several council members have been involved in that Vision plan and that Vision plan for downtown will be approved by the

[150:00] downtown border partnership board in um in January and I hope that plan gets at least presented to council sometime next year as previously talked about um there's a public spaces group met in in Tara are working on that along with staff we have l located a minimum of 12 million dollars from the community culture safety and resilience tax towards the Civic area and Pearl Street I know Ali has taken the lead out the roads has taken the lead on that of course we have to see your conference center that's being built up in the hill um and uh we've got some mobility issues around that the CU and the Viking Community are trying to work on and that could could involve some connections to downtown as Natalie mentioned earlier tonight we have a Mobility study for downtown that's going to be undertaken there's been a lot of talk recently about a Performing Arts Center I know this is a discussion that's seems like it's going on since dinosaurs walked to the Earth but um it seems to be maybe a little bit more real this time with Korea Boulder I'm taking lead on that

[151:00] with Uli and with the dairy Arts Center and they're actually doing a lot of work on that which I think some of us are participating in later this month um and then of course we do have the um the looming vacancy of both the bamoka building which the city owns and the atrium building which the city owns both of which are landmarked so it just seems like there's a whole lot of stuff going on in that kind of South downtown 13th Street CU Conference Center area that is all happening kind of all at once and I suppose the city can either participate in that or not I'd like to see the city participate in that I I completely understand that um putting staff time towards that could um have the undesirable consequence of of nudging some of these other things down the road and I'm not suggesting that but what I'd like to suggest is perhaps Brad and his team could go back and think about this for a few weeks and maybe uh maybe at our retreat in February or something like at some point in time in the next couple of months Brad's team

[152:00] could come back and talk about what they could do for the city to to be a leader and a participant in the in what's going on in a lot of different work streams with the Civic area downtown and how this the city could be involved in that and and take a lead in it but frankly um and if if there are other um work plan uh implications to that maybe there are maybe they're not but I don't want to ask ask Brad to answer that question tonight I want to give his team a little bit of time to think about it maybe come back in January we're at the February Retreat and let us know that thanks Bob um others on ordering sequencing prioritization Lauren yeah so I appreciate what Bob just said I I do think that because if I'm understanding right the Civic area in downtown planning was sort of seemed like it might mostly fall under comprehensive planning which also

[153:01] includes Boulder Junction and area three planning Reserve and because of the alignment of a bunch of things coming up with the city for me that would be my top comprehensive planning um item again I totally leave it up to the planning department how that impacts those other two items but um just personally I would like to see that get the attention that it needs sooner rather than later so that we can help make sure the rest of the processes run forward smoothly um in terms of the other priorities I would and I mentioned this in my hotline I mean occupancy is in my mind one of the ways we can

[154:01] provide housing more housing options for people fastest um and so to me since we're in this housing crisis it's important for us to do the things that will make um change for our community quickly and you know I love that we're looking at expanding adus but we when we saw that huge bump in adus we were talking about 80 units is the maximum that they've we've ever created in one year and that has a lot to do with you know how long it takes to build and permit things in our community and that's not something that we're that is going to change quickly so trying to figure out how we best utilize um the spaces that we have is something that I think is really important

[155:01] um I know that you mentioned that the use tables are wide are have a lot of things that are really close to completion and that's really exciting here in our option one for the memolix that does say that module three is only 10 percent complete and so I guess in my mind I'm wondering if there you know does that have the same does pausing or delaying between two of the modules have sort of the same loss of efficiency um or is there an opportunity to pause at that point and um maybe switch gears a little bit and do something you know one of these things that I think that I would like to see us focus on earlier is that a question for Brad I think it

[156:00] is a question yeah is there is it can we switch um sure between modules you know I'm going to defer to Carl but my sense is it is a little bit more discreet so that may be one of the chess pieces we can talk about Pearl can you confirm that for us yeah I mean we're coming with an ordinance in December with module two so um we're anticipating that module two will be complete uh by the end of the year uh then we'd have to start module three so obviously that you know if that were to be paused or tabled or whatever um that would be a a logical place to stop the project if if Council wanted more energy to go into another facet for us to work on thank you Lauren any other prioritization or listing not at the moment

[157:01] thanks Mark and then Aaron yeah I'm also happy with the staff recommendation um in option one but I also share uh Bob's desire that there'd be some sort of organizing presence for all of the components of the Civic area and downtown refurbishment um I would hate to have these things being done by separate groups and with separate approaches or interests and I'd like to see the city take the leadership role in that and and move it along and you know we have a lot of money that we're going to be investing in that area and I'd like to be in an organizing um uh principle behind it and I think staff can do that so I I hope you will be able to find a way um to be involved thanks it's Mark Aaron the nickel yeah so I appreciate the the work y'all

[158:01] have done on the prioritization I think you've landed generally in a good spot and I appreciate that you've got a lot of balls in the air and uh I think you've done a good job in terms of trying to figure out how to bring them all to a restful conclusion a reasonable time frame I think I messed up the analogy but anyway um so just a bit of some specific comments that that I'll say um one is on the Boulder Junction phase two um I get that it's it's not timely it's not uh within script to finish the entire thing in the next year but I appreciated your concept of having a milestone in Q3 or maybe Q4 of 2023 that we could get done with this Council uh before moving to final completion you know maybe nine to 12 months later so I appreciate that I just would really urge you to to continue to shoot for that and hopefully that timetable works out because I think uh having us approve those land use changes in the planned amendments would be fantastic and then let the

[159:01] implementation take you know another however long it takes so thanks for that idea I agree with it um I'd like to Echo Lauren's point about the importance and value of occupancy reform uh and here I what I wonder is if maybe we could um take a little bit of a simpler approach I think you've you mentioned a working group to be formed in my experience working groups take a long time um and um and I don't know that that time frame that you've got there is feasible if we're starting a working group from scratch and carrying it through that whole process so I I wonder if it my proposal here what I thought here would be could we do this the way you've been doing the adus which is there wasn't any work performed here instead you all did some comparable cities analysis you looked at feedback we've gotten from the community in the past which of course we've got a lot of

[160:00] um we have gotten a lot of inoculants here in the past um and then come forward with with some options that we could consider uh through and again through our boards right so like you're talking about what they'd use uh involve our our housing and planning boards in terms of doing recommendations and and I'll I'll Echo Lawrence thought about the possibility of doing this uh relatively simply you know that Denver our nearby neighbor as the precedent of that five unrelated that they passed um was that maybe about a year ago and it was actually referended is that a verb uh unsuccessfully so it's stuck it had supported their Community obviously Denver's not I'm not saying with it same city at all but I think that's it's worth um looking at so that's just a thought we're not trying to determine exactly how we handle occupancy tonight so I probably shouldn't set something too specific because I don't want us to try to argue about exactly the best way to do it but I'll just my point being that if if you ran it through the boards and uh kind of leaned on the simpler

[161:00] side with options that could give us something to consider um maybe a little sooner more than the Q2 time frame than the Q3 time frame uh so I'll put that that out there for consideration and then I I appreciate what my colleagues have said about being involved in the downtown planning I agree that that's good uh we do have a scheduling issue here right if we're if we're gonna move that up you've got to add Hawk it's probably not super simple for us to be significantly involved in that uh but one thought I I know when we talked about this last generally majority of council wanted to keep area three planning Reserve moving forward sooner rather than later but I do believe that the the underlying impetus there was to absolutely be ready for the major update the comprehensive plan and and I I think that we had a strong consensus that we need to be ready for the major update with the planning Reserve but personally I'd say if if you could get some more downtown work done a little sooner uh if

[162:00] the planning Reserve takes a little bit longer but it's still ready in time that would be fine by me so that that's one possibility of finding some time under the couch cushions to mangle another analogy um there and I think I think that's it so again appreciate all the amazing work you're doing and looking forward to getting some progress on on all these fantastic initiatives in the next year Sarah Nicole then Tara thank you um and thanks for you know laying out our different options um fairly clearly as well it's really helpful um I think just overall so you have a sense of where I'm coming from for me um housing and finding a way to get people housed and to stay housed is stay housed in our in our city is really my main area of priority it feels like every week I am talking to workers um young folks who are being priced out of our city they are moving to other

[163:01] communities these are our workers and the people who keep a lot of our businesses going um I think I've mentioned before none of my staff live in Boulder anymore um so you know for me thinking about what's the fastest way that we are getting to more housing is really what what I'm interested in trying to move as quickly as possible on and you know to that end I see occupancy as Lauren does as kind of the fastest way to um up spaces that already exist to folks in our community you know with that I really would love to act with some urgency there we have heard a lot from the community in terms of what their areas of concern are we have a lot of folks on Council who represent different pockets of the community and I feel like we could come up with a sort of a good enough proposal just something to put forward that we could move on with you know again with the idea that this is something that is

[164:02] relatively easy to change down the road so you know if we get two years in we realize oh you know we really should have had this other thing in there too and we can change it so you know I I also um just like Lauren's idea of trying to move a little faster on this um I think this is a place where you know we will regardless of what happens we're not going to make everybody in the community happy um but this is a place where we as a body can decide how we're going to move forward and that we can take some of the heat from staff in the same way that we're doing with can with transportation we decided this was going to be an area of focus because it was a way that we could try to minimize severe accidents and there's a lot of data that show that I mean this is also a way that we can move forward with opening up some more housing opportunities to people in our community so I really like the idea of trying to move a little faster with that

[165:01] with the understanding that we on Council would really um we would own that right that that when it when and if people are complaining in the future that's that's on us right that's not um that's not staff so anyway so that's my kind of only main um area of feedback there I just we we are really in a situation where a lot of good people are leaving our community um and we need to figure out how we can get more folks to stay as quick as quick as possible thanks Nicole um Tara then Mark I do have a question for Nuria on occupancy just to refresh we're not we're not enforcing that right now are we we sort of remain in the place that we were throughout the pandemic um which is certainly if we receive information that speaks to life safety issues uh we will certainly do that but

[166:00] at the moment when we were talking about that last year uh we had frankly we didn't have staff enough to do it and we didn't have an interest and ability to move that and so we are still in that same pattern but if it involves life safety issue I just want to be clear that we certainly want to be taking a look at that um huh uh safety purposes thanks Tara then Mark um I do agree that uh course housing is the most important thing I will say though when it came to can that well nine of us agreed on prioritizing that and even adus I think we had almost total buy-in by the council for adus but when it comes to occupancy and it comes to the fact that we had a ballot the Democratic process and bedrooms lost I think we have to be really careful to make sure that we get the kind of community engagement that will not cause

[167:00] anger stress anguish because everybody doesn't feel heard now I know you can over Community engage if that's even a verb but we I feel like we have to really be careful if the if the library district does win and the next Council comes and says oh well I didn't like that outcome are we going to say I mean you have to listen to um the voters that's democracy after all so I really do think we need to have I believe that it was a staff member that said that occupancy wasn't going to be easy because of the community stress and disagreement on it whereas adus there was much more agreement on it so I don't think that we should take a shortcut when it comes to occupancy and Community engagement and I want there to be occupancy reform I just feel like we need to bring everybody with us or at least is 80 so I agree with you that it we can find something that's good enough I'm a big fan of good enough but we just have to keep in mind that

[168:00] ramifications and political scene good enough is a life-changing philosophy mark um I have one comment but but first i'm going to say I agree with with Tara's comment um elections do have consequence and they do have meaning and it is important to be respectful of the results of an election that doesn't mean you can't have occupancy reform I'm not suggesting that I'm just suggesting that it needs to be done with sufficient care and caution and respect for those who are either nervous or apprehensive uh about it and you do need to bring the community with you particularly in light of the fact that there was such an election it's we should not feel that we have full discretion to do whatever we want because that that's not respectful of the democratic process having said that doesn't mean we can't have this

[169:00] conversation and we can't have some reasonable occupancy reform but I'm a little concerned about taking shortcuts on the process my other comment is with respect to the planning Reserve scheduled for Quarter Two in 2024. there's a great deal of consultant work to be done on that as I understood the memo and my question is can we not engage the Consultants a little early and then give them a scope and say go off and um and do your consultant work um I'm not quite sure why it all has to proceed uh in one uh in one manner as opposed to engaging the consultants and letting them prepare the way if I may I think we can answer that quickly and Christopher if you could chime in um I believe that is true we wanted to represent the overall project and of

[170:00] course the column that we're looking at with option one is a completion date um that that bait run pretty and I'm going to put you on the spot Christopher if you could confirm that conversation you and I had yeah that's right so that quarter to 2024 is anticipated completion of that of that work so we would um at least at this point would be prepared to move forward um with that study next year um and come back to council uh in sort of late quarter one early Quarter Two with the preliminary scope of work uh those items to get that get that ball rolling and get those Consultants engaged but you're you are correct that that the the overall consult scope would be significant for that project I think the question is if we just cut loose the consultant piece of it does that really impact our overall uh work capacity and and could we do that put it on a shelf and then pick up area three

[171:00] fairly later down the road Christopher well that is a bit of a more challenging question um only you know only because we really have not opportunity to really scope that out and understand exactly what those consultant needs are going to be um and and to really frame that out you know the project as we have at least initially thought about it regardless of the timeline that it's on it will involve and engage a number of Consultants to do those technical studies uh you know it's going to take us a little even if we started tomorrow it it you know it's a two to three month process to get a consultant on board just to get through the procurement process and that sort of thing so you know we certainly would be interested in bringing those Consultants on board as quickly as we can but not until we kind of wrap our hands around exactly what the scope of that project is uh

[172:00] you know the question we're really trying to answer it's difficult for me to say exactly Christopher your answer is persuasive and substantive thank you very much Aaron then Nicole then I'll go yeah I just uh wanted to uh for a couple of my colleagues you mentioned uh respecting the will of the voters just want to be clear that nobody's saying we should redo bedrooms and just pass it despite the fact that it lost so I just want to make that clear that we're all keeping that in mind uh but as as you also referred to we can look into occupancy reform without trying to redo bedrooms so keep we'll keep that balance in mind carefully just to make that clear nobody's trying to override the world with orders thanks is there a nickel yeah I just um kind of had a similar follow-up and I was just going to ask that you know as we're talking about things that have happened in the past that we'd be really specific with our

[173:00] data points that we're using um so you know for example um the bedroom's measure was not a ballot measure on whether or not people wanted occupancy reform right I mean we know that because we we as a council made it a council priority it was really um it wasn't asking do you want occupancy reform it was asking do you want it in this specific way and you know I'm sure you all especially you know Mark Tara who are also campaigning um Lauren last year heard a lot of people say I love this idea of occupancy reform yes yes we need this in our community and I'm a little concerned that we're going to get you know these really big dormitories and things if if we do it in this specific way so just asking that as we move forward we're really clear in what it is because otherwise you know I think we we do enter a place where you know Aaron was just noting where you know we don't we don't want people to start thinking that we're trying to overthrow the will of Voters that's not what we're doing here so

[174:01] um so I think being being specific can can really help and um just you know really liked Lauren's idea of engaging some of the key groups that we don't often hear with um hear from open up a you know survey that allows a lot of people across the city to chime in um on our ideas and and kind of go from there thanks Nicole um so I think I maybe break a little bit from my colleagues here I don't totally agree with the sequencing um I would I would prioritize adu's occupancy reform and then what I'm going to say Zoning for affordable housing but what I'd really like to see is the missing middle that we discussed two weeks ago prioritized under there um that's why I was asking some pointer questions um about the large Lots I would I would really like to see this Council move forward with um some duplexing by right and I think that's an easy place to start because we were already there like we

[175:00] were at the point of voting on in these couple zones we could do um duplex or Triplex by right and it's just a a subset of of housing that's already on large lots that makes I think a lot more sense to do um you know to to juny's earlier Point um duplexing you know a side-by-side attached rather than a an Adu in the backyard where it maybe makes a little bit less sense so I would I would really like for us to at least get that moving forward while we work through some you know the the larger duplexing questions for the city but we could you know at least have some places where it makes so much sense to be moving forward um there was there was so much engagement on that um and and again it got to the finish line and then like the ball dropped so um I I would I definitely support Lauren's idea of um sort of shelving mod 3 of is it use tables I think you're stable so I would would

[176:00] shelve that and make room to make sure that we um get at their everything in the first two quarters of this coming year occupancy and adus should be across the finish line and then I would like to see the the um you know affordable housing is is completed you know zoning in in Q2 Q3 I'm a little bit worried about what all that that encompasses and and want to make sure that it is what what we would want it to be um and then I'm I think Aaron maybe mentioned like we can maybe soften area three like we we need it several years from now but it doesn't have to be a top thing right now and then um Boulder Junction phase two I would I would probably de-prioritize it's already not till Q2 24 but I would like to see these other things for sure getting finished in the coming year um before there's a council change um so I would just like the the order the priorities I would want to see it I know that it's maybe not exactly in line

[177:00] with this but I just want to make sure that some of the things that that are discrete sort of surgical to use a term that Brad used earlier um changes are are done and not scheduled for Q3 in a way that can you know if if something pops up like my whole tenure uncut on uncounseled a surprising number of things have have popped up we had covid we've had all these Community tragedies things get moved back so I would like to see um a different prioritization of a couple things that I think are very important to um the sort of this housing focused Council bumped up to the first two quarters so that we know that even with some slippage they're getting done um Lauren and then Brad thanks Rachel I just I cut I wanted to Echo a lot of what you said you know

[178:01] that really aligns you know adu's occupancy reform and Zoning affordability you know those are also my top three priorities and what I care most about seeing you know having us move forward on I do want to be respectful of what staff is working on and has in the works um but yeah if if all other things being equal absolutely those will be my top three um and I agree with Rachel that within zoning a for affordable housing I don't know that in my mind the staff memo didn't necessarily capture exactly what I want to see us move forward with there and I think that we should look at scoping that in detail

[179:01] which I'm sure we will at some point but um just keeping in mind that maybe we do a similar thing with having a section of things that are easy to to move forward with and then maybe having another section of things that we're looking at but um not that are on hold thanks for that Lauren and I think that this was was uh your work treat prayer work your retreat work priority this is the so um I'd be very curious to hear more about what what you what you envisioned on that list um but first over to Brad well uh thank you mayor Tim friend I was going to offer up uh the possibility possibility to be going through this list item by item and reflecting what I I think I'm hearing for most of you as a way to kind of

[180:00] capture the pro and cons that I've heard it sounds very workable um I would want to maybe go through that list and then if we were sitting down a table I would ask a staff to kick me under the table if they disagree so since we don't have a table I'll ask them to agree with how I characterize the possibility and and ask them to be very honest again like I mentioned at the beginning this whole study session about the balancing of that and then of course get feedback from Council but um with your permission that I'd be happy to take a stamp at that but we're at a future date right now I I invite take a snap I'll kick you under a virtual table very good um I'm hearing that from most of you uh on adus uh you would like to support the staff recommendation which gets us

[181:00] towards completion in quarter two of next year I'm hearing for most of you that on Boulder Junction phase two you recognize that there's momentum towards that especially the incremental piece that we uh identified as an interim step um by by the end of the summer but maybe we can pull little capacity off of that to look at the Civic area and I'll talk about that maybe under the site uh uh review criteria I'm hearing uh following staff's recommendation and just getting that across the finish line on the use tables I'm hearing uh yep go ahead and get module 2 off across the finish line but let's put module three on hold for let's call it a year and take that capacity for some other things on occupancy reform I'm hearing that

[182:02] um we should and here there's maybe the the greatest mixture of kind of opinions but more or less followed the staff recommendation but be cognizant of the um engagement and maybe reaction to the level of Engagement if it states within scope still being able to get that through at um I would call it early quarter three for zoning uh for affordable housing I'm here again hearing again a most of you saying that you support the staff recommendation but maybe we can take a little side step to see how viable the large lot ordinance is as kind of an early hit and when if that if that is viable otherwise coming back to you with uh either way coming back to you with the revised let's go relative to that or the original scope

[183:01] that is being presented as part of this and variations I'm caring for most of you on area three that we could put that on a hold and take that capacity to some of these other areas um as a practical matter I think an entire year and then revisit it and then on the Civic Center in downtown um use at least enough capacity to kind of develop the scope uh work with the city manager's office and have a comprehensive vision for that uh also in partnership with the other departments and such give that a full scope now is the time I'd asked Charles and KJ to react to what I just said yeah that was a fine summary Brent yeah you did great yeah comfortable with the kind of trade-offs that I discussed

[184:01] okay thank you yes um thanks for that Brad I I I'm gonna kick into the table a little bit but first i'm gonna go to Lauren and then Nicole see if they have any kicks too just a little one um so I think that what was outlined in the memo sort of around zoning and affordable housing including looking at um open space requirements and things and you know things like that um along with I think it also spoke to the inclusionary housing fees a little bit I also did want to see us look at sort of density bonuses and streamline approval processes for projects that have high levels of affordability and to me I feel like you know that kind of section of things that I brought up

[185:02] um when we were doing arter inclusionary housing discussion really probably best fit within that um a work plan item and was part of what I intended when we discussed this at The Retreat um so yeah I just I think and I've outlined sort of a lot of in more detail in my memo what I was hoping for but um I do think that that is I would like to see that be bigger than what it's currently being outlined at thanks thanks Lauren Nicole yeah and I just wanted to clarify my my views on the Civic area downtown um I I'm really not as interested in

[186:00] taking capacity to use it for that right now um I I would really like to see us move forward faster instead and use whatever capacity we have for something that is more housing focused um it it we can I'm going to make a really bad pun of just being a little Bolder right being willing to um you know make make some decisions and just kind of move forward based on the knowledge that we have as elected officials as representatives of our community um I think you know for for me and I keep echoing this about occupancy reform that that really feels like one to me where we have a lot of knowledge about what our community will and will not tolerate and just thinking about how we can um use extra capacity that we might might put into say Civic area or downtown to use that instead for um you know if if we were old enough to

[187:02] kind of give you some some clear specific guidance on what we might be looking for to get some feedback on and move forward with you know does that feel like something that could be moved up a little bit so that rather than looking at for example um early uh early quarter or three we can maybe look at really Quarter Two start just to process thing and set the recording stuff that's troublesome do we know what's going on there so we want to make sure and record it again just asking the team in the background if there are issues with the recording we need to know thanks we're back right sorry I didn't get cold during the Finish yeah no it's okay just just sort of to to summarize

[188:00] um I'm less interested in um putting extra capacity into the Civic area downtown right now um I really would like to put it into things that are going to um help with our housing crisis a little bit more thanks Nicole I will um and I'm sorry to have my camera off it just keeps freezing when I turn it on so I'm Gonna Keep It Off sorry I'll do a couple straw polls maybe Nicole here to see where people align because that was my kicks under the table Brad would have been I'm not I'm not sure I heard the same like majority will articulated yet on a couple of these things so I'm not sure I heard from everybody that we want um Boulder Junction to stay at the top or site review to get across the finish line occupancy I think I heard strong um request for that to maybe bump up to quarter one or two so right now it's it's quarter two to three so I just want to check in with people on that um for zoning I think Lauren already spoke to that but um I think that maybe we want a scope on

[189:03] on what's included in that pretty quickly so that we like it's hard to say where that falls in the Matrix or the prioritization if we're not clear on what's falling within it or maybe what's without outside of it and so you know are we capturing everything that we wanted in that thing and then um I agree I thought that uh area three was maybe demoted a little bit so if people are okay before we move on to question two I'll get you in a second here and maybe we could do a couple straw polls just to see if where people want things um Aaron yeah things uh which I think a couple struggles are a great idea I just to talking about the Boulder Junction base to just one thing that you said before as you mentioned it's not going to get dental 2024 anyway just to reiterate that there is a real substantial Milestone plan for you know quarter three or four 2023 of finish like adopting the plane revisions and

[190:00] adopting the land use map changes and if we delay that effort those won't get done with this Council and those would be significant steps in the in this project so I just want to make that clear in terms of trade-offs great great reminder um I it was mostly just I I didn't feel that we had adequately checked in on that one um it's it's listed as Q2 2024 in the um completion I agree there's a thing and that is a whole separate question too so that one I just think we haven't talked about too much here okay so maybe let's uh do a show of hands and somebody just you know kicked me under the table raise a hand if if you don't like any of these straw polls but does everyone agree um or is there a majority support for area three kind of getting pushed down or demoted or delayed if we needed to can I see if people are okay with that happening I just say Brad raised his handwritis oh Brad sorry are you voting with us there yeah I

[191:02] I could offer offer to that point or offer it now um maybe just let me just uh get through the area three just because I'd already you know my own hand was up so I just want to make sure it was that was Brad's understanding of that one accurate that we're comfortable with sort of slowing that down a little bit to get to some other things first I see Lauren Aaron me no but Nicole so no Mark Mark's got it Mark's got a virtual hand up which is confusing to me right now is that is that a raised hand or is that a question so I think that's five then for area three kind of slowing down yeah no dang question mark Wallach um if we're going to be housing focused it's a comment I would want to point out that area three planning Reserve is ultimately intended to be a source of housing

[192:01] and you know keep pushing it back and back you will not find very much greater opportunity for affordable or middle-income housing than um land a good portion of which we own and so to continue to kick that one down the road um makes not as much sense to me and my other comments with respect to the Civic area I like to think that we can um uh chew gum and walk at the same time we have eight priorities here um six are dedicated to housing including Boulder Junction um seven if you want to characterize area three in that respect and so kicking the you know not spending planning resources on the Civic area and downtown makes little sense to me we cannot be only about housing even though

[193:01] it is the highest priority but most of our priorities here deal with housing I think we ought to have the opportunity to spend some resources on the Civic area and downtown as well because I think it's important for our tourist industry it's important for our community it's important for our businesses and I like to think we can do two things area three then Aaron then Nicole I feel like me and Mark we're like a choir because we've been saying the same thing since we started here on Council back in 2019 and we're almost in 2023 um I just think if we keep delaying and delaying it's just gonna take years and years and all we're doing in area three my understanding from the last time it's just a study even though I know or who because we're a council that is focused on housing and affordable housing

[194:00] um but that's not essentially what's going to happen it's a study at first so I just don't understand why we keep pushing it if we push pause it and when is it going to happen and my understanding even if we were to decide to do housing in that area it's gonna take a long time so the more we push this out as Mark mentioned the less likely we are to know what we can do with the area and with the hope of eventually creating more housing I just don't think that is the right thing to do I would support keeping it where it is so that we can hopefully get there because pausing it is not helpful I don't think so and we've been advocating for this since 20 2019 or since a retreat of 2020 and here we are almost three years later and we keep pausing and pausing so I just yeah I don't agree with that I would appreciate if Council just keep moving forward uh with eventually

[195:01] um getting that study done thank you Jenny Aaron Nicole Tara and Jesus folks I think that's me um so what just to clarify I mean I think the the discussion on area three was not not to delay the eventual conclusion of that project but we can't we can't start the next phase after this one until the 2025 major update for the comprehensive plan and so it was just saying well we could we could pause for a little while so long as we still get it done in time for the 2025 comprehensive plan just to be clear it's just uh but if the majority doesn't want to do it that's fine I just wanted to be clear it's not about trying to keep it from happening but just we can't get to the next phase until 2025 anyway thanks for that Aaron aaronston um it doesn't mean that we're not going to do it there's just a

[196:01] discreet point when it needs to be done by and we're just saying rather than do it out here Brad there's still time right we can still that's correct okay thank you that was my understanding too Tara um I don't know if Allie Rhodes is on the line but she Parks does have a lot to do with area three so can we ask her if she has anything to add since she'll have a lot to do with area three or is that inappropriate Brad I think we can I know she's listening I don't know if she's immediately on or available Kelly Rhodes show yourself I I will mention that Parks is certainly a very important part of that uh especially the geography and the acreage but it does fit into a larger package of all the infrastructure look at and those types of things uh looks like she's going to be able to join just here in a couple of seconds

[197:01] I was just going to say I want to be mindful because I don't it is not always expected that staff be around but she has been tagged if you're in your pajamas alley we are not here to judge and keep your camera off if that's comfortable I think or or maybe we can move on while we're waiting and Ally um if you if you raise your hand if you get here and would like to speak that's fine is that okay with you Tiara oh there she is don't you mad at me Allie I we're fighting uh I have real clothes on still at least you can see my sweater while we're waiting in Ellie and if you if you raise your hand if you get here and would like to speak that's fine better oh sorry I'm having a delay because I'm saying that right now we're fighting uh I I have sorry I was watching it online and I didn't stop that that was weird it was very good

[198:02] uh sorry about that when I'm not participating I watch online because I'm always afraid I'm gonna like I don't know anyway um area three I'm Ali Rhodes folks I'm the director of Parks and Recreation here's what we know because we talked about area three and the recently accepted and city council approved Boulder parks and recreation master plan area three was always purchased the the 187 Acres that are designated this Parkland was designated to meet future needs of the community based on current analysis we don't need that for the next 10 years or maybe even further and we do have property within the city that we would love to develop Violet park is in our most immediate plans but Valmont city park is certainly going to be needed and would be our priority before anything in area three did that answer your question against us doing uh going forward with our study or are you good with that or I don't get to decide that I don't have

[199:01] any concerns at all uh you know the Baseline Urban Services study I understand the value of it I I don't have concerns if you ask specifically around Park priorities it won't inform our development in the next 10 years unless you should determine to move forward with housing development and then of course there would be appropriate Parkland Associated that because of the requirements of Base you know area one city levels of service get with that Tara okay it seemed like a lot of hands and and now not so that was a that was a losing straw poll I think though but let me just if I could just count those hands again because I got confused because then there were virtual hands going up so our a show of hands for anyone who was comfortable with area three being sort of scooched back but still done in the right time frame for 2025. I see Terra me Lauren Nicole Aaron so that is five now okay so that that's gonna gonna free

[200:03] up some staff time as needed it looks like agreeing with you there Brad um freeing up staff time can we let Miss Rhodes go I think so it's up to you Allie um let's see uh I think that just the only sounds like just Boulder Junction maybe I was just unclear and that we hadn't talked about it is there um just want to make sure that people are comfortable um as Brad said and Aaron has indicated with Boulder Junction staying on track at least for the first Milestone thing I we just didn't have a lot of comments on that so I didn't want to not touch base on it so show of hands people good with that staying I see Lauren me Tara Nicole's scooching in her chair I can't tell if they're is really only

[201:01] we got a Nicole so I think it's Lauren Aaron me Tara Nicole did everybody say did you repeat that question one more time please I got Brad had indicated that Boulder Junction um would uh keep towards the top of the list and we Lauren and I had indicated like we had a different top three but then um there's a a milestone coming up that Aaron indicated we want to get through and so just wanted to kind of get a show of hands are we comfortable is Brad's recap accurate there Nicole yeah and I just wanted to clarify on this this is relating back to the discussion that we had back in September right and that kind of direction that we I think so focused on at that point and it's basically just to kind of stay going in that direction is that am I understanding that right okay then yes and when we still have question two to get to so Nicole's I think there were five they call me Lauren are voting yes do we vote for what Brad wants because that's what I want that was what Brad wanted

[202:00] and you voted yes for okay so good I just wanted to clarify that one um I think I'm a little bit confused on the occupancy Brad is it possible to get that within quarter one or two because I thought I heard people saying that but then your recap was kind of still quarter three so I wanted to clarify council's intention there yeah so um you know if we haven't gotten to the use table yet if there's agreement about the module 3 being put unfold that gets us a little capacity um I'm hesitant to suggest that that's quarter one or even two because there are some unknowns about that what uh we definitely would be doing with that is coming to you um you know with the study session late quarter one quarter two and if it is able to stay in the scope that some of you envision then I would say we would we would still be able to commit to that quarter three uh but there were differing opinions about what the scope either could be or should be or what the

[203:02] amount of Engagement uh would be necessary or would just be imposed from the public so that that that um has some variability to it I don't know if that eliminated anything as I explained as I attempt it okay um so quarter one or two would be ambitious so we should keep it quarter two and three while we work through what the engagement is so yeah be honest in the assessment of everything any concerns from Council for that instead of a straw poll Nicole yeah I'm just I think I'm just still a little um not understanding kind of what the proposed engagement is and what kind of consensus is Among Us for what that might be so I you know I think Lauren in our hotline post to kind of proposed

[204:01] um you know us kind of taking our best knowledge that we have from the many many many conversations we've had around this coming up with a proposal offering that to some of the um maybe some key focus groups of constituencies that we don't feel like we've heard from as much or that we are not representing and then moving forward from there and I I think I'm just still a little bit unclear on what the what the alternative is that's being considered got a question for Brad possibly Brad I don't I think it's it's really just a question of you know is is there a place for a faster engagement process um if council is willing to be to take our knowledge that we have to be specifically yes

[205:00] um I I have been told others have asserted some among you that if Council took a very surgical to use that term again um uh gave very surgical Direction on what that policy were to be and to your point um acknowledge or recognized as staff I think we would naturally want to um bring to your awareness that there will be a lot of public input and reaction to you know a fairly specific directional approach from Council on that but if that were to be the case you know if counsel said uh we think the number should be X that's really the main thing go ahead and move forward with that uh that that could be a very you know potentially be the quicker scenario even in that scenario I would say still late quarter to beginning of quarter three

[206:02] they're just a lot of variables around thanks Brad I saw Aaron but then his hand disappeared did we lose Aaron um what's that the hand disappeared please call Lauren Lauren um it kind of seems like we're trying to you know make a fair Brad we've been asking you about sort of if we took this or like readjusted things it sort of feels like between all of the things that we've proposed around potential you know like taking a little bit of scope off out of use tables and standards and um sort of being more specific about what we're asking for engagement on with occupancy and

[207:00] what that engagement looks like you're still saying quarter two and quarter three which is the same um and and I I guess I would wonder is there when you come forward with this um scope and engagement could you try and have a proposal for what a quarter one quarter two program might look like that we could weigh against a quarter two quarter three program four this item yeah I I appreciate the observation and questioned uh councilmember full Kurtz if I can restate what I think you're asking is we're doing a little shifting here and talking about things with using tables getting rid of module three for a while that builds up some capacity um where is that capacity going on the

[208:00] policy side of things um and could that be an occupancy um my answer which maybe was lost in that is yes um there are some caveats though again about kind of the expanded sense that I'm hearing from some but not from others uh but yes that would that extra capacity from moving module three would definitely put us into space unoccupancy to prioritize that um maybe I could ask Charles and Carl to kind of weigh in and see if the way I've framed that makes sense or they've got some Nuance on that I'll certainly defer to Carl ultimately but that makes a lot of sense Brad I think that tracks with um what our understanding is I agree I think what I'm I'm uh thank you gentlemen I appreciate that and um what I'm trying to do um councilor falkerts in in explaining that is just talking to the uh ambiguities that that we want to make

[209:01] sure Council understands around occupancy as opposed to say the site review and use which are more prescribed I can offer up some thoughts too on the Zoning for affordable housing when we get to that point okay thank you Brad thank you thanks Brad thanks Lauren Aaron the hands back up the hand is back um so that that was helpful Brad and long for that clarification so rich I wonder maybe if this this drop next drop hole might become not to take our facilitation but to do we agree to delay the module three of the use tables to free up some capacity to get occupancy moved up a bit that's exactly what I was going to do so let's see a show of hands um are we comfortable uh delaying module 3 of use tables to prioritize some other things happening quicker I see Aaron me that it Nicole

[210:02] I think Lauren's disappeared Junior Lauren's up that's four June oh is that a question Juni where's that idea no it's it's not a yes okay I'm just a bit confused or maybe things are just not going the way I hope things would go because it seems like we're delaying a lot actually it seems like we're closer to option three looking at the at the Matrix summary and we're just delaying almost everything so I think we're we're just shuffling so it's not delaying some things are going to get sped up and some things are getting it's more like council's weighing in on a proposed order from staff and and deciding whether to

[211:00] Shuffle so like does occupancy get moved up and then module three move down is sort of the the question I think things like that I'm taking that as not a yes vote which would make it a four to four yeah it's a no thank you so much okay uh so I I think that module three will proceed and then if I heard Brad correctly occupancy stays back at q23 as a result of that yeah that would be the consequence of that um very solidly in Q3 at this point I would say Okay um and just maybe a procedural question um given that Matt Benjamin's not here is that something that we could you know revisit with additional council members or is this this like a one and done and maybe that's to Teresa I I think

[212:02] that yes I think that is a question for me um so if you're I'm not exactly sure what you're asking if you're asking could you bring this back at another meeting where council member Benjamin is here certainly if that's the will of council you could do that um you know typically uh to receive Council direction we would we would look to the members of council who are here now um you know particularly with something that is not quite a vote but it walks and quacks like a boat and I don't remember if he weighed in on that on his hotline or if it was it would be I don't either something that we can take into account so if anybody knows that um okay uh junie's got an old hand Brad oh I I completely agree with Teresa I would point out what's a little bit unique about this coming back for a vote uh really kind of entails coming back to all of them or

[213:01] many of many of the things because we're talking about the interconnectivity in SMS so it's a little more complicated than it's this sort of discrete issue that we'd be asking him to weigh in at some later point but of course we can we can do that however Council wishes but we may walk away fairly inclusive tonight without without them okay Tara mean one to two versus two to three I mean in the world of government is what is like the next quarter that much of a big deal it seems like Brad really wants us to wait till quarter three I'm just saying okay well and to be clear it's not the waiting as much as that's the completion because first we'd come to you and see for occupancy for example what is it that you'd like us to do right so that would actually give us the scope or not and then depending on that scope we could get it done quicker or not so that's part of up to you is as we think about it so I just I want to make sure

[214:00] that and I know Brad you've said this a couple times that list on the on the thing is when it could be completed not perhaps when it would start so I want to be clear about them Nicole well I'm not done wait hold on sorry I'm just saying that first we said yes let's listen to staff and now we're basically not listening to staff so I'm just throwing that out there that it was a perfectly decent option one but well I guess I I didn't hear the majority say that they agreed with the staff timeline so that's why we're going through these kind of um so Nicole and then Aaron yeah I mean just just to that question of you know what what difference does um a quarter make um and Brad I you know I mentioned this to you as well and you know maybe if you just want to have a chance to respond to everybody on cancel but you know for me that's that's the difference of when Lisa's are signed right so I mean if we're talking about earlier in you know Quarter Two um that's time for folks to make

[215:02] adjustments um to you know kind of Legally live with their you know chosen people um and I don't you know if if we're waiting until quarter three then that's that's sort of pushing that off right functionally a year or so um so that's that's that's for me where some of this urgency comes from is just knowing knowing how early folks start signing leases for the fall and I'm not talking just about students um either so just folks in our community appreciate that Nicole Aaron and then um hopefully move a bit on yeah and I just uh I'd say we probably this has been a complex discussion so we probably don't want to try to revisit it at another meeting um but uh I did check on Matt's hotline he was interested in accelerating occupancy but he certainly didn't weigh in on should we delay module three of the use tables in order to get some capacity to work on occupancy the thing

[216:00] that I might suggest on on that in terms of because there's some interest in tackling this is you know perhaps you know Brad we can get that study session where we start talking about occupancy sooner rather than later and then if Council might give direction that is more kind of concise to nuria's point we might give direction do something simpler or something more complicated and then that that could have a big influence on how quickly it gets it done so to folks who want to make it happen a little quicker you might want to be sharpening myself include sharpening our pencils to think about a simpler approach rather than a more complex forming potentially but Brad so do you think so is it possible to get a study session on it sooner rather than later um I think these plans um particularly around uh occupancy reform and did contemplate a study session in the first quarter but I'm going to have to refresh my memory at that regard

[217:04] yeah that was in the timeline to come back at the end of quarter one uh with a study session to talk about occupancy and Zoning for affordable housing we did want to have enough time to complete the analysis of the peer communities and come up with options I think if we were to put it at the beginning of quarter one that analysis would would not be as complete yeah and this thank you Carl Charles did you have anything to add no I agree um this might be a good point for me to also say there's a lot more art than science here and I'm trying to be careful that we don't try to act as if these timelines are are something that we can be absolutely precise on uh the site review use table pretty pretty clear on occupancy and Zoning less clear and while those

[218:01] completion dates are shown um against some of the complexity is just hard to anticipate we might find ourselves doing the work sessions uh that we that we indicate we can do fairly early in the year but any change in scope and such or even circumstances could change that fairly significantly not to revisit the module three but just that that was kind of the point and if that were put on hold it maybe gives a little more you know we go room to deal with those uncertainties but um that was kind of the logic in parsing some of this thanks Brad so I think maybe the only thing left on my list was um just Lauren's question about the scope for affordable zoning stuff just and Brad he would come back to us with that just make sure everybody's comfortable with whatever that timeline is yeah so when we um indicated in the

[219:02] in the memo of the uh recommendation option one completion of quarter one quarter three for zoning that was with the very just as a reminder from our presentation that was with the very specific items that were identified in um the The Retreat earlier of the year um we put as as I we just talked about I could see we would we would plan to come forward with the work session um in the early part of the year for Zoning for affordable housing and if in that discussion there was a decision to add more of these types of things that that many of you are asking and and suggesting are important to include in that we would just want to make clear at this stage that that would then push that completion time out but there absolutely would be every opportunity to talk about including the list of items from Lauren's hotline and

[220:00] some of the other items discussed today so could we maybe ask for that to be in January just so that we have enough time to evaluate and prioritize within that list and move forward yeah I'm going to have to check with Charles and Carl how much prep time was anticipated for that works session I mean as we've stated in this this discussion my workload these days is very much heavy on development review so um we're having a new staff member start next week who will start to strip some of that away but there are there are some things I am committed to that would be difficult uh to give up so having a a complete packet with all the information that Council would expect for early January we could certainly do it but it just would not have the level of quality and Analysis that Council typically expects so I think that's why

[221:01] we were kind of letting that process of work strip away from development review to another case review or may be able to then take these projects on do the the necessary groundwork to give as much good information as we can to council to make a good decision yeah that's why we recommend it later in quarter one that that was our Hope was either late quarter one or early Quarter Two we still have a little bit of onboarding to do with um new staff uh next week and then staff that's just started is still uh up and running and we're still tying up loose ends on the site review code changes and the module two of use tables that we're trying to bring forward by the end of the year here so there's a bit of a hustle that would prevent us from really getting a jump on what happens after the holidays right in January so thank you gentlemen just to jump in and kind of capitalize that too and agree with what they said

[222:01] um there was earlier some thought about capacity when we were talking about Boulder Junction and some of those just to clarify we don't have the the means ability to move some of the staff that are doing in comprehensive planning to move over into these policy because the time it would take them to get up to speed with these issues would would benefit the overall time frame so I just want to clarify that thanks for that so like on The Matrix that we're looking at where it says Zoning for affordable housing completion Q2 or three doesn't that mean that we would be voting on it in Q2 or Q3 those those zoning changes because if we're not going to see good even what we might want until the end of like end of q1 is ambitious and probably not Q2 it seems hard to again I'm just trying to play out a timeline of we got one year left with his Council it seems like we wouldn't possibly get to that under this Matrix realistically only if it were that very narrow scope that was

[223:01] defined by Council The Retreat that's the Assumption behind that um but you are correct if the scope if if when we came at the end of q1 Q2 with the study session if the scope were expanded Beyond um the the retreat level then you're right we would be pushing out Beyond Q3 and the Q4 or 2024. buying some trade-offs and again I don't mean to revisit the module 3 thing but that that was probably the easiest thing to buy us a little more capacity okay uh maybe we'll all sleep on that and and think of of what what um how we maybe can Shuffle when we get to the occupancy look or something um okay any other questions on question three and then we'll do a quick touch I think question two is probably almost self-explanatory at this point but anything else on this question

[224:01] okay question two does council have further comments on the proposed scope of work public engagement plan and schedule for Boulder Junction phase two any hands no feedback on this one going once twice sold red you got what you need there thanks yeah thank you all right and do you have any questions from staff on on any of the three questions that we've answered I I feel like I do um clear as mud I I think I think where things landed if I can summarize is looking at the chart here uh delaying the area three Reserve to buy capacity on the comprehensive planning side of things um

[225:00] and then everything else more or less thing like the option one recommendations but with the clear recognition that the occupancy and Zoning for affordable housing Scopes will be discussed as part of those work sessions earlier is that a correct summary of things any objections Tara that didn't sound like an objection okay um let us move on then to item three thank you thanks so much Brad and all the staff and everyone's patience for that um Nuria sure uh thanks so much and I appreciate the previous conversation as well I know it is hard there's so many things we want to do and I think we got what we needed here where uh Council would like

[226:00] us to try to get to and please know that we will as always try to be as responsive as we can within the work that is coming to fruition um and ending soon but you've asked me to talk a little bit about elections today and um want to just make note that though the the results yet are not certified unless I've somehow missed something while I've been in Council but the update as we know it and sort of our expected next steps on the ballot items is as follows uh and I'll start with 2A and 2B the climate text issue so Boulder voters have approved two measures two a and 2B that will support climate action in the community the climate tax itself is coming into effect would go into effect on January 1st 2023 and will replace the existence the existing climate action plan or cap tax and utility occupation taxes or uot the changes will appear on future Excel Energy utility bills for Bolder customers in the short term the city and Excel

[227:01] Energy is working together to help energy customers understand those changes to their 2023 natural gas and electricity bills so we want to make sure that kind of everyone knows that some changes are coming and so we'll continue to communicate about that City staff is going to begin rolling out an engagement process to better understand the needs and desires of community in this regard the conversations with community members will help guide how existing tax dollars are invested as well as large-scale Investments that could be made locally and in addition to providing critical funding for Boulder's climate work we uh the uh measure that was just approved 1.5 million of the collected revenues is going to be used each year to accelerate Wildfire resilience measures we've already established a cross-departmental team to identify and prioritize enhance actions that the city will be able to implement beginning in 2023 with increased Wildland Wildfire resiliency funding and actually we expect to have a conversation with Council in the early part of the next

[228:01] year as well on even year elections which is a ballot item 2E voters appear to have approved moving City elections to even years the next step for that will be to modify our materials and processes to support this transition in 2023 and 2025 for three-year terms as the ballot item specified and then I just note that ballot 2D on City Charter clarifications regarding candidate issues has also passed uh on 2f and CU South annexation and just want to say we recognize that our community appears to favor maintaining that annexation agreement once the vote count is final we're eager to continue work on South Boulder Creek flood mitigation and commit to prioritizing life and safety issues while keeping in mind the Beauty and the value in this area we will be working closely with CU throughout the process to ensure the terms of the annexation agreement are upheld as we move forward we remain committed to providing transparent and accurate

[229:01] information to our community we're aware that there are strong and diverse views about the annexation and we're committed to working on behalf of the whole Community as we take next steps regarding the flood mitigation it's a multi-year process and we are eager to increase protections for this vulnerable part of our community as soon as possible the design team is currently working at 60 percent design phase of the project and I'm sure we'll be coming to council and keeping your prizes that moves forward uh the lastly I'll say that on item 60 the library districts this continues to be a very close race uh close vote I should say and we'll be waiting the final results but it appears that the district will be approved the city is committed to making this transition as smooth as possible the immediate next steps will be to have Council amend the appropriation ordinance for reduction of the city's current 0.333 mil Levy for the current dedication to the library as we previously discussed we'll also begin the process for the

[230:01] city and the county to appoint the initial board of directors which requires two members of council to serve on a committee with two County Commissioners these scheduling requests will come to CAC on Monday after the appointment and ratification of the initial Board of Trustees the city will begin IGA negotiations with the district to finalize transition details the City ballot item 2C repealing the library items in the city Charter are also passed which will support a smoother transition as we move forward and I'll just say that during this entire time and during this entire time of transition the city will continue to provide Library Services as a city department and we are excited to break ground on the new North Boulder Branch library in the very near future so hopefully that addresses some air questions about what's next yes thank you so much I just wanted to make sure that um the community had a sense of where we were after um some some important and also some

[231:02] contentious votes so thank you for bringing us up to speed on that appreciate that and apologize for the mouthful um are there any other questions for this evening otherwise I believe I'll wait for a show of hands anybody have questions debrief um if I could just I just wanted to thank planning staff for sticking with us and just doing a phenomenal job on answering our questions and looking forward to getting stuff done next year together Yahoo that's a hard conversation because there's so much and we're all so passionate so I agree thanks for saying that Aaron thanks everyone and I'll be out next week so have fun bye thanks Rachel

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