February 9, 2023 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[6:07] [Music] good evening everyone and welcome to the February 9th 2023 meeting of the Boulder City Council this is the disembodied voice of Aaron Brockett here um so kind of odd circumstance I'll explain as we get started I'm in Washington DC with the Northwest mayor and Commissioners Coalition advocating for additional Transportation multimetal Transit funding for our region and the hotel that I'm staying in has a quite poor internet when I attempted to watch some Netflix last night and spent more time buffering than streaming so rather than have me bump in and out while attempting to lead the meeting I'm going to hand over the reins to Mayor Pro tem Mark Wallach here so I will attend um with my video off and chime in with my voice as necessary but I will let Mark run the meeting so with that Mark I'll turn it over to you for the roll

[7:00] call and get us started thank you mayor it's a big step down but uh we'll have to endure it um uh I think the first order of business is a roll call is it not that is correct sir okay thank you we will start our roll call tonight as always with councilmember Benjamin present mayor Brockett present if invisible councilmember falkerts present friend here Joseph here here here thank you Mia spear here mayor Pro tem Wallach present councilmember weiner present and Yates here mayor Pro tem we have our Quorum excellent I believe the first topic of

[8:02] business today um is housing our community conversation with Boulder housing partners and HHS and I will turn that over uh to our city manager for further uh presentation thank you so much mayor Pro tem uh tonight we're going to be hearing from one of our great Partners in community our Boulder housing partners and to kick us off I will ask director Fern Haber um to take the mic the virtual mic uh good evening Council uh Kurt fernhober I support the Department of Housing and Human Services and I want to thank Council for requesting this uh agenda item to hear from our housing authority and I'll just give a very brief uh introduction to them um as you know they provide a significant amount of affordable housing in our community and surveys that we've done of our community needs over the

[9:02] last 10 years has always shown affordability in affordable housing as being the highest and most consistent Community need so they're a they're a critical partner in our work particularly around equity in our city and well I think what you're going to hear from them is not just about affordable housing but all the other things that they do to actually create Community um in the areas where people live the Partnerships that they that they have and the approach that they take um to creating affordable housing that really meets the needs of many of the lowest income residents of our community but also some of the most vulnerable members of our community and so I'm pleased that Jeremy Durham is here this evening uh and he will be

[10:00] driving this this uh presentation um I also have some of my staff here tonight to answer any questions that you may have um about oversight um of of our affordable housing portfolio or other things that might come about and I know Jeremy has staff on his side as well so I'll stop there and welcome Jeremy thank you all right thank you Kurt for that introduction and Nuria and thank you members of council for having us here tonight I know this is something Nuri and I have been talking about for a little while and we're super happy to be able to be here and show you all a little bit about who BHP is as Kurt indicated we are joined by a number of members of the BHP senior staff this evening so if there are detailed questions that we can help you answer we hope that we'll have the folks here that can do that for you

[11:00] I'm going to go ahead and share my screen now and launch in uh my goal is to keep this under 30 minutes the time that I was I was told and I think I can do it and hopefully under that and then we'll have a bunch of time for a question so looking forward to doing this with you all right is everyone able to see my screen um all right make sure I can see all of you real quick thank you all right great um since you can all see we will launch in here so um by way of introduction um I just want to start by saying we have a Spanish version of this presentation which is

[12:01] available on our website we have both a link to that as well as a QR code here and I'm going to just leave this slide on the screen for a minute for any members of the public that want to tune in and want that version of the presentation uh goal today is to hopefully leave the council with three high-level takeaways a better understanding of who BHP is a better understanding of why BHP is critical to this community's goals around equity and inclusivity and last how you can help as our elected officials uh in the effort um note the beautiful photo here of our 30th and pearl development that you all helped us put together in partnership with the city we're extremely proud of it and it's a community that's working out really really well all right and I hope now the folks who want to plug this URL in for Spanish have been able to do so

[13:01] so I'm going to move us on we're going to cover a number of things today uh first of all we're going to do just a high level overview of BHP that we're going to dive into who we serve who lives in BHP housing and who are the beneficiaries of bhps vouchers we're going to talk about what goes into managing affordable communities the Community Management facilities maintenance residence Services resident engagement compliance and oversight which Kurt alluded to earlier and then our role in investing in our properties as stewards of these Community assets we'll talk a little bit about administering vouchers which is an important part of what we do and we're going to talk about how we're growing and scaling as an organization okay all right so here is a snapshot of BHP by the numbers um and before I dive into some of these numbers I just want to point out this map that we have in the lower left hand corner of the screen here and I hope

[14:00] you're all able to see it at least somewhat well this map shows where we have housing in the community and as you can see that BHP has for the last 55 years made a concerted effort to put housing in a wide range of neighborhoods in this community we're able to serve North Boulder Central Boulder East Boulder South Boulder so BHP housing is spread across this community uh it's our hope that we maintain it in a way that it looks as good or better than any of the market rate housing uh that you that you see out there so um a lot of this may be invisible to you and we hope that it is but we want you to know how broad our housing offerings are throughout the city geographically looking at some of these numbers I'm just going to highlight a few of these for you since you're all able to read them yourself it's important to note the BHP serves over 4 000 individuals annually that's 2 382 total households

[15:03] which equates to around five percent of the city of Boulders households um I also want to point out that we have and we're going to dive into this later but renovated since 2016 648 of our properties and that we have 733 new units ready for development in the pipeline we will look at some of those new growth opportunities as we go through the presentation as well in terms of the size of BHP as an organization where you have roughly 100 team members here at BHP so everything that you see in this presentation is being performed by that team of 100 or so of us that are working hard to serve this community all right we're going to look here at who uh who we serve um and um there's a lot of information on this

[16:02] slide a couple of things I want to call your attention to uh is the level of affordability that we're able to provide um and the area median income breakdown of the folks that we house so 72 percent of our households earn 30 percent of the Marriott area area median income or less so by household size of three that's the 33 870 would be the annual income uh we're also housing 210 individuals who are formerly unhoused uh in our housing uh this pie chart here breaks down uh the five high-level demographics of folks that we look at based on the kinds of services that those individuals need you can see that the majority of our housing is families with children however we also house a lot of seniors both those with and without a disability as well as individuals again those with

[17:00] and without a disability uh the stats on this slide drive a lot of our leadership and decision making at BHP as we partner with the city um to provide services in this community it's driven decisions like our efforts in recent years to cap rent increases on an annual basis at levels that are lower than the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority kafa for example would allow us to raise rents at our affordable properties um we actually even in the resource constrained environment that we're working in uh currently are charging 630 000 annually Less in rent than we could be um which I highlight because it's I want the council just to know uh that we are here for this community's goals and for this community's needs and not for profit uh in fact every dollar of Revenue that comes into BHP goes

[18:00] directly back into mission the stats on this slide are also what drive us to focus on deep affordability wherever possible and to move away from Mere like unit County where every affordable unit is treated the same as every other um when we're able to achieve deep affordability in transit-rich locations like 30 Pearl developments which is now providing around 2.6 million dollars a year in rent relief relative to what those apartments would rent at Market that's going to be something that we're trying to do throughout the city hit really deep affordability thank you one thing we talk about a lot here at BHP and with with the city um is the role that we play in making Boulder uh more inclusive so as you can see from these pie charts uh our folks the folks that we house are generally more diverse than the city of Boulder at

[19:01] large and that is both with respect to race and ethnicity that's particularly the case with our family sites but it's also the case with our senior sites so as we provide more housing that's affordable as we expand BHP we are effectively helping Boulder be more inclusive all right so we're going to talk a little bit now about what goes into managing an affordable community and some of you may have some idea of what goes into that and some of you may not I'm going to try to be as comprehensive as possible while still being as brief as possible as you can see from what we've put together here on this slide BHP is so much more than just a landlord we invest in our properties we provide in-house Community Management so that we're able to maintain quality control that we find we're not able to get if we're working with third-party private property managers same exact thing with our maintenance department we keep that

[20:00] in-house and then we staff a number of folks that focus on resonance Services where they are focused on the residence needs uh exclusively and they do that through the Deep Community Partnerships that we have with folks like the city and others that we'll talk about in just a minute so this is a snapshot of um our community management team so there's 25 folks that work in property management at BHP and there is a lot that's on their plate um so they are not only responsible for navigating people into housing which is obviously a core function for us but they also work on rent assistance support marketing and leasing new units lease compliance is a very important one for us which we'll talk about in a minute uh and and so many other things some statistics here for you that are relevant uh last year they completed 310

[21:00] move-ins to our units um and 1275 annual recertifications they take on these tasks while maintaining around a 97 occupancy rate uh which was something we're very proud of as an affordable housing community manager there are unique challenges that we face one of those is the compliance work and income certification that is required of an affordable housing provider and the city's been a phenomenal partner to us in recent years and helping reduce those burdens and that's an effort that we want to continue because it impacts both BHP staff and it impacts residents and impacts residents in two ways one it's a lot of work for residents to recertify their income to if their property manager is focused on going through tenant files that's time that goes away from customer service so it's in everybody's best interest for us to continue to streamline that second thing that makes managing an

[22:01] affordable Community particularly challenging is that we're working in a resource constrained environment in virtue of what we do so the rents that we charge are affordable but our cost to operate are driven by the private Market that is the work that we do day in and day out is to try to stand in the gap of those Market forces and meet this community need um and so that's something that we focus on every day here at BHP I just want to say a word about lease compliance because I think it's really important to expectation set with what is possible there I think that oftentimes folks look at an organization like BHP which is the Housing Authority it's a government and a landlord and there can be this embedded assumption that as a governmental landlord we have additional powers that other landlords don't have that is not the case so for us when we

[23:02] look to take on lease compliance we have to follow the legal process oftentimes what that will look like uh if there's for example somebody who's not acting in the way they should in their Community is an eviction process which can be lengthy it's a process that takes time if it's not an eviction process then we're able to serve paperwork that's effectively a warning but we don't have a law enforcement role or a law enforcement function nor are we authorized to do that under state law so we partner with the Boulder Police Department and others to notify them of things in that Realm all right next we're going to talk about our facilities maintenance team so we have 28 members in the maintenance team one thing we're really proud of is that we've maintained full Staffing or at times close to full Staffing all throughout coven uh and the great resignation and everything that's

[24:01] come out of these last uh three years and all the challenges that that has brought and this team provides a wide wide range of services everything from working on toilets to painting to molds snow shoveling pest elimination freezing pipes certainly been an issue this year with um all the extremely cold temperatures and then of course snow removal which you see here they get out there and they hustle and remove snow in all of our communities every time there's a snowstorm team works hard to turn work orders in under five days in most instances um if it's an emergency they'll get to it the same day and this team of 28 turns 1200 work orders on a monthly basis they have a budget not only for turning those work orders but also for Capital Improvements so in 2023 we have 2.9 Million Dollars set aside for Capital Improvements and 5.9 million is our

[25:01] budget for that maintenance team as a community Hauser uh with BHP what you get is not just housing it's housing plus services so we have these 12 team members whose job is driven exclusively by the residents needs and interests and so they're constantly meeting with residents to determine what those are and then working with partner agencies to bring in programming for the benefit of those residents we've created a number of uh programs and you can see some of those here um but we have 145 I have a dream Scholars living in BHP housing thanks to our phenomenal partnership with ihat uh in our housing there's 1 648 folks who are eligible for a free Rec Center membership and that's in Partnership and funded by the city of Boulder we have 495 residents with Eco passes and then we provide on-site programming uh at

[26:01] every level at every stage of life so Early Childhood what that looks like is the Thorne Nature Center as well as the city of Boulders Mountain parks and open space team putting together young explorer programs we also have book Rich environment events which I know some of you participated in last year participating in an event actually where we were able to have 1200 books available for giveaway um for children that live in BHP housing for adults we have cooking workshops programs like the parents as teachers program and then there's a number of services that we offer for our seniors certainly too many to list but a couple I'll point out to you are foot care clinics Foot Care is an extremely important part of aging being able to age well and stay in your home and so we bring folks in to help folks with that as well as Chromebooks and Tech help for our seniors that

[27:00] aren't as connected uh as they want to be all right how are we doing on time good all right resident engagement is a really big part of what we do um we pride ourselves in being a learning organization uh that stays humble keeps ego out of our work and recognizes that residents are why we exist so finding ways to engage with residents and get feedback so we can continue to improve and meet their needs is a huge part of what we do on a day-to-day and monthly basis there's a lot of different ways we do that in recent years we've done resident Focus meetings we have a great relationship with our resident representative council which is a form of Resident governance that extends now to all BHP sites are eligible for that and they meet on a monthly basis with the BHP staff to find ways that we can

[28:00] improve our housing for them when we look at making changes to our voucher program we pull together an advisory counselor to look at those voucher policies then of course we engage with um customer service surveys and that takes a number of different forms uh one of those is our maintenance leave behind surveys that we do in most instances where we're able to leave behind a a flyer after a work order is completed asking for feedback on that we also send out a customer service survey which you can see here we pulled that in in 2022 with a 3.9 we have some aspirations and plans to help improve that number but we are proud of the fact that around 70 percent of residents would rate themselves as either very satisfied a five and that's 38 percent or satisfied which is a four and that's at 29 percent uh we also work with folks to give

[29:01] Google reviews um like most organizations and that's something that we're really proud to do when we work with our team on when they're providing good customer service to get those links out we're actually the only Housing Authority I'm aware of that's above a four on that and our four and a half is really substantially higher than is usually found for housing authorities I also meet with residents myself um whenever I'm able to and obviously we have over 4 000 folks that we house but you know that's something that I take time out of my schedule to do as well and we have made real policy changes based not only on our organized resident engagement that you just heard about but also um those meetings I've had myself so we try to structure and work as hard as we can um but everything's not always going to go perfectly that's part of being a

[30:00] property manager that's part of working with people um property management is challenging work things are going to come up living in community can be challenging as wonderful as it is it can be very challenging and so stuff is going to come up from that so we have policies in place that help us bring those issues forward in an orderly manner that allows us to address property management issues that are often nuanced almost always involve some level of confidentiality um and can be particularly tricky to address those in the most orderly and expeditious way that we can this policy is available on our website as well as disseminated to Residents and this is our best attempt at being able to reach folks that are having issues as you can see the policy includes uh an ombuds person which is kind of a neutral person that exists outside of the property management team uh who has a skill set in being able to work with

[31:01] folks it also includes the opportunity to contact my office and I look into those myself so as folks have issues not as members of the public that are watching this now that have issues um this agreements policy is available on our website we have the link there and you are able to track down myself and anybody else like the ombuds person that would be a help to you all right I want to talk a little bit about compliance Audits and oversight BHP is a very unique entity uh in that it is a creation of state law but our board is appointed by the city of Boulder we're funded by the city state and federal government in various programs and we're regulated as not only an employer but I think more relevantly uh landlord and a property owner so we've listed some of the agencies that have oversight over BHP we are routinely audited and

[32:02] that happens at the level of the whole organization happens at the level of individual programs individual properties and all the way down to the level of an individual tenant file audits are very detailed um we are very fortunate findings have been extremely rare for us and that's something we work really hard on but to create some context around how detailed these audits are we did have a HUD finding and a HUD audit a number of years ago when BHP encapulating somebody's income resulted in an overpayment on their voucher of 14 for the year that was enough to result in a in a HUD finding so when we say these are detailed we we really mean it uh you can see this great photo here of the HUD secretary Mark Marshall fudge when she came out to visit BHP uh about a year and a half ago now and visit our Lee Hill Community as well as host a round table at um our office with a number of local

[33:01] leaders uh when we get to the Q a section if you want to ask me about this uh ask me about it but we proposed some things to the HUD secretary in that meeting um that we have seen come through just within the last week as proposed rules from HUD that would be really substantial and provide amazing benefit to bhp's Residents so that's something we're really excited about all right um as a owner of community assets one thing that we are really proud to invest our efforts in is the work that we do in investing in our communities and in renovating our properties so going back to 2016 when we made the Strategic decision to really undertake this effort we have raised and invested 67.6 million dollars in bhp's communities um this next stat is probably my like favorite stat about BHP that that amount equates to 40 percent of the Statewide

[34:03] tax credit renovation dollars that have been awarded to housing authorities in this time period so to put that number of 40 in context city of Boulder on jurisdiction makes up about 1.7 of the state of Colorado so this is an area that we've really been hustling and we're able to renovate our properties without having to use our own operating capital or our own reserves by leveraging in the tax credit program we've been able to put together a very healthy investment per unit um and renovate these 648 Homes at around 104 000 per unit I also want to note that 49 of bhp's properties have rooftop solar and we are really excited about work that we're beginning with the city's Jonathan Cohen and the climate action team to try to get that number way up we've got a lot of rooftops and we're excited to get that number up as high as possible it really benefits not only our sustainability goals but it

[35:00] helps residents with their utility bills and lastly something we'll talk about uh near the end is Bridging the digital divide we now have 78 of our properties with free Wi-Fi thanks uh to impart to grant money from the city of Boulder uh this is extremely important uh in the modern era having connectivity is almost as important as having lights um folks really need it to be able to function well in society and we're proud to be able to provide it uh 78 of our communities without costs the other 22 percent are underway foreign about what is a voucher um it's a term that gets thrown around a lot and I apologize if many of you already know what this is but I have to make sure I cover it to do my due diligence here um vouchers are federally funded rental assistance that covers a portion of the voucher holders rent PHP vouchers can be used anywhere in Boulder County and similarly the other housing authorities in the county can

[36:01] use their vouchers within the city of Boulder um for those who are curious around 75 percent of bhp's vouchers do stay in Boulder um the way the voucher program works uh for example a workable family would pay an average of 32 percent of their income towards rent and the voucher program would cover the rest up to an established HUD fair market rent um similarly households who are elderly or disabled will pay 26 and a half percent of their income towards rent quick note also this photo that you see to the right is um some of our street art uh our development team and Laura shinebaum has been really uh intentional about working with Community Partners to bring really uh enlivening street art to our communities this one here is that 30 Pearl there's been other street art interspersed throughout this presentation that you may have seen and

[37:00] wondered what that was but that's what that is uh there's some more street art in the bottom right hand corner of uh this this slide as well so BHP has 1411 vouchers in total broken down by these categories here as you can see that number grows and it's going to continue to grow which is phenomenal thing for this community because this is the deepest level of affordability that we're able to provide is when we have a voucher that it's incumbent upon us to continue to Ace our audits with HUD maintain compliance and get vouchers on the street that's what HUD looks at when they want to award vouchers and we're lucky to have an excellent team uh that HUD has a ton of faith in um they continually try to hire our program manager and we fight them off um and that level of trust that HUD has for us helps us get vouchers which really help this community all right this chart here shows our unit

[38:00] growth our homes growth this is what the units that BHP owns they can offer as affordable homes throughout Boulder the need for affordable housing is so massive in this community 54 000 renters in Boulder County pay more than 50 percent of their income towards their rent and that number doesn't even take into consideration all the folks that have to drive to their jobs from outside Boulder County the need for affordable housing in Boulder is tremendous and we are committed to meeting that need one thing that we as a team are really proud of is our culture of overcoming obstacles uh and one thing that I'll note on this presentation is the 2016 election had a huge negative impact on our ability to finance affordable housing the mere threat or rumor of tax reform resulted in the main tool we use low-income housing tax credits absolutely plummeting in value one development Tantra lakes that we were in the process

[39:01] of acquiring saw a seven million dollar drop in available equity for that project but our culture at BHP uh and this is in large part thanks to our incredible partnership with the city staff uh is to overcome uh whatever obstacles are in our way to meet our goals and that applies to the covet time period that our growth also covers Supply shortage great resignation all of it one thing we do is we we overcome as we've grown both in terms of our units and our vouchers we've been working to expand our capacity um that looks like a number of things one of the things that looks like is investment in Systems and Technology it also is uh growing our employees so as you can see from this chart that as we've grown particularly over the last two years we've been able to leverage our scale and financial

[40:01] stability through that growth to increase capacity and Staffing levels to higher than they were before uh before we had the growth and so that's something that we're going to continue to look to do every dollar of Revenue that comes to BHP is a dollar that gets reinvested in the mission all right we're coming towards the end here I want to make sure I thank all of our Community Partners um there are so many to thank but since this is a city presentation I want to call out in particular the city housing division um climate Action Group uh in the city of Boulder staff who worked hard on rent assistance for folks over the last three years during the covid-19 pandemic there are too many to thank you or they're too many to count an amazing part of working in this community is how many folks are dedicated to to helping those uh who need it and Boulder is very service rich as a community it's the Envy of every other Housing Authority director I talk to

[41:01] because all right the city itself is our number one partner we we really exist to execute your housing vision for affordable housing uh and we truly have a partnership that I know of no other public housing authority that has that with their City uh whenever I meet each month with the other directors of other housing authorities uh half the time seems like it's spent trying to troubleshoot issues that they're having with their local government and uh thanks to the amazing councils that we've had over the years thanks to Kurt uh Nuria who's always made herself available to me even despite the extraordinary amount of um things on her plate um we have an amazing partnership and it's how we're able to get things done uh in terms of some ways that the city may be able to help as I said we didn't with like a how you can help so sustainability funding Partnerships we as I mentioned we've been meeting with climate action plan

[42:01] um and it's our goal to increase uh sustainability and solar as much as possible um that is an action that checks a lot of boxes in terms of our ability to meet meet the needs of the community I talked a little bit about the digital divide and how we've built out 78 of the wi-fi at our communities was soon to be 100 uh there's a cost of around 134 000 annually for that once built out um and we could use help working with the city to cover those expenses and finally uh you may be aware I'm sure you are that the voters here in Boulder County and across the state of Colorado past proposition one two three last November um that is a proposition that can bring substantial amounts of funding to the city of Boulder so long as Boulder is able to make some adjustments to our planning process particularly make

[43:00] adjustments to where we're able to process building permits for affordable housing developments within 90 days something that we'd love to partner with the city on making happen and I think it's something that we will be able to make happen all right this is our last slide um we're now renting this is a snapshot of some of the apartments that we offer um and that what we have available right now and you can see the rents here are uh really really good um 30 Pearl having a two-bedroom down at 781 a month is really phenomenal um and we're really proud of the way these communities show and we saw so with that I will turn it back to whoever takes over from here I guess that's probably mark thank you Jeremy um thank you for that presentation uh the good news was it was a very high quality presentation we're lucky to have it and the bad news is probably a little bit over 30 minutes we'll live with it

[44:02] um sorry I would ask my Council colleagues do you have any questions um and perhaps we can put the uh uh Council back up on the screen so we can see that take down the boulder housing Partners slide and put the council back up is that possible okay here it should be I think if Jeremy stops sharing you should be good yeah there we go there you go okay other questions from Council Members I see Bob uh it's first Bob take it away thanks Jeremy that was real real helpful um just a question about um about the internet we you know we talked about that at a council meeting a couple weeks ago so it's kind of all fresh in our minds and I know that that you've got a a deal with I guess Comcast to provide uh kind of low speed service to sounds

[45:00] like 78 of your residence you're working on getting that up to 100 that sounds great and you might be looking for some financial assistance separate from that um you know the city is thinking about what we do with our fiber resources we've got some backbone already built and we're thinking about whether we should build some more and one of the questions of the I.T folks have come to us to ask is um we could connect and I'm I think this number is directly correct but don't hold me to it we could connect a lot maybe all the BHP properties for about three million dollars in with high speed fiber that would provide that service to your residents um that's much better than probably they're getting right now but they're asking the question should we do that is BHP going to use that and I guess and not to put you on the spot well I guess I don't put you on the spot but what what's your thought on that do you is that something you want us to do or are you kind of content with the with the Comcast service you're getting now and you just want a little bit of money yeah I mean uh yeah I don't mind being put in the spot that's what I'm here for so bring all the questions um you know by my calculation we're looking at about a 22-year payback

[46:01] um if we were to invest as as partners three million dollars to connect Wi-Fi to BHP sites uh and if that were able to be offered for free to BHP after connected uh then that would save us 134 000 a year in Comcast internet costs which works out to about a 22.3 year Payback um and that's if the city were able to offer that for free which I'm not sure if they'd be able to so that's why you know I framed my earlier um topic is more about the annual expense um it may be that at some point the cost for that installation comes down where there's some opportunities we can take advantage of uh but trying to be a good partner to the city I don't know that that makes sense to bring the network out well that's fine we'll continue to have those discussions I just wonder what your uh your answer was as of today thanks yeah thanks Bob next up we have Juni then Lauren then Nicole CUNY Europe

[47:01] thank you Mark I only have two questions not too many uh I just wanted to make sure I hear correctly you mentioned that you have 4 000 residents and did you say that 20 of your clients are satisfied did I hear that correctly uh no 70 um actually more than that um hold on uh that was the like very satisfied and and like really satisfying categories um but the folks who were satisfied would be uh let me do some basic math here 87 and a half percent actually um that three stars are up and 70 at four or five stars and up okay thank you for that and another question that I have based on what we've heard from Community for a very long time it's really good to have you show up give this presentation it gives context to community and it'll also give context to a lot of us here as well because ultimately if we're not educated of

[48:02] what's going on with PHP we don't know even though you do we do have a council representative uh you mentioned the Ombudsman process we've had people coming to council many many times throughout and having concerns comments and questions so I just wanted to know how long you've had the Ombudsman process um probably around a year and a half [Music] um I think that's about right I could I could get you an exact answer um Rachel do you Rachel's the one that prompted this uh this change for us I don't know if you have a recollection of when we put this in place it took a while from our conversation but I think probably 18 months is about right yeah okay and you mentioned that the Ombudsman is somebody who's neutral I've had experiences with Ombudsman processes before

[49:00] um well you know what I'll reserve my question I'll let other people ask questions and then I'll Circle back yeah yeah thank you okay Lauren thank you Mark um and thanks for that presentation Jeremy um I was curious you mentioned some of the proposed rules from HUD um that had changed and what kinds of opportunities those might be providing in the future and I was hoping you might expand on that yeah happy cue I would have talked about it in the presentation but I wanted to try to hit that 30 minute Mark um so so I'm really fortunate to have the HUD secretary there in our office uh just a couple of days after doing a resident focus group and in that Resident Focus Group in the very same room we met with the HUD secretary and Congressman negus uh what I heard from them is the same thing I hear from staff which is that the administrative burden

[50:00] involved in certifying income is extremely high we don't have paper files anymore if we did I would hold up for you a file right now that shows everything that goes into that uh and the point of this is not to like whine about the amount of work involved but what we pointed out to the HUD secretary is that almost everybody who is certifying their income with BHP has already certified their income with another government agency whether that's to receive SNAP benefits uh Medicare Medicaid Social Security there's uh it's a very very common thing in almost every instance that has happened and so for folks to have to recertify their income to just different government agencies over and over as opposed to having the government be able to share that information and Fast Track the process would be a dream and that is exactly what HUD has proposed um so they have proposed to allow for agencies like us to utilize income

[51:00] certification from other programs foreign thanks Jeremy um my other question was about proposition one two three and you had mentioned you know sort of the 90-day approval requirements are there any other requirements that we should be aware of um that might impact our ability to do the most with that funding yeah I will probably kick this for Kurt to make sure I'm not missing anything but my understanding is that the requirements are twofold it's the 90-day approval process for permits and that's a little bit ambiguous in terms of when that clock starts so I know Kurt and uh Brad are working on that [Music] does that include sort of you know it's like not the permit but sort of the whole site review process or

[52:00] you know because we often have a whole review process before permitting would that be included in that 90 days or is that the part that's unknown at this point uh I think that the the site review part I don't think is unknown that's not going to count um I think there may be an outstanding question about like Tech docs in that period and Beyond um but we're hopeful um that it won't be something that's too aggressive that we're not able to meet and I don't know if Kurt or Brad have anything to add there um yeah the the only thing that I'll add is that the the state is also um they're going to be putting out funding for um uh municipalities like ourselves um to create help create the capacity needed um to meet some of those requirements and um they're they're in the process now of sort of defining better um the definition of those requirements

[53:03] and bread I don't know if you have anything to add on to that yeah I don't have a whole lot to to add my understanding is it might still be at the state level in rule making um I'm being honest with with everybody here still kind of learning about this uh staff may know even more than I do but um certainly on our radar and we'll be following up the other part I mentioned there was two requirements uh so the other one is that the community have a plan in place to grow their affordable housing stock by three percent a year that's something that I think we're able to meet with just bhp's pipeline so I think Boulder is in very good shape there and Boulder has been a leader in the state in investing in new affordable housing in recent years foreign thank you Jeremy that's it for my questions for the moment great thank you thank you Lauren Nicole you're up thanks Jeremy for joining us here

[54:01] tonight and thanks for your presentation really appreciate the opportunity to learn a little bit more um I just had a couple of questions and my first one is of the the new housing that's planned over the next decade or so how much of those how many of those units are going to be accessible ah that is a very good question um I may tag Laura in to give a more uh technical answer I I have what I think is the answer and if there's any issues with Laura I'll give that um but Laura if you're available most of you know Laura shy mom our director of real estate I think you all did a tour with us uh this last year so go ahead Laura hey good evening I'm uh good evening I'm Laura scheinbaum with Boulder housing Partners director of real estate development nice to see you all uh great question Nicole I think um we always meet the sort of highest there's a bunch of different standards that intersect when we do these projects and so it's at a minimum um very minimum five percent but

[55:01] generally we have more thresholds that we have to meet um given the funding sources that we have so um that's not a great answer in terms of five percent but if you you apply that to let's say um diagonal Plaza which will be an upcoming project of ours I know that we have about um eight units or so there that will be fully accessible and then um you know maybe Lauren can help me out with some of these but type A type B and you know there's different thresholds of accessibility that we also are um very um much um paying attention to thanks um and is there is there any plan to kind of try to go above and let me just the background for why I'm asking that so it's you know our population is going to be growing over the next 20 to 25 years and the place where we're going to see the biggest grow growth is in the 65 and older population so this is something you know I'm thinking about how are we how are we planning now in the housing we're building in the next five or ten years to be in a place where

[56:00] we may be in a position where we at work having to accommodate more folks who do have disabilities and who need some extra support to get around so I guess the way to phrase that is the question is you know is is there any intention to try to go beyond that yeah so absolutely so first of all all of our buildings we really are very intentional about making sure their elevator compliant and providing even um two elevators whenever possible so that if one goes down we've got another that's accessible to folks to be able to utilize and then in terms of the units there's ways that we can make them become accessible so you know if you have front panels that can be removed as accessibility needs increase so I think that yes the intent is to certainly have our portfolio reflect the needs of the community as well as just meet the needs of our Marketing in in real time as well so yeah there's definitely a lot of intention around

[57:01] making sure that again things like elevators and ramps and all of that is in place as well as thinking through um you know the future and having those units that can be made accessible down the road um and and I think the the bathroom core is actually the most important piece of that so um having that be fully accessible for a wheelchair is something that we really um pay a lot of of mind to as we move forward um Mount Calvary is is a great example that 16 is a senior housing and I know that um I don't have the number off the top of my head but um it's it's beyond what our requirements are at that site something else I'll point out quickly on this topic and thank you Laura uh is that even where a building is not built with uh even where a unit is not built as Ada accessible to begin with we always have a process by which residents can request that working with their doctor and such and we'll make that investment on our end so we do that with existing units

[58:00] great thank you I appreciate that thanks Laura appreciate the um the extra contacts there um and then my my other question Jeremy is just around you know I know we have this you have an ombuds person who is within BHP um and you know I know that you've you know we have talked in the past and you said hey you know if you hear about people who are having issues you know please please let me know and what I keep running into is a situation where folks are really hesitant to come forward um that I'm talking to who who um are having issues with you know maintenance not kind of getting through or not being able to contact anybody about rent payments and things like that and I'm just wondering if there is an opportunity for a couple of things first of all is some sort of independent um survey that could be done of residents that is sort of outside of BHP maybe even outside of the study where people just feel really more kind of free and comfortable to kind of give a

[59:02] range of feedback right um and then the other thing is just around whether there's an opportunity for having an ombuds person or someone who is outside also a PHP and the city and I don't you know I don't bring this up to be like oh my gosh you guys are doing a terrible job or anything like that it's really just like I know that you really want this feedback because you mentioned that to me a number of times and I'm running into folks who don't feel comfortable doing that because they feel like they're going to be in danger of losing their housing if they're bringing forward some of the issues and so maybe just as a question around brainstorming like what do we do you know to try to give of people the place where they can go and and really feel like they're going to be comfortable bringing concerns and issues so that you get that and so that they are getting their needs met in a kind of a faster and more efficient way yeah um so absolutely yes to both of those

[60:02] um we've done surveys over the years where both it's administered by a third party and where we administer it ourselves in any instance it's Anonymous but I can understand that folks may not trust that anonymity or something like that um and in terms of like an ombuds person would be happy to partner with the city on something that might feel more neutral or maybe is housed within like the city's mediation team or something like that um because we do we want that feedback um the other thing I would say is that if you're if you hear from those folks and maybe they don't feel comfortable with the ombuds person I don't know that they would feel comfortable reaching out to me but I I am really do not mind getting feedback uh it's one thing we talk about as a team is like there's nothing here to criticize because we are just a reflection of the community and it's our job to be the best reflection of the community as we can possibly be so we take feedback and try to learn and grow from it um I have never seen an instance at BHP

[61:00] of um somebody being retaliated against for complaining in fact usually if we if we hear a complaint we respond as expeditiously and as compassionately as we possibly can um but nonetheless I'm sensitive to that Dynamic and folks maybe based on prior experiences have have that concern one thing that I think we have to and are we're going to invest heavily in over the course of this year be stronger at is just building better and better relationships with residents so that they feel like they know their property managing know their resident services coordinator having more Community meetings on site that's happened Less in the covered era but we're going to be doing more and more throughout this year so that there isn't that I would say unfounded fear that bringing a complaint forward could result in loss of housing um yeah I think it would it would be really um interesting I think to try to put together some sort of independent

[62:02] interview process or you know because not everybody wants to fill out a survey right I mean we're typically hearing about things it's just in stories and you know one-to-one interactions with people um so you know how do we how do we get that kind of information from folks um like you know in a way that feels safe right where everybody can open an honest feedback because I know that's what you're looking for as well so yeah I think just something something for us to think about and try to figure out how to do that yep Kurt I see you have but your hand up is it relevant to what we're doing right now um it is uh thank you Mark so um Nicole I think uh both German and I uh appreciate those those questions um and so the the uh the mediation um and Reconciliation team of the city sits within HHS and I would say that a majority of their work you know we have about us we have a team of about 60

[63:03] uh mediators that work um with us the majority of those mediations are around landlord tenants issues or relationships um so they're they're well placed to work with these concerns so um I would also encourage and their their outside of BHP they're outside of any landlord I would encourage um any residents that you come across um if they don't if they are concerned about the process within BHP to reach out to our team and an independent person can work with them and there have been some residents at BHP that have taken advantage of that uh Tara I believe you're up next sorry for the delay no problem so Jeremy that is great news about that uh the paperwork which is so stressful

[64:01] for so many people did you tell us when that was going to happen with HUD is that soon or did it already start uh so as yes I don't want to over promise um at this point it's a proposed rule um which means that it's going into Hud's rulemaking process which um is probably it's not going to be Monday I can tell you that for like five years yeah we can work out a more accurate timeline uh but we'll certainly be um lobbying uh and giving feedback to HUD about the importance of that and we reached out through some connections to Congressman Goose's office about that today as well and secondly I know you had only 30 minutes for your presentation so if you can mention one or two one or two things that you consider the biggest challenges in 2022 but you didn't get into your presentation just so the community knows you better and knows everything you do

[65:01] better what would you say that is that they yeah that is a great question um and I think the answer is something that the council is familiar with so being a community Houser being a Hauser who uh is focused on housing folks that other landlords may not accept uh is an important part of who we are and it also results in challenges at times uh 2022 is a year where we saw challenges with that and some of them became pretty public um in particular as an organization who has had tenant screening that is in line with the values of the city of Boulder and other organizations to try to get folks into housing and not be screened out based on um you know things like prior evictions or that type of thing um we've allowed folks into our housing most of which who have been very successful some of which would not

[66:01] um one thing that's challenging is that when folks have come into our community and it's not successful and they're disruptive and in particular where we've seen this uh in I would say small numbers but with high impact where we've seen it is with methamphetamine use it's an issue that every Hauser I'm aware of in this area is dealing with um but the impacts of that are really significant and our ability to respond is very limited even where we know it's happening uh it's the beginning of the process that can take several months uh to bring the relief that the community wants to see um so for that reason as we move into 2023 we've tightened up our tennis training and we think we've done it in a way where we can hopefully minimize the collateral damage to folks who are for example experiencing homelessness but would be a good candidate for

[67:01] permanently Supportive Housing we want to minimize the collateral damage to those folks but while also making sure that um the cost of community disruption and feelings of unsafety aren't disproportionately borne by our affordable communities um at BHP oh Terry I think your microphone's off of course of course it is do you think do you feel like you have enough wraparound services for those um people at this point uh yeah so a restaurant Services generally come from the boulder shelter for the homeless and they do a phenomenal job um and one thing that's tricky about this whole conversation is that the success rates are very high um at 30 Pearl right now or like in an 85 success rate with our integrated permanently supported housing there um program in general is at about an 80

[68:00] success rate and that is actually drugged down by uh prior years when there was a program was first ramping up otherwise would probably be higher so they do a phenomenal job and they're an incredible partner um the challenge is that even that 15 to 20 percent uh non-success just has a really big impact um that can last for months and create so much concern in the community and so much expense for an organization that is resource constrained to begin with and is there anything we could do I mean you could think about it uh I will think about it yeah I I think that we've I feel like we've gotten great support from Council on evolving on this topic we've gotten great feedback from Council on how to evolve on this topic over the past four months uh as well as great feedback from

[69:00] concerned community members which um you know I'll just highlight back to our earlier conversation like if there are folks that maybe are listening to this presentation that feel like afraid to reach out like please do not be afraid to reach out like we actually listen we actually will make changes based on community feedback and um so that's something I would highlight foreign you're done okay uh Matt and then Aaron thanks Mark um I won't be redundant my questions got asked by my colleagues which is awesome um more or less headed in the same direction so I'll just say that I just want to congratulate BHP for just continually punching above its weight I like that's just pretty astounding uh given what the scale of what we do versus the impact that we have so um credit to to Jeremy and Delora and and the staff and and everyone who's made this work for the for over the years so I know there's ways to improve there's always stuff that we can do better but I just want to tip my hat to you guys for

[70:01] punching above your weight so it's a nice work okay thanks so much Matt appreciate your words and our invisible mayor uh well actually Matt kind of beat me to the punch because I was just going to offer my things for your extraordinary work so I won't repeat all of his words but I'll just mention from a personal standpoint I am a BHP neighbor you know there is an apartment building across the street owned by BHP that includes some I believe homeless transitional housing they're they make they're great neighbors and you all manage the uh the building extremely well so I do have that up close and personal day-to-day experience every time I walk out my front door so appreciate the great work y'all doing for everybody in the community assist thank you um if there are no other questions I have one actually um you know we've had a lot of comments about I guess oversight of BHP units um to what extent does the city have oversight over BHP units that they have invested in oh yeah great question um oh I see Shelby has turned her camera on

[71:01] uh Shelley do you want to take this this is your this is your department um I'll say that the city has oversight generally speaking both in terms of their funding but also in terms of rental licensing smart rags um fire and safety and that type of thing but I think your question is mostly geared at funding if if I could just uh introduce Shelley um Shelly um uh has been a bit of an institution at the city she's been doing oversight of the affordable housing program for about 16 years and um she's considered as sort of a head quite expert in our region of the Front Range and um over oversees our team within HHS that does the oversight not just the BHP but I'll be affordable housing units throughout the city including the homeownership um uh components of that as well so Shelly if you want to answer that that would be helpful thank you absolutely so yes I'm Shelley Conley thank you so much

[72:01] for giving me the opportunity to speak today um so yes the city has a very intimate uh partnership with Boulder housing Partners we work on a regular basis providing technical assistance and you know guidance to new Property Management um 100 of bhp's affordable permanently affordable properties are monitored every three years um in general all of the um new properties that are under covenant not only receive uh monitoring either on-site or remotely but we also conduct inspections on a regular basis and then we actually do an annual tenant report audit where we're providing oversight to all of bhp's units making sure that the people that are living in the affordable units are low income um that they're being being uh you know charged in appropriate rent and things like that um we do have a risk assessment that we do every year to identify any potential risk or non-compliance and as a result of that we determine what our monitoring schedule is um and then we go out and monitor what I

[73:01] will say is that um you know in the last five years every single property in in bhp's portfolio that's under Covenant has been monitored at least once some of them have actually been monitor twice um and out of that you know when you know Jeremy mentions findings you know it's it's exceptionally rare that BHP gets a finding from the city of Boulder um mostly for the simple fact that we work so closely together with property management and providing the resources and tools that they need to be successful so by providing all of that um guidance up front we're able to kind of eliminate a lot of problems but what I would say is of the issues that are identified Property Management staff do an amazing job and you know addressing whatever corrective action is necessary and I have a bunch of Statistics whatever you need as far as oversight happy to share all of that but I would say that BHP is a model for affordable housing in Boulder and Stellar performance and compliance thank you Shelly now if there are no

[74:01] more questions and in light of our schedule I'm going to open the floor for extremely brief and focused comments from any of our council members if anybody has any none so far going once twice Juni did you have something thank you I was looking for the button I have a question for Jeremy about the comments that Nicole made earlier about I don't know some type of independent person to do survey but I'm wondering whether that's something the Ombudsman process already took care of as well uh not currently but I think that it could be part of a you know a concerted effort going forward

[75:01] um and you know I'm interested in having follow-up conversations with Kurt and Nuria uh about whether or not some of those ombuds person Services could even like shift to the city mediation team so that it feels more neutral and whether that team could take on what you're describing um and we could help pay for it or whatever I know you guys aren't just swimming in extra capacity over there at the city um but I think it's certainly all part of the same conversation like we want folks to be able to give us feedback to feel safe giving us feedback and we want to be positioned to respond to that um as well as we possibly can um and in some instances we're not going to be able to that's just kind of a reality of of where we are we can't give everybody everything they want we have programs we have to administer Within the guidelines and we have uh funding constraints that determine what we can do at a property that type of thing but we want to at least have the forms in place to get that as much as possible we're also going to be doing a lot of community meetings ourselves at

[76:01] sites this year as well as focus groups and and continuing to work with our resident representative council uh to expand their Outreach the rrc is inherently neutral with respect to the BHP staff because they're governed on their own and elect their own president and that type of thing thank you that's all okay um once more I'm opening it up for General comments um of an extremely brief nature if anybody has any to share once twice Jeremy Laura thank you very much for the presentation I appreciate it and we all appreciate it very much and it was highly Illuminating thank you so much have a good evening thank you for having us all right thank you foreign next we have a public hearing I believe on a State Legislative update

[77:02] um do I have that correct Alicia yes sir you do okay um are we going to uh give our standard presentation on conduct of the public hearings I am happy to do that um are we having a staff presentation first yes we have Alicia did you want to call that item formally oh thank you ma'am I know uh mayor Pro tem did read it in the record but you're right I need to do it formally thank you um item number two on tonight's agenda is our public hearing item 2A and that is our state legislative update great thank you so much and with that uh I will um oh let and call on car call Studio uh who has been just leading all our

[78:01] legislative and policy issues um to give us a brief overview thanks Carl thank you very much uh good evening mayor Pro tem walek and members of council um you can just give me a quick thumbs up if you can hear me okay great thank you um so tonight um we have two things we have an update on legislative matters so bills that are actually pending or expected and then the uh the part that I think is going to attract the most attention is the proposed revisions to the policy statement so I'd like to start off by handing it over to uh we have two of our state lobbyists online right now will Coyne and Adam eichberg so I'm going to turn over first to will coin if he signed in and then to Adam weichberg both that'll say a few words about the uh what's going on at the Capitol foreign

[79:03] did you just hand it to me yes I did so and sorry uh I apologize I was just switching over from uh viewer to a panelist yeah well I'm happy to help with the train ER perhaps I should clarify that whale is going to be saying a few words about the bills that the city has taken positions on these are available to you in your packet they they're linked to a database called State Bill info uh so Will's gonna just touch um based on a few of those good evening everyone I'm will point with Headwater strategies uh I'll speak for a couple minutes and then hand it to Adam ikeberg my business partner who will talk a little bit about some of the things that have been introduced but we are we're we're about a month into the legislative session and uh a couple of hundred bills are now in play I think we expect over the four

[80:00] months of session where usually these days averaging close to 600 bills that come before the legislature which is a lot we actually um you know you all should know that Colorado because of a variety of the ways that we operate actually ends up hearing voting on and ultimately passing probably more legislation than any state in the country so Carl's job um in helping you all navigate that very very Advanced landscape is challenging um so far the city's taking positions um in support of um about 10 bills um they range on a variety of different issues uh I I will mention a couple of them uh to just highlight them um one is actually representative Joseph's uh bill on dealing with warranties on home appliances uh to make sure that when you replace your furnace you can also use a electric heat pump to

[81:02] get credit for that through your warranty we are also supporting the bill that will deal with rent control that will be certainly a Hot Topic that comes up within the legislature that's House Bill 1115 there are a couple of bills dealing with wildfires that have come forward um there's also a bill House Bill 1057 that is going to require gender neutral bathrooms in public buildings in the future that will that will be up in the next week or so and then another bill that will make community these solar Gardens more accessible by making the credits that are provided to the the members of the solar Gardens uh more manageable from a cash flow perspective so first 10 bills that we're supporting I imagine there will be many many more to come and why don't I pass it to Adam to talk about some of the things that are kind of out in the future great thanks will uh nice to see you all

[82:03] virtually uh Carl asked me to talk a little bit about the stuff that hasn't been introduced yet so I'm going to use my magic crystal ball and tell you the things that we think are coming um if some of them don't come don't hold it against us because you know we don't really know but this is what we have a pretty good sense of what's coming there's going to be a package of bills around a reproductive Choice both affirming uh that they're uh that the law is as the law is in Colorado providing some protections for providers who provide services in other states and also allowing sort of protections for providers for gender affirming care we expect there will be three bills in that package and we think that they're coming they're imminent um the uh legislature is also uh considering a

[83:03] package of gun violence prevention bills I know we've talked about this a lot over the years but the package what should be anywhere between four and six bills there are a lot of things on that list including uh waiting period raising the age to 21 to purchase all guns federal law right now has and state law has uh the requirement you could buy a long gun at 20 at 18 but you have to wait till you're 21 to buy a handgun it would raise essentially the requirement for long guns to 21. there is a bill being considered to create a permit to sell essentially a state dealer licensing right now gun stores need nothing other than a sales tax permit from the state to open so there's some look into that there's obviously a conversation a very

[84:01] robust conversation going on around an assault weapons bill there is a conversation going on around a bill that would change the availability of the Civil Justice System to people who are harmed through gun violence there's a family who lost their daughter in the Aurora shooting who attempted to sue both the gun store and the manufacturer and ended up losing their home in because of some very old state law around it so there's a lot going on there we expect that package will be released in the next two to three weeks and I'm not sure we'll all be at once but I think a lot is coming there the city is also working on a few bills related to vehicle environmental pollution um uh the Senate President had a great meeting with Carl and a couple other cities to talk about a bill that is

[85:01] probably just at the time was starting with just noise pollution but I think we'll be uh hopefully expanded to include both vehicle pollution and dealing with some of the issues around mobile testing and other things there's a bill around air pollution permitting there's a bill about giving more control to get uh in compliance with the Sip and then there's also the governor's office has been talking a lot about uh some work around the EV tax credit and trying to increase it in the next couple years to to sort of offset the reduction that's going to happen at the state level because of some changes that they made so there will be a period over the next couple years where the EV tax credit will not decline in Colorado as it liquid in other states as it's being expanded and retooled at the federal level so if you're going to buy an IV

[86:00] Eevee if the bill passes the next two years your window and then uh lastly on my list that I wanted to talk about is um there's a conversation also going on that sparked by the city around expanded local control of uh photo speed enforcement there was a conversation started by a couple advocacy groups and uh you all uh through us and mostly through Carl engaged that conversation and I think there's a really good bill being drafted that would allow the city a few more tools and some more flexibility in the implementation of uh of photo speed so Carl did I did I miss anything I don't think I think that that was honest no I get ones Adam I guess what I'll mention is that uh the bills that Adam mentioned I think unless I missed one are all ones that the city is inclined to support of

[87:02] course we're going to have to see the uh the details uh but they weren't just random bills there were bills that were consistent with council's policy statement positions so before we go any further um and move over to the more complicated topic of amendment amending our policy statement I was wondering if you have any questions about the bills that have been introduced or that we expect to see forward specifically any questions that Adam and will can help help us out with error you're first yes uh will can you explain a little bit are you allowed to explain a little bit about the red control bill yeah I mean I anything particular are you interested in the policy or the politics just a little bit of detail that's all yeah so it's a bill that would Empower local governments to have the ability to to do rent control I will uh I think

[88:03] it's not had its first hearing yet um in in the house uh obviously with historically large Democratic majorities in in both Chambers it certainly has a shot of moving but it will have tremendous opposition from the apartment association the Realtors um and you know enough certainly more conservative factions so it's got a really long way to go um and it will be an interesting task for this uh for this new legislature where um where progressives help a lot more power I think than probably at any point in in recent decades I think you're next Nicole thank you and thanks uh thanks for the update I know everything changes fast down there in Denver um I just had a question around the Eevee tax credit uh that you mentioned Adam and

[89:00] my understanding is this tax credit is only for uh cars and you know trucks that that sort of thing is is there any talk or has there been any talk about extending it to e-bikes or e-scooters or any of those other modes of transportation uh the answer is yes it would be a different vehicle the governor's package that they are proposing and have been shopping to a few people include um include e-bikes and one of the things they're trying to figure out is how to streamline the e-bike rebate program um because the state can do uh is give a tax credit what cities and others can do is you know potentially provide funding and then that money comes right off the bill and so they're trying to figure out a mechanism to make that available uh right at point of sale there has not been talk about e-scooters another actually on one of the calls an advocate asked about that the governor's office the governor's Energy Office hadn't

[90:01] contemplated that but I think because that question was asked that they probably will have a conversation about it um so the answer is yes that package is still yet to come there isn't any paper on it it was more of a a verbal briefing so we don't know exactly what's in there but I think it will be pretty robust thank you um Matt thanks Mark um and Adam will thanks thanks for all the work that you guys do and certainly helping advocating for the city's positions on stuff my question centers around I've been I've heard some Rumblings about I don't know if it's a if it's Bill that's written or proposed I don't know if this is going to to will or Adam on this uh but it centers around allowing employers to contribute to down payment assistance uh programs and something along that elk I didn't know where that is if it's if it's more uh a Phantasm than it is an actual thing but I just wanted to check with you guys

[91:00] uh since you're in it every day I have not heard anything in that space uh I mean there's a lot there's a lot of conversation happening around affordable housing right now um and a lot of conversation happening particularly around renters rights but I have not heard uh a proposal about um employers being able to contribute I don't know will have you heard anything I have not um and Carl jump in if you have but I think we'll tell you what we tell people all the time with 600 bills and all the related ideas around it uh we can find out and we can get back to you um because you're right there certainly are so many um so many ideas in this space that we can figure out whether that's a real thing and let you know I appreciate it I mean you don't have to bend your back over the only reason I asked just because we're we're you know the voters pass and we'll be discussing our own down payment assistance program here in short order so if there were such a thing obvious synergies uh would

[92:02] be connected to to our own policies in in that capacity so um but but I appreciate uh you sort of uh putting your ears to the tracks on that sure thing seeing no others uh Carl do you require Adam and will uh to remain here uh during your presentation um I don't require them but it would be great if they would um because we are going to continue talking about legislation so there may or it will be some questions so thank you thank you Adam well and if it's okay now mayor Pro 10 I'm going to share my screen begin a PowerPoint presentation thank you okay can you all see my screen okay all right great thank you uh so at this point we're shifting over to probably for Visions to the 2023 policy statement on regional state and federal issues and

[93:03] want to start off by explaining um what the policy statement is for those who have not been familiar with it because I know a lot of people are interested in what we're doing tonight so the council adopts a policy statement and it includes at this point 70 positions that describe goals that Council wants to policy goals that they want to achieve and some examples on how they want to achieve those goals so they're somewhat specific but not really that specific they're not they don't even begin to be a specific as actual legislation um with that the city then takes the position and applies it to specific bills or amendments or other proposed policy changes so as it is just to be clear the city's policy stated positions then are applied to a position on state bills and how we go from one place to another is really

[94:00] important so we'll talk a little bit about that well but it's important to note is that the reason we do it this way is because if the city wants to be a player and have an impact at the Capitol we need to be able to respond quickly so it's been a long tradition of council that they give uh Direction Through the policy statement so that then City officials can um respond to those bills uh knowing that decisions can be made a bill could be introduced and passed at the Capitol as soon as three days especially towards the end of the session so this is a way of saying that things can move very quickly and they do not overlap well with councils City uh city council meeting uh calendar um I think it's really important to highlight how this is used so position 22 of council's policy position says specifically that the city will

[95:01] um it says allow local governments to implement rent control measures and more specifically says borrow of the 1981 state law to prevent cities and counties from control on private houses and housing units so with that direction we were then able to review HB 23-1115 which is just that it is a repeal of that section of state law so we immediately took a position of support we contacted the sponsor we asked them how they could how we could support their effort they said that it'd be great if we could send somebody to testify so I reached out to members of intergovernmental Affairs committee uh council member folkerts has indicated that she's able to testify so next Thursday when this committee uh when this issue is heard in house committee uh vulnerable have its voice there so this is just an example of how the policy statement translates into bills

[96:00] action on bills and actual advocacy so what's important tonight is that we're talking about revisions to the policy statement and it's in it's important to note that this is done annually we the council is asked and approves the new policy statement every fall and then every February or March when we see that there is new position new bills that have been introduced that we haven't that we didn't expect or that we know are coming we come back to the council and we ask them to revise the policy statement so what's happening tonight is entirely routine from a procedural perspective what's different is the substance is one that is great interest to our community um so more specifically the intergovernmental Affairs committee um met on February 2nd and made two recommendations pertaining to position 23 which relates the land use and

[97:00] position 24 which correlates the homelessness so these are two positions that are already in our policy statement I'm going to break each one down one by one so the first one is um position 22. this is what you're seeing on your screen is the language that currently exists it essentially is focusing on um incentives to encourage um uh land use policies that reduce greenhouse gases and discourage unnecessary single occupancy Vehicles so they focuses on climate focuses on on Transportation sustainability the committee is recommending changes um what you have here is a bunch of words that will be very difficult to uh to digest for most people so I want to walk through the important components um first of all we have the goal the council is trying to reach and I will read that it's the support of limited State involvement in land use matters

[98:00] that furthers the city's housing affordability Transportation climate and Equity goals we then go on to say that we expect legislation to be introduced and this is very much the case this is um perhaps the most important uh priority of the governor's tender as as governor and we expect that he and his administration are going to go full force and working on these issues so we know there's there are bills coming forward so that's that's the reason we're getting involved here or we're proposing to get involved anyway we then explained that the notion of exceeding local control is usually enactment to cities cities of course know that we have the closest connection with our community we are best situated to address our community's concerns one size cannot fit at all and we've all heard those those messages and they're very much true and by and

[99:01] large those that is the default policy principle that we have that being the case it's important to know that we do and this Council in particular has taken positions to yield a portion of local control or issues that cross cross-governmental boundaries and that cannot be addressed alone so the best example of this although it's it's we've taken positions on several bills over the years where we exceeded a portion of local Patrol but the most recent one was Boulder was actively involved in supporting a bill that was introduced in the past last session that created a minimum standard for energy codes for building energy codes um so with that um Boulder was was recognizing that it's great for us to have a stringent energy codes but our goal is greenhouse gas production and the only way we can get there is if we get the rest of the cities to go along with us

[100:01] um so that is an example um of where we see it so this part of the position is suggesting that um well actually the previous one already then made the argument that housing affordability is an example of goals and not just housing affordability but the the climate action the transit sustainability the equity interests that can come along with compact development and with housing affordability are examples of uh of issues where it can where a the city may be willing to seed a portion of local control what you're looking at highlighted here are qualifications so of course if Boulder was willing to do this we'd want to make sure that it is meeting all those interests and so we have a bunch of qualifications so for example it has to be narrowly targeted to further the goals of the comp plan as to take into account the different range of land use

[101:00] priorities throughout the state it has to allow for flexibility and implementation and it has to allow for local governments that already meet minimum State Standards to be Exempted so that there's you know if the city is already doing its part it should not require the additional State oversight so these are qualifications I know there's questions about you know how do you interpret these I'm happy to uh have these revised as you'd like to but these are examples of tools that we we think would be helpful to analyze an actual bill and then that is what I'm shifting to now which is um as with all of our possessions we get some examples of the kinds of methods that we would uh we would be willing to consider um and it is important to note that um the way this is written we don't guarantee anything it doesn't guarantee or give a black check to the state that we will support bills um merely because they address accessory

[102:00] dwelling units or because they encourage or require multiplexes it gives them as as examples of categories as buckets of issues that we know that that the governor is interested in working on and because of that we are proposing the committee is proposing that we take a position conceptually in support of these with qualifications um and of course with further review of the details so you know I I struggle tonight to make sure that I'm I'm balanced as a professional staff member not to make too many arguments in favor of what you're being what a your committee has recommended to you but I do think it's important to make some arguments and so the first argument in favor of it is that this may in fact represent and reflect the will of the city council I will say that of course if we pass this position it would give the city direction to actually Advocate and Lobby on these bills um and even if even putting that aside

[103:00] just making this public statement I think we would be the first city to make a public statement conceptually supporting um what these buckets of of of bills that I just discussed even that I think would be uh meaningful in terms of the support that it would give for The Advocates probably the most convincing argument that I can give you why we'd want to do this is because it's likely to happen and right now Municipal governments nor and and Boulder are not at the table we're not involved in the Drafting and if the city wants to have an influence and being able to affect the language of the bill one of the best ways to do is to communicate to the governor's office to the to the sponsors at the legislature that we are conceptually on board but we need to make sure that our our interests are protected so that is the pros just as importantly though I think it's important to give you some of the cons it has been said so uh you know quite

[104:02] often of course that one size may not fit all and that's that's clearly the case with Zoni where every city has dramatically different zoning codes um so you know uh the the challenge would be how can you make some standards that would apply to all cities even if if you broke it down by you know bourbon versus rural um so definitely a challenge in how this could actually come about um it also would be a difficult difficult to translate council's position um if Council was to support the position that's been proposed to a specific bill or specific bills I mean frankly um I think there's enough division that I've seen early on on this that we'd want to be very careful not to go be in my uh council's specific desire on a bill um and lastly an argument that I heard from one council member and I think it's a very wise one is that legislatures changed and while our values may be

[105:00] reflected by the governor's office and the majority at the Capitol now um if we were to see some local control once seated it's difficult to regain and it's certainly uh difficult to defend from overreach so I wanted to give you those as pros and cons so tonight Council has the ability to consider a motion to adopt the in our governmental Affairs Committee of recommendations alternatively you can you can recommend and make changes that are different so you can you can change the language or you can decide you to do whatever you want there or of course you can make no motion at all as it pertains to position 23 and it would just stay as written which is basically focusing on incentives is the one on homelessness and I want to be very careful as I discuss this one because I think there's been some misunderstanding um so what you see highlighted is the current language that is in the policy

[106:01] statement um a little bit of background there have been bills introduced in recent years that would say local governments cannot ban camping in public spaces they've said other things but that has been the core of it so we or probably seven years have had a position in the policy statement that says no we oppose that we would not we would oppose any attempt to take away our local control on an issue like this on Banning camping in public spaces so um well when they considered a policy statement in November a suggestion was made that the intergovernmental Affairs committee uh consider striking this language or revising it so the committee considered it and actually I probably am jumping to God here because there's another important piece of History um uh first of all I want to clarify that

[107:00] what you have here is actually a triple negative and it's probably as confusing as as it gets to understand so I am proposing a non-substantive revision to read this way it basically reads preserve Authority for local governments to ban camping in public spaces this is essentially a rewrite of what is already in the policy statement um I I want to highlight a little bit of History um example a here support minimum requirements for local governments to combat homelessness that was added I think about two years ago so you know we went from saying State don't tell us what we can and can't do as far as camping in public spaces that in a position a couple years ago that says but we we can see how the state might want to consider minimum requirements for local governments to combat homelessness so with that as the history we then go forward to what was recommended by the intergovernmental Affairs committee

[108:00] and that is reflected in red so what what they have done is taken the position that exists of 23b in black and they add uh the red language um so it would read preserve Authority for local governments that meet the above requirements so basically it's tied it into the governments that meet minimum requirements for combating homelessness those governments should not have their ability to ban camping in public spaces be denied so it is a qualified position um I'm sure there's going to be more questions about it but I'll move on here um Arguments for this it may reflect the will of the council we'll find out uh it may encourage other local governments to increase services for the homeless and by doing so it may take pressure off a voter I think we want to make sure I think you know we have a lot of regional

[109:00] neighborhoods neighbors that are that are doing a lot but there's also some that are not and that is certainly something that has been challenging for the city uh I think we are if not the first number one or two in terms of cities that provide homeless Services uh um towards the amount of money we spend per capita arguments why we might not want to consider this um one argument is I do not know that any legislation will be coming up on this matter um I'll leave it up that um I also mentioned it's difficult to interpret what what are minimum requirements for homeless Services you know minimum could be minimum so I guess that could be just about anything but it is certainly uh subject to a variety of interpretation minimum requirements is interpreted it could lead to requiring local governments even theoretically Bolder to allow unsanctioned camp in the public spaces of course we're talking about a worst case scenario because

[110:00] um the business seems that we were to support a bill that went against our direct interest but nonetheless those are cons that I wanted to identify so um I think that each one of these changes should be considered separately because I think Council may very well have different views on these so the emotional language that I ask you to consider is adopting the recommendations for position 24 as recommended by councils in our governor Affairs committee adopting it with some changes as you may otherwise agree to or make a no motion and allowing position 24 to stay as written um so back to the issue of how do we apply these positions so you know is it a blank check from Council do you do you write a uh a policy statement and then lose all control over how it's interpreted by me or by our lobbyist and the answer is no um first of all that is my my job is to be very conservative in interpreting the

[111:02] language given by Council and especially when I know there's controversy on Council orders less than a a majority I'm especially careful to make sure that only a bill that is you know very closely aligned with what I understand Council to have uh directed would be something that we would support and then in those cases I would normally convey a position of support or oppose or amend and even then I would I would communicate at the council immediately and then I would let them have you all would have an opportunity to call it up and you could say no Carl you misinterpreted us change that position immediately and the result that was that possibility um certainly a mistake that I would try to avoid but that's one of the possibilities in this case with these two positions I already can tell that there is enough um uh contention in the community about these that I would uh take any analysis of any bill or amendment that is

[112:01] introduced to the intergovernmental Affairs committee for their review there are four members on that committee and with that I think there's a lot greater chance that they would understand uh what in fact is a correct interpretation of council Direction what's important to note is the intergovernmental Affairs committee can be convened a lot more frequently than we can get on council's calendar uh so there is the ability to be more Nimble and that is one of the reasons that the council created council's intergovernmental Affairs committee is to allow us to take positions on bills where it's not clear exactly where the city should stand so with that I will conclude my presentation I will note that we do have um Brad Mueller director of planning and uh um Kurt fernharber director of housing Human Services here available for questions um but I also encourage you to ask

[113:00] questions of your own committee members either now or after the council presentation the uh the public hearing because they very much um have a lot to say about these these recommendations let me stop sharing them well we already have some questions um so let's go right at it all right Bob you're up first then Nicole then Matt thanks Mark thanks Carl um Carl just um one correction and one question um I think you've confused a lot of people because you um interchanged 22 23 and 24. so let's just like make sure that we're all in the same page here I think 22 is the housing one right yeah yeah so so to be clear um yeah your slides started talking about okay well yeah not good not good yeah so to be clear 22 is the landiest one 23 that's the homelessness one yeah

[114:02] my apologies council member yeah no no that's why I just want to make sure their audience is watching I think we know which ones we're talking about but we might confuse a few people another question for you this is I know you've been doing this for a long time Carl you mentioned that if um if a bill comes up on an issue um and you're a little unclear um uh what position council is or whether it's consistent or inconsistent with policy statement that you um while you might not always be able to get counsel together you can be in the um intergovernmental Affairs committee so that's great and I've seen that happen over the seven years I've been on Council and you've been in here even longer than that what happens when you have a situation which may we may very well on some of these we'll know in a couple hours um where you have a majority in a minority of you on Council let's say you have a six three or five four vote on something um but none of the people in the minority are in the intergovernmental Affairs committee like how do how are you going to check to see what those people think and I get the fact that they might be opposed and that's fine

[115:00] but there may be some Nuance to that opposition and maybe they're okay with what's actually submitted how do you check in with those people who might be opposed because it probably doesn't help you or or will or or you know or or Adam to do their jobs if we've got council members who are not um on board um and if you haven't gotten them up to speeds how have you done that in the past really important topic that you bring up and first and foremost it's very rare that we have amended the policy statement to have less than unanimous or maybe you know an eight to eight to one so this is definitely a rare circumstance where or we might not land there so I don't really have an example of how I've done it in the past but what I can tell you um and let me know if you think this makes sense but if three members said um absolutely not under no scenario or or or or qualified now whatever it may be I would take that for what it's worth and then if there is um let's say six members that supported

[116:01] it um I think Not only would I go to intergovernmental Affairs committee but I would be asking the committee do you think that this reflects the will of the majority of council it's up to you to know your colleagues and your colleagues positions and you know I can always take it so far uh but I I can say that my tendency if there is any doubt would be to go to neutral you know even if that means that we're working with a sponsor that counted on our support if they make a change that is one that really concerns me about whether it reflects the majority well of counsel my tendency is to protect council's confidence in the process and to say we're going to remain neutral until and unless we have a chance to get better clarity on that Bob yeah yeah yeah and uh mayor Pro Tem I was um wondering the same thing Bob because I think that we had been intentional in making sure that this

[117:01] subcommittee did have diversity of um political opinion but then it shifted just a month and a half ago when when we you know spun the wheel on on committee assignments again until we did we did lose some perspective I think and you and I Bob had previously been on an IGA subcommittee and we got off because it was too difficult to schedule meetings remember so I'm just wondering can we can we add does anybody want to join can we do that is that and you know or can we invite people to these subcommittee meetings if they're interested in bringing um other viewpoints I don't know if that's possible Carl or Sandra if anyone can answer that but if council is interested that might be one way to address Bob's Point yeah it's a really good suggestion first of all uh diversity and political ideology is it was certainly the ideal it's up to council to decide what the makeup is we already have four members so I know Council doesn't have any interest in allowing it to a committee that would have a forum so I imagine that would be

[118:01] an issue um so I suppose that will lead the alternative for Council to consider uh the representation that it sends to the committee cool no questions Nicole yeah well sorry I was just I was caught because I was going to call Clay on that and then I also have questions but uh my colleague is Carl I think what I heard you say uh before we kind of started down this path of questions was that you know if it were something where you weren't quite sure the committee wasn't quite sure if it reflected the will of council that you would check in and it would come back to council right to to kind of get more of what is the majority will of council it's not like the intergovernmental Affairs committee which is kind of make a decision and you know you might be hesitant and be like yeah I don't know guys I'm not sure if that really reflects the World Council um I I mean it seems like there's

[119:01] already kind of a measure in place to protect that from you know happening where when one group in the intergovernmental Affairs committee would would change everything that didn't necessarily reflect the will of council you know that's exactly correct I will note though that by bringing it back to the full Council that probably means we're not going to be part of that particular conversation because by the time it gets there um the decision will have been made um but nonetheless that theoretically is possible and that would be the default either to just you know stay neutral or to um seek a full Council Direction but you know the whole program is designed the whole principle of it is to be designed so that to allow us to be quickly so so that is what we would intend and try to do but there's no guarantee that would be successful sure thank you I mean it feels like that's kind of like with all the work we do in the city right we set policy and if it's um it's you know people staff

[120:01] interpret it and act on it and if it turns out that's not right then we come back and we have a conversation about it um the so I had my you know moving on to my questions um around the uh number 22 and the changes there I think what I heard you said and I just wanted to kind of confirm this is that if there are things being proposed that we're already doing it doesn't really affect us in that regard is that right I was thinking about you know specifically we're working on some video changes and things right now so if something were to come in at the state level that was analogous to what we're already doing locally that wouldn't really affect what we're already doing is that right that's correct and the energy code is an example of that of just that scenario where the newly mandated energy code we actually exceeded as it already is so that could very well be the case okay thank you yeah the analogy that was coming to mind for me was um the plastic bag fee that you know we didn't have to

[121:02] do a whole lot because we were already doing it once the state law passed um and then I just had some clarification questions I think just you touched on this a little bit and I just want to be crystal clear on this for the community because it seemed like there was some real concern about this uh the changes that we are talking about for number 23 um that will those changes impact our camping van right now like is there anything that in those changes that would have an impact right now on the camping ban we have in place so the direction that would be provided if the council in a criminal Affairs Committee of recommendations were adopted um what they could result in is the city supporting a bill that does just what's what's said here which is you know if you're a city that doesn't meet minimum requirements then we can prohibit you from from allowing camping um then the question would be um you know do we meet minimum standards

[122:01] one thing I can tell you is by taking a position on this this would allow us to be involved in that discussion and it would make in my opinion absolutely no sense for the number for the city that may be the number one um in terms of homeless Services per capita to not be defined as meeting minimum requirements but um yeah obviously the devil's in the details and the idea is that by taking this position we would be able to be at the table and ensure that yeah which seems like it's just kind of for any policy position we take if we have a policy position then we get to be part of the work to to create the Bill to craft the bill to make it adapt to our community's needs great um too Nicole I'll put clarification so in that we don't know what these minimum standards are Carl under the sort of process that you've laid out if the state cooked up some you know minimum

[123:01] requirements that we we strongly dislike as a city what would happen thank you some proposals made by the state legislature that says here you know the minimum requirements to um you know that we seek and after which you you know cannot enforce a camping ban um and they say you know uh four thousand square foot you know homes for everyone which we would disagree with on like you know many levels right so we don't like it whatever they're proposing what would what would you do or what would become about what's it's proposed you know I guess uh I mean again I would turn to the underground Affairs committee but what but even before doing so I would already assume that it's it's unreasonable minimum standards I would check whether or Kirk fernhoffer for example and say what do you think about this is this reasonable to impose on on cities throughout the state and if there's any question about it it being not reasonable then I would um

[124:02] it's a good question I think the question then becomes do we go to neutral or do we go to a pose um I think we we might go to oppose because we still have the fallback of protect local control unless it advances otherwise stated policies so um but we're not set in stone like by saying we would support something like this through this sort of you know theoretical exercise if something came forward we're not at a point of no return is that right correct thank you thanks for letting me call away twice yeah no worries Rachel that clarified one of my questions about the minimum requirement stuff too um and Carl I just wanted to uh to make sure as well I think there were some folks in the community who seemed a little bit concerned that you know we were just rushing into this um this is something that we were talking about like last fall and that the intergovernmental Affairs committee has kind of had on their radar for three four months now um something like that so I just just wanted to check on that

[125:00] if my memory is correct that is correct the position that on homelessness has been Revisited pretty much at every single meeting um we haven't necessarily made change this is the first time we're proposing a change in a couple of years but it's obviously been a hot button for for for Council so there's been a lot of change and a lot of conversation great thank you Carl Matt Tara Lauren thanks Mark um uh Carl thanks for really clear discussion on what you do how you do it and and certainly you know the process you go through with regards to these policy students so thank you for that um Nicole crushed really good questions so thank you Nicole for doing that um you've saved certainly some oxygen for me um but I did want to clarify sort of and maybe it's just a rephrasing again just for the community to hear sometimes hearing a thing two different three different ways helps some grasp it um there's some pedagogy to that um so it seems as it's been sort of

[126:01] portrayed if we are in opposition to something we tend to be on the sidelines looking in as it formulates and and goes down and goes through a process but if we support we tend to have a seat at the table in shaping it is that pretty standard like like by supporting we get to lean into these issues and shape them to meet our needs versus opposing we're kind of on the sidelines is is that a pretty sort of standard way in which which things tend to operate yeah it's a good question I think the analogy talking about being on the sidelines I think it puts us on a different team at that point we're we're not talking to data team necessarily we're not working with them we're trying to beat them um which is very different than being invited onto the team and then trying to change the goals of the strategy of the team because yeah that's helpful do you find in some past experience have you found that you have we have greater success in reaching our goals when we're on the inner team trying to get something dumb or on the out trying to just you know

[127:01] just just beat it into submission yeah and I I think I know where are you getting at and it's very much true that when frankly when one believes that a bill is going to pass anyway that there is a majority that is likely to support it it becomes tactically and you know in in your interest to say if I want to have influence on it I need to have either you know a support support if amended something that indicates to that sponsor or the sponsors that you could be eventually of help to them um so so also the first decision the first question that is is raised is does this have legs does this have a chance and um I could say in the case of the landing spills I think the answer is definitely yes and so I think the the committee's recommendations um would certainly make sense from that perspective of if it's going to go forward let's make sure the boulder is at the table and has an opportunity to

[128:00] shape it I appreciate that yeah um that was sort of my clarifying question so thanks for that Carl and thanks Nicole for knocking those early ones out of the park Tara so talk about an inner team I definitely don't I have to say that I don't feel part of the inner team of the intergovernmental agency let's just put it that way so my question is is I would like to talk about what Rachel did whether we think it is I guess fair for the intergovernmental um subcommittee to not have one point of view on it in particular and whether we should change that I know um for instance Lauren and I are on work very well on our subcommittee sometimes we look at things differently but I think without hearing that third side let's say there are two let's say there are three sides you've already made a lot of decisions without us so you've come it's not like you come a lot you

[129:01] said oh what do you think of this what do you think of that you've already come to the point where you're saying uh this is what we decided are you in or are you not in so I don't feel part of that conversation I can't really speak for uh anyone else but I know that I don't so I am asking if we could possibly change the makeup of the intergovernmental subcommittee I know that's asking a lot but I didn't want to bring it up one more time uh you can have my spot Tara we can just all say a thumbs up to that then mission accomplished let's take a straw poll Thumbs Up Down if I may and Sandra I may have to put you on the spot just to what are we asking just to make sure that there is a process for committee assignments yeah thank you um we we've to definitely follow a process that the the matter

[130:02] under consideration has nothing to do with who's on what committee and I think that maybe we need to speed this take a step back okay well let's take a step back first Lauren then Aaron thank you Mark um Carl you had mentioned that specifically the issue of seeding some local control could be brought in the future if things were to it that it's sort of hard to reel back I was wondering if you had any thoughts in particular to this item related to how what kinds of things we might consider in terms of future possible outcomes or types of zoning overreach that we might be concerned about

[131:03] you know I don't know if I'm in a position to speculate I think I might get myself in trouble not because you know I'm saying something inappropriate just because I don't know the answer to that I think um you know your your guess is as good as mine at what a bad legislature could do um of course you know it doesn't mean that we wouldn't be able to oppose it and oppose it successfully and a co-working this league who stands for local control Above All Else even they see local control on some issues where they they recognize the need for State interests but we still have a membership in an organization called Municipal League that stands for making sure that the state does not engage in overreach thank you yeah I guess and that was I was just kind of thinking if there were things that weren't aligned with some of our other values it doesn't mean that we would necessarily support them in other

[132:02] no time is going for it right okay yeah f thank you mayor Brockett was there and now he is not uh we'll grab him when he reappears Judy did you have a question no uh I can make a comment I was just gonna add or ask a question similar to Lauren's comment and I think um Carl alluded to it how he's done a lot of work stakeholding not just with himself but also with the municipal league and having been on the policy committee at the municipal league as well so I just know based on what I hear today that a lot of the work that Carl has done is well thought of throughout So yeah thank you saying no further questions I think the proper procedure correct me if I'm wrong is to

[133:00] um do our public hearing and then come back for uh Council comments and decision um Sarah do you want to um discuss the uh uh sure I'm happy to do that thank you good evening Council my name is Sarah Huntley I'm the director of communication and engagement and I am supporting with public participation this evening I believe we have 27 folks signed up in advance to testify on this item this evening I want to just invite everybody to spend a few minutes with us um talking about what our expectations and guidelines are for civic conversations in the city of Boulder we've engaged with community members to co-create a vision that really supports productive meaningful and inclusive conversations the vision is designed to support physical and emotional safety for all community members staff and

[134:02] Council as well as democracy and participation by people of all ages identities lived experiences and political perspectives there's more information about this vision and the engagement process we went through on our website next slide please the following are examples of how this Vision actually shows up in some of our rules of decorum these rules will be upheld during this meeting tonight all remarks and testimonies shall be limited to matters related to City business no participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person obscenity racial epithets and other speech and behavior that disrupt or otherwise impede the ability to conduct the meeting tonight are prohibited we do ask the participants sign up to speak using the name they're commonly known by and individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online several of you were able to

[135:01] collaborate with anybody in the scene make sure your full name is a split day I appreciate that currently only audio testimony is permitted online we will toggle your ability to turn your mute button off when your name is called by mayor Pro tem Wallach tonight we do we don't have any in-person participants so I will go ahead and skip that part of the um the guidance we know that there's lots of different viewpoints in the room tonight and we look forward to a robust public hearing that upholds these guidelines thank you so much thank you Sarah the first three speakers are Tim Thomas Ryan Harwood and rosemary Vivian Mr Thomas you're up mayor perch I'm Wallach I don't see Mr Thomas in the room I will indicate that we do have one phone listener and one of the challenges with zoom is that I don't know who the phone listener is unless I

[136:00] give them an opportunity to unmute themselves and identify themselves um would you object to my doing that with this phone listeners just so we can determine if it's Mr Thomas please do so good evening I see somebody with a 720 area code phone number also the next three numbers are 308. um I have just toggled your ability to speak to us you may have to press um star six to unmute yourself on your phone but if you wouldn't mind giving us your name so we can determine where you fall on the list again if you're calling in this meets evening 720-308 are the first few num digits and this number I've just given you the ability to unmute you may have to press star 6 on your telephone to speak to us but we're trying to determine who this

[137:00] caller is so we can get you slotted on our list tonight all right we will have to come back to that individual um uh hopefully it is Mr Thomas Ryan Harwood Mr Harwood is in the meeting hello Council uh I'm speaking to urge you to drop line 23b from the legislative agenda concerning homeless survival bans Under The Heading fund and protect the city's ability to reduce homelessness the proposed language implies that camping bans can have a positive or at least neutral impact on reducing homelessness but this is contradicted by virtually all of the academic research on the subject here are a few studies of relevant peer-reviewed studies in February 2020 the journal social Pro problems published a study of homeless individuals in San Francisco titled

[138:02] pervasive penalty how the criminalization of poverty perpetuates homelessness the study concluded that quote consistent punitive interactions with State officials rarely result in arrests but do material and psychological harm this process not only reproduces homelessness but also deepens racial gender and health inequalities among the urban poor a 2022 study in the journal SSM qualitative research in health titled harms of encampment abatements of the health of on-house people found that Homeless sweeps used to enforce a camping ban in Santa Clara County California quote undermined or directly harmed unhoused People's Health leading to serious health consequences a 2022 study from researchers at the University of California San Francisco titled health impact of Street streets from the perspectives of Health Care

[139:01] Providers found that quote Street sweeps May negatively impact Health through two outcomes the first outcome is material loss including belongings and medical items the second outcome is instability including Geographic displacement Community fragmentation and loss to follow up we know this all too well here in Boulder having seen what happened to Jessica aldama and her baby I strongly urge you to strike the language about camping bans completely from the legislative agenda as they have no place in any data-driven conversations thank you very much for your testimony and for the others on the list please be advised that it's a two-minute comment period tonight um mayor perchem I will just let you know that Tim Thomas has come into the room would you like us to go back to him or do you want us to go through the list and then Circle let's go back to Mr Thomas can you hear me now yes uh sorry about

[140:03] that I was watching on TV and I didn't I forgot to go on anywho um I look forward to seeing how quickly BHP will actually put an independently independent scientifically administered survey um completed and presented uh full disclosure I'm a BHP resident uh related to federal law Title 24 chapter 9 part 964 this is related to resident board members on BHP board I would humbly ask the city to request a change in this federal law parting starting with part 964.410 removing the uh sentence direct assistance does not include any state finance housing assistance or Section 8 project-based assistance I believe someone missed bespoke before when they said that city council chooses all nine board members of BHP in fact up until

[141:01] now BHP boards have included a resident commissioner that is chosen by BHP residents eight board members actually go through the city council boards and Commissioners process the ninth is not Council chooses eight and they have affirmed the ninth please let uh bhp's board uh keep a resident member on board of the 37 BHP complexes only one is directly assistant uh as a public housing the other people who can be a resident commissioner are those who have tenant based Section 8 vouchers who whether they live within or without BHP properties uh HUD has allowed several of the properties to go from public housing to prosecutive vouchers and 25 affordable housing properties may have tenants in it but they don't necessarily do so of the 4 000 people only a small group of people could be made to be um the president

[142:01] Commissioners on the BHP board that's all I got to say thank you Mr Thomas Sandra please confirm for me that as this is not open comment only testimony relating to the subject of um our that's correct okay all right thank you thank you all right we're up to Rosemary Vivian Vivian I'm sorry followed by Darren O'Connor good evening I support the effort to update item number 22 to align with the Statewide efforts to provide more and reduce parking requirements in our residential zones seeing this change come through soon after hearing the most recent State of the State is so exciting I see this as a critical moment in Boulder's history with the potential to be a turning point where we can relax our burdensome local zoning regulations and embrace the changes and all the good that comes with them we've learned by now that the

[143:00] status quo simply isn't sustainable and the the single-family zoning laws of the past were sadly designed to keep people out I'm hopeful that Boulder can be a big part of the Statewide effort to overturn this to create a better future and to make the monoculture of single-family residential zoning a thing of the past we have a lot of very smart elected officials and other community leaders working locally and Statewide who can help lead the way to attaining the governor's vision of a Colorado for all I hope we can listen to what they have to say and take action recalling that Governor polis recently won the election by over 80 percent in Boulder County it's likely that these efforts to address the housing crisis will be very popular with the majority of local voters change is healthy and it's a big part of what makes our cities fun and wonderful places to live this is what progress is all about looking forward to and working towards a better future a big thank you to all of the all of you

[144:00] and all of those involved in drafting and supporting these changes good night thank you up next we have Darren O'Connor there we go I had to unmute can you hear me now yes we can all right good evening council members Darren O'Connor I'm here to encourage you to eliminate item 23b with which the city would lobby at the state level to allow cities who provide some minimum amount of basic homeless services to ban camping in public spaces at least that's one interpretation because combating homelessness is incredibly vague in 23A for some in Boulder using a fire hose against unhoused neighbors would equal combating homelessness you may be surprised to learn I do not believe the solution to homelessness is allowing people to Camp any and everywhere

[145:00] some of you like council member Yates even shared when you ran for your Council seat that we have over 80 parks and that we should be able to accommodate some camping sites for people experiencing homelessness yet we still have not one such space and just as much as I agree camping any and everywhere is not a solution neither is Boulder's camping van that killed Jessica aldama and her baby Boulder has increased law enforcement dedicated to enforcing the camping ban and in 2021 the bar for due process was lowered so that police could take people's tents in public spaces with next to no notice walk outside council chambers tonight a few blocks in any direction and you'll see how ineffective The increased Reliance on enforcement of camping and shelter bans has been the evidence is in front of your very faces every week that this that this does not work trying to hide poverty from our community is a

[146:00] failed policy and it's not a policy Boulder should Lobby to become a Statewide policy please vote no on proposed item 23b and please clarify item 23A thank you thank you Mr O'Connor Rebecca Davies is next hi Council uh my name is Rebecca Davies and I'm a member of Boulder's Transportation Advisory Board um so I'm calling to thank you for these proposed revisions to the city's policy statement specific specifically item number 22 related to land use change um I support this modification to the statement because it is not possible for Boulder to meet its Transportation master plan objectives without changing its land use practices as an example objective number eight is that 80 of the population will live in a

[147:00] walkable neighborhood by 2030 that number was 43 in 2019 so we have quite a big gap to cover the transportation department can build sidewalks and safe Crossings but they can't make it easier for people to live closer closer to their job or the grocery store those are changes that depend on land use and housing that support walkable neighborhoods and the transportation department just has very limited purview over land use they don't even control parking so given that implementing this new policy statement would be an empowering statement from you Council to show that you're serious about our TMP objectives and serious about making the changes necessary to reach them by supporting potential State legislation which frankly can move fast faster than we'll be able to move on our own towards our intertwined transportation land use housing and climate goals it's also really important because not all trips that start in Boulder will end in Boulder and if our neighboring cities aren't similarly committed to these kinds of performs then we will fall

[148:01] short of our mode shift goals so to reiterate it's it's not possible for Boulder to meet its Transportation master plan objectives without these kinds of land use changes so I encourage you to support this policy statement change and also want to thank Carl for discussing the city's policy positions with tab thank you next up is David enson good evening city council I'm David Ensign a resident of Boulder who joined the board of better Boulder last month Rosie fibian and I wrote a commentary for publication in the Daily Camera titled better Boulder sees opportunity cautionary tales in housing strategy the piece describes our enthusiasm in supporting Regional and Statewide approaches to addressing affordable housing and land use and ideas around assuring public support for these approaches it was very encouraging to see how much consensus there was in better Boulder's diverse group in

[149:01] reacting to Governor polis's State of the State address that challenges Colorado to step up and solve many of the housing related issues we've identified over the years The Daily Camera put this commentary up on their website earlier today and I sent a link to you so I hope you have a chance to read it and I hope you find our thoughts useful betterbuller also supports the revision 22 to the city's policy statement under review we're encouraged to see Boulder signing on promptly the support state housing policy efforts in conjunction with the better Boulder positions there are a couple of observations I would like to offer as an individual in my non-profit work with Community Foundation at Boulder County out Boulder County Modis theater and Boulder County AIDS project as well as my involvement with the city's connector program I have witnessed the intense challenges some of our most vulnerable community members face in solving their housing needs people of color lgbtq plus community members and those with low to moderate incomes are finding it increasingly

[150:00] difficult to live in Boulder we owe it to these community members to take advantage of available tools to make Boulder more effective and inclusive finally beyond the housing subject I found it very useful to review the State Legislative Bill tracker HB 23 1057 amenities for all genders in public buildings is of great interest to many lgbtq plus people and allies in Boulder so I was glad to see that on the support list there's some other great bills on the list and I look forward to seeing more in the future thank you thank you uh next is Aiden Reed good evening Council my name is Aiden Reed I'm here this evening to speak in opposition to proposed changes uh to number 23 in Boulder's policy statement on regional state and federal issues I'm concerned that the language in section 23b is intentionally vague and allows for an imprecise interpretation of quote minimum requirements as outlined 23A

[151:00] camping bands and sweeps do not prevent crime or homelessness if we want a safer more secure Boulder for all getting people housed and access to the resources they need should be our priority in camping bans while superficially effective do not do that camping bans effectively criminalize homelessness creating an environment in which the only response is a punitive one one that is insufficient for the scale of the crisis and the multi-pronged response it requires of the over one of the over five million dollars Boulder has invested in enforcing the camping ban if those would be better spent on social services and housing supports no one denies the severity of the homelessness crisis in Boulder it is unacceptable and untenable but a punitive causal response to the crisis will not solve it it worsens it merely displacing the unhoused not actually addressing the conditions that create an exacerbate homelessness housing and security and crime instead we should expand Pathways to housing and services and for those people who are incarcerated we should seek to end the cycle of incarceration by sustained long-term Supportive

[152:01] Services as is feasible I hope the council will take this feedback into consideration thank you thank you our next uh speaker is Joy love Andrews hi um I'm Joy love Andrews I am a community tenant leader with a national low-income housing Coalition I also do advocacy with Colorado cross coalition uh disability Coalition and I do attend as a constituent uh and participant the current health sessions and the State Board housing meetings I'm doing a lot of advocacy for a lot of people uh on the housing issue and homelessness issue the information that I need to relay is extremely emotionally sensitive and I'd

[153:02] rather meet with Council uh privately and that's it okay thank you um Micah James is next Mark sorry I was just wondering if I could just say to the last speaker that if uh perhaps you could send us in your email um your information uh contact information via email we could contact you directly and follow up on on the thing that you just mentioned so just invite you to do that thank you mayor mayor prochem I am not seeing Micah James in the meeting again we still have a phone listener or a phone caller but I I don't know who that individual is and next is Lisa spauldinger

[154:02] Lisa Spalding Governor polis's focus on creating more housing in his State of the State address did not mention whether new housing would be required to be affordable or would be market-based but Colorado Municipal League staff expect his policy package to Center on quote adding more units into the market through preemption of local zoning of local and land use ordinances Paving the way for developers to have a greater say in how our communities are developed Statewide mandates can adversely affect both Boulder and other communities gentrification which pushes out minority communities and people with limited incomes is the most widely decried adverse effect of mandated market-driven development the amendment position 22 would commit the city to supporting four smart growth policy principles from a list presented to Governor polis the smart growth

[155:00] approach gives short shrift to affordability requirements relying instead on the idea that more housing automatically ensures affordability we know that model does not work in Boulder because our housing market is inelastic it could also Place undue burdens on communities less affluent than our own seating local control over land use to State mandates in order to increase housing stock ignores constantly changing real estate markets differing land and infrastructure costs and profit margins and the local labor Supply none of which state or local governments can control we all share the goal of increasing the stock of affordable housing but 70 percent of Colorado's population live in home rural municipalities local government control provides legislators with feedback on how proposals will affect local communities allowing them to write more effective laws that people will support please consider the merits of preserving local control over land use and working

[156:00] through it to achieve our housing goals before voting on this amendment thank you Lisa uh Kurt norback is next hi I'm Kurt nordbeck modern land use planning began a hundred or so years ago in that time zoning power which constitutionally rests with the states as a police power as almost exclusively been delegated to the cities that worked fine for a long time but in that Century land use restrictions especially on more affordable forms of housing became vastly more stringy and Arcane today partly as a result of increasingly restrictive local zoning we have a full-blown National housing crisis a crisis that is particularly severe in Colorado what was once an isolated problem now extends from Craig to Cortez from Rocky Ford to Fort Morgan it's in cities large and small Resort

[157:00] spots to AG centers everywhere on the Front Range and certainly in the Boulder area it's hurting people hurting our economy and hurting our environment our each City for itself approach is not working Boulder has made some progress in allowing more and more affordable housing but we need to go further and crucially we need other cities in the region and Beyond to come along with us critics say we can't solve the housing crisis alone and they're absolutely right but if we work as the entire State we can make great progress we need Statewide leadership so that we're all pulling in the same direction all making a fair contribution to meeting the housing crisis sensible Statewide reform that sets basic floors and uniform standards will provide that that's why I urge you to support the changes in the city's policy statement number 22 as recommended by the intergovernmental Affairs committee if

[158:00] we can all work together to address the housing crisis that will be good for the state and good for Boulder thank you thank you Kurt uh Emily Reynolds good evening Council was it under cover of Nightfall that you decided to propose taking away Boulder's decision-making power on land use and Seed decisions about the camping ban to the state perhaps it's poor governance to let the state decide the two most important topics of local concern or perhaps a bit more than that I say a new level of sleaze has been attained by the self-proclaimed progressives in our city government Lauren folkerts Nicole Speer Rachel friend Matt Benjamin Aaron Brockett I find your behavior in this matter crooked dishonest dishonorable disgraceful deceitful double-toned

[159:02] deceptive duplicitous sleazy surreptitious sneaky stealthy shameful shabby shoddy two-faced underhanded unprincipled unlawful and also very bad governance even the name of the agenda item is deceptive policy statement on regional state and federal issues doesn't really indicate that your Reckless counsel is going to officially open the floodgates to drug adult transient cambers by overturning the camping ban is the idea to destroy the city harm business businesses and make people suffer if so you're succeeding brilliantly how dare you shove this in our face at the last hour less than two days noticed the public please forget your ill-advised bait and switch on the public and let the steak take over so that you can undo the camping ban how dare you I mean really how dare you

[160:01] thank you Emily Melania theme is our next speaker good evening council member my name is Claudia Hansen theme and I've been following the city's housing transportation and land use work for the last five years as a part of many different resident groups it's an item speaking for myself land use legislation requested this year by Governor paulus presents an opportunity to make significant progress on housing and transportation and it offers the prospect of a Level Playing Field for municipalities engaging on these issues affordability sprawl and car dependence are Regional problems that require fast and comprehensive action fast and comprehensive action maybe it reflects my own shortcomings as an organizer but these qualities feel Out Of Reach for our community my experience tracking land use policy has been one of watching Boulders spin its wheels or at thus tinker and iterate while best practice moves on and with

[161:02] every timid decision and half measure we lock in years of misdirected and sub-optimal investment the changes proposed to position 22 of the city's policy statement would position Boulder where it should be as a leader in climate and Equity driven solutions to our Regional Housing and transportation crises they would allow us to support the kinds of Common Sense policies other forward-looking municipalities are using to increase housing access and reduce vehicle miles traveled right now adus plexus parking reform neighborhoods that actually support the transit Investments we pledge to make local control can be of value when we are truly leading on an issue or when there are threats of constraint from an overzealous state but we know too from history that it is just as often used to defend privilege and stymy progress local control is not inherently good or bad our legislative agenda shouldn't hinge on this tired slogan but rather it should support the policy outcomes we need to support equity and quality of

[162:01] life for future Generations there is power in working together and at a larger scale on housing transportation and land use let's update our legislative agenda to reflect that reality thank you thank you Kathleen Hancock is our next speaker I can see that Miss Hancock is unmuted but we're unable to hear her you may need to adjust your microphone settings with Hancock so we're hearing a little bit of scratchiness um and your microphone is looking like it's trying to work but we can't hear

[163:01] you at the moment can you hear me now we can okay great hold on one second need to make a little adjustment okay I'm ready then my name is Kathleen Hancock at its heart this measure is about our city council wanting to delegate their lawmaking responsibility to the state delegating decision-making Authority is deeply problematic for several reasons people who were not elected by us will make decisions for us we might agree with overall goals but not policy specifics the devil is in the detail how long will this delegation last can we withdraw it later under what circumstances what other local decision making will the state come for next are you binding the next city council to policies they may or may not support legislatures change we might like them now what about next time there's also the issue of process one of the key pillars of social justice is procedure making sure all can contribute

[164:00] in thoughtful ways this item went suddenly from a study session to a public hearing some of us jumped quickly trying to understand what is at stake but most Boulder rights are unaware rushing boats undermines democracy that's not the Bolder way we're famous some might say Infamous for our active Community engagement let's not abandon that in the name of weighing in quickly on legislation that does not even exist the comment that these issues are no surprise misses the point that these issues have long been discussed is not the same as putting them forward in a completed statement my ask do not vote tonight wait for specific legislation you can assess assess start educating the voters on what's at stake with the statement gather feedback in a more reasoned way from the larger Community also Mr Castillo thank you for correcting those triple negatives the professor in me is happy with that change thank you foreign

[165:01] hi city council Eric Budd I live in Boulder um thanks for covering this important issue of Statewide housing legislation tonight um one thing I wanted to notice is just how important Statewide housing legislation has been uh really across the country but largely the West Coast has has really forged the way on this um what we're seeing in harm places with Democratic super majorities which Colorado is bordering on one now places like California and Oregon Washington have really made Giants progress with with housing in states that really has has stagnated for decades we all know that we don't want to become California and as Boulder we don't want to become Palo Alto because of just the total unreachability of of access to housing for average people and I think it's really so important that council is taking this up and taking steps because as we saw at the

[166:02] beginning of this meeting we have great organizations in the city like older housing partners that are doing incredible work but we know as one city alone we just we cannot possibly uh meet the housing needs of the whole state and it's finally reached a point that we need Statewide action and I'm really thankful for governor polis for taking this up and pushing forward this housing plan and we we don't know the exact details but I think what you all proposed is is the right framework um so thank you for Council supporting this and I really think it's important to to note that we have a strong Democratic majority in the states under Democratic governor and those on Council who oppose Statewide action on housing and other Democratic priorities You're simply not acting as Democrats and we'll make sure the electorate knows when when you all run for re-election thank you

[167:01] thank you next speaker is Martha roskowski hi city council Martha roskowski Boulder resident mostly off and on since 1977 so a long time um I want to thank you for this I want to speak to item 22. today and um thanks for putting this on the agenda I one of my roles as a consultant currently is working with a broad Coalition of environmental justice and housing groups that are focused on this Statewide land use for form bill um we are hoping to see a bill move forward that supports affordable housing that addresses anti-displacement that addresses gentrification so to a previous speaker that is part of the consideration is how can we do this in a really good way I want to reinforce

[168:01] Carl's suggestion that Boulders should be at the table we need cities at the table that get this that can help to craft this legislation in ways that address our Statewide housing crisis with regional and Statewide Solutions but also that work for individual cities um this is complex stuff it is really hard having kind of diving into the actual language of how would you achieve these goals in ways that really work and it's crucial that this works for cities it does require that there be some Statewide guidance some Statewide standards some Statewide approaches but I think there's a lot of room for flexibility for cities to still continue the good work that they're doing um so I think that's all I have to say I just want to thank you for addressing this and really encourage Boulder to step up and be a leader and be at the table thank you thank you our next speaker is Daniel

[169:01] Howard uh hello this is uh Daniel Howard I live in the west of Apple Hill Neighborhood of Boulder uh I also call uh I'm speaking on behalf of uh EMB action organization yes in my backyard in the urban environment this is a part of that uh organization I am in support of proposition 22 and uh partnering with the state and seating uh some I'm up to control a meaningful amount of control towards the state and organizing efforts Statewide and region wide towards uh uh helping cities uh work with each other towards addressing a housing affordability another land use matters that can interact not only with the affordability crisis but as well as environmental issues as already relayed within the older comprehensive plan document um specifically I have many colleagues at ncar that actually cannot afford to live in Boulder and they have then uh work moved and now live and work from uh

[170:00] boomfield Superior Lewisville et cetera many satellite towns of Boulder uh this has basically taken place because of the exasperated housing costs within Boulder County and Boulder City itself where they may might prefer to stay late living perhaps near ncar itself nonetheless uh because of these sort of insulated issues of how Landers are formed within individual cities plays out uh that exacerbates people's choices to choose far away destinations and have to commute to longer distances and even stay pushed into Wildland Urban interfaces where their housing uh might be then under Threat by uncontrolled urban sprawl I I see this uh systematic issue across municipalities as requiring a state higher level entity such as the state to help cities coordinate to minimize these sort of Investments fall that the current Dynamic and Boulder is contributing towards so I very much appreciate Boulder's current commitment towards this language here in opposition 22 I might also suggest the second sentence of second of the second

[171:00] paragraph to remove some uncertainty language such as May and narrowly to instead say the city should also support support real support policies that go beyond incentives if narrowly targeted Etc thank you thank you our next speaker is Sarah Dawn Haynes hi good evening City Council this is Sarah Don I am speaking as the chair of the Sierra Club Indian Peaks group and we are in support of the pro-housing legislative priorities and the local control is important in many contexts the cascading effects of scarcity and affordable housing create impacts at the regional State national levels when housing is restricted and prohibited and core walkable and Transit oriented neighborhoods of towns and cities the inevitable consequences sprawling card dependent developments located Far From Any destinations air

[172:02] pollution and carbon emissions impacting Beyond Municipal borders the Denver metro area is currently in severeign standards as a result of the huge number of automobile Vehicles miles traveled and of course concentrating housing and other uses in compact walkable neighborhoods prevents suburban sprawl and reduces human impacts on the vulnerable ecosystems which have have always been a fundamental Sierra Club concern for these reasons we support item 22 of the city's policy statement a through D and the CR Club supports these goals and urges to support required minimal Municipal housing production and Zone density along Transit corridors as other places have already done and removing all minimum parking requirements as over 200 cities have already done the above goals align with the housing affordability initiatives proposed in Governor pulse's 23 State of the State address and will help build

[173:02] momentum to ensure their implementation and personally speaking is somebody who's been involved in housing Justice it's delightful for after almost 10 years of asking for the state to take leadership they are all of we've we've known this has been needed so I'm really happy for this moment thank you have a good night and thank you Carl for your work on this thank you Sarah our next speaker is Paul Gibbons uh thank you Council um I wanted to say a few things in support of item 22 um in Boulder which is a city I love so much working people's living conditions have degraded over the decades um and tragically this has become more acute since the pandemic and inflation people are struggling to survive and one of the ways we can help them is by bringing down the cost of passing as

[174:00] Boulder refuses to grow working people are pushed further and further from the core of our city unaffordable housing is a fundamental Injustice and we the people who are privileged enough to live in Boulder are forcing the people who make our world better teachers nurses bartenders office managers cashiers to live outside the city that we hold so dear we must grow to make Boulder a city for all again we must support the state of Colorado's oversight on land use I also wanted to say something about 23b um I I didn't know about that until I got here um I think that should be removed entirely um unhoused people are neighbors we should treat them such everyone deserves dignity our community should support them and unhoused people should not be punished for existing that is all thank you thank you Mr Gibbons next up is Michael Whalen

[175:06] although uh for policy 22 as a whole we don't need to seed power to the state unmanaging our our own City camping Bans are effective at dissuading more out-of-state vagrants from gathering in our city we already carry too much the national burden just for being a small city of one hundred thousand on the issue of rent control uh it doesn't really work well you can look at New York City and data in Upstate New York and more recent legislation there's plenty of other ways you can address this but rent as a as somebody who's managed 21 low-income rentals um rent control is there's a lot of reasons technically why it doesn't work well so um that's that for that issue um as far as photo speed control

[176:00] at a time when distracted driving has over overtaken speed as a cause of accidents I I think this is uh sort of out of line with what's actually happening on the road and it also the advocacy groups that are pushing this uh or receiving money from the corporations that are installing and providing services so there's a lot of uh there's a Kickbacks coming back to them so you know as far as uh dealing with accidents speed is not the main issue if you drive around Boulder you can see when you compare to other cities I drive around the country all the time and Boulder is definitely not does not have issues with speed it's but they do have issues with the lower speed accidents due to distracted driving so those are the three issues that um that I'm addressing today so thanks thank you next up is Christy Russell

[177:04] mayor percham Wallach Ms Russell has withdrawn from her name from consideration and discussion tonight okay and then we will move on to Linda Quigley I am not seeing Linda Quigley in the attendees list this evening okay at which point we will move on to Joey siracusa hello Council um my name is Joey syracusa I live in South Boulder I do not support the changes to 23b and would like 23 be removed entirely although Boulder can sometimes feel like a bubble the truth is is that homosis is a problem affecting every city in the United States unless this is not a bolder specific problem and I don't think a localist approach will help us solve the problem in addition the camping ban does not contribute to Public Safety nor does it fix a housing crisis it simply sweeps

[178:00] the problem under the rug and disperses the homeless people to other areas of our city as previous community members have mentioned in this call you can simply walk outside and see how this policy is an abject failure the camping ban is also cruel we had a very cold and snowy January stealing tents from homeless people is a risk to their life Boulder and the state of Colorado should focus on evidence-based solution to reducing homelessness my rent personally was raised 33 last year if the council wants to reduce homelessness the council should focus on bringing down rents and building more housing especially publicly owned housing please remove 23b entirely from this resolution thank you thank you our next speaker is Paul Hamilton uh good evening city council and mayor Pro tem I'm Paul Hamilton I'm a CU graduate environmental engineer Colorado professional engineer I volunteer 40 to 60 hours a month

[179:02] working with with the homeless my observations are Boulder is a homeroom home rule municipality to me that means local control and minimum State intervention earlier we heard about the success of BHP a local initiative the reality is that the legislature is largely controlled by Denver citizens and adjoining City voters given their large numbers their priorities may not align with Bolder citizens Mr Castillo earlier talked about overreach one Regional a failure that came to mind is the construction of a light rail system into Boulder County we paid taxes for many years it never happened other priorities took president Boulder should clearly work with others on issues concerning zoning housing land

[180:03] use and transportation but not give away control city council and manager please do not abdicate your responsibilities to the Colorado legislature thank you thank you our next speaker is Chase Cromwell good evening Council I'm Chase Cromwell a junior at CU Boulder legislative affairs director in our Student Government a quick thanks to Mayor Brockett for his Transit advocacy right now in D.C closing our way back to Boulder as students and student leaders we urge you to continue taking bold action to increase housing access at the state level it's clear that the state plans to take action in this session and it's crucial for the health of Boulder and Boulder's local government that we're involved in those conversations limited access to housing is a gigantic economic and climate issue workers

[181:01] students economic drivers and our community neighbors are being forced into impossible rents and priced into neighboring cities the rise of commuting for work and for school is quickly becoming an existential threat to our climate agenda if we love Boulder so much why are we so committed to keeping it hard for people to live here this is not about delegating responsibilities to the state legislature it's about making sure the local state and local governments are all at the table and creating the best results for our community Boulder cannot solve issues without the state the state cannot solve anything without the city for these reasons we urge you to support the proposed changes to item 22. thank you thank you next is Elaine Dana Miller I am not seeing Ms Dana Miller in the meeting this evening right then our final speaker is Quinton fellows good evening Council and thank you for having us here tonight my name is Quinn

[182:01] and I am a senior at CU Boulder I'm here tonight to express my support for the proposed changes to item 22. the housing crisis in Colorado is not limited to Boulder though we have felt its effects particularly acutely we know that restrictive zoning practices are among the greatest contributors to the challenges that exist in the boulder housing market today as the negative impacts of these policies felt by coloradans continue to increase so will the calls for change but simply this is not a topic that can be perpetually ignored sooner or later we will have to recognize that restricting our community's ability to meet the demand for housing has become an impediment to Boulder's future as a livable City if the state government is prepared to take bold action to address this issue we should ensure that our local leaders are fully prepared and able to participate in the process thank you you're welcome all right uh with that we're going to return this matter to council there are two people who I want to give some immediate priority to and the first is

[183:00] Juni thank you mayor Pro tem brockette and also thank you to my council member friend uh for seeding her position to me I just wanted to make clear uh as of this right now I would like to recuse myself from the rest of this meeting not because of a conflict of interest but out of an abundance of caution to avoid any appearance of impropriety as you know I'm a state legislature and you're voting on the legislative agenda so I want to just be clear and also you know um step aside just to ensure that community members um I don't think there is a conflict with my my vote tonight so uh and I hope Council will make the right decision for the community thank you thank you Journey next is uh Rachel you got a quick comment for us thanks Mark um and and thanks Judy I don't I don't

[184:01] know that I deserved any credit there but um uh thank you so I just wanted to um make a pitch obviously a large part of our job is listening to our constituents and our community and uh we can't always please everyone like on on uh number 22 it's it's clearly split and we're gonna make a decision and not everyone's going to be happy but on 23 um which is in my proposed language for 23b I think zero people from the community supported that like for different reasons we got uh uh objections so I want to make a recommendation that we um dispense with that and send it back to the subcommittee without that as an option and have them bring it back because I think um if we're listening there's there's no support for that and I don't think the sub Community the subcommittee will have considered um that piece without that suggestion and there's no there's no pending

[185:00] legislation coming down the pike that we're in a hurry the way we are in 20 you too so that maybe you could straw poll if there's any support for that thank you mayor Pro Tem okay shall we take that straw poll all in favor one two three four five with mayor Brockett The Invisible Man carries the day um and we will do that now other Council comments I guess it should be related at this point to uh position 22 as 23 will be reworked and thought through again uh mayor was it was that okay good uh your hand was in favor I assume it it was and do you mind if I speak to that real quick yes you may

[186:00] um so I mean I was I was a member of the legislative subcommittee that proposed that change um but it was Rachel's wording originally um and um so her withdrawing it was compelling to me as well as her case that while people advocated for other directions for us to go in there nobody really stood behind that particular change I thought that was a reasonable pivot based on on The Testament we got tonight thanks for letting me explain that one thank you uh Nicole then Matt thanks um I just wanted to make uh one pre-comment before my comment um and this is I uh have been sitting in on our bias microaggression training um this week and uh next week and I just wanted to point out something that um I think we and the community members some community members sometimes do that can be perceived as kind of hurtful to folks of color in our community um just so that all of us can kind of have this this learning moment and you

[187:01] know hopefully move move forward in a better way sometimes when we're talking about housing we need to be really careful that we're not equating skin color with income they are related intentionally because of how our country stole land and gave it to Europeans and because of how our country enslaved Africans and African Americans and use their labor to enrich European Americans but we have many people of color in our community who are not or who are not living in that lower end of income and I think every time that we equate skin color with income we are inadvertently erasing a lot of those folks in our community so I would just like to caution us and invite us to to think about this as we're talking about housing especially as it relates to equity uh just to be mindful of this bias that we have and the way that it

[188:01] can affect by Pop members in our community when our bias shows so that just an invitation to us all to think about this as as we're having these conversations and that I hope folks in our community will also be receptive to um to that information so um having things set down thank you for giving me a moment to do my uh pre-comment and uh calling in as I've learned from the training um so I I am in support of the changes to item 22. uh this afternoon I had a chance to see the movie this is not who we are it's a really important assessment of our past and our present and what got us here and I think that was my fourth time seeing it and each time I get something new out of it this afternoon while I was watching it I was reminded that when we know better we can and we should do better and our housing policies over the years have really made us an exclusive Community for mostly wealthy people this is even since we were established in

[189:00] 1859 as a city where people had to pay a thousand dollars per lot I was curious so I looked up what that was in 2023 3.6 million dollars um would be the 2023 equivalent so we're not quite there yet but as some of the speakers mentioned we are excluding a lot of folks and I've continued to do so with Randy's policies over the last 50 or 60 years workers families with school-aged children retirees those are the ones that I'm hearing from a lot these days and whatever Our intention was we know where we are in 2023 so the question is where do we go from here knowing that our housing policies that that we and other communities have implemented have created so much exclusion and hardship for so many I hope that we now know better and I hope that we can do better by supporting the changes to item 2022 so that we can be a strong advocate for uh more housing across our state and and here in our city thank you thank you Matt

[190:03] thanks Mark um and uh just uh I appreciate the the community coming out and providing their their feedback and their uh passion for the issues which is pretty uh it's something we uh treasure in this community uh for good and for bad but uh we we do appreciate hearing from everybody um you know it's really I think it's a critical opportunity for us to lead um and not lead with word lead with action um we we've we've stayed we've stood on our soapbox here in Boulder and hen have preached these values of housing values of inclusion uh values of wanting to provide opportunities for future Generations and we're trying here but there's a futility in some of this effort meaning it really it can only go so far unless our sister Community is in the Front Range embark on a similar

[191:01] Evolution to want to provide those opportunities for future Generations we can't do that for them and really we need the state to step up and I really commend the governor really taking a bold action here to say hey let we need to figure this out and we need to think about Transit land use zoning all together and and we need to hear that we've been preaching it so here when we have the governor actually aligning with what our values are here locally we got to seize that opportunity to sit at that table and help shape that policy in a way that benefits Us and other communities while minimizing the damage it might cause um so so I think we really need to lean into that um what I also feel is there's an important opportunity here to gain some leverage we've talked about wanting to support rent control which would be giving us more local control well we might be seeding some of it as well with regards to land use and zoning and by supporting the governor here we might actually have an opportunity to also soften some of those positions with

[192:00] regards to any resistance for rent control so these are holistically all part of the same package of how do we provide a suite a spectrum and a greater diversity of Housing and opportunities for people now and into the future and I think this is a great chance for us to lead and it's it's not accurate to say Denver runs the show as as I complimented BHP earlier BHP is not the only group in Boulder that punches above the weight the city of Boulder punches above its weight with regards to advocacy at the state level and we need to leverage that and continue to use that to do what's best for our community but also what's best for things that are holistically Front Range Regional State and National issues especially around land use and Zoning so I hope we can get support around that and Empower Carl Adam and will take that to the state house and get this job done and when we get specifics come back and then we can talk about the detail tells of a bill thank you mayor Brockett and then Tara yeah well I want to agree with the

[193:00] things that my colleagues uh Nicole and Matt said I thought both of that were both of those were very well said and spoken I agree with those points and just want to add that you know the housing issues that we have are not unique to Boulder of course they're they're Regional and in fact they're societal right we're seeing this all across the country and other states with some similar levels of problems have stepped up with some state level you know rules or guidance that I think are moving the conversation and uh forward on housing in in those States and so I was uh glad to hear the governor take this issue up this year I've been hearing Rumblings about this for a number of months and and a number of um folks in our community have been engaged with those efforts already and many of them in the environmental community so for example the local non-profit Suite the Southwest Energy Efficiency project is involved in these discussions and negotiations coming from an environmental perspective and I want

[194:01] to assure speakers who were concerned about Equity that I know that that is also part of the conversation as well so I know that anti-displacement and anti-gentrification efforts are being considered as part of this what I'm sure will be a suite of bills as well and so there are a lot of these conversations going on that could go in a lot of different directions and I think by passing this policy change this gives us a seat at the table where we can help guide those discussions in ways that are compatible with Boulder's values right so that as as we were talking about earlier Carlos you spoke that if we take an opposed position then you know we're just fighting and end of story but um we do have an ability to have a prominent seat at the table for these discussions and we put guard rails into the language for example talking about any changes that we might support would need to be in alignment with the comprehensive plan

[195:01] which you know is the summation of the the city's goals about development and housing and everything else in our community so I think we only have authorization to support something that you know broadly goes along with the goals and values and visions of the city of Boulder and so by taking this position it can be a leadership position and we can help steer the trajectory of this discussion in ways that particularly align with Boulder's values and if if this is successful which it may well be and certainly bills are coming and they may well get passed and if we're able to be influential and and make sure that those bills do sort of move in the direction that that that is in accordance with Boulder's values we can make a difference for our own Community but also for the entire State on an issue that is uh fundamentally uh goes well beyond our city borders as a Regional societal problems so I really appreciate the work folks have done in this Carl I really I know you worked

[196:00] really hard on this in collaboration with our lobbyists and our various other team members internal and external and I think we struck a good balance here and I think this will be a really important discussion that we can play a leadership role on so thanks so much for considering it Tara how does it take me so long to unmute I don't it's a skill this skill I don't have it's always good to hear the other side I think I was very torn because so many people had great things to say and I have been consistently voting for more housing it's our one of our number one problems that I want to see some movement on but I I've been thinking about the fact that this is a city that does like local control I mean we wanted stronger gun laws before this state wanted them so we finally got that opportunity now it looks like the

[197:01] state is following us and we've wanted to utilize a type of rent control to make some dent and affordability as a tool but we weren't able to do that because under state law we couldn't and so in my opinion why would we then want to give away local control when it comes to land use and Zoning I always I almost 100 always support Governor polis on almost every issue and I'm a big fan of his and I absolutely understand why he would want to go beyond incentives to make a dent in the housing affordability crisis and I have like I said voted for as much housing as I could every single time on the year that I've been here but the things that I'm concerned about is actually what Martha roskowski I believe her name was um brought up her comments really affected me um we don't know that building more and increasing density is going to make a dent in these housing prices we really just don't know I mean New York City has

[198:00] loads of density and it didn't help them bring down their cost of housing and so I agree that we have to make sure that we have to be really careful about gentrification and making sure we just don't build expensive housing on Transit corridors we also I'm also super concerned that RTD no offense has not been the most stelller of Partners we did build a Transit Village and then didn't have Transit and we didn't have a train and the ab2 bus um was you know I think they stopped service on that for years so but I'm I'm convinced by a lot of my colleagues that we're going to be very careful going forward I'm sure that I'm going to be in the minority so when the bills come our way I just ask that we tread carefully and let's please consider long-term unintended consequences I just want to bring up the good old condo defect law which started out great but ended up poorly and actually backfired and so I think we

[199:01] need to think really think carefully about proceeding and doing something that we can't really take back the other way we have Governor polis I trust him but who knows who's going to be the next Governor so once we open up this can of worms can we really go backwards and so that's really all I have to say is to just move forward with deep thought foreign thank you Mark I'm gonna Echo what a number of other people have already said Boulder is not an island whoa what we do in terms of our housing um and zoning rules affects communities around us as do their rules affect ours um I don't take lightly the idea of seeding

[200:03] any of our home rule Authority but in this case I do believe that this is a regional issue and that in order to for it to be effectively addressed I mean as Aaron mentioned it's larger than Regional but sort of we need to be taking a bigger bite out of this and so a regional solution is appropriate in this case thank you I'm going to go next and then Rachel um I have a lot of problems Carl can you tell me when this was first made available to the public um are you referring to the recommendation made by the committee yeah the language that we're looking at so that that was public on Sunday evening when when I sent an email through the hotline I I am extremely troubled that we we think that we have fulfilled Our

[201:00] obligation for the community to weigh in on this with a four day turnaround time um to me that that's just absurd okay um the community may like it they may not like it but they haven't had any kind of real opportunity to weigh in and and that it's troubling to me and I would hope it would be troubling to you um the the effect of this language is saying to Governor polis we're with you now tell us what we're with and we don't have any bills that are specific that we are agreeing to it's simply a concept and you know I find it a little bit problematic that we we stump for a local control of rent control local control of pesticides and now we'd like to give some local control away I I I don't know why that's not um uh anomalous

[202:00] um and expressing General support for for what's coming down the road I think is fine but committing to giving away local control in advance to me is is not fine I I believe that some version of uh section 22 will and should pass but I will tell you uh and and Carl I love you so do not take offense um the vision is as badly drafted and unclear as anything I've looked at in a long time there's got to be a way of of being a little clearer in our Concepts and in our articulation um than this document it just it it's on the one hand on the other hand um it's you know we we cherish our local control but you know

[203:01] we can we can get behind this or that as I said I think something along these lines is doable and should be done but for this to represent our policy of support um to me is is it's relatively incoherent uh the community has had no time to look at it and and this is to me um ready fire aim governance it is not the way governance is supposed to uh occur um and we're doing it the service to the community by saying hey you had three days to look at it um what's your problem um so I would want to see this um not killed but redone in a way that that provides Clarity um and deals with the issues that we're dealing with here in a much more coherent way this is let's just get it

[204:01] out there and and you know jump you know jump into the into the process I think there are plenty ways of getting into the process and expressing our general support for what's coming down the road without doing it in this fashion and let me make one comment keyed off of of Sarah's comment um there is no city in America that has built its way um through affordability it's not been in Boston it's not been in San Francisco it's not happened in Los Angeles it's not and nowhere um so don't assume that because we we build um 400 units in East Boulder that they're going to suddenly be affordable and if anybody actually believes in the concept of trickle-down Economics with respect to housing uh I'd love to have a conversation with you because that that's not happened anywhere either all of the units that we build here are going to be expensive units because the

[205:00] land is expensive and that's what developers like to do they like to make more money rather than less money so counting on this to provide the opportunity we would like to provide for more people to comfortably live here at lesser levels of income this is not going to do it um it doesn't mean we're going to oppose the the legislations because yeah I'd like to see other other communities get put some skin in the game with respect to affordability but if we think in Boulder that that suddenly we're going to end up with middle-income townhouses I I think we're going to be sadly disappointed that's not the way the market Works um and with that again I would just reiterate my suggestion that we spend a little more time drafting this to get it done better not that it's not going to be done but to get it done better um Rachel you're next thank you mayor Pro tem Wallach and uh agree to disagree in general with uh

[206:03] your comments there um so I'm a huge fan of of getting after missing middle housing and that's a lot of what I think we're going to be getting after here so um it's not just affordable housing it's also types of housing that are going to be available to my parents and my kids and you know a lot of people like them all over the state so I I was uh Blown Away by Governor polis's State of the State address and very excited about it and I just wanted to thank Carl for convening our subcommittee so quickly and putting together what I thought again agree to disagree here uh council member mayor Tim Wallach but I thought was fantastic language for us to to use and consider and so thank you for bringing that forward um I'm excited to support 22. um and and just also want to ask that when we you know to to address Tara and and some other concerns when we do get

[207:01] whatever is going to be proposed back let's try and get it in front of everybody as quick as we can and and figure out ways for for more people to feel that their voices are being heard it is unfortunate the way that the State Legislature just moves it at sort of Breakneck speeds we don't have a lot of turnaround time by the time we get a subcommittee together and then get it on Council agenda and and get it up for hearing um but there will be more opportunities this is not set in stone this is something we can amend after we see what it is we can also keep talking about it this is basically just us being able to say to our lobbyists hey let's get involved and and getting us a seat at the table so again this is not um the the US Constitution this really is a breathing document that we amend all the time so to community members who are worried about that um this is just a like a launch pad for us and and there's also you know the the place to weigh in it's going to be at the state legislature this is not a law that we're passing this is going to be a state law so for for people who want to

[208:00] continue um raising their voices I would just recommend to also participate um at State hearings so thanks again Carl and thank you to Governor polis if you're watching we're very excited okay uh Matt you have some comments I just wanted to just add as sort of listen to some of my colleagues here and thank you Rachel for what you said about missing middle I agree completely uh that the pipe dream is is I think pure affordability but for for us it's building the the scaffolding for the socioeconomic ladder to move up I mean right now people are having to shoot too big of a gap in which case we're pricing people out and people can't move up the economic ladder in our community so so thank you for bringing that up Rachel you know there there's this there's a weird aura about local control and and I think where we have to be careful is we we go get to a place where we're just not taken seriously you know we we we're asking for local control we asked for it for pesticides we asked for it for gun control we're

[209:00] asking for more local control on rental assistance or for for rent control and all and the state just comes and asks for a little bit of that back to recalibrate what is a regional state and National problem and we turn around and if our attitude is from my cold dead hands that's not a serious position like that's just not serious in terms of being able to tackle the challenges that are in front of us so so we have to be clear that we can't just always be in a receive receive receive mode we have to find a way to be a two-way street with regards to working with our state legislature on these things so I we we gotta we got a slow roll a little bit on on getting too worried about something that hasn't been fully defined this gives Carl the tools so that as it rolls out they have just enough what they need to help shape it and as we get some more detail we roll it out and we get a lot of that input but but word smithing and shaping a policy statement on something that hasn't been written yet is just CR is just tossing a word salad we're not

[210:00] going to get to substance until there's some substance to evaluate so Carl thank you for putting this that policy statement together um I think you guys have done a great job and and I think you'll continue to do a great job representing us um so thank you for that but I just want to caution on the local control we we go too far down this path we will not be taken seriously and we will lose political leverage we need to be playing serious ball here and there's the right way to do that Matt if I make colloquy words are what runs government and so words are important Bob you're up uh I'll say a few words um I'll be joining Mark and Tara and what sounds like will be a three to five minority in opposition to the proposed changes to position number 22. first of all I fully support the efforts by Governor polis to increase the amount of affordable housing in our state I think it's great what he's doing and what the legislature is doing and I hope they're very successful um however there is no housing bill paying before the Colorado legislature

[211:01] right now and I understand that one is being worked on and Boulder would like to have hand in drafting that but while Boulder is one of the most expensive places to live in the state we also have some of the most Progressive housing policies in in Colorado allowing adus co-ops duplexes commercial linkage fees and a long-standing inclusion inclusionary housing program which we heard about earlier this evening one could argue that Boulder does more to provide housing for low-income and moderate income families than nearly every other city in the state but beyond that point I differ from my colleagues uh who serve on the intergovernmental Affairs committee they have proposed that Boulder not only lead the way in affordable housing but that will give up its rights to local control land as a symbolic gesture to prove that we're really really serious about this I think that's a bad idea we heard some really good suggestions this evening from some of our speakers they had uh ideas about how Boulder can

[212:03] make improvements in our housing affordability efforts and these are some of the things that we should be doing but of course Boulder does not need to give up is local authority to the state in order for Boulder to make the changes that we heard about tonight like every home rule City in the state Boulder has its own land use laws that reflect Our Community Values we have zoning that lets people know what kind of structures can go where we have floor area ratio set back and shade rules that ensure that appropriately sized structures are placed on Lots we allow edus and co-ops but in places with limitations that reflect our community what our community thinks about is appropriate we have a blue line that prevents new buildings from being up the side of our Mountain and we have a 55 foot height limit other cities have different land use rules they do what is appropriate for their communities we do what's

[213:00] appropriate for our community it would be arrogant of us to assert that Boulder's land use rules should apply to every city in the state likewise we would not want another City's land use rules or state imposed land use rules to be forced upon us yet the revisions to the policy statement number 22 that we will vote on in a few minutes do just that those revisions say that Boulder is okay if the state imposes a one-size-fits-all land use model on all of the cities in Colorado at best this is arrogant at worst is extremely dangerous local land use is the most precious right that a city can exercise independently if we yield that to the state we will give up everything who will no longer be at home rule City we will be a state ruled City I urge my Council colleagues to take a deep breath and pause before taking a

[214:01] plunge into the abyss this is a change that will be hard to undo once we grasp the mistake that we've made finally I'd like to make a few statements on process the process for the sweeping and impactful amendments to these two policy positions has been handled pretty badly the intergovernmental Affairs committee met last Thursday and they decided on these amendments were not these proposals in an email from Carl on Sunday night that went out to a small number of people who subscribed to hotline after prodding from me the two proposals were finally publicly posted on council's agenda webpage late Tuesday the cutoff for sign up to the public hearing was yesterday at three o'clock less than 24 hours after the proposals were posted and only 48 hours before the public hearing and vote tonight this is not how we do public engagement

[215:01] we want to try to bring the community Along on changes we need to let them know what we're doing in advance we need to give them time to reflect on our proposals and to Wing in we need to listen to them we didn't do that this week so regardless of tonight's vote the majority may not have broad Community buy-in to what they decide tonight because they did not seek Community buy-in that is not how we do things here in Boulder I hope we can do things better next time thanks thank you Bob any any final comments Nicole I just had to make a correction um a Community member thank you Evan ravitz corrected me I had my decimals wrong in the um what a thousand dollars is worth today and um just wanted to make sure to correct that it's actually around thirty six thousand dollars not 3.6 million

[216:01] um was going a little too fast there but I think that actually makes it worse not better so um anyway but I did I did just want to correct that I know um Evan as I saw the movie today was uh one of the folks who initially told us about that thousand dollar per acre uh rule so anyway thank you for that correction wanted to make sure to get that in thank you I guess we're at the point of taking a vote if somebody want to make a motion somebody must make a big emotion okay Rachel well I do want I will I'm happy to make the motion but it just reminded me when you said that that I um I don't want to um look past Carl's suggestion for the just the cleaning up of 23 like getting rid of the triple negative so maybe we do want to do that part tonight because that's not changing anything substantive because I said let's just have 23 go back so if we could do a quick maybe straw poll on whether that part's okay then we have it you know just a cleaned

[217:00] up starting point I'm sorry I don't quite understand are you looking to vote on 23 today not really Carl had said that he just wanted to use some to modify the language to get rid of a triple negative separately like it said you know I Carl would know the language but but making it just a little bit cleaner and more decipherable so when I I said let's not look at 23 and we we got agreement for that or majority for that I thought maybe we wanted to go back and and pull that back let's take a straw poll on uh allowing Carl to clean up 23. all in favor the eyes have it okay um right so do you want to make a motion Rachel sure I don't have any language in front of me but um I would make a motion that we um adopt the uh intergovernmental Affairs uh suggested amendments to um our our plan our agenda and in including the

[218:04] language as Carl as a set forth for number 22 and the changes that that Carl Castillo suggested during the council meeting today for 23 and I'm sorry I don't have the language up if I could come up I could make it a much cleaner language oh second oh sorry I didn't see Aaron sorry I was a second sorry didn't know parents I well I will go ahead in a second but then uh I would request that we get the precise language for 23 that Carl's proposed cleanup language so that we're clear about what that is when we're kept the motion done I'll pop it up just give me uh a few seconds here can I just make a point um on that one while we're kind of talking about it so Carl um you had suggested we vote on each one independently um even with this just clean up language change I would really appreciate that opportunity um because I I have different feelings about um 23 so if that would be all right with

[219:00] folks I would like to um I wonder if we could um and I don't remember the process for undoing that motion but it would be really nice I think if we could follow Carl's suggestion and vote on them independently well I think we had did we not have a vote recently but we were not proceeding with 23. yeah that was my that was gonna be my question mark because I thought we said we were going to table 23 but that still leaves the current language that's sitting and a non-substantive fix to the triple negative my suggestion was Yeah Carl fix it send it to us and then we can reconsider so then we're just voting on 22. just 22. um raise your hand is up and then mayor I think that was an old hand but I guess that would just revise my motion to um although I don't know we have that language right

[220:00] now so I don't know why we're sending it back when we already voted to act on that tonight so that I think somebody needs to make an alternative motion if we don't want to do that now and I turned to Sandra for guidance I guess okay I I'm confused at what is council's intent so if someone could explain that to them to me I I thought we had voted to put aside at least for the moment 23. majority will to just make the cleanup language to get rid of the triple negative before that subcommittee brings back whatever so that it's cleaner from as a starting point well then I think we need to have comments and discussion about 23 because there may be other issues if we're going to proceed with that mayor he yeah and Rachel when he said to just do the cleanup at first I thought yeah that's that's a reasonable thing to do tonight it's not unreasonable but um

[221:01] since we are referring it back to the subcommittee anyway and we seem to be getting tangled up a little bit if we're gonna if we make any changes to 23 uh perhaps we let it stand as it is and consider the the cleanup language as part of sending it back to the subcommittee okay I will then revise my I think I can get a standard correctly if I'm wrong please I will revise my motion to uh just move forward with the subcommittee's recommendation as to number 22 for the inter-governmental affairs um policy we have a motion second name seconded oh but he second the previous one to know he was seconding the new one sorry I didn't see his hand man what are you second thing if you all don't mind I believe the protocol would be to ask the secondary if I were also okay with the change proposed by Rachel which I am so um so I think we have the revised motion on the table with a promotion by friend in a second about rocket

[222:01] and can I just ask Sandra is that is that understandable at this point are we have I confused anyone I I believe so I I Carla you okay with it yes okay and is that well I should ask Alicia the clerk is that motion just for uh position 23 a 22 rather it's just for 22 23 I think we'll just go back to Carl and the subcommittee and we'll get that language scooped up the next time we look at it if I understood the intent now um do either one of you want to speak to your motion I I think we've now thank you for that opportunity I'll stand by what I said already mayor Brockett I get your hand is still up you don't need to say anything more thanks Alicia I assume this is a roll call um I don't think so because I think I

[223:00] was a little clearer I was a little confused so we're voting on to proceed with 23 22 or 20 or two defer 22 back to the subcommittee no 23 goes back to the subcommittee um 22 is being acted on tonight yes sir okay um let us proceed alrighty let me pull up my roll call vote alrighty we will start this roll call with council member Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes councilmember Focus yes friend yes spear yes Winer no

[224:02] and Yates no alrighty the motion to move forward with the amendment I mean with the measure is hereby approved with a vote uh one two three four five two three all right um moving along our next matter uh from Matt is from the mayor and members of council is an appointment update uh on the library district trustee um mayor Pro tem this is a quick question we should probably ask uh council member Joseph to come back to the meeting that's a good idea welcome back in March should we do a time check well it's now 9 39 shall we proceed for another five minutes according to the estimated time but all right um mayor is this your is this something

[225:00] you're going to be giving us uh Nicole do you want to start with the update on the library district and I can chairman sure yeah happy to um so uh the mayor and I met with uh two of the county County and young to start talking through the process for appointing Library District trustees and what we emerged with was one consensus decision which is that we would like to put seven people on this initial Board of um of Trustees for the library district and then we are going to be having an application process that we are hoping to have a draft of the application within about two weeks for the four of us elected officials to look at we will make suggestions on that hopefully within about a week at which point County and City staff will be Distributing the application we are

[226:02] hoping to make sure that it kind of gets out in the the typical ways that both the city and county do board and commission applications as well as send it to folks who are currently on our library commission have served recently folks who are on the ldac just basically the people who've already been involved in this process we are expecting to have it open for about three weeks at which point we will review the applications staff will kind of do a quick check as we do just to make sure that folks are actually living within the district and meeting some of the basic requirements and then we will be discussing those applicants and we are aiming we hope to have um some folks uh appointed selected and appointed um hopefully by mid to late April hi everybody you want anything to add mayor no that was very good thank you

[227:00] Nicole but I believe um I think it's by the end of March rather than the end of April that we're shooting for so like three weeks plus three well I think for the choosing it was seven yeah yeah I was thinking that will point it okay can we say like late March early April sure somewhere around there yeah basically early this spring okay good and I'll just um just say that I really appreciate the collaboration with the County Commissioners we had a good discussion you know and work together to find a positive path forward so I think we're we're on the right track with our partners and uh to move forward uh kind of with the right mix of expositiousness to to keep the library district on track but also taking the time we need to evaluate the best candidates Obama see your hand is up yeah uh uh Nicole and Aaron thanks for for all the hard work on this I just wanted to kind of make sure I understood the kind of the process on this so you're going to open up applications that's great and then you'll keep it open for a while and receive applications and then um I just

[228:01] want to understand that the next few steps will there be some sort of um let's say you get 50 applications that are a lot more than seven um are you guys going to be doing some sort of like um filtering or interviewing or or is your committee uh including I think there's a kind of commissioner with you gonna make a a set of recommendations of seven based upon whatever filtering or application review or interviewing process you're going to go through oh I guess I can take that yeah that's correct and by the way it's um it's clearly being Martin Luther mean there's four of you okay yeah so the four of you after the application window closes the four of you will sit down and through whatever process maybe it's applications maybe it's interview some sort of combination of that you'll come up with a list of maybe seven and then you'll bring that to the Commissioners and to council is that right that's correct great um and I guess I guess it just depends on calendars where it goes to first right or you can do um alternates too like we did on the police oversight panel or is that you're going to kind of stick with seven and and

[229:00] and um and and then take take resignations up as they come there was no talk about alternates but it I mean something we could consider if you if you want to make a pitch or send an email or something it's just a special song about it just a thought I mean since this since it's two bodies and we and it's probably a lot of brain damage to to get us all together and all that kind of stuff I wonder if you guys if you have like an eighth or Ninth Place person that you're pretty happy with I wonder if you want to kind of designate them as alternates that way if we lose one of the seven um uh somewhere along the lines you'll have somebody to kind of slip right in as opposed to starting the process a little weekend I don't know if that matters but it's Justified can I colloquy on that um I I think Bob that once once the um seven are seated they they would um probably be the ones to lead the next application process so I don't know if um we've got one of the lawyers could uh advise on this or if that's something I think we can certainly check on on what that process would be but um my sense

[230:00] would be that because we'll have the folks appointed they would kind of be the ones who would lead any search for a replacement um again the intergovernmental agreement will you know let us know that yes we still have the the approval appointing um power but I think we can certainly bring that up I just just wanted to be clear that I I believe once there appointed then they would have the the ability to replace folks or at least recommend through the application process got it okay thank you Matt thanks Mark um so Nicole my apologies my wife I went a little zonkey in the middle of your explaining the where you're at so I heard some of it but I may have missed something so if this question if my question was answered in your place in what you had already said my apologies was was there any discussion about um proportionality with regards to where people on the trustees would come from in terms of how many are from the city or you know or versus unincorporated or

[231:02] other parts is there any discussion about about that no not not at this meeting um I expected that's going to come up it'll be when we've got some of the applicants in place but we were quite efficient and got done and um just about an hour so nice work pretty good awesome thank you all right are there any other discussion items I hope not um then I think we are we stand ready to be adjourned unless anybody's got a further comment which they do not well you know yes they do Mark I'm just so extremely grateful for you taking over tonight with uh and my internet was very spotty like so it was definitely the right call so very very appreciative of you step now are you sure you weren't having a problem because you were at a fancy restaurant right put that bottle of wine away no I'm in the hotel room with with no one whatsoever I promise all right so at 9

[232:01] 47 I am declaring this meeting adjourned thank you all have a good weekend good job Mark bye everyone [Music]