March 23, 2023 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[5:11] good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's study session of the Boulder City Council I am council member Tara Weiner and thank you for joining us we have on tonight's agenda two items our first item is downtown streets as public space update and our second item is zoning for affordable housing update and discussion can you hear my door chiming going on and I'll I'll work on that next year before we get to those two items I want to acknowledge that we have been getting a lot of questions from concerned community members about the multiple propane tank fires that have taken place near Boulder High School in the past week does council agree to hearing an update on this subject from our city manager does anyone have any objections to this

[6:02] do I see any objections nope okay great beef Marie do you want to take it from here sure and I thank you councilmember weiner for this request and for all of you for supporting the opportunity to address the issue and provide a quick update as many of you know we've had three propane tank explosions this last week Thursday March 16th Boulder fire and rescue was notified about a small fire near the Southwest entrance of the Penfield Tate municipal building the fire was extinguished Dan which was contained to a few tents and there were not known injuries and Friday March 17th bfr was again notified about a small fire close to the multi-use path near Boulder High the fire there too was extinguished the damage was contained to one tent and no known injuries and on Tuesday March 21st Boulder fire rescue was again notified about a fire near Broadway and Arapahoe the fire

[7:00] again was quickly extinguished and the damage was contained to one tent without known injuries we take such incidents seriously and are actively investigating ways to improve current response efforts to adapt to the evolving challenges surrounding unsanctioned campsites currently the city removes propane tanks from unsanctioned campsites part of its ongoing cleanup efforts and also in direct response to 9-1-1 or non-emergency calls outside of the safe and managed spaces where stamps work between January 2022 and February 2023 about a year and a month City staff have constant have confiscated 352 propane tanks there seems to be some confusion in community as well about what our responses in relation to propane tanks Under the Tent and propane tank ordinance the city does not need 72 hours to remove such tanks where they are visible and are where PD has been called to investigate and proceeds to identify the same

[8:00] if they are hidden inside tents and PD receives a call to investigate PD has done so there are some there are some legal constraints our police face when doing this work if someone remains inside a closed tent and refuses to comply or even respond to us a situation that is increasing a plate based on General case law as well as previous Boulder Court ruling PD may be required to attain a search warrant to enter the tent and address the situation this is concerning to us as we don't wish to escalate encounters with community members but the proliferation of propane tanks lately coupled with an increase in non-compliance means we may have to do just this very thing and we hope counselor remains supportive of the work PD will have to do in this regard importantly we are taking additional measures to hopefully address the situation prior to this time of escalated intervention with Euro budgetary support last year we have added a second Cleanup Crew who are already helping to increase cleanup activities BPD Staffing is ever improving and we

[9:01] can routinely count on their presence for the more frequent support we need given the very real fire danger these tanks presents we have also asked the fire department to join in these cleanup efforts moving forward and they did so today we have been working on signs to display in high priority areas across the city and hope to have those coming out and displayed in the coming weeks and as you'll hear more on April 13th and I believe our memo on the topic is coming out soon we are tightening up our encampment abatement protocols that already prioritize Parks schools and other public spaces we have modified our protocols to treat underpasses and multi-use path as commuter corridors that will not require the requisite 72-hour notice to clear and our increasing Patrols in critical areas including around Boulder high in partnership with our bbsd partners who are also increasing resources there as well these increased patrols include evening hours as well

[10:00] I'll say too that PD is actively investigating these recent incidents along with our fire department as so many fires in a concentrated area and the time frame seems unusual we will alert Council if we have an update on this we will have a deeper conversation about all of these efforts on April 13th but on Note 2 that all the staff is doing to address what is two that all that staff is doing to address what is truly a national as well as a local issue requires resources and is Staff intensive so part of the conversation too will need to include eventually how we financially support these and other interventions to both assist those experiencing homelessness get the help they need as well as how we address the impacts of homelessness in our community finally I'll say that the best way to help us notify the best way to help us is to notify us if you see a propane tank and community while we received some images last week that expressed concerns about tanks none of those images sent to staff reflected

[11:00] any visible tanks and that very area where the fire occurred had already been noticed for cleanup which many of you saw this week cleanup that I'll note remains ongoing as part of our more assertive efforts to maintain these areas Clean and Free of camping if at any time any Community believe member believes there is an immediate threat to his for for their safety or the safety of another person we as they call 9-1-1 a police officer will respond and take appropriate action and if a Community member sees something that is concerning but not necessarily threatening we encourage the use of the non-emergency phone number which is 303-441-333333 in most instances a police officer respond in a timely manner But please understand that there may be non-emergency situations where responses delayed because available officers may be needed at another location we appreciate the concerns of community as we address the situation and know

[12:02] that we too as staff are looking for additional mechanisms and tools to continue to support our community as a whole thanks thanks Nuria before we go into our work items I'd like to outline how the meeting will be conducted we will review the staff's presentation for each item on the agenda and then we will have a time for questions after questions we'll have the opportunity to give comments counsel as usual staff ask that if you have questions please wait for staff to complete their presentation and we're now going to turn to city manager Nuria Rivera vandermeid to introduce our first item well thankfully you've heard enough from me today uh and I'm going to send it over to Brad to kick us off but I'll just note briefly uh we had promised last fall when we came at the end of the uh late fall we had talked about downtown streets as public spaces and particularly there was a lot of conversation and Community interest uh

[13:02] in the future of West Pearl Street but also just thinking in general about what are other opportunities um staff took a look at that and I appreciate um the members of the process committee council member Weiner and council member Benjamin who really supported the engagement efforts as we move forward it is a complex issue I don't know if it's something that we will make everyone happy at Edible given time but I can say that the staff and our consultant Partners worked really hard to think about listen to community and come up with options that you will hear about tonight so with that I will send that over to Brad thank you and good evening council members I'll be presenting the first part of the this presentation and then we'll continue from there so if we could bring up the slides while I'm talking here initially it is our pleasure to come this evening uh just a little over three months from when this project and

[14:00] initiative was undertaken we appreciated the bias towards action the council I wanted to see after discussion in the fall but also the the vision that you all laid out of imagining a bigger future where streets can be considered as public spaces in a way that we have not unnecessarily considered them in Boulder as holistically as uh you discussed in the fall and so with that spirit in mind uh we were able to put together an internal team through the first months of excuse me October and November and then bring our Consulting team in in December and lay out the groundwork for some engagement that we'll go over in in a bit of detail with you leading up to this evening with some specific recommendations with the interest to get feedback from you so that we can take forward uh your expectations for this

[15:00] Vision but also Imagine towards a larger future as I included along with myself doing the introduction and the kind of closing facilitation I want to acknowledge Noreen Walsh who's from the transportation and Transit department and has been project manager she's done a wonderful job of getting a lot of different groups and interests together in a very short time and then Amanda Cole will be doing much of the presentation tonight she's Consulting with lead line project management and then also Brett Miriam from another Consulting Group Gail people who is a Herman's strategy firm so with that we'll jump into the first slide here again we wanted to be responsive to uh two really parallel paths um that came out of the discussion in the fall what can we do immediately in the short term what are some specific recommendations that we can bring forward uh and imagine

[16:02] as a city for the administration into the summer and fall of this next year spring summer and fall of now this year and what can we think about in the longer terms of using this as a pilot a three-year pilot to test things try things and go deeper into the engagement beyond what we were able to do albeit very successfully in two months but nonetheless a very compressed time frame and taking that more uh further into the future as a living laboratory on what we'll be recommending is three Geographic areas so we can get a good sample size um both geographically and in the types of different um streets as reimagined into the future we're going to be using the term pop-ups this evening recognizing that as a way to talk about this experiment this pilot if you will and then programming being the active

[17:00] activation of things and then various physical elements as we go forward as well next slide please of course with every project are some goals this was derived out of internal discussion discussion uh feedback from you all as Council and and from the public as well we recognize the importance of reflecting and building on the experiences that we've had from the past we do have the experiences during covet to rely on uh experiences throughout holders history of deliberate closed spaces such as the bricks but other events such as the Farmers Market we want to make sure that any recommendations reflected a diverse set of voices throughout the community voices from north south and east community members who we want to make sure are also enjoying uh the downtown folks from various socioeconomic groups

[18:03] within the town and also understand the technical feasibility that comes with temporarily closing spaces or reimagining them a fourth or third rather developing some specific and exciting recommendations that we'll highlight this evening and then fourth utilizing as I said this as a pilot a pilot imagining a three-year cycle for example where we can experiment try different things measure and then and then improve upon next slide we have a set of goals that we'll conclude with for questions uh regarding both the technical analysis and Community feedback that we were able to acquire in this time frame and then also feedback on the actual recommendations and information that you as Council hope that we can glean as we kick off the pilot and imagine this into the years

[19:01] ahead so we'll revisit these at the end of the presentation and with this I'm going to hand it uh now over to Amanda who will go through the um the details of uh of the research that's been found and um and take it from you thank you Brad my name is Amanda Cole it's nice to be with you tonight Council uh before we get into the recommendations which my colleague Brett Will describe I thought we could pause and talk about our approach and our analysis to answering the question about how and where streets could be reimagined for this spring and summer and there are many ways to look at this we took an approach that was highly dependent on different types of analysis and Community engagement including looking at planned outdoor events and outdoor dining that's already going to be occurring this summer season looking at Transportation analysis so what are the impacts to bike and

[20:00] pedestrian bus and vehicular movements um really importantly is the implementability of this project and so in some other planning projects you may get to see really big ideas and for lack of a better term unburdened of the ability to implement them very quickly the set of recommendations has that already baked in because we started this project knowing that we would need to implement very quickly looked at Urban Design analysis which Brett will get into more what are the facades what are the street sizes uh where may be most suitable for this type of transformation and of course Community engagement which I'll summarize before passing it to my colleagues so we took three approaches here with Community engagement the first is an online questionnaire which you may have seen in the packet got almost 1800 responses and I think that demonstrates itself High Community interest and I wanted to pause to clarify one of the main points in the questionnaire which

[21:02] it's a question about the West Pearl experience and it was a long question in the questionnaire and I'll take a moment to read that because I think the the words of the sentence are important and how those results should be interpreted so the question was during the pandemic from Spring of 2020 until fall of 2022 the West Pearl Street area from 9th Street to 11th Street was closed to vehicles to make room for expanded outdoor dining pedestrian spaces Gathering and events in your view how do you think this temporary change in the use of streets impacted the overall appeal of the West Pearl area and we found that 86 percent of respondents said that the temporary change significantly increased or increased the overall appeal of the Westworld West Pearl area and while the questionnaire isn't statistically valid and doesn't have enough respondents to um to be a representative sample of the community I think that's one point to clarify uh but also this question was

[22:00] really about the overall appeal of the temporary change that occurred during the pandemic so thank you for letting me go into that detail in addition to the online questionnaire we conducted in-person engagement activities throughout downtown and in non-downtown locations to try to address address some of the engagement gaps that have been done previously and lastly we conducted several stakeholder meetings in a short amount of time and that's further detailed in your packet and included visits to the community connectors and residents West Pearl business owners the business recovery Alliance and others and I'd be happy to answer any questions about those and because we're short on time I'll just summarize some of the findings and these are still a summarized version of what's in your packet but we do know from all of the engagement touch points that there are some desired experiences that people share and they enjoy downtown for a variety of reasons primarily to shop dine socialize people watch and enjoy

[23:01] nightlife there are some things that are missing and for some people that means safety and public health concerns General feelings of not being welcome affordability both for the business owner and the consumer and difficulty with Mobility access or parking that could be barriers to enjoying downtown we also learned that there's no shortage of really awesome ideas and an abundance of activators who would enjoy transforming downtown streets and that the the need may be more on the side of support Logistics support from the city or even financial support to encourage those activators and lastly I'll touch on a constant theme throughout all of our engagement was emphasis on that the pop-up should be used to encourage and celebrate inclusivity through the type of activations participants accessibility and affordability and with that I'll introduce my colleague Brett Miriam from gal hi good evening everyone

[24:01] um again my name is Brett Merriam representing gel we are an urban strategy and Urban Design firm um and so we've been taking a look at this project through those lenses um and I'll talk a bit about our approach which we call the public life potential mapping um approach where what we conducted was this um analysis to assess which street segments in downtown taking a holistic look at all of downtown um understanding what street segments have the most potential for a good quality of public life that is the ability for people to cohabitate and space together to enjoy um being in the public realm and feel safe and secure in doing so and understanding which segments of the street are best situated for Success um through a public program that we would describe as part of our recommendations here and so what we did was we evaluated these Street segments um essentially across two different dimensions one being as places to go through so evaluating the streets merits as a place to uh sort of conduct movement whether by car by foot by bike

[25:02] or other sort of wheeled mobilities and so we were looking at things like Transit and traffic routes accessibility the bicycle infrastructure to understand the impacts to those um those different ways of Mobility if a site were to be closed to some type of closure we also looked at the merits of the streets as a place to go to you can think of it as what is the Merit of this street as a as a Gathering Place as a destination in and of itself and so really thinking about the merits of this place as a public space for people to want to enjoy spending time in and so we're looking at things like past and existing Street activations so understanding what events have taken place uh in the past along these streets and are planned or to take place into the future as well so understanding the merits of these places as somewhat of a festival grounds in and of themselves looking at the responses to the be heard Boulder questionnaire that Amanda mentioned one of the questions on that uh questionnaire was to ask people to drop pins on a map as to where they have positive or negative commentary about

[26:01] different locations that they would feel excited about and then finally thinking about the ground floor activation or facade quality um and this is looking at the relationship that the commercial ground floor sort of private realm the way that businesses restaurants um and retailers all play in imparting a sense of vibrancy to the ground floor and the experience of the street so understanding that interplay between the public realm and private business at the same time and so really thinking about how all the different positives and negatives depending on um the impacts that would happen to any of these different dimensions we produced a series of maps that were all basically slices of each of these different pieces of criteria next slide please and when we overlaid all those maps all those different slices on top of each other uh four major locations bubbled up to the top as the places with the most potential um the best position sites for this pop-up program to be implemented for the spring summer 2023 uh season and these

[27:00] locations were of course Pearl between 9th and 11th streets 13th Street between Canyon and Arapahoe 14th Street between Spruce and walnut and then Pearl again on the east side between 15th and 17th and so it was through our analysis about sort of understanding and potentially trying to mitigate impacts to Transit while maximizing the the value of places as places together that these four locations Rose to the top and then inform some deeper stakeholder engagement that we conducted as well as some on-site assessments next slide and one note we should make too is that our team of Consultants Fox Tuttle being the the consultant that prepared the transportation analysis uh so we did some Transportation analysis as part of this to really understand more deeply uh what an impact uh a closure would have to certain streets and so this was a deeper more technical analysis that looked at motor vehicle operations Transit operations biking pedestrian travel short-term parking and some other

[28:00] considerations and a note about the the findings from this analysis is that ultimately there are sort of differences in the um sort of disruptiveness of Transportation impacts on different street segments some segments being more impacted than others but nevertheless ultimately no Street segment was so impacted such that that street segment was automatically discounted as a site that's viable ultimately for a pop-up program so the traffic impacts really aren't driving the decision for certain locations it's really about the merits of the streets as places to go to they're kind of public life profiles for how enjoyable uh can this place really become in a prop up program that we can stand up uh this spring and summer for That season next slide so now we'll go to the recommendations and um we'll walk you through our rationale and ultimately uh explain more about our our suite of recommendations as part of this so um we've prepared something that we call

[29:01] the action plan uh it's informed by all the analysis that I just described um as well as the public engagement and what it does is at least the groundwork kind of prepares a whole menu of options that we think that all together can really be a great program for the summer um and what it does is identifies the recommendations the locations for those recommendations as well as considerations and opportunities for how to really successfully Implement all these ideas and hopefully find success in the implementation of the program this summer something to note though is that we may not weeping the city in this case you know be may not be able to implement all of the recommendations as described in the action plan again it's kind of the the full recommendation palette is described in this action plan uh but we recognize that the action plan also implies a significant investment of resources in order to achieve everything that's put out there in the action plan so resourcing is something that's currently being deliberated on um and we'll talk about this more as we sort of get to the end of this presentation but

[30:00] we know that the amount of resources made available to this program will ultimately influence what is implemented and so it's possible that you know all of the recommendations that we talk through tonight may not be implemented in full uh it may be some sort of um mix and match of the elements to to create a successful program this season next slide so we want to start first with our goals so I know Brad talked about some of the goals that kind of have to deal with like the city process but here are some goals that we've identified um as part of our action plan for really what we want to achieve through the pop-up program itself especially going into this summer season and so with this slide and a couple slides that come after this I'm pulling wholesale from the action plan you'll see as as to why these slides have a slightly different format these are pulling from the action plan so that I can sort of recap for you all what uh is the rationale for these recommendations and what the recommendations are um all together so the primary goal of uh this program is really thinking about how we can transform roads into gathering places

[31:01] for people so we really are at this moment where we're rethinking of course what role do streets play uh in the day-to-day lives of um our citizens and so we know loud and clear that Boulder is interested in really thinking about how to create more community-minded spaces and thinking about using the roadway as kind of the lever to to start to add uh that capacity to its City with more Community focused space and in doing so create uh the opportunity for people to really gather and share joyful positive experiences together that's really what we're after here and so we recognize that this all really starts from the emergency closure of West Pearl and it was an opportunity that really showed how um the city can respond nimbly flexibly to reimagine our streets to meet the moment um and during the pandemic you know that closure really was pivotal in keeping businesses afloat at that time and really offering a safe space for people to spend time together at a time when it was you know not safe to do so indoors but of course all those positive impacts

[32:01] don't come without their challenges and we recognize that it did introduce some challenges um and so we really see the moment of the West Pearl closure and where we are today as kind of the launching Point um for what we recommend through this program can be a very much more systematic methodical approach where we can experiment with different kinds of ideas different kinds of transformations to the roadway both in the near term say this spring summer season but also into the future years where this program can iterate on itself into the future to really test ideas in full and so again we see this moment as the opportunity to maximize positive impacts through that experimentation while learning how to mitigate the negative impacts that might come about from closures or transformations to the street and in addition to that just to recap a few of the other goals that are kind of embedded within all these ideas um we also Beyond just creating more joyful Community connections and providing the opportunity for people to gather in public space we also really want to expand the mental map of people

[33:00] Beyond just the mall so in that they think of downtown it's really about creating more reasons for visitors to explore the district more fully and more thoroughly and in doing so we're better connecting that bike and pedestrian Network throughout the downtown area and Beyond we want to see this program as an opportunity to support and work with Boulder businesses sort of in a very collaborative Manner and then ultimately as I sort of already mentioned wanting to test different programmatic ideas that can hopefully then influence future Capital Street design projects where we can start more lightweight and temporary today and learn things that can then inform uh ongoing City processes ongoing projects that then may become more permanent and formalized moving forward next slide so we do recognize too that um this program is really just one piece of a much larger puzzle of what's already going to be taking place downtown sort of regardless of this package of recommendations um and we know that Boulder itself already has a very long history of carving out space for people carving up

[34:00] from roadways space for people to gather with of course the Pearl Street Mall and we see that as a major asset to the downtown area but there are also plenty of more sort of recent initiatives that are taking place that also we see kind of fitting underneath the general gist or sort of the same mission that this program has and so to recap some of those things one being of course the outdoor dining pilot program which um similarly was developed as a emergency response to covid but then was expanded into a five-year pilot program so we know that through this year and into years following uh they'll continue to be this transformation of parking spaces into outdoor dining spaces and experimentation and how we're repurposing roadway for that commercial use um another initiative that's going on through collaboration with downtown Boulder partnership is um the everyday activities that are meant to animate and energize the Pearl Street Mall so adding more activities and reasons for fun along that portion of the downtown area and then lastly special events a whole

[35:02] calendar of different special events and festivals that come with street closures so again regardless of the action plan here and the recommendations that we're putting forth there's a whole calendar of um sort of both past but recurring and returning programs and festivals as well as new ones that make use of public Street public right-of-way um and require the closure of those streets to operate the event so something like the appraise Street event that just happens you know a matter of weeks ago on West Pearl is an example of that type of program that will also be other types of similar events will be taking place throughout the this summer next slide thank you so our vision is um in understanding of all of that you know we understand that we're in this overall context of a lot of a lot of ideas taking place downtown and wanting to really think about how can we then deploy um different strategies to in different Geographic portions of downtown so that

[36:00] we're really maximizing what we're learning what we're testing and trying to um really create a canvas in which we're trying out new things in new places ultimately and um what we see as part of this tapestry is and I'll go through each of these different sections here so you can see this it's all about again maximizing what we see as the positive impacts that we can get while minimizing some of the negative ones and we'll speak about this theme a little bit more um the first section I'll talk about is West Pearl where we see this being an opportunity to really focus on the experimentation with outdoor dining as well as the occasional special events that are slated to take place in that section of the street throughout the summer so seeing this as that type of programmatic blend of outdoor dining and occasional events that are tied to certain street closures at that time with 13th Street we see this as the prime site for a regular Cadence of recurring events and street closures that are associated with those events um building on the strong sense of activation that's already taking place with the farmers market in that area

[37:01] with the Pearl Street Mall this is as I said before that that daily activities and activations that are slated to be there to animate that site and sort of a greater investment in place making fixtures and elements to make that site feel more alive in the summer and then lastly in East Pearl and on 14th Street we envision a different type of parklet so on West Pearl we have kind of the outdoor dining parklet here on the east side we propose um a number of Park Blitz that are for public seating and bike parking so that it's more about this idea of the non-commercial Parkland and offering more public space for people to stop and stay and have access to the opportunity to linger more in the public realm and so you can see here that each of these different sites have a bit of a different approach so that we are testing a lot of different ideas um and ultimately trying to kind of modulate the level excitement and have sort of different opportunities to engage with streets in different ways throughout all of downtown this summer next slide

[38:02] and so taking into consideration all of our analysis the public engagement and all the things that are already planned to take place in downtown again regardless of the recommendations that that we're putting forth we've come to our own set of recommendations that are meant to complement all of those things um and again it's this idea that Midwest Pearl we want to focus on the outdoor dining as the sort of signature experimentation that's taking place there um and pairing that with these special events that are going to take place there we also see this as an opportunity again on 13th to really do um a signature Spotlight on that place is a new Gathering Place so as I mentioned previously already the farmer's market has already established a sense of momentum here where it um on Wednesdays and Saturdays does close the street with a regular uh recurring Rhythm and in doing so creates a strong sense of activation there and so we want to build on that momentum and really cement these places uh the 13th Street as a site to kind of build on that and create more of a sense of destination and a rival there

[39:01] uh more consistently um and we also see this as an opportunity to key into the Civic area master plan where that section of 13th is already envisioned to become more fully pedestrianized and so we see this as the opportunity to start to test that hypothesis and more iteratively build to that potential Redevelopment of that site and then lastly we recommend some Capital Equipment both the parklets and the enhanced fixtures and Furnishings that can be flexibly deployed throughout downtown so that the parklets themselves can act as these kind of Highly visible lily pads you can think of them as where you know we're kind of stamping down some transformation that that won't go anywhere with any sense of ephemerality they're kind of there for the entire season and you can see that the roadway is being actively carved out for people and then the fixtures the kind of uh movable seating lighting fixtures Planters storage these are all kind of some of the nitty-gritty things but these are also ways in which we can upgrade physically uh The Pedestrian and biking experience more evenly throughout

[40:01] downtown by deploying them uh throughout the downtown area and so we understand ultimately that um the public is looking for summertime experiences um where they can gather around food and fun in the street you know and part of our questionnaire we learned that the reason people come downtown primarily is for the dining opportunities The Nightlife opportunities um the the businesses the restaurants the retailers there the shopping and so we really want to amplify that sense here and we really think that that sense of fun and Gathering can be achieved with something that's a consistent schedule of events enclosures it doesn't have to be a full 24 7 closure anywhere um we think that with the right Rhythm that's tied to the rhythms of people who come to downtown we can offer enough opportunity for people to find the moments to gather and that's the moment where they're making the memory um you know when people are downtown that's when they're downtown and if there's a critical mass of people downtown they're going to find the Opera they're going to find the right opportunity to enjoy themselves there um and so we really want to kind of

[41:00] amplify the moments when we know people are coming downtown and use that as the kind of launching pad to then amplify that experience make it even more exciting and really be efficient with our Resources by concentrating it in that right moment the next slide so I want to speak on some of our um rationales that went into these recommendations um and I'll start with the first one here the the statement here that is the scale of transformation needs to match the level of activation another way that we can put this is that activation in our opinion in our sort of expertise of this this field is that activation needs to lead street closures and not the other way around um for a public space to feel uh vibrant inviting and and very importantly for it to feel safe we need people to be in them um and something that we've come to learn through our practice and and through doing these types of closures and other public space projects is that we know that you know creating a new public space whether it's a whole new space through a capital project or even

[42:01] just creating or repurposing space for a new purpose like a street closure does you know it's not enough to just create that space and then expect people to show up um it really takes work to change people's mental maps of districts even the ones that they're very familiar with if people don't have it in their mind's eye or in the routine to go to a place to experience something it's a tough sell to get people to kind of wholesale um change that uh that mental map that they have and so activation creating events and happenings that are broadly communicated to folks it's a really uh strong way probably the best way to entice people to visit a place under um a different sort of uh intent really you know and what it does is it rewrites their mental map but without that activation public spaces can be dull and ultimately they'll be empty uh and creating the negative externalities that can kind of outnumber or outweigh the positives of creating the space in the

[43:00] first place so you have to be really careful about sort of the volume of space that's being created relative to the um level of activation there and so the volume of space can be modulated by time or physical amounts of space so we're thinking about that and wanting to really right size how much or what duration is the street closed to really match it to the level of activation that we can produce uh in this spring summer time frame relatedly and secondly um we Advocate that you can really meaningfully transform streets without something that looks like a 24 7 closure so again this could be something along a temporal Dimension so partial closures that maybe happen on the weekends like our recommendations uh uh advocate for that can be enough time to give people the opportunity to experience the street in a new way without running the risk of keeping the street open or keeping the street open to pedestrians but close to vehicles for too much time and with all that time we don't have enough people to fill it consistently so we see it as a

[44:00] great opportunity to again concentrate um concentrate the amount of closure that we do on a temporal Dimension another way that we can really concentrate the amount of street that we closed is through uh the physical sort of footprint of what is closed and that's where the parklets come into play as well we can really signal a transformation that's quite meaningful and and show a real commitment to carving space away from roadway for cars and make it for people through taking up the parking spaces and using the parklets as a program to do so and then the last idea that I'll cover just on this slide is uh the note about businesses the final the final Point here um so we recognize and we Advocate that you know the older businesses in downtown really are key Partners in enhancing the experience of downtown uh we recognize again that it's it's the reason that many people come to downtown is because of uh the businesses and the experiences that they provide um and this was true in part during the West Pearl closure when the main activation of the street during that time was the outdoor dining that businesses provided um

[45:00] but we also recognize in our consultation with some businesses that they have strong reservations about a street closure on West Pearl and so we do want to underscore that it's very important that um as the city contemplates street closures and rolling out a program that does sort of transform streets uh we Advocate that businesses do have the opportunity to to be included in that process and to be a part of that discussion um ultimately this is to say that closures that may impact businesses are possible to implement but it requires really a higher level of consultation and in a really careful Mitigation Of impacts um and ultimately the timeline for this implementation for this spring summer season really just doesn't quite allow for that deeper level of consultation um so we really would want to be careful about how we work with businesses and think about the lifespan of this program which has a lifespan of many years as an opportunity to really embark on that deeper level of consultation and collaboration with those partners

[46:00] next slide so with the components of the pop-up really are about um so in sort of consideration of everything else that's already happening in downtown these are the key elements that the action plan puts forth has some additive elements uh to uh support everything else that's already taking place uh again this summer so the first being the recurring events on 13th Street creating a weekend weekly rhythm of closures that are tied to a robust calendar of diverse events um that can inspire people to gather in downtown building off the momentum again of the farmer's market there the downtown parklets where we have this flexible system of kind of mini parks that are about non-commercial staying power getting people the opportunity to to linger in downtown more and to take up roadway in doing so and then lastly the pop-up kit we call it which is this collection of fixtures and Furnishings that can enhance Everyday Life along downtown streets next slide

[47:01] and just quickly you know it on implementation um you know this process began in late fall uh and the consultant team really got on board and I think it was December of 2022 and ultimately this is a pretty compressed timeline to uh assess create recommendations and ultimately Implement so we have about you know about I would say a month or two really of lead time to get things cooking and out there for the spring summer um and so due to that you know we're already working on implementation and thinking about four intertwined tracks of communications procurement programming as well as internal coordination and data collection next slide it's just Lastly lastly for me at least um this is just a note with resources and again coming back to that that statement that the resources themselves will dictate the specifics of the pop-up so the action plan has a number of recommendations a part of it but we know the resources made available will impact what we can actually Implement

[48:00] um in the near term with this program we recognize that the city is taking a more proactive role in modeling the future of streets so in being the more um active sort of Transformer of streets themselves the city is taking on sort of that additional significant expense because uh they're ultimately kind of behind behind the wheel uh in in driving the change here in the future though in the long term we can imagine this program really maturing into more of a resident-led initiative where local residents businesses or other organizations have the opportunity to spearhead the transformation of streets themselves and then in that case the city can take on potentially a more facilitator role um and then ultimately ideally kind of incur fewer expenses as part of that but again in the near term as we think about implementing for this season uh the resources will dictate some elements of the pop-up or some sort of manifestations of how the pop-up can show up uh in this season and some of the elements that it will touch on is

[49:00] the lifespan of the pop-up how long can the program really last for will depend on resources the frequency or the Cadence thinking of um how often can we produce programming and have programming take place um and for that reason than have street closures that occur along with those events and programs and then the prioritization you know in the event that we don't have enough resources to implement everything as described in the action plan uh what elements of the recommendations what programs within it might be prioritized over another also what locations might we end up giving privilege to over others if we have to come down to it so we're deliberating on all that currently and I'll pass it back to Amanda to talk through some next steps thanks Brett uh this is our last slide before the council discussion begins and your feedback will influence our next step so to cover those briefly here uh we're here in March with the council study session and Council gave Direction but last fall for these pop-ups to begin in the spring and summer so we'll head

[50:00] directly into implementation planning and installation there's several steps there that I think we've all touched on tonight that includes identifying a funding source and so staff expects that there may be a gap between 500 000 and 1 million dollars to successfully launch the pop-ups this year that will include hiring a pop-up manager coordinating with Partners including downtown Boulder partnership promotion of the pop-ups to invite people to attend them and of course designing the engagement and evaluation the idea is that at the conclusion of the pop-ups uh and sometime in the fall that we would be developing longer term recommendations as a result of pop-ups and with that I believe I'll maybe hand to Brad or as Tara no to me um so before we return back thank you so much Amanda and uh Brett we appreciate again the work that they've done uh before I frame this up I do want to uh acknowledge that I didn't maybe identify

[51:01] myself for for any public I'm the director of planning and development services uh but very much a partnership of four departments uh Natalie Stiffler with um transportation and Mobility uh Sarah Huntley with Communications and Chris Jones with Community vitality and just uh you know recognizing how interdependent it is between different departments we also do council members have a large number of Staff here from a variety of areas uh to talk about everything from the broader conference and planning to transportation to um details about financing and those types things as well so we do have the ability to Pivot and go into some of those more administrative things um but with that um this is our presentation of uh recommendations for this pilot project as I described it at the beginning with three different data points three

[52:00] different geographies to allow us to do additional research and feedback and Outreach while experimenting with things throughout the summer um I think in in talking with uh councilmember weiner earlier uh we're going to shake up things a little bit for the questions and um if it's all right with you I'll I'll pass it on to you Tara thank you for that awesome presentation thanks Amanda Brett and of course Brad I thought what we would do is divide this conversation uh this conversation into a few sections first staff does want Council to weigh in on question one which was does city council have any questions about the technical analysis or the community feedback element of the overall pop-up pilot and any other overall questions and then I will divide up the council questions and comments into three parts 13th Street questions and comments parklets and then West Pearl so we'll start with the easiest and end up with

[53:01] what will have the greatest Divergence of opinion and we can discuss questions two and three in questions for Council for each of those locations as well so why don't we start off with let me just make move my screen just give me one second so I can see raised hands with that first question yeah little screen okay do we have any questions we do I didn't get to see who was first so we'll start with Nicole and then we'll go to Lauren well thank you and I think Bob actually had his hand up and I don't know I have a few questions or if you just pulled it down and thanks Nicole um I don't know my question is a technical analysis question I do have some questions about 13th Street there are questions on comments do you want us to save those until part two Tara I didn't follow that quite yeah I'm a little hard to follow sometimes Bob that's okay um we're gonna do general questions about the community feedback in the technical analysis and any general

[54:02] questions and we're going to do like the three locations 13th then the parklets and then Westborough we're gonna do that in part two if that's okay yeah sure I I do have I do have questions as opposed to comments do you want me to absolutely we're gonna do our questions and comments on third in the different locations then I'll defer to Nicole because mine is not our technical question it's a practical question well um so one of the things that I was wondering about is you know in thinking about what was just presented is there a menu of options to choose from or is it kind of all or none um and if it's a menu of options do we have some ballpark figures for cost for these different options um I'm just kind of wondering like we saw five half a million to a million dollars or how can we go there so it definitely is a menu of options um the recommendations are batched in the way they are again to to provide Variety in the types of things and different Geographic variety

[55:01] um as well as different experience as well but it certainly can be mix and match um we've had to work with a bit of a chicken and egg Nicole when it comes to funding uh the the short answer is there's individual costs on a lot of things and we can speak to some of that more broadly speaking to do kind of the light version of this we believe would be about um 500 000 but about 300 000 of that is already be identified um let me say it a different way we've got between I believe 300 to 500 000 identified and there would be a funding gap of about 500 to a million and I'm going to look to Noreen to keep you honest on those numbers and we can't go into more detail though we've got Mark Wolfe here as well Noreen do you want to verify the numbers I just mentioned the only thing I would clarify I think Brad had it correct on the Range there of what we what we spending Gap um but

[56:02] what we have as identified funding comes to about three hundred and twenty thousand dollars and thank you Noreen and it will add too that that is um it's heavy on the first year because we don't have the benefit of getting as many Community Partners as we would Envision ultimately we're renting a lot of things that we ultimately could buy once decisions were made about that we're having to hire temporary staff we're in the future that could be seasoned staff those kind of things so it is uh front heavy given just the time frame and and the reality of wanting to do it right at the same time in comprehensively okay thanks and um kind of a follow-up question we all know money doesn't grow on trees so what's this coming from where where did this money um come from or where would it come from to to fill that Gap yeah I might look to Mark to to explain the funding that already is available and then the gap plenties

[57:01] foreign good evening Council Mark wolf budget officer um appreciate the question Nicole so my understanding um from the project team is that the current funding is identified through uh arpa which is related to the revitalization efforts in commercial districts and then the remainder of the funding would be from the Central Area General Improvement District the Gap funding would be something we'd have to revisit at the adjustment to base coming up so likely looking at one-time funding as Brad suggested is looking at this as a pilot year given that's where our financial flexibility is in that one-time area yeah that's helpful and then so those are all my financial questions sure others others may help them too but thank you for that Mark and then um one of the other questions I have was just about the engagement itself so we had a

[58:01] lot of folks who weighed in on this is it accurate to say that the whole Community contributed to these suggestions are there any folks who were not necessarily represented I can take that Brad if we're not personally represented yeah you can take that uh Nicole we do know from the questionnaire responses that we do still have some engagement gaps that remain and that many of the participants um outweighed or underweighed their representation of overall public including age and income and race so we do know there's gaps we did here quite a bit from the questionnaire and the in-person engagement but I don't know if I could say we heard from all areas of the community equally thank you and and thinking about kind of outcomes that go along with this what are the groups in our community that you all see as benefiting the most from

[59:00] these different scenarios well I'll take a first stab at that and then ask others to to join in I think one of the things that we were very conscious of of who how does this reach out into the broader community and by broader Community I mean other Geographic parts of the city how does this become something that all parts of the city feel is owned by them and attracts them so that's going to be different uh Geographic parts of the city different income level parts of the city what would draw them down which is Again part of the experiment that the idea of this being a pilot to test those different pieces do Parks draw one group do activities draw another but we know that that would need to be part of the deliberate effort with this being an expanded experiment recognizing the logistical limitations and propping up some things that are

[60:01] easy things to do in the shorter time frame that was available but I would encourage others who are on the team and and were involved engagement to maybe round out my answer on that not seeing anybody step forward demanded you have an idea of somebody who else might want to speak to them sorry I meant to go um we can share some of the results from the community connectors residents which I actually think will help at least remind us all some of their feedback that they gave us uh related to who these pop-ups should try to attract the community connectors talked about some feelings about feeling like a stranger or not feeling welcome in downtown spaces and wanting more opportunities for cultural events and not knowing how

[61:00] to fit that in with the city process or with this pop-up phase even and so I would still say that's a gap for us and we'll be part of the implementation but something we heard loud and clear and should honor said it Nicole that's good thank you thanks everyone Lauren thank you um this is probably going to be a question for Mark um when we looked at closing West Pearl I guess we didn't look at closing it when that was discussed one of the things that was brought to our attention was the tax data and how that had changed um sort of pre and post closure and how that compared to other areas of the city I was a little surprised that we didn't have that data as part of this is that data that we have and

[62:00] have we started looking at that do we have any findings or takeaways now that that street has been reopened and how that compares to the tax data that we saw during the closure yeah that's a good question Lauren I I don't have those numbers on hand I know we do have access to them um those 10 we we have a couple months lagged to reconcile sales tax information so we would have it up to oh getting into January now be happy to provide um an update and follow-up after this meeting that would be wonderful thank you and hopefully that's something we would continue to sort of look at and collect as we move forward with any of these um options um let's see I had a couple of sort of specific

[63:01] questions um I noticed let's see on the maps next to the map between can't can uh on 13th between Canyon and Arapahoe on the building facade potential activation map um I couldn't quite tell what color that is is that blue and red on top of each other making purple or um so I can speak to this to just clarify yeah so it's a um it's kind of a mixed bag in that area which was attempted to be conveyed but I think it's better to just sort of verbally you know sort of share I think our analysis of that space um ultimately the the facade analysis is meant to get at the level of um both sort of architectural and visual interest as well as the ability for people to um be able to take part in ground floor

[64:00] experiences whether or not say you know a site that gets a negative or a sort of a least active score with the facade analysis is thinking about places that are completely walled off um no transparency sites in which it really um just kind of a a blank facade for people to only just move across and then the strongest facades are often ones that are punctuated with many businesses have visual interests so we're thinking both in kind of um the the Delight that people get from the visual experience and and the sort of visual stimuli of different facades and also the level of activation that businesses or other ground floor kind of operating entities provide so with 13th it's it's a bit of an interesting case because ultimately it's not the most activated Edge it has some strong sense of activation with of course the tea house and bomoka but then the sort of uh the The Landmark site of course is not really offering much in terms of uh public activity either so again that's

[65:02] kind of maybe a poor visualization But ultimately to convey that it's kind of got this Duality to it where in comparison to some other Street segments it's not the strongest in that regard no but it has other merits that we thought um brought it to the level of meriting sort of being the site for this Gathering um program that we've described but just to be clear with that sort of mapping exercise it would be seen as a mix between medium and low activity potential yes based off the facade that's right thank you um I was also a little bit surprised to see why between 11 and 15th um characterized as a bicycle-friendly street I was wondering I was hoping you could maybe explain to me a little bit more how we how we got to characterizing it as such since it doesn't sort of match my

[66:02] feeling when I bike down that street yeah so it this is a term that comes from um it comes from uh Google sort of API data that looks at people's movement patterns and the friendliness is determined kind of by People's Choice to bike along it not always by the infrastructure itself being the friendliest so in that case if it is kind of this again kind of confusing but mixed kind of condition of people do bike on it and so people are sort of choosing to use the site and noting it's um the choice for people to do so despite a bit of the um per you know perhaps the infrastructure is certainly not up up to scratch in terms of actually being the safest by Connection in that regard I guess that does kind of segue into I was seeing this or part of my desire with this project is that we might look at how we are making these streets friendlier things for bikes and I I do think that downtown

[67:03] is difficult to transverse on a bike to get from sort of like one place downtown to another between um a lot of streets being closed to bikes and sidewalks being closed to bikes and then a number of the adjacent streets being unfriendly um how does this dovetail with other work that we're doing on the transportation front Brett you start we do have some Transportation folks that can talk about kind of related upcoming planning efforts but Brett definitely speak to that yeah I'll first speak to just the um the how it sort of shows up in our recommendations and we certainly did look at the bicycle Network and trying to understand if this was an opportunity to close gaps um we see the ability you know one of the challenges I'll start with first is that some of the feedback and some of

[68:00] the um needs assessment phase of the the work that we did to understand some of the challenges of closing different segments of Street um and understanding emergency access um in times of closure uh say a street segment is closed to vehicular travel um having con consecutive segments of Street closed is is a major challenge for that emergency access but you could imagine that having consecutive segments of Street closed to vehicular access is what you would want to really be able to close gaps in the bike Network and so we're kind of dealing with that challenge a little bit of being able to do both at the same time and so we're trying to identify are Street segments where we prioritized ultimately the role of these spaces as Gathering spaces This was um this sort of a conclusion that we reached internally as kind of the primary goal to achieve and then in say putting more attention on parts of East Pearl on parts of 13th in the near term where it's quite condensed to just one segment at a time we understand that

[69:00] that's kind of a limited concentration of where this investment can go in the sneer term but we could imagine and what we'd want to do is see how this can sort of grow outward from the places that we start in so imagining how we can really think about 13th more systematically as this Corridor is one concept understanding that it does have one of the stronger bike networks currently um but then with 14th as well beginning to think about some modest changes that we're doing today that Ben can start to iteratively grow towards more um more transformation in different parts of downtown so we recognize that the recommendations here because of kind of their concentration on one segment at a time they're not able truthfully to dramatically alter the bike Network within this season but we start to see how we can start to extend outward from where we start and build beyond that and maybe get more radical each and every time that we iterate on this program would be the idea yeah thank you Brett and maybe to elaborate beyond that then so recognizing that we will learn from

[70:01] these this pilot over this summer and I think this is a good bridge between the here and now to longer term uh Valerie Watson with Transportation um is here to be able to talk a little bit about how that would dovetail into the Cannes study um Valerie if you don't mind yeah thanks Brad and thanks Brad um just to build off what Brett mentioned um you know we're paying close attention to the investigation and Analysis that was done as part of this effort um and I'm Sorry by the way I'm Valerie Watson Transportation Planning manager with transportation and Mobility um we are thinking about all of the work that's been done through this effort to be ready to inform our future work plan item around the can the core arterial Network as part of the can we will be undertaking a downtown Mobility study where we'll be looking a lot more comprehensively at Mobility downtown and as Brett mentioned really thinking about how the potential of streets as public space can really inform that broader

[71:01] look at Future changes to Street their operations their design Etc so it's something that will definitely be you know a future progression from this work into the can work thank you um and then one last clarifying question I noticed in a couple of places a study mentioned parklets as helping transform sections of roadway into space for cyclists I mean it said pedestrians and cyclists but I was just wondering you know you you mentioned that they could have bike parking and potentially bike tools are there any other what other the other benefits for cyclists when it comes to parklets that's a great question I mean it is those elements ultimately and the sighting of them to coincide really with

[72:00] the right um sort of destination rival points with um for the cycling Network so wanting to really create the ability for people to actually if we're wanting to have people sort of Drive less and and arrive through other more sustainable modes more creating the sort of convenience the the the service equipment and the parking to do so such that we're really making biking as convenient as possible and having the location of the bike parking and the density of bike parking actually um really match the use because one of our observations ultimately is that downtown does have bike parking in it but it's of a style and a variety that's not really allowing for that many bikes to really be cram packed in uh near each other and so we really want to create that convenience factor thank you thanks Lauren Matt you're up thanks Tara um first I just want to express some gratitude for the process subcommunity uh SubCom subcommittee I should say

[73:03] um they did a great work in in certainly in the engagement in getting up and running this was done in short order and to be frank doing this kind of Engagement over the winter months of December January is pretty remarkable I I wish Sarah Huntley were here because she deserves tons of Kudos because she warned us she said oh you're doing engagement in January that's not going to be good and lo and behold we had the best turnout from a be heard Boulder survey that we've ever had on any issue so so just credit to the team and being able to get the word out and be able to do Outreach and engagement in a time that's traditionally just been really bad for it so I think that set the tone for us to have a sampling of really where we want to go with things so I just want to appreciate you guys for that um you know one thing I want to just sort of touch on is sort of a broadening of data point I know sort of Amanda brought up um and I'll get to a question in a second it just sort of leads to it is that the survey itself was not necessarily a scientific you know a

[74:00] study because of its numbers but in the broader context of everything else we've gathered the 600 plus emails we got last fall a number of different social media surveys that went out myself included and a few others that 86 percent is a steadily consistent number among all of those sampling with regards to the response on West Pearl so I think in the aggregation I think we have something that we can sort of hang more of a hat on than what was a singular maybe non-scientific survey so I think there's some importance to that and and so what that really set up for me was a question around how did we balance and how do we reconcile what is clearly that Community need from that we see in the survey to some concerns from the businesses and so I'm just wondering like because I I see recommendations and I'm not and I don't see that that we necessarily reconcile those perceived differences and I'm just kind of wondering how we navigated some of that in order to arrive at the recommendations that were there

[75:00] I can speak to the community engagement thing to Matt and I know we talked about this a little bit at the subcommittee meeting and then we'll ask Brett to talk about how it finalized our recommendations but from the community engagement standpoint you're right we have differing opinions and they're hard to weigh it's not appropriate to count and say you know this number of community individuals said this and this number of business owners said that and and it's just not appropriate to weigh them that way and we know we have differing opinions on the same concept around how to use downtown streets so I think we have to stick with what we know which is that people enjoy downtown streets they enjoyed what they experienced in large part and it increased their overall appeal and we also know from West owner West parole business owners that they had a very opposite and unanimous experience than the individual community members and so I think if we can just start

[76:00] by maybe leaving that unresolved and it's for us to discuss about what to do with that feedback but I know we want to conflate those two things and I think it's important to um to know that they they may just have to live as opposing opinions in this but thanks for bringing that up and I'll ask Brett to talk about how informed our recommendations yeah definitely and I don't know Amanda if this is the right time to really and I know Tara this might be going against your your um proposed you know instructor wait no I don't want to get into West Pearl right now do you don't need it yeah and maybe not not so in great detail I just wanted to know in general philosophically how we believe those two pieces I'll just add one more piece that's more about sort of the general then um and and we'll get there then um it is as just as Amanda said and I'll also add that um something that we really wanted to think about is how do we and I mentioned this in the presentation it's kind of a compromise of trying to find the moments

[77:00] in which we can really maximize positive impact while minimizing potential risk for negative impacts that have been identified as um the gains that we can get as places to gather for people versus the operational logistical and potentially economic challenges that others might experience and so what we've really tried to do with our menu of uh recommendations is find those moments of compromise between those kind of polar challenges or you know sort of differences of opinion and find the locations that um can really kind of meet in the middle and mitigate potential risk um on either end ultimately um and again you know we really see the pop-up and the project in and of itself as an engagement tool that's really about continuing to test the hypotheses that we have um and thinking through this idea of experimentation of bringing bringing sort of similar or different approaches to how we activate streets to different parts of uh downtown to continue testing our hypotheses and

[78:00] seeing if they stand up and and show us the same challenges in other locations or New Opportunities um but at this point I'm starting to get ahead of myself and into some of the other topics that we'll get to later I appreciate it no it's they're all sort of related uh my last question on this front was and and you sort of brought that up Brad and I think it's just maybe to help me I'm still trying to learn the terms myself is is how we Define activation because I think I've I've heard it defined as sort of these special events these pop-ups I've heard that parklets are our activation and so I do but I maybe just want clarification clarification are is the out with the outdoor dining that we have around the city be considered activation in the same light as a special event or or these partlets that we're discussing I just want to sort of try to understand what's all under the umbrella of what we would classify as activation and then that of course goes through you know those goals of um you know activation needs to lead street closure so I just want to know

[79:00] how we classify Activation so we can I can feel like I'm better evaluating some of these with regards to street closure sure absolutely yeah yeah and so I mean there are levels to Activation so first of all what I would say activation is it's sort of the the free um experience that people can take a part of in the public realm um and there are different levels of it so we have the kind of special event as you're describing it um the thing that could be as this like extremely well managed um well plotted out well in advance to have a large impact sort of festival-like atmosphere um shut down the whole street for something like this and that's that's sort of the the big end of activation there's also the smaller end of activation which can start to lean towards passive elements um and therefore their impact can be smaller ultimately from a day to day but they they are important to the rhythm of street life this is kind of like the parklet itself where it's just providing non-commercial space for people to spend time um and then there's somewhere in between that's kind of this more active activity or we can call them happenings it's not

[80:01] quite the level of the full event but it's different activities or little games that are placed out for people to freely um uh enjoy during the day kind of the little sweeteners of the deal that get people to stop and spend more time in a place because they happened upon uh yoga class that's taking place in a space for example you know something that's not uh the scale of the full party the full event but something that might be recurring and small scale and people start to build a bit of a mental map or a routine around um a certain experience that's a little bit less cumbersome to produce okay that's helpful and so just just for so I'm clear so if you have so outdoor dining places wherever they are are considered activation of that space is that how you would classify that it is an activation it's a form of commercial activation which has you know its own sort of externalities and sort of impacts it it in and of itself it's it's not um a complete portfolio of activation but as I'm describing it's it's an element of activation yes great

[81:01] thank you all right moving on to Rachel thanks Tara um I think well first I want to say hi to Bill cowheran hi Bill thank you and Amanda thanks for being here and presenting and the work you're doing on this um and I'm gonna tear I'm gonna be a little bit off script so just just please ride with it I don't I don't know where better to I'm gonna form it as a question and I don't see it fitting better well fake rhetorical questions I'm just throwing that out there but okay okay so I uh I'm struggling a little bit with this whole concept I think that um you know when we were talking about West Pearl closure there were some things that appealed to me about it in terms of um you know improving pedestrian and cycling infrastructure and um kind of a funky new space and I get that we're going with that with activation but also you know we we opened the meeting with an update on propane tank explosions and we're hearing so much from the community about like

[82:01] the space that we already have not being not feeling usable to community members so um and I think that activation is supposed to help with that with um sort of some of the encampment issues uh Nuria also mentioned that we're having non-compliance issues with with uh people uh not I guess letting our officers look for propane tanks or something so when I hear 500 000 to a million dollars you know it's not going to be a surprise to anyone and I hate to be a broken record but um I wonder might it not be more financially prudent to stand up like a safe outdoor space where we can um help people be somewhere else and then try and activate the space because I do think that um it's a little bit uh maybe tone deaf of us to be looking at doing this uh without being somewhat responsive to people need a place more places to be and that you know on one side on the

[83:00] other side people aren't feeling like they they want to come to these spaces so I don't know it feels like this may be an exercise in futility um to not uh hopefully stand up a sanctioned outdoor space first so again Tara that that is Off Script and my rhetorical question is to Nuria might it be prudent uh to to uh look at what we're going to talk about on April 13th or see what's coming down the pike and then get back into this conversation so there's the the question I had to do it because Tara said this is questions well do you want Yuri to answer or was that truly rhetorical I mean it was it was probably rhetorical and it's more probably for colleagues consideration but I just feel like again like there's an elephant in the room here of like these these spaces are not feeling I don't think it's necessarily a matter of needing more spaces and and activating new I think maybe we need to take care of the space we have and the people who are on those spaces right now and and giving people another option of a place to be and and then conversation

[84:00] thanks yeah all right Bob Yates I know you want to talk about 13th Street so I'm gonna put you off and Mark do you have any non-ritorical questions just one um Lauren put that hand down we're moving on to 13th Street after this um on my my question is tangential to what um Rachel was saying we have some funds for this year and am I assuming that in going forward for other years we're going to need to find a million dollars per year for this program my question is do we have a an identified funding source have we identified any programs we wish to cut in order to provide an extra million dollars a year or are we simply assuming the infinite growth of sales tax revenue to bail us out so if someone could could take a shot at that I'd be very uh interested in hearing the response

[85:00] yeah I'm happy to take your first shot at it and really welcome other teammates to to chime in I I would say we do not see um the same level of upfront investment needing to perpetuate into the future so in other words if we create spaces successfully during this pilot program this year next year and the year beyond that become the Public's uh space we can begin to reach out and say to different groups around the community hey would you like to host a festival here's a space you could do it at hey would you like to um do a sidewalk sale here's a way that that can be enhanced um so some of the elements that I mentioned early on about being very cost heavy up front is again the renting of materials those types of things which presumably as we lived into decided spaces then we would have the capital we would be able to budget that

[86:01] into ongoing operational expenses but that does get into the bigger budget discussion and how much is is appropriate for activating up streets and reimagining those verses versus other choices of course Mark um I would say um you know in terms of a funding source we've talked about the short term in terms of longer term uh that would be first with adjustment to budget and then next year of course into the uh into the longer budget but I invite others we've certainly had a version of this discussion internally invite other other folks to weigh in as well on the team I think that's a pretty good answer Brad um but I only want to point out that we have dozens and dozens and dozens of things we need to fund and we have no source of funding for them so that's got to be weighed against this

[87:01] we will get to that conversation we will get to that conversation I promise you Lauren can you fold your question into one of the three locations she says no okay go for it I apologize this is a little bit Petty but given that this is might be folded into other work that we're doing there is a map that is titled accessibility that speaks almost entirely to parking structure locations and street parking and their utilization I would really appreciate it if we could title it something other than accessibility since it is only addressing one narrow aspect of accessibility and might be more appropriately labeled parking or a variation of that thank you is that something oh sorry is that something we could do good question thank you that's something we can do great okay now we're going to move on to the

[88:00] locations let's start with 13th Street and Bob you have any questions any comments do you want to answer questions two and three either one and perhaps we can put somewhere in the chat questions two and three uh yeah first of all I want to apologize for keeping my camera off I have a very very bad internet connection here I've been booted a couple times already and so I'm going to keep my camera off in hopes that I can make it to the end of this conversation uh second I want to welcome back Bill Cameron and Amanda Cole we miss you guys uh thanks for being back and helping us with this I do have a question I'm still on questions um I'm sure we'll have a lot to say here in a second but my question is narrowly focused the 13th Street Brett I appreciate your explanation of the three tiers or levels of activation I'm trying to understand what level of activation I know Mark asked the question about money but I'm trying to understand the question about what and how and when we're going to activate 13th Street does that give your level one passive

[89:00] activation something a little higher than that something even higher than that and if so I'm just kind of looking at the calendar going gosh it's it's March 23rd who's going to activate um um 13th Street um you know two months and and how are we going to do it if we're getting about the money which Mark great is a good point about money but like how are we going to act what level and how are we going to activate 13th Street in a couple months yeah thank you for that question uh uh councilman Yates so uh that that is the needle we've been trying to thread in in trying to prepare for the possibility of various types of activation and programming um Outreach to various potential Partners including of course um the downtown partnership but others like the chamber and and others as well we will continue to try to do that but the other form of activation that would be available on 13th and other spaces but are those different pop-up elements uh activations that Brett spoke to

[90:02] um we're kind of uh trying to fly the plane here while we build it at the same time so it's hard to give a definitive answer other than um as we move forward from the direction we get tonight we continue to lean into those possibilities I think you know one thing um to really kind of underscore is that we're really looking at forward to this whole next phase of Engagement going into the summer so that we do have um the additional time and space to have collaboration with a greater number of Partners uh get greater consensus around how these spaces can be used and that understanding of the users and and build that level of empathy that we want to get from from different users from nearby businesses and and restaurants that type of thing as well um so it so it's not possible to give just one answer other than that's that's where we're running to I will mention that uh chip is also available on this

[91:02] call and maybe this would be an appropriate time for him to to speak a little bit about how they've been just an active partner in uh trying to Bringing programming commitments forward and and with the potential potential for more as well yeah that'd be great but if and let's please live in our answer to 13th Street on on this one because I know that downtown does a lot of activation in other parts but I want to really drill into 13th Street because it sounded to me like we're not ready um but if Chip tells us we're ready and his organization's ready to burst into flames and activate 13th Street in two months and that's great so Chip tell us yes or no that that's not uh what I'm gonna tell you I think um you know where obviously as you know Bob this these recommendations do align with our vision and division plan that we worked with the city on on activating 13th and and we see a lot of potential over a long term uh but your concerns about um the timing I you know we share I think there's there are things that can happen I think we've had a lot of

[92:01] conversations with McKenzie from the farmers market as have the Consulting team but I I think it is a a longer term uh Prospect in our opinion so we're we're certainly um excited to continue the conversation but we're we're not sitting at the gate ready to activate tomorrow we have you know as you know a great calendar of events throughout the year and we've added a number of things including the app free Festival that happened a couple of weeks ago and we're doing a number of events throughout the downtown including some street closures this year uh and and looking to um you know what we can do to continue activating in other spaces but uh this the scale that we're looking at in these proposals where we're certainly not single-handedly are able to take that on this quickly all right thanks Brad sorry about that um I think that what I wanted to lead

[93:01] into um is to remind folks that in the action plan I think we pointed to some examples of how we could program the space or activate the space on 13th Street and so we are reaching out to look for a pop-ups manager that could have helped to bring in folks that could populate that um area on a Saturday evening or Sunday and that can range with uh things like movies or music or maybe art lessons in conjunction with bomoca um we might have parklets that could be established there it might be more uh games on Sunday like cornhole or something like that um Brett is there anything that I missed there uh that you want to add yeah definitely I mean that's a really fair characterization and I think again the the I think the point is well taken about how to implement this and I think the Contours of how frequent the programming can be and how active versus passive will be determined about like the actual Partnerships that can be generated um and so the pop-up manager is going to be

[94:01] holding that responsibility and modulating ultimately what is deployed and again kind of treating this this first season of it as that experimentation to understand what can we stand up quickly uh in this summer uh time frame and then growing it into the future and sort of using the uh the idea of standing up some programming and getting people excited about that to then also engage with the people who show up and better understand what is the type of events they're looking forward to in the future too and sort of beginning to almost kick off the cyclical nature of people um getting excited to help co-produce some of the events moving forward as well Noreen where are we in as you mentioned a pop-up manager sounds like downtown Builder partnership is not in a position to do that necessarily at that scale at least um so have we have we identified somebody are we doing an RFI RFP where I mean again I'm a little concerned about the fact this is March 23rd and we're talking about something two months away our or do we have somebody and you don't have to mention their name but have we have hired somebody to do this for us um we have not hired someone yet but we

[95:00] have shared the scope of work um with a number of events management type firms and we do have at least one that is interested and um does seem like they could be ready but to your point it is a very short time frame so uh and as Brad mentioned we're trying to do both implementation planning as well as bring these recommendations to you all but we do have one firm that is interested thanks that's it Aaron 13th Street questions or comments I just have a one question about 13th Street which is um well I guess one thing I'm struggling with is not having a good sense of what costs are associated with what actions um because I do want to be sensitive to the different trade-offs of needs in our community kind of on a broader uh sense and how much we'd be spending on some of these proposals that are in front of us so one one question that I'll ask is on 13th Street I'm going to make an

[96:00] assumption here and just maybe you can tell me if it's correct or not I'm going to guess that on Saturday like we're already closing the street in the morning and then reopening it in the afternoon so I'm gonna guess that if we say lengthen the closure on Saturday for some number of hours maybe that's three hours or five hours or what have you um that we still we have a probably similar amount of work needed to reopen it as we already spend and so it would be a a cheaper intervention to have a few additional hours of activation on Saturday on 13th Street uh probably by a really substantial amount then closing it also on Sunday and activating the whole day on Sunday do you think is that a fair assumption I think that is uh and that does get to I think what we can commit to as a team of looking at those abilities to capitalize on things we're already doing uh I think that speaks a little bit to comments that have been made about outdoor dining for example and we are

[97:00] robustly you know working with those groups uh it speaks to the activation that the downtown Boulder partnership is speaking to but uh yes uh Mr Mayor to your point I think we want to make sure we're being smart about how we can capitalize on those types of things got it Terry can I roll into comments on 13th Street while I got the floor you can great well so so then I'll just advocate for going in that direct Direction specifically I I really like what you're saying I think I like the idea of additional closure time on 13th Street um but I am sensitive to the resources involved and people are already used to going down on Saturday um and having uh car free time on 13th Street and if we could lengthen the closure and then activate a few hours maybe that's a relatively affordable uh thing that we could do um and you know and and build on the successes that we already have on Saturdays there and they'll just throw it in terms of you know maybe some specific things you've thrown out some

[98:00] great ideas um but one thing I think about is okay once we've taken the farmers market booths away you know there's some uh cultures that have significant immigrant communities in Boulder that have really vibrant street life um you know I think about a Mexican market for example and I and I wonder you know when we're hearing about say some folks feeling like they they might be strangers they might feel like strangers when they're coming into downtown sometimes maybe this could be an opportunity to both really activate the space on some Saturday afternoons but also include some of our populations that maybe do not spend as much time in downtown right now and so just throw that out as you know maybe our Mexican-American Community or Nepalese American communities or other other immigrant communities could be a great way to tap into some activation and create some new opportunities for folks who don't currently have them and also yeah so then that could be something the entire Community could really benefit from and enjoy so I'll throw that out there for 13th Street but but maybe

[99:01] Sunday is is too expensive and we start with Saturday thanks Aaron I think Matt might have been next and then Nicole thanks Tara and Aaron I appreciated those comments um certainly about how we can sort of lift up some of those more cultural activities in green and create again that consistency factor that that Brett was referring to so I think that's really critical is consistency in order for people to build that to re to either rebuild or reinforce that mental map that they're growing of an area um and so I I definitely support where you're going with that on Aaron for sure a question I have is sort of on the east side and I and I get that you know activating the area through the farmer's market or other peripheral events is great but they're transient by definition because there's nothing really anchoring that space except for the Tea House in bmoka and if all goes well bimoka will be vacating that space to go to a much better facility up north that hopefully they'll be able to build which leaves really the tea houses the only real

[100:01] substantive thing and so a question I have is maybe for Nuria and Brad and others what's our plan to do what are we doing with all of that space on the east side of 13th because I think of whatever we're doing has to have long-term viability and I know we're going to test now but if we don't have a robust active environment that's intrinsically active then I'm curious as to maybe some futility in these things that we're testing because what are the anchors to that space and so what are we doing with the atrium what are we going to do with the mocha and I'm just wondering where that conversation fits in to the one we're having now so that as we're doing these tests it's informing us of those very larger conversations that we as a city as the property owner need to think about and how we want to build that infrastructure and create a good thoroughfare because I think of that Downtown Vision plan I think of what happens when the conference center is built and that wonderful Corridor we have as an opportunity to take people from the hill Conference Center campus down 13th down

[101:02] through that Causeway and up into downtown and so I'm just sort of curious how they're linked together if if we're linking them at all no Matt that's a wonderful lead-in to what I think is a very important part of this and it speaks to what we talked about a little bit during the retreat which is the fact that we've got 12 different planning processes no no and how do we coordinate that so I'm going to ask Kathleen King to speak to that we've recently tapped her to be the facilitator across multiple departments and uh to to coordinate multiple Visions just to your point so Kathleen if you can kind of tell us where we're going or starting to go with that yeah so no that's a that's a great question there's a lot of projects and exciting kind of planning and design um work going on over the next couple of years so uh we have a couple of different cross-departmental teams that are going to be working on the Civic area in general

[102:00] um but specifically we're looking at phase two so um east of Broadway and then um in 2024 on our work plan we'll be looking uh again at that eastbook end area so that block between 13th and 14th and thinking about how does that integrate and interact with the park how do we build greater connections to downtown Boulder Station how is it you know make these joyful and exciting places in downtown um so you know there's a lot of folks that are going to be working on that over the next probably five years to realize some of these Visions but we're definitely thinking about all of that and and really trying to coordinate and so one of the things that we're excited about for the opportunity of this 13th street closure and this idea of experimentation is we'll get a chance to test out some ideas some designs and that could really inform the design work for those spaces as we move forward

[103:00] I appreciate that Kathleen and thanks for making that connection Brad and I'm glad that the timing somewhat works and it seems like it also works with the can of downtown streets Mobility study that's happening next year so I think some of these might just there's just Serendipity with some of these that I think we can take full advantage of um the other question about 13th or maybe slash comment is um because again I go back to that sort of Downtown Vision plan I know that's not a plan that we adopted it's one that that downtown Boulder and and the boulder improvement district did but it's one that had a lot of input that I think creates an interesting connectivity and 13th seems to be core to that north-south connectivity zone is why when we just did Arapahoe to Canyon why why weren't we experimenting out on every single one but on at least again if we're experimenting creating that Mobility Corridor or extending what we're doing from Canyon all the way to Pearl Street so that people have a clear understanding of the conduit or at least we can sample how people want to move

[104:01] north and then access the downtown area more succinctly because right now it seems like 13th is kind of an island uh capped off at 13 or capped off at Canyon so I'm just sort of curious about how do we get to a place where we can actually start to build those actual connections um and where this piloting actually allows us to test them in certain forms are others yeah and and I think it uh I'll be happy to answer that Matt I think it really speaks to the incremental effort you know what do we do in this year One what do we do in year two maybe we can make those additional connections um we haven't used this term but sometimes um uh sometimes these types of experimentations and urban planning are called radical experimentation and when we think about the dollars to do things like parklets and activation and such we really are informing these future uh planning processes in a relatively inexpensive way in real time and in real

[105:02] life so that as we go through that planning process we can tweak and say boy those connections really didn't work the way we thought or this activation type doesn't work let's not spend you know tens of thousands of dollars on a fountain because it turns out that's not the spot the spot is somewhere else and so um you know maybe we've we've underemphasized the ability the benefit that will come out of this to use this as real-time experimentation over not just this year which again we're trying to run very fast to do some specific things with but over the next three years which will dovetail with these planning processes so that as um these 12 different planning processes that are planned we're not just putting up posters of things that could be and put your sticky dot on there but rather things we've kind of tried in various ways and put your sticky dots on that if that makes sense I'll just add to that too just to speak

[106:00] about I think more of the near term with the intent behind the recommendations for 13th um I think the points will take in that we did look at the other segments of 13th really trying to understand is is there a way to really with this first iteration of the pop-up create that connectivity up to Pearl um in our urbanism analysis we sort of came to the conclusion that those Northern segments between Pearl and um Canyon uh who weren't the most ripe for the public life that we could achieve in this near term quick to kind of stand-up program that we can get in the summer but we do think what we can do is again we have the anchor of 13th Street uh between Canada and Arapahoe does create that sense of destination and then use the pop-up kit the sort of more Deployable elements as breadcrumbs in a way to really think about how we can knit together um from Pearl South to that site we have some recommendations in the action plan that speak about deploying things along that Corridor in particular um to start to create that sense of connective and understand that I think

[107:00] ideally there would be a stronger sense of connectivity through more um you know more permanent perhaps fixtures and uh improvements that might strengthen the quarter as a whole I'm just going to colloquy quickly because I can now that I'm leaving the meeting and I'm going to say that I wouldn't mind if you at least went one block up in some sort of activation really simple activation whether it be cornhole or lighting or something that just makes people cross the street to some sort of something pulling them across Canyon um I that's simple that's not hard and that's all I have to say let's move on to Nicole awesome thank you I don't have any questions about 13th Street just had some comments um first of all just in reference to what Matt was just saying about bimoka I heard that bimoka told planning board that they don't intend to vacate that space and they're planning to operate in both locations so just wanted to add that so 13th

[108:00] Street to me makes sense as a top location if we're going to do a closure it's already a community Gathering space as others have mentioned people are already used to coming there at certain times of the week it really seems the cheapest and easiest place to close but I'd still be really curious to see what the cost looks like on all of this it's also a connection between ncu Boulder or and Boulder High to downtown and it's a connection between the revitalizing hill and downtown as well so it really just feels like a place that could be a good one to close here and activate a little more and the fact that it's the place that staff and the expert consultant and the community connectors thought made the most sense they think is um also some uh some points to 13th Street for me um the engagement gaps in the survey and the entire process were really pretty intense when it came to hearing from the communities that the community connectors and residents represent and

[109:02] the people who are least likely to be downtown so I checked in with Ryan Hanson earlier today just to hear more about what the connectors said and he said they thought 13th Street was a spot that makes sense to if we want to invest in street closures Rachel I hear your point and I'm with you and so see if we get to that discussion later but the most important thing to me here is ultimately not where we do a street closure but what and how we do it this is another thing that the community connectors and residents said I'm more interested in bringing a more diverse group of people downtown and I really want to use the process of creating more events and activating new spaces as one that itself is strengthening relationships and building Community with groups that currently feel excluded like Aaron and others I think it's awful that some of the connectors said they felt like strangers here in Boulder and downtown that's really terrible and we should be investing and building the authentic Partnerships that make everybody feel like they belong here I'd really love to see us Focus funding for

[110:01] events and activations to groups that aren't reflected in the engagement and that represent the people who say they don't feel comfortable downtown we could offer grants to Youth and college student groups bypoc groups and others to host events maybe through our existing HRC or Arts commission Grant mechanisms we've already done this a bit with some of the events that we've been contributing to for MLK Day for example I would really like to fund what the bipoc and low-income and Rancher and youth communities have as their vision and not kind of try to impose something else on folks um so anyway that way we can just make sure that we're spending money on these closures and Community Building opportunities and doing so in a way that prioritizes the groups that have been historically underrepresented under resourced and that feel like strangers downtown it feels like it would give us some more opportunities also to engage with those groups who weren't engaged in the past few months as part of this process and get some feedback from them if we're able to really activate those

[111:01] types of events and build those Partnerships and I think you know one thing I know we're not to West Pearl yet and I'm not bringing it up to talk about it but that closure really showed us that we don't need to be fancy or have really highly scripted events and spaces to get people to these closed streets but I hope that in the process of doing this um if we choose to close this street or another Street we are intentionally encouraging a broader range of people to use these public spaces and to use downtown in general thank you great comment Nicole we're going to move on to Lauren um first I have a question about currently when we close 13th I believe we use barricades does that mean we constantly I saw in the report it said when we do that kind of closure we have to have flagging things like that is that currently how we do that I believe it is but

[112:04] yeah a temporary would you be able to answer them I'd be happy to answer that question oh can I add something to that too maybe you could answer both also so would there this is a street that we close regularly for the farmers market and that seems likely to continue in the future is there potentially like cost savings also if we were to put in bollards or things like that so that we wouldn't have to do flagging or we could do reduced flagging or that might also improve safety sort of thoughts on all of it Devin can speak to that he's done some looking into that yeah good evening my name is Devin Jocelyn I'm the city's principal traffic engineer um Lauren that is one thing that we've definitely been looking at to your first question though um what we've done with the farmers market is yes we do require traffic control devices to be put out to support that closure what we've allowed is that

[113:01] the market volunteers and staff can set those barricades that's a bit of a compromise that we've made with them that they don't necessarily have to have a traffic control company that they're paying to set out those devices so they have kind of have the kit of devices that they store near the market and put it out as needed for that closure with respect to things this spring and summer we are exploring more innovative ideas the idea that we're exploring for 13th Street is an automatic gate that would have access control features built in such that it could be programmed to close corresponding to the scheduled events and it could also be opened with a key card for any vendors or the pop-up manager or city staff or emergency Personnel that would need to get in there [Music] um to support that so we're looking at the

[114:01] cost of that and and benefits how that might compare with um regularly paying a traffic control company or relying on on volunteers to support the traffic control devices needed thank you for that um so I feel a little conflicted over this proposal for 13th Street on the one hand like I think that the um like the sort of the facade map states when the farmers market is not going on the sort of natural activation level of the tenants and things which is mostly the city on that street um is not very high it's not that interesting of a street and with the park right there there's a lot of open space that's easy to access also the performance sort of anchor Zone

[115:00] is quite large it just in comparison to you know the amount of space that we would have to fill and activate to make this street feel Lively is substantial and is a substantial undertaking um I do like that it's sort of this connection point between downtown and the university and could um you know that all along 13th all to the creek into the Arboretum is a transportation connection that I would like to see strengthened um through activation so I'm kind of leaning towards you know starting small with this that you know extending the hours after the farmer's market um looking at how we can improve the closer closure mechanism to make sure that you know when the street is closed that it is safe and

[116:03] um and also considering you know making trying to make it easier for people to help us activate that space making you know either um using that performance anchor zone or the Band Shell easier for the community and trying to help sort of encourage the community to fill those spaces more regularly I don't know that that always needs to be tied to a street closure I think that depending on the size of the event we might just do that in the existing space that we have in that area but I do think that activating that area in general um doing some experiments there feels like a good idea and a good direction thanks Lauren you're good I'm looking at Bob your hand is up and I'm going to push myself right in right now and just say that it is eight o'clock and we only got to 13th Street

[117:01] so I'm going to can the parklets I don't think we have time for that um unless it's an emergency I will say unless it's an emergency meeting somebody has to say something about it which I get I will just comment that I agree with Aaron that Sunday just seems too much right now and that we would do best to just make it successful on Saturday I do have a dream because I'm I didn't get to eat today so it could be because I'm hungry of food trucks being up and down that um that area because they're in the down you know the downtown restaurants won't have that competition element and I think that that could be really exciting for the city so that is my dream and I hope it is fulfilled um and it's always about me ask my husband so um that's the first thing I want to say the other thing is um actually that's all I want to say because the thing that I I really agree with Nicole on is that the community wants

[118:00] something affordable and Pearl Street is unfortunately not affordable so this could be our opportunity of a lifetime for markets and food trucks and a cultural uh area really our opportunity to do something that we really just can't do on Pearl Street right now um and so I'm pretty excited about it and that's what I have to say everybody else said everything that I could ever want to say so thanks for those great comments Bob do you have a last comment before we move on to West Pearl yeah as my first comment actually um on it's on 13th Street um to me this comes down to a a when not aware I think 13th Street is a great place for us to activate and I and I I share comments with my colleagues that it should be the entire length of the 13th from arapa all the way up to at least Pearl for all the reasons that were stated as far as the the conference center or the activation of Central Park all of those reasons but I I also share Matt's concern and concern raised by others that that little stub of 13th Street down there is too far away I get

[119:00] the fact we can try to do something on Saturday night versus a Sunday but people will go when there's some place to go too and when the farmer's market closes up that's going to be uh that's going to be it and so I'm worried that we don't have enough time and we're spending an awful lot of money trying to activate a place that's really really far from where everybody's going to be and I'm afraid we're going to get to the end of the summer and have a half-assed job and and it's going to be a failure and then we're going to say well I guess we tried that we're not gonna do that anymore I would much much rather have us do a good thoughtful thorough well-funded job on 13th Street next year then do a rushed um not well thought out because I think you all acknowledge is not very well thought out job uh in two months so I am not in favor of activating 13 that little stuff of 13th Street this year whether Saturday night or Sunday for those reasons but I do want us to give some great thought to 13th Street as a matter of fact I'd like to give us a lot of thought to all of 13th Street um and do a better job and a thorough

[120:00] job and a thoughtful job in 2024. questions before we move on to West Pearl staff is there anything you need to know do you need a straw poll is this good enough thoughts Maria um I think Brad it might be better to try to summarize things in the context of the discussion with Wes Pearl too so why why don't we wait till noon all right let's move on to the big part of the night that's going to be West Pearl I bet those hands are going to start coming up if you have any questions about it or comments answering number two or three in our questions Rachel I just have a process question I'm not going to comment I think on either but could people just also give parklet feedback here while they're at the West Pearl just because or maybe just a straw poll of whether people want to do that because it would really be up to the nine people I think to decide whether to speak to parklets tonight we could speak to parklets do you want to um I don't want to speak to either I

[121:00] just wanted to bring up the process of like can we maybe just say if you have something to stay on Park let's yeah that's a good idea West Pearl and parklets Let's Fold it in thanks do I see no hands about West Pearl and park let's come on nobody wants to go first all right well I guess the meeting's over we can go to the next subject oh wait here's Matt surprised no one else wants to jump in but I'll I'll uh I'll be the guinea pig um it's why we're here that's why we're having this discussion is West Pearl um I remember the frustration that all nine of us had last fall when we felt powerless in being able to at least accommodate some of the needs of our community when they expect expressed in some ways outrage in other ways just deep frustration that what they found to be a great Community Asset that came from covid was leaving and it was going

[122:00] to be reopened to cars this process subcommittee was created in a reaction to that frustration to see what we could do in order to find ways to accommodate and as I said earlier reconcile those differences between those concerns that businesses had and what is clearly an overwhelming desire by our community to have more pedestrianization but that first taste of that freedom was West Pearl that was the mental map that was created over two years where people grew accustomed to having that space for themselves and for our community so that is why we're here and I think when it pertains to these recommendations I I would say that I'm a little disappointed that we didn't meet the community where they wanted us to be met which is really thinking about West Pearl and coming up with concrete tests for West Pearl and not really be thinking about 13th or East Pearl because at the end of the day the community didn't ask us for that the business Community didn't ask us for those things neither did they ask us for

[123:00] the for the parklets not to say that we don't do them and I'll agree with Bob in the sense that all of that stuff needs to be on the table and as we think about pedestrianization all these areas need to be thought of and one area we're not even talking about is the hill we got to talk about the hill got to talk about maybe 29th got to talk about South Boulder there is a lot for us to discuss we have to do it in Parts but until we address the reason we're here which is West Pearl I do think it's premature for us to get caught up in the others and so I think that's a part where I'm a little disappointed with not having enough of a robust set of treatments for West Pearl to really sample um a lot of the things that people are curious about um you know West Pearl is the most intrinsically activated Street in the city and yet we're only choosing to close it three times so it's already intrinsically activated because of its got the highest density of outdoor dining we already have a reduction of parking spaces in that area because of those parklets and so it

[124:01] makes me wonder we can always it's so it seems like it's such a lower lift because it's already so activated people already have the lingering mental map there's already this pining for it that comes from covid I still I just I wish we could be a little bit lean a little further into what we could do to West Pearl I'm not saying close in the winter I'm certainly probably not even arguing that we do it during the weekdays although the cars aren't the problem for those restaurants on the weekdays it's the vacancy of our office space that's hurting them that's a separate conversation but nonetheless let's think about what we can do like every weekend in the summer which we know they were crushing during covid on the weekend so to me it seems like we have easy lifts we have a layup or a slam dunk here an opportunity to meet the community where it wants to and make sure we're having minimal impact to businesses because they're going to crush no matter what um and so I think this is a part for me that I may be just a little frustrated that we we pivoted too far to something that wasn't really being asked of us and

[125:00] we forgot about why we were here which was really to try to address and create um a way to find that reconciliation with West Pearl so that's something that I would really like for us to consider um and and as we said you know that activation is what leads to street closures it's already the most activated place in the in the community one thing I will bring up is something that uh and I just want to throw out there is in thinking about maybe in Western particular common consumption is something that I I've heard a little bit about from a few folks and whether that's something we would consider on West Pearl because of its high density of restaurants and bars that may be one way to to make that street an even more vibrant place is to allow people to even leave their establishment and walk down the street with with a container or have something Outdoors so I'm wondering uh and I and I maybe see Sandra cringing at just a concept of liability on that um no in all seriousness but um just curious that's something that hasn't been brought up much but I'm curious if that's a treatment or thing we could think about experimenting with

[126:00] or what might happen there um so I'll leave that at that I'd love to see us do more and I think it's a low-hanging fruit for us to consider weekend closures and really test whether vehicles are the mechanism for Vitality or whether it's people that bring the Vitality to a space or not and so I think we owe it to our community to test those things and really know for sure what we what works and what doesn't thanks Matt just anybody in staff want to comment yeah I can uh comment to the common consumption um yeah I I actually have a little familiarity with that um you all know that I came most recently from Greeley and Greely was the first municipality to take advantage of that state law uh coming consumption um just for everybody's benefit is uh state law that's relatively new five five years or so maybe a little bit longer that allows for specific geographies to be defined

[127:01] um and if all of the businesses that are in that geography agree alcohol can be brought out into a common area Street typically our Plaza under certain controls um knowing a bit about that program you do have to stand it up it would probably take um three to six months and and also the agreement uh as I understand it of all the businesses that would be within that defined area um the standing up period is required because you have to create a new uh legal entity that agrees to do that but we certainly could look into the possibility of that um if that is of common interest if if Council commonly consumes that idea worked into it and can I just add something that we did in our initial research this winter when we started this work look into what were

[128:00] the possibilities related to um uh liquor um permissions and it seems like with this near-term implementation that it really more is the special event permitting that they outdoor that the common consumption is more of something to test for the longer term because it is going to take some time to go through that process and you'd have to get that District established and make sure that the folks are wanting to do that so it's not something that we can pilot for the near term and and maybe we can ask Amanda and the Consultants to speak a little bit about their experience Nationwide with business engagement we all we did some case study research and found that successful street closures always accompany the proactive participation of the business owners on those streets alongside High Community participation so we couldn't find anywhere that wasn't the case um and we do have chip again available if he wants to provide the perspective

[129:01] of the West Pearl business owners just to add to Matt what you were saying uh thank you Amanda I can attempt we have probably 50 businesses and 200 opinions amongst them um but but I will we'll try to do my best to represent the businesses I think uh fundamentally as you mentioned I I think any kind of activation or street closure that would be supported by the business is really the businesses would want to be involved in what that looks like I think the common consumption idea is is an interesting idea to explore with the businesses but I think um it seems to me that the business Community particularly on the West End is has been in the position of feeling like things are being done to them rather than being part of the conversation of what we can do to support the West End to support the community with the businesses so I I would reiterate your point about best practices of engaging the business

[130:01] community and I don't feel like the business communities have been felt completely engaged in how to do this just whether or not to do this and I think there's there's conversations to be had still okay can should we go on to Lauren and then Aaron and then Rachel I think in the light of what Matt just brought up and the sort of discussion I would really like to see us have that discussion with businesses on the West End is there a duration of closure you know like could a once a week closure be something that a majority of businesses would support is there any version of that um that would find traction with the business community in that area I I do think that yeah I would like to us to look at

[131:01] um a regular kind of expansion of the of the blocks um as part of what we're looking at and experimenting with through this program but I agree that getting business buy-in is an important part of that thank you Lauren is that it okay Aaron yeah I agree with uh with what Lauren just said and uh some of the points that Matt was getting at that um that I appreciate the analysis that was done about say that an unactivated street is not going to be successful if it's close to cars and I think that was uh you know a lot of why we said okay we get we get winter the streets are not terribly well activated in Winter and uh you also mentioned the analysis that a 24 7 closure isn't really merited based on that analysis and that makes sense to me as well you know is a Tuesday morning

[132:00] at 9 00 a.m going to be a really active space along West Pearl um you know most of the time it's not going to be uh but I think the to some points they've been made before on a June Friday evening there is a huge amount of activity along West Pearl that I think uh provides along with the businesses themselves provides all the activation necessary for just a wonderful activated car free environment and I think we saw that during the you know the the full height of the pandemic was a different time but at the same time there were you know I was down there a lot and there were times when it was quiet and times when it was just absolutely amazing and we heard from our community within 86 support for you know that that being a lovely desirable thing and so the to Lauren's point and question is like what what's a version that can work for the local businesses that can provide that vitality and and

[133:01] also provide the the community with that really desirable experience so it is is that you know Friday evenings is it Saturday evenings is it you know what does that look like I I've heard about difficulties with deliveries but deliveries aren't coming in at 5 p.m most of the time so I I would really like to explore our opportunities here for regular um targeted closures um that I I'm hopeful could provide additional Revenue to businesses not impact them negatively and I think part of this we'll be talking to them about what what works and what doesn't work and I think part of it is really about data collection to Lawrence earlier question you know we we did not get any tax information on how things have been going since the street opened back up to cars and I think that's really relevant I think collecting finely grain tax information going forward will also be really relevant in terms of the piloting and such and that uh it was an interesting idea Matt brought up the old word you're thinking about about the common consumption totally get that's

[134:00] not a this spring summer kind of an idea but that's I think that's another thing to go back out to the businesses to say uh you know what about what if you know Friday evenings were car free in common consumption you know that that might be something that would be a really desirable experience for our community and for the businesses themselves so I'd like to see another iteration of this that that gives us the opportunity to potentially provide some of those High usage times that are car free um and then I'll just say on the the parklets I mean I like the idea I like tactical urbanism kind of thoughts like that but I'm concerned about how expensive they might be and there's again I feel like I'm Flying Blind a little bit here so but it's it's not the first place I'd spend a lot of money so if you could tell me you could stand up a really cool parklet you know and for the for the summer for you know three thousand dollars I'd be like oh okay that sounds pretty cool but if it's going to be a you know a hundred thousand dollar kind of effort I'm not going to be so interested and and also we have a limited amount of time to

[135:00] devote to these things as well so um I think the time and the money would have to be uh very very doable I think for us to prioritize that in my opinion thanks for listening that's all I got well to colloquy because I can I'm going to say that we have a giant Parkland called Pearl Street Mall so that's first of all um so I agree with you whether or not we should spend I don't think we should spend a lot of money on products personally but I do want to say that it seems to me like maybe we should ask the businesses to compromise and I'm going to throw out Thursday night and maybe do some sort of marketing like Thursday night on West Pearl because Thursday night was always the most exciting night for me back in the day on West Pearl and if it was I loved going to West Pearl on Thursday nights during the um pandemic just raise my spirits so maybe we can do one night a week or one night during July or one night in July and August oh is Chip gonna be mad at me or Sunday's on Pearl or something I know

[136:03] chip you don't like Saturdays I know that um but maybe we can do some sort of a compromise okay can I just sorry I forgot what though just colloquy on your colloquy the the Stampede the buff Stampede is so much fun and that's that that seems like that could be when that happens another opportunity because boy is downtown activated when the stampedes happen okay next we're gonna do Rachel just because she's in my line of sight and then Nicole I think I'm technically next so good and I'll be very brief obviously we're trying to get it at promoting a vibrant downtown and I think that's a crucial thing for us to be working on I agree with Bob that um when is a really important question to be asking about all of these things and you know again to now back to my earlier point it um it feels like we're at a bit of a Breaking Point with encampments and so I would focus on that first and then you know on all three I would I

[137:02] would largely implement the recommendations of Staff as mostly supported by chip and downtown um and I think the chamber you know so that incorporates at least a large swath of of people with vested interests um but I think that the the staff recommendations um they they went for expert advice and opinion and it's data backed um so this is not our our long-term solution for improving cycling infrastructure I think we're just highlighting it this phase and I think that staff has done and and Consultants have done a good job of of um seeing us up for getting successful data and information that we can work from um but back to to my first point and and Bob's sort of separate point about timing I would do it next year honestly like I would focus you know to the extent that we have five hundred thousand dollars per million dollars that we can do something downtown with I would focus on um really

[138:00] Shoring up the the space to be a place that is ripe for Activation and um Community celebration and simultaneously gives people who need a place to be a place to be thanks Tara Nicole thank you I'm going to just start with a couple comments about the um parklets and pop-ups going back just some of the connectors feedback um they kind of seem to be at an earlier stage of using downtown as a public space um like wanting their kids to have safe bike routes to downtown from their neighborhoods so you know as we're thinking about these kind of things again I just want to be really intentional about how we're designing things for people who haven't engaged yet and who don't spend time downtown on a regular basis it's really a different level of Engagement from what other stakeholders were talking about one of the things that I would just like to plant a seed for now with these parklets and pop-ups is if we could think about rolling out a city-wide pop-up or Park the program so not necessarily

[139:00] restricting to downtown but for the people who don't come downtown so can we bring the downtown feel to other neighborhoods through pop-ups and parklets like the neighborhood block party trailer that we've started again but in a longer term installation kind of way and you know for committed to doing these temporary pop-ups and parklets can we ask the connectors what they think about eventually putting them in neighborhoods whose residents don't often come downtown so just a way to try to create a bit of a bridge there in the community with regard to parklets West Pearl anything that we're really proposing with this project um kind of like Rachel um I would like to have some firm cost estimates for the things that we're proposing and then what I would love to see us do is include those proposals in our budget discussions this year so that we can prioritize what we're spending money on and look at trade-offs it is always so hard for me I've mentioned this before to make these decisions in isolation being able to see things

[140:01] holistically and especially if we're trying to add new expenditures that may have ongoing costs be really conscious about what we're eliminating because we we don't have infinite resources and I would especially again with the one-time expenditures we just we really need to be careful because we know from the West Pearl temporary closure that once people get used to things they're going to expect them to continue and again whatever we decide on how we move forward to me is more important than where we move things forward I'd really love to see us offer event opportunity to the groups in our community whose views haven't been reflected here and that represent the people who say they don't feel comfortable downtown this just feels like such an important opportunity if we're heading in this direction to really do that engagement and try to diversify who is using our downtown space and really make it a place for our whole community thank you Nicole Juni

[141:02] thank you uh Tara I just wanted to add a little bit to the conversation um I like the idea of the parklets the pop-ups I just think I mean I do feel Pearl speed is pretty vibrant for town it's very nice I enjoy it I enjoy being there um I wanted to go back to something that chip mentioned and I remember when we were having the Pearl Street conversation we did have some businesses that came up before Council and felt marginalized so I think as part of that conversation we have to ensure that those businesses are at the table and for whatever reason that they felt marginalized that we bring them along as part of this process that's going to be important as part of this conversation there is something else I heard the conversation about alcohol open consumption and that is not

[142:02] something that we do at this time um I've been to Greeley a few times and I think they have a university system as well in Greeley so I think somehow they might be similar to Boulder that we do have a university in or or or town and that's something that we have to take into account because we have plenty of young people here what will be the impact and because you mentioned having the conversation with businesses that hey you want them to be part of that conversation and hopefully see you I'll be part of that conversation as well because I don't know as of right now I'm I hear that oh yeah it's a great idea to have you know this vibrant Pearl Street and it's also good to have this open container or open consumption and I just don't know what will be the impact of that on our community knowing that we

[143:00] have a university with a lot of young very young people here so I think that's a bigger Community conversation that we need to have as well But ultimately I do support the general direction that staff is going with this conversation thank you thanks uni mark and my only comments on this are going to be derivative I agree with Nicole that we need to make the expenditures for this project part of our budgeting process we just can't throw our hands up and say you know we're going to spend the money we need to know what we're spending the money on what we're not spending the money on and we have a process for that I also agree with some of the comments made by Lauren which is that you know I'm indifferent to how many times we close West Pearl as long as the business Community has been consulted and has been at the table and has some buy-in for for doing so

[144:01] um you know I don't I know that everybody who has been polled has been in favor of closing West Pearl permanently but almost none of those responses to the polls spoke to the condition of the businesses and I I think you have to focus on that a little bit so to the extent that you can you can consult with the businesses get some buy-in if they're prepared to close twice a week I'm fine with it but this is people's livelihoods and you need to tread a little carefully when you are impacting um people's livelihoods it just doesn't make sense to do anything else so as I said my comments are based on what Nicole and Lauren have previously said but that's I I think we need to go in that direction thank you I am not sure Steph where we go from here so Brad I'll let you decide

[145:01] well I think uh we've been giving you good feedback and direction I really uh really appreciate uh all that uh I would summarize that um Council acknowledges that um from our fall kickoff and everything we committed to considering West Pearl and and the other spaces and so you're acknowledging the work that we've done there uh I saw some head snotting when I uh said that this really was an exercise in uh flying the plane while trying to build it so we appreciate your acknowledgment throughout the discussion that um we're trying to look into activation and engagement opportunities while still standing up something possible um I believe I've heard uh a large group if not a consensus about 13th Street maybe extending hours on Saturday

[146:00] with adequate activation but making sure we capitalize on some of the expenses and such that that we already know exist as part of the closure of 13th already and then on West Pearl to explore some sort of regular rhythm for uh temporary closure but making sure that we do engage with the businesses to the degree um that that is possible um I heard that it's important uh to get maybe sales tax data uh also important that we look to the Future as this pilot extends into year through two and three for maybe budget ramifications and a budget packet as we go into next year and then finally that we do lean into engagement that we continue to use the racial Equity instrument uh that has already been the basis of where we've started but that inclusion is a priority and um and really recognizing some of the

[147:00] comments that that all the council rate council members made about elevating the inclusion piece as we go forward so I guess I would just ask if that captures uh it adequately and if not we will go forth and Implement to the best of our abilities uh oh I see some hands that uh might disagree I personally thought you captured it but let's see what Aaron and then Matt and Bob have to say yeah I was just gonna say that Brad that was perfect I think you should be like the head of the planning department or something because that was that was just a perfect summary thank you Matt maybe maybe the sound of me opening this uh soda made me miss it but uh did did we was there enough heard with regards to building up towards the conversations about common consumption because that's going to require a fair amount of Outreach and I just want to make sure that one there's capacity for staff to

[148:01] do that does it need a not a five and can we build that Runway fully acknowledging it's not happening this year but when you think three to six months that plus process and decision making that that we could start that then and then and then be ready for something at some point next year if if there's a green light to be had so I just wanted to double check on what action plan there is with that yeah thank you Matt I think uh investigation into it and and clear communication about what that would take leading to the possibility Bob yeah Brad I'm not sure if I I fully agree with your summation so I'm going to ask my Council colleagues to weigh in I heard with respect to 13th Street I heard a lot of concern so I certainly did and I heard concern from some of my colleagues about whether we should try to do something on 13th Street this year versus next I know there was some discussion about Saturday night versus Sunday night I think people are someone ambivalent about that but um I heard several people um say that they were concerned about doing this in 23 either because of money

[149:01] or because of timing or both and so if you think you heard a majority of us say go forward with 13th Street in 2023 Tara you might do a straw poll because you might get a different answer well is it possible to just see if they can find any partners and do a limited basis on an extending on a Saturday or do you not do people not even want to go there I mean as far as I can tell they were going to try to see if they were Partners it certainly doesn't have to be Saturday night because I understand what you were saying it was gonna will people go from Pearl Street to 13th probably not but will they stay at the farmers market and hang out for a few more hours probably yes Aaron that was my interpretation certainly I'm sorry if I'm jumping in prematurely but where it's possible to just extend beyond the farmer's market recognizing that that gives us one more data point right in in the downtown to be able to do work uh but also not

[150:01] falling into some of the concerns that Bob you expressed in others which I I agree were said as well but I agree Brad but maybe to Bob's point we could do a quick straw poll on whether a majority of council would like to do to what Brad just said okay let's take a straw poll everybody that wants to do what Brad said which is try to engage some um partners and see if it works out for Saturday after the Farmers Market raise your hand but we have a majority my first drop hole oh I feel so proud okay so if that's it is that it everybody feel good we can move on because 8 26 we want to move on I feel like we should take a five minute break

[151:00] uh and then be back here at eight let's say 8 32 six minutes to go with our second subject thank you foreign [Music]

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[157:01] [Music] tonight we're going to talk about Zoning for affordable housing last time we talked about this particular topic was a study session in November of last year where we talked about the scope and timeline for this project so I'm going to go into a lot more detail tonight and we're looking to get your feedback so let me get the presentation pulled up can you all see it not yet there you go Okay so

[158:02] tonight uh the purpose of the discussion is to get feedback on the Zoning for affordable housing project just to lay out uh the discussion I'm going to go into a bit of the background of the project and then moving into how the city of Boulder regulates uh or calculates residential density as that's a big consideration and that informs uh the potential options that we can do as part of this particular project then I'll go into the actual potential options there's a number of different types of options that we're looking at related to density housing types and parking calculations and then we'll move into the community engagement that we've heard thus far some feedback that we've received from the housing Advisory Board and then I'll conclude with next steps uh right before we go into the deliberation so the questions for city council tonight is does city council have any comments or questions related to how residential density is calculated in

[159:02] Boulder it's a complex topic I'm going to try to go through it the best I can to make everyone well informed but I'm sure there's going to be questions and I'm happy to to answer those and then after we get after that section I'm posing the question of which potential options should be the focus of any future further analysis Outreach and ultimately ordinance development so we want to figure out how to narrow down these options and go out to the public and get feedback so moving into background this is the problem statement that we have within the project Charter and attachment a it's actually a similar uh problem segment that we had for occupancy just related to the the housing crisis that we're experiencing here in Boulder in the Front Range and all across the country really just the need to increase housing stock to address the supply and demand issues and just overall the cost of housing in Boulder so this is a

[160:00] number of ways we're trying to address it in a multi-pronged manner with addressing adu's occupancy changes to zoning to allow more housing to address this crisis so what we heard from Council uh back at the 2022 retreat was at this Project's primary uh goal or objective was to evaluate the land use Co code with the intent of removing zoning barriers to more affordable units and smaller modest size units so that informed the goals that we prepared for the project that are up on the screen so one thing we want to make clear tonight is what do we mean by affordable housing we mean a number of different uh types of housing when we talk about that firstly there's permanently affordable housing which is our typical deed restricted housing that's affordable in perpetuity that is administered through our inclusionary housing program sometimes we get on-site affordable

[161:01] sometimes we get cash and Lou fees or work with other agencies to provide the housing these are the again the deed restricted housing units that we see in in the community there's also affordable attainable housing so these are like the households that pay no more than 28 to 30 percent of their income on housing and another thing that we want to make clear tonight is that we're trying to increases the inventory of housing so we're even including market rate monetized housing that's more appropriately or comparatively more affordable and because of their smaller size and the the pricing according to that so uh we're going to talk more about that tonight so the point we want to make tonight is that by allowing more housing by relaxing some density limitations there'd be more opportunities to get more housing units uh in certain areas of the city so this is really meant to um increase the number of modest sized and

[162:01] modestly priced market rate housing in the city and the point we want to make is that by allowing more housing in certain areas it'll increase the amount of deed restricted housing that we would get because through the inclusionary housing program 25 of any number of housing units in a project have to be either on-site or cash in lieu equivalent paid for those number of units so allowing more housing and removing some of those density barriers uh will will increase the inventory of of deep restricted housing so the other point we wanted to make is that even with cash and Lou it allows the city and and other agencies like Boulder housing Partners to leverage that money and actually get look seek out federal and state funding for housing to actually increase that pot of money that goes into the affordable housing fund and actually result in even more housing units then you could even achieve on site so we're

[163:01] just trying to remove some zoning barriers to make this more and more possible so before moving forward it's um it's worthy of of mentioning kind of things that are happening at the state level um proposition 123 was passed by voters back in November um and it basically created a state level affordable housing fund um that basically is anticipated to be about 290 million dollars a year that the state can use for a number of different programs to help with local communities and agencies to get more affordable housing to address homelessness so this is something that the city of Boulder the city manager's office and housing and Human Services are of evaluating closely to see how to best implement it you probably are all familiar with Governor pulse's State of the State where he brought up the housing crisis is one of the primary Endeavors of his administration and even this week it's very opportune that we're

[164:00] talking about this because the state is uh going to be releasing a draft that is a land use policy related to housing that might actually end up getting adopted potentially uh by by May at the end of the legislative session and that could have a great effect on a lot of the local communities in in the state of Colorado so I'm going to shift to the local policy framework just to build the understanding of of how we did the analysis for this project and how that's informed the potential options so you all are familiar with the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan uh it's a document that is adopted by ordinance so it has a lot more teeth than a lot of comprehensive plans may be in other communities it's a very important document in guiding all of our actions at the city of Boulder so you can see there's a number of different ways that um the comprehensive plan has implemented the plan actually implements you know it basically States the vision

[165:00] of the community and then it gets implemented through Department master plan strategic plans through the capital Improvement program and in the sense of like land use it gets implemented through our zoning or what we call our land use code so looking at the the bbcp um one of the major focused areas that guide our actions is relative to housing affordability and diversity if you open up the first few pages of the the last um or the most updated version of the plan it states that housing affordability and diversity is one of the most important things that the plan is trying to address so I'm not going to read this whole thing but obviously if you read through the plan you can see that housing is a major part of the of the plan there's a number of different policies in the plan that relate to uh getting more housing in the city trying to get more diversity of housing types more affordable housing for a full range of households increasing Supply

[166:02] um you know and and also addressing the jobs housing imbalance so there's a number of different uh policies that we look to all right so now I'm going to go into a lot of detail about residential density um I expect there may be questions I have no problem if anyone wants to interrupt with any questions for any clarifications uh so starting again at the high level I'm going to talk about the bvcp land use designations This Is Our Land Use map that basically sets the vision for what the land uses are throughout the city and we we are always trying to make sure that our our zoning ordinance or our land use code is consistent with the bvcp um we wanted to talk about this because we understand and acknowledge that there's a lot of interest in doing residential infill of missing middle housing uh particularly in single-family neighborhoods uh in the city of Boulder the point we're trying to make tonight is that um this is is a very large

[167:02] challenge because it would require um us to re-look at the bvcp at the policy level first uh and do extensive Community engagement if we are to make any extensive changes to those single-family neighborhoods to introduce different types of housing or potentially increase density and then following that there would have to be extensive uh rezonings to comply with the comprehensive plan so you can see that a very large percentage of the city uh is shown in yellow which is our single-family neighborhoods so yes it's an opportunity for trying to get more more housing but they are areas that are that are restricted in the bvcp which I'll talk about right now so you can see the areas that are in kind of the the light yellow color are considered very low density residential so it describes the characteristics and

[168:00] locations like basically the vision for those areas these very low density areas are capped out at two dwelling units per acre or less and then the yellow areas which are are more pervasive obviously is the low density residential areas are at two to six dwelling units per acre and then you get into medium density areas which are shown in Orange and that's 6 to 14 dwelling units per acre we start to get a little bit more flexibility as the density increases in the plan so mixed density areas are six to twenty dwelling units per acre the most flexibility is really high density residential areas which just say more than 14 dwelling units per acre so there really isn't like a cap for those areas so that's where it gives us a little bit more opportunity as part of this project where we have you know limited timeline to make changes uh to get more housing so I'm going to talk more about that if you've had a chance to look at table one in the memo it details all the

[169:01] different residential zones in the city and how residential density is calculated so consistent with the comprehensive plan you'll notice that very low density areas of the city the RR zones are less than two dwelling units per acre and the way that that's achieved if you look at the slide is that in the rural residential or RR zones there's a minimum lot size of 30 000 square feet per unit and then when you get into low density residential zones um there's re our mixed residential and low density so um in the re Zone it's a minimum lot size of 15 000 square feet and then in the rl1 zone which is uh very prevalent in the city it's a minimum lot size of seven thousand um minimum lot size per unit rl2 is also in that same density range of two to six dollar units per acre but it's achieved differently it was devised in the 1970s to try to get more open

[170:02] space so it requires um six thousand square feet of open space per unit so it's really dependent on design and there are a number of zones that use open space per dwelling unit to determine the density so you can see that there these are pretty um sacrosanct changes that if we were to make uh change any of these minimum lot sizes per unit we would have to start with the comp plan first so because of that we've kind of focused on other areas of the city where we we have more Flex of area we don't have that density cap Lauren what oh I'm sorry I guess I just wanted to interject because I I have I I sort of disagree with that statement that any change to that would require a change to the comp plan because the comp

[171:00] plan in our spreadsheet um doesn't say that it is determined on a per lot basis it says that it's supposed to be an average density and so just well one thing I want to make clear is that what I didn't say is that a lot of these zones that when they were subdivided they maxed out the density when they subdivided so that's why we bump up against those limitations there are some areas where there's a little bit more flexibility and you could add units because they have larger lot sizes but because so much of these low density areas were maxed out that's why we're saying that it would require basically a revisioning of those areas in the comp plan before there'd be any kind of change to the zones foreign I hear you I still disagree but I will let you continue with you okay

[172:02] so because of this project we've focused on areas where we don't bump up against that cap so those are typically the business zones the mixed-use zones and the industrial zones so this is really where the the bvcp already designates areas for additional housing and mixed-use neighborhoods so that includes the Boulder Valley Regional Center some of our neighborhood centers throughout the city that you can see in the numbers on the map and then also our industrial areas because we we just made some changes through the use standards table that actually made the ability to do more residential in industrial areas more eligibility for that area but it still bumps up against some density caps in those areas in the zoning but because the comp plan doesn't cap the density in those areas we can actually work on changing the zoning in that area to get more housing foreign

[173:01] density versus intensity they're kind of used interchangeably in Boulder but I wanted to be clear about density is basically a calculation of dwelling units per acre so it's really looking at the number of housing units that are permitted by the zoning and also by the the comp plan and it kind of regulates the level of activity that you can see on the property intensity is more like how much visual um massing are you seeing on the property and that's governed by in a number of different ways the city uses floor area ratio which is basically you take the floor area total floor area on a site and you divide by the lot area and you get a ratio of a number and in a number of different zones have different far limits to govern how much massing and bulk you see but also factoring in open space requirements how much parking is required height limits and setbacks and you can see that far can look different depending on how much of the

[174:02] lot area has to be taken up either by landscaping or parking or open space so a 2.0 far at the bottom you can see could either be two floors just covering the the property or it could potentially be an eight-story building obviously in Boulder we have a 55 foot height limit so it's more likely that you're going to see a four-story building like in the middle there based on the far and the open space requirements and parking but either way I mean there's a number of different ways to visualize far we did include attachment B which shows a number of different projects at different fars so the point we wanted to make with this is that there's a number of different zoning districts that use some just use density to determine how much can be built on the property and some just use intensity some use both um so there is some flexibility to make some changes to allow uh to remove some zoning barriers so I know there's a lot of numbers on

[175:01] this slide and there could have been more but I'm going to walk you through the slides and certainly if you have any questions but I think what we're trying to do here is that this table basically illustrates that how some simple changes could be made in certain zones to allow more small units and as a result more deed restricted units so we're using an example here of diagonal Plaza which which I know many of the council members are familiar with it's a 5.45 Acre Site uh it's in the bc1 zone which is community business it's one of the neighborhood centers in the city in that zone in the top row you can see that the density limitation there is 1200 square feet of open space per unit so basically this is a little bit difficult when it's done by open space because it's a matter of design but typically that's going to get you somewhere around 22 dwelling units per acre so applying that to a 5.4 Acre Site you could get somewhere around like 120

[176:02] units out of that which in a sense is is on more on the Suburban side in design so that the next column we're showing that out of 120 units 25 of the units would be deed restricted either on-site units or the equivalents in in loose it'll be 30 units that would be subject to our inclusionary housing in that particular Zone there's no far limit so it uses that open space to to kind of limit the intensity the next line is the br1 zone so that's the regional business Zone that's like in our Boulder Valley Regional Center so like where 29th Street is the village along 30th Street it does allow a lot of floor area there's a there's a a 2.0 far in that area you can even go up to a 3.0 uh if you you know meet the community benefit requirements but we've heard on over and over again from the development

[177:00] community that the density limitation in that zone which is pretty common in a number of different zones the 1600 square feet of lot area per dwelling unit or the 27 dwellings per acre cap is when you combine that with the far limit when the far gets maxed out it all it basically encourages large floor plate units so it's basically we're not getting what we we want to get in the city so applying that again as an example to the 5.45 Acre Site we would get around 100 148 units a quarter of that would be 37 deed restricted units or cash and Loom so basically if you max out that far on that site and you divide it by 148 units you get over three you get you get an average of over 3 000 square feet per unit so again we this is in a lot of the areas where the the Boulder Valley Conference of plan isn't is trying to encourage more units but we the

[178:01] developers are like when we do the math it just it's automatically giving you a larger sized unit so this came up with the diagonal plasma project so that's the third line so we wanted to show the difference between the third line and the row above so with the special ordinance I got adopted for diagonal Plaza a 15 open space requirement was applied they were able to then do 52 dwelling Yokes per acre and increase the density to 282 units which then yielded 70 units that would be deed restricted or cash in lieu um and then they did a basically a 1.77 far but if you apply that same logic like a far cap and you divide by the number of units in this example the average unit size drops by by half you get to like around a thousand or twelve hundred so you can see how getting rid of that density limitation whether it be

[179:01] the 1200 square feet of open space per unit or the 1600 square feet of lot area per unit you're going to get some more smaller units and you're going to get more deep restricted units to add to the city's inventory for deed restricted housing so what were does that leads us to like a number of different zones where there's an opportunity to remove that limit and then apply an far as the intensity cap so that we can get more housing and more IH housing so what we're contemplating tonight we obviously again I mentioned the attachment B has a number of different far examples and what they look like we're we're proposing that for a lot of the neighborhood centers and a lot of these zones it might be appropriate to do a 1.0 or a 1.5 far limit and then just remove those density limitations so any any questions on the calculations

[180:00] clear as mud okay so I'm going to move into the potential options so there's three themes that relate right back to the objective that city council set out for us on this project is looking at density adjustments to get more housing and more deed restricted housing so we're looking at a number of different zones that have those those restrictions that we're proposing could be removed we've also heard from some council members you know about increasing the the number of or allowing duplexes or other attached housing types in traditionally single family neighborhoods that is an option I'll talk about it in more depth but again we run up against those those density limitations and then uh parking modifications which was another part of the um the objective so looking at revising calculations uh in the code and we've found some areas

[181:00] that could be loosened up to encourage more affordable housing so this corresponds directly with what is in the memo um we've we've put the density adjustments under option A so there's a one and two again this goes right back to those two density limits the 1600 square feet of lot area per dwelling unit uh and the 1200 square feet of open space in the bc1 zone uh we're putting out the option that in the br1 zone the rh5 which is a high density residential The bc2 Zone which is also in the neighborhood centers and the IG and IM Zone where we've already opened up the eligibility for more units removing that density limit entirely and replacing it with an far another option that could be considered here too is also just putting an open space requirement so one thing we're contemplating is that in the industrial zones um we could put just not even there's already an far for non-residential uses

[182:01] per the jobs housing imbalance we could for the residential not have an far limit for residential there but maybe just put a an open space cap so it could be like the rh3 Zone which is actually our most intense um residential Zone it allows the most units it has a 60 percent open space requirement but that can be modified down to 30 percent with planning board approval or maybe we could just put 30 on as a requirement these are some ideas uh that are floating around that we wanted to get your feedback on but we're recommending that these move forward as options moving into housing types like I said this gets a little bit more challenging we did bring an ordinance through several years ago that would would have basically allowed for the conversion of single-family homes in the low density residentials to be basically chopped up into either duplexes or triplexes it was

[183:01] proposed as a conditional use so it would have had to have met some criteria it would be a staff level review but basically would be looking at the designs of the building to make sure that they still fit in with the single family character of the neighborhood we did analysis of those areas and because of the density limitations um there weren't there wasn't a yield of too many additional units that would be possible by doing that there are some Lots say up in the RR Zone where it has a minimum lot size of 30 000 square feet there were some that were you know upwards of you know 90 to 100 000 square feet those could then perm commit a Triplex for instance or a duplex but there weren't really that many there was only about a little over a hundred properties that would be eligible for that so we're not recommending this to move forward at this time this is something that could be done in the future we think it would be more appropriate to be to lump this

[184:00] into a more holistic look through the comp plan and then through rezonings to allow greater densities in these zones obviously with Community engagement but again we could do this but it it would also impact the timeline and again this this was an ordinance that was brought through several years ago that was not passed by a council at the time it was something where there was there was a fair amount of resistance from the neighborhoods that we engaged about making that change uh so we're not recommending B1 and B2 at this time we are recommending B3 we talked about this with Council a couple years ago through the use standards phase one project efficiency living units in the code they're kind of like micro units they're basically units that are 475 square feet or smaller right now or the way the code was before is that any project that had more than 20 percent of its units as efficiency

[185:01] living units had to go through a use review process that was loosened up through use tables phase one to forty percent uh we propose to remove that use review requirement back then but the council at the time did not support that change we're bringing that back to this Council and we're recommending that that use review requirement uh be removed for elus so this again would be a kind of a very straightforward change to allows more smaller units mark uh you're muted yes I am I was what was the original theory behind requiring uh youth review of the efficiency living units at 40 percent that was in the code for some time I I think it just was kind of like a new idea maybe back in the in the 80s when they introduced efficiency living units and it was a way to assess impacts but

[186:01] you know again there's other mechanisms in the code you know like site review parking requirements that already apply to these projects the the user view in our opinion is kind of extraneous okay so you didn't you there was no point in your view of you know jumping it to 50 60 70 as a threshold uh we didn't we didn't think that that was necessary okay thank you and then moving into um the option C's of parking changes um C1 is kind of a an obvious Antiquated parking requirement that's been in the code for a while that we've been hearing a lot of feedback from the community to change it's basically any project that has more than uh 60 of its units has one bedroom uh has a parking requirement that jumps up to 1.25 parking spaces I think that was calibrated at a time when when city the city of Boulder didn't have as many opportunities for Transit

[187:01] there was probably more car ownership at that time so we're recommending that that requirement just be changed to one per unit which is the same as efficiency living units it's again it's we find it to be a an Antiquated part of the code that could be removed um I'll jump to C3 first um we do a number of parking reduction evaluations at the city um we have an administrative process for parking reductions up to 25 of the parking requirement for non-residential projects and then if it goes over that it's something that's considered through the site review process but one thing we do have in the code that we perceived as a barrier is that any parking reduction associated with a residential project automatically requires site review so this was another opportunity for the code where we could process residential parking reductions

[188:00] the same way we do commercial parking reductions up to that 25 percent um so we're recommending that uh move forward um in looking at other communities and and some articles that have come out there's been a lot of suggestions for maybe not requiring parking spaces at all for affordable units or or dropping the requirements or reducing them quite a bit uh we we evaluated that we're not recommending that that move forward at this time we felt like that may have some Merit but we we have some hesitation about treating affordable units differently than market rate units we have hesitation because you know there there's an equity issue you know if an affordable unit just doesn't have access to parking and we also have concerns about you know if this if parking requirements were reduced or removed it could lead to spillover impacts from a affordable project that could create more you you know Community resistance to those projects so we're

[189:00] not recommending that at this time we we do think that it's something we that could be evaluated further as more of a holistic analysis of our parking which we've been doing kind of behind the scenes for several years but it's not moved forward to any code changes yet but we think it should be lumped into that analysis uh when we get to that so those are our recommendations on the um potential options so I'm going to jump into Community engagement and board feedback so this project has been a notice of this Project's been going out on the pnds newsletter we've been posting on the city website uh we've been having conversations with people that are interested in this particular code change we did an Outreach project on um event on February 22nd where we talked about all the different housing related code changes and we we invited housing Advocates and neighborhood representatives to share their opinions on the changes and in housing in general

[190:02] we're going to move forward after tonight after we get some feedback from Council on which options to focus on and really kind of let people know what um what to comment on we're looking to do open houses and office hours uh in the coming weeks and months we're also again we're trying to schedule a time with the community connectors to get their feedback on these changes we're not going to try to go too deep into the the details but we do expect that there is we've already gotten feedback from them on adus and that there is a positive feedback about just increasing any options that add to the affordable housing inventory of the city so some of the feedback that we've been getting so far obviously there's some in the community that that agree that adding more modest size housing will increase housing opportunities and help those that are struggling to find housing or staying in Boulder and that

[191:00] this these particular changes in tandem with the other ones that we're working on are are consistent with our housing housing and racial Equity goals but we have been hearing some comments that are opposed to or cautious of these changes um you I think you've heard just like with the occupancy discussion the viewpoints about inelastic markets and at the high demands of living in Boulder is just going to drive more expensive housing and that it won't necessarily bring the housing prices down again we've been making the point that you know adding more housing is going to increase the inventory of IH housing what we've heard as an alternative to that is just that the city instead of physically changing you know neighborhoods or areas of the city really focusing more on just increasing in Luffy's or commercial linkage fees to get more deep restricted affordable housing and we've been hearing you know concern from single family Property Owners about any kind of changes that would introduce more density or

[192:01] different housing types in their neighborhoods we went to housing Advisory Board last night the board was supportive of of the potential options that we posed to them they did Express disappointment that that the missing middle housing or neighborhood infill into single-family neighborhoods is not something that we're you know including as part of the scope of this particular project they supported any kind of endeavor that would um and whether that's what the bvcp update but something that would update the plan to make this all possible in the future um and they also felt that some more aggressive parking related changes could still be done to encourage more affordable housing but overall they were very positive about the options that we presented to them so as far as next steps again so we we talked to have last night uh city council tonight after we get feedback

[193:00] from Council uh we'll be using the next few weeks and months to continue the analysis of of the of the options uh continuing Outreach on the options doing office hours to help answer questions we're going to present this project to planning board on April 18th uh we'll start uh developing the ordinance and I expect that there's going to be some things that we're going to need to follow up on with with city council so we're scheduled now to return to council as a matters item on June 15th so we'll report back on the feedback that we're receiving and get more guidance before we move forward so um the schedule is to try to complete the the project by September so we'd be looking at bringing the ordinance through to planning board in August and then bringing it to City Council in September so that concludes my presentation so I'm gonna land on the last question which is uh which potential option should be the

[194:00] focus of any further analysis Outreach and ultimately ordinance development tuning thank you I just have a quick question as I was hearing this conversation and I wanted to ask you how does the governor's plan because you mentioned that how does that impact this conversation that we're having and does this work have any point of intersection with it at all because you mentioned it in passing but you didn't really go into details because here we are uh you know working and trying to find ways to have more provide more access to affordable housing and then we also have to have the governor's plan so I just wanted to understand a little bit more um how does that impact our current plan as a city council or as a local

[195:00] community well it's certainly something that we're looking at closely especially if it ends up being you know some sort of State mandate um what I'm communicating to you tonight is kind of what we know about our current process so obviously and obviously there might have to be some legal uh response to this but I think if the state were to pass a mandate on you know there has to be these types of housing types then I think we would have to within our capacity just start moving forward on making those changes to comply with the state um but we don't know what the outcome is going to be just yet yeah if I can piggyback onto that because it is so new uh CUNY it's just impossible to kind of know where the intersection ultimately is going to land um so this really is kind of in the context of current code moving forward with counts as priorities but we would we would definitely pivot you know where that makes sense and where we can both capitalize on whatever the new law is or

[196:01] conform with it or you know whatever is the appropriate thing uh but literally just really getting arms around it still yet but it's a very important question thank you do you mind if I call it a little bit here uh because I think the stuff about changing from open space for dwelling unit to far limits it that's going to be completely separate from anything in the governor's plan so I think that as as well as like the use review for the efficiency living units I don't think that plays into it probably either as well so I think these are those are uh some changes that I think we would make we could make on our own that probably will have there'll be no impact either way um from from the land use bill being discussed thank you Tara Tara do you want to call on that whoever oh you want me to take over from here

[197:01] I was like did I miss something okay let's go with Mark a couple of questions um the first one is a little bit offbeat but on page two of the memo um you you mentioned um our policy against uh demolition uh in the opportunity Zone um do you have any thoughts on how that's working out for us to my knowledge I'm not aware of any demolitions that have occurred in that area it was meant to kind of freeze some of the the market rate uh residential units that exist in that area um that could benefit potentially from the opportunity zone so there is an overlay that basically sends an alert you know if a project were to come in that they wouldn't be allowed to to demo during the duration of the opportunity Zone okay and and we speak often of modest size units um can you define what a modest size unit looks like in square footage or

[198:01] Price or rental I mean what what is the category that we've that we're defining with with that terminology I might pass that over to our housing staff to answer or not that's coming on sorry about that um so I am Sloane Walbert I'm in the housing division I don't know if Kirk has an answer for that I'm not sure we have an exact number um but I think it sort of goes back to that attainable housing definition that Carl gave of its others a size that limits the amount of rent that could be charged or um could be sold on the market well I I get my question is based on the fact that you know you you see um houses selling for a thousand dollars a square foot in Boulder so yes it's

[199:01] cheaper than a mansion on um in Devil's Thumb but I'm not quite sure what you know I'm trying to get a sense of of common definitions um a paintable can't just be cheaper than that Mansion it's got to have some content for itself and I'm just trying to figure out what that is uh maybe I'll add in is as well Sloan thank you uh so Kurt fernhaver with housing and Human Services um so typically under our deed restricted units um to give that kind of comparison um uh you know typically they're in the uh 800 uh um you know 1200 1300 square feet depending on those are one two and three bedrooms uh efficiency units are obviously smaller um 1600 is about the the biggest we would see

[200:00] um so you know in the context of this conversation I would say you know anything smaller than 1800 square feet you know starts to get into that range and to answer the to try to answer the second part of your question um we don't we can't really control the the the market rate uh price um what we can do though is encourage and I think that's what Carl's getting at encourage smaller units and our code actually doesn't encourage smaller units right now it actually encourages larger units um and so we can't even in many of these areas we can't even get square footages um that become somewhat more attainable well in a few years ago we we did a a study of what incommuters want and I assume that finding housing for in commuters should be a a significant component of our strategy

[201:00] are we keying anything that we're producing in terms of housing towards that sense of what those in commuters are looking for uh you know I know we're we're we're building elus for that market we're building affordable housing for people who qualify um for that kind of housing um but are we doing anything to uh provide housing for you know uh a couple that's in commuting you know a nurse an accountant or or a lawyer and something else um who would be happy to live here um but they're not going to live here in you know a 900 square foot two bedroom apartment or are we trying to accommodate the people we would like to have live here who can't live here or we just hoping that the market will will help us so as far as I know we haven't done a

[202:02] specific survey of in commuters around their housing needs however when we do an affordable housing project as part of the process um for financing there's a requirement to do a market study um and so when you're putting forward um like the type and mix and size um related to the location of the housing those are all factors that come into the market study and so any project that we would do that's more of a permanently affordable project we would want to we we go through a process to ensure that it is meeting a market need for individuals that can afford that housing we we haven't been we we haven't had the uh capacity up to this point to dive into those needs in the same way within the

[203:03] market housing okay um I had one other question oh the the memo raised this issue that's been uh mentioned many times about the uh I'm losing my train of thought um oh the issue the issue concerning um an inelastic Market versus an elastic Market have we ever actually looked at it to see if there's any truth to that or um you know people make that claim all the time I've made it that we have an inelastic market and most of what we're doing is not going to have much impact on rental or purchase prices but there's always the possibility that that's not so have we ever looked at it to to analyze that to see if it in fact conforms to reality or or not

[204:03] because this hasn't been any kind of market analysis about Boulder specifically we've you know looked at a different studies throughout the country that you know reference cities like San Francisco and the Bay Area and other areas and some of them have mentioned Boulder um anecdotally but nothing specific to Boulder but I think just by experience and looking at housing prices I think um you know again we're just we're hearing from uh folks in the community that um call it that and I think there's there's probably some evidence to to some extent you know about the level of demand but we don't have any specific data to Boulder okay and my last comment is I'm fine with the parking um changes I think those are reasonable and the uh sorry I've taken up so much time thank you so k Mark questions and comments all in

[205:00] one Big Time Lauren thanks um I wouldn't necessarily assume that people wouldn't want to live in 800 square feet I think that an architect and a my partner are we are very happy people living in Boulder at 800 square feet so the it definitely works for some people but I understand wanting to know more about what in commuters are looking at or would convince them to move here um I wanted to check in on going back to this land use thing zoning designations would be in the high density residential land use designation like what zones yeah um everything that's RH ISM City Residential category in some of those well we would still

[206:02] allow someone to build a single family home in that in some of those zoning designations and am I correct uh we do but we did make a change at the request of the the previous Council to uh basically discourage single-family units in those zones uh so it was changed to use review through a used review you can build fewer than the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan suggested 14 dwelling units per acre correct I I guess I'm just struggling because there are aspects in which this lays out very clearly right like high density residential should be more than 14 dwelling units per acre but yet we allow people to build a single dwelling unit on a lot and then you have um Lots where we're looking at the minimum lot size

[207:00] and saying that based on this minimum lot size that we can't increase density because it would be against the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan and I'm not necessarily saying that we need to do that in this project across all zoning designations or anything like that but I just fundamentally disagree with that interpretation of how the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan is used and how these areas are calculated there's other issues like if you were to ask me to calculate the density of a neighborhood I would look at the whole neighborhood including the streets things like that are not being considered in looking at this based off of the smallest lot size allowed in a zoning designation so it's fine if we don't want to look at duplexes but I don't think that we should be basing that decision on whether or not it is allowed under the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan

[208:00] um in terms of some other things I was wondering why we're not like I really like the direction you are going with not looking at not using open space or minimum lot size why aren't we looking at that across all the zoning designations why only sort of the select few zoning designations which was still a number you know six or so but why not eliminate that as a metric for all of our zoning districts we really kind of focused on where the comp plan anticipates housing growth areas we we didn't we were more cautious around RH zones that might be in for instance the opportunity zone or or next to a single family zone so we did select

[209:03] ones that were on multimodal corridors in neighborhood centers in the Boulder Valley Regional Center you know we certainly could look at those zones since we don't run into that cap thank you um was any other thought given I know that there's sort of a we have other things like minimum private open space that I guess I also question a little bit that feels like putting unnecessary restrictions on a market rate unit that you know developers can pick parking they should also be able to or you know I think we should be looking at whether or not developers are providing the product that makes sense both in terms of parking and other open space things like minimum private open space is that

[210:02] something you guys considered at all um I mean our hesitation is that we've we've received comments from you know other boards and councils in the past that were very cautious about removing any you know private open space you know requirements or amenities so we did not look at that okay and then another thing so in a number of these zones especially the denser zones we allow both residential and non-residential uses one of the things that's always struck me odd about our code is having different requirements around building size based on what the use is so saying that a commercial building needs a certain percentage of minimum open space on a lot but calculating the open space or size of building differently for residential units

[211:01] given how busy you guys are wouldn't it be great to simplify the code and habits and also allow for potential changes of use over time that wouldn't require cutting off 20 of a building in order to switch it from being an office building to a residential building is that something that you guys would be open to looking at I we certainly can yeah thank you yes I think that's one of those things that we recognize um we could and should look into within the scope of what we're presenting today though these are things that we feel like the level of public engagement and such supports this within the time frame so I just wanted to make sure that when we responded that we could look into that you understood that that might be kind of in later phases okay I appreciate that thank you

[212:03] I think you know you can hear a little bit of frustration from me one of the things like this isn't just adding housing in my experience this is also we are losing housing in our community because of some of these rules earlier this week I was asked by a client to look at a property in the rmx1 zone it is a property that has that is currently an apartment building and has an apartment building on either side of it it's a little over 6 000 square feet and if they were to which they're looking at redeveloping it and they would like to do it as an apartment building and the only thing that they are allowed to redevelop it as under our code right now would be a single family home and it would become an almost 4 000 square foot single family home that would be eliminating three units of housing from

[213:02] our community to provide housing that we have said that we're not interested in trying to encourage and that is the only thing that they are allowed to do so I appreciate the direction that this is going I would like to see it us look at more zones and us look at allowing things that have historically been allowed in this community um I think that we can go farther I would like to see more of the rh1 zones um I would like to see the duplexes I had this idea around parking that maybe we've try and bell curve it so you know you have sort of the amount of required parking for a typical project and if someone is providing you know

[214:00] the 100 like 120 percent of that to 80 percent of that we say that amount of parking is just Allowed by right if you want to provide you know 140 to 120 percent of the required parking or 60 to 80 percent of the required parking that that would require an administrative review and if you want to do like a hundred and 160 to 140 or you know like more than 140 or less than 60 of the required parking that that would be a site review so that we're kind of we're like targeting people in on a amount of parking um not just giving minimums sorry that was a lot I have lots of thoughts on this topic but I'll give it to someone else for the moment really good thoughts thanks Lauren Nicole thanks Lauren never apologize I always really appreciate um listening to your

[215:01] thoughts and your lived experience on working with our zoning and land use so I would just like to add kind of a second to Lauren's appreciation for all this work and the ideas that are coming forward and also her desire to look at how we can go even farther than that kind of related if the state housing legislation doesn't pass this year it will pass in the near future the writing has been on the wall but it was coming for a couple of years I was talking about this even when we were campaigning in 2021 and now that the process has started I really am like so confident if we're gonna get there if not this year then soon um and other states whose growth in housing costs we've mirrored like Oregon and California they followed this pattern in recent years Washington state is heading toward eliminating single-family zoning right now um so in my opinion this really is not a matter of if but when

[216:01] um so what I would like to recommend is just a really brief comment after my long preface that we go farther faster with any updates that are related to what the state is looking at like going with have suggestion of more aggressive parking changes I think it could really just help create a bridge to get our community from where we are now to where we're likely to be when this legislation passes thanks Nicole Army go to Rachel Tara um I want to plus one most of what Lauren said I know we're just done questions now but just so I don't forget especially the parking bell curves which is kind of no no we can do questions and comments oh great anyway so what Lauren said and um I thought the the parking bell curves might be a little bit difficult to understand but I support them so if anyone needs that re you know restated I'd ask her to do it and then a question um about Lauren's question about the averages so

[217:01] I I understood that question to be like where the comp plan requires um like a minimum number of units to go on a lot like you can't do under 14 in one Zone on an acre if I follow the question correctly um in in one zone but but we have other parts of the code and that has to be you know on average and in those zones where there's a minimum like you can't go under 14 we're going all the way down to one on some Lots with use review but we don't invert it in in practice right and Lauren just like flag me if I'm getting it wrong so we don't say like the maximum on an acre is six in this one zone but we're gonna allow you to do seven because the average over that zone is is well under six so somebody can put a seventh on that acre or somebody can have a duplex maybe so I guess I just want to understand Carl like how under the count plan how do we get to you can have a use review for that to go under but we don't do it the other way if you want to go over if the average within that whole Zone as

[218:02] I understand it is uh within the comp plan uh maximums or minimums are you talking about the user view for like a single family home is that what you're referring to well as I'm referring to whatever you were referring to as a use review because when Lauren asked her question you said you can go to use review if you want to put a single family home on a lot that would otherwise require 14 units under the count plan I mean it gets really tricky when you're talking about average density across a particular prescribed area like researching every property within a certain area to figure out the density in most cases you know particularly in single family zones it's pretty constant it's in that in that range of six dwelling units per acre they typically are maxed out there are some areas like like Lauren brought up the rmx one that that's a little more uh challenging and complex because it was a high density

[219:01] Zone in the past and then the zoning was changed to basically a lower density so that's that's why you have a lot of non-conforming uh apartment buildings in that area and that if you were to redevelop it wouldn't allow more than a unit or two now but that again I think we we run up against those limitations in the comp plan because of the non-conformities and that there's areas of the are maxed out but I guess it would seem to me that we would just have pretty ready access to like you know this Zone you know incorporates these blocks and here's how many units are on that you know in that zone we don't we don't have that as a city because it just seems like we we may be you know already farther along than we think we are if it's possible to do some of the stuff that we're after because it is actually allowed under the comp plan we've just been sort of um interpreting it or

[220:00] um applying it in a conservative way and maybe we want to say let's let's you know lift up the comp plan as written and on average and know what the average is and then if you're in this Zone there's room for 200 duplexes there or whatever like is that an option I mean I think we could look at the mixed density areas again just because it does allow up to 20 dwelling units per acre again I think a lot of those areas are probably close to that with the non-conformities but I'm thinking more of of um the low like where we have a lot of single family homes because what we're I think what a lot of us are looking at and what Mark was getting to earlier is how do we get missing middle and how do we get it affordable so yeah I mean we we've we've done a fair amount of analysis of the single family areas like I said a lot of them are already maxed out um we've done an analysis of of their the minimum lot sizes and there's very few lots that can allow

[221:00] you know the additional density but but that's on a lot by lot rather than an average across the whole um the whole zone so like a lot might be maxed out as you know on that block there's that that there's six on that black but maybe the next Black has only four and so there's you know I mean the other point I'll make is that you know the point of this project from the beginning was was Simplicity was to really look at targeted changes and and doing averaging in the manner that you're talking about looks like it would be adding a lot of complexity uh to the code so we we did not you know we kind of steered away from that uh kind of thing I'm not saying adding any I don't know like maybe changing nothing just say like the interpretation is that this this is already allowed and it's it's already written that way we've just been amazing I'll let Lauren Maybe see if I can maybe add some clarity to what's being discussed um aside from the scope issue which you

[222:00] know clearly is is part of what we're trying to balance here too what I'm hearing though is is the observation that a couple uh council members are making which we acknowledge which is when when there is a density number whatever 20 uh in the comprehensive planned it's probably under realized in actual construction I think it's the point I'm hearing you say Rachel is that you know the average actually is lower than that so don't we have capacity to get up higher and the answer would be yes I think from an administrative standpoint the challenge becomes if you tell everybody then that they can do more then you again you do run the risk that you push beyond the average and that's where we start to get into infrastructure capacity issues and where do you tell people where to stop at that point if that makes sense I mean I guess that's why I would have to go to use review so that we would just know as we were going or some sort of administrative review like you know if well

[223:00] really get you there and I think Carl maybe I misunderstood but I think your point about the use review is just that that essentially became a disincentive to do low density and it was just a mechanism correct right or wrong to try to discourage people from doing that but no individual use review is going to take away if if the property right in that zone district is is reinterpreted let's say it would have to be granted to everybody in that and we would potentially then see everybody then push beyond what the infrastructure in that area it's definitely an area we should study as part of an update to the the comprehensive plan um but I think to do it with um an interpretation or a change in the code is where it becomes problematic is I think what what we're trying to say because hopefully going to keep me honest and by restating okay I'll come back to that um after but I I understand the answer to the question there um thank you so um I

[224:01] have a couple more um and one I'm gonna hold that one just because I think it's it's a little too much for tonight because we're already so late um so let's see I I guess I'll I'll jump ahead to some engagement questions that I have um there were a couple spots where we and and came up in the presentation as well tonight where it was mentioned like staff has been hearing and and Boulder has been called and some have noted um and then uh there was alluding to there were some conversations with the public and and I'm trying to understand like who who his staff been hearing from um and and who was invited to have those conversations it's kind of sounded like some of them were one-on-one and I just want to make sure that like if we're putting in a memo that Steph has been hearing um you know that we were in less in elastic market like Mark was talking about like

[225:00] um you know if that's if that's two people saying that and it's it's not a you know I don't know statistically compelling or or necessarily even been looked into yet that's concerning to me so just wondering how that like what what went on with the engagement that that made its way into the memo there I mean we we try to reach out to um people on both sides of any issue to hear the perspectives we we try to get the word out through the newsletter we talk to anyone who reaches out to us um I think through the Outreach meeting we tried to create a balanced group of uh people that are more on the housing advocacy side and then also including folks from single-family neighborhoods that have have you know have shown interest in this project before so we tried to balance it out I mean we we go through that the work gets out you know through certain channels they contact us and we have conversations with them it's just our our standard way of you know hearing feedback

[226:00] okay well um for me like when when people say like people say or I've heard that's that's just a little bit tricky because um it sounds anecdotal and and um maybe reminds me of a recent president um but then moving down a little bit um in the same thing on engagement we there's a couple lines one says it is imperative that the project focus on targeted stakeholder Outreach as well this includes interested groups such as plan Boulder better Boulder Boulder Chamber of Commerce and then some focus groups and um you know the the ones who are called out sort of above the line specifically um I guess I just want to challenge us to maybe rethink who we're calling out specifically as um targeted stakeholders and you know below there's there's you know more I guess diversity of a viewpoints um or or people who might be involved in those groups because I'm worried that and I'm

[227:00] I'm very familiar with two of these two of the three groups and I don't know that any of them capture like gen Z voices or much Millennial voices um and those are are the generations that have such a hugely vested interest in in missing middle because they're priced out and and some of the other things we're looking at so um I guess want to to ask how we got to to like designating who is a targeted stakeholder my question is who like how did we pick targeted stakeholders I think some of it you know comes from experience of of working here for many years and and the people that we've talked to and and we know people on both sides of the issue and reaching out to them uh but I think what you're saying is kind of um in line with kind of the discussion we had during occupancy about kind of broadening Outreach to folks that we don't typically reach out to so we we

[228:02] are going to do that and we can certainly talk about these options and those conversations okay and similarly there's um next door is called out a little bit lower um and I'm not bombing on next door but Wonder like what is the flip side of that like is it Reddit or is it tick tock like so there's got to be some some inverse of like who you find on next door and there's nothing in the memo that that says to me like we're gonna get you know kind of the other side of that for getting the word out and and promoting opportunities so just want to wonder how how we same thing like how do we land it next or are there are there other options there if I can add just one other thing about input that maybe hasn't been stead has stated is that um a lot of the input kind of implied behind this too since these are very thin slice surgically targeted you know low-panging fruit if you will that changes that could be made really

[229:00] relate back to the many various Council and planning board conversations about specific projects such as diagonal Plaza and I think that's maybe been understated at this point that that's been a big part of the feedback leading to this too okay um that's all the questions I'll ask thanks okay Matt thanks Tara I appreciate that and uh thank you for Brad Carl and the whole team for diving into these pieces I mean there's a lot of different combinations and permutations to sort of splice out here in the sort of ubiquitous framing of affordability and housing so so thanks for trying to suss through that um you know there seems to be sort of I think what I'm what I'm hearing is that we're we're clearly maybe pausing on or at least the idea is to pause a little bit on pushing for duplexes triplexes because State legislation May Force our hand uh inevitably in that regard but

[230:00] something that has to happen regardless is it seems like an infrastructure study uh because it seems like whether the governor's plan works or doesn't we would be pursuing wanting to increase uh density in single-family zones through duplexes and triplexes so to me just like as as Aaron was saying earlier there are things that are independent of the plan and infrastructure study seems like it would be independent of the plan because it would happen no matter what and so I'm wondering how do we move that up or or where do we fold that into the process versus are we waiting to make a decision on that because it seems like as this conversation is laid out that needs to happen no matter what and so I just want to are we still yet to decide to do that or are we just saying we will do that just down the road I'm just not quite clear where we're going with that at this point we anticipate that as part of the intelligence gathering for the comprehensive uh Plan update uh and you're right that would need to be a very robust one um and it seems clear from discussion

[231:01] not only in this setting but in in other settings that it's time for a city-wide analysis in that regard for for all the reasons you state well I'm glad you brought that up Brad because you know it's something that Carl brought up which I'm certainly sensitive to is that you know just discussing you know changing what allowable housing is what what is allowable in single-family zoning is going to require a lot of feedback and there will be a lot of opinions and thoughts on this and as that pertains to the comp plan does that scale of an ask or a project go really outside what would be deemed as sort of the normal scope of work for the comp plan so we would be able to fold that in there would be capacity for because I'm only worried that if it's such a Monumental part of it would we need to then create that as part of our work plan to just really carve out the space but I guess maybe you're saying that no it's it will fold into what we need to do over the two years we have to work on it it is it is complicated contemplated sorry like contemplated as

[232:03] part of that and in fact we are uh getting prepared to put a um scoping document together for you uh with a long-range projection of how the temperance of plan would lay out because we do Envision a very robust one that does need a good amount of on-ramp to get us into that kind of comprehensive look that you're speaking to okay um I I I guess I don't know if my next question fits into two or not um but I guess I'll just ask it now because I'm not sure it really fits into two since it's really residential so my last real question slash comment is kind of circle it is still on the same topic um I know that we might want to wait to see what the governor does for obvious reasons but that may not happen just the same as we might not actually get what we want from the comp plan process right there is a lot of different boards that have to review and approve our asks in

[233:02] the comp plan process so as much as I think there's optimism that we will get what we want for residential there's also a lot of forces acting on it that aren't in our control and and so with that said I I'm we're hopeful that there's a way that we can perhaps on a more faster track think about allowing you know duplexes or triplexes in some limited set spots in single-family residential through use tables so that we can start to build that capacity and inventory sooner rather than later and so I understand infrastructure plays a role there but I'm thinking maybe Corner Lots or some other way to keep it limited but still build that capacity because at the end of the day our school enrollment is dropping and we are not getting the needed families in those areas to maintain those School enrollments so if we have to wait two years before we start doing that we're we're further

[234:00] behind the eight ball versus just starting to gradually take a bite out of that so that's something that I hope that we could be interested in and do so that doesn't require the other facets of comp planning and infrastructure study as well yeah and we we've outlined that as as one of the options in the housing type section so option b you know two I think we can change the use tables to allow more housing types in single-family zones um we we already allow it in rl2 rl2 is kind of a unique low density Zone because it's two to six dwelling units per acre but it does allow attached housing triplexes you know quad plexes but it still has to meet those density limits so we could do something similar in those other zones but again the point we're making is that a lot of those areas are maxed out it makes it difficult you know they would still have to demonstrate that they're Meeting those those density requirements in the

[235:01] interim until any more robust changes are made you know relative to density all right thanks Carl okay anybody lasts for you no I see Aaron Aaron sorry I didn't see can I go to to number two with uh feedback do you okay great um well I appreciate all the comments uh people have made and you know the directions people are thinking of this going so some some great questions and comments there I I'll just add my voice to say that I don't think we would have to revise the comprehensive plan to potentially change some uh density um uh you know for density allowances for attached housing but I'm not going to go deep into that right now because I want to keep my eyes on the prize on this particular project which for me is about changing from the opens place or

[236:00] per this per square footage per dwelling unit and instead to um an far approach this is we've been hamstrung by these regulations for decades we keep getting uh larger more expensive units or getting uh commercial properties where we would rather have housing because uh we're not allowing um enough uh units and uh smaller enough units and so this is the piece that I'm really interested in this project I'm very excited to see this coming forward I've been frustrated about this for over 10 years in my time on playing boarding Council and this will unlock I think um hundreds of housing units at more affordable price points and get us more inclusionary um units as well as a consequence so I want to make sure that what we're doing here is simple enough to get that initiative across the Finish Line in the next few months because I think it's by by far our biggest Community benefit from from this initiative and I think one of the things that this Council will come accomplish that while subtle and

[237:01] kind of uh inside baseball will make a real difference for the community so uh really excited that you brought this forward and I just would like to support something that Lauren mentioned earlier which is that if we can add in a few additional zones that would make sense that our you know how's it like RH zones hide and sea housing zones that are like along some of our Transit corridors that could also benefit from this change then I would love to see that as well hopefully it wouldn't be too much more work to just add in you know two or three additional zones since you're essentially taking the same making the same kind of change to those as you're making to the ones that you've proposed here so I'm not going to list which ones I think are the best ones but if you could spend a few minutes looking into that and considering whether there could be a few others I think that would be beneficial and your other recommendations I think are great you know we don't need the additional use reviews on the efficiency living units you've proposed some targeted parking Improvement changes uh that I think are great

[238:01] um so we'd love to see those move forward one thing I would just say with the change on the administrative reduction on parking so that it could be done administratively at 25 consider being a little more um uh you know aggressive on that one maybe it's 30 maybe it's 35 percent um I think generally I you know I would love to see us revise our parking regulations at a more granular level we don't have time for that this year but in the meantime I think really our parking requirements ask for too much parking and so I think we could be a little more aggressive here I really liked Lauren's tiered idea I don't know if there's time to fit that in um uh right now but I thought that was promising uh I think there are a lot of other parking changes we could make but I think your staff recommendation gets to the heart of the matter the um I'm willing to let the duplex Triplex discussion you know wait until later because I think it is a much larger discussion in the sense that there's a lot of community interest in that and it could slow down the rest of these I

[239:01] think really promising proposals that I'd like to see get across the finish line and that is an area that would most likely very likely be directly impacted by the state legislation uh if it should pass so I think we we would be needing to update things based on that legislation so rather than try to do things twice uh you know let's let's wait and see where that goes do it once and get these other fantastic things done this year that was the right way to say that and agree with you Aaron and also um even though I'm new to the housing world I'm very excited about the removal of density requirements Lauren smiling and also I agree with Lauren's um suggestion as well like you do and so it is 9 55 in five minutes it'll be ten and I'm wondering if we are if you're good to go with these um recommendations

[240:02] or do you need anything else from us foreign I think we'll have to consider a lot of the you know Divergent comments here and then go out for you know more Outreach look for other um options and then uh come back to the council in June to kind of talk through it a little bit more and see uh what to move forward on to get further clarification um would it be possible to see if there is consensus among the council for uh at a minimum of the the very specific recommendations that we made and then recognize that there was a list of other other items but but just wanting to make sure we there's agreement around the specific absolutely absolutely checking in real quick with Junie who hasn't spoke Juni do you want to say anything you're good okay all right yes good okay so let's take a straw poll and everybody who thinks who agrees with

[241:01] the staff recommendations um to give Clarity to staff raise your hands one two three uh a lot of sort ofs let's see one two three four five I'm gonna say we have a majority good Tara I just point out that there were it was yes with tweaks and so it's a lot of hair a lot of half hands tonight that's what I want to offer is Clarity is is if we're going to sum it it's it's yes and that we want to get to it okay you're right and that's what I meant thank you very much Matt let's do that again everybody who agrees with the staff recommendations and would like Brad and Carl to look into these other suggestions raise your hand is that good Matt do you have anything further

[242:00] I just wanna I just those that put out the recommendations I don't know if that's enough for them to feel like their suggestions were validated by all of us but it's getting closer I but I I can't make that commitment on back of everyone's suggestions anybody if if I may may I yeah what I what I think I'm understanding and I and I think Brad was getting to is that I believe there is consensus um from Council to move forward with uh the staff recommendations as kind of the floor but that there is an interest to continue looking and expanding at ways in which we can really attack and finding additional ways for housing to look at parking to look at a variety of things but that you don't want staff to not been get to the Finish Line on what could be an ordinance in September um by virtue of not being able to add things and if in the course of work there are perhaps some additional things that would not throw the staff timeline off kilter and come to you all with an ordinance to be able to fold whatever

[243:01] that has looked like and we can come to council with that as we as we learn more beautifully said everybody who agrees with that raise your hand look at that excitement right now lovely I'm gonna I'm gonna chart that down to it's late and you're only half listening to me well it's 9 58 do we have are we ready to uh end this meeting at 9 58. great meeting adjourned 9 58. thanks everyone thank you yeah thanks everyone good night everybody [Music] thank you [Music]