June 15, 2023 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[6:11] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] business I want to speak to some tragedies that have happened in our community this week unfortunately we've

[7:02] lost two children in Boulder here in this last weekend two month old baby and a nine-year-old boy and I just want to send wishes for healing and from the Boulder City Council and may their families and loved ones uh we're with you in in your grief this week so it's it's been a hard week with these losses um but I also want to thank the First Responders that responded so quickly to those events and did their very best to save those individuals and work their very hardest our fire and our police and other First Responders and then the very the very day afterwards um when we experienced a severe thunderstorm and significant flooding in the community they did several water rescues as well and managed traffic and then just this afternoon there was another incident along Boulder Creek with a a water rescue so I'm very grateful to everyone who puts their lives on the line to save people in need

[8:02] and and help everyone that they can so I just wanted to put that out there before we get started and if anybody else wants to say something you know I just wanted to add a note of gratitude to the hospital workers as well who have been receiving the folks coming in from these calls because I know that also is a really traumatic and hard experience and so thank you to everybody in the community that's been helping out with this so thanks thanks for that and with that we're going to move on to our regular announcement here which is for 2023 boards and commissions the mid-year recruitment period is now open from May 29th to July 2nd 2023. and we're accepting applications for these boards and commissions the beverage licensing Authority the Boulder Junction access District both parking and travel demand management the downtown management commission the landmarks board and the University Hill commercial area

[9:00] management commission and you can find descriptive descriptions and vacancies online at www.bouldercolorado.gov boards Dash commissions if you have any questions or need assistance please contact the city clerk's office at city clerk's office at bouldercolorado.gov or call 303-441-4222 and with that I will go ahead and gavel this meeting started and turn to Alicia for the Roll Call yes sir thank you and good evening everyone we'll start the roll call tonight with council member Benjamin present mayor bronkit present councilmember folkerts present friend here Joseph spear present Wallach virtually present thank you mayor Pro Tim councilmember weiner present and Yates here mayor we have our quorum

[10:01] now I'm going to ask for a motion to amend the agenda bear with me it's a bit lengthy so to change the title of item H item 3H to the following consideration of a motion to authorize the City attorney to appoint special counsel to investigate and if necessary prosecute a complaint related to alleged code of conduct violation file pursuant to sub section 278 e16 BRC 19981 the added languages and discussion of options regarding the police oversight panel's vote to stop work so that Council can consider passing a moratorium on the panel's acceptance of new cases next is to add item 3M which is consideration of a motion to accept the council employee evaluation committee's recommendations for the appointment of Jeff H con as the interim municipal court judge and directing the city manager to negotiate an employment contract and to also add item 3M a consideration of a motion to call a special meeting of the city council on June 22nd 2023 and finally to remove item 5B which was a second reading and

[11:01] consideration of a motion to adopt ordinance 8577 anybody up for that so moved sorry okay we've got a motion and a second I could see a show of hands for all in favor and that's got and we don't have a visual on Juni but it will take that as an abstention perhaps um but that passes yes oh there she is okay thank you thank you Jimmy that passes and I know mayor yes ma'am I I apologize I just wanted to say that on Zoom we our staff is working on video of the council chambers it should not impact those viewing us on Channel 8 but for unfortunately our two virtual colleagues they're not quite able to see all they can hear chamber so we're getting that resolved as soon as possible for the update and virtual colleagues let us know if that causes any problems raise your hand or use an audio

[12:03] okay we are now going to move to the first of two declarations this is the Immigrant Heritage Month declaration presented by mayor Pro tem Mark Wallach take it away mark thank you I presented this uh last year and I'm happy to do it again um noting again that I am the grandson of immigrants who fled Dreadful conditions in Europe before World War one uh and my wife is the daughter of immigrants who fled uh Nazi Germany well from Austria they fled Hitler uh before World War II so this has great meaning to me so immigrant heritage month June 2023 immigrant Heritage Month celebrates the generations of immigrants from every corner of the globe who have built our country's economy created the unique

[13:01] character of our city and are linked in a shared history immigrants have come here to work to learn and to find Freedom and shelter they're an important part of Colorado's history and continue to keep the workforce competitive businesses Innovative and the economy strong in addition to economic contributions immigrants bring diverse perspectives and experiences that make for a unique social and cultural influence fundamentally enriching the extraordinary character of our community immigrants have been steadfast leaders not only in securing their own rights and access to equal opportunity but have also campaigned to create a fairer and more just Society for all if despite these countless contributions the role of immigrants in building and advancing our nation has frequently been overlooked and undervalued throughout our history and continuing to the

[14:00] present day one in Ten Boulder County residents is an immigrant and this exceptional group of people adds to the variety of languages customs and Cuisines which contribute to the cultural diversity enjoyed in the city the city council of the city of Boulder Colorado the class June 2023 as immigrant Heritage Month and urge all to join in recognizing the distinct value that lies in welcoming people of different backgrounds and treating all with dignity and respect thank you appreciate that and our second and final declaration is the Juneteenth declaration presented by council member spear you June 10th is the oldest celebration of the emancipation of enslaved African Americans and is so named after the events that took place on June 19 1865

[15:03] in Galveston Texas on June 19 1865 Union Soldiers led by Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston Texas with the news that the Civil War had ended and that the enslaved were free reactions to this news ranged from shock to jubilation news of the end of slavery did not reach Frontier areas of the United States for more than two years after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1st 1863 and months after the conclusion of the Civil War even after word had spread some slave masters chose to withhold the information holding them as slaves through one more harvest season this Monday June 19th is celebrated and recognizes the historical significance of the end of chattel slavery in the United States many African Americans continue the tradition of celebrating Juneteenth as inspiration and encouragement for future Generations

[16:00] for more than 155 years Juneteenth Day celebrations have been held to honor and remember the substantial contributions of African Americans to American history the fight for Freedom does not exist in a vacuum and the struggle against oppression and for sovereignty is one we collectively share and are inextricably linked to Juneteenth celebrates the unity and mutuality of American Liberty realized which makes Juneteenth a celebration of freedom and justice for all Americans not only those enslaved in their descendants the faith and strength of character demonstrated by former enslaved African Americans remains an example for all people of the United States regardless of background religion or race the late Lula breaks Galloway of Saginaw Michigan author social activist curator of African American history was the originator of the interim Juneteenth creative Culture Center and museum in Saginaw Michigan Galloway successfully worked to bring

[17:01] National recognition to Juneteenth Independence Day and encouraged Congress to pass a resolution in 1997 in honor of the day in continuation of those efforts Miss opal Lee spent years lobbying Congress to make Juneteenth a Federal holiday former educator and counselor lifelong social impact leader and considered the grandmother of Juneteenth Miss Lee stood alongside President Joseph R Biden as he signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day act on June 17 2021 which officially recognized Juneteenth day of observance making June 19th a federal holiday since 2016 Madeline strong Woodley founder of the executive committee African-American cultural events of Boulder County with the help of many partners has been leading efforts to organize Juneteenth celebrations across Boulder County originally started in Longmont Juneteenth events including flag racing ceremonies storytelling classes lectures and more now spans

[18:03] several days and are hosted in communities across the county to benefit our entire Community particularly residents that are homebound or restricted due to health challenges Miss strong Woodley ensured that these events be available virtually via social media channels and other platforms in 2021 e c a a c e in partnership with the NAACP Boulder County hosted the city of Boulder's first Juneteenth flag raising ceremony in 2022 the city of Boulder joined the federal and state government and officially recognizing Juneteenth as a holiday Juneteenth celebrations will undoubtedly continue to grow in the city of Boulder through the cherished Partnerships and the strength of current and Future Leaders finally this declaration serves to recognize Miss strong Woodley as the official founder of the Boulder County Juneteenth celebrations and to further acknowledge Ms strong Woodley's leadership and dedication to this community over the course of many years

[19:01] Miss strong Woodley's dedication to organizing African-American cultural events in Boulder County has strengthened and enhanced our community in celebration the city's human relations commission is co-sponsoring local events throughout the weekend in partnership with the NAACP Boulder County and executive committee African-American cultural events Boco for their third annual Boulder County Juneteenth celebration this five-day Affair will include flag raising ceremonies across Boulder County workshops and celebration events for more information please visit the executive committee for African American cultural events webpage at ecac.org we the city council of the city of Boulder Colorado declare June 19 2023 as Juneteenth and recognized the historical significance of Juneteenth support the continued celebration of Juneteenth to provide an opportunity for the people of the city of Boulder to learn more about the past to better understand the experiences that have shaped the nation and encourage the people of the city of

[20:01] Boulder to observe Juneteenth day with appropriate ceremonies activities and programs and the history and the plight of African Americans and all that was endured during during chattel slavery reconstruction Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement is an example of pure resilience this declaration underscores the freedom with dignity of every human being as a governmental body we oppose and reject any form of Oppression and pledge to support our community members and local entities working to achieve equality and protect human rights thanks so much for that Nicole and I believe we have Madeleine strongwoodly and Pedro Silva available here online to receive the Declaration if y'all would like to say a couple words be very welcome absolutely you know I I'll start if it's okay bedroom uh I want to first thank you guys uh the mayor Brockett and this city council uh

[21:03] for all that you've done to support this effort and to support the ongoing education and celebration of uh learning and sharing more about each other um I want to say that before I talk about Pedro I'd like to tell you give you just a little bit uh one tomorrow tomorrow at city council there um there will be a flag raising service at 3 P.M tomorrow and I'm encouraging every citizen that is capable and able to be there to meet us at 1777 Broadway because we're going to use city of Boulder as a model for progression being Progressive and

[22:02] growing and recognizing the need for Change and doing something about it and this service which is taken on nationally now as as a part of the celebration for Juneteenth um is phenomenal it's amazing and I'm so very honored to say older you're stepping up and you're stepping out and so we're just going to keep it moving keep it growing and please see you tomorrow at 3 P.M it's going to be a celebration unlike you've ever seen we're gonna it's gonna be uh virtually uh produced and shared so voters don't hit the map again tomorrow but in a very good way uh that said Pedro Silva I was corrected Pedro silver um

[23:00] has been one of the beacons of light that I have observed since my arrival here in Boulder County and uh in his work what he represents um he spoke at Second Baptist Church one Sunday and he explained his name his name compared to his presence in terms of his physical presence in it I tell you it was an education for me but he has been one man that I have seen uh in many many uh facets as a father as a minister as a leader as I mean it just goes on and on in terms of what he has contributed to this Boulder Community which is why we're so proud to ask that you accept and receive this proclamation in honor of the words in everything

[24:01] you've done thank you mayor mayor bracket and to the Council of uh Boulder and uh with that Pedro I hope that you accept it with the greatness that we divide you and we know know that you will represent well thank you thank you and uh that means a lot to me um I'm very touched and I think that there are a lot of people who could stand up here um or sit here virtually and um and represent especially you and your sister um Minister uh strong and uh strong Brenda strong I mean Glenda strong Robinson and so many other people um but in this moment I will say that I grew up celebrating Juneteenth and it wasn't until I went into the military and went to was stationed in Tucson Arizona that I found out that it wasn't

[25:01] something that was celebrated across the country I asked somebody where's the Juneteenth Festival and they said what are you what's Juneteenth and I was shocked that it wasn't anywhere else and I since I had grown up with it I thought it was everywhere and I also found it in Tucson Arizona where I was stationed they also didn't celebrate Martin Luther King Jr day and when I realized that I um it hit home uh that certain histories certain parts of American History are deeply uh devalued I was blessed that in my family I was taught um black history um from an early age and saw it as intricately woven into the American history um and that history is complex and it's not static as we learn in our present time it also informs the way that we view the past and unfortunately many people believe that history is static

[26:00] and that it is not that the future is not affected by history and that the past is not affected by our present Consciousness and that's absolutely untrue uh it's important for us to learn history because we become more well-rounded human beings and so I am grateful that Boulder County is uh uh holding this space and allowing it to be sacred having Representatives like yourself and Judy and other people in the community who are holding that history and will be the um the ancestors at some point and down the road I want to remind folks also that ritual is very important and tomorrow the ritual of raising the flag is is important but I also want to come with a warning that when you do ritual enough there can come a time where the ritual becomes a performative as opposed to symbolic and so my hope for Boulder County is that this ritual continues to

[27:01] be symbolic because in a symbol you see something grander than just the image or grander than just the words it goes deep to the heart of the narrative that it has been created and is being continually created and so as we look toward the future of more juneteenths and more celebrations that we always stay grounded in the reality that this is built on the lives of people um and that these people have shaped and will continue to shape the reality they were all a part of and the more we get grounded in that reality the better humans we can be for each other the better systems we can create so that's my hope that's my prayer I'm grateful to be able to receive this on behalf of the community and it belongs obviously for it's everyone um so those are my words for today well thank you so much for this powerful words Pedro and uh Madeline as well for your comments appreciate this very much and we look forward to seeing you and everyone else tomorrow 3 P.M right here

[28:01] at the Penfield take the second Municipal Building at 3 P.M for the Juneteenth flag racing all right thanks again all right so that moves us now to open comments so Brenda could you go over the public participation guidelines please absolutely I will and um Emily if you want to share this well there they are lovely I also have them written because I can't see them in the little box um so the city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive meaningful and inclusive conversations and we appreciate all of you who are here tonight for your patience while we go through these guidelines we know some of them some of you are familiar with them and some of you may not be so we find it important to go through them each meeting um the vision that we co-created supports physical and emotional safety

[29:00] for community members staff and Council as well as democracy for people of all ages identities lived experiences and political perspectives for more information about this vision and the community engagement processes that we conducted in order to arrive at the vision you can go to the city's website bouldercolorado.gov and search productive atmospheres in the search bar next slide please [Music] advised code and other guidelines that will support this Vision these will be upheld tonight during this meeting all remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to City business no participants shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person obscenity racial epithets and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability to conduct the meeting are prohibited participants have been required to sign

[30:01] up to speak using the name they are commonly known by and individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online currently only audio testimony is permitted online in-person participants are asked to refrain from expressing support or disagreement verbally with or with the pro Applause other than the Declarations and we appreciate your appreciation of those um traditionally support can be shown during public comment silently through American Sign Language Applause or sometimes we call them jazzings so thank you those of you who are here to participate tonight we know we have some emotional issues on the agenda tonight and we appreciate you following these guidelines thank you thanks for that Brenda all right we're going to get open comment started we've got 11 people present in person and I'm present virtually each of you will have two minutes to speak and our first three speakers are hope mitchelson Lisa Spalding and Patrick O'Rourke

[31:01] my name is Hope Michelson and I'm here to speak against increasing occupancy and introducing duplexes and triplexes in low density neighborhoods this plan includes absolutely no assurances of affordability and neglects the city's need to address climate change future Generations are counting on you to make informed decisions not Hollow symbolic gestures that ignore real problems make them worse and push them off on future Generations the analysis in the city packet makes it clear that the rezoning plans under consideration will not improve affordability and will probably make Boulder even less affordable data from Den the Denver metro area and Austin Texas predict a negative outcome for affordability with this type of rezoning we can't leave increased affordability to the free market that doesn't work if you really care about affordability you have two programs that are effective increasing linkage fees and increasing the percentage of inclusionary housing both of which are a fraction of what

[32:02] they could or should be and we haven't heard of peep from the city council about those approaches what's more this policy will have severe negative impacts on future Water Resources while the fire risks and infrastructure if you believe climate change is real it is a moral to densify Boulder without accounting for climate driven decreases in water availability and increases in Wildfire risk densification increases the community's overall gross water usage and shouldn't be implemented in drought or in regions like the Front Range of Colorado this policy is not Progressive it is not smart it is not evidence-based it's immoral and extremely irresponsible it will have severe consequences for future Generations so don't throw us and future Generations under the bus for some symbolic gesture thank you Lisa Spalding Patrick O'Rourke and Richard Harris

[33:05] great okay I can't see her oh okay perfect Thank you Lisa Spalding and I'm talking about non-conforming occupancy on the hill the city down Zone medium density areas west of 9th and south of college in 1974. to preserve a balance between the growing number of high turnover student rentals and the homes occupied by CU professors staff families and other long-term residents the new low-density zoning limited the unrelated occupants to three houses subdivided into apartments or rooming units maintain their non-conforming status with three tenants per dwelling unit this created a large number of grandfathered properties with higher occupancy than that landlords snapped up whenever they could go could next slide please the bright yellow area in this zoning map is rl1 low density with occupancy

[34:01] limits of three unrelated they include the areas down zoned in 1974. the zones adjacent to Broadway are all higher density with occupancy limits of four unrelated per apartment next slide please this map represents each long-term rental property as either green or blue properties with a red outline are short-term rentals I have not included them there are 213 long-term rental licenses in the RL Zone East of 9th 96 are occupancy non-conforming that's 45 percent next slide please The rl1 Zone West of ninth to the city limits stretches with zigzags from Arapahoe to Baseline there are 147 long-term rental licenses in that zone 64 are occupancy non-conforming that's 43.5 percent next slide please many of the old subdivided houses are in poor condition if occupancy has increased the health and safety of tenants will deteriorate

[35:02] more rapidly of the 360 rentals on University Hill 160 are occupancy non-conforming that's 44 please freeze the occupancy of non-conforming properties at the current number of tenants for the health and safety of all Hill residents thank you thanks Lisa well-timed uh Patrick O'Rourke Richard Harris and Peter barlaran good evening mayor Brockett in city council my name is Patrick O'Rourke I'm the preservation chairperson for historic Boulder a year ago to this this week June 14th of last year we bought forward a proposal to expand the Bandshell and it was voted down because staff it was a five to four or four to five vote staff had requested time to have three things occur all three things have occurred the first one was that the hip needed to be completed it was completed at the end of last year Parks and Rec I don't think has finalized it yet but it's in their

[36:02] portfolio and I think they're reviewing it within the next 60 days it'll be done the second reason was that Parks and Recreation and the landmarks board had not had a collaboration it's my understanding that the staff have met several times since the beginning of this year and that's completed although the two boards have not met that's an oversight on their parts not on historic Boulder and the third one was that James Hewitt the director of preservation here in Boulder at that time thought the best solution would be to have a historic district move forward and come back before this board in the third quarter of this year on May 30th of this year we submitted a historic district application we don't know the name it's it's up in the air invest we'd be interested to see where that goes we were hoping to get it in front of the sitting board that's before us today the

[37:01] proposal that was submitted back to us staff has it coming back to the city council in January of next year we believe if you wanted to and it's completely up to you we'll go in either direction that it could come before this board in the November sessions if if city council asks staff to move it forward along the timeline that it could thank you thank you Patrick Richard Harris Peter barlaren and Laura Harbin so my name is Dick Harris I'm speaking for plan Boulder County about your study session on occupancy and zoning increasing occupancy limits or changing zoning regulations will never result in affordable housing if decisions are left only to profit making markets without mandatory oversight and intervention to ensure permanent affordability Boulders steep housing costs are the result of strong demand due to our high

[38:03] quality of life as well as the imbalance between the ever increasing number of jobs and students in Boulder and The Limited availability of affordable Workforce in student housing to increase affordable housing we must understand how much of each housing type we need what we can build and what we can ensure is permanently affordable however there's nothing in the proposals the council is considering later that will ensure increased housing prices for that modest income people could pay without be without being seriously cost burdened what they do ensure is unnecessary impacts that will not be offset by any Greater Community benefit this entire effort could potentially have beneficial results of course if undertaking with

[39:02] more undertaken with more careful consideration of what will be required to achieve the desired results Boulder needs a housing study to understand what we have what's on the way and what we need we encourage Council to slow down and do the work that's required to actually create affordable housing not just more and more housing that isn't affordable every market rate project that's approved eliminates opportunities for real affordable housing which might do some good for the celebration we're having tomorrow for Juneteenth thanks dick thank you now we have Peter barlaran Laura Harbin Alan delamere thank you and good evening my name is Peter barlar and I live in the Goss Grove neighborhood members of the council and city of

[40:01] Boulder staff with respect the renewed drive to relax occupancy limits is not your finest hour November 2021's ballot question 300 whose proponents labeled bedrooms are for people lost by 52 to 48. if you want to reopen the question the proper course of action would be a new ballot initiative introduced in a subsequent election some may have seen the recent New York Times piece about the favorable climate renters enjoy in Vienna Austria the article refers to upzoning in many countries including the United States saying and I quote often the benefits of allowing greater density are captured by developers who price the new units far above cost it doesn't offer renter security or directly create the type of housing most needed affordable housing close quote what is true for upzoning is also true for increasing occupancy limits

[41:03] the city could do more of what it's already doing working through Boulder housing partners with not-for-profit organizations like Thistle and through the emergency family assistance association to renovate build and maintain more affordable housing the city could use some of the receipts from revised property tax assessments to buy more real estate it could hold commercial real estate developers to a higher standard if they want to build they should be required to contribute more to affordable housing and if the university wants to keep adding more students let it use some of its Choice land to build more on-campus housing revisiting occupancy limits so soon after the voters have spoken is a bad idea thank you very much Peter now we have Laura Harbin Alan delamere and Connor Hall

[42:02] hello my name is Laura Harvin and I'm here tonight to ask that the matter of the demolition of the historic structure located at 661 Maxwell is called up for review next slide please this Show's two accessory structures within 30 feet of each other um you'll notice that both garages were listed as contributing to the historic neighborhood both were reassessed in 96 and also 2005. the condition of 661 Maxwell's garage was listed as excellent while the condition of the one at 652 Concord was listed as deteriorating both garages are listed to be built before 1945 which is the date of significance and both garages were later modified and covered with newer materials this is documented in the 1996 as well as the 2005 report

[43:00] so the question is both of these contributing historic structures were covered with siding yet the demolition of 652 Concord structure was denied while the structure at 661 Maxwell is now being allowed next slide please this is what was revealed when the siding was removed from the structure behind 652 Concord and you'll actually notice the arrow to the left shows the proximity of the garage that's located behind 661 Maxwell in the Concord alley the question is can an old garage be concealed with new siding and then demolished I'm asking you to call this up for a review because details can be shown that neither of these structures the one at 661 Maxwell nor 652 Concord are the first structures that were built on these properties both were built within the historic period and it appears that staff and

[44:00] landmarks board missed some of these important details and that is why this application needs to be further reviewed thank you for your time thank you Laura now we have Alan delamere Connor Hall and Matthew Miranda foreign delamere 525 Mapleton Avenue and in 2019 I wrote a guess opinion piece in the camera and I've sent a copy of that to you today so these slides are just me waking up and realizing that what I wrote then was pretty solid and it really needs to be addressed today I asked the previous Council to do something I don't think anybody took any action whatsoever but I think it now is the time for you to take my slides and start having an internal discussion

[45:02] the housing problem is not being addressed from the ground up and the slides I'm about to show you just some suggestions that I feel should be considered next one so if we can preserve the existing affordable housing it should be a very high priority and these scrape-offs and the expansions on false grounds should be stopped if we were true to us it would devalue the land and stop developments just continually converting affordable housing into unaffordable next one so the other thing that I think the city particularly this our city manager could an Institute is we should provide housing for employees and that should be

[46:02] the city should set the example another organization should follow it and there are a few rules that you can come up with which will help that anybody that's applying for a job that's already living in Boulder should have a higher priority than somebody commuting in next one okay the real estate tax is the big one and I recommend I apologize for you too take my slides and and if you could email those to us please we'd appreciate it email the slides to us please yeah they'll be welcome thank you okay thank you now we have Connor Hall Matthew Miranda and Rishi Raj hello hi uh I'm Connor Hall and I'm here to speak in favor of raising the minimum

[47:01] wage um I just like to begin briefly by saying like I've lived in Boulder since my parents got divorced we moved back out here because we have family here um that was uh 12 years ago I can consider the community of Boulder really important to my upbringing uh and it's something that I I you know I value being a part of uh unfortunately and this is not anything new we're talking about other proposals to address the affordability crisis not just in you know which is not just unique to Boulder but Boulder is a particularly bad example of um I for one have been forced to leave Boulder uh even though I still continue to work here even though I still continue to find it important to myself to you know be a member a productive member of this community because I simply cannot afford to live here and that's true across the board is that when you're an hourly worker when you're way just tied to the hours you work you're constantly selling

[48:01] your time and unfortunately that scenario puts it in you in a case where your needs often make the decisions for you so just to to illustrate uh I believe I'm sure anyone who signed up to speak today uh is familiar with us but there's a limit on 20 people speaking uh just to have the time to speak today you have to have the day off you had to have or you had to at least have this time off here you had to be able to sign up ahead of time you had to be able to take the time to prepare to speak you had to you know you had to meet all of these requirements right sorry sorry let me collect myself a little bit um this is for those who went through all of the Hoops of

[49:00] speaking just to have their time cut off and sorry because because they did not have but if you could email us your additional thoughts we'd love it honestly and like I would also like to mention that the time limit itself is another limit on that right here protect yourself from I'd appreciate if you could cooperate so everybody gets equal treatment there was a how many people cooperated with your rules and still had were not getting the time to speak if these are complicated issues they require more than two minutes to talk about other people to speak but please do email us next we have Matthew Miranda rishiraj and Megan Coles hello there my name is Matthew Miranda I'm a senior here at CU Boulder I'm also a first generation non-traditional

[50:00] student I actually came out to Boulder about two years ago during the midst of the pandemic and it was the best decision I've ever made um unfortunately the cost of affordability and the cost of rising prices have made it difficult to live in Boulder um in over a year I saw my rent raise from 900 a month to twelve hundred dollars a month 900 already is pretty crazy but that 300 increase is absolutely insane so I forget just to live in Boulder I have to rely on Sallie Mae loans two jobs gig work like doordashing don't any plasma and still being a full-time student when you're forced to spend about 70 of your income a month of your earnings on rent alone it's very challenging to have a social life to do extracurriculars and to invest in my community I share my story because I'm not alone there are many other people living in Boulder who has a worse experience than myself

[51:01] the Boulder area label council is advocating for a 25 minimum wage by the 20 year 2028 and I'm asking you to support this proposal if we want the residents of Boulder to live happier healthier and more compassionate lives we need to make Boulder County an affordable area not only to live in but to thrive in as well thank you all for your time thank you Matthew now if Rishi Raj and then making calls yeah so my name is Rishi Raj and I live on age 63 14th Street and I've lived there for 25 years so um you know the question I asked myself is who is pushing for this High occupancy who is it and the answer is clear it's the landlords because they stand to make more money so it's really a a kind of a David and Goliath issue between the citizens of

[52:00] the neighborhood and the landlords who don't even live in the neighborhood so these citizens are not faceless people you know they pay their taxes they know their neighbors they invite each other for gin and tonic I mean we have a community we really have a community but they don't have a voice because they cannot get organized like the way the landlords can so we have you know we have three options in front of you one is status quo which is very clear status quo status quo the other two I cannot understand they're very unclear I mean if you adopt one of them it'll be a mess so my recommendation to you is to vote for status quo with one important Proviso

[53:00] that we set up a committee that develops a vision for the neighborhoods in Boulder and these neighborhoods are very vital to us they are our culture they are our history without them Boulder will not be bolder and I would like you to appoint a committee to give voice to the citizens to develop a vision for the neighborhoods as what is going on how can we keep everybody happy and then come back to this Ordinance one year or two years from now and then consider it thank you Rishi last in-person speaker is making calls good evening Council my name is Megan Coles I live in Whittier there are four points I want to make about the housing and Zoning occupancy issues that you're going to decide tonight

[54:00] number one is I'd like to see the occupancy limit raised to five you know in the renters and young people are demanding this it is single family homeowners people my age people like me who seem universally opposed to it talking about the impacts on the character of the neighborhood going back over 30 years of discussions about changes to zoning and housing we can look at how people were so upset that any change would impact negatively the character of their neighborhoods and this has never come to pass going back to the placement of the academy on the hill which resulted in litigation 30 years ago secondly yes please include in the affordable housing project consideration of allowing two and three family houses on the lots that are designated in your

[55:00] packet we need to look at that it gives people options to building the huge house that they could instead provide more modest houses for people at a lower price point that more people could afford yes eliminate the 31600 square feet and 1200 square foot open space requirements in summer zoning districts the fact that we have those unrealistic open space limitations has fueled some of the concept reviews that you've had to do and the special ordinances to make projects like diagonal Plaza happen and fourth yes reduce the site review criteria the size criteria for residential housing you know a 2014 study nearly 10 years old in California found the four meetings at nineteen thousand dollars per unit to the cost of house thank you thank you for your

[56:01] testimony okay we're gonna go to our virtual speakers now the first three of whom are cosima Kruger Cunningham Dorothy Cohen and Eric Budd am I unmuted yes okay cosima Kruger Cunningham 977 7th Street what will be the costs of removing housing occupancy limits in existing low density Zone neighborhoods particularly those closest to the CU campus one diminished quality of life for Resident owners more noise more construction disruption more traffic more parking conflicts more storm water runoff two more strain on existing utilities power water sewer trash Etc and attendant cost of living increases in taxes and fees and especially housing

[57:00] prices three increased fire risks and impacts and Associated Insurance liabilities at the Wildland Urban interface what city of Boulder mandates goals and programs will be negatively affected by the removal of existing housing occupancy limits one the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to achieve the city's scope 2 and scope 3 Net Zero carbon emission goals in the excellent new cool Boulder program two the goal of preventing unnecessary housing scrape-offs and preserving highly valued historic buildings and historic districts three the goal of protecting and the extent and permeability of urban soils in the city's Urban Tree canopy for flood mitigation purposes for the goal of protecting the city's blue line and Building height ordinances that protect the city's view shed and open space five the goal of protecting the

[58:02] unsustainable growth limiting social economic and Environmental Protections in the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan thank you for your consideration thank you kasima I have Dorothy Cohen Eric Budd and Chelsea Castellano my name is Dorothy Cohen I live at 2845 Elm Avenue in Martin Acres please do not increase occupancy and live it limits I read in the packet for tonight's meeting that Austin Texas has increased occupancy limit to six but it failed to lower Rents It actually increased rents per person which makes the profits for our landlords increasing occupancy will not lower rents in an elastic Market it simply benefits landlords many of whom are out of state owners who do we want to benefit renters or landlords parking is also a big problem in these

[59:01] neighborhoods near CU I live in Martin acres and people Park their car constantly in front of my house they leave them there for three days before they move them they know the regulations most of the folks do not even know to keep five feet from the driveway I've even had cards block cars blocking my driveway the solution isn't making us pay for a parking program just to park in front of our own homes if you must increase occupancy limit please accept the four neighborhoods adjacent to CU Martin Acres University Hill Cross Grove and East Aurora currently Market Martin acres is around 60 rental so the changes were very would be very disproportional to those close to CU neighborhoods farther from sea will have who have far fewer rentals would be much less affected this is unjust thank you for your time thank you Dorothy Eric Bud Chelsea

[60:01] Castellano and Catherine bush hi Council Eric Budd I live in Boulder I'm a co-lead on bedroom Czar for people and I wanted to speak in favor of the options proposed around occupancy limits that the city adopts a policy at least to allow five unrelated people um the other thing that I've really been working on during this process especially around the Statewide occupancy level changes is that I got confirmation from the city of Boulder that under our current policy and going forward that the city of Boulder will continue to aggressively enforce this on fam unrelated families with children and this entire policy is discriminatory but it is just absolutely unacceptable that we do not have an allowance for children of chosen families to be protected under the law rather than face eviction

[61:03] and I want to talk a little bit more about the policy in general we had this year in the state legislature a policy that would have forbade cities to enforce these discriminating laws against unrelated people that passed the state senate and I want to tell you another another interesting development the last speaker and many speakers like to talk about Austin and how important it has been for them to keep their occupancy limits there's proposal going to the Austin city council right now to get rid of these discriminatory discriminatory occupancy limits based on family status this is a dying policy it is a relic of racist segregation and we need to end it so I'm asking you to move forward limit the harm and we need to really move on from these discriminatory housing policies that we have in Boulder

[62:01] thank you thanks Eric now chess Chelsea Castellano Catherine Bush and Nick Grossman hello I'm Kelsey Castellano I actually want to share my support for what Mark Wallace said earlier um that we should treat everyone equally and with dignity and respect um and that is one of the many reasons why I've been working so hard alongside so many people to reform our exclusionary housing law that treats unrelated people as lesser than we all deserve equal access to housing especially those who have been historically marginalized communities of color lgbtq people immigrants all of which who have been disproportionately impacted by our discriminatory occupancy laws in the memo that staff provided it was highlighted that Community connectors said the following quote occupancy limits and other policies were put into place to restrict who is able

[63:00] to live and Boulder effectively keeping bipod populations out we need to be a transparent about this end quote well I value that Bob is concerned about the health and safety of those who share housing there are clear and definitive answers to those well-meaning concerns as staff reiterated to you several times health and safety codes always take precedence and supersede occupancy limits for example right now we have so many um studio apartments across Boulder where the occupancy limit is currently for and we are not currently worried about health and safety in those cases because health and safety codes take precedence and we just see very few if not zero cases of issues in those situations that we currently have we have non-conforming uses on the hill because the city council down zoned the hill in the past a decision that did not make our community more affordable and exasperated our housing crisis it would make zero sense for the whole Community to have a higher occupancy limit

[64:00] have a higher occupancy per unit than buildings that have historically had higher occupancies relative to their neighbors please move forward tonight with housing policies that get us closer to treating everyone equally as Mark says with the Indian respect thanks Chelsea now Catherine Bush Nick Grossman and Mark Stengel Catherine you should be able to unmute now thank you in the last 10 years CU undergraduate enrollment has increased two-fold increasing occupancy will not support more affordable housing for low to moderate income workers this will only address the exploding student housing needs and mind the pockets of the rental property owners while driving out families in low to moderate income workers research confirms this trend

[65:01] occupancy increases will not address the needs of low-income older residents the people of Boulder have already spoken by voting down bedrooms are for people initiative Martin Acres of the Hill should be exempt from any ordinance changes as these neighborhoods are disproportionately impacted given their proximity to CU Boulder and the current state of having far more rentals versus owner occupied than other neighborhoods this information is in the council briefing we need to create separate regulations for student occupancy limits and maintain the limit of current of the current ordinance of three unrelated adults this has occurred in other jurisdictions and is held up in court by keeping student occupancy at three unrelated and increasing non-student occupancy the foreign related this would have the council's intention of creating housing for low to moderate income Boulder residents we should also cap the number of rentals in neighborhoods with high density we need meaningful urban planning that balances the needs of

[66:00] homeowners with future growth and preserves Boulder open space we do not need unfettered unbalanced infill that does not have guard rails ensuring affordable housing thank you thank you Catherine Nick Grossman Mark Stengel and Rosie fibian yeah hi Council I'm asking you tonight to please show Bold leadership by directing staff to quickly craft an ordinance allowing five unrelated adults and their dependents to legally live together in homes throughout Boulder while this new policy still would not treat all equal all people equally under the law it is an important and long overdue step towards Justice that would decr criminalize the majority of shared housing opportunities in Boulder enabling five adults and their children to legally share a home that can safely house that number of humans is not a

[67:01] radical idea many other cities and several States across the country have already allowed this no previous councils have been willing to address this problem choosing instead to postpone this pressing challenge until some future council is brave enough to confront it they've allowed a small but vocal minority to continue to impose an archaic ineffective occupancy limit on households across the entire city maintaining a failed status quo for decades rather than continuing to pretend like our current occupancy limits aren't broken and worth fixing right away you have the opportunity to be the council that finally passes this basic reform to give all people more equal access to live in existing homes across Boulder you all possess the courage to choose to prioritize a practical solution above concerns about some minor political pushback to pass this legislation that will immediately benefit thousands of people in our community by increasing housing

[68:02] options for everyone the majority of people in Boulder will back you in supporting this sensible policy reform and we hope you all will rise to the occasion this summer also definitely support more density in housing in all neighborhoods should absolutely allow triplexes duplexes any kind of plexus thank you thank you Nick now we have Mark Stengel Rosie fivion and Margaret lecompte uh can you hear me yes okay I'm Mark stangle and I'm here uh to give you my observations as a 45-year resident of Boulder and a current rental licensing inspector for the last uh 22 years when I'm when I moved first moved into Boulder I moved into Martin acres and I found I couldn't sleep at night it was too noisy I got involved in the Martin Eggers neighborhood association and became an officer and later president

[69:00] and uh I participated in many City communities regarding noise occupancy Etc uh over the years and uh I then became a rental inspector in 2001 uh after having uh taken an interest in this issue and I have over the years I've seen the housing stock uh really improving quality over the years but I've also seen uh that there's been a lot more internal development of many places and there currently there is more than five people living in many places in Boulder as a rental inspector we never report how many people are living there in the bedrooms so I think it's a it's fictional to think that increasing the uh the number of people allowed will actually increase the number of opportunities for people to find occupancy in Boulder I think it's uh I I just think there's no factual basis for that that that conclusion because we are now using as I understand we're using our current uh four or more foreign

[70:02] related or three or foreign related it to uh take care of different requirements or uh when there's problems in an in a household so I believe that uh this will not get will not be a beneficial move uh for the city at all and will not increase any housing stock whatsoever and I just I just can't believe it that you guys are even considering this with you would neutralize your opportunity to enforce Bad actors uh that's my conclusion thank you thank you Mark Rosie fivian then Margaret lecompte hello there can you hear me yes yes I strongly support increasing occupancy to five city-wide and allowing plexes in single-family residential zones currently access to housing is Boulder's biggest problem in housing policy and climate change are

[71:00] inextricably linked getting rid of strict limits on occupancy is the fastest way to provide more affordable housing city-wide with no environmental impacts if a family of five can live in a house so can five unrelated people I know this is wonky but I looked at the code regarding the property in Bob's hotline example on 9th Street and concluded that the occupancy would remain the same as it is now at six persons even when we change the occupancy to five to the best of my professional understanding of the code the conditions on non-conforming properties in BRC 9-8-5c3 would still limit the occupancy given in that example property to six unrelated people not ten it says there in the section on non-conforming properties that units with an occupancy greater than four unrelated persons shall not exceed a total of occupancy of the dwelling unit of one person per bedroom so non-conforming properties already have additional restrictions on top of the building codes that address the size of habitable spaces as well as health and safety concerns assuming that there are six bedrooms in that duplex

[72:01] property the limit would remain the same as it is today and even if duplexes are allowed that project is still non-conforming due to parking it's a distraction at this moment in time I was relieved to see some City Council Members show up alongside housing advocates for SB 23213 and showing strong support for eliminating single-family zoning allowing duplexes and and triplexes on 75 percent of the land zone for single family is a logical next step I thought it was interesting that using the data on page 11 and 12 of the packet 62 percent of the current housing units are on 25 percent of the land zoned for residential units allowing plexes in the other 75 percent of the land will help to adjust this land use imbalance wouldn't it be nice to live in a community that welcomes people it doesn't shut the door in their face thanks thanks Rosie last speaker is Margaret lecompte

[73:01] good evening Council I I'm Margaret lecompte and I live at 290 Pawnee in southeast Boulder come Apostle is down playing the real threat that duplexes triplexes and increased occupancy rates posed to single-family neighborhoods I live in such a neighborhood that also has triplexus duplexes several large blocks of Nest affordable housing and a number of single-family houses that are not now rentals parking noise and crowding as well as poorly cared for our rental houses are already a problem that's why I voted against ballot measures the bedrooms for for people but once again city council is trying to vote nor a clear vote of the community and try unilaterally to pass a similar measure via a council vote so much for democracy in Boulder council's efforts to increase occupancy rates actually will increase not decreased rents landlords charge for occupant more renters per dwelling doesn't mean

[74:00] landlords will lower their rents they'll only make more money by acquiring more renters per dwelling more importantly council is ignoring two very good ways at the affordable housing Supply can be increased number one raise the commercial linkage fees the fees are currently too low and aren't enforced this would give 100 percent permanently deed restricted affordable housing but Council hasn't read the word since 2017 about increasing linkage fees other communities show that this really works and enforce the inclusionary housing percentage requirements for new residential developments these currently remain at 25 percent that's one affordable unit for three luxury priced market rate units why doesn't Council increase this percentage requirement this really works in 2022 voters rejected the idea of jamming increased numbers of renters into single-family homes councils should listen to the public and start paying

[75:00] attention to real Community needs not pandering to the desires of landlords and real estate developers thank you you Margaret that wraps up open comment thanks to everyone who came and spoke to us tonight and I will turn to staff for any staff responses Theresa I had no response from the city attorney's office Council got anything okay Rachel one thing I'd like to ask is on this the Band Shell historic designation and Bandshell timing again we talked about it two weeks ago but is that something that could come back to this Council because you do hate to have the next Council have to get up to speed all over again I know that our staff has been working on it and I'm going to defer to our director of planning and development services to talk about the timing or perhaps to Marcy

[76:01] good evening Council Marcy growing uh principal historic preservation planner in uh pnds um so the the public process for historic districts sets very clear deadlines in terms of uh public hearings and when it goes to the landmarks board and then planning board and then to you for a final decision and we've run the um the dates into that and it would not come to you before the the November timeline and there's actually a tremendous amount of work that fits into that eight-month period so while we could look at it again there's nothing in the code that would allow uh the ex Expediting those timelines and I will also say that in order to do this um well I would also encourage us to use the time provided in the code would would it be feasible to come the first week of December I

[77:03] I think we haven't quite switched over like that night's a switch over I don't know if that makes a big difference but if if that couple weeks is possible then I will I will have to double check the dates um and maybe you can get back to some potential feasibility will do thanks Mercy there was a comment made about us not enforcing linkage fees and I was wondering if staff could maybe address that um I believe I'll defer to staff to see what we can say about enforcing or not linkage fees Kurt draws the Short Straw good evening Council Kurt fernhawber I support the housing and Human Services

[78:00] um so any um any commercial property that has excuse me add square footage goes to a permitting process in order to get through the permitting process they're required to pay the linkage fee I don't see that there would be any opportunity not to enforce our linkage fee on any new square footage thank you this looks great and I'll I'll just follow up say appreciated the advocacy from speakers about raising the minimum wage and as people also came to us a couple weeks ago about this and want to reiterate we are working on this it's in process we're working on it with Boulder County Longmont and Lewisville I believe so with a regional yes with a regional approach so stay tuned it's in process appreciate your advocacy all right that seeing nothing else that brings us to the end of open comment and we will now come to our consent agenda Felicia Lucia

[79:00] and it contains 3A through 3n for that so what I'm gonna I'm gonna start with saying I believe that we're going to need to pull G and H off the consent agenda for specific discussion so with council's permission I'd like to go through those two items first and then we can come back to the passage of the rest of the consent agenda set it right okay I'm seeing they're not being they're being brought forward for discussion yeah not set up for public hearing okay I saw nodding heads there so sorry Rachel just to process question if I'm going to recuse from one when do I need to state that about 30 seconds when I get that agenda I'd on them on the table thanks for asking so if we could uh talk about agenda item 3G please Alicia do you want to read that into the record yes sir item 3G is a consideration of a motion to accept the recommendation of the open space Board of Trustees the information

[80:01] presented at the open space Board of Trustees special meeting on May 31st 2023 and any relevant information provided by Carolyn Miller at the June 15 2023 city council meeting and remove Carolyn Miller as a member of the open space Board of Trustees for non-attendance to duty and cause declared a seat vacant and adopt a replacement as soon as possible thank you Alicia Rachel I would like to recuse from item 3G I have been singled out and targeted by Miss Miller and I don't want to have the appearance of having a retaliatory vote so I'm going to recuse okay thanks and I'll step out we'll let you know when the item is over there if you could take it from here please absolutely and the next item counts was an unusual one for the city and we regrettably come before city council to discuss the recommendation forwarded by the open space Board of Trustees to remove one of

[81:01] their board members as Alicia mentioned on May 31st 2023 the open space Board of Trustees held a special meeting at which they passed a resolution to recommend that city council removed trustee Carolyn Miller that boat passed four to one with Ms Miller dissenting the basis for removal was her non-attendance to duty and before I send this over to our City attorney for a brief explanation of the process I do just want to say how much I appreciate the professionalism everyone has shown throughout the past few months on this difficult subject mayor member of councils I recommend the following procedure as you know it's unusual to have a recommendation for removal and and so we've we've thought about how you should proceed through this and and here's my recommendation so everyone recommend first you hear from the osbt board chair Dave Coons to explain the board's position on this matter and and speak to the vote and

[82:02] resolution before you um then I recommend that you give Carolyn Miller an opportunity and I would give 15 minutes for the chair to speak then I would recommend that you give Caroline Miller 15 minutes to address the council as well since the motion before us is is to be removed for cause it seems appropriate to give Miss Miller an opportunity to speak and that's opposed to something procedural or technical grounds um then I recommend you accept questions from Council moving on to a discussion before the motion and then they have the mayor invite a call for a motion in a second obviously if there's no Motion in second then this item would fail and you would move forward thanks for that explanation Theresa so then I would call up OSP teacher Dave

[83:02] Kuntz to explain the board and I apologize I have to step out for a moment I'm going to let cuc alternate Matt take over in the meantime look back shortly but please stay proceed good evening good evening Council mayor Brockett City staff would you like me to read the resolution into the meeting record thank you a chair Coons certainly you are welcome to do that that that resolution is in the packet and it's it's been accepted into um the record by the council but if you want to read the resolution you're welcome to do so okay I just thought the public might uh be interested in the resolution itself so I will do that quickly um the resolution is this a resolution recommending city council remove Caroline Miller from the open space Board of Trustees for cause and setting forth related details

[84:01] the open space Board of Trustees of the city of Boulder Colorado hereby fines and recites that a Caroline Miller member of the open space Board of Trustees has not met the requirements for city of Boulder board members as outlined and defined in the Boulder City Charter sections 130 titled General Provisions concerning advisory commissions and 175 titled functions of the board and Boulder Revised Code section 2-3-1 titled General Provisions for boards and commissions BRC 1981. B Caroline Miller has exhibited a repeated pattern of non-attendance to duty one attending fewer than half of scheduled board meetings in the past six months including failure to attend three regularly scheduled meetings of the board held November 9 2022 April 12 2023 and May 10 2023 without a leave of absence request of the chair in approval

[85:01] by a majority of the board and other scheduled meetings of the board including study sessions special meetings Community meetings and field trips and two failure to consistently and appropriately communicate as necessary with board members or city staff making her participation in board matters unpredictable and uncertain C Caroline Miller's absences and inference infrequent Communications affect the open space board's work and functions which require the attention and participation of the entire board for example annual budget reviews and decisions annual work programs reviews and recommendations based on the findings made in this resolution above be it resolved by the open space Board of Trustees of the city of Boulder Colorado that one John Carroll moved the board recommend to the city council that Caroline Miller be relieved of her duties and removed as a member of the open space Board of

[86:01] Trustees and that the council appointed replacement Brady rabbits and seconded the motion passed four to one with Caroline Miller opposing I will read a statement uh for you and then be happy to answer any questions that you might have I'm reading my statement to council so that the record is clear and that there is no misunderstanding of what I will say I will focus on the events that are the basis of the board's recommendations to council the initial event that occurred eight months ago is not part of the resolution the board intended its recommendation to focus on the objective conduct of a trustee and the resulting impacts on the board's ability to function effectively and to fulfill its duties in serving the community the recitations in the resolution are simple and clear and I will not amplify them further unless requested to do so by the council

[87:00] I will answer questions from Council at the conclusion of my statement it is unfortunate that we are here tonight to deal with this matter of the conduct of a member of the open space Board of Trustees but regrettably necessary the Catalyst for the recommendation on the open space Board of Trustees resolution before you is the statement made at the November 9 2022 meeting of the open space Board of Trustees by trustee Caroline Miller the statement was perplexing and difficult to understand what was clear however were the allegations made by Ms Miller toward members of the open space Board of Trustees open space and Mountain parks department staff and other City staff and City officials the allegations that certain actions supported by the individual electronic records of city employees and officials could be construed as evidence of covert malfeasance were perceived as threatening by other board members and departmental staff

[88:01] security presence was requested for subsequent meetings of the open space Board of Trustees in the ensuing months following the November 9th meeting no efforts were made by Ms Miller to clarify your comments explain her concerns present any evidence to support her allegations of conditions in wrongdoing or oh sorry of collusion and wrongdoing sorry or to reach out in any way to reassure staff of or the trustees of the intent of her comments this despite staff and trustees reaching out to Ms Miller to follow up on her allegations and seek further information I want to be clear however that Ms Miller's comments were simply the beginning of the issues that resulted in the board's resolution and are not included per se in its resolution to council Ms Miller's comments at the November 9th open space board of trustee meeting were

[89:01] part of a larger discussion at the special meeting of the board on May 31st 2023 to review and determine if a recommendation to Council on removing Ms Miller from the open space Board of Trustees was warranted the lack of resolution of Ms Miller's comments on November 9th have affected the open space board's ability and capacity to function effectively by continuing to be disruptive and distracting time has not provided any understanding or closure on what Ms Miller was attempting to convey in her comments time without intention rarely manages to repair an absence of trust and understanding this is the situation we are facing today a board cannot function effectively absent their trust and Good Will between members that is essential to its ability to work together the absence of one member on a small board like the open space Board of Trustees impairs its ability to meet its

[90:01] responsibilities to the community and hamstrings its ability to serve the expectations of the community and the council are that appointed board members know and accept the roles and responsibilities of the position as indicated in the board's resolution since November 2022 Ms Miller has missed more than half of the scheduled board meetings and events thus the open space Board of Trustees resolution to council focuses on the functioning of the board being jeopardized by the non-attendance to duty by Ms Miller the forsaking of participation in matters of importance to the board the department and the city and the negligence exhibited in the appointed position of trustee on the open space Board of Trustees to the detriment of the board the department and the City thank you very much for your attention and I'll be happy to answer questions at the appropriate time well maybe we can do those now so Dave thanks very

[91:00] much for your testimony but while you're up here maybe we can see if anyone has any questions for you I've got one from Mark Wallach yeah I am happy to make my determination based on the narrow scope of what you have provided in terms of failure to attend and disruption of the normal functions of osbt but I have to ask in light of the extremely personal nature of some of these allegations allegations which remain unsupported to this day by anything that resembles a fact why did you make the determination not to make that part of the um basis or removal we felt that uh that part of the conduct was more appropriately investigated

[92:03] through other means and so we thought that we would limit our scope in the resolution to objective behaviors as far as non-attendas to duty okay I I will accept that although I remain very distressed at the the nature of the allegations made in the November meeting and the fact that they remain to this day uh entirely unsupported by anything that we generally consider factual in the real world thank you uh excited could I just I would say uh Mark that um other board members are distressed as well and um I think that this action while not lightly considered uh certainly exhibits the level of frustration um by other board members on this

[93:01] particular matter [Applause] that you provided on this thank you thank you right so not seeing any other questions uh Mr Kunz thanks for being here and stick around we may conceivably have a follow-up question later on so um Caroline Miller if this is your turn to speak if you'd like to come forward join us you'll have 15 minutes on the clock if you would like them speak okay just checking the mic um if I go quieter get away from it feel free to just wave at me and I should be able to notice um oh this clock this is my my 15 right here yes okay thank you you might move the microphone down slightly um if I am moving the paper around I'm

[94:00] sorry my eyes are tired so I'm going to um you know give a little introduction first good evening my name is Caroline Miller open space board of trustee public official appointed by city council March of 2020 for a five-year term 2020 through 2025 I'm here to provide relevant information to city council for their agenda item 3G where they are being asked to consider a motion for removal after a special meeting was called May 31st 2023 by the open space Board of Trustees where the vote was 4-1 in favor of my removal as I was a single trustee who voted no for my removal I'll be using this time to provide defenses for myself for the grounds brought forward of non-attendance to Judy and cause water real quick

[95:09] the primary purpose of the open excuse me the primary purpose of the city of Boulder's borders and commissions is to serve Council the open space Board of Trustees serves its purpose by providing recommendations to Council on a variety of subject matter boards and staff collaborate with each other on a regular basis other City departments are regular presenters at osbt meetings and this is all done to provide city council and independent body that works with staff to ultimately serve the best interests of our city now and for the future my objectives this evening are to provide defenses to the grounds brought forward by my fellow trustees State several causes of action for which I seek relief further clarify what has been labeled as fake references followed by my action of dismissing myself from the November 9th 2022 osbt

[96:01] meeting which is a significant event for what has now come to city council as a motion for my removal my intention is to provide as much substance as possible for the issues at hand I am not a finder of fact but I am a seeker of truth I'm presenting to counsel my best understanding of the circumstances known at the present time time constraints exist there is a lot more that I wanted to do but I just want to say for the record that my words are given in good faith are not meant or intended to be adversarial and well sorry

[97:00] and while we use names that are relevant to the issues brought forward there's no intent of or ill will my statements are made in good faith concerning an interest of subject in which I have a duty to speak to listeners thank you thank you to listeners who have a corresponding interest in the duty during this proper meeting and in a proper manner I'll give defenses to the grounds brought forth and additional grounds that I believe are related to the motion to remove acknowledging that they are absent from the grounds provided to council I'm actually going to start at the end and provide um motions now so my intent's known to counsel for the entirety of the time that I'm speaking and then I'll start back at the beginning if city council either by majority or unanimous vote approves the motion to remove ISO move counsel by an or tennis motion for an appeal to

[98:02] the removal emotion I'm so sorry a motion for reconsideration a motion for a new hearing either as one or all three I believe the evidence presented by the open space Board of Trustees is lacking and sufficient and is being brought forth for an improper purpose my testimony will provide a much larger larger scope of the issues at hand that further developed the facts that OBG warranted and necessary by Council after I spoke they dismissed myself from the November 9 2022 osbt board meeting I did not

[99:00] follow up or provide any additional or clarifying information to anyone with an interest in the subject matter I did not want to use the words that I did and the subsequent self-dismissal in the November 9th meeting my actions were done because I felt it was absolutely necessary to protect the Integrity of the board the chain of command would not could not provide relief a liability was being imposed I could call it significant harm to the board I've not cried all day I don't know why I'm doing this I'm so sorry um and our ability to engage in autonomous decision making within the rules and scope of our board were significantly hindered I absolutely knew prior um to doing that act on November 9th there would be significant real consequences

[100:02] um that I would not want to face you know which is being here this evening but I felt compelled that it would somehow protect my silence following was due to my concern that I would be deemed adversarial to council staff or the city I am not ever cereal now nor were my actions then I'm a public servant to provide actions and outcomes grounded in the best interests of open space the city of Boulder both of which I love um so this next portion I'm going to clarify what has been said by Minnie you know was vague and unable to be interpreted um so this is done just to um clarify what I did not do well the

[101:02] first time I quoted council member Rachel friend in that meeting in a somewhat elusive way and I'll elaborate as to why I did so at the city council November 3rd 22 excuse me 2022 meeting one week prior council member friend was making a point regarding the county shuttle that had several drop points that trailheads stating her concern was quote if we cut out the people that would shuttle there and we cut down the parking spaces there then who can use open space it's really as far as I can tell people have money to live near open space and I'm very skeptical of us and end quote she trailed off there and then when speaking again stating maybe inviting into that conversation a lens of reducing numbers possibly on open space because that is what happened in the one area I'm aware of where parking and

[102:00] shuttles and open space intersected prior to making that statement and relevant to the open space board council member friend states that the feedback she received was that there were concerns that the shuttle would have the effect of too much increase on open space and she had concerns if that's the philosophy of one of the main participants there she went on she went on to State she wanted to understand how or why open space and who else maybe would get invited to join that conversation to make sure there was a really strong focus on equity and transportation goals the open space board is not authorized to make recommendations within the narrative scope of equity and transportation our recommendations are grounded in the oath sworn to uphold the intent purposes of

[103:00] the open space Charter there are other factors outside of those comments that have been hindering our autonomy as a board foreign for the discussions surrounding e-bikes which was the agenda topic the night that I excused myself very early in the meeting our packet instructed us to um our packet instructed us on the specific questions we would be able to ask staff if the question was not listed for us it was not to be asked there have been several packets that have started to move closer to this approach of censoring questions instead of the preferred method of allowing the board to freely ask questions deemed necessary to provide an appropriate recommendation to council the decision for e-bikes surrounds the language of passive recreation in the charter

[104:00] a majority vote of no to e-bikes on open space was given the reason being the intent in the chartered language is widely understood and accepted and interpreted as was the intention of those who wrote the charter the liabilities and safety concerns related to the e-bikes were not questions that were listed and could not be introduced in a discussion that fact along with the e-bike study that would not hold under scrutiny a bike fatality in the city earlier in the year concerns of the appropriate or legal width of multi-use trails um what I would consider a clear definition in the charter of passive Recreation the would not have allowed for an appropriate recommendation to counsel the November 9th packet is ambiguous whether it is or isn't a disposal request that is being asked for in order to support the e-bikes on those Trails um

[105:00] however the normal procedures for disposal were absent of that packet agenda item 4A page 14 paragraph 2 States as detailed in the additional analysis section allowing e-bikes on open space Trails would not require a charter Amendment just because this is written does not make it true the actions move forward with e-bikes on open space appears to be improper and ethical and unlawful as administrative regulations must comply with the provisions of city code they were adopted to implement city code and the manner in which it was adopted must comply with the provisions and requirements of the city Charter and the city Charter must comply with higher level authorities such as state statutes state constitution Federal statutes and the Federal Constitution thus where a local government is incorrectly interpreting or applying its own legal authorities courts May void or invalidate a local government's action in addition to this I have concerns for

[106:00] ordinance 8483 any appropriation um ordinance or mou um excuse me any appropriation of funds related to an ordinance or mou um when it deals with funds designated for open space our packets um I've been seeing new language stating alternatives to disposal um land use designation changes that are causing concern past present and future noticing the van Fleet parcel for disposal in the local paper after um the fact it was made clear that three of the five trustees had no knowledge of the disposal being noticed in the local paper in other instances where it appears the rightful authority of the trustees is being intentionally subverted along with violations of the charter simply because those involved in these sections did not do not agree with the restrictions that are real or perceived

[107:01] um so as far as the grounds that um my chair just came forward with um this is more related to those specific findings that were brought forth and Miss Miller I'll just note you have two minutes left can I move Council for an additional five minutes if you could wrap up your comments please it's been 15 minutes is a pretty long time to speak okay I'll give you a bonus minute how about okay let me just kind of thank you after reviewing the complete Sprout

[108:00] board by my fellow ospg trustees it's clear to me that there are no valid or sufficient grounds to remove me from the open space Board of Trustees the boy that was reflected by all the trustees was absences there are no grounds based on absences to Warrant my removal the grounds provided by the rules within the bcrc for absences is three consecutive meetings therefore this ground for removal isn't applicable to me the additional meetings that are non-attendance requirements were artificially bolstered during the May 31st 2023 meeting in order to give weight to use this rule violation against me improperly for example it was stated in the May 31st 2023 meeting that I had missed a recent OSB field trip while simultaneously stating the field trip was in fact canceled that day due to rain there are multiple similar examples like the one I just provided that took place um throughout that meeting an entire page of motion language was

[109:01] presented on the screen at the end of the meeting I objected to the written statement that I missed the November 9th 2022 meeting as I was in fact present for that meeting and that is a date that we have been discussing here a lot tonight but that is one of the three absences that was brought forward I didn't have time to read the entire um motion that was put up for language I asked the chair prior on a phone call if I could have access to written materials and equal time to speak at the end of the meeting the chair acknowledged um my behavior at the November 9th ospt meeting was spoken more than the grounds presented by the other trustees as is the case again tonight um but my two consecutive absences are not valid grounds for my removal and again tonight to state that um covert mouthience is something that

[110:02] um could be plausible but then it would not be brought forward for grounds seems inconsistent with what this hearing is for um thank you for your time thank you Ms Miller for your testimony do we have any questions for Ms Miller I do have one one question but I think it's for Dave if that's okay well just let me let's see if we have anything together thank you for for being here this evening and taking this opportunity to defend yourself um my question Center is really around you know having a functioning board and you've served with osbt for for some time now and you know did you seek any opportunity to repair what was clearly as communicated by your colleagues the sort of breach of trust and confidence in you as a equal colleague because

[111:01] they've certainly expressed that and I'm just wondering if you sought opportunity to repair um to gain back that trust or build back that working relationship as the chair pointed out the cohesion that's necessary for a board of this importance so I'm just wondering if in the last what nine months have you sought that opportunity to repair with your colleagues in March that's when the um the five-year trustee leaves and a new person comes in and during that that one month time frame I got a phone call from our chair um asking me if I would consider being co-chair with him and I said I'd be delighted that would be fine um maybe three weeks later he said that that was not going to be supported that I did not have the votes for that I was out of the state for that meeting [Music]

[112:00] so um it's very confusing for me I haven't received any um written formal um sorry I don't have the right words I'm trying to keep it grounded in law as much as possible but there was nothing written there was no formal complaint given um there was no emails from my other trustees expressing concern um okay um I appreciate that answer um but I'm so sorry the two consecutive meetings um I was out of state for both um I was not in that time frame I was not in Colorado very much at all so um any efforts to find out why um the movement forward with uh me serving as co-chair

[113:00] that that was my um first understanding that there was a problem so from that point forward did you seek to repair with your colleagues thank you I've got a question from Jenny uh Aaron I just wanted to hear a little bit more I think along the same line because I'm trying to understand because you mentioned that it's as if you did not get enough notice as far as this particular issue and this removal because it seems to me there is a breakdown but again you mentioned things like me I you know I were asking questions and questions that were not already pre-ordained and that seems to conflict with how things work so ultimately I

[114:01] questioned you do you feel like this is more of a surprise or is it more it's just that there is breakdown in communication and engagement between you as opposed to issues having to do with you're not showing up to get the work done I knew November 9th was going to um be a problem but I felt that um you know even though it wasn't really very well thought out that what I saw approaching was something that could cause significant harm to the board um so in in that sense from November of 2022 um I knew as much as I ignored that that was not going to go away but moving forward um until March when the five-year trustee

[115:00] left um there did not appear to be any differences in the board and how we act and um communicate with each other none of that seemed to change until um a couple of weeks after Dave had asked me to be co-chair and then he informed me that that um it wouldn't be supported and then that was I hope that answers your question thank you okay not seeing any other question for Ms Miller oh for her okay so Carolyn I noticed that you spent a fair amount of time talking about e-bikes but in fact you know Dave didn't vote for the e-bikes either so but I noticed you didn't talk about some of the remarks you made about Rachel today which I agree with Mark I feel like I wish that they would have been brought up on public record personally but I see that they weren't do you have

[116:00] anything you want to say about the other remarks you didn't mention and why you said them or yes I do have something written for that um so what I was hoping um to provide the board um would be a I would try to do something a little bit more substantive than um just back and forth the comments that I quoted um by council member friend [Music] led me to believe that there were Council priorities or staff interests that are are there all the time but that they were being heavily put on the open space board where we are supposed to go by our Charter so when we talk about Equity or um access to open space um

[117:00] look at this for a second so I can see if I can shorten any of it for you um I believe what council member friends concerns were um is how high the barrier to entry is um and it is tricky because it's dominated by a core demographic it's primarily not that not that what you talked about with Sam about Sam and Rachel do you remember that comment yes so um in 2020 um I don't have the month off the top of my head I received a phone call in the evening from a um fellow trustee and they had said that they had just hung up the phone um with Sam and Rachel who were if I'm getting this right subcommittee members for cu and the trustee was asked um

[118:02] if there was a number the word was multiplier if there was a multiplier that could be used in some way to facilitate a disposal I thought that that was improper and not good so I reported it to my chair and to the director of osmp um the emails percent that night or early the next morning um it had just been established that we were going to redo the open space disposal procedures and because of those events that item agenda was shelved for months and I believed it was picked back up November of 2021 was when it was reintroduced right and thank you for those answers and I think you had one follow-up question for no okay and then unless Dave

[119:03] so I Carol thank you for your testimony you know what no need unless you want to say something excuse me I'm happy to answer if you have a question okay then let me just simply say that um I obviously have a very different uh impression and understanding of what transpired um both the previous chair and myself reached out several times to Caroline to suggest that she needed to get together with other board members and try to rectify what was obviously a very deep concern and uh it was very frustrating to me that that did not happen and that was kind of the Genesis of you know the tradition in the open space board every

[120:01] year that uh the the senior member um is you know becomes chair for that final year and the next senior member becomes Vice chair and so she Caroline was the next senior member so I did talk to her about you know that that process but it became clear to me that that wasn't going to happen and so I did advise her uh you know closer to the time when the election was going to occur that that was not going to happen um and you mean Vice chair I think she said co-chair but it was vice versa right right and this is a difficult I mean I I don't mean to minimize Caroline's um uh difficulties but it is a difficult situation for all of us we did not take it lightly there is considerable frustration in the board and I I think that in this

[121:00] sorry maybe an answer to to Mark's question as well is that I felt incumbent when I became chair that uh we needed the board needed to address uh the issues and come up with some kind of resolution to them again I will say the the November 9th commentary is we did not want to put that in the resolution because again that is kind of on a different track that makes sense so what we talked about was the conduct of um you know the objective conduct as it relates to the rules and regulations for board members okay thanks for that all right so turn to council then for comment sir in The Next Step here any we want to get started I see Teresa about the okay Teresa yes mayor council would you mind if I take this opportunity to just remind you of

[122:02] the code and Charter requirements please great so the Boulder City Charter section 173 speaks to the open space Board of Trustees and specifically speaks to terms of office that provides that the council five members of the council May remove any board member for cause and so that's enshrined in our Charter we can also look to our code and specifically 2-3-1 where we learn that city council May remove any member of a border Commission by a majority vote for a conflict of interest violation for any violation of applicable law regulation or policy

[123:00] for non-attendance to duty which is part of the issue here before you tonight for failure to attend three consecutive regularly scheduled meetings without a leave of absence approved by the majority of the board or Commission or any other cause and so what I would advise you all is that you look at actions and you not look at content of speech but instead actions that happened as you make your decision and weigh your decision this evening yes I'd like to go and make a motion for me go ahead I'd like to make a motion to remove Carolyn Miller as a member of the open space Board of Trustees for non-attendance to duty and cause declare the seat vacant and appoint a replacement as soon as possible second would you like to speak to your motion map yeah a little bit um you know we have a number of greatly

[124:01] important boards in our community and osbt is right up there at the top in terms of its importance its Duty and the fact that we have a separate Charter governing the work of our Open Spaces emblematic of how critical that work is and so having a functional board where everyone can work cohesively even though they may disagree is vital to the Community Trust um and and to the stewardship that we have towards the land that not only osbt but we as a council are stewards of and our caretakers for it so um maintaining that is critical and so non-attendance to duty and causes is um of great significance when we want to maintain that cohesion in a board um so I think it's an important thing for us to maintain I want to agree with that and say that we Embrace differences of opinion in this city so it's not about that so I want to agree with Matt about what it really is

[125:00] about the um dereliction of Duty any other comments Lauren having served on a board that at one point struggled with attendance I can just speak to how difficult it can be to have the issues of you know when you only have five members and one unexpectedly I'm not present that can cause issues with um reaching a quorum and being able to have the discussions in a timely manner that the Board needs to have so I'll just call on myself that I did watch that special meeting of the open space Board of Trustees the recording and I thought that the majority did a good job of articulating the issues at hand and so I appreciate the four of you coming together to deal with a very a very difficult situation I got Juni and then Mark thank you

[126:01] I will be voting yes and I've supported this motion it's just unfortunate and I think also yes I appreciate the comment it's made by Teresa that we need to look to action but I think there must have been a breakdown in communication somewhere as well and in order to move forward we have to take this particular action to ensure that the board works constructively to the purpose that it is created before But ultimately um from throughout that's what I heard here but there is a breakdown in communication between you know between Miss Caroline's Miller and the rest of the members that's why we're here tonight even though there are actions that are part of the process as well because she mentioned in November 9 that she knew it was going to be the problem um and I'm sure that you know there has been breakdowns in communication or any inter and engagement so ultimately I

[127:03] will be supporting this particular motion it's unfortunate and it is a set it's very sad I would have to say uh for me to have to go along with this Mr emotion and uh thank you thanks Judy Mark I agree with Junie this is this is a very very sad uh situation I mean no joy whatsoever I'm going to vote Yes based exclusively on the failure to attend the duties and I follow the reasoning of Matt on this uh entirely um however I do want to make the comment that um while protected under Free Speech accusations of corruption and malfeasance that are not supported by anything at all are unfortunate hurtful and dangerous and well that's not the basis on which I'm voting I just

[128:01] want to make note of them because that's emblematic of some of the political discourse we see today and it's just not it's not right and I'm sorry about that but again my vote is based entirely on Matt's reasoning and the failures to attend to duties thank you thanks Mark so if maybe we can go to a vote now Alicia would we do a roll call on this yes sir we will start the roll call for item Three G with council member Yates yes Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes council member fulcrids yes Joseph yes

[129:01] beer yes wallet yes M minor yes item 3G of tonight's consent agenda passed with a vote of eight to zero thanks everyone and um Miss Miller this has been very difficult and sad we do thank you for your previous service on the board and wish you all the best in your future endeavors that brings us to a close on 3G and now we can go to 3 H Alicia and if we can I don't know if Rachel can hear us and I met maybe you could grab her if you could read it into the record please see we should thank you Sarah item 3H is the consideration of a motion to authorize the City attorney to appoint special counsel to investigate and if necessary prosecute a complaint related to an alleged code of conduct violation filed pursuant to subsection 2-7-8e 1-6 of the BRC 1981 and a

[130:04] discussion of options regarding the police oversights panels vote to stop work so the council can consider passing a moratorium on the panel's acceptance of new cases so look to norier Teresa to get us started on this one I think we can go straight to the City attorney to restate Taylor date excuse me Council as you know Deputy City attorney Aaron Poe has been assisting and covering the police oversight panel matters I I trust her expertise and advice on this and so I'll look to her to advise you in this matter good evening Council Aaron Poe Deputy City attorney this item has two questions for council's consideration the first is the appointment of special counsel for an investigation of a code of conduct complaint that's been filed against the police oversight panel for

[131:02] stopping Work official duties the second item is Council consideration of other options in response to the police oversight panel's work stoppage including possible moratorium on their official duties thanks for that Aaron so and maybe I'll I'll kick this off because I had had a CAC request that led to this discussion of other options so just wanted to introduce that for council's consideration then we can have a discussion so the the thing that I put out was um the potential for a motion to direct the City attorney to draft a partial moratorium pausing all panel work except for work on ordinance revisions and the reason why I put this forward is that um the panel has perceived a need for changes to the pop enabling ordinance and for my conversations I think they're not alone in that I share their concern that we need to have some changes there I think my Council colleagues probably

[132:00] do as well and so they're taking the time now to focus on revising ordinances proposing changes to the ordinance that would then come back to us later this year and I'm looking forward to us considering changes suggested by them and by other members of the community and such to improve the whole process and situation so their desire was to focus on those changes in the meantime while they fixed the process and I know it's been a difficult time for the pop and recent months with some of the challenges they've been experiencing it's been a challenging time for the community as well and so I would like for us to formalize a partial moratorium so that they can focus on making those changes and then we can come back at a date certain uh once we have con hopefully passed some ordinance changes and then they can resume The Taking of new cases and and if I could just ask a quick clarifying question I believe that right now they are still reviewing cases that

[133:00] they have a decent number of cases in the hopper do I have that right yes mayor you do uh currently they have five cases that are scheduled for review through August 8th then there are another five cases that they will schedule for review and the uh independent interim monitor expects it to be through sometime in September so there are a total of 10 cases that will still be reviewed okay so they're still in process on those so I'm putting that out there I'm absolutely willing to accept other proposals or discussion what have you but I'm starting with that since this was a request I put on the table pop I'll comment in a second but I just have two process questions one is for you Aaron since this was your proposal do you have a date certain in mind so if this is the direction council is willing to go I would actually ask City staff that while they're drafting a partial or a term that they also work with all the parties involved in propose a date certain for us to consider when

[134:01] we consider passing that partial moratorium okay fair enough and then um probably process question for Aaron um turn from one errand to the other yeah um tonight we would not vote on the this is a request of would be a request by Council to ask the city attorney's office prepare a motion for partial moratorium we would not be voting on the partial moratorium tonight and so what would we do since we don't know if that's going to pass or not what would we do with the recommendation that special accounts will be appointed to us to Dakota conduct would that simply be continued and then we'd have binary motions um next week potentially you have options here you could continue the question of whether or not to appoint special counsel or you could appoint special counsel and we could move forward with that process and see what impact on past moratorium would have on the findings so thanks Aaron just kind of a related question then

[135:00] um is there a certain time frame in which we must I understand why the city attorney's office can't follow up on the complaint is there certain time frame in which we must um appointed special counsel if you can't do it no there's no time frame set forth in the ordinance so we could theoretically let the complaint sit there for 30 60 90 days correct okay is there any downside to that no I think with good reason and I think exploring a moratorium would be a good reason to do that especially given the fact that the council or I'm sorry the panel is still working okay there's all the questions I have Aaron I'll probably have a comment later any further questions before we get a comments cool do you have a sense of just how long these ordinance changes will take or or when when we might get moratorium done good question there is a council study session set for July 27th there are weekly meetings of the work group that's

[136:01] led by the consultant Farah muskadin to draft Ordnance revisions So the plan is to come back to Council on July 27th with a plan then we have an assessment meeting August 1st so I expect that sometime after August 1st the task force would come back to council with proposed ordinances I don't know how soon to August 1st that would be knowing how the City Works I expect it would be Sometime Late summer or early fall is what Pharaoh believes is reasonable if I could just clarify too I I think Miss muscadin who's a consultant that we've hired to help do this will be working with a variety of groups certainly um the working group has panel members on it it is expected some community members will be on it it is expected staff will be on it and we are in the midst of preparing for some Community engagement some of which will be happening very soon in the next few weeks that study session which um uh Deputy City attorney Poe uh spoke to is

[137:02] indeed happening towards the end of the summer we believe a staff that we are slated to come to council may be at the beginning of October it'll depend on our community engagement and at that point we are hopeful that Miss muscadin will be able to present both her recommendations to council as well as what she has heard what the working group has voted forward and so forth any further questions move to comments yes Bob got one well I'll just start off space saying I'm fine um if it's the will of council to instruct the City attorney to to draft a a motion for us to look at next week for a partial moratorium so I'm not opposed to to that instruction I am struggling a little bit with the need for a partial moratorium for a couple reasons first of all as we heard from Aaron just a few minutes ago it sounds like the the police oversight panel has a lot of work to do they're working on it and that's great and it sounds like they've got work to fill up their workloads

[138:01] between them and now in the end of September we just heard nerdia say that um that she's optimistic that changes to the ordinance um can occur before maybe in October time frame so those kind of coincide pretty nicely I heard Aaron say that there is no downside to simply not a plane a special counsel at this moment um I understand that if we were to have a partial moratorium that might moot the need for a special counsel but by the same token it sounds like there's no rush in pointing a special counsel and then finally I um have yet to hear and maybe this is something the police oversight panel or their chairs could provide us between now and next week what um what changes to the ordinance are needed for the police oversight panel to do its work it sounds like it's going to do its work on the pending cases through the end of September anyway so obviously there's no impediment to that I do think that we

[139:01] all agree that some changes the ordinance aren't necessarily appropriate sounds like a lot of them relate to the selection process which of course would not go into effect or not have any effect until there's the next round of selections which would be presumably in the winter time so it sounds like if there was a moratorium between now and call it September October I'm not sure exactly what it would do because there's work to be done between now and then I haven't heard a list of things that are impediments to that work either current work or any new work that might come along in the next few weeks and it sounds like we don't need to put a moratorium in place to avoid pointing a special counsel because there's no rush on that so I I'm struggling a little bit with the need for the moratorium quite frankly I'm happy to authorize the state attorney to draft it but I'm just previewing where I might end up next week thanks Bob other thoughts or yeah Nicole um yeah I was just going to say

[140:00] the these two items that we're talking about here seem like they they could be a little bit contradictory removing a member of a board for non-attendance to duty and cause while suggesting that members have a whole panel have the opportunity to pause their work and so I just want to say you know for me the common thread in each case is that the board and the panel are the ones proposing these changes and if any board or commission told us that they felt unsafe in their work and they needed to shift temporarily to give them time to propose improvements to their working conditions I hope we would honor that request as well so I will support drafting a partial moratorium okay got Tara and then Mark I support the partial moratorium first of all seems that many at least the people that I talk to on the police oversight panel and I have some great discussions this week really want this more to partial moratorium and I feel like now is the

[141:00] time for us to support them it has been a very stressful six months for me I bet you for a lot of people on Council for staff and certainly for the police oversight panel both those that just chose to resign and those that are staying on so I feel this would be for me what I would want to do to support them and to show them that we're behind them and we are behind the success of the police oversight panel um back in December I don't think it was November December I suggested that we please just stop this uh panel put it on a short pause so we can figure out what to do how to fix this ordinance and I was you know voted down at the time but that was really fine because it should have been coming from the police oversight panel that suggested not really me so um here it is now and here we are at that time I said I couldn't you know the difference between the panel selection committee interviews and the more and

[142:00] the ordinance itself was so what's the word I want to use help me they didn't go together they didn't sink so I wanted to immediately for that reason stop and fix the ordinance but I didn't think it would work out and there here we are today it didn't work out so I think that we should take this opportunity to do what the police oversight panel asked to a partial moratorium and fix the ordinance I will say for those that don't think that for those that think that they're going to stop their work they're certainly not going to stop their work they have to work on fixing the audience ordinance with the rest of the committee they also are doing community engagement and speaking of Community engagement can I take one second to read this thanks okay Aaron okay yes as long as it's not too long it's not long so one of the police oversight panel members asked me to announce that there is a police

[143:00] oversight panel welcomes your feedback on ordinance 8430 join us for feedback session Wednesday June 21st 5 to 6 45 pm at the canyon theater the Boulder Public Library and for and they want all community members they want to hear from everybody and so I think this would be a great opportunity for the whole Community come together and support each other and try to go past the past and I know that I'm going to be there I hope others will join thanks a great Public Service Announcement thank you chair mark yeah I concur with the need to revise the ordinance and I'm happy they are prepared to continue to work on that and if we do not need to initiate a moratorium in order to permit that work to proceed I think that is even better I I just I I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the cessation of work that occurred was

[144:03] not requested of counsel it was simply determination made by the board and I would have to ask what would we do in an analogous situation if the planning board said we're just not going to do our job um when I I find that a little bit perplexing but then perhaps I'm easily perplexed um uh I'm not looking to punish anybody but I don't know that I if there is a way for the work to continue and the ordinance revision to continue without putting the imprimatur of a of a moratorium on it that would be my preference and so if we can simply let it lie and not take up the complaint for a while um we can always discuss a moratorium if we run up against the deadline and have to appoint special counsel uh and have to proceed and we can make that determination at a later time thank you

[145:03] thanks Mark any other thoughts or I could put a motion on the table go ahead just I want to understand Aaron um if if there was a moratorium put in place you did a good job of describing the the 10 cases that they're going to still handle that are in in in in the flight between now and the end of September I assume that what a more return would mean is if a new case came along let's say in July or August that the police oversight panel would not take that up what would happen to that case would that case be held in advance or would that case just move forward without input from the police oversight panel likely it would move forward a site panel however cases do not come to the police oversight panel until after the Boulder Police finishes its investigation So in theory there may be a way if uh investigation took quite a long time that it would still queue up for an

[146:01] appropriate length of time I guess yeah I'm sorry I was you know articulate my question if if a investigation was concluded and it was right before it was otherwise right for the police oversight panel to pick it up um but there was a moratorium in place and that happened let's say in July or August or September however long this moratorium would last they would simply not take it up and the the matter would just proceed as if they had taken a pass on is that right correct okay thanks would that include the input of the interim Police monitor yes my understanding is that the independent Police monitor will continue to provide police oversight so it's not receiving no oversight it's still getting the police officers great okay thanks for clarifying that so I'll go ahead and make a motion which is a motion to direct the City attorney to draft a partial moratorium pausing all penal work except for work on ordinance revisions and requesting a recommended uh date for the expiration of that moratorium

[147:02] motion a second I don't feel the need to say additional things so if there's no further discussion we could call for a vote is this a show of hands Alicia [Music] do a roll call all right thank you we'll start this roll call with you mayor Brockett yes councilmember folkerts yes friend yes Joseph yes spear yes mayor Pro Tim Wallick uh yes on the draft thing to be determined on the moratorium thank you sir councilmember weiner yes Yates yes on the Drafting and Benjamin yes thank you the motion to direct the City attorney to draft a partial moratorium pausing all panel work except for work on ordinance revisions is hereby approved unanimously

[148:01] thanks everyone for your consideration and then Aaron maybe if I could turn to you do we need to continue item 3H until after we've considered this moratorium would that be your recommendation yes would since well first ask a time in question will we be considering able to consider the moratorium at the special meeting next week yes if CAC would like to schedule it okay so we'll leave that up to CAC but then perhaps should we go to the first business meeting in July for the continuation of this to give that action time to play out I think that's a good date because we can always ask for it to be continued again or move to a different date so if Council will permit me I'll go ahead and make a motion to continue item 3H until our July 13th business meeting second any discussion on that see none show of hands on this for the motion on the floor

[149:00] okay all in favor genius see okay I got a hand okay so it's unanimous great well thank you everyone for oh yes Bob yeah if I could just close out by um making a request which obviously we can't ask anybody to do anything but it would be um helpful for those of us who are struggling a little bit with the moratorium if perhaps the chairs or some representative of the police oversight panel could send a note to council before the partial moratorium has taken up maybe setting forth the the things changes in the ordinance or other things that um the police oversight panel feels needs to to occur um and which which they can't do on new cases just because I'm I'm continuing to struggle a little bit and I if we got a note from the chairs or somebody on that that might put some of our minds at ease okay truly noted and Nicole I'm just curious and maybe this was a question for Aaron Poe I mean are they

[150:02] at that stage or I mean I mean have have they had enough discussions to be able to kind of provide that level of feedback on a short notice because it it seems like what they're doing is just engaging in a broader process as quickly as possible about some ordinance changes I'm sorry I'm not I'm going to direct that to Nuria thank you so much um council members I believe they're still not at that stage yet they are working with our consultant and really hoping to get feedback from Community as they move forward I think there are several revisions people have thought of but we're not quite there we're just kicking off that working group to really think about what those changes are as we move forward I'm sorry Mike thank you for that Nicole because I need to clarify my request um it wasn't so much what the changes are it was I think we all know that the police oversight panel voted almost unanimously a few weeks ago to stop working so they must have had a reason to stop working and I just wonder if they could share that reason with us

[151:01] okay it might also be is there a recording of that meeting there is a recording I'm happy to share that again it is the May 10th meeting um where they talk extensively about the reasons in which they want to decease for momentarily so they could really focus on the ordinance but happy to share that great that would be so we don't have to dig forward if you wouldn't mind sending it out okay super thank you all right thanks yes just one more clarification so is that uh sufficient for for what you're asking for yeah I think it is I've forgotten that had been recorded so I think we'll look at those recordings for clarifying okay well that takes us to the rest of the consent agenda 3A through and other than G and H and I actually might ask a very quick request of the council employee evaluation committee about 3M because we're considering the appointment of an interim the municipal court judge so perhaps Juni and or Nicole you might just highlight that because I think it's worthy of no

[152:02] okay so thank you um so I you know I think as as was outlined in the memo and as everyone is aware of now um our municipal judge will be stepping down as of June 30th um judge Khan has worked with the city for many many years and has served admirably in that regard I was very familiar with uh all of the programs that the court is currently involved in and we'll be able to step in pretty seamlessly is also very well known and I think one of the other known within the um within our Municipal Court one of the other things that we were considering is that there is a lot of turnover currently going on in some of the upper roles in the municipal court right now with court administrator and a couple of new supervisor roles and so trying to main some maintain some consistency for the staff seemed like a really good idea in this interim appointment so

[153:01] we we are highly recommending judgecon for this interim appointment thanks so much for doing that I appreciate it Bob just two things both the process one is um I assume I guess I'm looking to probably Teresa on this one I assume that um in addition to that appointment motion thanks for that um there'll be a process discussion at some point in time maybe this summer about what um recommended steps are to identify a permanent municipal judge is that right correct and you know part of what we'll do is we'll look at historical practice bring that forward for your consideration but certainly you're not bound by historical practice right CAC since the June 22nd special meeting will be judge Cook's last meeting with us I think she's actually making a presentation that night I'd like see I'd like to make a request to CAC that we issue a declaration thanking her for many many years of service absolutely thanks for that okay well appreciate the

[154:00] genie and Juni did you want to add anything or you don't think hey great so thanks to Junior Cole for bringing that forward so if we does anyone have any questions or comments on all of the rest of the consent agenda seeing none Elisha could we move forward with the vote on that please yes sir and for the record this vote is a roll call for I I the consent agenda items 3A through F and 3i through n so moved second right right when I said that I was like did I forget something which was the calling for an actual motion so thanks for Bob and Matt for keeping me honest there I am right right so we have a motion in a second on this very lengthy consent agenda and at least if we could do a role thank you sir we'll start the consent agenda vote with council member folkerts

[155:00] yes friend yes Joseph yes spear yes mayor Pro tem Wallach yes councilmember weiner yes Yates yes Benjamin yes and mayor Brockett yes consent agenda items a through F 3A through F and 3i through n are hereby approved unanimously great well that has to be the latest consent agenda vote during your term as mayor yeah Aaron it's been that was an epic that was an epic all right well moving on because we still got plenty of stuff left uh to 4A our call checking please all right sir thank you item 4A again as the mayor noted is our call-up check-in item it is the landmark alteration certificate to demolish an

[156:02] existing accessory building and construct a new accessory building at 661 Maxwell Avenue in the Mapleton Hill historic district questions or comments or desire to call this up not seeing any hands then looks like we're not interested in calling this one up so if we could move to our continued public hearing please yes sir thank you 5A is our continued public hearing for and this is deliberations only no public testimony it's for the consideration consideration of a motion to approve the landmark alteration certificate to rehabilitate and add on to building L the former nurse's dormitory at the Academy of Mapleton Hill at 2543 4th Street this is previously addressed 311 Mapleton Avenue is a pending individual Landmark per section 9-11-18 of the boulder Revised Code it

[157:00] is referenced under his 2023-00018 and so we've already had a presentation and a public hearing on this and so I'll just look to Marcy did you have any follow-up words or should I go straight to council deliberation I don't have anything additional all right so then I'll just ask if Council has any additional questions for Marcia other City staff am I kidding exercise here looking left and right seeing no questions would anyone like to commence discussion about the uh the item don't be shy I mean if nobody has any comments someone could make a motion we have um this Lac in front of us so

[158:00] and I know the um so all right nobody's doing it I'll do it um so I will go ahead and move that we approve the landmark alteration certificate to rehabilitate and add on to building L the former nurse's dormitory at the Academy of Mapleton Hill at 2543 4th Street previously addressed 311 Mapleton Avenue pending individual Landmark first section 911 18 to build a revised code and I'll note that the the applicant expressed a desire for some additional conversation about some window treatments and I feel like it's worthy of further consideration anyway in that that area as well second um any further discussion you've been real talkative so far none okay then we can go to a vote let's Motion in a second all right thank you sir we'll start this vote with I had a question Aaron go ahead Mark we're going to have subsequent conversation with the applicant over window treatments what exactly are we approving today

[159:03] so Marcy maybe you can outline because I believe that there is a back and forth as we develop as we move forward with these considerations but I could be wrong so maybe um is this a question about the process of what happens after your vote Yes okay so um it would be conditionally approved and then those conditions are worked through at the weekly design review committee meeting with the applicant but they are to ensure that the revised designs meet the conditions that that have been passed and what happens if you end up at loggerheads with the applicant then it goes back to the landmarks board for review so I guess maybe should I be a little more specific to ask the design Review Committee to work with the applicant on those window treatments um I think that would be beneficial I think the discussion at the landmarks board was pretty detailed and the window design guidelines are very specific in

[160:01] terms of the importance of a primary secondary and tertiary elevation and so the conditions that the landmarks board placed and recommended to you all were to maintain the window openings on the primary elevations and allow window openings on the tertiary so I do think it would be helpful to have clear direction for the landmarks design Review Committee about consideration of additional window openings so not being a historic preservation expert I don't really have I think the ability to give something very specific other than just to have a continued additional conversations about it if that's too vague then I can withdraw that I don't know could anybody on Council want to offer a different opinion Mark your hands still up and Lauren of course has spent a lot of time Mark is your hand still up no it is not did you have a thought

[161:00] so is that in addition to the other items that the ldrc um brought up that you they had a list of areas that they let's see let's see um that they wanted to see revisions on yeah and my thought was just to continue the conversation with the applicant about those two window areas but but I don't have anything more solid than that so I'm I can certainly withdraw that okay I mean when I read sort of the list of things that the ldrc brought forward in particular I also feel like the revive the revised design of the balconies to minimize their visual impact seems like a really important one as well just given

[162:00] I know that we don't want to make new things look old but it's just such a contrast it seems like there would be a more elegant way for them to create those on those facades more in line with the character of the neighborhood I wonder um Emily has the slides um if you could pull those up we could go through the conditions I'll just withdraw that it's I should would have needed to be more specific and I'm happy withdraw that are you withdrawing your whole motion no so let me let me be more specific well I just like I don't know if you if you read the whole suggested staff motion language because it does include provided the condition stated by The Landmark board on April 12 2023 are met and I think maybe that addresses Lauren's concern if we use that language and I don't know um if Marcy could give us an additional five words to add to the staff suggested motion language that incorporate the window treatments as well then maybe we could make that

[163:00] motion yeah because I was going off what's in the the agenda rather than to what was in the packet I see and I'm happy to read that motion but it would be better to have the window language in there too well I don't I don't know that the window language is is past muster that's what I'm hearing but but what I think Lauren called out that specific item which I think if we include yeah I've got that revised language I can revise my motion if people and I'll see if my second or will accept it so I'm going to restate the whole thing to get it right motion to continue conditionally approve a landmark alteration certificate to rehabilitate building L the former nurse's dormitory at the Academy Mapleton Hill at 2543 4th Street previously addressed 311 Mapleton Avenue a pending individual Landmark finding that the proposal meets the standards for issuance of landmark alterations certificate in chapter 9 11 18 BRC 1981 and is generally consistent with the general design guidelines provided the conditions stated by the

[164:01] landmarks board on April 12 2023 are met accepted okay Marcy does that does that get to what you would need then to continue moving forward the landmark sport yes and that includes Lauren's Point as well correct and just so I'm clear the conditions stated include things like revising the design of the balcony to be a bit lighter correct it's the condition stated by the landmarks board which are in the packet yes okay all right sorry for a little clumsiness everybody we got a revised motion on the table the change has been accepted now if we could call for a vote please all right thank you sir we'll start this vote with council member friend yes Joseph yes spear yes mayor Pro tem Wallach yes council member weiner yes

[165:00] Yates yes Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes and council member folkerts yes the item 5A is hereby approved unanimously excellent thanks so much all right so we can now turn to our last bit which is Matters from the city manager which is occupancy and Zoning for affordable housing update item 6A at least should you want to read that well you know the mayor did it for me so no I'm just joking item 6A on tonight's agenda is the occupancy and Zoning for affordable housing update thanks so much uh and as we let Carl sort of get his bearings I'll say that the issue of occupancy as we heard not just in today's public open comment but uh through the emails we have received frankly since I've been in the city two years ago uh and I know

[166:00] from beforehand occupancy is an issue of great great interest in our community uh it is an it is an issue where there have been many opinions a remind Council that in March uh earlier this year in a study session they asked staff to think about uh and analyze two options to bring forward those options for whether to increase occupancy to four or five and there are some additional um occupancy and Zoning issues that staff will be bringing forward today so with that Carl hopefully I have bought you enough time thank you neria good evening Council so tonight we'll be talking about three topics um occupancy reform Zoning for affordable housing as well as the residential growth management system so I'll conclude with that one so the purpose of tonight is to discuss primarily occupancy reform and Zoning for affordable housing you'll remember that we discuss those topics at study sessions in March where there was

[167:01] Direction given on options and uh for both those projects to do further Community engagement uh bring it through the boards for comments so we wanted to report back to the Council on what we've been hearing from the public as the boards providing some statistics that were requested by Council previously as well as further analysis of the options we're also requesting Direction on those two projects and also Direction on the residential growth management system that we have right now which is impacted by a state legislation that passed in May related to such growth Management Systems so we'll talk more about that tonight so the questions that we have for Council are and I'll only read these once unless you need me to read them again but for occupancy reform it's should the city increase the occupancy limit to four or to five people Citywide related to Zoning for affordable housing

[168:01] the question is in addition to the changes previously supported by Council in March should the scope of the project be expanded to include additional high density residential zones as requested by Council in March and to allow duplexes and triplexes in the rural estate or residential estate rural residential and low density residential zones consistent with the land use and density limitations that are in the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan and then the last question is in light of the recently adopted State legislation that prohibits local residential growth management does city council support repealing chapter 914 residential growth management system that we have in our land use code right now so we've been working on a substantial amount of community engagement since we last spoke a number of ways of reaching out to the community so we've had

[169:00] continued engagement with neighborhood groups like University Hill Martin Acres based on the the fact that a lot of these changes would impact those residential neighborhoods we did try to go out to the or we went out to the Aurora East neighborhood for a block party where we were able to talk to Residents in that neighborhood to get their feedback we've met with plan Boulder we've met with the hill revitalization working group to get the word out to students we've been talking with the dean's leadership and values committee which includes representatives of student government so they could communicate with students and a lot of renters we've presented to the community connectors in Residence we've had conversations with Community leaders which is basically a mixture of some of the organizations we've reached out to as well as some neighborhood Representatives we've had office hours virtually and in person to answer questions we've also heard feedback at

[170:01] housing Advisory Board and planning board meetings and we also did the be heard Boulder questionnaire which I'll talk about there's a lot of detail in the packet related to engagement it was a big part of the last few months so attachment B contains kind of an overall summary of what we've heard and attachment C goes into more detail about what was heard through the questionnaire so on the be heard Boulder questionnaire I think a lot of council members are familiar with with B herd Boulder it's not intended to be a statistically valid representation or some sort of type of survey that's done it's really one of the tools that we use to hear feedback from the community to understand what the sentiments are out in the community to to hear the themes it is a good tool to kind of cultivate that all together we've promoted the questionnaire to different key stakeholders throughout the community multiple organizations neighborhood groups we use use next door

[171:01] and other social media platforms to get this out to the public so it was open for about a month between April 27th and May 26th we received over 2 000 responses and over 1 000 written responses so you've probably heard that there are multiple submissions that we can tell from looking at the data we take that into account account obviously it's not with the same weight that a survey would have but again it's a it is a useful way of of hearing uh from the community so again attachment C goes into a lot more detail on what those responses are also wanted to touch on and counsel is certainly familiar with this but the Senate bill 23-213 that related to land use there was a bill that proposed to potentially prohibit occupancy occupancy as we have it in our code today to liberalize restrictions on adus and also increase

[172:01] density along Transit corridors and allow more middle housing in the Community Middle housing meaning duplexes triplexes quad plexes Townhomes that bill ultimately was not passed by the state but we were watching it closely we've also at the request of council been looking at a number of different studies commentaries and articles Nationwide because the housing crisis is obviously touching a lot of communities throughout the country so there's different perspectives and we've tried to show both those perspectives in the packet with the links we've provided I think the majority of of the studies that we looked at showed that you know obviously for 70 years zoning has been used to restrict what kind of housing or how much housing can be in certain areas and that's you know kind of unique to you know North America largely to have single-family homes though the way we do here if you go to other countries you see a lot more of a mixture of housing

[173:02] so I think there are studies that show that those restrictions over that long term have had an impact on Supply and whether it's demand that's high it does have a huge impact on housing prices so there are a lot of studies that do speak to you have to have a multi-pronged Approach at trying to create more affordability in communities and part of that is adding to the inventory of Housing and loosening up zoning barriers so that more housing can be added there are some studies that do say the opposite or some articles that that speak to it in elastic markets and that if the demand is so high in a community it is very difficult so I think what we learned is that you know particularly in in communities like Boulder we looked at like the barrier where there's constrained land and high demand for a number of reasons that does make it very even more challenging for communities like Boulder to try to bring down those prices but most of the recommendations we saw is that you have to kind of do a

[174:01] multi-pronged approach do a lot of different things to affect that because doing nothing is not going to help the problem uh some bold moves have been made on the west coast and we alluded to this in March particularly in Washington and Oregon so I've actually been reaching out to different communities out there to to hear what their um experience has been um we talked to a number of different communities in Oregon and Washington like Corvallis Portland um uh and then Walla Walla and Seattle just to kind of hear and the states out there have actually just recently passed state laws like the bill we saw here in Colorado it actually passed so it does require middle housing it does prohibit occupancy so some of these communities have made these changes some are still in the process of making the changes so I think the feedback we've heard largely is that they haven't really seen what

[175:00] the outcomes are because there hasn't really been a lot of time since they've made the changes so um I think they are kind of Shifting more to enforcement base approaches rather than linking it with occupancy um so they've they've tried to put more resources into enforcement to affect those areas there was one Community I talked to I think it was Redmond did notice that after they had liberalized some of the code related to housing that it did start to impact their housing prices and lowering prices so that was the one example I I heard that was was fairly positive about affordability I normally put this slide at the end of the presentation but because we're talking about three different topics it seemed appropriate just to kind of alert people to The Next Step so after we get direction from Council tonight we're going to begin ordinance preparation we'll probably set up some office hours or some sorts of ways of getting uh people uh the ability to comment on on

[176:01] the ordinances as we prepare them but these are the dates they're tentative as of now but these are the dates that we're working towards so we're looking at uh July 25th for bringing in occupancy ordinance to planning board to make a recommendation I think the housing Advisory Board I think is July 26th on that topic and then the Zoning for affordable housing ordinance at planning board is is set for August 22nd I think the have meeting is roughly around there I don't have the date in my head at the moment but we do have it uh tentatively scheduled to come back to council occupancy on August 17th and then Zoning for affordable housing on September 21st so I'm going to jump first into occupancy reform uh just reminding the council that this is a council initiated project where the retreat uh Endeavor was basically set up as performing a comparative analysis from other

[177:01] communities develop a model occupancy approach and solicit Community input for ordinance revisions oh can you quick process question would you recommend we take these one by one and ask questions and give direction after each one and then move on to the next one yeah thank you for asking that uh yes that was the intent was to go over go through this one particular project and then pause at the at the key issue question right to get the do that thanks please proceed so just um just to be clear with Council on with the public what is occupancy there are kind of two different ways occupancy is is regulated there's the building code occupancy which is really about life safety it just wants to make sure that there's not an a situation where a building allows uh like overcrowding of people that could be dangerous if there's an emergency so everyone's fairly familiar with these types of signs that you see up in in certain buildings that limit how many people can be in them what we're really focusing on is zoning regulation which is usually

[178:01] more restrictive particularly in University towns so occupancy regulations kind of grew out of the 1960s some of the intents behind it was to try to minimize the impacts that could happen from having you know more people within units related to parking and noise but there have been obviously accounts where the motivations are more rooted in discrimination and this is something that's spoke of in our race Equity plan so we recognize that and we've seen that in other communities as well and it's prompted a lot of communities to start repealing occupancy or loosening up those occupancy regulations so I'm going to try to go through these slides fairly quickly since we've talked about this before but just a reminder this is what our current limits are um it's there's no limit on the number of family members and I'll talk about the the definition on the next slide uh but um it's it's one or two or three or

[179:04] four so it's an or between all of these so it's members of a family plus up to two additional persons or three unrelated persons in what is a generally low density residential zone so in the r r e and RL or up to four unrelated persons in all other zones or two persons in any of their children by Blood marriage guardianship including foster children and and those of adoption we do have slightly different regulations for adu's co-ops and group living uses we're not looking at changing those but I'm happy to answer any questions on those if there are any so I know the the topic of family came up uh last time we believe that we have a very broad definition of family so we haven't been recommending changes to it um it does include same-sex marriage or domestic Partnerships and a lot of

[180:00] relatives up all the way to great great grandparents Grand nieces Grand necesses so it's very broad so we've not really we've we have alerted uh Council had asked us to kind of include this as part of our Outreach and we've included that and we haven't really heard any comments that speak to changing the family definition but we just wanted to make Council aware that we have been making people um aware of what we have in the code relative to family this is a map that I showed last time that shows the areas in Orange are those areas that are at the three unrelated people in the zones and then the four unrelated limit is in those green areas you can see the majority of the city in terms of land area is under that three unrelated person limit I won't talk about all the options that we talked about last time but the focus per Council has been to be on option b which is looking at a simple solution

[181:00] which is really increasing the occupancy limit to four or to five unrelated city-wide so that's what we've focused on um in response to requests from Council on statistics we just wanted to provide um some some numbers here so as far as the percentage of res rental licenses per occupancy Zone most of our rental licenses 65 are in the four person Zone but when you look at a number of rental units per occupancy Zone you can see that in the three-person zone uh over 80 percent of the units in the three-person zone are owner occupied and then when you go to the the four-person Zone it go it drops down to about 40 percent of the units are owner occupied and you can see there's a breakdown by neighborhood you can see there's High percentages of rentals uh particularly in the University adjacent neighborhoods of Aurora East Goss Grove Martin Acres Whittier and um University Hill

[182:03] there was also a request to just clarify how the building code relates to occupancy um I'm not an expert on the on the building code in this case it's actually the international property maintenance code but um zoning or building occupancy really kind of focuses more on commercial buildings but it does have generally minimum land areas based on clearances that you have to have based on number of people so generally like a two a minimum size of a unit based on clearance requirements is about 320 square feet and I think that's for like two people and then the minimum size for an efficiency living unit in the ipmc is 220 square feet and there's a cap of elus to add three people I know there's been some concerns expressed from the public about you know if the city were to go to Five what you know that could permit five people in an elu and actually the building code would then

[183:01] step in be like the cap is going to be three so we we do acknowledge that there are potential impacts from occupancy just like there could be impacts of a large family living within a building so on-street parking availability comes up as an issue these are a lot of issues that come up in a lot of other communities uh increased activity on sites trash and weeds we've heard about House parties and then noise and obviously we do acknowledge that the hill has a a large number of non-conformities in terms of dwelling units so there's a higher percentage of a higher occupancy in those areas even though those the zoning in those areas has changed over time so it's really a policy issue before the council about whether the impacts of these types of things is really linked to occupancy or not a lot of the communities that we've talked to that have decided to loosen up their occupancy regs or repeal them have

[184:02] really decoupled the issues and really just kind of focused more on enforcement rather than just occupancy alone so it is something we'd want to hear from Council about as far as enforcement police does handle noise and parking in the right-of-way in conjunction with Community Vitality planning and development services handles any complaints related to occupancy or illegal dwelling units or property maintenance issues active enforcement on occupancy has been largely paused in recent years due to the pandemic and due to staff constraints but we do move forward on any complaints that we receive to address them generally if there's instances of over occupancy discovered in a complaint it's something that has to be addressed at the next leasing cycle so that people aren't being kicked out while they're living in the unit but if there are any issues of Life Safety

[185:00] it has to be handled immediately so I'm going to jump into Community engagement specific to occupancy so again we've had a conversations with a number of different groups I'm going to try to summarize this the best I can but in talking with University adjacent neighbors and you've heard some of these concerns and during public comment as well there's a concern that loosening up occupancy rules will drive out families it will benefit only landlords in terms of it won't bring down prices and landlords will want to make more money off it we've heard that it wouldn't help be unhoused when we talked to Aurora East obviously that neighborhood's a bit of a mix of students and homeowners we got kind of both perspectives that we've we heard from students that were struggling with the cost of housing in the community and that they were very open to loosening up the regs homeowners in that area were not

[186:00] necessarily against more people but they they did Express a lot of concerns about parking just because Aurora East is in an area where there's some overflow from students that live at Williams Village that Park their cars in the neighborhood so they're directly impacted for from parking we've heard similar parking concerns in Martin acres and on the hill uh we talked to the hill revitalization working group which is composed of property owners as well as students so that a lot of the perspectives from the students was that they would like to see things be made easier for students because they're struggling to be in in Boulder and go to school um and then a lot of them have to choose to live outside Boulder and commute in to go to go to class um and then we've also heard that uh concerns about just increasing occupancy without having it being tied to affordability that that's not going to specifically address affordability when we talk to the dean's leadership

[187:01] and values committee it's mostly Student Government so we one quote from that was that Boulder is crazy unaffordable we there needs to be more housing security for students so that they were aware of a lot of students that knew they were living in over occupied situations where they could be potentially evicted and that um and then we also heard that students have a lot of strong opinions about this but you may not see them at these meetings they they often or either you might be out of town or are too busy with their studies and work some have to work multiple jobs in order to pay for their their rent which was similar to one of the comments you heard tonight we talked to the community connectors in Residence there wasn't a lot of discussion on this particular topic other than there was support for for getting rid of occupancy regulations you know based on the discriminatory routes of occupancy regulations so we heard that it kind of we spent really more time on Zoning for affordable housing

[188:00] which I'll talk about later in the community leaders conversation kind of heard both sides of it we heard a firsthand account of an eviction someone that was going through an eviction and the trouble that that was you know causing them and that they knew of other accounts of that we heard support for five unrelated as a city-wide limit but we also heard the other side of the story were of the University adjacent neighborhoods felt very strongly about it being Exempted out still from any increase in occupancy um relative to the be heard Boulder again these are more what we look at is observations but we saw in general that there was more support for for unrelated than five unrelated with more strongly support or somewhat support when it got to five unrelated it was uh with a lesser amount of support and we saw more a higher level of definitely do not support with the five

[189:02] um a majority of the respondents did not show support for removing occupancy requirements entirely which we pose that question to them most of the respondents indicated that they were homeowners but about a third indicated that they were renters we saw a lot more support among renters and younger participants in this for loosening up occupancy and then more than half the respondents felt that the regulations shouldn't be left as they are today so we talked to housing Advisory board about this on April 26th all members except for one felt that the occupancy rules should be changed the opposing member was more skeptical of the change and felt that it wouldn't necessarily guarantee affordability and that the focus should be more on allowing more co-ops per year most acknowledged that loosening the rules was the right trajectory for the

[190:01] city the issue about um investors coming in and buying properties was was raised and we've heard that in in public comment as well they they felt like that is a legitimate concern but they didn't feel like it should be handled through zoning it should be handled through licensing or some other mechanism um planning board to discussed this uh on April 18th it was a more mixed response there were three members of planning board that expressed support for loosening up occupancy that it was the right solution uh to address the housing crisis that there'd be more housing security by loosening it up we've heard quotes of like gentle infill or a better use of land they felt that it was a better solution than the veterans are for people ballot measure which raised concerns related to people or basically encouraging Property Owners by cramming in bedrooms to get more people and that this was a better way of

[191:01] of getting at the solution and then we heard one in a board member noting that occupancy should not be regulating the you know the relation between individuals within a unit there were two members that were firmly against increasing occupancy limits they were concerned about the negative impacts that could happen to the two neighborhoods from it that landlords would get more money and that families would be driven out uh that there we heard similar sentiments about there's no mechanism to guarantee affordability with increasing occupancy and we heard the discomfort related to overriding the public vote from the ballot measure there were two members that expressed that they were in the middle on the issue they wanted to see more data they did have concerns about parking uh and one of the members did say that if it's if it were to be increased that they would be more comfortable with a conservative moving to four uh rather than five

[192:01] so that concludes the portion on occupancy reform so I'll conclude with the key issue question for Council on happy to answer any questions it's very much Carl I appreciate all the Outreach that you all have been doing questions for Carl I got one Nicole thanks so much Carl I really appreciate your just kind of taking the work that we asked you to do and carrying it forward like this so thank you um I was just wondering about thinking about a mid-august implementation um do you anticipate any impacts on students in the middle of moving in with that date so for example would people be able to add additional people to their leases especially if they were intending to live over occupied and will there do you anticipate there would be any flexibility from landlords and letting people change their leases we did hear that concern when we talked

[193:02] to students because you know the timing isn't optimal because obviously if Council were to approve an ordinance in August it would go into effect you know pretty much around the time that students are coming back so the leases are already written up in that case um I I don't know that I can speak to whether landlords would have the flexibility to change it post you know any ordinance we we expect that you know obviously in the next leasing cycle they would start to adapt to that but I can't speak to how well the landlord would respond okay thank you and in any of the engagement did did any landlord companies or barha or anybody like that did they give any signals as to what they may do or anything we heard from barha just that they they supported increasing the occupancy limit okay thank you and I don't know is there is there any way of getting any of that information at this stage are we just kind of done with with that level of

[194:00] Engagement there I mean we could certainly reach out and ask them and we could bring it back you know as part of the packet with the ordinance if that's helpful okay thank you yeah I think just um as a you know a point of curiosity for the people who are already there just so that there is Clarity in in what is available to them if an ordinance were to pass then my my colleagues can chime in there as well and then so one of the things that some folks have mentioned is exempting some neighborhoods from these changes did we hear anything about that from any of the renters just because it feels like it's a really complicated thing for renters who do tend to move around the city a little more anyway and I didn't as at least as I was reading through I didn't really hear anything about exemptions for certain areas from the renters and students I don't think we derived that from the renters I think mostly we've seen Port from renters on that

[195:00] okay thank you got marked in Matt it seems clear that the community is is pretty much all over the lot with respect to this proposal so I'm going to ask you a couple of questions that I I'd kind of like the professional Viewpoint you know Based on data as opposed to Simply what polls have told us or what Outreach groups have told us um do you think that increasing density will increase the tendency to monetize housing stock and have an adverse impact on family's ability to buy those houses if not why just tell me about why can you clarify about like what what you mean by buy those houses in other words if you can if you can increase density and increase

[196:01] your rental does that not have an impact on the ability of families who cannot afford to match that rent roll to remain in Boulder in those houses does not that create an incentive or monetization of those houses to the greatest extent possible that's what the hill is is fearful of and that's what they they seem to be experiencing and I'm basically saying what's your view of that I guess my my sense of it is I think it's a legitimate concern I think we've heard from other communities that have struggled with that and that it can can happen to some degree um but on on the other side of it I would say um I think it's a legitimate observation or or a conclusion about how

[197:00] zoning has had a an impact on what housing prices are because of you know the limited amount of land and that a lot of land is you know zoned for a single family and if there's additional zoning restrictions that puts more of a premium on each housing unit so um I think on the flip side I think adding housing I think we've been adding housing for for many years and it does have an impact but I think they're PR I think all the studies say you have to do more to try to affect that change and it in a sense it is trying to mitigate for decades of a certain type of planning so I think I see I see the the merits of both sides but not doing anything I think could really impact housing

[198:02] prices the most I was not suggesting that that nothing be done I'm I'm trying to inquire as to whether this particular action is actually going to result uh in what we desire which is more affordable housing and more accessible housing to a greater range of people including families I mean I'm hard-pressed to see how this is going to um give us that result other than being able to accommodate more students when I don't discount but this is this is not going to provide housing for families of any kind and point of fact I think it's going to result in families who are now renting a lesser homes from continuing to rent them because the landlords are going to have an opportunity to increase their rent roll um so I'm not sure we're getting the

[199:00] result that we would like to get this is not about not addressing affordable housing this is are we addressing it in a way that that actually is going to produce a result that is beneficial to the community so Mark we can carry that over to comments but did you have a do you have another question well my question is is you know what what's the basis for um the point of view and I mean Carl you I feel like Carl gave a pretty thorough answer to that but I don't know did you have further thoughts on backup for what what you're saying kind of on the one hand on the other hand and I'm I'm asking for something that's not quite on the one hand on the other hand uh yeah I mean the only thing I'll add is that you know cities changing occupancy regulations is still relatively new and I I will admit that I struggled to find a definitive study that shows you do this it reduces the price I mean but I also think there's a lot of studies that that say

[200:02] that doing this along with you know allowing more adus allowing more housing can affect the housing but it has to all be done together um that that's my view okay can you can you provide let me just ask the question can you provide some examples of where the panoply of Remedies has been deployed and housing has suddenly become affordable um did you want to council members this is Brad Mueller uh director planning and development services if I may maybe I can intersect with some other ideas there I think it's safe to say and I'm going to ask Carl to can be honest here we did not find in the literature and in the examples um definitive answers about whether ultimately increasing the housing stock

[201:00] or in this case occupancy being a form of of how to adding to the housing stock ultimately is a main driver for reducing prices or whether um that gets counteracted in in its entirety through the potential of increased housing stock or in this case again occupancy allowing for the possibility of of increasing rents and this I would say in observing the debate and discussions and input throughout this item there have been assertions on both sides on there and and we've just simply not found definitive answers out either in uh in other communities or in the literature and in fact I would even go so far as to say that this exact conversation was uh very much at the heart of the state discussion about

[202:00] whether simply increasing the amount of housing stock in the state would lower prices or not um and so I think not to put words in Carl's mouth but I think the answer is it's just not absolutely definitive but we do know that zoning and providing land use tools is a toolbox this is one tool that we've explored over as I understand it many many years well before my tenure and um and that's why we're bringing it Forward at this time at council's request thank you that's a fair answer thank you anything else mark okay I got Matt then Rachel and Lauren I got a couple questions um one uh start with a little levity can we change away from residential estate um just a little this day and age the word estate sort of makes me cringe so I don't know if we can get rid of that quick Matt Applebaum went on a tirade on a regular basis on

[203:01] that very topic Carl you remember Matt applebum and presidential estate I guess I don't remember that discussion but mats have an affinity for linguistics colloquy away many of you have been to my Palace which is indeed a residential estate by boulder definition so I I'm with Matt but uh I digress but uh we'll just log that one away um a couple things I mean I'll just sort of touch I'll ask a question about maybe code enforcement parking are all part of those things but I want to start with what we started to hear about a bit about in emails and some of the commentary tonight was regarding um not just necessarily overlays but specifically like non-conforming and and how that maybe impacts the hill um and in particular what I found was interesting is then I know Bob sent a hotline on that and maybe he'll be able to address that point as well um but a Community member brought up a very interesting part within our code that I thought I wanted to get your

[204:00] thoughts on with regards to does it provide an actual cap with regards to occupancy in um those non-conforming areas and that's sort of like not I think it's a 9-8-5 but it basically just says units with an occupancy greater than four unrelated persons shall not exceed a total occupancy of the dwelling unit of one person per bedroom and so I'm wondering is that an upper end sort of threshold that's there and so when you have non-conforming that might have already a stated occupancy of six or seven but maybe only have three bedrooms are they already thus captain at their Max because I think what I'm trying to understand is with the non-conforming part are we looking at this massive increase of of occupancy or are they really already capped out in which case changing to five becomes irrelevant um and it's really at that point a function of do they just build more bedrooms not um where their non-conforming status gives them a leg up to sort of just have boosted occupancy of upwards of 50 or 100 in some cases yeah

[205:02] that section that you related related read is is basically it is a cap for non-conforming I'm glad the question was raised um I think in our analysis of that um if Council were to increase the occupancy above three for instance to four or five we'd have to like revisit that section to see whether that four would have to change to be consistent with um the first part that caps it in the zone but with the non-conformities our thinking was that it would increase the amount potentially in certain news of how many people could be in there in each unit but in looking at it further and discussing it further those units are non-conforming and are we already have a definition in the code called expansion of a non-conforming use which includes occupancy so if someone were to go from what the occupancy is today and

[206:02] wanted to increase it to whatever the the main occupancy is per unit for a conforming unit it would trigger a non-conforming use review application so that's something that we would want to hear from Council tonight about is whether um that's something that should be done or whether that should be capped or should be avoided because it could be avoided there could be new language that's added um that says that the non-conforming occupancy is what it is before this increase and therefore they're not granted an increase uh to avoid those the potential impacts of that so it's something we would like to hear from Council on okay I appreciate that Carl maybe I guess so as I can understand effectively if we just increase occupancy to five across the city it wouldn't just be this massive unregulated increase for the non-conforming uh Properties or dwellings some would be capped based on

[207:01] the number of bedrooms others might be capped because of that transition that would trigger a use review so there's clearly controls that would either slow stymie or outright limit that sort of unregulated just boost of of occupancy that some are concerned may happen so I just want to kind of yeah it's not that kind of tsunami it it might be a more gentle or or intentional increase um as a matter of speak because of those controls yeah our analysis is that you know an increase for the whole city it might still fall below what the non-conformity is so they just carry on with their non-conformity or it might be higher but in the cases where it's higher that's where it would it wouldn't be automatic it would be they'd have to do a a non-conforming use review so um you know that does lead us down a road of do we want to start seeing um landlords coming in with these non-conforming use reviews to increase

[208:00] occupancy we may not but that's uh or so there could be a remedy for that or we might just look at it on a case-by-case basis just like we do other non-conforming use reviews I appreciate that actually helps answer that question a lot Carl thank you Matt I'm going to jump ahead of Rachel but can I um thank you well thanks for sharing that line of questions that's where it's going to eventually go um do we how often do we see landlords coming in and filing a request for use review because they want to increase the occupancy in a non-conforming use property uh we we don't normally see that because see right now they wouldn't be able to ask for that if the occupancy were to be increased and the code says this they could ask for that so we don't really see that we usually see what we normally see particularly on the hill is a building that has non-conforming density that's way over the density but they

[209:02] want to like combine units but not necessarily go down to maybe the one or two that is the conforming they might lower it to like 18 from 24. if you as long as you lower it you don't make it more you can do a non-conforming use review but it's usually usually the occupancy limit it stays static with it and how would you if if we relied on the use review that landlords if they were let's say that the the there was a increase in occupancy authorized by Council and let's say the landlord would then would have some Headroom there but it was would be required to go through use review how would you let landwards because we're talking about hundreds of properties how would you let landowners know that in order to have one or two more people living their property they've got to go through use review and then I'm going to ask you kind of a subjective question do you think they'll really do that or would they just rent out a few more yeah that's a good question I'm not sure

[210:00] um I think just like we do today like they a lot most of them know that their property is non-conforming you know so they'll come in for a non-conforming use review but it hasn't really been linked to occupancy explicitly so um I think part of its messaging you know as much as we can if it does change um you know and then we'd have to look at them just like we do any other user view are they improving the appearance right in the building are they are they demonstrating to us that they're not going to generate more parking because if they do then if they increase impacts usually the use review can't be approved right okay that's it for now aren't you going to go a little further down yeah I'd like to call a clay on this as well um so on the hill we have a lot of different kinds of non-conformities and I just want to be sort of really clear about what we're talking about so there are the kind of non-conformities where we have like an apartment building that's where an apartment building would no longer be allowed and so there's 20 units and in

[211:01] that case the occupancy in those U.N units currently is probably three or four and we're considering changing it to four or five per unit but there's also houses that are just a single dwelling unit but we have occupancy above what would be typically allowed in a dwelling unit can you kind of give us an idea of what like what kinds of buildings are those mostly right now do we have an idea like is this mostly a single family home that has an occupancy of 12 or what what kinds of how did we get there in terms of those kinds of buildings well I mean it's it's years and years of um zoning changing that has created that condition so it's all across the board it's like you said there's actual apartment buildings that you couldn't build today and and there's some that are single-family homes that were built you know turn turn of the last century that

[212:01] some were built with additional units like almost like adus in them some were just regular but had more of an occupancy and if if there was an inspection done back in the 70s it said this is the occupancy and the rules change you can still have this I think there's all a number of different examples on the hill and do you have it it just seems like there's so many different varieties that this specific wool change isn't certainly not going to affect all of them especially when we're talking about occupancies above what is currently allowed in terms of occupancy in a single dwelling unit do you have any idea of how many units we might be talking about this affecting I mean we we were looking at a a memo that went to council a couple years ago that talked about enforcement I don't

[213:00] have it right in front of me right now but it was I think it was like over if I remember it was like over 2 000 units potentially I have to I'd have to pull it up that are just occupancy related um no just the number of non-conforming units on the hill okay but that would include the apartment buildings and things like that yeah move moving on I still have two more questions okay okay let's try and get through it um and so um one of the questions I have and I know that Brad and Carl just got back to me a little bit today on this one so I appreciate it um so I'll just tee it up for everybody else in that sense um he's really talking about that you know one of the things we're trying to focus on instead of legislating where legislating people we would focus on legislating the impacts right so that's where we have you know thinking about trash uh other things like that parking and so I wanted to get a sense of just we keep coming back to parking on a bunch of different areas of late and so

[214:01] you know whether it be different developments and parking minimums and or the spillover into neighborhoods npps and that sort of thing I just want to get a sense of where are we at in a place to start really tackling this head-on because it's important I think for a bunch of us that have been thinking about it where can we go with this and and is there sort of a sense of timing on on how we can start tackling this and and where we can sink our teeth into parking from development to neighborhoods to spillover and npps you name it yeah uh happy to answer that um Brad Mueller with planning and development services still um Chris Jones actually uh is here yes um to speak to this a little bit too but to the general question of parking uh we have just very recently internally had discussions about that uh very likely being a candidate for further study and and maybe a work plan item the city did undertake a review of

[215:03] zoning parking requirements uh eight seven six years ago kind of ramped up and stalled ramped up and installed but we probably are ripe for re-looking at those just across the board and it would certainly make sense to start to look at some operational elements as well um I do want to take just a real quick commitment to introduce you to Jen Ross to who's here as well gin is our new uh manager for Code Compliance I know you all are familiar with the fact that Code Compliance which is Building Life Safety kind of things sits within our department uh code enforcement and police so to your broader point if I was is if I was following you councilman is the broader question of enforcement as well uh here to the city manager's office Nuri has really initiated a multi-pronged approach towards ramping

[216:00] that up both with the focus on the hill but also city-wide and I know council is familiar with the number of those initiatives so I won't go into detail about that but uh suffice it to say that there's a multi-pronged and multi-year effort underway to increase both our capacity and our approach towards code enforcement and Code Compliance and in fact enforcement across the board as a relatively newcomer to the the city organization others have made the observation to me that Boulder for years has been great at innovating things and uh innovating and innovating and we've got a pretty big pile of innovation now and we need to be able to make sure we're enforcing and all those things as well thanks Brad you actually answered both my questions in one Phil swoop so thank you so much appreciate it thank you can I call Queen on that real quick sorry Rachel Brad I'm trying to figure out maybe I'm trying to figure out what you're saying

[217:01] are you saying that we are going to be working on enforcing our ordinances like noise trash and parking or are you just referring to parking do you have are you talking about working on a parking plan neighborhood parking program or do you not want to get so detailed and you just saying we're thinking about parking um to your first question I was talking about a general increasing of the robustness of enforcement overall and certainly I'll defer to Murray to speak to that more if you like as to parking specifically I was talking about looking at the Planning Development code relative to parking but recognizing uh this idea that's come up in the last two days of integrating some of that review with neighborhood parking planning uh very good and Innovative idea and I think there's a lot of possibility behind that and Chris and I have had a very preliminary conversation about what

[218:00] that might look like that answer your question okay okay thank you Rachel you've been on the call please have gone away it's all yours I'd be colloquying anyways on on Matt's last point with my question so I wonder if it is the moment to call Chris Jones to the stand because I I have parking questions you are the next contestant on city council showcase showdown um so I know we we looked at the the neighborhood parking program thoroughly during my maybe a year and a half ago two yeah two and a half years ago previous Council I think wrapped that up um and it does feel like it keeps coming up and um maybe we haven't quite gotten where we want to get to with that and um I I remember like five years ago when I was out in the audience Evan rabbit said something like people don't hate their neighbors they hate their

[219:01] neighbors cars and I was like right on I think that is a lot of what people hate so and I got like roundly rejected when I asked like why can't just everybody have to have a parking like two parking permits for a house and like sort of equitably spread that across the city so that it's not just the neighborhoods that are feeling impinged on and I I guess I just wonder how big can we go and and what stops us from going there and assuming that we you know the program about a quota based system by any stretch but like somewhat pays for itself by the um you know writing tickets I assume would would cover the cost of of staff to do that so what is holding us back from like it and I think the Aurora East neighborhood said it right like we don't we don't dislike our neighbors we it's the car it's the parking's the problem good evening Council thank you council member friend for the question I'm Chris Jones the director of community vitality and among our broad portfolio of things

[220:01] that we work on WE administer parking management strategies throughout the city including the neighborhood parking permit program and so yes as you recall we've done a significant amount of work on that program over the years the program and it's in its beginning was really focused on a specific type of cars that we hate and those are not even our neighbor's cars those are folks who are commuting in visitors hikers folks who don't even belong in the neighborhood and that's really what the program in its origination focused on and so we are very open to exploring another NPP strategy that would be focusing on our neighbor's cars but it's not the program that we have right now so as Brad suggested as we are looking at parking code changes for the land uses throughout the city we would want to work in tandem with the planning department understanding the implications of those changes especially

[221:00] if we're talking about eliminating parking minimums for new developments how do we want to translate that into how are we going to manage vehicles that are going to have to find some place to park if they still exist so really look forward to that conversation oh that's how exciting and yeah well just one one second like I also want to just make it clear I'm not just talking about our neighbor's cars it's also my own car right and and if I've got kids like I think it does fit with some TDM goals right like if if there's a way that the city's saying sort of you know a household is going to have fewer cars total than we've got fewer people ideally driving in the city let alone coming into the city because we're already kind of looking like that if I'm hearing you correctly we're looking at or have some strategies on that one so it's more like one thing we'll want to be really careful about is the equity component to it because this is not a problem that exists in all parts of the city in residential zones it's primarily in areas that developed prior to the vehicle being a primary mode of

[222:01] transportation and so it's not necessarily a blanket solution and we need to be really thoughtful and careful on that Equity approach over to Aaron well just if you don't mind us a linguistic tweak you said people who don't belong in a neighborhood and if we can just say that everyone is welcome in our city right but maybe people with no direct ties to the neighborhood that is very fair yes okay or they would like the the vehicle associated with that welcome uh visitor uh to maybe not necessarily be parked in front of their home perhaps not but everybody's welcome yes right okay any Lauren I think you had a question um this this is for Carl so at one point during the presentation you talked about higher occupancy on the hill and I'm that that's related to those non-conforming use the non-conforming occupancies right

[223:02] yes because there are places where we have more dwelling units per acre than we have on the hill I'm thinking like tbap one has to have significantly more a higher number of dwelling units so there's more intensity in other areas of the city but there's just because of those non-conforming occupancies higher occupancy there correct that's correct thank you so I will I will uh maybe read a little excerpt from this memo it's a lot of numbers but it says there this was sent to Council in 2021 there are a total of 1253 properties identified in the city's rental license database as potentially having legal non-conforming occupancies and it says the properties make up 5 307 dwelling units and over a thousand rooming units and it says of these 1066 or 85 percent

[224:03] were properties listed as having non-conforming occupancy based upon a prior rezoning is that it thank you for that that's it I wonder if we can move to uh giving direction and I'll just say I'll put out there we we have talked about this uh issue a number of times that are retreated a previous study session if we move forward with some changes we'll have a public hearing we'll talk about it again so I wonder if we can do straw polls to give direction to staff on the next steps rather than having a long discussion about it is that all right with folks Mark you available to appear for there he is welcome back um so I guess I'll start so if I can start with a threshold question how many people would like to proceed with some form of occupancy change to hold your hand up

[225:01] so I got I get seven okay so uh so if we're taking some form of occupancy change earlier we put four or five on the table so I'm just going to go and order how many people would prefer a number of four God that's one wait Junior you're giving fingers here what can you explain what yes I wanted to add based on um exactly what Tara said my understanding is that based on prior conversation it was four so seeing in the memo that we've talked about five more often and I was a little bit confused by that as well in that direction so would that be a council executive order or decision as opposed to following the rule of community um based on all the prior conversation and then feedback that we've gotten thank you so Junior I believe I'll look to Carl here but we had a study session

[226:00] on this some months ago where we said we would like we had a menu of options of what to proceed with occupancy and we left two options on the table which was increase it to four or increase it to five do I remember that correct that's correct so so Judy we did at that study session say we either want to go with consider four or consider five so this is not I think that that was the basis for that okay well thank you I just felt that at the last council meeting I did get a sense that more people were closer to four than five but yes I completely understand that I was just um I think we left that open last time and so I think tonight is the time when we're giving direction about whether we would rather pursue four or pursue five so right now I'm asking how many people prefer four and then if that's the majority that's the majority and then I would say how many people prefer father could you clarify it I'm sorry could you clarify the question Aaron just to say

[227:00] if we were to change occupancy so we already had about an occupancy that that prevailed but now another question is if we were to change occupancy if there was a gun to our head and you had to pick four or five as opposed to four or five or status quo because that was kind of implied the way question okay yeah good good point so let me let me rephrase then instead of a for let's say uh let's have a strapple of other people would prefer four or prefer five if we must change if we yeah we already said we're going to pursue something so how so I'll ask for the choices of four or five so how many people would prefer four as the number to Center on I got three hands and how many people would prefer five that I got five hands and Genie six okay so there's more interest in five than in four so we got that direction do people want to make other comments or other thoughts can I suggest two other drop holes just so we give staff some really good directions sure

[228:00] um I know we I think we had a straw poll on this before but I just want to maybe close the loop so staff has a good direction and I have two scrollful suggestions the first one is um is there a majority on Council who would favor a different lower occupancy limit in areas near the university to be defined and we talked about that the study session but we can certainly stop all over again so how many people would prefer a lower occupancy in areas near the hill I got three for that okay that's great and then um the other questions I'd like to suggest is um would Council like to instruct staff as they're preparing these materials for the August 17 public hearing to look into the possibility and I don't know what the outcome would be the possibility of uh maintaining the occupancy limits in areas where there are non-conforming use

[229:01] or for structures where there's nothing from these not areas the structures can you explain that suggestion a little bit more because yeah it sounded like it was going to be maintained but are you suggesting we take an action that sort of ensures that it is yeah I guess I'm struggling a little bit with um whether it really would be in other words if the headline in the newspaper on August 18th is occupancy change to five I think it's probably a fair assumption that landlords even those that have non-conforming used properties many of which probably don't really realize they have not confirmed these properties we'll assume that the number is five and they wouldn't do what Carl said they would have to do which is file an expensive and lengthy use review process and so I'm a little bit worried that we're going to be changing occupancy on on we're signaling to the community that we're changing occupancy and those things where occupancy actually is not allowed as a matter of Law and so I'd like to at least hear what Steph has to say in their memo for August 17th about recommendations on how we would deal with that I don't know the answer is it sounds like there's three or four different ways I'm not even suggesting a

[230:01] straw one we're going to maintain the the non-conforming useful numbers maybe that's what where Council ends up but it seems like it's really kind of confusing right now and I'm sorry I only brought it up today so I really haven't given staff a fair shot at looking at that so I'd just like to to suggest the council that we at least have staff go through the process on non-confirming uses and then maybe even a recommendation to us I'm just looking for really information more than just a decision on that one sure before staff because I feel like something that can be done and kind of come back to us in August and and I think the other question I have is um I I expect that as a city we would do some education around the changes and what they mean for different property and things like that so um is this just something that would be part of our typical process of educating affected um groups in the community about a policy change yeah I would we would do that and and I think we could come back

[231:01] in August with specific language if there is a concern about that maybe raising it as a key issue you know and I don't know that we have the Nuance of how it would read but I think the intent would be to avoid situations where non-conforming units that are all that where it might increase above what the non-conformity is that that gets locked in so I think we could prepare language to that effect and then in August council could then decide whether they want to keep it or strike it you know something like that potato chips yeah although I know that I'm in the minority I'm just going to take a minute to ask the rest of council to reconsider anyway even though I'm sure you might not but and that's fine I'm just gonna bring up a few things first of all you noticed in the packet that more people wanted four than five so I feel like for that reason four is a

[232:00] compromise that most people would not be upset with whereas five would get a lot of people more upset especially in light of the fact that we did you know vote um bedrooms are for people lost and I'm not saying that in a way that you don't know that I'm just saying four just seems to be just a better compromise that's first of all secondly um I know we said no to carve outs we voted no to carve outs but for the sake of the University neighborhoods especially the hill which is one of the few affordable family neighborhoods left there is a great incentive for families to move out because of noise trash parking and also the cost of rent and that was discussed in all the letters that we got but I think it's really valid to consider even though a Corvette would be a lot of work for the city it's also would be a

[233:01] compromise that I think the university neighborhoods would appreciate then I'm going to talk about um the last thing I want to say is when it comes to noise and trash and parking first of all noise and trash I remember that when we passed that ordinance we were going to wait a year and we were going to come back and we were going to say hey University Hill is it working is it not working so we don't even know actually the feedback that I've gotten is people are calling the police about noise and trash and I guess it's code enforcement in the police there's now only two code enforcement police officers left because the rest quit so we only have two code enforcement police officers for the entire city so you can bet when people from the hill call they don't exactly say we're coming right now we're going to do something about that noise they don't people have to wait hours if at and sometimes I've heard police officers

[234:01] saying they just don't have time to deal with it because they're busy you know with you know more violent with violent crimes with more serious crimes so and the second thing is is parking I seriously hope that if this passes that we do something about parking it's an I think it isn't fair to ask people with little kids or seniors to have to walk two blocks if they don't have a driveway with their groceries talk about Equity so I'm hoping that we can reconsider some of this and think about the community members that are really having a hard time and begging us to do something to help them okay thanks for that Tara well just to press this thing we were asking for reconsideration I mean those weren't formal I was making a speech okay I heard reconsider but you're just making a speech that's okay okay fine that's fine uh that's why I had Nicole and then Lauren

[235:01] yeah um and thanks Tara um I just wanted to respond to a couple of things there that um for the the not wanting the more people wanting four than five that came from the be heard Boulder survey is that right and so I just the behold Boulder survey it was one method but it wasn't statistically valid so I don't think it's an accurate thing to say that more people wanted um in general more people in our community wanted four than five because it wasn't a statistically valid survey and just one thing that I I think I mentioned this before um and I I kind of hope that we can continue to avoid doing this but just this this implication that we're overturning the will of Voters in looking at occupancy reform because voters voted on a very specific implementation of occupancy reform not the general question of whether we want it and I think especially in this political context that feels a little bit dangerous and divisive anything that

[236:01] kind of touches back on this idea of overturning the will of Voters just feels a little bit dangerous yeah I did play did not say overturning the will but we got an awful lot of letters you know you read them we all read them and so I think people you know feel a certain way and what I do understand that it's a Visionary Council and so people see five as the vision and I tend to be maybe less Visionary and more like but what about all the people that are you know upset or complaining so I understand the point of five but I'm also I also think that people do have that impression that I'm not that we're overturning the will but they they feel like their voices were heard in that vote and I totally understand what you're saying I am in no way saying we're trying to overturn the will of the people no way I'm just asking for us to consider how people feel as you read all

[237:02] the many letters got it I I don't think you can call me Visionary given the strength of these glasses I'm just gonna saying so I I earlier I asked if we could not have a big argument about the substances and now we're getting right into the to the weeds in the we're having a debate now and so if we if Council wants we can talk through all the particulars but I'm trying to give more clear Direction rather than do that so I got a couple of hands raised maybe people can be concise with the next comments first I I saw you first great I just didn't want to lose sight I wanted the straw poll on Bob's I'm going to vote with Bob on his straw poll so I wanted to make sure that we get to that straw poll of of asking staff to tee that up I'm sorry Lauren was talking to me what was that I would like to vote on Bob's dropple I will get there shortly Lauren and I had a clarification on Bob's stoppable so just because I couldn't tell if you said units or use and so you're looking for

[238:02] us looking for staff um to give some recommendations on non-conforming occupancy right not non-conforming use yeah no thank you so much for that is absolutely right I just I I'd like to staff a little bit of time to come back and give us some recommendations as part of the overall package about how they would suggest we deal with non-conforming occupancy numbers because we've got numbers that are all over the place we're having this overlay it sounds like a five how does that interplay with the occupancy and I don't know the answer that I want to just give staff an opportunity to come back and tell us here's a couple of options or here's how we would suggest doing it can I ask a clarifier p.m the timing so if we were to just sort of give direction hey go forth have at it we've sort of set a timing of when you'd be coming back kind of in August on this Frame if we were to sort of embark on this straw poll to do added research and investigation to all the non-conforming that you come back to with that thus delay when we ultimately get to vote on

[239:02] this total package so um Carl can't quite kick me under the table because there's a wall there but I I think uh what we're expressing is it's a matter of just sorting out the current law and seeing how the five if it turns out to be five would apply to that and I think it's a fairly straightforward answer we'd be able to bring forward to in August which may be as simple as a clarification but may also be a recommendation to tweak the ordinance thanks I got Mark now calling myself and we'll move move things yeah okay I'll try to be pretty very brief one response to Nicole I I think that vote in 2021 was was a fairly statistically valid uh survey of where people felt and I don't think the methodology of how we were increasing um occupancy have anything to do um and we ought to take note of that um to me one of the requirements of good

[240:01] government is to govern with a sense of nuance rather than a one-size-fits-all approach and to look at different cases differently and and that's really what we've been asked to do with respect to some of the University adjacent neighborhoods there are so many um off-ramps here where we can craft reasonable compromises to address some of those concerns those concerns are real and they're impassioned and I think we represent those people as well as the people who want to see greater occupancy and you know we we did this with adus we started small we had a limited rollout of adus we looked at it a couple years later and voila there was no big deal okay and and so we're now rolling it out in Greater quantity the ability to do that is something that would really help us with the community and not create the

[241:01] kinds of hostility we're seeing with with so many voters you know on this one these people hate us and some other issue other people hate us and it comes from from being um not responsive to as many needs as we can and simply steamrolling those who are in the minority so that's that's my view on this I think we're missing an opportunity to craft something that would actually bring the community a little more together uh as opposed to fracturing it and driving this neighborhood apart from that neighborhood there are different needs in university health different needs of Martin acres and it really would not be inappropriate for us to try to address some of that maybe not all of it but some of it um give people a break I'm just going to call Queen one second I promise just one second even in my neighborhood we could do five easily I would say do five in my neighborhood but please reconsider the

[242:00] university okay well thanks thanks for coming I'm trying to get to Bob a straw poll on Bob's suggestion here so I'm just going to call on myself and say that the the issue of uh the occupancy non-conforming seems complex enough that I'd be interested in hearing some more more data so I'll support this drop poll because it sounds like it's a fairly straightforward thing that sets out so uh who is in favor of Bob's suggestion of looking into this more and I got and sorry I Judy you had your hand raised do you but if we oh I was trying to understand what the straw for was about but I think I understanding it basically it's just staff doing extra research to let us know what would be the impact of going to five on non-conforming properties yes thank you okay so then I caught up to your hand so I'll do that again I think how many in favor unanimous on that okay and then I'm going to come back to myself and I

[243:00] apologize I should have asked a question earlier on the in terms of all the all the definitions of of occupancy in the the one or two or three or four kind of a thing it includes two single individuals in their their children but but if you had like two couples or a couple in a single who each had kids that's is that not included um two different so four adults and well three adults or four adults but with two separate I mean right now one of the options is two two unrelated and any of their children it could be the children of one and the other um but it wouldn't necessarily allow two separate couples in the current language so I apologize for the lateness of this I just I don't know having heard from effort that families doubling up is one of the ways that people stay out of homelessness would people be interested in also looking at possibility of two families as as one of the options and and maybe I could just drop all that if

[244:02] that's all right with folks so sartero is saying that would could we look at the possibility of allowing for two families to live together as part of this change as well so explore what that might look like when this comes back so you're suggesting changing that last option from two persons to two families in there correct I think that's right yeah so if that could be maybe one of the options that we look at with that and this is just to be look to look at it and we could straw pull it but yeah I mean what what would be different than than just saying we're changing the occupancy limit to five plus dependence that would be that would also do that but it would also that would be a larger change so so I mean seems like the likelihood of five unrelated adults each with their own children living in a home is um probably not something that would happen very often uh to me it feels like a cleaner way to do that change is to just say

[245:00] five plus dependence so maybe I could ask if we have a couple options come back because I'm I'm trying to keep us controlled here tonight but probably like subscribe again um this question had come up fairly early on in the discussion if I it followed you I may have missed your comment uh council member spear but if if we get into a situation of changing either four or five you know regardless which number we're talking about unoccupied and change that to families that's a dramatic increase in terms of things in terms of overall occupancy I don't know if that's been on the table at any point leading up to this um and it is well beyond the scope of what we've really uh examined at this point I got I have genius at hand is that a fresh hand yeah you're muted Genie

[246:00] thank you I was trying to understand your definition of families because I know that part of what we're trying to do here is not make the term family as constraining as well so when I hear you saying is it one or two families and I I just didn't get the math on that very well and it was a bit confusing for me and I'm wondering if that's taking us back to a more constraining definition as well so it would not be changing the definition of family at all that we have that very broad definition of family um and there would be no changes to that Mark is that a fresh hand okay um it's Rachel well when I had my hand up before it was just for questions and now it's feedback and

[247:00] it's trying to get us back to Bob so I think I'm not double dipping here but my feedback would be I am I think that it is asinine if we don't lean in quickly to the enforcement piece and the parking piece and I'm I'm pretty uncomfortable with like the complaints falling on deaf ears and I think that there is I mean I think the reality is that when you have a family often you can expect like parents to you know keep kids quiet or whatever after a certain hour and and like I've got 19 to 26 year old kids and they maybe don't do that without my nudging so I think we can we can say there's a difference probably and we can understand why neighbors are sometimes concerned um when there are three versus five young people living there and um and I think it's it's silly of us to to not um listen to that and and I do

[248:01] believe we want to pass this in a way that sticks and not have another Council come in in November and immediately undo what we've done so part of that to me is the enforcement piece and I'm unclear on how how to effectively ensure that it does um it does seem like there's not a lot of trust from members of the city that we are going to enforce what um the the things that we have on the books in a couple different areas and I think that's percolating up uh in a couple different areas to this Council so um I don't I don't know how we can quickly get to the next phase with with enforcing the recent laws that we have passed as a result of the Hill revitalization work group and the parking stuff but I think that's critical and it should be at around the same time that this comes into effect because otherwise I think we are not being sensitive to um everyone's right to to have uh you

[249:02] know a Peaceable place to live and then I also wonder you know we hear a lot about the affordability piece and I this is an out of turn question I am sorry but is there any hope that we're going to have like a rent control option coming down the pike that might address that and it can come in as an overlay in a year or two with all of these bedrooms being rented out is there hope there now we got the wrong Carl we need Carl Castillo so I guess I just put that out there that um you know maybe not everything happens right at the same time on that but but our hands are a bit tied in terms of of that piece of affordability and I do hope that it comes into play and that it can be ideally somewhat retroactive to the steps that we're taking tonight but I'm not sure so if I may to the you may to the second question we can certainly get back to you that I don't know what the timing of any possibility on anything related to rank control can be but we can certainly

[250:01] go back I um as always Council I want to be as candid as I can be about um the request and I cannot say that enforcement is going to be happening if you pass this and it and it moves forward uh in 2023 that we will be at a state that we can promise you that we will have the enforcement that you expect the work that we are doing right now with that started with the hill revitalization group and frankly I think it benefits the entire city as we're moving forward part of that is to continue to look at um where do the areas and if you'll remember from our well it's been a while but if you remember from our previous updates we are both looking to update some ordinances and we're hoping to come uh with that in the fall in Q3 we have also been looking at enforcement generally around the city and looking to align that better and as we look for better alignment because there are a variety of folks that do different kinds of enforcement across the city and

[251:01] certainly we have been talking a lot with pnds and with our Police Department as well there will be some gaps I do not believe we are sufficiently staffed up to do the kind of enforcement that Community is expecting and I think it is something that we need to really be thinking about and before we put numbers and try to think about what that looks like we need to study this really directly so that we can actually get the Staffing that we need and that will require us to both analyze it it will require us to which we are doing and we are hoping to do through the end of this year which is what had been on our plan and what we had told Council we would do and then we will have to think about getting that approved through budget and hiring folks to move forward so it is in the works but it will not likely pass at the same time as you are intending occupancy it's the best okay oh my God there's a mouse right under your feet [Laughter] I I was gonna raise it did anybody see the mouse it was down there it is

[252:02] and then they need to eat it I am okay does somebody want to use the Gathering no no we protect the mice my open toe shoes are fine it's not cute pictures although I did see this I saw one the other day too pause can we pause Channel [Music] this is gonna go viral right can we pause I I would like to say that

[253:01] um this is the second time this week that Matt Benjamin has like leapt into action to Save a Life he also uh helped to evacuate some people from the creek so anyone watching on on live TV know this this man's a hero he's saving me and Alicia from this mouse too [Laughter] Joseph this is a good day to miss I am appreciating your smile right now [Music] [Music] so close wow that house is pretty too smart

[254:01] it is not a purple something else thank you [Music] we didn't crawl up my pants [Music] we're gonna come back out oh yeah I saw that too that was bravery yes that was fair-handed

[255:00] shout out to Jen too also doing heroic work [Music] all right I'll be ready I'm too short for that okay yes okay so everybody I think that I had two things the first was did anybody see that Mouse and then everybody saw the mouse so I'm in a wager this will be the most highly watching ever I'm looking I did I did have a second thing can I just like pretend that didn't happen stitches so I've got I've got one from your wife right now so no like my wife's got blackmail material Jessica Matt was doing great things the rest of us are not and Jen I missed my chance to gavel the mouse out of order you know out of order I'm glad we just

[256:01] didn't use the gavel sorry I did have a real Teresa has left the building she's not even over there anymore Teresa welcome to the dice um my question is would staff like to recommend maybe that we you know don't don't throw stones at me but that we maybe uh have our implementation date for this ordinance change pushed back by two months or something if that would allow the enforcement piece to come into place at the same time the um I'll try to answer that uh council member friend I I think the the the best answer is that the enforcement piece is not a discreet thing that's just gonna happen happen on a specific date and cause a lot of change in Behavior or action it's

[257:00] a comprehensive plan that is involving ordinance changes that have already happened some that are that are teed up it's about Staffing it's about programming it's about coordination throughout the city I think we would highly advise that we move forward on on the timeline that was envisioned by Council because we really can't offer any concrete picture what that enforcement piece would look like afterwards I'm struggling to pay attention because I'm just looking down at the floor but thank you for that answer that was very helpful okay and then I'm going to try to wrap up if what I'll put out there is is ask if there is some light touch way of allowing a couple of fan like a couple of maybe it's just like instead of two persons it's three or four persons and their children without cracking something too wide open it I I think that would be a more straightforward change to kind of acknowledge the the you know the numbers going up I think when you get to two families it starts because you've got great grandparents

[258:00] and you know yeah it'd be good to hear from Council if there is support for maybe changing number four to three yeah or or four potentially so if I could just drop all this or people interested in in broadening that forward to allow for more people with kids so item four says two persons and any of their children by Blood marriage guardianship including foster children or adoption are allowed and so the possibility of saying that could be three or four persons and their children Etc to allow for you know two parents and or two sets of parents in their kids to live together and this is not a commitment it's about a something we could consider for the next round and if there's not interest that you know there's not interest Ed yeah or I'd be interested in the way you first proposed it as two families more so than three or four persons and their children

[259:02] okay I'd heard definitely negative feedback from Brad on that but um so I don't know Junior you held up a couple fingers what did you wanna no okay uh Nicole I like Lauren's version as well in the first way you've raised it so um I guess I'll I'll give us three Alternatives here um uh a no change a change to two families or or a change to additional people so three or four persons and their children and I'm going to say I'm fine with either the last two but um so I'm going to go who would prefer to not change that section I don't have any um who'd prefer to go with uh two families at least consider it how about this consider more than one right okay how about this how about let's move the two

[260:01] options can we have get both options how about that because I'm seeing some interest in in so let's not make that decision tonight if we could get the couple options are people good with that yes okay so we'll get a couple additional options there easy technical change okay great um that's it for so Carl um so we've suggested a few changes and also some additional rodents yeah nothing about rooms good enough can we move on yeah ready to move on so the next project is zoning for affordable housing this was also initiated by Council in 2022 at The Retreat so the the purpose of this project was to evaluate the land use code with the intent of removing zoning barriers to more affordable units and more smaller modest size units so again I'll try to move through some of these fairly quickly since we've talked about a lot a lot of this but uh what what do we mean by affordable

[261:01] housing we're really talking about three different types here so we mean deed restricted permanently affordable housing we also mean attainable housing which is existing market rate housing that is Affordable to Folks at 30 percent of their income or just modest size market rate housing which is inherently more cheap than the larger units that we've been getting in the city and what we talked about last time in depth is just that if zoning barriers or zoning restrictions can be loosened such that it can enable more units more units on a site means more deed restricted units because we already have the 25 of the total units are going to be deed restricted so by loosening up some of the restrictions you can increase that number of deed restricted units I won't go into a lot of depth about what we talked about last time at March 23rd study session but uh city council supported all the options moving forward

[262:00] we did touch on option b which related to allowing duplexes and triplexes in the low density residential zones we did not recommend that at that time but there there was some sentiments on Council that we look into that further so we've done that so I'll talk about that tonight and then attachment e has all of the options that we presented to council last time so just jumping into statistics uh real quick so there's over forty seven thousand housing units in the city uh 58 of the residential lots are are only permitting single-family dwellings at this time uh that's 75 percent of the residential land area only permits uh single-family dwellings um you've probably seen this statistic before but there's a relatively even split between rentals and owner occupied units in the city but you can see that we have a a relatively lower number of middle housing it's at nine percent so

[263:01] obviously we've been looking at ways to try to get more middle housing again meaning duplexes triplexes quad plexes Townhomes so touching on the duplexes and triplexes discussion in the low density areas obviously we've heard a lot of public comments on this um when we discuss this with Council last time the number that we put out before Council was that we didn't really recommend it because there was only um a yield of about a hundred extra units but that number really focused on the RR and re zones that were the topics of large homes and lots and most of those units the one question that we posed to council back in 2018 was whether what kind of things could we do without having to to update the the bvcp um and one of the things we found is that the re Zone actually is the same land use designation as RL which is two

[264:02] to six dual units per acre so because of the larger lot sizes in re there actually could be more units in that zone so what we presented to council at that that time was that if Council agreed we could have changed the zoning to allow two units per lot in that zone without having to like change any of the land use designations and that actually would bring the potential for over 700 units additional units over time so we just wanted to make that clear that was something that council did not want to do back in 2018 so here we are we've also looked at the low density residential Zone which based on the lot sizes in that zone there's actually over 800 Lots in that zone that could potentially be subdivided today and a new single family detached unit added the reasons why they haven't been subdivided I think range from either a property owner just has elected to not

[265:01] subdivide their property or there might be some environmental constraints that make it harder to get another building site on that site but what we are presenting the council tonight is based on the re Zone and the RL Zone there's well over a thousand units that could be possible like potentially over time uh if we were to move forward with these changes so we did want to get some feedback from Council what we're proposing is if we did move forward with this change it would remove the prohibition of other housing types in the re and RL zone are all one zone and we could also apply the compatible development regulations to those so the same you know bulk parameters like solar access wall articulation setback and height restrictions lot coverage far would all apply to duplexes and triplexes the same way that they would apply to single-family homes so we'd like to get feedback from Council on that option

[266:01] Council had asked us last time to uh in addition to the zones that we looked at to look at additional high density residential zones to see if there's some barriers to additional units that we could remove so we have looked at all the high density residential zones so this shows a map of all the different zones in the city I'll try to go over this as quickly as possible but rh1 and rh2 are like the East Goss Grove and south of Arapahoe Goss Grove area near the university there are two different zoning districts but they have like pretty different zoning requirements their context and appearance is really close so we just thought that there could be a simplification in The Code by putting them lumping them into the same intensity module um getting rid of the 27 dwelling units per acre proposal and get rid of the the kind of unique ways that they dictate density they're by lot area by dwelling unit or open space by dwelling unit and

[267:00] basically changing that to a 0.67 far is what we're proposing to keep the scale consistent with the character of that area and then have a 40 lot open space per lot requirement again to keep that character intact rh1 rh2 and rh3 also have this mechanism in the code where if there's any requests for additional units on a site by reducing open space it automatically triggers planning Board review so we're proposing that we we remove that from the code to encourage more units um and basically just making rh3 for instance a base 30 open space requirement per lot which is what's in there today but the difference would be that there's 60 percent buy right and then to go to 30 you have to get planning board approval we'd be taking that part out rh4 would be changing the 1200 square

[268:00] foot of open space per dwelling unit to a site-wide far of 1.0 and a 30 open space on the lot requirement rh5 is the proposal is a 1.5 far with a 15 open space requirement per lot and also making it clear that any proposals to add generally a fourth or a fifth Story above 45 feet would automatically go to the 20 open space requirement that we already have in the code for those taller buildings um and again we're we're trying to show like a gradient of density that's generally consistent with the character uh that's in these areas we've looked at a number of different projects in these zones and they and some of them would be pretty consistent with these changes without the complexity that's currently in the code um some of these would be a little more restrictive um than than we've seen but we think that that might make sense in terms of the size of buildings we've seen in some of these zones and then lastly we're

[269:01] also looking at changing the threshold in these zones uh to be instead of the the two acre requirement or the 20 acre requirement that if there's any projects that are that are 100 metal housing that they would be exempt from site review again they might ask for modifications or height modifications and that would put them in site review but this would encourage people to look at buy right solutions to get middle housing without having to go through site reviews so we wanted to get feedback from Council on that the other thing I was just going to mention here is that we did not decide to recommend any changes to rh6 or rh7 largely because rh6 is a very small area in Boulder Junction that's already built out with town homes and rh7 is a very small area that's in Alpine Balsam that's in the process of actually getting designed we didn't want to throw in a last minute change to that so that's why we didn't include that so Community engagement on these topics

[270:01] we have heard from you know University adjacent neighborhoods and single family neighborhoods that are very concerned about the the prospect of any duplexes or triplexes in those neighborhoods we've we've seen that across the board um plan Boulder expressed concerns about these changes and that they feel that the single-family neighborhoods are going to be disproportionately impacted without getting actual affordability uh they feed that they feel that the deed restrictions should be part of this enforcement has not been effective and we've heard quotes that the city can't build itself out of the housing crisis we got interesting feedback from the community connectors and residents there wasn't as much uh support for smaller concentrated units they were concerned that it might create you know future ghettos if there's a concentration of particularly low quality type housing and that they felt that um from a

[271:01] cultural perspective it may not be preferable to get more smaller units so there was some resistance to that idea that we heard from their discussion uh in talking to the community leaders um there we've heard the concerns about adding duplexes and triplexes and that families are being driven out and that a lot of concerns about parking impacts when we shift to the be heard Boulder uh responses uh we we heard more feedback that was supportive of uh duplexes and triplexes if you look in the packet and attachment C it comes to about 60 percent um and then that um that's for adding housing in the commercial area so um in like RH zones and BC zones and BR zones when we talk about the duplexes triplexes there's a little bit less support for that but uh more than half um and it shows it showed 45 against

[272:01] um it was more mixed when it came down to the parking requirements even the community connectors in Residence was more dubious of lowering parking requirements for deed restricted affordable they felt that that was not necessarily fair and that should be an amenity so there was some concern expressed on parking on that front so we went to housing Advisory board on March 22nd uh have supported all the staff recommended options they expressed some disappointment that we could not increase densities in the single-family zones at this time but they did show support that we should be looking at that in the future if there's going to be a bvcp update to kind of kind of change the vision for certain areas to get different housing they showed support for that they felt that there should be more aggressive parking reduction changes than what we were proposing when we talked to planting Bart on April 18th most of the board supported the

[273:01] staff recommended options including the the parking changes there were three board members that expressed support for allowing duplexes and triplexes in single-family areas there was one board member that felt that we didn't go far enough on that front there were two board members that were more cautious of the changes and they cited a number of different concerns that there was no data supporting how these changes would help in commuters that there should be if there's our if there are any far increases that that should be tied to missing middle housing um there were concerns about increasing the number of renters in the community the driving out of families and that there should be a focus of the city to get more homeowners there was a lot of concern about open space requirements being reduced um and then a lot of concern related to the duplexes and triplexes in single-family neighborhoods citing that you know Property Owners bought their

[274:00] homes with the expectation that they're the character of their neighbors would not change and this would be a substantial change to those neighborhoods and that concludes this segment of the of the discussion okay I'm sorry can I just intercheck something too if if I may piggyback on Carl's presentation uh Mr Mayor yes go ahead um I I think because this was at the very beginning of the of the presentation and we've gone through a lot of detail it might be useful to kind of scale back again to why we're here and um I'll remind you that this initiative that was undertaken a council's direction was Zoning for affordability and really that's translated as you've seen tonight to Zoning for higher density as I expressed earlier reasonable people can debate about that relationship between affordability and density but um I do want to just highlight the

[275:01] fact that what we have taken is an example from a couple years ago in diagonal Plaza and tried to pull out simple uh quote unquote simple at least in our world uh tweaks that can make be made to the zoning code that would achieve council's goals in that regard these are admittedly modest and incremental goals and and by Design they're not so broad that they would have a dramatic impact either on neighboring uses or on the properties themselves and that's because we we really undertook a process of um more informing folks or anticipating informing folks rather than a broad engagement that a wholesale set of zoning changes would need to take that would probably need to also be accompanied by a comprehensive plan kind of discussions as well so I just wanted to bring us back to that initial direction from Council in your retreat and setting this as a priority so thank you okay very good Brad I'd like to

[276:02] break this into two chunks if I could the which is about the high density residential Zone measurement changes and then the duplex Triplex thing so if we could do the the high density residential ones first so I wanted to maybe we can take this first and then look at the duplex triflex do people have any questions about these RH sound changes yeah I got Tara then Bob Carl can you go over one more time how the community connectors felt about these changes I just wanted to be really understand it I don't know that they spoke specifically to each of the zones I think there was just a a concern about moving in the direction of of cramming units in in a way that's not done well they said they they didn't

[277:02] support we were trying to represent it like affordable housing but they they didn't want cheap housing you know and there was a strong reaction to that so as long as it's done well I think maybe there might have been more support but I think I sense that um a lot of them you know wanted people to have the American dream and that they felt like they were excluded from that historically and Brenda do you want to weigh in tell me the support yeah so I um if you could identify Brenda right now our community engagement manager I worked with Carl on community engagement for this project so I was sitting by his side for many of these conversations um he's doing a great job representing I just also wanted to make sure we got in a point that we heard very vehemently and eloquently about how families like to gather and it being sort of specific to ethnic and racial cultures that they

[278:03] gather in large groups and families so they want to bring their Elders together they want to bring their their blood and adopted families together on a regular basis to spend time and they can't do that in small dwellings and and he really spoke about how that how it seeds mental health issues to not be able to do that and so while there is more opportunity for housing that can be afforded by different types of people it's not the kind of housing that they want to live in the follow-up question um part of the the kind of magic that I see potentially in duplexes is that like my parents or kids could live on one side and I could live on the other was that discussed at all not specifically no okay thanks thank you thanks for that Brenda did you get your question answered and also did you want to talk about the park parking element of what they discussed or do you want to do that in the next section

[279:00] no I think it's appropriate to say it now I I think um we've heard nationally and in a lot of analogs that um there's a push to reduce parking especially for affordable units but but I think they reacted to you know what what if that means I don't have any parking or why do I not get a parking space and I think there was a concern about that concept that parking you know already smaller units may not have as many amenities and you're not going to have parking with that too like that could be concerning and that you know it could there could be some impacts from not having enough parking but final question these changes aren't proposing reduced parking for affordable units or anything like that no we had recommended against that when we talked about it in March and and Council didn't advise us to move in that direction thanks to jeromethians Bob and then Mark um yeah doing RH first Martin

[280:04] sorry about that um just a question can you define you use the term middle housing in in the staff materials can you define what middle housing that's different from um [Music] little income housing yeah it's it's basically um there's a a graphic I wish I could pull up at the moment but it basically shows different housing types ranging from a single family house up to a multi-story building and I think throughout the country we have a prevalence of single-family homes and we also are now seeing a prevalence of attached stacked apartment buildings and condos multi-level buildings we're not getting so much of of what's in between which is duplexes triplexes quad plexes and Townhomes or

[281:00] row homes um we did get those you know very far in the past but I think a lot of American communities are having trouble encouraging that housing type so I think looking at creative ways of trying to get more of that and it tends to be more smaller sized units kind of done at a scale that may be more appropriate for single family areas so that's why it's been looked at as a solution to you know some of the housing crisis issues well it's based on typology rather than price yeah it's typology so would you actually include a you know a 1.9 million dollar townhouse on Pearl as middle housing I mean we've got a lot of that and some of and that's actually not a very high number for some of the um Townhomes we've seen would those be considered middle housing I mean technically like as a housing type it is considered middle housing

[282:00] well no it has nothing to do with price right it's just about the housing typology that's right I'm simply saying it's kind of a loose definition and a little bit misleading people think of mental housing as kind of middle income housing and this is the furthest thing from that in a lot of situations not all I think it's missing middlehousing.com or something it has a really good graphic that illustrates what I was describing okay okay uh Rachel and then Lauren just one question on um and you may have defined this earlier I'm sorry but when you say community leaders feedback who was who are Community leaders Community leaders is just a A variation of either neighborhood Representatives or organizations uh related to um a lot of suggested uh organizations that were suggested by council members to reach out to we get there were groups that didn't fit into the just University or just single family but it was a number

[283:01] of different organizations that we reached out to and just to have a a conversation okay because some orgs some organizations got like identified but then there were just some that are grouped in under Community leaders and I just also wanted to say um this is a hard topic this and occupancy and um I think that you are getting the the alliance share of uh email and feedback on it so I just um this isn't a question I just want to say thank you for for standing into that line of fire for us I know that um you're doing what we have asked you to do and uh it's not like you're going rogue or something so I would also just remind the community when this comes up in August again and in between now and then if you want to email Carl's probably not the the guy that you want to be attacking it's it's Benjamin well I'll note that it's in addition to angry Community groups and upset emails Carl also has to deal with attack mice

[284:01] I'll just saying uh myself and maybe my colleagues will always take the ire of the community versus it going to staff for sure so that that is an absolute so Lauren thank you um I had a question so in the BRC 9-8-2 we have a table eight two that is about far editions and in that almost all of our current zones have exemptions for underground area and parking area um do we anticipate that these zones that we're talking about would be included or would also be included in that table and have those kinds of exemptions it'd be great to get feedback on that but I think we are thinking of adding some columns and

[285:01] putting you know parking as not counted but yeah some feedback on that would be helpful I would support it as being treated the same as our other zones and having those exclusions quick straw poll I don't learn you might need to articulate it okay so in other zones where we decide um where we the Restriction it for building size is based on floor area ratio there is a table in our code that lists exemptions that don't count towards the floor area ratio those pretty much across all of our current zoning districts in that table include an exemption for areas that are underground and area and parking areas

[286:02] yeah it's enclosed parking areas so the the thinking behind it is that if you don't penalize a designer of a building or developer it encourages them to enclose the parking so it's not visible on the site it does it can at time you can add to the mass but it's preferred that the parking be um within the building rather than in front of the building or visible without those exemptions some of these changes could be considered fairly considerable down zones and would actually potentially reduce the buildable area on these Lots rather than allowing it to be the same as what is currently allowed so you're saying these zones would need to be added into those that allow for those exemptions yeah basically that would be true of with the floor area numbers that we're looking at for the majority for

[287:02] basically all of the zones that we're talking about both tonight and that we've talked about in previous meetings if those exemptions aren't maintained the far numbers that we're talking about could be down zones so the the suggestion is to add these additional zones to the ones that would be allowed these exemptions is that good enough for people to consider and I might add that um in the thinking of this rh1 and rh2 are thinking is a little bit different just because the the context of of the Goss Grove area is different than some of the other areas so I think my thinking was that we would include the parking in the far in that area but not in the other RH zones most of the projects that I looked at would fit within that but I think in that area it's particularly important to make sure the scale fits you know with the existing neighborhood character because that area isn't a

[288:01] significant flood zone you would be challenged to do either underground or have enough residential space to wrap the any parking area on the first floor without having significant flood issues so perhaps we could straw poll moving forward with adding exemptions but with careful analysis on a person basis and bring us back recommendation all in favor chattering over there okay that's okay I think that's everybody so Carl we got some direction there Carl thank you and if we're if we're done with questions on these we can go to comments I'll just throw out that I I asked for some of this and I really appreciate how you carried this out this was exactly the kind of thoughtful Zone specific kind of suggested change that I was hoping for so I think you did an amazing job here really grateful and I think this is a good way of moving forward anybody want to disagree

[289:03] okay then I'll just do a straw plot where people generally in favor of this these arches and change our H7 changes drop Will for up a hand I got I got eight nine got nine okay great so what may be a slightly broader discussion on duplexes and triplexes in r r e and RL and start with clarifying questions Bob I got one yeah just clarifying question Carl thanks for the calculation on on uh the potential for a thousand units over time um just roughly I don't know you probably don't know this precisely but roughly of these thousand potentially new units how many of them would be could be um added to vacant Lots in other words how many of these are just lots that you say oh geez there's a vacant lot there a duplex or Triplex to go in there there's two or three new units versus places where houses are already built already exist right now and to convert them to a duplex or Triplex would either require a

[290:01] substantial modification to the structure or actually tear down in a rebuild my guess is that it's not vacant Lots we also have provisions of like vacant Lots if they're substandard in size the code actually says that it joins the neighboring lot if it's the same ownership so I think it's it's lots that have houses on them so um the the guess is that you know some of these might be environmentally constrained with slope and that might be the reason why they have not subdivided so um for instance if you have a lot that's double the lot size and there's like slope in the back because you can't get another building site if these changes were to move forward it would enable that house to be modified to become a duplex or they might rebuild it as a duplex so you could get a housing unit there that you wouldn't otherwise have gotten because of the the constraints so vast majority nearly all are would be conversions of existing structure or

[291:01] replacement existing structures as opposed to just people putting duplexes on vacant Lots right with a few exceptions yeah and second um of my two questions is um we already allow this in a lot of we're just expanding what's an existing rule into the RH and RLS and res is that right um right now in the r r e and RL one zone it's only single family that are allowed rl2 does permit townhomes and attached um so that's the outlier this change would kind of bring those in line with rl2 well I wasn't so much for example on the rr's res and RLS with whatever numbers attached to them but but all other zoning districts I mean are if the lot size is big enough our duplexes allowed in some of these other districts yes how many of those do we see a year I mean is this like five a year or 50 a year just give me an order of magnitude of duplexes yeah people duplex triplexes

[292:00] where people are either building a brand new one or or they're taking an existing structure and and converting it to a duplex Triplex I don't know that I have a definitive number of that but I mean I can think I look at building permits and we do see duplexes and and triplexes I can think of one you know on in Whittier area I'm just asking for a number of digits I'm not asking for like is it single digits double digits hundreds like you know this is per year I would say double digits double digits okay thanks that's that's all I was looking for I'm calling myself with a question on the did I understand that this would be based on lot size where this would be allowed and would be that would be the same minimum lot size in all of these zones is that what you're proposing yeah I think the proposal is to keep the same minimum lot size but it would just be changing it would basically be removing the prohibition on duplexes and triplexes

[293:04] um but you would have to have a certain land area the same as the current regulations so for instance in RL it's a 7 000 square foot per lot per per unit requirement so if there's a lot that today has 14 000 square feet they could legally subdivide and add a new single-family house the change that's proposed here would be that in lieu of that you don't have to subdivide you could just convert that house to a duplex or build a duplex got it so in other words the seven thousand square foot per unit would still apply it would still apply right but you would have duplexes as an allowed use but you would only be able to do one if you're lot size were fourteen thousand correct and what is it in the RR and re for the yeah the RR Zone actually has a minimum lot size of 30 000 square feet so if you do a duplex you'd have to do you'd have to have sixty thousand

[294:01] sixty thousand square feet I was thinking about the lottery per dwelling unit Lauren can I show this Lauren has this amazing spreadsheet here let's check this out this is a is a high level of land use nerdery over here um so she was able to give me the the answer pretty quickly here Okay so so it would be in kind of limited circumstances on larger Lots and yeah I mean when we looked at the RR zones I probably have the numbers here somewhere but it was like double digits how many could be added in the RR zones I think uh oh it's not even that like it would be like less than 20 and like RR and and I guess then that that leads me to not a technical question but a messaging question about the like if we say okay if the the code changes allow duplexes in RR what you know there's certain land area

[295:01] in that but the number of places you could actually do one is like seven how do we get a message that because sometimes people in the community get sensitive about these things I don't know do you would how would we maybe message that I don't know if that's a good question for you or for Brenda or something I mean we we would use all the same channels that we use now to get the word out as we move forward with the ordinance and if people have questions we help them with that we do the office hours if they want to come in we update our website um I mean it is kind of a silly question and so yeah point taken we would try to communicate it to people like we always do okay thank you for that it's getting late uh any other questions yeah Rachel just a colloquy on that it was was that the same in the 2018 proposal that you had that 60 000 minimum for whatever yeah RR yeah for if you want to do a duplex yeah okay thanks the the point that I

[296:00] that I've been trying to make is like with re um the thing about RR is it has a land use designation of no more than two dwelling units per acre r e and RL allow up to six dwelling units per acre it's just that the way re has been um developed it has a minimum lot size of 15 000 square feet so if we were to move forward with this change if if the council wanted it to move in this direction is that the the the the potential an re would be pretty substantial so that that's the Zone where you could get over 700 units potentially over time again not you know people could convert because they have a number of lots of 30 000 square feet or more well in re it's like if you have 15 000 square feet you could do a duplex but they have a minimum lot area per dwelling you know fifteen thousand so wouldn't you need thirty thousand but what I'm saying is that the the land use

[297:00] does it what we're trying to propose things that are consistent with the land use designation and the BV CP so um because re has the same land use designation as RL you you could actually technically change the zoning to enable two units on a 15 000 Square Foot Locker well the I guess I misunderstood the answer to my earlier question because I had thought that you were talking about like making duplexes in allowed use but that it would still be subject to the same minimum lot area per dwelling unit as it is currently is that not what you're saying for for RL and RR but re that is where there's that potential where we could change that in the zoning code without doing a um land use change so the question is in re are you thinking about changing the minimum lot area per dwelling unit then yeah got it so then it would be 15 000 square feet would be the for for two units sorry it could be like you have to have 3 500 square feet per unit

[298:01] I guess I haven't seen any other questions okay we got another question I'll follow up on this in a comment we have this really interesting email from somebody in the community who strongly supports duplexes but uh said that he has one suggests that might assuage many of the conservatives of the residents require that one of the units be occupied by the authentic owner of any property converted from single to multi-family housing this requirement could sense it after five years or ten of occupation of that property the purpose is to prevent real estate speculation of well-funded corporate real estate funds who would otherwise Sue about properties and build rental properties of low quality so my question is I do have a question sure excellent yeah is is there some of the community members in their letters said that they were concerned that duplexes would not be affordable so of course they would be more affordable than

[299:01] single-family homes but let's say in that one of the expensive neighborhoods by Chautauqua maybe they'd be 1.5 to 2 million for just a duplex right so is there a way to is there any guardrails we can have on the duplex situation where we could make sure maybe that their owner occupied and then Rachel could have her um parents live next door and live happily ever after Rachel do you have any colloquies to that it was really kind of her idea I'm just I it's true I did suggest this to Tara prior to that email coming in from a Community member so if this is a question I don't know how to colloquy a question um on that but I guess yeah is that a would staff consider that a feasible route for us to look at yeah for and I don't know that it's specific to the rrre and RL conversation though because I think that one maybe gets to move forward and then separately as we look at perhaps a broader swath I think when we get into like requirements about

[300:01] owner occupancy or deed restriction it gets really complex so there would have to be a review process for that so then we're starting to go down the road of it it's not really you know incentivizing it and it also adds to kind of the number of applications that we have to review and they have to be like monitored over time so it's not something that we would I think recommend and um I don't think it's something that would be easily figured out in the timeline of this project do you know if that's something that other cities do I've never heard of that as a and I'm not saying that this is a good idea necessarily but could you say rather than say it must be owner occupied could you say that you wouldn't Grant a rental license in a newly constructed duplex and unless the other unit was owner occupied yeah I don't know that I know the answer to that I mean it sounds like there's some legal you know implications of that or I don't know fair housing or

[301:07] um it strikes me that that is fairly similar to what we do already right now with adus which are functionally a second unit so it the two of us think it's possible but we can look into it uh please please step up to Mike and identify yourself General used to be specialist but not um so we already do that with the adus we require one unit to be owner occupied it at any time it doesn't have to be the main unit it can be the Adu um but it has to be it has to meet principal residency requirements for one of those units for a year it also can't be a rental in and of itself you can rent one one part of the property but not the the owner

[302:00] occupied unit and then the way that we um have that written in the code is is that it has to be on or occupied and then we follow that up with a dou which is a declaration of use at the time of uh uh granting the Adu um to the property and then that Declaration of use just continues on with the property it used to be that it um was specific to the owner and they had to transfer that over but now they the do you just continues on so it's good to have an expert in the house okay thanks for that add one more thing to that which is I don't know that it's only um helpful at preventing it from becoming a rental but I think it also may help the situation where you know you've got developers coming in buying up properties which is another concern that people have and then flipping them like if you are redeveloping your own property lit to live in half of it chances are it's it's going to be more

[303:01] um middle income to to Mark Wallace or or you know probably a a less fancy unit perhaps like if I personally were doing it I don't have six million dollars to to redevelop two halves of an Adu the way a developer might so I think it could also Drive costs down I've had mark for a little while and then Mark you got yeah no have we again the goal is affordability have we done much analysis as to what um a duplex or even a Triplex will look like in in terms of um cost to a buyer um Lauren may have better information than I do in terms of current you know hard construction costs but I know BHP does it you know uses 400 plus per square foot and if you're buying a house for a million two or a million four and you're you know creating a duplex of two 15 or 1700 square foot units I mean you're not

[304:03] getting uh anything that's going to be less than you know one point three four five million dollars um I I'm not quite sure what what advantage we're getting uh unless we have some sort of requirement for affordability or you know we're doing what you know accommodating Rachel and her family which I think is a different circumstance but have we done any analysis you know what kind of product are we going to get here we're certainly not going to get 650 000 duplexes uh we don't we don't have that analysis all we have is that you know like was stated before like typically a duplex is going to be smaller in size comparatively to a single family home and that extent more affordable but it doesn't mean we're not going to get you know very expensive duplexes yeah again you know my history look at it is you're going to get a thousand

[305:00] dollar per square foot properties which is like condos and I I that's fine it's a product type but I don't know that we're achieving the basic objective and it would be nice if somebody could look at it and say oh say that I'm wrong and you don't know we're going to get really affordable seven eight even nine hundred thousand dollar duplexes um I I see no indication that that's going to be the case now not at the numbers we're looking at and again I would defer to Lauren if she's got a different sense of you know what the numbers are for a hard cost of construction and soft costs and um by the time you're done you might even want to make a little money um you know if you're a developer it gets to be a pretty expensive duplex can I call a queen um you know largely when we're talking about duplexes with the exemption of the re

[306:00] Zone these are all Lots that could be subdivided so I think that the the like developer risk um of creating a lot of duplexes is not um very common in my experience these larger Lots typically have a premium associated with them just because there aren't that many large Lots in Boulder and I think that because they could currently be subdivided and have two units and they haven't been there's reasons for that the people who own them don't want to do that they're not in locations that make sense for that I think that this that changing it to allow duplexes or triplexes is beneficial in that

[307:00] if the economy changes and it makes sense to develop these as duplexes you won't have people because typically the house is going to be sort of in the middle of the lot and you won't have people tearing down the existing house and subdividing the property to do two new houses you know there's actually some it allows a little bit more flexibility flexibility but I would say that I don't see this having a really strong uptake very quickly because of some of the other Market factors at Play that might be a little bit different in Ari because we would be changing what the minimum lot size requirement is um but I don't I still don't anticipate that it would be um probably a large shift I would be interested in seeing us as part of a future work program or work effort look at if there are ways that we

[308:02] can flexibly do duplexes or triplexes in other areas of town not just on these very large Lots don't know that that fits in line or what we're looking at right now that is something I would be interested in exploring having seeing what staff would come up with to and exploring that more okay thanks and I think we're in questions right now so I got Lauren and then Matt Lauren Nicole and then Matt yeah um yeah just in this question around kind of affordability you had linked a handful of really interesting research articles in the memo and looking at those and I just want to check my understanding of this what I was kind of getting from the the research papers was that

[309:00] adding more homes is never going to meet the needs of the lowest income members of our community and basically suggesting it would be foolish for us to think that it will um so as I read the papers it's more uh we're working on creating more affordability for 20 30 years from now with some of these zoning changes and that if we're interested in affordability for now we need to look at something like a different mechanism because that's not what this is targeted to do this is for future affordability not necessarily for right now and so my question is did I interpret that correctly from from kind of those papers that you had linked yeah that was what I derived from from some of the studies that just adding to supply over time it's not going to be an immediate but the more options that there are that that will affect price over time yes

[310:00] my question is you know it's probably intentional but um it seems like the comp plan is what is holding us back from meeting the needs of our community so my question centers around can't we get ahead of the comp plan in some ways where we can move the needle and then let the comp plan catch up to us um I know it's a guiding document but is it centered in Absolute Concrete and so I'm kind of curious about is there flexibility where we know where we're headed and we can just start marching there um knowing where we're headed with the comp plan conversation where we want to take our community and so I'm just worried about this sort of like we're held up held up we have to do it and then we launch forward and we're just missing time to make the changes that the community is craving so because some of this just seems like we're held up by the comp plan and I'm wondering how do we how do we how do we move sure okay

[311:01] you know um I think it's important to to recognize that the comprehensive plan is is so named because it does tie pieces together that are integral and and when we look at just one element like density without respect to Service delivery infrastructure delivery those types of things then we start to get out ahead of ourselves and so I think we've been very careful in in making sure that the types of things we're bringing forward under the current known circumstances that were defined under the the latest update to the comprehensive plan are are doable and within the span of that um so I I don't know that uh the comp I would agree quite with the characterization that the comprehensive plan is holding us back so much as it is the vision that it's intended to be moving forward but that vision is comprehensive in doing analysis of

[312:00] things like Stewart and storm water and school and fire capacity and all the things that we look at so I don't know if that helps kind of frame the issue a little bit differently I I I say it and it's maybe partially rhetorical I guess it's just because you know something like just saying let's just allow duplexes on Corner Lots can't even like make like the initial step right and that's the thing is we can't they increment ability to do that is sort of Almost Dead on Arrival because of the nature of the complaint so I'm I guess what I'm trying to get to is I like what this is headed and the question is this is a I mean this is a good phase one but can we start to Define what phase two is uh and building to that and I guess there just seems to be something left here that that is and it kind of goes to Lauren's point of there's a there's Association for the next and and there's an this is good but it still feels inadequate to the goals that we set up at our Retreat and so how

[313:01] do we fulfill that yeah I do want to assure counsel that through all of these conversations you know we we put these in a a box so to speak recognizing that this is the next generation of discussion um we are we are working with the admittedly limited scope that was defined and and and and and doable with what we have but that certainly doesn't preclude uh the reality that we're thinking about these things and teeing them up as uh expectations for how we lead into say the next comprehensive Plan update and I I don't know did we give you the memo on that time frame yet I know we've got that coming out very soon but before you answer that question sorry to interrupt but I haven't been doing timing checks because we just got to get through this tonight but we do need a motion to continue to continue the meeting I make a motion to continue second my positive votes can be contingent Upon Us focusing on the task at hand because we're getting a little bit off the point here yeah I mean it's

[314:02] just but Lauren brought up a point and I'm like I'd love to want something substantive versus this potential potential it's known I mean it's good work it's where we head I just I'd love to hang my hat on something than potential point take it we'll get so we had a motion potential with the further potential no I got a motion on the table you know there's potential potential potential uh all in favor of continuing the meeting raise your hand right I got I got nine uh so uh continue yeah yeah so all that to say is uh please be assured that this isn't falling on tough years we're trying to frame those things for future discussions and uh future capacity um and future analysis please it's just one second So within the future talks that we do have what are what do you think about decreasing the lot size let's say to in the ro1 for example to six

[315:01] thousand so that we I just think a lot of people like the fam the single family Zone look so maybe if we decrease the lot sizes we can get more houses into those um it you know what I'm saying colically for me well I would just I would just say that that might be possible but it's it isn't where it's on the table in front of us I let Matt get a little bit of field and now yeah continue to go afield those are the types of things we're bringing for consideration to yeah yeah okay so thank you for that so if we can move to discussion now if we could about whether people are interested in pursuing um this change about allowing duplexes and triplexes and some of these zones on larger Lots but yeah yeah I appreciate the work staff's doing on this and you know you heard us and you started to work and you've come up

[316:00] against time and other you know really legal constraints and procedural ones I think you're hearing there's a clamoring for more and and not just a little bit and so you said we you said that it's been heard and I just I think just putting it out in The Ether I like where this is at but really need to think next steps bold next steps and hopefully that really sets up really big visioning for what we can do in the comp plan as that ball starts to roll so I know that's going to be what it unfurls the bottleneck here so but thank you guys for the great words was that a yes on what's in front of us yeah okay Rachel then Nicole couple things I um I really like feel the love for my parents all night there's a lot of references to uh Ruth and George I I am not actually eligible for for duplexing under the current plan for the record but um yes I support I want to just reiterate like just part of why I

[317:00] support duplexing and triplexing not just here but in general um I think it is awesome potential for flexibility for multi-generational living which is um I am at that age where I guess I'm in a sandwich situation where both my parents and my kids um I would like to have closer and be able to uh I guess pool Resources with I also have heard from um people who have kids with like developmental disabilities and caretakers that it would be awesome to be able to build a unit where their kid could live on one side and they with a caretaker and they can live on the other so I know there's fear about it but the the situation that I really like and I would be fine with us focusing and and humming in on on you know a situation where it's not for developers but it really is for um two couples who are friends who who you know want to be able to live in Boulder in their own space would make

[318:02] something into a duplex uh the other thing that I just wanna reiterate is that a lot of houses including a lot in my neighborhood are at the end of their useful lifespan and they are going to turn over I think the question is not um you know do we want duplexes in general it's when those houses do do turn over do we want a single family home there or do we want something that is going to Nicole's point be more affordable 30 years from now and and I'm an enthusiastic yes on building in future affordability that we failed to do 50 years ago and not letting more time pass before we get to that and yes it might be a million dollars but it's not a 2.5 million that's still better Nicole and Lauren I'm just going to say yes and amen to what Rachel just said and I just also wanted to take this opportunity to just thank you Carl and Brenda for the engagement I had asked to you know get some feedback from renters

[319:01] students people who struggle with housing costs and you really hit it out of the park and got us some really valuable feedback that I'm going to be carrying forward as we continue these discussions so thank you thank you thank you and also just want to Echo Rachel on Carl I'm sorry that you've been taking the brunt of this we gave you a hot potato it's not your fault you have it but thank you for for doing that and please Community get mad at us that match let's go off disqualified if you're going to get mad get mad at us but it's not necessarily required uh Lauren thank you and by this point you're probably regretting that you brought this option forward to us um but no I I do appreciate it I think what Rachel said is really true that we are going to see a lot of turnover in you know certain kinds of housing around town and the question is not if if it's

[320:01] going to be replaced but what it's going to be replaced with and it's not just that it would be replaced with another single family home but also a fairly large single family home right now we don't have anything that differentiates between the amount of floor area you could build for a single family home or for a duplex so you were by allowing a duplex you're literally allowing the option for not just closer living but more sustainable living with half the floor area so I appreciate you bringing this forward and I support it and we don't have to no no no no we don't we don't have to so um I'll I'll just call myself and say uh agree with the colleagues who've spoken so far um and Rachel is particularly well put and this would be an incremental step and I just wanted to real quickly from the history um very quickly but when we took this up before it was about uh because of scrapes on some of these large lots and these absolutely enormous homes that are

[321:00] getting built mostly in uh North Boulder you know four and a half five million dollar homes and about providing alternatives to those enormous extremely expensive homes and I was sad that we dropped it back in 2018 and so it's worth picking back up again all right um we can do a straw poll if nobody else wants to raise their hand and say who's who's interested in carrying this forward in favor we've got uh we got eight we got eight in favor of carrying this forward so uh Carl's at good enough feedback yes thank you okay very good one more section it's much shorter yes presidential growth management you can be real quick on this one because I think we've read the packet okay so uh we passed the residential growth management back in the 70s based on the Danish plan it's a chapter in our land use code right now it basically limits the number of residential units per one percent of the existing housing stock per year you can see the purpose there

[322:02] it's one thing that we have to look at with every building permit a growth allocation has to be approved with every residential building permit that comes in so it's a procedural thing that we do and then in May of this year the Colorado legislature passed House Bill 23 1255 which basically prohibits such a program so the law is intended just like we're talking about removing zoning and land use barriers to new housing so it actually goes into effect on August 6th so um before the council is should we move forward with an ordinance to repeal that chapter of the code and the one thing we wanted to make clear to the council is that there's a one percent cap but there are a number of types of units that are exempt from included in that one percent so affordable units mixed use units units that are on commercial or industrial sites are exempt from being

[323:00] included in that but the other thing we wanted to point out is that even if you did include all of those units which are the majority of the units it still averages under one percent anyway so we're not really seeing you know much of a impact from this chapter so we're we're trying to get feedback from Council if if there's a you know thumbs up to move forward with an ordinance to comply with the state law so clarifying question you said not much impact I mean I think is it a true statement to say that it's had zero impact in the last 10 or maybe even 20 years that's right yeah okay are people comfortable we were required to remove this are people comfortable this taking the step to remove it that's everybody there's Jenny yep that's that's a nine so yes great anything else that's it do you have any more mice over there uh no not that I've noticed um I just wanna

[324:00] foreign like we I want to say this right we hear where you want to go we hear the sense of urgency to change what has been Decades of a particular direction we understand that there is a desire to continue to push and I want to thank Brad and Carl and the entire team I know certainly pnds and behind that there are lawyers in their Community engagement and there's a variety of other folks that do that work and want to just say that the that staff has been working really really hard to land your Council priorities this year and so that is part of the reason for narrowing some of the Scopes that they can actually say yes we've accomplished this incremental step and we are continuing to hear from Council where you'd like us to go next and so it is not um it is not falling on deaf ears as we continue to do that work and just wanted to lift all of that up and and that work has been heroic I mean like this is really detailed you did a lot of community engagement you came up with

[325:00] these various specific detailed proposals so Carl you're a rock star as is the rest of the team who's been working on this so I really appreciate that but we have a troublemaker in the room which is learn folkward who has something else to say I'm sorry I was trying to find a spot to slip these in earlier as I was talking to people about some of these changes in the RH and um other zones um some of the ones that we had previously looked at came up um specifically around some of the things that we and I think this resonates with some of the interests that people had for instance in the IG Zone um if we're entirely basing this off of far and like 100 residential would be allowed you might see a loss of commercial and industrial space and so I was wondering if we might be able to look at as you go forward maybe a bonus

[326:00] for residential or sorry for commercial or industrial space within that for instance if it had a base far of 1.25 we could do like a 0.25 bonus for particular kinds of use to help ensure that those uses continue to exist in that zone we can look at that and then I had one other which was in the bc1 bc2 zone because all of this sort of started by talking about diagonal Plaza and what was allowed there so diagonal Plaza is a um is actually what's currently proposed is a 1.7 far and I think what we're looking for that area is a 1.5 I know that there are some bc1 bc2 zones that are a little bit more residential in character but there was a thought about maybe we have appendix n which is a map that

[327:01] specifically calls out some retail centers like Baseline Williams Village Table Mesa are commercial centers and so maybe there's an overlay for that where in alignment with appendix and we get a 0.25 bonus in far so that the far aligns more with the character of the communities in which those BC zones are located in is that something we could also potentially look at or that there might be support for I think you may have exceeded our capacity at 11 24 Lauren with those very detailed proposals I'm sorry but I I wonder if maybe you could follow up with an email with Carl yeah maybe you all can chat a little bit offline and maybe that's something potentially could be considered as a next iteration that sounds fantastic thank you all I want to hear more about the RH flood issue too that would be helpful so things to talk about Perfect all right

[328:00] any other further thoughts anyone else want to consider an far bonus for anything else going once going twice all right thanks everybody for a good meeting close us out at 11 23 pm we were doing [Music] foreign [Music]