July 27, 2023 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[6:05] foreign ER city council oh Emily's got the recording going this way I'm going to start again good evening and welcome to tonight's study session of the Boulder City Council on July 27 2023 I am council member Weiner and thank you so much for joining us we have on tonight's agenda two items our first item will be the update on police oversight ordinance revision process and our second item is the use table and standards update and discussion on Neighborhood Center changes before we go into our work items I would like to outline how the meeting will be conducted we will review staff's presentation for each of the items and then we will have a time for questions at the end of the presentation we will conduct our Council discussion with staff if you have any questions please wait for staff to complete their presentation we will now turn to our

[7:02] city manager Nuria Rivera vandermeid to introduce our first item thank you so much council member um super excited to have a quick update on the efforts we have been having regarding the police oversight ordinance revisions I know police oversight has been a topic in our community and amongst Council uh for a while now and we embarked on um a review of our current ordinances to see what changes we needed what tweaks we needed to do and hopefully also identifying where the areas that the ordinance serves us well as we move forward I have had the great privilege of working with our consultant Miss Fara muscadin in Austin she was the oversight director in Austin and while I tried to get her mightily to come work for us the best we can do was get her in a Consulting role and so you'll hear from

[8:00] pharah some of the conversations she's been having both with the panel but with a broader uh stakeholder group and in community so with that Farah I will pass baton over to you if you can introduce yourselves and take it away good evening everyone thank you Nuria for the introduction again my name is Vera muscadin and consultant for the city as it relates to police oversight and a few other items particularly with your um forthcoming independent police monitor I am very happy to be here to give you an update on the work that we've been doing so far um as you know I came on board um in about a February and initially I had lots of conversations with Community current and former council members former and current panel members um I the task force members various Community organizations and it was really important that I had those preliminary conversations to kind of see

[9:00] the landscape of oversight in um in Boulder before you know I dived in and rolled up the sleeves to see kind of what the areas were that we needed to address so my presentation essentially takes you from where nice came on board in February to our present present present position right now and Nuri I I believe staff is going to pull up the slides or should I pull them oh Emily is on it thank you Pharaoh thank you thank you Emily um so if we could go to the next slide please so in today's presentation I'm going to discuss the preliminary observations that I've had and this is primarily um from February March April when I first came on board and all the conversations that I had um then we'll go into Community feedback particularly um feedback that I had from all those various stakeholders that I spoke to initially and then in collaboration with the police oversight panel and the city

[10:00] there was a community event on June 21st and just going to highlight some feedback from that event and then go into the police oversight work group we've been we've had several meetings and have made some significant progress so giving you an overview of that timeline on where we're at where we're going next steps for the work particularly around the police oversight ordinance revision and then concluding with questions and discussion from you council members next slide please um so again um when I first came on I attended some trainings with the panel I did a ride along I talked to several again current and former panel members I had meetings with the chief and then also with the Professional Standards unit just to really get an understanding of Boulder it's really a police oversight is very specific to the community um and and you don't necessarily want to

[11:00] go in with any sort of assumption so I really wanted to come in and be a sponge and learn as much as I can about not only Boulder but also the system and so time participating in panel meetings watching panel meetings and really understanding the landscape um and so these are my preliminary observations just from those first couple of months of being on on board um and you know the the the independent monitor um being on the panel um I I would recommend changing that and making them more of a liaison there really isn't a need for the the monitor be to be on the panel and obviously I came in shortly after um some a particular some piano members were appointed so obviously the selection process was a big conversation during that time and so there were some particular observations that I made about that um and then defining the scope of the panel particularly around um allegations of police misconduct and

[12:02] what their role is in terms of making recommendations around policy and training for the police department I think it's really important that we formalize an onboarding process so that the new uh panel members are given a lot of support and information and grounding and civilian oversight in the process um and really really setting a framework where whenever new panel members come on board this is what happened and ensuring that it's pretty systematic in terms of the training and that process um I also think particularly when there there's work in a departmental work that having a standard operating procedure is important so that expectations are managed and we are all on the same page so um having a standing operating procedure with the panel and the police department and particularly maybe with the Monitor and the police department

[13:00] just to understand processes in terms of onboarding training case assignment case review how you know discipline recommendations how those are going to handle and that's in my opinion more appropriate for standing operating procedure because you don't necessarily you want the ordinance to give guidance but you don't want it to be too prescriptive and so some of those details are really more appropriate in a standing operating procedure the other observation that has is clarifying the type of data and the format that the panel request that it that comes from the police department and then ensuring that there's a formal ongoing training for panel members initially it can be a bit overwhelming for panda members when they come on because it's a lot of information but I think there's a way to give them information over time and to plan it out so that it's not so overwhelming but ensure that for example um you know some of the panel members

[14:00] went through simulation training in in the police department that training is great does that training need to be done immediately probably not but within the first 90 days of someone being on a panel doing that type of training would be important next slide please um so in my initial Community conversations [Music] um and these are again conversations that I had in the beginning of the year first quarter of the year it was pretty obvious that everyone understood that you know Boulder has civilian oversight but in terms of the role and the purview that varied across the board um and you know I I've had conversations um you know if I asked people what the panel did or what the manager did I think I would get a different answer from every person so so that was obviously an initial um observation of making sure that we have a common understanding to the best that we could but the the understanding of the role in the

[15:01] purview of the panel did vary greatly there was a lot of feedback about the selection process of about it being overwhelming becoming a little bit too political um and really needing to be revised I mean that was pretty um pretty consistent that we needed to figure out a different way to do this election process next slide please and then some questions arose from the feedback particularly about the budget for the Monitor and the panel whether or not how the process should be delineated to obtain data from the police department whether or not the panel should have access to outside counsel and then also whether or not we can formalize onboarding and training for new panel members next slide please so at the June um 19th um actually yeah the June 19th um Community event

[16:02] um that was held at the Boulder Public Library and it was essentially an open forum and the goal was to get feedback from Community about the current ordinance and kind of the current state of police oversight in Boulder and the perspectives varied greatly there's a lot of conversation about trust and these are just kind of highlighted a few that were pretty consistent across the feedback that we received overwhelmingly I think that people support oversight but obviously want it to be meaningful and productive there was concern about the language of perceived bias and what that means is it relates to the selection process and also um the not quite understanding the scope of the panel and some of the concerns about the panel um eroding trust from the law enforcement perspective and potentially risking losing officers

[17:01] and then that also leading to a conversation about trust generally trust between community and the police department and then obviously from the police department to community and figuring out a way how we do that in terms of Reviving this this process and then wanting the panel to be more representative of the community um and and looking at um particularly how to reinforce the panel's role in terms of making policy recommendations um so those are some of you the highlights from the the community event we had in June next slide please so um around June I created the police oversight ordinance work group and essentially my vision of this work group was um I pre I specifically wanted panel members on it because there's an understanding of direct understanding of

[18:00] how the current ordinance impacts their work so that understanding was important obviously we wanted Community perspective and then obviously the police department is is obviously an active stakeholder in this conversation so they needed to be represented at the table and because it's an ordinance it involves legal so we have City attorney representation um so there are about seven of us if my math is right and I'm there primarily facilitating the conversation so it's a very very I think well represented group and diverse group that brings um not only expertise from the current state of oversight and how it's being applied right now but then also outside perspectives of those that have been watching the process and under understanding kind of the conversations have been going on they've been they've been able to provide a new perspective as well and as it relates to the panel we have one member who's been on the panel for a long time and we have one brand new member so that perspective of each has been really important in our conversations next slide please

[19:00] so just to give you a brief summary about our process and so I have obviously reviewed the ordinance at nauseam um and um I divided it up into topics and subject areas to kind of just reorganize it and so each meeting we have a a couple topic areas we meet weekly for two hours and I generally have at least two topics for our conversation um and I just presented I send them materials in advance to review and then we have our conversations on Tuesday evenings and it's very candid it's very spirited and and we don't necessarily agree and so what I do is I take notes of the conversation and I'm one of those people I'm one of those annoying people that likes to repeat what people say to ensure that I understood and and under it got their perspective done so I always reiterate um what I'm hearing the feedback from our work group members are um and then I draft language and then we

[20:00] review it at next meeting and sometimes I hit it on the mark and sometimes I don't one of the things that we did that I thought was really important was develop a purpose statement because I think having a purpose statement at the Forefront of this ordinance is important to address the various perspectives about oversight and making it Crystal Clear what the panel is about and its role and purpose and that was a collective effort and we have a really great draft purpose statement from kind of working through this process next slide please um so we've had five meetings so far we meet on Tuesdays for two hours and I try to really keep us on task and be productive in those two hours because obviously this you know we're a volunt the volunteers that are on this devoting their time because of their dedication to oversight into the City and so far we have hit some pretty um pretty big topics again our purpose statement we've talked about member qualifications unanimously the connection to Boulder was very important to every single

[21:00] member in the work group and figuring out how we tie that in they were very um very much wanted to ensure the student representative um spots on the panel were there and we we broadened it a little bit to um to ensure that it Encompass other institutions of higher education throughout the area um we looked at terms um specifically I think um if if a panel member um completes two terms at six years and whether or not six years is a realistic time frame um we just had our this past Tuesday a conversation about the selection process and we are um we're uh it didn't quite hit the mark on that draft so we're going back and I'm I'm editing the draft based on our conversations and so we're reviewing that in our forthcoming meeting this Tuesday we've talked about the chief providing written responses to the panel and then we talked about uh

[22:02] setting up potentially setting up a review every four years of the oversight system to see is it is it is it working how we intend it is it efficient um in my opinion this is helpful to ensure that we address things that come up um and to kind of head off any sort of issues that may may come out through the through the process because over time oversight evolves over years and so this is a way to to anticipate and be proactive towards that evolution next slide please and so what we have to discuss is the scope of the panel um for example the type of cases they should be reviewing or can be reviewing um this the next point about the relationship with the independent police monitor is very important to me as a former monitor I want to ensure and help support um and um not necessarily guide but give perspective about how important that relationship is it's collaborative the

[23:01] monitor is a resource and but it's separate right and so understanding that line and helping them to understand that line and establish that line we also need to talk about duties and responsibilities and training the training one is important and I alluded to this a little bit earlier is that the current ordinance talks about training that is established by the monitor I think that's important but we want to go a little bit a step further in terms of potentially describing training that it should occur for a panelist before they participate in case review or take a vote on the panel and then also kind of the types of training that are important for um for panel members to to receive so for example use of force training next slide please so in our timeline um on our August 1st meeting next Tuesday we are assessing our progress

[24:01] and I I do want to report that we have been making a really good progress we have a very good working job we still have some some way to go but we do have a really good working draft um and we anticipate having another Community event towards the end of August early September to get feedback on that draft that draft obviously will have to go through review with the city manager and the City of Turney and then we anticipate a follow-up Council briefings and first reading for that draft and then October we anticipate a second reading and presentation to you about the details of the recommendations and I'll go into that further in the next slide anticipate to bring back to you um September october-ish is is a packet and a packet that would include the work group recommendations um uh that also include my specific recommendations and I also want to

[25:01] include that of the oir group which I think is very important as you know the oir group is the current interim Monitor and so has been the inter-monitor for maybe six to eight months now and so their perspective has been very valuable because they've been in the position and they have recommendations that I will include as part of my recommendations and then also the summary of community feedback I think it's important that you hear not only the feedback that we've received that I've received and the panel has received um since we started this process but also the feedback specific to the draft recommendations so that will be included and then I also think that you know it's important for you to be aware and understand the areas of disagreement and so I will delineate that for you and talk about kind of why there's a disagreement in those areas and what the various positions are because I think it's going to be helpful for you to understand those areas as you know Community more likely than not will

[26:00] be vocal on those areas um and so I want to be transparent about that with you next slide please and so that is the general summary of kind of where where we are and where we've gone and so um I'm very much open to hearing your feedback particularly about any areas in the ordinance that you'd like us to look more closely and then more broadly in terms of oversight if there's anything specific that you would like me to review or me to provide recommendations to Council on so that concludes my presentation and I appreciate the time and attention you've given me thank you so much Farah that was great um do you want to say something no okay let's go to clarifying questions that Council might have looks like we have Bob and Juni I'm not sure who was first and then Mark all right Bob thanks thanks for uh we're so lucky to

[27:02] have you on board and we really appreciate all the hard work you're putting into this and and I'm disappointed we couldn't persuade you to be our next Police monitor but it's like we've got some really good candidates I have two questions for you and one question from Nuria um first um how much as you dug into this how much um of the challenges we have you Sense come from improvements that are needed in the ordinance versus improvements that are needed in the implementation of the ordinance so for example things around orientation or expectation I remember when we passed the ordinance about three years ago we were told by the city attorney's office that it was somewhat of a um someone of a model ordinance that have been adopted by a number of cities and so I guess I'd be kind of surprised if there's a lot of changes that are needed to the ordinance itself so I'd like to get a sense from you how much of it is ordinance drafting that needs to be improved and how much of it is is really implementation of of already pretty good ordinance uh um I think it's ordinance drafting

[28:03] um and um I think that there are areas that are a bit too vague that need clarification um I think you know the perfect example is you know the language around perceived bias it's not something that I would have recommended to put in an ordinance um so that's a clear example um and um there there are just some gaps um so like you can tell when I read the ordinance you know before it came on you could tell it's very well-intentioned um but it it needs um some fine tuning which will give Clarity to the implementation because it'll be easier to understand there are sections of the ordinance that just are difficult to follow and understand and so this revision that we're going through collectively will help help streamline it a little bit to make the implementation a little easier and so the gaps have caused um

[29:00] you know um some you know interpretation disagreements right and so um we want to we want to clean that up and so I I would folk my priority would be cleaning up and fixing the things that need to be fixed in the ordinance but I'm not minimizing some of the um um uh changes that might need to be done on the Implement in the implementation side as well so it's a it's a collective answer no I appreciate that sure I'm happy to say I'm happy to hear you say that a lot of us in the ordinance I understand it's a little bit above but um ordinances are obviously easier to fix than implementation oftentimes and so if he thinks that that if you think that um improvements are our ordinance can help us help us with with implementation because it's clear that's really really great to hear um second question to you and this is something I've always kind of puzzled by ever since we put this in place I'm kind of puzzled about the word oversight and you have a very broad experience in this

[30:01] area and you've talked to monitors in in panels around the country so you know far more about this than any of us too but I've always thought about kind of the definition of the word oversight means to supervise or direct and I've I've viewed this panel as more of an advisory panel and maybe that'll change based on what you would recommend but at least so far it's been an advisory panel but oversight seems to be a kind of implies a different role if you see the word oversight in all the cities that you've dealt with and if not do you recommend a different word like advisory or something that would be more descriptive above their rules so um historically the word has been oversight right I mean it comes from the concept of having Outsiders oversee the police department right in that context but you're right I mean generally speaking um civilian oversight is more in an um uh advisory capacity so it's a very rare that you will see a civilian

[31:03] oversight being able to necessarily dictate what a police department does um that that's that's just very rare um but I think where the concept comes from is civilian outside of the police department having the ability to look into issues in the police department um that affects community members and so um it's not necessarily a literal interpretation of oversight but it's more about the content of the the context of it when you look at kind of how oversight was developed and created historically hopefully that helps answer the question a little bit you know that's that's great for her thanks for that have you ever seen any words that are referred that use both Works in other words police oversight advice reporters that ever used um I see mostly um I don't see the word advisory

[32:00] um I see um Commission generally they all have police in them um and um we um we had the community police review Commission um civilian review board we've I've seen um forgot what they um yeah it it it um it varies whether or not oversight is in the name of the panel per se but it's generally in the name of the office if that makes sense it sure does well you know I'm going to maybe answer one of your questions which is one of the stuff would you like to see what would you like to see from you as you prepare for for October I I'd really welcome out just a little small section and report about just a sampling of what various cities call it if all the cities call oversight then I guess that's the term of art it just it occurs to me that the word oversight probably implies different things to different people and

[33:01] if you can do a little bit of a sampling of what other cities have used you just rattle off a few there and some of them sounded like they were somewhat helpful so you know as long as we're fiddling with the ordinance and this is a relatively new organization so I'm not sure that we're super married to the to the language I'd just be curious to see what what the city is doing whether that would help set expectations in the community or on the panel itself okay absolutely right and then quit I'm going to put you on a little on the spot and feel free to punt on this one if if um if you don't want to answer it um I know that um uh you introduced to the community about two or three weeks ago three finalists for the uh for the police monitor position I'm not asking me if you've hired anybody yet but but what I was going to ask you is is because um the police monitor is obviously gonna need to live with whatever uh Farah and Council come up with um do you anticipate that wherever you ultimately hire as police monitor might be might be on board or at least um be identified so that that person can work with with pharah in the last stages of of this

[34:01] series of recommendations so that they don't just show up on the first day and have an ordinance handed to them that they may be um uh didn't have any role in uh thank you councilmember never on the spot uh I appreciate it and I will say that I do it is something that came up in the various interviews as we were thinking about timing um uh I hope to be able to announce something uh very shortly here um but uh in the conversations with each of the candidates and you are right we were very lucky on this go around to have extraordinary folks um and I think any of them would make uh terrific monitors as we move forward but we did talk about their ability to really work with pharah we've actually talked to Farah about staying uh longer and working with the new monitor as well since she has been able to gain new insights uh into what we're doing as a community and with the panel so we hope there will be synergies in the future with both

[35:01] that's great thanks so much that's good news Pharaoh thank you so much I really appreciate it that's all I have all right thanks Bob Judy you're up thank you so much um I have a couple a couple a couple of questions and as Bob was talking and you were talking para I want to start by saying thank you for the presentation but I do based on the presentation that you give it appears to me that you're also working on the revision of the ordinance and I'm not questioning your qualification or anything because I from what I heard is that you know you have a lot of experience in your field but I was wondering if you are a lawyer or if you're working with a lawyer and providing the recommendation to them in the drafting of the ordinance or redrafting or adding I am an attorney and I have experienced a lot of policy experience and drafting legislation so this is something um that I'm very very familiar with and

[36:02] I I actually did this in Austin also thank you council member I also say that we have um Deputy City attorney Aaron Poe on the work group as well and so um we have City attorney's office uh sort of intimately involved as well thank you for that I'm trying to understand right now did you want to uh jump in yes if I may jump in um Aaron and Farah are working closely together and we have really full confidence in pharah in her abilities and her recommendations [Music] um and then Aaron is there to ensure that the recommendations work with the rest of our code and with the originating intent of of of this panel thank you very much Teresa that was a part of my question um you mentioned the police monitor it would be best for them to be a liaison

[37:00] as opposed to being on the panel and I wanted to you to explain a little bit more as to why is that important I mean I looked at the code and when I read it or at least when I was looking at it I didn't get a sense of their involvement as a member of the panel but I wanted you to explain that a little bit more for me um yeah so um they are a non-voting member as the ordinance stands right now they're a non-voting member of the um of the panel and so it's caused some logistical um issues for the panel um in terms of um their ability to meet in a non-public setting so for example there's a co-chairs and so whenever they meet with the monitor it has to be a public meeting um that's just not effective so that's one kind of technical um barrier that it has caused but fundamentally you really don't need to have the monitor as part of the panel generally speaking the monitor serves as

[38:03] a resource um and to the panel in terms of being like a subject matter expert helping support them in the review of cases providing guidance being that connection to you know City resources um and they and also it helps to maintain the separation right because you have the pant like Boulder has a hybrid system of oversight so it has the monitor right that provides monitoring of police misconduct cases and then it has essentially a review board and so it allows there to be a line between the roles to have the monitor obviously be the Monitor and then the panel being separate so there is collaborative right they're working in a parallel fashion but when you have the met the monitor on the panel it blurs that line that's really unnecessary um because it it really should function separately but in a collaborative

[39:01] fashion I hope that provides a little bit more um another question that I had for you was about the size of the panel um I didn't hear you talk about that a little bit and I wanted to hear do you think the sizeable panel here is it's in line with the size of panels in other places is it too big is it too small yeah so we had that discussion on the work group because your panel size was originally nine and went up to 11. um and so for a size a city the size of Boulder with the size of your Police Department it is large um but I have a colleague in um oh gosh in Albany New York um their panel is 11. you know the panel most panels um are about um you know Austin was about a million people we had a panel we went from seven

[40:00] to ten so so I I don't want to give across the pers the the impression that I'm saying that the panel is too big because the thing about oversight that's really important is that you have to develop your own recipe so if the recipe for Boulder calls for a bigger panel you know even though you're a relatively small town then that's okay that that's the recipe for Boulder right um and so um so they'll you know okay it is probably on the larger side when if you were to just do a comparison of police department with population like just solely those two factors it's larger but when I look at oversight from a bigger picture and look at the fact that we are creating a recipe of oversight that's unique to Boulder that may you know warrant a panel of 11 people thank you um I have one more question to you more and I'll be done I promise oh Tara just letting you know um you mentioned the SOP which I thought

[41:00] oh that's great that you you mentioned that and that's part of the process streamlining Effectiveness and accountability that's great and thank you for that and you mentioned discipline and I was wondering because my understanding with the police department is very different you know police departments around the state in the nation is its accountability looks different and it's um is is not even something that you're looking at because you mentioned discipline and I'm thinking the discipline for the police department or is it disciplined for the panel itself for the SOP yeah so essentially what I was referring to is the panel is able to make discipline recommendations right and so it would be important to have a standing operating procedure that delineates what that process looks like so for example after upon case review um the panel determine you know makes a recommendation that recommendation is sent to the chief the chief reviews it and it'll say you know within a certain

[42:01] amount of time the chief responds for example we could take it a step further if the chief disagrees with the recommendation perhaps there's a meeting to discuss right so those are the types of things that are more appropriate to be delineated in a standard operating procedure than to put in an order so that's what I mean in terms of discipline is the process of what the panel and the police department agree to on how they will handle discipline recommendations thank you so much um I just wanted to add just to finish I will not ask any more questions or make any other comments um you mentioned training and I was wondering if this training will be paid because again the panel members are community members and some of them are not wealthy and if we are putting training on them or to make their work more effective what support are we providing them you don't have to enter now but I hope you'll keep that in mind as you're moving forward as part of this process thank you thanks uni Mark you're up

[43:01] thank you Tara and thank you Farah for all the hard work it's uh it's really been terrific to uh to meet with you and discuss these issues with you just a couple of questions um you you mentioned that there is not a uniform understanding of the role and responsibilities of the panel among the people you have been talking to um how do you get to that point or do you expect that to happen through uh selection and onboarding of of new members but at some point everybody needs to be growing in the same direction and how do we achieve that so it is this is not an easy task and I went through it personally because it is really about putting an engagement about and informing the community right and it's not just about the panel the panel 100 needs to be educated about its role and its purview but the community needs to understand it too so what happens is

[44:00] that Community always thinks that panels and monitors and oversight systems can do more than they really can right and so it's about really explaining in simple terms what the purview is right it's going back to the council member's original point about a lot of what the role of the panel is is advisory right there's there's a misconception that this particular panel can do things that it just cannot do right it legally it just cannot do and so essentially um what I think has to happen and this takes a lot of time and a lot of community engagement is and it's going to have to be collaborative with them Monitor and the panel is really going out there and doing an information campaign to community I shared an infographic that we use in Austin with the um with the panel and the city's com scene did a great job with creating something similar for Boulder and that's something that just needs to be widely distributed to to ensure that people

[45:00] have the information not only about you know you have a police oversight system so if you have you know a a an incident where to go but also know like what the parameters of you know the oversight that you're coming to what they can do and so that for me was key because you will hear Community say they don't have teeth they don't have teeth well it's not necessarily about teeth it's really about having an entity outside the police department being able to look into further and providing a resource for community members if they do have and have an incident with a police officer they don't necessarily feel was appropriate having an Avenue to go there and so they're in my opinion as someone who worked in oversight there is teeth in that because not having it all is a detriment to the community thank you um there was also a statement in one of the slides that it was thought that the panel should be more representative of the community can you explain that a

[46:00] little bit I mean to what extent was our existing panel deficient in being a a picture of the community farm that we had at the Boulder Boulder Library um and so I I think that um I think it was coming from the perspective just the diversity on on the panel and making sure that it's more reflective in that way that is what my recollection of the con the um the context of that statement that was made and look the reason I ask is I'm not sure that that's exactly what we want I mean Boulder is a as an 88 white community and given the purposes and goals of providing police oversight and the communities we're looking to serve and providing that I'm not sure that you want to be purely reflective of the

[47:02] demographics of Boulder I I think you want to go a little bit beyond that yeah and I would say that the work group agrees with that very much so and and my very last question is um you said there's a lot of concern over the the concept of perceived bias can you clarify a little bit because um to the extent that the council is going to be asked to approve members to the panel there have to be some bases for doing it without being entirely arbitrary and um uh bias would seem to be to me to be a a useful indicator of future performance on the on the panel is there an alternative basis for deciding on the on the merits of a prospective nominee yeah so I think the the key here is the

[48:00] language of perceived bias because even the word perception is very gray and at any given point we all have some level of bias and the perception we all have different perceptions and so that type of language that is um a a a principle in an ordinance is challenging right um and at any given point potentially that argument could be made for any of the panel members right and so essentially what you see in terms of criteria for oversight Community volunteer panel members is impartiality is objectivity um that type of language that is a little bit more clear because I'm not quite sure if there was a definition sector there is a definition section like how we would Define perceived bias right like it's just something that um I think should be removed and we

[49:00] should focus on other criteria that is clear and less gray um in terms of its interpretation with the concept of substantial bias be an alternative formulation that could work or is that equally as uh problematic how would you define substantial well I'm not on the uh I don't know I I would not be able to put that offhand as a legal matter you know the Judgment right right I just think that um because I think that you and I may disagree on what substantial is right um and so I don't know if that would be an alternative that would help us get in the right direction well there's always the possibility of disagreement on whatever standards we adopt um but it seems to me you need to have some standards that allow us to

[50:01] render a judgment as to whether or not somebody is going to be a good member of the panel or not and if perceived bias is not going to work that's fine um but we ought to then figure out something else that that does and all of them are going to be subjective in some fashion they're always going to be just judge the council um but uh I will leave it to you to define something that that you're comfortable with having us exercise that judgment and you know make those determinations and again thanks for all the work that's uh it's been terrific I'm reminding everybody these are questions and we're doing comments afterwards Nicole thank you um can I just offer the one conquera this is amazing work and I just I really appreciate what you're doing it feels like this is starting us on a journey of restoring a little bit of trust in the community and just at large

[51:00] um as well just by creating a space for healthy robust dialogue and I know that's not an easy thing to do it's really so thank you thank you for that um so one of the questions that I had uh was just in thinking about areas to explore a little more this idea of training you know keeps coming up um I think in in most people's comments so far and what I'm wondering about is is there any opportunity for this group or another working group to provide some feedback on the training you know to have any kind of ownership in the development of that training um I bet and what what onboarding looks like um I don't know if it's the panel that would make me do that work or something but it feels like an area for me where having some buy-in from everybody could be helpful in getting us to a place where people are feeling you know they've got some trust in in how people are approaching this work and what they're going to be doing

[52:00] yeah I definitely think that there's room for that not only from um the particularly the panda members I've been on it but also our newer panel members um just for their perspective in terms of how they how they um have brought on but I also think if it's not the work group or just some Community feedback in terms of um you know what they think it's important that um the the panel know about so for example in the community session that we had in June one of the feedback I remember is ensuring that not only the selection committee if there's a selection committee but also the Pano members have you know some level of understanding about law enforcement um and so I think um you know the I feel like that kind of leads to your point a little bit about having some people look at collaboratively look at you know what the training could entail and what's important for not only panel members but also potentially a selection committee to know ahead of time yeah thank you

[53:01] um and then the other thing I was wondering if you could just speak to a little bit more is I know that most of the time in the panelist history the um monitor uh the chief the panel agreed on what what an outcome should be what I'm wondering about is just is there work on kind of what the grievance process for lack of a better word you know that that place where there's not that agreement which happens less that feels like it can foster more um Discord what is that is that process emerging as well of what that's going to look like as we move forward yeah we haven't discussed it yet at the work group I've kind of strategically put our topics uh I didn't want to really hit the sensitive topics in the beginning and so now that our group has built trust I'm hitting the more kind of controversial ones um but that is on the list because that has been um feedback that I've gotten in terms of when there's a discipline on on a disagreement on discipline kind of what

[54:01] the Avenue is for that and um it's it's a it's a little tricky because generally speaking the chief has the final say however I do think that um in my experience when I had a disagreement with the chief we sat down and talked about it now I still walked out disagreeing with the chief but I sat down and talked about it I understood disrespective and then I was always able to memorialize my you know disagreement and why in a general term like not disclosing any sort of confidential information I was able to obviously share that with the city manager and make it public so I think that transparency piece of the of the disagreement that I think is helpful thank you for that um and then my other one was I just saw something about outside Council and and looking for outside Counsel on there I was just wondering if you could speak to that issue a little more and then Maria and Teresa this may be you know place

[55:00] for you as well that um I I don't I don't know that our other boards have access to something like that too so I was just wondering if you could just speak to that General topic so it's just something that's come up pretty much in all my conversations with various community members panel members is that when there's a conflict of interest or some sort of disagreement will can the panel have access to an outside Council in some oversight boards you see you see it but for the most part oversight boards are connected to a municipality right a city system and so if they are I'll just give my experiences as as an example um in that I think I may have had the opportunity to it I didn't necessarily use it because I had a specific attorney assigned to my office that was a City attorney that was separate than the attorney at the um at the um in the in the in the city attorney's

[56:02] office however um if for whatever reason I I did need an outside counsel it would have been retained through the city attorney's office it's not like I would have had the opportunity to go retain a council on my own as the police monitor or um particularly our our review commission wouldn't have been able to do that either so that's really I think the difference in the misconception is that we're not talking about kind of a retaining an attorney outside of the natural scope of being a part of the city and following the city is kind of natural protocol and policies for that um but you know just in a realistic fashion I'm not anticipating it'll come up but it is something that may come up where there is a conflict of interest or some sort of difference of um opinion where you know Council may be needed it's not something that's unusual and oversight but the key here is really

[57:01] educating community and panel members of what that process looks like in in the case where that where it may be needed I'll just dance oh Teresa did you want to go first or yeah I'm happy to jump in here so it's not uncommon for the city attorney's office to represent different interests for example the council can think about a situation where planning board has a recommendation that's different than staff and Council needs to be represented we handle that all the time it's that is not at all uncommon in addition our Charter makes very clear that the City attorney is the attorney for all matters and that's why all the boards and commissions are represented by the City attorney in addition it's exactly as Farah said that we would hire outside counsel in the event that there was a conflict of interest that was so significant that we felt like the city attorney's office could not adequately represent the

[58:02] interests of a border commission or hear a panel and so I want to introduce that that idea to you all and invite you to think about the many ways that you see that in practice already I'll just share too I have um I have full faith in our city attorney's office I believe that they represent all of our departments and all of our boards and commissions and each and every one of you faithfully and neutrally and are able to hold where there are differing interests it happens as Teresa says all the time and where we have capacity issues or whether we need additional expertise in a matter or whether we have a conflict there are times when the city attorney does go outside and hire a council but it is hired through the city attorney's office uh I believe it is problematic to

[59:01] have an external Council separate from the city that potentially could come back and um have a differing opinion and and potentially sue us and involve Us in litigation for our own work so it just it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me and I just want to mention again an underlying all of that is full faith and our City's attorney's office to manage our Affairs and provide us with the best legal counsel we have thank you I appreciate that and just uh just one one quick follow-up there to uh Vera with the you know you mentioned that sometimes other other cities have done this a little differently where maybe they have access to outside Council has that typically been in these situations um like Marianne Teresa are talking about when um when there's there's a conflict of interest or you know some some area of expertise that's needed is that the

[60:00] times when when they have outside counsel rather than being like a separate attorney separate attorney from outside the city yes that's my my experience is in the context of what they discussed okay thank you is that it for the questions then because now we're going to move on to pharah's two questions to us for comments um the first one has to do with the ordinance are there additional areas of Jordan city council would like to see revised or further explored and the second one has to do with police oversight panels in general are there any specific priorities or areas Council would like me to Farah to work on or provide so first I'm going to ask for comments of people who haven't spoken yet can I see some hats No Hands people oh we have Aaron yeah um Sarah I just want to offer an enormous thank you I feel like we are on

[61:02] the right track with this work and um having you um lead it I think this enormously huge part of why we are now on track um so very grateful for your work also very grateful to the working group members who are engaging in the spirited debate and discussion um so I do feel like we're we're getting getting to a good place so I don't have additional Focus areas um I I think you're doing all the right stuff and I'm very much looking forward to the next steps and adopting the ordinance changes later on this year thank you I did all that Aaron next we have Matt well it sounds like we're on the ditto train here um yeah fair just all of the conversation and building to where we are I think has been the in the way we've done this was such great intentionality I think is really important um you know we've had some rocky road and I'm really helpful to I'm grateful

[62:00] that we have an opportunity to sort of move that over and get to a place as Nicole said of trying to build back that trust which isn't necessary for all parties in this so thank you for helping lead that way and I look forward to uh diving into some of the more uh specifics as those recommendations come through and you continue the work so I got nothing else I agree with our mayor on this uh and sort of where we're at where we're headed but just yeah I want to extend a lot of gratitude and you'll hear many more thanks as though we we continue to visit um and go through this so thank you so much thanks Matt we have Lauren thank you yeah I'm gonna Echo a lot of that um I think that for me I appreciate the way you have organized these conversations to have to help build trust and create a lot of transparency in the process um I think that you know in terms of specific priorities I just keep expanding on that I think that that's really foundational to making this work well and if there's other areas that we should be exploring I'm

[63:02] open to that thank you thanks Lauren Rachel hey everyone hi Sarah thanks for being here and all your work um to answer your questions no and no I do not have additional areas or specific priorities or area that I would recommend that we add to this I my feeling is that you and others working on this are the expert and have really knocked it out of the park thinking through what we need to be looking at and considering so nothing to add appreciate it and looking forward to seeing the final recommendations and then weighing in thank you thanks so much Rachel anybody else who's already spoken in is not we already know fair is great so you don't have to repeat that we know all right Nicole thanks I'm sorry I thought we were answering these questions before so Farah just to quickly summarize just the training processes I think an area of emphasis for me um and then that for lack of a better word grievance process

[64:02] um and then the only other thing is just and I know you mentioned this as well having some sort of um Cadence for ongoing revisiting this ordinance and you know coming back to it over time looking at it because this is still such a new area and you know we're everybody's learning a bit as we go so I think having a process for locking that in to come back on a regular basis feels like that's also going to help Foster some Trust all right thank you thanks Nicole any last words we are rocking it tonight oh we have Mark uh yeah um just one quick request if I might um as part of your report can you do a little bit of a survey of what other cities have been doing so we can look at statutes and procedures comparatively in terms of scope of the authority of their panels um number of members of their panels you know uh how they conduct their business

[65:00] it's always nice to be able to put this into a context to see what other municipalities are doing yeah absolutely I I have that already um looking at comparative cities and so I that was part of my pre-research with going on um so that that's actually an easy one okay great thank you that's all I have great does everybody on Council feel listened to and heard and that they've said everything they want to say yes great we are done and ready for the next topic Nuria thank you everyone wow thank you you're rocking it councilmember weiner uh it wouldn't be um a meeting with Council if we weren't talking about something in pnds and use tables are up they have been a topic of lots of work and I will ask Lisa to introduce herself and just thank her in advance because Lisa has a way of presenting these issues super clearly

[66:00] super crisply uh and uh I am hopeful and assumed that this will be no different So Lisa I give it to you thanks so much Nuria all right good evening council members my name is Lisa hood and I am a senior planner in planning and development services you all are very familiar with the use table and standards project by now but I'm excited to be here to talk about the third and final ordinance and module of this project I'll provide an update of where we are with that with the project and we'll chat about the neighborhood center changes that are Central to this third module an overview of the presentation for you tonight I'll go back I know you have lots of things going on so just give a quick refresher on the project and some of the backgrounds and then we'll dive into module three I'll talk about the focused scope that we have for this this ordinance that some I'll give an overview of some of the past input we've gotten in the past and then I'll give a

[67:00] preliminary summary of the engagement that we've been doing over this summer then the way I've organized this presentation is really aligned with the questions for Council from the memo so I kind of have it where I have introductory slide about the first question and then a summary about the public input that's relevant and then maybe pause for questions and if and Tara if you're okay with pausing there and kind of going uh topic by topic we can do it that way or I can go all the way through whichever you prefer it can absolutely do topic by topic it seems like that's what you're comfortable with right okay yeah that's how it's planned so okay great so we'll do it that way so starting off with the the refresher on the background so you all have seen these initial goals for the use table and standards projects project many times we are intending to simplify and streamline the regulations related to the use tan table and standards in the land use code create making it more predictable and certain and providing more certainty it's a part of the code that's been very complex for a very long

[68:01] time obviously we've made a lot of improvements with the prior modules of work but there's still more to do and then this module is really focused on aligning the use table with the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan so we've been doing a lot of Engagement with the community over several years and also focused in the last couple of months to try to identify where there are gaps between what the land use code is allowing and what people want to actually see in the community um just a reminder that this project is really really targeted just on the use table and standard so it doesn't involve reassessing the comprehensive plan policies it's really intended to implement the adoptive plan and it's focused on the use table and standards only so this means that the it doesn't include changes to the form bulk or intensity standards so that's things like setbacks height floor area ratio it doesn't get into how a building looks it really just focuses on the businesses that are inside that that building or the uses also no changes to the

[69:01] development standards so things like parking signs lighting it really is focused on the use table just a background the use table and standards project has been going on since 2018 when planning board first identified it as a priority we finished phase one in 2019 the project was paused for a bit during the pandemic and then we restarted it in 2022 working on the phase two part of the project and we've been working on it the last two years phase two as you know is split into what we are calling three different modules so you all adopted the ordinance for module one which was the technical updates and functional fixes back in June of last year and then in February of this year you adopted the the second ordinance for module two related to industrial areas and that was the one where we were intending to implement the comprehensive plan policies related to adding a diverse mix of uses in our industrial areas and kind of a similar

[70:00] intent is for module 3 as well making sure that we're allowing a diverse mix of uses in our neighborhood centers and um with access from our neighborhoods so I'll get right into module three which we are calling neighborhoods I wanted to talk a little bit about the scope of the project and the upcoming or forthcoming ordinance related to it when we last talked we we actually did talk about module three last summer we I was here for a study session we were mostly focused on the module 2 industrial area changes but we did talk a bit about module three and there was kind it was not really nailed down exactly what the scope was going to be for module three and we've talked at times about whether module 3 would look at non-residential uses being introduced in our residential zoning districts and since that time we've you know gone back as staff and done analysis and also we've been working with our working groups and our planning board Liaisons and really just thinking through the timing of all of

[71:01] the different changes that are going on with the city um we've decided to really focus the scope purely on the neighborhood center areas which I'll get into on later slides but those are areas that don't have residential zoning so it's really focusing on business and mixed use zoning primarily and not making changes in the residential zoning districts and the reason for that is based on the guidance from a working group and discussions and the discussion with study session or at the previous study session at the last summer or last summer it really seems like that conversation there's a lot going on with residential zoning right now obviously the state had some potential changes coming up we've got a lot of other projects that are impacting residential areas and I think that this is going to be a really big topic for upcoming comprehensive Plan update and I think as we talked through it and whether we wanted to include it as part of the scope of this part of the project it seemed like we would get a lot more benefit by having that as a

[72:00] cohesive conversation a community conversation as part of the comprehensive plan really talking about the future of the of residential zoning and at a time when maybe a future project where it's not so so focused only on use and where we would get we could get more into the form and bulk standards and development standards like parking standards and things like that so it felt like it was a natural fit to focus on the neighborhood centers for this module three finish the use table project and in focusing on the neighborhood centers it also allows us to support the walkable neighborhoods concept because all of those walkable neighborhoods surround the neighborhood center so by making sure that the neighborhood centers are providing the services that people need we are improving walkability of neighborhoods throughout Boulder so that's where we came up with the focus areas that I talked about in the memo and what the questions are focused on for the the questions for you tonight so we've kind of dubbed this the walkable neighborhoods part of the

[73:00] project and we're intending to remove barriers in the codes for uses businesses housing that people want to have nearby in their neighborhood centers and still supporting that 15 15-minute neighborhood concept where people can have access to the services that they need by walking biking or taking Transit within 15 minutes of their home this again is really intended to align the use table with the comprehensive plan policies I'll go into the specific policies we're intending to implement on a couple later slides and then also going back to how how many years this project has been going on we've gotten a lot of input over the years of this project that have really built on and allowed us to identify the specific opportunities where we could Target changes um that would make a big difference to the neighborhood centers so with all that we've landed on four main areas of focus so the first is restaurants the second is duplexes and

[74:00] Townhomes the third is vehicle related uses and the fourth one is kind of miscellaneous other changes that could support that 15-minute neighborhood concept and so that's how the memo is organized and that presentation will be organized as well uh but I did want to get a little more give you a little more background on the neighborhood center concept so this comes from the comprehensive plan it's actually something that's been in in some version in the comprehensive plan for several decades identifying these neighborhood centers this is the map that's in our current comprehensive plan and the neighborhood centers that have been identified so many of them are kind of the big shopping centers that you would might think of but there's lots of different flavors and types of neighborhood centers around the community so obviously North Broadway is going to look pretty different from base Mar um they're they're not all um One of a Kind so are there not they are all one of a kind uh they're not all the same they have different characters so the interesting part of doing these land use code updates is kind of

[75:00] translating the goals and policies that are in the comprehensive plan to the actual you know where the rubber hits the road regulation in the land use code so we took this map of the neighborhood centers and translated it to what would that look like in terms of zoning districts and how would that impact zoning so that we can focus those changes on the zoning districts within the neighborhood centers and that gives you this map which shows the zoning districts that are located within those neighborhood centers so that's where we were able to Target the and focus the the set of changes for this module 3 part of the project so it looks mostly primarily at the business zones which are the zones that start with b the downtown zones which are DT and the mixed-use zone so that kind of became the area of focus in terms of geography taking the neighborhood centers and then the zoning districts within them I mentioned that a big part of this is implementing the the comprehensive plan there are two primary policies that

[76:00] we're looking to implement through these changes and the first is this policy 2.19 related to Neighborhood centers so you might remember I had a very similar slide for module two because we have similar policies for the light industrial areas that we were intending to implement through that ordinance so this talks about how the city should encourage neighborhood centers to provide pedestrian friendly and welcoming environments with a mix of land uses and then give several guiding principles that neighborhood centers should meet the everyday needs of neighboring communities really getting to that 15-minute neighborhood idea um and then also in terms of residential neighborhood centers should ensure appropriate scale transitions to neighboring residential uses so the idea with that is that kind of the the bulk of intensity should be near the center of the neighborhood center and then it would kind of Ratchet down in intensity so using different types of low and medium density residential uses to kind of transition transition intensities from the more intensive part of the

[77:00] neighborhood center to maybe the single family residential neighborhoods that surround it so those are really important policies that we're intending to implement and then another one is 2.24 this is the commitment to a walkable and accessible City so this policy talks about um trying to develop a walkable and accessible City by making sure that neighborhoods and mixed-use business areas can provide easy and safe access by foot bike in transit to places like neighborhood centers Community facilities Transit stations public spaces really this is the 15-minute neighborhood idea so in taking that neighborhood center policy and the this walkable and accessible City policy that's where we've come to the the walkable neighborhoods scope for this project mentioned that the scope for the project and the changes that we're contemplating um were really informed by the past engagement that we've done on this project as well so we've heard a lot

[78:01] um we've touched on The Talk many times the engagement for module one two phase one all the different projects we've been doing related to this um but I just wanted to to highlight some of that so what we heard before this year when we kicked off module three we did engagement back in 2019 pre-pandemic in person where we were able to talk with people about what kind of uses they wanted to see more of or less of um and then we had virtual engagement during the pandemic which also specifically talked about neighborhood centers we've got great input and Direction there and then just as an overview quick overview at that time people um said they wanted to see more mixed uses more neighborhood stores walkable places restaurants shops retail Green Space things like that and then less parking traffic Banks car dealerships gas stations fast food and drive-throughs we asked specifically whether people were open to a greater mix of uses in

[79:00] their neighborhood centers and a vast majority of people said yes broad support for restaurants and coffee shops retail uses and personal services which are things like hair salons bakeries things like that and then in terms of residential changes the people that supported residential housing indicated they were open to a mix of housing types in the neighborhood centers as well so that brings us to today uh this summer we have been focusing on community engagement over the last several months and I did want to provide an overview of all of the input that we've been getting um to you all so one of the big things that we wanted to do because we had done engagement that talked kind of generally about these changes or what people would want to see in their neighborhood what we wanted to do before going out back to the community again is to have something tangible like a proposed change that they could actually react to this time so we went through all of that past engagement a lot of great work that

[80:01] our initial planning board subcommittee did they went line by line through the use table and made some recommendations our own staff analysis and working with our working group and we came up with this set of proposed changes which are some opportunities that we saw that could potentially support those policies and make some changes that would allow more uses in neighborhood centers for the most part that aren't currently allowed so these are the and I'll go through these changes in more detail as we get to the questions part but just to give you an idea that these were the changes that we've been presenting for input over the last couple of months this summer so for our community engagement over the summer we've done several things we developed a virtual story map which is an interactive website map that people can explore I'll explain that more on the next slide as well as well as a short questionnaire we've been promoting it on social media uh through email and on a press release and sorry gotta drink some water

[81:03] I'm talking too fast and then we've also been supplementing this virtual engagement with in-person work so it's been really fun that the last couple of weeks we've been doing pop-ups at several of the neighborhood centers so we just taken a big board and stood outside of several neighborhood centers and talked to people as they're walking in um so we were at Bay smart and Ideal Market Meadows and Gun Barrel we've also been at some fairs and events like older social streets and the Ponderosa block party that was last weekend um and we've just been chatting with people about the proposed changes and what they might want to see what would get them to walk to their Neighborhood Center more um and we've been getting some great input that I will give a summary of as we get through further through the presentation we also sent mailings to all the neighborhood center business and Property Owners so that they're aware of the opportunity to provide input and the upcoming changes that could be happening to the neighborhood centers

[82:00] I just wanted to explain the story map in questionnaire a bit more it could because it's currently open if you haven't seen it yet it's a really fun page where you can explore a guided map which gives information on each one of the neighborhood centers it talks about what zoning districts are in there what types of businesses are currently there the number of businesses and then it lists the potential changes in each Neighborhood Center for people to understand it's going to be open until the end of July it's been open since July 10th we've had nearly 190 responses um which is great for a zoning zoning survey um but the questionnaire asks um what people's current access to Services looks like like what kind of things they can get to from their home already businesses that they want to see more of businesses they have concerns about or if they have any concerns with the proposed changes so we've been getting great responses on that so far and I I just wanted to share some

[83:02] preliminary themes obviously the questionnaire has not closed and will not close until the end of Monday but we are seeing some common themes that I wanted to share with you and then this is both from the actual questionnaire and the in-person work that we've been doing and conversations that we've been having you can see the boards and Post-it notes from the in-person stuff at the bottom as well but we're hearing a lot of consistency with the engagement that we've done previously in the project so lots of support for seeing more restaurants grocery stores especially small grocery stores um small retail shops pharmacies have come up a lot coffee shops small music venues ice cream I don't know if we would get the ice cream one if we were doing this in November but doing it in July we're getting a lot of comments about ice cream um bakeries post offices and then a lot of comments about local businesses and trying to do whatever we can to help local businesses thrive in Boulder on the flip side some of the things that

[84:01] people are expressing more concerns about having in their neighborhood centers or like more vehicle related things like gas stations Auto Repair drive-throughs um we've also gotten several comments in the questionnaires um the questionnaire about marijuana dispensaries and then kind of related to the local businesses concerns about big box stores and wanting to really focus on supporting small local businesses rather than big box or chain businesses in addition to the kind of general public engagement that we've been doing we also have three important groups we've been meeting with and I will go through more of their specific input as we get through the different questions but just an overview of these groups so we have a public working group that we've been working with for over a year on these use table changes they're a group of stakeholders and interested residents we met with them back in March and June to talk about you know the scope of module three and also they

[85:00] provided a lot of really great Direction and feedback on the story map and questionnaire and how to develop the questions and how the story map would work and things like that so that's been great we also meet with two members of the planning board act as our Liaisons for this project so we've been meeting with them over the last year and a half I think to talk about it we met with them in March and June similarly to talk about the scope and the engagement strategies and then just last week we were at the community connectors in Residence which is a group as you know that supports underrepresented communities in Boulder and advances racial equity and we had a great conversation with them about the potential changes and also just talked about strategies that would help promote walkable neighborhoods in Boulder so like I said um kind of the plan that I had for this is to go through each one of the questions we have four questions that were in the memo and I'll provide just a one slide overview um a background on the topic and then I have a summary of the input that we've gotten so far on that topic and then a

[86:02] space for us to um to talk about the question for you all so um the first one up is restaurants so restaurants is kind of um has become kind of a main topic of this this part of the project it's something that obviously we've heard throughout um engagement over the many years that people want to see more restaurants and when we look at the code uh it's currently a very complex Patchwork of regulations we made some big improvements with module one to the organization of the restaurants but we didn't make substantive changes during module one so those complex regulations are still bare they're just organized better now um so we have 12 that's essentially 12 different versions of restaurant regulations for different zoning districts around the city and the standards are mostly about what the overall size of the restaurant can be the size of the patio can be and what

[87:00] hours they can operate but it's all in um you know 12 different versions of that and some of them are only you know a couple hundred square feet different than a different zoning District so there's small differences between those throughout the city so what we see when we look at those those um regulations is that there are a lot of opportunities to simplify the regulations and to streamline the approval process for restaurants which would make it easier for restaurants to open in Boulder and we could do that in a number of ways so first is allowing a larger allowable overall size by rate so right now in many of our districts in Boulder um to be allowed by right which means that you don't have to go through a special process like a use review um the restaurant has to be at least or under a thousand square feet or 1500 square feet so just for perspective if you've been to zo mama that's 1700 square feet so that actually captures most that's a really small restaurant to be able to have to go

[88:01] um to be approved by right so what it means is that almost every restaurant ends up having to get a use review to be approved um similarly we have restrictions on patio sizes and it's often about 300 square feet so if any restaurant wants to have a patio that's larger than 300 square feet in most districts in the city that's kicked into a use review so obviously since covid attitudes especially since covet attitudes about outdoor seating have changed significantly um and many people are more interested in outdoor seating um so that was also an opportunity area we saw to change um that could streamline the approval process by allowing more restaurants to be approved by right um by removing that as a a limitation that kicks you into use review but instead um trying to replace that with just more General outdoor seating standards for patios that are near to nearby residential areas so I think the intent

[89:02] of the regulation is to mitigate any impacts against nearby residential uses but we could do that we could essentially end up at the same conclusion by having these more General standards without having to have a special process for it um and then related to the hours of operation one thing that's kind of interesting thing about Boulder is that we regulate restaurants and bars essentially that they're the same line in the youth table so they have the same regulations and in looking through that and looking at some other cities it actually we do think the hours of operation is helpful to have as a distinguishing factor between a restaurant and a bar so if you are open late you're more likely to be a bar which um potentially will have more impact on neighbors so maintaining that hours of operation is something that we're not proposing to change in the districts that are close to residential areas however in the areas that are intended for higher intensity use or higher

[90:00] intensity business in downtown zones we could make changes that would just approve restaurants by right no matter what in those districts where it really is intended to be an active area with things like restaurants and we've heard through engagement that people really want to see more restaurants there and then finally um for you know if we increase the larger allowable size by right there would always be a use review option if there's a larger restaurant or if there's still hours of operation limits there could be a use review option for people to open later so we'd still maintain that option of flexibility as well but just trying it's essentially trying to get more restaurants to have an Avenue where they can approve be approved by right rather than capturing so many of them and putting them through user abuse what we've heard on the restaurant topic so far um generally tons of support so the the one on the left is both the questionnaire and also the in-person engagement that we've been doing over

[91:00] the summer lots of support for restaurants in neighborhood centers lots of support for making the city process easier for restaurants to open people were pretty surprised to hear that it's often challenging for restaurants to get through the city process and then a lot of support for wanting to see more outdoor seating which I already mentioned from our public working group our planning board Liaisons and our community connectors also heard lots of support some of the things that were brought up by the public working group was the hill actually has unique restaurant standards and so just making sure that those remain they're something that were adopted relatively recently and there's a lot of work being done on the hill right now so maybe that would be a future project once there's more policy direction for the hill um and then from the community connectors there was lots of support for um allowing more restaurants and just allowing local businesses and Entrepreneurship throughout the city and then also just wanting more more smaller

[92:01] and more ethnically diverse restaurants throughout the city so that's kind of the summary of the restaurant topic the question that I put into the memo is does city council have any comments related to potential changes that would streamline the restaurant approval process and I'll stop sharing while we're chatting um thanks Lisa that was great okay first up we have and you can have your questions and your comments combined on this everyone first up we have Juni for this question about the um restaurants do you want me to read it to you Juni no but I had my own questions you want me to wait are they about restaurants are they about the presentation about the presentation yes go ahead ask your question you rolled over past the last slides about questions so I have two

[93:00] questions um you mentioned multi-use for institution and government buildings and do let me know if this question is for the next presentation I think it relates to this present uh um presentation and how does that help our goal of removing barriers for neighborhood centers in 15 minutes neighborhoods so I just did not understand how multi-use um for institution and government buildings how that correlate or interrelate with or values of removing barriers yeah yeah that's a good question and I'll get more into detail of those those changes from that colorful slide on the the fourth section but um just to highlight one thing that we heard and I was surprised to hear it so often but we heard from a lot of people throughout the engagement was that people wanted to see more post offices

[94:00] throughout the city so a post office would actually be classified as a governmental facility and we saw that those are actually prohibited in the mixed juice zoning districts so that's an opportunity area where we saw we could allow those governmental facilities which would allow post offices now obviously zoning doesn't control everything and the U.S Postal Service probably makes their own decisions about where they want to help post offices but at least we could eliminate that barrier that's in the land use code so that's where that one came from thank you for that and uh I once had a request from a Community member who asked me Judy we need more post offices and I was like that's a federal uh yeah as opposed to the city council one but my next question to you I was trying to understand the use review on um issue would the city lose money if we had I mean I know we're talking about you know for me to here and making it easier for businesses to operate in Boulder but I'm still thinking when it

[95:01] comes to our taxes and CD revenues would the city lose money if we had uniform rules or general standards because you mentioned overall size by right are you saying that if you're a smaller size there would be no use review so ultimately they would not have to come before the city to get any type of special approvals yeah that's a great question I might bounce it to Brad uh to talk more about the fiscal side of things but um one thing that getting if if more restaurants can be approved by right you're correct they wouldn't have to go through a discretionary review process um which saves staff time and also the it also saves the applicant's fees so the restaurant owners but they still often have to make changes to the building so they'll still have to go through the building permit process and obviously we get fees through that as well and Brad feel free to add anything that I haven't said no I think you said that well you know our goal is never to

[96:01] make money right through the review process we're just recovering our cost for providing the service but we all collectively have a goal of simplifying process for applicants while still maintaining the appropriate level of um sturdy guard rails and accountability and that's this is certainly consistent with the conversation uh conversations we've had with Council this this year in that regard but it also doesn't mean that there may not be any regulation it's just that it would be administrative and you know that would be the proper level of monitoring and making sure that it's still consistent with code and those types of things thank you is that a CUNY great okay Matt thanks Tara uh first I thank you for diving so deep into um the plight of our restaurants and

[97:00] hospitalities um uh businesses in Boulder um we all we all know why they're they're struggling and one of the biggest reasons is is the hurdles to do business in our community um so I thank you so much for for really diving and tackling into this um and and it to be clear I mean we have restaurants some great restaurateurs in Denver that would like to do business in Boulder and won't touch us with a 10-foot pole because of our processes and and the obstacles it is and and it's hard to to hear happen so I'm glad that we're tackling this so that we can hopefully uh continue to free that up um their margins are just so narrow right that that sitting in review for an extended period of time largely crushes their financial options to make that happen um so with that said um one of the things that I think you sort of touched on that I think is should I I'd like to go Whole Hog in for for the metaphor there is just eliminating use for review for restaurants in downtown in downtown zones I mean there's just largely no reason for us to really do that especially when they're occupying what

[98:00] was previously a restaurant I mean it's it's just it's frankly it's infuriating to see that a restaurant has to redefine its purpose when the previous purpose was the same thing um it should be a check box are you doing what the previous face did yes all right now move on um I mean it should be as streamlined as that so I I think we can need to go further down that path of making it as easy as possible for restaurants to do that um and and I think that would be great so I don't want to set up any other conditions or any of that because then we have to manage that I just if it's downtown districts just let it be let it be by right I I and and if it swings the other way then we can put some guardrails on but we've been playing way too tight uh for too long for them so that would be the thing I'd recommend the most with the restaurants and hopefully we can we can get that going but thanks again for for diving deep into that and I look forward to seeing where we go from there great thanks sorry folks Aaron you're next

[99:02] right well I just want to give two thumbs up to all this the direction you're going in and I give three thumbs up if I had three hands I'm excited to see the streamlining of the restaurant review process I sat through my share of use reviews on planning board and so many of them just made total sense so you'd have a hearing and you'd say yes and then you're like why did we spend all that time on that um and so I would just uh Echo what Matt said I would if anything I'd just encourage you to maybe look at some potential additional opportunities to remove the use review process and the DT zones seem like the most obvious ones but I know maybe BMS as well those are designed to be business districts that seems like restaurants just kind of belong in them so I'd encourage a little extra look at the zones that those might be allowed in and then I wanted to pick up on one comment that came from the community connectors which was about more flexibility around food trucks and that may be totally out of scope for this um but I've always felt like our rules on food trucks are too restricted and

[100:03] it's also how many of our immigrant populations like we'll get you know foods from like a local food truck that's operating illegally I see that in my neighbor it always makes me happy when a taco truck spring Springs up on a corner even though I know they're not allowed to be there um so I just want to put out there if that's something that we can be thinking about about ways to make that easier to implement because they're just super fun and it's also a great way to support those like diverse ethnic eateries that the community connectors were talking about thank you great thanks Aaron Nicole you're next thank you and I sort of have a tie-in question this is around the connectors feedback so when I sort of look at their feedback as a whole it seems like what they're getting at is wanting more just opportunities for people starting out um and I'm just wondering is there anything about um adjusting the use by right so that you can have a larger square footage are

[101:01] we going to incentivize that type of restaurant at the um and and sort of make it harder for folks who might want to maybe all the resources they have are to start a smaller space so I'm just wondering about that yeah I think that's that's the big intent um in increasing the allowable size so um that would probably you know if we increase right now it's mostly a thousand or 500 square feet in most zoning districts if we increase that to something like 4 000 square feet that would capture a lot of those small businesses that would capture many of the restaurants that we have but there might there would be a disincentive for larger restaurants which more typically are like chains and things like that because they would have to go through the use review process so I think in that way I'm not sure if I'm answering your question but it's intending to incentivize the smaller local businesses which is what we're hearing while um you know having maybe a closer look at those larger restaurants

[102:01] okay yep so basically more more of those Obama potential exactly wow right okay great thank you and then my other question was just around when we're doing these kind of engagements out in the community are we collecting any kind of demographic information because you know I know it's exciting that we have more people than you all typically get and still just a fraction of a percentage of the people in the community and probably even that you know live in an area and so do we have any way of sort of seeing you know who who are we missing and those kinds of community engagements that we can then use to inform how we're doing some other engagements yeah that's a great question so with our questionnaire there are the optional demographic questions that we often put on most questionnaires so we don't force people to answer it but a lot of people do so that gives us a pretty good idea of um you know it asks um let's see it asks like income level race um and then we also in the questionnaire asked where to there's like a little

[103:00] mapping feature where they can put a pin on where they live so we can also see the geographic distribution of people um so that gives us a good idea of how we can adjust and Target um it's not perfect because not everyone answers it and then in person obviously we're not collecting demographic information while we're in person but we are we did try to locate those pop-ups in like all and try to get as geographically diverse as we could around the city and also talk you know we were there for a while to try to talk to as many people as possible great thank you thanks so much Nicole uh Lauren you're next thanks um my first question is sort of more broad about this project um I noticed the a lot of the sort of initial idea for why we would go into this is about walkability in 15-minute neighborhoods are these zones that we're looking at in this third portion like

[104:00] covering 15-minute walkability for the most of our city do we know what percentage of the city is within 15 minutes of these areas yeah our my colleagues in our transportation department have done really great work on the walkability there's um the safe I'm forgetting the name of the plan but they've done the there's a great plan that's related to the walkable neighborhoods concept and there's kind of a walk shed map so we did do some initial analysis using that map it's in the data that they used is imperfect I would say so we decided not to link it exactly to this but it definitely informed um making sure you know we kind of looked at it and generally if you look at that map the Eastern side of the city has lower levels of walkability and that's where a lot of these shopping I mean a lot of the neighborhood centers are shopping centers which have large parking lots and things like that so but they do they still serve all the neighborhoods around them so it's interesting to look at together um obviously this the walkability

[105:01] concept is both a land use and a transportation issue so we're trying to tackle the land use side and then there's a lot of great work being done on the transportation side as well okay thank you um related to this particular section it was interesting to hear that you heard that people on the hill were interested in keeping the rules the same for the moment I had heard sort of some comments that were the opposite of that that were wanting um sort of the rules around restaurants on the hill to be brought in line closer with what's happening in the city did you all did you hear both things or yeah so we've heard I mean we've heard from our community Vitality Department who's been doing work on the hill about upcoming changes and I know they had the um the Uli study up there so I think that so we've heard that side as well this was one member of our working group who's part of the neighborhood association who just wanted had worked

[106:00] on those initial changes which are not I can't remember exactly what year they were adopted but they're not very old and so it felt like with the hill um and this is something I'm happy to hear your direction on tonight um but because those were recent regulations and there are kind of upcoming conversations about the hill that maybe that's something that's further down the line to look at but I'm happy to um yeah receive Direction and make changes there as well thank you I appreciate the Deep dive you guys have taken into this I generally am going to be on the side of streamlining and efficiency and making are very complicated not of codes that we've created a little bit less complicated so I would be interested in having the hills sort of rolled into this as well additionally as we look at sort of the size requirements around I agree with everything Matt and Aaron said around the downtown areas when we're looking at

[107:01] those residential restaurants I do think that that sort of the current size is so incredibly small and I know it's going to feel like a lot to double or triple it but I think that that's really the size a restaurant typically is and so for it to be meaningful I just want to encourage you guys to actually make what will be a fairly substantial change in those um because that's what it will take Nicole brought up an interesting point and I would be and given I think the amount of community interest in local businesses I wonder if there's maybe and I know this is a complicated throwing a nail into something but a use review for chain restaurants or something like that um because I do think that

[108:01] it is you know people are most interested in having sort of those local businesses in the neighborhoods and things like that so maybe particularly it's a neighborhood level um I would be interested in thinking about something like that I understand that it might be overly complicated to actually implement but would love to hear what you guys come back with on that okay great can I just talk in a City attorney like is that is that something we can do under use is like call out restaurant owners who own like chains council member friend I've not had the opportunity to look into that um but our office is very happy to investigate that and get back to you okay I would just add that as a precursor to any other staff work on it I think also colloquine um so I Laura and I understand the spirit of it but I'm wondering does a

[109:00] chain mean that you have one restaurant in Denver and now you're opening up one in Boulder or they're already uh oh I'm I'm totally aware that this becomes a very slippery slope really fast and it might not be a good one to go down but I was just thinking Some thought around it might be worthwhile check is that it or you have any more that's it all right we're gonna move to Bob now thanks I'm not getting good on the rabbit hole chains because I have this very tough one so I'm going to leave that alone but I did want to do I think Elisa and and Brad and all team for the great work they've done on restaurants I look for the other three modules here in a second um I just want to do a plus one on what um Lauren and Matt and Aaron said about restaurants if anything we're not going far enough I'd love to see us be even more aggressive with respect to restaurants and flexibility particularly as Matt said downtown and as Lauren said with respect to the hill the hill is going to change pretty significantly here over the next couple years as we as the two new hotels go up there and I think that we should get out in front of

[110:00] it and treat the hill to the extent that the businesses in the area and property owners in the area are accepting of this treat the hill largely as we currently treat downtown I think you're going to see over the next few years the hill in downtown coming closer together not physically but but in their orientation programmatically and and they're going to start looking alike and probably have some overlaps so I as long as we're as long as we're improving this we let's not forget about the hill as Lauren said but great work thank you hey I am going to now comment since restaurants are one of my highest values which I've said before Council first of all Lisa thank you for a very cheery presentation and super interesting to everybody that did it um I want to add to you Matt's comments about downtown and add that I think restaurants are important in our neighborhood centers and to especially if we're trying to do walkable neighborhoods it will be really

[111:00] awesome to be able to walk to the restaurants I think that making it easier in the neighborhood centers will be great next I want to agree with everybody on the hill I feel since the pandemic the hill has taken a big hit the hill commercial area so I'd really like to see us fold this in with the hill involved the same as the downtown next I want to say that my wish would be that Boulder would be the place that you would want to open up a restaurant the number one place in Colorado to open up a restaurant should be Boulder um so that's what I'm hoping happens from all this um I don't want to say any more about chains because we all agree that it's an interesting concept and also we have to see what you all think about it and um I agree with everybody actually what they said in terms of making it easier for restaurants so that's it that's all I have I guess we are ready I don't see any more hands to go on to the next portion all right great thanks for all that

[112:01] great feedback all right so our next topic is jumping to residential so this is uh a bit narrower of a topic so this is duplexes and Townhomes in our BT business transitional and VR business Regional zoning districts I've tried to highlight those on the map so you can see where those are in the city right now in those districts there is a use review required if a duplex or town home is located on a ground floor which is kind of a funny regulation especially for Town Homes because I'm not really sure how you have a town home that's not on a ground floor so it basically means that you have to have a use review if you want to have a town home we have a similar requirement in our BC zoning District as well the I the opportunity that we saw with these related to this project is to remove the barrier we've heard a lot about middle housing and also looking at that policy that talked about you know transitioning down we thought that duplexes and Townhomes would be a really nice way to

[113:00] kind of have that scale of transition from the the business zones to residential areas so removing that barrier for duplexes and Townhomes and just allowing them by right in the BT and BR zoning districts the reason why we probably wouldn't make that change in the BC zoning districts is the BC is really our core neighborhood centers it's really focused on retail areas and it's trying to support retail and actually phase one of the project really focused on those retail support and VCU zones um so we were thinking that the BT and BR um would be the the districts to make that change and that's this is a change that we presented on this story map and the questionnaire and also have been talking to people out and about this summer we've heard lots of support for Middle housing in the neighborhood centers lots of people that we talked to were surprised that they were restricted now um and then we had really good conversations about how mixing uses having more housing nearby would add to the vibrancy of the neighborhood centers

[114:00] similarly in the working group and planning board Liaisons there was support for the duplexes and Townhomes in the neighborhood centers some discussions about like potential area plans could also help Revitalize some centers and then the community connectors also expressed some support for the duplexes and Townhomes so um that's all I have for that one the question is does the count do does the city council have any comments related to allowing duplexes and Townhomes on the ground floor in the BT and VR zoning districts go back so I can see everybody wow look at all these hands up let's start with Lauren um so first I have a question particularly with the BT zones when I look at those zones it looks like there's a and I don't know the Zone very well but it seems like there's a fair number of apartment buildings and things in that zone would this make

[115:00] it easier to do town homes in that District that can otherwise be somewhat dense and sort of actually end up moving instead of taking a less dense Zone and making it more dense does this potentially have the possibility of making something an easier pathway for a less dense option and what would otherwise be a more dense Zone the the BT Zone in particular is intended to be a transitional zone so it's not a it's not a particularly intense um Zone I'd have to look and see I don't know off the top of my head exactly what standards apply to like attached dwelling units the apartment buildings but um the the intent is to focus on you know having like retail and commercial on the ground floor and I think that's where the the requirement to not have duplexes and Townhomes on the ground floor comes from um and but this would allow the the kind

[116:00] of middle housing to be located on the ground floor where let me just double check um I'm pretty sure that attached rolling units also cannot be on the ground floor so let me just confirm I believe that's true that sounds right as I'm saying it like just make sure yes they cannot be on the ground floor in those zoning districts either so it would incentivize blower density I guess is the the it would incentivize the duplex in town homes in those districts over attached um I was also wondering if you had thought about expanding that definition to live work units since it is like transitional between the business and residential zones that seemed like I noticed that those were also conditional uses in that zone um so actually we made some changes to the liver units as part of modules yeah

[117:02] as module two so we expanded that was one of the only changes that was outside of the industrial districts so we expanded that and so there aren't limitations there's just the general limitations that apply to livework units anywhere like the owner has to live or the business operator has to live there and things like that which we talked about during module two but um there's not the specific ground for restriction for live work units okay I guess I'm feeling I mean I love the idea of duplexes and triplexes and Townhomes I'm just not sure that these are the zones that I'm really excited about seeing those in I guess I'm not strongly against it but this just particularly when I start to think about like the 29th Street mall and you know the downtown area of Gun Barrel those to me feel like areas where I'm not

[118:01] sure that I agree that duplexes and triplexes and Townhomes are the right match for those zones okay thank you hey next we have Rachel thanks thanks Lisa um y'all know I have not met a duplex or townhome I didn't like so I generally support it but what I don't understand is um what does it mean on the ground floor by right like if I think of duplexes and Townhomes ordinarily they have a second level for the you know a town home goes up or a duplex could be top floor bottom floor why why is it just a ground floor what am I missing so the intent like I said the intent of the districts is try to preserve the ground floor for retailer commercial uses so it's a it's a standard that we actually apply to lots of different uses throughout the code um you're allowed but if you're if

[119:00] you're on the ground floor you need a use review basically um if you're above the ground floor you don't need the user you so we've applied that to the duplex and Townhomes that's kind of why I was making the joke is that Townhomes really can't not be on the ground floor so it's essentially just a use review duplexes you could technically have two units above and then we would call it a duplex but that's not really the form that people think of when they think of duplexes so it's a little bit odd um but it's a standard that's applied probably to 30 different uses throughout the code so they're already going to be allowed by right without a use review on the top on the above floors this is just exempting them okay yeah that's another question thanks thanks okay next we have Nicole thank you um so what I'm wondering about is this you know if we have um duplexes and Townhomes allowed on the ground floor by right does this then just incentivize the other types of uses that folks want to see like the restaurants and the retail and all that sort of stuff like I'm just there's a limited amount of

[120:00] space in all these areas right and so if we open up to ground floor duplex or town home are we are we losing that because that to me feels like the place for the restaurants and the retails on the ground floor um so I just I worry about that a little bit so I'm just wondering if you can speak I know it's similar theme that I think what others are saying here too no yeah and I think that was the as we were the rationale of not not proposing that for the BC zoning districts was exactly like that like that is intended to be retail on the ground floor the idea with the BT and Dr zones is that they're a bit more transitional zones so trying to get at that comprehensive plan policy that talks about the scaled intensity so that's where we were trying to you know um like transition down to the residential areas by allowing this kind of middle housing middle density um but I think that the argument could definitely be made that that would take space from um some of those other uses we did hear

[121:00] a lot of support for the duplexes and Townhomes too though so um yeah interested to hear the direction on this one yeah yeah and it's with it you know I mean one one of the other things that I wonder about you know all the the places around it um they developed with a certain kind of capacity and so if we are then incentivizing um away from some of the denser housing with these duplexes and you know Town Homes what does that then do to the other retail and things that are around there as well um so anyway I mean I think I think I'm you know in a place where I'm a little nervous and and I'm wondering about if this is a place where we can maybe wait on this one until we have gone through um some of the process of looking at non-residential uses in residential areas um as sort of a I don't know put it on the shelf for a little bit um yeah just to see how that goes but um also really appreciate the idea of

[122:01] duplexes and town homes and so you know if you all think this is really an area to build that up and it's not going to impact either the density that's already there or the retail and restaurants and things that are already there um then I think I'm more comfortable with it okay thank you bye thanks Tara um and thanks Lisa for for taking us through this step on these sort of duplexes in brt and BR um I'm I'm not yeah I'm feeling a little conflicted myself on this and I think I'm actually kind of coming at it from reverse instead of thinking about these denser areas and working out I'm thinking from out in like like Rachel I I really want us to be leveraging more duplexes and triplexes and stuff to sort of fill that Gap in our scaffolding of housing inventory in our community um which is essential for uh middle and upper middle income to even have access

[123:00] to our community for that part but it's almost pre was dependent on me liking duplexes on the ground floor is whether or not we can liberate single-family zoning to start allowing duplexes and therefore if we have that inventory of duplexes and triplexes you know well spread throughout our community then I feel less dependent on needing it in this environment and we also then are thinking about well then what's that intensity transition like if our single family is growing in intensity then we're capping ourselves by making the compatibility based on yesterday's density not tomorrow's and so I really I I'm thinking we might need to think of this from the outside in and the inside out um and so I I want to know how we can do that so that's why I'm a little skeptical not from the workflow but just do we end up locking ourselves in to this work that then is no longer compatible because we're lifting up the density in the surrounding area and then

[124:00] we've sort of artificially capped ourselves off so that that's my main concern here but all in all I kind of like it but I I'm worried we're going to put a lid on ourselves unintentionally Aaron and then me yes I appreciate the questions and and concerns raised by my colleagues as I think those are um on the right track and I'll just I'll go a little further and say that I feel like you know the BR zones are some of our um most intense zones in the city right that's the core of our commercial um Center in the 29th Street area and also in Gun Barrel and so BR to me does doesn't feel like a place to have a duplex um on a ground floor uh because it if it's a place to have more intensity and more commercial opportunities um so it I would if we're going to move this forward I would definitely confine it to the BT this Lisa you made some great points about transitioning right to to lower intensity neighborhoods and those are the business transitional districts right so

[125:01] um that if we're going to move forward I would I would look at those rather than the BRS thanks so much for bringing this forward okay we still haven't heard from a few people that I don't see their hands up yet but meanwhile I'm gonna say um I'm gonna disagree with everybody and say I would like to see town homes and duplexes in these areas first of all this might not even make sense tell me if it doesn't Lisa but we have an awful lot of first floors that are empty right now what is the percentage like in some of those neighborhoods are pretty high so I would like to see more flexibility in terms of what is there I don't know that we need to have I don't know we have enough um people that want to buy stuff let's just say you know we've had a lot of changes in retail lately since the pandemic and with online purchasing and there's nothing to me spook gear slash not fun than walking through an empty

[126:02] um down a block that says for a lease on like every other um location you know what I'm saying so does that even apply to this or it doesn't like the empty storefronts don't worry about those yeah I mean um if we if you could open up to more uses whether that's residential or business then um that might take the place of empty storefronts uh typically if the building's built for commercial uses you know that would be like full Redevelopment to to transition that to residential um but that is something that we heard some concerns up throughout to during the it's just turnover in The Shopping Center's business not business not being sustainable there things like that so that's certainly part of the conversation as well yeah so for that reason I would like to definitely see flexibility um the second thing I want to say is I think it would add to the highly dense

[127:00] regions to add some duplexes and count them so make them not so severe um so for that reason and of course Lauren is the one that would know more than this than I do about this but I can visualize um if I guess the word would be gentle if gentle infill is to me duplexes and Townhomes and I like that idea very much so that's what I have to say and let's move on to Juni yes I just wanted to add quickly um I don't want to speak for Lauren and Rachel but as they were talking I was listening I was like hmm I think it makes sense and I think my Equity uh lenses or uh tentacles just as they were talking just kind of came out um if we have a lot of uh apartments in certain areas and we're opening up those areas to duplexes as we're thinking

[128:00] about Equity the idea is are we creating communities that are not mixed income right because ultimately not to say that some people don't live in expensive Apartments they certainly do but I don't live in an expensive apartment I lived in an area where it's lower income people who live there and I'm wondering if we are mostly having these um the zoning changes in areas that have a lot of apartments what type of Community are we creating so that's part of the concern for me as Lauren and Nicole was talking about that so considering other areas as well I think would be helpful because we know that when people live in mixed income neighborhoods it's almost like this idea of what is it the the tide that rides all boats I I don't always know that saying very well but the idea is that you want people to live in mixed income communities so that they can rise up

[129:00] together economically instead of creating areas where you put all the lower income people in the same area even though that's not the intention but that's what the regulations end up doing so that's my piece thank you thanks I was muted so I didn't Judy didn't hear me that was great Junie I agree with that um Lauren you're next I just wanted a quick follow-up on sort of something you brought up Tara with the empty storefronts right now residential can go on the ground floor right or duplexes or town homes it just would require a use review exactly so it's it's less about like you can or can't do it and more about like what pathway is easier exactly so it would be eliminating that that process piece that's it

[130:04] well it looks like everybody's asked and answered no yes good we'll move on to the next Mantra can I interject real quickly um I just want to check in with Lisa and make sure that you feel like feedback we got on that question was synthesized enough that we can move forward with with something or bring something forward that matches that or do you feel like you need something a little more definitive in terms of Direction no I feel like that was great I mean there's a it's exactly the reason why it's one of the key questions for Council because there's you know pros and cons to either side so I think um hearing from all of you that gives me a lot more Direction and then also we'll have the questionnaire close in the next few days so we'll have that that public input on that as well so I think I have enough to move forward with thank you make sure you felt good about that yeah thanks good point Brad okay let's move on all right okay so third topic or Focus area

[131:03] there we go um is related to vehicle related uses so this one is a little bit different than the other changes so everything else was allowing more uses or making it easier for that to open this is kind of the opposite so in looking at those policies related to safe and accessible walkability throughout the community one thing that we saw in the planning board subcommittee identified as something to support walkability it was to look again at our where we're allowing vehicle-related uses so those are things like car washes drive-throughs gas stations things like that and really focusing on the downtown area which is our Prime walkable area in Boulder right now those type of uses they all require a use review but we actually have five different zoning districts so it gets complicated I won't get two in the weeds for you um but those many of those uses are allowed but require a use review there are several vehicle related uses like

[132:01] Car Sales gas stations that are not not allowed at all they're already prohibited in the downtown area but we identified this as one opportunity to further support walkability by prohibiting the remaining vehicle related uses from the downtown zoning districts so that would be prohibiting car washes drive-throughs fuel service stations and fuel sales which is a gas station from the downtown districts what we've heard on this one through the public input um a lot of uh similarities throughout the different groups so so we've heard a lot of support for the change um with the caveat that as long as they're still available nearby like in proximity maybe they're not in that walkable area but they're at least still there on the outskirts or on the periphery and then a lot of people were surprised that they're allowed at all now because there there aren't very many of these uses downtown anyway um so that was kind of the the main

[133:00] thing we heard we also got we've had some interesting discussions about the value of gas stations and the convenience stores that you know if if you're in a food desert the convenience store might be the only option that you have to get food and so there are some there is value to those types of uses as well even though they're vehicle related um just a caveat on that is that we do allow convenience stores without gas stations it's just typically you see them well not that a convenience store without a gas station so you can think of those those types but so some interesting conversations about this one definitely curious to hear your thoughts on this so the question is do you have any comments regarding prohibiting the remaining vehicle-related uses in the downtown zoning districts yes I knew we were going to get a lot of hands for this one let's start with Bob thanks I'm gonna start with a question Lisa um I think the answer is no but is there is there anything between a use

[134:00] review which is what these uses require right now in prohibiting and is there like a super use review or a use review with certain established criteria or something that because prohibited seems like it goes a really really long ways especially for some of these uses there is no procedure between use review and prohibited we do have the conditional use process but that's in between allowed and use review if you think of them as like a spectrum but many of the vehicle related uses already have use review criteria specific to them so actually I think all of them do maybe except for car washes um so there's like the drive-through uses even though they're allowed in downtown they can't be anywhere except on Canyon so there are some things like that that we already have worked into the use review criteria for those uses yeah okay well I guess my reaction is some of those things like car washes I'm fine with because there's lots of car washes and they're on the periphery and and it doesn't matter if people have to drive a few blocks to wash their car I guess the one that jumped out of me was

[135:01] to drive throughs and I'd have to really walk through all of those downtown districts take a look at them property by property to see is is there a possibility that a drive-thru might be appropriate that's why I think the purpose of the use review is is to say is this appropriate does it meet the various criteria in the code um we've we've turned down use reviews before we just turned on one a few months ago wasn't even downtown it was over on 28th street because it uh the plane board and I think majority of council fell didn't meet the criteria so I guess I'd be a little reluctant about going so far as absolutely prohibit um some of these uses particularly drive-throughs some of the others like car washes I guess I'm okay with but I I think that's maybe a step too far if you want to beef up the criteria and have more criteria than there is right now are right now then that's fine I have to take a look at those but just an absolute prohibition seems like a pretty um a pretty heavy Sledgehammer to hit on a problem that I'm not sure I can't even remember the last time we had a use review for a drive through downtown have we had one last several years not that I'm aware of not that I'm aware

[136:01] of either Aaron might remember one recently but I I just can't think of one last one I can think of was the one over on 28th Street and that was about a year ago so um maybe not not trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist thanks thank you uh thanks Bob next we have Lauren thanks um yeah I was wondering how many of these exist in that current in the current zones that we're talking about and how many proposals we've seen coming through for these it sounds like we haven't seen any proposals recently so I guess how many of those currently exist so in turn the gas stations we have the one on Canyon so there's only one um drive through there I've been trying to track it down the exact number there's a drive there's technically a drive through the on Broadway there's a drive through ATM Bank of America and I need I need to confirm with our zoning administrator whether we would call that a drive-through or an ATM um there are not that I'm aware of and

[137:00] like I mentioned there's been a use review criteria for probably decades that they can't be allowed anywhere except on Canyon so I don't think there's any other drive-throughs on Canyon that I can think of there are no car washes uh the bus wash is the closest one but that's not in the downtown zoning districts and then fuel service stations there aren't any of those that I'm aware of either so I guess because I like Simplicity it feels like this isn't really a problem that we need to solve because we don't currently have those things and they're not looking to go there and um and I do I mean this probably would be treated differently but the with the use tables but I think about like you know a lot of those businesses have parking like municipal building parking underneath and what if at some point we want to change you know electrical charging stations um you know would that be captured as an auto use and if that's the case I'm not

[138:02] sure that I want to prohibit that because that might make sense it might not but I I just don't feel comfortable at this point saying that that is definitely a path I would want to go down okay okay so next we have Matt thanks Tara um Lauren uh and Bob Bob as well but Lauren hit that last point about Evie I was going to clearly ask if that was going to count because I could imagine um certainly from our our climate team uh we know that charging by day is way better for the environment than charging by night and so you'd want to maybe have charging stations that are more than just a single one around town and is that a vehicle related thing that is then thus prohibited so I I would see that these would then be in conflict with our other larger goals so I I tend to agree about that I'm not sure I see the problem from which to spend all this time trying to fix something that's not quite there

[139:00] um so so I would agree with Lauren and Bob on this one um and then the drive-through thing like in particular I'm thinking of accessibility of people who have mobility issues and needing to maybe get medicine at a Walgreens and they need that drive through for that uh think about being sick in certain things I mean I did there's just I don't know there's a lot of things that I could see those uses being necessary to maintain if it should be available and it's the right spot so I appreciate bringing the question to us though thanks Matt it looks like we now have Rachel hi Tara okay I wrote down sort of a stream of Consciousness thoughts here so kind of what Matt was getting out with drive-throughs and Equity I do think that there could be scenarios where we would want drive-throughs downtown and we don't really know what's going to come down the pike I think of um you know when I'm sick and go to a pharmacy I will often look through look for a drive-through you know Walgreens has one at 28th like I don't want to encourage people to drive farther to get what they need if they're looking for a

[140:01] drive-through so that that would be a backwards thing for us to be doing to disincentivize driving and that just causes people to drive to you know the outskirts of Boulder or Lewisville to get what they need at a drive through I also think that um with covid we had a lot of sort of pop-up drive-through things like um immunizations and covet testing and I would I would not want to limit that I think of ATMs as well as something that maybe could get caught up in that and also I think there's a bit of a socioeconomic um component here where um drive-throughs for food tendus or less expensive food and I would not want to make that uh difficult for people and again incentivize them to drive further away from home also if you have really small children sometimes like if you've got an infant sometimes like that is your your um I don't know rainbow like that you're shooting for somewhere that you can get coffee without having to get an infant out of

[141:00] the car so that is also something that we might be forcing people to drive farther I'm not a a fan of being in the car at all or driving far but I just think that these things would be a little bit more complicated than they might look at for site and and similarly with the convenience stores I imagine that they usually go with gas stations for some Financial relationship like the gas station probably produces more of the money than the convenience store and I think those are a place where um some people are going to feel more comfortable shopping uh even if there is like a Whole Foods nearby like there there is um and I think that that sometimes Falls along socioeconomic equity line so just be really leery of us putting something in place that would be prohibitive if um Without Really knowing that that serves our community entirely um so and again I'd be very concerned about having the reversing of causing more miles driven by making it harder to get

[142:00] these things that people are going to want regardless but I appreciate the effort I love I love the way you're thinking that's all there's never a 24-hour pharmacies somewhere that I'm going to ask you guys later meanwhile um I need to know um these have been great comments let's continue on with Aaron yeah well I'll go in a little bit of a different direction from from my colleagues here uh just that like Rachel and Matt you made great points about the need for uh drive-ins for certain people in certain uses and which is why I would not try to out loud them in in the city um but we're just talking about the the core of our our downtown here um so which I think you know should be designed for the the walkable uses that function particularly well in a in a denser downtown so you don't Outlaw drive-ins everywhere but I think removing Auto related uses from our downtown would be fine but like other people have said we also don't seem to have a big problem that we're solving

[143:00] here so it doesn't sound like that's probably the will of counseling so that's fine but just throw that in there thanks hey next we have Mark yeah I I want to speak in support of um Rachel's comments I I you know just um from empirical evidence if you look at some of the uh uses of drive-throughs um uh the Walgreens on on Valmont uh is very heavily used and in the drive-through capacity um if you go further out then it's not downtown but just as an example um you go into the shopping center that has an OZO around 55th Street there's a I think it's a Burger King or Wendy's it is jammed at lunch and and so some of these drive-throughs do perform a function for the community with respect to um uh car washes I'm I'm not sure I actually see the Nexus between dirty cars and the

[144:02] promotion of walking um it it's not an essential service but um people will want to get their cars washed at some point in time and I don't know that the inability to do that it's going to make them say okay I'm gonna walk more it's just not a relationship that that I can see um Leslie do you know how many um uh gas stations we have left in town I don't know the total number in the city but like I said there's only one in downtown the downtown area um and I know we're we're likely uh at some point to be losing one on Baseline if the proposals for housing there go forward and you know we are still in an environment where people do use cars they're not all electric and they're not going to all be Electric in the foreseeable future and you know you

[145:02] can force everybody to drive to Costco uh to get their gas um but then you're spending about 16 or 18 miles round trip and I don't know that that's much better for the environment than being able to get gas in town so I I understand the Instinct here I'm just not seeing um that we are actually solving any of the issues that we're that are generating some of these proposals um and and uh so I'm not sure this is the problem we need to be addressing um entirely thanks thanks Nicole yeah I just um I actually have a question for for staff you know I you know you all know that there's not a lot of these uses you know downtown in this area um you know I think you also understand some of the things we're raising and so I feel like I'm just kind of missing

[146:00] something about the the reason that you all work that game this might be something to do you know is it just because people were saying hey let's get rid of some of these kinds of uses and this seemed like a place we could potentially do that because there's not much there like I just I feel like I don't I just want to give you an opportunity to let us know what what are what's the piece of information you have that that we don't yeah sure so this was something that was brought up initially by the planning board subcommittee which is the group that in 2019 and 2020 went through line by line with the use table so this was a recommendation that came directly from them um and also I think that you know even though we don't have those uses now if someone were to come in with a development proposal for that and then they met all of the used review criteria there it's very difficult to deny it used interview and so um just thinking of the goals of walkability and those type of vehicle related uses bring a lot of cars to an area which is inherently at odds with walkability so that's where we thought

[147:00] that this was something and this was one of the big topics where we were curious to hear uh the public input on it kind of really just wanted to raise it as a potential change and see what the reaction was because I I agree I could see both sides on this side on this topic well thank you so yes I mean if we so basically at this point like somebody could come in and um propose to put five gas stations downtown and it would not need to go through use review was that it would have it would have to go through used review but um you know if they met the use review criteria then um then we would approve the use review if they were able to be approved so um yeah I think that's where um it goes through a discretionary process but there is still that potential that it could be introduced into the downtown area okay thank you yeah I think I just I have some similar questions just kind of around you know electric vehicle use and and how you

[148:01] know charging and things like that would work as well also just kind of recognizing how our population demographics will be shifting um to one that is heavier on the 65 and older in the coming decades um you know I really am thinking a lot about sort of this Mobility but I'm also hoping that in the next 20 years we've got better ways of getting people around town than cars as well so I I think this is not you know one that that feels um really big to me and if it if it does kind of help prevent more cars downtown I like that idea as well Erin nope okay I am going to comment I am going to disagree with most of council again and say that I wish that we would be able to well I wish we would be able to prohibit vehicle-related uses in the downtown zoning districts at least some of them but I also see Lauren's point do we want

[149:02] to don't we want to make things easier less burdensome but still in all um the idea of you know multiple gas stations and drive-throughs and convenience stores sounds more like some place that we don't want to have so for that reason I'm going to say that I wish that we would do that but I'm out quoted so anybody else nobody all right we are moving on all right I'm on to my fourth and final question thank you all for going through all of these this has been great so this one is kind of the miscellaneous um these are other opportunities that we saw looking through the use table or that were recommended by planning board subcommittee or a working group or that we've heard through public engagement where we could change the youth allowance or change the use standards to support these uses so I've grouped them into the type the categories that we

[150:02] have in the use table so we have public and institutional and commercial in public and institutional the three opportunities we saw and a lot of these changes are focused in the mixed use or mu zones and the BT which is the one we talked about is the transitional business zone so that's what you can kind of see in the the parentheses but clubber Lodge that's a community center um or like a masonic lodge currently prohibited in the mixed use zoning districts like I mentioned earlier government facilities are prohibited so allowing those we also saw that museum M's are prohibited in the mixed use zoning districts rather than allowing those by right museums kind of like private schools and other uses in our use table or theaters um they tend to have a lot of people come at once so that's usually something that can be more impactful on neighboring properties and that's usually something that you might want to see a use review just to be able to evaluate the impacts and maybe look at you know access patterns parking things like that just have a closer look on

[151:02] those types of uses that might have more of an impact rather than allowing those by right so those are the public and institutional other changes in the commercial section animal hospitals also we kind of we've been making a joke that the impacts are related to parking and barking but animal hospitals may be a use review just because it can have some exterior impacts lots of animals in one place that would be in the mixed use zoning districts currently prohibited allowing hostels in the mixed use two and three zones just to make it more similar to how they're allowed in other mixed use zones Medical Offices allowing those a small scale of those in the mixed-use zoning districts or mu1 and two non-vehicular Repair and Rental that's like your vacuum repair things like that we've heard a lot of like well we're not really sure that those businesses would open but if we allowed them maybe we

[152:00] would um but those are fairly prohibitive right now so allowing those with a size limit so they'd be small scale in the mixing zoning districts BT which is the business transitional and BMS such as business Main Street and then retail this is one of the most surprising ones when we were going through the use table that retail is actually fairly prohibited in the mixed use zoning districts right now um so allowing retail with a size limit particularly in mix in the mu1 district and in BT so allowing retail so shops to be located in the MU one two and three and BT zoning districts just kind of some interesting background on that Boulder was one of the first cities or one of the earliest cities to adopt mix-use zoning and so similar to some other um like I was here recently to talk about edu's when we were the first one to do something you kind of go in treading lightly um so our mixed use zoning actually now now we've been kind of eclipsed by other cities and what they allow in mixed-use

[153:01] zoning districts um and we actually were pretty prohibitive in in our mixed zoning District so there's lots of opportunities there um and then small theater rehearsal space we've heard a ton of support for small music venues and things like that which are currently prohibited like I mentioned with the museums that's something where people are coming and going a lot at one time and so that's something you might want to have a user view to review on a site-specific basis and be able to apply standards and things to that approval finally temporary events we allow them right now in all business and downtown zoning districts but we don't allow them in mixed-use zoning districts so that would just be allowing them like we do in those other districts as a conditional use so those are some of the other opportunities that we identified these are ones that we've been presenting that's to the community for their input so far and what we've heard on these other changes I already mentioned people just keep talking about post offices lots of support for seeing more post offices for that governmental facility change lots of support for the music

[154:01] venue idea and then General support for all of the other changes not really seeing a lot of or hearing a lot of red flags so far on those changes um also General support from our working group and our planning board Liaisons and then we had a great more General conversation with the community connectors just about the value of walkability and permitting more of these uses and that if you're able to walk through these uses it helps to build the community makes the neighborhood feel safer and to get to know your neighbors if you're walking around um like I mentioned before just supporting more so anything we can do to support more small businesses and create more affordable commercial space um some other things that the the community connectors identified which is a little more Transportation related but having more bus routes to get to the services that people need and also making sure that community services are allowed in walkable distance from people's houses as well so final question does city council have any other comments on any of the

[155:00] potential changes to support walkable and accessible neighborhood centers um Tara I would ask you is it helpful if I keep that slide up with all the different because there's so many or would you like me to take it down it doesn't matter what it um I think you should take it down you just put it in the chat right or it's in the chat and it's in the it's in the memo as well the list is on okay everybody this is your opportunity of a lifetime your final comments Rachel you're up first pressure is on it looks mostly great I had a couple questions um Club Lodge especially especially after you said Masonic Lodge like I just wondered how how we got there I don't know I think of those as in generally sort of exclusive rather than inclusive and uh personally belong to any so how did we come to prioritizing clubs and lodges it was just one that we saw is prohibited and if it's something that

[156:01] people could walk to why are we prohibiting it I think is the the reason that we thought that could be a potential change and also it could be a more expansive um you know we never know what types of businesses are going to come and sometimes we have to assign a business to an existing use definition so there might be some kind of community Lodge that is open to um everybody that would fit into that classification that we would want people to be able to access so that was the thinking with that one okay I might um I I might not like that depending on I think I'd want more information because if we allow that and then some of these Prime spaces get taken up in walkable neighborhoods by a lot of people who are going to be driving to their exclusive clubs because they probably don't live right near it I don't like I don't know if I like that so I would love more more understanding of that one and then the second one the word that jumped out at me was hostels and I understand that we

[157:00] allow them in mu two and three I think I heard you say and we would just be opening to one I don't I'm not much familiar with hostels in Boulder do we have any I'm actually not sure I believe there's at least Brad do you know I feel like there are but I'll do a quick Goodwill sir okay I might be curious to know like what what does that look like because I I imagine uh community members who might be impacted might want to know what is what do we mean by hostile what is that and maybe just the definition for the next for when we come back to look at this again okay who's who's impacted by hostels is uh if we don't have any why don't we have any in two and three and maybe I don't more information on hostels I don't think that's a word I've seen during my almost four years yeah I know I'm still looking but I will say those are generally targeted for visiting students right and maybe Elder hospitals

[158:00] as well I've spent some you know quite merry nights in European hostels uh definitely not I just don't understand but I've just never heard of them here and don't know what the definition is or what that looks like and what we would be looking at so those would be just more information I would love for the next time I'm more concerned about the club Lodge yeah hostels thanks okay thanks okay next we have Aaron yeah uh well I'm excited about these changes so thanks very much for bringing them forward um you know a lot of this these changes are in an mu1 and mu2 which is those are exclusively in the north edge of town which is my walkable neighborhood and actually the lack of retail in those uh zones has been a pet peeve of mine for 20 years I remember uh talking to to local business owners or Property Owners nearby I'm like well why are all these storefronts empty and they're like well we can't put most of the things we want to put here because of the zoning rules and I'm like wow that doesn't seem right so I'm very excited to be changing that

[159:02] here because I think that's a great direction to go in and and and and true of just pretty much all the ones that you're proposing uh you know Rachel race is a good question about those those clubs which would be interesting to learn more about but I think you're absolutely on the right track with these and I look forward to getting those changed and while I have the floor because we're going to wrap up before too long I want to give a particular shout out to the planning board subcommittee that spent like dozens and dozens of hours like pouring through the use tables and it's detailed stuff and I know how hard they worked and we're continuing to see the results of all that great work they did and so just really wanted to thank them for for all those hours thank you I agree with that thanks Aaron Matt thanks Tara um yeah I'll start with the the kudos to the planning board subcommittee I'll let go Aaron that that's that that is diving into the weeds uh and the epitome of it and uh someone's got to do it they did it and

[160:00] did it well so thank you for teaming us up for for being able to push forward some good work and then staff for for taking the torch and running with it um a couple things one is um and kind of maybe a little bit of a housekeeping issue on this is uh the presentation had amazing maps from which gave me a much better spatial understanding of these zones and where they are in relation to the city and neighborhoods those Maps were not in the packet and I'm not and I'm thinking that from the community's perspective if they want to look at it now we're trying to look at it or go back to look at this one um it'd be nice to have those Maps so I don't know if we can retroactively just add that as an addendum to this packet so it's sort of memorialized and has that great input but those maps spatially are so important um so just future thinking uh as we do this so much of planning is that sort of geospatial and so maps maps maps maps and more maps um going forward so I would love to sort of make a call out for that um and and speaking of maps one thing that I'm and it sort of goes into a

[161:01] theme of what I was trying to mention earlier is about future proofing some of this work because we are going to be increasing density and the allowable uses of different residential and stuff throughout the city and I really want to make sure that these neighborhood centers are being built on the Assumption of that of our future development not what it is now and I know the comp plan and other things kind of anchor us to what you see um I think that will be self-self-limiting and we will be building obsolescence from day one so I'd really love to see how we can think about what we're doing I'm thinking like the planning reserve and on that map of of showing you those sort of neighborhood centers the closest one to that is number five but that's that's the North Broadway North Boulder one that already serves Aaron's community and we're going to have 500 Acres so we've got a new neighbor Neighborhood Center so I want to think about those things about where we're headed down the road and I think we'll set ourselves up for success for the next 20 50 years for that matter um so so those are the those are the key takeaways is just sort of how do we

[162:01] build with intense with with intention in that regard um and those wonderful Maps which you guys work so hard on so you better put them on display like everywhere and show some love to your great map makers in the gis folks in the city so appreciate it thanks for all the great work I did like those Maps next we have Lauren um so I'm going to talk about unintended consequences which is something I never do but in Boulder with the limited number of event spaces we have we end up seeing things like bike shops having a fair number of events and I understand that we're concerned about museums or theaters in these places and the number of events that they you know might have and the use review but I feel like especially if the Arts organizations especially the

[163:00] really small ones tend to have a really hard time holding property that they can't do anything in for the length of time it would take to go through a used review and and I think that if we don't have those spaces they show up in other places anyway in places that don't go through used reviews so I would like to see us especially at the very small end try and maybe allow those by right um but everything else I was super psyched on um and just in general like I know that we couldn't in this time frame tackle the 15-minute neighborhood sort of thing but I just I hope we get back to that at some point because to me that's what I was really excited about with this project and I think that the things that are in it are good but they're not

[164:02] creating 15-minute neighborhoods in places that we don't already have them they feels like and um oh also the things that I sort of said no to for me it's it's more about that we all have limited time and that those aren't up a priority for me um rather than like I'm absolutely against them it's more just about where I know that everything we see is planning and development related and I really want to make sure that you guys are able to focus on the things that get us the most bang for the buck so thank you I'm going to build on that in my comment later let's go with Mark yeah I I want to um uh jump on Rachel's bandwagon with respect to lodges and and the the like I'm not quite sure what it is we would be doing there

[165:00] um uh I like the idea of promoting um theater spaces and gallery spaces um and museums I I would want to be a little cautious about the compatibility in every instance of musical performance spaces with their neighbors and we might want to think a little bit about how we do that because that that can be a little disruptive depending upon the kind of venue that you're creating so I would just want to keep that in mind and like my colleagues I want to be very grateful to the uh planning board subcommittee that that did all this incredible work thank you very much and uh I'm I'm glad we didn't have to do it um I I do for distilling it down for us thank you Mark let's go with Nicole thank you um I just wanted to Echo some of

[166:00] Lauren's comments about um some of the smaller event spaces and you know thinking about how we can um make sure that that's accounted for as well uh and also you know for me when I look at these lists like these are the type of places that bring people together in neighborhoods that really create those Community connections and I really appreciate the idea of making it a little bit easier to have that um not just kind of performance spaces but one thing I hear a lot from folks in the community is I wish we had just a small space that could be our little Community Center for whatever you know whatever group or portion of the community it is so to the degree that these types of changes can make those kinds of spaces easier to create I especially like them and I also want to Echo some of Lauren's other comments just around I'm really eager for the work of creating more of these neighborhood connection spaces and more of the city so that

[167:00] you know you don't have to drive for a mile or two to kind of get there that you can just walk and be there in 15 minutes so really eager for that work as well but thank you very much what a what a time period to have done this work over and I just kudos to all of you and to everybody who's been involved in keeping this going through a pandemic and the last few years so thank you thanks Nicole okay my turn and nobody except me can tell myself that I'm off topics and I'm not going to do that so I'm going to go off topic first of all thanks for enjoying that Nicole you let me um hostels I'm not excited about I don't know do we really need to do that I agree with Rachel we need more information on hostels but everything else I'm good with so now I'm going to move on I've been thinking about the neighborhood center concept for the entire week every day I wake up and

[168:00] think about it and one of the reasons why is because I passed base Mars my neighborhood center but it's anything but a neighborhood center these days right first of all it has some great things as an example uh you know it has the bridge The Underpass rather to connect it to the other side of the street it has a coffee shop but it also lost you know some bigger um stores and I can walk to base Mar but I have no reason to really that there are a few great stores there oops I don't want to offend any stores that are there but there's less reason now than there used to be so what I would like to see is a reimagine looking at some of the old neighborhood centers and making them better so for base Mar and I'm sure this is nothing to do with this topic but maybe it has to be a council priority should I get on Council um in the next term would be to take a place like baseball and make it exciting put in housing and mixed use and that

[169:01] giant parking lot is just terrible I mean there's not even cars there so for me reimagining these great neighborhood centers or that used to be better than they are and you know since we took some you know someone we had so much change like I said earlier in the um in our um shopping centers because of and neighborhood centers because of the pandemics I think it would be a really good idea to look at them again um of course space Mars mine so I'm pushing that as number one um I thought you did a fantastic job tonight and made us re I've never thought this would be such an exciting topic for me but it truly was and so I really appreciated this presentation and that's what I have to say thank you everybody for not telling me that I went off topic I appreciate it Matt just kidding anybody have final words

[170:00] I don't want to be the last one to say something I'm uncomfortable with that no uh Sharon I just wanted to finish by asking Tara if you could get back on topic please no just kidding um I just wanted to give a final thank you to to staff for the extraordinary work Lisa and and your team there this is so detail-oriented and these are such great recommendations they're going to make a real difference for our city in the coming years and decades so just greatly appreciative of everything you've done but that's right it was not math that tells me to get on topic it's always you Aaron reminding me sorry Matt anyway I just want to chime in and say thank you for your acknowledgment of the good work Lisa has done and one thing that's not readily apparent in either the staff reports or presentations is all of the minutia of setting up meetings and meeting asking detailed questions and all that so uh I I know you know that but just for the general uh public that's um a lot of the real uh

[171:02] boots on the ground kind of work and really appreciate the work of Lisa and team yeah thanks everybody for the this has been a really great discussion I am clearly very in the weeds of this so it's been really fun doing all the public engagement and chatting with everyone over the last few weeks about it and like getting to talk to other people but um especially this conversation with you all has been really great and you've given really really helpful Direction so I appreciate that I did just want to tell you just kind of the schedule for the project we'll be taking we'll be um closing the questionnaire on July 31st please do promote um it to people so we get more people to answer it I think the story map is a really cool tool that we haven't used before so check that out and share it with others we've been posting it on social media so you can share that too um and then also so then we'll be refining an ordinance based on the public input and the direction we've received from you tonight we'll go to planning board in August uh kind of

[172:01] mid-august for their recommendation and then we're currently scheduled to see you all for an ordinance in October for first and then November 2nd for second reading so that's when you can anticipate seeing the actual ornaments before you and again thank you so much for your time on this Lisa can you tell everybody who's listening I already got one Community member emailing me where exactly can I find this questionnaire yeah so um if you just go to the use table page on the city website it has a link to it it's also um what is that page called the the like main engagement page on the city has a big blurb about it Facebook and Twitter are both posted about it um it's I can give the little short link but I don't know how helpful that would be but BLD can we maybe send that to all the council members and then if they get questions we can send that out and yeah that's easier there's something in the chat too yeah I heard Boulder also links to it too if you put use table in the um General

[173:01] search bar too I think that is yeah it should get you there we've got it in a lot of places but yeah I'll send the link thank you well it looks like we are done unless I hear from any I'm gonna Pat myself on the back for ending 30 minutes early and with no other items on tonight's agenda I will close this meeting at 8 47 pm [Music] thank you foreign [Music]