August 17, 2023 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[1:03] [Music] one if we can start recording there we go good evening everyone and welcome to the Thursday August 17 2023 regular meeting of the Boulder City Council we'll go ahead and call us to order and ask for a roll call please yes sir good evening everyone we'll start tonight's roll call as usual with councilmember Benjamin present mayor Brockett present councilmember faulkers present friend here Joseph present spear present mayor Pearl Tim Waller present councilmember weiner president and Yates right here mayor we have our Quorum thanks so much we're going to start with item 1A which is about our annual comprehensive financial report

[2:01] item 1A on tonight's agenda on the call to order is the presentation and questions related to the annual comprehensive financial report and auditor selection and welcome Professor gross if you can introduce yourself please thanks uh my name is David Gross and I serve on the Boulder City Council audit subcommittee my PhD is in financial economics and I'm a teaching Professor I have a finance at CU Boulder and I separate from my academic activities I've done this type of accounting audit and financial oversight for many years and for many local organizations and this is my fifth year on the city's audit committee the committee consists of council members Joseph Wallach and myself I'm the outside expert and our job is to assess and interpret the audit of the city's 2022 fiscal year and the financial statements it is not the job of this Committee in any way to assess the stability or health of the city's financial position or to assess the priorities or efficacy

[3:00] of exponential activities that of course is the job of the council and all Boulder residents but without the work done by the city's Auditors and this committee people could not perform these assessments so the motion on the consent agenda for later this evening is to approve and accept the city of Boulder 2022 annual comprehensive financial report the akfer and the audit of the 2022 act firm and so I'll give a brief description of the four-part process that led us to this point first the City Records the city staff records all Financial transactions as they occur second the staff uses this information to prepare the financial statements these financial statements are produced for each of the city's 45 funds including General open space Transportation Municipal property there are three types of financial statements for each of these 45 entities and then an aggregate statement like a p l or an income statement the statement

[4:00] of Revenue expenses and change in that position all revenue transactions are summarized and categorized by Source all expense transactions are summarized and categorized by type and from these the staff computes the resulting net change in fund balance like a balance sheet the statement of net position lists what the city owns and what the city owes and the resulting net position If This Were a business we'd call this owner's equity and the difference between this year's net position and last year's net position is the change in that position from the p l statements that we just spoke about next is the statement of cash flows this documents the sources and uses of all cash over the year if an entity has lots of non-cash revenues or lots of non-cash expenses in other words a lot of transactions on credit an entity that appears to be financially healthy can run out of money waiting to get paid that is not the case with the city of Boulder the city has very few credit transactions

[5:01] uh these financial statements are public they can be used by anyone to understand how the city operates among questions that can be answered is from where does the city receive its funds uh where does the city spend its funds how stable healthy and sustainable is the city of Boulder and um what are the city's priorities and how effective are its Financial activities other questions can only be answered if the city accurately records its transactions and produces correct financial statements and that of course is the purpose excuse me of the audit so third a record of these transactions and the financial statements are given to the auditor Clifton Larson Allen in addition the auditor works with the city staff to gain an understanding of the process used to record the transactions and prepare the financial statements and the auditor ensures that the recording and preparation are done in accordance with the rules set by the government Accounting Standards Board and so the results of the audit the Auditors gave a clean opinion this is the best possible result for the city so

[6:00] summarizing the opinion on page 17 of the 312 page akfer the auditor wrote in our opinion the financial statements referred to above present fairly and in all material respects the respective Financial positions of the government activities business activities of each major fund and the aggregate remaining fund information of the city uh the Auditors look for deficiencies significant deficiencies and material weaknesses and they found none so again an overall clean opinion this is the 33rd consecutive year and 40 years total that the city was awarded a certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting by the government financial Officers Association that certifies that the city went beyond the minimum requirements and prepared reports that evidence the spirit and transparency of full disclosure this is a strong Testament to the uh to the skill and hard work of the city staff

[7:00] so the final steps the audit committee interprets an accident any recommendations from the auditor again there were none for 2022 the audit committee considers any audit findings and makes recommendations to the Council on whether to accept the aqua and the audit of the ACT firm and it is the unanimous recommendation of the audit committee that the council approve and accept the report and the audit of the report thank you thank you so much Dave any questions for Professor gross Bob David thanks for doing this for five years in a hope you're around for many many more years thanks um I seem to recall from a few years ago I know this is a very very clean opinion this year a few years ago maybe two or three years ago there were a few minor deficiencies that the um auditor found um and I think they were primarily related to I.T correct those have um either didn't reoccur or they've been corrected is that correct those were corrected two years ago and were not part of even last year's audit right

[8:00] last year there was one single issue that had to do with a uh money that Federal money that had been spent and there was a small uh there was a record that should have been kept that wasn't kept but again this was a minor thing and no money was misspent and I sorry and even and no no minor things this year at all nothing minor completely clean really just a perfect audit great thank you dude thank you good well um David thanks so much for your work on the audit committee as well as to council members Joseph and wallet for your work on that and to our outstanding Financial staff a clean opinion that's an extraordinary accomplishment so thanks very much for getting us to that point okay that closes that out so we will now go to item two on our agenda which is open comment and we will have Ryan henchen go over the public participation guidelines thank you good evening all Ryan Hanson here he him are serving people of Boulder as Community engagement manager and thank you for being here this

[9:02] evening to share your perspectives and your thoughts I want to make sure that everyone is aware that the city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive meaningful and inclusive conversations and know that this Vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members staff and Council as well as democracy for people of all ages identities lived experience and political perspectives please find more on this vision and this work at the website listed on your screen and as we move to the next slide please know that the following are examples of rules of Quorum that we will follow this evening that aligned with this vision first off all remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to City business no participants will make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person obscenities rich and other speech and

[10:02] behavior that disrupt or otherwise impede the ability to conduct this meeting are prohibited participants are required to sign up speaking the name they are commonly known by individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online currently on the audio testimony as permitted online and we ask that in-person participants are asked to refrain from expressing support or disagreement verbally or with Applause with the exception of support for declarations and support is shown traditionally silently through American Sign Language Applause or jazz hands thank you thank you Ryan all right we've got 15 14 people signed up in person and three virtually I'll read three names at a time if you could come down as we're preparing to get to your time to speak and just to note that you're welcome to speak on any subject other than the subject of our public hearing later on this evening about occupancy limits while the separate set of speakers for that you have two minutes each and our first

[11:00] speakers are Jade Kelly Mary Ingham and Travis Hugh Cully hello my name is Jade Kelly and for the past two years I have proudly served as president of CWA local 7799 your favorite Union's favorite Union we are worker-led labor union of six public sector unions including ucw Colorado a wall-to-wall union for faculty students and staff at CU UC Health Workers United Denver Health Workers United Denver Public Library Workers United Pikes Peak Library Workers United and the Defenders Union of Colorado for workers in the state public defender system I'm here testifying on behalf of all of our union members to demand that this Council fall through with your commitment to support the working people of Boulder and raise the minimum wage I know it will be the gas lit once again tonight by folks from the chamber and CML who have been waging a war a well-funded war on workers who will undoubtedly say that despite the years of record-breaking profits despite the dozens of delays we've already had to raising the local minimum wage the green

[12:00] light from previously past State legislation and the countless studies done by experts in civil servants in the cdle sitting very clearly with concrete evidence from Denver in similar cities throughout the country that increasing the minimum wage would stimulate our local economy help businesses significantly reduce evictions and help families out of poverty that despite all of these painfully obvious facts that we have been forced to prove on repeats that all of you should abandon your Oaths your campaign promises and you should ignore the facts and silence your constituents who are demanding a fair wage I need you to listen closely take my testimony seriously and as an emergency appeal from the workers themselves this cannot wait until 2025. we have paramedics at UC help making 18 bucks an hour struggling to survive they don't need a parade they don't need praise they need a raise we have dining staff at CU who are the primary Breadwinners for their families to become dependent on campus food pantries them and their children need a raise in the minimum wage there are 48

[13:00] 000 jobs and workers in Boulder County that pay less than 19 bucks an hour and you can help them out by voting to raise the minimum wage voting to reduce homelessness and hunger voting to decrease the wage Gap and keeping your promise to serve the public good of your constituents thank you chain Mary Ingham Travis Hugh culley and Phoenix Liu my name is Mary Ingham I live and work on our farm in unincorporated Boulder growing vegetables flowers and annuals our house predates the boulder airport built in 1870s it has been an operating Farm since then we are part of an important community of farmers providing local food I accept that growth is inevitable and that challenges come with it that must be navigated to make the community better for all but that should include the Airport Aviation businesses and Pilots the airplane noise has exponentially increased over the last six years

[14:01] because I work long hours outside every day along with my farm help we are subjected to non-stop airplanes flying low and directly above us most days most days we wear earplugs because the noise is so bad when I leave work I am still home and the noise rarely stops there have been days after a long week with endless noise that I get in my car and leave the farm in tears trying to escape the noise on top of this we have led particles dumped on us most days because the toe plane Pilots refused to follow Boulder's departure rule citing or cutting the airspace corner so that they can drop plane sooner the FAA does not enforce any rules or recommendations regarding flight patterns that affect people and homes on

[15:00] the ground with no oversight Pilots will continue to expand operations for their profit and amusement people on the ground will bear the cost regardless of what path the city chooses for the future of airport we absolutely must get rid of the FAA involvement so that a small group of people cannot operate without regard to the communities of people and their homes they fly over your time is up Mary but thank you so much for your comments okay Travis ukully and then Phoenix Salu and Michelle Rodriguez good evening Council it's my pleasure to see you all again it's been a few weeks months I'm sad and upset today I don't pierceo but today I'm full of grief I'm I'm calling on the word kyudatsu Japanese word for despair and exhaustion in equal measure I stand for the people of Lahaina in their

[16:01] recent tragedy the fires that took place mimicked the fires that we experienced in the Marshall fire and it is incredibly uh um it's a word I can't find to say how well we survived as opposed to how Lahaina did contaminated lands will be the first to burn that's really all I have to say so I've got a whole bunch of stuff to talk about but but these contaminated lands are going to go first and so we need to have a find a way we have to find a way to investigate these contaminated fires because contamination fires come buried so we can always look at what's happening at the surface but until we get a detailed examination of the heavy chemicals that happen around that are in the Earth around Marshall fire we can't be conclusive about the nature of the fire these are buried fires that may have come from below and within we cannot

[17:00] excuse any element not the coal fires nor Marshall landfill nor Rocky Flats from having an um a negative impact on the superior fires I say I say that to council knowing that this may not be the right dios to speak with on the subject and David Abelson tells me that he is not the right place for me to come with my first concerns I'm I'm being given a run around about where and is that uh a human voice and my political potential as a citizen is supposed to play the right part um and I'm going to have to start from scratch [Music] thank you Travis I know we have Phoenix Lou Michelle Rodriguez and Anna Casey Barbara um so I wanted to utilize my mission of

[18:00] whole systems integration to raise the understanding of bringing indigenous voices into Political spaces such as these since I've been stepping into city council and observing witnessing I've noticed how few indigenous people are on the one hand showing up and on the other hand having the encouragement to speak and I say that from a completely neutral space of my interest um stemming from my own multi-ethnic background and recognition that so much of this planet is shifting into a multi-ethnic multi-racial world in reality and I think that as we move forward I took an indigenous environmental class through naropa my

[19:02] school and highly recommend that to anybody who is speaking tonight and who may speak in the future or is listening now that informing yourself of the land that you're inhabiting as human beings and as stewards of this planet is what is going to pay our respects to the people who once were here and the things that have happened to them and so instead of seeing ourselves so much as indigenous and colonizer I'm wondering how we can bridge the gap between the two and find the space to just be human and so the question I wanted to bring tonight was what I wrote in my final paper was how do we replace what was taken without displacing more people and so I feel like that was something that I just wanted to share thank you

[20:03] thank you Phoenix Michelle Rodriguez Tracy Jones hi guys I know you don't find me speechless too often um and Miss weiner didn't show up I wanted to say um she's here she's just hey all right well I can't see her but I wanted to say happy belated birthday um when she caught she got me off guard last last week when she said she was um celebrating her 65th and I sat there in silence but I wanted to say that and I wanted to congratulate you Nicole on your your bed for mayor I wasn't um I was lost in my own thoughts and didn't think of that I wanted to come comment on Mr cauley's comments about the fires and and when he mentioned Hawaii it's it's total devastation over there and I can't even

[21:00] imagine it um I wanted to say I've got my own birthday anniversary coming up and it's holding a five-year anniversary of if you know you know for me and the biggest thing I'm going to be celebrating this year is our ongoing efforts with reform in the police department I want to give Commendation to the work that's been done to change things so that we can all live in a better place and for the cleanups and the the efforts that are going forth I'm going to miss some people tremendously when you guys move on I hope you stay with us in one capacity or another and I'm looking forward to continue to change your progress Tara did give a big smile and a thank you that you couldn't see now we have Anna casibara Tracy Jones and and tap

[22:06] hello my name is I am a resident of Boulder and I'm the Community Access and development development coordinator at El Centro Mista as you already know immigrants are among the lowest paying workers in Boulder we Are Witnesses um to how much many of the families we serve struggle to stay afloat to pay rent and to pay their bills and we often have to they come to us for um resources that we don't have and we have to refer them to organizations like EFA most of the working adults and the families must keep multiple jobs to make ends meet and we see every day how these families or Families my neighbors my friends

[23:02] must make the hard decision to move out of the city because they can no longer afford to stay here and how all of it it takes a toll on their physical and mental health today I'm here to ask the city council to act now and increase the minimum wage in Boulder by at least 15 percent to bring it over to the 15 an hour threshold and determine a path to catch up with Denver's minimum wage having in mind that 15 an hour it is still not enough to make ends meet in Boulder foreign but at least there's a step on the right direction or families neighbors and Friends cannot wait another year this needs to be implemented by January 1st of the 20 of 2024. thank you now we have Tracy Jones and tap and Alejandra BT

[24:11] do we have Tracy Jones here people moving around but it looks like we don't have Tracy Jones present so we'll go to and tap good evening my name is Ann Tapp I'm the executive director at safehouse Progressive Alliance for non-violence and uh sure that I've been with our Organization for more than 30 years I shared that in part uh to provide some historical perspective to the consent agenda that you will will be reflecting on this evening the 0.15 sales in use tax um in the mid 1990s this city boldly

[25:01] asked its voters to fund the critical Human Services that dozens of organizations at the time provided to support our community and the voters said yes fast forward to when that tax extension was voted on again in the early 2000s the voters again agreed to extend it for another 20 years and broaden it Beyond just Human Services to include Public Safety in a broad range of General general fund items tonight fast forward to tonight we're looking at the future use of that 0.15 and our friends in the art community successfully petitioned to to provide a hundred percent of that 0.15 fund to support the Arts they were as you know negotiations in this in conversations and the agreement was to

[26:01] look at 50 50 split 50 goes to the Arts and 50 back to the general fund to support Public Public Safety fire Human Services which I I will I understand that Human Service the language of Human Services has been added back into what you're you're reviewing tonight that's great um but 50 percent of a pie is still just 50 percent and as we move forward over the next 20 years what we can expect as a community is that the needs of our most vulnerable community members will continue to increase and thank you so much I just wanted some clarity are you saying the ballot measure which would do the 50 is is that what you're advocating for or not you know I don't get a sense of yeah I think it's

[27:01] honestly I think it's um it it's a difficult decision I don't know that there's a better option I do I do anticipate that Human Service organizations are going to be facing cuts and that will come back to city council future city councils to to the staff and to our friends in the Arts Community who have who have come forward to support the work that we do so it's a difficult decision but I'm not sure what a better option would be thank you now we have Alejandra Beatty Indira Kumari and Eric Budd yes I will all right ready all right my name is Alejandra Beatty I am recently appointed vice president for the Boulder area labor Council falling in the footsteps of Jeff Cahoon is that a little better oh yes that is much better thank you all 180 VP for Boulder area labor Council which

[28:00] supports about 20 000 members uh and families some of whom work in this area some of who live in this area and some of them would like to like to live in this area if they could afford it but they can't and that specifically I want to talk about minimum wage we urge the council to consider following the county commissioner process and looking at raise the minimum wage by this year 2024. it's super important we get started we have a long ways to go to get to a livable wage which we estimate to be 25 So currently 1365 just doesn't cut it and we have a lot of our members that are suffering and having a hard time paying bills they can't wait a year they'll get evicted long before we'd get wages increase for them uh we also think that the council has the ability to support Working Families now we're struggling we're struggling to keep up with the rising costs you've heard a lot about housing

[29:01] is that the uh the meeting the other day when we talked about trying to improve affordable housing these are all important things that really must get done right away but again increasing the wages is going to make a difference but we need to do it by this year so please follow along with the Commissioners and start that process I think this city of Consortium has got a great process for making this a solid plan that will still support local businesses and but by 2025 isn't going to work I also wanted to share with you all of you a few quotes in the 30 seconds that I have left on October 7th 2021 which is almost two years to date council member weiner you shared that you would definitely support raising minimum wage to 15 an hour because it is necessary to have a livable wage so that people don't have to work two jobs so you can just work regular hours take care of their families and take care of their children

[30:00] same day all right I will thank you okay now we have Indira Kumari Eric Budd and Jonathan singer good evening everyone my name is Indira Kumari and I'm a proud mother of twins a dedicated healthcare worker an immigrant from Nepal and a resident of Boulder for over 12 years I'm sorry I'm a little emotional because it's so much related to me um and I've been as I stand here today I'm representing myself and other countless Working Families in the city of Boulder who are struggling to make and and make ends meet from my own experience I know what it is like to live in a leave not knowing where the next meal is coming from and not having a roof over my head for six months we did our best but sometimes we have to make the hard choice between providing food or treatment to the kids I could

[31:02] not because of lack of Transportation I could not access various support services that was available to me like uh accessing the food bank now I'm working as a full-time medical assistant I have a condo and a car yet I'm not able to make make my family's needs meet I am currently two working two jobs I work seven days a week and still need to pick up extra shift because I cannot with all those working hours it's still not enough for me to pay uh for my basic necessities and then every night I go to bed thinking like this and then it gives me panic attack anxiety and then feeling of nauseousness so on behalf of my community and hard-working law with immigrants I ask you to please increase the local minimum wage immediately and continue to increase it to a level that allows the worker to cover their basic needs with one 40-hour job that way I'm not

[32:01] depriving my time from spending my kids this is not charity this is academic Justice I'm just asking for that so please this is why I came here to plead to act on this now and thank you so much and let's not wait too longer to make this happen thank you thank you India we've got a question for you actually it's just are those your two kids right behind you in the doorway I wanted to say one of them like you know had their eyes covered and I just want to say to that one you knocked it out of the park so kids she did great thanks for that thank you thank you oh we've got Eric Budd now Jonathan singer and Carol fries uh hello Council uh Eric bud I live in Boulder uh thanks for allowing us to speak tonight and I appreciate all of the people uh speaking about the minimum wage and I just want to add to their voices tonight um Boulder County recently announced in unincorporated areas that they were

[33:00] going to move forward on increasing minimum wage to 1570 an hour and I just want to say that that should really just be the beginning of this conversation and that means we need to look at raising the wage further than what they have committed to and we also need the city Boulder to step up that commitment as well you know currently these proposals are are well short of what Denver has already implemented and has been in place for a couple years now and starting at January 2024 the minimum wage Endeavor will be 18.29 an hour and when we look at the costs in in Boulder County and particularly the city of Boulder the housing costs and other costs of living I'd say it's a you could make an argument that it's at least that Boulder should be doing at least what Denver is doing um we really need to move forward on this finally we'll be talking about the city's discriminatory housing laws later tonight and

[34:00] I think all of you understand the need that that we need real housing for Working Class People and that we must guarantee workers fair and livable wages but we also need to increase access to and supply of housing options precisely so that landlords can't simply increase the rent when we increase the wage of working families this is really a priority housing wages making Boulder place that that Working Families can live thank you thanks Eric I have Jonathan singer Carol fries and Connor Hall good evening mayor members city council and staff I'm Jonathan singer I'm the senior director of programs and policy with the boulder chamber um I'm also here to talk about the minimum wage and I want to say first of all I want to thank all the partner organizations including effa and the Community Foundation that participate in the self-sufficiency standard conversation

[35:01] that took place just last week describing the desperate need that we have today all that being said we fully expect and to participate in a program that was put forward by the Consortium of cities and City staff has done a remarkable job of outlining a process why is this important because it's not just about the what it's about the how it's not just about what we're going to do but how we do it Family Leave secure savings all these programs had discussion evaluation negotiation Passage and then implementation and that implementation took time because we wanted to get it right for people and for the employers with new responsibilities so what does that mean in this case you know I used to be a human services case worker I worked with families on public assistance there were times I had to have tough conversations with

[36:01] families because they got a raise because they got a raise they were actually going to lose more in food assistance benefits Section 8 benefits and additional basic cash assistance those are the tough choices that we have to have conversations about before we can move forward with raising the minimum wage there was a city council member in Longmont last Tuesday she's a teacher she's a union member she was looking at this and she said I don't even like the idea of us looking at numbers right now it's supposed to be in the hands of stakeholders let's put this process back in this hands of stakeholders let's have those tough conversations and remember it's not just the why let's get the how right thank you Jonathan all right our next speakers are Carol fries and Connor Hall

[37:01] hello I'm Carol Freese most people say fries but I'm on the board of a bolder non-profit called home ahead and we are recipients of Human Services funding and I'm here to ask you to really carefully consider this decision of putting it on the ballot to split it between Human Service programs and art programs as a woman before me said it's a tough question but I just want to tell you that in our organization we would really struggle without our be devastated by the loss of Human Services funding home ahead is a Furniture Bank it operates like a food bank but we provide gently used Home Furnishings to people who are exiting homelessness or leaving a domestic violence situation or moving out of foster care aging out of foster care leaving jail they're working with case managers here in Boulder who've secured housing for them but it's an empty space and our organization home ahead believes that if you provide them with a bed and maybe some pots and pans just make the space a little bit more

[38:01] comfortable it'll be less likely that they will return to the streets or that they might return to a violent partner we've served about 800 people in Boulder County actually it's about a thousand people if you can include their family members just in the last month or so we've had two single mothers one with 10 children one with nine children we've helped furnish homes for them a safe place where they can start a life away from a violent partner so our work is supporting housing stability it's advancing equity in the community and it also has an environmental component because there's an awful lot of stuff that gets given to us instead of sent to the landfill so we could not do this important work without our Human Services funding we're very grateful for it and we hope that you'll very carefully reconsider messing with the the funding allocation as it is right now thank you thank you Miss freebs final in-person speaker is Connor Hall

[39:04] thank you for the opportunity opportunity to speak Connor Hall UFCW Local 7 member working out of king supers here in Boulder I know time is limited I'm here to speak in support of the minimum wage and urge you guys not to put it off another year and just remind you of some of the comments that the the very people on this Council made all the way back in 2021 about raising it to exactly 15 an hour two years two years ago uh council person folkerts you said 15 an hour is great but not far enough for our community around mind you not far enough back in 2021 our cost of living is higher here and we should have a minimum wage to reflect that uh council person Wallach uh you said I'm always interested in raising the minimum wage I think all workers deserve the opportunity to live on the sellers that they're they are making it turns out that every time the minimum wage is raised everyone adjusts and the world does not come to an end a 15 minimum

[40:01] wage is appropriate and I would be more than happy to support that uh council person Winer you said I definitely support raising the minimum wage to 15 an hour it's necessary for us to have a livable wage so that people don't have to work two jobs so they can just work regular hours take care of their families and take care of their children a council person spear you said even fifteen dollars an hour is leaving folks like single parents in a really precarious financial position as a union member yourself you said I am a strong advocate for a living wage that enable people to afford housing child care and other living expenses uh and finally councilperson Benjamin you said I absolutely support increasing our minimum wage I think 15 an hour is even maybe a little too low increasing the minimum wage is a great way for us to bridge the wage Gap and build up families and vigils so they have a chance to thrive in our community so we have you even acknowledging back then that 15 an hour was not enough you had the option to act then you have the option to act now how can you afford to

[41:00] put it off a year we hear from you we hear that from the business community that well we don't know if we can afford it this year but how can you ask Working Families to to go to afford themselves thank you thank you Connor all right our first or our only three virtual speakers are Lynn Siegel Sherry hack and Margaret Bachrach trying to lean in here yeah um Lindsey Gill um where's my timer Oh yay okay yay okay um it probably should be a minimum of oh I only get well yeah 25 bucks an hour but I'm not one what to say it probably should be 50 bucks an hour um and it could really help everyone in this economy um and we need to do an analysis of what the costs are and when we set the minimum wage then we need to index it to

[42:00] the cost of living um and then maybe everything won't need to be going up so much disproportionately um I went to um the discussion about kanamoto with Boulder County on the edge of Longmont for conservation easement and it was stunning what happened there because um this the the um the question is should this conservation easement be lifted for housing density and this this brought to mind a new term I won I've created it's called a combination of sprawl and infill and it's called sprawl fill because what we're doing these days is setting up um whole cities like at Waterview and 58th and Arapahoe four stories big that's where the affordable housing is it's 25 percent affordable there

[43:00] um it's on site and there's a garage in every house and it's for servicing the community so they're going to be commuting it's like another city it's in Boulder but it's like another city and then we can infill between here and 58th and Arapahoe and downtown and in Longmont what they're doing is they only have 12 percent affordable and still they left up this conservation easement to be taken without following baldler Valley comp plan and it's egregious thank you Lynn for your testimony that we have sherry hack next from 719 to 8 14 there were 31 cases of shots heard reported to police oh can you hear me yes we can okay in a recent 30-day period 45 bikes were reported stolen in Boulder at a value of

[44:00] a hundred thousand dollars a proposed Mental Health Center should be funded at the state level not by bolder taxpayers when illegal campers are given a 72-hour notice that their campsite will be cleared that notice should apply to that individual within the entire city limits not just the current location of the illegal camping for example a DUI applies to the individual and his driving anywhere it doesn't just apply to the street where he got the DUI on July 29 a man was given a summons for smoking illegal drugs under the public library next to a playground where a mother and child were an 8-1 a guy is found sleeping next to a campfire on May 30th he had a fire going in an open field on July on June 22 a guy was using a blow torch on a propane tank under Foothills Parkway and 729 officers responded to multiple

[45:03] calls about a man waving a gun a Boulder Creek bike pass an eight on eight nine at Foothills Hospital and er Tech was attacked and this was not the first time he was attacked our First Responders are constantly attacked spat on and verbally abused Etc there's so much more of it I have no time here this isn't fear-mongering as some mistakenly suggest it's just the facts and it's just the tip of the iceberg enforce the laws including the camping man and make people accountable for their actions stop enabling the drug addicts wreaking havoc in our town and those kids of older High deserve a safe surrounding area around their school and I spoke to some Boulder High kids who were there when the propane tank exploded Sherry your time is up but thank you for your testimony thank you so much our last sign of person is Margaret Bachrach but I've heard she's not in the meeting is

[46:00] Margaret around not seeing Margaret then that brings to a close our open common period and I'll turn to City staff to see if there are any responses time there but just always thank people for sharing their voice how about from Council I got Nicole then Bob yeah thank you I just have a question and I don't know if staff may be able to answer this or if this may be a question Jonathan may be gone but um anyway my question was just do do we know um how many business or what the average is that businesses are paying hourly workers in Boulder I don't have that information but if we do we certainly can follow up with you and let you know okay great thank you yep and I would also um just be interested uh as well and uh what the lowest wages that the businesses are paying thank you um and I know I asked this every time we hear someone say that we're not enforced

[47:01] in a camping van I just want to check we're still enforcing the camping ban we are still enforcing the camping ban and providing the appropriate notices and taking um the measures that we believe were able to try to connect people to services at the same time thank you Bob and Ricky's question is the truth I know that current marketing you can probably just do these on the Fly that we had heard a few speakers in the human services are concerned about the possibility that the council might put on the compromise ballot measure relating to splitting the 0.15 tax between arts and the rest of the general fund two questions Teresa one is um currently the 0.15 tax is not dedicated to any particular purpose is that correct there may be laundry list of purposes but it's not deducted to like one thing like Parks or open space or arts or anything like that is that correct yes council member Yates that's correct

[48:01] um So currently there's in the enabling legislation there's a list of items that are supported by the tax but there's no particular dedication and that's is that an exhaustive list or in other words could could uh the general the money that the general fund receives from that tax could they be used for things outside that list I believe that there's language in there that says other general fund purposes and so that that would that would be more inclusive than the list okay great and my second question Teresa um if if Council were to not tonight not pass um we're about out of time I think uh with respect to the county clerk we're pretty pretty close to out of time on the ballot measures so if we were to not pass either tonight or the next week or two the 50 50 compromise measure we would be legally required to place on the ballot uh the petitioners 100 are dedication is that correct uh yes that is correct however

[49:01] um all right is sleeping to the podium I can just see if if you wanted to invite her uh that is correct I think we currently have a conditional withdrawal no I I yeah my questions did a little different than the withdrawal if we were if if Council were to fail to pass tonight or or the next week or two before the clerk's deadline the 50 50 compromise I think we would legally be required to place on the ballot that 100 our dedication that the petitioners request is at correct Aaron that's correct the petitioners have chucked all the boxes and done what they needed to do and um unless they withdraw it would need to go to the ballot and be certified so our choices tonight are kind of either put the 100 Bella measure on the 50 they're kind of mutually exclusive but we gotta yes or there could be three um but unless the 100 to general fund is is not adopted the petitioner's ordinance

[50:02] would need to move forward right okay thank you if you can just introduce yourself please I yes I'm sorry good evening Aaron Poe Deputy City attorney thank you Bob okay I got Rachel then Tara then Juni just a quick question if Carol um fries free snap fries is still here I would just um welcome you to send in information on a home ahead because that was a program I had not heard of and it sounded amazing and I'd love to give out that resource so if you could email it to us that would be fantastic thank you I'm sorry about getting your name wrong the second time dang Tara yes I was going to ask the same question um for Carol freeze because I want like to use home ahead thank you for that uh what I wanted to say was Michelle if you're still in the room thanks for the birthday wishes and congratulations on your five years she gave you jazz hands Tara we got Junior Denmark

[51:01] thank you um I just want to thank Lauren for all the work that she has done when it comes to the minimum wage this is an issue that uh or first in 2019 when I first got elected a lot of us said that we would support um increasing the minimum wage in council member Sweat Lake actually was the council member who started uh pushing for increasing the minimum wage and council member folkert after sweatlick left uh take on the mental of doing the work and she has done a lot of work I am grateful for all the work that she has done and she has moved the ball forward a lot she has done a lot of work with the Consortium of CDs with also the county so I'm grateful for all the work that she has done um that's one comment I wanted to make and the next comment or question I wanted to ask in or maybe it's just a comment based on what I heard from

[52:01] um Jonathan singer from the the um from the chambers he mentioned hey if we increase the minimum wage is there a possibility that people could potentially lose their benefits well all I hope that doesn't happen I hope that you know community members who have their benefits get to keep certain benefits right because ultimately well in a perfect world people would have jobs that are self-sufficient and they wouldn't need government to subsidize their you know services on their behalf so but ultimately maybe my question is are you as part of your work are you studying to ensure that hey if would would it impact let's say state benefits or federal benefits Federal benefits we may not be impact we may not be able to change and being a council member I try not to talk about my job at the state level but

[53:02] I think I'm sure if the state can be proactive as well in helping if people were to lose their benefits I would imagine other communities has done the same as well they've raise wages and they have overcome some of the challenges that Jonathan singer asked but I wanted to know from you if that's part of the research that the Consortium of CD is doing or the county as well thank you thank you Juni yes that's definitely part of the research we're doing I was just having a conversation about this and even at the current the current state minimum wage is if you work more than 35 hours away a week puts you above the state poverty or sorry the federal poverty limit so some of the bigger Cliffs are less

[54:00] affected but we're still trying to figure out more details around that it's It's tricky to get into the minutia of that but we're looking into it just a quick comment for a couple of my colleagues I have used the home ahead and they are a terrific resource and I recommend that very highly if you want to get rid of some old furniture Mark all right seeing no other points to be made if we can move to our consenta agenda please Elisha thank you sir our consent agenda is item number three tonight it consists of items 3A through 3j I know we're going to want to talk separately about Jay so I'll ask folks do you have any other questions or comments on items a through I all right I have a disclosure I would like to make

[55:01] for item um let's see the annexation item um that's 3H sorry so I'll just make can I make that disclosure now yeah so for item 3H um I have worked with the property owners for that property in the past but I feel like I can be impartial in this decision that one okay so what I would suggest is that we pull 3j off to speak about and discuss and vote on separately and I would invite a motion on the rest of the consent agenda Bob yeah I move items um 3A through 3i on the consent agenda second got a motion and a second uh do we have a roll call The Cure Alicia yes sir thank you we'll start the consent agenda item vote for a through I with council member Joseph yes

[56:01] spear yes mayor Pro Tim Wallick yes councilmember weiner yes Yates yes Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes councilmember falkerts yes and friend yes mayor items a through I on the consent agenda are hereby approved unanimously thank you Alicia so that brings us to 3j which is a second and third reading on ballot measures and Aaron Poe do you have a few a slide or two on this one good evening Aaron Poe Deputy City attorney I do not have slides I just have some oral remarks to recap very good so previously on ballot measures 2023 five ordinances were passed on July 20th at first reading safe zones for kids ordinance which is eight five eight six Charter changes 8587 and three tax extension ordinances eight five eight eight with 100 of

[57:00] Revenue to the general fund eight five eight nine a hundred percent of Revenue to arts and 8591 a 50 50 split on August 3rd Council took no action on three of those five ordinances and that was the safe zones the charter changes and the tax extension with 100 of Revenue to the general fund on August 3rd on the other two ordinances eight five eight nine a hundred percent to arts and eight five nine one the 50 50 split both of those were amended at second reading so eight five eight nine 100 to Arts is before you tonight on third reading however the compromise 50 50 ordinance 8591 has had changes since August 3rd so it is here before you tonight as an emergency ordinance emergency in order to make it on the ballot in time can you just speak to it that's correct the uh the emergency is

[58:01] so that the city clerk can certify the ballot to the county clerk by the deadline so that these ballot measures are on the voters ballot in November the changes that were requested by the petition group on ordinance 8591 are descriptive to add language to the ballot title and the ordinance to help readers understand the purposes that the funds can be used for it would call out the term Human Services as an explicit potential use of general fund money and that the Arts cultural and Heritage purposes include direct and grant funding for Arts and Cultural nonprofits professional artists Arts education venues and workspaces public art and Multicultural programs the changes have been highlighted in the packet addendum that was circulated earlier today staff supports these changes because they provide more description to the

[59:00] public and they do not change the legal impact of how the funds would be used in summary staff recommends that Council adopt ordinances 8586 regarding safe zones and 8587 with Charter changes and for the tax measures staff recommends that Council choose from the three options that were discussed on August 3rd which would be to pass all three or to pass conflicting 100 Arts 100 general fund or to pass the compromise measure splitting the tax revenue 50 50. the petitioners have submitted a conditional withdrawal of their petition that will take effect if Council adopts the compromise measure 8591 and does not adopt the measure that would dedicate 100 to the general fund eight five eight eight and those are my prepared remarks and I'm happy to answer questions it's very clear thank you Eric so I'll

[60:02] just turn my colleagues and say of course we have a long night ahead of us and we did talk about this extensively two weeks ago but hopefully we can move this through this fairly quickly but if people have any uh follow-up questions for today feel free to ask them Nicole yep um I was just hoping that we could get a little bit of clarity on the impacts to the budget of these different scenarios so Mark and Kari you presented some slides to us at Financial strategies yesterday and I know that you have one more new one since then and I was just wondering if you could talk us through that a little bit sure happy to good evening Council Mark Wolfe budget officer thank you for the question before answering I think it would be helpful to provide a little context I sent out a few slides to hotline today it's standard practice for us to visit with council's financial strategy committee to preview the upcoming recommended budget so that's why there's new information we want to appreciate that this Council and Community hasn't

[61:00] had a chance to review the 2024 recommended budget yet and that opportunity is coming up here in in September so those numbers are preliminary they certainly could change based off of council action as we approach budget adoption in in September and October the the selection of slides that you all received shows the environment that we're in in developing the 2024 budget and gives you a sense of the impact of the different options before you in terms of the the different items potentially on the on the ballot related to the 0.15 sales tax so as we outline going back to last year the most important thing is that the 0.15 is renewed it puts us in a very bad situation as you see if it expires we we are in a situation really beginning in 2025 where we have to think about service reductions in some way I think I heard someone in the back to speak up so if it were not to be uh

[62:03] renewed we are in a very tough position from a from a budget perspective um looking at the other two options as I mentioned two weeks ago we have crafted a budget that when you see it in full with the 2024 recommended budget we believe it puts us in a situation where there would not be service impacts even with a half dedicated option and then you can see the impact of remaining a full general fund tax and that does provide the most flexibility going forward so that's essentially the information and the presentation I think overall we're just aware of the the ongoing restrictions that we Face we were we were nearing that that point in our budgeting process where we had to look at trade-offs in the general fund certainly any dedication or expiration of this tax makes that task more difficult system

[63:00] go ahead um yeah just a follow-up question so there there were the kind of two different slides and I was wondering um in the the first two slides that you sent us one was the general fund overview with 0.15 renew dedicated 50 the next one was general fund ongoing sources uses with 0.15 renew dedicated 50 and I'm just wondering if you could get at the difference between those just a little bit because I'm not sure I understand that fully sure so in the first one we're highlighting the the overall picture of the general fund and and focusing on fund balance after Reserve so that essentially shows you overall the fund um balancing or not balancing uh the second slide gets at ongoing sources and uses so that's a that's something we're looking at very closely because that's really our ability to add ongoing services in the general fund and we fund many on ongoing services in the general fund so that staff and operations and all that good stuff so with the recommended budget that will be coming before you will be

[64:01] in the position where we have about a half a million dollars projected total over the next five years so a very constrained environment as as we've talked about um and that it will be a fun discussion coming up this year and in future years so I just just want to get this crystal clear so what what you're basically saying is that um If This Were to go forward and we were just to have half of the uh this 0.15 renewal going toward the general fund the next two councils will basically have about half a million dollars to play with for anything new that they want to do over that period is that is that what projections are looking like right now that's right and that that's based off of current projections certainly we're projecting out sales tax property tax and our expenditures so as we make different decisions and revenue pictures could change but as projected you're correct that that that is what we're anticipating going forward okay

[65:00] um and then you know I know that you all are working with departments and looking at things that are probably not going to make the cut for funding in 2024 and I was just wondering if you could give us a little bit of a sense of the kind of the flavor of things that we may be looking at because then the budget projections I believe you're planning on really not having um these These funds available as we're working on the budget right now so like what kinds of things could we have sure we entered the 2024 budget process anticipating a constrained environment as I mentioned part of that is because we don't anticipate voter action so just like with the climate tax we we did not build that additional Revenue in we waited for voter action usually we get more requests and we're able to fund and this was no different this year we received over 26 million dollars in requests in the general fund from departments knowing we had about three million dollars when accounting for the items that we we knew we already committed to in the 23 budget so that

[66:02] gives you an idea of scale and trying to put together the 2024 budget okay anything else okay so as I said we talked this over pretty extensively two weeks ago so rather than debate this again I might just invite motions that we can vote on I whoa I got lots of hands a process question yep uh before shooting emotion just a process question um since uh ordinance 8586 and 8587 haven't had changes um a motion to pass them would be a standard process of just getting votes needing five but separate motion for 85 91 given that there's a necessity for emergency so I knew we talked about trying to pass all three but they would be needed to be actually segregated from each other in terms of individual emotions based on the threshold difference so they would be required to be segregated anyway we have to have a separate motion per ordinance okay but yes some require five votes and some require six okay um so anyway so I would you know we have three possible paths

[67:01] with the 0.15 sales tax so like I said I would invite motions for us to vote through this but we could just clear off the first two if we would sure let me try to take care of the first that I think are going to be non-controversial I'm I move from items seven uh three I'm Excuse me three three J1 and 3j2 which are ordinances we still got to do a separate motion still on each one okay right just release it yeah okay I'm trying to keep the city clerk asset thank you Aaron thank you Alicia I move uh items item three J1 which is ordinance eight five eight six on second reason motion second to a roll call though here yeah so it is we'll start this roll call with council member spear yes mayor Pro Tim Walling yes councilmember weiner yes Yates yes Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes

[68:03] councilmember Falcons yes friend yes Joseph yes ordinance 80 5 86 is hereby adopted unanimously let me do the next one sure I move um items item three J2 which is ordinance p587 on second reading second got a motion in a second can we have a roll call please see Alicia thank you sir we'll start this roll call with mayor Pro 10 Walling yes councilmember weiner yes Yates yes Benjamin yes mayor Brian yes councilmember folkerts yes friend yes Joseph yes and spear yes ordinance 85-87 is hereby adopted unanimously great so we got those approved of now would anyone like to

[69:00] make a motion on the remaining ones saw Nicole's hand first I'd like to to approve or I'll second that got a motion in a second for 85.88 for those watching at home that's the 100 dedication to the general fund um Alicia could we get a vote on this one please of course I just wanted to recall for us how frustrating it was when we arrived to this new Council and there was so much stuff we wanted to work move forward on and we couldn't because we didn't have enough staff this is going to give voters a choice to give the next at least two councils the opportunity to engage in the work that they feel they need to do to move our community forward and address some of the really important issues we didn't get a chance to do the engagement that we should have done we did not engage with our Human Services

[70:00] organizations we didn't engage our departments we didn't engage human relations commission or the Arts Commission on this compromise measure and I think it is just so important that we allow voters the opportunity to have this choice to renew the sales tax specifically for the purpose well not specifically but generally for the purpose of the general fund to give the next couple of councils the opportunity to deal with the issues that they're going to be facing the voters choose to go in a different direction that's fine then at least we know and at least we have had an opportunity for a bigger Community conversation than we are going to have if we do not give voters this opportunity [Music] yeah I want to well first I want to Second what Nicole has said um I think we will be we are in a very constrained financial position I think that our opportunity to expand various services and programs is going to be limited if we dedicate funds as is

[71:02] proposed by one of the other uh iterations of this and as I said this as Nicole said this should be a Community Choice if the community wants um to dedicate this entire tax to Arts and Cultural purposes fine we will bear the consequences and that will be the decision of the community but I also think the community will look at this and say we prefer to have the flexibility to increase and fund other programs that are of a priority to this this community that we would not otherwise be able to do by splitting the baby down the middle thank you I just want to say that Nicole made a compelling argument for the last couple of weeks as she's been talking about this and I will be supporting this motion today but I also reserve the option of supporting 50

[72:02] 50 if this one fails um I just think as well I think the community members who came and spoke and they were to they also were compelling we know there is an issue when it comes to Human Services we do prioritize it but we still need more funding and because of that [Music] um I'm willing to vote for it at this time thank you seeing no other hands than Elise if we could have a place yes sir this vote is for ordinance 85 88 and we will start it with councilman no Yates no Benjamin no mayor Brockett no council member fogerts yes

[73:02] friend no Joseph yes spear yes and mayor Pro Tim Wallick aye ordinance 85 88 is hereby defeated with a vote of five two four okay thanks uh any other emotions I got Matt in my sites here um I'd like to make a motion to amend and adopt on third reading as an emergency measure ordinance 85 91 submitted to the electors of the city of Boulder at the general Municipal coordinated election to be held on Tuesday November 7th 2023 the question of without raising additional taxes extending the existing 0.15 sales tax and use tax approved by the voters by ordinance 7300 beyond the current

[74:00] expiration date of December 31st 2024 until December 31st 2044 with 50 percent of the revenue used to fund fire and emergency response Services Public Safety Services Human Services homelessness Solutions and services parks and other general fund purposes and 50 of the revenue used to fund Arts culture and Heritage purposes including direct and grant funding for arts and culture for nonprofits professional artists Arts education venues and workspace public art and Multicultural programs as a voter approved Revenue change specifying the form of the ballot and other elected election procedures and setting forth related details second experiment and can just can you just clarify did you want to use the language the staff recommended in the hotline this afternoon that's what I did I think it I didn't hear the Human Services were it was it wasn't there okay my mess then okay very good so we got a motion a second you want to speak to that uh absolutely

[75:00] um actually I'll start with you know if both of these ballot measures seeking 100 use of uh this 0.15 are brought to the voters it's going to pit a community against itself that is um I just I just don't think that that's where we want to go we have an opportunity to find a middle ground and in fact in many ways that's what our core job is it's not the oath we took but we all know our job is to find compromise our job is to find a way to allow everybody to have a little bit of something and for everyone to feel like they were heard and that there's benefit that comes from these things that we do and so this 50 50 compromise is emblematic of that purpose that all nine of us have which is to seek that compromise to seek bringing and Bridging the Gap and bringing communities together to find a way for us to work together I would just hate for us to be having to have infighting about whether or not the Arts should get money versus the general fund and fight against each other when all of it is important and I

[76:00] think we can do that with the 50 50 and I think we need to be able to work together moving forward and I think this 50 50 compromise does exactly that and I'm sure there will be some maybe tough choices down the road but the Alternatives I think are much worse if uh um if we are pitted against each other and can Duty thanks I just really know what Matt said I really want to compliment both the Arts community and the Human Services Community we're really coming together and working out a compromise here I know it's no compromise is perfect and everyone comes away a little bit sad and unhappy but I think this is a good resolution as Matt said it's our job is to find middle grounds if we could describe the job of City Council in one word it'd be prioritization and and this is a great prioritization exercise we have limited resources and I really complement the Human Services organizations for acknowledging that the Arts organizations were legally entitled to put on the ballot 100 Pilot measure the Arts organization compromise on that and withdrew that to the point of 50 we're still reserving 50 for the general

[77:01] fund specifically calling out Human Services as one of the continuing funding recipients of this I think this is a great battle measure it's a great compromise and I hope the voters overwhelmingly pass it so Nicole Sam yeah I just um had a quick clarifying question that I just want to make sure I understand this correctly so if this is the only measure that goes on the ballot related to this tax and it fails we still have one more chance next year is that correct to put a measure on the ballot to renew this tax is that correct so this isn't kind of our only chance that's correct okay thank you um and I just want to say too to um Bobby mentioned the kind of Engagement from Human Services we really have not had that I think they've they've been feeling um a little bit blindsided but this has all happened really quickly Jenny Mark I just have a clarifying question and maybe things are just moving a bit

[78:00] faster than my brain is processing if this is the only measure that's get on the ballot it will pass why would it fail because people would vote against it okay thank you mark yeah just a procedural question if this is the one that is approved we're expecting the 85.89 to be withdrawn what is the timing for that withdrawal at what point do we say it's not being withdrawn Aaron if you could speak to that please thank you Aaron Poe drawl so it would take effect after 8591 is passed because eight five eight eight has failed to be adopted okay thank you um while I will support the 50 50 I just want to mention that I think

[79:01] some of our past prioritizations and making arts organizations and putting us in a place where sort of Arts organizations and Human Service organizations feel like they're pitted against each other to fight for funding is um concerning to me and I hope that we will do better at making sure that those groups whether or not this passes that they will not be put in that position in our prioritization in the future thank you all right now to call on myself um so just want to say you know the uh congratulations to the Arts folks who gathered a remarkable 4 000 odd signatures in a very short period of time um and also thanks to them for them talking to us about this because that 100 dedication of the tax would have required cuts to city services whereas the 50 50 compromise does not require cuts to city services but still will make a significant difference in arts funding so appreciate everybody working

[80:00] together on this looking forward to approving this getting it on the ballot and see make a real difference for our community for the next 20 years any other comments before vote seeing none if we could do that please thank you sir this vote is for ordinance 85 91. we'll start with council member Yates yes Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes councilmember Folkers yes friend yes Joseph yes spear no mayor Pro Tim Wallick no and council member weiner yes ordinance 85 91 is hereby approved with a vote of six to three 72 my apologies keeping them all

[81:01] straight 72 thank you okay well congratulations to everyone who was involved and uh onward to the ballot and that moves us to the big agenda item of the night which is our call-up check-in item 4A sir I don't item four a is a vacation of a 14 foot wide utility easement at 2950 Hawthorne Avenue this is formerly known as 3320 28th Street it's referenced under ADR 2023-00109 any interest in calling this up seeing none we can move on to our other big event of the night which is our public hearing on occupancy changes scenery I'll turn to you item five a is our public hearings tonight on tonight's agenda it is the second reading and consideration of a

[82:00] motion to adopt Ordnance 85-85 amending chapter 9-8 intensity standards of the BRC 1981 increasing the number of persons that may occupy a dwelling unit and setting for related details thank you so much uh I don't know how much introduction this item needs it has been a topic of a lot of conversation um a lot of work has gone into it you have given staff some very specific Direction and they are here to respond to that I'm going to send it to our director of planning and development services and just note that our staff member who has been leading this effort will be appearing with us remotely thank you Nuria good evening so thank you Nuria good evening Council thank you for the opportunity to bring this item forward as Nuri mentioned this has been a work item and a council priority for a couple of years now so we are happy to bring the culmination of the research feedback and Direction

[83:03] we've gotten through multiple study sessions and conversations with the community and some very deep analysis I will say in advance we always appreciate your acknowledgment of the work that staff has done and in this case Carl in looking at a very complicated and complex topic looking at research across the country as well as our own history so with that I will turn it over Carl and we will both be available for questions as we complete our present or his presentation thank you Brad a good evening Council I'm Carl geiler with planning and development services before the council tonight is ordinance 85.85 that relates to changing the city's occupancy limits so the occupancy reform project was initiated by city council at the retreat in 2022 on the slide here is the problem

[84:00] statement that was prepared the purpose statement of the project and the goals and objectives so obviously the major um problem that we're trying to address here is housing cost increasing housing costs and some of that is correlated to supply and demand issues increasing housing is something that we're seeing across many communities in the country that are dealing with similar issues it requires a lot of different actions to address so I'm not going to read everything on this slide but occupancy is one component in a wider strategy of trying to at least slow down the rise of housing costs in the city of Boulder so what we've talked about this at the November 2022 study session and again on March 9th of this year where we finalized the problem statement purpose statement and the goals and objectives as well as the timeline we also came back to Council on June 15th to get

[85:03] further Direction uh before we prepared the ordinance that you're reviewing tonight so this is the title of the ordinance obviously the purpose of tonight is to hold a public hearing on ordinance 85 85 deliberating on ordinance 85 85 and then resulting in a city council decision on the ordinance the questions that we've posed for Council are does the city council find that the proposed ordinance implements the adopted policies of the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan and does city council recommend any modifications to the ordinance so we'll come back to this so I just wanted to start on the high level um kind of reiterating some things we talked about on June 15th I think Council on and many in the community are aware that the state legislature actually brought forward a Senate bill

[86:00] that related to zoning and land use which is not too common here in Colorado there were many iterations of this bill and it had some required mandates for Middle housing adus even addressing occupancy in low affecting local regulations so that Senate Bill actually didn't pass but we were monitoring it very closely because it's very much like the things that we're looking at through a variety of the ordinances that we're working on um on June 15th we brought forward uh some links to National studies commentaries and articles on the housing crisis like we said at the prior meeting we didn't find anything that definitively showed that if you you know changed occupancy limits singularly that that would start reducing housing costs it was really more that you had to do a multi-pronged approach to try to open up housing availability so what the study

[87:00] said is that zoning restrictions over time have greatly limited housing availability and that's one of the factors that has helped drive up housing costs so the recommendations of a lot of those studies are to reverse that years and years of zoning to just enable more opportunities to have housing in the community to address the housing costs obviously Boulder is a unique Community it's high demand it's much like other communities and in the country like in the Bay Area where there's a lot of reasons why people want to live there and that and with limited land it makes it even drives up the costs even more so the the theme of those stories is that not one option can solve the problem that you really have to take that multi-pronged approach and that approach has really been done largely on the west coast uh in the states of Washington Oregon and California there's been some State legislations and court rulings that have made occupancy based on familial

[88:01] relationship uh illegal so many of the communities in the Pacific Northwest in particular have been eliminating their occupancy rules from the code Minneapolis also elected to do the same on its own we did reach out to a lot of these communities to hear back from them on what the results have been but because of the the legislation is actually still relatively fresh there's not a lot of data at this point showing that housing costs have gone down we've basically just heard anecdotally from two communities that it has reduced rent costs in Minneapolis and in a community in Washington this slide's really just to show a distinguishing between the two different types of occupancy regs that apply in many communities there's the building code occupancy which aligns with those pictures that you see on the slides that's what you see in buildings that's the building code it's really a more of

[89:01] a safety occupancy limit zoning regulations are typically more restrictive than the building code and it's I'm sorry sorry zoning regulations are have additional occupancy limits uh that tend to be more restrictive than uh building codes uh basically to try to result in less concentration of people that can have more impacts on neighborhoods um and we've also talked about before how there has been some motivations rooted in discrimination against people of color or different Lifestyles uh occupancy regs kind of came about in the 1960s same as Boulders so that's another reason why many communities have been looking at occupancy regulations so I'm not going to spend as much time on these slides because we have talked about these and on a number of occasions

[90:01] um but this is basically the current occupancy limitations in the city of Boulder we do like many communities um use the definition of family there's no limit on the number of family members that can live in a unit but when you get to unrelated persons there are limits um so there's right now there's there's mainly four different options there's ores in between all of these so members of a family and plus two additional persons or rumors um then there's three unrelated persons in the lower density zones or in all other zones it's for unrelated persons or it's two persons and any of their children we also have a special occupancy limitations for adus co-ops and group living uses we're not proposing any changes to those tonight so I just wanted to bring up the

[91:00] definition of family we're not making or proposing any changes to the definition of family it's similar to many other communities it is quite broad it does include same-sex marriage and domestic Partnerships uh we feel uh that there there hasn't been any commentary to change it so we're not recommending a change to this definition at this time so I talked about the two different occupancy zones uh so the four unrelated person zones is shown in the green you can see that's mostly the commercial mixed use industrial and higher density regulation zones and then you can see that a wide swath of land in the orange are the lower density zones in the city that are um capped at the three unrelated persons so when we came to City Council on March 9th we presented our our analysis of the

[92:00] 60 different communities and how they regulate occupancy and we proposed some different options Council directed us to move forward with option b which was to explore an increase of three or four up to four or to five unrelated city-wide and to basically increase the level of Outreach on that particular option and then come back to council for more Direction so I want to talk a bit about impacts we have been hearing uh from many community members about their concerns about increasing occupancy there are accounts and not unlike other university communities um on-street parking availability is a concern increased activity trash and weeds parties noise these are things that many of those communities have had to deal with um it really is a policy questions about how these impacts should be handled I I think there's our other communities that have taken the leap to basically just

[93:02] focus mostly on those impacts themselves rather than correlating them with how many people are actually living in a unit so that's a big question for the for the council tonight and we know that it's an issue that we'll probably have to be talking about going into the future relative to enforcement right now active enforcement on occupancy has been paused due to the pandemic and staff constraints we do handle complaints on occupancy if there are instances of over occupancy from a um a zoning standpoint they're usually remedied at the next leasing cycle we're not wanting to kick people out of their units Middle East however if we do find that there's life safety issues more like the building code then they're handled immediately so we've brought done broad Community engagement over the last few months again many of these slides are very

[94:00] similar to what we presented in June um of this year we've reached out to the university adjacent neighborhoods University Hill Martin Acres we were at a Outreach event um at Aurora East we've talked to plant Boulder the hill revitalization group uh working group the dean's leadership and values committee which is composed of students the community connectors and residents meetings with Community leaders to get their perspective and hearing people's perspectives at the housing Advisory Board and planning board meetings we also talked about the be heard Boulder questionnaire um so again um it's it's a it's one tool among several tools that we use to gauge uh Community feedback it is not a statistically valid survey but it is very helpful to kind of get a gauge of of where people sit on issues we we got over 2 000 responses um on the be heard Boulder questionnaire and over a thousand written comments

[95:01] um so attachment C goes into a lot of detail about what we heard so I'm just going to talk mostly about the broad themes that we heard from these different groups since we have gone over this before but generally we've been hearing um concerns that changing the occupancy regs will potentially drive out families benefit landlords not help the unhoused issue in the city we've heard from students that are are very much in support of more housing options and are very concerned about the the cost of rent in the community some students or many students actually have to commute in because of housing costs we've heard a lot about concerns about parking impacts we heard that from Aurora East and on the hill we've heard kind of mixed feedback from different groups because they have different compositions of attendees but um Hill revitalization group there were

[96:01] students that obviously wanted things to be easier for students and then there were homeowners in the area that were concerned about impacts to their neighborhood without any guarantees of actual affordability by making these changes um talking to the students again uh Boulders crazy unaffordable um when we talk to the community connectors in Residence there was support for removing the occupancy rules um obviously they were very cognizant of the discriminatory issues of occupancy from the past we've also heard firsthand accounts of eviction um and also we've heard from folks that think that the university adjacent neighborhoods should not be subject to any increase in occupancy so in looking at the be heard Boulder responses we saw more support for four unrelated rather than the five unrelated when we looked at the results for five unrelated it was more mixed like 50 50.

[97:01] there was less support for the five and there was more um responses that were were strongly against five and looking at um the responses most of them did not support removing occupancy requirements entirely but most of the respondents did feel that the code did need to be changed most of the respondents were homeowners about a third were renters and then we also saw that there was more support among renters and younger participants in the questionnaire so we've discussed occupancy um with the housing Advisory board on on these two occasions April 16th uh we provided them with an update all members except for one felt that the occupancy rules should be changed the one member that didn't support it as much felt that they were concerned that it wouldn't increase affordability and that we

[98:00] should just be focusing more on co-ops but most of them acknowledge that losing the rules is the right trajectory there were concerns expressed about corporate entities buying up properties to take advantage of increased rent income but they felt that that's not something that should be handled through zoning but rather through some sort of license licensing mechanism when we returned to have on July 26th uh the board recommended approval of the ordinance there was one member that expressed concern that the change may not result in Greater affordability and that additional measures may be necessary so we've talked a planning board on this topic twice when we talked to them in April at the update three member members expressed support for increasing occupancy two members were firmly against increasing occupancy limits citing the concern that you know Council would be overriding a public vote that occurred on the bedrooms or for people ballot measure in

[99:02] 2021 and two members expressed that they were more in the middle on the issue needing more data when we went back to planning board on July 25th there was a long discussion um there were I believe four failed motions um we kind of went around a number of different issues and iterations but basically it landed on a motion to recommend approval on a vote four to three of the ordinance um the board also offered the following additional suggestions uh those that voted for the ordinance felt that the non-conforming language uh that that I'll be talking about tonight in section 98d should be removed um that there should be increased efforts to address nuisance behavior in the city and that the city should explore perhaps as part of a future work program item mechanisms for guaranteed affordability that could apply through the rental licensing program to better ensure

[100:00] affordability so when we went to Council on June 15th we presented all the the data studies and analogs uh from the peer communities um the comments that we've heard from the public as well as the boards and the direction that we got from Council in June was to proceed with preparing a single ordinance uh to to increase the number of unrelated to five city-wide council did Express a concern about non-conforming uses you know properties that have more dwelling units that are orbited under the zoning today and maybe looking at some ways of of trying to freeze the the occupancy and on those properties so that they couldn't go up to the five so I'll talk more about that there were some council members that suggested exploring a provision uh changing the provision of two persons and any of their children and perhaps

[101:00] looking at uh two families um and or or changing it to three persons and any of their children so we're returning tonight with proposed ordinance 8585 um as directed we are proposing to increase the number of unrelated to five persons and it would be Citywide um we're also proposing a change to three persons in any of their children um we're not proposing to families since that kind of goes outside the scope of the project since it's only been one family or um and it's not something that we really got a lot of public feedback on so we felt that the three persons would give a little bit more flexibility than today but not as much of a change as as two families we also are proposing to change the the limits in efficiency living units to three occupants since that aligns with what the building code allows but I also want to talk about and this

[102:01] can be somewhat complex and I'm happy to answer any questions on this but there's the the term non-conforming is is thrown around a lot with occupancy but there's really two different types of non-conformity um that we have to understand tonight and I've I have some scenarios that I'm gonna show you all just so it's it's uh understood better but basically the existing section of the code that's section 985c talks about non-conforming occupancy so what that section means is that's looking at a singular dwelling unit that had a higher occupancy in the past and was then rendered non-conforming by some sort of rezoning so today it's documented as having a higher occupancy than is typically allowed and it can continue to have that occupancy um and that section of the code is is going to just basically stay the same We're not gonna say you have to you know

[103:00] get rid of that occupancy but it's really looking at the singular unit that a non-conforming occupancy occupancy can persist um the second non-conformity relates to non-conforming uses so this is this is a new section that we're proposing in the ordinance section 985d so the thing here this is where you have multiple residential units on a property where that number of units may not be permitted under today's zoning so in that case you couldn't uh the way the code or the ordinance is is structured is that you couldn't have an increase up to five unrelated in scenarios where a housing type is not permitted in that zone or if the number of units on that property is more than what's currently permitted so for instance a a five Plex might exist up on the hill where only a single family house uh can be done today under current zoning that would be something subject to 985 D or an eight

[104:02] Plex where only a Triplex is permitted under current zoning so this was a concern that was raised on June on June 15th and Council requested that we come back with two options on how to mitigate that that issue because the concern is like for instance you might have a Triplex or we we've seen one up on the hill where it's allowed three occupants per unit under today's code so that's a total of nine people on that one site that today would just be you know a family or three unrelated if this ordinance or to pass and didn't have this provision you could see it increase up to 15 occupants on that site so that's why this is a concern that was raised so now I'm going to run through some of these scenarios I think will help illustrate this so on the left is a single family example and on the right is a multi-family example and that's the same

[105:01] on each of the slides when I show a box that's a dwelling unit and if it's green it means it's conforming and if it's red it's non-conforming so in this first scenario we're looking at a single family house somewhere in the city it's in the three unrelated category if this ordinance were to pass that could go up to to five unrelated so similarly in a multi-family site you might have a six flex and today it's allowed four unrelated in each unit if this ordinance passes it would allow five unrelated in each unit again these are conforming sites so in this scenario we're looking at a non-conforming dwelling unit that's non-conforming to occupancy so in this scenario it's red because under today's situation

[106:01] it might have five unrelated as non-conforming occupancy which is more than our code allows today but it's legal non-conforming so if this ordinance passes that particular unit would actually become conforming that it wouldn't be subject to 985c anymore so you might have the same thing in a multi-family situation so a six Plex that's at five occupants per unit more than what we allow today if this ordinance passes then it becomes a conforming use so in this scenario this is where occupancy within a unit is is perhaps six or maybe seven um and you can see if if the ordinance passes tonight it would just stay the same so that's what this is basically trying to show is it even though it increases to five if it's non-conforming occupancy in that individual unit today it'll just continue to be a non-conforming

[107:00] occupancy in the future what I think is raised questions is this scenario so this is non-conforming uses uh but conforming to occupancy so you might have a six Flex on a site that only allows two units but the occupancy in the individual units conforms to our limits today at three and the thing that we're trying to make clear here is that if ordinance 8585 passes it would not be in this scenario per the ordinance an automatic thing to go up to five in fact even if the ordinance even if we didn't have the provision in here it wouldn't be automatic and the reason we say that is because we have a definition in the code already that's called expansion of a non-conforming use and it basically recognizes any potential impact like parking floor area

[108:01] number of units or occupancy so if any of those were to increase it would trigger a non-conforming use review so in such instance they'd have to request an increase to go up to the five um so it's not an automatic increase for non-conforming uses already in the code um but what we we do have in the proposed ordinance per section 985d is a limitation that's that actually prohibits those requests to go to increase occupancy so a basically freezes the occupancy in non-conforming uses at whatever it is under today's code so this is the language and you can see it the language in 985d almost mirrors the current code so it basically just makes it clear that if you're a non-conforming use you're a housing type that's not allowed in the zone or

[109:00] there's more dwelling units than is allowed under current zoning it's the same occupancy as today so this would be a measure to protect areas like the hill where there are a concentration of non-conforming uses and trying to avoid the impacts of particularly in parking of increasing occupancy in those areas so there is a provision that says that it makes it clear that you can't ask for more occupancy that is just capped per this section so Council had asked for two options um so what we've proposed is for Simplicity and just to avoid impact city-wide that option A is what is incorporated into the ordinance so it would just put this freeze on any non-conforming uses city-wide the secondary option if the council was inclined is just to to have it apply in zones that are adjacent to the

[110:01] university if if the council wanted to limit the scope and the thing that we want to make clear about option b is that the way we would do that at this point is if the Zone even existed somewhere else in the city away from the University it would still also be subject to that limitation again this is all done in efforts to try to mitigate any impacts from from the increase so um coming down to the staff recommendation we've provided an analysis in the memo um that shows that we we believe that we have met the um the purpose statement that we've worked towards the goals and objectives that are up on the slide and we do find uh that the ordinance would be consistent with a number of different uh Boulder Valley humbrance of plan policies related to the jobs housing imbalance uh preservation and support for reservation residential neighborhoods based on that that cap on non-conforming uses uh and meeting a number of our housing policies and

[111:01] trying to open up housing opportunities we've made an argument you know that obviously there's a number of focus areas where housing is is of extreme importance in Boulder and that this is one way of trying to address the cost of housing in Boulder so with that this is the the recommended motion for Council we can come back to this um happy to answer any questions thanks so much for that Carl that was an enormous amount of information very well and thoughtfully presented so uh questions for Carl and just before we get into these we do have a very long night ahead of us we have 84 people signed up to speak so I'd encourage pithy and a limited number of questions I saw over here Nicole and Jenny first all right um thank you I just had a couple of questions um about and first of all thank you Carl appreciate your distilling um all these this years of work um into this presentation so I was one thing I was

[112:00] wondering about is how many units are we talking about when we are looking at the units that have non-conforming occupancy and non-conforming uses do you have a sense of what percentage of all the units yeah there was an analysis of this done um a couple years ago it's it's over 5 000 units so really it comes to about um and I guess if you include rooming units it's like 6 000 units so we're talking about like 13 of the city okay thank you and um do we know that um the landlords you know if they had the opportunity would like in that 13 would they definitely jump on that and want to go up to whatever the next highest limit was yeah we we reached out to the landlord's um talk to to the um bar ha about this issue they're aware of the change um my conversations with barha is that they're they're not in full support

[113:00] um and they might talk to you tonight but they're not in full support of the ordinance just it seems solely based on the concerns about the complexity of not applying it uniformly and having the the specific provision for non-conforming uses just because it has the potential for causing confusion that it's not going to be readily um understood what the limit is going to be on on a site like that they may have to like check with the city I think a lot of property owners tend to know that whether or not their properties are are conforming or not but I think it probably would require some inquiries but it's not too unlike what we have today with the two different zones for occupancy it tends to trigger inquiries anyway also I know that of concern to council was with the students moving back now how does the timing of this ordinance work and what they've told me is that they are they do have the flexibility of

[114:02] changing leases Midway through it doesn't have to wait till the next leasing cycle they do have the option to do an addendum that could change it uh pending whatever the outcome of this ordinance is thank you and then do we have a plan are in this category of people who may not be going up to four or five or whatever we decide on tonight I mean I think with any ordinance we just have to be clear and communicate with all the the contacts that we've been working with so that they understand it I've been you know meeting with people um to describe the changes we'll continue to do that um if this gets adopted and then just they're gonna have to understand the steps you know when they come in for a rental license there's always a little bit of research that has to be done as to what the occupancy is because the occupancy ends up getting printed on the rental license um and that's what we do today so I think that would just continue thank you

[115:02] and can you remind me how often do those rental licenses need to be renewed every four years thank you and then just Just One Last Question just want to make sure safety is still key here right we're not talking about any changes that are going to impact life safety is that right that's right building code is going to continue to apply thank you very much question and this question actually came about from conversations that I was having with community members even though I do support um the work that we're doing and increasing occupancy but it was a good question coming from community members and one that I thought that should be asked um how do we make sure people are not

[116:00] renting their bedrooms at higher rate or at market rate and how do we get to affordability uh now that we are increasing um occupancy is that part of the conversation it's it's something that we have to contend with so you know this ordinance does not have a provision for guaranteed affordability um it's something that we're looking at you know the the state of Colorado prohibited rent control and I know there's been some changes to that provision that allows more flexibility so it's something that our our housing department is looking into there's a lot of nuance to it so there is no provision that requires a cap to the rents it's something that could be looked at as a separate project perhaps um but right now there's there's no you know mechanism for that so in talking to

[117:00] to barha you know like what we heard is that some landlords will elect to you know break down the fees so that it brings down the rent you know if they're allowed you know for instance two additional persons that'll level out the costs and then others probably will not do that and they'll just they'll just you know charge the same and make more money that's certainly a possibility I can just ask um people in the audience to to not make audible comments feel free to make a silent hand gesture of some kind as long as they're not offensive but but no audible comments please thank you I'm getting talked back here from by my City attorney please correct me first amendment guarantees our right to offensive hand gestures mayor if you must our City attorney will tell you you are

[118:00] allowed to make offensive ones as well well I don't have any other questions maybe just um yeah it's thank you for that that comment that you make um I didn't really think about the fact that yes we don't um have any State rent control and what would that look like if we were to have some guard rails around these additional bedrooms is that something that we can do but I hope that you do look into it because if we are going forward and ultimately what we want to do at least for me I can only speak for Juni Joseph here on this Council um I fully support increasing the occupancy But ultimately part of it is the affordability aspect of it it's not just so that we can have more bedroom to be rented at at market rate or even

[119:00] higher right because there is that demand we have thousands of people driving to Boulder each and every day chances are if someone wanted to rent these bedrooms that will be open now because of this new you know ordinance that we're passing they would I'm sure they would do it right um so ultimately My Hope Is that we there there are some guard rails that those bedrooms are not more expensive or as expensive as they are because ultimately regular people will still not be able to afford them or people who are struggling so um I hope that's part of that conversation thank you great and just we're in questions right now and we'll get to comments a little later in the evening I saw Rachel and then Mark and then I got Tara is this all questions because I don't actually have one for Carl it's possibly for Nuria on any kind of question awesome so we've um gotten a fair number of emails and and conversation recently around whether this process is Democratic or if we're

[120:00] undoing the will of the voters and I know you're thinking Teresa maybe is the person but my question is um what can staff walk us through sort of the process of how we got here and what the vote was for adding this to the work plan and what was added to the work lamb actually I appreciate that but it will likely be um Brad or Carl who can share with us what the process I think they had it as part of their presentation on how we got here and and maybe if you have like the vote count and just the language that we opted to to add to our work plan yeah I am going to defer to Carl in terms of that's evolution to council at the retreat in 2022 I think the the thinking was you know that followed the bedrooms or uh for people ballot initiative uh the prior November and I think because the the vote was

[121:00] relatively close I think it was like 52 no uh 48 yes because it was it was close um and there were like stated concerns about the concept of how that regulation might have gone into effect because it was related to bedrooms it was um one it was the number of bedrooms plus one was the bedrooms are for people ballot measure and there were concerns you know that that might encourage people to illegally cram in bedrooms to get a higher occupancy um that that maybe it wasn't the right solution so I I think what the council was thinking at the retreat was that maybe we need to be looking at other different solutions so that was kind of the basis of this project so just as far as the the purpose statement it was to prepare I'm sorry perform a comparative analysis from other communities develop a model occupancy approach and solicit Community input for ordinance revisions

[122:01] um so that's basically what got started in 2022 and we talked about it you know in the two study sessions that followed and do you remember what the vote from Council was on that uh not off the top of my head to be honest okay we can try to find it okay uh thanks Mark yeah just one question um what percentage of the non-conforming uses and properties that you spoke of are located in these University adjacent communities I don't know that we have a specific percentage at this point I think we understand that it's a pretty high percentage because um there were a number of rezonings that happened on the hill and around downtown in the 1970s that didn't occur in other areas of the city so I think the highest

[123:00] number of non-conformities do exist in areas like University Hill Goss Grove Whittier areas that surround downtown and near the university but I don't have a specific percentage okay that would include Martin Acres as well I don't know that there was a rezoning that affected uh Martin Acres okay all right thank you Tara and Mark yes first question is following up on what Juni said did we ever look into treating increases in occupancy like we do adus and giving it some affordability that way or help me not looked into that yet it was not part of the scope of the project I think the original scope was to to look at a simple solution if we did tie it to some mechanism it would not be a Simple Solution it's something that's been suggested but really what we've been hearing is in order to

[124:00] get the increased occupancy you'd have to like apply for it now if we're talking about people having to apply for increased occupancy we could see an onslaught of applications there'd have to be a whole new uh review process to review for those and then do some sort of agreements you know to cap rent if that's allowable it would take more you know legal research it would be a a large administrative change to what we review in the in the um planning and development services and we also did look at the other communities um the the peer communities and we didn't see any analogs that that had that type of process so we've we've not recommended that yep which I know I'm not allowed to comment but I'm going to ask this as a rhetorical question it's still a question um isn't it always complicated when you're trying to make something

[125:00] affordable just saying um moving on do we I think I asked this last time but I forgot no I didn't forget I'm actually asking it again do we have enough code enforcement to counteract the possible increases in traction noise right now I don't know that you know that but I wonder if anybody knows that might defer to our director on that bread Mueller again director of planning and development services so the uh short today answer to that is that our Police Department's code enforcement unit which is primarily responsible for things like weeds and trash is I think at about half staff that's part of the um you know Universal policing Staffing challenge that's around but there is obviously a goal to have that be fully staffed then to maybe um council member your your larger kind of question of in general we

[126:02] recognize that that's an area of the hill and other places that would be affected by potentially affected by increased occupancy city-wide it would be areas that would continue to need Focus for code compliance and code enforcement the city manager has also identified this as a priority in the next couple of years this being all things Code Compliance and code enforcement so we would anticipate an increase in capacity even outside of this decision just in in response to livability and and other kind of related issues that surround neighborhood impacts and potential nuisance issues right so can I tell you half are you saying one two three what how many well there are six budgeted right now on the code uh enforcement side in police our department has uh six in planning

[127:04] and development services which are zoning issues such as occupancy parking enforcement or in community Vitality also has Staffing I don't know that exact number that help with parking enforcement and then we get into other enforcement and other departments when we get into some of the more nuanced things like fire code storm water there are a variety of branches of enforcement throughout the city okay so you're saying of all the enforcement branches we have half approximately uh no just in in police my Staffing for example is fully staffed right now the police has had yes correct can I call a quick question sure does that work okay um Brad I was just wondering do we have evidence that occupancy numbers that the more number of people in a unit the more nuisance ordinances we have or the more

[128:00] need we have for enforcement do we have that data I think that gets to the uh one of the earlier slides that Carl spoke to in terms of Our National Review of different codes and the impacts from that Carl do you feel like you're able to touch on that further yeah I don't know that we have like specific data other than uh we did look at um areas of complaints in the city um and obviously um a lot of areas around the university were the highest number of complaints uh and I think the highest number of complaints related to occupancy were on the hill and the second highest I think work in the South Boulder category which I think might include Martin Acres okay but it's not it's not really looking at if they're say four people versus three people across the city do we tend to see more in the fours versus the threes or anything like that no no we didn't we we don't have that data for that thank you and just to add to that Carl when you

[129:01] did a review of the national literature and other peer communities um I think we didn't find anything conclusive about the relationship between the two if I remember correctly I mean I there were certain analogs that spoke to you know like the Austin issue where there was a really fairly High occupancy allowed and then they they reduced it in response uh to impacts um there are other university communities that talk about uh the concentration around universities being the areas where there is nuisance but um similar analogs to what we see here in Boulder man um thanks Carl and appreciate Brad for walking through this um my questions kind of center around um our efforts to regulate impacts and behaviors rather than regulating people and so I just want to maybe go through

[130:01] like we've recently passed a number of ordinances addressing noise and trash and I'm also and so I just want to verify like one we've done that and two that you know as the semester starts we're in the process of working through those new ordinances to address those impacts and behaviors and then really my second question of that is are we actively working on more holistically addressing the parking impacts that occur throughout the city and how that plays into the fact that by working on behaviors and impacts we are not forced to have to then regulate people would you like me you know either way I'll I'll start um so there there are a wide range of um what we could characterize as quality of life or on-site nuisance abatement efforts that the city managers initiated over the last year plus in response to a variety of different um observations over the last couple of years a couple of the tangible items

[131:03] that are already in place are an update to the noise ordinance last fall the early this year was an update to the weeds and trash ordinance moving it from Criminal to civil to make that more easy to administer there are also efforts that are underway to provide for um landlord education there'll be some opportunities this fall for landlord education there is a fairly recently launched tenant I'm Sorry landlord notification tool which it helps landlords be aware of calls for service and other activity at their properties just as an advisory element I've talked already a little bit about Staffing and in our recognition of the importance of Staffing for the types of enforcement really city-wide in in multiple departments but primarily in planning and development services and police

[132:02] um there is also uh in the books uh Works a chronic nuisance ordinance that would acknowledge um those circumstances of the worst of the worst and recognizing that when there are chronic properties um uh those tend to have uh spillover effects to the Block in the region um and and then parking we recognize for a couple years now that Boulder's parking regulations might be due for a refresh really writ large we are preliminarily teeing that up as a potential work program item for 2024 that would need to be probably confirmed through Council prioritization but out of my office that would fall into our policy group and and we are anticipating that um it is a zoning regulation element and we know that um uh not only in areas of nuisance but in

[133:01] terms of the amount of parking that's required in new development or Redevelopment uh that that plays into the fact into into the issue as well uh we know that there may be an opportunity to look at managed parking as well uh in ways that are more perspective rather than reactive which has been the city's history and managing that in high impact areas but is there an opportunity to maybe look at that prospectively with new development or redeveloping areas so there's a lot in the works uh councilman member and um hopefully that touched on on the major ones for you that was a very thorough answer I appreciate that Brad and just as a follow-up with regards to Chronic nuisance and many of these questions for Nuri is um where where are we in being able to sort of press go on that I know there's been an extensive education and Outreach campaign to make sure everyone's fully aware um and so one when do you expect to sort of launch that and two you know what

[134:00] what's your in your experience here and in other cities if and when a property were to have its license revoked is the expectation of getting a lot more compliance on a lot of those issues throughout the area and so I sort of won when and what's your expectation in terms of results um should someone actually fail and have their license revoked so appreciate that council member and we anticipate bringing forward The Chronic nuisance ordinance to you all this fall um we're targeting uh October and obviously that may depend on um what other items we need to discuss uh and squeeze in as we uh get closer to the end of the year um to your question about what I have seen and I think some of you know or all of you know that this area of rental license work was something that I did in my previous life and I will say that it's both and right it is something about both providing education to both landlords and property managers and frankly looking at how do we provide

[135:02] more tools and resources to our renters and our tenants um as there is uh there is a lot of consideration at the front end to education and compliance but in my experience I will say that when there are clear mechanisms and tools for True accountability you start to see changes in Behavior as that moves forward and so different cities have different tools for that some have warnings some have fines some have fees some have up to revocations in my former city we actually were able to reach into multiple portfolios depending on how egregious someone was and not allow them to continue to rent across their portfolio so certainly our intent as we look at this is not to be Draconian because I think and I say this all the

[136:01] time that the vast majority of property managers and landlords are doing really good things across the city but it is important to have a gamut and an array of tools in which to make sure that everyone is protected as we move forward and in particular I feel that there is a particular obligation to anyone who you invite into your property to live in that space as a tenant because they do not have the wherewithal to really look underneath all the uh underneath I don't know what the American phrase I'm looking for underneath the hood thank you underneath the hood to make sure that all the standards of livability and Building Safety are there and so we have some particular obligations in that regard hope that helps thank you for that I appreciate it that's it for me I saw Lauren Lauren thank you I believe this one is going to be for Carl geiler um I was wondering what the process is

[137:03] for um a non-compliant use to increase its non-conformity currently so say if we didn't carve out an exemption that keeps them from doing that and someone who had a non-conforming use wanted to increase their occupancy to what we're talking about today what would that process look like is it discretionary or not thank you yeah uh we do have a process and you know a lot of communities the way they treat non-conformities is they have regulations that try to phase out non-conformities over time I think Boulder has made the decision that they can continue we have a more relaxed approach to non-conformities the what we try to get it is that we don't want to increase the level of non-conformity but

[138:01] we want to enable people to have the ability to to make changes to their properties so the process is called a non-conforming use review so for instance we see a number of them on the hill every year where there might be an existing building that's composed of you know could be 20 rooming units and you can come into a non-conforming use review process and make modifications to the building you can even add up to 10 of the floor area so we do allow for some expansion it is limited through that process it is a discretionary review so we do look get impacts on the neighboring properties and they're not allowed to increase the non-conformity like they couldn't add to the number of units or they couldn't expand it such that it would require more parking but they could make changes that would result in a number of units that may not be consistent with the underlying zoning

[139:02] but as long as it's not more than what they have with the number of rooming units and they lower it um they there is a process for that so if that provision were to be removed that freezes the occupancy property owners could come in with a non-conforming use review and request it to increase you know if there were if there are units within the building were limited to three they could come in with a non-conforming use of you and ask for five per unit and then we would have to evaluate that for impact so it is a discretionary review I think that we're recommending that that section be in the ordinance just because a lot of those areas particularly on the hill often are non-conforming to parking so allowing such an increase it might be difficult for these Property Owners to argue that they're not you know needing additional

[140:00] parking so that's why we're recommending approval of that provision but I think it would have to if it weren't in there we would have to look at it you know on a case-by-case basis but we do currently have the capacity to look at it at a case-by-case basis and take into account the neighborhood and um the whether or not they'd be meeting parking requirements you know if you know there could be uh you know a lot of applications that come in if that were not in the ordinance there might be a lot of landlords that are seeking that occupancy so it you know we'd have to look at our staff capacity for handling a you know a new you know a new application basically for all those but we do have that ability to review it thank you uh Mary Did You Have additional information I did and I always try to be precise before I speak and so we took a look and council member friends question and uh

[141:00] the issue of occupancy in the February midterm Retreat as we talked about it the topic or the action was do comparative analysis from other communities and develop a model occupancy approach and solicit Community input with an eye towards ordinance change it was um one of three work plan items that had a unanimous vote okay any other questions seeing none we can now go to the public hearing so as I mentioned we got 84 people signed up got uh 55 in person and another 39 remote so each of you will have two minutes to speak we're looking forward to hearing from each and every one of you but keep in mind you don't necessarily have to use the full two minutes if other people have said what you're thinking about saying you can do a ditto or what have you um but we you have your two minutes if if you want them and just remind people to be respectful I know there are high

[142:00] feelings on this topic amongst many folks please be respectful of the people who are speaking please know verbal outbursts if you do want to express some form of support or disagreement with a hand gesture you may do so but we'll encourage you to do so politely although your first amendment rights allow you wider latitude um and then I'll call three names at a time and I would just encourage you to come on down if your turn is coming up okay and our first three speakers are Paul Givens Cedar Barstow and Kristen Hollingsworth Paul Gibbons oh our very first speaker not here all right thanks it looks like pardon me this is Ryan Hanson uh it does look like Paul is available online so maybe we can move uh Paul to the online list okay we'll switch him over Paul we'll get to you later on so then Cedar barstowe's

[143:00] our first Speaker then Kristen Hollingsworth and Max Hollingsworth thorough job you've done thank you so much so a little personal here I am for the ordinance and I still like into the Mike police Cedar sure I still like living with unrelated friends for 38 years my five bedroom North Boulder home has purposely provided affordable housing for now 82 people and if this ordinance had been passed 38 years ago could have been more even though we have five bedrooms we have abided by the no more than three ordinance all this time

[144:00] so finally after 27 years of my working on this in various forms I would or will be so excited and relieved to be able to age in place as I plan to happily and with more financial ease if or when I could fully use the five bedrooms in my house thank you thank you Cedar now Cedar Barstow Kristen Hollingsworth and Max Hollingsworth no sorry see you just went Christian Christian you're up next sorry and Max and then Anne-Marie Parsons uh hello my name is Kristen Hollingsworth I have lived in Boulder for about nine years and tonight I am speaking in support of the measure to allow five unrelated people to live

[145:00] together it's very challenging to find affordable shared housing in Boulder personally as a graduate student I struggled to find a three-bedroom option to live legally as three unrelated people in Boulder much of the available housing has unequal bedrooms like two good sized rooms and one very small closet sized rooms the difficulty to find housing for three unrelated people leads to looking for more bedrooms for space and more occupants for affordability everyone wants to live legally but affordable comfortable and legal housing options are very limited and Bolder I would like to thank the council for considering this measure which I think is an important step to help make the Boulder Community that we all care about a little more inclusive by expanding legal housing options avoid the snapping as well please because it's still audible but the hand gestures are great so max Hollingsworth and Marie Parsons and Lincoln Miller hi um my name is Max Hollingsworth and I'm

[146:02] here to voice my support for allowing five unrelated people to live together I'm currently a grad student at CU Boulder I've lived here for seven years I'm starting a family in Boulder and it's not easy to live in Boulder if you're a grad student I've seen many of my friends and fellow grad students have to live illegally over occupied just to be able to afford to live in the town that they go to school in and work in um so this is a really good change for Boulder it's a step in the right direction so I want to say thank you and um good work thank you Max Anne-Marie Parsons Lincoln Miller and Lisa Sweeney Moran okay then uh Lincoln you're up okay good evening Lincoln Miller executive director of Boulder Housing Coalition um do I have my oh that's okay

[147:01] um so Boulder Housing Coalition as you know provides permanently affordable Cooperative housing for Boulder and uh we're a city contractor called an expert Cooperative Housing Organization and Echo we help certify housing co-ops Under The Cooperative housing ordinance we oh yeah I don't know if it'll play but there's some sharing in action at the mango Co-op it is a movie but um we strongly support the change to five unrelated people um so co-ops are about three hundred dollars per bedroom per month lower uh in rent and the study showed that we use one-third the per capita energy of other coloradans um the key to our affordability and our sustainability is the legal sharing of housing this change to five helps with that unrelated persons ordinance has been the strongest barrier to creating affordable

[148:00] cooperatives over the last 20 years the co-op ordinance is very cumbersome to use and margins are razor thin on all affordable housing deals so more possible occupants can allow more affordable deals to work and make it easier to convert multi-unit buildings to permanently affordable housing this helps the city reach its affordable housing goals lots of folks need to share housing just to be able to stay in Boulder and we heard from a few of them but we hear from single parent service workers teachers child care providers and city workers when you give the power to homeowners who can on a complaint basis turn these folks in it criminalizes poverty and it may cause them to lose their housing it is unjust and inherently it's classist this proposal is more just because it decriminalizes sharing for lots of folks across the city thank you thank you Lincoln Lisa Sweeney Moran Aiden Reed

[149:02] and Aaron Gabriel Nair hey y'all I'm Lisa Sweeney Moran I grew up here and now I'm raising my kids here in Boulder as well who wanted to come up tonight I've been fighting against this ordinance since I was first evicted for sharing housing almost 30 years ago in this city and we're still having this conversation since then I've become vice president of the school board in a time where prices for housing are going up and enrollment is dropping but what I'm really here to speak to you about tonight is my role as the executive director of mother house in the lodge two homeless shelters here in Boulder that serve women transgender folks single parents and young children occupancy is one of the biggest challenges we face in housing families I know this council is passionate about keeping families housed and secure in their housing but for single parents with small children options are very limited many single parents are hoping to share housing but they can't risk losing housing getting evicted having CPS get involved Etc by violating

[150:01] housing law we want people who are living and raising their children in this city to stay here we badly need more kids in our bbsd schools and we know that we are suffering from declining enrollment and it's not getting better we need hourly staff in our retail and service Industries we need teachers and health care workers who live where they work and we need young families in our neighborhoods but housing right now makes it nearly impossible for new families to come here or for existing families to stay so many families in Boulder would love the option to live together it would make it easier for us to house them it would make it easier for them not to need our services in the first place all we need is for you to give them the option so please allow five unrelated people to live together and I ask you two to consider not including minors in the occupancy standards so that families can live together thank you Thank you Lisa Aiden Reed Aaron Gabriel Nair and Sarah Don Haynes good evening Council my name is Aiden Reed I'm a co-chair for the Boulder

[151:01] County DSA chapter and a member of the solutions not safe to owns advocacy group I want to urge you to vote to raise Boulder's occupancy limits to allow up to five unrelated people to live together Boulder's current occupancy limits are discriminatory and contribute to the conditions that make it prohibitively expensive for poor and working-class people to live in the city raising Boulder's occupancy limits like raising its minimum wage to 15.70 by January 1st 2024 is a critical step towards making Boulder a more inclusive and affordable place to live Border's competitive Advantage is its people and if the city continues to make it difficult for people who are not wealthy homeowners to live here it's Community wealth and diversity will continue to suffer as a result the best way to empower people to live well in Boulder is to ensure they have access to dignified housing and can afford that housing making it essential that they can earn a livable wage that keeps Pace with inflation and can live in a variety of living arrangements including those with five unrelated people I like to stress however that while this is a vital step it is not enough comprehensive zoning reform is needed to

[152:00] increase Boulders available housing stock and ensure it is Affordable for people who are poor and working or middle class lastly I'd like to thank those council members who have been consistent in their support for raising or even removing Boulder's occupancy limits again I urge you to vote to raise Boulder's occupancy limits to allow up to five related unrelated people to live together thank you for your time thank you Aiden now Aaron Gabriel Nair Sarah Don Haynes and Silas Atkins hi Council people uh thanks so much for your time and attention here I'm here to speak in support of raising the occupancy elements I think um any healthy system the health of a system is dependent on its diversity and I think it is vital that we do what we can to increase the diversity of Boulder and I think that means increasing the diversity of people here in the diversity of lifestyles and that means being welcoming to more people and welcoming to more Lifestyles right now the current occupancy limits

[153:00] are not welcoming to a lot of different people especially those of lower socioeconomic classes because we have less access and less affordability and I know this is not going to be perfect for addressing affordability but I think it's a necessary step we also are not welcoming the diversity of lifestyles in that these days many people such as theater such as myself choose to live in community that that is a lifestyle that people choose and I think it's important that we work to include that lifestyle and allow people who want to live in a more communal and connected way to be here in Boulder so I think taking this step to raising these occupancy limits is a really important First Step first step of many to help Boulder be a more diverse and welcoming place which is going to help us be a healthier and more well well connected community and I think that's ultimately what we all want so thank you so much for your time and attention and thanks for considering this really important issue thanks Aaron Sarah Don Haynes Silas Atkins and

[154:01] Kristen ordback hi everyone Sarah Don Haynes formerly of the White House Co-op that is no more sadly it didn't survive the many years of efforts to keep South Boulder weird and I'm hanging out in the new ones with some friends while I attempt to get housing in the affordable housing program but it's a lottery so we'll see 23 years of education and educator and you know lots of environmental work and climate work and 10 years October 20th and we can blame Zane sylvan's for inviting me at 7 23 and said I know you're busy but I had some representatives from other co-ops are setting up an advocacy committee you know I imagine participation would

[155:01] involve at least monitoring the email list and potentially coming to a monthly meeting for 10 years and I reviewed our you know Boulder housing working groups from 2014-15 there's been so much engagement and I want to say I think there's a lot of first-timers in the audience raise your hand if you're speaking for the first time we have drawn crowds out for 10 years and there is so much Rich information and public comments in your emails I'd love for Sabrina sedaris's students to analyze public comments for 10 years to have common sense laws for unrelated people and I want this to also you know this is this comment is y'all know me and y'all know this and where we stand but this is for our community to understand a greater Community like this conversation has has been had and you know it's time that

[156:02] we take action and I want to say as the chair of our Sierra Club you know committed to how does this further climate action Injustice thank you thank you Sarah Dunn Silas Atkins Krista nordbeck and Chase Cromwell hello I want to thank Council and staff for their work on increasing occupancy in Boulder and I am here to support ordinance 8585 I live in Martin acres and with my current living situation and a limit of three people if I were to have my partner move in with me we would be living illegally I should be able to live with whoever I want in a place that follows safe building codes if the concern is that noise about about noise extra cars trash Etc please address those separately sorry I lost my spot as there are many documentary examples of successful strategies as mentioned in the presentation earlier

[157:01] while this ordinance does not guarantee affordability it is one step in that direction let's welcome people to share space with us and Foster an inclusive community thank you thank you Silas no Krista nordbeck Chase Cromwell and Daniel Howard thanks for supporting housing for people I fully support this proposed change to the ordinance and it's not sufficient but it's a good small step and more must be done and as I've sung to you before prairie dogs and colonies nests for birds and hives for bees and our squirrel friends live in trees but bedrooms are for people Boulder Boulder college town why are things so upside down mansions mansions on the hill but our friends are homeless still

[158:02] bedrooms are for people thanks Mr Chase Cromwell Daniel Howard and Mark Lester hi Council Chase Cromwell last time I was in Chambers I was a director of legislative affairs for CU Student Government this spring it was elected as the external Affairs tri-executive one of three co-equals to my presence first while I am the elected representative of the 36-ish Thousand students University of Colorado undergraduate and graduate many of whom are in this room I'm going to State very clearly that this issue is not just a windfall for students or landlords or Property Owners or some other group of people that we can demonize this issue is a government saying that groups of certain people cannot live together this impacts University faculty staff students but also community members who have no connection to the university this issue is about rights for tenants if you look at the hill any unit that can be over

[159:01] occupied by students almost certainly already is this will not result in a flood of students showing up to the hill or anywhere else in the city it will result in those tenants being able to breathe a sigh of relief that their existence in their home is legal that they have eviction protections and rent payment protections and other rights between their landlord and between their roommates I also want to reiterate one specific point for my counsel my email to council earlier this week this issue has been used like others to smear students there is this implication that allowing students to live with other students will destroy our town the chaos in Mayhem will be devastating to the very fabric of our municipality undoubtedly you'll hear some of these comments tonight this is infuriating to say the least yeah students are people they exist here they have existed here since before there was a here in Boulder they are not perfect but they are not a monolith the overwhelming majority of students are as normal as everyone else in this room normals you know Boulder has literally been fighting

[160:00] about being overrun with students for 100 years the language we use about students and their behavior is important and I hope you'll reject these descriptions of young people who moved here to get a degree regardless of your vote tonight I could say a lot more of I'd like to get a full night's sleep and two minutes is not a lot you know where I'm at this is important we need you to take a bold step for our community Chase now Daniel Howard Mark Lester and Jonah happel I'm Daniel Howard I am for the increase of occupancy limits I'm aware that a pure City used to study this issue medicine uh Wisconsin as someone who went to undergrad at UW-Madison I benefited from the permissive use of occupancy limits up to five unrelated individuals as a student I was able to live affordably in the city biking to campus rather than driving daily from the Suburbia with four roommates I otherwise I couldn't afford given the difficulty my single mother would have had in affording housing would have been more expensive with with a few roommates to just one concern though voice today I encourage future assessment of parking validations following passing this ordinance to increase occupancy for my years of Madison even though the duplex Homer lived in with nine other best friends we only had two cars amongst the

[161:01] group due due to the extreme regulations requiring caustic parking payments requesting like all Madison neighborhoods furthering a goal to increase housing affordability requires decoupling the cost of parking from housing as a local example I'm extremely grateful that as a non-core owner a table makes an apartment a community explored as a housing option this year offered 180 less per month for rent if I did not have a car to park in that Community this scope of savings as well as a deduction and traffic intensity by desensitivizing code ownership create could be achieved by creating parking permit programs across the city and really and then and eliminating parking minimums should be the next step after passing this ordinance occupancy is not the primary only cause of issues associated like noise or parking to resolve those issues requires direct action on those issues uh using occupancy as a means to address noise or parking or other concerns is not the actual uh result we want to be tackling so I encourage you to move forward and increasing occupancy limits and for other concerns that remain still a problem we can move forward in other

[162:00] populations that directly tackle those thank you Daniel now Mark Lester Jenna heppel and Philip ogren Council good evening and thank you for letting me speak to you about this um my name is Mark Lester I'm an undergraduate student at C Boulder and this is my first time at Council but this is a very important issue to me and to many of us students living in Boulder and I'm here because um as I'm sure we're all here because we love Boulder and we want to build a boulder that's better for everybody that's affordable for everybody and where everyone feels welcome and there is not a student that I've met at C Boulder who doesn't love it here but there are a lot who say that they can't stay here which is really sad to me because Boulder is a place where I found acceptance I Found Love I've found passionate advocates for the community I've found

[163:00] um just community and it just breaks my heart that so many students are feeling unwelcome like they can't make a future here especially when so many of them want that I have a friend um who lost their job on campus and had 72 hours to vacate their student housing they ended up having to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket just to afford to put a roof over their head I'm one of the fortunate few who has the right friends to be able to live in shared housing and I can say from personal experience that I spend way less on rent than any of them do and I'm very privileged to be able to afford to spend that rent here um and it really just breaks my heart that this stuff happens to students and that they can't find a home here and I believe that expanding occupancy limits today will give students

[164:00] the options that they need definitely not enough but it's a start and um that's all I have thank you thank you Mark now we have Jenna happel Philip ogren and Blake Stone my name is Jana apple and I'm a housing attorney for a legal aid organization we serve low-income tenants Statewide but I don't speak tonight as an employee but just a resident of Boulder every day we see tenants who lose their housing and become unhoused because they can't find an affordable rent I crunched some numbers and for a full-time worker making less than twenty dollars an hour an affordable rent is in three figures so we have an opportunity tonight to actually make a dent in the housing

[165:00] stock available without turning a shovel full of dirt there's a carpet of cars coming into Boulder every day to work give them the opportunity to ditch the commute a vote against this would signal that Boulder does not seek to be inclusionary and Boulder needs to do this it's a no-brainer thanks thank you Jenna I have Philip ogren Blake Stone and Sean Rupp hello last night I had a powerful vision and I think it was exacerbated by the fact that I had a large bowl of sugar cereal before I went to bed but in the in the dream that I had God appeared and spoke to me and I was so thankful I said I've been wanting to speak to you because my city has a

[166:01] housing crisis can you help us and she said housing crisis what housing crisis you have 30 000 empty bedrooms and um you said what you need more than occupancy reform is vacancy reform and I thought that she had a pretty good point and so um but I couldn't help asking her where she got that number and um she said from the Bing and um that was kind of awkward for me because the last time I asked Bing how many empty bedrooms there were in bedroom it served up a number that it had pulled from a blog post that I had written but I didn't have a chance to explain that to her before she vanished um leaving me to think about vacancy reform and I have good news I have lots and lots of ideas about vacancy reform I can't wait to share them but in the interest of time I'll just I'll I'll

[167:01] share those later please vote for this important occupancy reform thank you Phillip now we have Blake Stone Sean Rupp and Dave Coleman hello my name is Blake Stone first off I want to thank all the city council members for their ongoing hard work and diligence for their community in Boulder over the last two decades or so occupancy reform has become an increasingly contentious issue that I and many others feel very strongly about because at times this ordinance has impacted our daily lives but I want to mention that many of us with opposing viewpoints on this issue do share goals and values most of us value the Earth's nature and Wildlife clean air in a healthy community in fact as an LGBT person living in

[168:01] Boulder for the last 19 years with no family my community is all I have the right to live with my chosen family is equally important to me as anyone else's right to live with their family additionally it would be dangerous for me to return to my home state of Tennessee where I could be arrested for using a public bathroom for the last decade and through the pandemic I have been a healthcare worker in Boulder I work at the community hospital and in Elder Care I even worked in our covid-19 positive homeless shelter during the pandemic I want to believe that the people of Boulder want me to live in the community where I am caring for their elderly parents and their dying loved ones but as the years pass and people have become increasingly political about occupancy I have felt the gatekeeper's sword I want to ask everyone how does it

[169:02] really affect you do you know what it's like to live to have your housing threatened so many of us do now people who lost homes from fires or lost work during the pandemic know the suffering involved in losing a basic need like shelter I know for my days of being unhoused and later because I lived under the constant threat of occupancy when I lived with housemates I want you to raise the occupancy level thank you thank you for your testimony of Sean Rupp Dave Coleman and Sarah Campbell good evening thank you for tonight's vote we own a home on a cul-de-sac near third and Pearl last month my neighbor yelled at my Latina friend treating her like she didn't speak English because her car was parked one foot outside our driveway last year another next door neighbor told my wife that civilized people don't take up space the way our garden beds do in our driveway the way garden beds in

[170:00] our driveway do we prefer vegetables over vehicles the year before that my other next door neighbor asked if my mother-in-law had returned to Afghanistan were Iranian and proceeded to share her opinion on the burden that refugees place on U.S communities I'm an associate professor of environmental design at CU Boulder and my research in teaching is on how racism and white supremacy play out in the built environment while members of our predominantly white and increasingly wealthy community might not realize it when we vote to restrict how others occupy their homes and by extension who we perpetuate a history of colorblindness and white supremacy in the U.S and I'm happy to share academic references on that relaxing the number of occupants in homes will diversify our community and will signal that Boulder is a City Community committed to progress on reversing discriminatory housing policy so I'm grateful to counsel for their vote thank you thank you Sean yes we've got a question for you Sean oh it's not a question it's just a comment

[171:00] I just wanted to apologize John for what you've experienced in your home and I hope that our community can do better thanks thanks for that Nicole uh now we have Dave Coleman Sarah Campbell and Sean Haney thank you for your time today it's my first time here I feel very passionate about this topic I've lived in Boulder for 12 years and for most of that it's been illegal as a PhD student it was the most affordable route and I had an amazing community of fellow grad students and young professionals and we weren't trashing our neighborhood we were in Martin acres and they were just such welcoming friends that I came to this the city and it's just been in a weird situation to like have to be dodging this law for so many years since then I've started a company a block from here we're now 50 people and it just irks me that four only 14 of my 50-person company actually lives in Boulder the rest have to commute in despite us taking uh and being in the Aerospace industry and taking funds from NASA so I'm in support of this as a

[172:00] small business owner and as a someone at C Boulder as a student in the past thank you for your time thank you Dave now Sarah Campbell Sean Haney and Savannah Krueger hi thanks for all your hard work and the wonderful presentation earlier my classmates and I lived over occupancy when we were getting her phds in physics at CU Boulder we had our own little Community we volunteered in local science classes but it didn't always feel like the city wanted us later my husband and I bought and fixed up a home in Martin Acres renting out two spare bedrooms to make ends meet but unfortunately we got divorced uh we could not legally rent my empty spot in the house so I had to both cover the mortgage and pay my rent at a new place so I found the cheapest place I could with uh three other roommates therefore I was not on the lease um and yeah I'm still trying to get my security deposit back from that one um I

[173:02] don't have any legal rights nor do I want to jeopardize the housing of the local service workers uh who I lived with and as I try to rebuild my life at age 35 I would like to live in a city where I can afford to have a rental history I hope we can give renters rights to people in their current situations and also promote a friendlier City where people aren't scared of being found out ordinance 8585 is a thoughtful compromise that addresses many concerns raised by the opposition during previous occupancy reform campaigns so I hope we can take this step together thank you Sarah Sean Haney Savannah Krueger and Sean rudbari machine good evening I'm speaking in favor of increasing the number of residents who can occupy a dwelling unit here in Boulder I've noticed that a lot of the opposition to increasing occupancy

[174:00] limits often cite a desire for Boulder to remain a place for families I also find that many of these voices Define a family as primarily being a straight married couple with biological children I reject that definition when I first moved out on my own I found family in my four unrelated roommates that I shared a house with keep in mind we were respectful neighbors we cooked together we watched TV together and we celebrated holidays together this was in Austin which is another expensive University City but I was able to afford to live there very comfortably because I was able to split rent with four other people but if I had lived in Boulder during that time then those three years of memories with my chosen family would not exist thus I recommend highly recommend increasing occupancy limits so that we could end discrimination against chosen families like my own

[175:01] let's make it legal for The Golden Girls to live in Boulder thank you thanks Sean uh now we have Savannah Kruger shine rudbari and Sarah Fleming hi Council thanks for listening to all of us um so I have lived in Boulder for about 13 years and eight eight of those have been at the Folsom funny farm co-op that was the second legal co-op in Boulder it was an utter dream to live there um we had potlucks I grew tremendously as a person that was my early 20s I I'm in love with that man over there in the peacock shirt mainly because of the education I got in communication in relationships in that home and it was deeply precious to me I want to share that the co the current Co-op licensure process was almost prohibitive in its

[176:01] um just like bureaucracy and steps and processes and it was financially difficult for us to afford um but it made it possible for us to be legal and that felt really good um we wanted to go through the headache of a process though I'm grateful for it deeply um to be a model and set a precedent to make it safer for more and more people and to see licensure forward um so yeah I just want to say that the current status of living communally is very difficult to us and this would be an incredible Improvement upon that for everyone thank you so much thank you Savannah no no Shane rupari Sarah Fleming and Joshua Westerman oh sorry got that wrong apologize Sarah Fleming Joshua Westerman and Mike commoner um hi I'm another Sarah

[177:01] um and I was born here in Boulder I'm 26 years old now and I live on University Hill I'm really grateful that you're considering raising the occupancy limit to five today this change would have an immediate positive impact for me um as well as many other young and low-income people in Boulder when my partner and a friend and I were looking for a new housing situation this spring it quickly became clear that finding a place we could afford would be nearly impossible without breaking the occupancy limit we looked at so many um five bedroom houses that popped up on Craigslist where the difference between splitting rent between five people and between three people would be over 500 per person so that's a significant number and it's not just rent it's sharing housing with more people allows us to save significantly on utilities on Wi-Fi rely on food and lots of other

[178:00] costs and that also allows us to reduce reduce our personal consumption so this policy change could be the difference that allows us to stay in Boulder long term to build our community here and to contribute to the community here um so it's obviously not a Panacea there's lots of other things that we need to do to address our housing crisis and make sure rents stay affordable but it is an essential part of doing so um so I really hope you vote yes thank you thank you Sarah now Joshua Westerman my commoner and James byard do we have a Joshua coming up are you Joshua no no Joshua in the house okay how about Mike commoner go see Mike not seeing Mike so James and then we have Joseph Stein and Lucy Carlson Krakow

[179:00] my name is Jim beard um it looks like buyer but yeah that's not wrong um I just want to say I am seriously in favor of the ordinance I really appreciate that you guys are recognizing the complexity of the whole thing that this isn't a magic fix you know one thing and then we're done I'm strongly in favor of finding ways that everyone that works in Boulder can live in Boulder and that's a big challenge I get that my one of my children they and their partner live here and they work in retail and in service and it's tough for them to be able to stay here they'd like to be here near me near my wife and so I support all the changes we can make to help make that a reality thanks thanks Jim Joseph Stein Lucy Carlson Krakoff and Mikey Jacobs

[180:01] hi all thanks for the opportunity to speak my name is Joseph Stein I have lived most of my life most of my 24 years in Martin Acres I work in retail on Pearl Street and I am the treasurer of the local chapter of the democratic socialists of America I am here to urge you to raise the number of unrelated persons permitted to live together to five for the simple reason that working people and young people are already living over occupied at no threat to anyone's health or safety the threat to health and safety comes from the looming threat of eviction and comes from the situations that people put themselves in that increase the stress and that increase people's incapacity to live together or that raise rents and that raise day-to-day expenses Boulder day by day becomes less affordable and less welcoming for working people and for young people and to the simple reason I urge you to pass this ordinance well we're added I want to Echo the call from

[181:00] Alejandra earlier and also from my colleague Aiden Reed to raise the minimum wage as soon and as quickly as is legally possible thank you for your time thanks Joseph now Lucy Carlson Krakoff Mikey Jacobson anime zialo the opportunity to speak about this important issue I was born and raised in Boulder and desire to continue living here long term even as a college graduate Boulder remains prohibitively expensive for most people for my generation with housing being the most costly of all the ability to share expenses such as rent with housemates and Friends makes it possible for people like me to remain in the city I call home and grew up in I urge you to to vote in favor of allowing unrelated people to share home in Boulder in the name of mine in future Generations and I would also like to speak in favor of raising the minimum wage according to the MIT living wage calculator a living wage and Boulder

[182:00] would be 27 an hour far more than being proposed let's support workers in all of Boulders residents by increasing wages and therefore quality of life in Boulder thank you thank you Lucy Lucy not to single anyone out else out but our topic tonight is occupancy limits I'll just I'll just say um right now we have Mikey Jacobs animate sallow and Kevin McWilliams foreign my name is Mikey J and I hope we're all doing well today as a five-year member of the Boulder Community I'm here to enthusiastically express my support for this ordinance and allow five unrelated tenants to cohabitate as a recent graduate of CU Boulder I'd bring a somewhat youthful perspective throughout my four years of studies my eye like many of my peers struggled to secure affordable housing due to occupancy laws despite available houses with ample

[183:01] rooms these regulations prevented students from accessing suitable housing Arrangements as we the youth navigate the transition to adulthood striving to attain education and self-enrichment your support is Paramount to our success sorry your support is Paramount to Our Success I implore you to consider revising these unjust laws and declare an unwavering commitment to the welfare of students in these times of challenges and let's not ignore the fact that student loan forgiveness has just been rescinded we seek a supportive environment rather than additional hurdles I do sincerely appreciate the opportunity to address you today and acknowledge the significance of your attention to this matter it is my hope that you recognize the gravity of this situation and that anything short of endorsing this initiative could be perceived as an affront to the youth a clear indication

[184:00] that climate and Equity are not prioritized within our city and a call for change in current leadership with utmost respect Mikey J thanks Mikey now Anna mesialo Kevin McWilliams and Nicole shegda hello my name is anime I live and work here in Boulder I lived in a Cooperative run by the boulder Housing Coalition for nearly a year and a half which was an incredibly rewarding experience just a few days ago I was walking down Pearl Street and you know I realized that on the historic Courthouse of Boulder the pride flag is front and center on the door as a queer person my relationships with blood relatives can be tense not everyone has blood relatives that can form a family this often translates into less financial support less of a safety net less resources to queer individuals

[185:01] many of those people reside here in Boulder myself included I value building Community with people I deeply care about I have been incredibly grateful for finding a wonderful Community here I support raising the occupant occupancy limits to five unrelated people because it would alleviate a significant barrier for queer people to continue to live in Boulder as we already are and alleviate barriers to accessing the resiliency and the Beautiful brilliant community that we have built families come in all different forms and have a right to housing security overall this proposal is one piece of the puzzle of increasing affordable housing here in Boulder it's an opportunity for Boulder to take the pride flag that is hanging on the historic Courthouse of our town and turn it into actionable support for its residents local action at a time when

[186:00] the nation and multiple states are passing anti-lgpt legislation this is Paramount thank you to the council members that have continued to fight for this and I urge you to vote in support of it tonight thank you thank you anime now we have Kevin McWilliams Nicole shegda and Becky Davies hello and good evening my name is Kevin McWilliams I've been a resident of Boulder since 2001 and for nearly that entire time I've had to live over occupied in a rental with friends just due to housing costs and you know wanting to live with my preferred community and in every one of those cases having the occupancy limit at five unrelated individuals would have made these situations legal I've had two separate housing situations one in 2015 and another in early 2019 severely disrupted by this ordinance when an anonymous neighbor made a complaint to the city for some reason though we were not in my opinion being disruptive so it's directly impacted me multiple times

[187:01] and it's been a burden the entire time that I've lived in this city which I love dearly so I do urge you to increase the housing occupancy limit to five unrelated people I would also like to address some of the comments that have been made in the lead up to this meeting people have said that changing the occupancy limit would be overturning the will of the voters of Boulder and I would like to rebut that statement the bedrooms are for people measured narrowly lost in a low turnout off your election and we helped support three members of this Council who were vocal Advocates of upping occupancy limits those people are on the council right now that's over 50 percent of the people who are elected to the council in 2021 I think that speaks to the voters desire for this measure to be or for this issue to be addressed and to be addressed now I thank you for taking this up I wish you would support increasing the occupancy limit to five people and thank you

[188:00] all right thank you Kevin now Nicole shegda Becky Davies and Claudia theme do we have Nicole in the room not seeing anyone so let's go to Becky Davies I'm just going to compliment the last speaker's hair while we're waiting awesome um hi Council uh my name is Becky Davies and um I was thinking back to my kind of first engagement with the city in any capacity in Boulder and it was really through occupancy limits within weeks of arriving here for graduate school and for a lot of the reasons other folks have mentioned it was you know a pretty negative experience and it really turned me off to participating or engaging with the city any further you know that includes any other public processes responding to surveys or any of the other ways that the city seeks to engage with with a broad constituency of the population and that lasted for about five years until

[189:01] I saw a glimmer of hope that this law would be changed and they got me motivated to get involved again and now as most of you know I'm a member of tab so I also receive emails about parking like you and um you know and I think and I know from that that Council and City leadership have expressed a desire to get a more diverse cross-section of the city participating in public processes and thinking of ways to do that I just want to point out that if this is your if your first experience with the city is through this occupancy limit law that is quite punitive and often weaponized again as others have described then you're probably not coming back to engage again so that is just another reason why I strongly support increasing the occupancy limit to five and thank you so much for considering this change thank you Becky now Claudia theme Nicholas Grossman and Jane Hummer good evening council members

[190:00] my name is Claudia Hansen theme I live in North Boulder I am really overwhelmed to be here tonight with so many passionate and talented housing advocates these are folks who bring so much life to our community and because we've been working on shared housing for so many years here there are a lot of folks who have had to move on and I want to recognize their efforts too tonight thank you to all of you and thank you to this Council for finally taking action I'm part of a middle class nuclear family with enough resources stability and outright luck to have secured a mortgage in Boulder in 2009. for decades most of Boulder's housing has been created for and protected for families like mine that wasn't fair 50 years ago and it's even more out of Step now with how people need and choose to live

[191:01] in the year 2023 we should no longer be debating who is allowed to live together we should be better and smarter than the folks who wrote housing discrimination and high costs into the fabric of our neighborhoods I've spoken so much about occupancy over the years that it's hard to sum up now that we're finally here at a vote but here's my best shot I want to live and raise my kids in a community that practices inclusion that values sharing and that listens to the voices of our neighbors who are struggling to be here allowing more people to share housing city-wide moves Us in that direction thank you for listening thank you for bringing this policy this far and Godspeed as you vote tonight thank you Claudia now Nicholas Grossman Jane Hummer and Eric Budd hi Council my name is Nick Grossman

[192:00] tonight you have the opportunity to show courageous leadership you can be the first city council brave enough to meaningfully address this serious issue that has been hurting people in Boulder for more than 50 years you can pass this bold reform to give everyone more equal access to homes across Boulder you can finally make it legal for five unrelated adults to share a five-bedroom home anywhere in the city which will immediately benefit thousands of people in our community who are currently living illegally you can decriminalize the majority of shared housing options in Boulder by allowing all people to choose to share living expenses and create their own community you can take this important and long overdue step towards equity and justice Boulder renters and homeowners will back you in supporting the sensible policy

[193:00] reform and we hope you will rise to the occasion tonight thank you thank you Nick now Jane Hummer Eric Budd and Chelsea Castellano hi friends um over the past five to ten years I've watched the brightest Minds in Boulder the people who care the most and work the hardest to improve our community spend thousands and thousands of person hours advocating researching discussing and debating this issue I'm talking about all of our elected officials City staff activists and engaged residents across the political Spectrum putting in an enormous amount of work for years there are other issues that deserve our attention now there are other challenges that these bright political Minds could be solving there's nothing new that can be said about occupancy limits that hasn't already been said in the last decade enough talk please vote tonight to raise the limit to five unrelated people so we can

[194:00] finally stop talking about this let's get her done thanks Jamie no Eric Budd Chelsea Castellano and Victor pres president sorry Victor ericbud I live in Boulder um I guess I I just want to say thank you to city council for taking up this issue it was you know unanimous that you all put this on the work plan to discuss and I it's really meaningful and humbling to me I've worked on this issue for over 10 years without any meaningful action and tonight you can take action um I'm humbled by everyone who has participated in this process in any way everyone who has signed up to speak tonight um today there was an article in the New York Times talking about Colorado's housing crisis and New York Times described bedrooms are for people as a movement and that's exactly what it is it's not about one Ordinance one ballot

[195:02] measure it's a movement and these occupancy limits that are based on relationships of people they are designed to exclude that is their purpose not only do our neighborhoods ban Apartments Town Homes duplexes triplexes the city government also regulates who people can live with think about that it sounds unconstitutional to me even though it was uphelded Supreme Court but you know it was uh something that maybe we'll revisit someday so please pass this ordinance it's only the start of what we need to do if you looked at what's happened in the past year Colorado and the state has acknowledged that our housing challenges are a problem of Statewide concern and that cities are not moving fast enough to address these issues and I would like to see you all pass this ordinance tonight and keep on the good

[196:01] work of doing doing the work of providing the housing that we need in our community because we've heard from so many people in this community who enrich it who add value of the people that they are the people that are so often not represented and they need you thank you thanks Eric Now Chelsea Castellano Victor presbinda and Roxanne Ruggles hello I would like to dedicate my time here to every uh single volunteer who has stood in the Blazing heat I know many of you are back there to the wild winds and in the torrential rains to collect signatures two years in a row thanks to some of you um to the 10 000 people who signed our petitions to the hundreds of people who showed up to March for housing Justice to the people who showed up here tonight and many nights before to share their

[197:01] powerful personal stories of how this issue has caused them harm to the students who have been vilified despite being the heart and soul of this community to those who have been evicted for sharing a home and to those who have lived in fear that eviction would happen to them I want to dedicate this time to the generations of Advocates like Cedar who have worked for decades to chain this change this Insidious and exclusionary law we stand on their shoulders and there is no better time than now to end this harm that this law has caused I also want to dedicate this time to Nicole Lauren Matt Juni Rachel and Aaron who are using their power tonight for positive change I'd also like to dedicate this time to the haters because without you we wouldn't know how strong we are because you see and Eric stole my lines here

[198:00] bedrooms are for people is not a ballot measure or a specific policy it is a movement of people who want to live in a more just and kind community and who have the courage to be and create that change I am beyond honored to be a part of it and I thank you for making history with us tonight thank you thanks Chelsea now we've got uh Victor maybe you can pronounce your last name for us and then Roxanne Ruggles and Nathan sweet yeah sure uh it's it's uh I've spoken English so long that it's trouble for me to say it too um this is a great crowd I wish I could have everyone here as my neighbors but um I'm here first today speaking against the occupancy limit increase and of course I live on the hill um I get it uh older has an appeal to many of us myself personally I like to run through Choctaw Park Until I am so out of breath that the Rangers will sometimes jokingly

[199:01] say don't die as I pass it totally makes sense that we should maximize the utility of this place for everyone who wants to live here unfortunately for as long as I can remember the city has demonstrated an inability to deal with the problems that result from high occupancy or high density rather we really need to fix these problems around noise and fireworks for me in particular is a concern before we tackle or before we make the problem larger had we done so we'd have increased occupancy already maybe a decade ago there would have been less opposition every year around November students will knock on my door and ask if I'm renewing my lease I own the place I tell them oh sorry no problem by the way I ask how much does rent go for one guy told me 1600 per person he says but your place can only have three since it's not a duplex it was curious to me that they speak in terms of cost per person and not cost per like the size of the house or anything like that they know as do landlords that rent is priced

[200:02] by the occupant well sixteen hundred times three is a big number 1600 times 5 is a bigger number more noise more fireworks and more money I don't want to move elsewhere and I don't want to be a landlord I don't know why the city is trying to pressure me into it let's fix the noise problems first and then let's revisit this issue so we can have a city that properly supports increased density thank you thank you Victor now Roxanne Ruggles Nathan sweet and Celia Whitehead my name is Roxanne roggles and I live on the hill I'm here tonight to voice my disappointment that council is discussing and voting on increasing the number of unrelated persons in a single dwelling this occupancy issue was voted on in 2021 and denied by 53 percent of Boulder voters Council has stated that

[201:00] this change in occupancy will affect all of Boulder and help in rent affordability both of these statements are not true the proposed ordinance will impact already densely populated neighborhoods surrounding CU campus as well as Martin acres and Table Mesa this ordinance if passed will have minimal effect on neighborhoods such as Fraser Meadows Newlands upper Chautauqua Dakota Ridge Meadows and Mapleton Hill due to the makeup of these neighborhoods and the proximity to CU for decades many of the densely who lived in neighborhoods have experienced a swell of undergraduate students bringing in them increase in petty crime fireworks gunfire party noise and parking issues raising the non-related persons will further explode these already existing problems there is already a lot of illegal renting to five so making this legal in these densely

[202:00] populated neighborhoods will just increase it to six seven eight per household cramming more bodies into rental housing and given additional Revenue to landlords many of these renters have little or no respect for their rental properties or the permanent residents a large part of the housing part problem is a town and gown issue between the city and CU with enrollment hovering at 36 000 undergraduates in campus housing for ten thousand do the math that's 26 000 people in need of Housing close to CU this crisis needs other solutions that involve CU thank you thank you Roxanne now Nathan sweet Selah Whitehead and Renee Ryder hello my name is Nathan sweet I'm a PhD

[203:02] student at CU Boulder studying atmospheric chemistry I can afford to live within walking distance of the University because I live in a co-op but I've learned that many PhD students commute by car to Boulder from towns like Lafayette and Broomfield because they can't afford to live in Boulder on a PhD salary this even includes many of my fellow atmospheric scientists who are well aware that Boulder is in a Public Health crisis with respect to air pollution from Cars I study ozone a highly toxic air pollutant resulting from automobile emissions when I checked at 7 pm today the air quality index in Boulder was 166 which means that the level of ozone was so unhealthy that the EPA generally recommends against spending extended time Outdoors this is a normal summer day in Boulder Colorado where many people who work here are forced to drive their cars from out of town because they can't afford housing in Boulder

[204:01] vote Yes so that people who work in Boulder can live in Boulder vote Yes for clean air thanks Nathan now Celia Whitehead Renee Reeder and Reynold Feldman good evening Council boy is it getting late I am very honored by your continued attention to listening with so much care to all of us tonight my name is Celia I am an elder care worker and I do group exercise at the YMCA my partner and I moved to Boulder one year ago and we were fortunate enough to be accepted into one of Boulder's independent co-ops this was the only way we could afford to come to Boulder for my partner to attain her Masters in acupuncture from one of the incredible healing schools in Boulder County also I love the Martin Acres representation here tonight I was shocked when I moved here to learn that the occupancy limit in Boulder was

[205:00] only three unrelated people I thought to myself this Progressive city is basically outlying poverty inside the areas where people are trying to work increasing the occupancy limit to five is a positive step towards fostering a more inclusive community that is also more environmentally sustainable as more people are permitted to pool resources like heating oil like electricity food and appliances there are many ways to approach this type of code ordinance setting an occupancy limit doesn't necessarily seem like the best possible way to ensure the safety of older citizens but a limit of five is much better than a limit of three and the provisions that allow families to pull resources more efficiently are also extremely important my wife and I are currently searching for new housing as a couple anyone around Martin Acres know of anything we can stay with a one car family if we

[206:00] don't have to move too far away so this ordinance is exceedingly pertinent to our ability to be housed thank you so much for all of your hard work and consideration on this matter and I encourage you to vote yes thank you now Renee reader Reynold Feldman and Hannah George do we have Renee in the room not sing so uh Reynold Feldman there we go my name is you heard is Ronald Feldman I'm almost 84 years old and I've lived in Boulder now for 14 years as the widower always in group housing now I'm one of three unrelated people in a seven bedroom house in North Boulder if I were if we were a family of seven we could live there legally as I age in place I would like to be

[207:01] living with more of my peers green say the Germans is a sign of Hope I'm wearing green tonight in the hope that you'll raise the housing limit to five unrelated people thank you very much thank you Reynold now Hannah George Anna Ross and shiv srivastava good evening city council staff thank you so much all for being here and serving the community my name is Hannah George and I work in private land conservation landscape scale conservation and as you know we are living through a climate crisis a catastrophe if you will caused by humans putting far too much CO2 into the atmosphere the consequences of this are dire and we need to act locally now thus I hope you vote today to remove and

[208:01] artificially imposed constraint on available housing in the city I hope you vote today to instantly add housing at zero cost to climate or wallet I hope you vote today to allow many people who already live here to officially get on a lease and enjoy the rights that tenants hold as an independent Co-op resident in the lower Chautauqua neighborhood I hope your vote tonight allows more people to enjoy the benefits and cost Savings of sharing housing without needing to go through a costly and time-consuming permitting process I hope you vote today to allow five unrelated people to share a home thank you thank you Hannah Anna Ross shiv srivastava and Lisa Spalding hi my name is Anna and I am in favor of

[209:03] increasing the occupancy limits I am going on my fourth year living in Boulder in a house in Martin Acres three of those years as a student and now as someone living and working in Boulder I live in a large house five bed three bath two-car garage a basement with a kitchenette and a separate living room zoned for three people the city should not be able to tell me who I can share this very large living space with I live 1200 miles away from my family and I found a support system here in Boulder and I consider them my family here so why can't I share my home with them my second point is that these zoning laws aren't preventing people from over occupying homes it's just an added stressor for those who aren't on a lease and still is for those who are on a lease this is about tenants rights in the past I had roommates who weren't officially living in the house last summer our water heater broke and caused a flood in the basement where mine and my unofficial roommate were living it was a three-month period from the break to remediation we couldn't stay in

[210:01] our room for most of the time because my FloorMate wasn't on our lease I was stuck as the point of contact three months of scheduling with remediation companies flooring companies and plumbers even things that impacted her space I had to deal with let me tell you I cried a lot during these three months I was working two jobs and was in school for part of the time and in the process of dealing with this I had to call off work and miss classes to meet with people working on the house because she could not the intensity if the intensity of this ordinance is relaxed you're not going to see a major influx of residents moving into rental properties what will change is people like my roommates will be able to contact their landlord when they have a problem minor or major like their room flooding because they will be on a lease you'll be helping the people who are already part of the Boulder Community Living in Boulder housing just unofficially adults will also be able to live with other adults family or not and not have the looming anxiety that they could be kicked out of their home a crazy concept right thank you for your time

[211:01] thank you Anna now shiv srivastava Lisa Spalding and Tom Masterson uh hello my name is shiv srivastava I'm an international student originally from Bombay India I'm studying engineering here at CU I've lived in Boulder for the last five years four of which have been off campus in different locations in the city I'd not vote on issue 300 since I'm not a U.S voter but I don't believe that that diminishes my position in this community at all these occupancy issues have made it difficult and confusing for me and students like myself to find housing in Boulder when looking at homes that are clearly rented to students the city requires everyone to be dishonest and sketchy for the lack of a better word when renting a five bedroom three bath property this has also led to a culture of neighbors reporting neighbors for simply trying to exist

[212:01] my question is which I feel like has been highlighted multiple times tonight why can five adults live together if they fit the government's description of a family unit but not five unrelated students as an international student I have very little blood related extended family in the United States and none here in Boulder so please step back from the politics of this issue it creates more problems than it solves please vote to change these limits thank you thank you ship now Lisa Spalding Tom Masterson and Joel marks University Hill When Miss John sent out the list of speakers yesterday I was stunned the names of people I thought would speak were missing I made some phone calls and found out that some people sent emails but most didn't feel it was worth speaking because the majority on Council had already made up its mind

[213:00] you'd never talk to anybody you never got any ideas that we might have six of you ignored the voters when they rejected bedrooms are for people they plan to overturn that vote became apparent first time this Council met bedroom supporters packed open comment demanding that Council refused to enforce occupancy limits That Awkward misstep was covered when the city manager informed Council that the city wasn't informing occupancy limits during the paying enforcing occupancy limits during the pandemic six of you advance the plan to overturn the vote at this council's first Retreat you claimed it was your right because you won the election and you supported bedrooms didn't it occur to you that if you won a bedrooms lost some of your supporters voted no on bedrooms had a chance to sit down with people and look at look at the possibilities

[214:00] instead you do this five people city-wide and absolutely refuse to look at anything else it was really discouraging to everyone we we have nothing against these people they're lovely people we would love them to be living in this city but you you aren't giving them the right as tenants the right for any kind of affordability you refuse to consider an overlay Zone exempting neighborhoods adjacent to the university you refuse to include a mechanism to guarantee affordability at least the students would have benefited from that so it would have been really nice if you'd talk to people and widened your view thank you thank you Lisa next is Tom Masterson Joel marks and Len Barron my name is Tom Masterson

[215:01] The increased occupancy ordinance is the wrong answer to a thorny problem it for instance destroys our rights to a family home in Martin Acres We the People evidently have neither vote on our own destiny but we are feudal serfs to your omnipotence increasing the occupancy to five unrelated people will principally affect neighborhoods like Martin acres and have no effect on the neighborhoods where the city counts most the city council live the city of Boulder would greatly benefit from doubling our taxes on our residential property while we pay dearly into Boulder City coffers this ordinance will transform Martin acres into a student rental burial wedged between huge two huge segments of Cu with ever increasing traffic thanks to a city collusion with CU to allow the development of what was previously wetlands and open space big businesses

[216:01] and absentee landlords will control most of Martin Acres because the of the enormous money making opportunities if this has more than doubled the cost of a home here traffic and parking problems will will increase exponentially we already live with 24 7 365 days a year in a deafening Roar of U.S 36. city council you are bigger than this show Boulder that you respect democracy and can work for those who live here already you cannot help your neighbor by exploiting your brother there are Creative Solutions convert the huge amount of currently vacant vacant office space to residential decreased traffic problems and accidents by changing the speed on you a us-36 to 40 miles an hour through residential area help the environment the entire Martin acres has but one Park respect our quality of life

[217:00] don't just make every square foot rentable thank you thank you Tom now Joel marks Lynn Baron and Steve Morgan my name is Joel Martin my name is Joel marks and I'm speaking in opposition to the ordinance I'm sensitive to the stories and arguments made by people in support of this ordinance at the same time the citizens of Boulder did speak when they rejected the bedrooms for people initiative in 2021 and the fact that it was close doesn't matter they rejected it and if that initiative doesn't speak to this proposal then perhaps this proposal should be put to the voters as a referendum with due respect to the students who have spoken we live on the hill

[218:00] and we share a neighborhood with a lot of student housing sadly there are whole blocks in our neighborhood that are littered and I use that term literally with Once beautiful and stately homes that have been turned into decrepit eyesores decaying physical appearance graffiti on the brick unkempt yards trash in the in the yards Etc that's just the visual picture we're also subjected to noise from parties and fireworks at all hours of the night violence yes gun play is now an unwelcome if not infrequent visitor to our neighborhood and parking woes the proposed changes will incentivize investors to add more students to existing structures and to purchase and convert even more we've spoken about enforcing behaviors not people but there is no enforcement on the hill there's inadequate and to zero

[219:00] enforcement of current occupancy limits there's also very poor enforcement of noise and disturbance regulations it's irresponsible for us to be considering increasing the outcome occupancy limits when we aren't willing or able to properly deal with the issues we currently have we ask that this proposal be rejected in its current form thank you thank you Joel last three speakers in person are Len Barron Steve Morgan and carlston Nasser I'm Len Barron um when I moved to Boulder in 63 There were about 11 12 000 students at the University it's now been tripled and the university has not done their fair share I know they make up the rules but the

[220:00] lob you have to Lobby that University to do their fair share one of the dear pleasures of being 90 years old is remembering a time when time was slower life was far more personal and there were very very less distractions we've we live in a world which is dysfunctional to healthy Behavior dysfunctional it's awful for young children and it's not so good for students at all levels and so to make life a little more personal in our daily lives I'm against making changes for for is plenty I'm sympathetic to students but um

[221:00] we have to make life more sensible for our young people we're not doing that and we need to make little ways to make life more personal thank you Lynn and Steve Morgan and carlston Nasser good evening Council I stand before you in unabashed support of affordable housing and in opposition to propose increase in higher density I'd like to bring a few facts to the table that have represented here number one I'm a heterosexual homeowner on the hill 14th Street 800 blocks and I shared 100 the values of all these wonderful people behind me to say that we wouldn't want them to be have way to be affordable just not true however we are dealing with a complex issue that does not need a sledgehammer but a surgical solution staff brought about uh stat board about some of the comparisons with other cities we're not Minneapolis we're University's sitting they did bring about one comparison which is awesome Texas Austin Texas is very Progressive

[222:01] and they went 10 years ago and increased their density it turned out to be unmitigated disaster why because there were no guard rails it turned out there were ghost storms their term higher rents and so much cladodempts it had to be reversed and in such it's really made the affordable housing and rent situation they're much worse it would be and there's no sense that it's going to be better because there's much memory to this so without guard rails affordable guaranteed affordable housing and code enforcement it was a disaster number two I live on the 800 block of 14th Street now if you go from college up to Baseline thousand 900 block all student housing high density has increased density allowing up to 40 people in the last couple years because they're allowed some high density when I moved on 800 block it was pretty good hat submissive is pretty good it's gotten much worse you go up there on a Saturday night and Saturday morning and you will see a lot of noise dirtiness crimes and recently as my neighbor Joel has mentioned automatic weapons being fired the 800

[223:01] 700 blocks are tidy net neighborhoods that have been around for 25 35 60 years and have uh supported Boulder and all its values I will say that this this proposal as as worded seems to us that you want to do something and there's not much you can do about some of these issues you look at us as collateral damage we're not collateral damage we're citizens I support it uh business for 10 years here and I always had affordable rent for people starting their timers but these don't look at us as clever testimony and those who we share Steve Steve your time is up but thank you for your testimony carlston Nasser your final in-person speaker I've been um a professional in the real estate industry for over 20 years I've done research all over the world uh have done extensive research in

[224:01] boulders to decide to continue my career here I have some personal uh points that I want to touch but essentially I want to highlight how restrictive and constrained Supply is affecting what's happening to both their has happened to Boulder in many decades you must have in front of you a slide that I shared in advance of this meeting that shows that the total number of rental licenses is actually decreasing in this city allowing increased occupancy limits will only mitigate the problem that's already here so don't consider the fact that Boulder has no Solutions like the opponents of The Proposal increase proposed increase are trying to portray so I urge you to consider this increase immediately because it is important immediately in the city and will affect

[225:00] or help people who today live completely without rental tenant rights although they are residents even though they are residents thank you thank you carlston and I just want to check in is Sean Rupp in the room uh okay I wanted to make sure we didn't miss Sean it was there were two people with similar names on the list anybody else that uh signed up that we missed okay so great that's everybody in person we've got about 30 more speakers virtual I'm not going to call for a break but maybe a quick stand like we can maybe just do a real quick stretch I'm like oh it's even at this long time thank you

[226:04] all right all right everybody we're gonna we're gonna keep moving right yeah yeah okay I'm gonna ask everybody to to either leave the room and talk outside or to to be quiet if you don't mind and sit back down and thanks to everybody who came down in person to speak with us okay so very good our first three virtual speakers are Paul Gibbons Ryan shuhart and Katie

[227:03] farnin just another request folks in the room if you can keep it quiet please all right um I'm Paul Gibbons I support the proposal I believe Boulder is at a turning point right now my younger co-workers cannot afford a place to live in the city and these are Tech workers some of the highest paid workers in the United States these are people who want to start families but they feel like they can't because of our refusal to attend to our housing situation without increasing housing We are continuing to create a class and generational divide in Boulder so please let's make Boulder a city for all by making housing easier to afford and let's not just stop with this one measure thanks Paul now Ryan shuhart Katie farnan and Jill Grano

[228:06] good evening I'm Ryan shuhart you might recognize me as a member of the transportation Advisory Board I'm also oh but I'm here on my own and I'm also the dad of two small kids that I'm picking in Boulder and trying to build the next generation of our community for and for full disclosure I suppose I am running for city council this fall I support the proposed change to five person occupancy there's a lot of reasons for it it's a climate case we have a housing crisis thousands of cars coming in every day tonight I would like to talk about students since I started following this issue a few years ago students are one of the things I have heard the most about specifically as a key reason why we have a policy in place that determines who gets to live where based on family family relationships we just have to because the students comes up in different ways as the explanation for why we self-evidently have a rule in the first place and as the fear for what could happen

[229:00] as if students have some intrinsic quality that makes them imaginable as if University life is a bug not a future for town while this fear about students might be a familiar theme in these proceedings not The Logical Viewpoint nor one that is representative of people like me who live in the community that have not been students for a while indeed I'm not a student but the university a culture excitement and Innovation that comes with it is one of the biggest draws for living folder I think most people feel that way too fact is there's no limit to the number of students we can ever report nor should we treat students as something that is other or other as council member Benjamin said we have the tools to regulate behaviors not people we have problems with noise litter fireworks parking petty crime those are problems and they need to be managed directly our approach here should be more often is to use those tools and say that everyone is welcome and the more welcome we are the Richer the more

[230:00] cohesive and the more interesting our community people will be delivered thank you very much thanks Ryan now Katie Farnham and Jill Grano is not present and then Michael Parish hi Council thank you for taking up occupancy tonight um as my friend Aiden said earlier in the evening I am also a co-organizer for Solutions not safe Zone's campaign this year which is a group of bvsd parents and residents who want the city to treat homelessness urgently directly and using evidence-based Solutions rather than leaning into policies that haven't moved the needle in the direction that we need I am therefore thrilled to be here in support of the city's consideration of changing occupancy rules it is a great and necessary step toward housing Security in Boulder people need flexibility in places where the rents and the prices are going nowhere but up beyond that I just want to say that these things are all connected right so and the ability to have

[231:01] flexibility in housing and accessible housing has to do with wages as well so I encourage you to support raising the minimum wage thank you for moving forward on occupancy reform this year thanks Katie now Michael Parish Charlotte Whitney and Henry coren hi um my name is Michael Parrish I would like to just thank you all for taking this up I would like to speak in support of you passing this ordinance um a lot has already been said about it so I'm going to detail but I do just want to point out that it is very different from the bedroom Surfer people uh ballot initiative that didn't pass and so I just want to reject those comparisons is the same thing thanks very much thank you next up is Charlotte Whitney I believe Charlotte are you here

[232:00] all right if she comes back we can yes oh sorry um uh so I want to thank you just for considering this important issue and for the sake of time I'm I just want to add my voice to the inspiring chorus of fellow Working Class People fellow queer people and fellow CU students who have already spoken in favor of increasing Boulders occupancy limit to five unrelated people and I yield the rest of my time thank you I believe Darren Kelly has withdrawn and that would leave us with the next speaker is Henry coren is Henry there hello mayor Pro tem this is Ryan Hinton here it looks like we have a number of our next speakers who are not present in Zoom uh I believe the next speaker we have present is David light okay Mr light you are up

[233:05] thank you so much uh it's gonna okay it seems like everyone can hear me uh thank you for your time counsel I've been a boulder resident for three years now and was a resident of the Bay Area for 10 years before that you'd imagine my surprise when moving here to notice that the housing prices weren't that different uh from the most expensive place in the country to a city with a hundred thousand people mandated by the green belt around Boulder but I've been grateful and privileged to become connected with the city community and connect with it on a daily basis I hold the masters of environmental policy and natural resource management and I view housing availability as a resource that must be one of these properly managed items I currently live in one of the few apartment buildings in North Boulder that have a majority of international CU students and families of color and like many other places in Boulder my building

[234:01] will be demolished at the end of this upcoming lease to be replaced by 130 luxury studio apartments luxury being in quotation marks where do these vital community members go and how do we as residents in the city combat gentrification archaic zoning policies and the detrimentally negative effects that will come from displacing our most vulnerable and valuable community members it is my sincere hope for both current and future generations of Boulder residents that Council votes to increase housing occupancy to five residents tonight thank you thank you unless I've missed somebody I think we're up to Patrick Kerrigan uh it does look like we have had Henry corn number 621 during the meeting if we would like to go back to Henry yes certainly Mr core in Europe hello my name is Henry quaren I live in

[235:00] Table Mesa I came to Boulder 14 years ago my girlfriend and I rented an apartment with two other roommates since we were not yet married we were unrelated according to the city's definition of a family we were four unrelated people since our apartment at people's Crossing was located a few feet outside the city limits we were not subject to eviction instead we all saved money by pulling our rent some of these savings would go towards the down payment for our house my girlfriend became my wife and we are proud proud parents of two amazing kids in bbsd but enrollment is inclining along with the population of our city why has population declined despite new dense housing near Transit corridors because occupancy in the single-family zone areas has declined as our children find it hard to make it in this town they leave by forcing bedrooms to be vacant properties are underutilized leading to more sprawl commuting traffic and pollution the concern about bedroom-backed dormitories was addressed but we hear the same fear-mongering about increasing occupancy being a handout to investors nonsense every

[236:00] bedroom that could be legally occupied is potentially taking one of our 60 000 in commuters off the road empowering them to live a more sustainable but sustainable bike and Transit lifestyle inside the city utilizing the buildings we already have requires zero construction or pollution for those who oppose occupancy reform I want you to think about your children and ask yourself if if Boulder is doing everything it can to make them feel welcomed here what will you say when your grandkids aren't able to live in the same city as you will you tell them that this was your design increasing occupancy will help less fortunate people like I once was to get a Foothill here thank you thank you our next speaker is Patrick Kerrigan thank you I'm not seeing Patrick Kerrigan or David Pardo in the meeting I recommend we move to Rosie Vivian okay Rosie Vivian is next

[237:01] day occupancy limits all together but since that's not on the table tonight unfortunately I support adopting ordinance 8585. People Are People five is five if we don't question a conventional family of five moving into a house how much trash they might generate how much noise they make how many cars they have how many times they flush a toilet then why would we question any other five any other five people who want to share a house excuse me allowing people to share the house is the fastest and most economical way to provide affordable housing this is a simple change that can help so many people thanks for supporting this change tonight thanks Rosie no Theodore Koenig Ryan bonick and Lynn Siegel I'm not saying that Theodore iconic in the meeting uh Ryan bonick is present Ryan you're up

[238:05] hello Council and thank you for your time I'm speaking as a long-term resident of Boulder to express my full support for the proposed occupancy limit changes in 2020 and in 2021 I volunteered with the bedrooms are for people organization to support a Citizens petition to relax Boulder's strict occupancy limits though the petition failed by a very close margin some of the complaints were not really focused on the actual relaxation of limits but more regarding fears that you know the lack of the cap would lead to mass dormitories of 10 plus bedrooms or other ancillary fears better addressed directly like parking noise and Treach excuse me this proposed change still keeps that absolute cap but at a higher level so that three four and five bedroom houses can be more fully utilized these limits have a number of issues with them artificially reducing the already low supply of housing in town leading to exorbitant housing

[239:01] prices and pushing would-be residents to other towns and making them into climate unfriendly commuters and limiting the freedom of non-traditional families to reside together thank you for taking up this issue and making progress on creating more housing options for a city that so desperately needs it thanks thanks Ryan now Lynn Siegel Emily Reynolds and Kirsten erk Fritz yes um first of all um I'm going to have to do a no on this boat um for greater occupancy but there are two reasons that I'm saying no and one is that first I think we need to control sprawl and extreme density in Boulder that is stimulated by many City

[240:01] subsidies and and increases the cost of housing because it's counter-intuitive to what you're doing first you need to do that stop the flow and then you can do these kind of things you also need to exclude the impact areas of Cu that is absolutely essential and finally I I really I support communal housing but 4 500 square foot house 500 square feet per person equals nine percent this is the ultimate probably size for one washer dryer that's how I measure things and then you can have all this communal space crafts room multi-generational communal and and we need to incentivize our Architects to do this kind of design that is mainstream multi-generational housing with a crafts room an office room old communal there's natural car sharing

[241:02] um and um that that's the kind of long-term approach that I see um whereas when we're doing um numbers here and numbers there I think spaces are naturally meant to be right for folks they get abused in the University areas and something needs to be done to Stave that off especially because of Cu South which is going to drive up the double the population of Boulder so um the otherwise I would be supportive of something like this now Emily Reynolds Christian erk Fritz and Charles Shira good evening Council Trump was just indicted for trying to overturn a national election what will be the consequences for our Progressive council's majority's efforts to overturn

[242:02] a boulder election so I ask our six Progressive Majority on Council how is your vote to overturn our last election on occupancy different from Trump's attempt to overturn the results of his losing election Boulder voted down bedrooms in 2021 why are you undoing a definitive vote um this I'm led to believe you don't listen to or believe your constituents you disregard factual information and are quim based not fact-based our votes don't count and can be disregarded because you disagree we therefore have to sue the city to enforce the voters will your disenfranchising Boulder voters is seriously undemocratic author authoritarian non-inclusive dictatorial

[243:00] paternalistic disenfranchising Kyle geiler points out many of the problems there are no requirements for affordability in your higher occupancy ordinance and you made no Provisions for neighborhoods that are already have already absorbed thousands of students that see you simply does not house this ordinance has problems Boulder recently surveyed occupancy in 60 peer college towns and found 60 percent of them allow only three unrelated or less 23 of these 60 cities or 38 percent allow only two unrelated these findings didn't fit the progressive Dogma so they were ignored instead you relied on the unscientifically statistically invalid be heard Boulder poll which respondents could take hundreds of times thank you

[244:00] thank you Emily now Kirsten erk Fritz Charles Shira and Sherry hack hello um I'm a 53 year old divorced woman who owns a 2 800 square foot five bedroom four and a half bath home on almost a half acre in North Boulder my neighbors are all around 100 feet away from my home there are three schools next to my house and two directly across from me why am I limited roommates my home costs around fifty five hundred dollars a month with maintenance costs around 2 000 a year before the city shut down my home that I had with four other roommates I had um I had people between the ages of 25 and 50 living with me mostly holistic medicine practitioners as a non-alcohol drinking person living on a fixed income most of my social life happens in my home I am still close friends with about

[245:01] 75 percent of my previous roommates since 2020 when the city forced my roommates out during the pandemic I had to move my entire life into one bedroom so I could rent my house out to a quote-unquote family and I moved part time into an RV this was devastating to me and has left PTSD symptoms in my life since is this what three unrelated people is supposed to look like making a 25 year old Boulder resident homeless because she can't live with roommates with the rising costs of Life included taxes Insurance Basics and times the times call for an end to the Prejudice of the non-nuclear family if I can hold on to my home for 15 more years then I will have a paid off home I can die in and give to my children or I will be yet another elderly woman displaced in a community that doesn't want me when I was young I would watch movies

[246:01] and shows like Little House on the Prairie and Little Women and most of the divorced widowed women held onto their homes by renting rooms to me this is American using our assets to work for us to help us survive thank you Kristen no Charles Shira Sherry hack and Kathleen Hancock hi my name is Charlie Shearer and I thank you for all your hard work and for the opportunity to speak tonight I'm generally not opposed to increasing the occupancy limit but I want to make two points first Boulder has a lot of uh grandfathered non-conforming homes especially in the University home neighborhood that already have high density the home next to me on the 800 block of 9th Street is a single structure on a normal 50 by 100 foot lot with a single off Street Parking Spot it's been designated as three dwelling units basement first floor and second floor so it has nine students living there I learned tonight from Carl dialer's presentation that it's

[247:00] considered to be a non-conforming use but conforming to occupancy situation nine people in a single house is already very high density it's a chronic nuisance house with noise trash and parking problems that would obviously be worse with even higher density five people in most homes seems fine nine is too many and 15 would be just awful I'm strongly in favor of section 985b as described by Carl earlier tonight second nothing in the proposed changes ensures that rents will actually become more affordable instead landlords will make more rent increasing their property's value and in some cases at the expense of decreased values for the Neighbors of the properties I have two suggestions for addressing these shortcomings one the grandfathered non-conforming home should be treated separately especially on the hill and other neighborhoods heavily occupied by students and occupancy limits should not be increased where there's already high density again I strongly support section 985d as Carl Galley described it earlier tonight and two increased occupancy

[248:01] limits should be tied to some form of commitment by landlords to hold rents at below market rate without this the city won't achieve its own stated goal of more affordable housing opportunities thanks for your consideration thank you Charlie now Sherry hack Kathleen Hancock and Jacques decala intensity is a play on words to really obfuscate what this really is how can the council majority overturn what we voters already voted on this is a true disenfranchisement of Voters if this passes it seems to me that you're opening up the city for a lawsuit you are not dictators you're elected representatives and you're supposed to uphold the law in the will of the voters not that not just what you personally want or think read Mark wallach's thoughtful and

[249:00] eloquent Council hotline opinion on this he's a hundred percent correct if density increases it will have a negative impact on neighborhoods you'll drive out families and senior citizens the quality of life will go down the parking will be unmanageable and landlords will get rich and traffic will be a nightmare um you know during the ncar fire evacuation when Table Mesa had to evacuate the roads were at a complete gridlock and now if there's a fire where our neighbor how are neighborhoods supposed to evacuate with all the additional traffic that will be there it'll just be a standstill and with our propane tank explosion crisis a fire can spark a neighborhood at any time no one is against students but but see perhaps CU should limit enrollment if

[250:01] they can't handle the the students and house them or at least house more of them uh the city of Berkeley did this they got the university to cap enrollment and they took it to the state supreme court it's funny that all the voters voted this measure down but Council has no legal right to supersede the will of the voters on this issue and another thing thank you now we have Kathleen Hancock shock takalo and Michael andrick hi city council and mayor thank you for having me today it's late in the lineup so I'll be brief I'm Kathleen Hancock I'm leader of the group think Boulder which focuses on housing and climate change in Boulder racing occupancy limits does not work unless you have rent control without rent control landlords can simply

[251:00] increase occupancy while keeping bedroom prices the same thus creating more crowded houses and overburdened neighborhoods while landlords are enriched that doesn't sound like Progressive policy like most Boulder rights I want to see more affordable housing units both for ownership and Rental I don't want to live in a rich Enclave I want more diversity but raising occupancy limits is not the way to do it if you're serious about increasing affordable housing you must consider regulations such as rent control unfortunately we can't do rent control because the state banned it in 1981 in response to a boulder initiative and Governor polis has said he would veto it because there is no rent control I oppose this increase in occupancy limits and urge you to do the same I also encourage you to attend the public forum think Boulder's organizing for late September early October we'll explore ways to truly help renters as opposed to this well-meaning but

[252:00] nevertheless ill-conceived idea for the students in the room I have two daughters in college I'm sympathetic to your plight I encourage you to pressure your University to step up and provide housing for you and for you to learn more about ways to increase permanently affordable housing stocks in Boulder thank you thank you Kathleen now Jacques de Calo Michael andreig and Marjorie Schmitz I'm running for Boulder City Council this year and I'm running on a sustainable platform I oppose uh this because I don't think it's done an eco-conscious way I really think that Boulder has a gold standard of environmentalism and increasing the occupancy limit is it's not truly sustainable I think we need to look at this as a buy neighborhood Division and delegated to each neighborhood to say hey my house has five bedrooms how do you feel about me renting them out to more people and then we put this in the

[253:00] neighborhood's hands instead of letting a certain group decide for the whole city I think it really needs to be more thought out and uh get more communal input from every house and it needs to be a buy house standard I think it's caused a lot of problems on the hill already and the hill is our connection to the Flatirons should talk was right there it's been a main Poll for people to come to Boulder for hundreds of years and we really need to preserve that and preserve the uh beautiful architecture that's there and preserve the historic value of that area and I don't think that this measure Works to preserve that thank you thanks Chuck now Michael Hendrick Marjorie Schmitz and Harvey Wellman uh thanks very much uh hi I'm Michael landrig I'm a founder of a startup specializing in supercomputers and I've created dozens of jobs in Boulder since relocating from San Francisco in 2021

[254:00] I advocate for raising the housing limit to five people for a reason you actually I think we actually haven't heard yet uh for 17 years I flourished in Bay Area Community houses living with diverse groups of startup co-founders Engineers researchers and Friends these houses ranging from 5 to 20 residents of various ages and income levels from college students to Center millionaires compared to the relatively modern nuclear family Computing community community houses have helped me grow and learn and connect more than I ever could have including professional growth and I've seen co-founders meet I've personally raised millions of dollars from investors that I've met through connections at Community houses uh these these households promote empathy understanding and diverse social activities and serve and serve as mixing pots for innovation we've heard dozens of reasons to increase housing limit I encourage its

[255:00] Council to allow this greater social flourishing and especially Innovation by raising the housing limit to five people and allowing co-living with a chosen family and friends thank you Michael no Marjorie Schmitz Harvey Wellman and Jennifer Banyan Marjorie are you there hello Marjorie you we can hear you hello hello I've been living in Boulder since 1964. in 1977 I purchased my home here sad to say that after 45 years of living through rental experiences that negatively affected my life

[256:01] and negatively affected the quality of life in my neighborhood I'm strongly opposed to increasing rental occupancy I ask you please forgo the vote to increase renter occupancy tonight and instead please vote tonight to place this issue on the November ballot please do the fair thing the Democratic Thing by permitting Bolder residents to decide if they are in favor of a five-person rental occupancy increase thank you thank you Marjorie no Harvey Wellman Jennifer Banyan and Ian fresh can you hear me yes okay thank you my name is Harvey Wellman I strongly

[257:01] opposed to increasing the number of people that can live in home I've lived in Boulder for 53 years and I'm sorry to say the quality of life here has taken a turn for the worse there are simply too many people and you want to make it more crowded we have more people living in each house we will have much worse traffic problem we're going to have much worse parking problem the roads in this town are terrible there are potholes everywhere more traffic means worse roads the city obviously can't keep up with road maintenance our city is getting more polluted every day from traffic I have been Adu and I my home has worked well for 20 years we've been to one person and my wife and I live upstairs we have abided by the rules there is not a parking problem in our neighborhood as we have many driveways

[258:02] this is not true for many areas in town namely Goss Grove the hill downtown some really nice homes downtown don't have an alley they don't have any off street parking if we we need to keep it for unrelated people maximum in place what are you going to do in three or four years you're going to raise it to six people per house oh On a related subject housing is not our biggest problem it is not climate change anymore this is full-blown climate emergency this town is full please vote no on this I'm also horrified that you let the homeless camp in Central Park and in the creek along the creek all of us have found this little bit of paradise here let's not proceed to ruin it thank you thank you Harvey I hear

[259:02] Jennifer Banyan is not present so next we have Ian frosh Catherine Bush and Beth bookrepa Ian are you there Ian your mic is open you'll just need to unmute Ian why don't we come back to you in a minute and see if things are working out so next we'll go to Catherine Bush Bev programa and Kim and Harman good evening can you hear me yes thank you so much for the opportunity to

[260:00] speak I've dedicated my life to working for those who do not have a voice who are food cash and medically insecure I believe in inclusion and the right of everyone to live with their chosen families and I fully appreciate the testimony of those who are looking for Relief to live their lives as they choose and that Boulder needs to be welcoming for all and that we need to make Boulder award affordable for all and environmentally sustainable however I'm concerned that increasing the occupancy limits is going to exacerbate the density issues in the Martin Acres Table Mesa and the hill and whether this is Equitable as these neighborhoods are disproportionately impacted given their proximity to CU Boulder and the current state of having far more rentals versus owner occupied than other neighborhoods I think that there needs to be a more creative solution that takes into consideration the complexity of the issue that is Equitable for those for all and has demonstrable evidence that

[261:03] the city's goal of more affordable housing can be achieved the people of Boulder have already spoken by voting down the bedrooms are for people initiative and I too was disappointed at the last city council meeting on this matter when the council seemed predisposed to moving to increasing occupancy limits before anyone had the chance to speak but we also need to think how to ensure that we develop affordable housing going forward a recent Boulder Daily Camera article reported that the city let the Mapleton developer out of its affordable housing requirement with the promise that the developer would build affordable housing someday we need to do much better we need meaningful urban planning that balances the needs of the homeowners with future growth and preserves Boulder open space we do not need unfettered and unbalanced infill that does not have guardrails ensuring

[262:01] affordable housing I'd like to urge the city councilman Catherine but thank you for your testimony I'm going to pause for a moment we're getting to the point where we will need to extend the meeting if someone we would potentially make that motion I'll make a motion sorry have it no I haven't and see out of the I make a motion to extend the meeting thank you I'll second all right all in favor Motion in a second okay that's unanimous I believe I didn't see Tara but anyway at least an eight eight vote there she is nine okay um okay the meeting is duly extended and so now we'll go to our last few speakers which are Bev programa Kim and Harmon and then we'll come back to Ian frosh so Bev you're up hi Council and uh sorry for the late

[263:01] meeting I'm Ben gray but I live in Boulder so rentals that have five tenants the five incomes or five students will mean a higher price for that rental this could be an equity issue for families with one or two incomes who apply for the same rental with four plus bedrooms rentals with higher rental Revenue also will be a higher sales price for that house due to its new higher Revenue which will impact home prices in Boulder yet another Equity issue for home buyers it's interesting that those who want to increase occupancy are actually supporting free market capitalism while many in opposition who are fought by some to be wealthy boomers are actually aligning with socialism by limiting how much revenue landlords could otherwise make by caffeing occupancy

[264:01] occupancy limits are in a sense a form of affordable housing we're missing an opportunity to put affordable incentives on the higher occupancy currently yes rental rates are high but they are starting to stabilize and even decrease in much of the country however by increasing occupancy if uh it actually accommodates and helps meet even higher prices instead of putting pressure on those prices I hope you will rethink this and have a good evening thank you thanks beb and we've got Kim and Harmon Ian fresh and then David Mardis who wasn't present before has joined us we'll get to him after that so Kim and you're up okay um can you hear me yes okay um so I really feel like that this hasn't been thought through

[265:00] thoroughly enough there's been a lot of great points raised to that point there's um there's a lot of consequences if you do this and I'm afraid that when once you let the genie out of the bottle you're not going to be able to put it back in so I'm against raising the limit from three to five um you know you're increasing the limit without regard to the neighborhood impact or they afford or affordability so it's a very short-sighted view that you have um you know there's no guarantee that landlords won't charge per person as they do now and so you know they're just lining the pockets of of the landlords um to get rich quick scheme um anyway you guys could have proposed an arrangement whereby landlords would agree not to raise a rent but nothing was done there but you just jump right

[266:01] to five people um you know it's interesting I have a new neighbor who who bought a house um a young guy and he has four roommates and they all drive cars with all their accoutrement on top of their car and they all have friends over um so it's different from a a family that lives in a house with five people the ages are different they don't all have the same amount of the same age they have people over um at all all hours anyway they it's it's intrusive but anyway the town is completely out of balance so you need to see who needs to take responsibility and there are other Solutions out there so take small steps your time is up but thank you for your testimony

[267:00] all right now we have Ian frosh and David Mardis hello I'm Ian I live in Denver so they just did a very similar change in Denver a couple years ago on 2021 where they increased the number of unrelated adults that were allowed uh in a dwelling from two to five it was originally 10 but it watered it down during the debate on this change there was a lot of beer mongering and people said this guy was going to fall the sewers were going to back up trash was going to be everywhere Denver would turn into a dump there would be strip clubs at garages no I'm not making that up that was actually sad and all of that didn't happen it's been totally fine and the change really wasn't even noticeable and really nothing changed it's the same as before except now people can legally

[268:00] share housing costs with roommates and people that are already doing that don't need to fear that they'll be reported and evicted from their homes and put onto the street this is honestly such a small change uh Boulder's current housing policy is very exclusionary it's not just the occupancy limits but the zoning that severely restricts the housing Supply driving up prices making it so only rich people can can afford to live in Boulder so this change is an important step forward towards making Boulder less exclusionary and more progressives please vote yes thanks you in so David Mardis you are our last speaker okay I'm unmuted and I'll be as brief as possible because I'm the Caboose or the lantern Rouge as the same in Tour de

[269:00] France I'm against increasing the limits for a lot of reasons other callers have cited but in simple terms as a contrast to the previous person it will drop housing costs up for people are looking to own a house simple cap rate simple higher rims for the same property I also think work Community takes time to think about big changes like this and it does seem too drastic a change without input I've been reading a lot about what they're doing in Mountain communities and there's a lot of Creative Solutions up there in Aspen if you rent to someone who works for Aspen Ski Company you've got a free ski pass you know I don't we can't do things like that but there's there's creative ways to bring keep our service economy folks local without chasing them off but without dramatically increasing density because there also with the quality of life issue if we if we we're not going to go

[270:00] from 100 some odd thousand two hundred thousand but if we stretch towards that there's water supply issues there's other issues that over a long term you need to think about but broadly I think let's take the time as Community to think about solutions that can bring affordability not just density and higher housing prices which under simple math or investor people will pay more for the same property if they can run into five people at 90 of the bedroom costs of three people and I will conclude that and wish everybody a good night and thank you for your patience thank you David well thanks so much to all the people who took the time out of their evening to come and speak to us tonight so that's that's uh thanks for that public hearing and we'll now bring it back to council for deliberations thank you um yeah quick thank you and then uh I just want to give a quick thank you to all the first timers that testified in person that had written us it takes a lot to want to throw yourself out there

[271:00] to want to communicate to elected officials certainly under the bright lights so it's just awesome to see new engagement in our community it's awesome and for those that helped bring those new folks to us a big thank you to all of you we just love seeing more and new engagement from folks that haven't done it before and hopefully you felt rewarded by that engagement and you'll come back and see us again they're usually shorter FYI so I saw Rachel's hand as well um I forgot earlier to disclose as I was advised to do that I do have a short-term rental license and that does not impact my ability to be objective so I'm not recusing from this vote and then I just wanted to ask what is our process here and when is it right to make a motion we're here for deliberations emotion could be made at any time we want to have a full debate regardless of when the motion is made okay well I'm wondering if if Carl or staff could put up the staff proposed motion language I would be ready to make

[272:00] a motion and Kick It Off I'll get that up thanks way to put Carl on the spot there but we know he's up to it do you all see it no not yet oh you don't it's coming Carl don't worries hang on it says our city clerk is on it there you go Rachel okay uh I am making a motion that city council adopt ordinance 85 85 amending

[273:00] chapter 9-8 intensity standards BRC 1981 increasing the number of persons that may occupy a dwelling unit and setting forth related details bam sucking it someone second all right we've got a motion by Rachel in a second by Lauren you want to start by speaking to your motion Rachel sure I I did not prepare a speech or anything so I will just uh note some things that I've written down as we went tonight um so obviously as we heard from all the speakers increased occupancy is going to be a way to provide legal stability and diminish anxiety stress and fear and economic hardship for our community members it's very favorable for the energy and for climate we use space better without adding units it is just an inclusive for chosen families and people's safety this is a little bit of an aside but the boulder rental market sucks and this does not fix that so we still have a lot more work to do we need to look at

[274:02] Chronic nuisance and enforcement we need to look at investment properties sort of writ large parking minimums and the gouging of renters on things like you know deposits and little fees and carpet and cleaning and stuff I mean it's it's absurd so we have a lot of work left to do this is not a Panacea it's not going to solve everything I do believe that people hate cars and noise and not other humans so I I think that enforcement is a big piece of what we will need to do in addition to this I want to briefly address the the allegation that we are somehow disenfranchising people which is a really strong and loaded word and that is absolutely not what we are doing um this was a a unanimous 9-0 vote to add this to our work plan this is a democratic process we are a representative form of government we are not voting on the same thing that was rejected it is it was pretty readily understood during the the bedrooms are

[275:01] for people which we are not again voting on tonight that that uh part of the concerns were that this is better done as a legislative process and the council could probably do it better so I was one of the people that was concerned like maybe people could chop up bedrooms and this you know this dispenses with that concern is a different thing this is not trumpian or anti-democratic so I take a strong issue with that allegation um someone said earlier that thanked us for being uh courageous or Brave and um this is I don't feel very brave tonight this is a a years-long well-studied issue this is a compromise there are people to my literal and figurative left to um don't want any limits on occupancy there are people to my right who don't want any change this was um a well thought out and and compromised position that we arrived at um and then I also just want to say I

[276:00] was at a meeting on the hill today and heard people who were sincerely concerned from both sides that you know the impact that this might have on them and the student Emily which I've I've become the co-chair of the Emily fan club today so hi to Emily if you're watching um she was mentioning that she's she's a sophomore now and um when she was 16 which is the same age as my son covet hit and and it's a really hard age to be right now like kind of learning to adult and so I want to say uh to the the neighbors who are or people who oppose this ordinance change um I hope that there will be some extra Grace with the people who are are renting for the first time this year because they I think had coveted worse than just about any other age group they have a high rate of suicidality and depression and and just serious mental health and behavioral health issues and

[277:00] so I would just ask for kindness and gentleness you know direct your anger at me but not your your neighbors who are students who are learning again how to adults and and could use I think especially this year some extra love and grace um so with that I'm very excited to be at the end of a long journey with looking at occupancy and I'm excited to be supporting making and supporting this motion I do wonder do I need to clarify any subparts of the motion okay stop there it's the ordinance that's in our packet so I think yeah well there was like non-conforming and two versus three things I don't know well so there is a version of that that's in the packet and that's the version that you just moved yeah Lauren if you'd like to speak to your second don't look so excited I think I might need to retract my statement I wanted to make a different slightly different modification from what was suggested

[278:02] regarding the um non-conforming you uses and occupancies do we don't have to retract okay I mean I just don't know if they need to be aligned you could propose a an amendment to the to the motion that's been made in second div if you would like could do that as the second derive the motion or not as the second group emotionally okay I would like to speak to this and oppose of an amendment so um I'll keep it short I can't speak to why passing this ordinance is the right thing to do better than the now 54 people who have spoken before me instead I want to focus on a specific request although I was one of the council members that initially requested that we look into non-conforming occupancies and uses and I appreciate the work that staff has done I feel strongly that our current regulations sufficiently allow us to

[279:02] evaluate the appropriateness of an increase in occupancy in a non-conforming use on a case-by-case basis this is important because it allows those where they make sense and disallows them where they do not creating an additional restriction in is unnecessary and will reduce this ordinance's effect in our most Transit rich and walkable neighborhoods it's not easy to map but I can tell you from my experience that many of our non-conforming uses are an older apartment buildings in and around downtown and our other Regional centers in transit-rich environments I hope you will consider making this change can I second Lawrence Amendment it hasn't been emotional yet so can I would you like to perhaps make a motion or Rachel did you want to

[280:01] there was a notion and a second on the table so we have to get this position on that so no no but if you want to move an amendment you can move an amendment if you would like I would like to move that Amendment forward maybe a little more specific I would like to um strike the sections related to non-conforming uses and occupancies second and while we're discussing it maybe somebody could come up with the exact number or identity identification that code all right so you've spoken to your proposed amendment there and I've been called it you want to say something about it as well okay well okay great so um so we've got this amendment on the table does anybody else want to speak to this this amendment I I see I got Rachel I can speak say something but I can wait because I'll

[281:00] have to make that I'll have to decide whether to accept it right so I'll wait here well no actually I mean this would be um it's a formal Amendment a motion to amend which you don't need to accept it would be a vote on whether or not to pass that Amendment okay so I will just speak to why I chose the staff version my understanding is that this would eat up a lot of Staff time to get to a no under our current um regulations if I I understand uh staff correctly so I would much rather have staff use that time to change the underlying issues such as parking minimums rather than go through a very uh annoying process of looking at all of these requests for non-conforming use change that are going to have to get to know due to other issues in our code so I would rather we not include non-conforming now go back and change it and then add them in later mark yeah um representative you got it you got it you're good I'm good representatives of the communities uh

[282:01] that are most affected by this proposed ordinance have been begging us for some form of protection against its impacts the only thing we have given them is the prospect that non-conforming uses will not be further burdened with more over occupancy and so I would not be in favor of that Amendment I'm in favor of the staff proposal it's about the only thing we have done for those communities thank you Bob yeah for the reasons that Regional Mark stated I would not support the amendment ultimately I'm not going to support the overall thing but I think let's just keep it clean for the reasons that Rachel stated and keep it simple for the staff future councils can come in and change that if they want if they if they after they get through parking and some of the other priorities I suspect the next Council will have but um let's let's just keep this one clean as an up or down as opposed to burdening it with extra stuff and and I'll call on myself there and

[283:01] agree with what what Rachel said and others just that um I think we're uh looks I'm hopeful that we'll take a significant step forward by adopting this ordinance tonight it is a pretty big step forward I think it's reasonable to not take it even this further amount down the road and and then I'll just say just in terms of for the community on this topic that there probably would be a lot of these use reviews that would come forward and there'd be a lot of public hearings and there'd be a lot of conflict over whether or not to accept the use review change in this place or or that place and I'm hopeful we can find some stable ground after this ordinance passes work on Code Enforcement and see that the sky doesn't fall and get to some calm places in the community and then if a future Council in some future year says you know what everything's working great we can let this one go then then they could do that at that time I got Tara I'm going to agree with you and Rachel and Bob and Mark on that are we going to have time to

[284:00] speak to as to why we're saying no or are we just going to end this meeting and just not do that yeah everybody gets a chance to say their piece we're just considering this amendment right now and then once this amendment is resolved we can go back to talking about the original motion I'm going to agree with Mark on this amendment pretty much what he said Nicole it's going to speak really briefly I haven't seen any kind of evidence in any of anything that staff has presented tonight from other cities that it's really occupancy per se that is related to some of the nuisance issues that we're seeing so I will support the amendment um because I just fundamentally think that we are somebody mentioned a sledgehammer earlier we are using a sledgehammer on a problem that requires a scalpel with these issues of nuisance and I just don't see that as being an effective way to go at it pretty good any other comments on the amendment well just that I my concern is not that we that this is

[285:00] getting at nuisance issues it's just that like the these cannot be um brought up to be non-conforming uses under the current ordinances mostly due to parking so it just wanted to clarify this is not a nuisance issue to me no I'm open I'm open to hearing but that's what I understood from staff was that that we cannot they will not be able to give the exceptions due to these units not being able to meet the parking minimums and so I think staff can work on changing those things and then not spend a ton of time working on all these public hearings that are going to get to knows my understanding was that Carl was speaking specifically to the Hill area there's also I mean I just think of a number of areas around like Pearl Street that have been down zoned that do have significant amounts of parking on site apartment buildings like along Arapahoe and things like that that would be non-conforming with their current zoning but would like

[286:01] seemed like they would likely be able to fit some of the requirements you would need in order to move them through that process all right I don't know if I mean we're kind of opinions here I don't know if it changes the fundamentals of of how to vote on the amendment but both Fair points um any other comments on the amendment and can we move to a vote on the amendment is there a show of hands for an amendment okay so we would um the proposalman from Lauren's second by Nicole all in favor raise your hand we got three uh those not in favor raise your hand okay so the emotion is not successful in vote of three to six and uh thanks for that Lauren and uh now we can come back to the uh original motion and a couple people have spoken to it who else would like to speak to the motion I guess yeah you you were lined up weren't you Nicole so go ahead

[287:01] you said you wanted to speak to it before the amendment okay after you left you appreciate that thank you um what a long time coming to finally get to this place um lots of community debate man uh yeah there's no Stones been left Unturned on this conversation over the last many years um so it's nice for us to finally just be able to air everything and make a decision um so I'm excited for us tonight to do that a couple of things sort of struck me and and I appreciate Rachel bringing that up um you know veterans are for people didn't ask do you wish to reform occupancy in Boulder it asked a very specific question about a style a solution a prescription of occupancy um and that narrowly lost so um coming back to the formal question about occupancy was was an obvious thing to do and all nine of us wanted to put that on the agenda to work

[288:00] on and so we did and I think staff did a great job in taking that opportunity reaching out to community and studying it and bringing us something that we can work with that addresses some of those other concerns that came from bedrooms but more importantly allow us to move forward in a way that that Bridges some of those gaps of some of the best practices we've seen around the country so I think that's that's really important and also for those that are thinking that this is somehow usurping of democracy that's extremely dangerous rhetoric given that when people threaten the the usurping of democracy what we've seen occur in this community when we unsubstantiatedly threaten that and so I think we just need to be careful of hyperbole we need to be careful of using rhetoric that is divisive in that form it's just not becoming of this community and so I think we can learn to disagree better without all of the extra stuff that is just simply unnecessary and

[289:01] still convey ourselves um last thing I want to mention is um I think this Council can can act on its values of trying to be focusing being inclusive and treating all equally um and the idea that this is somehow just focused on the students I think is ridiculous but but I will mention for a minute on the students front um we need to welcome and work with students rather than marginalize them and treating them as second-class Citizens I was a student here once and I chose to make this my home and raise a family here I felt that marginalization 23 years ago when I was a student when I lived on the hill I felt that so I'd like to pay that forward and make sure students feel welcome from the get-go and this is an opportunity to start that this isn't just for students but this is a way to start to have that conversation we talked about last week about liquor laws and all that on the hill being a way to indirectly um you know cut the knees off at the students so I think we need to be done with that and and focus more holistically going forward I wholeheartedly support this and I'm glad we get to finally move forward and hope

[290:01] my colleagues join me in supporting this and I hope we can all get out of here at a reasonable hour thanks Matt Nicole thank you I just wanted to thank staff for this thorough engagement process I'm remembering back to a while ago when a few of us really kind of wanted to move forward without doing uh quite this thorough process and you push back and I did it anyway you got a lot of feedback from a lot of different groups in the community and I just want to recognize and honor the work that went into that so thank you for for all that engagement so I came into this meeting it's probably a little naive thinking that if we were going to pass this ordinance tonight it would be a minor change in the midst of a huge housing and climate crisis it's clear from the over 50 comments tonight that this isn't a minor issue shared housing helped people find partners it helped people get college degrees it helped people do science and I help

[291:02] them grow families and it helped people find companionship and connection at all different ages what a beautiful dream for our community where seniors young adults students homeowners renters and all kinds of people are creating Community I'm really honored to be on the council that can wrap up this decade-long process so thank you to everyone who's been extraordinarily persistent for such a long time in pursuing occupancy reform and to those as Miss thiem said earlier who have moved on who just ran out of time this is a small step for housing and for personal freedom and affordability but it feels like a giant leap forward for inclusion and for community I will vote Yes I just also want to address this issue of noise trash cars all the things that make people's lives harder it's not just homeowners that feel those issues it's other renters and students as well and I

[292:01] really want to highlight that this is not a homeowner versus renter issue it's not an adult versus student issue when we are defining occupancy based on familial relationship and a complaint complaint-based enforcement plan or enforcement process it's really a sledgehammer approach and our Sledgehammer approach is not even hitting the right target as we hear by how much worse things have gotten over the years when occupancy has not changed I would really love to see us focus a little bit on some evidence-based solutions to these issues but 50 years of evidence should show us that occupancy doesn't fix the issues of noise of trash of cars of fireworks and in cars on the road um I also just want to know what a few speakers mentioned that at this point about affordability

[293:01] I just wanted to note that I hear it I think probably all of us hear it we have a lot more work to do to help people stay in our community and to slow these housing increases that we're seeing a couple of things I would love to have us consider it would be wonderful if we could track the nuisance violations not the complaints but the the actual violations and if it's increasing by some percent for a period of maybe three months or something like that maybe 10 percent over three months maybe we could just come back and have a discussion about whether there are some other things we could be looking at I would also love to check in with barha and maybe six months or so and just see how that's doing in terms of confusion for landlords and folks who are in these non-conforming uses and non-conforming occupancies just to make sure that it's not we haven't overly confused people who own property so

[294:01] that's all thank you Nicole who else would like to speak I know some other folks want to talk all right Mark well Matt you're going to love me tonight one of the reasons why all of us um supported putting this on the work plan in 2022 was that there were representations made that the results would not be inconsistent with the vote that was taken by the community in 2021 some of my colleagues have said this and I will not point out anybody in particular but that is my clear recollection so I'm going to make the following comments in 2021 the community voted not to alter its occupancy limits by a margin of 53

[295:02] percent which is actually substantial they were not voting against the formula for calculating density they were voting against the increase itself you don't have to like the result but that was the community's decision and votes of the community should be controlling until the community decides otherwise not reversed by legislators who did not like the outcome at the time as such passage of 8585 by this Council despite the hundreds of emails we have received asking us not to do so is simply the negation of the vote taken in 2021 it is discarded as if it were yesterday's trash and has been disappeared we also know that there's not even a hint in this ordinance about ensuring affordability for the new additional tenants nothing whatsoever

[296:01] the impact of this ordinance on family rentals will be severe as these homes will increasingly become the target of Real Estate Investors and will make family living in Boulder even more untenable for all but the wealthy in my opinion and it is only my opinion today we overstep our Authority not our legal Authority but the moral Authority that comes from respect for elections even when you lose in order to achieve a result desired by a majority of this Council but not a majority of the electorate we're going to pass 85.85 tonight and in November the people of Boulder will judge us for what we do here this evening I will only note that when you so clearly disrespect the majority of the voters who voted in 2021 do not be surprised if they return the favor thank you smart I got Tara

[297:02] I found so much tonight really hard to listen to first of all I remember just prior to this we talked about the Arts when some of our colleagues said let's find a middle ground we're pitting Community against each other but tonight I felt pitted against I care about the students I care about affordable housing I care about people that need two or three jobs to live here but in my opinion five from going from three to five is anything but a compromise even if you don't think that the bedrooms are I would never brought up bedrooms are for people but frankly was brought up by the community members who spoke tonight so now I feel like I can bring it up even if you felt like that vote didn't have anything to do the vote tonight and what we did tonight has nothing to do with that bedrooms are for people vote that was taken two years ago you still don't know that what you're doing is what the people want you have no idea

[298:00] in fact be there Boulder said people were upset at five they were okay with four but when I asked everyone to compromise it for I'm like nope not compromising it for we're not going to carve out the student housing we're not going to do any of the things you're just passing five so to me there's no way this was a compromise now I realize that I'm in the minority and that's life and I'm going to go past tonight and I'm going to say that's that's it I'm not going to complain about it not going to stand on a soapbox about it but I do want to say that I did not feel that this was a majority that this was um a compromise in any way um I have just a few more things that I want to say half the people that spoke tonight were I consider my friends there is not a world where I want to see people suffer and everybody who knows me knows that that's true I work so hard to increase affordable housing I care about the people who live in affordable housing but I also know

[299:00] something that the hundreds of people that wrote to us today when I asked them to speak they said no I'm not going to speak it doesn't matter what I say nobody's listening to us we voted and even if even if what um even if sorry I'm just a little bit emotional about it so just let me just let me think through I just don't like to be pitted as somebody who doesn't care who's like somehow immoral because I think that we should have not gone for five that it was just too big it was just too much and too big I'm gonna switch over to when my 90-something-year-old friend who I actually met because he has a basement unit in a house on the hill and he said he actually said isn't Ford good enough and to me it would have been good enough do I have any last words I always I never speak quite short enough and I always think I should um I believe we all know that we have a

[300:00] housing crisis we do know that we every single one in Council cares about this housing crisis and for me you know that I do so this vote has nothing to do with that but it has to do with trying to compromise and support the people that were not in favor of increasing occupancy by coming to some sort of a middle ground which we have not done and so for that reason I'm going to vote no I have one more thing to say sorry it's about it's about Martin Acres Martin acres has a lot of three-bedroom houses so I don't really understand how this is not going to affect Martin because we usually talk about the hell but I want to talk about Martin Acres switching from five to five from three in Martin acres is going to have an effect it's just these houses were not made for five in my opinion at least we should listen to all the people I have friends in Martin Acres that live in five and you know I love you guys but there's a

[301:00] lot of those small houses that just can't take this kind of occupancy and I just want to stand up for the people in Martin acre soup field not listen to that because we do mostly talk about the hill and I and I'm telling you guys that I do care and um I just hope that our enforcement which is very limited right now does is able to um help some of the possible problems that we might see there um I wish I wrote everything down but I just didn't do it I'm kind of glad I did it because this is from the heart and I guess that's all I have to say tonight thanks Tara so I I think I think we're missing an opportunity here and that's I guess that's where my disappointment is I think there is a missed opportunity when we set out um a year and a half ago to examine the city's long-standing occupancy law our

[302:01] stated goal was to increase housing affordability we heard that again at the beginning of Carl's opening presentation and I think that's a laudable goal as certainly when I support um but simply increasing a single number in a city law from four to five is not going to increase housing affordability in Boulder now I realize that some people believe that the laws of supply and demand will kick in and they believe that by increasing the potential for more people to live in Boulder rents and Boulder will decrease automatically that theory might be true for elastic markets when the supply is increased significantly but Boulder's housing market is inelastic we have seen for decades that increasing housing Supply does not decrease housing costs that's the definition of an inelastic Market

[303:00] I have yet to see a study that shows how many new housing spaces this occupancy law change will create indeed the president of the CU student body acknowledged a couple hours ago that there are already lots of houses that host five unrelated people and the very few new housing opportunities will be created I think he's right so I think we're deceiving ourselves and our community if we believe that this law change will magically make Boulder affordable it will not I say that this is a missed opportunity because there was a way we could have made an occupancy law change that would have guaranteed affordability in highly occupied properties we could have simply done with occupancy what we've already done for accessory dwelling units also referred to as adus those of you who were involved with the changes in our Adu laws back in 2018 we'll remember that we created two types of accessory dwelling units

[304:00] one type of Adu that we created in 2018 was restricted in size and required off-street parking but the landlord was free to charge market rate rent the second type of accessory dwelling unit that we planned in 2018 was guaranteed to be affordable in exchange for the city permitting a larger accessory dwelling unit and waving off street parking requirements the landlord of the Adu entered into a contract with the city whereby he agreed that the rent for the Adu would always be affordable to those making less than 75 percent of the area median income when we created these two types of Adu options back in 2018 the market rate and the affordable we had no idea whether any landlord would opt for the guaranteed affordable Adu but earlier this year when we did a five-year retrospective of our 2018 work we discovered that more than one-third of the landlords creating new adus during that five-year period opted for

[305:01] affordable adus that was 73 new units of housing that are contractually guaranteed to be affordable to renters making less than 75 percent of the area median income and more affordable adus are coming online every month we could have done exactly the same thing with occupancy had we really cared about housing affordability the law that we could have passed on occupancy could have been could have followed the successful model that we piloted for adus five years ago we could have said that landlords can increase occupancy from four to five people only if they agree to keep rents for those five people at a level of affordability for those making less than the area median income rather than hoping with fingers crossed that market forces will drive down rants we could have guaranteed housing affordability and highly occupied houses landlords could then make economic decisions whether to stick with four

[306:00] tenants at market rate or expand to five tenants at a committed below market rate likewise tenants could decide whether it was better for them to have lower rent and more roommates or higher rent and fewer roommates we've already seen this affordability model work quite successfully for adus it is a missed opportunity for this Council not to apply the same model to occupancy we have missed the opportunity to guarantee housing affordability thanks Bob go ahead I support increasing the occupancy um I I do think the process was not perfect and I remember yes we did all decide that we were going to put this as a priority so I'm very surprised to see that some of us here today are saying

[307:02] something completely different and as if I guess people are allowed to change their minds that's true my only I am going to support this because ultimately I ran on on I ran on this particular issue and when I first moved here to Boulder I had issues with affordable housing and I remember that and I ran on that as a student and you voted for me overwhelmingly and when the ballot measure failed even though we're not talking about the ballot measure I was one of the one council member or maybe two who supported um moving forward in trying to change the occupancy and it was not supported by the council But ultimately I know some of us who actually said hey I'm going to take this on as a priority and

[308:02] I thought wow okay council members are willing to take this on as a priority so tonight based on the fact that I ran on this and I was supported by the community and also this particular issue did have unanimous consent from this Council even though today we hear something different um ultimately I will support supported I do believe I do agree with some of the comments that we were looking at for when I did support it back in I believe sometimes in November of last year when I was pushing for it I was pushing for the four and even a couple of months back we talked about this how it somehow went to five and I did not feel that even for me as a council member that was not enough notice for community we could have done better but we did not ultimately I will support it because

[309:00] again I have to stand on those values I can back away but we have to make sure when we talk about issues and I know that you know the mayor mentioned when I said hey how come we're going to five when we've really expressly talked about four but you said it was well it was more of an open conversation that's why we are at five now so but ultimately I will support it and thank you for all the work staff has done on this and thank you for all the Advocates that came and share their experiences and um thank you thanks for that Jenny well if you all will just indulge me for a minute I won't talk for too long but I um I am in support of ordinance 85 85 uh it's a step towards housing accessibility in our city uh I've heard I hear the concerns from community members about potential um nuisance problems you know noise trash parking and such but I think what

[310:00] we need to do is focus on managing the problems not the people and so I'm glad to hear that we're focused on some changes to code enforcement I know we need to staff that up we'll continue to support that if we need some additional amounts that's fine but fundamentally I'm supporting this ordinance because as a as a society and as a community we're failing our young people right now our young people do not have access to housing that they can afford or that they can that are within their own communities um there's a New York Times article that came out a couple of days ago that looked at gen Z and talked about the incredible challenges that people in that generation have of finding any housing at all uh much less housing that's affordable to them and there was tale of Woe after tale of Woe and I see that in my own family my kids are 17 and 20. and when they think about you know moving out on their own and living on their own an apartment by themselves is kind of Unthinkable it's who knows at

[311:00] what age they might be able to conceive afford with such a things and so they're going to be able to afford their rent by sharing their housing and being able to share their housing with more people will give them more options and more opportunities and that's true for for all young folks and then people of other ages as well but I also want to speak about the opportunity that this presents for community community living when I first met my wife we were both in college and she lived in a house with four roommates they had five people in this five bedroom house and they had an extraordinary Community they were they were cooking for each other each night they had potlucks they were movie Nights etc etc it was really a social Center and this kind of community can exist in a way that's not impacting other people neg negatively and and that Community is not just for young people we heard some moving stories from folks in their later years who very much desire to live with a chosen community of renters um and roommates so that they can have

[312:01] Community as they age one of my favorite quotes is by co-housing Pioneer Jim Leach which is that Community is the secret ingredient in sustainability and that's another benefit here because when you live together when you're sharing resources when you're sharing the rent you're sharing walls you're sharing utilities this has a lighter impact on our planet and on our client climate as well it's a way to increase Housing Opportunity and accessibility and lighter resource usage in greenhouse gas emissions without putting a shovel on the ground without building anything without tearing anything down and I'll just conclude by echoing one of the the comments that somebody made earlier which is uh let's legalize The Golden Girls and with that I support ordinance 85.85 all right good enough everybody's had a had a bite at the Apple as Matt likes to say so Elisha if we could move to a vote please stronger

[313:03] thank you for your patience sorry about that yes sir we will start the roll call for the vote for ordinance 8589 with council member Benjamin sorry that's 85.85 I believe Alicia you are correct ordinance 8585 thank you enthusiastic yes thank you sir mayor Brockett yes councilmember Folkers yes friend yes Joseph yes spear yes mayor Pro tem wallet no Winer no and Yates no

[314:00] ordinance 8585 is hereby adopted with a vote of six to three right well thanks so much to everyone who came out and spoke tonight we appreciate all of your words and an enormous thank you to the staff members who've worked very hard on this for a long time and have brought this to us so really appreciate your efforts any final thoughts see none I'll gavel is closed at 11 13 pm which is actually remarkably early [Music]