Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[5:25] everyone and thank you for joining us we'll start tonight's Road call as usual with Council member Adams present Benjamin present mayor bronet present council member vogts present Marquis present shoard here mayor protim spear present council member wallik here and Wier present mayor we have our Corel thanks so much and now if I could ask for a motion to amend the agenda to do two things to add item 8B which which is ranking propose

[6:00] proposed priority items for the Boulder County Regional homelessness working group and to remove item 3B which is a consideration of a motion to authorize the city manager to enter into a 20-year license agreement with Public Service Company of Colorado DBA Excel Energy so moved second got a motion a second all in favor raise your hands that's unanimous so the motion the agenda has been amended and now we're going to go right into item 1A which is a declaration honoring emergency response connectors which I have the honor of presenting and so I know we have a a a few people who are planning on speaking but if all the emergency response connectors who are in the room could come on up to the dice we'd love to have you

[7:14] all right okay we're going to do the Declaration in English and in Spanish so we're going to start in English so this is the Declaration honoring emergency response connectors the city of Boulder Council honors and recognizes the emergency response connectors a dedicated group of community leaders from Boulder's manufactured home and subsidized rental communities first convened in April of 2020 in response to the covid-19 pandemic these trusted leaders Rose to the call as it became evident that some community members would experience disproportionate impacts due to job loss Financial vulnerability and a historical distrust of Public Health Systems with compassion and commitment this team helped to strengthen the relationship

[8:00] between their neighborhoods and city government emergency response connectors connected with approximately 1,000 households to mitigate these impacts and uplift their neighbors voices and needs over four years the emergency response connectors maintained regular and open dialogue with City staff to bring forward issues concerns and questions from their neighborhoods supported the logistics and implementation of pop-up testing and vaccination clinics within their communities provided essential information and resources to help families stay safe Distributing over 3,000 free masks and Co at home tests and contributed to disaster preparedness response and Recovery including alerting City staff to the damaging StraightLine wind event that occurred alongside the Marshall fire as the program was beginning one of the connectors stated this is a new and highly important approach because then the community knows the city is legitimately concerned about all of us which is very true specifically the city thanks current

[9:01] emergency response connectors Bernardo Padia Carlos Valdez Isabel Sanchez Cathy schare Ley Garcia Lorena Savala Margarita estada Sor Ro gell and luus Galia as well as emergency response supporters denesh Kumar Kari Ian Montes bakera magali boo mam Santiago and Sonia Sarabia as well as ERC volunteers David enzy and Marg Ness and all other volunteers in ERC alumni who've given their time to this program since 2020 as this chapter of their service concludes City staff and the Boulder Community celebrate the emergency response connectors for their steadfast leadership and the enduring lessons that they have imparted about compassionate inclusive and effective service to all Boulder Community members thank you all so much [Applause]

[10:04] picture okay B vulner

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[12:28] in con Bernardo Padia Carlos Valdez Isabel

[13:02] Sanchez Kathy schare L Garcia Lorena safala Margarita Estel Dinesh Kumar Kari Ivan Montes vaker magali boto mam de Santiago Sonia saravia volarios a David enin IM Mares Inus

[14:05] [Applause] okay K who's going to speak Kath thank you soon as I find my notes good evening not I am so grateful to to be part of the emergency response connectors for the city of Boulder and so thankful for the opportunity to share valuable information with my community I also want to say a very big thank you to uh Brenda

[15:00] Rau and Ryan Hansen for putting together this team and all the time and effort to nurture us into the team we are now thank you I will do in English and Spanish for

[16:31] graas graas [Applause] Boulder good afternoon dear members of the city council and all those present here today I begin by thanking you for your support to the emergency response connectors during these four years great work was done and the goals were met this is why I ask and urge this city

[17:02] council to include the connectors in its budget since the connectors are considered a key program both within the government and the community the connectors are not living we stay in the hearts of many people and a principle that we acquire is the unceasing work for the communities thank you thank you waler

[18:08] GR con

[19:01] [Music] good evening everyone my name is letia Garcia I have lived in Boulder for 25 years and I currently work as a health promoter at sistad in addition to managing my own cleaning business I began my my participation and involvement as a Community Connector with through the East Boulder working group and in 2020 I was invited to join the emergency response Community connectors a group created to address Community needs during the covid-19 pandemic to facilitate communication and ensure that information was effectively effectively delivered I created several chat groups on various platforms tailored to the preferences of each Community member this allowed relevant information to be shared quickly and accessibly for everyone I deeply

[20:03] appreciate the support provided to this group over the past four years we thank you for giving us the opportunity to be heard and to play an active role in responding to the needs of our community I'm especially grateful for the opportunity to learn so much throughout this process for the information shared and for all the support we were able to provide through this program one of my greatest satisfactions from this effort has been witnessing how mobile home community which historically have felt overlooked found a space to be heard thanks to the work carried out by the community connectors this success was possible because we are all integral parts of our communities working together to build a better environment for everyone thank you again for your support and for allowing us to continue with this valueable work and above all for the help and support of our of Bren of of Brenda and Ryan in this effort thank you very much

[21:07] thanks so much to all of you okay after that inspiring declaration we are now going to have item 1B which is the international day of persons with disabilities declaration presented by council member Wier is anybody here is anybody here to accept this declaration awesome y y great to see

[22:01] you hi good to see you okay do you want to speak first or should I guess International Day of persons with disability December 3rd 2024 in 1990 the federal government passed the Americans with disability Disabilities Act the Ada which underscores the values of equal access and equal opportunity for people with disabilities and upholds that all people are entitled to a set of fundamental freedoms and protections we acknowledge the long history of discrimination against people with disabilities and esteem the Decades of activism and advocacy by the disability Community to combat systemic exclusion and Injustice these Champions these Champions have paved the way for future generations of individuals with disabilities despite the passage of the

[23:00] Ada there are enduring challenges for this community which face physical social and institutional barriers people with disabilities are more likely to experience co-occurring health challenges and higher healthare costs and as a result many live in poverty and are often underemployed or unemployed the city of Boulder strives to exceed the requirements set forth in the Ada and to create a welcoming and supportive community Community the city of Boulder strives to be a leader in Ada laws and to make a community for all to thrive based on principles of integrity and respect for all who live work and play in the city of Boulder there are many examples in the city of Boulder of departments working alongside the disabled Community to create meaningful relationships and positive change related to the Ada the city expand programs Mission creating a community of all abil abilities through Recreation is

[24:00] strengthened by a strong community of participants athletes parents care providers partner agencies Boulder parks and rec staff and the Boulder Community who continue to support programs and services for people with disabilities realizing some disabilities are not seen the Boulder Police Department launched the autism decal program with the goal of a learning officers that someone who has one of the decal on their vehicle or home or one who or who is associated with the vehicle or home may be autistic this helps officers better understand certain behaviors with the hope of creating a safe and secure scene for all the city of Boulder is a leader in digital accessibility hiring a manager to ensure the Colorado accessibility law is being met to the fullest extent lastly as one of the few of many examples this year the city of Boulder began the multi-year

[25:00] process of an ADA self- assessment and transition plan process this process I've said the word process like three times will assess Citywide programs Services activities and facilities for Ada title 2 use along with a transition plan to identify areas of need the self assessment and transition plan process will include a public input process we the city City Council of the city of Boulder Colorado declared December 3rd 2024 as International Day of persons with disabilities and urge our city government and community members to commit to the ongoing work of Advance advancing equal protection for people with disabilities share and listen to their stories of joy and lead with compassion and empathy so that we create a city for everyone to thrive [Applause]

[26:01] thank you so much good evening uh mayor Brockett uh council member Weiner and city council members and our community on behalf of the center for people with disabilities uh and the disability Community I want to thank you for this Proclamation recognizing International Day of persons with disabilities this recognition reflects a commitment to equity inclusion in the principles of the independent living philosophy the independent living philosophy which is practiced by the center for people with disabilities and our consumers emphasizes that people with disabilities are experts in their own lives and deserve self-determination and equal opportunities to thrive this aligns with the powerful principle of nothing about us without us which calls for our voices to be at the center of decisions that affect us we commend the city the city of Boulder for your efforts to ensure equal and Equitable treatment of people with disabilities and most importantly for including the disability community in this work by partnering with us in valuing our lived experiences you

[27:00] demonstrate a commitment to fostering a truly inclusive community as we recognize International Day of persons with disabilities let us celebrate our progress and recommit to advancing accessibility equity and opportunity for all together we can continue to build a community where people of all abilities can Thrive so we thank you for your leadership and dedication and now my colleague Maria [Applause] thank you thank you council members thank you mayor Brocket and Community we appreciate this Proclamation very much my name is Maria stepan I'm the executive director of the center for people with disabilities and Craig shared very well about what is important to us people with disabilities and I want very briefly to reflect on the international aspect of the day international day of persons with disabilities honors and celebrates

[28:02] people with disabilities worldwide and here in Boulder I know we are committed to ensuring that every person with a disability regardless of nationality or immigration status can have access to services and can thrive in our community for our organization to be eligible to receive any services from us we only ask for self-identification of a disability or self-disclosure of a disability and to work with our staff towards a goal that reaches Independence no other things asked no documentations asked and I want um to hope that we can be an example of how to create inclusion and um support people with disabilities to lead a life they choose and I hope that this can be true in every parts of the world no

[29:01] matter where the person with disability is thank you very much all right thanks so much to you both for joining us for this event today and now we have item 1 C and I'll just turn it over to you to read that into the record and and get a start on that please all right thank you sir item one C on tonight's agenda is the consideration of a motion to approve the election returns from the 2024 coordinated special municipal election held on November 5th 2024 there are seven steps associated with this excuse me certification and the first step is the motion to convene as the general canvasing and election board for the city of Boulder coord coordinated special municipal election next we will

[30:01] go to a roll call of the general cining and election board followed by the administration of the oath and signing of the Same by the board members we will follow it with the consideration of a motion nominating a member to chair the board and we will also go through the submission of the following to the board found in your Council package attachment that is the certificate of the public notice of the November 5th 2024 special election the certificate of approved ballot the official summary of votes the Boulder County audit Reconciliation Report and certification and lastly the 2024 C Boulder County cin sing certification sign off compiled next we'll then ask for a consideration of a motion to approve the election results and if approved the signing of the certificate of the general canvasing and election board and lastly we'll ask for a motion to adjourn

[31:01] from the general canvasing and election board for the city of Boulder coordinated special municipal election and reconvene as the Boulder City Council thanks Elicia and if I if I could just ask the audience to stay quiet if you don't mind please we can do our business here I'm sorry sorry I didn't hear you oh I was just asking folks to be quiet thank you I do want to note for the certification I am joined here in the the audience with our um elections administrator John Morris in case there's any questions presented by the board you'll see on the actual screen the presentation of the short agenda that I just went through and for your reference in accordance with city of Boulder Charter section 32 and the Secretary of State rule 10.2.4 members of city council s sit as the general canvasing and election board and I as the city clerk will serve as the Secretary of that board and as the designated election

[32:02] official for the city to begin may I have a motion to convene as the general cin scene and election board for the November 5th 2024 city of Boulder coordinated special municipal election so moved second and may also have a show of hands to approve that motion that motion was approved iously and we are now operating as the general caning and election board for the election now we will proceed with a roll call of the board and we'll start that roll call with council member Adams present Benjamin present mayor bronet present council member fols present Marquis present shoard here mayor Pro Tim spear

[33:01] present council member wallik here and Winer present all board members are present now we will go through the administration of the oath if you would please all raise your right hand and please say I do once the oath is completed there is no need to repeat the oath we the undersigned do solemnly swear or affirm that we will perform the duties of the General camman scene and election board for the November 5th 2024 coordinated special municipal election held in the city of Boulder County of Boulder state of Colorado according to the law and to the best of my ability thank you we will now ask for a nomination for a person to serve as the board chair for this meeting I'd like to nominate the mayor Mr Brockett second if you would please a show of hands for that nomination and that

[34:02] second the nomination of the mayor to chair the board is hereby approved unanimously thank you you will now see the election returns on the screen for the 2024 city of Boulder we had 7,520 active voters you'll I I'm sorry 71,500 active voters you'll reference here that we had 68812 in 2023 we had 57,124 there were 34,2 49 votes I mean active ballots counted now the following B the following ballot measures were presented to the electors at the November 5th 2024 election we had the ballot question 2C was in reference to council pay that item did pass with a yes vote of

[35:07] 27,600 and that was in reference to Executive sessions that item also passed with a yes vote of 21 2,85 votes and a no vote count of 18,686 our last item on that ballot was the ballot question 2E and it was in relations to the board's and commissions Charter cleanup that item did fail with a yes vote of 2,491 and a no vote of 21556 I would like at this time to reference the following documents as you have seen in your packet the notification of the approved ballot the certificate of the Public Notices of the November 5th 2024 election and the official summary of votes the off now the official votes as well

[36:00] as historic information are available on the Boulder County elections website could I please have a motion to approve the election returns for the city of Boulder 2024 coordinated special misso election held on November 5th 2024 so moved second thank you I will now take the uh vote for that motion I'll start with council member Adam yes Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes council member vrit yes Marquis yes shuart yes mayor protim spear yes council member wallik yes M Wier yes the motion passed unanimously and the certification of the election results is hereby complete would the chair please present a motion

[37:00] to adjourn this meeting of the general canvasing Board of the city of Boulder Who ordinated special municipal election and reconvene as the city council so moved do I have to say it that's enough sir okay I will now turn it back to you to reconvene the city council meeting all right and thank you everyone thanks so much Elicia really appreciate um all of your work and John Morris and the rest of the team on these ballot measures I it was a lot of work this year and appreciate everything you did and thanks to the voters of the city of Boulder um can I a point of order yes we you do do we have to vote on that motion to adjourn the general canvasing uh and election board do we have to or does just saying it matter you can vote or he can motion to just adjourn okay as the chair okay just second thank you of course thanks for clarifying that man we'd hate to go through the rest of the meeting as the wrong board right okay we will now go to open

[38:01] comment Elisha if you can go over those public participation guidelines please of course sir be happy to thank you good evening again everyone and I will now go over the public participation at city council meeting guidelines the city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive meaningful and inclusive Civic conversations this Vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members staff and Council as well as democracy for people of all ages identities lived experiences and political perspectives for more information about this vision and the community engagement processes please visit our website at bouldercolorado.gov servicesproducts Revised Code and other guidelines that

[39:00] support this Vision these will be upheld during the meeting participants are required to sign up to speak using the name they are commonly known by and individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online currently only audio testimony is permitted online only one person at the podium at a time unless an accommodation like an interpreter is required our remarks and testimonies shall be limited to matters related to City business no standing in or otherwise blocking the aisles no participant shall stand or hold items such as signs or Flags in a manner that would block the view of another person no participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person we ask that you not fix items through the podium or deis or walls or other surfaces of the chambers signs Flags or other items used to communicate

[40:01] must be held by one person when displayed obscenity other epithets based on race gender or religion and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes this meeting will not be tolerated lastly in-person participants are asked to refrain from expressing support or disagreement verbally or with sounds such as Applause or snapping with the exception of declarations traditionally support is shown through American Sign Language Applause or jazz hands thank you for listening and again thank you for joining us thanks for that Alicia all right well just before we get started in addition to those guidelines I would just like to urge everyone here tonight to be respectful um of each other and of other community members and not to uh single people out for personal uh aspersions um and be uh respectful of each other as much as possible uh everyone will have two minutes to speak I'm going to be I'm pretty strict about that In fairness to everyone else and I will call three

[41:01] names at a time and as you can come down towards the podium as your turn is approaching please our first three speakers are Barbara Steinmetz Bart windram and Aram Bingham hi everyone my name is Barbara Steinmetz about a year ago mayor bracket promised to pass a resolution against anti-Semitism it was derailed and buried and never happened a year later when anti-Semitism struck at CU 12 to 15,000 Jews in Boulder didn't hear a word from the May mayor or the city council as if CU is not a vital part of Boulder when I was a child my family had to flee from

[42:00] anti-Semitism in Europe what began as graffiti name calling lies propaganda evolved into Jew hunting expulsion and extermination in the US my father promised me that this country and my new city would stand on my side to protect me since October 7th 2023 anti-Semitism has risen dramatically even in Liberal communities and when Tara Wier was verbally attacked as a Jew just outside this door there was not any official public statement that is not okay local Jewish institutions now have full-time armed guards some have installed bullet proof glass not so to our non-jewish good neighbors why is that while some the council want to do more to protect people far away this Council won't act

[43:02] to protect Jews here why don't 12,000 Jews in Boulder matter I know from my experience in Europe anti-Semitism grows when the fires are left unattended lack of response silence you have said and done nothing proactively you promised a resolution against anti-semitism you are the elected leaders of this city speak up bang your fists your time is up but we appreciate your testimony thank you our next three speakers are Bart windram RM Bingham and Martha mcferson hello it's good to see you

[44:01] again you can get into the mic please excuse me get the mic this better okay it's good to see you all again we now know that the root cause of threatening Urban adjacent wildfires human ignition from Flagstaff to El Dorado is neither mentioned nor addressed in the community Wildfire protection plan I conceived Boulder's yellow line as if I had sole authority to enact it please recognize yellow line as an initiating framework in advance of the Wildfire study session these encouragements adopt the notion of a firef free backdrop okay adopt the notion of a fire-free backdrop as a goal similar to Vision zero for traffic fatalities Southwest Boulder residents businesses in 7 k2s are entitled to a prudent

[45:02] measure of safety Equity against the potential of a human ignited conflagration this should be a core function of osmp land use planning and management mitigating human ignition syncs with Council goals prioritizing responsible governance and safety and so I have several asks amend and fix the cwpp by addressing human Wildfire ignition mitigation in that plan place an initiative on the next ballot ens shrining human-caused Wildfire ignition mitigation on Boulder's Urban adjacent backdrop as a co-equal osmp function and please tell me if you decide not to in enough time for me to spearhead one myself instruct osmp to study and propose in an absolutely thorough manner actions procedures and build outs to mitigate human Wildfire ignition during high-risk periods along Boulder's yellow line then oversee its enactment and consider whether other agencies have roles to play and if so

[46:01] take enabling action thank you thank you our next three speakers are arum Bingham Martha mcferson and Michelle Rodriguez on July 5th esteemed medical journal the lanced published a report estimating 186,000 excess deaths as a result of the siege of Gaza from all causes including direct violence epidemic starvation lack of access to Medical Care Etc extrapolating that report's conservative methods to the end of the year the chair of Public Health at the University of Edinburgh has estimated 335,000 Goins will be dead by the end of the year as a result of this war hundreds of thousands more will be injured traumatized and permanently disabled just counting the ones murdered by bment bullets or bulldozers that can be found under the millions of tons of

[47:01] rubble now over 45,000 people 70% women and children not a day goes by that I check the news without at least 40 people killed in Gaza with American weapons and American consent today the number was 48 including 21 incinerated intense in the maasi safe Zone by air strikes once again to say that there is blood on our hands ter Miner and esteemed guest is a vast understatement given the scale of the bombardment it is not hard to believe as Hamas stated on Monday that 33 Israeli hostages have also been killed by us made bombs their blood is on our hands too it is impossible to recount in two minutes the major atrocities that have occurred since the last city council meeting so I leave you with two that have been disturbing me especially these past few days a new report emerged detailing The Case of Dr Adnan alur head of surgery at Aliva Hospital who was raped to death in an Israeli military

[48:02] prison and Mahmud al- madun a soup kitchen Chef assassinated by an Israeli drone as he walked to drop off produce at Kamal adwan Hospital the world knows this is a genocide the icj Amnesty International Middle East and public health Scholars have all declared it failing to call for a ceasefire is indeed participating in the vanality of evil thank you uh we now have Martha mcferson Michelle Rodriguez and Dan Ronan uh yes my name is Martha mcferson and I'm here to Roar again knowing the darkness of this moment that we all feel I give my support to councilwoman um to to Taisha Adams who had the courage to face

[49:00] her constituents and council members and state the raw truth of our reality we have blood on our hands for that acknowledgement she was scorned and bullied a letter in the Daily Camera demanded an apology for such heartfelt outrage let me tell you the real outrage Amnesty International just reported the obvious Israel is committing genocide it has displaced 90% of gaza's inhabitants many of them multiple times into ever shrinking Ever Changing pockets of land forcing them to live in conditions that will lead to slow and calculated deaths Israel has obstructed or denied delivery of life-saving humanitarian Aid and has destroyed the already tenuous Water Sanitation and Health Care system for months without respite is subjected

[50:00] thousands of Gins to detention acts of torture sexual depravity and cruel and degrading treatment all of this has had a profound impact on the mental and physical health of gaz's population those not killed are left with such trauma that their mental and physical health are bound to be permanent and then of course the savagery of intentionally andle y killing women and children the endless video streams of dismembered bodies 70% women and children the official number is low the more realistic number is 200,000 by supporting Israel with weaponry and money your time is up but thank you for your testimony and our next three speakers are Michelle Rodriguez Dan Ronan and Bruce schaer if we can have uh quiet in the chambers please

[51:00] Qui quiet in the chambers please if you can get the mic down please okay okay today the list came out of the homeless that we are accounting for the deceased um we're recognizing a minimum of 26 on the list that's half of what we've recognized in the last several years something's going right or something's going wrong um first I want to talk about Zariah Hardy she was the almost 19-year-old little girl that was strapped murdered brutally murdered by some of our still roaming home roaming homeless um she was brutally murdered and strapped to a and raped and strapped to a bike tra trailer next to the high school on gos Grove Road on July 10th

[52:01] her autopsy said she was deceased I just got that information from her mother on July 14th she was found so she sat on that bike trailer for 4 days um that's enough said she I will be talking about her at the memorial also I want to talk about a Denver cazette um article that was wrote where Kurt it says every week Kurt far harber the director of Boulder housing and Human Services Dawns a headlamp and walks to Boulder Creek to keep tabs on new encampments so that he can work on getting people in sleeping bags and Tents into housing anybody knows that knows Kurt knows that he's not knocking on tents at night I I don't believe that I'd like to accompany him but I know he's not knocking on tents and I know there's not really housing to be had in that thing and I'd be very interested to see his list of people that he plans on getting house by doing that that that was just that was laughable but we got to do more December 19th is the homeless Memorial right across the street at 3

[53:01] p.m. at the band shell and I hope to see as many people there as can be we got to do more B her thank you thank you now we have Dan Run Bruce Schaefer and Robert smoke hello my topic is around the natural medicine Health act and thank you city council and staff for listening to the community in drafting an ordinance around the natural medicine Health act that supports safe affordable access to this Innovative modality of care here in Boulder my name is Dan Ronin I'm a licensed professional counselor and a licensed addiction counselor specializing in addiction recovery and ketamine assisted Psychotherapy my private practice named inclusion recovery is based here in Boulder uh in addition I'm a lead trainer facilitator and lecturer for integrative Psychiatry Institute teaching medical professionals and licensed therapist psychedelic assisted therapy and lastly I publish

[54:02] educational YouTube's uh videos on YouTube around specifically psychedelic assistant therapy and addiction recovery Colorado is experiencing a mental health crisis I see this firsthand nearly every day in my practice people are struggling and it's important that our community has access to natural alternatives that we know from both research and traditional practice can be safe and effective Cy therapy shows significant promise for Colorado and struggling with challenging mental health conditions and the state has developed a comprehensive State um a set of regulations to prioritize safety and efficacy in the regulated natural medicine program Boulder has a long history of creativity openness and pioneering Innovations it's Paramount that Boulder supports the regulated natural medicine program locations in the least restrictive manner that will be offering services for people who are suffering this includes waving the Statewide 1,000 foot

[55:01] setback from schools in daycare our community deserves increased accessibility to these safe and transformative options to support their healing Journeys thank you thank you now we have Bruce Schaefer Robert smoke and Sarah Napier I'm Bruce schaer indeed Too Much Death too much pain to go around here respect would be a good place to start I am appalled that when after member Wier objected to member Adams blood on our hands remark and member Adams denied saying what you all heard her say that not one of you had the courage to back up Wier you at least owed that to the public we are treated dismissively as if we're not hurt by unchecked falsehoods you own that now next Council rules of

[56:03] decorum number 7 quote develop an atmosphere of productive discourse that is respectful it is disrespectful and entirely out of bounds for Adams to name call in this chamber the sovereign state of Israel's military the io that's code for Israeli occupation forces but again the real problem is you you could tell the public that's not really okay and contrary to our rules as I imagine you would if someone here stood here and called you Boulder cowardice councel you have a rule for a reason last the move to devest from any Financial connections with Israel is on the way example DSA of Boulders August 3rd meeting meeting agenda quote discussion on statement pushing McGuckin

[57:01] to follow BDS unquote push McGuckin member Adams has all but told you that she will bring divestment proposals to council she'll be prepared and the resulting Firestorm will make ceasefire look like sandbox please bring yourselves up to speed talk to the voters talk to experts on the subject real experts talk to Civic leaders and nip it at the bud uh quiet in the chambers please I'll take three seconds again you can have a couple seconds back talk to real expert sigic leaders and nip it at the bud thank you thanks if we can please be respectful to all of the speakers everyone deserves to have their voices heard and listened to thank you we have now Robert smoke Sarah Napier and Eric Castro

[58:07] turn okay good evening my name is Rob smoke I live in Boulder and um I got a letter from uh John hicken Looper one of our Senators and uh it's start it's not just a piece of paper it says de Mr smoke at the yeah it says Dear Mr smoke at the top of the letter and uh then he says thank you thank you and he says we support Israel's right to defend itself and then he extends that with other information and thanks me again and uh you know a couple problems I have with that is that um there's way too much information and document ation of the genocide that's been occurring to say that any of that uh mass murder of

[59:02] children for instance equals uh Israel defending itself it just doesn't add up and briefly here's uh What uh or some of what um Amnesty International released just this morning um the world has witnessed the government of Israel's genocide against Palestinians in occupied Gaza month after month the government of Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group Unworthy of Human Rights and dignity demonstrating its specific intent to physically destroy them Israel's government and state officials responsible for the crime of genocide must be held accountable we are calling on all states use every legal Avenue to bring suspected perpetrators to Justice no one should be allowed to commit genocide and remain unpunished and for you know the city council to ignore this issue does moral injury really to everyone uh living here

[60:02] with concern about this which you know a number of which are here tonight with us so I urge Council to uh change its position your time is up thank you now I have Sarah Napier Eric Castro and Elise mordos hello sorry hello my name is Sarah neier I am an alumni of CU Boulder and I am an educator of children I fundamentally believe that all children have the right to education to life to Medical Care to water to food this is not a radical idea this is written in the international court of justice can I have my eye can

[61:01] you look at me please please can you give me the respect and look at me when I'm talking thank you as an educator if we do not know words we like to Define them what is a war crime not my words the international court of justice words war crimes are serious violations of in international human humanitarian law law that include willful killing direct attacks on civilians torture use of prohibited weapons the murder or ill treatment of prisoners of war or others who have been captured surrendered or injured in crimes of sexual violence next crimes against humanity crimes committed as part of a widespread are systematic attack by or on belief of a state or an organization against a civilian population during peace or war time there are 11 crimes against

[62:02] humanity including murder extermination enslavement deportation or forceful transfer of population torture rape and other serious forms of sexual violence crimes against um Humanity may be apartheid and finally genocide certain acts committed Within intent to destroy completely or partially a national ethnic racial or religious group genocide may be committed in armed conflict or in peaceful times Israel has committed all of those for your testimony your time is up and you should care okay we now have Eric Castro Elise MOS and then dick Leon hello city council my name is Eric Castro and I

[63:00] stand before you today in support of the draft ordinance you have proposed for natural medicine businesses in Boulder I'm a clinical social worker living and working in the city for eight years and I'm currently being trained as a natural medicine facilitator through a state approved program mental health continues to be an ongoing struggle here in Colorado according to the 2023 Colorado Health Access survey one in4 color Brens report experiencing extended periods of poor mental health including stress depression and emotional problems psilocybin therapy is emerging as a powerful treatment to help those in need even federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health the National Institute of drug abuse are indicating evidence for psilocybin as a treatment for substance use disorders depression and anxiety in my work I witness multiple clients suffering from disorders such as these who' greatly benefit from services of the regulated psilocybin space Colorado's natural medicine

[64:00] Advisory board has worked diligently to create regulations emphasizing safety and efficacy using appropriate guidelines we will maximize the positive outcomes in this regulated space especially given the alternative decriminalization route available the regulated space must be as accessible as possible so individuals seeking to use these substances are not turned away due to lack of access overall I applaud council's emphasis on supporting safe affordable access to natural medicine in the city of Boulder and I am in favor of passing the current draft ordinance thank you thank you our last two in-person speakers are Alise MOS and Dick Leon thank you for your time uh so I went online and I read your definition on uh how you feel about racism ecophobia discrimination it claims you're against all of this yet meeting after meeting over the past year bigoted

[65:00] statements directed toward Jewish people are routinely shared by one city council member and groups of individuals who are in our presence today they're encouraged to come by that city council member and that same city council member in the sister city project that she oversees literally block out the voices and presence of Jewish members of Boulder this same person has already had to apologize for her bigoted statements made last year and here we are one year later same spot unfortunately this city council is unable to publicly condemn this member's continued bigotry or that of certain members during public comment I want you to imagine if the KKK was invited and attended every city council meeting over the past year how about the proud boys how would you respond now I know what this group will say they'll say they're anti-zionists not anti-semites and that that they are simply criticizing the Israeli government they however have nothing to

[66:00] say about any other group of people because they hold Israel and the Jewish people to a higher standard than every other group and that is the definition of anti-semitism while I can't stop the Jew haters from coming to this meeting you can send a message I'm sorry I'm saying asking people in the audience to please be quiet let her speak everyone needs the chance to speak take a few more seconds uh as I was saying um they hold the Jewish people to a different standard than everybody else which is the definition of anti-semitism it's double standard okay um and while you can't stop them from coming you can send a message that this is unacceptable Behavior you can walk out of the chambers when they're sharing bigoted statements lakwood city council did that earlier this year they send a very strong message to their constituents thank you thank you for your testim sh please quiet we need quiet we need

[67:00] respect for everyone who's speaking regardless of their positions last inperson speaker is di Lon do I need to do something to start okay Jews are indigenous to Juda where our temples stood our Kings reigned our prayers Rose I unchanged sustained what of the coins the seals the Scrolls the undeniable truth archaeology holds you trust science on warming Seas but not when it proves Our Roots are deep our connection is real our indigeny clear why deny it why disappear cause colonizers colonizers don't return We carried Exile in our bones our tribe was coming home you acknowledge land to

[68:00] to feel righteous but when it's the Jews your stands turn spiteful selective Justice indigenous erased why our rights denied displaced make no mistakes this isn't land it's ideology jihadist aspirations fueling this tragedy from hajam Mina husen packed with hate to Jews Like Me expelled from Arab countries a tiny country a sore thumb in the sea of Arab Nations where we're not welcome any Liberation and Liberation 1964 what exactly the PLO were fighting for when Egypt ruled Gaza and Jordan Judea and Samaria UK genocide echoside when we defend against

[69:00] Slaughter ignoring perhaps organic uh Rockets aimed at our sons and daughters feminists where did you go believe women you said your your time is up but thank you for your testimony okay we're going to switch to our remote testifiers those first three of those are Samantha griggsby Aiden Reed and Ella O'Neal and quiet in the audience please good evening member of the council and Community my name is Samantha griggsby thank you for the opportunity to speak virtually tonight for context I'm a boulder resident a boulder small business owner a CU alumni and an instructor at CU I can't be there in person tonight as I'm attending and volunteering for the Open Enrollment process as a bbsd parent and volunteer and I'm speaking on my own behalf tonight I wanted to take this

[70:00] opportunity to thank you and express support for your leadership in prioritizing the effort to update our city council meeting to Quorum rules I believe updates to the rules were an important step in ensuring that our community discussions remain respectful inclusive and productive by providing clear guidance and guidelines you've attempted to create a space where everyone's voice can be heard in a more constructive manner for more than a year the Boulder City Council seems to have been inundated with animosity intolerance and hateful rhetoric during its public comment period many of these comments and distractions are Fanning the Flames of hate and division personally attacking members of the city council and promoting prejudice against specific populations and cultures in our Boulder Community most open common periods at meetings over the past year have been deeply offensive and incredibly painful thank you for your dedication to fostering Community unity and rejecting hateful rhetoric and for supporting an

[71:00] environment that brings our community together to tackle important local issues it's evident that the council is attempting to promote a sense of compassion and collaboration in our community unfortunately doesn't seem to be working and I urge you to continue addressing this issue thank you thank you now we have Aiden Reed Ella O'Neal and Susan Alban evening Council uh my name is Aiden Reed and I am a member of Boulder County DSA which was invoked this evening and I'll get to that shortly but I want first to speak about why this issue uh in Gaza is so critically important to so many of us in the Boulder Community and I want to speak to this because I think there is to some degree a good faith um question in the minds of a lot of people well why do people care so deeply about this it's happening to people over there not over here and and the the most direct answer is the US is shaping the devastation in Gaza in a way that is substantively and fundamentally

[72:00] different from the way it shapes and engages with other conflicts in the world today atrocities in TIG in Sudan in Myanmar just as examples are horrifying and are shaped by the US to varying degrees but are not directly armed funded and supported by the US government and cheered on by the full court of the country's Elite media academic institutions and political guard imagine if the Rapa support forces in Sudan a paramilitary group currently responsible for Mass atrocities across the country received direct funding and armed from the US Congress and the unwavering support of America's diplomatic core there would be no question of culpability I can't properly articulate for you the depth of Shame and contempt and fury I feel over our ongoing role in prolonging and worsening this genocide and particularly the way in which it is so cynically wielded by people who would claim to care about the dignity and well-being of oppressed people but who

[73:02] refuse refuse to use their eyes and ears and see and hear what is so clearly going on and lastly I'd like to note that uh if community members are curious about our work since you uh clearly have access to our uh agendas I'd invite you to come to our meetings and listen and contribute and engage with us and finally I want to note that our sister city nais continues to face ongoing occupation and abuse and and uh I can see that my time is nearly up so thank you for your time thank you now we have Ella O'Neal Susan Alban and laa Gonzalez hello thank you for having me Council my name is Ella O'Neal and I am a student at CU law um I just wanted to talk a little bit about the voice and sight program which I think is a really incredible privilege that community members have in both to let their dogs off leash and enjoy hikes however in the time around the last year

[74:01] that my dog and I have tried to enjoy this privilege it seems as though some of the members of the community and people employing these trails are kind of taking up more as a given as opposed to a privilege I've been chased by a dog on Bobo link trail that was off leash had been approached by multiple dogs and I just want to ask that the previous um pre-pandemic um um requirement that everyone attends a free class before they like get their tag or anything like that is reinstituted I think that would be a great way to make sure that everyone fully understands what exactly their dog needs to be capable of to actually be off leash um I also ask that the law is changed it says currently every five years in order to renew your tag you need to retake the online classes I think that should be more frequent to remind people of what their expectations are especially just given all of the behavior that I've seen on

[75:00] Trails which also includes things as simple as people not picking up after their dogs when they defecate and or leaving it in a bag several feet away from a trash can and I think something as simple as even a reminder and retaking that class more frequently would be helpful in combating these issues thank you I seeed the rest of my time thank you now we have Susan Alban laa Gonzalez and Lauren Lambert Feldman is Susan present oh yes I am I I'm present hi sorry hello no worries hear you sorry about that um I'm Susan Alin thank you so much city council for having me tonight it's good to be here quick story so the average number of dog leash laws that I encounter in an average one-hour

[76:00] walk in shitaka and other Boulder open space is about 12 in extra- large font and with illustrations the average number of signage that I see regarding fire safety and existing Boulder laws and penalties around open Flames is about one and it's a minuscule font this situation requires both a marketing campaign with improved signage and a change to penalties to match the severity of a like outcome if open fires continue in our open space that is right next to many of our homes so a few marketing and signed examples from other Arenas to share TSA has huge signs at airports that say $10,000 and up to 10 years in prison for carrying a firearm pass this point many universities have had successful campaigns against DUIs indicating the average out of pocket expenses for a DUI incurred and drunk driving is down significantly since the 90s when those signage began I would propose that we need a two prong ution immediately better fire deterrent signage at every trail head and open space and increase

[77:00] penalties that match the potential impact of these actions that are higher than the existing penalties that exist as the shiaka fire from earlier this year the enar fire in two fires at the boulder star in the last few months remind us it is truly not an exaggeration to say that we are one careless action Away by just one person from burning down our wonderful town and causing irreparable harm to our neighbors unfortunately there are too many people including the many visitors who come to Boulder who do not think about the consequences of their actions the same way they would getting behind the wheel of a car drunk or carrying a weapon onto a plane and this needs to change thank you so much and have a good night thank you now we have L Gonzalez Lauren Lambert Feldman and Jonathan Wood mayor I do not see Laura Gonzalez online tonight all right we'll check in and see if she's here before the end uh so we have Lauren then can you hear me sorry yes okay um

[78:03] good evening my name is Lauren Lambert Feldman and I live within the city of Boulder we have repeatedly heard hateful and false testimony in these Chambers targeted at Jewish individuals including city council members and institutions in our community simply because they are Jewish I ask the mayor and M members of this Council to stand with me in condemning bigotry in all its forms there should be absolutely zero tolerance for personal attacks against Jewish members of our community and in particular council member Tara Wier statements made at this meeting and P past Council meetings appear to be in violation of your own code of decorum just this evening we've heard many speakers speaking on matters unrelated to the business of the city specifically Foreign Relations which are obviously not matters of City control

[79:01] for those who are concerned about foreign matters please go speak to your Congressional representatives and Senators this is not the venue other violations relate to religious slurs and these personal attacks toward Jewish members of this Council and Jewish institutions in this community continue to occur at the beginning of the hearing you you said you would not tolerate this and yet you have and you continue to when will you stop and get on with the official business of our city thank you thank you our last two speakers are Jonathan wood and Eve blin hi thank you my name is Jonathan wood and I am a representative of the boulder Jewish Community Center and I've also provided some materials on anti semitism as found by the ADL the Anti-Defamation League because as you could see by um some of

[80:03] those stats here on this slide uh it's terrifying um nobody should have to defend themselves for the right to existing for the right to expressing themself Rel religiously in this city in this state in this country um I'm not going to go through all these stats but what I will say is that um in addition to ensuring that the Jews and everyone else of every religion has the right to protection the right to respect here in Boulder and in Colorado um we also need to understand that while a we don't have um we don't really have the venue here to talk about the Foreign Affairs as previously mentioned we do have the opportunity to

[81:03] ensure that we each hold ourselves accountable to respect one another and also to uphold the rules of decorum um as stated previously in many other meetings so my request is very simple it's that of respect and of ensuring that members and people of all faiths and all religions and all cultures have not just the right to exist but the right to express themselves the right to pray the right to believe and most importantly the right of Safety and Security um especially in Boulder in Colorado and especially in this country thank you so much thank you last speaker is e blin can you all hear me yes uh hi good evening uh my name is Eve

[82:03] blin I've lived in and worked as a physician in the Boulder area for 24 years and I'm a past president of the Boulder County Medical Society uh first I'd like to thank the city council for their dedication to making Boulder a wonderful place uh there are many in our community who are experiencing over vert and aggressive anti-Semitism which is terrifying during these tough times I respectfully request that the city council support our community by remaining focused on local matters and avoiding involvement in National and international conflicts which I believe would further divide our community thank you for your time and your consideration thank you all right with that that uh wraps up open comment appreciate the folks for coming to speak to us and I'll turn to City staff to see if there are any responses good evening

[83:00] mayor city council nothing for me tonight thank you nothing from me okay uh any council members have a word to say L I just had a question for staff around the leash laws and what our current state of enforcement is on that thank you and that's something that I'm happy to uh look into and get back to you great uh I'm going to go ahead and call on myself if people don't mind um just appreciate people coming out to speak to us um I am uh disappointed by some of the disrespect that was shown to speakers tonight um this is a public forum where we welcome everyone to come and speak to us um so I would hope that in the future people would respect folks with all different opinions you in the last year or so that people have been coming to speak to us on the topic of the war in the Middle East um I have generally after we um the council as a group decided not to take up the

[84:00] question of a ceasefire I've been staying quiet um in the thought that perhaps uh this topic would no longer come before us but just I'm going to speak a few words um here tonight just to say that my heart breaks for the death and the suffering in Israel and in Gaza and across the Middle East but want to reiterate that this body the city Council body has no role in international Affairs um that a ceasefire resolution is has nothing to do with the business of the city and I really do not think this is going to change this is not something that I'm changing my mind on and I don't see that uh for my colleagues as well and I am disturbed by some of the personal attacks that we've seen against other community members and on individual council members uh which I think are unfair and uncalled for um and also wanted to call out from last meeting um

[85:00] the likening the the city council to Adolf ikan uh which is uh offensive particular to our Jewish council members and I also have to say trivializes the Holocaust uh to say whether we pass a ceasefire resolution is equivalent to um enabling um the massacre of European jury so um I appreciate everyone's passion on on this topic we all want the death and the suffering to start but I also want to say what Su that please quiet quiet quiet in the audience anyway all right quiet in the audience anyway I urge us to come together we have challenges ahead of us right we have a lot of local challenges and I urge us to come together and I'll leave it at that all right quiet in the audience please y mark I have three comments tonight first I I want to thank you mayor for those

[86:00] comments um I think they were wonderful I I greatly appreciate it um second um some comments were made about Kurt ferer and whether or not he actually cares about addressing homelessness I submit to you that he cares about nothing more than addressing homelessness and any suggestion that he is UN caring or complacent is simply false in the city of dedicated public servants there are few if any uh more dedicated than he is to that mission I think we ought to keep that in mind and lastly with respect to um the personal comments that have been made uh to my colleague uh Tara Wier um I want to make it very clear that I stand with her today tomorrow and every day going forward thank

[87:02] you right is that it or any other thoughts okay seeing Oh I got something from Taisha thank you I actually would like to start by asking um our City attorney to clarify the difference between relitigate and responding to public comment I want to clarify that uh yes good evening so religation is characterized by asking the council to revisit a previous decision that kind of request is prohibited by the council procedures um except as follows if a council member wishes to reconsider a prior prior Council decision the council member shall request that the council agenda committee schedule a discussion

[88:00] under item 8 which is Matters from councel prior Council decisions shall be reconsidered only after a material change in law or fact a Mater material change in law or fact means a change that if having occurred before the prior Council decision Would Have Made It unlikely that a majority of council would have supported the prior decision if five or more council members support reconsidering a prior decision the council agenda committee shall be directed to schedule a substantive consideration at a later meeting no discussion of revisiting a prior decision shall exceed 15 minutes and that's from Council procedure 4 A3 C8 thank you so much and Teresa what is the um just wanted to clarify again we do as City me City Council Members have the um authority to or or or are allowed

[89:00] to respond to direct public comment is that correct yes that's right the council procedure uh does permit Council response um in particular what it permits is questions to speakers clarifying um this council's practice and pattern has has been beyond that um but the council procedure is is actually a bit narrow in scope okay thank you so much appreciate that so I will start by saying thank you to community members the Community member who let me know um on uh two Fridays ago um that I did misspeak um and that I did say that we the council has blood on our hands and so I want to um say as soon as I found that out I called um council member Wier and I apologized to her because again it was never my intention to missp in anybody who knows me knows that um I've been taught well that um by my grandfather who said that that your

[90:00] word is the only thing that you own so use it wisely and again I apologize to you Tera for misspeaking and I clarified during that call that I still um upon reflection do believe um that we uh that the that the council has obligations and responsibilities and that's really what I meant by the phrase blood on my blood on our hand is obligations and responsibilities similar to the responsibilities and obligations that I we have to indigenous people and tribal Nations whose unseated land we live on and get to call home and I say that even as a descendant of enslaved peoples I still benefit from that theft and I am still obligated to do whatever I can to ensure life liberty and the pursuit of happiness I believe that um so again I want to thank um the member who told me and again I want to apologize for to um council member Wier

[91:03] um for misspeaking I also wanted to clarify one of the comments that said that I had apologized previously um for um anti-semitic comments and I wanted to clarify that I did not apologize for that uh council member um Mark wallik let me know know that the dollar signs was a discriminatory um um uh thing uh in in posts that I had shared by other people and um once I had learned that I removed those posts because once one learns something new you can apply that and that's what cultural competence and cultural resilience looks like that we're all going to have to do that so I wanted to to clarify that as well um and yet I believe that um we and and I believe we have responsibilities because we do have the authority to um submit a

[92:02] c fire and we do have the authority to determine what the investment criteria is for our city and I was hopeful that our current city council would follow in the steps of um would follow in the steps of previous councils that have acted on behalf on international issues like me and Iraq and South Africa I am not retiga this as my colleagues has made it clear that there is not a majority to even consider International um issues although I did make a council agenda request to visit the criteria for our social Investments not for anything against any specific country but just to ask ourselves as a council that is focused on climate resilience and climate um goals um that maybe investing in weapons is not necessarily the best way um for our community to be investing

[93:00] our funds I continue to speak um um let's see uh on the rule of law and hope and the willingness to follow that rule of law uh I believe that Justice anywhere Injustice anywhere is a threat to Justice everywhere um and again if anything distracts from the core tenants of what I'm about to say please forget them because is this is really the bottom line um I stand with the 72% of Israelis who are calling for um the Netanyahu government to bring back the hostages and to end the war I stand for ceasefire and arms embargo and self-determination for all beings so um just wanted to clarify um that I am not against Jewish all Jewish people uh I am specifically asking for a ability and actions against the Netanyahu government um and so I wanted to clarify that and

[94:00] so that's all I have to say on that matter um I did have a followup for the Sight and Sound dog um regulations uh with uh council member foler and um had had similar concerns around the online certification program and alignment with behaviors that I've seen on the trail as well as the frequency of getting retested to ensure that everybody understands what the rules are um I'm also curious to know how we are tracking any kind of violations um I know I've gotten tickets in the past for um not having the little tag when um Bob Bob first moved here but um you know I want to I'm curious what uh other reporting that we have to monitor this issue thank you very much thanks Tara Hi everybody first I want to thank my daughter woo thanks for that really cool sign which she says I love you Mom or something like that and thanks for everybody for showing up for me I

[95:01] appreciate you all well most be honest but anyway what I want to say is first of all all right quiet in the audience please what I want to say is first of all to um council member Adams you did apologize to me and say I'm sorry I didn't mean I did say blood on our hands so I apologize for that but then you said but I don't apologize for saying blood on our hands in that conversation so that's like sorry not sorry to me but I appreciate what you did say partially moving on to the obsession with people to boycott Israel and I will say that because when you boycott Israel in the BDS movement which stands for boycott divest and sanction is specifically only for Israel so isn't that ironic that there's only one country in this whole world that

[96:01] people want to boycott and is Israel oh my gosh imagine quiet quiet in the audience quiet in the audience please quiet in the audience I'm taking the opportunity because I want quiet quiet in the audience let her speak please so I am speaking to one of the constituents who spoke previously which I'm allowed to do because there's something called freedom of speech with you're allowed and I'm allowed so I'm going to take my freedom of speech advantage and I'm going to speak about BDS quieted quiet in the audience we'll do a recess if people can't be quiet the BDS movement which stands for boycott divest and sanctions specifically against Israel the stated goals are laid out by Omar barudi co-founder and leader of BDS and he stated most definitely we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine BDS does not act uh they do not advocate for a two-state solution they do not but rather the elimination of the state of

[97:01] Israel which is one of the very definitions of anti-Semitism quiet quiet please be respectful please be respectful it's one thing to disagree with the policies of the Israeli government but BDS threatens and disrupts Jewish institutions worldwide and also Jews themselves BDS is that's it no more right let's take a recess I apologize sir that's what you get foring

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[106:07] I'm going turn back to Tera to give her a chance to finish her remarks and I urge people to be respectful and let her speak she has her Free Speech rights as well the reason why I brought up BDS is because I think it's inherently anti-semitic and I'm against anti-Semitism and a lot of Jewish people spoke tonight saying that they felt unsafe many Jewish people come to this um chamber and they feel unsafe they could be talking about land use zoning it doesn't matter they feel unsafe so I am speaking about anti-Semitism for that reason so I'll end my little speech about BDS by saying it's one thing to disagree with the policies of the Israeli government but BDS threatens and disrupts Jewish institutions worldwide and also Jews themselves BDS is the opposite of Peace because peace requires

[107:01] dialogue a deep understanding of one another's cultures BDS does the opposite it ensures is Israeli musicians artists writers and academics will not be able to interact with the rest of the world its goal is to ostracize Jews Jewish people and I'm ultimately against it and it's anti medic and that's what I have okay thank you Matt you wanted to add something a little bit appreciate it you know over the last year as these conversations have gone on what's struck me is thinking about the privilege of the freedom of speech in this country how few people in the world actually get to petition their government without being arrested it's a remarkable privilege that we get to have in this country um and I'm and I'm happy that you all are expressing that privilege because so few around the world get that right quiet but it's important that that speech be productive and in this Council

[108:01] we've made a decision not to not to engage on international issues and certainly not to do a ceasefire resolution and it's important that you understand very clearly that that's like banging your head against the wall and then wondering why your head hurt and then blaming the wall we have made that decision choose to be productive like Mr smoke did by reaching out to the actual elected officials who have true power in this issue and getting them to make that change that is not something we have the authority to do nor the influence to achieve that outcome and so I'm hopeful that there is productive conversation express your frustration in the situation in Gaza But continuing to petition us to do something that we' voted that we are not is only going to further enrage you and get you frustrated but that is not what we're here to do we're here to solve the issues of the city and I think it's important that we remember that and do so civil the anti-Semitism that is continuing on the rise has got to stop be frustrated and mad at the situation

[109:00] but let's not dive into the dog whistling of anti-Semitism or the direct anti-Semitism that is already running rampant that is not who we are that is not what we aim to do and I and I appreciate and I feel for what Tara and Mark to some extent as well have had to face because that's not what they got elected to take on here snowplowing unintended consequences are things that we were here to to to do and we want to continue to do that but this is sucking the oxygen out of our ability to do the thing that we were elected here to do um so I hope that we can have a productive conversation going forward um and it's important to do that and I will say that that um I will be uh introducing to CAC um a resolution on anti-Semitism here shortly so thank you thanks Matt did you want to say something right briefly uh just a word um for Tara and also for Taisha um you both have become the subject of personal attention I think

[110:01] more than than anybody um forgive me if I'm asked wrong but I think that's right and I just want to say I appreciate both of you I rely on you both for your expertise and your teamwork to get my work done I admire you both and you are both working to advance the business of the city and um you do it with with passion and you and you and you you do it um you're diligent and when you get it wrong both of you I have seen you ask what you got wrong and tried to learn and you've acknowledged it and um I have certainly misspoke in fact I might have something later to say about a misstatement I made in the last meeting um and I would just offer to the public thank you for being here and if you care about the business of the city then attempting to to divide Council or to at least pick at individual members that has the effect of dividing us is not helping us with with teamwork and to have the time and the space to do our work together so I would just offer my

[111:00] support for both of you as individuals and for um dialogue that can bring us to policy and um at that level and finally um Mark wallik I want to agree with about Kurt fobber um your your comments and his defense um I know nobody who works um more more passionately and more seriously on our our homelessness challenges thanks that was well said Ryan thank you okay with that uh we'll be done with the open comment period of the meeting and we will move on to our consent agenda all right quiet quiet in the audience quiet in the audience all right quiet all right recess

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[124:18] when Channel 8 is ready please we are okay we're ready to resume the meeting so I'll gav us back into

[125:02] session and we are going to go to our consent agenda please all right sir thank you our consist consent agenda tonight consists of items a b was removed and C through K any questions or comments on the consent agenda eron yes Tina yeah just a quick comment that I'm um for number um e i uh sent out a hotline about just some clarification around both the licensing and also other parts of the proposition 122 um but uh we'll be discussing that at the next meeting at second hearing great that's the natural medicine item oh was it oh sorry yeah so thanks for uh calling that out we'll have a full discussion of it at second reading T and then Mark um ditto onaa said for

[126:01] me um I I raised a number of questions in a hotline concerning the adjustment to base uh staff answered them thoroughly and completely uh and so I will be supporting uh that adjustment debates without further comment very good um not seeing any other hands perhaps a motion on this Ryan did you have your hand up he made eye contact it's dangerous to make eye contact you a motion to approve the consent agenda second got a motion in a second Elicia may we have a roll call yes sir thank you we'll start the roll call tonight on the consent items as noted with council member wall yes Wier

[127:03] yes yes and um I take it that I'll be able to talk about what bothers me what I want to see change on second reading correct absolutely okay so yes Adams yes Benjamin yes mayor bronet yes council member fuls yes Marquis yes Shu hard yes and mayor protim spear yes the consent agenda items A and C through K are hereby approved unanimously thanks very much we have three callup check-ins can we start with item a please yes sir item 4A is the concept plan review and comment request for a proposal to redevelop the 5 5,246 ft site at 777 Broadway with a five-story 55t tall 82,500 ft 63 unit

[128:02] multif family residential building with ground floor Podium parking and amenity space the unit type mix would include Studio two three and five bedroomroom units The Proposal includes a request for a 57% parking reduction and this is reviewed under case number lur 202 24-37 any questions comments or desire to call this one up Tina Mark uh yes one I when I was looking through this um I noticed a lot of comments from the planning board about needing a robust TMD plan and that was said multiple times what is the point where and and this has been commented about multiple projects and I'm I haven't really seen then what those TMD projects look like what would be the TDM what would be the way to get insight into that without calling it up so how

[129:00] would I find that out Brad Mueller come on down y good evening council members Brad Miller with planning and development services uh department so your question was just getting some of the background information on on the TDM relative to an application or this application yeah kind of we keep talking about how people need more robust TDM plans and I'm trying to understand you know first of all how do we see what that looks like and see if it's successful is there a prototype for an ideal TDM plan and then in this case without calling it up how do we know that that gets done because this is a a lot of I'm not I don't have any huge concerns here but right sure so the uh amps and I'm forgetting what that's an ACR uh but that amps work program that we've got underway right now about an 18-month program is uh or project is to look at

[130:00] uh kind of three legs of the stool relative to parking and transportation so it's uh traditional zoning elements related to off uh street parking uh but also TDM and then uh neighborhood parking uh curbside management so as part of that program we will be looking at that very question of is there way to standardize is there way to make um it consistent to give more guidance on individual projects uh the history over the last I'm going to say five years has been that most projects coming in are looking to do TDMs but uh but there's not a template for that uh that was by Design at the time to create flexibility and allow people to um come up with Creative Solutions that could been be evaluated but um now that it's become more the rule than the ction you know we've recognized that there's an opportunity to create more guidance around that and and so you'll see that over time it'll be you know several years uh we'll get those changes in the

[131:02] next 18 months and presumably and then then you'll see that with future applications for the time being with this one and others like it uh we're always happy to answer questions um about an application you're you're certainly free always to contact us and we can go through that um thanks and my other question is when we have a project that's this large um and it's adjacent to a high school this is I think is bordering the New Vista High School do we connect at all with the school district about it or about any potential impacts um I can't uh swear to that in this case I I do believe there's been engagement with them but I can get back to you about that yeah thank you Mark um has this project been um sent to to the design Advisory board for review or recommended to be sent to the design Advisory Board um this is chanler Van SC case

[132:01] manager here yes hi um no it hasn't uh this is just concept review so this is the time where Council has the authority to refer projects to either design Advisory board or Transportation Advisory Board uh if they want okay uh is this the appropriate time for me to comment sure uh I would like to uh uh submit it to the design Advisory board for review it is um frankly exceedingly homely and I'm I'm hoping they may come up with some suggestions that will make it architecturally a little less um uh painful yes that's that's the word thank you so Mark you just Hur an Architects feelings I'll just I'll just say but but but I will note that I agree with the I think that'd be a helpful step it is at an early stage so this is not what the final design would look like but I agree with you on the utility of doing that we will make sure to

[133:00] schedule that well I think it'll need a motion but and just while I have the floor um I also appreciate the planning board's comments I thought they had good ones as usual I was just going to add for the design Advisory Board referral that if that could happen before this comes back to us right well yeah yeah and to make sure that it includes well I would say that the human scale aspect is probably the specific area where I would encourage them to help um analyze maybe better solutions to breaking down some of the really large um EMP walls sections yeah Ryan it's a question what would the time cost be for referring this to design board like how how much how long would that extend just more an y please um I was just going to say

[134:01] typically we um we'll schedule the dab hearing for during the site review process usually um after we've issued one round of comments just so they kind of already know staff's feelings um so I mean typically it doesn't extend it a huge amount um you know if they're scheduling conflicts or if it somehow conflicts with their planned resubmittal date it might add a couple weeks but um it it's not significant usually it's just kind of in the process okay I heard a c couple weeks is so okay thanks Mark did you want to make a motion on that yes um I move that we U uh send this project to the design advisory um board for their review uh and uh I trust they will make uh excellent suggestions second second got a motion in a second all in favor raise your

[135:01] hand I got a majority anyway eight I think okay I think that covers that item so we could do Item B please yes sir item 4B is a landmark alteration certificate application to install solar panels at the front of the Higman house at 479 arapho Avenue an individually landmarked property pursuant to section 9-11-18 of the boulder Revised Code 1981 and under the procedures prescribed by chapter 1-3 quasi judicial hearings BRC 1981 question comments or deire to call it up I'm not seeing any so we could go on to item C item 4 C is also Landmark alteration certificate application and is to modify the garage door opening on a non-contributing accessory building at 527 Maxwell Avenue in the Mapleton Hill

[136:01] historic district pursuant to section 9-11-18 of the boulder Revised Code 1981 and under the procedures prescribed by chapter 1-3 quasi judicial hearings BRC 1981 any interest in calling this one up not seeing any so we can move to our first public hearing please Elicia yes sir our public hearings are item number five on tonight's agenda and 5A is the mayor protim elections are you gonna talk us through that procedure I thought you handled that all right I'll I'll I'll do it but I'll be happy to no no no I'm I'm good I'm just you did such an amazing job with the canvas question I wasn't sure maybe you do this one as well okay so um in accordance sorry did I hear somebody say something no okay in

[137:02] accordance with the council rules section 9 we will now conduct the election for mayor proem I will now go over the procedure council members furz and Wier have expressed their interests via hotline we will hold the public hearing first then I will call for nominations no second is needed for a nomination but I will look to the council member nominated for acceptance after all nominations have been made I will call for a motion and a second to close the nominations then I will open the floor to nominated candidates to make any final statements if they choose as well as any other council members if more than one candidate has been nominated for a position I will then ask the city clerk to flip a coin to choose whether we go in alphabetical or reverse alphabetical order to vote on the candidates we will vote by raising hands unless Council chooses to use paper ballots the candidate to receive a majority vote shall be elected as mayor protm for the next year here so let's begin I will now open the public hearing for mayor proem we have one person signed up to speak so Lyn seel you are

[138:06] up I don't think there should be a mayor proem or a mayor at all in the city of Boulder so I elect nobody for protm or for mayor done thank you I will now close the public hearing and I will open the nominations for mayor PRM mark thank you uh I am delighted to nominate my colleague and my friend Tara Wier to be the next mayor protm of the Boulder City Council uh now I'm under strict and I do mean strict instruction to be brief in these remarks and I will do my best to comply no matter how personally painful it is Tara has been an exemplary member of this Council the recipient of more votes than any candidate for Council in our City's history Tara has been a bridge

[139:02] builder working with all members of council and always seeking to forge consensus as everyone here is well aware Tara is nothing if not a communicator she talks to everyone and always seeks to find the basis upon which the council can come together on an issue even when that's not not possible Tara Works in a professional manner holding no grudges and moving on to the next issue immediately Tara is out in the community incessantly connecting with Group after group hearing their concerns broadening her knowledge of what is important to them and incorporating that knowledge into her service on this body she will continue to do no less as mayor protm if elected Tara will serve this Council and this community well I urge you to give her the opportunity to serve as the next mayor proem and I want to conclude by giving a shout out to both candidates for recognizing that the mayor protm is a

[140:00] purely symbolic position and not politicizing this contest it is my hope that we can incorporate into our standard procedures ways of continuing in this fashion so that the selection of the mayor proem can continue on this non-political path thank you thanks Mark Tara do you accept the nomination I accept all right very good yes Nicole and I was gonna do my little speechy part later but I feel like I should do it now do it now okay um and uh thank you Mark um uh it feels strange to nominate someone for mayor protem when one of my suggested changes for the process working group is that we choose mayor protem based on a random process when more than one person is the longest serving council member who hasn't already served in this role and yet while we're stuck with the current system we must choose um I'll be I am nominating Lauren tonight her thoughtfulness and strong organizational

[141:01] skills will be particular strengths in an unpredictable and potentially chaotic year she chaired our design Advisory board for two years before her election to council so she'll keep our meetings on track when the mayor is away her deep command of the many housing and land use issues on our plate for 2025 will give the council agenda committee a leg up as she serves as one of its two permanent members finally it feels strategic to bring the gravitas of the mayor protm title to the person who serves as our representative on county level groups as we advocate for stronger collaborations between our city and the county on issues that we all care about like homelessness and Behavioral Health but thank you Lauren and Tara for putting your names forward committing to 00 A.M on Monday mornings and adding another Regional committee to your full plates is really Comm amendable and I appreciate you both for your willingness to take on this work do you want to make the actual words the nomination oh I didn't say that but I said it but I didn't quite

[142:01] hear it I nominate Lauren okay thanks sorry if I missed that Lauren do you accept that nomination I accept thank you okay uh do we have a motion to close the nominations so moved got a motion a second all in favor raise your hands okay the nominations are now closed would the candidates like to make any statements we would I speak for both of us all right ter you go okay I'm honored to stand before you all today as a I'm actually sitting I'm honored to sit before you today as a candidate for the mayor for the position of Mayor protm traditionally when one cider ideology holds the protm protm position the following year the opposing side or ideology is given the opportunity to serve while our Council doesn't always have clearly defined sides or ideologies

[143:01] I believe that if we honor this tradition I would be a strong candidate for that position the past three years have given me a passion for good governance I am dedicated to following the guidelines in our Council handbook ensuring that we are working within the framework of fairness and respect for one another as we work work together to serve the needs of our community it's important that we remember the values that guide us Integrity collaboration and accountability fairness is a core value I will carry with me into this role we are a group of nine members and E each of us has one vote no one holds more power than another we should all have equal opportunities to speak and share our ideas and ensure that the minority opinions are expressed while allowing the majority to rule Council procedure page 10 of our revised Council handbook and one of my favorite little hpets it's our responsibility to listen and to

[144:00] respect each other's perspectives another key value I bring in this to this position is relationship building I have worked hard at the relationships I've developed with each one of you and I will continue to nurture these connections I am always available to listen to discuss to take your input and welcome constructive criticism this openness helps me grow as a person and as a leader and it allows me to serve our Council and community in the best way possible in closing I am deeply committed to the role of Mayor protm and would be honored to serve in this capacity if elected I promise to dedicate myself fully to the responsibilities of this position ensuring that we conduct our meetings with fairness and Order and that we continue to work together as a United and effective team thank you Lauren thank you first off I want to say how much I appreciate each of you this

[145:00] Council brings so many unique perspectives skills and experiences to the table and that's exactly what makes us strong and I am grateful for the opportunity to work alongside each and every one of you I'm interested in this opportunity to serve as mayor proem because I believe in making our work together as productive transparent and positive as it can be I see this role as about not just keeping us on track but about creating a kind of space where every voice is heard and where every discussion moves us closer towards real solutions for the people we serve to make sure we're staying true to our shared values and the values we've all agreed upon I will strive to kindly help us hold ourselves accountable um I will make myself available for feedback to work to communicate expectations as clearly as I can and as much without bias as

[146:02] possible I also care deeply about our efficiency because I know how much we can accomplish when we stay focused and use our time well the issues our our community faces are too urgent for us to get stuck in the weeds um or go off track finally when the mayor is unavailable and I need to run the meeting or as a regular meeting participant I will strive to keep our meetings respectful and friendly I know hard conversations will happen that is unavoidable because we all care so deeply about this community but it is important to remember that passion unites us even when we disagree I appreciate your consideration and I would be honored um to support this Council and and help us do the best work we can for our community thanks for that Lauren Erin yeah I'm now going to withdraw but I wanted to give my speech I wanted Lauren

[147:00] to give hers because we worked hard on it I what do you call it withdraw by acclamation I think you can just say you withdraw I withdraw because I don't have the votes let's just be honest and that's okay okay well let me say that to both of you that I really appreciate you putting your names forward I respect and admire and value Lauren and Tara both of you very much as a colleague so I appreciate all of your work and Tara that was a noble thing that you just did and so um does anybody else want to make any statements before we finalize here yeah you you can't take away my statement because I I wanted to say this is heart-wrenching and um I disagree that you're from different sides I'm having a hard time seeing that now and it's really a coin toss that I think Nicole makes a good point point that um there's a practical matter of um Lauren is on the homelessness Regional working group I do think that's that helps us I think there's there's a case for that so it's it's coin toss for me I just want

[148:00] you to know that and also I don't know if we get a chance to say thank you to Nicole but Nicole the question of what holds Boulder back from doing more is literally our time and that is about scheduling facilitation so thank you for your service um you've given us a lot is that allow I I was okay and um yeah so big shoes big shoes I had that in my speech either one of us would have big shoes to fill but AI deleted it for some reason I don't know all right anything else okay well by acclamation Lauren furz is our next mayor proem and um Nicole before you switch spots I just wanted to offer a deep and heartfelt thank you for your work over the last year it's been an honor a pleasure to serve alongside you at all 00 a.m. meetings on Monday mornings and um you've done a phenomenal job running the meetings when the opportunities Arisen so deeply

[149:00] appreciative and grateful you may I just wanted to say um thank you all I think uh we're really demonstrating for Community how we can um work together and work through really hard things and I just greatly have appreciated seeing um every one of us really striving to maintain our relationships despite our hard conversations I think it makes us a better Council it helps us do better work for the city uh and I think it relieves a lot of stress for staff as well when we're able to do that so thank you everyone and uh I look forward to continuing to serve alongside you uh just not those Monday morning meetings all right well with that while uh you all do a little Dosey Do here we'll just give it a few seconds but we'll get into the next one soon so if you all want to staff want to come on up for the next item

[150:10] okay Elicia if you could take us on to our next public hearing please yes sir thank you item 5B on tonight's agenda has two items our first item is the consideration of a motion to approve amendments to the east Boulder subc commmunity plan including the 55th and Arapaho station area plan to align East Boulder connections plan with the refined vision for East Boulder areas of change and additional supporting information the second item is the second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt ordinance 8669 amending Title 9 L use code BRC 1981 by adopting form-based code stand standards for parts of East Boulder moving the form based code from appendix M to chapter 9-14 form based code BRC 1981 revising rezoning and trip

[151:01] reduction standards for East Boulder and setting forth related details and for this item I'm going to turn it right over to Brad Mueller our director of planning and development services to kick us off thank you Chris and good evening again council members just real briefly wanted to share with you our excitement to bring forward this item to implement a plan that was adopted over two years ago the uh East Boulder subc Community Plan which uh really came as its conclusion to try to balance the continuing and expanded businesses that are out in that geography and still acknowledged that this is a currently a Suburban low density relatively low density area that has uh a historic development pattern and and uh manner that the community saw as an opportunity for for the future to uh move towards pedestrian orientation towards small production spaces and to creating housing options where it makes sense uh and and all this really through

[152:00] the evolution that naturally takes places in cities over 10 and 20 years um I was recently thinking of uh an analogy to what I I believe uh the community is attempting with this in the Denver Tech Center and those of you familiar with that in South Denver uh might remember it starting the 1970s and 80s and how more recently in the last decade it has changed transformationally uh through mixed use coming in all of this uh very much Market driven but really acknowledging its historic Roots as uh single use and also a Suburban style of development so with this this evening we're hoping uh you see both the balance between predictability and flexibility in codes and policies that I often speak to predictability in this case responding to a community desire to have uh a more prescriptive OPP opportunity through form-based code which um allows folks to kind of check boxes in order to move

[153:00] through process but flexibility in the approach as we outline in some detail about uh the form based code being at overlay which still maintains all of the underlying uh existing zoning including uh significantly the puds which represent a significant part of the geography in this area but also giving folks the chance if they choose those Property Owners to uh move forward with the form-based uh code other Lifeboat opportunities other uh choose your path options of uh specific thresholds before these uh standards would kick in and also uh an exception process uh when all other options have been exhausted so we're happy to go through this uh with you in detail and and look forward to the conversation this evening now I'll turn it over to Christopher Johnson the uh senior longreach planning manager great thank you Brad good evening Council Christopher Johnson I'm

[154:00] the comprehensive planning manager um I wanted to take this opportunity to just reflect briefly and hopefully set the stage for the discussion tonight so I think I can honestly say that when we first started the project to consider form-based code in East Boulder in May of 2023 uh none of us anticipated the level of time and effort that it would take to do this right and um I just want to reflect that the team has really been diligent in their responsiveness to community feedback to the best of their ability uh and stay true to the vision set forth in the subc commmunity plan as well also wanted to really quickly reaffirm the the goal of this project which was to evaluate and apply form based code uh within East Boulder and include any new standards that would be necessary to carry forward the vision of the of the subc commmunity plan we did also take the Liberty to review the existing form-based code and make some strategic revisions to refine the standards and really attempt to make the code more user friendly overall what we were not intending to do

[155:01] uh to do is really to do an overhaul of the formase code uh itself and so that process if that was uh the focus of the project that would involve a much different approach a really Citywide Community engagement process and a much deeper policy discussion as do the purpose and applicability of the code across the city so before we move on I just want to thank the staff that have worked on this in great detail over the last couple of months particularly in the last six months specifically I will call out Kathleen King Sarah horn hel PG Desiree airz Brad Mueller Charles phoh Carl Gyer Tom pankow Jean Sanson and Garrett Slater and our form-based code consultant Leslie Ober Holzer who is here tonight uh and we'll cover a few slides as well finally thank you to all of you the members of of council and planning board and the community for your continued feedback through the process and and really reminding us of the critical interests of designers Property Owners uh businesses and future

[156:00] residents of this area uh We've made numerous refinements to be responsive to your input and we believe that the code that's before you tonight is much better for it Kathleen good evening um I'm Kathleen King principal planner in p and DS and I'm excited to be here tonight to work on an important step in the implementation of the East Boulder subc Community Plan um the city's not implemented a plan of this scale since our work in the 1990s and Beyond on the North Boulder subc Community Plan so congratulations to everyone on getting to this point and it's really exciting opportunity to move closer to the community's vision for East Boulder for this item um the project team will go through about a 15minute presentation we're going to try to move quick uh we'll take any clarifying questions from Council and then Council will hold the public hearing then you will deliberate on um two items

[157:02] following the hearing so you're considering two motions um one to amend the East Boulder subc Community Plan and a sec a second to adopt updates to the boulder Revised Code the sub community plan amendments are pretty limited we're revising the connections plan based on feedback received during this process and added two elements to support future implementation of the plan the amendments are valuable because our code includes criteria that requires projects in this area to be consistent with the plan so we want to keep this up toate and reflecting the latest thinking the code amendments are really the heart of the project we've made updates to the form based code that will implement the subc commmunity plan and Leslie's going to review those and then the other revisions that KJ will walk you through are more on the um cleanup end of code changes to align all of the bits and pieces so we don't have any conflicts or challenges in the future when these go to

[158:02] effect so these are the key questions that we're asking Council to consider in your deliberation this evening we can pull those back up later and just to set the stage um we're focused on the East Boulder sub Community this is one of 10 subc communities in the City and we're talking about the area generally north of arapo and east of Foothills so many of you were involved in the subcommunity planning process we began that project in 2019 and wrapped up in 2022 the project included great Community participation and I believe the plan overall has good support and buyin during that process we heard a lot from the community about the types of uses that they wanted to see in different East Boulder neighborhoods we heard a lot about what those neighborhoods should look and feel like we heard an overwhelming support for finding ways to maintain spaces for small and local businesses in the area

[159:01] and the biggest change for East Boulder that's documented in the plan is of course support for integrating residential homes into these mixed juuse neighborhoods so one of the highest priority action steps established by the sub community plan was to study and Implement forign based code in East Boulder to Del the mix of uses um design quality and placemaking described in the vision So the plan amendments I'm going to go through are still in line with these major components of the plan I think you'll find also that the form base code and the updates being proposed to the form base code are really working to implement these supported features of the plan um just as a quick refresher the intent of form base code is to provide the community property owners and the city with more predictable outcomes particularly around building massing scale permeability and quality so far in the city we've only applied form-based code to areas that have received a

[160:00] greater level of planning like an area plan or a subc commmunity plan because those efforts include work with the community to help predefine what those outcomes should be so in East Boulder form base code was determined to be an appropriate tool because it's meant to accomplish overall high quality quality experiences by organizing the code around building types or Street frontages and defining how a building is designed to relate to the public Realm of the street or other defined outdoor spaces the last time Council saw this project was um June 13th this past summer and the team presented a draft of the updates to the form based code as they relate to East Boulder areas of change in the plan since that time and based on your feedback as well as the feedback from planning board our work with local Property Owners business owners and operators and Community input staff have been refining the draft form based code some of the concerns Council

[161:01] expressed at that meeting included um revising residential requirements increasing flexibility rethinking how Street fages are assigned encouraging mixed use outcomes and how the code could support Community use and continuing to work with East Bolder businesses to refine the code updates so um we're going to walk through how we've responded to that feedback first I'll go through the subc community plan updates and the direction we received from planning board and then Leslie will take you through the updates to the form base code okay so at the um June meeting there was some direction from Council to reconsider the land use applied to 11 Parcels along the 50 Fifth Street Corridor which the plan designates as mixed use to or Transit oriented development staff considered that direction and brought forward a proposed amendment to the subc commmunity plan to

[162:01] redesignate properties along that Corridor as mixed use industrial to be consistent with the rest of the flat iron Business Park to the east planning board reviewed the amendments to the subc commmunity plan and unanimously approved all amendments except for this land use change planning board expressed strong support for maintaining the land use plan as is in the subc commmunity plan with the mixed use Tod designation with the understanding that the planning process included broad Community engagement and support at the time of its adoption in 2022 the board also described that the mixed use to designation along that Corridor was important to the overall Vision as it acts as the main north south artery through East Boulder and connects two key areas of change the 55th Arapaho station area and the Valmont Park East neighborhoods so in the subc commmunity plan you will see that the land use

[163:00] designation remains mixed use to and staff have worked to identify a solution that would allow greater flexibility on the associated residential requirement in the form base code so I'll move to connections um the East Boulder sub community plan plan network was planned in step with the land uses because um East Boulder today is mostly industrial we have really large blocks and not a lot of access through neighborhoods the connections plan recommends a few new connections to break areas into walkable blocks and provide more access through changing neighborhoods as we began translating the connections plan into the form base code regulating plans there were two areas where we identified some revisions that would be necess necessary these are in the Valmont Park West neighborhood and the 55th and arapo station area we worked with transportation and Mobility staff to make these revisions tab

[164:00] reviewed and accepted these changes in September and planning board reviewed and approved these changes in October we've also added new crosssections to the plan um this is in response to advancements for the East Arapaho brt project uh C do calls this the color 7 project Arapaho is State Highway 7 and the brt will connect Boulder all the way the East to Brighton so the city's been working with RTD and C do to advance this effort and the project has completed preliminary engineering so to help facilitate the installation of the planned facilities along this Corridor staff is recommending adding these crosssections for East arapo to the plan these are consistent with the facilities that were included in the East arapo Transportation plan and referenced in the sub community plan but provide a greater level of detail that's helpful as we continue to work towards

[165:00] implementation um and then finally the last amendment is the addition of a recommended rezoning diagram and this is really intended to just be a helpful reference to property owners and staff as projects consider rezoning um the project team evaluated zones whose uses would most closely align with the recommendations of the subc community plan but this is not a rezoning it does not change Zoning for any of those properties if Property Owners want to maintain their current zoning they can if they want to pursue a different rezoning they can go through that process this is just a reference to say if you want to align the future use of your property with the subc community plan recommendations here are zones to consider that offer the best match and then um as a reminder the 55th Arapaho station area plan is an appendix item to the subc commmunity plan so we went through and updated any diagrams or

[166:00] language in that document with the recommended amendments um so that everything is consistent across the two um two documents okay so um with that we're going to move over to the code amendments and um community engagement for the project use a couple of different methods this is pretty technical work um and we really needed the input and advice from our local design and construction community so we established a technical advisory committee that group offered a lot of time and really helpful feedback as we work through code updates so really want to thank that group for their participation and then just to highlight something that was unique to this process and helped inform a lot of the code updates you'll see is a a business questionnaire so we ask business owners in East Boulder a lot of questions about their space and what they need to offer the services that they do to the community our team walked around East

[167:01] Boulder neighborhoods going door Todo we met a lot of great business owners who shared their feedback on the questionnaire but also gave us helpful insight into how the neighborhoods are evolving and helped us understand what their concerns were um so we've Incorporated a lot of their feedback into the recommendations for code changes and thanks to all of those great business owners for participating as well additionally planning board reviewed the ordinance on October 15th and unanimously recommended adoption to city council they offered some really thoughtful suggestions for improving the code and you'll see that those suggestions have been incorporated into the code updates before you and um next I will turn the presentation over to our consultant Leslie from Koda metrics to speak more more about code updates good evening yes thank you for having me um I'm very excited to be here

[168:00] after working uh remotely for so long um and thanks Kathleen um I just have a few slides uh to highlight the revisions that have been made to the form base code um this map in the code illustrates both the existing locations where form based code applies um in Boulder and the proposed East Boulder location um I just want to note to you that the East Boulder locations add almost five times as much area that's covered by the form based code um without significantly increasing um the size of the form-based code um and I think this is really important because um the idea behind the form-based code is to implement the plans and this type of code works really well with walkable mixed juuse communities east Boulder is a really unique location and want to make sure that this code can work for East Boulder um I think that the work that we did for Boulder Junction really helped to inform that but I think we've taken it quite a bit further um with East Boulder and so I'm

[169:02] I'm quite proud of uh where the code is right now in terms of implementing uh plans that consider walkable mixed use but also industrial uses um so when would the form based code apply I think it's more important to sort of look at um when it doesn't apply first um so let me just say uh that any time there is an existing PUD of site site review approval um on the property the site review process would apply um should any change be made to the property and that covers almost the entire um area of change that we're looking at um there are very few Parcels that don't have PUD approval orite plan approval um within our areas of change um if someone is expanding an existing building by up to 60% um of the footprint or modifying an existing um Exterior Street facade by up to 60%

[170:01] current zoning would apply the form base code does not kick in until somebody increases the footprint over 60% um or revises a street facade that's within um the frontage areas of the street um by more than 60% and of course continued use or reuse of an existing building um without any modifications use utilizes the current zoning so the form based code only applies when more extensive modifications and additions occur again beyond that 60% trigger and any new construction on a site um must submit under the form based code um the project includes two major components um as KJ referred uh first first updates to the form-based code to reorganize and simplify several aspects of the code um to address some parts that were not really working um and to Move It from an appendix into chapter 14

[171:02] um based upon Community feedback we also Revisited the code in terms of affordability um and flexibility of design elements and the technical advisory committee was really helpful in identifying those situations um and then secondly of course we developed several new components that are specific to East Boulder including the creation of regulating plans um for the East Boulder areas of change identified in the subc commmunity plan um so let's just quickly walk through a couple of the elements of the code that were of the greatest interest to community um boards and Council as well um the first being uh that the proposed code includes several components aimed at increasing open space um on development sites both along the street scate and as usable outdoor space types within a development um two outdoor space spaces are now required when uh a development has 75,000 square feet um or more in residential units and

[172:02] I think the bullet is missing in residential units up there um so 75,000 square feet of residential units would trigger two outdoor space types um which is new to the code however to kind of accommodate that we've also added Court yards and playgrounds as counting as one of those outdoor space types um and while playgrounds require an investment in equipment um we've also made that sort of the smallest area land area required um with the hopes that that would kind of be an incentive to include play areas um as an amenity for these residential buildings um and one of the stated goals of the commun subc commmunity plan is to continue to provide small scale production spaces throughout East Boulder um and several aspects of those revisions um to the form based code are intended to support um this goals I'm not going to read through these I think

[173:00] we've presented this to you before but I do think it's important to note that the form based code is limited to just areas of change within East Boulder it does not cover the whole of East Boulder um those areas outside um are uh intended to be remain as is with the existing uh zoning the areas of change are intended to introduce housing into East Boulder per the subcommunity plan um we also introduced a new building type um for East Boulder the workshop building which is meant to accommodate those kind of production and light manufacturing uses um and uh we also created a service base which is um a base type that can be used on sort of the backsides within the to to accommodate those kind of production uses and lastly um we did create a new production business space requirement um it's pretty small and um it is meant to accommodate production uses um within uh

[174:01] new development and to sort of hold on to some of those very small scale spaces um that we we will be replacing and finally the form based code is intended to support the goal of introducing housing um especially housing that is more affordable in East Boulder um all of the proposed zoning districts allow housing where housing was recommended by the plan um the building types are also used to manage that residential um the general and the row buildings uh allow residential but the new workshop building does not um so there's that sort of balance between production uses and residential uses that we're trying to strike here um in order to support residential in these uses uh the requirement for residential and larger buildings that was created for the pilot form based code for Boulder Junction um has been carried forward however the size of building that triggers that requirement um has

[175:00] been increased from 15,000 to 35,000 square fet um and note that these requirements are limited to those locations where housing is allowed by both the zoning district and the building type again in order to balance housing needs with a desire to retain those production uses um that's all I have passing back to KJ thank you thank you Leslie just a few final slides to close this out um so there are also a few Associated amendments in the ordinance this evening uh many of which are just simply cleanup and clerical revisions I'll draw your attention briefly to uh the reasoning section 9219 at the time of the adoption of the subc commmunity plan back in 2022 there were some additional criteria added to this section to manage rezonings and East Boulder in the inter until new code regulations could be developed now that those have been created we're proposing to remove those additional criteria uh in addition section 9922 that addresses reductions in trip generation in

[176:01] specific Zone districts is also proposed for an amendment here this evening uh mu4 rh6 and rh7 uh could be applicable to various areas within East Boulder in the future and so we are recommending that the language in this section be amended to to apply a requirement of a 30% trip reduction um the current requirement is 55% and that applies um really was developed uh around the the transit services associated with Boulder Junction but the 30% reduction uh would also be an alignment with um changes that you recently adopted for the Alpine Balsam area finally we uh are proposing to move the the code uh the form base code from appendix M into Title 9 itself into uh chapter 14 which will make the code uh easier to navigate and find alongside the rest of the land use code that that applies uh before we wrap up I just wanted to clarify again a couple of

[177:00] important aspects uh of the code in response to a number of community comments and feedback that we've heard uh over the last 18 months um as as Leslie mentioned earlier and perhaps Mo most importantly we want to reiterate that existing puds and site review approvals sites with those approvals are not subject to the form based code uh any changes to those properties uh are defaulted to the review under the site review procedures uh Property Owners would retain the option to resend those approvals and then move forward under form base code if they choose U but that is not a requirement uh underlying zoning is not changing and will continue to govern allow uses and similarly the existing structures and uses will not become non-conforming uh by the adoption of the form based code they can be maintained modified and expanded under existing zoning up to that 60% threshold that we've discussed and then we recognize the importance of

[178:00] particularly research and development uses in this area and um in part have Incorporated that flexible Workshop building type to accommodate those types of businesses going forward uh and then we've discussed um uh briefly that we've also increased that threshold for the residential requirement more than twofold from 15,000 ft up to 35,000 ft to allow for greater flexibility for non-residential redevelopment in the future uh and the um uh the business production space Also then brings forward the goals of the subc commmunity plan to make sure that those spaces continue to exist even as Redevelopment occurs uh just just to clarify and and really explain the Pud and site approvals uh or site review approvals um comment here is this map is showing uh the prior approvals that exist in East Boulder so what you see on the diagram in blue are those properties that have an existing PUD or site review approval

[179:01] the areas in red are the areas that are proposed for form base code so you can see that the vast majority of the area will automatically default to the site review process uh and would not go through the form based code unless so uh unless that is chosen by the property owner to rece in those existing approvals and then move forward under form base code there are a couple of locations that you can see down in the 55th and arapo station area that would default to the form based code uh automatically um but they uh again they're they're a relatively small area and really we feel like the form based code is is uh intended to provide an incentive to these properties because under existing IG zoning the level of floor area that can be developed is actually relatively small even even under a residential condition the form base code uh automatically allows up to five stories in 55 ft in residential conditions so it's a it's quite a bump in terms of the level of intensity that could be developed on these

[180:02] locations so to close out uh just a reminder these are the two uh items for your consideration the subc community plan amendments which planning board has approved uh without those changes to the land use and place types in the subc commmunity plan and then also the code amendments uh that we've that we've discussed and and planning board does recommend approval of those this evening and uh the staff recommendation is for Council to uh approve both of these um that are before you this evening and we have motion language to support that if you so choose to do so thank you all right thanks for the presentation it's a lot of information to pack into a few minutes uh but very well explained I'm guessing we may have a few clarifying questions as well so does council have any questions y Lauren

[181:03] Matt sorry mayor PRM Furs thank you um so I just have one to start off with which is my understanding is that in other areas where form based code code has been applied every project that has come through has requested modifications and had to go through an discretionary review process in this version of for form-based code how many of those projects would not have needed to go through would this have eliminated are the changes that we're making here would those have addressed the issue and the need for them to go through a discretionary process yeah that's a great question I will not be able to answer that off the top of my head we would have to go back in and look at those projects in more detail and really kind of run them through um

[182:00] you know run them through the process what I can say is that we have made some um substantial changes to try to provide some additional flexibility to avoid some of those um some of those exceptions um you know uh one of the one of the things that we remove that I am very happy is the golden ratio requirement so you know I think there they probably um there probably were some things that um you know that could have been avoided but um my suspicion is those projects being sort of the first ones through the door to use the form base code my sense is they they probably would have still run up against a few things where they would need to ask for um you know some minor exceptions but just to clarify too the exception process that's allowed through a form based code review applies to every standard within the form based code so you you can literally make a case um to you know proceed with alternative compliance on on every standard if you so choose can I cqu on on on that point

[183:03] because some of the questions we've been getting is has been regarding some feeling like they're going to be sort of going down the rabbit hole of exemptions and so I'm wondering like in that process can you just lump sum all the exemptions together or do you kind of have to go through almost step by step because by getting by one exemption kind of opens the door to the next option to know whether you need that exemption so does it become linear can you batch them because there's been some concerns about how that can sort of pigeon tail a project when you start going down the Litany of exemptions sure so part of the uh form-based code review process there there is not a formal concept review as part of form based code but there is a pre-application review that is required with our velopment review team so really at that time the purpose of that meeting and that submitt is to identify where some of those pinch points might be so there's a there's an intentionality to

[184:00] look at the project early on see where there might need to be some um alternative compliance or see where where there might be um you know some some pinch points and make recommendations to the applicant of you know if you make these changes or make these adjustments we can check the box we can move on if they you know if they truly are things that are required then of course those would go through uh the exception review process as part of that form based code review um ultimately exceptions are reviewed by planning board so there is um there is a process for that but you wouldn't necessarily have to go to planning board individually for each of those it would all get batched together into you know one project review I guess my final question that is would does that exemption process almost kind of default into just creating site review more or less just in terms of process I I mean I would say maybe to a degree but really it's it's still rooted in the form based

[185:00] code which is intended to be objective right it's intended to set standards that have a clear yes or no answer um there certainly are you know situations where uh you you may need to make a case to say we're not able to meet that standard because of XYZ and then that you know comes under review and that is more of a discretionary determination um but uh I would I would not consider it you know a sort of de facto site review I think it's still rooted in in the code itself and thank you hel panig from our city attorney's office to back me up on that um yeah hel pan from with the city attorney's office um in my experience so one I wanted to clarify acceptions can be granted by staff there's no requirement that the project then be reviewed by planning board it's in planning board's discretion to call up a project whether it has exceptions or not um and the when exceptions are requested they're usually small parts of the

[186:00] project um that have a discretionary aspect to them then so one of the exceptions that I've seen a lot is there's a building length limit in the form based code so I've seen several um exception requests for that and the different projects that have come through but then we just look at building length and not everything about the building in a discretionary fashion and and the standard is the building that's proposed is it still consistent with the intent that's established in the area plan and are there any additional negative impacts for the users of the property or adjacent property so it's it's really pretty specific to the particular exception that's requested and it might just be a different material that's requested and then the decision maker would just look at that material but not if the entire building is consistent in in terms of height and scale and setbacks with what the area around it

[187:00] looks like it's pretty small analysis um so you brought up the building length one has that been modified in this code and also what kind of time per time frame is added to a project for needing to go through that process versus if they did not need to uh yes great question I'm glad you asked that the building Lake standard for the General Building does not apply in East Boulder um and there is also no building length standard uh associated with the workshop building in East Boulder so those th that particular standard does not apply um as far as the timing goes um you know it's uh it's difficult to tell it's always a two-way street in terms of um you know staff providing comments and um the ability for the applicant to either meet those comments or and turn around a Revis submitt or to say no we need to go

[188:02] forward and and you know this is an exception we're going to have to argue for um so it's it's difficult to say but but I think um you know in my at least in the experience there's been three projects that have gone through form based code planning board has uh you know taken the opportunity to call every one of those up um and so depending on scheduling with planning board that kind of thing it you know it could add a month or two yeah um so when planning board calls up these projects for the exceptions um is there an alternative so that it can stay in the administrative process is that built in so that we don't and and this is thinking more about future requirements for the transit bill is that something that yeah so right now um as Hela mentioned planning board has the opportunity to call up a form-based code review project whether it has exceptions or not um they you know I think that

[189:01] that was built in because the form base code is still relatively new in Boulder and was a pilot applied in Boulder Junction that was put in as a safety valve so that um you know planning board would have an opportunity to look at the first set of these as they start to come through uh I think that um as we start to see more projects going through form based code and as it may start to apply to more areas of the city that standard will become less and less relevant or that need to call things up will become less and less relevant and and um you know the call up process will become more akin to the way we see things currently you know some projects get called up some don't um I also think that this this is uh you know the first step uh in kind of continuing to refine and revise the form based code I can guarantee you it's not the last time we will touch the code and so I think again as as projects start to come through as we may start to recognize there's still

[190:00] some challenges with some of the standards that are applied or the dimensions that are applied we as staff will continue to you know look at this and make appropriate code adjustments um as we go forward and and hopefully there is a time in the future where that callup process can be more limited um and and make it more more of a staff review process okay is this a Col okay I think Lauren still is the floor okay um and so then something I just want to clarify because there was a slide that said You know that if a building adds say 60% to its floor area um or modifies 60% of the facade um form based code applies but then we were also saying if it's in a PUD or has a previous site review process then it

[191:00] this does not apply to it can you clarify um if a what happens if a building is able to add 60% floor area with its PUD or site site previously sure with those yeah the previous approvals yeah this is um this is a new definitely a a nuance and um we we have had a lot of conversations with Hela and the city attorney's office to you know ensure we all understood the the sort of operations of of this and the procedural Dynamics so um you're right that if if a property has an existing approval site review or a PUD they any you know changes to that site would simply go through the site review process um if you know if a property was to let's say add 30% of building area um they again the form based code would not go into effect um even if even if they

[192:01] didn't have an existing site review approval if it was a byright building and they added 30% the form based code would not apply um if there was a a PUD or an existing approval they would still have to go through the amendment process through site review um to you know to to get that 30% addition uh approved if it starts to exceed 60% that's when the form based code standard begin to um begin to apply and so if it was a byright project and they were adding 75% form baseed code kicks in if it's a PUD project and they start to add 75% they would still go through site review at at at their as the default they would have the choice to utilize form base code if wanted to but um they wouldn't have to there is a standard as well um within the code that areas that are reviewed under the site review process that also happen to be in form based code areas

[193:01] they there is an expectation that um just like you in site review just like you review a project against the policies of a subcommunity or an area plan that exists in the area you also use the form based code as a guide so there is language that says that the um the changes should be um wherever practicable they should be compatible with the standards of the form based code that's very broad language and intentionally so the goal being that the project makes an effort to try to comply with some of the intent of the form-based code standards and things like that but the code itself is is not governing they are still following existing zoning and site review procedures hopefully that answers it's it's pretty convoluted but hopefully that that clarifies yes thank you if I could follow up on that so in in those circumstances then that they wouldn't govern the form base code wouldn't govern what you could build or what size

[194:00] you could build but they would be more like design guidelines that in the building that you build it should generally be compatible with the design guidelines of the exactly right yes okay okay and it it also does not specifically specifically call out uses so any of the use guidance within the form based code about um you know placing shop front uh you know or retail uses on the ground floor the production business space those are not included as part of that it's purely the the sort of physical architectural design of the structure should should attempt to meet those guidelines okay all right in the Q I've got Matt and then Mark did you still no okay Ju Just a couple um from a development perspective uh would you not agree that that having to rely upon a series of exceptions um to get a project developed is uh a great deterrent to most developers as opposed to having a a more

[195:03] clearly defined as of right uh possibility sure so so the you know the the um you know based on the map that we showed earlier is you know most of these locations have an existing PUD or site review approval so their their sort of by pathway is through the site review procedures um uh regarding exceptions within the form based code we we believe that there is enough flexibility built into the form based code that you can be very creative and can design a good quality Building without any exceptions actually um and and really just checking the box and going through a staff Le administrative review which ideally should be much faster and more efficient for for the applicant um we do find that you know people want to do different things and don't want to be constrained by a box and so you know they often will ask for those exceptions but um The Hope

[196:00] is that there's enough uh enough guidance and enough flexibility within the code itself that you would be able to go through it without any exceptions um what is the status of I'm sorry what is the status of the requirement that production business space be included in I guess is it is it called um uh Workshop uh buildings R&D buildings right that are generally single tenant so the production business space the requirement is that if a project is larger than 15,000 square feet um the production business-based requirement kicks in and that's 10% of the ground floor area that is not parking that is not circulation that is not residential so it's 10% of the sort of usable commercial space of that ground floor which as you start to peel away all

[197:00] those other uses that's not a very large area and that's that's on purpose that's intentional first of all we don't want that requirement to be excessive secondly we want that we want those spaces that are created to be small enough that they can accommodate more affordable you small local businesses and and provide that opportunity for them to you know continue to exist in the area um you know we heard through the subc commmunity plan very loud and clear that there's a concern that through Redevelopment a lot of those existing small business type areas are going to disappear and so we're trying to introduce a a um a standard where at least some of that space can be replaced and and opened up and offered to some of those you know kind of early entrepreneurial business businesses um the the requirement is built into the into the building type right and and is not um is is is not intended to be specific to any use type so in an R&D

[198:00] Building as an example that would be a very good example where an applicant could make the argument to say this is a real problem for us because of security issues or other kinds of you know situations that's certainly something I think we would consider as long as um you know it's again sort of going with the intent of the subc community plan but in a mixed use Residential Building or a workshop building that is not R&D that's office or you know some other type of use that production business bace um could be really valuable and and and also viable as a as an option but for an R&D facility that requires single occupancy for a variety of reasons uh including the security of their research having to rely upon your discretion as to whether or not to permit that don't you see that as problematic how you know you're you're asking somebody to commit a couple

[199:01] hundred million dollars to create a facility and it will be up to you to decide whether or not it's viable well I would respond to that by saying that first of all the the workshop building type is not not specific to R&D uses it can accommodate all manner of different uses if someone was going to bring forward an R&D project that would go into the calculus of is that an appropriate exception staff would staff would make a recommendation planning board would very likely call that up and have a conversation around it as well the other thing I'll I'll just you know note is that uh again the areas that um are most likely to be building a brand new High-Tech high quality R&D Building have an existing PUD or site review approval and so they will not be subject to that requirement will will they be subject to the requirement of having 30% of the building be a floor lower than the rest

[200:03] no they would not because that's part of the form base code and they would not be required to meet that okay okay thank you could just follow up on on that so in terms of that um so it's 10% of the ground floor area so and with exceptions so if you had a three-story building it might come out to 2 or 3% of the total office space of the building okay but now let's say that that the exception wasn't granted would Council eventually be able to weigh in on that if Council felt like there should be an exemption granted H I don't um if planning board calls up a project and approves that is there a call up does after planning board approves the Council would have the opportunity to call it up how about if planning board didn't call oriz it yeah any decision of the planning board would be subject to call it by Council so if they decided not to call it up we could override them and call it up ourselves no

[201:02] okay got it that was my followup on that are you good Mark my question yeah sure of course did we we lost M go ahead um just a quick question for the outdoor spaces um that are created including the playground who's generally responsible for maintaining those over time uh well they are they are um on required to be on the property of the of the development so it would fall to the property manager of of that project okay and do did we get feedback just about that kind of cost because that I don't know how that kind of ongoing cost relates to the cost of a developed building which would be sure we we have not gotten any specific feedback related to that um you know often times uh particularly Residential Properties will will offer those kinds of things as amenities and take those on themselves and so we we anticipate it would you know be pretty likely that even though

[202:00] it's a requirement it's likely something that might have been provided anyways okay thank you Nicole thanks so much for the presentation um I just had a couple of questions just around um how the engagement was incorporated into some of these changes so um and considering these changes I understand you had feedback from many different uh constituency groups and I expect that feedback didn't always align or go in the same direction so when you're considering you know these changes that you brought to us tonight how do you balance the competing or how did you balance the competing priorities um from the different constituency groups when they arose during the year and a half long engagement yeah yeah it's a great it's a great question um that's why we do this job right is to try to make make these decisions and thread the needle as best as we can um it's uh it is a challenge we you know for the purposes of the of the code updates we always referred back to the

[203:00] subc commmunity plan and and really the broad information and and feedback we received throughout that process which Kathleen knows extended to three years through the covid era um and so there is um there is a tremendous amount of sort of qualitative Lang anguage that describes the type of place that um the community expects to see in East Boulder and it includes great streets uh you know great architecture larger buildings than what are out there now but there's a there's an expectation and a trade-off that if you're going to have a larger building there needs to be good sort of articulation of that building and changes of massing so that it's not just a big box um and so that was that was really The Guiding yeah you know factor and and we we try to balance that Accord course with the realities of some of the conversations we had with business owners and property owners and and their needs as well and so we we do our best to try to um uh create flexibility where we feel like it's it's necessary and um

[204:01] and feasible but there are a few things um that uh you know are just are so strongly stated in the subc commmunity plan it would be difficult for us to bring forward code changes that that don't speak to those directly thank you um so just kind of summarize that a little bit would it be fair to say that the changes that you're presenting uh tonight reflect kind of the intersection of all these changes of the the multiple constituency groups that were involved in the process yes I would say that's true thank you um and did did any groups um concerns have priority for consideration in making these changes you know you mentioned to sort of the property owners and and developers just because I mean they're they're a big part of this process too right yeah and I would I would say you know through the and Kathleen you can you can certainly chime in you know through the East Boulder subc commmunity plan process that was very very Broad constituency and we talked to a lot of um community members and housing

[205:00] Advocates and you know a whole range of of different perspectives and interests to to develop that plan um as you dive into regulations and code writing and things like that this becomes a bit more of a technical exercise and so we did lean lean heavily into our uh design and construction industry um colleagues within you know within the city and had that technical advisory committee um and then also you know recognizing that changes to zoning um can have an impact on on property owners and and what they can do with their properties going forward so we are I would say we are a bit more sensitive to those interests through this process um uh and those might take a little bit more weight through a you know what kind of um this kind of Regulation and code process then than we might normally um address through a broader Community process yep so maybe a little more weight to the people who are actually going to be doing the building um of this area right and and also and also to you know consideration of our um development review staff that will have to actually administer the code so we want to make

[206:01] sure that it's it's clear to them as well okay thank you so much I was just going to cqu on that so I understand kind of the public engagement portion that happened with the sub community planning process when we talk about kind of this actual code implementation side how many community members were like walked through with this like where the rubber meets the road and how this the actual code works and the tradeoffs between the choices that are being made between the idea of the subcommunity plan and the implementation of the rules uh well as far as as as far as like the general Community I would say there's been less of that but we have had numerous uh one-on-one calls with individual Property Owners Kathleen mentioned the the businesso business questionnaire that we did and sort of the door-to-door polling that we did and

[207:01] talk to um tenants and business owners in the area to understand what their space needs were we've held a number of um presentations and meetings with the chamber throughout as well so we've um we feel like we've attempted to do our best to try to communicate these things multiple times um and and in different ways too um you know the the people that will be most impacted um by it and um uh it's you know it's been difficult to to try to it's very very complex information and it's difficult to cover all the bases all the time and so you know there certainly is an opportunity for some miscommunication along the way or misunderstandings of of what the code is intended to do and we've tried to we've tried to reconcile that and clear that up as best as we can yeah and I wasn't trying to like be do a gacha or anything it's just it's a challenging challenging thing it's tough yeah thanks thanks Lauren we got Matt I got a couple questions and then just as keep in mind we're getting late here so

[208:00] we can ask maybe quick questions and get quick answers my questions were addressed by other council members so okay saves my oxygen wow that was quick well done you're welcome and okay then I'll call it myself and most of my questions got answered as well particularly around some of the optionality around the the Pud and site review areas but I had a couple left that were um brought up by property owner in in in this area and one of them was about the occupied building space requirements and if I understand this correctly those are only along type A streets is is that right yes that that is correct um I will say we I I did actually pick up um a an error in the ordinance where under the workshop building that standard was um applied to both type A and B frontages but on the general building it's only type A so the intention within East Boulder is that that occupied building space only applies to type a frontages so we'll we'll make that change got it that that's like a typo we wouldn't have to

[209:01] make an a motion I would sure hope so H okay I would not consider that a typo type change that should be part of an ordinance could be done here but we're also have um a cleanup ordance coming forward for titan9 it could be incorporated in that as well okay well it's probably easy enough to make tonight if we desire if we want to clean that up um but and then just to clarify that in the in the flat irons Business Park I don't believe there are any type A frontages there there are not any type a frontages designated in the regulating plan however in the absence of that there um then you have to designate one Frontage as type A there needs to be a front door right there needs to be a front to to the building and that is the intention of the type a frontage so so that would um still apply if the property was governed by the form base code so I'm sorry I'm confused a little bit about that because I in in the other regulating plans I had seen that type a

[210:02] frontage kind of on prominent Corners like where we're looking for that kind of more occupied space um and so it's specifically called out in those kind of more Central areas but you're saying that every single building would need to have a yes every single building has a type a frontage assigned to it at at you know one Frontage or another will have a will be type A and it's um you know it it it both sort of signifies the front of the building and it carries the um the highest level of sort of architectural um you know articulation and building materials that type of thing and it's really intended to make sure that the side of the building that is fronting on that very visible Street Frontage you know gives it its best face and provides the most sort of active pedestrian um activity there on that on that Frontage so that that's the intention there and so you're saying like in the other areas that do designate specific type A frontages even the buildings that are in the type B frontages would still have to

[211:00] have a type a frontage on one side yes they still and Leslie yeah okay good thank you yes one side of the building will always be designated as a typ a frontage okay all right and then that occupied space would apply that's correct and that's you know that's really intended to make sure that there are um you know we're avoiding sort of dead wall spaces that are just I get it yeah need the answer okay got it now I understand that but only if you're um applying through the full form based code that's correct right and it wouldn't apply if the form based code were being applied as a guideline for a significant renovation no I don't believe it would be yeah okay great and then the other one there was a question about the requirement of mechanical systems to be inside the building and perhap you can speak to the um to what extent that's required or you because there some mechanical systems that would be incompatible with uses inside the building yeah AB absolutely and the form base code is recognizes that fact that not everything can be located inside the

[212:00] building and so there there are already um screening standards and other standards that relate to when those types of facilities need to be located outside it's they're um specifically uh you know located on sidey yards and rear yards and there's some screening standards so that the form base code fully anticipates and expects that not everything will be able to be incorporated into the building got it and would that be an exception to the form based code or could you just no because it because it's explained clearly within there um and provides for those um you know those kinds of uh utilities to be out outside and how to address them that wouldn't be an exception that would just be part of the review process okay got it that's all I had any other questions from anybody else Tia's got a hand TAA yes thank you um thank you for the presentation still on a steep learning curve around um these kinds of plans so thank you um for all of the questions um I just have a few questions one around um engagement I was curious I saw that

[213:01] the boulder chamber was engaged and I was curious if the Latino chamber of Boulder County had been engaged uh no we had not engaged the the county Latino chamber is that a process that um or rather is that I just wonder what we can do to make sure that um since the Latino chamber of of Boulder County has um just increase their their support their membership um that they can be included um anytime that the boulder chamber is included as they also are representing businesses in our community sure yeah we really I appreciate that well we're making a note and and I should just clarify the the chamber invited us to um give right but that's right but still I apologize your point is your point is very well taken we'll we'll make sure that we do that going forward I appreciate that and I understand that

[214:01] their bandwidth is is tied as well so maybe if we can get a couple of different meetings uh or a couple different topics within the same meeting that would be much appreciated um I did have a question about Urban agriculture so in the subcommunity plan um Urban agriculture has mentioned some of the vertical Gardens roof Gardens and I just kind of uh I didn't see it addressed it all in the code so I just wasn't can you can someone talk to me just a little bit about how we ensure Urban um Urban agriculture is present and food production is present in this Corridor as well as if Urban agriculture if the agriculture Community has been engaged in this process uh yeah great question um we did not engage with the agricultural Community um you know most of most of East Boulder um exists today as as light industrial and Manufacturing types of types of businesses um we we certainly

[215:00] would allow for any kind of um Community Gardens or other kind of agricultural facilities as part of particularly in the outdoor space areas that are required so that would certainly be allowed um it is I I will say it is not addressed directly within the based code but certainly would be an allowed use within some of those outdoor spaces and again I'm raising this because you know we had the conversation around area 3 a couple of weeks ago in urban Agriculture and how it was uh addressed and I was told that the process is that these conversations happen at the subc community level and so I'm just trying to get some clarification on that sure sure so yeah I mean I think and Kathleen you can chime in as far as any conversations that happen during the subc commmunity plan itself and then um yeah translating it to uh you know to to the form based code um I guess you know the form based code is is um particularly focused around vertical construction and and you

[216:01] know admittedly I think it's not something we really considered as far as incorporating into there we could also make sure and double check to see um uh whether or not agricultural uses are allowed under the underlying zoning um within the area so that's something we could follow up on awesome and again you know permaculture and and other ancestral Traditions that are making its way back um are allowing us to grow significantly more food in smaller foodprints and also indoors um and again I I think of some of the industrial um businesses that are in that area um excuse me and I I believe many of them would appreciate having um Urban uh food grown more locally and and reducing their food miles and supporting uh local agriculture so thank you so much for the opportunity to ask that question and the willingness to um deepen our relationship in that particular area uh I also just wanted to ask about the open

[217:01] space and and it's more so just a it's more of a comment for or a pin for later and I rais this as well I think when most people hear open space um in addition to you know Parks or or you know some of the other things um you know they're they're thinking that there would there would be um you know some kind of n you know native grass or or some kind of of you know biodiversity or habitat of some kind and so um you know just just kind of a flag on that term um it can be quite confusing I certainly made an assumption when I hear the term open space coming from Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission um that that is a habitat Rich environment uh but it doesn't seem to be the case in when when it's when it's applied to this particular domain so um is that something that has come up in in the past as far as just chall or any kind of confusion I mean obviously not for you but um or or potential tension as we really think about how we accelerate habitat restoration and

[218:02] biodiversity yeah it's a good question I mean the terminology I will say within the city of Boulder can get a bit tricky you know open space capital O uh refers to our open space at Mountain Parks is very you know clear definition and then more broadly SP is often used just as a you know a generic term for open areas the the code refers to um outdoor spaces so we've tried to make a distinction I did see that yeah your comment is is spoton in terms of particularly as we go into the comprehensive plan the conversations with the community will have to be just very uh intentional about the language we use okay and then just last question um in that process is there an opportunity to update either the terminology or the definition so that it's it's more or actually just update the terminology is that something that can be done in an update to a plan if there was Community agreement and partners agreed and the

[219:00] council agreed through the comprehensive plan we um yeah I think there's probably you know some some Avenue for I mean even open area right so that it's not the same word with different meanings yeah so I like your open area I thought that was great way but alas thank you so much for the answerers to your question and all the work that you and your team do thank you thanks those qu questions TAA and I didn't quite catch if you said this already K you but I just checked and Community Gardens are allowed in every Zone District in the city yes that's great and I I also quickly checked too green houses and plant nurseries are allowed in IG so if there were to be some kind of indoor agricultural I believe that would be allowed I'd have to double check with my development review team in point of clarification and I'm sorry but it you know since the ship is already sailed and we're going to be voting on this you know regardless of you know if the vote moves forward would there be opportunities to Reen or to engage our agricultural Community around those needs just to make sure that um you know just something just

[220:02] making sure that we didn't miss anything since that stakeholder group wasn't engaged at all I mean again if if the if the use would be allowed under the underlying zoning there would be certainly nothing preventing um you know an opportunity for somebody to open a business in the area to to provide that type of use and and certainly Urban agriculture will be a topic of discussion as part of the comp plan so as far as establishing some kind of broader um city-wide policies around that that's that's something we expect to cover for sure awesome thank you so much right thanks just a quick one hopefully I wanted to pick up on the comp plan sort of subject so we've got couple of Frameworks here that we that we be making code policy around then we have the bbcp coming up that will overlay over the top of this can you give an idea of just the some example of the kinds of things in the bbcp that would prospectively be uh on the table that we that we would look at that we wouldn't

[221:01] be looking at here or just how to think about how bbcp might affect the the future of this jurisdiction could we for example would overwrite some of the things we're doing today or would we by by definition couldn't touch anything we've done today how do to think about that intersection well I mean certainly I think if there were if there were a shift like a significant shift in policy as a as an example I think this is an outside chance but just as an example if you know we went through and had a community conversation as part of the comp plan update that said actually you know we want East Boulder to stay totally industrial and and business and we don't want any residential out there then that that becomes the the sort of overarching policy for this particular area or maybe a different area within the city that would then lead us to have to go back and you know do some work to revise the subc commmunity plan perhaps then revise the code after that so it does create a cascading effect of of um

[222:01] of things but really the comprehensive plan establishes that most broad umbrella and policy Direction and then the subcommunity plan and the codes ultimately trickle down and Implement that all right I think we've reached the end of questions so we're going to go to our public hearing uh we've got seven people signed up to speak I think three of them are pooling time so the first speaker is Mark painter who's pooling time with uh Eric stegemiller and Mark Hamilton um we just uh for so to get five minutes we just need to confirm that Eric and Mark are in the meeting we get Eric over there and I see Mark Hamilton is raising his hand virtually so um Mark you got five minutes there thanks KJ um good evening mayor Brockett and members of the council um delighted to be here to speak on this and as with some of these hearings on

[223:00] the East Boulder sub community plan I'm getting clarification as I go and I'm looking at my notes my presentation and I'm modifying things so I'll I'll stumble through a few things and as you're doing that please speak right into the mic yes sir yes sir how's this better okay okay all right um so uh you have uh mark painer from Holland and Hart uh on behalf of biomed and uh address is 1800 Broadway right across the street from here uh you have a my letter from uh last night and uh um biomed's letter from today um my apologies for the length of our letter and the detail in our letter we wanted to make sure you had information that could answer questions you have about about the objections and concerns we still had about this um and sorry for the last minute I I know that's always a problem for all of us um and this was an extra problem because your first reading and presentation was the Thursday before Thanksgiving week and then this hearings

[224:01] the first Thursday after Thanksgiving week so it hasn't been a fortunate uh timing for any of us to absorb this and and uh summarize it and come back with the comments so we appreciate your patience on that um this is an enormous and comp Lex document uh 129 pages that that had to be reviewed much of which is great and supported uh and you may hear more on that that is supported um we understand Council and staff do have full plates um and a full agenda going forward and we understand the need to try and get through this as fast as possible but the implications for millions of square feet and for tenants occupants owners and for the community at large are are significant and um we we think it is important to do this right as opposed to doing it fast um we're concerned that with all these questions and the complexity of this document both the the details the architectural details and things like that but also the policy um

[225:02] resz zonings and things like that that are happening that it's really important for us to get it right and and consider it and it may not be ready for adoption tonight indeed all the traffic on the hotline today indicated that there are more changes coming and we don't want it to be a disservice to the owners and to the community at large that we do this in a hurry so please consider maybe deferring it so that we can get through some of these additional um changes um in our letter I'm not going to go through all the details in our letter but I'll hit a few um high points um one of our concerns is that the draft still uh contradicts the direction that's that uh staff committed to and and Council uh requested both two years ago and again at the study session that uh uh being involved in the form based code doing the housing um those things would be optional with people they could elect into it instead of it being compulsory

[226:02] um residential use um if you're over a certain size that's going to be a compulsory part of it for um redeveloped buildings um as you heard there are certain thresholds where uh the form based code is going to come into consideration for some of these buildings and that that was not our understanding or we thought um the the intent um second the production business based concept this is a mandated specific use for buildings greater than 15,000 feet and it's a 10% requirement on the on the main floor you all talked about that um our concern is there may be no demand for this use at the time and it's compulsory so you have you have a vacant space potentially there also as as councilman wall pointed out it it creates a problem for having single tenant buildings which is a big problem for a lot of industrial users and research and development users um and it

[227:00] can conflict with tenants uses such as security issues their other externalities such as pollutants and things like that that could be a problem it is not I mean we certainly have been supportive of the notion of having um these businesses be continued there but we think this should be done through incentives um that you can integrate instead of having this mandated mandated like that can result in nothing happening as opposed to what you desire having happen so um please incentivize that instead of mandating it third the workshop building type concept this building type is new and is the only design type as we understand it the only design type where R&D life science uses would fit um but the draft uh prohibits this Workshop type um in the 55th Street Corridor and the U the properties that are right along there was that five minutes wow that was that was five minutes that was fast okay um would you

[228:01] like to hear my suggestion for resolution we actually we don't have time you want to dash us off a quick email you can but we wehar to Our Time Guidelines I'll be done all right thank you right thanks um our other um in-person speakers are Devon edley and John T good evening mayor and members of council my name is Devon Edgley I'm the policy program specialist at the boulder chamber and I am here today to voice my concerns raised by the boulder chamber regarding the East Boulder subc commmunity plan I appreciate the city's efforts to create a vibrant sustainable future for East Boulder but I believe several key issues need further consideration to ensure this plan serves all stakeholders effectively first the mandatory housing Provisions are well-intentioned but may

[229:00] disrupt East Boulder's unique industrial and research driven character while sufficient housing for our Workforce is necessary it should be in the right place and time where it is economically feasible flexibility is essential housing should be optional not mandatory this approach aligns with previous Community engagement findings and City council's prior directives second while preserving production business space is important requiring requiring it universally could limit East Boulders potential flexibility will allow the area to remain adaptable fostering Innovation and accommodating a broader spectrum of businesses additionally design constraints like floor to- floor height limitations could stifle R&D facilities one of the pillars of East Boulders economy R&D spaces need unique

[230:00] infrastructure and rigid design rules could unintentionally Force these businesses to relocate weakening our local economy finally the form based code though aimed at fostering cohesive Urban Design risk increasing costs without clear benefits requiring facade and roof updates for minor repairs imposes unnecessary burdens on property owners a more flexible approach including a regular review of the form-based codes impact would help avoid these pitfalls while still achieving the city's design goals in conclusion I urge the council to prioritize flexibility and practicality in the East Boulder sub community plan by doing so we can ensure that East Boulder remains a dynamic economically vibrant area that means the diverse needs of businesses and residents alike thank you for your time and consideration thank you our last

[231:00] inperson speaker is John T thank you mayor member councel now this may repeat some themes but it's for emphasis um so the founda foundational operating principles of the East Boulder sub committee plan what your engaged businesses and residents agreed to accept as a consensus recommendation for their work and what city council then adopted in 2022 was flexibility and options with incentives to encar certain plan characteristics and housing design these these themes were weaved throughout the East Boulder subc Community Plan I had the chance to rewatch The October 6 city council meeting the other day I it couldn't be more clear from city council dialogue that the direct words of Mayor Brockett quote the intention is to give flexibility and options as we move toward a more multi-use housing oriented future unquote quote the intent

[232:01] is to provide options unquote two years later we confront a proposed form-based code that fails on many fronts to incorporate these values of flexibility and optionality representing the the voice of your business community and our Collective interests in a vital economy the need for flexibility and options in East Boulder is essential to the functioning of a of that commercial Zone as you have heard and will hear from one of the most engaged Business Leaders in this Zone we risk making it impossible for businesses and critical Industries to function if we limit their Redevelopment flexibility in the zone and require the marriage of activity that feas that feasibly don't make we aren't merely talking about the interests of a single business this is literally existential to a commercial Zone that is critical to Boulder's long-term economic vitality and finally our businesses Place their trust in a subcommunity plan

[233:01] process that adopted flexibility and optionality as an overriding principle we now rely on that trust and are asked that you abide by the principles of flexibility and optionality in your in your in deliberations this evening I will note in conclusion that the city planning staff did engage in dialogue with the Business Leaders as they developed the draft form based code however in this case I can only say that there continues to be differences of opinion regarding the prescriptive nature of the draft code and the housing requirements frankly many of our businesses tell us they they just don't feel hurt so I stand here with an appeal to city council to uphold hold its commitment to the business community and other stakeholders as enshrined in your adopted East Boulder subc Community Plan make it clear in precise language that the housing provisions of this form based code are optional and that the

[234:00] they apply and to apply flexibility in the application of the provisions that can lead to impra impracticality then let's work together to implement the vision for a dynamic misuse subcommittee and still thriving your time's up Mr T I'm done all right okay we have uh two online speakers they are Lyn seagull and celil pipil gosh I was drifting out there um how could I fall asleep in front of John te my god um yeah I I don't support any development in the East Boulder Community um we've got more than our caring capacity in this town we're underfunded for open space we're underfunded for the police for the fire for libraries for our South Boulder Rec Center which we can't even rebuild um you want to move the West

[235:02] Senior Rec Center West Senior Center then I can't even use it it needs to be Central and that's expensive and you have to maintain what you've got and you can't do that you know what this is the definition of sprawl it's called sprawl remember Wonder view or what what is it Weather Vein it was water view excuse me changed to Weather Vein the definition of sprawl a whole little city with no Services across from the JCC that's it whole little city nothing there but but housing we need to balance jobs housing we need to have a head tax we need to control our growth with with CU far out shadowing us our population

[236:00] being 70,000 or so and we've got 107,000 you know because of Cu and we've got you know 777 Broadway with with four to 900 bodies we're now renting by the bedroom all over Boulder the Millennium 930 rent by the bedroom and you know when you rent by the bedroom you ain't renting to babies and babies might not have cars but human beings do grown you know adults that are living in all these rent by the bedrooms and I don't care Ryan all all the transportation oriented development you want to create you're not going to accommodate it it's not safe for me riding my bike around my bike was stolen in front of the county the Old Courthouse you know that the

[237:03] homelessness the the crime we can't afford more development more housing in East Boulder and and all the the services that we have had hosi Motors it's out far away you know we need some space for some of the services that we've displaced from the center of town and we're here in the Front Range sprawling North and South we've got plenty up in the north already so stop already your time is up but thank you for your testimony our final speaker is C Cil pipil pipil sorry it's getting hi good evening uh this is Sal p is my audio coming through okay yes okay and is there an option to turn on my video uh there's not okay that's good um good evening and thank you for the opportunity I'm salid ply I'm speaking

[238:00] on behalf of biomed um you know we spent a lot of time talking about what's not working I I wanted to pause and just acknowledge you know we've made a lot of progress we've had lots of productive discussions with uh staff over the months um maybe even over the year um with that you know we did find um five older issues that have persisted and one newer one um that we've summarized in a letter that you have um and for each one we've also try to propose solutions for council's consideration um we we think um we believe these Solutions continue to maintain very strong support for Boulders policy priorities and they try and reduce what we think are probably unanticipated side effects um you know that could obstruct R&D um and for these persistent issues that remain you know a few of them um I really cannot emphasize enough how how material like how big these are to our R&D customers and really to the future of a vibrant uh Innovation District this whole

[239:01] discussion goes to the heart of um our mission biom mission as a company which is really to provide you know critical infrastructure that expands the capacity to innovate and Advance human health like said in English you know we support companies that are curing cancer and we build their real estate and we own and operate it and we maintain it and we provide Capital um all said and done we're really uh looking forward to the rest of the discussion um we feel like there's Mission alignment in Boulder um you know our mission to advance human health resonates I think with a lot of the folks we've spoken with with staff members with council members and such um thank you for your time and attention mention looking forward to next steps here I save the rest of my time thank you thank you Mr P just one question for you um in our presentation from staff tonight and in our questions to them kind of we've fared it out that um if

[240:00] there's a previous site review or PUD for a site that it could just simply follow the rules as they currently exist um other than um some design guidelines but with the same uses and intensities and things like that followed uh given that do you think you would be able to fulfill um your objectives with under those criteria thank you for um flagging that our entire team spent a lot of time focused on you know certain phrases like to the extent practicable you know and what kind of uncertainty that creates to the extent practicable you know in in in in requiring compliance with form based code and so if Council and staff can uh clarify and El ambiguity about how to read it then I think we could do a lot with it thanks I appreciate that okay I'm now going to close the public hearing and bring it back to city council for a discussion and rather than

[241:00] just having a free ranging discussion what I might ask is if people want to highlight areas they'd like to discuss or specific changes that they would like to ask for from what we have proposed for us so I'll just ask if anybody wants to put anything forward oh but maybe we accept maybe a couple of clarifying questions go ahead ask a clarifying question thank you um yeah I just had a couple of questions after listening to people speak and so thank you for letting me get these in before we start having the conversation about what what if anything to change um so I feel like some of the discussions that um that were coming up in the comments around the types of spaces that we need to evolve in this area and where um that we had some of these conversations when we were adopting the East Builder subc community plan and so um what I'm struggling with right now is just understanding some of the concerns around um preserving industrial space and whether we need to have mixed used housing in certain areas is is the concern that you've heard from um from community members and property owners in

[242:01] this area that we're implementing the subc commmunity plan in a way that we won't be able to achieve the vision that's laid out in the plan um because some of the concerns raised sound really familiar to the things we already talked about and I guess what I'm trying to understand is I is the is the concern with sort of the initial plan that that that was the the problem or is there is there something here that's changing that's going to prevent us from U being able to enact the plan as we um Put It Forward sure I think um some of what I am hearing in com comments in the public hearing I think that maybe opinions have evolved um with certain community members on what the vision for this area should include I think the subc

[243:01] commmunity plan and that process was pretty clear in that we looked at all of East Boulder everything north of arapajo everything um east of Foothills and said okay this is all industrial land where do we want to be intentional intentional about evolving these industrial neighborhoods into mixed use neighborhoods and that's what's really captured in the plan and I think um both the conversation in that subcommunity plan about land use and then more specifically when we look at the place types and the place type description um the vision for those to be mixed use areas to begin to introduce residential and that intention is pretty clear so um I think that maybe there's some new opposition to what's in included in the plan that's that's how I'm sort of interpreting some of what I'm hearing

[244:03] sure so I do remember let me take this out that we did discuss flexibility a lot and the word mandate is what people are complaining about and just in my mind and I didn't watch it again but I was there so I think the council we were very strong about flexibility and not mandating but I could have not remembered that correctly because I mean for me like being uh consistent with what how we started and keeping it going because businesses can't deal with like that kind of a change when you have a long-term plan so it seems like we're still far away and look at what do I know but I'm it sounds like we're far away still from not pleasing them exactly but making keeping East Boulder as um a light an industrial site as well so how

[245:03] hard would it be to work with them to make it better is that not what you want to do or I'm not I'm not meaning that in a bad way but T do you mind if I cqu on your call please uh because I agree 100% with you that we emphasize the flexibility and one of our commenters quoted me back at myself about the uh request for uh flexibility and I guess where I'm seeing that is the in the the fact that um essentially um all the area of the flat IR Business Park and 95% of the area of the subc community plan could still follow the old rules if they want to and so the decision to apply the full form form based code is a discretionary and optional one and if they choose that they'll get a lot more floor area allowed so like a substantially larger amount so they might have some incentive to adopt it but they can still follow the old rules I I think we have only fully clarified it this evening at the hearing

[246:01] yeah mayor Brockett you did you did a good you know description there and I think that's the where you know staff's position is in terms of that flexibility is that um you know that that flexibility exists because of those existing puds and site review approvals so they default to the old rules and can continue to follow those as long as they want until uh until such time as as a property owner might choose to come into the form-based code so we believe that flexibility still exists and even when you come into the form base code um or you use that there is still flexibility for redevelopment up to that certain size threshold before any kind of a residential requirement would would come into play if for talking about residential specifically Nicole wanted to say something then Mark and then Tina yeah I don't know if it's like a triple col or it's just coming back to my original question uh but but this this idea of flexibility I mean as I understood it at the time that we were approving the East

[247:01] Boulder subc Community Plan it it was really that you know there's flexibility that if you want to do the new things you can or you can keep doing what you've already been doing it wasn't like a a flexibility and you can do you know if you want to put an outdoor water park there you can right it it was really like it the flexibility was meant to be you have a choice and whether you follow these new things or not um is that correct yeah I think that is correct and I think that's how we're applying the form base code thank you that's the end of my triple call Mark you want to go for four quadruple yeah yes I I'll cqu on the cqu on the um and yet we sit here and every uh speaker representing the business Community uh a is not feeling terribly heard and B is not feeling very secure

[248:00] in what we are describing as this great flexibility to take path a versus path B um I am particularly concerned with restrictions that we're putting upon R&D facilities that don't belong there in other words requiring first floor extraneous businesses when they want single tency buildings and if they can't get them here they'll get them elsewhere Lafayette will be more than happy to uh provide them with the the bases for single tency buildings and many other communities will do the same um and so there is much much that is very very good in this plan and I don't want to misrepresent it but I don't think it has really met the guidelines of flexibility and optionality that we

[249:00] requested uh in the prior two meetings and I would like to see uh because that while it's nice to get it done we will get it done but I don't think it would harm any body if there was some further conversation between the stakeholders and staff as to how this is going to work how we can smooth out some of these rough spots um and how we can actually create that uh flexibility and optionality um uh we're saying it's there but they're saying they don't feel it's there so somebody is right and somebody's wrong I'd like to see some further conversation to flesh out these issues and um if you can make the business Community relatively uh happy that they have a path to do whatever they need to do in in a an appropriate way um all the

[250:01] better but if not I'd like there to be some serious conversation between the parties to see where compromise is possible and and certainly to get rid of requirements that um make those single use R&D facilities simply not feasible that's that's we cannot impose upon those developers our desire for a small affordable commercial space that's not their mission that may be our mission but it's not theirs and since they won't be capable of developing those properties under those circumstances ansers we're going to be the losers in the end so I'd like to see some continued conversation thanks Tina then Lauren uh do mind have Lauren jumps the que for cqu I guess so when we talked about this

[251:00] I do remember us putting a lot of emphasis on wanting to make sure that um kind of that smaller affordable industrial space um was kept around and I do appreciate the effort that has been taken to to find ways to do that I guess I was wondering are there any other methods you looked at for instance um you know I I personally wonder about having a fee if the if they can't provide or don't want to provide this kind of space that might help make um that could go into a fund for making that commercial space like a commercial affordability fund for keeping other businesses in the area or something like that can I col on your col go ahead okay well you uh so yeah Lauren we so we believe that um as far as you know

[252:00] continuing and maintaining those smaller production spaces in the future is is going to take more than one tool right and and neither NE none of them are going to be a silver bullet so this is the first attempt to at least identif ify a physical space requirement I think your notion around some sort of um you know affordable commercial fee and and a program that would support those local businesses is certainly another factor and and I know the city and our community Vitality Department are continuing to work through a pilot program um for that and explore that as an option in the future we've also discussed the opportunity for a improvement district or something similar um in that vein particularly in the 55th and AAP host station area so that might also be another um opportunity or mechanism that could host those dollars and then redistribute them in in the the location where we want them to so we have explored a couple different um scenarios as to you know how do we continue to support these businesses going forward um and again

[253:02] this is this is sort of the first attempt to at least Define the the physical space because if you lose the physical space you can have all the money in the world and and you won't be able to you know support those businesses because there won't be a location to put them yeah um I think that's actually a pretty good idea um I think it it warrants exploration um I I've been a big advocate of trying to preserve existing uh industrial uses uh in the area uh and fearing that they would be priced out by more expensive uses so I think that that's a very interesting suggestion but having made it now we need to analyze it and talk about it and not really vote on it at 1010 um on a Thursday night I I just don't think it's ready for that kind of decision and I'd like to get the parties back in a room and talking about things such as

[254:01] that among other things um and making sure that the final product is consistent with our initial direction to provide that uh fality and and uh flexibility and to make sure that we can actually build these buildings that we we need to build for our economic Vitality appreciate that Mark so Tina's been waiting and Nicole's a question then I I want to S have a suggestion for the framing the further discussion thank you and I'll welcome a framework as well um so I have a question just around the when we heard from businesses about some concerns about the code were they largely in the flat iron Office Park or did we also hear similar concerns from the area around Koga in the station area and the the third area I would say primarily the the voices we've heard have have come from the flat irons Business Park we have talked to a couple property owners

[255:01] in the in the 55th and arapo station area actually spoke to one of them this morning as a matter of fact to clarify a lot of these questions and and um he seemed um you know content and to understand particularly the the fact that with those PUD and sight review approvals the form base code doesn't apply um I will also just mention that there is um you know currently a residential project being proposed in this particular area right at the northeast corner of 55th and arapo that is very much looking forward to the form based code because it provides them with the flexibility for their residential Focus project um that they're interested in moving forward with so I mean the one comment I'll make and um and I don't know what course we're going to pursue the rest of the night but the original visioning and if you look at the picture with the people on the street and the park that is definitely something we've talked a lot about that we want to create and when I think about the Koga area it it's perfect for that the flat

[256:01] iron Park area it's very difficult to Overlay that onto that which is fine um but I don't want to lose that Vision with whatever we end up so making sure that if we make any changes to make it easier for the flat irons Park area that we still have a really strong um incentive to come out with this outcome in the other areas so that would be my only thought when we're talking about this cool yeah um this may sort of be a two-part question for asking now and again um later but it's really a question for for staff and um you know we we have a really Ambi ious work plan and we put a lot on the planning department um we're talking now about potentially having further conversation further work on this issue more engagement more consideration of changes does that have any impact on our other priorities or anything in the

[257:00] Citywide strategic plan um because we we made it a priority to accelerate a lot of that work um and I'm just wondering if there are any impacts to think about as we consider whether we want to have more on this area good evening uh Brad Mueller planning and development services uh director you know there are always impacts to to workload and and trade-offs in that regard um if there were additional conversations I'm I'm sure we would very work very hard to try to make that a very discret set of conversations with deadlines and that type of thing um we do have a uh you all have a very ambitious January February already kind of kicking into the future um so it's a little hard to predict exactly what that means uh uh Kathleen for example is primary on the comp plan update and of course we'll be going heavy into that but uh we're here to serve a council's pleasure and we will make things

[258:01] work great excellent question Nicole so um what I'd like to do is pause because I think we have a couple of potential outcomes here to tonight and one of them is to um say okay we need to work through a few more of these things go back out work with the community and then bring this back to us at some point in the future another one would be to uh make a few targeted changes uh tonight and pass pass the ordinance with a few targeted changes and I'll say if we take that second approach it would not we could still take a couple of issues and and ask for them to come back at a later time so I'm just thinking like the production requirement um is seeming to be potentially thorny Lauren has an alternative idea one option is if we move forward tonight we could uh remove that section and then ask staff to come back and say hey a little later Could you um come back with us maybe with some choices uh that include maybe uh Lauren's idea so that that would be one yes you you may

[259:00] Mark 15 and we're we're about to engage in a process of substantial legislating and decision making and at a very late hour of the evening which is why I advocate for uh letting the impacted parties have a little bit of conversation I don't know that it requires a whole new round of community engagement these are technical issues raised by technical uh users and developers and we have enough um study sessions so that if necessary we can probably drop one and and put this in its place along with other things that we're um uh working on so I I really urge us not to be making that kind of legislative decision at at this hour um we do it all the time but I I urge us not to do it tonight Fair Point well

[260:02] I'll I'll just as a to take on an advocacy uh position there I I feel like um we could take three key issues and address them tonight put a couple of things off and get it done relatively quickly so i' I'd like to put it out to council and see which approach people would like to take a deferring of the whole thing or getting something potentially pass Nicole did you want to speak to that yes um I really hate deferring it it means so much more work for you Lauren uh Erin Mark CAC but also staff um just even with the scheduling uh change and also um a lot of these changes kind of came in at relatively you know the last minute I have not had a lot of time to think about them or understand them um so I would prefer to wait um it even though I really don't love the idea of delaying um so that that's that's where I'm coming from um and I can may I ask you one question

[261:01] about the proposal and and Mark as well um would if if we were to talk through any changes would we want planning board to review those as well or would it just be us reviewing again um so it just like one because that they weighed in on this one too yeah so I what I would say is I I just I I don't think we would necessarily need planning boards inent but if folks feel like we need to have have more time that's fine but what's that no I believe it's part of the form base code if we change the map not the we could clarify that okay but maybe I could just get a straw pull because I'd like direction from Council so that we can then figure out exactly how we're approaching so um who would like to defer it to a later time just raise your hand so we got a we got a five we got a five on that one so um I think we'll be deferring to a later time and so then what I would like people to do is whatever key issues they feel like

[262:01] should be weighed in on uh please make a brief statement of what those key issues are so they can be considered before it comes back to us we've already heard that the production space um is one of those key issues ues I've got a couple others um yeah Matt I just want to clarify if and this may be a question for Teresa if we defer does this I think because it was sort of asked but let's verify does this have to go to planning board uh no I don't believe it would need to go back to the planning board you would need to um continue to a date certain um but I to my knowledge it would not need to go back to planning board I'm just trying to look correct yeah I'm just trying to ask like do we get to control the schedule Cadence of this or not and if I could ask a specific question additional question around that I think one of the changes that we're potentially looking at that I'll include in mine is um in the regulating plan for

[263:00] the flat IR Business Park uh making the entire area the flex area that would allow both housing and um the workshop type and would that require a planning board Changers that just within the form base code um the the form based code is is code so you're the only decision-making Authority on that um one thing to consider is whether or not that's then consistent with the area plan generally zoning should be consistent with Comprehensive and area plans um but that said there's also been some legislation that it is not binding it it's not legisl legislation itself you might consider other things and your deliberations but um it's one of the things to consider and if the legislation was challenged how it is consistent with those plans okay thank you so I guess just while I have the floor in terms of key issues um so we

[264:00] talked about the production space um I'd want to at least look at um the the possibility of allowing the workshop type in the flat IRS business park on the West Side um that's something you could maybe it's not fully compatible and so maybe You' be interested in hearing about that um and then I've heard concern about the um to the extent practicable language um so if there's any way to make that a little bit more definitive in terms of uh what exemptions people could ask for that might be helpful um and the last uh oh and and then the um working on the production space um when we do come back to that if an ability for the council to weigh in on whether to Grant an exemption through some call up process you know we we just got a 10-page uh brief on the various issues that need to be discussed t i I would

[265:00] like to see the parties just have their conversation knock them out as best they can uh and bring back to us a a resolution on hopefully all of them uh or if any of them have to be decided by us uh we will then do that but I I I I don't know that they you can keep it to to the four issues when I'm looking at Warren peace here I met Warren he's a very nice guy um point taken Mark but also if there are any key issues that any of us have in our mind that we really think should be addressed then I think it would be remiss of us to not highlight them now okay and i' I've got mine highlighted I'm done does anybody El want to raise any more TAA you got your hand up I was just going to Echo your concerns around the um the production type and specifically the workshops and the I'm just clarification of language as much as possible I'm sorry clarification what of some of the language that we that you

[266:01] had talked about around just um or or rather one of our the commenters talked about I'm sorry it is um 1120 so I'm to which to which point Teresa reminds me that we need to do a time check so um I think we're close to wrapping up here I think on this agenda item so I would just invite if anybody else has some key issue that has not been mentioned yet that you want to get on the table I would ask you to do it quickly Lauren and Mark Matt oh um I guess I would just like to also bring up in my hotline there were a number of potential streamlining things for the form based code um and those are still they may not be as high a priority as some of these other things but those are still things that I would be interested in having addressed Matt um well I appreciate you thr that um one thing Lauren recommended

[267:00] which I think is a huge plus one is the opt-in site review to me that is a golden gem of an option for flexibility versus predictability so i' love that to get noodled oh I I just oh we already have it they already have that option because they have an existing PUD or site review approval so they default to site review so that flexibility already exists I just want to clear that up my one thing I want to bring up wait process question Erin should we just all email this or I I feel like we should send staff with a if we have something really pressing but hopefully we can do it very quickly of any remaining issues this is just a plug for the future because as we expand form based code which we are likely to do there probably will be areas where that is not the case and in the future I would like us to consider that as an option thank you um thank you uh so the one thing is with regards to ground floor retail and some of that requirement retail is struggling and Vanishing and I'm not

[268:00] sure building more space is what will save it um so just I I'm a little worried about that piece and and how we mandate that because that may not be empty retail space ends up being gangrenous blight which affects the uh Vitality of an area so I just want to be mindful of forcing that creation ter triple ditto I actually lose sleep on worrying about the empty retail space on the ground floor if you can believe it so I agree with that also I heard a lot of random things tonight that were very important to me but like Nicole said I didn't have time to study it one page had about pitched roofs that was very interesting also if you reach a certain size in your build does that mean you have to have you have to build housing is that what was said no okay so that's okay I mean not

[269:02] not if you like to why I need time to okay you know what I mean just even a night well we're going to get a few months so okay so not seeing any other hands uh we we're handing you a whole bunch of stuff to deal with um Brad do you have a suggestion for what we might do for continuing to a date certain I I do and and maybe to lay out a vision of how we can maybe implement this it's a little free form of course so we'll we'll tweak it but um it's beneficial as um Teresa mentioned to continue to a date certain that means it doesn't get uh Ren noticed and people can anticipate it uh February 20th would be a good date if Council was so in inclined and you could continue it to then under that kind of time frame I would see us uh compiling the uh information that we've gotten over the last two days uh which you've made reference to in large part uh council

[270:01] members along with the discussion today try to distill that to some discrete points and ask um the major stakeholders who've been engaged and and do a little bit of outright to those who have not um to engage on those specific points uh and clarifications by kind of mid January so that we would be able to get that compiled in a way that's productive for you all thanks that's very helpful Brad would somebody like to make a motion about continuing the meeting I move to continue the meeting to the date oh to that oh February 20th February 21 20th 20th thanks second all right all in favor of continue meeting to February 20th raise your hand got I seven okay Ty Ryan we're down okay so the the meeting will be continued um I want to think uh staff

[271:02] you done extraordinary work to get us to this point U there is a little bit more work to be done here it seems um but I want to appreciate how much you've done to get us this to this point and the the end is in sight so looking forward to getting there soon so uh we need to move on to our last couple items traca is it right that we need to have a motion to do start 30 um no you can take a matter up it's if the meeting is going to go past 11 that you need a vote of two3 thanks very much

[272:01] okay we got two items left hopefully we can do both of them really quickly uh Elicia if he can take us to our matters items please yes sir thank you our next item on the night's agenda is item number 8A Matters from the mayor and members of council it is the council Retreat subcommittee midterm check-in plan Nicole do you want to introduce this um yes yeah and Tara and I had done a script I think we're gonna go off script and just try to get through this faster because we did it for 15 minutes and I don't know that all of us want us to get through that but um Tara do you want to just start with um some of the uh basic planning items and then I will r the agenda and then we'll have some questions for folks I was going to yeah just for time okay here are the basics um we picked February we meaning the committee picked uh February 27th so instead of a study session we would have our midterm check-in it's number one number two in

[273:02] council chambers number three we will email you whether you'd rather have a 4:30 or 5:00 p.m. start time the duration is 5 5 hours we're going to eat dinner in the middle uh because we all will need a break and the Very beloved Heather Burgman will serve as our facilitator because we most definitely need one to stay on track all right um for the agenda we're thinking about four main sections uh with the first and last sections being fairly short there would just be an opening exercise some kind of General learning um we will find something that is Meaningful um and interactive and informative uh not just like what's your favorite flavor of ice cream kind of thing um the second part would be a progress update on our city council priority projects um staff would share out updates on the progress of each Council priority project and then we would have the opportunity for questions and discussion um then the next the third section would be the Citywide

[274:00] strategic plan check-in um at the last midterm check-in all the department heads gave updates on the priority work in their Department um and this section would be kind of similar to that focusing on projects related to the Citywide strategic plan um that was one of everybody's favorite parts of the last midterm check-in and then um this section would be led by the city manager's office with support from Department directors and we would again have the opportunity for questions and discussions the last section of the meeting would be um relatively shorter again focused on the future Retreat calendar just for us to have a discussion on that the switch to even-year elections in 2026 is going to create a one-year Council um we'd like to use the last 15 or so minutes of the retreat to provide the upcoming Retreat calendar uh that we're envisioning due to this switch to um eveny year election calendar shift so Tara's going to kick off the questions with that in

[275:04] mind thanks for that explanation so you're taking questions yeah um first question is can I add one one qualif they're supposed to be Qui so just like raise of hands is kind of what we're looking for we're not we're just kind of getting temperature on how people are feeling about this um you know I'm now looking at our our original so I don't have the other sheet in front of me unless you could send it to me real quick I think it's still Shar let me okay I I can send it but maybe while we do that um I think Lauren you said you had a question yep just a quick one can you send out that agenda to us in an email email so that we can process it more than I'm capable of right in this moment and yeah I might follow up on that because I'm this is all auditory processing um so maybe maybe a Next Step could be to send us this we could provide feedback via email do you want us to just do that for the questions

[276:01] then and not ask you them right now yes yeah that's what I'm thinking okay that would that work Nicole um I think so but I think there's Al also maybe one or two questions that might be good to get a read on not necessarily all of them but um one is just around uh since we're not identifying new priorities because we filled staff's plate with our two-year Council priorities do folks agree that this the really the purpose of this Retreat is to check in on progress and scope um of things that we already identified so we just we just wanted to make sure that we got a little off track at the last mtion a trait about that is that folks raise your hands if that generally I'm okay with the check-in unless there's something that we're reacting to in the February time frame that we becomes a priority yeah it's good yeah that's a great Point thank you um okay I'm generally seeing hands

[277:02] we can I think the rest of them Tara do you agree they don't necessarily need ask it might have been just one other one do you know which one [Music] um just give me one second um I feel would number three would members of council rather cover all the priorities so we have the option of covering all the priorities for all of our priorities and if we do that we won't have enough time to discuss the the details of each so in other words if we talk about where we are at with all the priorities we won't be able to get into a lot of Q&A like we'll have to just have a very minimal discussion of the most important questions but if we discuss just a few of our top priorities and we would send you an email and you would tell us what they are we would give you options of what like we would say what are your top

[278:01] three priorities you want to talk about then we can talk in detail about those um three let's just say versus covering them all and having less discussion I think we should cover them all I think it's going to be a task to try to get us to all agree on some small number this should be an executive discussion about what is it going to take to be successful in the 10 or 11 and that's the discussion I think we should avoid getting too much into the Weeds on the substance this should be an executive discussion about what is it going to take to be successful on all 11 10 or I think it's 11 opposing I agree with that no opposed any oppos okay cool yeah thank you that's that is helpful um and yeah and everything else we can th those were the two substantive ones oh well yeah just an even split between the council priorities and the Citywide strategic plan we can also ask that when we send

[279:01] the the draft agenda too maybe a little more time on Council priorties since those are the ones we're weighing in on directly okay we really don't have any other questions this is Taisha yes Taisha thank you um I to the question that you just asked Nicole about the um City versus C council plan and if anything I'm looking for the areas of alignment and maybe prioritizing a look at those areas that cross and then looking at them separate if there's any if there are across I I I really would love us not to see them as two separate plans but really looking for those areas of overlap and Alignment thank you s do you need anything else for us no I wanted to just raise the question of um letters from boards and commissions I've heard chatter about um uh are are we asking boards and commissions to provide letters I'm not sure if this is the right time it seems like this might might be so I guess I'd

[280:00] ask your permission Nicole or Tara can I okay then I would suggest I think it was about this time I'm not sure when it was last year but um this came up and now I've heard at least a couple of uh through board members saying they've heard council is not asking them for letters this year I don't think I've been a part of a discussion that that says they're not um I have a view on what what I think we should do it's just my view I think do think we should offer um uh we would say we should tell boards and commissions that we will gladly accept um their letters and give them some guidance on how to do that um either way I think we should we should clarify what we're expecting of boards and commissions they meet I think most of themth well it's different but some of them monthly is takes time for them to get together and and write a letter I think we'll learn from them they're are experts we don't have a lot of Engagement with our boards and commissions so I would propose that we just make a decision to say something along those lines to boards and commissions we invite your optional letter to us if you like so just wanted to raise that and I I think just just

[281:02] one question I have is what's the um typically when they've sent us letters and when we've asked them it's when we when we are using them to inform our work plan priority discussion at the main Retreat um at the midterm check-in do you have a sense of the kinds of things that you would want to know from that and I guess if if that's something that you know everybody would would like us to have um you could certainly send us uh ideas on the kinds of things you'd like to ask for um and we could talk about that at our next meeting um in two weeks I think um and then bring that back with a followup too but just what's the what are we asking them for I would just offer briefly as an idea it could be as simple as you are our subject matter experts that we have appointed you to to this work for tell us what you think we need to know and we could also direct that more we could say we've got our priorities can you give advice on you know what you're seeing

[282:00] how how to make them successful it it could be that specific but I think as as general as you are our experts we don't talk to you that much what what what would you like us to know and I think this would serve the goal both of helping us become more informed possibly about blind spots but also to serve with Recruitment and Retention and making sure that they're they're engaged in our policym yeah it's well said Ryan but I wonder if we could give any additional feedback on what that letter might look like offline or their request okay right yeah um so if I could make a suggestion uh I heard a request to send the agenda out I would suggest that staff do that and that you provide feedback to staff so that we don't have an open meetings issue um and and similarly um we shouldn't have a me sorry sorry sorry it's late let me

[283:02] phrase it a different way um uh similarly when we are trying to formulate what you all would like from boards and commissions um that either needs to be an out loud conversation here or perhaps you could send ideas to a staff member who could try to um marry those up or or something sounds good so maybe um Nicole and Terry you can follow up with a staff member on getting that going okay is that good enough for tonight all right thanks for working on that all right we got one more and you 38 so let's see if we can be super quick all right sir our next item our last item is item 8B it is the ranking proposed priority items for the Boulder County Regional homelessness working group Lauren you want to take that away and I believe we have one slide we fancy Megs is

[284:02] fancy um so thank you all so much for responding to this hotline um we have tabulated or staff has because it was yes um staff tabulate Megs in particular went through our responses and this is the order that um we have come to based on the average of that the only thing that switched is items five and six um from the order that was suggested you mean five switch was six yes um so assuming that everyone feels good about that I will be taking the ranking these and bringing them to the working group thank you for

[285:04] participating yes okay so this is like a question slash comment um why are we participating in this and what do we aim to get out of it I I'm I mean the work that you and Kurt and others doing is is great I'm just kind of disappointed that this doesn't really seem to address homelessness it seems to address housing which is a part of it but not the critical and acute issues of homelessness that our community is facing it doesn't address the here and the now it largely has recommendations that are four five 10 years down the road and most of them don't create any local or Regional accountability to driving our own solutions they all rely on someone else to solve it for us um there's nothing about basic needs nothing about Sheltering and the rent assistance is someone else figure it out

[286:01] for us I I I don't know what we're I don't know what this is um I hate to be so pessimistic about it but I'm just sort of wondering why we're spinning in the trade winds and wonder why we're not going anywhere so I I don't know if that's I don't know that's just I don't know I think that's a fair question um and I personally have some concerns with how the you know this there are a number of other cities and we are all ranking these items and then top two or three are going to be the ones that we work on so depending on what those are I think that it may become a bigger question of I may be coming back and asking if it makes sense for us to continue but at this point we don't know what the top two are going to be and I think that there is potential that there is something there that will be interesting enough to make it make sense for us to continue at this time yeah excellent question Matt um laen I appreciate you bringing this

[287:01] forward and doing the work to participate in this and if it turns out not to be worth our while then maybe it won't be worth our while okay good enough any any objections to the the order presented I'm not not seeing any okay uh thanks to Kurt fower for staying with us all the way till the end uh to be here for that much appreciated so that wraps us up um that's the end of our agenda sorry Ryan did you have something uh real real quick I promised it earlier real quick I just wanted to clarify the record on something I said on our November 21st meeting on the area 3 discussion I mean made a comment about something that's very important and I said the opposite of what I meant so I just want this to be clear I said I think we have plenty of housing in our already developed areas and what I meant to say was I think we had plenty of capacity for more housing in our already developed areas I followed up with uh Teresa Nur and others after the meeting but I just wanted to make sure this is

[288:01] clear because it's very important thank you consider the record corrected all right well thanks everybody um we're 43 we're way over time but thank thanks for stick sticking with us good night

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