Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[4:53] good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's study session of the Boulder City Council I'm mayor proem fulker

[5:00] and I want to thank you all for joining us on tonight's agenda we have three items our first will be the vision zero action plan and Signal practices update our second will be water-wise landscaping and Wildfire hardening updates which is sort of two different items and our third is a discussion to reaffirm council's commitment to council rules of procedure before we go into our work I'm going to outline how the meeting will be contracted we will review the staff's presentation and then have time for questions um and after that we will um give our comments I would like to now turn it over to city manager Nuria Rivera man Vander mind to introduce our first item thank you so much mayor protm uh farts uh our first item actually is uh something that has been worked on for quite a while and came up up at your

[6:00] last retweet we were talking a little bit about the work uh that our transportation and Mobility team um had already been planning and been working on in terms of the traffic signal practices manual and some updates there it had been of interest to council and so today uh we're going to be discussing that a little bit and sort of hoping to get a little bit of feedback uh and your comments on some of the work that is anticipated ahead so with that I will pass it to our uh principal traffic engineer Devon Johnson Joslin uh who will take us through it sorry Devon no problem thank you naria and I believe the clerk's office is going to have the presentation up thank you well good evening mayor Brockett and members of council uh as nura said my name is Devon Joslin I'm the city's principal traffic engineer the purpose of tonight's presentation is to orient you to the signal timing practices and how they are planned to be updated in

[7:00] accordance with the actions identified in the vision zero action plan the practices are an operational and Technical document used internally by City staff to guide decisions related to the planning design construction operations and maintenance of the traffic signal system consistent with the authority delegated to the principal traffic engineer as outlined in the boulder Revised Code as such it is anticipated that City staff and a consultant will collaborate to complete the updates the transportation Advisory Board and city council will receive periodic updates as work progresses next slide I'll cover six main things tonight which include an overview of the signal practices the vision zero context related to crashes occurring at signals the success staff has had implementing the signal practices the state of the existing signal system and the items

[8:00] that staff have been considering relative to the scope of work for the signal practices update next slide when Engineers within the transportation operations team go about updating internal practices as will be the case with this update there are many things we consider to help guide the complex Technical and Engineering decisions that are required some items we consider are highlighted on this slide and include such things as National Best Practices industry or peer agency research technological advancements crash data Trends to inform how how to focus our limited resources to get the most return on investment multimodal data to understand the potential for risk and exposure to conflicts during each signal cycle and the visibility of users traveling through the intersection implementation feasibility to understand the level of complexity or

[9:00] costs associated with making changes next slide in 2018 a signal practices document was developed as an internal technical document for City staff to use to efficiently and consistently make decisions based on established engineering and asset management principles the action items in the vision zero action plan related to the signal practices up focus on updates to topics covered within the operations section this section is what details how the city determin such things as left turn phasing right turn on red restrictions and leading pedestrian intervals and these topic areas are what correspond most closely to the crash types that frequently occur at signals next slide as mentioned the signal timing practices update is focused on

[10:00] addressing a subset of severe crashes that occur at signalized intersections review of the most recent four years of severe crash data indicates that 37% of all severe crashes occur at signalized intersections this equates to about 18 severe crashes per year at signals and 30 severe crashes per year occurring at other locations next slide there are nine main crash types that resulted in severe crashes During the period from 2020 through 2023 as detailed in the pie chart shown on the slide there have been an average of just over eight severe crashes per year attributed to making left turns at signalized intersections making it the most common crash type there have been an average of five severe crashes per year attributed to Red Light running making it the second most common crash

[11:01] type the remaining seven crash types at signalized intersections result in a total of approximately five severe crashes per year note that all severe crashes involving right turn movements result in less than two severe crashes per year on average specifically severe crashes resulting from right turns on red are very low Citywide at an average of 0 0.5 severe crashes per year on average next slide looking again at the overall Citywide annual severe crash picture left turn related crashes at signals currently make up about 177% of all annual severe crashes 8 out of 48 per year on average the update to the practices is focused on driving down that number but you can see that even eliminating all

[12:00] left turn severe crashes would leave a significant amount of work to be done to reach zero that is why the transportation and mobility department must take a multifaceted engineering and systems-based approach to getting to zero and why no one single action will get us there a datadriven approach assures that our limited resources are invested in ways that will be most impactful next slide the ongoing evaluation of before and after crash data since 2012 associated with the Strategic implementation of left turn phasing changes shows that there has been a 68% decrease in the total number of left turn crashes at signalized intersections the progress made since 2012 has been significant and demonstrates that the Strategic and focused approach to implementing signal timing and phasing changes has served the community well and been

[13:02] successful next slide thank you I will now briefly describe the current state of the overall signal system with respect to the type of left turn phasing or roadway geometry that is present across the city there are a total of 146 traffic signals that control theic movements and there are 494 intersection approaches where the signal controls left turn movements the key takeaway from this slide is that 48% of the existing signal system does not support quick or easy implementation of left turn phasing changes be it to protected only all the time or another type of left turn phasing such as permitted phasing that uses a flashing yellow arrow

[14:01] indication the work required to make every intersection approach compatible with protected left turn phasing would be quite costly and timec consuming to complete as noted in the memo the cost is estimated at a minimum of $ 12.5 million in today's dollars the other interesting thing to note from this slide is that currently only 7% of signalized intersection approaches across the system operate with protected only left turn phasing at all times despite this there are very few intersections remaining across the system that have a crash pattern that would be correctable by a change to the type of left turn phasing next slide this slide illustrates one example of the limitations of the signal system or roadway infrastructure that would would make implementing changes to

[15:01] protected left turn phasing more broadly across the system challenging this example shows the eastbound left turn movement at the intersection of Canyon Boulevard and 15th Street this left turn currently operates with permitted only left turn phasing at all times as indicated with a circular green ball indication as you can see the signal Mast arm does not extend over the left turn lane this means that to implement a different type of left turn phasing the traffic signal pull and Mast arm for this approach would need to be reconstructed to extend the arm over the left turn lane and to make it strong enough to support the additional signal heads needed to indicate the left turn phasing next Slide the main topics intended to be updated in the operations section include practices related to left turn phasing right turn on red and leading

[16:01] pedestrian intervals as well as considerations for the installation of accessible pedestrian signals and coordination of pedestrian signals many of these topics correspond to Vision zero action plan actions or or were identified as priority topics to update from this year's effort to update The Pedestrian Crossing treatment installation guidelines as noted focused and strategic implementation a of the current signal practices particularly those related to left turn phasing have led to significant crash reduction yet crashes involving left turns at signals continue to represent approximately 15 to 20% of severe crashes Citywide thus there will be a key focus on updating the practice for left turn phasing as this remains an area in which the most severe crash reduction can be achieved next slide

[17:01] for each topic area that is planned to be updated the scope of work will strive to understand the various levers that can be adjusted and the technical considerations costs and expected crash reduction impacts of doing so items that will be considered in detail are expected to include such things as existing City policy the need for new practices a review and assessment of evaluation criteria a review of tradeoffs related to things like cycle lengths Q lengths signal coordination potential changes and travel patterns and the potential for other crash types to occur as a result of changes made to reduce another crash type a review of technological advancements particularly with with Excuse me with respect to the various ways in which left turn phasing can be programmed and operated to mitigate conflicts between users

[18:01] um the extent to which geometric or other changes might be feasible and finally a prioritization methodology that thoughtfully considers such things as the extent to which the evaluation criteria are met the cost and staff time to implement the ability to coordinate enhancements with upcoming projects or maintenance activities Equity Focus indicators and grant program eligibility next slide there are a number of existing policies that guide the operational practices of our department the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan sets the community's core values and long-term Vision along with a number of policies the policies in the transportation section generally reflect the focus areas of the city's TMP and the adopted Boulder County TMP the bbcp is the umbrella for our departmental plans like our 2019 TMP

[19:00] that provides guidance on how to operationalize things like Vision zero and provides targets for specific measures like reducing single occupant automobile trips and vehicle miles traveled the policy related to Transportation safety is shown on the slide and states that the city and Boulder County recognize safety for people of all ages using any mode within the transportation system as a fundamental Al goal the policy emphasizes the importance of focusing on Crash Trends and mitigation strategies identified in the Safe Streets Boulder report next slide as we consider the scope of work for this update we are referencing policy guidance in our TMP as well as pedestrian plan and low stress walk and bike Network plan on the screen here you can see snapshots of how these plans look lay out the framework for how we plan to

[20:00] approach this update of our signal practices in addition to our vision zero action plan and highrisk network these plans detail methodologies that were used to identify pedestrian Improvement areas and to focus on intersections and Signal timing practices that facilitate multimodal Improvement next slide another key aspect of the scope of work is the deliverables that will be expected to be produced anticipated deliverables are envisioned to include such things as updating outdated references to existing policy documents in the current signal practices documentation of current research and best practices related to relevant topic areas revised evaluation criteria revised decision-making flowcharts and matrices tabulation of intersection approaches where changes to left turn phasing leading pedestrian intervals and

[21:01] no right turn on red are recommended development of a prioritization methodology and cost estimates to understand the implementation schedule and total cost of unfunded needs next Slide the takeaways are that continuing to understand crash causes and corresponding counter measures is key to determining how to lower how lower cost engineering Sol solutions that separate users in time can balance many trade-offs and have a positive impact on achieving Vision zero next slide following tonight's discussion with city council staff plans to begin a process early next year to select a consultant to assist with this work at that point we would negotiate with consult with the consultant to finalize the scope of work schedule and budget being sure to consider Tab and Council feedback received as work progresses

[22:01] staff will provide Tab and council with periodic progress updates with the goal of completing the practices update by late uh quarter 3 2025 toward the end of next year work would begin to implement lowcost changes such as reprogramming of left turn phasing at high-risk Network intersections where recommended next slide uh this concludes the presentation ation and I look forward to hearing your feedback and answering your questions and it looks like the questions have been posted in the chat for reference thank you very much thank you so much for that presentation um let's see it looks like we have Ryan ready to kick us off with questions thank you Devon to you and the team um just one question Lauren should I I assume I'll just take the I'll do the first question and then I'm not

[23:00] going to do all three at this point I'm just GNA take the first question is that right there's three items for us I'm just going to take the first one and then let others take the first one um I was thinking that this would be more just generically questions about the presentation right um and then I think we could answer all three together when we get to answering staff's questions right sorry I was on I was on staff's questions to us so I'm on the first question of her staff so sorry if I'm out of order um should I ask should I address the qu the first question in the slide for us about do we have questions sure yeah okay so sorry to make that confusing um Devon thank you um so I have just a question or two um at the high level of intent um you talked quite a bit about the the vision zero and the safety aspects of it but I I know there there are other goals too I understand there other goals um I

[24:02] understand historically level of service is um you know throughput of vehicles you could maybe explain it better than me but um that's that's actually something that that is maybe drives our decisions more primarily or at least at least historically but I I'm just kind of um that's my sense so I'm just curious can can you say more about the goals excuse me goals overall of signals um the size Vision zero just to give a sense of the um you know the kind of whole set of goals we should be thinking about that you're trying to manage yeah thanks for that question Ryan I I think I understand it um I mean I think if you think of the signal system as a system um I mentioned there are over 150 signals throughout the city um so that is a it it they represent um

[25:03] a point along the transportation system where many users uh pass through every day in many different modes of travel and so there for that reason there are a lot of considerations that go into how the signals operate um and it while safety is of course Paramount and and of importance toward our vision zero goal um we understand that there are other considerations and some of those are you know the Comfort level for people as they're crossing the street um some of those are how how buses are moving through intersections efficiently or not um so those are really a lot of the considerations um that we're weighing in this practice update but but it's really the safety data that has driven us to those topic areas that we intend to focus on most closely okay I guess I'm wondering about

[26:01] the the constraints with these safety goals for example is level of service a goal like is that is that's something that we're that is a goal that we're kind of constrained by in a sense or is level of service not something we're constrained by yeah I mean it it is a consideration but I think it's one that as we work on the core arterial Network we are challenging ourselves to look at differently and we are looking at how the system can be transformed again for all users um so I I think I'll I'll leave it at that now but yeah fine okay then I'm good for now I'll leave the rest for yeah the next ones thank you so much sure Hina hi um thank you for providing all the information about um traffic signals and I had the first question was um just in terms of the volume of uh pedestrians bik ERS cars Etc that move through

[27:00] Boulder and our crash rate how do we compare um with other cities that have the similar type of movement uh through it streets and city that is a good question I I don't have the exact numbers at my fingertips but um there was a prior memo that we had issued and I don't remember if it was to the to tab or to council but we looked at how Boulder is performing relative to other cities and in terms of Crash rates um Boulder was I think second best in the region uh only behind Arvada in terms of the crash rate okay um and then and I'd love to you know hear more about that just so I can you know we can kind of Benchmark with how we're doing and are we when are we falling behind um also do we know how many of the severe gashes um resulted in

[28:00] the death of a person I yeah I don't have that data available at my fingertips either but historically across the city um we have between like zero and five fatal crashes in a year okay so if you were to do a a proportion but I but i' I'd have to look into that further to get you a clear answer okay and then I have just one last question which is um how do we we have a lot of new people come into our town every year because of Cu in part um you know we have I think between a a few thousand and how do we think about um how some of the traffic technology that we use might feel different to them like a you know two flashing yellows that you find over by the whole food or the flashing yellow lights that um are in some parts of town

[29:02] but not as many as there used to be um how do we think about those uh changes like do we draw in that part of the community so that they become familiar with what might be unfamiliar unfamiliar signaling yeah that's a great question and I think I think we've been very fortunate in that um really a lot of areas of the country have caught on to to that flashing yellow Arrow um so I think that is not something that's necessarily new to people anymore regardless of where they come from I I can remember the first time I saw one I I honestly was confused by it this was like 20 years ago um so I was a new driver and it was you know a new technology um but I think we I think that is part of the need for the practices though right is to make sure that decisions are made consistent with

[30:00] what industry Trends are what engineering best practices are and that we conform to National standards in a way that doesn't confuse people as they travel through Boulder great thank you so much thank you Tina I see Nicole up next thanks for the presentation Devon U I just had a question around the um statistic for uh severe crashes that are occurring at signalized intersections um is about 37% of all the severe crashes in the city are occurring at signalized intersections if I understood it correctly um does that 37% U differently involve pedestrians and bicyclists like is the the number of severe crashes that are um involving pedestrians or bicyclists is it different or the percentage at signalized intersections versus other areas where crashes occur

[31:00] yeah that's a very good question and I think to be quite honest because of that the the detail in it I I would need to check into it a little more okay I I do have our Safe Streets report up um and that's probably a good reference um to to check but let let me get back to you on that specific thank you thank you Nicole next up I see Mark and Tina is that uh your previous hand still up or do you have another I really just have one question uh uh is there any correlation between the occurrence of accidents and game days for the football season when we have a great influx of Out of Towners um uh people

[32:00] are uh shall we say enjoying themselves um possibly a little bit to excess so is there any uh any Factor relating to accidents and our football season not that I'm aware of um but I don't know that we've looked into that in great detail but nothing nothing stands out um that I'm aware of okay my might be interesting to check thank you Mark um and then I had a question around you know we have kind of a regular intersection with the lights that we're all used to I also noticed around town we have a lot of um kind of pedestrian Crossing with specialized lights and for me sometimes when I'm driving those especially when I was new to Boulder those caught me by surprise a little bit or I

[33:00] wasn't sure exactly how to navigate them um is that really the best practice or would it be better to have them minic a more typical intersection um signal are you describing the the rapidly flashing yellow lights okay okay yeah th those are a a different type of cross treatment referred to as a rectangular rapid flashing Beacon and those are a a nationally used um treatment type for primarily midblock Crossings of of pedestrians so they I I realize they are different than a signal um but that flashing yellow indication is intended to convey caution and a need to yield to pedestrians if if they are crossing in the crosswalk and typically we find them to

[34:02] be relatively safe compared to other kinds of potential treatments yes yes we do um that is something that the update to The Pedestrian Crossing treatment installation guidelines um looked at and there are um National Best Practices now that do recommend um under more conditions going to a higher level of Crossing treatment type um which is more in line with a traditional um signal so so you might start to see fewer of those rrfbs and more um either traditional red yellow green signals or there's a different type of signal um that's out there that's referred to as a pedestrian hybrid Beacon signal and there there are a few of those along South Boulder Road um in Lewisville and

[35:02] and Lafayette thank you for that um seeing as I don't see any other hands I feel like we're ready to move on to question number two which is does council have any questions about the overall intent of the signal practices update as a vision zero action plan plan action wait action plan action item any questions related to that if not we could move on to item three does council have any feedback on the proposed scope of work outlined in the study session memo someone's got to have some thoughts there don't they perfect Ryan and then Nicole and then Matt okay um thank you again Devin and valer

[36:02] and team um I have a few uh suggestions for for scoping um first I'll just say um message received that there are Hardware constraints and there real Financial limits to what we can do quickly unfortunately this isn't all just computer programming so we have to be mindful about that I I hear you um so I think I have just like maybe five things here so um I we received a uh a message I think it was on December 5th from Su prant of community cycles that had proposed a kind of a way to think about the purpose overall and and it gets addressing some bigger questions like where why do we have signals in the places that we have them and who who gets um priority with coordination and how to think about that I found that me that message to be pretty compelling um as a way to think about what we're doing overall so um I really like that um so

[37:03] that's my first thought second thought um this might be something Sue touched on but I would just say more affirmatively that um I would like us to look at the goals of our signals and um I appreciate the the the significant focus on safety but I also think we should there's other goals and one of the things that often gets lost when we talk about safety is safety doesn't matter only for safety's sake although that is extremely important safety is also important to unlock access for people and the decisions we make about how say something is defines who gets to use the thing for example I have an eight-year-old kid and there are certain signals that I would let her use on her own others I wouldn't so one of the values decisions we make in these signal um engineering exercises is to decide what is the minimum age of a kid who can use the thing another one would be

[38:01] certainly somebody who's using a cane or a wheelchair or is just maybe slower than the average person um what feels comfortable and convenient for them to be able to cross so those are just a couple of examples um to try to make it Vivid that that we implicitly should care about not just safety itself but the role that comfort and um a a feeling of safety um is enables access so that's a goal I would hope would be a part of our signals um program I I think you know implicitly it it is to some extent and I would just love to see in this exercise if we could to be um deliberate about defining what are the goals um and there's you know we could dig into more on the sub parts of the access and who who gets the access but I I think we should do that obviously climate action comes from access in these in these places too so I would like to be deliberate into that you know example of level of service what yeah what do we you know I think we have seven groups of

[39:01] time signals or something like that um I would hope that we could look at that question and and um you know with all of our goals so that's the second one um the third one is who benefits yeah who benefits just that we can you know that we give some thought to um user in particular users that have perhaps um haven't you know maybe aren't drivers and haven't found it as easy to get around um outside of a vehicle um that that that this initiative um takes an equity approach and and just looks at that carefully um a another another one is that ideally I'm not sure if you're asking for this feedback but ideally this there this there would be a a transparent presentation of this at the end such that you know somebody could know um by looking at an intersection you know this is the principle or the design you know factor that that led to it um being this way um I think I'm maybe done um oh I guess

[40:04] one other thought would be uh you know part of the part this is my my last thought um that that safety safety is crucial um oftentimes we think about safety in terms of what has historically happened um with with the crash but we also of course know the probabilist probabilistic view because of the kind of environment that we understand um that's that's in front of us is is important um it's not just what what has previously happened that defines what's safe and um to that to that same extent um users who are wrestling with a an intersection or a signal um and they have specific feedback you know user feedback um we just encourage that we we make look for ways to make it really easy and and apparent for people to um to continue to contribute to our design of this as we

[41:00] go um inquire Boulder I think is excellent I use it a lot um so may maybe it's not much more than some kind of linkage with that but I'm just thinking about this the idea of Sig of creating sigal practices is partly the the plan itself but then it's also making it a living plan so that people as they go can use and contribute which I do think we do a pretty good job as a city so I just ask to kind of give that um you know a look as well um thanks again for your team and the hard work on this important work thank you for those comments Ryan uh next we have Nicole thank you um and thanks so much for the presentation I really appreciated just the thorough and very informative memo and on what we can and can't do easily and what the constraints are that we're facing so thank you for that as somebody who does not live in this Transportation uh signal World it it was very helpful um one of the things that I was just left wondering about in um thinking about approaching the scope

[42:02] of this um project is I feel like you know we are we're we have information on where the severe crashes and fatal crashes are happening what we don't necessarily know and tab picked up on this a little bit in their September discussion as well was where are people not going because it doesn't feel safe or because they've had near misses and are there ways that we can you know think about the um signal practices at other kinds of intersections I don't even know how we find those those people um in those places where these are happening but it it feels like we are missing information on where people are being dissuaded from using um some of these signalized intersections and and only focusing on the severe crashes and and I just I don't have a solution for you on how we find that information but um it it really just had me thinking about where where we're seeing people not use our

[43:00] infrastructure just because um because people don't feel safe there I think kind of to to Ryan's Point around um accessibility so as we kind of head into this project I mean I'm not asking for like a different scoping or anything like that but just a h how are we going in with um with the intention to try to get some information out around how we encourage more use um um of these of these intersections um and and the signals um because we really want people to use our non-car infrastructure and are there things that we can do with this update that would help us um get at that issue so sorry I got up early and was on a plane most of the day so if that doesn't make sense Devon I'm happy to retry it uh but really just thinking about how um we are missing some information that we're not getting because crashes aren't happening but that's not necessarily because the intersections are um safe or safer but

[44:02] rather um because the the pedestrians or folks are not using those places because they've had bad experiences or were not hearing about the bad experiences that they've had because they're having to be hypervigilant in those places Nicole I I wonder if I might speak to that this is Valerie Watson um interm uh Transportation Mobility director um I really am so appreciative that you raised that topic um what we're really um lucky that we have our 2019 pedestrian plan to draw from um which was the result of a very um intensive Community process and it resulted in a methodology to identify areas of the city that are precisely what you were just describing and those are those pedestrian Improvement areas that we um had a little snapshot of up on the screen in the presentation and um that combined with um the near misses that are reported to us um through the online portal that we have for community

[45:00] members um to to enter information into for us um as well as just other um you know ways we gather information from the community can all help us um get um a better sense for those types of locations that really um you know not only cross over where we're seeing the um higher incidents of of severe crashes but also where that um that uh pedestrian comfort factor is lacking um so yeah I I think that is very much going to be a part of what drives the um scope of work that will'll be taking next year oh thank you um and and I just I wanted to note the uh impressive statistic of having reduced um uh crashes in the through left turn um left left signal phasing changes by 68% um that that was a really impressive number and so just kudos to all of you for the work you're doing on that as well and hopefully we see more of those big reductions after these changes

[46:03] too thank you Nicole next up we have Matt and then Tina appreciate that Lauren um first I'll just start off by saying I appreciate the great info in the memo and more importantly the great work that the department is doing I have to say that um you know Valerie since you became inter you guys haven't skipped to beat and you guys are still crushing so it's just great to see that um and I think that's just a testament to the team um and really the cohesiveness of the work that we're doing with vision zero and the action plan and can and every being be bought in so I just great appreciation for that and how we're moving forward but along those lines I'm going to take maybe a different approach here which is I I think to some extent I think this particular discussion I would have been more than happy to have just had a memo on because for me the high Lev decisions we're making was can really seeing that action plan and knowing in that action plan that staff was going to get to the signals policy and really sort of work through that as

[47:00] it relates back to Vision zero on the action plan and just getting an update about where that would been would where that was going would have been fine for me and so I I think in general I would just I look at discussions like this and I see it being highly technical full of engineering and I S and I look at that and I go I got to trust staff to really handle that within the value space that we've defined in the action plan and not get us in the weeds of those those pieces so um I I like to kind of just unleash you guys to do the great work and not feel like you got to pause and do that and so um in general I want to keep us going forward on topics like this at a much higher level um and let our staff do the great work that that they are here to do as our resident experts so um love the presentation but I think going forward let's let's um let's let you guys just crush it and and get after it um and and we can stay at a much higher level in in the visioning of of where things are going so uh great job and really appreciate it thank you thank you Matt next

[48:00] Tina yeah um thank you for the presentation and Matt thank you for your comments uh I I share some of them but also am glad to see the progress the city's made and the one thing I'll just call out is that um there's mention of adding into the scope of work what signalization might look like for a um two-way bike lane with a separator separator um which is I think what is being proposed in Iris so um I do look forward but not necessarily a work session perhaps in a memo but just to understand um you know just and actually I just happy that we're thinking about that and looking at how that's going to work because that's a little bit of a new uh format that we're looking at thanks thank you Tina um unless I see any other hands pop up it sounds like I'm hearing a lot of support for you know continuing to put Safety First with the hopes of rer shift and increasing usage making sure that we're taking an

[49:01] equity approach um and um trying to continue finding ways for the public to contribute and participate in this process moving forward but maybe with less staff or with less Council participation as we just you know give our support for your work moving forward um on that I think it is time to move in into our next discussion uh I don't know whether water-wise landscaping or wild fire hardening is coming first but I will let Nua um kick that off and we'll find out thank you so much mayor protm and I'll uh just say I know um staff has uh two presentations here and you can see Wildfire is coming up first um I want to thank staff we're going to try to keep it to 15 15 minutes each uh and say that as we were trying to accommodate a third item on today's

[50:01] um Council agenda uh staff really did a great job of trying to be concise uh with what is essentially you sneaky Council people two priorities into one don't think that we didn't notice that um and so as we think about today's uh Council priority uh or priorities uh we will look and start with Wildfire hardening and with that I will pass it on to Lisa thank you nura good evening council members my name is Lisa Hood I'm a principal city planner with planning and development services we have a large team of multi- depart many different departments who are also here to answer any of your questions um but I will give the presentation on our Wildfire hardening uh part of this priority so as Nara already mentioned this is really two topics two presentations two discussions and you had two memo so we're going to start out with Wildfire hardening I know since this is

[51:00] one of your um Council priorities you all are probably very familiar with the term Wildfire hardening but for anyone else who might be watching and hasn't heard of it I just want to um start out with some basic definitions of what we're talking about so when we talk about Wildfire hardening we are talking about ensuring that buildings are prepared for a wildfire or for Embers really trying to reduce vulnerability and increasing and increasing the resistance to threat um I thought this graphic does a really good job of showing the two focuses first the ignitability of the actual structure but Wildfire hardening also includes thoughts about the defensible space so how do those features that surround a structure impact the hardening of that structure or the defens ability against wildfire in this presentation you're also going to hear the acronym the wooi a lot so I wanted to describe what that is so the wooi is the Wildland Urban interface and that is the geographical

[52:00] area where structures and other human development meets or intermingles with Wildland or vegetative fuels and you can see the map of our current wooy area it's mostly following the western boundary of our city limits I wanted to start the presentation and it's really how I kind of started taking on this project um by explaining all of the current efforts or trying to um understand all the the current efforts that the city is already undertaking related to Wildfire risk mitigation and then the policies that set the framework for that so we got together all of the different departments just to understand what everyone is doing related to Wildfire risk mitigation there is a lot of work being done throughout the city organization nearly every single City department has a program operations plan something that they're working on to improve Boulders resistance to Wildfire and so this is just a great

[53:01] constellation graphic to um help you understand all the different work in those different departments we also have a number of key Partnerships that help move that work forward we have the Wildfire core team um and these are within the city and also with external Partners uh the County fireshed First Response agreements things like that that help continue um work towards Wildfire hardening our community um another thing to understand is the key elements of wildfire mitigation as an umbrella um and so there are a number of things that a local government can do to reduce the risk of wildfire in their community and those four things are regulations education and incentives plans and policies and programs and operations from that constellation graphic all of these these are just a few examples of everything falls into one of these these categories and for the purpose of this Council priority

[54:00] project we're really focused on the regulation side that's the highlighted side so the work product that you would see from this program uh work Project work program priority project uh would be focus on the regulatory side so changes to our building code and landies code and other codes and standards however it will all inform these other aspects of wildfire mitigation the education and incentives plans and policies and programs and operations but I thought it was helpful to think about both all the work that the city is working on already how it fits into this umbrella and how this project fits in there's also a number of policies that guide this work from our strategic plan to our SE framework comprehensive plan and you'll remember the community Wildfire protection plan that was adopted just earlier this year which um assessed the risk in our community and set forward a bunch of uh strategies and policies including something that aligns perfectly with this work of looking at

[55:00] our codes and standards in addition to the local government efforts I wanted you to all to be aware of the efforts at the state level as well if you um you may have already heard of this but in 2023 the Colorado State Legislature passed a bill that created the Wildfire resiliency code board and what that is is it's currently under development so it's happening simultaneous to this project and what the loss says is that this board has to adopt a model code for the wooy areas of Colorado and jurisdictions like Boulder who have um uh who are located within the wooi must adopt the at least the base of that model code um within three months of their adoption so by July 1st the model code will be adopted we'll have three months to ensure that our code is meeting the at least the minimum of what that Statewide model code is we've been engaged um in the stakeholder engagement process for the development of the code and from

[56:01] what it looks like with initial drafts because Boulders had the international wooi code adopted for over a decade we actually are probably more restrictive than what the state code is going to end up being um however we'll keep uh apprised of what happens and what that Ultimate model code is and there might be tweaks that we would need need to make in order to align with the model code as we learn more later in the year as far as schedule for this project we're planning to complete this project by the end of next year it's a 2024 2025 priority project we've been working on scoping and research so far and what we're envisioning and how it was laid out in the memo and is laid out for the presentation is really two sets of changes um changes that would affect the building code and then changes that would affect the land use code um we're envisioning that building code changes would happen earlier next year and then land use code changes would come

[57:01] probably in the fall and then there's the little window to indicate um that we would have different engagement windows for each of those sets of changes speaking of Engagement um the anticipated level of Engagement is consult for this project we have a lot of input that we got very recently on the community Wildfire protection plan that we're hoping um or we know will be really really helpful to inform this project because there's a lot of overlap in topics and then we'd be implementing a number of Engagement strategies um to uh for this project as well throughout the year and we're anticipating refining the engagement plan based on the conversation tonight as well all right so that's kind of all the background now I want to give an overview of our initial staff analysis um and our initial recommendations and that will kind of tee up the discussion questions for you all I want to start

[58:02] with an explanation of our current wooi regulations so right now the city of Boulder has adopted the 2018 iwu I which is a horrible acronym to say so I'm just going to call it an international wooy code but which that's what it stands for with some local amendments and what that does is in the wooi area that I already described it requires all new new construction additions and remodels in that area to meet additional standards so those are standards related to fire resistant materials um underfloor areas roof coverings Eaves gutters Windows ventilation openings those are very common um issues that are addressed through the international wooi code Boulder first adopted the wooi code international wooi code in 2014 and just to give you an idea um like I said it's a small sliver along the western side of the city but in that small area we've had 900 building permits that have been approved in that 10-year period um

[59:02] including about 50 new structures in that area and 50 Decks that were either new decks or refurbished Decks that would have had to comply with these um increased fire resistance standards as part of understanding this project we also did peer community research um really to understand kind of the structure of how other communities are regulating Wildfire hardening right now Boulder like I said regulates it through the international wooi code which is part of our building codes that's why that box is highlighted um but there are and we actually don't have any Wildfire standards in our land use code there are other communities that have only their Wildfire standards their wild fire standards are only in their land use code and then many communities especially in Colorado have both standards in their building code that are related to the building and then all also standards in their land use code that are usually more related to site specific standards some other

[60:01] communities have Standalone ordinances but really it's um more common to be either a land use code or building code regulatory scheme So based on that initial um both the best practices research and then our own staff analysis we have established some general initial staff recommendations for you all to consider um and and I'm looking forward to discussing those but first it would be changes to the building code so I should have mentioned that for those International codes we we adopt those on a six-year schedule and so they come out every three years but we adopt a new set of international codes every six years so I mentioned we have the 2018 wooi code adopted so we're scheduled to adopt the 2024 wooi code and with that the recommendations for some changes uh are listed on this slide so first I'll start with the city-wide changes staff is recommending Council

[61:01] consider um at a Citywide level not just to wooi um requiring building permits for window replacement and siding replacement it's actually unique that Boulder doesn't require that already for building permits and that would be a really great check um to ensure that these two very vulnerable parts of a home um in the wooi area are compliant with those fire resistance standards it also would have a number of other benefits outside of the city um so we're recommending that Citywide now within the wooi specifically we have some recommendations that would apply as we've initially considered it to new construction only the first of these is something that communities have been adopting in recent years um especially as we've seen the impact of recent fires related to um fencing and so uh One requirement would be requiring non combustible fences and other structures within 8 ft of a habitable structure so

[62:00] we what we've seen in recent fires is that a fence a wooden fence around your property can act somewhat like a fuse to the house and so if you have that break of non-combustible materials from the fence to the house for 8 ft that can provide really significant protection for the structure so that would be a requirement for all new construction also a requirement for a 5ft non-combustible Zone that's a 5ft perimeter around a building where no combustible materials could be located and thirdly in the new construction in the wooi um requiring low flammability plants only in that defensible space area so if you think back to that graphic the area between 5 ft and 30 ft from a home you would um only have plants that have low flammability there's no plant that is fireproof but there are certainly some that are uh more flammable than others so in that way we could prohibit specific plants that are known to be highly flammable such as

[63:00] junipers and then outside of the wooi so I I mentioned the wooy is kind of a a a sliver along the western edge um one of thing we're considering is whether to expand that wooi area into more of an affected area where perhaps there's a slight there's a lower risk so it's not necessarily within the exact wooy area but based on fire modeling and data that there is a slightly higher risk than for the of the city and in that area you might not have the requirements for the structure hardening like the structure ignitability part of that graphic but you would have requirements for the vegetation management and defensible space in that expanded area and then related to those changes there would also be kind of simultaneous changes to definitions and specific language on specific materials so that's the set of changes that we've thought through so far um just initial considerations for your discussion tonight and that's related to building code then we have some recommendations for land

[64:00] use code so after seeing um what some other communities are doing we do recommend Council consider um adding some Wildfire standards into our land use code AS specifically um we saw a lot of communities do a Wildland Urban interface overlay District that would match the overlay the geography of the wooi area in the building code but it would allow us to have some land use and development standards that are site specific on the zoning side of things um and right now we do have some standards already in the land use code like standards related to landscaping and fencing where it would make sense to um beef those up with wo we specific standards and by having an overlay District you can apply those standards into a specific geography so similarly to what I've already described about the Landscaping that could be located in the land use code and then also um related to fencing that could be in the land use code and that way what we saw in other communities is it's

[65:01] enforcable from both land use perspective and building code perspective and then some specific plans like fuels assessment or um or fuels management and hazard assessment plans could be checked at the same time as zoning is already checking for other site specific compliance with all of these changes there are important considerations to make um these are all um important steps that Boulder could take but we do want to just highlight that adding any additional standards will require the support of additional Staffing every it seems simple to just add code language in but it all trickles down to additional um needs for staff for plan review to review the additional plans and compliance for those standards additional staff for inspections and then ultimately additional staff for enforcement and so we want to keep that in mind while we're considering these changes and then also like I said it's

[66:00] an umbrella and so all of these regulatory changes will also inform those other aspects of Boulder's approach to Wildfire mitigation I wanted to highlight some of the recent successes with our incentive and education programs the Wildfire resilient grants program just started back in September so only a few months ago we've already had 53 executed contracts where people have used that grant funding to complete Wildfire hardening work on their home um and then we have our detailed home assessment program which is also very successful we've had 46 of those assessments completed since November of last year and we actually had 326 people sign up since September of this year which is actually more than signed up after the Marshall fire in addition we have a lot of other incentive and education programs Communications and Outreach and workshops that we already do as well with that I have the questions that were in the memo but what we're hoping for um from this discussion tonight is

[67:02] guidance from Council on the recommended changes related to the building code and then also to the land use code um and generally the approach that Council would the direction that Council would like us to go in with this project thank you thank you so much Lisa that was a great and very informative Pres presentation um I'm going to recommend that we start with any questions we have for staff related to this topic before we jump into the questions and when we get to those questions just because I know I mean even I have a hard time keeping straight land use versus building code things I think we might um want to answer those together so I see Mark looks like he has his hand up first followed by Matt and then Taisha yeah thanks I I I have just a couple of questions but I have to preface it I I

[68:01] sent out a um a hotline asking a number of questions yesterday and Lisa the response that I received was extraordinarily comprehensive and answered every question um completely I I I you know this was great a great piece of work I had not anticipated uh receiving a written response in such a short amount of time um uh and it was just great work thank you thank you so much um it was wonderful as for my questions um do the is it contemplated that the new construction regulations would also apply to Major reconstructions we've all seen um buildings in Boulder um where the developer leaves one wall standing so he can be uh treated as a

[69:01] reconstruction not as a new development or or a new construction um but everything is new except for you know a piece of a wall um so it would seem to me that in those situations we might want to consider you know making these RS um uh applicable as well yeah that's a great question I think that that is open for um the direction that Council would like us to go in of what we would like um what kind of projects you would like any additional regulations to apply to certainly from looking at the different communities everyone does it slightly differently whether it only applies to new construction uh there are a lot of places that will uh have those wooi requirements apply to new construction anything that changes by a certain square footage like if you're adding 200 square feet to your home um there's other examples like our current Landscaping regulations um the project value determines what standards apply so

[70:02] if it's a significant remodel that's a certain percentage of the value of the home then the standards kick in so I think it's open to um council's wish of how how which types of projects you'd like it to apply to um and so yeah that's kind of the direction we'd hope for tonight okay well this council member would urge you to be as broad as possible within reason obviously if somebody's doing a a repainting of their house that that's not quite what we have in mind but as I said when they knock down most of the structure and leave a wall standing and and then build around the wall um which probably will come down eventually anyway um I I would think we'd want to do that um member if I if I can interject uh this is Brad Mueller director of planning and development services um yeah just to to elaborate on Lisa's response to it might be useful for the

[71:00] Chief Building official Rob Adrians to elaborate a little bit more on what already triggers those requirements so you can kind of understand where where on the scale that already exists yeah happy to jump in here Brad so to to that question the the example you described of a building just having one wall remaining there would be a level three alteration and that would already be required to come into compliance with the Wildland Urban interface code that we've already adopted so they would have to do all the fire hardening you know fire resistant sighting every depending on what level of um the wooy they're in right but they would have to comply with new construction requirements anyway okay and and just two very quick qu one comment one question very brief um uh in terms of expanding the wooi I I think yeah we really ought to be looking at that um the wooi is is is pretty skinny and uh I think it leaves a lot of the community very vulnerable to wildfires

[72:03] and my question is do we in the wooi are we going to require uh coverings on vents you know mesh coverings or something to uh prevent um Embers from getting inside a house is that contemplated yeah I'll point to Rob again I think we already required that is that right that is correct we yes we already require 18 inch screens on all openings whether you're in the class one class 2 or class three area of the woi so all risk areas require Miss Miss on the Mi I better get them I better get some then okay thank you thanks Mark next up we have Matt appreciate it Lauren um yeah I I do uh really appreciated uh Lisa's response to Mark's hotline was that was a spot on and thorough um I mean you work with P&S but you could also work with you know

[73:02] bfr while you're at it too um so I double dipping um my question I'll get to some obviously questions one and two in a bit but my question really centers specifically around and I know nura took a took a took a shot at Lauren and I squeezing this as a merger um at our retreat with love Matt with love but but in my question actually centers on why these are intrinsically connected and which was that in one of the um recommended changes would be a new construction to ban uh planting of juniper I think that it makes sense that if we are telling people they can't plant something that we are also thus providing a list of things that are approved for them to plant so I just want to make sure that we're looking at both sides of that and have a plan for if we're saying no to this but we can then give you a list of what you can do that those are married together um in in action I we may get to that with Landscaping but it it meets here with the Wildfire as well yes that is the the Connecting

[74:00] Point is plants um between these two topic so yeah I'll talk about that with the water-wise Landscaping but there's a number of um great resources already out there for low flammability plants but we' we'd Envision creating our own plant list um that would be able to provide recommendations for those plants that have lower flammability all right my last question centers around um we we're engaging in our comprehensive planning process um to what ex to what extent in the past has Wildfire mitigation been thematic in how we plan our built environment um and if not what is the plan to make that uh very much a Cornerstone of how we think about the built environment and make us fire resilient um for for decades to come he I'm happy to jump in on that one if you like um thank you for the question councilman

[75:00] um there's really two answers to that you know a lot of what will be the focus of the comprehensive plan are going to be driven by feedback from Council from the four bodies from the public uh we would anticipate though that that's a high area of interest and to the degree that uh the current plan does speak to it but there's yet opportunity to refine or be more precise about what those goals could look like uh for the 20year 20-year um time Horizon that is part of the comprehensive plan uh I I think we're all anticipating that that's going to be a critical enhancement thanks BR that's it for me thank you Matt next up I see Taisha and then Tina thank you so much um um I also thank my colleagues for some questions that I had that were answered so I appreciate that um so you mentioned that

[76:01] the um that our primarily primary focus for um this effort is around regulations and that the education incentives and planning are are things that would um come out of those regulations but one of the things I think that would be helpful um prior to having to make some of the policy decisions is around the effectiveness of some of the education and incentive plans that we have been offering it's very helpful to know how many um so that output data was very helpful um but you know as it relates to the the map of the wooi and just you know getting a better idea just geographically where our efforts have been and just the quality of efforts across um to then inform the kinds of regulations that we um we want to form here and similarly with the policies as well um one question that I had around that was around the um the fiscal note and so just going of circle back to um getting some financial information it was really helpful um in

[77:00] the presentation and in the document um the reference to um the cost of enforcement planning and review um but just the level of effort across the different types of changes would be really helpful into determining uh and not just the level of effort and cost to the city um but potentially some proposed or just just some kind of targets of of what are the potential costs at the commercial or real estate level for um you know for for our potential tenants or you know land owners Etc so those are some of the I guess my question is in lie of not having that um would it be possible to get a little bit more information of to some of the costs um that are associated with um some of the tiers of of of enforcement that are indicated in both the land use and ccil member I'm happy to jump in on that one too which is to say uh the information we get tonight uh

[78:00] to give us kind of uh guidance in what direction was exactly the information that uh will allow us to to bring that kind of cost benefit analysis forward so we will uh we will in a broad sense which is what I understand you to be asking uh be an item we'd be able to bring forward then in the future oops you're unmuted sorry thank you so much um I I thought it was interesting that the um Talk document talked about the alignment with the urban Forest plan but that the urban Forest plan had no specific call out to Wild Wildfire resilience and so I was just kind of curious that made me wonder when are we updating it looked like the urban forestry plan was updated in 2018 and so just kind of my question was is that also going to be updated or incur basically how how does this the policies that we're setting have legs

[79:01] across some of the um documents that are still in play but haven't been updated yet that's a great question and I have a large team here but I'm not sure that we have anyone from forestry in particular to answer that question um I don't know if if anybody else knows the answer and wants to jump in um I don't know I'm fine to get I get back to you on that one knowing that there's going to be an another interation it's just more so the alignment across plans because I thought you know you all did such a great job of showing that alignment um but then there were just some gaps so it would just kind of be helpful to get that that information in the future thank you so much and those are my questions thanks thank you TAA next we have Tina hi um I was just wondering if we have seen any evidence in other communities that if we were to expand the the wooi would that infect impact possibly the insurance rates for the people in that expanded area or they are they still pretty separate that the

[80:00] insurance companies are doing their own uh calculations I might call on fire our fire rescue folks to answer that but I I believe that my understanding is that the insurance companies do their own kind of risk modeling and so it's not necessarily tied to the regulations or what we map as wooi looks like Dave Lowry turned his camera on so I'm going to pass to him yeah um it's not hurting right we know that um the insurance companies aren't exactly looking at lowering the rates uh it's more about keeping uh people insured right um so we have engaged with insurance companies we uh the community of wildfire Across the Nation the states basically have tried to engage with them and there's just a lot of work to be done with insurance company um what our goal really is is to build

[81:02] this resilience Community to give those insurance companies a reason to say yes to insuring our community members right uh we can't really ever control the rates or get the rates to be lowered I think that's you know all about their business um but to keep to keep people with insurance is what we've and engaging them about okay thanks that's all I have thank you Tina um unless there are any other hands I think it's time to move into our um the questions that staff asked around if we support the or if we have feedback on the recommended changes in the building code amendments or land use code proposed changes um I can kick us off I think you know I really

[82:01] appreciated um the changes particularly around non-combustible fencing a non-combustible Zone around structures um and I would love to see a really simplified um firewise planting requirements particularly around maybe what's not allowed and some recommend commendations of easy alternates [Music] um and I think that those might make sense not just in the wooi but potentially throughout Boulder I mean my understanding is that in general our community is at a fairly heightened risk of fire um and I would be interested in seeing what tradeoffs are around an expanded map or just having um a ubiquitous standard I I appreciate our current um woi requirements and that those match National

[83:00] code um I feel a little unsure about our potentially um increasing permanent permit requirements for siding in Windows we already have regulations around them and I kind of believe that people who aren't following those are also going to probably be the people who don't comply with submitting for permit on them and so I'm not sure that I think that that's really going to gain us more compliance in that zone but could potentially just add to additional paperwork um and then in general with sort of special maps and districts I would like to avoid that to the extent that we can Implement most of what we want without it ideally um but I mean if we need to go that direction I'm open to it I would just prefer to avoid it if we can um and also with sort of our planting plans and

[84:01] things like that the more we can make sure that any um requirements are very simple and easy to implement and prove um I think would be ideal that's my feedback on what I've seen thus far I don't see any hands yet for who wants to go next okay I see Mark thank you Mark um I would be supportive of most of what Lauren has proposed I think Simplicity is important um I'm not sure I wouldn't have uh a a a different standard in the wooi um just because it's part of that marketing effort um towards insurance companies to show uh how um serious we are uh about you know mitigating Wildfire risk um but I think

[85:03] a lot of those standards should also be applied uh elsewhere in the city um and uh you know I don't think there's a reason for instance to place a juniper anywhere uh we we we know how dangerous they are we know how flammable they are and we know what our community Community risk is and I would simply um uh discourage or even ban um the planting of junipers in any kind of um new construction or class three remodel um I I I um again I would emphasize that um I would leave to to staff to to figure out exactly the mechanism they want to employ um with the understanding that

[86:01] they will focus on Clarity and simplicity um and I don't know that that's simply that's anything more than uh promulgating a series of regulations and ordinances um I don't know that we need uh overlay Maps Etc just just be simple be clear um tell people what they can do tell people what they can't do um and you know let's get the community activated uh in support of this objective thank you thank you Mark next up I see Matt and then Tina appreciate it yeah I mean Le sometimes less is more Simplicity is always the way to go um I support that um you know I want to piggy a little bit back on on what Mark was saying obviously we have as as we see current definitions of where our wooi is well there's two conflicting definitions of

[87:00] where our wooi map is right now and there might even now be a third when the state gets involved and we're going to have to juggle those um and and to some extent I I kind of feel like we kind of have to just operate the way we want to protect our community and only use them as a guidepost not a restriction um and and one thing that I get I get interested about is the Marshall fire started in the East part of our city so so where so where are we discussing the wild Urban interface there um and we're surrounded by a green bone so our wild Urban interface I is is different than most communities and so I'd love to see us think broadly about the rest of the city and because I think we've been so focused on the west which is probably the predominant area but yet the biggest fire in our regional history happened east of here so I I I think we need to maybe think a little bit more comprehensively with that but then that also means if we're doing this overlay do we apply it to the Eastern Edge as well um so so I I I'd love to I think

[88:02] where Mark's going some of the stuff may need to be Citywide or thinking about more of a collar than than sort of a a western flank um in this or having wooi adjacent so that there's something secondary that can cover those areas as well so um I think there's an opportunity for that with regards to um our current building code and amendments thank you Matt next Tina yeah I'm uh open to the recommendations from staff and um you know we'll be looking forward to hearing more about it um I think over time I'd be interested in um just better understanding which efforts will have the most Impact versus the cost and just making sure we're focusing on the highest impact changes first and then um you know and and doing enforcement that's also relative to impact and uh and that's that's pretty much it what I

[89:00] and I just really appreciate um the convening of all the Departments and thinking about all the different ways these interactions happen um sort of whether we decide how far Eed to go or whatever um you know I'll just be looking for staff for guidance on that I think U this looks great thank you Tina next I see Taisha thank you um I Echo um um Matt's uh recommendation to um expand or even consider I like the caller idea um you know I think it's really important that our policies respond to the lived experiences in our community in the context that we're currently in and so um if nothing else I think that that um Eastern section is is certainly something but I would be an advocate for Full Circle um and and um the other issue was just around the the funding aspect so I would agree it was wonderful to see all of the different

[90:00] departments and the role that they play but then it made me wonder where is the funding sources coming from um for those different um activities and going back to um which of those funding streams come from federal dollars I I just you know which of those are locked in I just um going back to um that fiscal piece and and um also with Tina with what Ina said which is what I also shared earlier around it would be very helpful to have the outcomes and outputs of the programs and efforts that we are currently operating um to inform the the the when it be when it becomes time for us to make a policy decision um and that's all I have um thank you so much thank you Taisha next I see Ryan thanks yeah I just probably Echo what Tina said mostly um I think I generally agree with with the work of staff and and appreciate the different

[91:00] um parts of the city coming together on this um and I I do appreciate what Lauren said about just kind of looking for more ubiquitous standards I um I I I worry about looking at maps and um feeling like we have a um a Precision that that it will ch whether or not it's it's a it's a true Precision will change with um as our climate changes and as has been mentioned there's different political maps and there's different ways the insurance industry is going to think about this and and to use other lived examples um you know other cities in the west that have experienced uh tragedies with fire have been completely overwhelmed the the whole cities and so I think um I would just advocate for a kind of um def uh a overall ratcheting of Standards around the city and and um and may maybe be just um skeptical about

[92:01] sort of block by block map map making um because I think our whole city is very connected on all this not a fire expert so I want to be careful and not try to offer too too much advice on this but um just to thank you for your work and um say that I'm supportive of the sort of yeah as much stringency as we can bring thank you Ryan um I think there yeah does staff do you have any questions does that feel like it covered anything I feel like I should maybe clarify that on my my statement I wasn't saying that we shouldn't have woy specific um requirements I just believe that are I like the direction staff is going with the wooi specific um items and I appreciate what we already have it is um fairly stringent but it's good to have that in that particular

[93:03] Zone thanks uh to your question I I think we have uh cleared feedback on that thank you yeah thanks thank you so much um and that will allow us to move into our next topic um waterwise Landscaping on uh what about question two what about question two oh thank you for that question number two does I know you love your Landscaping Lauren you don't oh this is the associated land use changes I'm sorry I was under the okay does council support the recommended scope and Outreach efforts related to the associated land use changes that's question two yes Matt I I was ready to answer that one so when we moved on I was like H but but but there's more um um so um I'm I might I'm gonna come

[94:03] with this maybe a little contrarian um and so bear with me for a sec um the what what the the changes we're making for new construction are great for the new construction and will in time benefit our community after each new construction project and and over enough time those standards will build a capacity of resiliency that will then make our community safer but that's futur looking we still have a critical issue now with regards to resiliency and that is centered on older existing homes that also suffer from poor brush and combustible material mitigation and so that's the critical safety issue we're dealing with now and I love the future looking but but I think the scope needs to be greatly expanded so that we're dealing with the Now problem the the critical health and

[95:00] life safety issue that's today um and tomorrow um and so I really think we need to think we need to think creatively but we need to be bold like we were with Shake shingles um it was a fire hazard it was a known one and we didn't mess around and we got that done um and the community is safer for that and so I really would like to see us flip this around a little bit and think about things like require brush clearing tree limming and a non-combustible Zone not just on permit remodel but to force it upon the sale of a house and or new or renewal renewal of a rental license because then we're going to capture folks even if they don't change their building we're going to rope them in to meeting these standards we already know where this is we have a curbside assessment of just even in the western edge of Boulder and I think we can do particular things like considering a grace period from which it is mandatory that you comply start with that in a basis I mean you look at a red structure if you look at them on Google street

[96:00] view or walk near them you will see that they are old and they are um full of trees and Juniper and stuff around them that's the hazard for today and we've heard from Chief calderazzo and our other fire experts that as soon as that one house goes the rest of those homes are in immediate danger and so this is an equity question and concern that we have and so I think we need to think at a phase approach to bring homes and bring properties into compliance regardless of any new construction um and that's going to address the health and safety issue we have now and I know there's challenges with that and we've done that with Shake shingles in the past um but but this is too critical of an issue for us to um build our way new to safety over 10 20 40 years um so I'm hopeful we can increase that scope and think broad about how we bring existing properties into compliance and protect the community that we love thank you Matt I see Teresa has popped up um love to hear your

[97:01] thoughts uh yes so we we'd be happy to look into this you know any application that would be perceived as retroactive is um potentially fraud um we you know the shake shingles and um and night skies were both premised upon the end of a useful life of something and the end end of a useful life of a juniper is much much longer as you can imagine um and as as other brush so there's some additional research we would need to do um we would also need to evaluate whether that's within the scope of the priority that Council set as we understood that priority to be proactive and so um that's something that we would look at as well thank you Teresa um um so because I first asked for us to contemplate all these things together if

[98:02] the hands that I see are up just in relation to um giving feedback on what Matt just brought up I think I might ask us to maybe just do a show of hands on whether that's something we're interested in so that we don't all have to comment on it um but if those are not that's not what your hands are about I will just continue to use first okay seeing those staying up so Mark Tina and then Aaron well I'm I I am sorry to disappoint but my comments do relate directly to Matt's comments and I I support that entirely um in light of in light of the extreme gravity of the threat to our community um I I would I would like to see us be as proactive as possible uh in addressing

[99:01] those kinds of conditions whether it is for new construction uh major renovation or even existing homes if we can provide enough lead time maybe at some point when our finances are better provide some support for people who are making these changes but we need to make them uh um what was the the figure that we are at greater risk than 97% of the communities in Colorado that's an astonishing number um and we need to bring that number down and the only way to do that is to take very specific actions that address those kinds of conditions and so I I would like to see us do that um and I you and yes we will have to go to the community and explain what it is we want them to do why we are doing it and how

[100:02] we will deal with the expense of doing it um but this is simply um a situation that cannot be ignored and the risk increases in lock step with climate change and so if we are 97% uh today we may be 99% tomorrow um and you know this is this is simply of a greater magnitude than almost anything we have dealt with um I think of a greater threat even than um what we did with CU South uh because this will affect the entire Community not simply one portion of the community that was um specifically uh in danger this threatens everybody and so uh I am supporting

[101:01] Matt's proposal and would like to get to work on it thanks Mark um Tina sure is it okay if I speak to something different at this that was sort of what I was intending with this yes um so but the only thing or consideration I had was around Outreach and engagement um with actually both building and land Zone um we get a lot of questions about ignition prevention and different things we can do that are sort of separate from the building and the resilience piece so when we're working with the community I would um encourage that we are clear that this is about the sort of the after the ignition happens what do we do to stay safe and um just make sure that the community knows where the prevention of ignition conversation is so that they know that because I know we're talking about both and just so the community knows that

[102:00] those two things are happening simultaneously if that makes sense thank you um and then I see Aaron your hand yeah apologies Lauren but I just wanted to add a little something Beyond a straw pole um but just Matt appreciate the the urgency that you're bringing to that question but not to belittle anything but just as small um factual correction that's we're at higher risk than 97% of all communities in the country rather than Colorado um but obviously still a very very very big deal um so uh just anyway Matt thanks for bringing that up I would certainly support increasing the triggers by which we would enact requirements like I think sale Home sounds great potent the rental license is a is an intriguing one to think about as well that that sounds like it as potential I would definitely move cautiously with requiring it retroactively for all properties um just I think in terms of the magnitude of the administrative um overhead but also just

[103:01] that there are some say um older Property Owners on fixed incomes that might struggle to meet some of those requirements so U not saying we shouldn't consider it all but I would tread carefully in terms of applying something retroactively to every property without some kind of a trigger thanks thank you Aon um I see nura y just a a quick point and I appreciate mayor um you mentioning that and as you're if you're going to move forward with a straw pole I I think that point of clarity would be helpful I know at the retreat when retroactivity was discussed um it was not moved forward and part because of that administrative enforcement burden it sounds like now there is a desire to perhaps Nuance that to uh trigger item like uh the sale of a home or something of that nature uh that Clarity would be helpful and then if staff has input on those tradeoffs I would welcome that so that um Council

[104:00] knows what that looks like and just to clarify Nara is that um input now before we make our straw poll or that would be if we if the straw poll passes um information that comes back to us uh I guess Brad I'll ask ask you I mean if the straw pole passes I would presume that you would want to know what that would take and then staff depending on that would would want to bring back those um those trade-offs because we likely would not be able to move forward but if staff has input on some of those trade-offs right now um then perhaps I'd invite that before you take that that strle yeah thank you N I would say it's a little bit chicken and egg I can certainly give some uh kind of generalized uh vision of what it might take to uh do do any type of retroactive uh enforcement uh but I think too if there

[105:00] was a direction from Council to uh explore that possibility we would be able to quantify that a bit more not obviously at a budget level but just in terms of what a program would look like that type of thing uh so just to broadly characterize it um if for example there was um a Prohibition of certain types of plan on existing properties uh even within the wooi or or or more broadly Citywide um there would certainly want to be an education program associated with that so people knew what the law was so that's probably you know a couple people and resources uh there would be people that uh whether if you if you gave them you know a certain amation of three or five years we know that there's still would be folks that would uh not adhere so at some point in the future there would need to be um a mechanism for creating enforcement because of course folks

[106:00] would be resentful if uh they're doing something uh legal and then their neighbor is not so we would start getting uh calls that um you know we would need to follow up on that not to mention prospectively doing that so you can imagine uh you know that there would be a a a group of enforcement personnel there's also um the followup through prosecution and such too um so that's just a broad picture but we we certainly could quantify that uh in in very broad terms under some basic scenarios can I ask clarify can I ask I see Nico but I just have clarifying unless Nicole you wanted to clarify what just Brad just said so can I clarify I mean there's two two there's two aspects of scale here certainly retroactive is is one is one thing unto itself but but the triggers from which force the compliance is a is is an entirely

[107:02] smaller scale because we're we're going to do it on permit it one would imagine it's not a big enough leap if that's already what we're going to propose to do to say you then must do it on sale or do it on a renewal or or or acquiring a new rental license so I I I think that there's maybe two separate Scopes from which we are considering and so I just want to make sure we're differentiating those yeah this conversation I I appreciate and hear what you're saying and I would Envision and of course this is all a little conceptual but I would Envision you know defining a couple different scenarios to that point thank you I see Teresa your hand popped up is there anything you want to add or I I just thank you for that clarification I um I can appreciate that distinction I think each of those carries its own um complexities and enforcement issues and so certainly if there's appetite among enough council members to to move forward then we could

[108:01] we could look at those things thank you Teresa um and then Nicole I see is this an entirely new topic or is this related to um because I would kind of like to do this straw pole oh yeah no it was it I think I'm just trying to get clarity on like what what all the straw pole is entailing and what you um additional kind of work or research staff is going to be doing with it and uh one of the things that I just um something Mark said earlier resonated with me around how are we uh providing some um support for folks who you know may be required to make these changes um along the way so that that was just a just trying to understand what's the um what is the scope of what staff will be looking into if we were to say yes please do consider uh making some of these things retroactive as well yeah and I'll take a stab at that which was

[109:00] um I think you know Matt's suggestion around uh you know looking at making fees apply at sale or with a rental license those seem interesting to me but I would make in my mind it makes sense to only have that apply to something that we deem to be sort of the most um problematic issues or the the things that have the largest safety concern and I think at this point I would recommend us leaving that up to staff to provide guidance um for and that's what I would recommend that we look at if that I see Taisha you have your hand up um but if no one objects I would like to maybe straple that right now see okay so any everyone who is in favor of having staff look at what um

[110:00] kind of the tradeoffs of having some of the most risky of these items um be necessary to come into compliance with City Rules at sale or um with a rental license please raise your hand one two three four five six seven okay I count seven hands so that looks like it passes thank you um and then Taisha yeah or not passes it looks like there is a majority of council who is interested in having staff work on that thank you um and when that comes back I mean in just in this in general it would be really helpful to see a map of like what areas

[111:02] have have this you know have been hardened like what percentage of the different you know sections of the wooi have been hardened this goes back to my comment about the education and incentive programs that we offer like where are they located are there you know you know um just to help support the areas of interest and the areas of most need so I'm looking forward to that thank you thank you um and then Mark I'm I'm a little confused than and so I'm going to ask the question is the vote that we just took um directing staff to only look at uh items uh that come into effect upon um uh sale or or you know or conveyance of the property as opposed to other requirements that might be uh imposed um on properties generally whether or not they're being

[112:00] sold I thought one of the things we had been discussing was uh possibly and and mat tell me if I'm wrong was that there are some things we might want to formulate and impose generally on uh Property Owners as opposed to simply waiting for the conveyance yeah so what I just pulled your on the conveyance and we can pull um I didn't hear a lot of interest for that but I'm happy to pull for it so if people are interested in having staff look at a measure that is um retroactive for all properties regardless of sale or um not all properties located within the wooi okay for properties located within the wooi um regardless of sale or any sort of other qualifying event um please raise your

[113:03] hand okay I see two hands for that so it looks like the staff Focus will be on um just the earlier pulled measure any other things before we wrap this up and move on to Landscaping okay Lauren can I just just real briefly um I just on this this vote we just took this is such a such a big policy and such a big idea and I just want to make the comment that I vote no because I worry that we are not scoped for this what's going to take away you know maybe at the midterm check-in or at the next Council this is the kind of thing I would love us to be to be on the board for looking you know across trade-offs but I just I feel like I want to say that that that's it's not the vote no VOE is not that this isn't

[114:00] important and I'm sorry if I just triggered a whole thing but and we're not necessarily voting on this Pro we're definitely not voting on this we are just um signaling support for staff time to be spent um investigating this I see that that made two hands go away so note I will um I would like to see us move into our Landscaping I don't know Nua if you want to start us off with that I'm actually gonna give it to pass the Baton back to Lisa sounds great thank you all right Council I am still Lisa hoods principal city planner for development services with part two of this presentation on waterwise land cap aping so the project purpose the project purpose as we've scoped it so far for this part of the priority is to evaluate

[115:00] our existing Landscaping regulations policies and programs in how they're meeting the goal of water conservation and exploring updates that we can make that would further support water conservation through our Landscaping practices um as well as looking at our educational programs and incentives for community members it's important to note that this project will also involve uh the local government implementation of another state recent State Bill uh that was passed this year that prohibits certain Landscaping practices in support of water conservation goals so what this bill that was passed this year does it applies to specific areas and uses in the city so in Street rights of way and other Transportation corridors for commercial uses property with commercial uses like retail businesses offices um industrial uses institutional uses and what the state calls common interest communities which we can think of kind

[116:00] of like the common space of an HOA in all of those areas based on the state Bill the city cannot install ourselves or permit others to install on new development or Redevelopment non-functional Turf artificial turf or inv of plant species and what the bill defines non nonfunctional Turf as is that t turf grass that is not located in a recreational use area or other space that's regularly used for civic Community or recreational purposes and so while we already had this Council priority we also got this state bill at the same time that happens to be can I jump in real quick Lisa it seems like your audio is um catching a little bit it might maybe your Internet is slow if you needed to turn off your video to make sure that your audio flows smoothly please feel free to do so thanks for letting me know that um and let me know if it's still having an

[117:01] issue all right so that's the state Bill overview the schedule for this project is similar to the Wildfire hardening project aiming to complete by the end of next year we've been doing scoping and research we based on the direction that we get from you all tonight we'll be analyzing different options at the beginning of next year and then we're planning to come back for a check-in with Council kind of mid next year um with more detail on the various options and then having those actual land use code changes in the engagement window in kind of late summer early fall of next year and that's where the two projects again come back together is uh those land use code changes would incorporate both the Wildfire hardening and water-wise Landscaping changes as far as engagement plan for this project we're also looking at a consult level of Engagement although I do want to highlight that because part of this project will involve implementation of a state bill that engagement would be focused more on an

[118:00] inform level because there's less flexibility in how we would be able to implement that since it's a state requirement we also have great Community engagement that was done for the recent water efficiency plan that the city adopted um just within the last year or so that we will be able to utilize to inform this project as well and we'd be doing regular engagement with our planning board and Water Resources Advisory Board um on the throughout the the the life of this project as well as numerous other engagement strategies and again we'll be refining that engagement plan based on the direction tonight all right so similar to the last presentation I want to give some background on the work that the city already does related to water conservation and also how Landscapes are reviewed in the city of Boulder our water conservation program is primarily housed in our utilities department um but the there are four main points and many other departments contribute to this so there's kind of

[119:01] the foundational aspects of water conservation and water utilities meters billing maintenance of our system things like that we also have a number of technical assistance and incentives we have a water efficiency fund um we have many resources and rebates for community members as well as great programs like gardening a box and Lawn replac programs we do education and Outreach through waterwise yard seminars and zeroscape demonstration Gardens and a number of other Outreach efforts and then again the focus of this project similar to Wildfire is on the rules and ordinances side of things the regulatory side and those would be our Landscaping standards and our the landscape standards in our land use code have not been updated since 2003 so we're due for a comprehensive overview of our Landscaping standards the current landscape review process how it works in the city we have one full-time landscape architect Chris rard

[120:01] Del who's on the call and um he can you hear anything oh no can others hear me yeah I can hear you and I could hear Tara for a second as she popped onto the call um but please continue okay is the mic getting better yes it is much better okay good thank you all right so Chris ricardel himself uh reviews 545 building permits a year 132 planning cases and he does 268 inspections after those those plants are installed and keep in mind that those inspections are only happening at the time of planting and so that's between March and October that's not even the full year so um it's a lot of work to review our current Landscaping standards the landscape plans are required for new construction additions and significant remodels there's a bit of variation of

[121:02] which standards apply based on the project value so smaller projects might not have to comply with the full set of Standards um but in general that's how that works the later step of enforcement um that happens on a complaint basis um and we have two departments who deal with enforcement of landscaping standards so planning and development services Code Compliance officers um take on certain types of violations and then our Police Department code enforcement looks at other types of violations I just wanted to show this graph again highlighting that we have not updated our Landscaping code in over 20 years um but just looking at the water use I think it's an important way to frame um understanding the the impact that this project can have and also all of the other work that water conser our water conservation work has achieved over time you can see that um water use has decreased over time if we were to

[122:00] look at a per capita it's actually reduced 30% in the last 20 years per capita for water use but you can see that outdoor water use has remained kind of the same throughout this this period And so there hasn't been as much movement in outdoor water use as there has been in Indoor Water use and so that's where there's a big opportunity to make some changes in our Landscaping standards I also wanted to show this graph which shows the different use types and so for um you know our Utility Billing this is different customer types but for the purpose of land use code it's different land use types so you can see that single family residential uses about 40% of the city's water in an average year and the multif family is about a quarter uh commercial industrial and institutional amount for about a third and then mun Municipal Services parks and city um is about 4% and so this is important to understand just how the state Bill applies because um the state

[123:01] bill will tackle just the commercial industrial and institutional and Municipal side of things so that's only about a third and this is um showing both indoor and outdoor water use so you can think of it since they're about half and half about half of that would be the outdoor water use that would be impacted by Landscaping standards and the implementation of the state bill all right so moving on to the evaluation so this is going to have um maybe a bit more detail than the Wildfire hardening uh presentation had we had the opportunity through that water efficiency fund that the utilities program um offers to hire a consultant to help us with an evaluation we have um our consultant Logan berba from Mart and wood water Consultants is here in case you have specific questions about water Eng engineering which I certainly not an expert in um she is here as my phona friend to answer any of those questions but what they did for us is um they

[124:01] completed an audit of all of our Landscaping standards looked at every all the regulatory um uh language that we have in the city this was actually a task that was recommended in the water efficiency plan that was adopted so lots of overlap with the council priorities um so they audited that there's a lot and they also looked at a literature review um of uh more General documents about best practices for water-wise landscaping especially in Colorado there's a ton of great resources out there so they looked at those then we also looked at eight cities mostly in Colorado that have completed that are comparable to Boulder and or have completed recent updates to their Landscaping codes to understand what best practices there are um also to understand what Boulder is already a leader in Boulder was quite early in adopting Zer scaping principles and so some of our existing Turf restrictions

[125:00] are actually stricter than some communities have now 20 years later but um there are certainly certainly places where water efficiency and Landscaping standards have evolved significantly in the last 20 years since we adop uh updated the code they prepared a number of recommendations for your consideration which I'm going to give a summ of each one um and then that will tee up the questions for discussion so in evaluating those best practices they looked at three different categories of best practices in these other communities whether standards whether the standard they were looking at was foundational to a typical Landscaping code and supporting a water efficiency whether it really moved the needle on water efficiency and then how it impacted the ecosystem services so looking at it from a larger picture of supporting um other environmental values or supportive supporting a vibrant ecosystem another really important part

[126:00] of this evaluation was understanding and anticipating the level of effort for implementing and enforcing any of these best practices because all of them sound like a good idea but you have to understand U the level of effort maybe it's not something that we can tackle every single one of these best practices but we need to identify which of those are really going to make the most impact without um negatively impacting other services that the city provides due to high level of effort or things like that so I'm going to go through each one of those quickly there's a lot more um explanation in the consultant's report which is attached to your memo and then I'm happy to answer questions about any of them as well I'm going to start with the lower effort type items and what that really means is not that it's low effort it's still effort um but that we would be able to do that with our existing Staffing as we move into the medium and high level of effort that would require additional Staffing to support successful implementation of those best practices so the first one is

[127:02] the non-functional turf bill it's a state requirement um there's a compliance state required by January 1st 2026 so that aligns well with this Council priority um like I said it only applies to certain types of uses and uh as far as the eight cities that we looked at um only the city of Aurora is already compliant with this requirement so all the cities in Colorado are going to have to be within the next year but um so far Aurora is the only one that has that secondly is firewise standards again a low level of effort um in that we can use our existing staff and the project aligns with the Wildfire hardening support but um uh incorporating firewise standards so those low flammability plant standards and plant requirements into the land use C code this could also look at differences for rock Mulch and rock mulch allowance and then whether we have different standards in the wooi you can see on the right that several about half

[128:01] of the cities that we looked at do incorporate those firewise or low flammability plant requirements the next recommendation that our consultant found um for your consideration is soil amendment and mulch standards so this is something was interesting in every single City that we looked at except Boulder they had either soil amendment or mulch standards and Boulder does not have either of them and so when we're looking at these most of these recommendations are really um trying to do the same thing which is set plants up for success for them to successfully um uh establish in Boulder and be able to um conserve as much water as possible while also um surviving so soil amendment and mulch can be really important to to ensuring the survival and establishment of those plants so that would in include um creating soil standards that would require soil testing and soil amendment to um for

[129:03] those new and redeveloped Landscapes and then having prescribed mulch standards to and encourage the use of organic mulches which are really valuable in conserving water and then another recommendation is related to watering schedules this is another one that many cities do that Boulder doesn't do um and that's considering designating a maximum number of days per week that each customer can water and whether that's assigning certain days or to addresses or things like that or having regulations about the time of watering um there's lots of different directions we could go in this this could be something that maybe isn't regulatory but is rather a recommendation but just something for consideration um that other cities do and are able to enforce as it is regulatory another recommendation is the temporary irrigation Zone allowance so this is more of providing flexibility for folks to um have temporary irrigation systems

[130:02] acknowledging that many of our native plantings or low water plantings um although eventually they will require very little supplemental irrigation um during the establishment period they typically need additional irrigation and so what these do in other communities is essentially allow for that that incre increased irrigation for a certain period and then potentially um some cities require that those be pulled out some do not and um we would likely want to retain the ability for re re Irrigation in time of drought to reinvigorate plants all right so now we're moving into um kind of the higher level of effort for these recommendations this is called um in the memo the landscape water efficiency standard and what it does is and it's something that we're seeing a lot of communities adopt especially in more recent years and what it does is assign a

[131:01] maximum um basically allotment of water that can be used on a site and then as part of that the city develops a really detailed plant list of you know these plants fall into a low water category very low water category things like that um and then within that limit the landscape designers are able to um pick and choose the plants that would fit into their Landscape Design Within that allotment of how much water they're going to use so that allows some flexibility where if if the site um or if there's a desire to have um turf grass or something if it's a single family home on the site um but turf grass is a high water user that would take up more of their allotment and they might have to make some trade-offs with other plants other high wateruse plants um in order to not max out um so some examples to just show how that works in other cities the City of Aspen has there's varying levels of complexity

[132:01] that this can have uh you can kind of tell just by the visual that the City of Aspen is more complex than Broomfield um as it goes into water use category irrigation category a new word that I learned as part of this project which is a vapo transpiration of irrigation and irrigation efficiency and all of that kind of metrics to understand the water usage that's going to happen on that site then you look at Broomfield which is a simpler version of different Hider zones and their water use how much space is used for those and then how much water is needed so in incorporating that into landscape standards that could provide some additional guidance for how landscape plans are designed in Boulder finally this is the last recommendation from the best practices evaluation and that is professional training and certification this is something we're seeing a lot of Colorado communities do there are actually na uh Nationwide or Regional um training programs that a lot of these communities

[133:02] use which makes for great consistency across the the state but it's essentially a training program that is focused on water efficient landscape and irrigation design and installation and what cities what we're looking at other these other cities that we've looked at they vary in whether they they require anyone submitting a landscaping plan or irrigation plan to the city has to be certified um in order to do that or it could just be a recommendation that they do that um and so we're seeing that become a lot more common this I would say is a high level of effort because as we've talked to other communities to understand it um it does take Staffing to um have these trainings or participate in a Regional training as well as keep if there's a level of registration requirement that's required to submit plans um this could be um something that would require significant

[134:00] numbers of staff and then also um as far as funding from a equity perspective um it think it it would be a program that we would want to be able to offer at no cost especially if it's a requirement for um these landscaping and irrigation professionals and so that would require um a funding element as well so those are the recommendations from our um Consultants review of the evaluation I've divided the questions kind of with Graphics to remind you of the different parts of the presentation I'm going to attempt to put my video back on um but let me know if the mic starts to cut out but first question is we would really love your feedback these are best practices that we've seen in other communities but in order to move forward on this this project we'd really like to hear if there are certain topics that you're interested in us looking more into if there are some that maybe just

[135:00] doesn't sound like a good fit from the outset so we shouldn't spend more time on it um or if there's anything that was missing that uh you'd like us to further look into second question is related to the the state bill um staff is recommending and we described this more in the memo just to further the impact on water conservation staff is recommending considering St uh Council consider applying it to the multif family residential land use as well so that it's um over half of our water use would be impacted by that non-functional Turf bill um and it would also add to some Simplicity in um the ease of review especially as we get into those common interest communities that I talked about um where it could get kind of complex to um Li and dice the different types of uses and so these are the questions um I can take down the screen or keep the screen up if it's helpful but thank you thank you so much uh Lisa um can we

[136:04] let's take down this slide so we can see each other I'd like to start with um any questions people have for staff based on the presentation it was a wonderful presentation but I'm sure my colleagues will still have some questions anyone want to start us off make Aon was first oh thank sorry there we go I was having a little bit of problem with my zoom okay Aaron and then I see Ryan Nicole Taisha and Matt great um thanks Lauren and yeah Lisa thinks that was really excellent presented and uh helped me follow along extremely well just a couple clarifying questions one is specific one on the watering schedules like a couple of the things that were mentioned one was different days for different properties and another one was uh just prohibiting

[137:01] um irrigation usage During certain hours of the day I guess during certain times of the year it it's strikes me as potentially that latter course being much simpler to adopt do you rated that as I think a medium complexity would it go to the lower end of medium if if we went for blanket hours for the whole City versus implementing different days in different sections yeah that's a great question so I think the idea with the medium level of effort is the enforcement aspect of that so it would in order to enforce that um I think that that would be more challenging but um and it depends yeah if it was time of day or week um that very but this is also where we we haven't gotten too much in DET yeah we're do you mind turn your video I didn't catch the last couple sentences yeah I'm sorry about that I don't know what's going on with the internet um so I the the medium level of

[138:00] impact is more related to enforcement of that and so and these are kind of just best guesses of how much effort and so it just would take some additional Staffing either in utilities or Planning and Development we'd have to determine the details of that um in order to enforce either a time or day of week got it and then a followup question on that so I get that makes sense that enforcement is where a lot of the time is placed but would it be a little bit easier on the enforcement uh if it were blanket across the city versus different days in different places Lisa can I jump in on that yeah please very recently I was able to share that some jurisdictions actually have dropped their daily uh restriction in part for the reason that you're mentioning uh mayor and so if it was just the time of day that that's a that is a less of an enforcement challenge than trying to regulate the days of the week kind of thing okay thanks for that Brad and then the other thing is so we're seeing the different levels of difficulty here but

[139:01] we're not in a budget discussion today n i I believe you've described our budget situation as constrained I believe so so you know if we if we said yeah yeah do it all um we don't actually have the the money to do that right so like to what extent do we have the flexibility to say we like these but but Implement them as we have the funding or put them on a plan for when we do have the funding n this might be a question for you I appreciate that I mean and and uh Brad correct me if I'm wrong as we get a little bit more information and we come back and some of them are already going to come back to you with tradeoff we build some of that out I think as we learn more of what your desires are then the next question is uh will be that budget conversation we have not built that into the 2025 budget which we just passed uh so so the quickness um and the determination of what you want to move forward we will need to bring for next year's budget and

[140:00] then we will have that conversation on what you're willing to fund or not within our um as we present what we have available so it it really will just depend on the menu of items um that you as a council body want to move forward yeah and I'll just add to nura's comment to say that some of these just mechan meally and logistically would also take time to stand up say a new program so it would actually probably in some scenarios spread out over several budget year discussions okay that that's helpful to understand thank you um and then the last one was I know our second question that we'll be looking at is whether we apply some of the non-functional turf requirements to additional areas have we thought as well as applying some of that to new um single family Construction I mean we don't get much of that but like say in the strip in front of the the like the front yard area for example versus like say the backyard where you might be more

[141:01] active you know I I don't know that we have talked about that and Lisa maybe you can correct me on that um I would point out to your your your statement there mayor that um we get a very small number of those and I guess just off the top of my head I would worry about kind of creating that discrepancy in the community that would be a little hard to track uh but we certainly could look into that and Leisa am I correct that we didn't really talk about that in another context we have talked about it um okay but one of the things that that the evaluation was helpful as I mentioned is that Boulder does already have some Turf restrictions for residential so we've had that for 20 years already um so we're already far ahead um a little bit farther ahead than other communities um but we'd certainly be looking as we look at all the Landscaping standards about how to beef that up for the single family residential side um some of the communities that have the more black and white restriction of not having Turf in

[142:01] the front yard things like that um which I know Castle Rock had is now in the process of removing that and so it's not something necessarily um I think that that could be implemented more successfully as maybe a percentage which is how we have it now a percentage of the site for a single family um could be Turf rather than you know front yard versus backyard um just to if you tell me we've already got some Provisions for it that's good enough for me thanks for the answer that's all my questions thank you thanks Aaron Nicole and then Taisha thank you and um thanks Lisa for the great presentation memo um my question was really similar to Erin's and so rather than re ask it uh the other thing that comes to mind is we're making some um likely making some changes around uh single family zoning and um things like that I mean if we are um applying the non-functional turf standards to multif family residential

[143:02] how does that kind of intersect with some of this work we're doing uh to get into compliance with some of the state laws around um allowing a little more density in some of the single family areas yeah that's a really great question so um the way that the building code separates um um I don't think they call it single family multif family but uh you get into a commercial level of construction past four units and so likely it we would use that same dividing line where one two three unit buildings would have the same requirements and then four units and above would um fall into that multif family definition thank you thanks Nicole uh next we have Taisha and then Matt I'm just gonna just coign um the mayor already asked my questions about the budget so really just getting that fiscal note and that information because a lot of these I would be really interested in so just knowing what the

[144:01] cost is and based on the conversation we just have that it's going to be a year out that I'm also con interested in like prioritization levels uh related to cost so that's all thank you oh and then uh communication to renters I just feel like this is a very landowner conversation and just as a renter I don't think um you know I think there could be more um information and consideration of how we communicate and um also just H um you know predicting costs also is something I think that is a major consideration because when you go up you know oh sure yeah water more but then you go up a whole water tier and that's a lot of money um and so just wanted to put that in there thank you thanks t Matt appreciate that um now just a throw disclaimer I did go camera off uh

[145:00] because I had to step out for just a h minute so if this was addressed just quickly cut me off and say it was done um but this is a little bit of of of pcking backing off what what what Aaron said um and I guess my my general question is if we were to sort of force everyone to irrigate at certain times of day do we run into any water pressure issues by the street neighborhood or city level if everybody's doing it all at once yeah that's a great question and I can point to uh Joanna Bloom from utilities is here and she can add something maybe I should turn off my camera I want to make sure you guys can see that I'm nodding and listening to you um um so what that would be actually one of the benefits of assigning specific days to different addresses is that most people or a lot of people 00 a.m. and so there's some issues with that already and so by dividing that out there could be um a greater differentiation but I'll let Joanna talk about that since that's more her area of

[146:03] expertise thanks Lisa thank you Lisa can you all hear me yes perfect um I'm Joanna Bloom I'm a deputy director over in utilities and yeah pressure and treatment plant concerns are something that we would have to figure out how to manage I don't think they're insurmountable but they are issues um that we would have to consider okay my second question was going to be for utilities anyway which related to this is um if we're looking at curving water usage I I think we're not far off or pretty close to doing a new rate base study so how would we use an enhanced and tiered rate base and escalating premium for that for extra water use and I only think of that is because there's a number of folks who grow their own food and so creating these restrictions would then diminish their capacity to do that and we want people to grow their own food because they're not coming from other areas it's local it's nearby it's organic so I want to make sure that

[147:01] we're not creating we're not competing against our values in that sense so I'm just sort of curious if you could shed light on the rate based study and where and when that may come to be yeah so we do have as a 2025 work plan item um starting with a rate study it's really probably going to be in two phases because we current ly have existing water budgets that would really inform um a second phase that would be um a rate study and our existing water budgets they've been in place for over a decade and it's time to kind of re-evaluate and see how they apply and there are certainly tradeoffs um and how we want to influence behavior and what we're comfortable um saying that folks can and can't do and so that would be a bigger process um it is slated for the 2025 work plan so so more to come on that thank you thank you Matt uh Tina you're up next yeah um I am also interested in the

[148:02] growing your own food and how that interacts with water rates um and I don't know if that's a stated value in the city of Boulder or a priority but um it would be good to point to that if we have that discussion um the other pieces when we remove Turf um if the city could help uh people understand how we cannot create more of a heat island since Turf has some cooling impacts and especially when we think about areas that are multi-story buildings that might be in heat Islands already so just trying to see how people living in those places won't be um experiencing more heat but rather less are the same um that's a question I have whether we're addressing that yeah I think there's a lot of great work being done in our climate IV department and I would invite um them to speak up with anything about the urban heat island work um but that is a part that is a concern with the non-functional turf bill um that we are

[149:01] anticipating some best practices guidance and technical assistance from the state um since that will be implemented Statewide um of what kind of to similar to what we had talked about with the Wildfire hardening what can be used in place of turf grass that can achieve some of those uh climate benefits um while so improving the urban heat island effect but not be so such a heavy water user as Turf is and then I had a really specific question um when we're talking about removing non-essential Turf and we look at a property like the flat iron Park on 55th is is most of that there's a lot of turf there is most of it not essential or is some of it designated as Park so for the most part parks that are used for civic or recreational purposes would be considered functional Turf so that wouldn't be that fall under the bill um there is some Nuance there in the state bill so as we apply that to

[150:02] our local standards we're hoping we can be have a more um clear definition of non-functional turf um so maybe we can parse that out more than the state bill which is essentially um not an area that has a function right because I the the fat arm Park is just it's offices but there's sorry yeah it's there's a lot of turf in the medians and all around it and so I was just kind of curious like how we're engaging with owners um there because it would be a pretty heavy lift um to change that I think which I'm not opposed to it but I just want to make sure we're thinking about what that timeline looks like yeah sorry I went we down the the Park Road yeah you know it's like a terrible example no I just was I heard Park and I started going down there um yeah so we would have to we would have to um kind of similar to the Wildfire hardening we'd have to determine at what point land new

[151:01] Landscaping um requirements would be triggered the for as far as non-functional Turf it does say in the bill that any Redevelopment could not they can maintain existing Turf but if they are going to redevelop then it cannot be replaced with non-functional Turf and so because that's a commercial and Industrial office Park um that tur the the non-functional turf bill would apply um so at any point when they have to come in for a permit and then there can be some um further nuances that we can uh determine like what types of permits would um qualify as Redevelopment essentially and then and then finally and I'm sorry this is a really basic question but when we talk about Turf are we also thinking about Ground Covers like Clover or will there just be a lot of specificity to what kind of green ground cover might be replaced or not replaced yeah I would say for the most part it's more of the Kentucky Bluegrass and Fescue type of perf that

[152:00] are really heavy water users um and not so much but that's again where we can get into more specificity than what the state bill says and we're hoping to create a Consolidated plant list and more definitive guidance on um you know there's there's a lot of there's been a lot of advancements in low water Turf um I don't know if there's one called Taha 31 that people are using that's really low water use um so we'll be able to add more definition to that as we develop a plant list in landscaping standards okay thank you so much thanks Tina um I have a couple of questions myself so let's see as we think about Outreach um and engagement and education I'm wondering do we have targeted efforts where we look at properties based on on water usage to identify um kind of maybe properties that are using disproportionately large amounts of water for outreach engagement

[153:00] and education activities yeah that's a great question and I'll bring Joan Bloom for that one yeah so I would say our water budgets are the primary mechanism that we try to notify people of getting into that realm of higher than desired water use um that's really the main mechanism we have in communicating with people we do try to do certain through our um water conservation Partners um do Audits and things like that that can help people that are interested in conserving um come up with some programs and I'll just invite either Kim Hutton or Crystal M to add anything else to that that are also here supporting the conversation that I might have missed good evening Council and Kim Kim Hutton water resources manager I yeah I don't I

[154:00] think Joanna captured it really well um we've got some programs that we initiate through the water conservation program where we are looking at the higher water users um and we're doing targeted Outreach uh to those higher water users uh primarily through the commercial industrial um institutional sector thank you appreciate that um one of the things that I notice in commercial landscape which tends to be most commercial projects have commercial have more Landscaping projects often than residential um I don't see a lot of native grass plantings sort of that more like field of native grasses rather than like clumps of um often not native grasses would you say that is that something that we're seeing because of the regulations we have in place or is

[155:02] that would that kind of planting easily fall under what is allowed or encouraged by our current regulations this is a great opportunity to bring Chris this is a great opportunity to bring Chris rello our landscape architect uh to share his expertise uh good evening council members uh Chris ricardel principal landscape architect City Boulder planing and development services um would you mind uh Lauren restating your question yeah so I was wondering about um sort of native grasses and if those are I don't often see them in places that I believe follow our Landscaping standards and I'm wondering if that is because because they [Music] are sort of discouraged based on some rule or intricacy in our Landscaping standards or if they're just not

[156:00] preferred by people who are installing or you know designing and it's a good question using Landscapes um often larger commercial projects um whether they're triggering landscape improvements or not as a question if it's a brand new commercial project commercial or say an office project or a a research project um we are working actively with a number of applicants to actually refine um the landscape standards within that property the way they're designed so I'm working with Landscape Architects for the most part to try to meet our landscape standards and and we have limitations on on turf grass obviously 25% of the landscape area is the the maximum we can allow for turf grass but in terms of natives often uh those projects and those designers do incorporate uh quite a few natives sometimes it it takes a little while to get those established and and to get the the landscape uh mature um so am I

[157:04] answering your question um I'm walking around it just a little bit I apologize for that but it's it's it's a complex issue um like I said many of the projects that are uh out there currently um have established landscape that's existed for some time that that might be modified with new with new work or new proposals um but often times we do we do absolutely direct them to use the natives native grasses native materials appreciate that thank you you're welcome um I have another question for you probably um what would you recommend in terms of helping us keep our street trees alive it feels like a big issue that we have where newly planted Street trees often do not make it into their Prime yeah that's a good question I wish forestry were here um they might be the the absolute experts on this subject however

[158:00] I'm obviously reviewing and inspecting Street trees uh and there are a number of issues that are happening and it's not an easy uh subject to try to figure out what's killing some of the street trees oftentimes it can be the work itself from landscape contractors and an inability to to plant them properly and then we'll see some some mortality from those trees over several years uh you might be seeing that and often times similarly there may be maintenance issues in terms of irrigation where uh all it takes in the middle of the summertime is to turn off that irrigation or have it left off inadvertently for two weeks and those trees are going to die uh and it just takes a little time so it's it's unfortunate but it does happen otherwise in terms of morphology and trying to figure out exactly botanically why they're dying is another story um and and probably one that I should really redirect to to forestry should they um receive the

[159:01] question I appreciate you taking um a try at it and if forestry has more comments that they would like to share with that us I would love it through email if they're not here tonight um and then let's see one of the things I also notice is that where I've seen commercial projects that they're you know are doing enough modifications that they have to come into compliance with the Landscaping standards um that that's only lasts for a couple of years and often um I see Rock mulch going back in I see different plantings than what were initially put in because it doesn't seem like especially in areas like our parking lot um tree Islands um and often kind of our more landscape with high foot traffic

[160:02] kind of areas and things like that that sometimes there isn't a lot of durability um are we reaching out to those Property Owners to understand why they're maybe installing new Landscapes that aren't compliant with our standards um so that we can I guess I'm concerned because I you know people are making this investment it's kind of failing and then I see um them trying something different that isn't compliant and if there's a good reason for that I would like to understand what it is and maybe change rules to make sure that what we're requiring of people is has long-term durability yes um we certainly do look retroactively at existing land Scapes to see if they are in compliance um often times it takes a level of enforcement or or review time um that that can be taxing on on the landscape staff um

[161:02] which is me um so it it takes a little while to try to do that but we have been doing that successfully land use code actually requires that all property owners that have an active uh landscape plan that was approved through one of the land use processes that they are required to actually maintain all plat material that was approved so if any any of them go back through and remove plat material or uh take it out whether it's because of maintenance issues or or just mortality or that sort of thing that then they are required to replace it in kind unless they come back in with a new landscape plan um whether a landscape was originally uh considered durable or not is a good question um almost nothing is durable when you have foot traffic or any kind of traffic that or even chemical issues in terms of snow removal and Ice removal chemicals that sort of thing often times will have difficulty try to maintain uh some of those

[162:02] Landscapes um and and that's something we probably need to have a look at in terms of what would be considered durable especially for parking lots um does that cover your question yeah I appreciate that answer Lisa I see your yeah turning off my video for a second to let you know I to talk but um I think that also speaks to the potential opportunity with the certification program um and again many of the recommendations in making sure that the establishment is successful of plants and so if something is installed by someone who understands the correct way to irrigate and um um install those plants then it has a much better uh chance of survival that's just something we don't have right now um is the ability to educate all of the different contractors who are doing that in the way to install things in a way that's going to um bear the test of time as well as soil amendment and Mulch and all

[163:01] these other things that would support the health of the plant into the future thank you for that Lisa does anyone else have any additional questions or should we move looks like we could move on to our first question from staff which is does count Council have feedback on staff's recommendations considerations for this scope of work and I heard primarily getting an understanding of which of these areas we would really like to see or in which ones we are not interested in moving forward I see Nicole's hand up yes um thanks for the question uh so the things that I was particularly interested in um were constructing a a list of recommended plants um and things to to include um education for landscapers um incentives for everyone involved I think incentives are generally a great way to go um anything

[164:02] that's consistent and aligned with our water efficiency plan um specifically targeting some of the policies uh within that plan um especially since it had so much engagement that went along with it um also anything that overlaps with our fire mitigation efforts those would have PRI prity for me um just sort of a general theme on the things that interested me is really anything that helps people help themselves and um aligns with our um sustainability Equity resilience framework as well um I'm not super interested in adding a lot of enforcement requirements um from a constrained budget and resource perspective so I would love to um to stay away from those thank you thanks Nicole I see eron next yeah those were great comments Nicole thanks I guess I might look at this at um certainly the easy ones you know please polish them off as you have time and it

[165:02] seems like with the medium to the hard ones I I would look to staff maybe to come back with a maybe a sequencing um and length of time and what's potentially doable from a budget perspective I think you have a lot of good ideas here like we've other jurisdictions have implemented a lot of best practic that we haven't gotten to yet and I'd love to see us catch up but I I'd be interested in staff's kind of prioritization and thoughts on how to accomplish that and and just the the one other thing I would throw in there is that the the professional training and certification does seem like a really big lift from um like a staff resources and time perspective so like that that one it was unclear to me that it would ever be worth the tradeoff for the amount of time and money that it would take but um for the other ones i' just I'd be interested in staff suggesting sequencing as we have resources available thanks thank you Aaron Matt I appreciate that I think

[166:01] the the question I keep coming back to for myself and I I don't know how we reconcile this is the competing interests I'm not saying like economically but you know leaving Leaf cover down is good for soil health was bad for fire mitigation right and certain things we do for stone or rock is good for fire mitigation but bad for our climate and heat island effect right and so we have these and so I just I don't know how we find balance in that and I I don't maybe we won't but I just keep coming back to how do we do that um because they become mutually exclusive at some point and some one may value one more than the other and I don't know to what extent we dictate those terms maybe in the wooe we determined it's one way and in other areas there's more F I don't know the answer but I just see that those those conflicts could paralyze us from actually making a decision one way or the other and then we're kind of just sort of man trying to manage everything

[167:01] so I don't know how to get there but that that's I don't know how we do that thanks Matt um I have some comments that relate to that so I'll call myself next um I think sort of because of that intrinsic that some times there are trade-offs that we can't really avoid they just are intrinsically tradeoffs between things um I'm not as interested in an allout prohibition on things I think that maybe limiting the amount um the percentage of area that can be used for particular things is a good way to deal with that um I liked the idea of allowing you know rock mulch around um directly around a house or Foundation to help create that fire break there might be other places where that makes sense like along the base of a fence or something like that so I think allowing some flexibility while still um pushing people towards the majority of the

[168:00] landscape being in a um more climate friendly um direction is what I would like to see in going going that way um along with other things that are sort of bigger changes that aren't necessarily addressed in this um in our parking lot standards in general I kind of question whether having these little tiny strips that are hard to plant um is always the right direction in terms of trying to create space that really um uh can make sense for plantings you know as you talked about it's difficult when you're talking about deicing and high foot traffic for a lot of plants to survive that kind of environment and maybe it makes sense to have more consol Consolidated larger areas of plantings um I would also like to see us

[169:00] increase kind of the educational aspect on our water billing so having more push I remember when I used to live in Eugene where we had U Municipal electric you would get things like you are you know using 20% more electricity than your neighbors you know and kind of like these little pushes to encourage people to make reductions and they tailored them based on you know what they thought was most likely to decrease usage regardless of what your usage was um I like the soil amendment um recommendations and potentially testing although I wouldn't recommend that for permit but maybe um at Co or permit close out um and and it could be something that ties into that professional training and certification I I did like that idea I know it's expensive but if

[170:01] that could potentially replace some of the other areas where staff is spending time on projects maybe it makes sense maybe with certification that um alleviates some other kinds of permit reviews or something like that to make it so that there's an incentive but not a requirement for training and certification um and where we really are trusting people once they are certified um to follow through with that and maybe making their certification being able to hold it contingent on not breaking those rules uh like we talked about earlier a simple firewise standard would be great and um and I oh this is the next question yeah that's it for me I see Taisha thank you um I Echo a lot of the

[171:04] actually all of the comments um and recommendations on that as well um hello oh okay again good perfect um my question was more about the like more from a connectivity perspective so um and like H habitat connectivity perspective so um you know I I was kind of thinking more so like East I've noticed east of Foothills I was looking at the nature conserves um what is it their metro Denver Regional conservation assessment and for our area um they just like you know have about maybe about 30% of our area they have as kind of habitat low connectivity so it kind of got me thinking about some of the measures and metrics that we're using for this um and

[172:02] and just from that quality perspective um just you know I would like to think about how that was being being addressed um and then the other piece was just water reuse that's just in general wanted to lift that up as something I I'd be curious if that had been discussed or or is being considered yeah it's oh sorry um I don't know if utilities wants to answer that about the water reuse I do know that there is an opportunity coming up um from coming from the state about looking at gray Waters and mun IP alties will have to um decide how that fits into their community so that's something on the horizon that we'll need to look at here in the next year too um and I think I'll leave it there I

[173:00] know Kim probably has more to add but I think there's more conversation to come on that thank you thank you um so I don't see any more comments related to item one so I think it we can move into item two does council support exploring expanding the applicability of the state I'm sorry Lauren they answered the water reuse question but not the habitat connectivity question sorry about that um Jonathan con from climate initiatives is here and I know they do a lot of work on habitat connectivity so I think he would be the best one to answer that awesome and specifically the intersection right with the Landscaping component right and it also kind of connects with Lauren's question about like how the quality of what's being planted like isn't good then it doesn't doesn't help

[174:00] us um uh good evening uh members of council uh Jonathan con with climate and issues thanks Lisa for calling on me I've been listening intently great conversation um council member Adams appreciate the question you and I have had some conversation about this very issue and I think there are a number of things that we want to think about uh with respect to the connectivity and uh I think what you're getting to is um deeply rooted in our discussions around cool Boulder obviously connected canopies and pollin corridors and thinking about kind of going back to I think one of the comments that council member foler made about uh or I guess it was council member Benjamin about kind of the competing um tradeoffs and thinking about if we want to do something as an example um with rockscaping obviously you do that incorrectly it can inre surface temperatures and air temperatures by over 5 Dees and and we know that that heat persists after the sun goes down so how do we think about supporting n n native ecosystems um in in through this

[175:01] process and the way we have been thinking about that through our work is prioritizing climate positive design and that's where I think there's going to be a really great connector between the work that we're doing in nature-based Solutions and thinking about those tradeoffs making sure that we are not um creating those unattended consequences and diminishing or impacting our pollinators and that biodiversity which is so critical in the climate space while also addressing the issues that we know are so critical around heat and of course around water and around bu mitigation so I don't have the perfect answer for you except to say that we're really starting to explore deeply into that point of intersection and know that that's going to be how we think about developing incentive structures and ongoing strategy and programs across the Departments okay well thank you very much and again I think it's that how to you know that where program becomes policy where we're embedding it where it just becomes practice um is is really

[176:01] where I'm I'm excited to get those policy recommendations so thank you so much thank you um and now I think we can move on to question two yes yes okay does count does city council support exploring expanding the applicability of the state Bill prohibition on nonfunctional Turf artificial turf and invasive plants to apply to all new multifamily residential development in addition to the commercial institutional common interest communities and Industrial uses as required by the bill IAS away Ain you want just stold this one more I'm certainly in favor but maybe we could be quick about this okay yeah I think that I sounds like a great recommendation so everyone who is in Nicole do you me

[177:01] to have a comment first or can I strap hold this um it could either be for after it does relate to it but go forward as well um and just a a thinking about the engagement um and so first of all support of of of EXP exploring this um but thinking about the engagement I know one of the big engagement uh strategies was to look back at the water efficiency plan engagement which I'm in favor of because that was a more comprehensive engagement process my question is if we're moving in that direction does that change anything around um the the uh engagement think initial thinking about the engagement strategy um for this work just because if we're now pulling in multif family um housing did did we get a lot of folks kind of responding in that group earlier and especially and there was a comment about um reusing the beard Boulder respondents who had responded to the water efficiency plan and I'm just curious to what degree multif family

[178:00] people in multif family housing were represented there to um tesa's comment about renters and and how they're being brought into this work yeah my understanding is we did get a good number of responses to the water efficiency um plan and input from that but I'll double check on that but um this is is where it gets it's a a good opportunity to talk about the difference between consult level of Engagement and inform so like I said the the implementation of the state bill is truly an informed level of Engagement because there's not wiggle room the wiggle room is applying this to multif family and so that's where we would have to step up into a consult level of Engagement we'll certainly use um the input that was received for water efficiency as it is applicable but if we need to expand that and um build on that we will uh to align with um the potential to explore multif family residential awesome thank you Lisa and I guess I have a question related to that as well so the state law

[179:02] only applies to new construction is that correct it's also Redevelopment and Redevelopment okay but we as a city have already our sort of stricter Landscaping requirements would also apply to new or significant Redevelopment is there a big gap between what our current standards would require and what this new State uh law would require I think in simple as terms so I you heard Chris mention that we have a 25% maximum of turf grass right now um and the state bill would allow no a 0% of turf grass and so that would be the difference so although we already um and that's in those certain uses so um so although we already have fairly strict standards compared to others the state Bel is going to be stricter on non-functional Turf than we currently

[180:00] have okay thank you for that um and I guess maybe I have one more followup question do we feel like we have good alternatives for turf grass in terms of creating um sort of that kind of cooling area for recreation that often turf grass provides I think we'll need to do some more research on that um I'm sure others in other departments um might have already done this and be able to answer this question better but um like I said we'll have technical assistance from the state with best practices recommendations and there are a number of new um lower water use turf grass Alternatives that have been coming online in the last few years so I think that we'll be able to get there and determine that kind of recommended plant list for Alternatives okay great thank you so with that everyone who is in favor of expanding the state Bill to include um

[181:03] multi family housing please raise your hand I see one two three four five six seven oh Matt was your hand up you're behind a thing on my screen yes perfect thank you okay eight um so it looks like that is something we are interested in having staff explore thank you so much for this presentation Lisa and for all of your work on both of these items thank you Nia for letting us squeeze two items into one um and and with that I would like to move on to our final topic of the night um which is reaffirming council's commitment to

[182:00] council rules of procedure so this was an item that was brought forward by council member Benjamin in a hotline and so I will um turn it over to him to explain what he is asking for from us um and how we would move and what decision we need to make on this item thank you appreciate it Lauren um so thanks for the opportunity to to bring this up um you know I find it I mean self-governance being a self-governing body and good governments are are always a council priority regardless if we state it um at a retreat because there is no one to manage us but us um so on uh on Halloween interestingly enough not that this is a scary topic it shouldn't be um but I sent a hotline um out really sort of centered on a council training um that I participated in regarding our

[183:00] Council rules it was really just to sort of go in depth um and have the assistance of our City attorney and staff go through and really dive deep into what is a 70 page when you look at it right I mean it's it's it's it's not a small document um to just look at it and learn more about it and how we interpret those rules and are where are they clear where are they maybe not and and what came out of that was really three things that that for me I was sort of surprised by that there were really three rules that um one of which we don't follow really much at all and and and the other two were sort of inconsistent with and so I just thought since we're a self-governing body I wanted to put it out there and say hey these are areas that I've noticed that we're not on we're not uh following our rules as we have them written and is is a chance to reaffirm them and kind of say hey look going forward we're going to do our best and hold ourselves accountable to following the rules that we've set forth for ourselves because without rules we we lose the ability to have fair treatment among ourselves and it also sets some inequities with

[184:01] regards to some people maybe feeling um like they've got more or less influence in a situation um or on a particular issue um and so that's really what I wanted to bring up just make sure here's a moment hey these are we're not doing that great here um if we have questions about them we can raise that and then that reaffirmation allows us to sort of move forward forward in a way that uh we can all move collaboratively and in an even space going forward um so that was the the purpose of that um and the three ones that I brought up were um with regards to our our our procedures around how we interact as a council body of open comment not Community um but how we um at the deis uh deal with open comment um how we utilize our CAC requests um and how we utilize Hotline in really the core function of directing staff um and getting into those areas where might we might be asking staff to do more than they really should be doing without a KN of three or KN of five and getting into those sort of sticky situations so um those are the three and so I just wanted to bring that up for discussion and see if anyone else has any comments or or

[185:00] add um or pieces like that but um I didn't want to dominate the whole conversation I want to turn it over to sort of those pieces based on that um and then we can add some commentary and certainly ask um Teresa for some guidance on on how we interpret and move forward with some of those rules so I'll just sort of leave it there and see if there's questions or comments and if people want to take it from there okay I see Tina yeah first I just wanted to ask with Hotline in particular um do we feel like is there a mechanism for staff to flag hotlines that are too much work that really need a knot of th of three is that because I wouldn't know that I can't govern other people's hotlines because I don't know which information is at the ready and which information takes research so do we have like so is there one option for us to affirm that we respect the hotline and also staff that we encourage them to kick them back

[186:00] if they think it needs a not of three I see Teresa um ready to answer that yeah so currently thanks for that um currently in the U Council handbook there are some guidelines for hotlines it does point us back to the rule of three and um rule of five rule of three being for research requests that are going to take more than three hours um those require three council members Ascent um for things that are significant um work and um potentially new work those would require a KN of five so that is in the current Council handbook I would say that it's um not something that we flag very often though as staff and something that we probably could do a better job of doing so yeah I that's yeah n sorry sorry I just might add an um uh what

[187:00] Teresa has that it is all correct I would add to that when it does come to that and we are trying to reinforce that with our own team because we are Pleasers and when you ask us to do something we want to nod into that uh with due respect to that pleasing component I have asked staff to really think about that when there is a request to bring it back and so when we when we do see that what we try to do is to bring that forward to CAC so that is the process when we hear from you whether it's through uh indirectly and we hope that that is the the chance for hotline to be used we come to you and we will do that more proficiently as Teresa says we could do a better job of that is to come to you and bring that to CAC for a discussion that's helpful and that's the for me the missing link it's just making sure that we know when when we need to be kicking it over to a odd of three or five thank you Tina I see Nicole yeah um first of all just um

[188:01] thank you Matt for bringing this up um some of this I have been wanting us to talk about as a group for the entire time I've been on Council so I'm kind of excited to have some of it come up here um you know I think some of this in the um the training discussion one of the things that came out um was that one of the biggest challenges that we have as a governing body is getting through everything that we need to get through uh both the ambitious um work plan priorities that we set together as a council um every two years but also just the work that we're required to do and and where staff needs us to help out with um some of the uh Citywide strategic um priorities that that they're working on um as well as just things we have to do like um the landmarks stuff and and things like that um and you know I think for me coming out of that training one of the things that I was thinking about was how you know how are we deciding together how we're spending um the time that we have

[189:00] together and the very little amount of um spare time that that we have and so you know I think even in thinking about CAC requests for a few years what I've been wanting us to do is do at the start of every year be intentional about what the additional topics are that we want to add to our schedule as any additional space arises and so um in my time on CAC last year um just kind of observing and then um jumping in a little more it was really thinking about how are we um how how can we keep our our um requests focused on the council priorities and the um the city-wide work that that we have to do um but you know I think that this this extends to kind of all thinking about all the time that we have together and how we are um using that time and also just giving CAC what they need to um schedule things appropriately so that we get out of our meetings on time and you know to the um I I mentioned this at uh may it was at the training but just even in thinking

[190:01] about you know um responding to open comment which you know I think we all do um at various times but like how how are we making it clear that that's what we're going to do so that CAC knows to build that time in um as we are thinking about uh the agenda how do we kind of get um get to a place where we are being um um intentional about scheduling the time that we are using in meetings so that we can stay on track and not have what happened um like last week where you know I think nearly all of us weighed in um after the open comment and then um when it got to the point where we needed to make a decision on uh one of the public hearings um it was so late and um at least five of us were very uh tired and and feeling like we couldn't make an unappropriate decision at that point in the night so so I think you know when when I think about some of these things that help us work more efficiently um just thinking about how can we plan our time together so that we really are

[191:00] focusing on all the things that we um that that we have committed to staff and to the community that we're going to be working on thank you Nicole um I also wonder so I have Matt's h line pulled up and I was wondering Teresa because I think it is helpful to see the sections of code that are included in that if that is something I might be able to copy into the chat for us to see or if that would be problematic that would be fine okay just so that we all have access to that I'm going to copy that into the chat um and Tara I saw you had your hand up and you're welcome to I did do you want it first copy it into the chat because no I well I was actually GNA say what we all talked for a very long time can you all

[192:01] hear me because I'm trying a new headset yeah okay we all talked for a really long well I made a little speech other people made speeches so that made that meting go so long and I wanted to know exactly what does it say about what we should be doing after open comment so that's what you have up here so that's good soy to address that if you'd like that would be great yeah so in your Council procedure under section four council meeting agenda a 2 F provides that at the conclusion of open comment the presiding officer may ask City staff for any response to matters raised during open comment so may ask City staff for a response at the conclusion of the staff response any council member may ask that the original speaker be recalled to reply to the

[193:03] staff response such comment shall be limited to one minute that is the only provision for any response after open comment at that time so when Council wishes to comment on things that were brought up in open comment that falls under section 4 um a eight which is Matters from the mayor and members of city council which provides in relevant part at this point any council member May placed before the council matters which are not included in the formal agenda this item is generally limited to responses to open comment and so responses to open comment should actually be coming under Matters

[194:01] from the mayor and the city council at at toward the end of the meeting point of clarification uh is there a time limited attributed to that that's a great question Taisha there is no time limit there is no time limit provided in that procedure thank you it does um Noe not for that portion thank you for that um I see Tina and then Mark yeah so should we talk about that particular Rule now about response to public common under matters is that what we're contemplating I think open comment open comment to be clear thank you

[195:00] discussing sort of broadly at this moment but I would like to get us to narrow in and then um I was imagining that we might sort of straw pole on whether we want to um you know recommit to following the rules as they are laid out in our handbook um or because some of these are ones that we are not typically following we could also say that we choose not to um that we choose to continue as we are yeah um Teresa oh hold on could you give us Teresa could you give us guidance as to the proper way in which we could just not be following our rules uh versus how we would properly be going about doing that isn't there a more accur more isn't there a more specific procedure as to how we would have to officially decide not to be following the rules at hand yes

[196:00] so should should should someone wish to not follow the rules as laid out in the procedure that that should require a motion to suspend the particular Council rule of procedure at play and then a vote which would require a majority to actually suspend the rules the other way to do it is to go Rogue thank you for that Teresa I do find it ironic Matt that you asked that question without raising your hand or being addressed in this meeting but I appreciate that we all have we all have work to do um Teresa with that so BEC we but we typically aren't following some of these so how does that fit into what you just said you know you've asked the question in a very direct way and so I'm going to

[197:00] give you a very direct answer which would be that the council is out of order okay thank you I see Tina you have additional questions yeah so first I'm going to just follow up then to permanently change the rule about responding to open comment what's the process for that um the the process for that would be um I think first an evaluation of Staff time and capacity to do so and and then the ascent of at least five council members so that would be a formal vote taken um or or a out of five okay I mean can I just weigh in on all three Lauren do you want to try that and then we'll see sure okay I am um I would like to follow all the rules and

[198:02] um I think for me the hotline doesn't seem too difficult or the CAC um but staff might need to help us with the hotline so that we know when we're out of order um and with regards to the respon of public comment um and and for what it's worth I had also asked Teresa prior to the meeting if we could suspend the rules for a period of 60 days um so that we didn't have to take a vote at every meeting um but we can't do that we have to do it at each meeting so um and the reason I say this is I struggle with our response to public comment not being after public comment so to have people provide comment and then have a three-hour meeting and then say now I want to respond to this item I think it's awkward and I'm not sure it's the right thing to be doing so I think the way we're doing it makes sense to me even though I don't always love the whole public comment but I do think it makes sense so I would be interested in

[199:01] finding a permanent solution to the to a rule change and it might be also that then unfortunately there would be a response to public comment at the beginning of the meeting and then a matter section where we would seek the nods of three or five which opens up two sort of public forums which might add time to meetings but so this may be something that the process committee looks like looks at or something like that but I um you know I have concerns about sticking indefinitely to the rule that we would respond to public common at 10 at night I I'm I'm still uncomfortable with that idea thank you Tina I see Mark and then taesa um with respect to hotline uh I am perfectly comfortable and I obviously I'm the one who uses hotline most uh if staff wants to say uh buddy uh that that's an unreasonable request we can't

[200:02] address that in in a timely fashion um and you need to get a KN of three or five or whatever um I would leave that to staff's discretion to point that out um uh if if the information cannot be provided or the questions cannot be as answered uh without that commitment of time I'm okay with that um with respect to answering um public comment I agree with uh Tina I am an advocate for a change in the rules that formally permit us to respond um after public comment not 3 hours later um particularly when some of the public comment we have experienced in recent weeks um has been treating us as human pinatas and when um

[201:00] when that kind of comment um is is made when it when it becomes personal when it becomes um offensive and uh derogatory in in a major way I think we have we are entitled um within a brief time period and whether it's one minute or two minutes I'd Advocate uh for 2 minutes um thoroughly enforced um but uh whether it's that or 90 seconds or whatever um I I think we have an entitlement to um to respond to that because these are these are very very disparaging and hostile derogatory I mean they they they violate every value that we articulate when we start public comment and uh it doesn't matter where our particular philosophies are

[202:00] we've all um been beaten about the head and shoulders on this subject and I don't think there's anything inappropriate when somebody properly exercises their right of free speech for a member of council to exercise his or her right of free speech and articulate 30 at night 45 when when the public comment is being made um I you know any other solution to me is simply not fair um to members of council I don't want to get into big fights with people but um sometimes the public commentary is is is absurd it's just um uh thoroughly out of bounds and if we are going to be called out in that fashion um whether as a group uh or individually I think we are entitled to

[203:00] articulate a response uh in the moment um it cannot be free speech for thee and not for me so I would I'd be an advocate of changing the rule to accommodate that kind of response thank you thank you for that Mark I will point out Mark and Tina I think you still have hands up um Taisha you're next thank you uh I Echo agreement for being able to respond immediately thereafter I also agree with some kind of time limit um to Nicole's Point around being able to better um determine time allocations for the agenda if we have a time limit in response it'll very much help us to be able to do that um for the hotline I really like the idea like if somebody puts a hotline could we if if Council if other council members would also you know to get to that knot of three or five like if we can kind of also respond to say yes I would be interested just to expedite because I I

[204:00] can imagine I mean I don't know I S okay I see that's a no but my larger point is is um how can you know if if if it is going to be the three and we're getting ready to meet I'm just I have some concerns around um the delay in getting that especially if it's something we have to like vote on so I'm less concerned if it's like a study session but if it's something that we need to vote on then I have just a question about how we could do that in uh legally um so and then there was a third mat so I'm so sorry I'm not an auditory learner so there were there was one two and there were three items what was the third daac was the other one or CAC requests okay and that was just to make sure that they were aligned to our priorities yes well specifically just to make sure that well it was more un sense of making sure that we are being clear that when we're submitting them we are recognizing what is a council priority

[205:02] and what is not so that we ourselves have that check of like hey this isn't a council priority so this is going to be in the back of the line right we're going to get to council priorities first and then the thing that's not will get addressed later and so it's just expectation setting for the person submitting but also CAC to to make sure that everyone's aware what's Council priorities get priority and what are not are when time allows okay thank you very much and I think specifically for me the code language is says basically what CAC is supposed to do with those requests which is um potentially scheduling them as a discussion matter under counil uh under matters for Council to affirm or not their interest in having this be scheduled for a um larger conversation you know with the staff time that that might oh then I want that thank you for

[206:02] clarifying I also see Teresa has comments yeah I just wanted to clarify why we wouldn't be able to do the the ascent of multiple me uh council members to a hotline and and that's because it would constitute an O it would then potentially constitute an open meeting and so understand yeah so but the do yeah yeah so the place we can do it is um as staff if we see that we can make a CAC request that you all discuss it under matters and then likewise you all could make a CAC request to discuss under matter kind of like what Matt did to get this discussion that is happening right now um okay Taisha do you have any other

[207:01] questions okay I'll I see Ryan and then Tara okay I have a cqu on what Tina said about the um sequencing of public comments and i' just like to share a perspective and I've I'm 180 degrees from where I started so I initially felt strongly that we should be keeping responses contiguous with open comment for all of the reasons I heard and then I realized something and uh it starts from me knowing that we collectively want to do more than we have time for we have seen that at CC scheduling we've seen that at most meetings we saw it in the last item in this meeting and um so I just quick math so we have we have 22 regular meetings next in 2025 per the me uh meeting agenda that Aon sent out on on November 23rd so if you take off the first hour six to S because that's open comment and declarations and then you

[208:01] say well we probably meet until about 10: I'm being a little bit coar but just big picture so 22 hours times three hours to do our regular deliberations 66 hours I think that's probably I think the actual number is probably less is probably 60 or less um and if I look on the cic agenda now we have um a good portion of of the first half of the year we've already taken you know taken time out of that number so um if to the extent that we want to do policy and and um make decisions it matters not only what those issues are but how productive we are with our time which makes me suddenly feel a lot more like I do wish that time wasn't a factor and would like to keep the thing contiguous but I think we are spending a lot of time um because it's contiguous I think partly it's inviting comments because we have it and I think um people we all should have an

[209:00] ability to respond but when you consider the cost of keeping it that way against what we're trying to accomplish throughout the year I'd rather put it at the end and I'd suggest even giving it a time limit say each you know one or two minutes I think we should all have the right to speak you know at each meeting on whatever we want but give it some thought make an outline and you know I'd like to try to observe them myself so um I think we should do that I think we should put it at the end and suggest or even maybe require one or two minutes thank you Ryan uh Tara you're next thank you Ryan 100% what I think is happening in my opinion is is we are treating open comment like its priority we take our energy we put it at the beginning of the meeting everybody not everybody many of us have our little speeches that we do and it becomes the meeting and then we have less energy and less time to do all the things that actually we're supposed

[210:01] to do so I agree with Ryan I think it's should be pushed back to matters and also I think it should be timed one to two minutes we ask we ask our constituents to only speak for one to two minutes I I think we can also speak for just one to two minutes when it comes to you know personally speaking to different comments I'm gonna agree with Ryan well said Ryan thanks thank you Tara see Nicole and then aarin may k for just a second I just for clarification Ryan are you suggesting that we put the entire open comment at the back or just our responses to open comment at the back thank you Mark sorry no I I would suggest keeping public comment in the beginning and then you know at the end each member has they can speak to whatever they want including public comment at at the end can I just say one more thing I'm sorry so if you think about nine members one minute each we're talking about math again nine minutes

[211:01] that's just one minute that nine minutes extra if we do two minutes it's 18 minutes extra we went so late last night last time it was so frustrating and we the form based code didn't even happen and we didn't even finish it and then Cole and I we couldn't even do our little presentation these were already on the schedule which should take precedent to what somebody brings up an open comment which is good and it's freedom of speech and it's I respect it and I think it's great but it also isn't a PRI it it isn't on our list of priorities that we have to get through thank you Tara Nicole um yeah I think you know as far as the the um open comment component goes um I mean I I probably will still choose to not respond to open comment most of the time um just because it to me it hasn't ever really felt fair that

[212:00] folks who have the time to show up in Chambers on a Thursday night get to direct a council conversation and responses from us um there are so many people who can't be there to steer our public time um and our time time together um you know I think I I would have a slight preference for having the responses at the end of the meeting just for that reason or we respond individually um to to the people who come um only because it um it's the it's hard to um to have this bump other things that we have scheduled into the meeting um at the same time right if a majority of folks want and they are very good reasons for responding to people while they're present and in the room um if that's what a majority of folks would like to do then I would just ask that we start scheduling that response time in our CAC agendas and um have it be predictable I would also ask that we limit our responses to the same thing that the public has which is two minutes so I would definitely support um those kinds of changes as well but as

[213:02] long as you know we can all agree that it is a good idea for us to be able to plan and intentionally use our time and move in that direction um I I'm generally going to be happy with uh with with where this discussion is going um and and I just wanted to um comment on one other thing which was in the um hotline discussion about kind of Staff keeping um keeping folks in line and I think with the uh as as long as that's in the letting us know about needing a not of three or five and when the request Rises to that level um I you know I think that's good but just because we are a self-governing body right it really is on us to regulate ourselves and to help each other um and and I just hesitate to um bring staff too much into that process in any way because they're they're not the ones who are supposed to be um uh uh holding us accountable that's that's us thank you Nicole

[214:03] Aon yeah that was that was well said Nicole you all are making excellent points here tonight um so and Matt I appreciate you bringing this up I'm going to go touch on each one of these on the hotline request I think we're in good shape here and S I think we're going in the right direction and I think N I think you've heard loud and clear from us that if a request does cross that threshold that we're very open and want to hear when's cross that threshold and no no offense taken right just oh FYI that requires an AO three no problem we'll go see if people want to do an a three so I think that message has been clear um hopefully I'm seeing nods from area so good uh and then on the the CAC that this is is a helpful clarification because in in general at C we've tried to be compliant with counselor's requests but um this is helpful kind of U reg

[215:00] guidance to say that well we do have limited amounts of time and so uh counselors have fantastic ideas important topics that they're they're interested in but if if we um say yes to all of them we're not going to get through our work plan items um so I appreciate having this refocusing for CAC I think that'll be helpful excuse me it's something in my throat and then on the um the open comment response I guess my concern here is just how much time it's been taking and you know last meeting a bunch of us spoke myself included you know I took a a few minutes um and as as has been commented we did not get through our major work plan item and then I I I think in in a decent amount because of how long that whole process took of course the long recesses didn't hurt either which were not our fault um but it's um anyway it's it's becoming a time management problem so I I'm hearing good arguments from people about both the responding to open and comment at the

[216:00] end or the ability to respond at at the moment if there's something really urgent but I'm willing to work with the will of Council on that I but I would say you know in terms from a scheduling perspective we're going to do better if we do it at the end and so we're going to get more done Ryan had good math there um so I think that would certainly be helpful um from a Time perspective if we did still say you can talk at the beginning I I would just urge us to um have time limits on that so that it stayed in in a limited amount of time and that we all internally said okay I'm only going to speak um when it's really compelling and so that we can generally get through that that section uh relatively quickly and onto the business of the city so those are my thoughts thanks thank you Erin I appreciate that um I would really like to pull these or at least kind of look at see if we have a KN of five um around the open comment one and which way we want to do

[217:01] that Matt and Mark have already had and Tina have all had a shake at this but we can go again I would just encourage you to be brief I just have a follow question okay yeah please I I just haven't weighed in on my preference on any of this so that that's so go ahead so I just want to and I'm fine with the front or the end if we put a time limit on it um but I do have a question then when we go to matters at the end and we do a twom minute time limit for any kind of response someone wants to do but then we also can generally have a free form where we could say I went to the farmers market and saw something of interest and wanted to share that this event's happening are we putting a time limit on that as well or just on the um response to the open comment and then matters also will still include nods of five but are we talking about just should we just

[218:00] keep the scope very narrow to that and not put a time limit on other things Cil people want to say at that time um I assume we don't have guidance on this in our code because it's not something that's been cont completed I would recommend that as we have only really seen time issues with one of these things that we only need time limits for one of them I just thought we'd make it clear now that we're not putting all sorts of time limits just so appreciate that thank you for that clarification Matt um yeah so I'm I posed this out there but I didn't State my preferred solution because I was sort of interested in the conversation and dialogue and thoughtfulness that everyone brought forth um you know I think as said I think hotline's an easy cleanup but I think it just needed to be put out there so we're all reminded um similarly with CAC um that empowers us

[219:00] and empowers the permanent members of CAC to and and with the help of staff to move stuff along and and get those nods of three when needed um I think that'll help us as a group feel like we have a stake in some of those other bigger discussions rather than it just being that body at CAC um so I think that's helpful with regards to open comment I think you know I think the challenge we run into is kind of this sense of open mic night um and wanting to bring some guard rails into that um and so you know I I see the values of of all of them I just think the status quo is not working and so I think whatever we do it's it's either follow the rules as written or embark on new rules but whatever we are doing isn't working so I think that that's kind of I think what we have that's the clearest differential Ator for us um is picking a lane um and not defaulting and so I hope that we can pick one of those new Lanes in terms of my preference I I would I would only go one of two routes I would well actually let me ask a clarifying question Teresa are we required by law or by Charter to

[220:02] provide open comment um thanks for that question Matt I one moment please no you are not and in fact some municipalities do not do that um FYI so I so I asked that question because it's not that we open comment is a privilege because we're not required to do that and we we offer that privilege for Community to give us that input but that privilege also comes with responsibilities like any privilege privilege uh the responsibility for those that are speaking but also the the responsibility on us to manage that accordingly and not let that not let the

[221:00] Tail Wag the Dog because it's not a requirement we have business to take care of and that business is the priority of that scheduled meeting and so if we don't have the right rules to allow open comment to run rough shot or interfere with the business of the meeting then it does not belong in that place may not belong at all but it certainly doesn't belong in that place and so where I'm going to lean into this is to say look the priority is the schedule we have this is not a this is not a guaranteed uh uh by law that we have to provide open comment but I like to provide that I like that the community has the option to to utilize that and if we want to couple commentary from us on the heels of that comment then I think it needs to be at the end of the night um or we let them speak and then we make our comments at the end of the night um but but I but I think the way it is currently structured I think it's just going to interfere and has um with the business that's in front of us um and so I I grow concerned with that yeah Teresa

[222:01] I apologize um so I misspoke our code does provide for open comment so our code at 231 B5 requires that uh each City board or commission I would interpret that to be to to include um the regular body uh to hold regular meetings open to the public um dot dot dot um and provide an opportunity for public comment at the meeting so um but is but public comment is that the word that's used or is it open comment it is public comment so I'm not a lawyer but I don't know what that's actually referring to uh is it the traditional public comment that is part of our that we are required to do or is it the open comment sorry that we don't need to debate that

[223:01] specific piece but nonetheless that's a differentiator that's worth discussing in a later date I come back to my point I I I I would say it's a good civics lesson if everyone has to sit through and watch the business of the city they're all better for it to provide their open comment at the end um or I'd like to leave it as the rule states currently in our code that um the um responses are held under matters at the end um of the meeting so it'd be one of those two options for me thank you Matt I'm hearing pretty much unanimous support for reaffirming our desire to follow our hotline procedure and our CAC procedure um I am really excited to get hands to see if we are interested in um limiting our response to open comment to a time limit and having it potentially either right after or at the end of the meeting um but I will let the hands that are up

[224:00] still make a comment first so can I ask a clarify can I ask a clarifying question first because we got I don't think we the rules that we have are the rules in front of us what are we going to do with the rules that are in front of us if we decide that we want new rules at some point we can work on that when we when we get there um Mark yeah I I I just want to say the following first uh I I'm very much in agreement with a strict time limit on our responses uh to comments um uh mayor you have the gavel you need to bang it with authority um but I want to point out that that the delays we suffered last week were not because of our responses to open comment it was because of the disruptions to our meeting um that that made us have to adjourn and

[225:02] leave the room um I think there is so much that is going to be lost if at 10:30 at night we are responding to provocative open comments that were made three hours before and doing so to an to an empty room it will just be us um talking to the wall and and my last point is that some of the comments that were made uh by members of this Council uh last Thursday were extraordinarily eloquent and persuasive now transpose 30 at night speaking to No One hoping maybe a reporter in the back will will put a line or two in the newspaper and I think the entire context and the entire impact of those responses is eviscerated um and so I I don't mind the

[226:03] time limits but if somebody is is doing something in in their in their open comment that is simply offensive we've had somebody standing in front of us and and deny that the Holocaust existed would it be appropriate for us to have to wait three hours to respond to something of that nature and then again talking only to ourselves and not to anyone else so I I I am urging us to have the time limit and the discipline imposed upon us for responses but to be able to do so in the moment when people are actually listening to us not when they all gone to bed and left the room I I just don't see that as being a um a viable way of responding to that kind of personal uh attack um so again the time

[227:01] limits don't bother me uh I in fact I I prefer them we should not be orating for three four five minutes um we need to say our peace and and and be quiet um but we ought to be able to do it in the moment um because what we're setting ourselves up for is is just theater um Talking to Ourselves and talking to the walls and I I I don't think that's that's a useful uh uh form of response thank you thank you Mark again I would really like to wrap this one up but I see Nicole Taisha and Taisha was there first I'm just saying the same thing I mean I'm ready to just vote on it I mean I don't feel like I think I think that would be great if we're ready Nicole Tara are you okay with that can we just vote on this I

[228:02] really wanted to respond to something somebody said but gu I I I believe it is it's just it's a clarification on something that somebody said um which is uh the the comment the open comment isn't working or you know that we may take it away or something like that the main issue as I see it is not that it it's it's that we aren't allocating time for our responses which can be unpredictable and and varying a lot in frequency and leading it to be very timec consuming and until now we haven't had an intentional discussion about how we want to use our small amount of time together so I I just wanted to correct that I don't I don't know that we could say open comment is or is not working this in my mind this conversation is really just about how we're using our time together and being predictable for CAC and the other things we're trying to fit into our agendas thank you okay well then on that note then I do have something new to add which is this is also a time for our

[229:01] community to hear directly from us so I mean I'm going to just say there are some community members that actually do go out of their way to be able to get there um they work a full day in order to be able to get there in order to be able to talk to not all of them have access not all of them are on boards and commissions or can come to all the community events and engagement opportunities they have an opportunity to come on that night on that day so I just want to honor that like you know and as somebody who is new to being on the other side well when I was on the commission um you know it it was frustrating to be able to to go somewhere and then not have somebody talk to you after you've like you know just missed dinner missed my drop off missed all of this and then I talked for a very short amount of time and you just ignore my existence it's just rude um and I feel like I I I I 100% down with the D the time limit however and I think it's fine to add you know 15 minutes or 10 minutes in response time um you know

[230:03] as you know to to Nicole's direct to Nicole's request around budgeting in the time I would like to budget in the time um we could even do an average and if it doesn't work we can assess it and determine whether or not we want to revisit it but I would prefer to do it immediately thereafter and I would prefer a time limit thank you I'm even down for 90 seconds so thanks Taisha Tara the reason why it we had a what do you call it when you Rec recesses was because after I spoke we had a lot of booze because whatever I said bothered some people and then we had to leave the room and then whatever it was either matter Aaron had bothered some people and we had to leave the room so those recesses are in direct correlation to our comments after open comment so that's why I'm going to still stand firm that I think that it will be

[231:01] better to do it after the fact we this is a new thing that we're having this problem and so you know stoking the fires of what is happening to me is having a not is having a bad people are being torn apart right now and it's uncomfortable and people are scared to come to council with all the yelling I know people have told me they're not coming anymore so I feel there's many reasons why we should lower the lower the what's the word temperature and push it to afterwards and say our peace afterwards for that very reason so I'm hoping that you will all reconsider thanks bye thank you Tara on that note I would like to see um if we if you are interested in restricting responses to open comment to two minutes I want to see if we have support for the time restriction first to simplify things two minute time restriction one two that looks like

[232:06] nine okay next because it was brought up first I'm first going to see if we have no because it is the way the rules are I want to see if we have support for follow following our rules as they are in our Council handbook and having responses to public comment be at the end of the meeting okay I see six um so that seems like support for maintaining what our rules are if someone has an option that they would like me to look at that seems like

[233:02] it presupposes that there aren't going to be enough support for any other options for some reason someone wants me to ask that question let me know um Tara I see you have your hand up no okay thank you everyone uh Teresa so the time limit will require a change to the rules of procedure um that is a change that I can work on um in the meantime if the chair wanted to enforce that um the chair could state that intention um and you all could voluntarily comply or not thank you for that Teresa Aaron yeah thanks for that Teresa because of course whatever we are deciding here is a body it's up to me to

[234:02] try to um govern during the actual meetings so I just I know we all have the the best of intentions on this Council and I know that we care for each other and we care for our community and so I would just ask ask that kind of we support each other um as uh as we maybe have difficult open comment going forward and we just affirmed as a body like the approach that we want to take with it um so hopefully we can have support each other through the next steps and in terms of the time limit at the end I might just I'm not going to gabble anybody before we have an actual rule but I might you know just mention that hey we've um expressed an interest in in keeping this to two minutes and if we pass an actual rule then I might be a little more strict about it but again just hope that we can work together and support each other these are not easy times right we appreciate that thank you

[235:02] Aon um I believe that brings us to our end of our agenda with no other unless anyone object okay with no other items on tonight's agenda I would like to close this meeting at 950 only 30 minute 40 minutes overtime thank you all and I hope you have a great night great job Lauren well done thanks

[236:13] e e