Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[4:57] all right good evening everyone and welcome to the February 20th 2025

[5:02] regular meeting of the Boulder City Council start with a quick announcement uh which is about the boards and commissions recruitment just to let you all know that the application period is now closed but the interviews have begun and they will conclude on February 28th recordings will be posted to the city's website as they happen once posted they can be viewed at uh bouldercolorado.gov boards D and- commissions D interviews final appointments will take place at the March 20th regular council meeting thank you to everyone that applied and as always if you have any questions please contact the city clerk's office at city clerk's office colorado.gov or call 303-441-1000

[6:01] Benjamin present mayor Brockett present mayor Pro Tim folr present council member Marquis present shoard here spear present wallik here and Wier pres mayor we have our quum thanks so much uh I'd like to start for asking for a motion to amend the agenda and bear with me please we got a few things here the first is to replace item 1B the Declaration condemning Muslim hate with declaration item a the Ramadan declaration to be presented by council member Adams to add item 3E consideration of a motion authorizing the City attorney to appoint special counsel to investigate and if necessary prosecute all complaints related to a code of conduct complaint filed pursuant the 2710 cbrc 1981 and finally to remove item 8A discussion and

[7:00] request for not five to revisit the city's snow policy so moved second all in favor please raise your hands all right I think I got nine there and just to be clear that um more work is being done on the Declaration condemning Muslim hate and we look forward to that coming back at a future meeting so stay tuned for that one all right if we can go to our item one a please which is rare disease day declaration presented by council members of thank you um and do we have our recipients here yes wonderful hi Katie thanks for being with us I am honored to present Katie Eder with Sophie's neighborhood with this declaration for rare disease day I have a personal story to help illustrate why rare disease day is so important last one of my children had

[8:00] chest pain and trouble breathing we took him to urgent care where they listened to his chest checked his oxygen and did an x-ray in less than an hour we were out the door with a care plan and antibiotics to treat his pneumonia more common diseases like my son's pneumonia are quickly diagnosed well studied and have standard proven treatments that medical providers around the world know one in 10 Americans living with a rare disease has a very different exper experience diagnoses can take months to years for people with rare diseases as their symptoms are mistaken for more common illnesses and treatments are tried and failed experts who know how to assess and address symptoms of rare diseases are few and far between if they exist at all cures and treatments are often non-existent because treating a rare disease that impacts a relatively small number of people is not profitable this difference in diagnosis care and treatment isn't fair

[9:00] whether someone has pneumonia or multicentric carpotarsal osteolysis they deserve a quick diagnosis knowledgeable medical providers and effective evidence-based treatments rare disease day reminds us to advocate for fairness in our medical system while we work toward fairness organizations like Sophie's neighborhood fill the Gap by funding research for treatments and cures educating medical professionals and care providers and supporting individuals and families Katie thank you so much for supporting those with multicentric carpotarsal osteolysis and helping us raise awareness of the inequities people with rare diseases face we would love it if you would tell us more about your work and how the community can help yeah thank you Nicole and good evening everyone my name is Katie and I am honored to be accepting this declaration on behalf of Sophie's neighborhood tonight Sophie's neighborhood is a boulder-based nonprofit dedicated for fundraising for Research into the development of an effective treatment or

[10:01] cure for seven-year-old Sophie rosenberg's rare genetic disorder while the rosenbergs are out of town and were unable to join us tonight I can um assure you that the Gratitude they feel for the city recognizing the 28th as rare disease day is a Mets I joined Sophie's neighborhood as a volunteer in September of 2022 a few months after beginning my career at somic at the time I was struggling to connect the work I was doing in the lab to real world applications I understood that the mission of the company was to transform human health through the power of proteomics but how exactly were we doing that after receiving blood samples from Sophie's neighborhood in our lab and recognizing that I had just recently seen this organization's name on the menu at a local restaurant I decided to do some research and ended up reaching out to see how I could help Lauren the founder of Sophie's neighborhood and Sophie's mom followed up with me shortly thereafter and invited me to attend a local

[11:01] fundraising event with her later that week she shared Sophie's story with me and how Sophie at the time was one of only 30 individuals worldwide to be cons diagnosed with multicentric carpotarsal osteolysis or MCT which is a rare progressively crippling genetic bone and kidney disorder she highlighted the challenges they faced from a misdiagnosis to the lack of public knowledge in specialized care for the condition she also shared that there was and still is not an FDA approved treatment capable of stopping the destruction mcto threatens I soon learned that these challenges are not unique only to MCT but are shared by the broader rare disease community and as the Declaration calls out there are over 10,000 diseases and conditions considered to be rare within the United States funding sources such as the NIH and pharmaceutical companies struggle to prioritize

[12:00] research of rare disease due to low profit potential and therefore rare disease research relies heavily on fundraisers and charitable donations to bridge this funding Gap I encourage the community to learn more about rare disease and the struggle these patients face on a daily basis and encourage the community to Advocate and raise awareness for the those affected and during a time of such uncertainty among the NIH rare disease research will count on community support now more than ever if you have the means to support I encourage you to do so thank you to the Megs and the city of Boulder for working with us to recognize this day I had initially planed to hand out Sophie's neighborhood postcards but we are no longer in person so I'm going to share a link to the Sophie's neighborhood website thank you all thank you Katie and also we have um a an actual physical declaration that signed by the mayor um and I expect that

[13:02] the city will work on getting that to you as well so thank you so much amazing thank you Katie thanks so much for joining us and for for your work uh in this area it's so incredibly important okay uh we are now going to go to item 1B which is the Ramadan declaration presented by council member Adams thank you mayor Brocket Ramadan is the ninth lunar month of the Islamic calendar and marks a month-long spiritual journey celebrated by Muslims in Boulder and worldwide observers engage in daily prayer and fasting from before sunrise to sunset to help bring awareness to the experience of vulnerable community members facing hardship Ramadan last 29 to 30 days based on the timing of the astrological moons New Moon excuse

[14:01] me families and communities come together in celebration and worship demonstrating the rich and diverse traditions of Muslim societies and cultures this month promotes reflection and renewal and reinforces patience perseverance gratitude compassion forgiveness and love it is a time to engage in generous acts of charity and service to highlight and the need to support one another in the community and especially individuals facing challenges like hunger and poverty disease and conflict this shared commitment to Faith and acts of kindness seeks to bridge the differences between people and bring hope to all we the city council of the city of Boulder Colorado declare February 28th to March 30th 2025 as

[15:02] Ramadan signed by our mayor Aaron Brockett thanks so much for that Taisha and uh I believe we have someone here to receive uh the Declaration Linda would You' like to say a few words yes I would thank you and is Farah here as well Farah was not able to make it unfortunately okay yes just want to lift up Farah the Islamic Center for of Boulder who also been working with as well so I know you were I just I was just asking for her are you guys able I'm sorry are you able to see me as well or is it a little yeah there's like a little like bit of like we can see you but there's like the whole full screen is not there but we can see you I can see you window yeah I think it's fine okay there oh that's better okay right thank you guys all those hats belong to my kids by the way so

[16:00] saying um I want to start by saying asalam alaykum peace be upon you all I'd like to express my acceptance gratitude and thanks to the Boulder City Council for reading the Ramadan declaration this is a very important step in recognizing our Muslim Community and the importance of the fasting month of Ramadan Ramadan is a month where Muslims all over the world reconnect and get closer to our creator by fasting which entails abstaining from food and water From Dusk till sunset it is a month where we increase our acts of sorry rather than From Dawn till sunset it is a month where we increase our acts of worship such as reading the Quran praying and giving charity during this month we also increase other acts of worship such as feeding the hungry being kind to

[17:02] our neighbors visiting the sick clothing the needy even something as simple as a smile is considered charity in Islam at the same time we disengage from other acts that are considered harmful such as backbiting swearing and cursing being rude or lewd and other such acts another part important part of Ramadan is when we break our fast and resume eating and drinking after Sunset a lot of Muslims break their fast in the mosque with the rest of the Muslim Community or at home with extended family most mosques in Colorado hold this breakfast meal called ifar for the entire Community during this month we greet each other with the greeting of Ramadan kareim or Ramadan Mubarak finally we would like to formally invite all the members of the Boulder City Council to come and join us

[18:00] for an ifar this Ramadan and get to know our Muslim Community by breaking bread together it would be our honor and our pleasure to host you and I speak when I say we I speak on behalf of the Islamic Center of Boulder as well unfortunately Imam Nader and sister Farah who represent um you know ICB were not able to attend um today's uh acceptance of of the reading of the Declaration but certainly that doesn't take away from the desire of our community to welcome you and the great news is that we offer ifar every single day of the month um Ramadan can be um 29 or 30 days and we hope that you will be coming anytime that you're able to of course there will be a formal invitation for you on a specific evening but we would love for you to feel like you can drop in anytime

[19:00] as your neighbors and as your community members and lastly I'd like to emphasize as mentioned earlier we refrain um from engaging in in in any harmful behaviors and um elevating those behaviors or those treatments of others that are going to bring us together in solidarity as a community and that ultimately is what Ramadan is about thank you well Linda thanks so much for joining us and for those words uh really appreciate you uh being here today and I personally look forward to taking you up on that invitation and and join you all at the master in Ramadan okay with that that brings our declarations to a close and we're ready for open comments so Alicia if you can read our participation guidelines please yes Excuse me yes sir and good evening everyone and thank you for joining I will now go over the public

[20:01] participation and city council guidelines the city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive meaningful and inclusive Civic conversations this Vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members staff and Council as well as democracy for people of all ages identities lived experiences and political perspectives for more information about this vision and the community engag agent processes please visit our website at Bol doservices productive atmosphere the following are examples of rules of decorum found in the boulder Revised Code and other guidelines that support this Vision these will be upheld during this meeting participants are required to sign up to speak using the name they are commonly known by and individuals must display their whole name before for being allowed to speak online currently

[21:01] only audio testimony is permitted online our remarks and testimonies shall be limited to matters related to City business no participants shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person and lastly obscenity other epithets based on race gender or religion and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes this meeting will not be tolerated thank thank you for listening and again thank you for joining us thank you for that Elicia we have 20 people signed up to speak each speaker will get two minutes and just so everybody's aware I'm going to be strict about that uh time limit in the interest of fairness for all involved so our first three speakers are Mark Parsons Michelle Rodriguez and Robert Tony this is Mark should I get going yes okay hi um my name is Mark Parsons I

[22:02] am a longtime Boulder resident I request that city council conduct a study session on implementing proportional representation for council elections proportional representation is a much more Equitable form of democracy than what we have now in proportional representation or PR the makeup of a legislative body like city council is roughly proportional to the makeup of the community that they represent we usually think of this in terms of of political parties like Democrats have 30% greens have 10% Etc but in a nonpartisan body like Council it would be more in line with different communities renters Merchants homeowners students conservationists Etc PR enables a diversity of voices so understandably there's been a growing interest in electoral form reform across the country but none of the recent initiatives like Colorado proposition 131 or Boulders in one-off selection for mayor have tried to implement a more po

[23:02] proportional form of representation I think this is an opportunity for Boulder to illustrate improved democracy change comes from below so PR is implemented all over the world and it' be relatively easy to implement with council's multi-winner election so I encourage you to schedule a study session on how implementing PR and Boulder might work the local League of Women Voters has a voting methods team that would be willing to help compile and organize information and take some of the burden off staff how do I get this rubber B back on I look forward thanks I look forward to I where am I uh thank you right we got a little bit of background noise that maybe somebody needs to be muted but um it's gone now okay our next three speakers are Michelle Rodriguez uh Robert Tony Tony and Linda badwan hi guys can you hear me

[24:01] yes hi um okay first off tonight I wanted to express my sincer sincerest condolences to the family loved ones and fellow students uh in the Community First Responders and everybody involved in the in the search and recovery of the young lady Megan who the CU student who was found deceased um it's a it's a pain and a loss no Mothership should know also I wanted to highlight and bring to light um the brutal un unal living of Zariah Hardy who was um she was killed in Boulder on July 10th of last year we had a recent arrest of her her alleged assaulter and two other confessions we now have one gentleman in custody on a $10 million Bond um zariah's case isn't getting the the notoriety that the other

[25:00] young girls did but every every parent deserves support um they charged that man with first-degree murder um trafficking by sex for sexual servitude and um for sence enhancers the two people that confess to contributing to that crime to other people her boyfriend being one of them um has not been charged yet we need to make sure they have have Justice and I implore the community to reach out look online for GoFundMe for justice for Zaria um her family really needs our support financially and in every other way her the warrant was published on nine news something else nobody should have to find out the gruesome details of on the public media but um thank you guys and I do appreciate the work of the city uh authorities and getting those that have been in custody and custody youall have

[26:00] a blessed night thank you now we have Robert Tony Linda badwan and Jonathan Lamar mayor I do not see Rob online tonight let's go to Linda Bodwin then Linda it looks like you're unmute if you would like to start speaking okay I'm really sorry about that um can you hear me now yes okay asalam alaykum peace be upon you all once again I wanted to have the

[27:02] opportunity to speak tonight um as a Muslim woman and as a Palestinian women in the community I was really hopeful that we were going to be able to introduce a joint declaration against hate for both our Muslim and Jewish communities and worked very hard on that along with our Jewish community members um nearly a year ago and unfortunately that this did not come to fruition and instead I'm in very disappointed and hurt that we were not able to read a declaration uh condemning Muslim hate this evening it has been very hurtful for me as a Muslim Community member to see that the process for which the Declarations have been brought up uh in the past um are not it's not the same process that we are being now treated with we were

[28:03] supposed to have this thre today and it's extremely disappointing and I don't understand the unequal treatment and the bias with which this has come forth um as it was not treated in the same way for other declarations including the one on anti-Semitism today's declaration against Muslim hate would have brought our communities together it is absolutely only about solidarity and there was no harm in the language to anybody in the community it was about bringing us together and creating a bridge and most importantly creating a safe space for all of us to come together and work together as a community as part of the healing that needs to be done thank you thank you now we have Jonathan Lamar Jim lynfield and Jackie Rich

[29:00] Richardson uh hi are you able to hear me yes okay thank you um so I'm here to talk about uh potential protections for renters that I think uh the city council um could research and potentially find things uh that they could very easily do within their power would uh bring the rising cost of rent under control and provide protections for renters so um I've lived in the Boulder area since 2012 um I currently live in Lewisville for affordability reasons um but I commute in and out of Boulder most days and that's really where my heart is in the area uh for about half of that time I was a grad student worker uh I earned less than $20,000 a year and I have direct experience with the High Cost of Living which you can imagine uh during that time I got by by moving into smaller and less strictly legal living arrangements to keep cost manageable as rents increase much faster than my income um I'm a decent person I play by the roles but I've felt this the The Squeeze directly and personally um as a

[30:03] concerned resident of the area I'm asking the city council to research uh three uh plans of action um one would be to expand the tenant advisory committee um the TAC which was set up by the newer law passed in uh 2020 uh could uh be used a lot more effectively if they had higher meeting frequency and more members um I think that they could also advocate for for renter rights in the area um I also think that the city council should pass a law similar to the Tacoma Washington tenant Bill of Rights which provides relocation assistance for rent hikes over 5% that would effectively get around the Statewide rent control ban and bring the cost of living increases under control and finally um I think that we could easily fund both of these things by taxing vacant homes we have three to four thousand in the area they're easy to detect by looking at water usage and um they shouldn't be sitting on youed when we have a cost of living crisis and a

[31:00] crisis of unhoused people in the area we should tax them and fund protections thank you thank you now we have Jim lynfield Jackie Richardson and Mila sakori good evening um in the middle of the night on February 8th a city water M burst a few feet from my mother's home and flooded the entire basement causing tens of thousands of dollars of damage Joy lynfield is a 96-year-old retired kindergarten teacher who's lived here since 1966 probably some of her former students online she's an amazing person who's contributed a lot to this community over 60 years since that time no one from the city has asked how she's doing no one from the city has said that they're sorry about this no no one from the city has offered any help instead what we've gotten from the city's outsourced claims agent is basically C a and in substance it sucks to be

[32:03] you we have evidence that at least one part of the main was improperly installed in the first instance but I'm not here to get into forensics I'd really like to avoid that for everyone's sake in 2016 a water main burst on Norwood Avenue and flooded a number of basements while not acknowledging liability the city did Cover losses for homeowners in what the city then described as the act of a good neighbor I told your outsourced claim agent about this she said well things have changed and we had a global pandemic and they couldn't consider this unbelievable so I have three questions for Council to think about one is did Council really adopt that as a policy position or did the agent just make that up does council really think it's okay to stick my mother with tens of thousands of dollars in damage from a city water made and are Boulders days of being a good neighbor really over as a next step I think we deserve

[33:02] an honest conversation with the city manager's office Andor the city attorney's office uh can we expect that Roberto naria feel free to raise your hand thank you um we will now go to and there will be responses by the way City staff at the end of the open comment period uh now we have Jackie Richardson Milo korski and Tucker eof hey there can you guys hear me okay yes okay um so hi there city council um I'm here to follow up on John's comment about tenant Protections in Boulder um similar to John I've been living in the Boulder area since I came here as a grad student in 2004 um even a couple decades back rent was onerous and has gotten exponentially worse in the intervening two decades um so to alleviate the

[34:02] housing crisis a few years back we took steps to pass the new eviction without representation or newer bill um which is paid for by a $75 rental license fee and this provides some absolutely crucial legal services and rental assistance for people facing eviction which can be life ruining and really mess up people's chances of finding housing in the future um this bill also set up a tenants advisory committee or attack to ensure that newer is fulfilled and also decide how to distribute rental assistance excuse me um the city's dashboard about evictions has shown this to be a resounding success um and it's cut the odds of eviction from 43% without representation to only 4% with representation so it's doing a lot to keep people in their homes um however it's it's gone some of the way but it could still be better and so I'd like to ask city council to look into to ways of further strengthening tenant protections

[35:01] um and shielding people from the worst effects of inflation especially over the last few years so the changes that we'd like to see made um are first of all expanding the TAC from five members to seven and increasing their meeting frequency um this would give them more bandwidth to address issues as they come up um and with shorter sort of response time um the second part is expending tenant protections against eviction and the city of Tacoma achieved this recently by requiring landlords who want to increase rent by more than 5% to provide relocation assistance and then finally um pursuing a ballot measure that would disincentivize leaving rental uh residential premises vacant um because there are four or five thousand vacant houses in the city thank you now we have Milo sori Tucker eoff and Mary cornfeld hi everyone my my name is Mila and I'm following off of Jackie's

[36:00] testimony just now um so as she mentioned in 2020 the city of Boulder approved the no evictions without representation ordinance which was a resounding success but there are areas um where we could enhance the law and enhance protections for both tenants and landlords so we're asking city council to explore the legality and possibility of taking the following actions that Jackie and John laid out so um a big one is expanding the duties meeting frequency and membership of the tenant advisory committee um also uh like Jackie mentioned looking at the lessons learned from Tacoma and expanding tenant protections through a tenant Bill of Rights um especially since uh Boulder does not have a um rent control law um and then third pursuing a ballot measure um to tax unoccupied residential

[37:00] premises um and we also ask the city to update the public on its findings and um engage with stakeholders and community members as a whole um I also ask the city council um if they could oppose House Bill 128 the tipped worker wage theft Bill thank you so much thank you now we have Tucker eof Mary cornfeld and Alex Weinheimer thank you can you hear me yes great hello city council my name is Tucker eof I am a boulder native and I'm here to show support for more human prioritized car light and carfree spaces in Boulder for the safety and comfort of people I have been fortunate enough to travel to many other cities around the world in every city my favorite place places have always been designed for people to walk to shop to play and to

[38:01] interact with others there might even be buses or TRS moving through the area at slow speeds fundamentally these places have all been built for people to be comfortable being human without worrying for their safety or the safety of their F family friends or neighbors I believe that Boulder is capable of doing this as well I see it on Pearl Street and at the farmers market I see it on the CU Boulder camp I saw it on West Pearl too when it was closed to Gars I would plead to this city council that Boulder commit to creating and expanding such places where anyone might walk bike bus and wheelchair where we can enjoy people shopping or just taking in the world over a cup of coffee I believe that expanding the human prioritized areas in and around Pearl Street would be a great place to start I would ask that this city council value the safety and potential of the humble pedestrian over convenience for cars as those other

[39:02] wonderful successful and thriving places around the world have thank you thank you now we have Mary cornfield Alex Weinheimer and Stephanie Clark my name is Mary I'm the director of St with us in Colorado we work with students and communities all over Boulder and the rest of Colorado and do Israel education and fighting anti-Semitism I have followed these weekly Council meetings and the only way I can describe them is a weekly anti-israel Road show that's taken over these meetings to our regular performers who show up like clockwork your obsession with Jews is genuinely fascinating you've chosen to spend every precious minute of public comment spreading hate about Israel and the Jewish people taking time away from locals who actually want to speak about local matters but clearly you don't care about any of that here's what's most revealing you got your ceasefire Israel and are literally right in the middle of the longest ceasefire yet since October

[40:01] 7th 2023 which by the way Kamas just violated this morning returning the body of someone who's not Sheri bbus yet you come week after week still ranting and raving if it was truly about humanitarian concerns about peace what are you still doing but take off your masks for those of you who haven't seen through those masks this was never really about a ceasefire it was just a convenient Banner for you to Rally under while spreading racism against Jews or more accurately stated anti-Semitism the Boulder City Council exists to serve our entire Community not a stage for your obsession our city deserves better on the other hand I'd like to thank the majority of city council members here for voting against the quote not BDS bill couched as a quote reviewing the city's investment policies again we saw through the mask and thank you to those on city council who saw through it as well BDS is a global campaign with one goal the defamation and eventual elimination of is it seeks to do this by creating bias against Israel that will harm Israel

[41:01] politically culturally and economically and thus lead to its collapse BDS perpetuates the conflict and it does not lead to peace in the end if you don't believe it for me hear it from the mouths of the leadership they'll tell you straight from their mouths the leader of the BDS movement says we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine again let's go back to what matters in Boulder local Boulder locally which is the pview of the city coun right our next three speakers are Alex Weinheimer Stephanie Clark and Nick agilera good evening city council my name is Alex Weinheimer and I I'm speaking in favor of the city creating more public spaces on our downtown streets those of you who are on City Council in 2022 witnessed the overwhelming support for keeping West Pearl open to people I was chair of the transportation Advisory board at the time and we received a similar influx of support for PE for creating more public spaces during the p pmic I was proud to see how quickly the city responded and

[42:00] unlocked a wonderful new space for our community to gather while the vehicular closure was imperfect a collaborative effort between the city and downtown stakeholders could have successfully addressed any challenges with Ada transit or business access as West Pearl was reverted back to primarily street parking there was a guarantee from the city to investigate future opportunities for our downtown streets as public spaces on West Pearl and throughout downtown UNT Al in 2023 the city hosted a series of expensive popup social streets events on Pearl and 13th street where the farmers market is that were typically poorly attended also by replicating street closures that have already been deployed we failed to learn anything new about our streets by the time Council got the social streets summary in 2024 no worthwhile actions had been identified for the city to pursue today 5 years after the initial pedestrianization of West Pearl we have seen no noticeable progress in improving our downtown streets as the 50th

[43:01] anniversary of the Pearl Street Mall approaches I hope you all recognize and honor the overwhelming appetite from our community and collaborate with downtown stakeholders to create the next generation of public spaces downtown thank you thank you now we have Stephanie Clark Nick Aguilera and Adrien fine good evening can you hear me yes tonight I'm sharing a letter to council member Taisha Adam signed by nearly 400 Boulder residents who are deeply concerned about the persistent efforts to advance International political agendas through our city government rather than focusing on local issues that directly impact our community these residents represent a broad cross-section of our city who believe it's time to refocus Council priorities on the critical local challenges and it was sent to the entire Council by email tonight we the undersign members of the Boulder Community right to express our profound disappointment in your

[44:01] continued efforts to advance an anti-israel agenda through our city government your recent proposal to review Boulder's Investment Portfolio following your unsuccessful attempts to pass a ceasefire resolution demonstrates the persistent pattern of using your elected position to promote anti-israel policies rather than addressing the local issues that impact Boulder residents daily lives Boulder Prides itself on being a welcoming inclusive community that celebrates diversity and Fosters understanding across all groups yet your actions directly contradict those core values you've choosen to prioritize divisive International politics over Municipal governance and your actions have created an increasingly hostile environment for Boulder's Jewish Community this is particularly concerned in giv your role as sister city liaison where objectivity and Community bridge building should be Paramount your singular focus on this agenda while failing to acknowledge the complexities of the situation or show equal concern for all members of our community ra raises serious questions about your ability to represent all

[45:00] Boulder residents fairly and effectively we call on you to please refocus your attention on local government responsibilities for which you were elected our city faces numerous challenges that require dedicated leadership from housing affordability and homelessness to Transportation infrastructure and climate action these are the issues that should command your time and energy as a council member thank you thanks next we have Nick Lara Adrien fine and Mindy Miller um hey all can you hear me yes thank you city council um my name is niik gilera I'm speaking as resident of Boulder when I moved to Boulder during the pandemic West Pearl quickly became one of my favorite places to sit walk and spend time like hundreds of other residents I fell in love with the street as a vibrant welcoming public space that felt like nothing else in the city but today I go much less often than I did during the closure as an urban urban

[46:00] planning teacher assistant in Spain I studied what makes great public spaces work during the full bright midyear conference in Valencia I presented to Scholars and teachers about how policies like parking and Zoning requirements shape our cities one of the reasons so many of us love Spain streets that prioritize people not cars that's exactly what we experienced on West Pearl during its closure a space that s face a space that felt safe inviting being connected and alive for decades we have prioritized the automobile sacrificing vast portions of our built environment to Pavement and parking but cities Thrive when we design for people first closing West Pearl to private Vehicles was framed as a short-term solution to a Public Health crisis but as we quote unquote return to normal normal meant prioritizing the automobile for the majority of our street space thank you for your work to create safer ways for people to walk bike take transit and roll across Boulder I know I'm not alone and wanting more people for spaces and I'm glad to see the Pearl

[47:00] for you campaign pushing to make West Pearl and inviting community space once again I hope the energy behind this campaign shows you just How Deeply people want human centered streets and public spaces throughout the city of Boulder thank you thank you now we have Adrien fine Mindy Miller and Mna Morales hi city council my name is Adrian fine I live in North Boulder and I'm speaking in support of the Pearl for you initiative the name is great um right it's about devoting some of our City's best blocks to people could be people in strollers walking or on skateboards um but a bit more diverse on the cars are the only allowed users today I I don't think it has to be an either or though and this is about as the last speaker mentioned like moving away from a monoculture where streets are only used for parking and cars to a more diverse set of uses and rules um you all know many cities tried this in the 70s most of them failed and Boulder didn't and the Pearl Street Mall succeeded because it do dense foot traffic strong local businesses and a connected Street grid um that supports

[48:01] the movement around it it is a m model that works um and I don't think any issue ignited Americans imagination about what their cities could be as much in during CO as much as like pedestrian openings right like cities Across America experimented with this and then they stopped and so have we um those spaces were universally loved and for good reason and I think that's why this initiative will gather good and Rapid support um so right now while West Pear dedicated to cars and parking why not Explore More balanced approach um there are many spaces across the city for cars and for parking and I think we can Flex a few with a few blocks here experimenting with public spaces keeps our community vibrant and adaptable and I think that's important thank you for your time thank you now we have Mindy Miller Mna Morales and rum hi can you hear me yes okay hi this is Mindy Miller I'm a resident of Boulder um I would like to address the

[49:00] process around the islamophobia Declaration that should have been presented tonight a declaration whose intent we wholeheartedly support while meant to focus on the Muslim Community and protections it referenced Jews seven times without any consultation or communication with ussh community members for any other marginalized Community we would insist on inclusion as the saying goes nothing about us without us we would love nothing more than to build Bridges between our communities but this process was entirely one-sided if the intent was to bring our communities together then actually bring us together what was the process here the Declaration wasn't posted until just 48 hours before the meeting unlike the anti-Semitism declaration which was posted with the agenda a week ahead of time please don't Gaslight us about separate processes this lack of transparency and Rush timeline prevented meaningful discussion and unfortunately created new itions what should have been straightforward and simple has instead become yet

[50:00] another distraction from pressing local issues that require our immediate attention we hope that you are able to bring forward a true islamophobia declaration that gives the community the protections and respect they deserve but in the meantime let's please direct our energy toward problems where we can make meaningful change in our community and please stop Fanning and encouraging divisive thank you for your time and thank you for your service thank you now we have Mna Morales rukan Yom and Aiden Reed hello everyone my name is Mna Morales and I'm a resident of Boulder County I'm here to speak out against a tip offset Bill a dangerous unjust piece of legislation that would slash wages for tip workers and worsen economic inequality in Boulder County and Beyond this bill would cut Boulder's already low tipped wages making it even harder for workers to afford rent food child care and health care who does this

[51:00] impact the most women people of color and immigrant workers those who are already disproportionately affected by wage stuff Financial insecurity and economic discrimination as a woman of color I know all too well how exhausting it is to constantly fight to be valued to prove my labor is worth Fair pay and to demand what should already be given economic dignity and respect we are forced to advocate for ourselves over and over in an economy that would rather exploit us than recognize our worth this bill is yet another example of how this system undermines us forcing us forcing those who already struggle to work even harder just to survive and let's be honest Boulder already has a hard time facilitating diversity the cost of living here continues to push out working-class people especially black and brown communities making it harder for people from different backgrounds to thrive if we truly want a more inclusive and Equitable Boulder we must create conditions that allow for diverse communities to stay work build a future here C cutting wages for tip workers does the opposite it reinforces the racial and economic barriers that make

[52:01] Boulder inaccessible to many let's talk about who are tip work who are tip workers they're servers bartenders Hotel delivery workers and caretakers they're the very people who sustain our lives at its core their work is an act of care and Care is a foundation of democracy democracy is not just about F representation it is about ensuring that labor of care is valued protected and fairly compensated tip wage system it's self is rooted in white supremacy deliberately lowering wages for the workforce made up largely of bipac and marginalized work workers this is systemic racism in action thank you councilman member Adams for all that you do but thank you for your testimony all right now we have Ria Yom Aiden Reed and laen belman mayor I do not see Ria online tonight let's go to Aiden then good evening Council uh my name is Aiden

[53:00] are you able to hear me yes okay uh I'm here this evening to urge Council to commission a city study to explore the legality of several measures to improve uh the rights of renters particularly those facing eviction first please expand the tenant advisory committee from five members to seven expand tenant protections against eviction and tax the roughly 4,000 vacant homes that are currently sitting in Boulder next I want to Council to please oppose hb25 1208 the tipped worker wage theft bill it was not designed with the impacted communities or workers in mind it will cost workers $2 an hour which is up to $4,000 per year which is nothing short of wage theft and completely criminal in a place like Boulder and it is not being pushed by workers it is being pushed by restaurant owners this is going to cost workers it's going to cost a local economy and it'll ultimately cost Boulder and I don't think that's what any of us want lastly I'd like to urge Ur Council to as uh an earlier speaker Linda badwan urged

[54:00] you to please actually get to know Boulders Muslim Community uh so that you might be better familiar with them and their experiences and more importantly to ensure that they are part of the process of drafting the Declaration that should have been read tonight but was not thank you thank you our last two speakers are Lauren Feldman and Lara Gonzalez um um can you hear me sorry yes okay um good evening my name is Lauren Lambert Feldman and I live in the city of Boulder thank you mayor Brockett and members of council for the very important work you all do I've been wondering along with so many other members of our community how far we've come on the 2024 to 2025 city council priorities that Council agreed upon it seems that the energy and time has been consumed by so many other matters outside of the core work plan and there is little control over the agenda the matters you all chose to address in 2024

[55:01] and 2025 were and are the core of your work and your responsibility as our elected officials homelessness economic fatality fire mitigation climate action and the comprehensive plan these are the issues you decided to work on and rightfully should be working on this is where you have expert staff legal Authority and a healthy budget there are countless other matters that are of great importance to all of us as you've heard during open comment tonight I urge you to focus on fire mitigation before the next Wildfire consumes our city focus on economic Vitality before another family business goes under focus on homelessness before another person freezes to death on our streets let's please get on with the official business of the city thank you thank you our final speaker is L Gonzalez mayor I do not see Laura online

[56:02] tonight all right well then that concludes open comment thanks everyone for coming out and speaking with us this evening so I'll turn to City staff to see if there are any responses good evening Council Chris Muk Deputy city manager uh while nuura is in transit here um appreciate everyone who came to speak tonight in open comments um just one item from me related to um the the watermain break and I do uh uh know that our utilities director is aware of that situation and uh uh to Jim I'm sorry to hear about the impact to your mother's house and um we're aware of of that and and tracking that claims process and so um I know Joe is is in the loop on that and uh with Adam uh that was all I have for tonight PR to anything from the city attorney's office no thank you very

[57:01] good just muted myself all right let's move to the consent agenda please buttons all right mayor thank you our consent agenda is item number three on the night's agenda and it consists of items 3A through 3E any uh questions are comments on the consent agenda from folks Ryan on item a which is the summary of our discussion about amps on January 23rd I'd like to request to add a few words to capture an aspect of parking that we discussed um it's on packet page 14 which has a summary of council comments um to staff's three questions and it's the third question which asks for feedback about on street parking uh the second bullet says one council member expressed interest in preferential parking and pricing based

[58:01] on vehicle size and weight believe that was me um there was a second part that that I'd like to add that we that we capture and it would be to say something like and to use pricing to induce at least one space per block is open something along those lines and this is a comment that represents that we know there are evidence-based methods to create more parking beyond that of physical construction and that staff should be encouraged to use that tool so I'd request to make that addition thank you uh Lisa did you want to respond to that yeah just acknowledging that we can make that update so thanks great and can you introduce yourself for the record please yeah sorry Lisa Hood principal city planner planning and development services thanks so much any other comments or motion on the consent agenda make a motion to approve a consent

[59:00] agenda second we've got a motion in second Elicia can we do a roll call please yes sir we'll start tonight's roll call for the consent agenda items 3A through 3E with you mayor Brockett yes council member faler I mean mayor protim FS yes council member marz yes Cho hard yes spear yes wallik yes Wier yes Adams yes and Benjamin yes the consent agenda items 3A through 3E are hereby approved unanimously thanks so much can we go to our first uh call up check-in please yes sir thank you our callup check-ins are item number four on tonight's agenda

[60:01] 4 a is the concept plan review for a proposal to redevelop the Mountain View United Methodist Church property at 355 Panka place with a new 7 170,000 foot addition to the Frasier retirement community at 350 Ponka place the new four-story 55 foot Edition would contain 55 Independent Living apartments with two levels of underground parking the propose The Proposal includes demolition of a portion of the existing church building removal of existing surface parking lots on both 350 and 355 Ponka place and vacation of the existing Ponka place right away thank you any questions or comments or desire to call this one up Lauren just a comment about kind of the amount of underground parking and how that plays into our um

[61:03] environmental uh desires and trans and desires to mode shift um hopefully the applicant will look into that more as they move forward thanks thanks Tina and then I'll call on myself yeah I um have a question um about vacating PKA play or the pka place and it says that the vacation criteria isn't met but with some adjustments it would meet the criteria so in this concept um plan is there anything that is requiring those changes to be made or is not calling it up mostly saying that we're okay with the vacation of Ponka place ask um Chandler I think who is on the line or Brad yes hi uh Chandler vancott

[62:03] principal planner uh planning and development services I'm not sure why my camera is not working oh there it is um yes currently we said that that it doesn't meet the criteria for vacation um because there's still um Utilities in the right way um whether or not you call this up doesn't I don't think has a an impact on your decision ultimately um when they come back in for site review if they are still requesting the vacation they will have to show that the utilities are gone and we will evaluate the request for vacation against the criteria at the time of site review okay and then my I have a similar question where there is a hope that the public maintains access to the private drive that they're going to create replacing the public right away and I have a little bit of sort of Civic pad hangover about um a future hope and I'm

[63:02] wondering is in in this moment right now is there a way that we can require that to move forward or is it similar to we'll see it when it goes under site review because I don't want to end up finding out that the private Drive does not provide Public Access you know when this is completed yeah um yeah it it is similar and that would be something that we would have to work out during site review I mean concept review we can't require anything at this point it's it's just them showing us an idea essentially and asking for feedback um but we have raised it as a key issue so when it did come in for site review if it does um that would be something we would pursue at that time okay and then um I also share concerns around the the parking um the traffic flow in general as related to Ponka place and also the comments from planning board on design about permeability and the massing of the structures was pretty extensive so my

[64:01] preference would be to send this to dab and tab um but I'm looking to my colleagues to see if there might be support for that thanks Tina I'll call on myself and then I'll go to Mark um just I have a couple comments and and an additional thought so one is that I I thought the planning board did have um excellent comments and feedback they did have some detailed uh levels of feedback and I thought that is positive and building on what Tina said I know we're not requiring anything at this point but I would think that to me I would think in order for the vacation to be uh something that was acceptable for the city that we would need to have a strong uh Public Access component to um whatever gets whatever replaces that that seems critically important to me so um my I agree with Tina absolutely about the the tab referral definitely want to see this referred to Tab and open to the dab refer as well and if um if we do refer it to tab I would ask them to look

[65:00] closely at that um the permeability at the public access through the the pka area and then at the parking the amount of parking whether that's the appropriate level parking for project um and then uh just close by saying chandeler appreciate the the dog appearance in the background that always makes a council meeting in event no problem she loves it uh I'll go to Mark and ta and then we'll see about a motion or two about referrals I I want to support uh both Tina and Aaron's request uh to refer this to Tab and dab uh I complain often about architectural quality uh and I will say that that this one seemed um uh especially drab uh and I would hope that that um uh dab might have some constructive suggestions to make uh that would um make the uh the complex look a

[66:03] little less institutional and a little more welcoming so I would very much like to um uh submit this project to both uh bodies and and see if they have something constructive to offer uh in the design of of uh of the project very good taasa thank you so much um I concur with um just about all the all the things of of my colleagues um I'm especially concerned about the underground parking um just the level of disturbance regardless of whether or not there's a need for uh or if there's right of way in the utility lines I just um just from environmental perspective you know do less is is is climate resilience at this point I also just think that we are incentivizing individual cars just because it's Independent Living doesn't mean you're not a part of a community and so I don't understand why I'm not incentivizing shared cars I mean I share

[67:01] a car right I mean if we're expanding and if we're trying to um create a different culture then we can't have an infrastructure that reinforces the culture that we're trying to move away from so that's one component then as far as design is concerned I although I appreciate inviting the design team unless they have designers who are experts in De green buildings then I also would like to call up the environmental advisory board now I don't want to have to call up three count three three um different boards so just the complexity of that is unnecessary however um I do want to emphasize the greenness of the buildings um more than just planting in you know native grasses that is you know 101 what's the next level what is the next level what's the green line or excuse me what's the blue line um that that's that's the expectation at this time we are cost the Event Horizon um my our our commenters mentioned uh Wild fires and all of these things which I work on every day for our

[68:00] community um and so that's another component that I would like us to look into and lastly I don't see any garden beds or anything and I know I mean I saw some Community open space but um going back to you know that's another part of the resilient opportunities that we have um you know those Gardens and and components AR just for fluff and they're for for health and they're also for our habitat so I would love to see a lot more um use of space and less of this you know blocky you know um it's not blocky excuse me I I I grew up in in New York City as well um but it's giving New York City Vibes and um I didn't I didn't move I moved away from that so I'm hopeful that we can we can get some some improvements on the next go round thank you so much thanks for that all right not seeing any other hands raised I'll just go ahead and make a motion that that we refer this uh to the transportation Advisory Board and Roberto can I do one motion for both boards or those need to be separate uh it would be best to do it

[69:00] separately all right I move that we uh refer this to the transportation Advisory Board do I have a second second second all in favor raise your hand okay that looks unanimous and then while I got the floor I'll go ahead and move that we refer it to the design Advisory Board as well second motion second everyone in favor please raise your hand that's okay I think I got eight on that one all right um and then I haven't heard any interest in calling it up so I think that concludes that item so uh if we can go to the next call up please yes sir thank you our next call up is item 4B and it is the concept plan review and comment requests to redevelop the site at 1128 Street as a mixed use standard Housing Development with 80 to 90 units in the residential high three

[70:01] zoning District The Proposal includes a 65% parking reduction request and a height modification request for 55 foot tall buildings this is reviewed under case number l224 0063 any questions or comments or desire to call this one up Tina yep I just had a quick question um there were some thoughts uh suggested by the planning board around adding more multimodal um transportation options and more bike storage and a bike maintenance area and I am wondering how are we tracking how um those services are being used by inhabitants in other um in other developments that we have I'm just trying to and and this would be more about like a question I have as going into the Boulder Valley comp plan but do we have an idea of what the usage is and

[71:00] what sort of a ratio we would develop over time rather than broadly saying we'd like to see more of X but kind of get a better idea of if they're 90 units we need this much square feet of bike maintenance or you know whatever it might be we'll invite Shannon to the table or to the party hi Shannon hi good evening I'm Shannon Muller with the city Boulder planning department um yeah so it sounded like the question was are we how are we and are we tracking the use of like bike maintenance stations and things of that nature once they're actually installed is that sort of the question yes and bike parking and cutouts for multimodal car sharing stuff like that yeah um in terms of the city we do not have like a program in place right now where we're tracking private developments and terms of the use of those facilities um I think our our

[72:00] applicant team is here and they might be able to speak to different developments they've done around town just in terms of you know how they see the residents using those and how they monitor that um so we could invite them them up if you'd like to hear from them we have Dana kapow with Trestle strategy group um they might be able to share a little bit about that sure and and it it would be to eventually get to a point where we can create sort of better guidance around what we're looking for in developments since we do see the same feedback from planning board pretty consistently great um yeah could I'm not able to promote dank I don't know if someone else would want to just to hear from her I can get an email back to which works as well great sounds good and we'll take the question uh council member thank thank you m is good

[73:01] Lauren thank you um I have some concerns around the restaurant they spoke there's a kind of a Subterranean restaurant and there was a lot of mention of that activating the street which feels tenuous to me um along with the facade facing Canyon um feels like it could use a little more human scale um and being broken down a little bit more which is maybe a strange comment coming from me but I think it's a pretty big facade um and so I would be interested in referring this to dab right I don't see any hands raised so Lauren would you like to make the motion to that effect yes I would like to make a motion that we refer this to dab

[74:02] second motion for seconds all in favor raise your hand please they got eight all right so we'll refer that one to dab not seeing any other hands then I think that is it for that one no no desire to call that one up which means we can go to our first public hearing please all right thank you sir our public hearings are item number five on tonight's agenda 5A is the second reading and consideration of a motion to amend and pass ordinance 8684 amending title 10 structures of the BRC 1981 and adopting by reference the 2024 International codes regarding Property Maintenance building electrical fire mechanical fuel gas and plumbing and setting forth related

[75:01] details thanks so much Elicia I'm going to send this over to our director of planning and development services but before I do that I just want to say that I got an opportunity to see um a little bit of preview of the presentation and while building code may not be the most exciting thing for most people I will tell you I am super excited about these changes and think staff has done a tremendous job so well done Rob and the team on this and with that Brad send it over to you because super exciting work thank you Nia and I'll try to recover from my pain at imagining building code isn't exciting but uh he still your heart but we'll move on beyond that uh Council we're certainly uh very excited to bring this to you as Rob will described this is part of a regular rhythm of things but I did want to just highlight a couple things that I know he'll touch on uh you have charged us a year or so ago with looking at codes and ways that they could be simplified uh

[76:02] both for understanding and for administration uh this is one in a series of those uh you saw zoning changes uh quite a bit earlier uh historic preservation and now building code uh Rob and the team has done in my bias an excellent job of really stripping out things that have become redundant and and otherwise unnecessary um we as he will also indicate um we'll bring bring the wooi the W uh Wildlife Wildfire Urban interface code to later because of um the importance of getting Community engagement in that in a way that was uh more expansive than uh than was necessary for this set of codes but happy to be here tonight and we'll pass it on to rob adriens the Chief Building official for the city than right me just share my screen here and we'll get the presentation

[77:13] going well good evening everyone U as Brad mentioned I'm Rob Adrians with planning and development services Chief Building official here for the city of Boulder and I'll be presenting on the 2024 iode adoption tonight so um purpose of our hearing tonight is for a city council decision on ordinance 8684 okay so moving into this so little background what are the international codes and how often do we update them so the international codes are a body of codes developed by the International Code Council through a collaborative process involving experts from Fields like construction engineering architecture and Industry stakeholders um proposals for code changes are submitted by the public reviewed by technical committees which consider factors such as safety sustainability cost and feasibility after discussions revisions and

[78:00] extensive public comment eligible voting members which includes government officials and professionals approve the changes the finalized codes are then published reflecting the latest Technologies safety standards and best practices while balancing sustainability and cost Effectiveness in construction the goal is to ensure that buildings are safe efficient and environmentally responsible or remaining financially viable for stakeholders so here in the city of Boulder that process play out every 3 years we adopt codes every six years just to sort of minimize the impact on both staff and the development community of having super frequent code changes the last time we updated our building codes was in 2019 we went from the 2012 family of codes to the 2018 and then here tonight we're proposing to go from the 2018 to the 2024 family of building codes so as staff went through this update these are sort of our key objectives um obviously the one Brad already mentioned was to adopt the codes with as few local amendments as possible to reduce complexity historically we had a lot of local amendments and what those are changes to the code to suit local

[79:02] conditions or local requirements problem with that is it really increased code complexity and increased costs so we've made a really concerted effort to bring our adoption of the code into alignment with International codes and surrounding jurisdictions as much as possible another key priority of ours was to identify and reduce code barriers to racial and social economic equity through the use of the racial Equity instrument as I already mentioned a goal is to reduce costs by aligning our code with International codes and our surrounding jurisdictions and really another fundamental goal was to potentially I mean I can't promise this but hopefully reduce in future insurance premium increases and to improve building safety for Boulder residents by adopting the most upto-date building codes in terms of community feedback engagement we first published Our intention to do this back in December in the P&S newsletter and the first Outreach opportunity we had was an open Office hour on December 19th um this is more on the engage and consult level uh

[80:01] most of the people that attended this first office hours were local Architects and Builders um and then on January 8th we held a second Virtual Office hours and this one was also open to the public but much more broadly attended by a group of local residents homeowners landlords and the aforementioned Builders Architects and design professionals so in terms of community feedback we heard a little bit of concern about the proposed timeline and its impact on projects already in a land use process uh we heard a lot of positive statements about the reduction of local amendments and the simplification of the ordinance versus previous ordinances we heard a lot of positive statements about some of the new lower basement and adct ceiling Heights for existing buildings which I'll talk about as we get into the significant changes we also heard some concerns about the impacts of the new uh imaginary lot line Provisions that are in the IRC regarding adus which I'll also talk about when we get into the significant code changes uh these are the family of codes in the updates so obviously the most important or an influential one being the

[81:00] international building code but we also have the international residential code the international fire code the existing building code the property maintenance code the fuel gas code the plumbing code Mechanical Code the National Electric Code which is just some local amendments we already adopted the latest version of that um and then by reference we adopt the international swing pool and Spar code and ANC 117.1 which is a bit of a mouthful that's the accessibility code so as Brad already mentioned uh you probably noticed that the Wildland Urban interface code is not on this list of codes we're adopting at this time we will be bringing that forward to you in May for adoption we just need to do a little bit more Outreach on that one because some of the potential cost impacts on homeowners in our community um the other code we will not be bringing forth is the uh energy conservation code as we just updated that last year it's part of a different ordinance Okay so as I said we tried to eliminate a lot of local amendments but of course we still created and changed a few so these are the ones that are really

[82:01] consequential so one of the things that probably the most important one in terms of wildfire protection is requiring permits for replacement windows and sighting currently across the Front Range Boulder is one of the only communities that does not require permitting for replacement windows and sighting yet we have a large area that's in the Wildland Urban interface and we have a really strict energy code by requiring permits we get Maybe once every 50 years the opportunity to ensure that buildings that are located in the Wildland Urban interface actually use non-combustible sighting as required by the Wildland Urban interface code and of course that Windows complying with the Wildland Urban interface and Citywide are required with energy code requirements moving on to the next one this is also in the base code but traditionally was amended out in Boulder so under the last code and codes before it any deck and bter required a Perma and when we went through the racial equity instrument we realized this was really having a detrimental impact on folks in our mobile home communities almost every single one of those mobile

[83:01] homes has a small deck out front of it and almost none of them are permited so when they get complaints often from the the park management code enforcement has no choice but to enforce on those compliants and often there's really no easy way to permit those because they do not meet prescriptive construction standards thing is there's really no life safety threat to having a 150 200 foot deck that's less than 30 in above grade so we're proposing just to exempt those from permitting and make it easier for folks to do that following on the next one this also came about through our use of the racial Equity instrument we figured there was a disproportionate amount of enforcement in mobile home parks on these small storage sheds so our existing code allows sheds up to 80 Square ft we're proposing to increase that to 120 sare ft which is the limitation of the international exist uh International building code the international residential code actually allows up to 200 S ft but that's actually getting pretty large so this seemed like a good compromise would have a you know cheap affordable storage structure without requiring them to put an engineered Foundation or meet

[84:01] our really high wind and snow loads for something that's going to be used to store bicycles and Lawn Mars moving on the next one also came about as our use of the racial Equity instrument um there's an exception in the international residential code under 107.1 that allows you to build a small addition without getting a soils test or or having an engineered foundation design provided as long as that addition is only 150 ft we're proposing to increase that to 200 squ ft just to make it a little bit easier for folks to build additions on existing homes and you know potentially improve their ability to utilize their home for their family members or agent place so the next one is kind of it's a change from something we already did originally playground equipment that was installed on residential private property was exempt from permitting but it wasn't exempt for HOAs or homeowners associations um so now we're proposing to increase that exemption so to say that if you want to install a swing set or a slide or something like that on an

[85:00] HOA property or a residential private property it'll be exempt from permitting as long as it's installed in in conformance with consumer product consumer safety commission guidelines finally the last one was oop sorry the last one here is a deletion of a local Amendment requiring artfall Breakers so we had a local amendment in our adoption of the National Electric Code that required you to bring that panel up completely up to current code if you were replacing the panel this is problematic for a few reasons but particularly in terms of socioeconomic equity and safety in fact um as we have a lot of people in the city trying to upgrade electrical panels to accommodate things like EV charging and heat pumps they're running into a really significant cost barrier with this local amendment that required them to install ARA Breakers now ARA Breakers do improve safety that's that's not debatable but they're not required by the National Electric Code once again Boulder is the only Community across the Front Range that had this requirement it was often adding as much as $2,500 to $3,000 per

[86:01] panel upgrade which as you can imagine particularly for lower income folks is a huge barrier and it's not just a barrier to upgrading their electrical panel it's a barrier to buying an EV it's a barrier to electrification of their home so we really thought it was time we deleted that Amendment and just went back to the base code AS required by the state by state law okay um so moving on to the actual significant updates here there was a couple couple little cleanups done in the mobile home park I will admit there's probably still more space uh in that chapter for things to be cleaned up one of the things that was deleted was there's a section on commercial use of mobile homes not sure where that came from they're not suitable for commercial use they don't meet accessibility requirements floor load requirements since I've been at the city I've never seen anyone try to use one so we just deleted that code as being Obsolete and then the second thing was pretty significant but we had a large chapter on foundations and blocking and tie downs well since 2006 that's been regulated by the division of local Affairs through the state so it was

[87:01] completely obsolete Cod so we simply deleted it so those are the only real changes we made in the mobile home park chapter so moving on to the 2024 International residential code I'm just going to try and go through these as quickly as possible I apologize they're very um technical sometimes I'll try and explain as I go so there's some new protection requirements for storage batteries and garages those are things like Tesla power walls they're pretty simple if you have a a Tesla power wall or a similar battery in a place where it could get damag you have to put a ball art in front of it now uh there's a new shared accessory option for two family accessory room option for two family dwellings so if you have a duplex you can now have a shared space that both duplexes open onto um and there's a new provision called imaginary lot lines which is added to for calculating fire separation distance and considering multiple dwellings on a single lot so how this would work is under the old code there was really no guidelines as to you separated you know say you had two homes on one lot how far apart those had to be for fire separation but if

[88:00] they're on separate Lots they had to be at least 5T from the property line if they weren't fire rated walls so this creates an imaginary lot line between two dwelling units on a single on a single parcel detached dwelling units to be clear not attached ones so we actually have something to measure to and figure out that fire separation distance this created a lot of concern with the public when we first announced you know this is one of the code changes but I want to be very clear it doesn't apply to accessory buildings at all so accessory dwelling units garages studios are totally exempt from this requirement it would only apply if you had two single family dwellings on one lot doesn't apply to duplexes Town Homes anything like that so really it shouldn't be that impactful on the city of Bops some other changes uh air exhaust openings are now allowed in your operable windows and doors this next one is a big one a2l refrigerants have been added as an option for cooling equipment so as of January 1 2025 the federal government

[89:02] actually started to phase out the previous generation of refrigerants and have mandated these new a2l refrigerants what an a2l refrigerant is a low global warming potential that moderately flammable refrigerant those were prohibited in the previous code so you couldn't under our current code you can't even install a mini split anymore if it uses these new refrigerants so the code has been updated to address this um change in federal law another really significant change here habitable basements habitable addicts and basements in existing buildings can now have a ceiling height of 6 feet and 8 in for the last 100 years this has been 7 feet which has been a real barrier for folks trying to finish basements or build a use and existing homes that don't meet that threshold there is really no flexibility so this is really a significant change and should help improve housing affordability within the city okay moving on to the international building code uh there's a pretty significant change in section 104 regarding the duties of the building official specifically around alternative means and methods so alternative means

[90:01] and methods the code has always acknowledged that while it's prescriptive and it tries to cover everything it's impossible to cover every possible design scenario that might come up and traditionally you've been able to apply to the building official and say Hey I want to do this alternative and I think this is why you should do it and really it was just up to the whim of the building official to make that decision now there's an actual checklist and a procedure for the building official to go through to make that decision which really should help clarify that and make it more consistent there's some new Provisions regarding the wind resistance of aggregate surface roofs in the 2018 code those roofs are prohibited in areas with wind speeds over 120 mph well that was problematic for us because the entire city has wind speeds over 120 mil hour it's been really challenging when people come in to reot those thankfully ICC recognized This was um maybe gone a bit far and have gone back to allowing those right up to 165 mph there are requirements in terms of aggregate size and parit walls this is a really beneficial change because these Roof Systems perform really well in our climate zone they have low embodied

[91:01] carbon and they're extremely fire resistant so we're glad to see them being allowed again in our community there's also a change in that increases the allowable height of a group R2 occupancy which is like a a residential building with an NFPA 13r system so that might have a small benefit to some of our buildings in town but probably not huge now some occupied able space requirements now apply if a roof is usable for anything more than maintenance or repair uh there's new regulations added for adult changing stations when they're required and this next one's was a local amendment in our code and is now in base code carbon monoxide detection is now required in all occupancies where a CO producing device is present and that detection notification can be addressed in several ways so moving on to the international existing building code this is the code that regulates buildings that are already existing and are being modified same as the ABC the occupiable roofs requirement has changed there's some new smoke compartment requirements for group

[92:00] i1 and condition two occupancies which are things like hospitals and Ambulatory Care Facilities where they now may need to be divided into no fewer than two smoke compartments for more substantial additions and alterations and just like the IBC the adult changing stations regulations have been updated uh there's also a new section requiring owners to designate a site safety coordinator um who's responsible for conducting daily fire inspections on jobs and existing buildings um quite honestly that'll probably just end up being the general contractor not a huge change but it's a clarification this next one is really a pretty big change and potentially really beneficial so there's a new appendic at it for temporary emergency uses so this provides guidance to Engineers Architects and code officials to allow temporary emergency uses of existing buildings with respect to minimum code requirements and it's really like a checklist or template for us to go through when a building is being proposed for an emergency use so that doesn't mean like a you know long-term

[93:00] emergency use but let's say we had a flood or a fire and we needed to use a warehouse building as an emergency shelter this allows us to go through that checklist and make sure that building meets a b minimum standard without going through an entire code process or permanent process to do so so it could be really beneficial in the long run okay moving on to the international plumbing code uh there's some new Provisions added that's for supporting of buried piping beneath buildings or expansive soils conditions exist uh which is probably quite impactful in Boulder that's a lot of our community there's a new requirement for Tracer wire for buried plastic sewer piping and there's now an option for vacuum testing of dwv which is drain waste and vent piping this is really a pretty important one for us here in Colorado because currently you can do either an air test or a water test uh the piping manufacturers don't recommend air testing and filling a pipe with water in the middle of winter is a is a bad idea so this is an alternative that doesn't violate manufacturers guidelines and allows us to conduct a test still in

[94:00] cold conditions uh there's also new flow requirements for showerheads limiting them to two gallons per minute to improve the efficiency of water use there's new installation standards for solvent cemented plastic piping joints and there's new standards for chemical waste piping materials moving on to the International Mechanical Code so under the previous versions of the code you couldn't use ductless domestic range h in group i1 and I2 which are institutional occupancies things like hospitals care facilities things of that nature those prohibitions have now been removed and you can use them in those facilities uh there's a new identification requirement to address the previously mentioned a2l refrigerants and b2l refrigerants a b2l refrigerant is simply ammonia once again it's it's a low global warming potential low flammability refrigerant and there's new requirements for Machinery rooms containing these new refrigerants uh there's an addition of a new minimum landing and a roof hatch for personnel to use safely use the hatch when accessing the roof for maintenance or repair of mechanical equipment and

[95:01] there's a new testing option for grease duct work uh there's also a new standard for refrigeration systems containing carbon dioxide and used as a refrigerant okay moving on to International property maintenance code there's some new sections under Section 105 that clarify the types of experts required for owners and operators to employ required testing and reports of compliance uh the section on warrants has been clarified to clarify the use of warrant for legal entry of a property got by code officials and there's been an adjustment of administrative procedures and remedies civil civil penalties and investigative fees to align with title 10 chapter 3 violations and the section on unsafe structures in equipment has been changed to allow unsafe structure to be placarded as dangerous or hazardous this allows for broader plaing for hazardous structures to be posted as unsafe okay moving on to the 2024 intern National fire code updates uh there's now an appendix appendix o that allows valet trash this is something we've

[96:00] heard about pretty extensively on the code front um what valet trash is if you live in a multif family building it allows you to put out your you know your trash and recycling cans in the hallway just like you would in a single family building out on the street and someone from the HOA or the building management comes around and collects that traditionally that wasn't allowed because it was conc you know you had flammable receptacles and trash sitting on the hallway and it C an egress Hazzard btif fire is proposing to adopt appendix o which will allow Val trash where we can do it so I think that's a really a huge benefit to the citizens of Bal there's two new sections added in chapter 3 that address the storage of lithium ion and lithium metal batteries as well as powered micr Mobility devices I want to be clear this really is only a commercial requirement this doesn't impact people storing these devices in their homes or apartments but you know if you had say a bakery and you were using ebikes for a dely service and you had 10 of them in a small space then this provision would apply there's also new requirements for fire sprinklers to

[97:00] specifically address the storage and manufacturing of lithium ion and lithium batteries I I will note that the city already requires sprinklers in these areas with the adoption of pass codes due to our amendments so there's really no change to our current requirements but it is an update the 24 code and the fire protection requirements for the storage of distilled spirits and wines was expanded for new storage facilities so staff's analysis and recommendation um we really recommend that the city city council adopt ordinance 8684 because the changes would help update Boulder's Life Safety codes to current International standards it would help reduce construction costs and remove code barriers to social economic and racial equity and potentially improve Boulders Insurance risk rating this is the proposed motion language and that's the end of my presentation all right thanks Rob that was fascinating uh n you were not wrong much

[98:01] more exciting than you might have expected right all kinds of fascinating things all right well uh does council have any questions for City staff before we go to the public hearing um Lauren farts mayor would you like us to take the slides down if we put the questions in the chat yes please I'll wait until after the public hearing sorry okay just questions for now Tina yeah I just had a couple quick questions um the first is about how many people attend the sessions the two sessions you referred to at the beginning I'm just curious about what the interest was or not so much the interest but who who does show up the first one there was about oh I think about eight or nine people that showed up and every it was interesting every single one of them was either a builder or a designer professional wasn't intended that way but I guess they're the most affected by it uh the second one I think there are about 25 people

[99:00] there quite a quite a turnout not that many of them spoke mostly they listened but there were a few people that had had questions and concerns okay and then I have two small questions um the other is when we're reducing the ceiling height yes um for those areas where people might be living there's still a window requirement correct yes this doesn't change egress requirements it's it's purely just the ceiling height so if you're finishing a basement you would still be required to install egress windows and it doesn't diminish the size of the window that's okay perfect um and then finally when we're talking about the invisible lot lines for the fire separation between structures do we have any difference in those the amount of Separation if we're closer to the wooy area versus the non- wooy area no okay thank you that's it that was great all right and just remember that at the beginning of our deliberations

[100:00] there will be a quiz on the specific items in his presentation so I hope you took good notes all right we have two people signed up for the uh public hearing each of them will get three minutes to speak and they are Lynn seagull and Michelle Rodriguez first of all free Palestine because all of this matters not if we are all eliminated by Israel in World War II seriously it's going to happen soon free Palestine second 10 years ago I had a energy retrofit with energy smart with the county and in the process of

[101:01] interviewing a contractor Stellar um I connected back with the county and they said oh Stellar's been dropped from our list of vendors and wouldn't tell me why and so I called stellar and Stellar said well we were a designed to do a solar install under adverse conditions and the county required us to do it in the adverse conditions in spite of violating our warranty and subjecting us to liability and potential damages and when we refused to do the solar install the county forced us and said if you aren't doing it you're done done and dumped him and I spent hours talking to that person first to that contractor they were really good because

[102:00] they did all different things so now comes 10 years later I'm getting an energy retrofit and the city says um sorry you can't have anything to do with your energy retrofit we're giving it to you free this other one I had to pay myself and that's great it's free now but I can't be involved so they did a a retrofit that was a complete disaster everything they did to my place was a completely botched it'll cost me thousands and thousands of dollars to reverse what care did for me so one of the things I talked to Rob about because it was a hot water heater between my refrigerator and the kitchen and the living room and and they put a door into my living room to access the hot water heater now when I bought my

[103:01] house in 2000 I never had to have any permit or any requirement to my understanding this was a mechanical job not a remodeling job that would not require such a permit unless the contractor themselves requested one but I wasn't consulted was I and this contractor wanted to have a permit done for the hot water heater so I have a loud electronic Buzz that's not remediable because the hot water here needs air circulation around it shame on you your time is up thank you for your testimony our final speaker is Michelle Rodriguez hi guys my apologies I accidentally signed up for the public speaking I bet you guys were surprised cuz I don't usually speak at the public hearings also um I noticed that the meeting's not being live streamed right

[104:00] now is that a technical issue or is that meant to be or um but anyway um you can carry on with your meeting I appreciate all your work thanks guys thank you uh can I just ask uh technical staff do we have a a live stream going I'll look into it mayor okay thank you please let us know all right um so now we can come back to council for a deliberation on the topic who would like to get us started there's Lauren's hand everyone knew I would want to speak on this one so you're just waiting for it I can tell um Rob I really did appreciate your presentation it was much better than reading it in the packet you made it very exciting so thank you

[105:02] um I appreciate that staff um brought forward those permit exemptions for freestanding decks and larger sheds and the removal of Al arc fault connectors um as part of something else I would love to see decks not considered as part of the structure because right now if you add a deck to your house it can make it so that you're not meeting your height requirement for your house which is a pretty strange code loophole that we have put ourselves in um but that's not related to tonight just because we brought up decks um I'm still not a fan of requiring permitting for siding and window replacements but um I understand why we're going forward with that I just I still feel like the people who are going to comply are the people who

[106:00] are going to comply with the requirements um for the wooi and for energy code um requirements and you will likely still have a number of people doing siding and window replacement projects from Windows they buy from Home Depot and things like that and they are not going to apply for permits and they might do them in a day and we probably won't catch them so I think that it does just create additional work for people who are likely to be following the rules anyway um and then my hotline so um I love all this work that you brought forward as part of this I noticed that we were that there was a portion that was talking about how we measure um floor area and after some discussion back and forth with staff um I'm hoping that we could as part of a

[107:00] different project but maybe with Direction tonight look at changing the way we measure side sizes of buildings um and switch to measuring them based on the interior air barrier because as I mentioned in the hotline the way our energy code and building codes and Zoning codes and property values interact makes it so that there's this really strong incentive to create really narrow High Energy Efficiency walls which means we're using a lot of foam Plastics and things with really high embodied carbon in order to insulate um buildings and if we change the way we measure it then that would allow people to have thicker walls without taking um kind of a hit in terms of what they're allowed to build on their property those thicker walls can be insulated with more carbon neutral or carbon sequestering insulations um and

[108:02] so and I also got a number of comments from community members about my hotline to remind me that not only are they better in terms of carbon but they're also often better in terms of fire performance so um a lot of foam plastic insulations in a fire not only create a lot of toxic chemicals but they melt and it's very problematic anyway um so I'm hoping that we could make this change to align with our climate goals um by and reduce embodied carbon while maintaining our High Energy Efficiency standards and while this might allow moderately larger buildings I think that that tradeoff um for the significant impact on potential emissions ctions um would make sense and align with our values and since I'll let staff talk to this more but I believe is working on several

[109:01] projects that this could be incorporated into and it's not a big lift I would like to ask that staff um bring this change forward in a cohesive manner as part of an upcoming modification thank you thanks for that Lauren and just I think you may have meant not to put words in your mouth a modest increase in building size not a moderate one I think it's just a a handful of square feet yes I yes thank you I I mean sort of the thickness of the wall yeah that's about it Brad did you want to address Lauren's proposal there uh yeah Brad Mueller uh director of planning and development services uh on on that last Point uh very much appreciate the the observation and insights about the relationship between uh the wall with and embodied carbon and what we do recognize as staff uh after conversation with you really

[110:01] creates kind of a unintended um dis disincentive to to use those better types of insulation uh we don't think that'll be a huge lift um and can incorporate that in some of the other items we're doing uh so we'd be happy to commit to that if that's council's will and uh bring that forward yet this this year uh comprehensively as you mentioned because it does kind of interplay between uh building and uh impact fees and the zoning code and a couple other things very good so procedurally would that be a a not of five to see if that work council's direction as part of this hearing I believe so but I'll I'll get that confirmed by Roberto or somebody else uh this would be the not of five great well let's get through our

[111:00] other comments and then we can come back to that proposal uh so we got Mark and Tina thank you um I'm I'm very supportive of Lauren's idea I think it makes a lot of sense um the one concern I have is I would hate to see uh developers get larger buildings and still build thin walls is there anything we can do to in effect provide the larger uh floor area to those who are doing um sort of econ ecologically sound uh structures as opposed to giving it to everyone and having some guy you know just build another cheap building with with thin walls and and uh using toxic uh you know materials uh Brad I don't know if you have a thought on that yeah I'm happy to answer that uh councilman W wck that that certainly would be the intent and that's

[112:01] a little bit of the complexity of figuring out how to make sure people don't uh create it as a loophole for getting additional space so that that's uh that would be key towards uh our efforts okay good com on that one real quick yeah please so the way that it would be measured would be from when Lauren said interior internal air barrier basically what she's talking about is drywall to drywall measurement so the only way you would benefit from it is if the wall was thicker if you built a thinner wall you'd still be within the same as the current standard does that make sense yes okay other than that I'm I'm very much in favor thank you yeah I had a similar question about whether we could provide that measurement option only if you committed on the front end to using those materials um and then generally one of the things I like about a building code is the the points system that we have

[113:02] where you have a lot of different ways of getting points to meet our goals and I wonder if over time and certainly not tonight we might consider looking at points for more of the building materials and construction methods that has flexibility to reflect how quickly these different materials are evolving and then create some kinds of incentiv so that people who are building will be more open to using them um and and going more to a menu style um to make to to see if we can get that to happen I'll defer to Rob on on that oh yeah I'm not entirely sure I understand because you know the way this particular code works as it's kind of the way I always describe it sounds bad but it's like a D minus right this is the bare minimum standard you you can get in order to have us give you a

[114:01] certificate of occupancy for a building it's not really like the energy code where we have that point system where you're describing it's like we want you to do this plus we want you to get to a certain goal we're just trying to say this is the absolute minimum that's allowable so I'm not quite sure how a point system could play out but I'm open to hearing more about it that's fine it was just something I was thinking about um so thank you he and can I cqu on that real quick go ahead I I just wanted to mention that um you know some of that material aspect is in our energy code in the um New embodied carbon checklist um but there are different Pathways so it doesn't always apply to every project very good TAA TAA you're on

[115:00] mute sorry about that I was saying thank you for these updates and um I learned a ton and it was very informative both the materials and the presentation um I especially appreciated the use of the racial Equity tool and explicit examples of how policy changes were made and resource allocations were made that's exactly what that tool is for um I would recommend some better marketing on just the outcomes and the things that are happening because I feel like I hear a lot of uh rather I don't hear from the community a lot of the things or rather they know about a lot of the things and changes that we're making and so hopefully they'll see it in their energy bills but um if there's other ways that we can continue to lift that up um and just in general I think you know that's an area where I would love to get more information on just um the cost around some of these and the affordability issues um around around them um and and and of course you know we know the the you know conversation Community conversations are ongoing

[116:00] right now around energy and and uh Excel Etc so that's just an area that I felt like um in all of this I felt like there's this other thing that's happening and we're kind of spending a lot of time on this which is really important but I feel like there's this other thing and I know we have time set aside for that but just recognizing that there's this kind of other elephant in the room and how we can you know aligning some of of that work and and as I said particularly around affordability um but just in general was really grateful for the direction of where we're going um and just the the changes that even the the renter considerations were also very much appreciated as as the renter on on our Council right now um and so just again really thinking of all the different stakeholder groups and how they'll be impacted um is very much appreciated so thank you yeah I'll just call on myself and just uh add to the thanks for all the work clearly this was a lot of work a lot of very detailed work and we're fortunate to have um such knowledgeable Prof professionals such as yourself Rob to manage us through the process and

[117:02] then Echo ta's comments about the appreciating the use of the racial Equity instrument I sometimes get questions from like people in other jurisdictions to say okay well you've got this tool how does it actually end up making a difference and so this is a great couple of examples to add to the list of here are concrete uh specific changes that we made to our policies based on on looking at the racial Equity instrument so really appreciate that um turning that into action not not just having it sit on the Shelf as a plan I don't see any other hands raised so I wonder maybe we might uh consider a motion on the the main item in front of us and then maybe love to see if Lauren has notify for that next phase so if anyone were interested in the motion that would be great I move that we pass ordinance 8684 amending title 10 structures BRC 1981 and adopting by reference the 2024

[118:03] International codes regarding Property Maintenance building electrical fire mechanical fuel gas and plumbing and setting forth related details got a motion in a second can we do a roll call please Ela yes sir thank you we'll start the roll call tonight for the adoption of ordinance 8684 with mayor po Tim folr yes council member Maris yes shuar yes spear yes wallet yes Winer yes Adams TAA I don't think we heard you there I was saying yes I have allergies I don't know what's going on thank yes Benjamin yes and mayor

[119:05] Brockett yes ordinance 8684 is hereby adopted unanimously Roberto did you have a thought Alicia did you follow along uh the suggested motion language uh this is Roberto Ramirez uh Deputy City attorney Alicia did you follow along with the suggested motion language that you put in with the one that was actually read yes because the actual she motioned to adopt ordinance 8684 oh my apologies you're right amend and pass thank you Roberto that's that's great for catching that thank you so uh actually I I I wish I could take credit for that uh or attorning Christy Fitch Cott it thank you chrisy I so appreciate you so to correct the record ordinance 8684 is hereby amended and passed as

[120:03] noted thank you sir very good and then uh Lauren you're G to ask for a KN of five do you want to give a brief fre statement of what that request is for yeah so I would like to request a KN of five for staff to do a comprehensive look at changing how we measure building size um with a possible with looking to switch it towards me measuring to the interior air barrier um as part of an upcoming code modification very good Nicole do you want to speak to that um yeah I just just had a quick clarification um because I think what I heard Brad say earlier was that um this this can be fit into existing work it doesn't sort of

[121:00] need additional work I just wanted to clarify that because we often use the KN of five for um asking staff to like make a tradeoff or do additional work or things like that so I just want to triple check for the record that Brad said this isn't anything that's going to take a lot more work and it can be fit into what is already coming which I'm fully supportive I think it's a great idea Lauren thank you for bringing it up Brad did you want to speak to that uh no I can just confirm that's true this is something we'll fold in uh well two things one we have the capacity to do it as we envision it and number two we think there's a couple uh very natural fits for some other items that we'll be bringing forward in terms of uh the actual bringing forward in ordinance good as our facilitator header would say we will just tuck this one in to the existing item that you're working on MAR loves the tuck inss I have so much to say then I'm G to

[122:00] keep to myself right now okay uh so we've got a a request for not of five to do as Lauren requested um just raise your hand if you would like to see that happen all right I think I got nine there okay very good Lauren I really appreciate that proposal I think it's very very promising so thanks for the creativity and bringing that one forth and thank you staff for um working with me through some of the ups and downs of the figuring out what what made the most sense appreciate it okay well thanks again to staff for amazing work on this project and um look forward to the changes it'll it'll bring for our community and now we can go to our final public hearing which is a continued public hearing uh Elicia if you can read that in the record please thank you sir I'm paying attention this time because I was multitasking all right item 5B tonight is the continued public hearing

[123:02] and consideration of the following items as part of the implementation of the East Boulder subc Community Plan our first item is the consideration of a motion to amend the East Boulder subc Community Clan including the 55th and arabo station area plan to align the East Boulder connections plan with the refined vision for East Boulder area of change and to include additional supporting information our second item is the second reading and consideration of a motion to amend as recommended by staff in the staff memorando ordinance 8669 amending Title 9 L use code BRC 1981 by adopting form-based code standards for parts of East Boulder moving from the form based code from appendix M to chapter 9- 14 form based code BRC 1981 revisiting resoning and trip reduction standards for each voter and setting forth related

[124:02] details so much uh Council today we're coming back for continued discussion continued discussion of the adoption of form-based code standards for parts of the East Boulder sub community plan for parts of East Boulder sub community plan we know there's been a lot of conversation about this in the past uh and ongoing with community and you're going to hear from that from staff in a bit but I wanted to lift up tonight that staff's really going to be focusing on changes made to be as flexible as possible under the already adopted East Boulder subc Community Plan and I'll note that they've tried hard to be mindful of making sure that changes don't alter the existing plan so much that it would actually require us to go back and amend the subc commmunity plan itself so with that I will send it back to Brad Mueller who's already been with us today Brad yes thank you Nara and uh I just want to add uh before Christopher and Kathleen uh give the presentation that we

[125:01] appreciated the opportunity uh with the continuance to re-engage with the stakeholders and and really do a bit of a a deeper dive even than uh all the the engagement and Outreach that had been done not only for the form based code but years prior as part of the subc community plan as well uh that did allow for some refinement and some clarification on things that will help us administer this in the future and U I think we've uh struck a good balance in in making adjustments but uh of course are uh happy to be able to present that to you this evening and with that I think I'm turning it to Kathleen initi yes good evening Council I am Kathleen King principal Planner on the comprehensive planning team um I will be presenting tonight with Comprehensive planning manager Christopher Johnson and we also have Leslie oberholzer from kot metrics who's our project consultant

[126:01] online and the city's principal Urban designer colani pooa available for questions later this evening um but thanks for this opportunity to present some additional revisions to the city's form based code that the project team has made with community members and in response to additional community and Council feedback received at our last session together on December 5th and KJ's sharing a screen yep great um so tonight we have a brief presentation to review those revisions there's time to go over any remaining questions from council members and then Council will consider two motions this evening can go to the next Slide the first is related to amendments to the east Boulder sub community plan and the second is to adopt updates to the city um code so sub community plan amendments are pretty limited we're revising the connections plan based on feedback received during this process and adding

[127:02] two elements to support future implementation of the plan we reviewed these amendments in December so we'll not be representing those tonight um but the code amendments which really were the heart of this East Boulder um project we've made updates to the form base code similarly to implement the East Boulder subc Community Plan we reviewed um the bulk of those code updates in December um and receive Council direction to hold some additional meetings with community members and consider some additional revisions as part of this code update project so KJ will talk through those in a few minutes um but if you could go to the next slide these are the key questions that we asking of council this evening head to the next slide please and then um just briefly to remind anyone watching this project is

[128:00] focused on implementing East Boulder subc Community Plan the plan was adopted in 2022 uh East Boulder is one of 10 subcommunities the area is generally north of arapajo and east of Foothills next slide please and these prop proposed code updates um would also include an update to the appendix L map which identifies where in the city form base code applies so form base code currently applies to Boulder Junction and the Alpine balam site and this update would add the four areas of change identified in the sub community plan to this appendix L map next slide please so in response to council's Direction in December um the project team held two additional open work sessions with community members in January we had uh great groups participate at both sessions um folks included multiple Area Property Owners

[129:01] some local and National developers local Architects representatives from the projects technical advisory committee and a couple of other interested community members during these work sessions we reviewed all of the comments and recommendations for re revision received from community and council members along with a staff analysis and recommendation and I think we were able to identify some additional revisions that create greater flexibility within the code but still align with recommendations of the subc community plan so following those sessions we were able to make those revisions um we shared the revised code back with interested stakeholders since then we've received both uh letters of support and letters describing some remaining concerns about components of the code and those letters were included in your packet uh and now I think to go through those revisions I will pass it over to KJ and he will walk you through those

[130:04] thanks great thank you Kathleen uh good evening mayor members of council my name is Christopher Johnson comprehensive planning manager with PS uh as Kathleen mentioned I'm going to walk through the most uh substantive changes that staff are recommending coming out of this additional Outreach over the last couple of months so I wanted to really quickly begin with a brief recap of the public hearing on December 5th last year so um the council questions and discussion really primarily focused on clarifying and understanding when the form-based code would apply and the design standards that are in in the code that are related to residential uses and production business space specifically there was a lot of conversation around um questions and then potential for future non-residential project s along a rapo in particular uh as as Kathleen mentioned you asked staff to continue to have some discussions with property owners and stakeholders to explore

[131:00] greater flexibility uh and optionality when applying the form based code uh considering some alternative compliance for the production business base and then also taking a closer look at several existing design standards to essentially reduce some of the prescriptiveness of them and allow for greater creativity and design and flexibility so your memo packet includes a long table that lists all of the comments that we received back in December and then a couple that came in through that additional those additional stakeholder meetings uh also included in the in the table is a staff analysis of each of those comments and a recommendation on whether to accommodate a change in the ordinance or to not recommend a change uh tonight we're going to focus on the most substantive revisions that are recommended by staff um and those include changes that would allow for all properties to opt out of the form based code and use site review instead uh removing the an existing requirement that uh requires site review

[132:02] projects also be compatible with form based uh code standards and I'll go into that in a little bit more detail uh including a new option for the provision of production business bace and where that can be located on site and then also a number of broad revisions to many of those design standards uh really looking to improve Pro and increase um Clarity of the code as well so the as a reminder for everybody the form based code is really only triggered and only applies if a property is proposing a really substant substantive or substantial change to the existing structure so if that proposal is less than the thresholds that are defined by the code then the default process is simply a byright permit under existing zoning or potentially through the site review process form based code does not apply to those projects at all uh under the new proposed language projects that are large large enough to trigger the form based code would also

[133:00] have this ability to now opt out and use the site review process instead so to go into a little bit more detail around that I wanted to make sure to you know clarify again the the thresholds for when the form based code applies that's on the right side of the screen so that includes any major additions that expand existing floor area by more more than 60% if you're less than 60% form base code does not apply uh any major facade modifications where 60% of that facade is being replaced and I want to just be sure to clarify that that only applies to facades that are within the frontage setback which is that area between the street and the face of the building so if you are replacing a facade that was on the rear or the side of a building form based code would not apply that 60% threshold would not apply uh also if you're creating a new facade associated with an addition or an expansion and again that only applies if that facade is within the frontage setback uh and

[134:00] then finally any kind any replacement of more than 60% of the of the roof structure so again if you're below any of those thresholds form based code is not even on the table um but if you're more than that if you are you know greater than that or looking at a a full Redevelopment of a property then the form based code does apply but the proposed provision to the ordinance by staff explicitly allows that all properties have the have the opportunity to opt out and instead use the site review uh process provided that they meet the eligibility criteria that are listed in section 9214 so as an example sites in the IG or the industrial General Zone District must be one acre in size for site review and we we double check that all of the properties in the flat irons Business Park were larger than one acre so they would would all therefore be able to use site review as an alternative to the form base code if they choose the the next important revision

[135:00] and really related to this is to remove the standard that states that site review projects that are within form-based code areas are still required to be compatible with the intent and the standards of the form based code so staff is recommending that we delete this provision to ensure that these two processes are entirely separate and distinct from one another uh so really to clarify that any form-based code standards would not apply to a project going through the site review process uh related to production business space so staff are recommending that we introduce language um that allows for greater flexibility on how and where to provide that production business space and that only applies again to projects that are greater than 15,000 square fet if it's less than that the production business BAS requirement does not kick in so we are proposing to allow that that production business space be incorporated into the main building or could be included in a

[136:00] separate structure on site and really this is intended to address some of the concerns and the comments we received about single tenant buildings and the issues of security or or incompatible uses within those those structures um I do want to note that Staff feel really strongly that maintaining the production business space standard is really important and direct reflects input that we've received throughout this process from community members and planning board and from Council yourselves that the loss of light industrial space in the city as these areas are redeveloping is really of great concern and so really the standard is intended to ensure that some of that space is replaced and included in new developments and and really we want to continue to support our local entrepreneurs and makers and Service Industrial businesses through that um there has been convers ation around a alternative compliance method to use some kind of a fee andl program or an equivalent we're certainly open to that idea and we'll continue to explore

[137:00] that as part of future implementation steps but it's it's just outside the scope of this project and we don't we don't have the the the um the overall sort of structure to be able to implement something like that at this time finally uh I just wanted to highlight and note that there are several amendments also included uh in the ordinance before you this evening that amend and make changes to a number of different standards to really provide more design flexibility and particularly related to standards around the Poo design stormwater elements some of the building materials that are allowed on uh different facades and then also clarifying uh the standards around mechanical equipment and making sure that it's clear that that mechanical equipment can be located outside the building building particularly if it's going to cause any kind of health and safety risk to the occupants of the building there's also just some additional amendments to try to clarify

[138:01] standards and improve the usability so that future applicants designers and staff um have the have the best code in front of them and are able to understand and interpret that as best as they can so just to recap the items for your consideration tonight include both the subcommunity plan amendments uh that were approved by planning board back in October and just as a reminder those were improved or approved without changes to the land use or place types so the existing uh land use and place types that are in the subc commmunity plan would remain the same and then also the uh suggested code amendments um for for the form-based code and planning board did recommend approval uh for those um code amendments as well and I have some uh recommended motion language that I won't take the time to read through at this point and we are happy to answer any questions that you may

[139:01] have right thanks so much KJ for that informative but concise presentation um do we have any questions uh for City stff in just our format here uh we did have a public hearing on this on December 5th we're not taking additional public testimony so let's start with clarifying questions and then we can move into discussion of consideration of those motions right questions we got Mark and then Matt um at our last meeting in December I think uh members of council were very very clear that they wanted as much flexibility as possible um for businesses whether they're using the form based code or opting for um site review um and I think staff has done a very good job in providing more flexibility um but I have to ask what is the purpose of section 9

[140:03] 9216 it goes on I2 A1 uh and two which says that as I read it um uh a an exception um can be granted to somebody using a uh a site review um if it is consistent with the goals and intents of the adopted area plan applied to the area and my and I am I am asking you do do you really believe that to be consistent with the way capital is uh marshaled and deployed today that somebody would commit um to spend tens of millions of dollars on an approval process and and then have to sit in the planning Department's office and ask somebody um do you think that I'm meeting the uh the goals and intents of the area plan um

[141:04] businesses require a little more uh certainty than that and I I'm asking you why you would not correct that as you corrected so many other things and by the way before you suggest that I'm I'm crazy um the boulder chamber has identified the very same issue as a problem and ask you to address that um and the solution seems to be pretty simple but there is no such solution so I'm asking why are we in this position when when we could fix it so easily do you do you have the the code reference available unless like to just be able to review the language page 17 of the staff memo um and it's

[142:01] uh A1 A2 great thank you and thank you I've got the wrong citation please correct me yeah and I guess my first question is am I correct that under the current standards or the proposed standards s that a developer um would at the end of the day as he tries to obtain approvals for his uh property has to sit in front of planning and and be told whether or not his project at that point uh meets the goals of the East Boulder uh subcommunity plan councilman wck I'm I'm happy to uh give some initial thoughts about that while Christopher and Cath C uh look up the section and I see we have Hela panig as well who represents a lot of the land use items uh for the the city um in kind

[143:01] of broad terms I I appreciate the question and and the inquiry around that I would say in Broad terms the consistency with any plan whether we're talking about this sub community plan or the comprehensive plan or a different subc community plan is very typical and and kind of integral to the land use uh process process and and the way that land use decision making has been um set up for for jurisdictions and and ultimately for Council review it's it's not so much a a staff determination but that ultimately gets to the heart of uh planning board and council's determination about whether projects are consistent there certainly are uh existing property rights like the um use that is allowed under zoning that um do not get superseded by uh a a a plan which is aspirational and uh

[144:00] speaks to the intent uh but there is still that important uh quasi judicial function that boards and and councils maintain to make sure that um the administration of zoning codes are meeting meeting the intent of broader Visions um maybe I'll stop there and have hel kind of make me speak to more the technical aspects of it but that's kind of the philosophical nature of it I rephrase the question if the zoning permits a research facility uh let's say in flat iron Park where we are trying to um develop a an ecosystem of research facilities um if the zoning permits that okay and and it is um developed as such um forgetting where the citation is does planning have the right under any circumstances to say um that does not

[145:00] meet uh the standard of consistency um with u the the East Boulder uh plan you do you have the legal right to say to that developer thank you but that's not what we were looking for yeah the zoning Allowed by that zone District would definitely allow the allowed uses uh there's probably more Technical and nuanced answer so I I'll I'll kind of yield to hel at this point yeah it it seems like the the question has changed a little bit if I may respond to the question that was first asked and that particular section that you were referring to council member wallik that is a a section that only applies if a developer comes in with the form based code project and proposes not to comply with one or several of the standards within the form based code so this is a way to still approve the project even though not all form-based code standards are met if the

[146:00] developer can show that the goals and intents of the area plan are still met then I apologize and I I but I reiterate my second question um is there a right on the part of of the planning department to turn turn down a project that is permitted by the zoning on the basis of it not being consistent with the East Boulder um subc commmunity plan it and that's that's an either or I mean either you can or you can't and I think what you are probably referring to are the St the site review standards that require consistency with subcommunity plans and the bould valley comprehensive plan and I think it I wouldn't say there is a right to turn down a Project based on um a subcommunity plan or a boulder

[147:03] Valle comprehensive plan can uses be ever considered based on the plan I think I that that depends on the circumstances um of what's proposed and the particular language that's being applied when in development review process es the criteria have to be specific enough to give a developer sufficient notice of what might be required of the developer and then the decision makers also have to apply the criteria rationally and consistently so with these plans they're pretty broadly drafted um for many different planning purposes and not like laws so when a reviewing body considers the plan and it and it considers uses then I would caution that decision maker to keep in mind when reviewing the application whether or not a reasonable landowner would understand what might be required from

[148:00] the decision maker what they want to do and I think there are circumstances when that can be considered but oftentimes the plans are not specific enough I I I you know I I I think I'm asking a fairly direct question um and it's the same question that the the boulder chamber is asking for resolution of uh but I'm I'm really not getting a very direct answer and so let me try it to respond differently yeah do I think that there is ever a circumstance where a use could be considered and result in the denial of an application I think there could be circumstances like that but it is rare okay and I'll elaborate a little bit councilman that um this gets again to the heart of the quas judicial decision making just to clarify staff would never be position we're always going to give a conservative read of of interpretation but the quas judicial decision on individual projects asks for a balance

[149:00] of considerations and while a plan might for example say that uh there should be paths and connections you know that that may become the most relevant thing in a specific site plan but certainly not to the extent that a proposed exercise of a property right to build a a use means that the entire site should be uh a a trail for example um so it is a bit of a nuanced answer but um but certainly the right exists for a property to exercise their zoning and that would always be defended by staff and and counseled by uh the city attorney's office uh to the decision makers I do you get why this would be problematic to people who are raising substantial amounts of capital to develop V within our city high-end uh research facilities I wonder if I might pop in here because this we are going on this

[150:01] line of inquiry for a bit um so ju just to the point of that I'll just pop in as a former member of planning board that you know we have the comprehensive plan we have area plans they do influence decision-making but they're not like regulatory documents so yes you you refer to area plans in the comp plan as part of your consideration when you're looking at a project but we I mean I'll just say that that is how planning has has worked in this town for a very long time okay then then I have an issue with how planning has worked in this town for a very long time and the way saying it's always been that way is never the only like the end of a discussion but just just to say it's part of our our our planning tradition here in Boulder anyway anything else no I don't think so all right Matt thanks Aaron and I I appreciate

[151:00] Mark's inquiry and I know where Mark is headed with this and and I might be able to come at this from a slightly different angle but but have a couple of questions um in particular the the production business space I'm a little curious as to how that um is is that a requirement in site review no it's not okay so then how so how would a developer be sort of judged on that because it was there was a mention that there seemed to be question about whether or not a cash andl would be a part of it that makes me thinking that there's some sort of mandate to that if you're requiring if if we would consider a cash and lo to opt out of such requirement so I'm sort of curious where does that fit in yeah so the production business base is only a standard that's part of the form based code so if um again the form based code allows for a greater level of intensity than is allowed under existing

[152:00] zoning or through site review it automatically grants full 55 foot height limit so there's no you know there's no height um modification required so there's a number of things that are incentivized by by the form based code um which is partly why we include then some more detailed standards around the design of the building the types of uses at the ground floor you know those kinds of things as a um as a balance to the um the allowed increase in intensity it also you know provides for a more administrative review process so we need some more tangible quantitative do you know um do you meet the standard or do you not meet the standard kinds of um tools in the toolbx so the production business base is really a translation of the community input and the policies of the subc commmunity plan to say we want to make sure that there is a place for small and local businesses and entrepreneurs and makers in East Boulder in the future um

[153:00] so the form based code has a you know definitive standard around that through a site review process there wouldn't necessarily be the same expectation that you would provide a you know that same kind of space but there would at least be some conversation around you know is there an opportunity to continue to provide those types of light industrial spaces in the future again it wouldn't be a um it's just one policy one aspect of the subc commmunity plan so not every single project under site review um to be consistent with this with the subcommunity plan would have to provide that space um you know not all policies are are going to be um executed or or um you know provided by every individual project so there would be a lot more discretion and flexibility around consistency with the plan related to that standard going forward and and if cash andl were ever to be um you know created as an option again that would only apply to the standard as it's

[154:01] applied through form-based code review it would not um necessarily be applied to a site review project okay and so to be clear the the optin or the optional site review process that's being created here it that site review criteria is based on what general standard and maybe in particular for the flat irons Business Park is it is it based on the legislative intent of the East Boulder subc Community Plan or a much broader City uh criteria it the site review process is governed by um the site review criteria in section 9214 I believe um and that is that is consistent across the entire city so if you are within if you are within a site review process those criteria apply regardless of where you are um and part of one of the changes that we making to remove that compatibility with form based code um the importance of that is that it maintains then sort of the the distinction of the site review process

[155:00] as as an individual process that applies Citywide regardless of where you are um the the criteria within site review and I I won't be able to list them all but I could probably pull it up one of one of the most um and and gets back to council member wallx comments one of the criteria is in site review is that you are consistent with the comprehensive plan and any adopted subc commmunity or area plans that's a that's a basic premise of of the quasa judicial process to make sure that particularly in a discretionary process like site review that there is consistency with the overall intent and goals of the of the plan so that last part is the part I guess I'm I'm I'm just wanted to be curious about um and I may address that later in comments which is might it be that some of the tension we're facing in particular and I'll be clear I love this form based code I love what you what has been done for like 95% of everything it just seems like it's this flat irons business park that's creating this

[156:00] tension for for trying to reconcile some some challenges might under the current East Boulder subc Community Plan might it be that the intent to make this Research Center this Nexus this this Regional if not National Quantum Quantum Hub might be incompatible with our current writing of the East Boulder sub community plan and hence there's a foundational tension there I think it depends on your perspective if you if you ask me and staff I actually don't think that there is a conflict there because um for a couple of different reasons uh two-thirds of the business park is identified as destination workplace within the subc community plan so that allows for both residential and non-residential uses um entirely right so there's no there's no question at least in our understanding of the subc commmunity plan and the intent of that um or through the form based code that would apply to that area that uh the workshop building and a fully

[157:00] non-residential project research and development facility whatever it needs to be um is possible there and and then even the section that is directly along uh 55 um there is we believe there's still a lot of flexibility for those R&D types of uses along that area either through site review or through form based code because again residential um the res 50% residential floor area doesn't kick in until a project is more than 35,000 square feet the residential can be built in a separate structure if it were and again this is all under form-based code and you you make the choice to use that if you go through site review then um you know we we again based on the reading of the subc community plan we believe that there is flexibility for research and development facilities within that area as well so from our perspective we don't think there's there's that much of a conflict if um you know if Council feels otherwise and and would like us to re-examine the subc

[158:02] commmunity plan at some point in the future that's something we could do um but from a work workload capacity standpoint it would have to wait until after the comprehensive plan and if I can just add uh councilman Benjamin um I I would actually characterize any tension that exists and I think you know reasonable people could characterize it differently but if I were to characterize it's really about the timing and pace of transition of cities not to get too philosophical but the balance that um that the city and and councils and previous discussions is seeking is moving an area that's got Suburban development to one that is more dense and and is more uh of a mixed use but creating the possibility of that and with the optionality you know that timing could be 5 10 20 30 50 years for for existing uses and and proposed ones

[159:01] but not creating a a a platform for that transition means that it will never happen I would submit and so that's that's probably the tension as I would characterize it okay well I I appreciate those responses and thanks for uh Fielding my questions thank you okay great um I had a couple questions but they have already been answered so um thanks for those answers U so I'll end our question asking period and then go into comments who would like to kick off our comments uh as we move towards consideration of these motions or I I guess you know what I might and I might frame it is to say do people feel like they want to make any changes or perhaps does anyone want to put a motion on what we've got now if you can kind of steer your comments about whether um any changes might should be considered Matt I'll just uh since I was on a roll might as well keep going um so for one

[160:02] as I prefaced earlier I I really like where this is going and I and I don't want to hold up the form based code because there are folks who want to move on on making some changes based on our East Boulder subc Community Plan which was the intent was to allow this area to be under a phase of of adaptation and so I don't want to hold that up anymore so I I do like the work and I appreciate the efforts that have gone in to create the optionality and the flexibility um I I will say that I think that there might be some misinterpretation either in community or by folks um you know that are involved in these processes that think that East Boulder subc Community Plan is a housing mandate um it is not it is purely optionality and that the use that you currently have is use you can keep um and if you want to now or in the future you have that option to do so but I want to make sure that it's very clear that we're not mandating housing pack we're not mandating anything the whole purpose is the flexibility and so I appreciate staff for that but I think it just needs

[161:00] to be said in public that that is the intent of this deliberative Council body is to maintain that optionality I'm going forward I will say with regards to the flat iron Business Park um I like that we're going in optionality I just like us to keep a really close eye on this because this Quantum Hub that we are establishing has the potential to be the next generation's IBM that came to town Celestial Seasonings even the university and ball Aerospace to name a few and I want to make sure that we are creating as great of an opportunity for that Hub to create good paying jobs um in our community and so let's just keep an eye on how our rules are maybe if they're inhibiting or not um or if there's tension that goes there and hopefully if we keep an eye out you can bring that to us quickly so we can reconcile any of those conflicts that do arise because because this is a once- in a-lifetime generational thing to get a hub like this in our community and i' I'd like to see us make this um transition as fast as possible um to to make that happen so thanks thank you

[162:00] staff for all the great work on this I appreciate it very good tasa thank you so much I agree with my colleagues I continue to um appreciate the learning curve on this I also appreciate the opportunity to visit um that flat irons research uh area and so I want to thank those who who took the time to walk me around and and share about the incredible work they're doing even in you know as they're building these buildings they're thinking about not only the energy but they're also thinking about food for their staff and their employees and um I just was really really impressed um at the same time I was also very happy to see this mandatory housing component because um we need to do things differently and to uh Council Ben Benjamin's Point um you know I look to IBM I look to the tech center I Look to and I also am seeing

[163:00] all this housing that they're now putting around those places because they thought of that business first that actually incentivizes single use cars and vehicles um and disincentivizes uh 15minute walkable neighborhood so I think we need to be as consistent as possible um in in in the application of the directions that we've been talking about um and so I'm actually very excited about this and and really eager uh because when I talk to the the the folks in the in these businesses and and really Stellar Forward Thinking people um these are exactly the kind of people that we're going to need to innovate um so that we have Housing close to where people are working where we have food close to people are working and on that note I didn't see very much about green Gardens and roofs there was one reference to Green Gardens and it was in the same statement as a green roof those two are not comparable one is actually providing biodiversity and the other is providing biodiversity for um for our wildf friends but also for other humans in our

[164:02] community that can help to address food security issues so again I'm very eager to continue to see how um you know with Quantum which I also have been following very closely and I'm excited about I'm also very well of the very well aware of the energy pull that is going to be necessary in the water that is going to be necessary thus making it even more important that for a $35,000 excuse me 45,000 ft building that there's going to be um residential options and mandatary options nearby um these are the kinds of Forward Thinking Blue Line type um opportunities that we must move forward and move forward quickly if anything my concern is that um you know the former plans uh the North Boulder plan took 25 years and uh you know we you know that that timeline is is is is you know we really need to to get moving and escalate towards these types of climate resilient um strategies approaches and Frameworks so again thank you so much for the tip to you and the

[165:01] team um and I'm and I also Echo um the need for flexibility as much as possible um so thank you so much thanks I got Lauren then I'll call in myself thank you um I really want to appreciate staff for going back to community members and Property Owners um after the first part of the public hearing I think we're um at a place where I just appreciate the compromises and changes that were made through that process um we might not be at 100% of what any one party really wanted to see out of this but um I think that it strikes a good balance of allowing both the kinds of you know a variety of kinds of future development that we really want to see here from the quantum Computing Hub to increased housing and 15minute neighbor

[166:01] you know more of being able to live and work together um I think it's great that we're allowing site review for any project um and the changes you've made with the production business space I do look forward to hopefully the future creation of the fee andl program because I think this could be um an important part of helping keep um certain kinds of industrial uses light industrial here um and I also hope that we will continue to look at evolving and streamlining the form base code as we see projects come through this new updated um version thank you you thanks Lauren I'll go and then after that Nicole um so I appreciate the the comments from my colleagues I think those those were all well said and just want to reiterate a little bit that I just I do appreciate

[167:00] all the extra work that you put in in the last couple of months um to get to where we are now I think it's a really good place I think it strikes a good balance and you really heard our request for the optionality and I think we we've got a good mix here um and I think Brad I appreciated you waxing a little philosophical because I think you you hit the nail on the philosophical head here which is that these area plans are are not about dictating exactly what happens tomorrow but for allowing for an evolution of this area of town over the coming years and decades and people can continue with some of their existing plans but also if they want to take advantage of the development potential and then um in the specific way uh required by the area plan then that's an option as well and so um and then just also want to I know there's been some conversation about the production space other people have mentioned that given that it's only associated with the form-based code path and not the site review path I'm comfortable leaving that in there because the additional development potential on the form based

[168:00] code path is very very substantial and so I feel like there's room uh for accommodating those uses in that scenario if people go down the site review path they don't have to worry about that requirement so I think it works out that being said agree with Lauren that um looking as um at potential future alternatives for for limited cases where um it's simply not feasible something that's worth exploring um as we go into future phes of implementation on the plan but looking forward to getting this past tonight and seeing that gradual Evolution uh start to get going all right I got uh Nicole and then Tara thank you um and I just wanted to offer some general comments um thank you so much for giving us all more time to think about this and for the additional work and meetings with community members um to staff thank you for all that you did um I know a majority of us voted to extend the original public hearing to a later date out of uh sheer exhaustion but from a process perspective I'm really glad that we delayed rather than

[169:00] making last minute changes late in the night last fall um this is a really thoughtful set of final changes that is going to serve our city well for decades and I just appreciate um everyone for giving us this additional flexibility moving forward thanks Tara I just wanted to um a agree with what Matt said about um making sure that we keep an eye on this area often on city council so much happens every week that we don't even have time or remember to keep eyes on things but I just want to double down and say we really need to um we all have a vision for this part of town being all that it can be so how can we keep an eye who can remind us to keep an eye on this area I'm just uh some times we say let's look at this in a year or two remember back in the day I think it was last uh term we used to say can we come back in a year or two to see how this is going um I'm not trying to push us into doing that but I also want

[170:01] to make sure we do keep an eye on this area uh make sure that it has all the flexibility that we need and so I'm just throwing that out there how can we do that good good question to keep in mind as we go forward all right I don't see any other hands I will just uh offer Nicole you mentioned about the vote to delay I was in the minority that wanted to finish it out I yeah I confess that this has gone better than if we tried to finish it out so I appreciate those of you at that time who suggested the delay because I think it has been a successful one and seeing other hands perhaps someone might get a motion going uh I'd like to start but I want to clarify with the city attorney's office would you like me to make two motions or have these combined no if you can please make two motions I I thought you'd say that but I wanted to verify thanks all right well then I'll go ahead and start with the first I'd like to uh make a motion to amend the East Boulder sub community

[171:00] plan including the 55th and arapo station area plan to align East Boulder connections plan with the refined Vision uh for East Boulder areas of change and include additional supporting information second all right is this Amendment a roll call vote Elicia yes sir all right let's do it all right we'll start the roll call for the amendment to the east Boulder subc Community Plan with council member Marquis yes shuar yes spear yes wallik reluctantly no dly noted thank you sir Wier yes Adams yes for me thank you thank you Benjamin yes mayor Brockett

[172:03] yes and mayor Pro Tim fuler yes the amendment to the east the amendments to the east Boulder subc Community Plan are hereby approved with a vote to of 8 to one all right um mayor Brock if you don't mind me going after the second that's member Benjamin take it away all right I make a motion to amend as recommended by staff in the staff memorandum ordinance 8669 amending Title 9 land use code brc1 1981 by adopting form base code standards for parts of East Boulder moving from form base Co moving the form base code from appendix M to chapter 9-14 form based code brc1 19 81 revising rezoning and trip production standards for East Boulder and setting forth related details second got a motion a second a roll call

[173:00] please Elicia yes sir thank you we'll start the roll call for ordinance 8669 with council member shuart yes spear Yes wallik again no Winer yes Adams yes Benjamin yes mayor bronet yes mayor protim fuls yes and council member Maris yes ordinance 8669 is hereby adopted with a vote of 8 to one excellent all right well that brings that item to a close just another huge thank you to all the staff members as well as our um Consultants uh for getting this uh program to the Finish Line This is I know this has been a huge undertaking and I'm excited to see where

[174:00] it leads us thanks very much all right well that brings us to the end of our agenda just before I I gav this close I'll just check in to see if there's any last thoughts before we finish out here raise your hand or keep your peace Taisha um yes I actually just had a comment on the environmental Advisory board and the notes there um I wanted to apologize I recognize that I have not received my I did not uh share my counsel sorry my feedback to the um climate um action plan um and so the mem is drafted you know review and just Gathering more feedback but uh so I apologize and I'll just make sure and include that in the mid year check-in which is one of the agenda items I believe that you'll be talking about upcoming so again just wanted to express

[175:00] my apologies on that but I also wanted to express my appreciation for also lifting up the importance and intersection of AI policy um and thank you to John Co Jonathan Cohen and his team um for lifting up the the considerations around energy and water um as well as as um again the need for um and not him but others uh in on the committee talking about ethics and positive use responsible use cases um for the technology so again uh put a CAC hotline requesting more information about the the guidance that has been provided uh to staff members who are currently using AI um and then also um once the team has developed our AI policy just making sure that our you know community Council are aware of those policies and again understanding what the tradeoffs are related to uh to energy and water and also how we are addressing um The Well documented issues around bias um and discrimination um in

[176:03] those in those technologies that we are using so again thank you for your service uh the you know those notes are not for not um and same thing uh thank you for the service of the tab members as well appreciate to get an update on the work that you're doing um that's all I have for um just the the Declaration components at this time thanks I got Ryan we can wrap up just want to recognize uh one of the commenters Mr James lynfield and his his poor mother who uh is dealing with that pipe burst and what a terrible unfortunate situation and I want you to know that I hear you and that we hear you um and I wish you my best and um sorry going through that thanks for that Ryan I think you speak for all of us I imagine there with our concern for that um resident and the problems they're experiencing okay sorry mayor I did have

[177:03] one other thing I was looking at the wrong piece of paper I have another box that has not been checked um and that is to the community members who Express concerns around the content that was in the Declaration I want to honor and and recognize that I hear those too and those concerns and I I certainly appreciate the the letter and of the 400 and F so folks Jewish community members and want to acknowledge all of our 35,000 community members um and and of course the diversity of the diversity of that rich Community um and the rich traditions of our of our Jewish community and and again the diversity within the diversity so again I have extended um and will continue to extend uh individual opportunities to meet with me and I encourage everyone to sign up for my newsletter find out uh actually it is what what what I do in addition uh to standing up for the rights of all of our community members uh so thank you so much for all of those who continue to come out and um just and thank you for

[178:00] my fellow council members for continuing to uh to do the hard work um to um you know to to be a to to be the Beloved Community uh as this is Black History Month so thank you very much thanks for that tasa all right I'm GNA call it here uh 8:53 p.m. I'll bring us to a close we're 25 minutes early thanks everybody for a good meeting good night thank you

[179:17] e e for