January 22, 2026 — City Council Special Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[5:01] All right. Good evening everyone and welcome to the Thursday, January 22nd, 2026 special meeting of the Boulder City Council. One moment. Pardon me. So excited to be here. Okay, so we have one announcement which is about 2026 boards and commissions recruitment. If you're looking for an opportunity to get involved, this is a great one. The 2026 boards and commissions recruitment period is now open until midnight on January 25th. Find board and commission descriptions, vacancies, and the application to apply online at bouldercol.gov/government/boards-and-comm. Virtual interviews of applicants will be held from February 2nd through the 13th. Appointed members can participate in person or virtually for hybrid meetings. And members also receive a free RTD eco pass to enjoy unlimited rides on RTD trains and buses. Please contact the city clerk's office at city clerk's office at bouldercol.gov or call 30344130008

[6:03] with any questions you may have. And with that, I will go ahead and call us to order and ask for a roll call, please. Alicia. >> Yes, sir. Thank you. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I'll start tonight's roll call as usual with Council Member Adams, >> present. >> Benjamin, >> present. >> Mayor Brackett, >> present. >> Council member Kaplan >> present. >> Marquis >> here. >> Shuhard >> here. >> Spear >> here. >> Wallik >> here. >> And mayor pro Tim Wer >> present. >> Mayor, we have our quarum. >> Very [clears throat] good. So, next we'll have our declaration item 2A, the declaration commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day to be presented by Mayor Pro Tim Winer. >> Should I sit or stand? >> Um, do we have someone receiving the declaration? >> I'm receiving from >> Why don't you and stand? No. Okay. Read it from your desk then.

[7:00] >> International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27th, 2026. The Holocaust was a state sponsored systematic persecution and annihilation of European jewelry by Nazi Germany as and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims. 6 million Jews including by the way about a million and a half children were murdered. Roma people with disabilities and polls were also targeted for racial, ethnic and national reasons. Millions more, including queer people, Jehovah's Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, and political dissident also suffered grievous oppression and death under Nazi tyranny. International Holocaust Remembrance Day is held on January 27th of each year, the anniversary of the liberation of the Ashvitz death camp. It is a day for the world to pause and

[8:00] remember the millions of people who were murdered or whose lives were forever changed. The city of Boulder joins with all those whose lives were affected by the Holocaust. We remember their strength, courage, and bravery and will continuously work to make sure their stories are remembered. While this period of dark history is over, anti-semitism still plagues our society, fueling the same hatred and violence that charged World War II. As a city, we condemn anti-semitism, hatred, and bigotry in all its forms. We pledge to call out this prejudice and solidarity with our Jewish community members. Such intolerance jeopardizes the well-being of us all. We, the city council of the city of Boulder, Colorado, declare January 27th, 2026 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Signed by Aaron Brackett, Mayor,

[9:02] [clears throat] >> thank you so much for that, Tara. All right. Now, we will go to our consent agenda, please, Elicia. >> Yes, sir. Thank you. Our consent agenda is item number three on tonight's agenda, and it consists of items 3A through 3G. Any questions or comments on the consent agenda? >> Okay, Ryan and then Mark. >> Just a quick comment on item G. That's the letter to Excel. I just wanted to thank council for taking this up, this item to um explain to Excel and the community our expectations uh going forward as we decided to not take the offer up in 2025. I think staff and a number of community members who helped us to um develop the letter and um looking forward to the next step of talking with Excel about it. Thank you. >> Thanks, Ron. Mark, >> I also want to comment on that item. Um

[10:00] I want to thank staff for what I think is a a an astonishingly good draft. I was very very impressed. I think it captures the tone that we're trying to convey. it captures the substance of what we're trying to convey [snorts] and I think it was it just knocked it out of the park. So my very very great gratitude to staff for doing this and doing it so very very well. Thank you. >> Thanks. I certainly agree with that sentiment. Uh seeing no other hands, perhaps a motion. >> I move the consent agenda. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Can we have a roll call, please, Alicia? >> Yes, sir. We'll start the roll call with the consent to agenda items 3 A through 3G with council member Kaplan >> here. >> Yes. >> Yes.

[11:00] >> Marquis. >> Yes. >> Shuhar. >> Yes. >> Spear. >> Yes. >> Wallik. >> Yes. Mayor Pro Tim Winer, >> yes. >> Council member Adams, >> yes. >> Benjamin, >> yes. >> And Mayor Brockett, >> yes. >> The consent agenda items 3A through 3G are hereby passed unanimously. >> Thank you very much. Now, can we go to our first public hearing item, please? >> Yes, sir. Our public hearings are item four on tonight's agenda. 4 A is the second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt ordinance 8731 amending chapter 2-8 purchasing procedures BRC1981 updating the city's purchasing procedures and setting forth those related details. >> Thank you so much. Uh excited to finally be here at this moment. And uh to introduce the item, I will pass it on to

[12:01] our finance deputy director, Joel Wagner, who will uh no doubt introduce our newest procurement manager. And so uh just a welcome and a caution to be very nice to our newest uh firsttime presenter here. Uh so Joel, with that, I pass it on to you. >> Good evening, council. Again, Joel Wagner, deputy finance director. Uh you've been eagerly anticipating the update of our Boulder purchasing procedures. I'm sure uh an item so riveting we last touched this in 1994 1997 uh one maybe one year uh after a certain individual graduated high school uh who's talking to you today. So, it's been a minute. Um, and so, uh, the team has been working on this diligently with our city attorney's office. Uh, and, uh, as Nura said, Michael Vanstall, our new purchasing

[13:01] manager is here. He is, uh, been with us since December. So, be gentle. And, uh, he's got a great presentation for you, uh, talking about how we're going to modernize our purchasing program. Thank you. Good evening, council. Thank you for your time today. Gotta get right into uh thank you for your time today. Uh my name is Michael Van Odall, the city of Boulder's purchasing manager. Uh I'm joined today by Andy Frohart from the city attorney's office. Uh today we'll be discussing updates to modernize the city of Boulder's purchasing policies. Uh as a general overview, uh the goals of city procurement are to acquire goods and services for the city uh in accordance with policy uh at best value uh and lowest cost with transparency and accountability with fairness and equal opportunity while pursuing economic and

[14:00] social development, furthering environmental sustainability, and with efficiency and effectiveness. Uh through these proposed changes uh we uh aim to update our purchasing policy to achieve three main goals. Uh the first being to modernize and streamline the procurement process, strengthen language uh regarding equity and sustainability uh and to reduce barriers for small minority and womenowned businesses. Uh what's changing? Uh so first we would like to increase our informal bid threshold from 50 to $100,000. Uh this aligns closer to both state and federal bid thresholds. Um the current thresholds uh were set in place in 1997 uh and no longer reflect the current economy. Uh other changes include the ability to utilize alternative bib I'm sorry, alternative uh contract delivery methods in regards to construction. Um update our best practices to clarify

[15:00] piggyback contracting, electronic bid openings uh and the city's ability to reject bids. We've also proposed updates to the environmental policy section to support sustainability initiatives. Uh and lastly, we would like to update the code to authorize a business opportunity program. We propose these changes in hopes to add clarity and authority to our purchasing policy and procedures. Uh for example, we want to clarify our ability to conduct interviews with proposers who may have scored closely during the written evaluation process. We also have a desire to avoid legal challenges concerning environmental and sustainability or requirements associated uh with a particular project within the construction space. Uh we would like to add more tools to our our toolbox so to speak. Uh traditional construction contracting is a design bid build method meaning design is is completed before going to bid uh and the

[16:00] lowest price vendor is then selected. Our proposed changes would allow the use of these alternative methods uh with an aim to increase flexibility in the efficiency collaboration I'm sorry uh our um and to increase flexibility in our design approach to improve cost controls schedule efficiency uh collaboration and risk allocation for complex projects. uh alternative delivery methods can streamline work, reduce the number of change orders to complete that work uh and ultimately shift design risk to contractors. These delivery methods are becoming more common in the construction industry and will help departments deliver better value to the city and its residents. Uh we have come to these proposed changes to uh better align with the city's SAR framework regarding environmental sustainability and responsibly governed city. The revised purchasing policies reflect priorities for historically excluded businesses and sustainably sourced materials. And

[17:01] lastly, to bolster economic vitality by making it easier for local businesses to work with the city. Uh the motion to adopt ordinance 8731 amending chapters 2-8 of the purchasing procedures of the Boulder Revised Code 1981 updating the city's purchasing procedures and set forth related details. >> Questions? >> Thanks so much for that. That was a fantastic first ever presentation to city council. Informative, brisk, and efficient. I love it. >> Thank you and welcome. Uh, any questions for city staff on this? Tina? >> Yeah, I just have a Whoa, that was odd. A quick question. It talks about um small minority and women uh owned businesses. Does it also apply to medium and large women and minority owned businesses? I know that's kind of a weird question, but >> yeah, we we do have a focus on the the small business aspect, but um our

[18:01] business opportunity program um can be utilized for really any size business. >> Okay. >> Um but we our our our original focus would be on the on small businesses. >> Okay. Thanks so much. >> Any other questions? Seeing none, let's go to our public hearing. We have one person signed up to speak which means that they will have three minutes to speak and that person is Lynn Spiegel who Seagull. I've only said that name a thousand times over the years. Lynn Seagull [snorts] >> who's joining us virtually. >> The public participation guidelines. >> Yes. >> At all. >> Oh, I guess even Lynn would it'd be good for her to hear all of us to hear those over again. Yes, please. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Sorry. I'll be done in just a quick second. Good evening everyone again and thank you for your participation at tonight's council meeting. We ask that you abide by the rules of decorum found in the bod revised code including participants are

[19:02] required to sign up to speak using the name they are commonly known by. Individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online. Only audio testimony is permitted during open comment which we're not having tonight. My apologies. and no attendee shall disrupt, disturb, or otherwise impede the orderly conduct of any council meeting in a manner that obstructs the business of the meeting. This also includes failing to obey any lawful order of the presiding officer to leave the meeting room or refrain from addressing the council. All remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city business. No participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person. And lastly, obscinity, other epithets based on race, gender, or religion, and other speech and behavior that will disrupt or otherwise impede the meeting will not be tolerated. Thank you again for joining

[20:00] us, and thank you for listening. >> Thank you, Elicia. And now we'll go to Lynn Seagull for her testimony. Sorry, I thought that was before um I'm I'm trying to dual attend a thing at the Trident. Um no, it sounds as like the purchasing practices are pretty good. However, there's one purchasing practice that we do need to engage in or engage against and that is we need to divest of Israel and that's the most important one. That's >> and I with all due appreciation to to Holocaust awareness month. There needs to be one for Palestine. And meanwhile, I approve um of your presentation for how the purchasing the way purchasing is going with the city. It sounds like they're being discretionary about, you know, what we buy because our budget is in big trouble right now. So, I

[21:01] support what they're doing, but we need to divest from Israel. We really need to divest from Israel. >> That's off topic. >> Bye. >> Bye. All right. Uh, brings our public hearing to a close. So, we'll come back to city council to see if there are any follow-up questions or comments on the matter in front of us. Nicole, >> just had a quick comment. Um, I know this has been a work in progress for quite some time. Um, and it's something that the finance team has been working on um, pretty substantially uh, to think about how we can and do this. And I just really appreciate um, coming up with a set of policies that uh, aligns um, a little bit more um, with not only current times but also um, a lot of our goals and values as a community. So, thank you so much for all your work on it. >> Ta. >> Yeah. [clears throat] Yeah. No, I absolutely concur and um am grateful for these changes. Um areas though that I'm

[22:00] especially interested in though is just the reporting and tracking to make sure that these changes actually yield to the outcomes that we want. So for example, you know, environmental sustainability, right? How where is that connected to something that we are looking at? Like you know, it's great to have policy updates, but just measuring impact is is the part that's not that's not clear to me in these changes. Um, and then lastly, I would just love us to consider um the language climate benefit. Um, and I know that this is something I've brought up and I'm not alone. [laughter] It was from the book club. Um, what if we get it right? And it was all about climate um solutions and one of those was just even how we talk about it. And when we say, you know, environmental sustainability, what does that really mean? there's no real metrics of success because we haven't determined what sustainable means. Um, but when we say climate benefit, that that's different, right? How does this choice, how does

[23:00] this purchase, how does this thing benefit our habitat, benefit our water quality, benefit our grid, benefit um I just think the nature of that language um really changes the nature of the conversation um and moves us forward as opposed to leaning into language um that we all can agree on. Thank you. Thanks, Mark. >> Is the um $100,000 limit uh a common limit for cities of our size? Uh and is it the right number for Boulder? Do we need more, less? How did we come to this? >> Um excuse me. [clears throat] Um the $100,000 limit is common within the the uh cities of our size. Um the current state uh threshold uh for formal bids is $150,000 uh and the federal threshold being 350. So this just sort of uh closes that gap that that difference in pricing.

[24:00] >> Okay. Thank you. >> I'll just add to Boulder County has gone to 100,000 as well. So similar. >> Thank you both. >> Right. I'd concur. This is um this is a great step and wonderful presentation. Um I'm just curious um my read on the environmental policies part of it is that the this policy will uh enable the city manager to develop more detail level I don't know if you call it policy but guidelines or something like that. Um, and I'm just wondering if the city have have other cities done this that will give us a template, you know, practices to borrow from, or is this is this pretty unusual what we're doing? >> And again, assistant city attorney Andy Prohart. Um, I I don't think it's unusual. We've been already slowly implementing these practices through contracts. Um, so I think we're trying

[25:02] to just make sure that we have that clear authority so that there's no issues when it comes to procurement. But otherwise, this is going to be a little bit evolving and a little bit of um, you know, working to see what the market will tolerate and what is going to be most beneficial. So, >> okay, great. I mainly getting at it. It looks like this will catalyze or at least facilitate some more thinking about the detail of the environmental work. So, it sounds like that that will be an iterative work in progress and be interesting to watch how that goes. But very supportive. Thank you. >> Thanks, Ter. >> We all love this. Thanks so much. Can we make a motion? Can I make a motion now? Great. >> I make a motion to adopt ordinance 8731 amending chapter 2-8 purchasing procedures BRC1981 updating the city's purchasing procedures and setting for related details. Second. >> Thanks. Motion a second. Did anyone want

[26:00] to speak to the motion before we go to a vote? >> Seeing no hands raised. Alicia, can we have a roll call, please? >> Yes, sir. Thank you. We'll start the roll call for the adoption of ordinance 8731 with Council Member Marquis. >> Yes. >> Shuhart, >> yes. >> Spear, >> yes. >> Wallik, >> yes. >> Mayor Pro Tim Winer, >> yes. Council member Adams, >> yes. >> Benjamin, >> yes. >> Mayor Bronett, >> yes. >> And Council Member Kaplan, >> yes. >> Ordinance 8731 is hereby adopted unanimously. >> Excellent. Thank you so much. Hopefully, we weren't too rough on you on your first outing. >> Appreciate all of staff's hard work on this and great job uh doing this for the first time since 1997. I won't mention what I was doing back then. [laughter] >> Mayor, if you will, and I appreciate um the presentation as well and and your

[27:00] support in this. I just wanted to give a shout out uh as well to our office of equity and belonging who works so hard and will continue to do so as we build out the business opportunity program and wanted to lift up their tremendous efforts as well. Thank you. >> Appreciate that, Naria. Thank you. Right, Elisha, can I go can we go to our next public hearing, please? >> Yes, sir. Thank you. Item 4B on tonight's agenda under our public hearings is the consideration of a motion to approve the list of community change requests to be considered during the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan update. >> Thanks so much. And I know that we will be going to our director of planning and development services to give some remarks. Brad. >> Thank you, Nuria. Good evening, council members. Brad Mueller with the planning and development services department. Uh we are back. Uh you have heard us say in December that we are moving towards a funneling effort, a funneling process for the comprehensive plan update uh working to refine some of the policy uh

[28:00] out options and ultimately a draft that you're going to see here and the public's going to see in March. So today's process is similarly a funneling opportunity but it also is uh the formal opportunity to recognize formal community submitts. Uh but it also uh it's key to understand it's not a final decision-making process for the items that you decide this evening. Uh they will simply move forward and you've you will have given us uh the go-ahhead to move forward through this screening process and then refine the analysis do additional analysis and refine any policies that relate to that. Uh we will still see other input through the process and through the draft. Uh but this is an important step along the way as our senior planner uh Chris Wranglo is going to explain and and present this evening. Thanks Brad. My name is Chris Wrangles. I'm a senior planner on the comprehensive planning team and I'm excited to bring forward the community

[29:01] change request process before council this evening. Um just a quick rundown of the agenda. We'll start with a staff presentation. It may not be as brisk as the item before us, but I will do my best. Um, we'll answer any clarifying questions from council, host the public hearing, and then city council will deliberate. So, we'll start here. Um, what what is the community change request process? And and this is really actually a formal process that's specific to the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan. Um, it's one of the several ways that community can provide input during a plan update. And through this process, community members can request changes to the plan's policies, the future land use map, or the planning areas map. Now, tonight's role for city council, as Brad had mentioned, is is really an initial screening um of all of these requests that were submitted um to the city between the period of August 11th through October 3rd. Um no requests are being approved or denied at this stage. Um, city council is simply making a

[30:01] determination on which request should move forward for further analysis alongside the draft comprehensive plan. And again, any final decisions regarding these requests um will occur during the final plan um adoption hearing set for this summer of 2026. So, this is really a a three-step process. Um, step one was the request window application window which opened on August 11th and closed on a October 3rd as I'd mentioned. Um, and during that period, the city received a total of 34 requests for changes to the plan. Um, step two is really the initial screening phase. That's where we're at tonight. And during this step, staff reviews all of the submitted requests and makes a recommendation about which ones meet the initial screening considerations to move forward for further evaluation alongside the draft comprehensive plan. So each of the plans four approval bodies will hold a public hearing to vote on the list of requests that should be considered further. And

[31:00] again, the action being requested of city council this evening is really a vote on that list. again not a decision on if an individual um request should be approved or ultimately denied. So we'll move on to the third step um in this process and this is the further analysis and final review of the change requests that are voted on to move forward. So once that list of advancing requests is finalized by all four of the approval bodies, staff will conduct additional analysis and develop recommendations regarding the proposed changes. Um I do want to point out an important part of this phase is going to involve translating land use designations. Um as council is aware the draft comprehensive plan proposes a significant revision of land use designations and because of this those changes have not yet been formally adopted. Um so requests were submitted using the current 26 uh land use designations. Now, for the land use change requests that do move forward, staff will be

[32:00] doing a translation essentially of the existing designations into the proposed revised designations as part of the draft plan. As part of that work, staff will also be reaching out to the applicants to confirm the intent of their requests, which will ultimately help us as staff inform the recommended [clears throat] new land use designations that will be included in the draft plan. Um, the draft plan, including these translated requests, is scheduled for public release on March 2nd, and community members will have additional opportunities to provide input on those requests that do advance, and revisions may be made based on that feedback. Um, final approval or denial of those changes will um occur during the plan adoption hearings this summer. So, just a little bit on communications and outreach. Um, information about this process in the request window was shared with the community by a citywide press release and the July 2025 planning and development services newsletter. We hosted two in-person office hours um to

[33:02] help answer questions about the process and the submittal requirements. A public notice was sent in December to property owners that were impacted by a request in which they themselves did not submit the request. And this was really to ensure that they were aware of the proposed changes and the upcoming public hearing opportunities. Staff also developed an online map displaying all of the submitted requests which was made available in December. In addition, information about the change request process was provided on the project website and discussed at many of the in-person engagement events over the past year and a half. And to date, staff has received five community member comments. Um, I'll spend a little bit of time on this slide. I've I've mentioned a few times that all four of the comprehensive plan approval bodies have a role in this process. Um, and the role that each body plays is ultimately defined in the comprehensive plan amendment procedures. Um, these roles are largely based on the

[34:00] size, the location, and ultimately the scope of the potential change. And so the table that you see on the slide here summarizes how those roles apply specifically a land use change request and shows which approval bodies are involved depending on the planning area and the planning ch and the acreage. So for area one land use change request, this is all requests that are within city limits. That's a twobody decision. So city council and planning board. For area two land use change requests that are five acres or less. Same thing applies. It's city council and planning board that have um authority over those requests. For anything that's over five acres in area 2, the board of county commissioners have a call-up option. And then any land use change in the area 3 rural preservation area, all four bodies have a review of those requests. Similar table here. Um this table is really summarizing how those roles apply specifically to any of the planning area changes or the policy um change requests

[35:00] that we received. So any change from area 3 rural preservation to area 2 that's under 5 acres. Again the city and the planning board have authority over those. Um uh for any rural preservation to area 2 adjustment that's over five acres and that would also go to the board of county commissioners. any policy or text amendment change um that is really specific to the city has a city impact then the city planning board and city council have authority and for any policy or text amendment that does have county impact then all four bodies would review that request. So just a quick summary of the requests that we we received. Um again 34 in total. Of those 22 were for land use changes, three of them were for planning area map changes and nine were for policy or text changes to the plan. [snorts] So before we jump into the list of changes that are recommended for further consideration, um I do want to make clear that the staff screening of these

[36:00] requests was not a detailed analysis. Um as this level of evaluation would be done for those requests that do move forward for further consideration into the draft plan. Um this screening however did apply a consistent approach and considered the items shown here for this initial screening phase. Um the list of considerations is drawn um from and found in the IGA or the intergovernmental agreement between the city and the county where the amendment procedures live. Um staff from the city and county did agree that the list in the needed a little bit of refinement to be useful and believe that the revisions do capture the scope of what the IG intended for us to consider and more. So I'll I'll walk through these just briefly. Um for consideration number one, the IGA speaks to consistency with the purpose of the update. Um staff have ultimately translated this into consistency with comprehensive plan goals. So essentially we considered if the proposed change is a type of change that can be reviewed as part of an

[37:00] update and have interpreted the purpose of the plan update um to be the implementation of the city's sustainability, equity and resilience framework through comprehensive planning which are also the goals of the comprehensive plan. For consideration number two, this refers to if a proposal is at an appropriate level um for a comprehensive plan which is intended to be an aspirational and policy level document, not a document where specific tasks, programs, funding or projects are described or created. So there are some requests which simply are not appropriate for the comprehensive plan to address and we'll walk through those um a little bit later on. But this fine-tunes the consideration of of number one by looking at whether a proposed change is within the policy level scope of the comprehensive plan. Consideration number three is really kind of a pragmatic element which acknowledges that there are limitations and the resources we have to complete the major update. Um, the speaks to this

[38:03] by considering if the city and county have available resources to evaluate the proposed change such as city and county staffing and budgeting priorities. And this has ultimately been translated to um criteria number three, which is capacity for timely analysis. And finally, consideration number four speaks to the fact that the project today has really been shaped by a a very large and broad community engagement effort um and input from you all as well as the other four approval bodies. Um staff believes that a change request from an individual to be considered further, it really should generally align with the policy direction of this update. The asks that we consider the compatibility with adjacent land uses um and neighborhood context and staff has ultimately expanded this to consider consistency with the proposed plan direction. Staff believes this implements the logic and the purpose of the amendment procedures requirement that during major

[39:02] updates, policy changes really should precede map changes as major policy changes may occur during a major update and that land use map changes should be consistent with and follow those policy changes. Okay, we'll start going through them. Um, we'll start here with the land use map change request that staff is recommending for further consideration. And due to time constraints, um, I won't walk through each individual request this evening. Um, but detailed information and the staff recommendations and rationale for each request are included, um, in attachment B of the memo packet. For this set of requests here, staff determined that they do clearly meet the initial screening considerations and are appropriate to further evaluate alongside the draft comprehensive plan. Specifically, these requests are consistent with the overall plan goals. They fall within the policy level scope of the comprehensive plan. We do believe that they can be analyzed within the

[40:00] project timeline and that they do align with the proposed plan direction that again is based off of an extensive amount of community engagement that we've performed. Similar um to the previous set of requests, staff determined that these also are consistent with the initial screening considerations. And you can see the screening considerations there on on the right of the slide. Um I do want to note that staff has received several public comments related to request number 10. This is for Sue Drive, the south side of Sue Drive. uh mostly from residents who do live on that section of the street um between Pawnie and Thunderbird Drive specifically. The these comments have expressed opposition to the requested land use change and those have been included in attachment D of the memo packet. So the final set of land use change um requests that staff is recommending for further consideration are shown here. Um, but before we move on to the

[41:00] requests that are not recommended for further consideration, I I do just want to remind council that a land use translation is going to ultimately need to take place. So, for example, if a request proposes a change from, let's say, a low density designation to a medium density or a high density designation, staff will conduct additional analysis and work with the applicant um to determine the most appropriate new designation. This designation would then be included in the draft plan for community feedback beginning on March 2nd. So in practice, um this could mean a change from a current low density designation to let's say a neighborhood one. It could be a neighborhood two or maybe even a community hub. Um that's really the next step in this process and the work that's to come. Okay. Staff is not recommending three requests um for land use changes be considered further. These requests are all similar in nature and in location situated in Gun Barrel um near Twin Lakes. Staff has found them generally

[42:01] inconsistent with the most recent draft policy and land use map direction. Um these parcels are in area 2, which has long been designated for future urban services and intended for annexation into the city since the 1970s. And urban services are already available nearby. While these sites do hold um value for adjacent neighbors, offering scenic quality, um neither the city nor the county has found that they meet the criteria for open space designation or acquisition for broader community benefit. Okay, we'll move on to planning area change requests. This list is not as extensive. Um we are recommending that two of these requests move forward. Request number 24 and number 25. Um we'll start with number 24. This is for 6710 Arapjo Avenue. This is home to the West View Church and the applicant has expressed an interest in potential future annexation. Now, while this planning area change does not guarantee annexation from area

[43:02] 3 rural preservation to area 2, this does set the stage for possible annexation into the future. The property is adjacent to city limits near the Boulder Valley School District Education Center and has access to existing infrastructure and transportation options which supports compact and efficient growth. Similarly, the applicant at 810 Marshall Road has also expressed interest in potential future annexation and like the previous request um this property is adjacent to city limits. other area 2 properties and nearby infrastructure and transportation services make it suitable for compact and efficient growth. The one planning area change request that staff is not recommending move forward is for 528th Street and this request is for a change in the area 3 planning reserve to area 2. Um, according to the amendment procedures, only the city can initiate a change in the area 3 planning reserve,

[44:00] ultimately making this request ineligible for further consideration. Okay. Policy and text changes. Um, as I mentioned earlier, we received a total of nine requests for changes to the plan's policies and text. And of these, we are recommending that request number 34 be considered further. This request was somewhat unique. Um, the applicant submitted several red line edits to the plan's existing transportation related policies and most of these revisions do align closely with the draft policy direction and present meaningful opportunities to strengthen mobility outcomes. However, not all of the proposed edits can be applied directly due to the significant consolidation, modification and in some cases removal of transportation related policies. Um in addition, some of the requests um implementation and programmatic recommendations are outside the scope of the comprehensive plans aspirational policy level framework and will not be

[45:00] considered. There are um several requests that staff is not recommending for further consideration. We'll start with request number 26. Um, this calls for a vision level funded regional wildfire mitigation program that addresses ignition sources, parcel level targeting, fuel management, structural hardening, and emergency response. And while this request does align well with the comprehensive plans, goals and the latest draft policy direction, the the really the specific operational elements that are being requested, um, we feel that they fall outside the aspirational policy level framework of the plan. and that these are really better suited as implementation strategies. Request 27 is similar. Um it proposes a policy that's focused on sustainable agriculture um water use and modernization of irrigation infrastructure. And again, this does align broadly with the plan's emphasis on supporting viable agriculture,

[46:01] efficient water use, and climate resilience. However, once again, the detailed elements such as funding mechanisms, partnerships with ditch companies and infrastructure upgrades as well as on-site farm irrigation improvements, um we feel are implementation strategies that do exceed the scope of the comprehensive plan. In addition, for Boulder County specifically, um county staff feels that these policies supporting private ditch companies and their infrastructure are really more appropriately addressed at a countywide scale rather than within just the geographically limited planning area um of the comprehensive plan. Okay. Request 28 um is also not recommended as it proposes changes to the amendment procedures. Uh these procedures are contained in the intergovernmental agreement between the city and the county and while they are included in the comprehensive plan really for reference are not formally a part of the comprehensive plan itself.

[47:01] So as such the community change request process cannot directly modify these procedures. Request 29 um aims to address the allowance of conditional uses in existing buildings. These regulations are governed by the Boulder Revised Code and not the comprehensive plan which provides high level policy guidance and land use designations. Conditional uses or detailed zoning allowances would require a code amendment following the city's formal code amendment process. Thus, this request is also ineligible to proceed. Request number 30 um is also not recommended as annexation into the city of Boulder already requires property owner initiation through a property owner petition. Um further under state law, the city cannot forcibly annex an area 2 property. And while the comprehensive plan does um already reflect this principle, staff does recognize that this could be clarified

[48:01] in the draft plan. The request also aims to establish that rural character should be maintained in area 2. The comprehensive plan does not anticipate rural character preservation in area 2 as these lands are already developed largely at a suburban scale. Lands that are intended for long-term rural preservation are specifically designated as area 3 rural preservation. Request 31 aims to clarify that providing community benefit um does not automatically allow additional building height. Um the Boulder Revised Code already ensures that decisions about additional height are evaluated through sight specific review processes which consider aesthetics view protection and community input. Because these protections are already in place within the Boulder Revised Code, this request is not recommended for further consideration. Request

[49:01] 32 proposes that any future annexation of Gun Barrel be initiated by the residents and removes policy language about the city and county supporting eventual annexation. Um Gun Barrel contains major employment centers and is already adjacent to um city served infrastructure. The city and county continue to support the long-term aspirational guidance for eventual annexation of Gun Barrel. while any annexation would remain voluntary and have to be initiated by the property owners, not the city. Finally, request number 33 um seeks to revise land use map designations for accuracy and particular the current open space designations and staff does not recommend this request um as the draft future land use map does consolidate the three open space designations into one open space designation. And because these classifications are not being carried forward, the request is no longer applicable. Um, additionally,

[50:02] improvements to the map's accuracy and allegibility, including color updates, are already being addressed in the draft future land use map drafting. So, this is really the summary of the request. This is the list here that staff is recommending for um to be considered further as part of the draft comprehensive plan. And I will point out that city council does have the option to add or remove from this list. I do just want to point out I briefly mentioned a few times in the presentation that there are some ineligible requests. Um so the change from the area 3 planning reserve to area 2 is ineligible to proceed. Um revisions to the amendment procedures that are found within the IGA are also ineligible to proceed. Then any revisions to the Boulder revised co code as expressed in request 29 is also ineligible to proceed. Okay. Next steps. Um the remaining public hearings to finalize the list of

[51:01] change requests have taken place this week and will conclude next week. The planning board held their public hearing on Tuesday and took action on the request list and the Boulder County Planning Commission reviewed yesterday um on all of the relevant county requests. And then finally, the board of county commissioners will review relevant requests to them next Tuesday on January 27th. And once this list is finalized through these public hearings, city and county staff will begin further evaluation of the selected requests for inclusion in the draft comprehensive plan. As I mentioned earlier, the draft plan will be released soon for public review on March 2nd and remain open through April 6th. All of the change requests that are included in the draft plan will be specifically highlighted for community feedback that staff will then be making revisions based on that feedback before integrating them into the final recommended plan, which again is scheduled for adoption in the summer

[52:00] of 2026. So with that, these are the three action options that city council has before you. You can approve the motion language that has been drafted. If you want to add or remove any of the the change requests from the list that we have recommended, you would need to define and adopt a modified motion. Um or you can refer the item back to staff. I do um also just want to point out the other actions that have been taken by the other approval bodies to this point. Um, on Tuesday, the city planning board held their public hearing and did approve the list of change requests to be considered further with the addition of request number 26 and number 27. The county planning commission followed suit. They also um recommended the same list to be considered further with the addition of request number 26 and number 27. Here's the draft motion language before council this evening. It is to approve the list of community change requests

[53:00] recommended by staff for further consideration as part of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan Update, including evaluating these requests for potential incorporation into the draft comprehensive plan. And with that, I will throw it back to the mayor and happy to answer any clarifying questions. Thanks so much, Chris. Well, it was it was not as short as the last one, but we had a lot to present. So, thank you for that very informative, detailed presentation. That's very helpful. Uh questions for city staff Mark and then Rob. >> Um we have three separate requests uh with respect to 1343 Iris. Um why three and why do you recommend that each of them uh be carried forward? >> So we have three separate requests for for the ball fields. Um one of those requests, request number one is coming specifically from Boulder County. Um the other two requests that you see before you are requests that were just submitted by community members. Um we

[54:02] feel that we should consider all three requests. Um ultimately um the decisions about what land use designation that we recommend and will include in the draft plan um will be included in the draft plan a little bit later on here on March 2nd, but we'll be doing analysis on that parcel as well as other parcels recommended and and voted on to proceed um through the change request process. Okay, thank you. >> I got Rob, then Ryan, then Taiisha, then Matt. >> Thank you, mayor. [snorts] Um, and thank you, Chris. My my question is um there was a lot of talk about uh the Sue drive and not specifically about that, but more conceptually the uh number four, the consistency with the pro propose plan. It seems like we talk a lot about um changing density and middle inome housing. Will this create

[55:00] an opportunity to lead to implementation tools where rather than just changing the the zoning from low, we've got nine of them that I counted from low to medium or medium to high. Will this give us an opportunity to actually say this is what we would like on this piece of land versus just changing it and then we get the same thing we've been getting. >> Good evening council. Christopher Johnson. I'm the comprehensive planning manager. Uh thank you for the question council member. Um I essentially the land use map remains at that very high level visionary um status and definition. So what it would do is it would define what the future vision for that particular property is but then ultimately it will be up to an individual property owner within that area within that land use to propose a potential resoning or redevelopment to

[56:01] actually take advantage of an area that might have changed from low residential to medium. as an example. Um, but the comprehensive plan itself won't actually dictate what needs to happen on that property. That's part of a future step. Thank you. Thank you. And well done going through all of this so so methodically and quickly. Um I have a question about items 26 and 27 uh dealing with wildfire water delivery. Um I heard the recommendation is is not to move forward on both of those and and I heard the the reasoning was was I think in different ways around the theme of they go beyond the scope of what the BBCP update would normally do or does. Um, but they also each of those to me I'm kind of also feeling like there's an essence in those

[57:00] that um maybe is worth our consideration on wildfire and water delivery. And I'm wondering if you can maybe just one at a time um talk about the staff current thinking on the extent to which wildfire issues orientation thinking um is recommended to be in the update. Yeah, I think when when the draft plan gets released here in March, you'll see both of these policies ultimately reflected. Um, you may not see the specific implementation programmatic items that have been, you know, situated within the request. Um, we are trying to keep the comprehensive plan at a very aspirational level and and remove some of the detail that is within the current existing comprehensive plan. Um but within the drafting of the policies both wildfire mitigation um as well as um you know a water delivery um we do have policies drafted around both of those topics specifically. Um so again I think

[58:01] you'll see both of those um within the draft policies when it's released on March 2nd. >> Super. Thank you >> Taiisha and then Matt and then Nicole. >> Actually my question just got asked by Ryan regarding the um agriculture. Great. Yeah, >> I'm gonna sink on to to that line of inquiry a little more. Um, so I appreciate that this is somewhat at a more visionary level going to be folded into the comp plan, but where's the appropriate place for us to actually get to some of those nuts and bolts that are being recommended because it's great to have the vision, but I think there is a clamoring for some of that specificity to to get baked in somewhere. So, so where and when is that appropriate? >> Yeah, that's a great question. Um, council member Benjamin, you know, there's a lot of tools at our disposal, a lot of planning tools. Um, we've already initiated several code updates, the wildland urban interface code update. Um, so there could be future code updates um, uh, that ultimately uh,

[59:00] would address some of these implementation strategies that have been proposed. Um, there could be options within the citywide um, strategic plan, I think, for these both of these topics to be addressed as well as within department specific plans. Um those really are the tools, the implementation tools of the comprehensive plan. Um ultimately I think you could see some of these trickle all the way down to the capital improvements program as well. Um again those are all really sort of the implementation tools that we have to to meet the vision that is expressed within the comprehensive plan. I appreciate that and maybe just sort of a followup um given that the part of the reasons why they didn't meet didn't meet the check were limitations we imposed on the comp plan process ourselves not a lack of quality or thoughtfulness of the recommendations at hand. And so I'm just sort of curious if um we need to come back and and ask for those to be implemented or by sort of the conversation here knowing there's interest that those details will get flushed out and and we have confidence that it will or do we need to flag that

[60:00] and say oh you know let's do that at a later date. So I just kind of want to know is where's the initiative and is it on us or have you guys flagged it to say yeah we'll get this done when we get to those issues at an appropriate timeline. >> I would say the latter is is probably the case here. >> Okay. Appreciate that. Thank you. Uh I'm going to keep going with the same line. [laughter] Um will uh on 26 and 27 specifically uh would keeping the vision level policy directions um in the the more of the vision level part of the BBCP give us more flexibility in how we respond to wildfire and water issues in the future. Um just with how quickly our climate is changing. Um, one of the things that I'm most sensitive to at this moment is how baking in a sense of the kinds of things we're going to need to face but with enough flexibility and adaptability to respond to them in the future um is actually a benefit. So, I'm just I'm wondering if this boxes in uh future

[61:01] implementation details with the 2026 picture of how these threats um are existing if we see that playing out in the future that there may be situations we can't even imagine yet where we have these larger goals but we need to implement them slightly differently. >> Yeah, I I I don't think it does box us in. Um again, you'll see both of these topics reflected at the appropriate highle visionary nature that is the comprehensive plan. Um following the approval of the comprehensive plan, our staff will be doing a lot of work to take a look at all of the policies and and then really kind of get into the hard work, right? And that's finding ways to implement the vision and the specific policies that are mentioned. Um so no, I I don't think it blocks us in. I think it um will ultimately lead to us ensuring that these items are implemented. um in one way or another through many of the different planning tools that I had mentioned. >> And sorry, I think I was a little unclear in my rambling question. Um what

[62:01] I was wondering about is the way that they're put forward with so many implementation details. Would that box us in in the future if we were to to sort of move this forward? >> Yeah, I'll jump in quickly. Um thanks for that followup. So no, I don't think so because part part of what the next step would would be if if we carried these two number 26 and 27 forward would be to evaluate those against kind of the the broader policies that we already have drafted within the comprehensive plan. We wouldn't necessarily take all of that information verbatim. And so I think what we would try to do as staff would be to um really tease out the highest policy level goals of that and ensure that that is either already captured in policies we have drafted or potentially create a new one that would directly address some of those specific things. Um, I think your line of questioning and sort of what you're getting at is exactly what planning board and the planning commission um discussed and why they added those back in because they felt like there was

[63:02] enough quality information at the policy level that we should we as a team should continue to sort of wrestle with that and continue to discuss that and further evaluate that for um potential inclusion in the plan itself. But ultimately those um more specific tasks would be dealt with through those mechanisms that Chris mentioned. but also your council priority and retreat exercises, things like that where you might be able to identify a priority project that's specific to implement one of those policies. >> Great. Thank you. So, it sounds like this um uh choosing to move it forward just gives you an opportunity to review and make sure that this is represented that policy issues are represented elsewhere. Thank you. >> Yep, that's right. >> Right. Thanks for that. Not seeing other any other hands raised. I will go ahead and get us started on the public hearing. We have seven speakers. Everyone will have three minutes to speak. I will be uh strict about that time limit in the interest of fairness. And our first three speakers are David Foster in person, Margaret Lumpt in person, and then Mark Johnson virtually.

[64:09] >> Thank you. Um change request number 10 on the south side of Sue Drive, immediately across from Frasier Meadows Man. Can you get in that mic, please? >> Am I still a little um Should I start over? >> Yeah, but just get right into the mic when you speak. >> Uh change request number 10 on the south side of Sue Drive, immediately across from Frasier Meadows Manor, does not reflect the sentiments of the neighborhood. It appears to be part of an orchestrated plan to circumvent Boulder Municipal Codes prohibitions against Am I too close? sudden changes in quote density, massing, or scale that are required by the luxury apartments additions proposed by the manor presently under site review since last summer.

[65:02] The neighborhood adjacent to the manor is composed of very modest homes built in the late 1950s and early 60s. footprints are about 1500 square feet, mine smaller, and about one to one and a half stories tall. The present apartment proposal is in perfect conflict with the code. It would create one of the longest, tallest single buildings in non-university university Boulder, one quarter mile long building, 55 ft tall with a setback of only 25 ft. The addition alone is 175,000 square feet. That's a Safeway building stacked four high. Planning staff strongly criticized the massing in their August review. The applicants response was some flowery adjective rich pros but no actual design

[66:02] changes. Are words more important than action in Boulder? Is there a hidden agenda? Of the 14 homes in the change requests, the manner has recently quietly acquired four of them. Four of 14. Purpose and future is vague and contradictory. They are all poorly maintained rentals. It's a reasonable suspicion that the change request and the breathtaking audacity of the present apartment proposal, including privatizing a public street, believe it or not, is meant to drive us out of our homes at fire sale prices. Anecdotally, this would not be the first case of a ruthless land baron attempting to forcibly acquire the holdings of nearby peasants. I would encourage

[67:00] the council to please help us save our monomes for the predations of a parochial institution with near infinite resources, influences, and appetites. Thank you. >> Thank you. Now we have Margaret Lacmpt and then virtually we have Mark Johnson and Daniel. >> Good evening everyone. >> You can pull the mic over. >> He's taller than I am. [laughter] Uh I'm Margaret Lumpt. Um I have lived at 290 Panee Drive on the corner of Sue and Pawne Drive for 34 years. Um, I recently found out that back in the summer a change request was given was was filed for the block in which I have my house from low to medium density. Um, it was made by an unknown person to me without my knowledge.

[68:00] Only last week did I find out that this person really doesn't live on my street. He's actually he owns a house on Sue Drive, but he rents it out. Uh I am dismayed that someone who never contacted anybody on the street has actually been able to submit a change request without ever uh contacting any of us and just literally springing it on us. Let me explain to you why I oppose any further consideration of land use change number 10 on Sue Drive. The city's housing mantra for a long time has been that we need familyfriendly, vibrant neighborhoods for the missing middle. Well, I live in such a neighborhood. And given my income, I'd be the missing middle if I hadn't bought my house 34 years ago. Then it was a fairly rundown rental that I have done a lot of work on. But it was perfect for me because it was close to where I work. It's modest size. Uh it

[69:02] was near a school and a nice shopping center. Um a church plus the modest size then retirement home to which my mother moved in 1999 and it had a a yard for a garden. It was all I could afford and it is still all I can afford. It still has a mix of older residents and young families who are raising their children in what they hope will be their forever homes. And they are living among friendly neighbors. But this land use change to a greater density and a different housing type will change everything. And there is an elephant in the living room. The once medium-sized Frasier Meadows retirement community has metastasized from one city block to now two city full blocks. And now it wants a third one to build a 55- foot fourstory tall, threeb block long behemoth with 94

[70:00] luxury senior apartments that Boulder does not need. And our homes, they'll be bulldozed and replaced with multif family housing to create a transition between the single family homes that characterize our neighborhood and the towers of Frasier Meadows Manor. We were a family-friendly, vibrant neighborhood and will be replaced with a crowded concrete urban cityscape choked with traffic no longer desirable for families, children, pets, and the elderly. Please remove it. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Now we'll go virtually to Mark Johnson and Daniel and also Lynn Seagull. >> Good evening everybody. This is Mark Johnson. Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> Wonderful. Thank you for hearing our um our input. Um my family lives on the south side of Sue Drive. Uh with Frasier Meadows Manor currently proposing to build a 175,000 square foot

[71:01] 55 foot high structure that's basically resembles a wall directly across the street from us. And now this new proposal number 10 enabling replacement of single family homes with duplexes and triplexes. We feel increasingly pressured from all sides. It feels like the home and neighborhood that my family consciously chose for specific reasons 20 years ago is being taken from us. We simply want to live peacefully in the neighborhood where we are raising our daughter, paying taxes, and contributing to this community. If both the Frasier Meadows expansion and the land use designation proposal pass, there will be no homeowners left on sue, we will all be ruthlessly pushed out so that Frasier Meadows can generate millions more dollars while paying no property taxes and so that property owners, not homeowners, such as the individual who proposed this community change request, can profit as well. The person who

[72:02] submitted the reszoning proposal does not even live in the house they currently rent on Sue. They are head of an architectural firm and they never bothered discussing their proposal with any of the residents who actually live on Sue. It seems that many architects, builders, and large businesses in Boulder are lobbying for increased density under the pretense that it will result in more affordable housing. Yet very little affordable housing is actually being built. If these proposed duplexes and triplexes on Sue were required to be genuinely affordable, I would be more open to this proposal. If density in Boulder must increase, why focus on existing neighborhoods where there is available spa or what when there is available space around the city, for example, near Gateway Fun Park where additional housing could be built without directly impacting established homeowners. Why do developers with purely financial

[73:00] interests get to determine what happens in the neighborhood where my family has lived for 20 years? Shouldn't we be listening more closely to longtime members of the community? People who care deeply about Boulder and have contributed to it in countless ways rather than to developers who are not invested in what will truly enrich our community. I thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Now we go to Daniel and then Lynn Seagull and Adrien Sofur. Sorry. So, um, hi. I'm Dan Ang 45 year owner resident in the Eastridge neighborhood and the applicant for request 22 which is to increase the density of Eastridge neighborhood from low to medium density.

[74:04] Uh, I started out my narrative. The best place to put more student housing is right between both CU Boulder academic campuses, main and east campus, and East Ridge is the only neighborhood currently low density that meets that qualification. uh regarding myative preface that just as staff's analysis is in progress. My documentation of supermajority support for this redesation is also in progress but expected to be completed by the next deliberation. one of the out of the 40 properties in Eastridge on Tuesday, I counted 29 rental licenses and three ADUs plus myself and three other permanent residents that have supported this redesignation. So that's 36 out of 40 properties or 90%

[75:03] supermajority support without formally polling all owners. I have been trying to get uh higher density allowed in Eastridge 25 years now, quarter of a century. Uh I've gone through this uh cycle uh several times. Um, I do want to note that uh since I made my request uh I found out about the university uh planning a housing development uh just south of University Heights uh on Colorado Avenue across from the engineering center and the parking lot there that is only one block to the west of our neighborhood across 28th Street. Um,

[76:00] uh, Lisa Morzelle, a former, uh, city council and planning board member, said when she was a student, she used to live in this neighborhood. She understands it and that if any neighborhood in Bowler should have higher density, it is this neighborhood. Um, uh, we are the land bridge between Maine and East campuses. And uh the ne when this neighborhood started out, it was stood alone. In fact, I live uh where the farmhouse used to be. Um but CU's grown up around it and we're surrounded by higher density. So I urge you to continue analysis of my request. Thank you. >> Thank you. Now we'll go to Lynn Seagull, then Adrien Sofur, and then Elaine Winn's in person. Okay, pulling up my notes here. Okay, first of all, hi. Um, this the previous God that spoke, Daniel, this is not a a

[77:02] precedence is not it's not a oneup. Let's see how much how much, you know, density we can get here. That's what the theme has been with all of this. Um, the height li and that's that's not a good reason. Well, this place up at um you know, University Heights in Bella Vista that went up to seven stories. So, that allows me to go up. You know, that's the whole problem with this situation is it's let's set this high precedent. Well, CU doesn't have a precedent. They can go as high as they want. And you know what? They own that area around Nuropa of Lincoln School and they're going to go up to like seven stories on that or six stories anyway. something more than our 55 foot high linen. And you can bet that they're going to do the same thing on Rencon, Mexico, which they bought in the future. And who owns Boulder University or Boulder? Um Gun Barrel. Um

[78:01] um we should unanex Gun Barrel because it was a flagpole annexation in the first place, an opportunistic situation. Um and the last thing we should do is expand something bad already. Um area three, no way. That is for emergency for um agriculture if we have no more food anymore and it's the only way you know or or solar if we have no more energy after Excel puts us on a permanent PSPS. Um that's what area 3 is for. No way. Don't even get near there. the Iris feels that needs to be re-evaluated entirely. A new two of the people that were doing it um John um Kirkwood and the um the and uh the guy from Rubicon are one and the same. Okay. because the guy from Rubicon did Mapleton um Mapleton Academy and he wants to, you

[79:02] know, take over as much as he can. And um then he's competing with John Kirkland who did Marpa House and illicitly went to to um the Buddhist community in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and made a deal with the neighbors. He snuck in and made a deal. This was Lisa Spalding's thing she was working on with to save Marpa House with the neighbors so that the the residents could buy it. And he under he he outbid them because he was working for the guy in Halifax, the Buddhist community. Um, no good. None [clears throat] of this shady stuff. We need a new proposition on the Iris fields. It's corrupted from the start. Um, as far as wildfire and climate change and having a broad vision, we need to have a strategic plan like the guys were talking about. That is

[80:00] >> time is up, but thank you for your testimony. Now, we'll go to Adrien Sofur and then finish up with Elaine Winn's. >> Thank you, council members. I presume you can hear me. >> Yes. >> Thank you. Uh firstly, let me say that in part I'm speaking for Donna Basin, the executive director of Boulder Medical Center, who [clears throat] apologizes for not being able to address you herself and she has a quarterly physician shareholder meeting and asked me to say a few things on her behalf that uh since 1949, Boulder Medical Center has proudly served the Boulder community as a locallyowned independent multipety medical group which [clears throat] is entirely owned by the practicing physicians and residents in that facility. There is no corporate funding allowing them to focus solely on serving the community's health care needs and looks to in the future

[81:00] being continuing to able to be do to do so. However, in the last 77 years, things have changed and in in essence, some of the change is related to the fact that it has been identified as being in the in the 100redyear and the 500year flood plane and is significantly by significantly I mean 8 to 10 ft below the flood plane protection elevation. Boulder Medical Center cannot stay in its current facility and provide for the city's ongoing health care needs, which it has every intention to do. So, it must move in order to provide for the fees associated or the cost associated with new land purchase and construction of new state-of-the-art medical facilities. It needs to sell its land, which is its greater financial asset, and it needs to provide as much money as it can in support of that new facility

[82:02] to come. [clears throat] Interestingly enough, it has the opportunity to do so relative to the fact that it sits on a shared block with a neighborhood center that already has been identified in appendix N as being uh potentially serving a need for not only community shopping and and and common areas, but also as targeted for via appendix N greater housing in support of 15-minute neighbor neighborhoods. We are proposing that this share the same land use designation as the shopping center itself. And in the future, we will be coming towards this council and planning board with a reasonzoning application in support of that change as well as a request to include it in appendix N to maximize the potential density allowable so that the medical center can sell the land to an

[83:02] appropriate housing developer that will provide the much as much possible finance for a new medical center to support the needs of the community. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Our final speaker is Elaine Winn. >> City Council members, thank you for the opportunity to speak. This is in regards to the land use change request number 10. My name is Elaine Wynens. I live at 4950 Sue Drive. I'm here to express serious concern about traffic, pedestrian safety, and access related to the possible future land use amendment on the south side of Sue Drive. Sue Drive is already one of only three main entry points into the Frasier Meadows neighborhood and is heavily used throughout the day. The intersection of Sue Drive and Thunderbird, located very

[84:00] close to my home, is particularly constrained. An overpass bridge is located approximately a 100 feet from the Thunderbird stop sign, creating a convergence of vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, and school children in a very limited area. Sue Drive serves as a key connection between two schools. Children who live west of this intersection must cross the bridge over Foothills Parkway directly across from our home. also a designated bike route B180. The bridge and surrounding area are used daily by pedestrians, including individuals using mobility aids, as well as runners, dock walkers, families, and children riding bicycles. Activity is especially heavy before and after school. I have personally observed children riding down the bridge ramp and entering Sue Drive without slowing or checking for traffic. In addition, the

[85:01] Sue Drive overpass is periodically used for organized protest and rallies, which draws larger crowds, increase roadside parking, and further reduce visibility and safe movement through an already limited corridor. Parking conditions further increase risk. On street parking is limited on both sides of Sue Drive with many vehicles parked for extended periods. Many people cross Sue Drive midblock rather than at the nearby intersection. Although the posted speed limit is 20 miles per hour, it is frequently exceeded, allowing multifamily development would significantly increase traffic volume, parking demands, and conflict points along a corridor that is already operator operating under constrained conditions. This would heighten safety risk for pedestrians, cyclists, children, and residents. Additionally, Sue Drive is a limited route for emergency access or evacuation and

[86:00] increased density would further strain that capacity. For that reason, I urge city council to carefully consider traffic, pedestrian safety, parking, and emergency access impacts before approving any fun land use changes on the south side of Sue Drive. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Right. Thanks to everyone for speaking to us today. That's all of our speakers. So, I will go ahead and close the public hearing. I'll bring it back to council. So, my uh proposed process for addressing this is to say, does anyone want to propose any differences from what staff is recommending to us? And we if people do, then we'll consider those one by one and then work towards a motion. And I see Terra's already right out of the gate. >> Okay. I'll start with removing item 10. Um, let me start the conversation with this. Uh, this creating a lot of community conflict and anxiety was unexpected by the neighbors. It took

[87:00] them by surprise and it does feel like overreach. But I think for this conversation to me, item 10 is potentially inconsistent with the proposed direction of the comp plan. It seems like with item 10, the applicant is creating a small carveout of poor little Sue drive when the plan should be more broad, aspirational, and high level. Um, so I want to start with that. And we got a good quote today from a community member that says, "Why on earth would Sue Drive be the one of the very first places where you make such a change?" I like that. >> Thanks, Tara. All right, so let's address that uh question. Does anybody want to speak to that? And then I'll do a straw poll to see if council wants to agree with Tara. Mark, >> this to me is a very cynical request and it's going to turn that neighborhood into a haven for investment capital. It has apparently 0.0 support from the community. And I don't think it is a wise thing for us to

[88:01] simply impose our vision on the local community's vision. It doesn't mean we we don't occasionally um take steps that may not be in total harmony uh with the community's wishes, but here everybody has opposed this that we have heard from this evening or that we've heard from in writing. Um, and as I said, this is simply a a way for uh the applicant to begin to purchase more properties and monetize them in a rather, as I said, a cynical way. Um, and I I doubt that any of the duplexes he bought or develops uh will be affordable or even uh attainable by middle inome uh renters. Um and I I just don't find this to be um worthy of what we are doing uh with the comp plan.

[89:01] >> Fair. Okay, Rob. And then maybe we'll move towards a straw poll. >> I I agree. I'm just I'm literally looking at the map right now of this row of exactly the symposium that I went to yesterday was how do we create middle inome housing? And it's right here. And it just feels like that entire block will be taken away. And it's against everything that I've always heard about the Boulder Valley comp plan and and what we're trying to do here and and create and maintain in Boulder for uh middle income folks, firefighters, police officers, government officials. So yeah, I support it. I support removing 10. And >> Nicole, yeah, you have a question. Yeah. Um, and I guess I'm I'm just wondering here about how this particular item fits in with the overall plan, right? Because these are the issues

[90:00] raised as to um or by the applicant of some of the things that could be helped here. Um, it seems like these are things we're considering generally in the plan. Um, and so I guess it just it's it feels like at this stage what we're being asked to do is to identify a specific implementation of a general goal that we're working toward with the plan. And I don't know if I'm I'm missing that or thinking about thinking about that incorrectly, but it it it feels a little bit like a um putting the cart in front of the horse kind of thing. >> May I respond to that? Um, I think what the question before you tonight is whether or not this request, which was made by a community member, not by staff, but whether or not that request deserves additional evaluation by staff, which could include conversations with the residents, could include some additional analysis by staff of what are the surrounding land uses, what is most

[91:01] appropriate there. Um that's partly why we did include it in our recommended list is because we do think it deserves a little bit of additional analysis um as opposed to just removing it off the table immediately. Um but there are are obviously a lot of conflicting things happening there and so that's partly why we would like to take a closer look at it. Um, so would it be safe to say that kind of removing it is is also doing that is also kind of preddeciding a solution uh to to something that we haven't had time to explore yet? >> That's that's correct. I mean, I think removing it means that um we would we as staff would have to have a very good reason to bring something that's significantly different forward um you know to you. Leaving it on the list allows us to continue to look at it more closely. And again, we could come forward in the draft plan with a suggestion to change this or we could um

[92:01] we could not based on the feedback that we've received from the community. >> So I I think that that would be my preference would just be let's just explore it, right? And and have a little bit of this conversation as the process moves forward. >> Okay, very good. I got more hands. I got Ryan and then Tina. Just following on this, um, does the staff have a view that you can share on some kind of overlap of of the planned use for that area with this proposed proposal? >> No, [laughter] unfortunately, we we don't have the full draft land use map developed at this time. Um, we're still very much in in the weeds of looking at particular areas. One thing I can say is that the um the existing land use of this particular section is low residential. So that would be our starting point which under the new proposed framework would be neighborhood one. Um but in that particular location

[93:04] there is also high residential which is right across the street. There's some business land use uh also in that same area. So there's there's some broader context for us to consider. But in this um specific location, no, we we don't have a recommendation yet as to what what it could be. >> Okay. And then my second question is if if um we follow the staff recommendation and continue to evaluate it, when or whenish would it come back to us and it would be a similar kind of discussion where you would report out and then we would say thumbs up or thumbs down. >> Yeah, exactly. Okay. So, it would be available for public review and comment when the draft plan is released on March 2nd. And then we have a joint planning board and city council study session on March 26th where we would be we will be going through the draft plan in excruciating detail uh both map and policy. >> Thank you, Tina.

[94:01] >> Yeah, I just wanted to clarify one thing. Does it make a difference whether the person who is making the request lives in the home or even lives in the city of Boulder? Can anybody uh make a request to redesate any home in Boulder? >> Yes. Um anybody can make any change requests for any parcel in the city of Boulder as part of this process. Um we as staff did not take that into consideration. We looked at all of the requests um without that lens. Um, so no, we haven't necessarily I think that the reason why we wanted to know specifically who submitted the request and whether they were a property owner or not was so that we could notify those property owners who they themselves did not submit the request. Um, again to make sure that they were aware of the proposed change in the upcoming opportunities to come to the public hearings and and ultimately make their voices heard. And and we have we seen this happen before where u an individual changed zoning on homes that people were currently residing in?

[95:01] >> Um we have as part of the community change request process both in 2015 and in 2020. >> And I'll just quickly note they're not actually changing the zoning. So the land use change but it's important to make sure that everyone understands that the land use just describes a vision over the next 20 years that may happen but it does not actually fundamentally change anyone's property right or what they can do with their property. Anything that's related to a development or a reasonzoning is an application that has to be brought forward by the property owner. >> Thank you. >> I'll call on myself and then Mark has a followup. Um I just briefly um I'll support Tara's uh request um to take it off the list just because I'm concerned that this the applicant did not consult the affected neighbors when making this request. It seems like there's an unfairness there in my mind. But Mark, you want to throw something in? >> Yeah. And just very quickly, what would this further review consist of? What is it that we would find out that we do not

[96:00] know today? >> Sure. Well, the um as Chris mentioned in the presentation, this initial screening that we did on all of these was was really a very cursory screening to arrive at the recommended list. We have not looked at any of these in um in any kind of rigorous detail in terms of what is the the context of the property, what are some of the changes we are anticipating as part of the future land use map. Um so all of those things would be uh considered and also we in this particular case because of the community response and engagement we would be looking to have further conversations with the people that are in this area. >> Would you expect to be finding a hidden reserve of support for this application? >> No, but we would want to make sure we did our due diligence. >> I got uh Matt and then Nicole has another comment. >> Uh I have a question that sort of deals with what our current policy is. Does um does this section of Sue Drive fall within our familyfriendly vibrant

[97:01] neighborhood ordinance? >> I don't know off the top of my head. I would have to take a look at the districts that applies. >> Yeah. I mean, the reason I ask is because that would already basically infer a current property right to take that property and turn it into a duplex with our existing rules if it did. And so we would be sort of talking about a moot change here uh to allow it through a land use change if it's already allowed to do that if it's already covered in the family-friendly vibrant neighborhood ordinance. >> Yeah, I would have to confirm but it is re or residential estate zoning and I don't believe that that was part of the family-friendly vibrant neighborhood. >> I was wondering if it was proximity to transit that brought that in or not but yeah uh that I don't know. >> So if it's not then that's fine. That's why I want to verify. Appreciate it. Nicole. >> Um, yeah. So, I'll say I I really dislike very strongly that people can do these requests without consulting the impacted residents. Um, that doesn't seem like uh great process. Love to

[98:00] address that at some point uh whenever it's the right time to do that. But as far as what we're deciding tonight, it looked like it literally checked the same boxes as everything else that we're moving forward. And so, I guess there there's just um I'm wondering about the criteria, right? if if there is a fairness thing that we kind of do need to move it forward for consideration, not making decisions, not saying this is what we want to do, not saying it's okay to submit something um that residents haven't uh been consulted on. Um I just I wonder if that's a fairness thing. >> Another comment from Ryan and then we can move to the >> Just a comment on what I'll do. Um, I think it smells fishy, but I I'd like staff's recommendation to for them to evaluate it further, and I'm willing to support them looking at it. >> Look that. Okay, fine. Uh, I'll go ahead and call for sharpaul. All those in favor of Terara's proposal to remove item number 10 for further

[99:00] consideration, raise your hand. And all those opposed, looks, that's a 7 to2. So, Terrace is supported by majority. to that. We'll remove that from the list. Does anybody want to propose any other changes from staff's recommendations? >> Quote of clarification to Nicole's question about where where is the appropriate process or point where we can revisit that uh criteria because I would agree I'm 100% opposed to any request that has not had any consultation with anybody on that block. Mhm. Thankfully, the update to the comprehensive plan is the right time to do that. So, we will be evaluating and making some staff recommended revisions to the amendment procedures that are part of the intergovernmental agreement that both city council and the board of county commissioners will review and ultimately approve as part of the comprehensive plan update. So, in March when um the public draft is released and then at the end of March when we have

[100:01] that study session, you will see what those proposed revisions include. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> And we will make a note of that one for sure. >> Thanks, Tisha. Um, yes, Nicole. >> Yeah, we can propose other changes from what staff is recommending. So, did you have one of those? Please go ahead. Um, and I was just wondering on 26 and 27, do I need to officially propose that we do that or was that something that staff was recommending they could move forward? >> They are not recommending those moving forward. So, you would need to propose that. >> Okay. Yes. Yeah, then I I would re recommend those moving forward at the same level that um planning commission for the county and our planning board recommended. >> Great. Um, I agree with that as well. Anybody want to speak to the adding 26 and 27 back in for consideration? Mark, >> I think it's a terrific decision. This is a document that sets forth our aspirations and I think it ought to reflect our aspirations um in connection with these two very very important issues.

[101:00] >> Okay. Thank you. >> Ter, >> I also I also want to thank planning board for bringing this to our attention. I watched the um meeting and it was really well said. Thanks, Matt. >> Well, sort of that in the previous inquiry that we talked about this, I think if we can just if we can fold this in in a way that still maintains that vision and high level thinking without getting detailed and specific because I think that is that that is outside the purview of what the comp plan is. We're trying to be less prescriptive in the comp plan. So, just making sure we don't fall into the trap that here we're overly prescriptive and every prescriptive and everywhere else we're visionary and separating those two out. But, I think this is worthy to move on. But as long as we're separating those, we're probably safe. >> Great. And just as a follow-up to that, my understanding is if we do move these forward as well as some of the other ones that you would not take them verbatim, but you would sift through them and kind of edit them to be at the appropriate kind of height level for the comp plan. Correct. Great. Yes, Rob. And then Mark,

[102:00] thank you for considering it. I just think it's really important when we move forward with the growth and the density that we also factor in resilience. So, whatever the language needs to look like, I just think it's really important to have that in there. >> Mark, can I move to another subject? >> No, we're not quite done with this. Almost done. Uh, so I'll go ahead and move to a straw poll. Just before I do, I'd like to thank Elizabeth Black for bringing forward number 27 with regards to water and ditches. So, appreciate all your work in the community. Uh, all in favor of um Nicole's proposal to continue to consider items number 26 and 27, please raise your hand. That is unanimous. So, we'll move those forward. Um, any others that you'd like to propose? Mark, you got one? >> Yeah. Uh, I'm going to suggest that we not act upon 1343 Iris until we see what kind of transaction is going to be. >> That's that's three of them. It's one, it's 14, and it's 15.

[103:00] And I'm going to suggest that we want to take action on that and we will take action on it, but we ought to do it in the context of what is before us in terms of a transaction. If we create an as of right um ability to build on that outside of the public zoning that that exists presently, um somebody can come in and say if we if we do medium density, someone can come in and say fine, I'm going to buy the property. I'm going to build up to medium density limitations and I'm going to build on the uh Iris ball fields and I don't not sure there's very much we could do about it. At the moment the conversation is if you want to buy the property uh tell us what you want to do and how you're going to preserve the ball fields and then we will give you what you need to proceed. So I think it is premature to create anything specific with respect to Iris. Um, and we ought to, not that we won't, we will, but we ought to wait until we

[104:01] see what is before us and do it in the context of that transaction because otherwise we create the possibility of someone purchasing the property and proceeding without reference to what we want on the ball fields. >> Do you mind if I ask a question to staff based on that? >> Yes, certainly. >> So, no, no questions for me. Darn it. Um, so question for you all, like if if we did move this forward for f further study, would one of the things that you might look at be whether the ball fields might get a separate designation from the the other areas that um, for example, you might consider a parks designation for those? >> Yeah, that's exactly right. Um, we would further evaluate the appropriate land use designations really using community feedback that we've heard um, and we'll continue to hear. We will be proposing a draft land use um for the ball fields as part of the draft plan and then opening that up for community feedback. >> Follow that. >> Yeah, go ahead. >> I'll follow you. >> All right. The colloqui on the colloqui.

[105:00] Um so let me get the process right. I mean Erin's inquiry is very interesting and I agree with what Mark was saying there. Would it be appropriate then at this moment to just make an addition that if that we change the land use and make an addition that the land use for the for the ball fields be park and so do we just could because this is a moment where we could add an option here right so can't so can't we just like community made a suggestion for a a recommended change that we would do the same and say we're going to recommend that the ball fields become a park and we've in many ways preserved exactly what Mark is insinuating but we do it now rather then at a later negotiation. >> So I think the more appropriate time to do that would be once the draft plan is released and we host that joint session between the planning board and city council. The the item before you tonight again is really for us to further consider what the land use designation could be on this property and all of the other requests that we got. But if you want to request edits to what the land use change ultimately is, I think the more appropriate time to do that would be once the draft plan is released in

[106:00] March. So then would it be a request to explore what the appropriate land use designation is for the ball fields? Would that be a more appropriate request at this stage? >> Yeah, to pair that with these other changes for that area. Go ahead. >> Yeah, just to pick up on Chris's comments, I think um not to be redundant, but that would be part of what would some analysis would allow. And a nuance behind this, for example, is that the land use map as it's being refined may not be specific to parks for ball fields, for example. That might be considered as part of a larger umbrella, which was equally acceptable to council. Um, so I'm I'm afraid that you might be boxing yourselves into a corner a little bit if we try to introduce that level of specificity at this stage. >> Thanks for shooting me down. I appreciate that. Can Can we even make these Can we even make these changes while the county owns the land? >> Can Can we Can we actually change the

[107:00] use of the ball fields to park uh when we don't own the land? >> Yeah, we can. Um the county is similar to any other property owner for any request or any parcel throughout the county. Um, so yeah, regardless of property ownership, >> we'll propose a landing test. >> Then I would I would support going forward to at least look at what we can do with the ball fields. I would still be reluctant to have us um propose anything concrete on the balance of the property because I don't want to create any entitlement to build as of right. >> If I may. Um, so, uh, Mark, I I agree that we don't want to do that. I would like to get the benefit of staff's analysis of the most appropriate land uses for the property. So, I I would like them to do that analysis. Then, when they come back with that, we will have our discretion about whether we want to implement those changes if we

[108:01] agree with them or what have you. Um, so if you could >> correct >> if you could work with that. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yeah, I'm getting some nodding heads, but Tina. >> Yeah. I just want to confirm that there that by us taking this under analysis, it won't have any impact on the speed of which the transaction happens with the county since we're now adding another variable into this transaction. >> That's correct. Okay. So, do you withdraw that then? >> Consider it. >> Okay. Withdrawn. Does anybody want to suggest any other changes from what staff is recommending? I'm seeing no hands. Then perhaps are you able to bring up the motion language? And I can just throw a motion on the table if people don't mind. So, I I move that we approve the list of community change requests recommended by staff for further consideration with the exceptions that we remove change number 10 and we add back in changes number 26

[109:01] and number 27 as part of the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan update including evaluating these requests for potential incorporation into the draft comprehensive plan. Second. Very good. We got a motion and a second. Um I think this will be another roll call vote I think to be careful. See if we can do that please. Alicia. >> Yes sir. Thank you. We'll start the roll call vote on the motion to approve the list of community change requests as amended with council member Shuhart. >> Yes. >> Spear. >> Yes. >> Wallik. >> I. >> Mayor pro Tim Wer. >> Yes. >> Council member Adams. Yes. >> Benjamin. >> Yes. >> Mayor Bronett. >> Yes. >> Council member Kaplan. >> Yes. >> And Marquis. >> Yes. >> The community the list of community changes as amended are hereby approved unanimously.

[110:01] >> Thanks so much. I know you all have had a very busy week. So appreciate all of your work and your effort and look forward to the next stages. All right. We got one more item on the agenda which is a matter from the city manager. I will give everybody a heads up that I'm going to bring up something brief um at the end just about appointing someone to the regional um homelessness working group. So just keep that in mind. But for now, let's go to item 5A, please. >> Yes, sir. Thank you. Fi item five. Item 5A on tonight's agenda is on matters from the city manager as noted by the mayor and it is the metro district policy framework. >> Thank you so much. And as I try to buy some time for the team to get into place, um I will say that this item uh comes up uh in uh hello. Uh comes up as a followup to a previous conversation uh council had had about metro districts. Previously uh last year, you had said uh

[111:00] you wanted to move forward with contemplating um such a mechanism. We had uh offered to come back around this time um with some thoughts about what an enabling ordinance would look like. Um so we have provided you with some policy recommendations and I see I have spoken enough time for slides to be on the uh on the screen. So I will pass it on to assistant city manager Mark Wolf. >> Thank you Nuria. Thank you for buying time as we get settled up here. Uh good evening council. Mark Wolf, assistant city manager. Uh, I'm joined tonight again by Dalton Kelly from Butler Snow. Uh, Sarah Guyger, senior counsel for the city, and Regan Brown, our economic development strategy manager, is online. Uh, we're excited to bring back a policy framework uh for allowing and regulating commercial metro districts this evening. Uh just a note that given the requested short uh turnaround of this item uh tonight we're focused on just a few key policy issues uh to get your feedback

[112:01] with the goal of returning uh with a regulating ordinance and model service plan for adoption in April. I I do want to appreciate our our legal team in particular, Teresa, uh Sarah and Dalton, um given the heavy lift and and Brad Mueller and Regan Brown for supporting uh during the past couple months, which included the holidays, uh mind you. Uh so we're happy to bring forward this uh tonight. We're going to talk just briefly about the context in which we're bringing this um uh tool forward. Tonight uh we will go through the key policy issues and then receive your your feedback and have some discussion. Uh for for context uh as you know metro districts are one of several different economic development financing tools available to cities that we are exploring right now. Uh all of these tools are are generally designed with the goal of improving our local economy.

[113:02] uh in November we brought forward an overview of metro districts and you all provided us direction to bring forward a policy framework in enough time so that proposed service plans uh i.e. new metro districts uh could be considered uh in time for the November 2026 uh election cycle. Uh you also asked us to focus our efforts on commercial driven metro districts instead of broader residential uh districts. Uh tonight we'll be seeking feedback on several elements of the policy framework, but to be clear, there are many different elements of a model service plan um that we could bring you. So we are trying to focus some of those uh to those key areas so that we can hit the desired timeline. Uh at the last uh meeting we did get a couple questions about how metro districts relate to other available economic development financing tools.

[114:00] I'm not going to go through all of these. We shared a a similar chart with you all that was developed by Puma after the last meeting. Uh but what this shows you is the spectrum of available uh local uh economic development financing tools. Um we've out laid this out in a little bit of a spectrum here where on the left you have u uh tools that are um generally uh have less autonomy. Uh and um as you go to the right you'll start to see that level of autonomy or independence from the city grow uh and generally the the funding power increases. So um on the left you see um local improvement districts is what we call them uh here. Um those are not separate entities. They have a very specific focus and purpose for that funding. Um we use general improvement districts. BID you're familiar with and as you get further to the right these

[115:00] are the tools that we are beginning to explore and try and put in place in different ways from DDA urban renewal and metro districts. Those are either separate entities where the council directly appoints the board or in the case of metro districts once that is created as essentially a separate governmental um entity. And so again, just as you think about how and when we use these tools, the focus and the type of financing mechanisms that they have in place is one consideration. And the other is its relationship to the city and how much control you have or at least when you have control. Um, as we'll talk about with metro districts, your level of control is really in establishing that the the ordinance, the regulating ordinance and the model service plan. Um, uh, and then in the consideration of the individual service plans as they come in. Okay. So, um, I'll shift now, uh, to each of these policy areas. Um, we'll go through through them uh, briefly. I'm

[116:00] sure you'll have questions. uh for each of the six policy areas, I'll I'll mention um why we think this is an important area for to get some feedback on and then uh a recommended policy approach and we'll just touch on a couple alternative policy approaches approaches for your awareness. So starting with type of development, um this relates to whether or not residential and commercial developments are um included. um you all focused on commercial-driven metro districts um specifically in support of of using it as an economic development tool. Um the that approach is really the the key to what you're seeing tonight and what could be a part of an ordinance by limiting it to uh commercial only uh with some exceptions as we'll talk about that really is a major parameter that you are putting in place at the outset. The most straightforward way or

[117:01] certainly the way that staff is recommending to put this in place uh is to set a threshold um where there would be up to 10% residential based on floor area um floor projections um of the development within that area and that would be our allowance for some degree of mixed use but really focused on commercial driven uh metro districts. There are other uh available policy options. Uh you could um utilize a tool called subdists where essentially you would create a a larger allow for a larger district and have some commercial carveouts to have different u mill levies with some restrictions on um that um u burden on residential properties. It's a little bit more complicated. Generally subdists are used in larger developments but um certainly um others um could be uh we could look at subdists and how we allocate the tax burden in

[118:01] different ways. So in addition to the type of development which is a significant um constraint that we could place on uh proposed uh metro districts the other is looking at the the mill levy cap. So, this is really our ability to look at limiting the long-term tax burden for future property owners. What state law does require is that service plans disclose a maximum mill levy, but there is no mandate for a specific ceiling. And so part of the policy choice is to determine if there should be a cap and if so is there any flexibility with that cap for operating and maintenance uh for changes uh based on uh different assessment rates as they change over time. Um so this is important for us from a policy perspective to prevent that excessive taxation if development fails to meet projected valuations. So it's trying to limit that burden in the long term in some way.

[119:03] uh many municipalities impose some type of ceiling on uh the debt mill levy. Um what our recommended policy approach here is to have essentially two different numbers, two different caps to look at. One is on the debt cap itself. So how much of the millia is used to finance? Um that uh there's many different um uh caps you'll see across the front range. 50 is about one of the standard ones. So, um again, because we're focused on commercial development, um we think 50 may be appropriate for that debt cap. And then there would be some type of combined cap, which would include operating and maintenance, which we'll touch on a little in a little bit more detail in a moment. Um you could set more of a a a combined cap or hard cap. Um whether or not you call that a hard cap depends on the flexibility if

[120:00] the assessment rate changes over time. So that's a consideration. Um so again, you're trying to set a debt cap and then some type of combined uh mil levy cap. Um there are other ways to handle this. Um this other policy option provides more flexibility where you're looking at the overall debt structure in the district. So essentially how much debt um coverage against the the total um uh the total valuation of the property within the district. Again a little bit more complicated but I think to cut through it is essentially saying there would not be a debt cap or there would be a much higher debt cap for lowrisk debt. Um so that's something we could consider. Again a little bit more complicated but it is available. Okay. operations and maintenance. So, a part of um the infrastructure development of any metro district um much of the public infrastructure gets conveyed to the municipality. Um some of it may not depending on if there are

[121:01] components that city simply doesn't want to maintain um or um are are elements that are kind of more um used uh for the the property owners within the district itself. So, um, a policy establishing how we receive any sort of infrastructure to what standard to make sure they're up to city standards is a component of this. And then also what might be allowable in terms of operating and maintenance uh, going forward. So, not only what could a metro district operate and maintain, but how could they pay for it um, through some type of um, mill levy. And so again, this is where the difference between the debt um cap and the total cap comes into play is some allowance for additional mills if there are elements to maintain such as private roads, landscaping, um private detention ponds are examples um of that. Um there are other options. we could have a more um conservative approach

[122:02] where it is essentially negotiated through the IG generally not allowed that we are um we have a an assumption of mandatory conveyance of all infrastructure. Um so a couple different ways to approach that but I I do think that st that the on andm some type of allowance for onm is is generally um a part of um service plans. Uh another area where uh metro districts often impose and collect um is in additional fees. So think about the easiest example is a parking structure. If a development um builds out a metro district build builds out a parking structure um they could have the ability we'd have to grant them this within a service plan to levy fees within that that parking element. um and then whether or not they could issue bonds, so take on additional debt um what's called a revenue bond against that um fee. And so again, that's a a policy

[123:00] choice. Um this is a mechanism to get at some of the ongoing maintenance um long-term capital improvements outside of the mill levy. Um, but it is also a double-edged sword where um, we want to make sure that there isn't there aren't hidden long-term fees on residents that uh, essentially operate like a tax but lack the same oversight and transparency. So, our policy uh, approach uh recommendation for on uh, fees and revenue bonds is to allow but have some type of external certification to ensure that the fee is in alignment. um similar to how we do analysis on our fee structure on an annual basis. Um we would want that same level of rigor. Uh and that any sort of revenue pledge, so revenue bonds taken out against any of those fees that it would be on the commercial only part of uh the development. We could um have a a more significant uh

[124:01] limitation on that. um we we could uh require that revenue bonds or at least that authority is put forward at at the outset or requiring council approval. Um those are some other options um that that we could do with fees and revenues, revenue bonds. And I think this is the last area we look at specifically tonight, privately placed uh debt. So, privately placed debt is uh common. Um what we're really talking about um are quote developer bonds where um developers may finance their their own uh debt. And so while that can be standard, there are um examples that haven't been as positive where um essentially developers will finance their own debt but at a very high interest rate and then they're able to levy that the difference that that additional um uh uh rate um to property

[125:00] owners. So it burdens future property owners um uh in the future. And so what we can do is put some type of limitation on how that goes and to what extent that is allowable. And so again here we would recommend some type of independent certification to ensure that the um any rate on debt placements are um within the market. uh and that we we're specifically looking at some type of uh prohibition on conflicts of interest um with a developer or owner of the property to be benefited by improvements uh or a board member of the district. Uh we could have um outright prohibition on uh the purchaser on the purchase of debt by a developer. Um you know that is certainly a part of um our option at this stage. Um we could look at some type of rate cap um on developer place debt. So that there are other options uh there as well.

[126:02] Sorry, one more uh amendment requirements and oversight. Um so how do you enforce once a service plan is in place? What are the what are the requirements for changing? um you'll want to establish that at the outset so that you know that metro districts know what the ground rules and penalties are if a metro district um strays from the original service plan. So we recommend a few ways to to handle this. Um one is that um there is a specific there are listed specific actions that would trigger the need for a service plan amendment which would require council review and approval. Um those are things like increasing the debt limit, changing um the cap um any of those major items. Um we can also pair this with some type of mandatory review or a performance audit every so often. So 5 to 10 years somewhere in that range would allow us to have some type of formal process for council for

[127:00] staff to review the financials of a metro district. That would be in addition to annual reporting uh of financials, significant activities and budget information uh and some type of public presence. And then in terms of if any of those um are um violated um your approval is really um in in the legal realm where we would seek remedies under the the depending on what was it negotiated um with the metro district. we could seek injunctive relief against the district, seek fees and cost reimbursement in connection with enforcement um and other remedies if if we do have them available under the IGA. So we would recommend having those provisions within our um within some of the the recommendations of the IG itself um which is a part of some of the other provisions is the required form for an IGA with the district. We would also require other things. The list of authorized services, financial

[128:00] projections for a district, compliance requirements for um some of the the buildout. So these are other things that would be a part of a model service plan. Um just not highlighting them uh in as much detail tonight. Uh and then last but not least is next steps. So those six areas are really important for us to land on uh an ordinance and a model uh service plan. Uh based on your feedback tonight, our target is to bring this back for adoption in April again um with the goal of being able to consider any service plans that do come in in time for a November uh ballot uh cycle. And just noting lastly that this is just the framework, right? And so if we received any service plan, any proposed metro district in the future, we would consider them individually and council would have a chance, staff would have a chance to analyze, council would have a chance to consider them individually. Having a framework in place does not bind you to approve future proposed

[129:00] metro districts. This merely sets the ground rules. Okay, that is the end of the presentation. happy to take council questions that I will definitely punt over to Dalton. >> Thanks so much for that, Mark. Uh questions for staff. I got Tina. >> Hey, thank you. Um so I just had a one general question. There are several um parts in the presentation that refer to a future property owner, a resident or a taxpayer. In this case, we're looking at something that's 90% commercial. Are we just then referring to the 10% that would be more of a property owner residential and then how would we refer to that commercial uh whether it's a renter or other relationship or lease lei? >> Yeah, it's a good question. Feel free to chime in. I so we are talking about property owners commercial may be a little different. I I think you could

[130:00] anticipate different property ownership over time. It's hard to know at the outset if they will all be kind of developerowned in in the long term. Um, so there are still potential different tenants um or different property owners. Um, I I believe representation on the board is limited to property owners, but I'd have to double check that. >> Yeah, to be a eligible elector and to be able to sit on the board, um, you have to own property or um, be a resident. And so being a business leie for this type of district doesn't get you um the ability to sit on the board different with some other types of entities that were highlighted. Um a lot of the protections that you see in other communities are very much concerned with residential and less with commercial. And so with any portion of residential, and that's part of the policy framework if we're going to have any portion of residential, we're making sure that um we have um those protections in place that do go down to residents. And so

[131:00] that's as we were referring to some of these limits, that's what we're thinking about. Um there are definitely pieces that are um important for other end users. So typically in a service plan, we define an enduser as anyone who is not um who is meant to be burdened by the future taxation. And so that would sweep in anybody who is um kind of on the commercial. And where we see that boil down more um so is thoughts on things like fee limitations. If there's something we think is an appropriate fee for maybe a builder to pay and we're okay with that, they're not an enduser versus something that we think is not okay to pass down to your future um tenant there. And so that's the distinction. And so part of what what we have listed here is as owners, we're thinking of that limited pool of um mostly residential if you have it. But some of these concepts will be important for uh commercial end users as well, just to make sure if we have policy direction on who gets burdened or who does not get burdened that we define

[132:00] that. Oh, and I'm Dalton Kelly with Butler Snow. Sorry. um we are serving as outside council to the city in connection with the model service plan. >> So then if um so if the project presented were 0% residential would we look at some of these attributes differently? >> I to some extent that that really is just a policy question on on how you feel um if there are certain things that you feel differently about. I think the big distinction that we usually see between commercial and residential is commercial has a couple things that make it different. Um we typically think there's a or most communities there's a level of sophistication I think that comes through with business owners that may not necessarily be your typical home buyer. The other thing with businesses is even if they didn't understand the additional um taxes that come with the metro district, they have the ability to pass down costs they incur to customers. whereas um residents do not. And so I

[133:02] think there are some some differences between commercial users versus residential. But as a policy matter, I think it's really for this council to decide what sort of um layers of protection do we need if it is solely commercial versus what layers of protection do we need if there is residential and is there a distinction is is a question. Um generally with residential there's a lot more uh additional disclosure on what the additional taxation could be on your home. um things that are hopefully getting to people before they're sitting at the closing table. Um commercial maybe um less um less of a concern, but really kind of your guys' thoughts on that. >> Okay. And then um let's say that like and this is just a broad question. If we charge a fee like a lodging fee or a fee for a ticket sale, would those fees automatically take place to this into in this metro district as well? So yes, city fees would apply um on a

[134:02] city-wide basis unless you're just charging for like parking in one area. Any fees that the metro district has are on top of city fees. And so that's the I think the one thing to know. Any taxes are on top of city, county, school district taxes. Any fees are on top of any fees levied by any other governmental entity. So this is still property within the city. It just happens to be within a special taxing district as well. So, it's it's all layers. >> Okay. I just have two more. Um, one is if the metro district creates more traffic and congestion, vehicular traffic in particular than anticipated, is there a way that that could be inserted into the service plan is something that could be remedied? >> Yeah. Yeah, that's a that's kind of the the start of um we have some communities um do um require an additional mill levy to be levied by the metro district which is um meant to defay the cost of

[135:02] regional improvements. Um and so as we're as you're thinking through um what what is basically being caused by the development as a starter you still have all the typical fees. So you would get your impact fees, anything else associated with the development, there'd be the metro district then um taking on the improvements um that that they're required to um under um development approvals. if if you're from a city perspective and this somewhat is kind of the underestimate ide issue that you're bringing up and some of this is the long-term maintenance idea down the line and so it has become more common across the metro area to say there's one two three up to I've seen five mills be levied by the metro district that is then contributed to the city um or a separate entity for regional improvements or ongoing maintenance of certain improvements and so that is a way to um on the front end think about

[136:00] capital once they have assessed value. If there's additional improvements that need to be done um those mills um and the revenue generated is then uh available for the city to um make the improvements or maybe collaborate with the district to make improvements. And then on the ongoing maintenance side and I know that's um that's a topic that Mark um highlighted as well. um kind of this idea of oh thank you for building all this brand new infrastructure and then dedicating it to us and now we have more of a liability on our book with no new revenue. Um and so thinking of um just as a policy matter um for what period do you continue to localize that tax for those improvements um on an ongoing basis if the city is now responsible for O andM and so that's um another thing we could take policy direction on is we like the concept of a regional improvement mill levy or um a regional improvement mill levy that's both for capital and on&m down the line and then um what additional tax burden is does that add when we're talking about a tax, how does that fit in? Um

[137:01] and then um the parameters around that um really just from a legal perspective, it you would if you do receive that money, it is for improvements that benefit those taxpayers. And so that's something to keep in mind as well. >> Team, do you mind if I follow up on that? I think there was a yes and no or no question in there, which was if there's more traffic than expected, can you charge them for it? So, we can't go back in and change a couple things. Um, so once you approve the service plan, you can't go force a service plan amendment to say you need to go raise your mill levy. There's also they have their voter approval and it's all subject to whatever their voter approval says. Um, basically at that point you would be left with the normal tools that you have for a um a land use matter. So, if somebody without a metro district causes more traffic, do you have tools to charge them more? So the answer is no. >> So no. >> Okay. Answer is no. Great. Tina, good. >> And then the last one is um is it common for commercial metro districts um to

[138:03] dissolve over time? Are they do they tend to exist through the buildout and then do they end them? >> So and some of this just comes on time horizon. Metro districts do dissolve when they are are done with their purpose. The big question is is there any ongoing um operation and maintenance? If not, when the debt pays off, there's typically a tra a trigger in the service plan that says when the debt pays off, um you need to go dissolve. Um or um another trigger that is if they basically have issued all their debt the city council and this comes back to periodic review if they've accomplished their purpose if they've issued the debt and there's no ongoing on and m and really the only purpose for the district to still exist is to levy the mill levy they can dissolve but for the purpose of existing to levy the mill levy and so that extra layer of governance isn't there and so yes they do dissolve we have seen them dissolve we've seen them consolidate as as buildout has happened over time. Part of

[139:01] the question there is, do you have a trigger built into your service plan to say you must go dissolve? Um, and it'll be on an individual level whether um you put O andM responsibility on anyone, but as a starting policy matter of generally speaking, we do or don't pass on uh the responsibility to continue to operate improvements is is starting your starting point on whether they will dissolve down the line. >> All right. Thanks, We got Matt, Mark, and Nicole. >> Wonderful. Uh, thank you for those responses, Tina. Those are good questions. Um, I have a few questions, and this one is more of just a a level set in in here. Uh, because we're used to very we're used to quasi judicial um, actions, but it says in the memo that this uh, would be a quasi legislative. And so, I think it might be helpful for us and others listening the difference between those two. Um, so maybe that's a question for Teresa to just sort of levy what the difference or whoever on what the difference between a quasi legislative versus quasi judicial

[140:01] process is. >> Yeah. So there is a um there's actually a Colorado Supreme Court case that teased apart um this issue on um service plan approval. So quasi judicial um is really it comes down to um certain rights for um an individual applicant. There's notice, there's public hearing requirements. Um you guys are familiar with land use exparte con uh contacts and all of those things come in and it really um the the process is that of of individual rights being basically quasi adjudicated. Um, quasi legislative is this is more of a policy matter. And so when the Colorado Supreme Court was looking at this, this is really a policy matter of how service is provided within the city. And this is the creation of a mu quasi municipal entity to do uh that. And um even with the Special District Act being um amended in 1985, the

[141:00] General Assembly still only requires um certain process from counties um as far as that goes, as far as public hearings, as far as certain timelines. And so there's quite a bit of discretion that is left with the city council as far as process goes, as far as how you are going to um do public hearings, notice, those types of things. And so the real difference is what kind of process is owed. Um that's the biggest thing. And then on your decisions with this being a quasi legislative matter, it's more policy based than adj essentially adjudicating based off a standard um in front of you. >> Wonderful. So not a not a criteria based decision but but more subjective in that nature. >> A little bit more subjective and really reasonleness is the outside bounds. >> Great. Thank you for that. Um, another question I have is sort of regarding the um, operations um, and maintenance portion where we talk about maybe having a combined where we have like five to recommended 5 to 20 mills for maybe operations and maintenance. Well, as the city well knows operations and

[142:00] maintenance can get more expensive than you forecast. And so I'm wondering why we would cap them on operations and maintenance uh, knowing we know that they tend to be way more expensive than we originally forecast in certain ways. So why why would we why would we hamstring the operational or maintenance aspect versus just focus on the debt and separate that out? >> It's it's control of maximum mill levy. And so as you've highlighted, the city has to work within a cap and the city has to make choices and has to budget and they can't just charge everybody what they want to for operation and maintenance. This is long-term protection of whoever those taxpayers are in the metro district. It could be unlimited and there are service plans out there that allow unlimited operation and maintenance. If that were the case, I would suggest being very specific about what you mean by operation and maintenance. There's also a question of what are they operating and maintaining um if all improvements or most improvements are dedicated to the city. um what we have seen in recent years um so the standards kind of 10 um across

[143:00] the metro area at least and there has been some feedback at some city council meetings that 10's just not getting it done with rising costs um but a service plan amendment is always available and so um I would say starting with the cap is is good policy to make sure you are building a box that you feel like is reasonable for overall tax burden um and they always have the ability to come back and justify why they need more But um you would have the ability to for anyone that's approached uh you know coming to you say look there's a cap on this they can't just charge you whatever they want because they they have to and it protects against the non-built out district a little bit more. Um if you get less users but you have all the or less um taxpayers but you still built all the improvements I'm not going to go then put 80 mills on the three people that showed up. So there's a there's a mechanisms that if it's inadequate, they could come back and then we become a check and balance on that in sort of a renegotiation of what that could be at a later date should that issue arise.

[144:00] >> Absolutely. They're they're welcome to approach you with the service plan amendment at any time. >> Okay. Um got two more questions. Last one has to do with sort of uh amend sort of the amendment oversight aspect. Is it within the service area plan that we define those parameters of what that oversight or audit would be and those conditions? You know, like one piece is like unauthorized material modification. What who knows what that is, right? That is extremely vague. But when we really list that out, is that done so in the service area plan in detail or is it done here in this sort of guiding ordinance? So um you can have some in your ordinance but really um the best place for it is in the service plan for the individual districts. So the concept of a material modification is in title 32 and it is that change of a basic or um basic or essential nature. So it really is not helpful. Um and so um over time it has become practice to at least highlight a couple things that this is

[145:00] definitely a material modification you need to come back for. you still have that squishy standard of if they're doing something that's not quite in the plan, you would have the ability to enjoin it. But for um for the city to establish your legal rights, like if you said 50 mills is your cap and they levy 52 or going to levy 52, you could go and join it. So defining some of those, but you would put it in the service plan since it is a modification of that district specific service plan. >> Great. That that I appreciate that. My last question is more of just process. Um, you know, obviously here we're we're giving recommendations which will lead to a structured ordinance um, as Mark laid out. Once we do that and knowing that that's going to come back in a few months, is is there a process that once we kind of flush this out a little bit that um, staff will go back into community and talk to developers who either have or or expressed interest or not just to kind of get that collaborative feedback because we obviously want to make sure we don't do something that makes some of these projects potentially never pencil out because then we've created an ordinance that serves no purpose. So, so I just want to make sure is that there that

[146:00] process and then that may re be refinement that then comes back to us and then we have something more finalized. >> Yeah, I can take that. We're not trying to do work for work's sake. Uh so we do want to make sure that um you know anything put in place especially from um looking at the commercial u focused districts does have some value to to the private marketplace. Um we did hear council at the last November meeting um talk about some type of outreach. Um I I think frankly that'll be limited. I mean certainly a little bit easier to try to define some of our local developers and get some feedback on um where we're at with a an ordinance and a and a model service plan. Um beyond kind of having some of those individual conversations, I would say our our level of engagement will be light just given the timeline, but um we do plan to at least have some of those conversations. Great. Appreciate. Thanks. That's it for me. Thank you. And the one thing I would add on that is what we've seen some other communities do just to so that the community can get their eyes on the plan

[147:00] if they want is once we have a draft that we've worked through with Teresa's office and the city manager's office to make sure we're comfortable maybe we've um presented it to you as well for initial feedback to then post on your website and say look we're going to consider this here in a couple weeks please provide your feedback now or when we come to um consider it. Um, and we've seen some some community members start chiming in then either from the development community or or anyone else. So, that's another option is if you're not going to do directly pointed um um engagement with anyone. >> Got Mark then Nicole and Ryan. >> Really just uh one one question. Um I believe you said this. I just want to confirm that the uh the mill levy for the district is additive to existing uh tax burdens. >> Yes, that is correct. It's um functionally if you want to think about

[148:00] it, the county has their levy, you have your levy. This is another government that has their levy. So, it all stacks up. Have we done any analysis to compare the anticipated tax burden on businesses with the tax burden on businesses in other front range communities? Just how aggressive are we being? How uh how much will our total tax burden be relative to the tax burdens that are imposed by uh other front- range communities? Do we have any sense of that at all? >> I I don't off the top of my head. We have not done that level of analysis. I I can say that um our total uh our total mill levy as a city with all of our taxing entities. They're not far off from some of our other metro area municipalities. So I think when you think of some of these standard mil levy

[149:00] caps in those metro districts likely you're seeing kind of a total debt burden or a total tax burden similar. Um we could do some analysis to just look at that I think on the the impact on the the actual any proposed development may come at a later stage if a service plan is proposed. We can do that level of analysis. um just on kind of a a cursory glance, we could we could look at some of the total tax burden in other municipalities. >> I'm really asking on a on a more cursory basis. I'm not trying to great >> create a homework assignment. Um but it would be nice to know as a matter of uh economic vitality and competitiveness. Um what are we uh asking our businesses to pay relative to what other communities are asking their businesses to pay? Um because it's a again it's a function of how competitive are we with the rest of the market. >> Makes sense. >> So that would be an interesting thing to know

[150:00] >> and we'll advertise that still 13 cents of every property tax dollar that our residents pay is the city everybody. >> No and >> budget officer >> I can't you can't >> you know um so that that would that would be interesting for me to know. Um uh and so if you can provide that that would be useful. >> Okay, point taken. Good enough. >> Right. I got Nicole, then Ryan, then Rob. >> Yeah, thanks um first of all for the presentation and all the analysis has got gone into this. Um the memo noted using the racial equity instrument during consideration of metro districts to help ensure anti-displacement strategies. um is this use going to be required for metro district applications or was that just sort of a a statement of our current um practice on major decisions? Um and if it's not explicitly required, should it be? >> Appreciate the question. So the um the

[151:00] reference in uh the memo is to the staff analysis. So staff would be um looking to utilize the instrument in consideration of any uh metro district applications that do come in. um that wouldn't be a requirement on on the applicant um but something that we would certainly want to do with every application that comes in. >> Cool. Thank you. Um and then is there any benefit to considering a riskbased audit schedule? Um for example, could districts with higher debt loads or longer timelines benefit from a shorter audit cycle than the proposed 5 to 10 years? Um, basically just are there any characteristics that would make a district higher risk than others that might benefit from a shorter cycle? >> I might kick that over to you, Dom. >> Yeah. Um, I that's it's a great question and the general life cycle and um I would say the way most metro districts are are used um at least right now in Colorado is it is um either for redevelopment or new development of of

[152:00] dirt. And so the early years are the years where they're most at risk. And so when they issue bonds, they are already going to have to give quarterly reports to the market about what's going on with development, about how they're keeping up. And so I my suggestion on that would be um if there is a high-risisk period, it's usually in the first I would say three to five years and then past that. It's kind of like a housing project. If you hit stabilization, then you're you're kind of running at that point. Assess values, assess value, and things are are going forward. Um but it is not uncommon. It's what the market demands of of a dirt district is is that they're given quarterly reports and things like that. Um, some of the things on reports and and this is just something to to think about is we can get really great information on are you tracking your financial plan? How are things keeping up? Um, the question becomes what can we do with this information? Because the bond holders took the risk on the metro district debt. The city's not responsible for it. Once the bonds are out, we can't invalidate them. can't

[153:00] tell them they can't levy their mil levy. And so I think the piece on that would be are we using it as a tool to learn for future approvals? Are we using it as a tool to see what's going on? And maybe you're going to try to intervene by helping them market, but what is the purpose of it past that? But very direct answer to your question is yes, there is higher risk. It's usually at the beginning of the life cycle and then it kind of down the line um starts to level out and be less of a concern. Um, so I I guess are are you saying that there's enough sort of other reporting mechanisms and things in those for a few years that it doesn't seem like it's worth um monitoring those a little more closely than than future years? >> Well, it yes, to some extent, but it depends on what information you want to the city and for your own purposes versus um so um as far as what they're giving to the market, that's going to be a requirement under their bond documents. If you want that same information, you're not asking them to spend any more money to create anything new. it's just saying, "Hey, can you also provide your uh continuing

[154:01] disclosure to us?" Um, and so that would be something that I think is reasonable. At the end of the day, it's not costing more money, which ultimately does get paid by whoever's in the district. And so I think that that that would make a lot of sense to say if you're giving a report to the market, we also want it um on top of your annual report. That's something that you can do just to collect your information and make sure you're on top of it. [snorts] Um, if you want anything additional to that, I um, we would just need to make sure we are baking that into the service plan. And so I know of one in particular in Northern Colorado where there was a history with this developer and past development and not going to go through the whole Greek tragedy of it, but they were very interested where the dollars went, when they were spent, and how they're So you would just bake that into the service plan and then set your timing on it. Once you're at the five-year point, and this is built into the statute, we talked about it last time. there is this opportunity for the quinnquial review which is really your guys's check-in on how they're doing and you can actually tell them no more issuing debt. Um and so I think setting

[155:01] up that timeline so that you actually can use that tool is important. What you want between those periods is is really in your discretion. Once the district is established, we will have created a new government entity whose existence is protected by the state. Uh it it lives within Boulder, but it will have its own standing as a special district, I suppose, like like a transit district or a school district in a way. And I'm wondering if staff has considered the potential for unintended consequences around our work in intergovernmental affairs such that we there could now be a new government entity that's conflicting with diluting um competing with what we are trying to do like you know in an intergovernmental sense like has this have we has this happened in other places that have developed um

[156:01] special districts within them and if so is there thing we should, you know, think about as we go forward. >> Yeah, I'll start and I don't know if there's other examples kind of from an intergovernmental standpoint. I this is I would say one tool and ultimately at council's discretion even with an ordinance in place that allows them. Um, not every uh type of project uh will need a metro district will be appropriate for a metro district. That's where some of these other tools come into play. um urban renewal, downtown development authority, um even looking at the use of our general improvement district. So, it really just depends. Um you know, I I think with um with metro districts, the scope of them setting that as a part of the initial service plan is a really important component of that as well and can help kind of I think get out in front of some of those potential conflicts. Um certainly you all and through the review process and

[157:00] and the annual review process um staff has a component of this as well to maintain really positive relationships with um any metro district that is established to to ensure that um component going forward. But ultimately it's at council's discretion as to whe whether to allow them and and under what circumstances. And what I'll add to that is usually there's a limitation in the service plan about you can't compete with us for go grants or anything else that we can get unless we give you consent. And so you can um limit them from competing with you directly for other funding sources. Um the other part of this is um gets down to what services do you allow them to provide on an ongoing basis versus just being a financing tool. if they issue bonds, build infrastructure, and then dedicate it as they're required to, there's not much competition on an ongoing basis. They're not going to be providing, you know, fire service that um is now um getting in the way of of of

[158:00] your um service. So, it really gets down to are they going to be as mature and operate as many things as Highlands Ranch Metropolitan District, who you know is basically a city or a town, you know, here in Colorado, but that is a metro district. Highlands ranches rather than being a statutory town or city. Um and so at that point they're more of a full-fledged government or there's more your districts that just finance infrastructure um dedicate it and then pay bonds. But that's really their purpose. And so from your discretion, if there's some concern about ongoing governance and how they're interacting with the county or some of your neighbors, you you would you can limit that. I also see limitations on um entering into intergovernmental agreements with other districts or anyone without additional approval. Um and so there's some um some thought process there to make sure if you want some oversight on on who they're agreeing with and why. Um that's something you can can um definitely put into the service plan as well. >> Okay. So let me just try this slightly

[159:00] more specific. >> Thank you. Let me just Thank you. Let me just focus it a little bit. So I'm just imagining and this is totally hypothetical but we have business with the state legislature through our policy statement uh work we are trying to advance there. Um also we have um a relationship with RTD and we have an interest in level certain levels of service and other matters with RTD Excel similarly right we've got a relationship with them things you're trying to do. So I'm I'm just trying to imagine can you envision or has there been an example you that we know of of another place another city that has a special district that is you know going to those same types of relationships and saying well actually we have a different take on things and and if and maybe this is just too hypothetical and it's hard to say but I suppose I'm getting at like is there some governance here we should be thinking about that is a non-compete from a policy advocacy or a relational standpoint like that And and what I

[160:02] might say is when you answer that to confine it to the types of districts we're thinking about like Highlands Ranch is not what we're talking about at all. Right. Right. So just within what we're envisioning here please. >> Yeah. I I mean council member I think that what you're asking about is sort of the conflict between having multiple quasi governmental or governmental entities within one jurisdiction. So, you know, that's certainly a a an issue we face now with things like the library district u or the county. Um it is part of the policy decision that this body is making about whether you want to because this is permissive, right? So whether whether you want to allow another quasi governmental entity like a metro district to exist. Uh, and I I welcome Dalton's thoughts on this as well.

[161:00] >> And there are special district advocacy groups that are at the state legislature and metro districts um and the community bring their concerns to them and they might have different um opinions than you do on certain things. um have to think through the ability to tell them that they can't compete because that implicates a lot of things all the way down from um yeah free speech and and their ability to to um advocate. Um kind of interesting, but there is that possibility. They do have their own advocacy groups. They go to the legislature with their own concerns and so that that does exist and it happens every year. >> Thank you. Then I'll just leave it at it would be interesting to hear if you have any further thinking on this that that there's measures or I don't know things that we should do to just make sure our interests are protected as much as possible in this regard. Thanks. >> I just have a quick sample question. I don't need a elaborate answer. I'm just

[162:01] curious in the uh community engagement. Um it's with it only singles out local developers are like debt issuers or banks or anybody that issues bonds or would they be part of it or somebody that I'm missing or clearly not missing? >> Uh certainly council member we could uh expand uh the the engagement. And I will say that um we are working against a shot clock, if you will. And so um I the the conversation we had in November was really limited to local developers just because frankly it's easy to get a hold of folks that are doing business in our community and to try to get that level of feedback. Um we have been um sorry to put this on you Dalton, but we have been relying on outside council that has a lot of experience in metro districts to provide some of the other context. um that that's what we've been leaning on at the discretion of council. Certainly, if if broader engagement is desired, um we we will have to talk about that timeline if that is is desired.

[163:01] >> I just wanted to highlight that that timeline then becomes a conversation for a trade-off. >> It does. >> Tina, you had a followup. >> Yeah, just a quick question. If there if part of the 10% of the residential is affordable housing, are there um is do you typically limit the types of fees or increases in mill levy that are on the affordable units in particular or they usually exempt in these kind of districts. >> So you can't um have a different mill levy. There's a uniform mill levy requirement. So if affordable housing is in the district, it pays the same mill as everyone else. And so often use of metro districts a little uh in congruent with affordable housing. What we usually see is if it's ran by a nonprofit agency, they don't pay taxes. So you don't care if they're in the district or not. If is going to be affordable housing. Um and this gets to the point on exclusion of residential from the district. Could the better way of doing it would be to exclude that property from the district. U metro districts can

[164:00] provide service within the district or outside of the district. Um usually in the service plan we limit their ability to provide services outside of the district to what the service plan allows or an intergovernmental agreement or other city approvals. And so you would allow them to do the improvements necessary for the affordable housing but keep them out of the district which would make sure that they're not subject to the mill levy or any fees. And so that's the way to get affordable housing the benefit without the burden. >> And when we say out of the district, does it need to be geographically or can it just be through language so that they're not segregated physically from non-affordable housing? >> Yeah, it's it's an exclusion. So if you have a separate um property interest and so there are some metro districts that you got commercial on the bottom, residential on the top, they exist in different metro districts even though they are in one building. And so it is it doesn't have to be in physical space that they're excluded. It can be do you

[165:00] have a separate legal that can be excluded as a property owner and interest. Thanks for that. All right, looks like we've worked through our questions. So um the question for us is does city council have feedback on the recommended policy approach within the key policy issues to regulate the creation of metropolitan districts within the boundaries of the city of Boulder? And um what I would like to say is to start from an assumption that we think all of staff's recommendations are totally fantastic. So if you want to throw in any comments on on top of that or disagree with that, that's uh your prerogative. Terra, >> well, you stole my thunder because I was going to say I read it and I love the whole thing just as it is. So I hope other people agree with me. >> I'm going to be mad. >> Yes, Taisha. [laughter] Sorry, we moved to uh to the past the questions pretty fast. Um it's it's not so much a feedback on the policy approach. It's still just not having a good grasp of all the districts and stuff that we have. You know what I

[166:00] mean? just really struggling with the overlap of how does this impact the other the hill one the other one the one that's downtown the I'm just I'm just wondering how does this interact with the other specialty districtesque things that we have what's the oversight who you know how are those going so again I I too read the packet I appreciated the feedback but again it was in isolation and I just am curious it just raised my curiosity about what is the status of the others, how well did any of them meet any of the concerns or you know that were raised here thus far in their implementation. Again, I know this one is different, but I would imagine there are some elements that are similar. Um, and then just in the amount of funds that can be raised and that's goes back to just the geographic places and if there's overlap, how does that work? Thank you.

[167:00] Did you want to maybe just respond, Mark? Because I >> Yeah, you want to come back? >> I can provide more detail later. The short answer is um it's absolutely a part of how we're looking at all of these tools in conjunction with one another. Certainly, if a metro if the metro districts were allowed and we were looking at one that happens to be within the future downtown development authority on top of a bid t I mean that would be something we would be looking at for total tax burden, right? um we will have the ability with all of these tools in place to to look at the appropriateness of each tool based on what the need is for any type of redevelopment opportunity or business support or whatever. And so right now we're just trying to add tools to the toolbox in general, how we use those tools, when we use those tools, that as a part of this process right now. It's a part of um the downtown development authority process which is continuing that you'll see in March. So all of these are intended to work together, but for now we are still in the process of building out our our toolbox if that

[168:01] makes sense. >> Anything else? I got Mark and then Tina. >> Um you have described a number of protective measures that could be incorporated. Um, I'm prepared to support the formation of a metropolitan district provided it contains maximum protection for the city of Boulder. um a minimal amount of discretion uh for the district itself and the maximum control permitted under law for Boulder in connection with uh the operation uh and the ultimate um uh the ultimate disposition of the district uh if it pays off its

[169:01] debt. So, >> okay. Noted, Tina. >> Yeah. Um this was great learning. I'm continuing to learn more about the metro districts and I think this policy approach is um good. The the one thing is um I I also want these protections, but I also want to make sure we're using this tool in a way that makes the project successful. So that if we get to a point where it goes to 0% residential because we're here to support these these ideas and these new ventures and in part to add vibrancy to our city. Um and if if it if it's at 0% residential, which I don't anticipate, I have no reason to believe so, it may be that we look at some of these um criteria differently in the contract. um if the person doing the district thinks that that would be uh helpful for the viability of their businesses.

[170:02] >> Thanks for that. Anything else, Nicole? Um, yeah, I think if if there is a way to incorporate uh an aspect of um getting more information that they're already collecting early on in those first years, um that that could potentially be helpful just to be just monitoring it a little more closely um during the the riskier time. >> I appreciate the extensive work the staff's done here. I think it's fantastic in the short time that we've offered and Dalton, thanks for your expertise um and helping shape this. Um, the only thing I'll add is when we go back and once we have, you know, I I get a sense that generally we're going to like what staff's done here and we're going to send that forward. You just, you know, just ground truth that with some folks in our development community to make sure that what we're doing here allows whatever may be out there to pencil into work. I'd hate to create an ordinance that creates things that are just non-tenable because then we've just wasted everybody's time. So coming back to us and just knowing if there's any tweaks or modifications that need to make just so that we can make both entities whole and and and worthwhile

[171:01] would be really helpful in the next round. Appreciate it. >> Great. Um not seeing any other hands. I'll just call myself real quick and say you've been working on an expedited timeline at our direction. I greatly appreciate that and appreciate how you brought this very detailed analysis forward. These do need careful guardrails and I can tell that you're thinking about it that way and it seems like your recommendations are going to incorporate those guardrails. So appreciate all that work and looking forward to the next steps. Do you need anything else from us? >> Okay. And Dalton, thanks for joining us and for your help. >> Do we need to straw or do we need to affirm we want to move this forward? >> No. >> Affirm. >> Yeah. You you are affirmed. >> The spirit of affirmation is filling chambers. >> Okay. Well, that was our last agenda item, but we do have one more quick thing as I mentioned. Um, so don't get up quite yet. So, um, the Boulder County Elected

[172:01] Officials Regional Working Group on Homelessness has a very long name and it also has a vacancy. Um, Lauren Folkart served on this. Um, and uh, Tara has been the alternate. Tara's not interested in becoming the permanent representative. Would anyone like to volunteer uh, for this board? I got three. I got Matt, Mark, and Tina. >> Steel cage. >> Do you want to could do like a a quick >> Yeah, quick wrestling match out in front. Do the >> Tina volunteers to go to alternate. So Matt and Mark just need to thumb wrestle. >> But if maybe the if the two of you could talk offline maybe and then let us know the results of your discussion. >> Sure. Okay, [laughter] >> we are we already know that Matt can't catch mice that are released into chamber. So, Mark, we don't know.

[173:03] All right. Thanks for your willingness, uh, folks, to step up and we'll wait to hear back the results of those conversations. Um, and once that's known, we'll get that appointment done under consent, but whoever, um, uh, does volunteer could go to the next meeting gets before then. All right. So, that brings us to 100% to the end of our agenda. Did anybody have any final thoughts before I close this out? Seeing none, I will go ahead and gave us 48 p.m. which is an hour and 7 minutes early.