December 10, 2025 — Design Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] Advisory Board. And I call this meeting to order. Okay? So we're trying something a little new this time. I made these slides to help us run through the meeting smoothly, so we're gonna use this like a little practice run, since we don't have a project this evening. Here's our agenda for the night. I'm gonna read through some rules of decorum and participation instructions. As with every night, we're gonna try our best to stay on time, and I see Rory's here. So, hi Rory, I'm promoting you, give it a moment. It'll let you through. Should we do the… should we do the roll call while we're… Yeah. Following our new… And we're all here. Yeah, let's do it. Alright, Brenda Nash? Dad? Don't worry below, Deb. Steven Eckert Dabb?

[1:01] Matthew Schechsneiner, Dapp. Thanks. So here's our agenda for the evening. I'm gonna hop right into Rules of Decorum, we don't have anyone listening in tonight, but I don't know, maybe I'll just read them anyway. We have developed these, public participation rules of decorum for city meetings, We have engaged with the community to co-create a vision for productive, meaningful, and inclusive civic conversations. This vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members, staff, and board, and commission members, as well as democracy for people of all ages, identities. lived experiences and political perspectives. We have more information about these rules on our website. The following are examples of rules of decorum found in the Boulder Revised Code and other guidelines that support this vision. These will be upheld during the meeting. All remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city business. No participant shall make threats or use other form of intimidation against any person. Obscenity, racial epithets, and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability to conduct the meeting are prohibited.

[2:14] And participants are required to identify themselves using the name they're commonly known by, and individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online. Currently, only audio testimony is permitted online. I'm gonna move through these slides, we don't have anyone listening in. And we can move right into approval of the minutes. Oh, Brendan's muted. I, I motion, or move to… to approve the meeting minutes from our meeting, in November,

[3:09] Anybody? I second. Check it out. Thank you. This would be the portion of the evening where we would open it up to public participation for general comments. Again, I'm not seeing anyone in the attendees, so I'm gonna keep moving forward. Like, did we actually vote? Did you get a vote on the… Oh, was that… Was that… We had a second, and then, a vote. Aye in favor, or nay? Oh, sorry about that. All in favor? Bye. Bye. Great! Okay. Moving on. Again, no projects this evening, so we'll go right into talking about our letter to Council. I'm gonna put up a timer. We're having some…

[4:03] technical difficulties, so I have a… I have a one-hour count-up timer. It'll go up from zero up to an hour, and then at that point, we can pause, and I'll reset it, but just to help us keep on track for our discussion this evening. Whoa. Do you want me to give a little, just, synopsis of what I was trying to get at in the letter or not? . Yeah, maybe, yeah, if you could… if you could start, like. Yeah. get everybody up… well, I mean, I think everybody's kind of up to speed on where we… where we started and what our… our original goals are, and then… Passes. Yes. of yours. Yeah, so we. We focused on… Strategy 15, because the Council's trying to find things… I wouldn't say it's low-hanging fruit, but things that they can accomplish this year.

[5:03] And so we focused on Strategy 15 and, kind of 3 things that… were outlined in that. I did get a chance to meet with Aaron Brockett, which was… Fun to have lunch with him, and he was laughing how Jameson's old letter was, like… it's, like, famous in the lore of, Board letters, so that was the one that's, like, if you guys read the old ones, the, like, super salacious one. And he's like, oh yeah, that's the one we all remember, like, among all the boards, not even just DAB. So, and I said, that's not, like, that we should write a letter like that. But, you know, I mean, it's sort of like, you gotta get their attention, you know, is a little bit of the point. But he did say, you know, we should throw out some ideas, you know, and, like, what we think…

[6:03] You know, we might be able to… do, or if we want to tweak things, or expand our role, whatever that might be, that, you know, there's no reason not to… put that in there. So, hopefully Amelia and Kalani won't hate me too much, but I kind of focus a little bit on, like, hey, you know, like. The city's got a bad reputation, and what can we all do to, like. you know, get on the same team, same page, or have a… I just feel like a sense of that, and so that's kind of what I was… Getting at, kind of, the gist of the letter, like, hey, how can we all work together, and… You know, some… a lot of their goals is to expedite. Things, you know, what could that look like? And then, you know, like, what could our role be in… Helping them figure that out, might be an interesting… route to go.

[7:04] Yeah, so that's kind of what I, you know, the way I wrote it. you know, definitely not married to anything in that letter. what else can I say? I was thinking about it earlier today, I'm like, oh, you know, one thing we… I didn't mention there that's probably, like, the obvious thing is, like. Do we… are there any of the design guidelines that we, you know, are charged with, sort of, looking at that we think are, you know, should be revisited. I mean, that seems like an obvious place, right, where we could, you know, if there's something that's… keeps coming up in our meetings, it's like, you know. People are… it's hard to satisfy this, or it's not… relevant anymore, or something. You know, maybe this would be… that could… that could be something we could offer to do, like… You know, help to tweak those guidelines. I did bring up a little bit about seeing things earlier, I don't, you know…

[8:05] know how we might do that. I kind of thought maybe if it was, like, a voluntary thing where people wanted to… Get some feedback before they submitted. Why not? You know, the danger in that is that it's a little bit half-baked, and so we don't necessarily, you know, we might say things that sends them down the wrong road, but at the same time. you know, it seems like it's come up enough, it's like, oh, shoot, if we could have seen this earlier. And that's a pretty common theme amongst all those letters, if you read them, you know, like. How can we see this stuff earlier? Because, you know, if you're like me at all, it's always, like, I, like, cringe, because I'm like, I know how much time and effort it takes to do all this stuff, and then we're like, oh, just, you know. chop a floor, or, you know, do it, you know, it's sort of like, great. you know, so I feel for the design professionals, often, anyways… That's kind of…

[9:07] I think it was, you know, this is such a great opportunity for us as a board, where, our… our discussions are often pretty narrowly focused, and… and… Need to fall within and comply with the design guidelines and, you know, sort of the… there's a lot of guardrails around our discussion. And… and I think, like you said, there are often these parking lot issues that come up. And as design professionals, like, this is our chance to… to sort of jump over the rails and… And talk to City Council about things that we're, you know, finding in our discussions, but also just as design professionals in this community. In general, so I think it… I think it's a… I think it's a great… Opportunity and…

[10:03] Like you said, hopefully we… Don't… You know, I… Make enemies of… city staff, and… But… but yeah, I think… I think that… I think that this whole… the process in general needs… needs, to be streamlined, and there, you know, there are definitely problems within within the process of… of getting a permit and development and site review and, the time that it takes. And this is our… sort of our chance to, like, be not only just a part of the process, but, have… You know, have some suggestions, and… That, you know. May or not… may not be heard, but at least we've… Given our two cents. Right.

[11:01] Yeah, I think… paragraph number 2, recently overly cumbersome city processes, that whole paragraph is just fucking money. Like, nailed it, dude. As far as the obstructionist attitude, and… So, I think what's challenging, though. is, on the one hand, I think that's what we're all frustrated about, is, like, the cumbersome process, the obstructionist nature of it. I think, immediately, there's people… politics at play, where I think some people appreciate the obstructionists, so I think we have to be careful. structuring. Because, like, it wouldn't surprise me if there's an entire, sort of. backdoor meetings or tickets that people are running on that are basically, like, to slow down development. Sure. For the sake of just not allowing change to happen. But what else, I just think we need to be careful, and we talk about this often, from a contradiction standpoint, is here we are saying there's all this process, it takes too long, it's cumbersome and obstructionist, and then in the next sentence and priorities, we're saying, send more shit to Deb.

[12:05] So, like, I just want to point that out. Right, we just want to be benevolent dictators, right? Yeah, it's like… So, I think our answer to more… to less process is more dab process. Well, yeah, and I agree, like, in… . It's tough. Yeah. And, you know, I think the political thing is an interesting one, because… Yeah, there's people that are doing that, but there's also, like, Jesus, I mean, the state we're in in our whole country, is a lot of this, you know, frustration with… with government, right? And so then you… you know, then the… you know, you overreact to getting Trump in office, but that's, you know, and that's not what I'm saying, like, we should just… Throw out rules and do whatever, like, by any means, but… Like, how do we…

[13:00] I think you really drove it home, Steven, with the, like, what can we point to that no one can deny, and the commercial vacancies being, like, an embarrassment to, like, the cultural identity of Boulder, I think you just nailed it, right? It really is. I mean. Nobody can argue with that. Like, you guys, like, anyone can have any sort of obstructionist attitude or whatever, and say that it's better for the city because, you know, things were growing in ways that were unsustainable, and blah blah blah, and it's like, well, at the end of the day. We're missing out on sales revenue, on creating enjoyable experiences, and bringing people together in our most downtown heart of community spaces. Right. Yeah, and if there is, you know, if there is code in terms of energy efficiency, all this stuff, it's like, stuff sitting vacant is certainly not helping the environment. It's not like you're not heating these spaces, and… I mean, it's just bad, like, and… but I… Yeah, I mean, how could we… I don't know what Dabs… that one's interesting, because it's like, what could DAB do, besides point it out, but…

[14:02] I don't really know. But, like, it just seems like that one… They gotta get really creative, like, and… you know, I mean, there's… you think of certain kinds of stores, like… Vintage clothing stores, or… I don't know. I mean, if you just throw out restaurants and… Coffee shops and things that have, like, health concerns. Who cares if someone just goes in and has a, you know, a boutique, and they're, you know, young, and they want to, like. Paint the walls themselves, and get racks in there, and start trying to sell stuff, and then over… you know, get them in there right away, and then deal with lighting and the ADA bathroom, like. as they go, right? But… God, I mean, you could just… I mean, I don't know if any of you guys had a chance, I did put in there to go to the Roots Festival. That was the first one this year, but they basically just had all these music venues on Pearl Street.

[15:04] And it was awesome! You know, they just, like, all these, you know, different shops and stuff. You know, they're not zoned for, like. music venues, most of the… I mean, a lot of them were, but a lot of them weren't, you know? They were just like… but that was great, right? And it's like… Yup. That kind of stuff could happen, and… So I just, I kind of broke up that paragraph, you know, dad can, like, the dad can play an important role, and made that a third paragraph. I was thinking, at the end of that second paragraph, I know that this is, like, kind of my soap… my soapbox issue, but I just said that the, like, the lengthy and cumbersome process of Of, you know, going through site review or going through permit review. you know, means that only large, wealthy developers can afford to build in Boulder. And, you know, homeowners and, you know, small businesses.

[16:09] it becomes, like, inaccessible to them, because they're paying design professionals to walk them through this process. They're, you know, the architect's team of engineers or, you know, consultants. They're paying property taxes on vacant spaces. Often, the process takes so long that they're starting to pay rent. you know, on their… on their faces before they can even get in there. And I just think that there needs to be… so I, like, later on, when you sort of had our action points, I just… In the intro, thought it might be good to put sort of this… this process becomes inaccessible to… Yeah, that would be good. Well, and the… you know, I was thinking about… thinking about, like, the timing of when we see stuff. Some of it… some of the problem is, is that…

[17:04] site plan review, or tech docs, it's like… There is so much information that is required that is… can really be figured out much later. like, you can have well into DDs and figure out what's happening with the project, if it's going to be something that's appealing to everybody wants, without figuring out electric, great… I mean, there's stuff in there that is, like. way putting the cart before the horse. And it's just like, that stuff should happen after… you know, you've got approval for, sort of, entitlements, and you're, like, ready to go. It's like, okay, now we gotta figure out… really some technical things. It shouldn't drive the train, and it… you know, and it's much easier to… yes, there's some big things that might affect, like. You know, detention or something, but still… Like, it's, you know, and then you make changes, and you have to go through all of those things to get

[18:04] You know, to work, and it's just like, ugh. I mean, I'm working in municipalities all across the country, and… there are large cities that are turning around their… you know, first of all, they have options, a lot of them have options for, like, small projects, small TI project, fast track review. And then also, they're just regular review timelines are so much shorter that it just… it… I mean, it makes the Boulder's review time processed. like, a joke. I mean, it's… it's just too long. Right. You know? So I think, you know, if we're later on, if we were to put some, like, bullet points to that… Right. I would say, you know, just… Maybe creating, like, a fast track option, or, or just… you know.

[19:08] But figuring out a way to make the… the review… Oh, and I think… It's faster. I think the idea that we could be sort of like a focus group, you know, I thought. is interesting, you know, I thought would be interesting, you know, because we are, like, a little snapshot of The design community, and… You know, it's like… Use us to, like. figure some of these things out. I mean, one of the things that always kills me You get, you know, you get comments back. And you have to, you know, you answer, you address the comments, and you send it back. You know, there's all this time involved. And it's like, the times when I'm able to talk to somebody, and we just go through the comments, it's like, it cuts the time by weeks for both of us. And it just seems like that should be… required. You know, you submit comments back, you go over the comments with the applicant, one by one, and you come up with a solution together, not like you don't…

[20:04] Like, the idea… like, empower city… Employees to come up with solutions and offer solutions with us, you know? It's like, it's not that hard. But I think they're just so… I don't know what, like, why that's the case. If they're just terrified, or they're told it's, like, absolutely not, I don't know. It's really strange to me, but yeah, I have worked in other Miss Valleys where it's like, hey, let's figure this out, you know? What if you did that? What if… You know, this doesn't work, but this would work. Hey, I'm… I mean, you almost get the sense they're just trying to, like, kick it down the road, and I don't… maybe that's the political thing, you know, Rory, you're talking about, but… I don't… I mean, this is… there's always kind of a version of this in Boulder, at least in the, whatever, 10 years that I've seen, and… on the board, coming back to Jamison. I mean, when I came in, it was on the heels, so I always heard about it as, like, a past tense of his, like, big effort, Kalani, to… to really push, like, a form-based code or something, and apparently he, like, blood, sweat, and teared a bunch of shit, or at least from his perspective, he did.

[21:17] to, like, get some, you know, form-based code adopted and whatever, and then by the time it got through, in whatever capacity it was adopted or not, that it was just, like, a hollow shell of itself. And so when I met Jamison on the board, he was very, like… jaded and pissed off, and basically pretty unproductive with conversations of this nature. So I think… where I saw it go when he left is… and Matthew, you've been a part of these before, where, like. we tried to figure out, in writing in this letter, because that's our goal here, right? We've got an hour, or I have an hour till 5.30 with… and then childcare kicks in for me, but, we gotta figure out, like, what… so the immediate goal is, what are we submitting to them on paper here? And I think, Steven, you've done a great job, and we're very close, I would argue, and maybe we just need to debate what exactly makes it to the final cutting room floor here.

[22:12] But what Matthew and I have done in the past on previous letters is we've outlined, like, community benefits as, like, a strategy to allow… like, we kind of created this outline of, like, concrete ideas of… that we as DAB have. And I think in the past, one of the big ones we hung our hat on was, like. community benefits, quote-unquote, like, that definition of that. Absolutely. broadened, and should be allowed to lubricate and facilitate development in creative ways, whether that's faster, whether that's, you know, height taller, whether that's bigger, whatever. And that, you know, community benefit isn't just employee housing and cash in lieu. It could be a beautiful park, it could be good design if we could figure out how to quantify it, whatever. But I think what I'm curious, again, having seen a handful of these letters come through with zero acknowledgement, and then to hear them sort of, you know, tongue-in-cheek.

[23:06] acknowledge the most, sort of, like, fiery tongue version of the one that Jameson wrote, as, like, they reference it as almost lore, but never as useful piece of input or feedback to their system. So, like, it's just sort of continuing in my mind as an observationist, someone who's observed this letter process for 8 years or whatever. they're not building a whole lot of faith in the amount of effort that… like, I'm watching, Brendan, you have get excited and fired up about our opportunity here, and I want to also share that enthusiasm, but I feel like I've sort of… the wind is no longer in my sails, particularly for this letter exercise, given that the way that City Council basically crickets it. So, all new ones from… What? What if we just asked for a meeting? I mean. That's exactly where I was gonna go with it. Let's just have a fucking one-hour meeting, or hour and a half meeting with them. I mean, you know how many hours I have witnessed them spending on the war in the Middle East, and they won't sit and talk with us for an hour and a half?

[24:10] You nailed it, dude. We could sit here and come up with all this nice language and debate if it's AND, OR and a comma here or there, and just sit here and fucking type this up all for the next hour. Or, we could just say, hey. Dab would love to be… I think you nailed it. Dab's role could be an asset, you know, or whatever, and you should… reach out to us to schedule a time for us to open up a dialogue, because this fucking letter bullshit with the quail that's gonna pick it up and send it off to Hogwarts is a bunch of bullshit. Alani, you have your hand up. Yeah, it's just a friendly reminder, because we have to send this out, the video, to… and it's a public PG rating, and so we can't actually edit the swearing out because of the record, so if you guys don't mind.

[25:01] Sorry, I meant to start telling you. Appreciate it, so it'll save us some heartache on the… on the back end of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry about that. I'm fiery. I'm usually guilty of this. I acknowledge that there's… some deep feelings here, so… Alright, no more swearing. I mean, that's… you know, we can start this meeting of… like, do we even want to… do we want to take a vote again, and even write this letter? Or do… is the letter, you know. I mean, I… The DAB requests an hour, you know, meeting with City Council to… Have a dialogue. Our thoughts. I think. Right. I think the assignment is to write the letter, because it is for the record. I think the realistic snapshot is we shouldn't overestimate how valuable of a tool this is necessarily gonna be. It's sort of… it would be great as a memo for record that says, here's our stance once again.

[26:03] you know. Here, again, it overlaps with many of the things we've been saying comprehensively as a board over the last decade, to be honest. Not that I've been here for a decade, but… the, the same… Some of the same bullet points. seem to have been floating around prior to my experience on the board. So I think just keep… keeping perspective of what this really is, it's a little bit of a… here's your moment to, you know, put down a holder on the ante for this year. What's still important to you? And I think it just sits alone. If we want to embark on a more grandiose, Proposal to engage, you know, in another format. this letter's probably where you would write that for the record as well, I think. in an effort to kind of formalize our desire to have a more informative and thoughtful actual dialogue, and not like a one-way conversation. Which is what this is. This is a one-way exercise.

[27:12] you're not. We've never gotten any constructive feedback from any of these letters, ever. Ever. Not even a word. Not even a thank you for your letter. Maybe we do get a thank you, and I just didn't see it. Maybe we… I do, but it never led… it's never led to any meaningful dialogue due to the letter. Any meaningful dialogue would have to come from some other process that, you know, we… if we want to say, look, we've given many thoughts over the course of several years. Our thoughts this year are highly consistent with many of the strategies we've thought of before. This year, what we'd really like to is establish a process where we can sit down in front of the board. In some… either during normal course of… council meetings during the year, the first quarter, or we say we want to establish a quarterly or, you know, a once-annual

[28:06] Meeting in lieu of… Not in lieu of the letter, but… this letter just. Right. could be where we put something on paper that says, we need to do more. Our ideas of engagement entail more than just doing a letter. I think last year I felt pretty jaded about this, also, but this year I have this new enthusiasm and optimism because. Oh, good. the process is different. So, in the past, we just write the letter, and it goes to each of the council members, and they can't… they can't discuss it, because, you know, because it's an on meeting as record. And then they… they can't dedicate… they can't dedicate time to to read, you know, in one of their official meetings, every letter from every board. But this year, they're, you know, they're… they're addressing it at, you know, as a part of their retreat, and so I feel like it's gonna… it's gonna be seen

[29:08] you know, in a different way, and I, and I. Historically, it's always been a part of their retreat, though. So I don't know if last year was an anomaly, or the year before, but my recollection is that we are always preparing these. Kalani, correct me if I'm wrong, but historically, they've been in preparation for City Council's retreat. They have been in preparation for City Council's retreat on defining the work plan. It used to be a yearly, thing, and then they started going to a two-year work plan, so that's why it's every other year now. Got it. So you'll see this… and this is, part of a transition while they wanted a one-year period, is because they're doing… This and the election cycle's also changing over? So there… that's why it's a short project plus a kind of off… off-cycle letter, but… Right.

[30:00] My balance burst, so… My bubble. is now burst. Well, maybe they're gonna look at it more… Well, we've had other projects come forward, like, that became Council priorities, so the Design Excellence Initiative came out of the letter to Council, the rewriting you know, with the, Landmarks Board of the Downtown Design Guidelines and the form-based code portions. All that work was out of some of the input from the Design Advisory Board. But like anything in the, with new council members and new priorities and interests. sometimes the track changes in the priorities. They, you know, they try to limit their priorities to something that's workable within their time period, and you'll see if you look back through the history of their work plan, sometimes it's affordable housing, it kind of rotates through to different priorities across the city.

[31:02] Well, I think it's important. I mean, they're… I mean, they're definitely, like, talking about how they don't… Have any money? Revenue? You know, sales tax would do it. You know, so these are economic issues, development is an economic issue, and… You know, it's key. It's funny, my daughter goes to Colorado College, and it's Boulderites or something, oh my god, Colorado Springs, and I'm always just like, well, you haven't been there recently. Because I'll tell you, if I was 23 moving to Colorado. I'm not sure Bowler would be my first choice, even regardless of the… Cost of living, but… You know, there's… some interesting things going on in Fort Collins and Colorado Springs that we're sort of, like, resting on our laurels here, and a lot of it is related to… dislike… Not being able to be creative in the analysis paralysis, and just, like, you know, not…

[32:05] Moving forward with creative ideas quickly enough to see if they're gonna work. We have to be willing to fail, you know, that's the thing, it's like, bowlers just seem like they're terrified to make a mistake, so then we don't try. At the same time, the New York Times just… rated the Montbell As one of the top, like, 50 retail spaces in the country. So… The Japanese jacket store? No, the… is that Japan? I don't know, the Montbell, the big, outdoor… and boy. Yeah, more corner… bells and J. general, because which one? There's, like, a hundred of them around the country. Well, the Montbell, like, is this their only… Oh, really? Brick and mortar retail. In America? Yeah, I think they're… it's Japanese. I thought I saw other ones, huh. So they, you know, I mean… There's… there is opportunity here, and we are getting… we got some recognition.

[33:02] Yeah, that's good. Yeah, we got Sundance coming, I mean, there's definitely… Yeah. The laurels, resting on the laurels. I mean… Part of the… sorry, I'm gonna be the resident, anti-capitalist on the board. I mean… the Montbell, the department stores, that's part of the problem, because you have plenty of… Vacant space that's affordable, basically, for Corporate retailers only. Right. Right. What I would much better rather see than, you know, in the New York Times of Montbell or some international corporation moving into Boulder, is 2 or 3 small business startups or boutiques, so… you know, I think this sort of lands where we're talking on some of these talking points today. Which is, what kind of commercial space do you want? What kind of community do you want to build? You know, what kind of opportunities are you…

[34:01] Kind of hedging against… By having certain barriers to development, which only large corporations have the time and money to. energy. So… you know, I do think a healthy mix of all those tiers of socioeconomic retail activity are necessary for a healthy city. And what we're actually seeing… Is an imbalance, where… You know, interesting small stores on the corner have gone out of business for another corporate bank to put in a fake coffee shop. You know. I'm down with the corporations for that one, I'm sorry. But, you know, I think… part of the reason that happens is process. It is structural. It's structural in the way we review projects and put, basically, overhead caps on what it takes to build a project in a desirable retail location in Boulder, so…

[35:05] Oh, back to it now. I don't know who I'm directing that rant to. No, no, no, that's… I feel like it's something we've all talked about together. Yeah. different capacities. I like your earlier sentiment of, and I think everyone was starting to rally around it in some capacity, the… Really, at this point, the letter is, like, a formal documentation effort, and how much time do we want to spend wordsmithing it versus using it as an opportunity for an invitation? Yeah. to create a dialogue, or at least a work session, or I don't even know if we're allowed to do that legally, or how that works, but, like, I think at this point, we can say, with reason, I think this is my seventh year on the board. that… we've… I think you nailed it, Matthew, like… Every year, Dab's letter is consistent, generally, with It's themes. And at this point.

[36:03] For fear of being redundant. we would like to actually approach this differently. And so the effort spent trying to wordsmith this, I would say, if we… why don't we just say, hey, we'd love to schedule a meeting, we think we could be really useful with Strategy 15 in helping helping, you know, your second paragraph about the obstructionists and the overly cumbersome, and then basically say, strategy 15, and that DAB, you know, DAB invites City Council to a work session at their, you know, convenience. Right. And then we could prepare for that, right? So, like, instead of trying to go through and outline everything we think we should talk about, and how different strategies, like, if we actually are entertained. to have a conversation, then does it warrant the effort for us as volunteers to really dive into, amongst our professional expertise and professional endeavors here, all the things that we've started to open about, like different, you know, mix of commercial, the affordable housing stuff, the, you know, TI, counter permits, all the different strategies that we've sort of

[37:04] only scratched the surface of. We're not gonna get very far in this letter today. Right. Well, and I think we could be… I think we should do that, and… you know, then we could be activists about it. If we don't hear from them. I mean, I wouldn't be opposed to going to a city council meeting. Shit, we could all go, we get our 3 minutes, we say, hey, we sent you a letter, we wanted to have a meeting. You didn't respond? And… so we're here, and here's… What we each got to say about it, you know, for 3 minutes. Yeah. And just put them on the spot. hopefully they'll respond and say, hey, yeah, that sounds great, let's meet for an hour, hour and a half, and… You know, brainstorm. For sure. The other really… that, there's no reason they can't do that, just make it a public meeting? It doesn't… The other really big one, I just want to make sure, because this is sort of for the record here on the video, the other really big one that shows up every year, not just the process cumbersome piece, but the energy code itself. Like, just the contradiction, and we had a whole era, Matthew, you were on that one.

[38:10] Yeah. Where we basically, it's like, your code… like, the City of Boulder code is prescribing Plastic. spray foam this, and R-value that, and all… like, we're just basically prescribing buildings to be absolutely front-loaded. With carbon footprint, because we need to use all this plastic-based technology. And all these electric heat pumps, and all this electricity that's gonna come, and conduits that are aluminum, and you know, all these crazy panels that are being shipped from China that are on these crazy delays to get 1200 amp services where we used to only need 200 amp services, etc, etc. And all in sort of a bet that we won't as a… species find more efficient ways to generate energy, in which case, why are we putting all this plastic in 50 years from now, if we can generate energy? So I think the energy component one. we have got some very detailed… and in a way, we could almost go back… if we got this meeting, if they actually threw a date at the calendar, what… for me, the first preparation would be to go comb through, in greater detail, the last 7 years' worth of letters we sent, and just be like, okay.

[39:16] Right. We've already beaten a lot of this to death over the last 7 years, we don't need to reinvent this. Right. I just wonder if, in the interest of time, if we can you know, compose some… something that meets this strategy 15, and… And propose a meeting time. Or… or is that… have we thrown… Baby out with the bathwater on that one. No, I don't… I think we could probably do both. I mean, if we sort of have the latter, and then it… you know, where I got into, like, here's strategy of 15 right before that we say, and, you know, given the fact that we've… Done this before, really, like, would be much more, you know, in the interest of efficiency, what this is all about.

[40:03] let's just have a meeting, and we can talk about stuff. And, by the way, here's some things we're thinking about. You know, that would be, like, the bullet points. you know… Kalani, you have your hand up. I was gonna say, you're… any of the board members are able to share their screen, so you could share the letter and edit. During this meeting, as you guys are having your discussion, if you'd like. Nice. Do you want… I… do you want… do you want me to do that, or Steven, are you… Yeah, why don't you do that? I'm… A slow typer. And I've… and I just ran it through… I… I'm a… Big fan of, grammarly? Yeah, there you go. I just ran it through, I cannot remember… I'll share my screen.

[41:00] It should be right there. Right at the bottom, it's got that green arrow. air. Yeah, at the… it says share next to the raise hand. If you don't have that button, Brendan, let me know. I… it may be… I don't think it's a co-host function, but I may be able to… I just got the request to allow, so you should be able to now. So basically, it starts… your third paragraph which is really just a sentence, where you say, we have identified strategy 15 in City Council priorities as where we think DAB can help, and then there's a colon, proposing some concrete ideas for your consideration. I guess that's where we would pick this up, right? Because I think your preamble… I really like the preamble, unless anyone else has objections to it, but I thought it was very well… composed. Yeah, I just, again, just ran it through, like, quick… Grammarly?

[42:06] So we're not gonna propose concrete ideas, right? I think that's where I'm. I think we… I think we are. Yep. I'd like to. I mean, I have… I have some bullet points that I think we could… kind of… Feed in here, but, the preamble, I think we're all in agreement that it's… and then I just added the, you know, the owners and developers and, you know, and I… I would like to put a small thing about, You know, residential… permit applicants, too. Sure. Or…

[43:08] Maybe residential instead of single family. You know, because that would sort of, like, encompass, like, multifamily, too. And I had this in edit mode, and then I don't know how to, like… Get it to go… Well, I can figure that out. Okay, so if we go down to, the strategy 15 and the priorities. I think that this is, like. These are really clear issues, and then suggestions, I like this format a lot. So, again, so DAP often… so this is the priority action.

[44:02] identify and implement ways to reduce bureaucracy and improve efficiency and facilitate quicker approvals for initiatives that align with and enhance the city's priorities related to sustainability, safety, economic vitality, and the community well-being. So DAB often highlights frustrating issues in the city process for the built environment that the public or applicants, raise, and these issues can be addressed, not just lamented. DAB can provide regular feedback to this council or council staff should, or council staff should act upon. Oh, that, the city, okay. This parking lot of feedback could be… could serve as a foundation for outreach and foster a sense of positive progress that the public desires. Make the permit requirements very clear. Oh, I added that. And I think I can add that later, actually. So, commercial vacancies, DAB recognizes that commercial vacancies are a major economic problem and embarrassment to the Boulder community.

[45:06] the power boulder has to affect this, is to drastically implement the time it takes for commercial tenants to occupy spaces. So… Let's see… I just think we could say, Boulder can… Boulder can drastically expedite. Yeah. Drastically expedite the time it takes for commercial tenants and… To occupy the spaces. Many cities provide over-the-counter, over-the-counter reviews for TI projects. This also could encourage temporary usage of these spaces as venues,

[46:01] Let's see, like, venues… Can we call them, like, pop-up shops? Sure, yeah. Which I think Boulder does too much of, honestly. Well, they do it all, like, out in the street, right? But… You know, it's funny to have these, like. the Creek Festival, and have a bunch of vacant… Commercial space surrounding it. at the Boulder Roots Festival, we saw, Community engagement through music in retail spaces? Yeah.

[47:14] Oh… And then I said, again, going back to the streamline and simplify the process so that smaller independent retailers can fill the empty spaces. Fast track small TI, review process, Because small retailers often sit on unpermitted spaces while paying rent, and the architecture teams and consultant, architecture team and consultants while the permit While paying rent, and… Pain. Right. The architectural team and consultants while the permit is, held up in review. DAB as an idea incubator. DAB could play a role in offering a public forum or presenting ideas related to the public, to the built environment. A portion of our meeting could be set aside

[48:04] For the public to present ideas. This is vital to the concept of addressing the missing middle in Boulder, where many feel there is no form for vetting ideas. Formal council meetings might not be the best place for this. DAV could fill that role. I like that. Let's see… Do you guys have any suggestions or edits for that portion? Okay, priority action, develop a community engagement approach. Inform an outreach focus that provides clear communication about how the streamlined permitting process benefits all city stakeholders. design professional representatives. DAB can easily provide feedback to the city on streamlining, streamlining permitting.

[49:01] As a conduit to the profession, DAB is a built-in focus group dedicated and informed. Yeah, I feel like that is just the statement of… Like, the invitation to this meeting, right? Right. For this work session. Yeah. I really, like, to me, that's the most powerful, sort of. Communication here. I mean, do we want to go so far as to say that you know. like, City Council and Planning Board are limited on their… design professional members. Yeah, I mean, I don't know that we need to… Yeah. No, I think, I think what you have is good. Yeah. Planning board liaison. So maybe we could say, Planning board collaboration and… and propose the liaison and the meeting?

[50:02] Yeah. Yeah, and this one's interesting because a… you know. Obviously, the city attorneys is important, a planning board, necessary, But… you know, other places, it's equally important to have, you know, like Europe, for instance, they would, you know, they definitely have design professionals. who are there to provide input. You know, equally important is the legal counsel. Yep. So, it's like… We could do that. Yeah, there… in days past, there was times where someone would be requested to be present in the event that there were questions on what we've already written in our. Review. Right. Yeah. But this is sort of a different approach of… it's almost like we have… right now, we have a liaison from Planning Board, but why not vice versa, is essentially what this is suggesting.

[51:06] Yeah. I was just reading Jameson's letter, that was wild. I can't believe you. I got everyone else to sign that. Like, the fact that everyone else's name was on it. Because that one year, Lauren wrote the letter on her own. Mmm. Because we couldn't get a quorum, but he got everyone's signature on there. Maybe we need to get Lauren on Dab again, right? She can come back on Dab. Okay. maybe, and I say, maybe I say here that,

[52:03] I'm sorry, my spelling is just terrible, so I just… I'm typing and then spell checking as I go. Hmm. What am I saying about the City Council working session? Or annual. Matthew, you kind of… you said annual. Yeah. Yeah, I… That seems… I mean, it just seems like… My concern is if it gets buried in one of these paragraphs, then it just. I think we should… Like, part of me is just like, select it all and say, we've got some really great ideas we'd like to talk to you about. Here's our number.

[53:02] I think we can say it here, and then we can say it at the end, you know, like, really, we think the most important takeaway is to… Have an in-person meeting. Have a more meaningful dialogue, yeah. Yeah, and maybe that's its own bold statement at the end of all this, is like. The aforementioned strategies are just in an… are barely scratching the surface. of what could be an open dialogue between the design professional board and City Council… We invite an opportunity for a work session. At your convenience, please check your calendar. Yeah. We're available the second Wednesday of the month, every month. But it… It seems interesting to me that that wouldn't be just standard practice for all the boards. Like, literally every board meets at least once a year with the… I mean, that just seems…

[54:06] Given that things that… you know, we've all been to these council meetings, and you're like, really? This is what we're spending time on right now. And it's like, if they can do that, they can certainly put a… an hour and a half aside to meet with everybody. What do you guys think? So, on their, Priorities and Key Actions page, City Council had, like, that box with sort of the… the key actions that were summarized and highlighted, and then they went below, and it had all the charts and… and… You know, what if we… what if we put in our, like. made in our letter really clear up in the beginning. Maybe we put all of this at the end. And then in the up top, we say, you know, key actions and… . Well, I think we should… I don't know, I think we should put… start with this, because I think… they won't… You know, they might not read… they might only read the first part of it.

[55:06] Well, if we want him to read anything, I… I think we want him to read. you know, our plan and our actions. No? Yeah, but I mean, I… let's just assume that they're gonna read the whole thing, you know, and I think we want to start with why we're… Do we want to put, you know… doing it. Do we want to make a key, like, a bullet point somewhere? We can put it in the end, or in summary. Or just leave it as it is. I think it's pretty… I mean, it's only a page and a half, really. Seems pretty… it seems… I mean, we could probably go through and, like. make it shorter, right? I'm sure, but I don't even think it's that. Wordy.

[56:00] Oh, it's… So, we're proposing a City Council working session to do what? Brains? So open a dialogue about these. Yeah. Like, I almost wonder if it goes up front, like. As a, you know, as a courtesy, we've provided a formal response as requested to the invitation to write a letter that you will see below. But, but ultimately, we think that this warrants And a dialogue via work session or other mechanism. to be meaningful. And then… and then they can continue to read on, but at least we've sort of outlined our stance. My fear is you get through all this, and you get lost halfway through. Like I did when I was reading it to catch up for today's meeting, and I was like. This is… And I'm a design professional.

[57:00] That's right. meaningfully. Respectfully request that you accept, without apology, Boulder's future as a wealthy enclave, and lend municipal support. Pleasure. I mean, that is just… That is some punk rock stuff right there. Yeah, Jameson's juries at EMVD were legendary. The students loved him. Can't even imagine. maybe… can I say we find our letters to Council Tend to fall on deaf ear… deaf ears. You know… I mean, I don't know, though. I think it's just… I think Matthew put it really well, like, it's just…

[58:04] We continue to highlight items annually. Consistently. I mean, I think we could get. And I do… I don't think it goes on deaf ears, it just can't compete with the… primary function of council, which is all the stuff. Right, right. So if they ever had… if they ever wanted to make time for a meaningful dialogue about development and get inputs from our point of view or our expertise. It's gonna take… A little… it's gonna have… it's gonna take a dedicated session. where you open a dialogue, it does… it's not gonna just happen with memos once a year. But I don't think they're not receptive or don't care, but it's just like, these are checking a box. Of limited accountability for the boards in lieu of doing something more substantial with the boards.

[59:05] more engaged. I do think… Though, like, all the city council stuff, as you referred to it, you know, to make this whole thing run, is becoming more apparent, that some of these issues are going to become more meaningful because of the commercial vacancies, because of, you know, whatever fill-in-the-blank. That we've been talking about today. Okay, the next one. Develop ways to make it easier for individuals and businesses to understand and navigate city processes. should I say, Previous… Letters to Council? Whereas, what is the earlier feedback? I think this is where Steven was saying Deb getting involved earlier. Which, I just want to.

[60:00] be careful. I just wanted to be careful that we weren't contradicting, you know, the entire thesis of this, is that there's analysis paralysis. This one is kind of redundant, like, it's come up before, and if we got the meeting, it would… You know, we would bring this up. Yeah. I don't know. But then again, like, this is one that… I mean, can I just, like… Copy and paste from above. Oops. Yeah. And then just reiterate our… Our desire for, Conversation? Sure. But this doesn't… These are two different things, though, but…

[61:00] Yeah, developing ways to make it easier for individuals and businesses to understand and navigate city province… processes. That's even, like, outside of Planning Board and DAB, right, Steven? Like, you're just… I mean, just even the ability to go Apply for a building permit and know what you need or who you would need to talk. Right. is before it's even something that would escalate to our purview, or even Planning Board's purview. I mean, it's, you know, my neighbor. Yeah, I mean, the simple way to do this is to offer, you know, like, Pre-project planning for everybody. You know, and… That's a pre-app. Yeah, but, like, a real pre-app, you know, not where they're just like, here's the forms you have to fill out, but let's brainstorm how we can get your project to happen pre-app. That's what other cities do, it's not like… Yeah, it is, I just went through that within, on a project in, Oh gosh, I'm drawing a blank right south of Broomfield.

[62:03] Wheat Ridge? Westminster. Westminster. Westminster, yeah. and I know Denver does this as well, but it was a… it was a real pre-app, you know, like… You submit a real concept plan, and you get… Real, in-depth feedback before you even submit the. Yeah, no, it's great, and then you can… Planning application, so… Yeah, and it expedites the whole thing. It makes the whole life easier. It gets… I think it gets to what we value as designers, but also as reviewers on this board, which is… No one, no client or design team wants to spend a bunch of time designing great ideas when they know they haven't met the basic criteria. Right. Which is why, like, I think our role in the board, we wouldn't be great during that first meeting during a pre-app. That wouldn't be appropriate, because what you really are trying to find out is how many parking spaces do I have to have?

[63:07] Right. How many b- how many stories can this be? Right, and, and… But… Having a real engaged process to answer those questions is a lot better than just going through 3 planning board reviews. Right. Well, and some smart places are looking at AI to facilitate this. I mean, Denver is… Yeah. Upcodes is doing it with Boston, New York, Los Angeles. It's pretty amazing, you know, what… is on the horizon, because you'll be able to, like, run it through AI. Yeah. With some feedback. But. So, I have a couple of… this is where my bullet points came in, and we can nix them if we want, but… Oftentimes, like, the requirements for Or… I mean, I think…

[64:00] I almost want to put this… this one, first, like, that Inquire Boulder is… is the most frustrating process, and it's the most frustrating thing about working with the City of Boulder, that, like, there's never anybody… it's like trying to get in touch with somebody to help you out with technical issues in Google, or… Or the health insurance. There's no… or health insurance. Like, there's nobody that you can talk to, and this Inquire Boulder is… you know, maybe you have a really quick clarification question about About, you know, a code requirement, or about the, the… the… the City of Boulder, environmental code requirements, or just… maybe it's just a really quick question. And then it goes through this Inquire Boulder, and, you know, and then there's this lag, and again, it's, like, the time that it takes to go through that, and…

[65:03] Well, and, you know, before, when there was, like, a physical place where you went to, yeah, you, like… You'd go there, you'd… You know, sit and wait, but… You would get answers, and in the end, it was much quicker. you'd talk to, you know, I'd see you at, hey, Brendan, what's going on? You know, like. Right. It was much better when things were in person, and you could, like, make them… have a meeting, you know, with a planner, and then go over stuff, and then you'd get to go to Mustard's when you were done, which was awesome. Right. But, like… you know, This fantasy that everything online and everything is more efficient is just… Ridiculous, and it cuts out the whole human element that… you know, and it was much more collaborative when you were face-to-face with the planner, asking questions. They would tend to be like, well, you could look at it this way, you know, and you know when you're emailing back and forth, and it's, like, all public record, and blah, blah, blah, it's like…

[66:08] I don't know. I mean, it's just… It's… it's become too imp… too impersonal, and it's, and it's frustrating. It's inaccessible, I think you said earlier, Brendan, and that's what… that's what it is. So I said, Yeah. So I can just say. Bring back the desk. Bring back, I guess. And what did you say? In Excel. Inaccessible. I mean, I just look at that, like, develop ways to make it easier for individuals and businesses to understand and navigate through the process. Just…

[67:00] Create an accessible point of contact. Yes. Just a courtesy letting you know we just passed an hour, so the counter's just going up from there. And I kept looking at the counter, I was like, wait a minute, it's… I thought it was tough. We were talking about it. We hadn't… He's gonna get it set up for our reviews, where each of the blocks that we assign count down, so you just see it heading towards zero. Yeah, we were in the… somebody in our office the other day was like, Brendan, where do I find the Boulder design guidelines? Like, we should know that as DAB members, and this is someone with 25 years of architecture experience, and have… it's just… You dig. You have to dig and dig and dig. And. you know, if you're just doing a small TI project, and you haven't gone through the city site review process, or

[68:02] Tech docs, or whatever, whatever, you know, it's… it's not… it's not easy to navigate, and it's not easy to find. The amount of people who are like, hey. I want to remodel my house because I can't afford to do anything but that because of mortgage rates and cost of construction, etc. And I was like, well, you gotta be careful, and they're like, well, what do you mean? Can I move this sink? Can I move my gas stove? Can I move my water heater? And I'm like, yeah, you're gonna have to go review some very complicated codes, and there's an escalating, you know, scale of impact, and then you have to upgrade your whole house. Right. So then people do nothing, and then the infrastructure ages and becomes shit. Or, stuff. I'm sorry, Kalani! Or they moved to… scary. They're not pulling permits, you know, they'll just do it… Totally. And I don't blame them, and it's like… Okay. Like, shouldn't someone be able to call? Like, they think they can call us, and as the design professional, and say, hey, I want to do X, Y, and Z, like, what's it gonna take to do that? It's like, they should be able to call…

[69:10] the city. to, I mean, to sort of piggyback on this whole, having a point of accessible contact for meaningful dialogue between the community and the authority. Yo. I like the… County's better. Like, you can actually go there, and you can. Oh, through the county, yeah, I called and asked for, you know, the PSM on a property, and, you know, the whole whatever, as far as the metric, and I need to explain to this client, you know, why they can't have an ADU, unless it's… Deconstructed after their aging father. Maybe you're like, what? I know. Don't even get me started, I know. Oh goodness, sorry, I didn't mean to go there. I think this is good. So, my one piece of feedback, because I think, Brennan, you've wordsmithed it, which, thank you, and then the Grammarly hopefully makes us sound a little polished here, but…

[70:07] I guess my one criticism is just getting that invitation for dialogue somewhere bold, not just buried into one of these, strategy explanations. Like, and I don't know if it's up front or at the end. Maybe right before we say thank you for your time and consideration, say, you know, we could put it right in there, like. Maybe we can say we are not open to, but we are. Requesting. requesting. own, Warm. Bank A-L, no ER there, so forum. Probably, you know, there we go. Thank you. Bye-bye. We are formally requesting brainstorming session to explore our, to explore…

[71:05] What's the terminology, Kalani? Work session? Is that what we should consider… call this, if we're going to request a meeting with City Council? You could call it a… a joint board meeting, oh, yeah. We're doing coordinate. You could call it a study session. They… the city council has study sessions that no other business has done on. Let's do… yeah, because we're not… it's not joint boards, we're the only board. I, you know, I don't know, they may, you know, it could be a board meeting, or it could be a study session, so you could just put a. Session 2. Yeah, study session is typically a working session, so… Yeah, I'd strip board… joint board meeting, I'd pull out of there, because we're the only board. And if you don't set it up, we're coming anyways. We'll show up! Well, and I think, in a lot of ways, from my perspective, this kicks the can down the road for us, of like…

[72:04] If they take this request and invitation seriously, and actually we get a date on the calendar, then it's like, okay, well then… Awesome. Yeah. Well, we… I think that puts the onus on us, then, of having a meeting or two. Like, we wouldn't want it to be January, we'd want it to be, like. March or April, so that we could have two or three of our own internal meetings, board matters, to make sure that we actually prepare a productive agenda, because what I would hate to do is, after all this sort of criticism about the process and, you know, the lack of dialogue and opportunity to explore. Collaboratively, that then we show up flat. That would be really bad. Yeah, exactly. Somebody have a better way of… We were formula… and I can make that its own paragraph. We are formally requesting a study session to further collaborate. to further explore.

[73:05] I make a. Action. Oh, yeah. On the study session, you may want to ask them that you… you say you're formally requesting to join them. In a study session. I know that you will be part of that, if that's the… Because they can hold study sessions without you. Got it. to join City Council for a study session. To further… Brain… I think we'd just say brainstorm, even. Like, why not? That's what we want to do. I, I mean, I, I want it to be more, like, you know, like, we have some, concrete thoughts. I don't want them to feel like we just want to sit and watch. talk… okay. You have the shoe. Yeah, I think that makes sense. And that sort of justifies the… Yeah, the verbosity above.

[74:06] Yeah, there you go. Oh, yep. I'm gonna be very curious to see what happens here. Yeah, we'll see. Is it weird that this is, like, suddenly bullet-pointed? Yeah, I kinda like it, double jaw. We did one a couple… I think you might have been on that one too, Brendan, where we just… Yeah, the one we did from 2021 was… we… it was re-engage Exploration of Design Excellence and Broaden Paths of defining community benefits, and we just had 3 or 4 bullet points under each one, short but sweet. Right. I like that one. Me too. Yeah, I mean, the community benefits one is huge. I mean, that's how a lot of… Places deal with this kind of stuff. Beautiful! It's like a horse trade, you get to set up a horse trading, like, a legitimate horse trading market for the city to extract benefit.

[75:02] And still allow for development. And that's where we're really shooting ourselves in the… where Boulder's really shooting ourselves in the foot, because we're just not… Someone might have a great idea that's totally out of left field, and it's just like, we have no… Real process for even bringing it to the table. Right, like, if AI analyzed how to best develop in Boulder, given its current construct, it would be… student housing malls, and that's essentially what we see everywhere, and they're not very much community-outward engaging, so it's just unfortunate, right? Right. That's just how the code's set up right now, as far as how to extract dollar per square foot for developers in this town. Right. So, amelia and Kalani, is this… . I would… Do I need to format it better?

[76:00] I don't think you need to format it better. What I would say is we'd need to accept all the changes on here, so read through it one time, together. With all the changes accepted, And then we, We will have you sign it, because it's always the chair. That signs the letter? Okay. And then, you know, on behalf of the board, you know, your signature will go on that, and I think we have a digital signature for you, and then we'll have You know, brenda Nash, chairperson of DAB, on behalf of the board. Okay, do you want me to… do you want me to read it aloud? Yeah. Could you accept the… the red line? I'm seeing red lines here. Yeah, I know. Yeah, so we see what it… yeah, just make it whatever. Do you… can you go to review, then, on the tab across Go to review right there, the review tab. Remove the show comments.

[77:03] So there's a box there. Oh yeah, right there, yeah. show comments, click that off, and then… I don't think you have all of them, but you can go to the accept button with the little carrot below it. underneath It's got a little arrow, like a little arrow below it that lets you pick more. on… under Accept? And you want to accept all the changes and stop tracking. Yep, that's it. Boom. Okay, so I do think you need to get rid of the underline, unless that is something out of Grammarly that is pushing an edit. No, that was the edit. And then I think I was trying to get it out of edit mode, and I… Yes. underline. Yeah, so get rid of the underline there… There we go. And I don't know what the little, pen… that's just something out of the editing tool.

[78:01] It's a, yeah, it's a Grammarly… Okay. It won't… it won't show up in the… if I… And I think that this is it. What I… what I would say is, You have a lot of… there's quite a few different font and… Yeah, there's… Versus not bold and sizes, and so it makes tracking on the eyes a little bit more difficult, so… I would, read through it, and as you're reading through it, I'd clean up the text. Like, you can select all, change everything to Aptos. If you want everything to be in Aptos, just select everything. And then you can worry about whether it's a bold, or it's a title, or… Great. Yeah. Steven, that was your font, I. I think Aptos, I think, is the new Microsoft default outside of Ariel. It's come out, but… Should I take off draft? Sure. Yes, please.

[79:00] And then, I'll fill in the… the staff contact. We'll fill in that on our end, and then we can add your digital signature. We just need to get the, you know, your letter, your signature block in at the bottom. They said 2 pages, does it matter that we're just over? Because we could… It's okay, you're just over. It's really just a few. I mean, you could take out the first three lines if you wanted to. And… of the letter, where it says December 18th, and then regarding the design up, because it's already in the subject. Oh, right, yeah. So you could take out those two, and we might get closer, and then you can shrink some of the… You know, you can get creative on how much spacing everything has. Is there a new mayor pro tem? Yes. Yeah, so maybe I could change the… I wouldn't worry too much, it's just a ti… it's just a… it's just a bit over.

[80:01] Yeah, I think it's okay. Don't believe that they'll cut off the second, the third page. So in the next 7 minutes before Rory has to leave, and I know, Matthew, you said you have a… You need to go. biosa. up a kid. So the Design Advisory Board is excited to collaborate with the City Council to help achieve 2026 priorities. DAB members see themselves as a bridge and liaison between the design and development community, city officials, and the public. Our highest goal is to support the City in maintaining design excellence that upholds Boulder's status as an internationally recognized leader in urban design and sustainability. Recently, over… Overly cumbersome city processes, and a feeling that the city's obstructive, to achieving great design have frustrated the design and professional… or design and development community. Boulder's reputation is that of a city that is difficult to work in, where permits take too long to obtain, and where collaboration with the city and staff

[81:03] And the public is lacking. And impersonal? I'm just fine. I think it's… I think it's good, succinct, the way it's in there. The perception is that the city creates roadblocks instead of fostering creative, collaborative solutions. City processes should serve as a starting point for creative collaboration, not a barrier, and if they become problematic, the city must be willing to change the rules quickly. The lengthy process means Only large, wealthy developers can afford to build in Boulder. Owners and developers end up paying… this is kind of Robust, so… Maybe take that out? Yeah, I don't think we need that. I think we just… Yeah. AD can play a critical role in identifying issues, and helping the cities find solutions… helping the city find solutions that can, rebrand the Planning and Development Service Department as a collaborative force in our city's built environment.

[82:01] The key is a subtle but vital shift from, that is not allowed, to, here's what we can do instead. And if not, here is how we can work to change the rules. Our local government is not static, but a work in progress, and we need to foster an atmosphere of experimentation… Scott, with Africa. Analysis Paralysis, where the city and the public are co-creators of a shared vision. We have identified do we want to put something about our proposal for a working session there? Yes, this is where I think it goes, before we get into food. year. Yeah, we can move it from the. I would literally copy and paste it up here. Yeah. Yeah, just put that… just cut it out, and… Boom.

[83:04] Wait, where'd it go? It went above. requesting City, to join City Council in a study session to further collaborate . I think it should go AFTER. Yeah, and then it'll say… Right before Strategy 5th, where we have identified, like, in between where it says Vision, and we have… yeah, right there. I think we should make that bold. Yes. Further collaborate on the below action items. Right, there you go. Good catch on the directional reference. Okay. We have identified strategy, Or the following action items maybe sounds better than on the below.

[84:00] Yeah. Or… On the following action items, yeah. Yeah. Hmm. maybe… Okay. Dab, maybe Dab has identified? Sure. has identified Strategy 15 in the City Council, Priorities is an area where we Think. We're. Word. How about DAV has identified Strategy 15, our City Council priorities, as an area where we can… where DAB can help, instead of we think. Or, priorities, where… DAB overlaps, or DAB something… If I start,

[85:06] Something, like, that we're… qualified to speak on. I mean, we're not qualified to speak on Right. Unhoused, and some of the other items, but… gone. Let's see… Give me bang up. app can contribute? I don't know. We identified star G15 in there. as an area where we think DAB can help. I mean… That sounds… Yeah. Okay. That's fine, right. And we're proposing, concrete… Ideas for, for your consideration. Strategy 15, streamline process for housing… processes for housing, parking, infrastructure, land use, and events that tie directly to the priority Community outcomes. One, priority action.

[86:02] Identify and implement ways to reduce bureaucracy, improve efficiency, and facilitate quicker approvals for initiatives that align with and enhance the city's priorities related to the sustainability, safety, and economic vitality and community well-being. facilitate action. Dab often highlights frustrating issues in the city process. So maybe Dav often highlights frustrating issues in the city process, or the built environment that the public, or That… Can I just say that applicants raise? the public. Not… Let's see. How many applicants share? DAB applicants. War.

[87:01] for the public raise. These issues should be addressed, not just lamented. DAB could provide regular feedback, that the City Council staff. Or city staff should act. the city council, or the council or city staff. should act upon. This parking lot of feedback could serve as a foundation for outreach and foster positive Progress to the, progress the public desires. commercial vacancies. DAB recognizes that commercial vacancies are a significant economic problem and embarrassment to Boulder… to the Boulder community. Boulder can drastically expedite the time that it takes for commercial tenants to occupy spaces. Many cities provide over-the-counter reviews for TI projects. We could also encourage temporary usage of these spaces as venues, such as pop-up shops or, as we saw at the Boulder Roots Festival, community engagement through music re… community engagement through music and retail spaces.

[88:09] streamline and simplify the process so that smaller independent retailers can fill the empty spaces, fast-track the small TI process, so I kind of have some of these in the bullet points below. Right. And I was going to ask if, Matthew, if you could state… do you have a few minutes? Because without you, we don't have a quorum, we'll have to… I do, I'll be available till 5.45. Okay. Okay, good. Brendan, I think it's okay if they're restated in the bullets. Okay. Yeah. Bullets are kind of like the… simplifying it. Take your way, huh? Okay, well, it kind of… I mean, it is… like, could… could be redundant in the sense that it is

[89:05] reducing bureaucracy and making it more efficient. Okay. DAB is an idea incubator. DAB could serve as a forum for the public to present ideas related to the built environment. A portion of our meeting could be set aside for the public to present ideas. This is vital in the concept of addressing the missing middle in Boulder, where many feel that there is no forum. for vetting ideas. Formal council meetings might not be the best place for this. Dad could fill that role. Priority actions, development, community, Development Community Engagement Approach… approach… Inform an outreach focus that provides clear communication about how the streamlined permitting process benefits all city stakeholders. design professional perspectives. Dab easily DAB can easily provide feedback to the City on streamlining and permitting. As a conduit to the profession, DAB is a built-in focus group of dedicated and informed design professionals.

[90:14] I like that. Planning and, Planning Board and City Council collaboration. DAB members frequently express interest in regularly attending Planning Board meetings and providing design feedback and opinions to the board. in much the same way that the City Attorney provides expert advice on legal matters. Similarly, DAB is proposing an annual city council working session To foster dialogue and meaningful… and meaningfully discuss the action items outlined in our letters to Council. Priority actions developing. Sorry, Brendan, I think tests were gonna include… annual work session with DAB. Because, that could be construed as a network session.

[91:03] For them to just think about our letter. Roof. Right? I like that, yeah. prior to develop ways to make it easier for individuals and businesses to understand and navigate the city process. Planning board and city council collaboration. Create an accessible point of contact. Can I just say, get rid of Inquire Boulder? Excellent. Exclamation point? Or, or maybe… Well… Maybe provide meaningful alternatives, or… Or, or useful alternative. I think that's okay. Yeah. Choir, bowlers, and personal… yeah. Yeah, I think that's pretty self-explanatory. A case manager or point of contact should be assigned to each project, and choir Boulder is impersonal, frustrating, and inaccessible. Make the permit requirements very clear and easy to find, including design guidelines.

[92:07] Fast Track Review… Provide. And… They might have that, but… I don't know, and it seems like I sh… that's something that, if anybody would know, it would be me, like, that should be more… Clear, as an option. Fast track review on small TI, or small commercial development. Residential review times are costing homeowners too much, as well as adding the problem of making Boulder Unaffordable to live in, so… So maybe reduce residential permit review times? Yeah. Yeah. That art… yeah.

[93:02] Reducer and all of that are costing. I don't think you need a period. This is costing home… this is costing homeowners… Adds to the problem of making Yeah. Oh, that's the problem of Boulder… Being unaffordable, yeah. to live in. One-on-one review comments meeting. I can't remember who said that, but I thought that was a good idea. Should I say… Plan review?

[94:00] Yeah, I mean, it should be one, Going back to that… Yeah, what I was thinking was, yeah, you… if you get comments back, whether it's planning. Building department, anything, they should go over the comments with you. Again, bring back the service desk. Concept. Exactly. DAB's, DAB's role… could help shift the city's image from obstructionist to one of collaboration and enthusiasm for Boulder's development future. We invite feedback and are eager to expand our our involvement in the city… in the Council's 2026 initiatives. Thank you for your time and consideration. Cool. I think it's good. I think it's great. I think it's excellent. An hour and a half on the dot. Yeah, we got 20… 18 more seconds.

[95:01] And we can, we'll add the… the, closure to the letter at the bottom, Brendan, so you don't have to do that, as long as the group votes to approve the letter with You know, the few minor, you know. additions. of the heading and the closing. formatting. Or, yeah. I move to accept the letter, as it is, with the exception of some formatting additions. I second that. All in favor? Aye. Bye. Bye. Great. and then there was… there were additional items on the… Agenda? Do we need to talk about those very quickly before… be very quick. You saw Amelia sent out an email about recruitment.

[96:02] For, for the next term of DAB seats. So Matthew is leaving the board, or retiring, I don't know if you're choosing to retire or reapply, but, if… for those that, know anyone that is interested, please pass along the application. When is the period… when is the, the period over. I think it's January? It ends in… Yay. I have it up on my… if you look at the tabs, and you look at my shared screen, it's, January 25th at midnight is the application deadline. Damn. And then I think we also want to point out the January 5th open house, where I think we only really need one board member, or would appreciate having one board member. Kalani, I can let you talk more about that. So we're having a recruitment fair, so, typically the chair joins, those, but Brendan, if you're unavailable, if anybody else would like to join us, we do like to have someone there that can speak to other folks that are interested about your experience on the board.

[97:13] I mean, I am available, but I would appreciate a co-pilot or a… A wing… a wingman. I will… I'm definitely gonna be there. You'll have staff there, but if you want another board member there, we should limit it to two board members, so we don't have to notify us at, like, a type of meeting. Okay, I mean, yeah, I can just plan on going. Okay. Unless somebody, Matthew or Steven, if you want to go. I'm not sure if I'm… Around or not. I'm not sure, I have to check my schedule when I'm coming back from… Louisiana. Okay. Well, we, we will be there, and, Brendan, if you want to join us, if we have some other interests, you can go ahead and email me, and then we'll work out, you know, who will be joining us. I'll let, you know, I can loop Brendan in at that point.

[98:05] Okay. And you'll send me an invite for that, or something? I think we have an invite? That I can send along. Yeah. I can send through a calendar invite. That would be very helpful, yeah. And please definitely check that Boards and Commissions webpage in the email link, because it has some information, and you can forward that to other, you know, people. This position is… does not need to be a design professional. It's not listed as a design professional, so they don't have to have that portion. They could be an interested community member that's, you know, likes design and architecture and urban design, built environment. Or community… or community member at large, or whatever. It can be a member, yeah, it's a community member at large, so that's also an option. Okay. Great.

[99:01] And then, Matthew, you sit… Matthew State retires if… unless you reapply. Once that… and the new member has… Seated? onboarded? You can stay, Matthew. If we, by chance, because we've had it where we don't get as many applicants, and they extend the opening dates to try to find some, if you would like to stay on, there's… we can… you can stay seated until we get a new applicant in, and… A new person aboard… onboarded, so… Yeah, I would do that under… Okay, that would be wonderful. Yeah, that'd be great. didn't we go through a period where we never could have a quorum for a few times? We struggled when there was 4 members, and then 2 members were sick at once, so… or one member was sick and one was unavailable, so it tends to be a little bit more difficult with 5 members without 5 members.

[100:00] But, so we did clear that with the city attorney's office for that, so… If you'd like to do that, we'd love to have you, and then we also will be… You know, if you decide not to continue on after, you know, through the recruitment period. We will still have our going away. events. I'll plan on that then. I wasn't intending to reapply, I don't even know if that was an option this time, but… It's, yeah, it's always an option. There's not a term application limit for… for board members, so… You can reapply, or if you know, you know someone in your firm, or, you know, just an interested person, you can also let them know. Yeah. I nominate Brendan. Or Anna, I think Anna should do it. I'll talk to her. Yeah. Yeah, we'll… I'll circulate that. web page, and… Okay, that's lovely. Yeah, me too.

[101:00] Okay. Okay, so will we… do you think we'll have a project in January? I think we're gonna have two projects in January. Oh, cool. Two large projects. So we're really gonna test out the time management skills in this. Yeah. The deck and the timer, so, as we start to march some of these new processes out. And it'll be helpful that this has all gone in… is going into effect, so… Cool. Alright. Okay. Alright. Happy holidays, everyone! Yes, happy holidays. holidays. Thank you. Dang. for everyone. Thanks, bye-bye. Oh, do we need to adjourn? Yes. No. I move we adjourn. Because I… I have now adjourned this meeting. Thank you. Bye. Bye!