March 4, 2026 — Environmental Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] Camera off? Looks like it's very far zooped in. New, different technology. I have to say, I do not love… And then, Chris, are you sharing your screens? Interesting.

[1:01] Are you still in practice mode, or did you switch? No. I think it's just showing because he's in the meetings. Like, use the other participants show the view. Brilliant. What are you looking for? The view to show what the camera's seeing. See what I have on the top? View, click view. Thank you, I can see that section. Am I on the right one? There we go. Thank you. See, this is why I love the ring. Bye. All right. We are live. I'll call meeting to order. Welcome, everyone, to the March Environmental Advisory Board meeting. My name's Heather Sandin, and I will, excuse me, be serving as your technical host for tonight. Please, pardon the clunkiness with the technology, we're in a room that we're not typically in.

[2:21] Great. Still sharing. The City has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive, meaningful, and inclusive civic conversations. This vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members, staff, and board members, as well as democracy for people of all ages, identities, public experiences, and political perspectives. For more information about this vision and the community engagement process, please visit the website seen on your screen, bolderColorado.gov forward slash services forward slash productive pipe and atmospheres, and the Boulder Revised Code Section 16B.

[3:05] The City will enforce the rules of decorum found in the Boulder Revised Code, Section 16B, including participants are required to sign up to speak using the name they are commonly notified, and individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online. Currently, only audio testimony is permitted online. No attendee shall disrupt, disturb, or otherwise impede the orderly conduct of any board 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 physical or virtual meeting room, or refrain from addressing the board. Only one person at a time may speak during open comment, unless an accommodation with an interpreter is required. All remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city business. No participant shall make threats or use other forms of exploitation against any person. Obscenity, other epithets based on race, gender, or religion, and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise exceeds the meaning will not be tolerated.

[4:05] Because we do not have registration for open and public comment tonight, you can indicate you would like to participate by using the raise hand function. The raise hand button is in the participant box, which can be found in the menu by hovering over the top or the bottom of your screen, and then clicking on the participant icon. When the box opens, you will see that raise hand button at the bottom. By clicking the button, you can indicate you would like to participate in an open or public comment. If you have joined us by phone, you can press star 9 to raise your hand. I'm sure. We do have a couple of attendees. No one is raising their hand at the moment, but I'll give folks a minute to find their…

[5:00] Raise the hand buttons. And seeing none, I think we are okay to move on. Great. A motion to approve the minutes from last month. The first? Second. Great. Awesome. You want to kick us off? Oh, sure. Definitely. Evening, Board. For the record, Jonathan Cohen, Director of Climate Initiatives. Nice to be with you tonight. I promised I would make this to you very, very brief, but I really wanted to just take a moment to… excuse me, call. And more importantly, to celebrate what was a pretty important milestone yesterday. So, the… the draft, Older Valley Comprehensive Plan was published yesterday. After about a year and a half of

[6:05] outreach, coordination, engagement, partnerships, etc. And I'm just really grateful that Chris and Tucker are here to present tonight. If you remember, they were both with you at your meeting in September to introduce both the process and then some of the areas of focus that you might be seeing. And hopefully you'll notice that some of your input has been captured in this latest draft, and tonight is really about the next step in the process, but also there are some specific questions that were curated, really, to get at some of the interests of the board. So with that, I will just give you guys. Thank you all, for hosting us here at the Environmental Advisory Board. It's always a pleasure to come talk to you all. We're going to go through a quick presentation that's about 25 or so slides, probably 15 minutes, and then we'd like to open it up, really, for discussion. As Jonathan mentioned, we have a couple of key questions that we'd like to get you guys some feedback on. I will start by also acknowledging that the draft plan was only released yesterday, so you may not have had the full amount of time that you need to really dig into it and understand all of the

[7:10] policies that we've proposed, as well as the overall band use strategy. And that's no problem. I don't think that'll take away from the conversation. Hopefully, we're able to provide some meaningful context, and then we'll certainly encourage you all to spend the time that you need to really understand the environmental policies. As well as the entire plan. It will be open until April 6th for community comment, and a little bit later on in the presentation, I'll walk you guys through how exactly to provide comments as individual community members. But first, I'll just kind of share what the main goals are here, and then I will actually pass it over to Tucker. Tucker's going to give about half the presentation, and then I'll finish this out with the remaining half. But as Jonathan had mentioned, you know, our goal here tonight is to really share a draft comprehensive plan with you all, talk a little bit about what's changed from previous iterations of the plan, what's evolved, and really how it's structured.

[8:04] And then we'll again show you, I'll do a little demonstration on how to provide your input. We'll share a little bit about what community feedback we've been hearing, how that has shaped the plan, the feedback from you all in September, and how that has helped shape the plan. And then, you know, we're here to also get the other feedback from you all before the plan moves forward. This is still very much of a draft. It's the first draft that we've released, and as I mentioned, it'll be open until April 6th for Comment from the community, definitely taking another round of revisions before we get a final recommended plan a little bit later this summer until we bring forward for adoption. So, we're especially interested in where you see alignment with the, board's priorities and where you think we may need to ultimately strengthen the environmental-related policies. Okay, I'm gonna hand it over to Tucker. This is Tucker Porsche. He's an invaluable member of our team. He's been with us for over a year, year and a half now, and he's done a lot of really great work.

[9:02] Yeah, so just gonna take a moment to clarify your role in the process. So there's four formal adopting bodies, City Council, the City Planning Board, County Planning Commission, and the Board of County Commissioners. And then all the other boards in the city are advisory to the process, as well as some advisory county boards. Your role is incredibly important. You help us identify where policies may need refinement, where there are gaps, and where alignment with your board's expertise is critical. And your feedback will help shape any recommended changes before the plan advances further. And then during the adoption process, you'll also have the opportunity to provide formal recommendations to Planning Board and City Council. Which become part of public record and help form their decisions. And we really see this as a collaborative step. Your insight really helps strengthen the plan before it reaches final action.

[10:00] So here's the whole process laid out. So we began with a boulder Today, which focused on Orienting the project, and, understanding our current conditions, and coming up with data, trends, and what we're experiencing as a community, and kind of created a report to present that, As well as started to gather some community input about where we want to head with the plan. And then from there, we moved into a folder tomorrow, where we worked with the community to define a shared vision and identify priorities. That was really the listening and understanding phase of the project. And then next came a bolder direction, where we translated the vision into policy options and preferred directions. This is where we started to discuss trade-offs and some key choices about where the plan was headed. And now we're in the bolder Future phase. We are reviewing the draft plan and the future land use map, and this is where the earlier work really comes together, and we have… we have a document to share.

[11:04] Yeah, so this timeline reflects kind of a deliberate progression from understanding to visioning to direction setting, and now refining the draft. So… I'm just gonna go through what a comprehensive plan is again, just for your understanding. So it's the 20-year vision for the Boulder Valley. It says the long-term direction for how we grow, change, and invest over time. It just guides decisions across major areas, so land use, housing, transportation, climate action, economic vitality, and more. And it's very intentionally broad because it serves as the policy foundation for many different actions the city and county take. It also informs budgeting, zoning decisions, and future subcommunity and department plans. It doesn't, like, act for… as those tools, but it sets the direction that those tools will follow. And then, importantly, it's used by… oops, sorry.

[12:01] Policymakers, staff, boards, and commissions, and community members. It's a policy framework and a public guide for understanding where we're headed. It is really for, helping guide the community's long-term vision and how we evolve in the Boulder Valley. So with this update, we've taken a fresh approach, rethinking past iterations, and really trying to better reflect our community's evolving priorities and future challenges. We understand the future looks much different than our past. Our growth patterns, our community needs, and the issues we face today are not the same as they were before. So the plan really… we really made sure the plan reflected that. So a big part of that is climate resilience must guide our long-term decisions, ensuring that everything from land use to infrastructure prepares us for wildfire, flooding, and other climate impacts. On top of that, equity and belonging are central priorities. This plan is about creating opportunities and a sense of place for everyone in our community.

[13:04] And then, the way we live and work is changing from housing needs to mobility and remote work. The plan really needs to anticipate these shifts rather than react after the fact. The plan is really designed with flexibility built in, so it can adapt over time to new challenges and innovations, while staying true to the city's and to the border values. Some goals, for the plan is, like, we want it to be a lot more adaptable and flexible, so it can respond to changing conditions without needing constant rewrites. We don't really want to be going back to the plan, rewriting the plan, very often. The policy language has also been a lot simplified. It's a lot… making it clearer and easier to understand for all community members and policy makers. The plan is less prescriptive, and more about setting the direction, giving guidance without being rigid. And we really want it to be action-oriented while still remaining aspirational, so it inspires the community while pointing to concrete steps, and it's designed to respond over time, staying relevant, as our needs, technologies, and priorities evolve.

[14:14] And then, the foundations of the plan really do remain strong, even with this update. So, we want to continue to value a compact community surrounded by open space, protecting the land's natural systems, and vistas that make Boulder so unique. Strong neighborhoods, in a sense, a place remains central, giving residents a connection to their community. climate leadership, environmental stewardship, continue to guide our decisions, and this plan reinforces our commitment to sustainability. And then the county… the collaboration between the city and county is key to this plan, and that is continued as well. This plan does have some new ideas that really emerged from our community engagement, new or reinforced ideas. So, night economy is a new one, and then we've reinforced certain things, like 15-minute neighborhoods, and fleshing out what housing supply and diversity looks like, and we really rethought our future land use strategy, and then also note,

[15:12] community engagement really led us to include more about local ag, food systems, arts and culture, social connection. Those ones really show bigger than the media engagement. So overall, what we heard was a call for conviction. People want stronger connections to nature, our parks, trails, and open space. They want stronger connections to daily needs, like shops, services, and transportation. Connection to opportunity, access to jobs, education, and resources, and then the, another one is just a connection to how to make consumer homes unavailable, affordable, and fit diverse needs. And finally, there's a call to strengthen connections to each other in general, building a sense of belonging, a community across Boulder, and I think that's something that's really emerged in the last,

[16:02] You know, 5 to 6 years after our pandemic. Yeah, we also heard a desire for a lot of… a lot of stuff, so these are some of the bigger focus areas from the, engagement, so this is a little bit like the last slide, but, Really, a focus on local businesses, strengthening our local business policies, safe streets, so enhancing what we can do with the plan to kind of encourage our transportation and mobility to Work in that direction, welcoming public spaces, so that's coming back to that call for connection, especially to each other, and kind of having more public spaces where people can build community. Climate and wildfire resilience remain top priorities, an inclusive economy that supports everyone, and then really stronger local food systems, supporting farmers, supporting restaurants, supporting markets, and having more access to goods and services.

[17:08] As I mentioned, we came up with a vision for this update, so our community works together to ensure everyone belongs, to create opportunities for all, and to sustain the health of the Boulder Valley for future generations. And then, kind of our statement on how we're going to realize this vision. So, I'll read that out as well. Balanced housing opportunities and economic activity with natural ecosystems and rural lands serve as a model for innovation and action as we face a changing climate, strengthen physical and social connections that are accessible to everyone, embrace our differences, and leverage our community assets and creative spirit to solve tough problems. So at its heart, it's really about working together to ensure everyone belongs, creating opportunities for all to live, work, or visit here, and sustaining the health of their community and our environment for generations to come. The vision guides every aspect of the plan, for policies to actions, and keeps us focused on what matters most to our community.

[18:03] Yeah, with that, I'll let Chris take over, and he'll go through So the policies, details, and then do some great work. Cool. All right, let's jump into the draft plan. So, we'll start, really at a high level and kind of describing how the draft plan has evolved. And so, as we look at the draft plan today, you know, first it takes a clear, more values-based approach, making our guiding principles more visible and actionable. The plan reflects the evolution of housing and neighborhoods to meet today's needs and future priorities. The plan emphasizes a prepared and resilient community, ready to respond to climate and other challenges that we face now and into the future. Natural systems still remain a top priority, along with agriculture and local food systems. We've also focused on creating stronger connections, as Tucker's mentioned a couple of different times, between people, between neighborhoods, and services. And finally, the plan does introduce a new future land use strategy that we'll dive into in a bit, but ultimately, we feel like it aligns with the community vision while remaining flexible for the future.

[19:14] So… We'll jump into the future land use map and strategy, and then we'll talk a little bit about some policies. So, previous iterations of the comprehensive plan actually had 26 different land use designations, and we have reduced that down to 12. And there's a lot of reasons for that. A lot of the previous designations had a lot of overlap. They were really kind of parcel-specific designations, and we tried to be a little bit more broad. And so. at the end of the day, we have 4 different classes. We have neighborhoods, we have hubs, we have systems, and we have special purpose designations. So, within neighborhoods, previously, I think we had 7 or 8 different residential types of land uses, and now we have two. It's a neighborhood one and a neighborhood 2. Neighborhood 1 is going to be your typical single-family, maybe introducing some lower intensity types of housing, EDUs, small duplexes, triplexes. And then neighborhood two is going to be a little bit more intense, something that you'll find along more of our transit corridors.

[20:11] Hubs, we have 3 different hub designations, so community hubs, regional hubs, and innovation and production hubs. Community hubs are really sort of that vision of 15-minute neighborhoods coming to reality. These are meant to be organic in nature. They will occur across town. There are many places that are already community hubs. There will be some future new community hubs. I think a lot of our retail centers. That's kind of what we're envisioning, ultimately, as being a more mixed-use, community-friendly area. Regional hubs, think the Boulder Valley Regional Center, so on 28th Street, by Target, Whole Foods, Boulder Junction is a regional hub now. Innovation and production hubs are some more of those current mixed-use areas where we introduce a little bit of potential industrial mixed-use environment.

[21:02] systems. There's 4 different designations, so we have parks, pretty self-explanatory, all of the parks throughout the city. Greenways, sports familiar with our greenways. Greenways is a new land use designation. We didn't previously have a greenways designation. But they're really important, vital community assets, right? And so we ultimately believe that they do deserve their own use designation within the framework. Open space, previously we had 3 different open space designations, and now we have one. At the end of the day, open space is open space. Whether it's acquired, whether it has development rights, we have open space, so we have one open space designation, and then rural lands, really the areas that are surrounding city limits, so what was previously Area 3, those are more of our working lands, rural lands. And then special purposes, pretty self-explanatory. These are our industrial areas, our facilities, so federal labs are included underneath our facilities, and then the university has its own designation.

[22:03] Can something be more than one? No, not typically. We… every parcel is going to have its own designation. I will say, though, that there are some parcels throughout the community that we have proposed multiple designations for. Okay, so a few. Yeah. Like, I could see a neighborhood, too, and a community Maybe. Yeah, like, what would be, like, something that's, like. Shopping on the bottom end apartments top. It could be in a couple different ones, of these, and really this is… kind of a good example, right? Because this new framework is meant to be flexible, right? So it doesn't have to necessarily have to… No, I think you could find a mixed-use building where there's retail on the bottom floor and housing above in either a Neighborhood 2 or a community hub. I'll walk through how we've defined these a little bit. You'll see there's primary and supporting uses, so that helps add a little bit of clarity.

[23:01] What you might expect in each one of these. And the purpose of the consolidation was just to kind of streamline, make it more efficient, the way that land use was efficient. Yeah, make it a little bit more streamlined, more efficient, but also more flexible. The previous 26 designation rooms were very rigid. They really strongly defined what could and could not happen. And so, you know, this is a 20-year plan. Things can change in 20 years pretty significantly, and so we wanted to make sure that through the consolidation of 26 different designations of the flexibility, what could occur. And going back to that previous example, there are appropriate places in town where you have a community hub that could have, you know, retail on the first floor and housing up top, as well as within a Neighborhood 2 designation. An increased flexibility means you would have to go through a rezoning process. With the 27, 26 other designations, and so that enables you a little bit more wiggle room, flexibility, then? It kind of depends. Our zoning districts are, as of right now, not aligned with the new framework. There's going to have to be some zoning updates. How that rolls out, we still don't quite know yet, whether it's city-sponsored, city-wide.

[24:21] rezoning, or whether it happens on a… Parcel by parcel basis, if someone wants to come in and develop, then we would work with that applicant, ultimately, and decide what zoning district is most appropriate that meets the intent of that land use designation. Okay, so these… these categories of rightness are just for the comprehensive plan, but is there an aspiration that… that this Updated classification would then be adopted by the zoning. Thinking about it in the right way, these designations are very specific to the Comprehensive plan. You won't find these within the Boulder Revised Code, you won't find them within our zoning designations. There is going to have to be some code work.

[25:05] that, you know, comes out of the result of this plan, and so there will be some code updates that do speak to these designations. But land use is different than zoning, right? It's… not a property, right? It's not a regulation, it's a vision, it's a long-term signal, a 20-year outlook on a property, what that potential property could become, right? Just because maybe you're, you know. in an area that currently is designated something like a mixed use, and then, you know, we proposed a neighborhood, too, on it. Development doesn't have to happen until that person comes in and wants to redevelop, right? Then that land use designation would be applied. And the zoning district that most suits that designation would then be applied. So it's… there's code work that needs to happen at the end of the day. But yeah, the biggest difference between this is that these are aspirational, future-thinking vision of what uses could exist throughout the city, and then zoning will ultimately have to match that.

[26:05] Cut. So here is the future landing spot. It looks similar to the old one, it's a lot of different colors, right? Again, I'll encourage you all to go online, and I can show you here in a bit exactly how to do it, but you can zoom in at any parcel throughout the city, and there's a comparison, the old land use map versus the future land use map. But really what we attempted to do here was to design and show the overall framework for growth and change across the Boulder Valley that ultimately, hopefully, does reflect the community's vision and principles that we had just discussed. So again, rather than focusing on individual parcels, as has been previous practice, it highlights, really, that neighborhood scale, block scale patterns, and how different parts of the community ultimately connect. The map is meant to guide decisions, provide clarity for future development, and remain flexible as our needs and priorities evolve over time.

[27:02] So again, you can kind of see here we attempted to right size, it's more neighborhood scale, parcel by parcel. Each one of these land uses are different. There is some overlap, but we have tried to keep that limited, and then again, shooting for adaptability. At the end of the day. Is there ever a comparison of this map to, like, the previous comprehensive plan? Yep. So then you can see, like, what changes, either by… You know, acreage, or… You know, area on… just because… I think the value, I think, of seeing this would be help me to have some, like, reference points, and… Yeah, good question. We do have a comparison. I'll show you here in a minute of kind of what that looks like, though what I'm… correct me if I'm wrong, what I might be hearing you say is if it would be beneficial to see some, like, statistics, right, of here, percentage-wise, here's how much of the city is now… has a land use designation of Neighborhood 1 versus what was previously a single-family designation.

[28:06] We don't have that. That is something that we could look into. I think that would be an interesting analysis for us to kind of understand and take a look at, but what you will see is a direct… there's two maps online, and as you zoom in, both maps zoom in, the previous land use versus the new future land use. So, I'll show you that here in a minute, and you can provide feedback on, really any of the parcels throughout the city. So, I mentioned previously, how we define these Definitely for these land use designations. This has evolved quite a bit. Our previous 26 designations, there was maybe a sentence or two that really kind of outlined the vision of that land use designation, but they also included some metrics tied to it, so what we envisioned the dwelling units per acre, the density, the intensity. Really, those types of metrics are really more appropriate to find within the zoning code than it is the land use code, so we've stripped some of that out, but we have added some additional context that we hope is useful for the community and developers. So each one of these, this is just an example from Neighborhood 1,

[29:11] We've added some language about what it is, so this is kind of your one- or two-sentence definition, describing at a high level what the definition, or the land use designation envisions. We've also added a section describing why it matters, as well as adding sections related to urban design and mobility. So, tying transportation and land use together is a really important feature of this plan, and we think that we've added some expectations, both from an urban design and a mobility perspective, that really tie it to the land use. And then we have primary and supporting uses. As I was mentioning, Under what you can expect. So for Neighborhood 1, the primary use is envisioned to be residential, which could include detached units, attached units, or group living. Supporting uses could be a multi-unit, maybe a duplex or a triplex, two or three units.

[30:02] There could be some commercials, so retail, personal services, office, food and beverage, baker, artisans, and innovation spaces. And this is actually pretty unique to this approach, where we have attempted to try and introduce some commercial, neighborhood-scale commercial activities into our neighborhoods, and that is something that we heard pretty loud and clear throughout our engagement process. Is people want their neighborhoods to be a little bit more alive, a little bit more active, but at the appropriate scale. So we hope that this ultimately achieves that within Neighborhood 1. But that's kind of how our definitions are structured to this point, and that really carries through that overall structure throughout the rest of the designations, too. So I'd encourage you all, I don't have time to go through all of them tonight, but as you are reviewing the draft plan, you will see these definitions for all of those classes that I had mentioned all 12. Okay. here are our environmental-related policies. There's a lot, right? And I'm not going to go through every single one of these tonight, we don't have time to do so. The reason I wanted to flash this slide up, there's a lot of text on it, is really just to hit home that this plan really does touch on a lot of different environmental-related issues.

[31:13] This is probably the topic area that we have the most policies for, and so there were, I think, 8 that we highlighted in the memo. We wanted to highlight a few of those for you guys to get a look at, understanding that the draft plan wasn't out yet. But again, with how many environmental-related policies are in this plan, it is going to be really important for you all to dig into these at your own pace, understand them, give us feedback online, about what you think might be missing, what's really great about any of these policies, We can discuss any of them. We can pull the plan up and read the policies together, or any of the ones that were highlighted in the memo. I have a question. Are the policies then tied… there's, like, a policy for each of the different land uses, or is there just, like, one policy related to land use?

[32:02] I wouldn't say that there's policies directly related to… They do, they do. The policies need to speak to the land use, and the land use kind of needs to speak to the policy, right? The land use map is a reflection of all of the policies that you find within the comprehensive plan. But some of these you may not see as strong of a connection to. Boulder Valley Biodiversity, you know, our natural systems designations kind of cover this. Climate action is a really big one, where we think all of our designations are attempting to introduce more mixed-use, eco-friendly environments. But there's not necessarily, like, a one-to-one time between the policy and the landings. I was just trying to figure it out. I know, yeah, it's… it's complicated. Sorry, back to those policies. Sure. So, is there overlap between some of these policies and the City of Boulder's Climate Action Plan, and how do those, kind of, yeah, how do you…

[33:02] What's their, view those as two different, There is overlap. There's overlap amongst all of these policies, but we as the city have a lot of plans and strategies and methods, right? And so we took all of those into consideration as we were developing the plan. At the end of the day, we want all of our policies to speak to those individual plans, but those individual plans also need to implement the vision, really, that is established within these policies. And so, the Climate Action Policy, I do think, speaks to the Climate Action Plan pretty strongly. But at the end of the day, as we look to update the Climate Action Plan, or the Parks and Recreation Department plan, all of those plans will be looking to the Comprehensive plan for guidance, and ultimately any kind of update. Because they do happen on a 10-year basis. Things change over that 10-year period. Department plans, the Climate Action Plan also gets updated on a 3-year basis, and so there's… there is an inherent tie between the two.

[34:04] Yeah. Does that answer your question? Okay, so this is… this kind of is, like, the priority. This is, like, okay, this is the feedback from the community, this is, like, the central source, and then the other plan should pull or kind of follow the lead of this. Okay, that's it. This is the aspirational… Who do we want to be as a community? What do we want to achieve as a community over the next 20 years? I know exactly what happened. I wish I had it in the presentation. You showed it to us in September. Yeah. Low chart. So, there's a lot of different tools, that the city has, including department plans, the Climate Action Plan, and the Capital Improvements Program that all look at the comprehensive plan, really, to help inform decision making. Right, so then, I guess the expectation is the Climate Action Plan if there's kind of, like, you know, new priorities or new, you know, focus areas that the Climate Action Plan would then be updated to align with

[35:02] Yeah, and I don't know what the schedule looks like, just because we're a you know, going forward for approval of this plan doesn't mean that it's necessarily going to kick in updates to all of these plans, you know, day one of this plan being adopted. But when the time does come to update the Climate Action Plan, the Climate Action Plan will be looking to the Boulder Valley Comp Plan for guidance. And the comp plan's not necessarily going to provide all of the guidance for the Climate Action Plan, but at a high, you know, aspirational level. As we develop an update to that plan, and we'll be looking towards the comprehensive plan for that guidance. I'll just… I'll just add, I think you answered that really well, and we're going through that update of the cap right now, and, you know, there's obviously a through line between a lot of the various plans that the city oversees, and so that graphic, I think, does a really nice job of talking about kind of the aspirational vision. You know, the Climate Action Plan's an interesting one because it sits in the same kind of space as our racial equity plan, for example, which is there's a big chunk of it which is also very aspirational, that talks about, here's where we want to go, here's the condition that we're trying to create.

[36:06] But what's different in this cap update is that we're doing these big moves. And so the big moves contemplate and intersect really directly with the vision that the comp plan is laying out. And so they're going to work very complementary towards one another, but generally speaking. the way it's usually worked is you look at the time horizon. I mean, you look at the language to say, here's how we kind of create this blanket, this broad statement, and that's what the comp plan has always represented, and it also is representative of not just the City of Boulder, but also Boulder County. And so we start to then think about how other plans, like the CAP and racial equity plans that are a little bit longer term, how do those nest underneath there? And then that graph does a really nice job, or the graphic shows then how the master plans of each department start to show up. And ultimately, they all stitch together. The SARE framework and the citywide strategic plan, so they really work in tandem to achieve the broader

[37:07] better outcome, and I think you're going to see a lot of the similar language When we launch, I mean, we brought back, kind of, the draft of the cap, and we're going to be launching it here just in a couple of months. So it was really, I think, fortuitous that we were working on these updates, in a similar time frame. Bye. So, your feedback, you know, we were here speaking with you guys back in September, and it really helped us. It helped shape the direction of the plan. It highlighted some priorities, some concerns, and opportunities that we've been carrying forward. So, you know, you guys had expressed to us previously that we really wanted to ensure that there was strong connection to sustainability policies to other community priorities, including housing, transportation, and economic vitality. Really, that sustainability should be influencing the entire plan at the end of the day. To make sure that we're integrating equity and environmental justice throughout, to strengthen language on renewable energy, and to highlight opportunities for green infrastructure and resilience.

[38:11] So, implementation. What happens after this plan has been approved? I think it's really important to highlight that this is gradual change. There are some significant changes that we are proposing within this plan, but that change happens gradually. It's a 20-year plan. It's guided by zoning and other regulatory updates, area and sub-community plans, as well as capital investments, so as we were kind of just talking, there's a lot of different mechanisms, a lot of different tools that the city has to reach the vision that is described within this plan. Every city and county department has a role at the end of the day, and partnerships with the community are essential to making this thing work. The plan also connects really strongly to the citywide strategic plan, as Jonathan was just mentioning, really to ensure that there's coordinated action across all of our city departments. And really, at the end of the day, ultimately, this plan sets the direction that we want to go as a community, and there's a lot of future decisions that will ultimately bring to life.

[39:10] So we do want to hear from you. This is an exciting moment. Our staff team has been very excited to get this draft plan out. We've been working on it for what feels like many, many years. I think it's been 14 months to this point. But we've done a lot of work, and we're excited to share it with you. I'm actually just gonna pop over to the website so I can show you guys. Bear with me as I navigate the screen sharing. I want to make sure you guys know exactly where to find the plan and where to provide us feedback outside of this meeting. Again, just recognizing that You probably haven't had as much time as you would like to review the plan, and certainly want to encourage that you guys do. So, if you go to the project website, it's a boulderfeature.org, probably been there once or twice. Driveclan is live, so that's the first thing that you're gonna see.

[40:05] If you scroll down, you can read and review the full draft plan here. There's probably a little too many links, but you'll find your way. If you click on this, it will open the draft plan. So this is the draft plan here. I think it looks pretty good. You guys can give us feedback on that, too, if you want. I'll just scroll for a minute. There's a lot of introductory, sort of. Current trends, what we're seeing as a community, some history, what has led us to where we are today. Some overall statistics, kind of, you know, different key trends, as I mentioned, and really kind of what has guided some of the decision-making in this plan. Division and values is described here, everything that we've heard from the community, our community values. Tucker mentioned the vision, as is expressed here.

[41:00] And then Chapter 3 is the policies. So there's 102 policies, which I will mention is a significant, also a consolidation. Previously, we had 220-something policies, and they were long, and some of them very contradictory, some of them really great policies that have moved forward, so… So one of our goals, again, for this update, to provide some clarity, some simplicity with the plan, make it a little more community-friendly. So we've reduced that number down to 102 policies. These are all the policies. I'll quickly go through these, certainly want you guys to spend some time reading through each of them, in particular the environmental-related ones. There's what we're calling feature spreads as well, big topic areas that we heard from the community that took a lot of focus. This is an example of the future of natural infrastructure, so just some different insights that we've taken away. Highlighting waterways, greenways, or tree canopy, biodiversity habitats, just trying to provide some context, around the policies that we've ultimately described before the future spread.

[42:06] There's one here on the future of arts, culture, and the economy, so a lot of different topic areas. As you go through this, is there anything in here related to the environmental policies that you feel like is a big shift on the current policy that would be meeting? good for us to give folks and feedback on, where you feel like it's a 180 from the current policy. Yeah, no, that's a really good question. Environmental policy in Boulder has always really been a strong… Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I just want to review it, but wanted to make sure. Yeah, I think when we've taken it a little bit further, probably areas around local ag and food production, I think, has been a really big focus of the community and some of the policymaking that we've developed. Natural systems as an infrastructure for the city, I would say, has taken some leaps too compared to previous iterations of the plan, and the example I was just giving, that feature spread of the plan, I think this is kind of where that shows up. We're trying to provide some additional context about the importance of natural infrastructure and kind of how we see it moving forward. Especially with heat.

[43:14] Yeah. And all the… all these spreads also list which policies they kind of tie into, so… On the Moving Forward section. Okay, I'm going to blast through the rest of the policy so I can get to the land use map. I'm just trying to orientate you guys so that when you go home and you spend some time reviewing this, you're a little bit more comfortable with it. Yeah, so here's a feature spread on food systems. This is a big topic that we've heard, so we've added some additional context around it. And then here's the land use strategy. So if you want to understand the land use strategy a little bit more than what I've been able to describe tonight, sort of spend some time reading this, it describes some of the objectives of the overall land use strategy, what we were hoping to set out and achieve. How to use the land use designations and the map. This is provided here, and then this graphic you guys saw.

[44:08] Again, additional context, really, just around each of those classes, so what were the goals related to the neighborhoods class, the systems class, and then you see those definitions that I was mentioning. So that's… that's kind of the makeup of the draft plan. There's a glossary here at the end. Here's all the different definitions, our systems class, parks, greenways. This would be a good one for you all to take a look at, provide some feedback on. Let's see what else is there. And then there's a quick chapter on implementation, how this plan ultimately kind of comes to fruition at the end of the day, some of those we've already talked about, and then a glossary here at the end. So, that's kind of what the draft plan looks like. When you are ready to really dig into it and provide feedback outside of this meeting, you can do so, you just kind of have to keep scrolling down this main page. So, we have some high-level questions overall, the plan as a whole.

[45:11] How well does it really support the vision that we've developed from community input, or the Boulder Valley? And then if you want to expand on anything, kind of give us some high-level feedback, this plan does a really good job of achieving this, it falls short of achieving this, I'm concerned about this trade-off. You can provide that in this text box here. Then, we've tried to break it down, a little bit more community-friendly, where we've grouped all of those policies that we were just scrolling through to different topic areas, and these are the sustainability, equity, and resilience goals the cities established. So it just kind of frames the different policies that touch on each. So if we go to environmentally sustainable. you will see all of the different policies related to environmental sustainability for it. So you can click on one, let's say we want to help the ecosystems, here's the policy, you can read it, and if you keep scrolling down.

[46:11] there is similar questions that we were asking before. So, how well, do these environmental and sustainable policies support the vision for the Boulder Valley on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being the lowest, 5 being the highest, and if there's anything that you want to include narrative-wise within this text box, you can do so. You can provide comments for any of the different topic areas that we've highlighted, so don't just, stay focused on one or two. Then we have some opportunities to provide us some feedback on the future land use map. So here, if you click here, this is kind of some feedback on the overall land use strategy, so… The overall approach, the different definitions for neighborhoods, for hubs, for systems, you can read those here. So if you want to take a look at systems, then it pops up in parks, greenways, let's take a look at greenways.

[47:02] So here's that definition, what it is, why it matters, what you can expect, urban design and management, as well as mobility. Same thing, you can scroll down, and you can rate it on a scale of 1 to 5, and then provide any high-level general feedback, or detailed feedback, if you wish, on the future land use strategy. Then… this is the last one, I know it's a lot of different ways to practice. feedback on the plan, but this is… this is kind of a cool, unique one. I'll click on the actual map. So this is what I was telling you, the comparison between the two. Previous versus the new iteration. Do-do-do, okay, here it is. So the left is our current future land use, and then the right is what we are proposing. So if you click inside. You can zoom in, and both maps are going to zoom at the same time. Is the green or rich? The green, in a way, that's Area 3, so we have different planning areas. Area 1, which is really city limits, where we have urban developments, where the city provides services. Area 2, which is unincorporated Boulder County.

[48:12] What color is that on here? It's like a gray… actually, I don't know that they're showing up on here. This is a land use map. We do have the area… planning area map, I can show you that, too, so you can kind of see. But generally, so the green is going to be our open space lands, which typically is our growth boundary, our area 3 boundary. But let's say we just wanted to zoom in and take a look in. Pacific area, you can see… It's a systems, there's a greenway along Boulder Creek. And then we have systems as PK, which is park. Previously, it was PKUO, there was public designation, so if you want to go in and take a look at a part of town that you're interested in, you can really kind of compare and contrast the two different designations. And I think really what you'll notice is that there's not that big of a difference between the two. There are some areas, particularly along our transit corridors, that we're hoping to get a little bit more intense development.

[49:07] But at the end of the day, I think you'll see a pretty similar comparison between the two. It's really within the definitions of what's allowed and what we're visioning for these areas where I think some of the differences come in. Okay, then you can provide feedback, this, I… is kind of a cool feature. If you go in and you want to provide feedback on a specific parcel with a designation, you can do so. You click on it, and then you can add a comment over here. It'll all be public record, so everybody can see what other people are saying, see if there's any general trends about a particular area of town or a parcel. I'll just pop open the area map real quick as well. And we'll take some questions from you guys. So here's the green that you see here, really sort of the growth foundry. That's the area 3. Everything in gray is the area 2.

[50:05] So places that are eligible for annexation into the city, where current, city services are not provided, and then everything in yellow is city limits, essentially city, serviced areas. Gray is unincorporated region. So it's a lot of different ways to provide us feedback, get familiar with it, really to, you know, do spend the time reading the draft plan, exploring these tools. They're pretty intuitive once you get in there and start playing around with it. But we hope that you guys do, really provide us feedback. Again, your guys' expertise. On a plan that is very environmentally dominated, we want to ensure that we're getting progressive feedback. Okay, I'm gonna stop sharing and jump back to the presentation to close us out. I have a question about Area 1, 2, and 3. There's something in the news about a decision made by City Council on Area 3. Yeah.

[51:02] Planning Reserve. But I thought Area 3 is not supposed to… is supposed to be a space, yeah. So, Area 3 Planning Reserve right now, Boy, this is a big topic, how I describe this. I'll let you take this one. Yeah, yeah, thanks. So there's a planning reserve up north of town, right, where the city has held land for a long, long time for any sort of future need, right? And we don't know what that need is, but we knew that there could be a need into the future, and so we've reserved that land. At every update to the comprehensive plan, we take a look at that and decide if there is sufficient need in order for us to actually expand into plans, or… So that's been a part of the comprehensive plan update, engaging with the community to understand if there is a need, for us to expand city services into that area. Council has to make a decision about whether there is a sufficient need or not. We started the process with the baseline urban services study, which is a high-level analysis, some numbers behind it, about what it might look like for the city to extend services into the Planning Reserve.

[52:15] That work was completed, I want to say, a year or so ago, kind of at the initiation of the update. They did pass that urban services analysis, felt like it did a good job of sort of, you know, envisioning, at a high level what it might take for the city to serve that area. Then the second step of that process was for us to, again, engage the community, do a community needs assessment. So we've been doing that, and that's probably what you're referencing. We took that to City Council. A month ago, I'm gonna say, now. And we've had a little bit of… ping-ponging, I will say, between Planning Board and City Council. City Council does feel like there is sufficient need for us to, explore options, right, of what, you know, expanding into the Planning Reserve could be. Planning Board did feel otherwise. They did not feel like there was sufficient need.

[53:05] And so, we have two different opinions, right, between two different bodies, and so we will be going back to Planning Board March 24th. To ask them to reconsider. And if they do want to reconsider, and ultimately decide that, sure, there is sufficient need, then we will initiate, basically, what I would describe as a It's called a Service Area Expansion Plan. It's a lot of lingo for a future subcommunity plan, right? And that's when we would start to look at what are the appropriate land uses? What do we want the planned reserve to be? Is it a new holiday neighborhood? It could be a lot of different things. There's a lot of designated park land up there, and so we don't know, ultimately, if Planning Board's gonna decide that they do want to, reconsider, and if they do want us to open up a service area expansion plan, we will. But that'll be a year, year and a half long planning process, where we'll be kind of taking a blank slate and asking the community, what do you all envision in the planning preserve? And then we'll develop a specific plan around.

[54:09] That was a lot, I hope that answered your question. Yeah, which… where is that, and how big is that piece of land? like, 500 acres? That's a decent… It is. It's a big… it's a big swath of… Yeah. Let me… I'll actually… And what was the services that people were looking for, or, like, what are you learning from the community that could go there? Housing. And that doesn't necessarily mean that it's all going to be housing, right? I think that is the number one need across the community, really, is for more options, more attainable housing in Boulder, and so I think that that's the direction that I think City Council has wanted us to explore. They have been very adamant, though, that they want some guardrails on that, that if we are going to expand into the reserve, that we really have to hit it right, and that it is attainable housing, and it's not just more market-rate luxury homes for people.

[55:10] there's some guardrails that that Council is attempting to put in place for us, which I think will be helpful. I'm going to share one more time just the planning areas map, so I can show you… exactly where the planning reserve is. Let me zoom out… So, we're somewhere down here, middle of Boulder. This dark green swap up here… US 36, Broadway, which is our head toward Lyons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, like, I know what it is. That's where the, like, Gateway… Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, as you can see, it's a big spot. It's a decent-sized spot. I guess… Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, because it's like a… it's kind of a similar community growth across, right?

[56:03] What is that neighborhood called? It's a holiday. Is it a holiday on the holidays? Yeah. I can see how that can be. That will controversial. Okay, let me bump back over to the presentation. He said we're not inflating water. That is interesting. No, I was intrigued too, that's what I was asking. I was trying to understand if you could change the boundary or not, because I thought they were trying to change the Urban Grave Boundary. I didn't realize there was this reserve area that day. Yeah. So… We are not attempting to change the… I had to send my question in as well. Okay, so I know that was a lot. Again, I really encourage you guys to spend some time taking a look at the draft plan, and you'll get familiar with it. It's taken me a little bit of time to get familiar with it, I'll be honest. It's been in a Word document for some time now, and now it's in a more visual presentation, which I think is helpful for all of us, staff included.

[57:09] And, you know, I'll mention again, it'll be open through April 6th, so write that note down, that we're really asking for all of the feedback by April 6th, so that we can have some time to make revisions, right? We take community input very seriously. We're going to be dissecting every comment that we get. From the community, from you all as advisory board members, and really attempting to balance all of the desires and the needs of the community, to develop a plan that is really the people's plan. I'll just share briefly some upcoming milestones. There are a lot of them, which is good. We're kind of hitting that final milestone of the project. There's a lot of review of the draft plan to come. We're at all of the advisory boards this month. You guys are kicking us off, so thank you. We appreciate that. We're actually upstairs right now at the Landmarks board meeting. A couple other staff members giving the same presentation, and we'll be engaging all of the other advisory boards for…

[58:02] Feedback on the plan. On March 18th, though, we'll be engaging the County Planning Commission in a study session to get their feedback on the draft plan on March 26th. We'll be hosting another city study session. This one will be joint between the Planning Board and City Council, so I encourage you all to tune into that conversation. April 9th, we'll be back at the county with the Board of County Commissioners to host a similar study session, and then April 13th, we're going to bring them all together, all four approving bodies, and hopefully have a productive conversation about the plan. And then in June is really when we'll start that adoption process, and that's gonna be, probably a couple months' worth of public hearings of, you know, deliberation and voting on the draft plan, and that will actually initiate the city on June 4th at the Planning Board. Some of the county dates are a little bit in flux right now, so I can't necessarily describe exactly what those are at this moment in time, but really June through July is going to be really sort of the important public hearings and adoption process.

[59:05] Okay, so we included two questions. We're happy to take feedback on anything that you guys heard today, anything that you've seen in the plan, if you've had a chance to take a look at it yet, but did want to provide some key questions that could hopefully guide the conversation. The first question is, are there any environmental policies that lack clarity, or measurable action within the draft plan? And the second question being, are there environmental issues that are underrepresented in this plan, or insufficiently prioritized? Okay Happy to take any questions. I know we've kind of been asking them as we go. I'm sure you have other questions I would be happy to attempt to answer. Or we can take feedback, whatever's for the best. So, yeah, I think… Start with a comment, which may… transform it to a question. One thing is kind of as a newcomer into understanding the complex plan.

[60:07] is… I had to get my bearings on what's different in this plan, and I think having referenced the previous plan. will be, helpful. And so, the way that I'm thinking about it is. any type of comparison between the two, and one way I could think about it is, okay, this is what we heard from the community, then this is now what we heard from the community. This is what's different, yeah, from the two. And, and then what does that mean? And how you measure what that means, in my opinion, would be We have now changed our land use designations. And if you could link those changes to, okay, this is what we've heard from the community, we have now made these changes, so then you can see the interplay of the connection between the two, saying, okay, we heard from the community, we want more affordable housing, we want more

[61:15] mobility options that are sustainable, and then reflect that by, okay, so therefore we have changed some of our land use designations to reflect that. And then you could see, like, the amount, so it kind of connects those two. I don't know if… If there is also a way to kind of link funding priorities, like, here's the budgets. that was associated with the previous comprehensive plan. Now we've got a new flavor, we got a new, feedback. In the community, this is how we're now adjusting our, you know, funding, or whatever it is that, you know, to show that you are taking that, feedback from the community, and now this is what's different. Yeah. That would be really helpful. I mean, I think.

[62:08] Yeah, that's super helpful feedback. I, in particular, I think it would be… and this is helpful for us as we gear up for that joint study session with Plan Board Council, right? Because I think that that will actually help the conversation with them, if we're able to describe, here's… here's what the community was asking of us in 2015. Here's what the community was asking of us in 2025, and here's how that has been reflected in the actual plan. Yeah, I think that could be really helpful and useful for us, both in how we present this plan to the community, as well as the approval bodies. I know there wasn't a question about the budget priorities, but I will just chime in a little bit on that. This plan doesn't set budget priorities as directly as I think you might be looking for. I think where you will see the priorities, budgetarily speaking, is within the city's budget. So once this plan is approved. hopefully sometime this summer, in June, July, probably August time frame. It is going to be a little bit dynamic, because that's going to be the same time that the city's budget is being developed on an annual basis.

[63:04] So I think that the budget is going to kind of have to be looking backwards with the formally adopted plan and the 2015 plan, but also looking forward for what's about to come in the new 2025 plan. But I will say that Budgeting decisions just, like. regulatory tools, subcommittee and area plans, the climate action plan, they all look up to the aspirational level guidance that's expressed within the comprehensive plan. And so it's our hope and our desire that as the budget does roll out, you will see the direct connection and budgeting priorities across all of our city departments and how they're implementing the vision that is expressed. That makes sense? Yeah, yeah, because I, as, like, Joe's citizen, am thinking, okay, how… how do I know the city has adapted to the new information in this comprehensive plan? What's different? How are they… what are they doing now that reflects this new priorities? Or maybe it's just reinforcing the existing priorities.

[64:07] that's kind of, like, my reference point. The question I have now is, as… once you've established the comprehensive plan, and the departments that look to that for guidance updating their other plans, action plans or other ones, as well as, like. you know, a new take on their certain policies or revision on their policy positions. How does that process work, where you have each department that may have a specific interpretation, and then is there someone to kind of, like, fact-check that, or say, well, actually, you know, this plan is more in… lines of this, but you're interpreting that way. How is that kind of, like, two-way street managed to make sure that this is kind of properly distilled to all the other Buctions. a lot of interdepartment coordination. Yeah, and we do, we're really good at that as a city organization. We're working with the climate team, you know, very, very frequently. So when these new plans get developed, there's typically someone on our staff team, a comprehensive planner, that is within that project, right? So when we used to develop our old version of department master plans, I was actually the

[65:22] master plan coordinator, so my job was to sit on a committee with all of the departments that do those updates, and my job tonight at the table is to ensure that, you know, I'm providing policy direction that's been expressed within the comprehensive plan as those conversations are happening with climate. park master plan, different plans like that. So, we're very sophisticated, I would say, and we're good at doing interpartization. Once the plan has been approved, that's really when our job starts to become to implement it, and we kind of have to embed ourselves throughout the entire city as other planning processes are happening to ensure that The vision and the policies are accurately being reflected. And there's some interpretation of policies, right? We've developed them in a way that we want them to be flexible, they need to be action-oriented.

[66:08] But we don't want to have it be the Bible, you know, where climate action has to do exactly this, because the comprehensive plan says exactly this. It's meant to be aspirational in nature, so there's back and forth, but at the end of the day, I think we're really good as a city and really ensuring that these visions are implemented just through a lot of meetings, a lot of conversations, a lot of coordination across all of our departments. Okay, so that's always kind of top of mind. Okay, can I continue? One little piece to that. I think it's an excellent question, and one of the things that I wanted to also add in terms of accountability that's been built into processes, relates to how Council approves or reviews, whether it's a policy, whether it's a master plan update, for example, all the way down to staff memos that do go to Council, those are all public, and there's often reference to say, how does this policy support or work with

[67:03] and represent the policies or vision in the comp plan, or in other specific plans. And so, that accountability, I think, is really important because we've been trained now to really understand that we have to draw those dotted lines and really understand how it's showing up and supporting, or not. So there are times that we do actually bring forward something to say, no, in fact, there is counter-arguments for these types of things. We just have an honest reflection of that relationship, and so that accountability, I think, has been really powerful in the last few years. Okay. So it sounds like this is top of mind, there's always an emphasis on making sure there's clarity, there's, you know, mutual understanding, and, that, Ethan. There's that dialogue going back and forth, making sure that, okay, this is… this is what we intended, this is your interpretation, making sure… Perfect.

[68:00] It's so cool. I don't have a question, because I have not read through the document. I will, and I'll need to be… but just at first, like, the rusing over here, it looks great. I really love the changes in the land use. And making that simpler, and… And also, it looks like you guys just did a great job at tying together, like, transportation, housing, and climate, and just, like, seeing that throughout. Appreciate it. Thank you. So, looks great so far. It very well could be in the plan. If it is, I apologize. I'm just not annoying to put in front of this. I'm curious if you thought at all about, like, I see greenhouse gases here, but, like, tying that into, like, health equity and chemical exposure, whether that be in our waters. I see Jonathan nodding, so it's probably just not in our packet. I'm sorry, look at the plan. But that's one thing I could see missing, but if it's in the plan, we've been… I know we've been… this is the other one, I've been bringing up, like, the impact.

[69:07] One minute. PFAS or any of those other things. I know carbon's important, and it's all top of mind and all we get to talk about, but I know my role kind of similar company, and it's, like, expanding beyond carbon, and so I'm curious how you're thinking about that, both on the health equity side and impact, to the resilient communities, and then also anything around, like, policies around that. Or other issues, yeah. exposures. Yeah, and I think you'll see that across multiple policies. Yeah, maybe I need to read specific ones. Chime off me, exactly. As you review the plan, take that approach, right? Okay. And that's kind of what we're looking for. If you feel like we've fallen short in addressing some of those issues, then please do provide us that feedback, because there's still time for… provisions to all of the policies. Yeah, and maybe it's just a line or two. There's so much there, and I'm really eager to have you dig into that, and one of the things that you'll probably see, and that I think I'm really proud of, the team's work, is really drawing more of a comprehensive view of how interconnected these issues are. Exactly. So, in past, comp plans, yeah, we talked about climate, we talked about

[70:16] change gene symmetric on Scarpen. And you'll see, kind of feathered throughout this update, it's more thinking holistically around ecosystems and biodiversity and the impact of pesticides and chemical use, and so there's been a lot of coordination and thought that has gone into that. But, I mean, the reality is we end up with conflicting priorities. Yeah, exactly, and that's one… a big one on the use of herbicides and fire protection. Like, we have fine fuels, and one school of thought is we have to use chemicals because we have to reduce fine fuels. The other is we need healthy ecosystems that actually can protect themselves against fire. So, those types of things we…

[71:02] We have to just acknowledge can sometimes be pain points. But we're acknowledging them, and I think this plan has done a really tremendous job in really advancing, kind of, that holistic approach. Yeah, and on the positives, I love all the different nature-based solutions. It's been really exciting, to hear about. And then my other question would be, I'm curious how you've engaged with maybe not the other demographics in the community, like, have you been doing targeted outreach to maybe underrepresented communities? I know, specifically related to our environmental justice feedback came last time. So I'm curious how you're… especially with the planning board thing, I could… well, I know who serves on the planning board, but… But I think there could be maybe some underrepresentation, specific people, and so maybe related to environmental issues and viral… Yeah, that's a great, great question. what I can say is that this… by far has been the most inclusive engagement process as part of the comprehensive plan that I've been a part of. Jonathan's been part of a few more than I had. Yeah, no, I mean, we took a really, really strong approach to rethinking how we do engagement with this plan, and ensure that we're bringing people who traditionally haven't been engaged in government planning processes to get their feedback.

[72:23] Right. We compared… because this, this update happens every 10 years, and every 5 years. 10 years is the big update. It's the major update thing. Really, really get looked at every 5 years, or the more minor update, tweaking, tweaks map. But we as a city have more tools now than we did 5 years ago, than we did 10 years ago, and how do we… we've taken advantage of all of those tools that we have, right? So, Community Connectors is one that we've really engaged with. We've been talking with them. almost on a monthly basis for quite some time now. They've influenced almost every aspect of this plan. We've also engaged with some nonprofit organizations to help us with our engagement. Once in a Future Green, I'm familiar with Once in a Future Green. We engaged with them to help us design

[73:15] engagement approach to, you know, really hear from our nature-based community and understand what sort of issues that they want to see represented in this plan, and so they hosted a big workshop. We've had almost monthly meetings with those individuals as well, to really understand, Their perspectives, to try to meet people, where they are, rather than expect us for VR, and so our needs looked a little bit different in that way. We're engaging with Once My Future Green again, I think in, like, 2 or 3 weeks. We've given them the draft plan, they're gonna give us a really good review of it, and make tweaks based upon what their community, really values and prioritizes. So, it's one of the most proud things I think I am of this whole process, is how much engagement we have done. We've provided over 65

[74:03] More than 65 now, opportunities for the community to engage with us. So, what I would encourage you to do, though, and I think it was in the packet, I think it was in the packet, there's a link to our engagement summary. It's big, it's long, but it's like a PowerPoint slide, and I think it's, like, 80 different slides now, so dig into that, and you'll see all the different opportunities that we've had, and what we've heard. Okay, that's fine. Yeah. Regarding these different, categories of government policies. Just wanted to get a kind of a higher level sense of… Compared to the previous plan, how do these policies? essentially compare, are they more robust? Are they new ones? Are they stronger language? Do they… Kind of, like, raise the visibility of these environmental policy categories,

[75:08] So I'm just gonna get a reference point. You know, I think a lot of them have carried forward, but we have expanded and tried to re-emphasize some things that are a little bit more of importance now than I think they were in previous iterations of these policies. you know, our local food, policies, we've had notions of the importance of local food and ag in Boulder, but now it's its own policy, right? So, that's where I think there's some differences. Another one that I… say that I think has evolved really, really strongly in a good way is our Fire Adaptive Communities Policy. you know, we've always recognized that we face a risk from wildfire, from other natural disasters, from flood, but we've developed a fire-specific policy. So that's, you know, another example where we've sort of taken it a little bit further than we have in the past.

[76:06] There's other policies less environmental-related that I think are a little bit more easy to compare and contrast against. There's a new policy related to the night economy that hasn't existed before. That actually does have a climate aspect too, right? As we get hotter, it's going to be more important to have people, you know. Having the ability to enjoy that night environment when it's cooler, right? The climate impacts related to that. So it's a little bit of a hard question to answer without doing a sort of an analysis or really getting into the weeds of it, but, you know, the big topics, invasive species management, that was the previous iteration of the comprehensive plan, our fossil fuel consumption and GHG emission reduction. Those were all priorities that we had seen in previous iterations. I would say, if anything, we've simplified and tried to be a little bit more action-oriented. in the policy language, or remove some of the fluff, is what I'll call it, to ensure that they're really simple, they're really clear, you can read the policy, and you know the direction that we're wanting to head as a key.

[77:08] Because one thing that I'm trying to get a sense of is… so we have a list of all these policies, and then I'm trying to get a sense of, okay. Which of these have kind of, like, grown in their, in their priority, or their… you know, the emphasis in public. Is there… you can still access the whole draft, right? Right, and… Yeah, even if you change, kind of, like, the language, what is an evidence that, okay, this is now rising to the top, and we're gonna… you know, we're gonna have more funding, more policies, more interdepartmental discussion. You know, how do you kind of, like, determine Which of these categories seems to have more importance, versus the others?

[78:01] Yeah, that's a… it's a tricky question, because we've, in some ways, tried to develop the policies in a way where there is no one policy that is more important than the other. They're all important policies, they all have impacts to the community, hopefully in a positive way. But just through the engagement that we've heard, I do think that there are some policies that will carry a little bit more weight, and as decision-making happens at City Council, at the Environmental Advisory Board. Hopefully we developed policies that respond to some of those more important topics. So, if fire-adapted Communities is a really strong focus of City Council, of the Environmental Advisory Board, there's a policy in that that speaks to it. So, the policies are really meant to be used by advisory boards, by Council, by community members, by city staff to elevate Priorities that emerge, really, over the next 20 years. I would say, you know, right now, in today's day and age, it… related to environmental policies, there's a lot of them that I think are really important. There's not one to me that's more important than the other. I think they're all equally important. But fire-adopted communities is, I think, pretty obviously a big one for us to be considering as we move forward.

[79:12] Nature Everywhere is a new policy, actually, if I'm looking at the slide here, that, we've tried to really describe as nature as an infrastructure throughout the city, you know, it's like a city service, right? So I think that that's an important one, but the plan hasn't been developed in a way where it calls out, hey, these 5 policies really are the focus of the city over the next, like, 5 years or so. There's other tools that I think can take these policies and take division in the comprehensive plan and elevate them. Citywide Strategic Plan could be an example of that. Climate Action Plan is, I think, to be able to find Those are really the tools and the mechanisms, I think, that they can take the policies within the plant and start to prioritize them. In particular, I think, too, like, when we get closer to work planning, I think the comprehensive plan in some ways, also impacts the work plan, council priorities that they establish, and so, you know, fire is an important topic right now, and Council wants to set that as Council priority, there is a comprehensive plan policy that supports that action by Council or the Environmental Advisory Board.

[80:16] Decisions that you all make. Okay, so it's through the implementation, through other plans in the Council's budget, that the priorities then start to kind of naturally flow, and this is just like, okay, are we making sure that our We are focusing on the, you know, the vision or the purpose, the ethos, the essence of what we received from the community as guidance, but in terms of implementation that's, you know, kind of, like, department-specific, right? Okay, that's good. Yeah, yeah, for sure, and… gosh, maybe this is a good way to think about it. Like, the policies and the comprehensive plan is… the ingredients to a recipe that you want to make, right? You can add this ingredient if you want, you can remove an ingredient if you want, and then they all come together through a department plan, through a citywide strategic plan, through the climate action plan, and then we cook the meal, right? And then that's kind of what you have. So it's more of a menu of options.

[81:14] They're all really important. Again, there's some of them, there's inherent trade-offs that come with these policies. None of them are going to be totally, transparent and clear in the ways that I think some people might expect, but… Yeah, I think that's a good way to think about it. It's like a menu or a recipe of different ingredients that you could ultimately use to make good decisions, whether you're an environmental advisory board member, city council members, priorities, development of a sub-community plan, climate action plan. Anyone else have any questions? Great. Thank you all. Those were good questions that got us thinking. You guys were a good first run for us as we bring this out to the community. And thank you, I will just thank you ahead of time for taking the time to look at it. This is a really, really important vision for the community, and you all as board members on the Environmental Advisory Board.

[82:15] bring a really unique and good perspective. Again, I'm looking at all the policies on my computer right now. I'm 22, and there's honestly probably more, that have environmental impacts. So really, this, in many ways, is an environmental part. At the end of the day, that's what our community is continuing to voice, as they always have. So, I will mention that we are going to host a community open house next week on March 10th at the Derry Arts Center. 4.30 to 7.30. We'll be giving a quick presentation to the community. We'll have a lot of different city staff there, subject matter experts, all the different topic areas. Hopefully a good lobby experience, a little bit of a celebration for the community, and helping us get to the point that we're at right now. We'll be taking a little bit of feedback during that event, but also trying to drive people to the online forum to collect this feedback, but we'd love to have you and all of your peers come, and if you're able to.

[83:10] Next Tuesday, March 10th. 4.30 to 7.30. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you all. Thank you. If you guys have questions, because I know you have a penny sort of read the plan, other questions pop up, feel free to email, email Jonathan, forward it off to us. I have business cards I can leave you on the table here as well. If you want to direct questions directly to us, we'd be happy to help. These are people's sights. Yes. April 6th is better. cutoff date. And it's really because we need to make revisions to the plan. As I mentioned, we're going to take every comment, read each and every single one of them, and consider them, and consider the trade-offs of the feedback that we're getting, and we'll make some revisions before we bring a final recommended plan. And the final recommended plan, I should mention, I…

[84:02] I don't know the exact date off the top of my head, I don't know if you do, maybe we… haven't established yet. Mid-March is when, like, the final recommended plan's gonna get released. No, mid-May. Did I say March? March. Mid-May or so is when we'll have a new version. And then that's what those four groups go. Yeah. As far as feedback is concerned, I just might suggest that if there are questions that you have, absolutely, I'm happy to field those and get them to the right staff members that can answer them. I would be cautious about any recommendations that you would make if you want to do some additional recommendations. As a board, then we need to have that on your next meeting, and to make sure that that's efficiently coming from the board versus individual board members. Just something to be thinking about as you think about a question versus a comment or recommendation.

[85:04] Thank you all. Appreciate it. Thank you. Oh, we were supposed to pass these out. Tucker was supposed to start it, so I'm like… You guys are never gonna invite us back, are you? That's, that's how you, they maintain, the attention. Exactly. Cookie. Great, I think we just have general notes piece in front of you. Great. Oh, it is. Wow. Yeah, I, I, so… Thanks, Hannah. I'll just jumped in really quickly and say, there were a number of questions, I think, that surfaced at your last meeting, attempted to try to answer as many of those as possible, and I think those were included in your packet, they were included in the email that came up. One of the things that we didn't answer, and I'm still

[86:03] Working, with Heather Stauffer. I think it was a question of the summary from last year's legislative session, and what kind of successes did we see. We're still compiling some of that work, and so we'll make sure to get that to you. I didn't forget about that one, but She's new, obviously, to the role, and it's something she's trying to put her own spin on in terms of how she wants to provide that information to the community. Didn't forget about that one. I'm… I'm throwing the lifeline, over to Heather. I'm trying to deliver what we have scheduled for next month. It's our new board members first meeting, so we'll have 30 new board members. And, I'll be honest, I don't know off the top of my head, other than that. So, if you remember, at our last meeting, I went through a number of items that we were anticipating calendaring with the board. There are some upcoming things, obviously, that we'll want to be speaking about. The one that is

[87:06] still landing in terms of a date. We are going to be doing a first update, with Council on what are their priorities that I've mentioned to you that my department is leading. That's hardening the grid, so looking at impacts from the PSPS, how do we want to think about, developing some objectives, what do we know about Excel's plans, and what they are not going to do, what are opportunities for us, what would… what regulatory authority would we need? Are they technology, solutions? Are they things like undergrounding or microgridding? Are they, you know, going to the state capital or the regulators? So that's a conversation, obviously, that we'd like to bring to you probably more than once in 26, so we do have, time scheduled in April with Council, and so one of the items that we may be trying to squeeze in is a quick update on what we intend to, highlight with Council at that April session.

[88:11] trying… desperately trying to remember what you have. I pulled up the list, and we had not landed on… solidly landed on which topic it's going to be. Okay. So, stay tuned, but we have a whole number of them, and we're trying to sequence them in a really good fashion. And also, part of the challenge is making sure that we have stuff available to do those presentations. And then the only other thing that I wanted to raise, in more of a, just a general update to the board, may have seen some of the recent news about our climate lawsuit. Going to the Supreme Court, and so just wanted to offer, an opportunity, if you had any specific questions, I'm happy to raise those, obviously. we're transparent in terms of what the case is about, but I think it's an interesting opportunity to kind of elevate and remind everybody of the importance of accountability in this case, so…

[89:09] We're eager to see what's going to happen with that case in the fall. It's not been calendared yet. They went through their process of relisting, and so once they got through, they decided they do want to take the case, but it will be at their fall docket. Do you have to attempt to hear it? Do I get to? Yes, I sure hope so. Yeah, so we haven't yet determined that. It is a fun outing, that's what I'm saying, it is kind of cool to go… I'll have to get a new tie. I don't… Okay, whether you delete a tie, but yeah. No, it's actually a good question. I took it as, what would representation be? You see, our council, our outside legal counsel, our pro bono council that has been representing us since 2018, they would be doing the oral arguments, and I suspect that there would, be some group from the city that went there just to…

[90:12] Listen and hear the case, directly. That's what I was looking for people to go out there. I paid for a trip. No, I don't pay for it! EAB field trips. EAB field trips, exactly! There you go! Wednesday. Yeah, it'll be Wednesday. T-shirts. Yeah, I appreciate the sacrifice, real. Spring got oral arguments, why would you not come? You link to Colorado Climate Week. Where's the city doing an event? Thank you. Yeah, there was a link there. It was something that I brought up at the last meeting, sorry, I think it was very quick. CSU, there are a number of events that are going to be taking place, both hosted here in the city and in Denver and some other locations. I just wanted you to have access. We're not hosting any events, we're going to be participating in some of those events.

[91:18] events, but I wanted to push that out far and wide to make sure if you had interest in attending any of those sessions that we're going to be… Are you doing any of the sessions at the light? I'll be there all day. I got approved for a workday field trip to get to go. I think I double-booked myself on the fourth one. It's a lot happening, for sure. Yeah, that's really good. And then, our next calendar is April 8th. Next week. Nothing was pushed back. Beautiful Libra. instances.

[92:00] Oh, yes. Is it a holiday of the past? Passover. Oh, Passover, okay, got it. Oops. Great. Evan, you… do you have anything else? Good? Okay. Motion to end the meeting? Sellers? Second. adjoining the movie. Yes, that's…