November 28, 2018 — Housing Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

[MM:SS] timestamps correspond to the YouTube recording.

[0:00] [Music] [Music] let's start with roll call better Oh crystal gray I'm the ex-officio from Planning Board I don't vote left on Planning Board Judi nod Jacque Sheree I'm Mason Moyer Adams Mike Mike Mackenzie

[1:02] its review the agenda any additions or changes would be a good time yes okay there's something I was interested in talking about as many people were reading about the article in the Boulder weekly and learning that some people feel or certainly the writer of the article felt that there were HOA fees were getting ixora gently hi and I wanted to know I wanted to just say I'd like to talk about it at the next meeting maybe it's better to bring up at the calendar review whatever you think and yeah we can bring it up under matters from the board as well and request the information we'd like to see

[2:00] from staff in preparation great good next one good thank you okay so I'll put that on under matters from the board new business anything else from anyone great okay and a few of the minutes did everybody take a look and you additions changes we move we accept a minute all second all in favor hi unanimous so you could get the cookie of it okay and then we're open for public participation do we have anybody signed up Cory fantastic public participation and we will move into our study session

[3:03] tonight you have scheduled my line yeah I couldn't hear it over jock in his cookie tonight we have what is we consider one of your orientation topics on the implications of the basic understanding overview of fair housing and the implications for policy making given that the recommendations you would make the council could affect the policies that the city implements so with us the state City Civil Rights Division did I get it right the larette's division yeah Civil Rights Division Sam Anderson has a presentation and will be available for questions thank you Jeff thank you all for having me good evening to all the members of the housing advisory board as Jeff mentioned my name is Sam Anderson I am the outreach and education coordinator for the Colorado Civil Rights Division I do need to start with a broad disclaimer

[4:01] my talk this evening is meant to provide a broad informational overview I am an attorney but I'm not practicing in that capacity here tonight either as a private attorney or an attorney on behalf of the state again instead I'm providing broad information considering the Colorado anti-discrimination Act specifically as that's applied to housing situations any official opinion of the division so I might I'll generally refer to the Colorado Civil Rights Division as the division or ecrt shorthand any official opinion from the division would necessarily come in the form of a written letter of determination as far as whether or not such an act would constitute a violation of kata and kata is shorthand for the Colorado anti-discrimination Act now all of you have a copy of the PowerPoint presentation that's being displayed on the screens with areas for notes the second slide or the third slide would be my direct contact information that

[5:02] you're all welcome to use with any questions you might have about fair housing or any of the other areas covered under your kata so taking a step back in kind of giving a broad overview of my office CCR D we exist pursuant to kata the Colorado anti-discrimination Act so this is the set of state laws that specifically prohibit discrimination in three areas broadly speaking that would be housing employment in places of public accommodation of course we're focusing on housing today but it's important to keep in mind that kata as a whole prevents discrimination more broadly speaking so again also in employment and in places of public accommodation now kata the statue or a set of statutes that allow us to exist do a few things first and foremost it's what allows my office the CCR D to exist in the first place additionally it creates the Civil

[6:00] Rights Commission the CCR C now you might have heard of the CCR C and news lately a lot they do work closely with us but importantly they are a separate distinct entity and I'll talk about their role as it compares to my office's role also what kata does is it defines essential terms some terms that you might think wouldn't necessarily need a statutory definition something like housing but we'll look at some of those terms because those definitions are going to guide the division and analyzing a case determining if we have jurisdiction in the first place or whether or not discrimination has actually occurred kata also sets our powers our process in our procedure so while the division does have some leeway or wiggle room when we're investigating a case or discretion a lot of that is set very specifically by statute for instance the length of time that we can take to investigate a case compare that with HUD Housing and Urban

[7:02] Development who also investigates fair housing cases on the federal level they don't have a set time limit to investigate cases and I'll talk about our work relationship with HUD here shortly finally what Cotter does probably most importantly is enumerates that protected classes enumeration of the protected classes is just a fancy way of saying lists off the reasons that a person cannot be discriminate against they're generally the same across housing employment and public accommodation but there is some variances among those so for instance age is a protected class in employment age is not a protected class in housing and we'll look at that shortly as well now again I am with the Civil Rights Division so the Civil Rights Division again is the state agency we're non-political we're a neutral third party investigative arm so our role is to investigate complaints of discrimination in those three areas housing employment public accommodation in to issue a determination as to

[8:02] whether or not discrimination has occurred now we have a staff of about 25 we're currently in flux but this last fiscal year 2017 18 July - July we process the most cases ever nearly 2000 which is almost full is more than double what we process just a couple years ago now a majority of our cases are actually employment based but it's followed by housing cases now the Commission again the Commission is a separate entity the Commission is a panel bipartisan panel that is Namit the members are nominated by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate the Commission's primary role will they have two primary roles one is to hear appeals of no probable cause cases the other is to set cases for hearing now the majority of cases that actually come before the division whether they're housing employment or a public accommodation these are no probable cause findings is what they're

[9:01] going to result in and when I say the majority I mean the vast majority 95 to 97% of cases there's an insufficient evidence of discrimination occurring so you might think well why does the division need to exist if we're not finding discrimination well there's a few reasons one we are the administrative remedy to prevent these cases from clogging up the judicial system parties generally have to exhaust the administrative remedy before going to court the other thing is some cases don't reach determination because they're settled ahead of time and that's something the division absolutely encourages a settlement ahead of time in a lot of cases that would otherwise have merit to them that we'd find discrimination they're gonna settle so long as it's appropriate and not against the public interest now again the Civil Rights Commission separate entity they're more political not inherently political but they're the ones again who will hear appeals of no probable cause

[10:00] in set cases for hearings setting in a case for hearing is a situation when we found enough evidence to show discriminations occurred when we do that when the division director issues such a determination the parties are sent to conciliation that is their final chance to try and reconcile and hopefully reach some sort of resolution if the parties are unable to conciliate successfully at that stage that is when that information is communicated to the Commission the Commission then has the discretion to set the case for hearing and let me actually take that back they have the discretion in employment and in public accommodation cases in housing cases they will always a case for hearing it's set in the statute so any case a housing case where there's discrimination and the parties can't conciliate the Commission is going to set that case for hearing what that means is they're going to advise their attorney who is a Deputy Attorney General or assistant attorney

[11:02] general with the AG's office who's actually going to file a complaint naming the Commission as a party and suing the respondent in a housing case there's usually multiple respondents sometimes they're one but in a housing case it could be the housing provider themselves it could be a municipality it could be HOA it could be a variety of things but again a case is only going to be set for hearing a housing case if the parties do not settle it at that final stage which is usually the case just a brief overview of the divisions case process it starts at intake so that's a person an entity any aggrieved party which will look at the definition so it could be even a developer let's say a developer wants a zoning variance to build some sort of multifamily housing they seek that

[12:00] variance it's denied that developer then is an aggrieved party who might allege that fair housing laws were violated because that denial is going to unfairly impact or disparately impact a protected class so a developer could be going through intake usually though in that circumstance that are going to be represented by an attorney and the attorney will just draft the charge themselves the more common situation is an individual fills they've been discriminated against they reach out to our office we do a cursory investigation or analysis of jurisdiction it's a pretty low bar for our the time filing deadline is one year from the alleged discriminatory act so as long as the person files a complaint within one year we have jurisdiction the other bars to jurisdiction are did it happen in the state you know likely they're only going to be coming to us if it did happen in the state but oddly we do sometimes get inquiries from other states Wyoming

[13:01] comes to mind people want to file with us we have no jurisdiction in Wyoming of course any rate the person again if it's within a year if it happened within the state and they're alleging a discriminatory act based on a protected class we must investigate that case even if on its face a reasonable person my assume that there can't be any merit to it if they meet those basic jurisdictional bars then we must the statute is clear the divisions shall investigate those cases that's another reason why the majority of cases that come before us are going to result in no probable cause findings any rate at that intake stage more likely than not we'll establish jurisdiction a complaint will be drafted along with a request for information that's sent to the respondent so in the case that its municipality you know we'll just say the town of Elm is named as a respondent along with maybe individual actors a commissioner a mayor

[14:01] a city manager whatever those are going to be the respondents named they are sent that complaint they're sent that request for information and they are also informed that the division offers mediation through our alternative dispute resolution some cases are good candidates for mediation importantly mediation is voluntary both parties must agree to voluntarily mediate if they do and the parties attempt to mediate and it's successful that's the end of the case the division does not issue a determination does not opine whether or not discrimination has occurred the case would close with what's called a no-fault settlement agreement in a housing situation importantly any housing case that settles regardless of if it settles at the initial stage or later on it's going to have to include something that's what we call vindicating the public interest so this would be a policy change or a change in

[15:02] general rules or training being required for certain staff members to vindicate the public interest this is an attempt to further fair housing so again any housing case that results in a settlement either at the initial stage or later on is going to require something to vindicate the public interest assuming that the parties don't mediate or they attempt to mediate and it's not successful the case just goes to investigation individual investigator is going to conduct interviews to answer visits things like that ideally though within a hundred days from the filing date the investigator will present a report to the division director who will ultimately issue that determination I referred to earlier the letter of determination we call it shorthand lod termination will set forth the elements of the case the facts of the case the elements of the law and then the analysis of whether or not discrimination occurred again the majority of those determinations no

[16:01] probable cause at which case the complainant that aggrieved party can appeal to the Commission or in the occurrence where discrimination has been found the parties again go to conciliation where hopefully that one final time the parties are able to reach a resolution otherwise the case is going to hearing which again it's really just starting a lawsuit from the beginning the case would actually go before an administrative law judge an ALJ but after that the case is appealed to the State Court of Appeals and then the state Supreme Court and then from there it's necessarily the US Supreme Court and cases that do originate before the Division one particularly and recently have made it directly to the US Supreme Court so it's rare but it does certainly happen any questions that was a real broad and quick overview of the divisions jurisdiction and procedure any questions on that or if we want to

[17:00] reserve questions to the end we can do that too before we dive into housing specifically I just have one I'm just curious you said there's been an increase lately yes you what do you attribute that to you know I it's hard to attribute to one specific thing I think certainly sexual harassment cases have increased with a high profile of the me2 movement but also I think there's just been I mean statistics show that recently I think it was the FBI that released statistics that showed hate crimes were on the rise so people generally might be feeling more at risk or threatened based on a protected class also just our outreach efforts have increased substantially try a lot of people I travel throughout the state a lot of people might not even be aware that the Civil Rights Division even exists so it could be a lot of reasons but I think part of it is us just the

[18:00] how do I say this the temperament political temperament and me to movement and just knowledge we've also now have complaints have the ability to initiate case filing online now whereas they used to only be through traditional paper intake packets so the ease of filing might also probably also contributes to the increase finally importantly though our staff and our funding has remained exactly the same as it was previously so the investigators I previously investigated and conciliated cases before stepping into my current role and I certainly feel for our current investigators who have a caseload generally on average of a hundred twenty plus cases at any one time and it's those case numbers don't go down because new cases come in so that's just an aside there oh sure yeah so as those the number of cases have gone up has the percentage swayed at all in terms of how many go to conciliation

[19:02] so the percentage not necessarily but the raw number of probable cause findings has gone up yeah so yes and no I think also a lot of cases are settling earlier on I can say I can't I cannot comment on any any cases before the division are confidential but we do track and are required to share in our annual report the number of cases that settle in more cases are certainly settling and you know I've seen that cases involving like sexual harassment allegations in a workplace are going to be more likely to settle so we're definitely seeing that happen now I mentioned we work we be in the division work with our federal counterparts and housing US Department of Housing and Urban Development specifically there fheo Fair Housing and equal opportunity office HUD is gigantic so fheo is

[20:00] my office but we work closely with them we have what's called a work share agreement basically the federal government and the state government have agreed that Coty's Fair Housing Clause is substantially equivalent to the Federal Fair Housing Act therefore we have an agreement with HUD that any cases that otherwise would have federal jurisdiction based on the number of housing units involved if there's federal jurisdiction necessarily their state jurisdiction HUD basically says you CCR D investigate these cases on our behalf because we're in a region a HUD fheo region that includes Wyoming Montana South Dakota some of those states don't have their own Fair Housing state agencies so HUD is concentrating on those states whereas here they really want us to step up us being the state to step up and investigate those cases so more likely than I even if a person goes directly to HUD to file a complaint HUD

[21:01] will just defer or refer that case to CC Rd for us to investigate again the laws are substantially similar between federal and state law there is variance and that's where actually state law provides greater protection and not specifically in the enumerated protected classes so Colorado law provides the sexual orientation gender identity and marital status are all protected classes sexual orientation and gender identity have been protected classes since 2007 actually so we were one of the first states to include those that's protected classes and that is across the board whereas on the federal level none of those are explicitly protected classes now under the previous federal administration instill because there hasn't been any official change sexual orientation is covered under the the theory that sexual orientation

[22:01] discrimination and gender identity discrimination necessarily fit under sex discrimination more broadly so sex stereotypes so it's covered on sex of course as a protected class on the federal level again it was quite it was clear that that was the way the previous federal administration went about it the status quo remains however the Department of Justice has in at least employment cases said that sexual orientation is not included in that but that's title seven separate from title eight and that's the Department of Justice but regardless sexual orientation gender identity are absolutely protected classes in the state of Colorado and have been again since 2007 and if I may note that the city of Boulder Human Rights Ordinance is has more expansive definition of protected classes than the state or the federal definition and

[23:00] generally when you have an entity providing protections it's the greater the broader the protection is what's going to prevail so kind of counterintuitive to the idea of the Supremacy Clause where federal law will trump any local law that's only that's that's the floor not the ceiling so if the ceiling the greater the protection is what's gonna prevail looking at the specific language in kata and some of those key definitions an aggrieved person that's the complainant who again that could be any person or an entity person is very broadly defined as well by any person who claims to have been injured by a discriminatory housing practice work will be injured by one that has yet to occur so it's even a speculative harm importantly the state fair housing laws as well as the federal provide potential injunctive relief so potential relief in the form of having a core enjoying a party from engaging in a

[24:00] certain act or stop an eviction for instance it's rare but those are protections in there housing is also defined in kata and Coty's definition of housing is broader than the federal definition of housing the FHA the Federal Fair Housing Act limits or qualifies housing as being a dwelling in Colorado it's listed any building structure vacant land or part thereof so the fact it's building instead of dwelling there's an argument to be made that this could include not just residential property by even commercial property there have been some commercial claims none of them have got to the level where a court as a pint or at least a control a court that would have controlling jurisdiction over the matter but that is one thing that where it's broader in the state definition of housing but importantly again it

[25:00] includes vacant land so for instance of a municipalities making a decision about what to do or what can be done with a piece of land that's otherwise vacant or undeveloped it is covered under fair housing both on the federal and state level now I mentioned that if if cases fall under federal jurisdiction HUD will generally refer those cases to us because we're necessarily going to have jurisdiction we be in the state the state's fair housing laws are very broadly applied so basically if a person owns a rental unit or land other than their primary residence in which they reside that other unit so that lets say a person Jane Doe owns a house and she owns an apartment two blocks away that apartment is subject to the state fair housing laws whereas it would not be subject to federal fair housing laws

[26:00] Jane Doe would have to own at least three other units besides her primary residence to found her federal law that is not so with the state she it's only one besides the residents that she lives in so therefore the really the only permissible discrimination is when a it's what's called the mrs. Murphy's exemption and this is true on the federal level that's where it actually got its name a person who's renting out a room within their primary residence where they actually live so the idea was in 1968 when they were debating the Fair Housing Act in Congress what about poor Mrs Murphy the widow who wants to rent out her attic apartment can she say that she's only gonna rent to a woman who attends the same church as her the answer is yes because it's her attic apartment in the home which she lives she's not gonna run afoul of fair housing laws pretty much that's the only exemption though so parties can housing

[27:00] providers can discriminate for lack of a better term but in that very narrow area importantly though it's technically a violation to advertise so to put that same advertisement on Craigslist that's discriminatory advertising which is a violation technically a fair housing law but then you get into First Amendment considerations so generally you know that's not something that's gonna be pursued the other exception and really this falls under public accommodations but private clubs are not they are not going to fonder housing providers but again that's more public accommodations and the idea of renting out rooms at a country club or something like that yeah so just to sum up size at the federal level you can discriminate if you have two units other than your own correct you have to have at least four units one inning well three three besides your

[28:00] primary residence right so if you oh so necessarily it's going to assume that you're living in one of those so it would be four technically so three other but yes on the federal level you can't a person a housing provider could discriminate in that way but that would be the owner of the of the housing any arguably any larger entity wouldn't fall under that exemption a single owner yeah question two does this also all these housing rules both state and federal do they also apply to places like treatment centers or lawn care retirement or something like yes so a retirement home nursing facility homeless shelters generally those would be treated as public accommodations so there are public of course cotta has its own public accommodation laws and title 2 of the Civil Rights Act I believe I could have the title wrong covers public

[29:00] accommodations as well but depending so a homeless shelter probably is gonna founder a public accommodation whether it's a public accommodation or housing another example public accommodation would be a hotel but for instance extended stay hotels might fall under housing if you look at the duration of the stay in the intent to return some people in reality end up actually living extended stay hotels so yes fair housing law can be applied to hotels homeless shelters and nursing homes nursing homes is almost certainly yes but other care facilities hospitals those are specifically carved out in the public accommodation law the biggest difference in public accommodation discrimination is the length that you could length of time that you can file you only have 60 days on public accommodation cases to file whereas again in housing you have a year also the remedies available for housing cases are much greater than

[30:00] public accommodation cases so if it came down to it there probably it would come down to an argument more of is it a public accommodation or housing and again that looks at the duration of the stay and the intent to return and if when analyzing those things if it leans towards housing then fair housing laws would probably apply so what is prohibited unfair housing practices and there's a laundry list here but by no means is this exhaustive because you can assign a name to unfair housing practices whatever you want but these are the most common ones refusal to rent or sell that's gonna be the number one claim well let me take that back the number one claim and the number one basis that people make claims on is disability so the number one reason people claim they're being discriminate against would be a basis of disability and that

[31:00] includes both physical and mental disability the number one harm that people claim is a allegation of a refusal or failure to accommodate a disability our failure to provide a reasonable accommodation so that's the number one and again that's across the board if people claim they're being discriminate against the workplace it's going to be linked to disability housing and public accommodation etc if you take that aside the number one harm which also would go with disability is an allegation of a refusal to rent or sell a property but there are other things up there redlining steering and we'll look redlining and steering again advertising with a discriminatory preference or limitation is a technical violation but we don't see too much of those cases because again there's a First Amendment consideration they necessarily you need a tread carefully around

[32:00] misrepresentation of availability that's actually something that we see quite often a person there's agencies advocacy agencies that will engage in what's called testing they'll present rental applications that have names that a person would assume are associated with one minority or not and suddenly an apartment won't be available where it was available for someone else it happens more often than you'd think but some of the more unique ones steering steering is kind of what it sounds like you're guiding or steering a group of people into one area of an apartment complex to give a narrower example the apartment complex let's say that you have an apartment complex comprised of three buildings building a fronts a busy street B's in the middle and building C's in the back and it fronts a nice Greenway and there's a playground well let's say that

[33:02] the manager of that complex decides while all families or every hold that has somebody under the age of 15 we're gonna put in building C and maybe it even comes from a good place they're saying well we don't want them to be by the busy road we want them to be all near each other and have the playground accessible sure that I mean it sounds great but then you think they're steering a group of people based on their protected class replace residents or households where one of the members is younger than 15 and say that they're only going to put black people and in building C then it's more clearly discrimination but that's just one example of steering redlining I don't have any text up there but I actually have an image of redlining map of the city of Denver from 1938 it was actually the federal government that dictated that you loans would not be given to

[34:00] certain neighborhoods and the desirability was ranked in red zones literally red lines on the map would say where loans would not be given usually now you see that with lenders insurers sometimes as well retaliation at retaliation is unique because it's almost like its own protected class but also a harm so when a person engages in a protected activity for the purposes of fair housing law a protected activity is opposition to discrimination or participation an investigation thereof so a person opposes discrimination by alleging that they've been discriminate against alleging that someone else has being discriminate against either by a policy or actual treatment whatever so long as they have a good faith belief that discrimination has occurred and they complain about it they've engaged in a protect activity and they cannot be retaliated against for doing so the same

[35:02] thing is with participation in an investigation so let's say that a complaint is filed against the city and a city employees named as a potential witness or they're interviewed by an investigator that's any employee provides a statement that is not necessarily favorable to the city that employee is protected from retaliation now that doesn't mean that any person who's engaged in a protected activity is suddenly untouchable but what it does mean is that if for some reason that employee needs to be written up the city better be prepared to say here's the legitimate non-discriminatory reason otherwise it's gonna look an awful lot like retaliation one thing in retaliation is the temporal proximity between the person engaging in the protect activity and the harm that they suffer let's say a person goes on the

[36:00] news channel and accuses a housing provider a big apartment company of engaging and discriminatory practices and then they themselves apply to live in one of their communities and their obligations denied that looks an awful lot like retaliation based on engaging in protected activity retaliation is aside from disability retaliation would be the next most common claim for protected class that people will file a complaint so let's look at the enumerated protected classes when it comes to housing now if it's not what if it's not listed here on the list of protected classes it would be a permissible reason for lack of a better term to discriminate so for instance height and we are not protected classes being bald it's not a protected class so a person could say I'm not gonna rent to

[37:00] you because you're bald probably wouldn't be a wise thing to do and the person could probably attach a protected class to one of those attributes but again it needs to be specifically listed as a protected class disability again includes both physical and mental disability we'll look at the definition but some of the other more obvious ones are more common ones that people see race color national origin ancestry marital status marital status and familial status will look at more deeply retaliation though we just discussed and again sexual orientation and gender identity now there's annum when the legislation was drafted to include sexual orientation the reason it says including transgender status up there it's just the way that the statute was written in my opinion an unfortunate way but the way the legislature wrote it was sexual orientation includes transgender status but for all intents and purposes when they say true when it's transgender status we're talking about gender identity are there any new categories

[38:05] being considered on the so it would be up to the state legislature and I know that during the last legislative session it didn't get any legs but felony status it's called ban the Box movement that related specifically to employment discrimination another one I believe some cities have done this is source of income when it comes to housing so specifically having sorts of income as a protected class so for instance a person who has a sector a housing provider has no obligation to necessarily accept a section 8 voucher by what probably happens more often than certain people would like to admit is that a housing provider would reject an applicant merely because they're a recipient of section 8 housing so that source of

[39:00] income or because they're on disability income so that source of income might become those are the two that come to mind felony status and source of income but again ultimately it would be up to the alleged the state legislature at least in terms of cada to add we're I've never heard of any removal of a protected class generally a protected class would be one who has a historical historically been discriminating against or subjugated or marginalized that's generally the hurdle to show or something that needs to be shown in order to be a protected class any other questions on that I just wanted to say it looked like Jeff was getting committee to say it maybe we that did happen in Boulder just a couple months ago that and documentation of being citizen you can't discriminate if somebody doesn't have documentation yep and at least on the state it's not explicit on the state level but when it comes to national origin in ancestry

[40:00] that is the case you can't discriminate against the person regardless of their immigration status and employment or in housing so it wants not explicit on the state level that would be included so when we're looking at this discrimination we're looking at two broad ideas or definitions of discrimination that would be disparate treatment that's clear differential treatment based on protected class renting too why not renamed to non-whites but running to whites renamed to disabled not to non-disabled persons but not renamed to disabled persons or persons with disabilities pretty clear there's going to be a usual usually there's going to be an animus or an intent to discriminate but not always but again this comes down to actual differential treatment whether intentional or not so it kind of it I

[41:00] don't know if this fits in this but Adam and I were kind of talking about it earlier today with the gap coming between the haves and the have-nots more and more and especially in renting especially we see it in Boulder here too it's like if you go to rent a place you're getting charged first last etc and to me it seems like almost I don't want to say poor because I you know I've faced it myself and who's sitting on 15 grand to go rent a place so it's interesting to me at what point is it going to be a protected class under a certain level of AMI or you know like at what point where the protections for people who are renting and aren't making as much in certain areas mm-hmm well that kind of dovetails nicely and to the idea of disparate impact so disparate impact is discrimination that occurs when you have a on its face a neutral rule such as acquiring a deposit of first and last

[42:01] month's rent and they you know that's would be like well this applies to everyone regardless of protected class but there could be a disparate impact now the truth is just like you pointed out that that disparate impact is not necessarily just going to affect one group it could affect basically it comes down to how much money you have more broadly speaking I know that something that's been discussed is an idea of creating socioeconomic status as a protected class absent that though it's going to take a showing of a disparate impact on specific minority groups so disparate impact goes to the idea that you have a neutral facially neutral rule applied to everyone just the same but it disproportionately affects one group so one example of that would be the use of criminal background checks by renter buy used by rental companies to screen out renters now criminal background checks

[43:02] on their face are permissible they can be considered permissible non-discriminatory reasons but what HUD has advised and what courts have employed is an idea that these criminal background checks need to be you know taken with a grain of salt you can denying an application because somebody has some sort of criminal record related that's well well in the past and not related to violence or property damage probably is a valid reason to deny certainly I even saw a case during my investigation where the apartment the apartment company was denying based on even the history of an arrest while an arrest is a low threshold that's that's not even a conviction so that case resulted in them changing their policy to show that it would only be a conviction for a violent or property related crime within like

[44:01] the last five years so that's that's an example the criminal records you know there's no secret that there's a disproportionate the judicial system and our Criminal Court system disproportionately impacts minority communities so that's where it comes with the disparate impact and one of the cases you know the Supreme Court heard disparate impact case in 2015 and the idea that disparate impacts analysis could continue to be used in housing was upheld so that's the law this very impact is still an analysis that a person could be prevail on a claim of housing discrimination but it's certainly not easy to do and again you're ultimately going to have to connect it to a protected class and all cases I've seen have related that to race or color but it's not necessarily limited to that those are just the most

[45:00] high-profile cases familial status on the screen you'll see the statutory definition of familial status but really it just comes down to a household if one of the members of the household is younger than 18 they qualify as familial status protection that also includes a woman who is pregnant qualifies as being protected from familial status discrimination familial status discrimination we usually see when there's occupancy limitations and we're gonna look at that or like that example I gave earlier of the steering families to one building and a complex or rules like children can't use the pool something like that those are the most common familial status cases MC yes does that cover like guardianship yeah there doesn't have to be so long as the person has legal control over the child not so

[46:01] there doesn't need to be a court order saying that you know that they have legal custody so long as they're they can't like kidnap the kid but there doesn't there does have to be any biological or ordered relationship between them so it could just be an import you know like maybe an ant has just through circumstance come to have custody of her nephew but there's no legal court order or anything like that they still are qualified under the familial status protections and just to confirm like if you had a same-sex couple both having kids from different relationships and living in the same house and even though we have occupancy of no three unrelated that still would be legal due to fair housing in there yes yes there's no requirement for like blood or biological relation to qualify as a family marital status again this is a protected class and on the state level but not in

[47:01] federal level but marital status kind of self-explanatory but importantly it includes being single or cohabitating or engaged so sometimes where this comes up an unmarried young couple straight or gay might be looking to rent one bedroom and this does happen even today a smaller rental provider says I'm not gonna rent a one-bedroom to an unmarried couple that would be the basis for a marital status claim interesting you know it could come up potentially an argument could be made just by households comprised of a number of unmarried adults but presumably you know it would be a two-person relationship arguments can be made well I'm sorry for polygamy or yeah yeah or or you know I I know that college students for instance that's something I've never seen a

[48:01] successful argument be made but I've heard that that's an argument that's at least been floated housing for older persons housing for older persons are is one way so again that's the exception to familial status discrimination so remember age is not a protected class for housing but however you can't have housing for older persons so generally very very broad definition but generally you're only gonna qualify for housing for older people if it's intended for and solely occupied by persons 62 plus or 80% or more is occupied in at least one of the persons within each of those units is 55 plus and the person who operates the property manager whatever they really have to show like this is housing for older persons they have to show that they market it that way that they

[49:01] advertise it that way that's how they can get away with basically no children rule that's one way around it but the housing for older persons still needs to comply with every other protected class sexual orientation race color what-have-you occupancy standards now again that's going to go closely with familial status and along with a copy of the PowerPoint presentation that I passed out all of you is a copy of what's called the Keating memo that's from HUDs general counsel it's from 1991 but it's still good guidance because it hasn't been repealed rescinded or superseded so even though it's aged that keyd memo still stands for the proposition that generally it's going to be presumed that 2% per bedroom is a reasonable limitation on occupancy but that's that presumption of reasonableness is rebuttable so you need

[50:00] to consider the size of the room let's say it's a one bedroom but that one bedroom is as large as this area that we're in right now limited to persons probably is not going to be reasonable also the age of the occupants an infant has less impact and requires less room than an adult limitations on utilities so maybe it's a large trailer home by its you know I'll way out in the country and requires a septic tank and it's old and that can only accommodate so many people that's actually been a winning defense on occupancy standard the limitation on the septic tank the configuration of the unit bedrooms you know the broad definition would be include living rooms and dens not kitchens or bathrooms but basically if it's a bedroom would again can so you may call it a two-bedroom but if there's a large enough living room that's sufficiently separate from the kitchen

[51:00] area then that living room could be considered one of the bedrooms and so that too might now accommodate six again it's always it's gonna be a case-by-case analysis so while again it can be generally presumed that two persons per bedroom is reasonable that presumption is rebuttable and analyzing those other factors okay so we have a couple of cities across the country including our own where we have occupancy limits and we may have a six bedroom house but we have is it an ordinance would we say it's an ordinance that says that you can't have three or more unrelated individuals in a house period how is that legal well I mean there could be arguments made that it's not that it does run afoul of fair housing law and when we taught I'm gonna go ahead and go to the next slide so certainly where that's

[52:00] been where occupancy limitations like that have been challenged comes to group homes now group homes as it says on the slide group homes are not legally defined but the idea is it's a home where one or two or more persons who are disabled living together in a situation independently so the idea is having a limitation like saying that what three unrelated persons in a six bedroom house disproportionately affects or disparately impacts disabled persons who want to live in that group home setting so that's where I've seen that argument be made successfully that has this disproportionate impact on disabled persons who can benefit from living in these communal settings or in these group homes now again that's those are in those are cases that you'll see for instance against an HOA somebody wants to make home within a covenant control community

[53:01] into a group home for persons with disabilities an HOA doesn't want to approve it and then they're gonna get a complaint against but it could happen in a zoning situation as well again though I've only seen that that necessarily there was that connection to another protected class of disability whereas you know with Collin college students there's you're not easily going to attach that to a protected class see it keeps coming back to me about being just poor in a rich area I mean that's definitely a real concern and absent the absent the legislature expanding that's unfortunately just the way it is but again you know local governments might be more successful in expanding those rights but then it takes the whatever enforcement arm to to enforce those local protections

[54:02] so again group homes that's a that's a big one person so a person with a disability is defined broadly as a person who has a major life activity that's substantially impaired either mental or physical so it's seneschal a substantial impairment of a major life activity major life activities can really be anything walking talking thinking breathing but it could also be like your immune system that's why a person who's hiv-positive who otherwise thankfully because of antiviral drugs and etc can live a full and healthy life not appear disabled but they still qualify as just disabled because their immune system is limited or impacted by the HIV infection another coverage of another coverage of disability is addiction addiction to alcohol and addiction to controlled substance to controlled and illicit substances now and I'm sorry apparently

[55:01] at that slide is missing again alcoholism addiction whether to illicit or pharmaceutical drugs are those are disabilities there can be no argument made that a person who's an alcoholic that their major life activities are not impacted by their addiction the key is that if a person who's currently engaged in the illegal use of a controlled substance they are not protected from that disability discrimination so a person needs to be in recovery to claim that disability protection so that's why things like group homes sober living in group homes you know there there's a stigma associated with alcoholism so we're living group homes my apply for a variance to allow those unrelated persons to live and a house they otherwise wouldn't be living in and if it was denied they could make a claim that they're being discriminate against based on their disability even if now with alcoholism because alcohol is not

[56:01] illegal even if they were drinking at the time or drinking at the house in question they're still protected because again alcohols not illegal but if their if their disability or their residency would cause a direct threat to health or safety that's another issue so that leads into the disability exclusions which is on the next page so again if a person's currently engage in the illicit use of a substance they're not covered but that doesn't mean that if it's a group home setting that everyone else who's not using is suddenly not protected just that one individual again regardless of the disability it doesn't have to be addiction because not just people can be a threat to health or safety whether they're disabled or not or whether their disability relates to addiction if that person poses a legitimate direct threat to health or safety they're no longer protected from disability discrimination and then also on the federal level there's carved out

[57:00] the idea that juvenile offenders and sex offenders cannot claim disability protection at least as it relates to those I'm not sure the reasoning behind the juvenile offenders sex offenders my only estimation could be that having previously worked in criminal courts when a judge is sentencing a sex offender they're given a pre-sentencing report that provides the person's sexual mental history and there probably is a litany of diagnoses that they're going to point to but arguably they have other disabilities anyway again it has to be if if a person is excluded from disability protection there has to be a specific showing that that individual poses a direct threat to persons or property and it has to be an individualized assessment there can't be speculation so that's that you know that would happen again just using a sober living community or group home you know speculation well they're all

[58:01] drunks they're all gonna be dangerous that's speculation there needs to be an individualized assessment the speculation the fear the stereotyping that's always going to get people into trouble if they rely on those stereotypes and speculation and I'll try I know I'm getting close on time reasonable accommodations those come into play only if a person's is disabled now person can qualify it can qualify for disability discrimination even if they're not disabled but we're not going to talk about that for this purpose because you're only entitled a person is only entitled to accommodations if they're actually physically or mentally disabled reasonable accommodation is gonna be exception to a rule policy so for a municipal standpoint zoning variance exception to some sort of code that relates to I don't know things that are placed on the front porch something

[59:00] like that so it's it's gonna be generally a a change or an exception and a rule not a physical modification which is a separate issue but this accommodation it needs to be necessary to allow the disabled person or persons persons with disabilities to get the full enjoyment of the housing easy example let's say that there's setback requirements for how that say that no there can be no construction within however many feet of the public right away while an exception a reasonable accommodation would be an exception to that setback to allow somebody to build a wheelchair ramp it's necessary to allow them the full enjoyment of their housing because they have this person has a disability that limits their mobility now a housing provider a city what-have-you they can deny accommodation request if there is no connection between the accommodation requests and the disability or if the

[60:02] providing the accommodation would result in an undue financial and administrative burden now cost is not cost is certainly a consideration but it's not the end-all be-all and you know a lot of respondents will make that cost argument but when the division or HUD are analyzing a case we consider the resources of the respondent and weigh those against the limited resources of the complainant and also you know the the value of that accommodation so even if it does cost a respondent a lot of money to do something the benefit might outweigh even if it's a substantial cost so again the reasonable accommodation request can't be denied if they're unreasonable which means a undue financial and administrative burden or a fundamental alteration and what the housing providers doing so let's say allowing you know a fundamental alteration on a

[61:02] city level let's say like changing allowing an industrial use in a residential area that would fundamentally alter the nature of the neighborhood but the industrial develop you know someone doing that wouldn't be covered by this anyway but just an example and again if there's no connection between the disability in the accommodation request it can be rightfully denied the onus is though on the party that's making the accommodation request to show the connection I skipped over this one but in order for a reasonable accommodation request to be a read Fireman something needs to be provided the request actually has to be made it doesn't need to be made though by the person benefiting from the accommodation it can be made by someone on their behalf it could be made by their representative their caseworker a family friend and it does they don't need to use magic words they don't need to say pursuant to the Fair Housing Act I'm requesting a reasonable accommodation the question would be what a reasonable person understand that they're saying they're disabled or they have a

[62:00] disability and they're requesting some sort of accommodation related to it and it doesn't need to be made in writing it's fine to say please provide this accommodation request in writing so we can better understand it but a party is on notice once they a reasonable person their circumstance would understand the request is being made so arguably a person coming in here and saying you know I'm requesting this accommodation related to my disability there could be an argument made that they have made that reasonable accommodation request and now the expectation is a prompt response now prompt is not defined and the response is just that it's not yes or no a yea or nay it's a response would be it seems like maybe you're making an accommodation request let's explore this more let's discuss this help us understand that but ignoring ignoring the request even if ultimately a party intends to grant that request if there's an undue delay in granting it or

[63:00] acknowledging it that could be deemed just as bad as denying it in the first place and therefore the remedies that the complaining party could get are just as much as they would have if even if they do get the accommodation down the road so don't ignore a reasonable accommodation request even if on their face they're completely unreasonable there was a case against the city mountain community mountain resort community a person wanted some sort of variance to allow installation of like I think like an Olympic sized swimming pool or something and it just it was it was technically impossible but the city did the good thing by not just ignoring it and engaging in this interactive process we can't do this but what if we allowed you to do this but even I can't stress that enough for in potential responding party don't simply ignore request even if it's ridiculous on its face I want a real quick just

[64:00] talk about assistance animals and service animals because this is something that a lot of people on both sides of the both sides of the situation are confused about so a lot of people say show me the license for that service animal show that it's a service animal or an emotional support animal well there is no governmental entity or anything that actually lysa it as far as the federal and state level there might be local things that do this a service animal and emotional support animal they're legally defined they're not defined by any licensing agency it's not like your driver's license anything like that so you can at least when it comes to federal or state law require that a person provide their license for a service animal or an emotional support animal there for housing provider can't require specific documentation because a service animal again an emotional

[65:01] support animal is simply defined by the law now there are individuals and organizations that sell these certifications and usually that's exactly what they're doing they're just selling these their certificates they have leave they have some nice legal language on them they have a golden certificate and a big signature but they mean basically nothing the question is when it comes to sorry I got these out of order when it comes to an assistance animal which is a term of art so in housing we're talking about assistance animals necessarily covers both service animals and emotional support animals service animal is the term that people use the most but usually are misusing it a service animal can only be a dog or a miniature horse miniature horses were actually eliminated from the protection in 2013 but one of the reasons miniature horses were ever service animals is

[66:01] live longer than dogs generally so there are they're still good be some service miniature horses out there assisting persons that are covered but any rate service animals again only a dog ur miniature horse they have to be individually trained to perform a specific tasks related to a person's disability so that would be the easiest example that everybody understands as a seeing-eye dog a person who has vision impaired house a dog who's been individually specifically trained to help them with their vision impairment sometimes they're not that obvious though there are dogs who are trained to anticipate if their handler is going to have epileptic seizure they can alert their handler the handler will lay on the ground the dog will lay over them service animals have free rein they can be in housing that can be in places of employment they can even be in hospitals now they can't be in the operating room but depending on the circumstance they can be in the recovery room service animals again free rein they could be here but again they are individually

[67:00] trained to perform a specific task related to a disability and those are the only questions that a handler can be asked is this a service animal and is it individually trained to perform a specific task related to a disability you can't say now perform that task or anything like that and you the task can also not be set or just alleviate my anxiety if it comes down to just I shouldn't say just if it comes down to alleviating anxiety or depression that would be emotional support animal they don't emotional some more animals don't have free rein they're basically only gonna be allowed in housing settings and but when it comes to emotional support animals it can be any kind of animal so it could be a cat a dog it could be a goldfish it could be whatever but its mere presence can provide the therapeutic effect for a person so it doesn't need to be individually trained or anything like that but that emotional support animals they don't need to be allowed in grocery stores and restaurants whatever I was just gonna ask only service animals only service alum because yeah I used to go

[68:01] into I deal all the time and I'd see people walking through with their dogs and I was like I can't bring my Great Dane in here yet you have this and and what I asked the clerk was that because they're so unclear they don't they've just taking a hands-off approach to it which you know it's it's unfortunate because I think there's abuse of people partially just misunderstand what a service animal is what emotionals for animal and you know when it comes to restaurants and things that's specifically written that a service animal the mere presence of a service animal will not result in a health code violation for a restaurant so that's what you know they're allowed there there's things carved into the law to allow that but also even if it is a legitimate service animal it needs to be under control so I I did a training at a movie theater and the staff there were telling me the situation where a person had his service dog it was a legitimate service dog without question but sometime during the movie the dog just

[69:00] started barking and they didn't know what to do that would be a fine time to remove the dog in the handler because they the dog was fundamentally in the fundamental purpose of the movie theater just like here you'd have to allow a service dog here but if it started causing a disturbance then that would be a valid reason to have it removed handler is also required to take make sure their animals under control clean up after it feeding care for it just because it's a service animal doesn't mean it's absolved of all requirements of decency there's a super super short question sure so an emotional support animal like an HOA can't deny housing to someone who has an emotional support animal correct on the based on the fact that they don't know that dogs or something correct so that so that would be a form of a reasonable accommodation the HOA so the accommodation would be an exception to an otherwise blanket no pet policy however in that circumstance the HOA can say provide me some sort of

[70:02] documentation that shows one you meet the definition of disability so you have a mental or physical impairment that substantially limits a major life activity which is relatively easy to do because it could you don't need to reveal the diagnosis but in actuality emotional support animal a therapist could say you know John Doe has been diagnosed with anxiety the presence of his cat Garfield alleviates that anxiety that would be sufficient by that letter to the HOA the HOA should allow that animal now if that animal starts causing issues like destroying property or attacking people then that would again be a basis for removal otherwise yes the HOA needs to make an exception allergies are not a sufficient defense things like that emotional support animals and service animals are always a hot topic when it comes to landlords that's usually what we spend most of our time on now I know I've gone a little bit over I apologize just real quick

[71:01] the some of the results of if there's a violation of Fair Housing law some of the things that can happen I mentioned injunctive relief is available so the civil rights division could go to a judge and say announce the judge to stop to enjoin a party from engaging in a behavior to say you cannot go forward with this change in zoning you cannot develop this apartment or you cannot evict this person rehiring reinstatement and back pay of employees so that is true even though this is housing because employees of housing providers or other entities that are covered by the Fair Housing Act might assist the division investigation or they might report the entity that they work for and if they are retaliating against like they're fired then a result could be that party is ordered to reinstate that person granting of financial assistance creation of reports to the Commission so that's something

[72:00] that happens the Commission might require housing provider to say give us a list of people who have applied for your apartments give us a list of who you denied and why things like that and they have to report to the Commission every quarter I mentioned the vindication of the public interest so that would be training so that would be something I do I travel to state and I go and talk to HOA boards and explain to them about service animals or things like that usually though it would be a change in policy but of course there's also the possibility for real monetary damages so it used to be state law did not provide for recovery of attorneys fees or punitive damages those are now under state law the important thing is that those used to only up until 2013 those were only available in federal court now they're available in state court just logistically speaking it takes longer is more expensive and arduous to go to federal court and have a jury trial than it is in state court

[73:00] so that's why there's more of a motivate there's more teeth so to speak to the state law now with those increased remedies available is there a location where you can review apartment complexes or municipalities as far as like past grievances or and find out about records or histories of mmm so with as far as the division no so any cases again any cases before the division are kept confidential and they're not subject to Quora a car at open records act they are exempted from Chora however the division does compile and release every year an annual report that just gives the raw breakdown of the numbers now one exception to that is HUD I mentioned those no-fault settlement agreements no fought sediment agreements are again the agreements where a party has where two parties have reached a settlement those no-fault settlement agreements generally are going to be a

[74:03] part of the public record but they're a part of federal public record so they're subject to FOIA requests but that would be you know I can't speak to that because that's on the federal level that said any cases once they reach the Commission and are set for hearing those also become public record and I'm not sure of a central depository for those but generally they're going to be followed with press releases and things like that HUD certainly will do press releases in any big impactful cases HUD you know HUD just has its they have their own what's called a FOIA reading room but also just their press releases when HUD files a complaint or settles a case just like EEOC they'll release these case facts and that gives you a good idea of might be going on but long story short as far as any CC Rd case even if we find probable cause CCR D must maintain

[75:00] confidentiality strictly again though if it is probable cause and it's set for hearing then that's what the Commission and then it's a matter of public record again my direct contact information you have on my card also any members of the public who might be watching feel free to reach out I can't provide legal advice or directive but I'm happy to guide people through the process explain what the division does and sometimes it's also important to understand what the division does not do because it might be an issue for Department of Local Affairs or Department of Labor and employment by with that said that concludes my presentation are there any other questions for me I just had one question early on you mentioned that there's a kind of differentiation between whether it goes to the federal or to the state level that had to do with the size of a development of the

[76:00] number of units yes so that would be so the question was regarding whether it falls under federal or state jurisdiction if so if the property owner the housing provider owns more than four units total one of those units being their primary residence they live in it's just that they fall under that category now yeah when it's a respondent that isn't your traditional housing provider like somebody who's offering a place for rent like a municipality I mean a municipalities always there might be some exception I shouldn't say always but I cannot think of a circumstance in which municipality or government any entity that's engaged like in linden or anything like that would not be covered about your traditional housing providers for federal jurisdiction again four or more one of those four being their primary residents in which they live but with state fair housing it's anything beyond this the primary residence that they live in I just have

[77:05] a comment so on the group homes city of Boulder allows group homes and pretty much every zoning district in the city ironically not in the public phone or agriculture there might be one other zone but you can have 8 people per dwelling unit so if it's single-family neighborhood that's one dwelling unit the city manager can increase that to 10 that that's one of the conditions that conditions are not hard to meet and there's parking based on the type of home if it's a senior home you might may not need as much parking so anyway that's the status that the city of Boulder has for group homes that's good a year I think one thing sometimes you see though is the differentiation between disabilities so one of the classic cases was allowing group homes for certain disabilities but not ones

[78:00] that are more stigmatized like HIV or addiction I doubt that's happening up here but that's one way whereas municipality you could you know say I'll look at all of our group homes that we allow for disabled persons but it's only limited to non stigmatized again I'm not I doubt that's happening here but that's just one way that even where on its face it might appear copacetic it might not be anybody yeah thank you so much thank you all very succinct and a lot of information all at once yeah well feel free to reach out I thank you all for your time and having me thank you I have to run so I'm gonna move for a five minute break because I was there before you dive into the rest how does everybody feel good okay five-minute break you better get 24

[84:00] first up Standing Committee reports and I don't believe we have any reports from anything okay so we're gonna move on to special committee reports and I think it's not something from you guys in that but it in the in a packet but maybe that was in the letter so we'll go on to unfinished business for the annual letter to council review the draft that's you - you know I've now been reading it so many times I think and stuff that I have a couple of suggestions for very small changes that I don't think we have to make motions for if we all agree but when it says in blue input you requested I think it would be more appropriate if we said input council requested and if everyone's okay with that I'll just change that word oh you know it just doesn't sound as everyone does that make

[85:04] sense query before we move on yeah so in the light in her it's the first major line where the for the three questions that council had asked us so it's three paragraphs down one two three then there's a line then there's a line yep that says right there input Council so in the original it's that blue line right there yeah does something like that have to be in the minutes because I didn't make a motion or anything it's just a little change to a little thing so okay so then the other thing is in the report that Adam and I did in the final draft of it now we neglected to put a title on the page where we start all our information so it just goes from our letter right into that and if if it's okay with everyone we'll insert the title it took or if you can scroll down

[86:01] rape of keep going into the additional information keep going that's on that because that's just a letter but the report after it and in the report after it it's the very next thing is the report itself huh and we don't have a title for that's an admit that's in the minute or sorry that's in our packet if we want to refer to that pulling up and maybe even at the bottom line then on that first page on the letter it could say attachment a and then yep so attachment a and then and then the title of whatever you want to call it and then we'll do that sure I'll be checking up one more time anyway perfect yep great and then as everyone knows I have a few motions but

[87:00] I don't know how you want to it's on the letter about about the letter okay let's see I guess let's close the discussion on the on the letter if we're all feeling good about it moving forward and then we can move into the motions that judy has about the study topics correct it was about the study topic so you want to talk about okay so let's move into discussion and what you wrote about so I've sent this out twice because we had to postpone it the last time we talked about it but I wasn't quite quick enough in the draw when we first discussed this and went through the process of voting for study topics but I was concerned when I went back and listened to the video and watched it and thought about it that we didn't really do it by majority vote that two of the thing we just did the top two and one of them did have a majority vote but one of them only had I

[88:01] think two votes and I I just would like I don't have to go into a whole explanation I don't think we can if there's a lot of discussion but I move that we reconsider our action relative to establishing our 2019 study topics and that we discuss it again so that's all I'm making that motion about right now and if anyone ii said good if not that's fine too so I will also add that I'm disturbed enough about not doing Robert's Rules of Order and not doing it with what's in our own bylaws that I will entertain the notion of doing a Minority Report about the priorities if we don't reluck at the priorities I don't know if I will or won't but I'm not comfortable about doing things that are not within our own bylaws do you want to add something to

[89:02] that Jeff so I did review the bylaws and and discussed this question with the deputy city attorney Aaron Poe and we believe that by passing the motion that established the two items which I believe was in a unanimous decision that you have followed your bylaws for approval of this item establishing those two as priorities the straw poll in which you indicated in one case three people indicated in the other two that these were topics of interest is a non-binding non official action it's just an indication of interest so our understanding is that the motion was made seconded and then passed unanimously establishes the unanimous intent of the housing advisory board that those two items be communicated to Council as you'd have in the letter

[90:00] so I also read the real Robert's Rules of Order and said the cheat sheet that I had read initially and it does say that a motion can be brought up that rescinds another motion just by bringing it up and doing it so that that may be your interpretation and that's good and maybe that's legally binding and all that I'm still not comfortable that we chose our two priority topics in ways that were not by majority and is it your understanding that we did do that that is our understanding although it does appear that perhaps it on thinking about it maybe the vote would have not unanimous sounds like I don't know if Judy you would have taken a different approach to that given your understanding of things at this point so but on record was the unanimous agreement to the motion to include those

[91:01] two as your priorities okay and so just a matter of process right now so she's put a motion on the table if we choose not to if nobody chooses to second it then we would move into the next motion she wants to discuss and if not we would just move on in business yes anyone can propose a motion at any time once recognized by the chair at least if it's not seconded then the you move on to the remainder of your agenda okay so nobody second is Jacque has a question well I think that I guess I just want to be clear on what we would be doing if we engaged with this motion are we getting back into the discussion of our study topics is it reopening that process yes

[92:02] I would I mean I would like to look at the to study topics again and bring them up one by one and see if they get three votes and if they or majority vote or more than a majority vote and then if they don't it doesn't succeed as a topic when we could have zero one or two yeah I'm not asking to introduce new study topics at this point but also you know we've been talking a lot about consensus and I'm feeling unconcerned [Laughter] I think Judy for I just want to say because neither of those were priorities for me personally and I did feel that the the vote that we took of the two together for me for instance that was me saying okay I'm you know that's not my thing but I'm joining consensus and I'm saying that that's what we're gonna be doing so I feel that that for me

[93:00] personally that was what that process accomplished so I feel good about it from that perspective although I'd love to open the study topics again anybody had anything else oh it strikes me that from just discussion with Aaron that he shared with us that the matter seemed you know I understand though I understand the motion but it seemed like that we did it we did accomplish what the earlier piece was and I probably get from Chuck's perspective to share that that I conceded consensus so this as best I could remember so it wasn't seconded so I'm okay to move on with that okay so the next thing I guess I want to say the next thing was if that motion passed but since the motion didn't pass I'd

[94:01] like to bring up I make the motion that ree-ree discuss occupancy okay can I pause for a second Cori since nothing happened do we need to put anything onto the record it just goes and okay you're good all right so you want to do so it's not a pass or not pass it just is left okay I if I mean you're I'm not sure how formally we decided this but to now we are records of the meetings have been considered basically your action minutes about what happened not about what didn't happen are trying to capture all the discussion so since there was no shouldn't taken we would typically not record that if you want a different record of your meetings we'll have to engage in that discussion but that would be so at this point given that there was no action that would not appear okay so

[95:03] then I make the motion that weari discuss occupancy as a study topic the reason being is I server have gotten a sense from counsel from a couple council members that they would rather we revisit this topic later or that they are worried about it being too confrontational right now that we may be considered doing it I'll second the motion so we can open that for a discussion so you brought this up to me is a potential concern and I thought about it for a while and I think it's within our purview and fair to sort of we're taking these is asking permission more or less to you know do a little bit of work on getting some background and some ideas and hopefully some public feedback I think that's within this board's

[96:02] purview to actually accomplish something along those lines and I'm aware that it is a hot-button issue and that some council members may not want to talk about it at all for one reason or another but I'd rather at least ask the question so I can see who is interested or not interested and you know we're absolutely going to abide by whatever their suggestions and a being but I think it is a topic worth asking the question about especially after this evening and some stuff that I learned so I'm not gonna be in favor of rescinding that part of the letter but I'm glad you asked the question yeah and and as you know it's a topic I'm actually really interested in I just had some concerns that since we might not have gotten off to the

[97:00] strongest start possible with counsel that we wait till July to reintroduce that topic but you know I'm good to watch that topic I just thought we should consider maybe waiting till the July letter that's all I think I line up with Adam on this one I think we've made that choice we can do a little bit of kind of due diligence and front work I think and just follow through and if counsel doesn't want us to look into it further they'll let us know and I'd like to see it yeah and I'm gonna third it as well just because um it's interesting when we talk about the consensus portion of it or building that like I wasn't one way or the other on the occupancy but also doing writing writing some of the description and looking into it and then getting into the Fair Housing I shot Adam a couple of emails today and I find

[98:00] it fascinating and it absolutely is a hot-button topic but I think we that's part of one of the great things about us not being City Council and being the Advisory Board is that we get to lean into some of these and explore them and it's not that I think we're saying we absolutely have to take it on but we have to get into these issues and explore them and pull them back and I do hear what you're saying about our rough start in the beginning but I think we're going pretty good right now so yeah I'm for the nod I'm in accord with that it seems like well the one hand there's been so discussion about it as a potential hot-button issue would strike me that maybe it was a little more hot-button issues would feel more seats out there and that would be good okay I do have a comment is some looking back on all the

[99:00] planning board letters for the six years I've been on planning board and we're gonna be dealing with this tomorrow night some issues might not be ripe as time you propose them but we've kind of not kind of we have proposed them almost every year a lot of the major issues and at some point they become the the issue that the city wants that the council wants to deal with and allocate staff to so the youth tables is an example of one of those kind of nerdy arcane planning issues but now we have a team and working on that same with sub community planning I know Judy's been interested in that so you know this is your first letter I'm sure you're gonna then be able to add on to it or and in addition let council know what you've been successful at

[100:01] completing as a point of order on this then Jeff how would we move forward from this so I was just thinking about that I'm not a parliamentarian but the way I understood the motion it was a motion to discuss in theory you would vote to approve a discussion you just had the discussion that seems to me so maybe a maybe the emotion could be amended to say something to the effect I move that we remove occupancy from the letter because that's essentially the discussion you just had and then and then the vote to approve it or not prove that motion would get your own record because I think you kind of skipped over the step of agreeing to discuss it by just diving into the discussion then would that be a friendly amendment by judy or does she just make

[101:02] the motion or anybody make that I don't think we need I don't really want to make that motion since I can see where it will go you can can we just vote I'm discussing it and then we've already discussed it and we're done it's in the minutes as that we discussed it you can because or do we even need to make the motion since we've discussed and we're just going to it was a motion made and seconded it could be withdrawn it could or should be voted on okay or tabled I think those are your options yeah I I don't see any interest in tabling it and I don't see what drawing it because I just want it to appear in the record so let's just vote on having a discussion all in favor for the discussion then my last thing is that Jeff do you want to give the background on this thing about

[102:00] chafa that email you sent me certainly so at the council study session that disgusts guidance to the housing advisory board the majority of council members present indicated an interest if there were in some cases time in your work plan in other cases they just asked for it to be on the work plan that you look into the issues associated with concerns about complications created by the interplay between our entitlement process for developments and the awarding of it's referred to as chafa funding but in it is actually a low-income housing tax credit financing that is allocated by the Colorado Housing Finance Authority so it's it is an award that makes it brings a lot of equity to rent projects and there are concerns in the

[103:01] community and on council about the interplay between that's particularly the timing and the ability to influence the development entitlement process and the outcome when considered against the potential of losing this funding source so based on discussions that they had an internal the staff work plan now contains this item and we will be scheduling it for your review and consideration that sometime in the coming year most likely the second half of the year so my interest was since that was something I want to discuss as a study topic and very happily don't need to because staff is taking it on and will make a presentation to us that we can then discuss I still wanted to have something in our letter that we heard what counsel said that had at

[104:01] least five I believe it was five members supported the idea so I just wanted to add language to our letter that would say it doesn't I put down here in addition but I realized it's right in a place that says additional information so to say in addition doesn't really apply just to say had looks forward to working with staff and council on examining how chafa connected affordable housing projects can better be aligned with the city's entitlement projects just so it gets in there in our letter that we heard them and we're happy that we're going to be working on that in the future I just want it so I make the motion that we include that in our letter do they may I ask a clarifying question in your motion the last word in your emotion is projects and for my understanding that would be probably process process okay okay so I'll repeat

[105:03] that had looks forward to working with staff and Council on examining how chafa connected affordable housing projects in be aligned with the city's entitlement process and I'd like to have that in our annual letter just to show Council that we're paying attention to their interests I'll second and we can open it up for discussion or if you want to take his dog I guess my leaning on it would be I think I have a slightly different take of what went on at that council study session around that topic and I'd prefer to just leave it to staff bringing it to us and see how that process rolls out

[106:00] why you suppose rather than kind of jumping on it now it was nothing that we were specifically interested before I'd rather limit it to the two pieces that we have in there that's my my take yeah and I would add on that when we were at that meeting they talked about large lots and they talked about some other things so if we're gonna add that we heard a munch fi we should add that we heard them on large lots and we heard them on tiny houses and we heard the money so to me it's like it's being added and to the work plan and it is being incorporated so I feel like we've covered it I think trying to interpret what a group of five people meant behind whatever they were saying is a bit of a stretch without specifically asking them I think it's pretty clear that they see that as a priority and are adding it to

[107:00] the plan and in that case our discussion here is probably enough of an indication that we too are interested and looking forward to it so I lean more towards the we don't necessarily have to explicitly state that within the letter I totally understand where you're coming from and I appreciate you wanting to show that we heard them because I think that's important with how we got started but in in terms of is it really gonna matter at the end of the day I don't think so so I guess I say a couple things the only bat Shaffer project was the only thing they suggested that wasn't already in their work plan when they talked about large lots and they talked about but the tiny homes we have but they talked about mobile parks and they talked about community benefit benefit and all the other things and they talked about this quite a bit as far as trying

[108:00] to listen to neighborhoods more and people more and especially since we're pursuing occupancy that's going to make a lot of neighborhoods uncomfortable I thought it would be nice to have something in there that might make neighborhoods comfortable and since there's there seems to be just as much reason to say why not put it in as well as why it would be one sentence in the letter it makes me really happy and you know I think would be a good message to count to council that we were listening to them especially when we're bringing up something that's out of left field to them in their way of looking at things by wanting to discuss occupancy I think it would be a nice balance I I saw a presentation this week it was from last

[109:01] year that chafa made to city of Englewood and I don't I thought was maybe we could consider inviting Jeff up to make a similar presentation that but I don't I'm not sure if that should come from us or whether that should come from in the case of Englewood that invitation came from the mayor and city council to do but it would be a foundational place with which to start about what that tax credit financing does definitely a foundational it's not yeah I think what we would do in this situation and correct me if I'm wrong Jeff we could make that request of staff when it gets around to the work plan correct yeah yeah I mean that would yeah you could ask to try and shape how that project comes to you or you could see how it comes to you and then ask for follow-up if it didn't meet your needs okay Corey real quick you pull up the letter so I can see specifically where this would go if we do pass the motion

[110:23] additional information please and Judy can you specify where that would go well it could go to places they could go after study topic occupancy or I could go right after right under additional information or if I made such answers under community engagement yeah that's a good place that would be that would be under 2019 half priorities right before

[111:02] additionally have has an interest in pursuing to generative study topics that's a good place where would you most want to put it in just as part of the motion hey whatever any place that would get me the votes I think I think actually crystals ideas a good can you exam I would just like to know a little bit more about can you just tell me again why this is important to you other than but just tell me again why why it's important to you well there than making you happy the the topic

[112:00] itself is of interest to me because in two occasions very recently both with Paulo Parkway and with 1440 Pine the attention Holmes there was a lot of neighborhood upset which caused also upset then for the city and also upset for the developers that could have been avoided if people could have talked first and maybe come to a few different agreements and changes before it was so polarized I gotta get that tough is it no charge so chafa is really important as a funding source and once the deal is made with chafa it can't be changed so the city can't change what Jaffa does the city could possibly make some changes someplace else so there is more dialogue before a chafa was locked in so I think that would help in art like one of our goals of engagement is to try and get more consensus within the city so I see that process as being a big step in

[113:01] consensus and then also I think it's something that very clearly at least five out of the nine members on council to really supported Mirabai and Mary brought it up and talked about it at length but three other people supported it quite well and nobody disagreed with it you know other people the the four other people didn't say anything about it one way or another and it was the only topic outside of ones that they're already doing in the work plan that they did talk about and I think it would be so I think would be a good message to council it's just one little sentence and and it shows that we have interest in the topic and also it's important to me because it gives something in that letter to the neighborhoods that we recognize that the neighborhoods have been upset about things lately and we're interested in working on that and I think it's a counterbalance to the

[114:00] occupancy issue which is not going to make some neighborhoods happy so the fact that it's in the work plan isn't enough for the neighborhoods to know that it's important enough that we've put it in the work plan not to be I have a potential compromise that I'm gonna float out there Cori could you go down to additional information and at the end of this first step up again yeah right at the beginning of it perfect at the end of the first paragraph there we have such as ad use and Oh a use how about changing that to chafa connected affordable housing projects except we haven't done that yet I mean I'm happy to put something in there right there but we haven't done that okay okay okay I was just gonna say I

[115:05] mean I would be open to what Adam was just working on there is giving a nod to it in a certain place it seems weird to just specifically address it with an entire right statement of itself for a couple of reasons for me personally is that the little I know about the chafa kind of morass that's happening out there I'm not sure how much that actually falls into our plate even to engage with so I kind of want to just leave it off but I do recognize that you know counsel is interested in trying to smooth that process out somehow I'm not really sure what we can do about that but so I hesitate to give it that much but I'd be willing to find someplace to just make a note of it that we recognize that and and so I would have to kind of

[116:00] go through the letter and see where that might be put some thought into that it's difficult for me to think is I've known people at Japheth and it wouldn't be a meaningful issue for them to visit on because they don't want an unhappy neighborhood for that and to be aware I mean there are my experiences they're pretty thoughtful group about that and it would also strike me that it's likely have come up in other communities as well to kind of get situations where the suddenly the carts before the horse and all of a sudden something's gone and they can't change because nobody likes to have to feel like that with developers whether it's Planning Board or City or anyone else I don't think we're disputing because I'm on board with after Jeff explained it to me I'm on board with doing the chieffo work as well because I think it's fascinating and interesting I don't think we're

[117:01] disputing whether or not Jaffa is important it's whether or not it goes into the letter and whether or not we want to buy by putting an additional line in what we're doing is drawing attention to that piece which you know if it's the will then it's the will we do that but again it's not whether or not Jeff is important it's on the work plan I've won it's the choice of whether or not goes in the letter I have another potential area under 2019 hab priorities just above tiny homes studied topic B sentence with increased civil discourse on contentious housing issues and my friendly amendment would be to include such as Jaffa connected affordable housing projects have feels more common ground can be identified like that I'm good with that did you think that Corey so raid after okay could you say it again though I

[118:00] would love to hold on yeah so right there yep your cursors on almost an admin tab has special interests in seeking common ground is the paragraph it starts with yep with increased civil discourse on contentious housing issues comma such as chafa CH FA - connected affordable housing projects , I have to modify my motion I'm I so modifying my motion or what Adam said can I do it that way okay we will we will tidy it up for the minutes okay okay so all in favor yeah our second person second sorry well

[119:02] he already said but it's a amendment so there has to be an additional second as I understand it it was a friendly amendment was suggested it's been accepted by the motion maker it needs to be accepted by the second and yeah accepted need any more discussion on it can I make note of the fact that we are reaching consensus on something and that in the future this means that we all get to move in this direction when we don't like something okay all in favor say aye and it's unanimous okay any other motions this is an emotion but are we

[120:01] gonna talk about what you and Adam submitted for study topics or is everyone okay with that good point so everybody's reviewed the letter and the study topics does anybody want to add any should we make motions for inclusion do you think that's the best way and then we can friendly amend any thing that yet during the discussion period you know it makes sense yeah if they're already on there so maybe we just dress it at some point you're going to approve the letter okay if they're already in there and no one wants to talk about it I don't think anything foremost necessary so we would just move on I will suggest that you look at both of them the term is the purpose of the study session what study sessions have a particular meaning in the city context if the intent is to have a single meeting devoted to the topic that would probably be an appropriate use when I read that it's

[121:03] really more of a process and generating report to me that indicates that word might be better changed to study topic as you've said in the title can we do a non-vote assuming that was the intent I wasn't clear crystal clear to me anyway that's fantastic so is everybody okay with moving forward with changing that word from session to topic and I do have a question on both of yours you talk about national case studies best practices foundational elements but that's not my question is it obviously you two will be key in those topics if if the board doesn't reject them are you obviously and we also can't ask staff to

[122:03] be doing things for this so are you both prepared and okay about actually doing national case studies and studying best practices and foundational elements and all that the obviously the possible strategies identified neighborhoods and community food that is something we all do but we have not normally done so far national case studies best practices and foundational elements so I can comment on tiny houses I already have collected six of them so I that they'll go ahead Jeff you've thrown it in I just say that if counsel indicates that this is something that they would like you to work on it's going to become a matter of staff support for that work item that you have so it would not be a solo committee board member effort and what happens if they don't say either yay or nay and we want to have it as a study topic then we'll have to figure out how I was how much support we can give it a temporary committee in that case how is how can we

[123:01] and I don't know if this was true for everybody in this situation but to me I guess I was thinking that we were moving forward on something that we would be taking on like it just as a board and not dragging in staff resources so that you know it would be a preliminary light nod and we'd start collecting stuff and putting it together in our way kind of like what Judy and Adam did on their piece without a lot of support because my hope is is that that's how we get the nods is that we get to put our toes in before we dedicate stuff yeah I can understand that if you were to scope it that way and counsel you think council understood that and there'd be limited staff support as there were in some of these other items that would be something we'd work out and see a problem with it so maybe what I'm hearing then is we might want to figure out how in the letter or in these topics

[124:00] to make it clear that this is a toe in the water we're asking for a nod so that we as a board not utilizing dramatic resources from staff although you know I always have questions would help sell the idea of why we want to nod on these I think it's something as simple as that in a sentence like these study topics would not we would not be seeking additional resources from staff in pursuit of these study topics I nominate Adam to write all of our stuff from now on [Laughter] but also you might want to add something in one of them are both of them are beforehand in a sentence that these are not things these are not recommendations

[125:01] you're making going to be making it this time you're going to explore to see if there are recommendations what I mean you're not mentioned that in the first line they collect and analyze current policies and the reasoning yeah I really intentionally tried not to say recommendation but it might actually help to say elect an analyst without making without at this point because we may at the end of the year ago it's very clear blah blah blah but we recommend you study Tut that you do a tiny home pilot program so sentence scented saying not making a recommendation to something and this point B shouldn't say to say at this point cuz we may want I just want to leave this much room not making a recommendation and putting toe in the water and since you drafted I mean since you just recommended that sentence could

[126:00] do you mind putting that in there somewhere in yeah resubmitting yep great great recommendations any others house any everybody else feeling about the least you the letter yeah the language or anything else we want to add we're still in the topic of the letter I don't have anything I'm trying to remember what I said earlier okay so um then this is just getting moved into and is our final approval on the next one we have it set for a date for final approval on the 12th right what's the due date on the letter because I think

[127:00] it was right there right there it's like the fourth which is why we started it so soon real quick before we move on should we discuss any sticking points for people before so we don't have to leave it till the last minute like yeah is there anything that people are explicitly against right now that would need to be discussed next time anyway we got all the you know rabbits out of the hat Cory so I have to submit the final letter to the City Clerk's office the morning of December 20th which is a Thursday so is it safe to say for everyone then that outside of adding this the recommendations that you just made about recommendations and everybody else feels good about where the letters at and we

[128:01] would just be then with these two it would go out to everybody with the changes and then it would be our we put it on the list of unfinished business for a final approval vote I would like to ask that the letter be prepared by Wednesday of next week so we can get it in the packet since you'll be taking action on it seems appropriate for the public yes so just to be clear since you tuber I'll send you the changes that we talked about in other forums and then is a good Jacque and I leave it to you to to put in the final one that you give him because it'll only be your part or what we can do is finish our part and send them to you dude before if you really needs it by Wednesday do it you know like by Monday evening or something sighs I plan on doing it as soon as I can if I may my understanding just to see if I understood correctly there are two

[129:01] main points you're trying to make and though with those study topics one is that this is primarily a board effort with minimal staff involvement the other is around the recommend including the word recommendation I'm not exactly sure how to indicate that your intent is to probably in next year's letter pursue this if you think it's warranted yes or [Music] taking it up a notch after the July piece like if we're gonna do this twice a year they could review review it and up it a notch in July yeah that was a positive way of saying yeah something to prepare it for board for councils consideration and the last piece just referring back to earlier discussions I

[130:01] remember there being some hesitancy in putting the community feedback report in the letter are you to the one that you two are so good with that okay cool I just remember that was somewhat contentious had to be given great got it so no conclusion to that we just move on correct okay thank you for your guys's hard work on that letter great work [Laughter] okay we're gonna go into new business first we have future roles of committees Judy well I'm not sure I need to make a

[131:04] motion at this point how do how do we want to discuss committees if we just go committee by committee I don't need to make a motion at all well this is this brings up a great point something that Jeff and I had talked about earlier on so in the very beginning we had a lot going on and then we instituted Robert's Rules and I've been taking that very serious and trying to get us as formal on Robert's Rules as possible but what Jeff also pointed out is that we can also find the sweet spot and back that up and not always have to put motions forth first which one of the reasons why I like the motions first is because it requires us to be very succinct and poignant and clear about the message that we want to make but then it also kind of limits us on our ability to be a little bit more casual with each other

[132:00] so finding that sweet spot is I guess where we want to go is making sure that we're always heard and clear but also really honoring the rules and we've already seen with the last meeting or with the meeting over the priorities that it didn't feel good to you at the end of it there's been times where it didn't feel good to me we also talked about going into a consensus model so it's just something for consideration and I'm kind of taking it against a litmus test done where everybody's sitting with that about is you know how formal do we want to get do we like where we were headed do we want to back it up a little bit do we would I've tried to be a little more informal this meeting instead of just going hardcore into it so it's our call I think this has been a good meeting so far and I know what we're trying to get at with this next piece so I don't care

[133:01] if we take the everything gets taken away and we add back in or everything stays and we take away approach either way it's gonna end up the same so however we frame it doesn't matter to me it's a relatively small board it's trying to find its own sort of vision of its own Karma so to speak and and there's going to be some times maybe if we lose a little traction or get a little distracted and we have to reintroduce a little more formality to get back on track maybe you could always we could always do that but in the meantime it seems like it's quite productive too we covered a lot of ground in a fairly short period of time and this evening and seem to work I agree I think that we can find that sweet spot and just with the one note to everybody that if any of us are feeling

[134:01] that need to tighten it up we should just go there and not be concerned about it because it can kind of roll and start to get out of the comfort zone pretty easily sometimes so let's just all be willing to put our hands up and say okay let's structure there's a little bit more but I'm good with it so how I feel for this particular thing is I don't feel the need to make a motion for it my interest is in not getting into a long discussion about types of committees or process just to talk about just to mention each committee and see if there's consensus for it can if we don't need it or we do need it and if there's a majority we need it I mean just to proceed that way to just start mentioning to committees census where people are about them anything else did you want to anything Jeff what what I remember is that the

[135:07] committee and whether standing or special committee structure just sort of happened without a concrete discussion about what you wanted to accomplish with committees it was this is something we need to deal with rather than trying to do it as a whole would be better suited for those who are interested in it to pursue it and bring stuff back if it were me sitting there I would probably suggest that we discuss what we want from committees as a group how they serve us in our purpose and in our work for me to be able to decide which of these would make sense to continue or not if you all feel like you have a good sense of that obviously it's not necessary but that's just how I would interpret the history so far so to that point I think Mason made a good suggestion that if a committee is to

[136:00] exist it should have a statement of some sort we did have an outline that we sort of adopted I think and we should fill out that outline for any committee that we intend to keep so it just has a purpose statement and hopefully some sort of way to track the end goal of the committee especially for special committees but also for standing committees because we should be making sure they're still necessary over longer lengths of time I was gonna say I think that I favor not having committees for things we're not actively working on this year I'm highly in favor of committees for things we are because since more than two of us at a time can't talk to each other because of open sunshine rules

[137:01] committee's a really effective way of getting things done I've been really happy with the work of everyone I've worked on on committees and I feel we've really accomplished a lot so I think we just go for which ones are pertinent to our goals for 2019 I want to just second that from Judy's perspective I think okay hold on we don't have a motion on that I think we did you know ball gets rolling again quickly with committees and we did early on and they can be almost a sense of distraction I think and so I think that that point of recognizing the role is to to focus us in on the things there on our plate is a great point so I'm gonna add kind of I

[138:02] was just actually looking for it yeah because very early on before we started forming committees I had recommended a format on how to choose a committee and that if we were gonna form a committee that it would have a purpose statement with it so that it was very clear about what that committee was going to be for and why we were moving forward on it so I I had put forth a motion via email two weeks ago three weeks ago and I had stated in that about removing all committees and being clear about why we're adding them back so that they would have a purpose statement and then Judy had her motion as well as about doing the straw poll to me it doesn't matter we get there with both of them my my priority is making sure that if we're adding a commit committee that it has a

[139:03] purpose statement and that we all agree to it and it's something we're supporting we feel like it has value Michael I'd like to say I agree with that completely and any committee that we do keep that committee each committee will need will need to do that I don't think Restatement yeah that's just a given that if you're there's gonna be a committee they're gonna do and you didn't send out a form for that because I know we tried to it was three weeks ago his way he was back in the day but I had shared it with Adam again because we were focusing in on something in particular but I know I have it in my mind and I'll go back and send that out to everybody I made a note to myself to make sure so can we just sort of consensus agree that every committee

[140:00] that it's is formed the one or two people on it will do a do that statement yes so what we're agreeing to or what we should vote on and make sure that we agree to is that any committees we agree to moving forward will create a purpose statement for the record and just send it out to all of us so that we're behind it aligned see you wordsmith her you keep putting yourself in that job and if that feels good for everybody then let's move forward with the list I just resent it out to everybody the list of what I have four committees which I believe we were on the same page about right Jeff the list that I just I sent it I resent it to the housing advisory but I didn't

[141:00] check it again but I think all the committee's of are on your agenda as well as a short and quick and easy way to see them all and to be clear if we're all in agreement with this we have standing also known as long term or just our regular committees are ongoing I would just say ongoing I was like there's nothing else add to it so it's just an ongoing committee than the other form of committees we have our special committees which are short term I'm short term in project specific and I do see some differences between the list you sent and how the agenda has between the standing committees and the special committees but I believe that they are all included here yes okay so there's

[142:01] not any missing okay so and it does kind of matter what their definition is though yeah so just clarify as we go through each one of them yeah so in lieu of a strawpoll we'll just go through and have a discussion about each one confirm who's on it purpose I don't know if we want a craft purpose right now but we'll just agree we can agree and then that pert that committee can clarify with the purpose afterwards mm-hm Jeff does that sound good to you sorry I hear you suggesting that the board talked about each committee and confirm if you want to keep it going or not and if you are to keep it going the committee whoever's on the committee proposes a purpose statement yes okay so first up we have under committees Public Engagement Judy and Adam long term I don't exactly know you want to

[143:03] say we like our intent is to make a purpose statement for the committee and continue it in the short-term at least I also say there's an idea that Adam and I talked about some of these other committees may want to do engagement as well and we thought one of the pluses about our committee is we've already done some and we already are starting to establish lines of communication with various places to do engagement and that what we could do is say if the Alpine balsam group wanted to do some engagement and then one person from their committee could work with one person from our Committee on just the engagement piece and then they wouldn't be burdened with all the extra work of engagement and they also wouldn't have

[144:01] to reinvent the wheel each time of engagement to do we were thinking that was that was one of our interests of nobody has to do that but that's something we could offer to save the other committees time but we've been we felt that's been real successful in productive and will be useful during the year yeah I guess that's my only question about the public engagement as a Standing Committee itself is just how are we integrating it with the other work that we're doing since that piece is with everyone so I mean I think we definitely need to just address this one and see how it's going to function because I'll add to that that for me when I'm when we were at Alpine balsam or like in particular tiny house since I wrote the study topic of that to me public engagement is also aka marketing and so I immediately go into tiny house like how would I market this and how would I engage the community to get

[145:02] excited about it and and so yes it's part of but Adam and I were talking about it at one point too and I also see it as a standalone where as you were saying that there's going to be times where the community reaches out or needs a direct response and it's nice to know that we have a team that can be responsible for that yeah I still think we want to set up some best practices too you know like Judy said we're still compiling sort of the way we try to do things in any given topic so just sort of a core set of things that will happen when we're trying to get the community out so I'm gonna stop arguing for it I think I made the point Michael so then we'll just take a straw poll and keep or let go so we'll say keep first

[146:03] so unanimous for I was just scratching - what's that trying to vote here okay so the next one I have is board liaison so that's mine so if I'm the only person on it if someone's you've wanted to do it with me we could talk about it I've only done a little and gone to some meetings I think it's important as far as it's in the ordinance that that have founded us that liaison is important but if people don't vote to do it I can still go to the meetings I want to go to and meet with the people I want to meet with anyway I'm sort of you've never had a report right no okay do you intend to have a report at any point you know it really depends on if you're not if it's not voted and you know and if somebody else wants to join the committee then we could come up with the problem statement and all that or you could you know if one other person wants to do it you

[147:00] could wait to vote to see if what we come up with honestly I'm really neutral I do think it's important that we do board liaison and I think there's lots of opportunities to do it and this committee could start sussing this out my inclination is just to address cross Committee engagement in a different way than a specific point person I think there's some sort of level of expectation that we all be engaged in areas surrounding housing that might include things like transportation or zoning things along those lines I don't know if a standing committee is the best way to go about it at this point and I'm fine it's also something that in public engagement we can do some of our cell phone it's appropriate you know any other you know again I mean it's something we've talked about a lot I

[148:00] don't know that a committee is necessary for it so I guess I would I would probably be like yeah let this one go and focus in on strawpoll thumbs up thumbs down so all those for a thumbs up just Judy thumbs down Michael Adam that's it Michael Adam Chuck and me so that's a let go Alpine balsam may I make a suggestion that at the end of the straw polling exercise someone make a motion incorporating which ones you want to keep a not so it's official on the record so I Boston it was my understanding that that was directed rather than optional to us so I think we need to keep that right so what I'm hoping is that the people that are on

[149:01] those committees speak to them first okay and then we can open it up to everybody else it's on them yeah I mean I think that as it is directed in this will be directed to engage with what's happening in else Alpine balsam and see you know what Housing Board wants to move forward there or try to get on the plate and advocate for I think this one probably just stays as it is from my perspective and that's obviously a big one on the plate for everybody and I would add that they we were requested to participate in it so to me it stands did you um this may be a semantics approach I think that there is a some qualitative distinction between the projects in

[150:00] which you requested to participate in a certain way be a top-line Balsam sub-community planning community benefit potentially large lots depending on if council has a question for you as a whole or you want to assign a group to work on maybe those are not carried as committees but more as project liaisons or something to that ask force and prompts that is the potential concern when people see the word committee that it represents something different than what you're actually doing but I don't know if that's helpful or not so that would be Alpine balsam Regional Housing and Community Benefit those were the three that we were requested to have a liaison for do you show any others I was I was thinking the three were Alpine balsam Community Benefit in sub Community Planning all of which are on the City Council work plan and the project teams

[151:00] have asked boards and commissions to be involved by assigning people regional housing is different for from my perspective in that that's a long-term ongoing effort it's not a specific project it's not I mean the council adopted the regional housing strategy that was more similar to as kind of an awareness cross-pollination item rather than a specific project okay so then we have the three Alpine balsam sub community and Community Benefit as standing and do we just want to call them task force sense or liaisons I mean what would be on our agenda as the name who do we have it be city directed liaisons because then that shows that that's not nobody could say there's you're starting too many committees it's like we we were asked [Laughter]

[152:02] diplomatic credentials I don't care what it is or what we call them yeah so long as they're what would you suggest English I would suggest that you track them but maybe not put them on the agenda unless there is a report to be made or sharing to happen which was in large part the reason that you were asked to have a project aware person or persons we just call it other reports project reports other reports I think that indicates the intent a little differently okay these are these are for me when I think about it these are items that you're responding to you're doing what's being asked of you rather than independent work how about initiative reports because aren't they listed as initiatives I can't remember the word

[153:01] that's used work plan items is what's commonly used but quarry you have any or how about work plan reports then that's too generic I'll look into see if there's a better word but okay and the reason why I'm kind of highlighting that is because after we're done with this committee discussion then changed to agenda format so I just want to make sure that we use a word that everybody understands and the public would understand what they're looking at when they look at the agenda so we're removing them from the discussion Alpine balsam sub community and community benefits not within the community committee discussion because they will now be initiative reports or whatever word Jeff comes up with and and Jeff you're saying that regional housing still stays as a committee or that's something else I start by saying whoever's on that what

[154:00] activity we had and is there something alive the hair if it's isn't that the state I thought that was like hey J yeah I thought it was as I remember this was first or second meeting it was there's this regional housing strategy there's collaboration cooperation information sharing going on I can't remember if it was a suggestion or if it was initiated by a board member to say we should be plugged in this is an ass okay we volunteered yeah okay so that and we've had a couple mornings with her why don't I ask what we're intent was and the purpose maybe she can generate a purpose right because we then you can slide it in as a committee or as an initiative or project as how's that sound perfect okay so we'll leave that as a question mark and you will let us know about that correct okay and so then the only other

[155:01] [Music] long-term committee we have is Cu which is Jacque and Adam do either of you want to comment on it I think that further reason we talked about or mentioned briefly earlier about focusing in on what we're doing currently and those work plan items that are on our plate that is a committee I think I would say we can stand this one down there's nothing that we're addressing right now that's directly involved with it so yeah unless something comes up that's like work plan related I don't need it and yeah I think it's outside the scope yeah anybody else want anything okay so thumbs up anybody eat sorry

[156:01] thumbs up anybody zero thumbs down unanimous okay great now we're into special communities we have affordable housing resident and I think there's another word in their concerns insurance for that one we have a timeline and a path to completion so I would want to keep it since we've already sort of agreed to its end okay any other discussion thumbs up unanimous am I this is another similar to see you scope is too broad yeah can't fit it within anything if it happens to come up within the work plan in some regard that's great but I'm fine with standing down

[157:01] okay any other discussion straw poll thumbs up to keep zero thumbs down unanimous and then we're community benefit we're moving so I will make a motion the housing advisory board has the commune in help me out Jeff if it goes awry has the Committees of public engagement and affordable housing resident concerns as this short-term those are the only two I see remaining correct okay look at the emotion real quick just as specified is public engagement still considered standing and and affordable concerns is

[158:00] special mm-hmm okay so clarify that Coryell kind of reese a that the motion would be the housing advisory board has a standing committee public engagement and a special committee affordable housing resident concerns yep and included in there is that a separate motion or a are part of it to establish that council work plan items that request board involvement will be considered the initiative initiatives Middies I don't know but let's just capture that at some point yes I was gonna make that as this next one just to

[159:01] vote on these two that reppin as committees okay so I need a second on the second all in favor aye unanimous the nays 0 and then a motion to create initiative reports on Alpine balsam sub community community benefits hey that's a question mark you look like you're saying so second just a clarification so Alpine balsam is one project and Community Benefit is another at least op community planning so we have three and subcommittee okay and then Regional Housing is something westrom yet we're question marking yet because we need to figure out if it's if we're wanted it but we intend we intend

[160:01] to provide some support to all four of those groups potentially if they want it that's why that's a question mark oh so right now the motion is just for the three and it's been seconded does that make sense any discussion all in favor aye all right three sorry for Oh unanimous the nays are zero okay and also just to get into minutes that regional housing that Jeff will we're not making a motion but you be in the minutes that Jeff will find out about regional housing yeah and that covers all right we're letting go of board liaison see you am I feel clear to everybody than on committees yes Judy yep okay Cory are you good okay we'll

[161:06] move on to changes to the agenda format then and what that would look like is under matters from the board we would be maybe reworking the a and the B and the C to airman sorry the a and the B and it would be initiated reports and committee reports something to that effect just so that everybody's aware we'll be tweaking the agenda for the next one the format will be different is there any discussion around that is anybody opposed to us retreating that for language okay so we're good with moving forward and then our we've got two more issues one is the consensus decision-making model and Jeff you wanted you presented some stuff in an email and we're gonna talk about it a little bit actually during the a and I guess I could precursor this by saying

[162:01] that in the agenda meeting we had to think back to why we were talking about the consensus model and it was brought up three meetings ago and so we wanted to talk about like right now in our bylaws its majority correct correct and the discussion around consensus came up and there's pros and cons to it and the discussion would be whether or not we want to move away from majority keep it as it is have a discussion about it do we need to have a discussion about is anybody feeling like they want to discuss it or are we comfortable where it's at and just want to move on to the HOA discussion I'm currently comfortable I'm currently comfortable with just you know saying that we can I think model an effort to reach consensus as much as possible just because it brings strength to to our votes into our unanimity but it's a very

[163:02] broad kind of level of definition of consensus and how you engage with it so I think I'm happy to stay where we are rather it must be your armored shirt you have on the breathability thank you for providing all that material because it was really helpful to read and I also am comfortable and expect that we will continue to strive for consensus whenever possible and I'm comfortable as well thank you for providing the information that you did was appreciated okay so we'll just move on to the HOA discussion so I'm just going to give a little background that we've got two kind of pieces here one being the discussion around how do we want to as a board in process handle when things pop

[164:00] up in the community and we receive emails about it and then the Part B is in particular this matter around from the I believe it was the boulder weekly and a discussion that from community member that we received that a particular property and the HOA fees so we've got two parts to this discussion first one process how do we want to in the future handle these and Jeff brought up a great way of potentially handling this and then to this particular issue so Jeff would you like to lead off with some discussion around part a process on how as a board we could handle when since we have engagement is a big thing for us we will be seeing these non agenda items pop up for us well I think what's important is for you to have a common understanding of how you as board

[165:01] members or as a board as a whole and as board members want to respond I think it's clear to me that you want to show some be respond in the sense of the relevant housing issues are something that you've been asked to look into and consider as a board for the community and particularly by for council so some kind of agreement amongst yourselves on what the best way to and you know look into or follow up on any kind of request for housing advisory board comment or action would help you operate more smoothly and help establish clearer expectations in the community about what what that would do if you do send an email to or come and talk to the housing advisory board and I would add that I think this might be a great thing under the purpose statement for the engagement committee as a

[166:04] community member I've sent out some stuff to the transportation Advisory Board and I want to commend you because it was new championed our bounce back email of letting people know that they received it and I sent something to transportation and I was like to get that because there was no response and I was like I really appreciate that you championed that because it wasn't even on my radio radar so under maybe the purpose statement for the engagement is maybe how do we respond in the immediate and how would we want to in the long haul and in particular like what using this one as an example Jeff had said what we could do is acknowledge it and then request from staff to provide us in the next meeting any information around so that we can collect all information from both sides of what's happening so that we can then decide from there as a board how we'd like to proceed if at all

[167:01] is that only upon our request or is that automatic I think it would be upon our request did you explain yeah so I've imagined this email was sent to us which it was and none of us said anything to Jeff about our interest in it would we just move on oh so I think what we had talked about is that that's why we were men the agenda so that we would sit down and somebody would say under matters from the board I would like to bring up this particular letter and I'm and then we get to that spot we would request could staff provide us more information and that we would continue this into the next meeting so in the event that imagine someone sends this one of these emails tomorrow do we not have the opportunity to request additional information until our next meeting and

[168:00] then we're two months separated or could we just say Jeff this this is a concern of mine now yeah and maybe we have enough time if something happened tomorrow or whatever the preliminary ask it I don't know I'm not entirely sure what the best plan would be there I think the cleanest would be to get a sense from the whole board of their interest in hearing about it so that before staff work is done to prepare there's a indication that I don't know how that works together with needing to comply with open records and the inability to take action by email and the like it seems like looking to see what the best kind of approach was because you know if you're on a monthly meeting schedule as you just pointed out it could take quite a long time to wait for meeting ask for it get it then you know and in one hand maybe that's okay

[169:04] because you're not the fire department on the other hand that's an awful long time to wait for something that you're really concerned about others handle it well it seems like to me that you could if one of us were to contact to you about anything like that you could email the entire group say this board member has approached me saying that they would like some background information about this email that was sent to us please give me a yay or nay and just directly to you so none of us have you know breaking sunshine rules and in that sense if you eat a majority three of the five or four of the seven say I want that information you know who forward with an eternity of just occurring to me you have empowered your agenda committee to set your agendas I think subject to staff

[170:05] availability I would say with that caveat that we're already as a vehicle to put things on the agenda that's the committee that's the chair of the vice-chair and the staff liaison kind of like the example would be what just happened in City Council so everybody read the article in Boulder weekly then they all wanted the opportunity zones addressed and the the agenda committee that morning discussed whether or not it would be something that they would put on it so it could come to us us being Adam and I chair vice chair and we would make the call if we could put it on the agenda the next time and what we could get from that seemed like a process yeah I also wanted to say Jeff we recognize that we can ask staff to do work so you'd be providing material that you already can that you already have and

[171:01] can provide so we're not asking you to do things you can't do correct I think we would have to know for each of these we're gonna have to decide how much time and effort we can put into providing you with information we think is relevant and it's really you know we might have to say we to the agenda committee I would be the vehicle for a staff to say we think this is gonna take more time and effort them and we do want to provide it but we don't think it can get done by that in time for the next meeting and you'll have to decide there's an agenda I made a you know that will have to decide whether to wait or not mm-hm we probably not a clear black and white in every situation is what I'm getting at and it kind of just comes down to trusting then that we would make that decision based on the information that we could collect because each unknown situation is going to be a little different that's about all we can say on the big picture so let me surmise what we're thinking about for

[172:01] process here then if we receive an email that comes in requesting action or any additional items from the housing advisory board during our agenda because it'll more than likely go out to all of us or if one of us gets it to make sure it goes out to the housing advisory board and then at the agenda meeting chair and vice-chair would make a decision as to whether or not it would go on the agenda that time and what we could collect if anything and I would say that it doesn't matter whether someone is asking for something or not you can put things on the agenda that you think are of interest to the board use the board's resources primarily time and potentially you know some of these have become a lot of time over as you well know but I think that's kind of the role the agenda committee is everybody

[173:01] comfortable with that want to add anything okay so that would kind of be a process now Part B this particular email about escalated HOAs at iris Hollow and were there any others listed there was a chest iris hoo-ha what was the only one minute okay and so since we just got that then I would request Geoff that any information that we could get or if you could prepare something for us to review and understand better by December 12th meeting we'll put that on the agenda yes and we will try to have something for the packet okay and I'd like to add something to that Adam and I had talked about this a little bit is at that meeting on December 12th it sounds like it's going to be on the agenda anyway we would like to entertain the notion of at the time we have the public hearing which may be in January or February for

[174:01] affordable house rental concern resident concerns we include that in the public hearing because it fits with affordable housing resident concerns because the owners are also residents and and do a lot of publicity not just for renters in affordable housing but for owners and affordable housing as well as you know the property owners or whatever to come and talk about HOA the whatever they come I'd like to make a motion that we no longer have names longer than two words yeah and I think that you know it's a will have a good turnout in that public that's word I'm looking for participation piece as well so I think it's a good time yeah what we're trying to get here is we're clearly not

[175:01] capturing the question or ever all the answers to the question is affordable housing affordable and that's not what we're ultimately trying to find out here what are all the things that we haven't thought of what are all the things that aren't taken into account and that's really what I'm interested in hearing about through the public engagement process yeah and I want to make a note on that just I think it was either in the 2012 taskforce report or maybe it was the 2015 working group this specific issue working group yeah was mentioned and the you know so I think it's there's a broader picture it's definitely something that at least we can get some more information on see how much of a problem it is amongst how many of the of the permanent affordable units in town and you know kind of why that's rolling out that way just one thing since I recently purchased a place that has an HOA you

[176:03] know there was a process of looking into the HOAs seeing what may be the special where they called special special assessments might be in the near future seen you know how much they had in their general fund yeah and do one of my questions specifically to this topic would be is that due diligence required well and even just from the city's perspective yep this is doing that do do this brings up a great thing is if you have specific questions you would like to see information on getting it to us before which is usually our agenda meeting on Monday right Jeff yes asks if you have particular questions about the issue about the article or the email or issues that you'd like us to try and address out no no promises but we will do our best to respond to those in time for the meeting

[177:01] yeah and do you mean by getting those to you by win whenever we schedule the agenda meeting for by call at the end of Tuesday if we are going to be able to prepare something for the pack it would be great to include them however we could pry if they come up after we'll work them into however we participate in your discussion on the 12th so I'd be great to have some advance notice to be able to prepare whatever we can so two hours before the next meeting would be good you're likely to get a knee-jerk response if any but we made an information response I should say okay so everybody feeling good about how both Parts A and B process anything sorry this isn't specific to it but it is

[178:01] tangential so I don't know if it needs to be it's okay yeah so Jeff at our scheduling meeting we discussed a little bit the affordable housing resident concerns two type of survey we were considering and you said you were talking or going to talk with staff but I just wanted you to try to why not a little bit during this meeting because I know it's all it is and right so I think I provided that response the last meeting but I can't remember in essence there are uncoordinated efforts to survey residents done by the housing providers they do provide to us the reasons for people leaving residency with them that we were able to summarize

[179:01] as you saw so I think if you are interested in recommending to staff that there be a different effort that would be covered in the public hearing that you have asked be scheduled for the January meeting so the path there would be recommendation to staff if it passes you'll get a staff response and that will probably be where things stand if you're not happy with that staff response you could ask for more but otherwise you'd have to ask council to put it on the work plan okay are we clear then on any choice on this one and process feeling good okay matters from Stef anything sweet okay so calendar check we have December 12th do we have a location already for that library great okay and a quick debrief

[180:02] so I just have a question of when Adam and I are planning engagement for the public hearing whether it just turns out to be for renters or includes owners affordable housing as well since there won't be a meeting from December 12th until the very end of January can we go ahead and start planning how we would do the marketing or that and then send things say to Corey that she sends out to everyone else some people respond to her if that's fine or do you want to just say go ahead and do whatever you want I mean how do we want to handle that since there's going to be this big gap from December 12th to the end of January and won't be wanting to do marketing so it's correct me if I'm wrong maybe we'll eat what you could do is what we've done in the past is send it out to the entire board and we'd send responses to you and we would pinkie

[181:04] swear that we wouldn't inundate you with responses but that would be thoughtful succinct and then maybe just compiling them on one sheet and sending them back okay and that you guys in your requests say that we need a response back buy and give it reasonable time for those of us who are inundated with working vacation stuff right now would that feel good yeah that's fine the only other option is January was the earliest we requested we could also do it to February and I don't Jeff is there any issue it's a scheduling matter I don't know that there's a need to on our side I mean okay so you guys can discuss in maybe use that process yeah I'd feel more comfortable having I like it when we're able to do something in person too so we'd have that January meeting to give

[182:01] you something that will hopefully be as good quick debrief anybody anything I personally think this was the best meeting ever thank you everybody and good night I need a sign up that's gonna be sign us yeah that's fun motion to adjourn okay my favorite thank you - parasol felt like that

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