May 22, 2019 — Housing Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

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

[0:00] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign Advisory board meeting on May 22nd and we'll start with roll calls here you want to start Jonathan oh yes here what do you want me to do your name Terry palmos Judy nag Adam swetlick

[1:00] Mason Moyer Juliet Boone and Dave ensign and David you're our new ex-officio so do you want to do a brief introduction sure I'm Dave Ensign I've been on the planning board for two years now and in our Retreat I've raised my hand to be ex-officio to this group so this is my first meeting in that capacity Brian Bowen who I think was the backup last year will remain back up for this year so if I can't make it in it will be Brian and I'll do my best to represent both my own opinions when uh when appropriate and also give you a sense of where the board is on various things and what kinds of things we've been talking about and I'm interested in taking feedback back to the planning board from from the housing Advisory Board as well so fantastic thank you we're glad to have you thanks um agenda review

[2:01] any additions or changes this is where you request your audition I would like to request is this song yeah a an addition to the agenda um for a committee update on Alpine Balsam just to kind of update everybody on all the gyrations that have been happening foreign okay so I'll do a committee update under your new business for Alpine Balsam motion to uh approve the minutes don't move second fantastic all in favor

[3:01] unanimous and we'll move on to public participation we as I think everybody knows that um the we're opening up public comment first for anything other than the affordable housing experience so that would be large Lots or if you there's anything else that you'd want to talk about so I think the only person we have signed up right now is Claudia foreign you're going to hear from me a few times tonight um I wanted to say in public comment here that I am glad to see the large lots and large houses project being discussed in this forum because I think the process thus far has treated it too much like a kind of pure planning issue and what I mean by that is that the discussion has been more focused on the Project's implications for the built form of our neighborhoods rather than on

[4:01] how it might alleviate some of our housing crisis in the city if the city proceeds with any changes to the use tables and I hope that it does then this is definitely a housing issue allowing for subdivision and multiple units in low-density residential zones is a natural way to create housing diversity and to create missing middle housing types for people who aren't well served by either large single-family houses or apartments in your discussion tonight I hope you'll consider pushing City Council on two aspects of this project first all of the housing types proposed are currently underrepresented in Boulder's housing stock I think it's important to allow for a wide range of housing types in any residential infill strategy and the differences here between duplexes triplexes cottages and adus are not particularly large in this context second the large house large Lots project will be more effective as a housing strategy if it applies to all of

[5:00] Boulder's low density residential zones in some ways it makes even more sense in rl1 zones because these neighborhoods are much closer already to the scale required for walkable or Transit friendly living and a final comment on the process thus far in this project I attended an open house on the large houses large Lots project in rural North Boulder last week and notice there that the participants were strongly skewed towards older white homeowners perhaps this is to be expected but this is not representative of Boulder's population and there are many people living in other zones of the city that might benefit from any change in policy some of them may even be here tonight and I hope that there have been attempts to include their perspectives in this discussion thank you thank you Claudia is there anybody else that would like to comment before we close public comment you want to step up and his name's in the stack somewhere okay I'm James Feeney from North Boulder I

[6:01] live in Boulder Meadows Mobile Home Park at the regular session of city council meeting last night Tuesday May 21st in response to a question as to what position on enforcement at Boulder's dark sky ordinance city manager had formulated senior managers stated and I quote because mobile homes are located in Parks owned by private property owners we are not able to enforce it city manager goes on to say I checked in with staff now the City attorney is has certain duties under the charter and it says specifically the attorney shall be legal advisor of the council and all other City officials and all boards and commissions by my reading what this means is that city manager can't check with staff for legal advice but instead is required to check with the City attorney which city manager has failed to do not only is it legal opinion by sending manager staff not allowed under City

[7:01] Boulder City Boulder ordinances it's also illegal under State statutes for staff are not licensed and registered attorneys I can find nothing in the older Revised Code or the Colorado advised statutes to support city managers position on enforcement and where City attorney has refused my request for an explanation perhaps a housing Advisory Board member would be willing to ask City attorney to explain the legal Theory which supports city managers position on non-enforcement please um I think this is sort of like saying uh if you've rent a house because Boulder ordinances don't apply to you now they can't be enforced against you you can just I guess run a unlicensed marijuana business because you live in a rental home I think this is absurd um so thank you thank you

[8:16] just a reminder to everybody on the dice that if you're not speaking to turn your mics off for the recording especially Jacquees cookies that is so you're done hello um I've lost count of what Sarah Don Haynes White House Co-op and I'm

[9:01] wondering too about the inclusion of renters I can't remember what proportion we make in the city is it 52 52 and you know being a resident for 18 years going through the ordinance process going through the permitting process there's still a little bit of like imposter syndrome going to these open houses that renters are still not widely accepted by the land owning community and it's it's just like when am I going to be good enough what am I going to be a member of our community with um some credibility you know and I just came out of an afternoon of white fragility with Robin D'Angelo so I am like pumped up about equity and about how white people um are running the show and the numbers just don't lie and having people of

[10:01] color live in our Co Co-op and hearing their experiences about being a renter in Boulder is just devastating and we're not we're not including people because when they do give us their feedback we position ourselves you know to defend and minimalize and be like oh and so I just the the experience of going to open houses and I I'm really excited for this opportunity tonight to share more and to learn from you but um we we have so much to offer this community and need to be a greater involved and and hopefully we can do that but also recognized for um that we're not we're not ruining things there anybody else for the open comment not the affordable housing experience okay we'll close public participation

[11:00] and we're going to move on to the affordable housing experience we're going to reposition ourselves and come down there but I want to give a little bit of a background to um how we got here and I'm going to hand it off to Adam and Judy but for those of you that don't know the housing Advisory Board um spent several months trying to figure out how to engage the community in a different way in a way where people felt like if we had a contentious issue it was something that everybody could come to the table and start talking about and that we could lean into it instead of just making adversarial situations or even with this with the the city doing their engagement the way they were we're trying to explore other options so it's exciting to see so many people turn out for this we have a couple of more of these planned and this is the very first one so bear with us and your feedback's going to be really important after the fact um and I'll hand it over to Adam and

[12:00] Judy and thank you from the board for all the work that you guys have put into laying this framework and first I'm going to make a motion to suspend Robert's Rules of law by second all in favor okay so we have four did you go five five to one it's Julian's our name great um again thank you all for coming tonight I'm gonna lay out real quick sort of the uh the order of the process here so um we've already introduced ourselves as a board um and we're really looking forward to hearing from all of you uh first we're going to get a quick staff overview of the history of permanently affordable housing here in Boulder and that's going to be led by Jeff Egan um following that we'll have a comment from an affordable housing provider and

[13:00] his name is Ian swallow and finally we'll have a comment from an affordable housing resident and her name is Stella Mercado um and then we'll join you down there uh in the circle and we're going to ask that um I think there's too many people maybe to all come at once so if you got here kind of early maybe come and sit in the circle with us and we'll filter in people after they speak um yeah it's it's an awesome turnout so we really appreciate you being here and I'll hand that off to Jeff thank you Adam my name is Jeff yeagian I'm the staff liaison to the housing Advisory Board and have worked for the city for several years in housing so I will provide a quick overview and then answer any questions from the board before handing off to Ian so the big picture for affordable housing in Boulder is really defined by

[14:00] some of the goals we're trying to accomplish over the years and the basic goals are to help people out who need it could be for a variety of reasons and they could need a variety of things we've we've taken a community-wide approach of providing lots of services to help people who who need it and housing is a key one one of the themes of our housing work over the years has been to try and maintain some socioeconomic diversity which I think has resonated with folks for 30 or 40 years now and then we are also starting to see affordable housing as a strategy to help us with our goals around sustainability so if that's sort of the big picture some of the things that people would base that on is they think it might be better for people to live where they work or that everyone should have a place to sleep at night so those are some of the things that have laid the groundwork for this history I'll lay out I'm going to go by decades to try and

[15:00] provide a framework for that the 60s and 70s are when things really got started that have led us to where we are now the primary concern was that extremely low-income people and seniors of really modest means have a place to live in Boulder there were some of the first efforts that resulted in dedicated affordable housing were led by private faith-based organizations non-profits to provide housing for seniors Golden West is a good example if you're familiar with that on on the Frontage Road on 28th and then the Housing Authority was created which is now known as Boulder housing Partners in 1966 to try and take advantage of some of the federal funds and programs that were available to help House people in communities one of the better known ones is Section 8 where people get some financial assistance to rent a place and then there was money to build and operate public housing which people have heard

[16:01] about over the years in the 70s Community Development block grant program was created at the federal level which provided the city and many other communities around the basically everywhere around the country with access to federal dollars for Community Development goals and that was the first source of locally controlled money that was started being invested in affordable housing by the end of the 70s there are about 700 units that count as affordable housing in Boulder so that was a a pretty good start then the 80s and 90s came along the community continued to develop the affordability issues started to change a little and the perspective changed a little so we saw then in addition to the original Focus we started to see a lot of concern about low-income Workforce housing people who work here but don't make enough to afford rent or to purchase we started to see the creation of non-profits like thistle communities the affordable housing Alliance Habitat for

[17:01] Humanity that started to invest their time and resources in creating and operating housing two new sources of funding were created the community housing assistance program which is local and then the federal home program there was associated with the passage of the chap uh adoption of our first official housing goal to try and Achieve five percent of our housing in the community is permanently affordable to low and moderate income people we also started to see in the 90s the development of home ownership programs to help people buy homes up until then most of the effort almost all the effort had gone into rental housing and by the 90s we had learned that if we didn't require permanent affordability whatever Investments we had made as a community in housing would go away when they turned into market rate units so at the end of the 90s we had almost 1200 units so we're progressing and

[18:00] there was substantially growing concern about affordability in Boulder right at the end of the 90s and culminating with the adoption of a comprehensive housing strategy in 2000 was a task force effort to really lay out the path that we've been on for about 20 years now the focus added Focus between the helping people with significant needs the low-income population was to start look at moderate income needs as well one of the most important things and one of the tentpole strategies that we had was to pass local requirements called inclusionary housing that 20 percent of all new development would be permanently affordable so that since 2000 has been a significant part of how we address our housing needs at the same time the community adopted a 10 goal so now it wasn't five percent it was ten percent of all the housing in the community

[19:01] and we also saw based in the starting of the 2000s a real fundamental approach of using the market the forces that lead to development to generate affordable housing whether that was through inclusionary housing or annexations so you started to see significant affordable housing created through the addition of land for residential purposes to the city and by the end of the 2000s we were approaching 2400 units in the past decade um to the to as the affordability situation has changed we've added middle income needs to our Focus areas and our programs there was a couple year effort called housing Boulder to revisit the comprehensive housing strategy that has led to a variety of things one of which was the expansion of inclusionary housing to 25 percent of all new development um we added a middle income goal of 3

[20:00] 500 homes affordable to middle-income households and the city council just recently increased the affordable housing goal to 15 percent for low and moderate income households we've also seen the development of some for-profit partners that are providing affordable housing and have made substantial they've added to our community's capacity to meet our housing goals there are currently almost 3 500 units of affordable housing and we're about halfway to that's 15 percent goal so I'll just wrap up with a little bit of perspective you know I've mentioned the two main goals that we have um one of the things that we've tried to accomplish in the community supports is to disperse the affordable housing throughout the community and you can see from this heat map that we've done a fairly good job at that and we'll continue to work towards that another thing we try and accomplish is that affordable housing be indistinguishable from the rest of the housing in the

[21:00] community so people can't say oh that's the affordable housing and as you go around town you'll be the judge of whether we're how successful we are on that the last thing I'll say is we've adopted an approach that tries to provide for the full housing range ranging from emergency shelter for people who need a place to sleep that night all the way through to ownership which may last for people's lifetimes so with that I'll open it to any questions I have one Jeff um what percentage of our housing budget comes from the federal government I would estimate about 30 percent at this time I'm going to look go to Kurt and see he's nodding so that's a rough estimate it will vary by year because of the variable amounts of local money but um if you and that's money that's directly flows through the city if you look at

[22:00] some of the other Federal Investments like low-income housing tax credits it would be a larger percent of the amount of money that goes public monies that go towards affordable housing in Boulder [Music] since like the 80s what has that decreased how did it get to 30 percent like what were we at in the 80s prior to us generating local sources is it was 100 so it was awesome the chap when created was about roughly 50 percent of the total housing budget came from chap as the affordable housing fund was created and that has grown over the years that's led to the decrease the amount of federal dollars has fluctuated but not so dramatically as the large increase in local funding so I'll just make a comment here of a statistic I saw this weekend that shocked me which was uh um at kgnu this weekend there was a film called the

[23:00] right to rest and they quoted in it that in the 80s the federal government had a housing budget of 88 billion dollars and it's down to eight billion dollars for our country and it started with Reagan's doing cuts on it and I just found it fascinating so I was I was curious how that's impacted us I mean I knew that it was just a percentage of it but I think it goes to show a correlation on our national level of what's happening for our houseless individuals and why we're struggling so much with housing and why we're seeing so many people without houses there's been a substantial reduction in the federal funding for public housing so that's a big part of what you're talking about yeah I think it's interesting to keep it in our in our our understanding as we move forward to that this money's not as so readily available and we constantly hear um why is this number getting so more so much more dramatic with homeless individuals and I think when we start

[24:00] also looking at the federal impact that we have and and the lack of housing public housing being built Etc that it's it's good information to have in context does anybody else have any questions yes Adam quick clarification so tonight when we say affordable housing we mean deed restricted permanently affordable housing correct the large majority of that roughly 3 500 units have a city enforceable deed restriction on them there are a couple of hundred units that are owned by mission-driven organizations that do not have a city Covenant on them but we expect will remain affordable great thank you and that those numbers do not include market rate occurring affordable housing such as you might find in apartments or manufacture housing communities return keep going and next Ian will speak

[25:03] let's make sure I can get this set up here we go you're watching a movie all right um I'm Ian swallow I work for Boulder housing Partners which is the Housing Authority for the city of Boulder so we were asked to come present just a little bit on BHP and our experience um as the Housing Authority in the city of Boulder so um I'll talk a little bit about kind of on the providing housing side and then a little bit about kind of resident services and our kind of property management functions as well so a quick background I think a lot of you know this already but BHP is the Housing

[26:00] Authority for the city of Boulder we have our own independent board of directors so we are not a city agency that board is appointed by city council with the exception of one board member who is resident appointed and currently we have just under 1400 units throughout the city of Boulder I think one of the things that you know Jeff touched on that that we take very seriously as well and you'll see on the map there is that we have properties kind of all over the city so they're in you know pretty much every neighborhood and that's very intentional on the part of BHP um again just high level overview on kind of who we are we serve about 5 000 individuals annually um a large chunk of that is through the housing Choice voucher program so that's section eight um that's about 1100 households currently um we have about 1500 people who are directly supported by our resident services those are delivered to family

[27:02] site senior sites kind of the full gamut with a real focus on serving some of our most vulnerable residents um these are just some of the metrics I think as an organization that Boulder housing Partners focuses on and we like to review and and kind of Judge ourselves again so you'll see on the left I think you know one of the areas that were especially committed to so those um that are deeply affordable community so that is what we would consider where we have households who are earning 30 of the area median income or less we're at 100 preschool enrollment we're at a 95 percent High School graduation rate and then at our senior housing sites we have 100 of our residents are connected to on-site Services through a resident service coordinator so that's certainly an area we take really seriously and and working with our residents to kind of create the best quality of life that we

[28:00] can um on the housing provider side I think um you know there's there's kind of five areas that we wanted to specifically touch on um in terms of providing new housing as well as maintaining our existing housing that our focuses of BHP so the first one and maybe kind of the most obvious is is creating new housing so that's us going out building new housing so for example that uh rendering there is the 30 Pearl Project so that's us actually constructing new permanently affordable units uh renovation again we own about 1400 units and when you own 1400 units you definitely have a need to do good asset planning making sure that we're keeping things affordable but also keeping things in great shape so um that's an area that we really focus we're about to close on the financing to

[29:00] do a big renovation of 100 plus units in Boulder in the next couple weeks something we're very excited about um acquisition so that's going out buying existing apartment building so great example the Tantra Lakes acquisition a couple years ago so um that that's basically us looking to preserve existing affordable housing stock and that can be through new deed restrictions so at Tantra we have about 75 units that are actually deed restricted but then also having units that are what we consider kind of Market affordable so there's not that same restriction on it but it's at a rent that's more of that middle income not kind of new luxury housing Partnerships another area you know we have a lot of great private developers working in the city who develop affordable housing at BHP you know we very much see ourselves as a piece of the puzzle but we're certainly not the only group out there providing housing so we are always looking to partner with the city with private developers on on

[30:01] kind of new projects and then finally managing our existing portfolio so that's part of that is the renovation part is you know just making sure that we're keeping up with the slew of requirements that come with affordable housing this slide I think you just wanted to touch quickly on some of the challenges that we see as a as a housing provider in the city so uh broken down kind of into three three main areas so creating new housing you know no no surprises here I don't think to folks so land and construction costs in the city are just more expensive than than most other places along the Front Range um we do have a very strict regulatory environment which which definitely has an impact on our ability to provide housing so that's that's zoning code that's height limits it's kind of all those things that we all know about um and then the obvious last one again is resources so um you know the city does a tremendous

[31:00] job with their inclusion our housing funds we're a big recipient of those funds and they they definitely go a long way in providing new housing in the city um that being said we can always we can always do more with more resources so it's a it's a constant balance of working with what we have at the local level at the federal level at the state level and trying to stretch that as much as we can um on the resident services side you know some of the challenges again we're working with some of the most vulnerable populations in Boulder and that brings a lot of challenges um some of that is really just making sure we're connecting the right resident with the right resource and that that's not always always an obvious connection to make so that that's something we're constantly working on and working with our residents on um and then finally I think you know building Community we always like to say we we don't just build housing we build community and that is a is a really hard thing to do um and so that's ensuring we have community centers it's ensuring we have

[32:01] good programming and just trying to make um our communities that we kind of own and manage really feel like their own place that that residents feel welcome and have some ownership of um and then finally I think you know challenges on the property management side that that really gets into compliance with just tons of programs so you know for instance we'll have deed restrictions that we're managing from city of Boulder funds we'll have deed restrictions we're managing from chaffa which is the Colorado Housing Finance Authority who administers the the tax credit program will have state of Colorado funds every single one of these funding sources carry their own specific requirements that our property managers have to ensure we are in compliance with um if you ever see their you know files it's uh it is a slew of documentation that we have to maintain um talking a little bit about resonance Services which I you know I think is

[33:00] kind of the focus of of our meeting tonight we're really focused on providing kind of the highest Impact Services um which for us has kind of recently fallen into two categories one is what we call you know promoting achievement and quality of life and that's really just working to ensure our residents have access to the opportunities they want you know it's it's not a one-size-fits all uh working family of four versus Senior are going to have different definitions of what that is for them and that's you know important for us to be responsive to um and then the second point which I think is is really what has led us to some of those great outcomes on the preschool enrollment and high school graduation which is focusing on or bringing School home initiative which is working with children in BHP communities on ensuring success at school this slide I think again shows you kind of the challenges that we see in in kind

[34:01] of getting to those goals so uh the self-sufficiency standard for those who don't know it's kind of a an independent metric on what would it take what do you need to earn as a family to kind of get by in a given area so it's taking into account not just housing costs but cost of child care costs of Transportation all of those things and so for a family of four in Boulder County that number is about eighty six thousand dollars a year and then that median income you see there twenty eight thousand seven hundred that's the median household income for a household in BHP housing um and so there's a significant Gap and and not all that Gap is on the housing side so you know we feel great about providing and serving the housing side of it but but there's a lot more involved there right there's uh per cost there's health care costs Transportation all of those things go into making that Gap that large

[35:00] um and that really reflects I think in what's a complex kind of diagram here but just showing again all of these things are interconnected and and it's something we're working on and getting better at I think in terms of not just focusing on housing but engaging with residents on what other areas um Services can be delivered whether that's connections to a partner through the County Housing and Human Services whether it's CCAP or snap or those things and making sure you know those aren't Services we provide but how can we connect you with um with that service um I think you know I kind of spoke to this this slide a little bit but you know one of the areas I think that sets us apart a little bit as an organization is this focus on building community and the the kind of physical way that that manifests itself is we we always try to add Community Center so this community

[36:00] center here is at diagonal court so it's just kind of behind diagonal Plaza if you all know that we did a big renovation project on our public housing portfolio a couple years ago and you know one of the main goals of that was to add these new community buildings at each of those sites so that was a real success this is you know a Super Active community building we had a staff meeting out there a couple weeks ago and I mean there are like abandoned tricycles everywhere and all kinds of things happening at the community building so it's something we focus on you know it's one of the ways I think we try to really show our residents that we're we're working to provide more than housing is through this community center initiative and then finally you know for BHP as we kind of look towards our goals for the for the next you know kind of five to ten years um obviously the first one our goal is to always create more housing create more housing opportunities um resident outcomes is another huge

[37:01] area that we're focused on and investing in uh Service delivery that really is is targeted in the right place um and then I think working on expanding our partnership so Partnerships with the city Partnerships with the with the private sector um and and really kind of the Regional Housing Focus that we're seeing really start to take hold so um with that I am happy to answer any questions same as what you were just talking about it was fun because some of this that got there early there was kids everywhere and you could tell that everybody was using all the houses that were around there people were outside and it started to snow and the kids were still in there and they all kind of cleared out towards the end but the kitchen facilities and everything it was it felt vibrant and it felt like kids were flowing so that was a fun place to be um I'm curious under your health and

[38:00] wellness some of the some of the areas that I've been hearing about is um you know we we know that across our country we have um an opioid issue and I'm curious how you guys are looking at the health and wellness and who you're partnering with to bring services or anything into your Partnerships because I know it's something that cities across the country are dealing with yeah it's a good question and one I might have to get back back to you with a specific answer on I mean you know I can tell you on on kind of the health side the biggest kind of regional partner is is the County Housing and human services department they kind of um manage the you know Healthcare enrollment and all of those things but as far as you know dealing with opioid issues I would probably have to get back to you on that anybody else

[39:01] and finally we'll hear from an affordable housing resident and that is Stella Mercado hello everyone so um I'm a renter for uh from thistle communities for uh maybe about nine years I love renting from them they are wonderful but uh besides that about let me see last year it took maybe four months they did a major renovation for the whole complex where I live it's about maybe 30 34 Apartments it was great and I felt like I was on a nice little getaway they put us up at the boulder residence it was great again we came back to our Apartments they look wonderful all renovated great Plumbing which we had many issues with plumbing in our Apartments

[40:01] so talking about that we went back to our apartments and due to of course all the upgrades and I understand our rent has been raised and I know every year like anyone else they get a race in their rent but uh seems a little bit difficult again coming from a low-income family and it's supposed to be affordable housing so I'm speaking for myself and other renters from that complex so that's our concern secondly what other issue so I talked about a rent being raised and due to that race on a rent obviously that limits you on other expenses for example that's me and others I do not have a vehicle so for me that's a big expense so we are asking if there's a possibility to assist some of

[41:03] the people that live in that Community with Eco passes that's one concern something else that my uh people that rent there we have two or three people with disabilities disabilities is luckily we do have an incredible elevator that does function it's in service and they do have a ramp for people on wheelchairs but our trash bins are huge trash bins that are this high that even I have with two arms I can barely open that up so that's a main concern for many people that rent for thistle communities um let me see if I forgot anything else give me a sec I need to put up my glasses uh I'm sorry me too thank you oh my goodness

[42:01] okay another thing is um I don't know if this is a major concern but not for me I don't have a vehicle and I'm speaking for others who I rent I think there's about 20 25 spots to park your car and due to other people bringing friends and whoever might be visiting they spend the night so that ends up other people that do have a vehicle parking in the Main Street and Main Street is usually taken by many of the students around the area I literally live across the university cu and so that's a citation and again another thing that you need to pick is you got a ticket because you didn't have a spot to park your car so that's another concern that people ask me to bring up and I believe that is all for now thank you thank you still thank you yes Stella do you have a second we have

[43:01] a question for you hi thank you for coming I especially appreciate oh yeah I especially appreciate the way you talked about what you love about it and then also talked about um some of the challenges and I was just wondering about how much did the rents go up well for me from the last time it wasn't that bad it was about maybe thirty dollars but thirty dollars it's thirty dollars right so that is a concern we don't know what to expect this August that's when my lease is up and uh so that's my concern and others concern as well thank you you're welcome any other questions Estella were you given a notice on the increase before you went on the vacation to the nice hotel coming back they did say they were going to raise the rent they did not give us specific numbers if I remember well so for many people maybe for me they didn't do it that drastic because I've been there maybe going on almost

[44:01] if I count well my number's maybe nine years so many students who seniority were being there longer they they didn't raise it that much but for others they did get to I believe a hundred to fifty or eighty dollars increase so that's that's a big chunk thank you you're welcome anybody else everyone have a good evening thank you and before we come down and speak I just wanted to make sure everybody knows if you need a any special accommodations please just talk to Corey if you have any time requirement kids at home anything like that we'll try to bump you to the head of the line and we did have a Spanish translator um no request for Spanish translation so we're going to try to utilize that service in the future as well so if you have any people who are Spanish speakers make sure they feel welcome to these

[45:00] events so at 6 45 right now we're going to take five minutes we'll reorganize down there and start at 6 50. can I before you start yes okay before we take the break though I just wanted to um thank everybody who spoke and thank everybody for coming and I want to say that the housing provider were very helpful in being very open to hearing what your concerns are and sharing their own concerns and I think it's clear from everyone's presentations that affordable housing in Boulder has gone very far already and we just would like to hear what could make it even better so thank you okay so now we have four minutes and we'll see you back here at 6 50.

[49:37] so for everybody who's new with the microphones too we have a handheld one so that it can just go on record and then um for all of us you just want to tap it once and make sure you turn it off afterwards and Adam bring it back to you yes so our first person to speak will be Jennifer Johnson

[50:04] and we're going to try to keep this to three minutes a piece just so everyone knows thank you I'll try um so my family moved to Boulder in 1970 because it was relatively affordable then my mom had gotten divorced and was on a fixed income and um so that's the backdrop first I want to start with gratitude my grandma came with us but the household was a little loud and Lively for her and she was able to live in Golden West from I think about 1971 to 84 until she died that was just fabulous um thank you I'm so grateful and um I'm the parent of a disabled child who's living in Boulder housing projects Madison complex and it means so much to me you can't imagine because you know as a parents of disabled kids you're not only worrying about your kid

[51:00] now but what's going to happen when you're gone and being there gives him a chance to practice living independently while I'm able to teach him and stuff but also hopefully a place to live that he can afford on disability when I'm gone so it's just it's huge thank you everyone thank you BHP even though Madison is long overdue for an upgrade and I know they're working on that um but I'm also want to talk about my sadness because he's the only one of my five sons who has been able to stay in Boulder and the one three of them you know are working adults and they just can't afford it because the jobs they have don't pay enough and that makes me very sad but even worse as a son he's not legally my son but I adopted sort of a refugee one of the Lost Boys of Sudan you may know of and he um you know Managed IT you know working

[52:02] two and three jobs to live here where all our the volunteer group was very supportive and I was he lived with me for a while and then in the community and finally he got married had kids he just couldn't stay and he moved somewhere where his kids I consider my grandkids hear gunshots in the parking lot you know in Aurora and it just you can imagine breaks my heart so and also Boulder lost some of the only black people in their in their schools and you know these great people um and working of course they each worked two jobs so um you know I just am sad that you know of my five kids you know only one gets severe and grateful that he is so we need more I guess that's it thanks thank you and next Serena uh Romeo

[53:03] yeah thank you um so I just want to say thank you for having this forum I think it's I think it's great and um I wasn't really prepared with notes I wish I had I thought it was going to be more of a discussion not quite like this but so I'm going to give it a go I've been in Boulder since 92 and um I raised I moved from San Francisco so I full well know what it's like to live in an expensive housing market even then um and I've lived in market rate in Boulder and in Longmont and I've also and then moved back in raising my two daughters by myself moved into affordable in the holiday neighborhood I'm holiday nobo I think it's a single family home and I've been there for 13 years I too my daughters don't live here they can't afford to live here one is in education and she lives in Longmont she rents I'm in education as well

[54:01] and um I'm incredibly grateful of the opportunity to be able to move back from Longmont into Boulder so my kids could be in the community that they were raised in when they so middle school high school et cetera um my only thing is when you ask about how to make the program better um from my perspective and from seeing people in my neighborhood that have been there I've been there 13 years have also been their 13 14 15 years things are starting to break houses need to be painted screens need to be replaced carpet needs to be replaced you know since I've been there my water heater has gone out my dishwasher is broken the stove is broken you know normal wear and tear on home which and you mentioned the word sustainability which is I think one of our favorite words to use and live by you don't want to just go by go to

[55:00] Walmart and buy a cheap oven you want to get something that's going to last but that doesn't seem to matter because when you go to sell your home it doesn't matter if you put in a cheap oven or if you put in something that would last for 30 years you're gonna you're not going to get any credit for it anyway um and I think that that is what I when I talk to the people in the neighborhood that is a lot of what they say is they wish that the people that lived in these homes um who were that put money into them and took care of them and took pride in in how they lived and created home and were part of community created part of that Community could benefit a little bit more from it economically when they go to sell because that's that is my you know everyone that is my savings account that is what I have and that um and it doesn't grow at the same rate as the My Neighbor Next Door whose house has

[56:00] gone up in value um and unfortunately you if you did drive down our street you could tell that my home was the affordable home because these homes are million dollar homes now um so just a little bit of uh appreciation for that I hear the bell I know so um but that's that's my only thing is you know Jeff um I think you bring up also a really interesting question that I'm curious if we've ever really thought about is what if somebody in affordable housing that owns um does solar upgrades in the 225s and things like that so for electric cars Etc how is that factored in in the rate and could that be looked at as a different package or something I don't know if sustainability is our priority in this town it'd be interesting to look at uh addressing those questions

[57:01] yeah just putting it out there because that's a great part of what we're hoping will happen here is that as we're talking we start also thinking of some new ideas so that piece of it one other thing 30 more seconds um when I moved in it was a brand new place so negotiating with the builder was challenging and there were some things that weren't really um up to up to par for example there was a foul smell in my home for over a year and a half and I kept calling the Builder saying something's not right well as it turned out they didn't cap the sewage pipe in the basement but of course when they went to cap it they just put a hole in the wall capped it and left the hole that was my daughter's bedroom you know um my the driveway in my home is completely crumbling and when I called him on it which I had been there for a few years and said I did a little research I found out when they poured the driveway what the weather was like and I knew that it was pouring rain that

[58:01] day they should not have poured the cement that day and when I called him and tried to have a really respectful conversation about repairing the driveway I I was challenged a little bit intimidated that I was in that I was questioning his Integrity I so I'm going to pause you there because I've heard that a couple of times from a couple of different owners so I'm also curious then this brings up another thing is um you know we all heard well most of us heard Jamal speak about all the things that happened in his um ownership unit that he had as well and I'm curious if there's some form of a group or organization a collective situation where owners could be able to go back and have a position come from a position of power because if I'm a market rate owner I have some strength and I know um Jamal really struggled with being able to be heard and have his issues addressed because he felt like the whole house was about a half inch off of

[59:00] everything framing all of it so it'd be interesting to see if if in these developments that there'd be some way that you guys could collectively as well have a voice I think that's a great idea because my HOA said sorry it's your problem you figure it out um so there was no one there to Advocate I did actually call the city and ask for someone to come out and just do a little inspection because I did feel like you just said things were just a little quite not quite Windows weren't closing well um things like that that's Stiller so that's an interesting thing great we'll put that on the list yeah okay I don't know if I'm on I'm on um actually I was looking past you at Lee because I just wanted a direct question to you then because it seems to me like this might be I mean this sense in a way and I know I have a friend who's also up there and you know their vinyl windows are like so warped out and this is many years down the road and I'm a builder so I kind of I know how things go but it is there any kind of advocacy

[60:01] program that you guys also have so yeah very very uh complicated issue BHP does not have you know any type of kind of owners representation or anything like that I mean certainly you know that that kind of Statewide is a huge issue right now you see it with a construction defects laws and issues so it's definitely that that issue is kind of coming at it from the other direction of Builders saying we can't build home ownership anymore because um we're not able to do that you know I would say typically in that situation your HOA is the group that bands together and can you know look at a builder obviously I don't know your specific scenario but right and yes and and right so just so that this doesn't devolve into just that kind of a situation we're looking for the solution so I hear you because I've heard this several times now so finding the solutions and Ian's bringing up a

[61:00] really good point is that I know also builders on the other side of it who we've all been with the person who's then nitpicking to death as well I'm not saying that that's where you're at but that's what the builders were being hit with was coming back in essentially all their profit was going out the window because they're rebuilding houses um so yes there's something in there there's a conversation to be had and there's yeah there's a conversation and a balance somewhere in there so it's a great point to bring up um can yeah yeah we got to keep just a little bit of momentum but yeah feel free to talk to any point when you're up to speak for sure um and maybe what we can do is like make sure everybody has the first round and then we can just kind of hold space in in very Bolder way and connect perfect um any other questions great okay uh Lori Thomas thank you um well I'll just feedback on her that

[62:01] thinks is where neighbors and our we're the both of the affordables on the street is that you know the quality of do you mind speaking into the quality of the materials that they use on the affordable housing like my porch was reported because literally the pillar that holds up like the master bedroom was swinging because the porch had sunk so much what they had told us is we had a a year on our warranty to come forward with all of these complaints and of course some of these things came up after a year I've had my back porch poured once by them within the year and then twice by an independent contractor because it looks like a ski slope but piggybacking on the solar I was lucky enough to apply for and receive the Grant from the city to get solar panels to rent them for 20 years however then I was taxed on that Grant you know when income taxes were due my real issue is the quality of the

[63:02] supplies and the Furnishings that building the affordables with and claiming some of the things for instance we had wall-to-wall Brown Contracting grade carpet throughout the entire home and I put in laminate floors and I can't claim that they said I can only claim hardwood floors however if I could afford hardwood floors I wouldn't be in an affordable unit I am in the process of replacing carpet that's 13 years old and there's it's not laid correctly there are seams there's a lot of things I can't claim it because I'm going from carpet to carpet even though I'm upgrading the carpet I've had to have the exterior painted on our house because now it is 13 years old and our age away is sending us letters and say they will fine us I can't claim that as one of my improvements we are repainting the inside of the house you can't claim that as one of your um you know for resale

[64:01] you can only claim if you're going from if you're improving from carpet to Hardwood um like you said you can't claim anything in your bathroom or kitchen unless it's over 20 years old which is I can't um claim the one can you guys would you go to resell your unit you can get a percentage of your improvements and I can't put improvements from going from a wall-to-wall carpet to a laminate floor because it's not an improvement so Jeff do you have a comment you want to add I'll just let you know that the capital Improvement policy is on the web if you'd like to review it the challenge with all of these kinds of questions whether it's the amount of appreciation the amount of Capital Improvements any dollar that goes to a homeowner when they sell is a dollar more that the new buyer has to come up with right so

[65:01] there's always a balancing act to strike Corey's very happy with the buzzer tonight yeah I'm sorry so um that's and whether the the balance is struck in the right places something we always wrestle with and there have been changes over time to the policies yeah that's and that's a great point is um how do we keep affordable housing affordable and also put some ownership on the builders that build it that we kind of get the B grade appliances and the carpet with our and our first house on our street sold for a million dollars how yes and the you know opposite side of that is by using maybe the lower grade carpet it cuts the expense of it which allows more affordable units to go into the the space so yes it's a chance it's a challenge definitely um but there's no penalty if you go to sell your house in 20 years and you never replaced your contractor grade carpet or appliances or

[66:00] you have to speak into the microphone yeah if you're going to speak please I'm sorry sorry I'm sorry I had a lot of time at this point I was just responding to your comment that no one from the city of the affordable housing department goes through the the units once they're on the market to see what they look like okay so you're given a price that you can sell it for that's it and we're going to keep things just moving it's okay if you have additional comments please email us with anything and trust me I have I've emailed and written letters and responded to the survey and I've never heard back from anyone and I've been there did you do it to us because we're a little bit different no I'm sure I did it too whoever I was told to do it to and I yeah I would love to we're we're advocates for you so okay thank you yes all right sorry little jumpy sir we're thankful any other questions great uh Andy Allison

[67:01] thank you uh hi I'm Andy Allison I'm affordable housing developer I've developed and currently owned through Partnerships about 470 units in Boulder these have all been financed with low-income housing tax credits that were mentioned a little bit earlier I wanted to talk one thing about part of our our experience in owning these units one thing Jeff mentioned right at the beginning of the meeting was people like to live where they work which I I think is very true one of the items that'd be great to have the housing Advisory Board take a look at is we have a fairly restrictive asset limit for for rental housing the the current liquid asset limit for a renter is 55 000 which is not a little amount

[68:02] of money but when you think of the expenses that people can incur during life whether that's child's education sickness parent sickness buying a home all these things could far exceed 55 000. so what happens is we have to tell people to leave their affordable units there is a variance process and there's a waiver for seniors and I should clarify this does not include retirement accounts um but what that's doing is we're asking people who live in the community who live close their jobs to vacate their affordable rental units and they don't go to market rent units they're not going to pay that that rent they go to Broomfield they go to Westminster they go to our bedroom communities and so they're part of that

[69:00] 120 000 people that you guys see driving in every morning and I think I just think our our planning of this community we have a lot of good goals around walkable neighborhoods people living where they work all those sorts of things and anything we can do to keep people in their units I think is a good thing I'll tell you that the low income housing tax credits do not have the any restrictions on assets this is a city of Boulder compliance and there probably is some limit that needs to be looked at I don't think we need people in affordable units with some enormous amount of savings or they've retired from a job or whatever the case may be but I think it's something that we could look at that would uh help more people stay in their units I don't think we should be moving anyone out thank you Andy and uh thank you for sharing and as a developer being here

[70:00] tonight because I'm you know it's always probably feels a little hot around the collar every time you get invited to something like this so thank you for being brave and doing that I'm curious I have a question what percentage of the units do you think you've had where you've lost or had people move out due to this that's a great question I just know I just saw another five that came through now some uh one of those may be an income because there's also an income income restrictions but they go through uh annually um so this year may have been five to six something like that I I'm not a hundred percent certain but I know we have them every year and I also know that when you know some people voluntarily think it's coming they also without even the notices they decide they're going to move out as well so it's probably not a great percentage of 470 plus units but do you do any um exit interviews with your uh anybody in your units we always find out usually it's the property management company and we use a couple thistle manages a lot of our units and we have another National

[71:02] Group as well well uh that we all find out where they're going um why they're leaving and there are other factors people take other jobs people relocate but yeah we always get that information thank you I think Judy has a question yeah the green Reds all right thanks um hi thank you for coming um I just wanted to make sure I understood um what you're saying you were saying that you think it's a shame that some people are having to leave affordable housing because they're they have too many assets but they still have the need correct they still have the need they might they probably still meet the income requirements but they're non-retirement assets have exceeded the 55 000 Mark and have you also experienced people who have had to leave because of rent increases or not be left

[72:01] um I'm not sure you know the rent increases we have to manage in a whole bunch of different ways we usually meet with all the tenants and see how that works out um we probably have had some that have left because of rent increases but I don't know how many yeah I wasn't trying to ask a question either because it was time to get a sense of the whole thing so okay thank you great thank you Andy sure uh Val sirachi sorry if I butchered the name actually you proved correctly so I appreciate that um so I live at Red Oak Park which is a property owned by Boulder housing Partners I'm also the chair of boulding house housing Partners so I am lucky enough to see both our policies um in the boardroom and then also how they affect my neighbors and myself so I just want to give a shout out to Jeremy and the rest of the BHP staff because they've definitely made huge improvements and strides to listen to

[73:00] Residents and because of them and because I live there and I complain a lot we've lowered late fees we've refunded pet deposits we've tried to do things because we realize that thirty dollars is a huge amount of money fifty dollars in a late fee feeds a family for a week if you're low income so it's an enormous enormous Improvement in my opinion but I'm here today to speak about our re our annual recertification process our inspections things like that it's uh I just want to kind of make it clear to everybody if you don't live in affordable housing and you don't get Medicaid you don't get food stamps you might not understand that every single one of those entities is not related so to go in every year and food stamps and Medicaid is twice a year you have to prove to them that you're poor and if anything increases so I'm seasonal I'm a landscaper I don't work in the winter I work in the summer so at the end of summer in August when they re-certify me they're like oh you're making a lot of money so they drop my

[74:00] food stamps that causes me to suffer all winter long then the springtime when I start working again they give me my food stamps back it makes no sense so all of these processes people are spending time the state the city the government is wasting time recertifying people when you can really seriously streamline this to the point where for my food stamps when I go in I no longer have a book or anything like that I have a card I go in they run my food stamps card they say oh you have 200 left great I know so I'm just there's got to be a better way that we can save money through this recertification process for BHP for Medicaid for human Housing Services all those things Human and Health Services I'm not saying that right um so that one we don't have to show up every year with 14 copies of our tax return and two we're you guys aren't wasting money nitpicking through all of our profit and losses for six months which I don't do so then I have to scramble to do that if you miss any of

[75:00] these things then sometimes you're threatened with getting kicked out of the program whether it's true or not that's just terrifying for people who are scraping by as it is so and then the inspections it's like people come into our house some some years it feels like only once a year and that's BHP just making sure that everything works and that's great but other times it's like oh we're going to do a random inspection it's not random I have been picked my house has been picked randomly every single year by the city or the state I don't even know who it is anymore I can't say no they come through my house no matter if I've worked an overnight shift if my kid is sick if there's CAPIC on the floor because I don't care right there I'm busy trying to make rent and I just can't do it they come in my house so it's incredibly invasive and real fast before I get give this over to someone if I lose a job I have to go to that employer and they have to sign a piece of paper that say I know that says I no longer work for them that is incredibly insulting and degrading when I reapply every year for BHP and

[76:00] this might not be the city I have to go to my employers if I have one and they have to fill out a piece of paper and if they fill it out wrong which they do multiple times they have to do it again and again and the whole time it just slows the process for BHP and for us and it causes an enormous amount of stress on all of our residents not just me so we really need to find a way to streamline this and I have an appointment to talk to Senator fenberg because this is something that it shouldn't just be bolder this is in general the state of Colorado like if if you just go to a different slim streamline process then you not only are going to get your basic needs met but then your children might actually get their needs met like they get to go to the Y you get to go to effo without having to prove that you're poor and sit there for three hours but there has to be some way that we streamline this because the city's wasting money checking our stuff we're wasting money BHP is and we waste money and time as residents and it's so disrespectful to have to prove to every single person six months or every year yeah I'm still poor yes I still make one thousand dollars a year it's just it doesn't make sense to

[77:01] me so if the IRS accepts our tax returns that should be it for the city that should be it for BHP besides the government which who knows what they're up to I'm just here today to advocate for streamlining so that we can not have to beg people to accept that we're poor it's just degrading um I want to say I I'm retired now but I've always worked in human services and I really um I really understand your situation I mean there are people who the business closed and then they had to verify that they weren't working there anymore and there's no place there anymore to get that verification and they finally were accepted for turning in you know a page from a website saying closed but it's and all the time and each time it's a little different like how much is in your savings account did you get any presents this year did you and it really can be numbing experience I just want to say I really

[78:00] to piggyback off what they said about the assets I will say that BHP you know if we've had this issue with assets too and I think we have a little bit more of a laxed um protocol for it but like you know if you get hit by a car and you receive a settlement that doesn't go against for our purposes we don't hold that against people for our residents so we have a little bit maybe more flexibility in our assets than the city does for the affordable housing programs but um it's still just that thing where like you know your parents die they leave you money and now you're terrified you're going to leave your house lose your house you get hit by a car you're going to have long lasting hip issues and you're afraid you're going to lose your house so the assets thing is definitely it's across the board not just for extreme low income but for Middle income as well so Val I would just like to say that we have a spot on the board and it sounds like you need a position over here I I thought about it but then I was like you probably don't want to see me plus I have a loud mouth I'll be here and I and also I really appreciate this I was kind of terrified that we were going to give testimonials which doesn't work but around you know this is the circle is much better so I appreciate that well and I'm curious if we can

[79:00] follow up with you later because I think you're holding on to some really good ideas um yeah I've got a coalition of people to go with me to fenberg's office so if anybody else wants to come I would appreciate that as well fantastic thank you for sharing yeah great um we have Scott Holton one of my favorite people [Music] that was nice to say thank you Scott Holton with element properties 2601 Spruce Street um so uh I am a provider of affordable housing here in Boulder um my firm through various Partnerships including in partnership with Andy we own and operate almost 321 units right now say almost because some of those are under construction those properties are the nest which is

[80:01] 238 units spark West which is in operation at spark which is 45 residences and then the one that I mentioned with BHP the 38 units is going to be called ceclo which is going to be a Workforce project at spark so if anyone hears my resident thank you for your business and my husband okay great for a second I was like that doesn't make sense listen happy we'll be nice to him um appreciate appreciate you've been our resident and uh and thank you so um I'm definitely here to be a listener as well I have nothing to complain about really my life is good and um I think um you know these projects are important to us as a developer in Boulder because alongside our market rate projects you know we want to be a socially conscious developer whether I mean whether that

[81:00] means doing a Transit oriented development or environmentally sustainable development affordable housing is just one of those additional types of development that we want to provide to this community when we established our company uh 10 years ago we established it with the notion that development can be a force of good in the community development isn't always done well and it's also oftentimes appropriately vilified and we wanted to change the narrative and be a socially conscious developer and try to improve this community so we are a for-profit developer we're not shy about that we think that we can be a socially conscious business and and create value in the community for all stakeholders um it is challenging um it's fraught with risk all development especially affordable housing development uh the Mosaic of regulations that we have to comply with is staggering certainly local definitely

[82:01] State absolutely Federal um it's extremely risky but that's okay we had eyes wide open and none of these things are surprises to us um I think when we started this business you know the language that we used was really important in establishing um the the views that I mentioned to you whether it's on our website or on marketing materials you know we refer to our residents as residents they're not tenants they're not just names on our rent roll we refer to where they live as their home not their units or not their apartment it's their home and I think using that language is really important to engender that respect and dignity in that relationship between the property owner and the residence and that's something we've always taken a lot of pride in um you know the elephant in the room always with a for-profit housing provider is rental increases and you

[83:03] know in the interest of transparency you know I'm happy to talk talk about that for just a second um after many years of no rent increases um you know the HUD rents did go up last year by 10 percent um we did a lot of soul searching in our in our company as to what was uh the right thing to do what was ethical and we did a four percent increase across our portfolio um and so averaged over three years that was a 1.3 percent increase in our rents over a three-year period uh annually so I'm happy to answer more questions about that if there's anything that I could complain about is that there's not more money for us to do more projects there are definitely opportunities out there and we're ready to do you know um a lot more units if we can just find find funding and try to provide you know more homes for people in this community

[84:01] thank you any any questions to me Scott I got a question for you as a person who has both affordable units and market rate units are there differences in owning and managing those two or are they pretty similar as far as just doing it by and large we try to operate them with a high degree of parity part of that is just that kind of dignity and respect and telling people that you appreciate their business doesn't matter whether it's an affordable or market rate we try to treat people the same way now with that said we do house some special populations we have about 30 homeless shelter vouchers at our Nest property and you know that's a unique population that deserves a little bit different TLC you know in different circumstances and again eyes wide open and and we're really happy to

[85:00] have those folks but I'll say you know in terms of the the mechanics of affordable versus Market you know Capital markets are such that I can find non-recourse financing for my market rate projects my affordable projects I have you know serious personal guarantees to make those projects viable so on the one project where I have a guarantee which is at spark West my personal guarantee is 20 million dollars and I don't have 20 million dollars but that's what my guarantee is if the project were to have or fail to Wall Street Banks let's have another follow-up question if that's okay earlier we've been talking about rent increases and it's a very sensitive topic but earlier you said obviously an affordable units the rent is regulated right there's a fixed amount that you can charge did I understand you right when you said that you were allowed to increase the rent 10 but you didn't is that correct correct

[86:02] this is the exact issue that kicked off this entire thing actually um was some affordable housing residents came to ask what we could do about that HUD run increase where they could go up 10 so yeah that was that's adjusted that's tied to Ami right tied to the air and medium rare so it really depends on how the whole income of the whole town is and that trickles down to what you're allowed to do but I think that speaks volumes uh not increasing it as much as you could yeah thanks well thank you all for your your service and thanks for giving me a little extra time to talk yeah any other questions for Scott okay uh James Feeney hi I don't actually live in an affordable unit but I wanted to address the building issues that people brought

[87:02] up because I have had experience with that I live in a mobile home that has had access to some leap services and after the work was done I ended up with two pages of building code violations that the building inspector did not address and was not interested in addressing and I think there's a bit of a subtle Dynamic that goes on because in the city code the city of Boulder disclaims any liability for failure to inspect so when it comes to that inspection process it doesn't really matter whether they do a thorough job or not so when we have uh the opportunity to address the issue in front and we don't do that then sometimes these people can be left with having to

[88:01] address the issue on the back side and maybe that's not the best way to approach that process I have spoken with um some of the regulatory staff in Boulder and one of the complaints they have is that they don't always have the budget to hire experienced staff or enough staff to actually address all of the inspections that they would like to do and so sometimes inspections don't get done really at all and one of my pet peeves is a hotel in Boulder that did not get inspected for fire safety and carbon monoxide detectors and people went to the hospital and that can be the kind of consequence for this so the short version is I understand that city council is

[89:00] addressing their budget for the year and you might want to address with city council the importance of budgeting for building code and fire safety inspectors and maybe help them understand that it does have a consequence even though they're not liable and you know city manager can't be taken to task for that thanks Claudia thank you I have three short points to make from three different perspectives so I will try to blow through all of them quickly here first of all I was asked by a neighbor at Wild Sage co-housing to say a piece for her she can't be here tonight and she wanted to share with you that she lives in a family-sized deed restricted unit it's a four bedroom unit but she and her husband will be empty

[90:01] nesters in a few years and they are thinking about downsizing want to make their unit available to a larger household that needs it but they feel trapped in their home at this point they tell me that moving to a new unit would require re-qualifying for affordable housing which is not guaranteed because their financial circumstances have changed since their original purchase but because their current home is capped for appreciation they also don't have enough equity to compete for market rate units that are out there so I know this is a fairly common situation with affordable housing they have the additional complexity of wanting to continue living in their Community where they have been for the last 15 years near friends and neighbors and in cohousing this is particularly important to us but I'm sure it's important for other folks to stay in places that are familiar to them so I just wanted to share that story that the affordable housing program definitely has helped them over time but is not now allowing

[91:01] for flexibility for life changes before you go on to the other two points I'm curious have we ever considered like a swap program where somebody who's already qualified has a house could downsize with and have a variance or some type of a waiver where they don't have to go through the re-qualifying again to get a family in and move them down to a one size have looked at that it would be feasible within only the programs that are purely locally funded and locally regulated because the other regulations require qualification when you're a beneficiary which would be when you buy the new home um but with that said the majority the large majority of the ownership units are locally regulated there's a possibility so what you're saying is there's opportunity telling us there's a chance in there

[92:01] okay thank you go ahead Claudia okay let me put on my second hat here the second hat is my perspective as the treasurer of a homeowners association a condo association so at Wild Sage co-housing 40 percent of our units are deed restricted affordable and as a Treasurer I think a lot about the post purchase costs of affordable housing and with a significant lower income population I think that there are some perverse incentives to under invest in maintenance and capital reserves and I think we hear that some from single-family homeowners as well so at rhoa we do take savings very seriously but we've certainly heard other cases this year of HOAs that are not saving for long-term maintenance and that's not to pass judgment on any of that that's a structural problem maintenance is a very expensive thing and it's hard to account for those costs um so I worry that as our affordable housing stock ages that we're going to see more and more situations where HOAs are having to choose between letting

[93:02] housing stock deteriorate or doing potentially bankrupting special assessments which are hard for everybody but particularly for income restricted populations so just a question I don't have answers that is how do we ensure that this housing that the city is investing in is maintained for its future occupants that's Hat number two but on Hat number three just briefly here I'm also the member of the board of the boulder Housing Coalition and of the development committee bhc operates for housing cooperatives serving over 60 residents here in the city of Boulder and on behalf of this group I'd like to say that while the city likes to tout its affordable ownership programs that rental housing we've heard that here too it remains a critical part of the affordability puzzle and that Cooperative living can offer deep affordability for some members of our community we're glad now that there are legal options for housing cooperatives in

[94:00] Boulder but new development of co-ops is still very difficult here and I know other non-profit providers are speaking about the barriers towards development here tonight they may be able to say more but I think it's important to give incentives for and lower barriers for Housing Development if we're really serious about meeting affordability goals you have a beautiful hat collection thank you for sharing any questions thank you Mary Harbison I've never been to one of these meetings before and I have been living in the affordable rental program at Foothills community for eight years and I'm just bringing that to a close I'm going to be moving but I'm really here to say wow like this

[95:01] is a complicated thing and I'm amazed that older is taking it on in such a heartful way and I'm just incredibly grateful for the opportunity I've had to live at Foothills Community I was formerly a homeowner in Boulder and you know life circumstances and all of a sudden my kids are in school here and I couldn't afford to live here so um I just I I just really want to offer my appreciation for everybody's time who's working on this for all the people who've come to um to put the effort in and in the 30 years I've lived in Boulder I would say the wealth Gap is widening drastically so to keep the community whole and wholesome these are the programs that will really support keeping Boulder weird or whatever we want to do so I just want to thank everybody for

[96:02] all your efforts and deep appreciation thank you Mary you said you're moving out of affordable housing are you moving out of the Broomfield I want to get in the I want to get in the game yeah I'm moving to Broomfield and buying market rate yes thank you and are you going to continue to work up here as well yes I'll be working in Boulder been a professional here for over 30 years and did you um so you you want a market rate are you are you renting in a I couldn't get in affordable buying I worked on and that's a funny thing about the the qualification so I'd have to have a certain qualification to rent that proved I was poor but then I'd have to have another qualification to try to get in the buying program that showed that I had a little something going on so interesting yeah thank you I have a question for you if given the choice would you say you're moving to Broomfield for a market rate house if there was an affordable house in Boulder that was available and met

[97:02] your needs what would you choose I probably live in Boulder I've just been here so long I just and I will say I feel the society and the culture here is changing so much that it's not killing me either to leave thanks thanks it's and I mean we I've been here 25 26 years and same thing you know about the keep Bolder weird for those of us who've been around here for a while it has shifted so much and it feels like a significant loss on that side of it the community side of it um so I I can appreciate that and understand where you're coming from not just weird keep it nice like incredibly yeah thank you very much thank you Mary uh sewersack lawn growth

[98:03] hi I'm Sarah Sac lawn Graf um thanks for pretty well it's great I go if I saw across soundtrack whatever so I live at one of the spark West communities over um over there and by the Google over there I came from Ohio that's where our sponsors from Laos where I originally came from uh they lived in the midwest area so I stayed in Midwest for a little bit um I lived in a town called Robert Ohio which had a KKK rally every first of the month right down my house it was you know I adapted um you know and uh but after 2006 they forced us to move out of of Ohio because I lost my house and not being upside down and whatnot I came to Boulder for a better life for my wife and my two kids um and we you know we came here I had to work three jobs in order to four to live

[99:01] here I am a substitute teacher and a car salesman and a pharmacy technician so um but you know I was paying I was paying rent here over there on Shanahan Ridge 2400 a month only way to you know but I just found out about the affordable housing which I wouldn't have found out a lot earlier so I can actually have two jobs now but and I'm actually kind of late on my rent sorry about that [Music] um but you know I I really appreciate what affordable housing has done for my family I am extremely grateful and not having to pay electrical bills water trash other stuff that comes with home ownership um you know you just have to pay one uh one main Bill and that's the you know that's the rent um and you know there's a really tight-knit Community there too with everybody there I know all my neighbors we talk a lot and you know we always there's you often in times complain

[100:01] that's because that's human nature you always complain when you get real comfortable right um but you know we don't really have much to complain about just buzz parking that's the only thing but uh but other than that I just really appreciative of having that opportunity we lived there for almost two years now um and being able to stay in an area where uh the grand wizard doesn't visit your house sometimes you know so um but yeah it's it's it's a it's a great it's a great area we love Boulder we love the town my wife has finally found a place where she can actually feel right at home um and you know that's what I was just going to say is and I'm really appreciative of affordable housing well we're glad to have you and although there was Chuckles around that I know what that fear and the instability and especially having a family my kids are black and we're dealing with racial issues in this town already as it is so

[101:00] again all even though there's Chuckles that are happening while you're mentioning it I I connect and have great empathy for what that means and your willingness to come and work two jobs in trying to be in our community together and for me that almost just brings me to tears because I don't it's these stories that we need to share more of because there's so many people in our community including my kids who are living on their own here working two to three jobs just trying to stay here and while other people flippantly disregard how hard some individuals have to work to be here so I can completely appreciate what you're going through thank you and Sarah Dunn thank you I'm really touched by everybody's testimonies and and being in community with you right now right here it's a

[102:00] beautiful thing so I have a couple of points um co-ops the rental co-ops were supposed to be part of our affordable housing strategy and it's amazing to see my Facebook memories that span four years trying to get an ordinance I had to pay a thousand dollars and produce a 70 page application a permit to continue living in my home of 14 years that I had zero complaints in until I stood at that Podium and somebody made an anonymous complaint on me um and tried to get me evicted from my house and my home and my my roommates persevered paid the fees went through the work um it's it's it's been amazing to be a you know permitted to not live in the shadows and I'm a very invested Community member I volunteer law I work at CU

[103:00] um I'm a first generation student who still helps my mother um and and my sister and my nephew and um you know so our home is is really really amazing and as we've become legal the the people that it's serving are also low-income graduate students black immigrants and they're so grateful when people come to look at our house and our landlord's amazing and he should have a shrine because he's kept it affordable even though we have solar panels and insulation and yardens and but the people come in and they're like pick me please like they're almost like like this is nice and you're cool and it's affordable and it's just such a an anomaly when people are looking for a rental apartment so we need to we need to review the

[104:02] co-op ordinance and make some of the the 70 Pages thousand dollar application because the other thing with the permit you have to who can pay a first a last a deposit and a thousand dollar permit when it's supposed to be affordable housing and so you know people like oh you won and I'm like kinda um putting it on my credit card hey um so the um interesting thing I went to the I meant to say this earlier but when I went to the Big Lots um zoning changes there was a woman there who was saying and you know it's like I try to empathize of course you're coming from okay but she it was really clear that her and several other people are not part of this community her family bought her parents bought the land and her quote was and I I wish I had recorded it but um everybody else on our street in North

[105:00] Boulder has gotten to develop a mcmansion we want ours too this is their retirement fund you know our parents are in the 80s and so they um they're not they're not here because they care about each other they're here to cash in also last thing the sustainability I know somebody else who has invested so much in sustainability features in their affordable housing and won't recoup it and it's dissuaded me from participating because I'm not I don't have that capital and it's it I'm not going to compromise my values in the face of climate change and so it's it's a known starter for me affordable housing isn't going to work for me so yeah yeah affordable housing ownership I think there is a real discussion out there about affordable home ownership we can also do more to educate our real estate agents about an

[106:02] assessment about incorporating what sustainability infrastructure what the real value of that is especially is we are going to have more floods we are going to have more climate instability and one of the things that the city did with the Rockefeller Foundation I was in the inaugural class I think you did it with the climate resilience the resiliency Boulder better Boulder I don't know and knowing your neighbors is they're your First Responders in a climate crisis in any kind of natural disaster or cancer or whatever and when I I also should tell you all real quick I'm so sorry I had to knock on 22 of my neighbor's doors 22 neighbors have them sign off that they knew that I was requesting a permit to be a co-op if they wouldn't agree to sign I had to send certified mail it took me almost seven hours I'm really extroverted and friendly so I was like

[107:01] oh I get to knock on my neighbor's doors okay but it was still like a day's worth of work right and so um what I found was that neighbors who'd lived across the street from each other for over 35 years didn't know each other um and they're on different sides of the street so my theory is that their kids went to different schools Mesa and Bear Creek but most of my neighbors didn't know each other they were super supportive of me they loved my yard edible perennial landscape and yarden and chickens and friendliness but um you know that that I'm finding a lot of the low income and middle income make this community and it's also a climate resiliency strategy so that's an interesting point that you brought up how many people were here during the floods right um so I had two 80 year old people on either side of me one who had just um broke her hip and her kids couldn't get to her and so I'm from Northern Minnesota on a farm it was 1400 acres

[108:01] and the next Farm is like three miles over um but we all knew each other Farm together Co-op race barns together stuff like that um but I knew when people would go into driveways when they'd come out of driveways and you knew those rhythms because that's how we survived especially in Minnesota 70 below when you know all that stuff and I was thinking about that in the flood is that as and I live in North Boulder and as I walk around in our rural North Boulder area is how many people don't know each other and um to me that is what keeps us weird that is what and and actually I went around and knocked on everybody's door and I can't tell how many people are like why are you at my house right now and I'm like new neighbor and I I do think that that's something that's missing in our community anymore is the larger these homes are the farther away we don't know our neighbors we're not connecting anymore they're second homes and this isn't their community so thank you for sharing that piece of it I think it's interesting it's a it's a even I mean even when we

[109:01] have the large homes is still connecting with our neighbors knowing knowing each other instead of just yeah it's it's an issue so I think it's interesting an interesting conversation thank you Sarah yeah um that was the last speaker we had signed up was yeah Judy but um [Music] at the break that we had somebody came up to me who couldn't stay and it was she had a small child with her and she'd been waiting downstairs but she thought the child was getting too fussy and so her name is Leah I told her that I would mention what she was interested in saying and she works for Imagine in the Resident management part and she said their biggest worry or concern is that section 8 is all filled up you know that's no one's fault it just is that's all the housing

[110:00] vouchers there are and they would have a lot more choices for their clients if there was somehow some way more Section 8 vouchers that was her concern and then I also wanted to add we as a board just to let you know or maybe in some cases just you and I got a few emails from people who couldn't come and I'm pretty sure all three of their concerns were the costs of amenities were really hard and again it's the same thing as the thirty dollars extra and what that what that does and the parking parking especially so I'm going to add one thing on what Judy's saying as well is I know for some of you there's a lot of new faces I know a few people but we we're our board is unique in that we are not technical advisors we actually are supposed to be of the people for the people so we're here um specifically to engage the community

[111:00] and to connect with you and to hear you and to be your voice at the table so we all come from varied backgrounds and experiences as well and some of us have had experienced homelessness some of us live tiny some of us and we all have a varied experience and background and so just know that we want to build more of this we want we want the word out on the street that this is where you come to when you have an issue or concern and that our whole entire goal is specifically doing something and responding to what what it is you guys bring to the table and last thing I'll say is it's just awesome to have the human stories behind what we normally see is numbers in our presentations and you know we get the occasional email or the occasional person to show up based on what the topic is but you know this Outreach is what we want to be doing so that we hear from people who we don't normally hear from so you know whenever you can please

[112:00] yeah offer offer your input because that's what we're here for so thank you so much everyone yeah came to mind hearing about uh yeah just use the microphone sorry the sustainability if you ever thought about offering a list of uh you know contractors or repair people that people in affordable units can use because I have to call the landscaper my neighbor uses but his is a million dollar home and I just need my sprinkler fix you know is there a list yeah or you know my sink I had to redo my sink because when they installed my sink they there was an entire part missing and I so many times get repairmen in my house and they're like who built your house so is there if we could ever have a list of maybe people that could help affordable housing units on repairs Jeff any anything like that existing yet a preferred provider list yeah one of the challenges we have as a city

[113:01] in providing a preferred provider a recommended provider is that to have that kind of governmental endorsement requires pretty high level of vetting and quality control that even then would be potentially problematic so when we have done things like that it's usually here's a list of providers that the barrier to get in was tell us that you do such and such and then you still have to evaluate the quality of the services on your own for the most part so it's a challenging issue and thanks Jeff I just I ran for City Council in 2009 for renters rights and workers um how did we miss you and yours for BHP Les their Housing Coalition for nine years as well I just dropped off last

[114:00] year but I have redone every single landscape for all four co-ops they might not maintain all of them but they have all been done by me at a much lower cost than any private person so but just to speak to what you said so when I when I ran for city council when you get a house inspected to become a rental in Boulder it's like a two-page code that they go through the gutters have to work you know the windows have to latch you cannot have dryers that have an extension cord into the wall like there's just these random pages of stuff when they come back every couple years to do your rental inspection they're literally looking for four things carbon if and correct me if I'm wrong because maybe this has changed but it's fire detectors carbon monoxide your venting of your heater of your furnace and then your water heater so my thing is this you've got people with the free market who every year in the private sector raise the rent whatever they want to but in my house my ex-husband got electrocuted by stepping on when there was a flood because the wall broke the

[115:01] flood came into the uh shared laundry unit he went inside to turn it off stepped on the electrical cord that the man was breaking code and got shocked we had no gutters on the back that were so bad that the ice shut our door solid it was just a panel of ice because the gutters hadn't been looked at we had ice on the inside of my two-year-old's window so for all of their and just so you know I lost my house after ran for city council because the woman who used to run the uh whatever they are land land owner whatever whatever you call those people uh landlords association called my landlord told him about my political advocacies accidentally left the same message on my answering machine so I knew it was Sheila and I got I got kicked out I lost my house so this isn't something that we take lightly and this is our housing like if we lose our housing we're screwed we are homeless which hey man we're all pretty much like ready for that to happen so I

[116:02] just think it's I think it's crazy that that some person can own a house in in Boulder and for 25 years let that house run into the ground and we have inspectors come through every couple years who don't look at the gutters don't look at the windows don't look at any of that stuff while we have to pay for space heaters I have to ax the back door so that my children in case of a fire can actually get out of the door so I would like to see for you guys if you could help advocate so that if we're going to have rent increases from private landlords that have no cap there is no HUD cap there are no there's no ethical reason not to do it they do what they want they have to at least really truly be abiding by those two first Pages if it takes you two pages to allow somebody to have a rental unit you should be checking those every two years if you own the house sure you don't care that your back door's eyes shut fine but we are a group of people who are subjugated to the will of our landlords and when that stuff goes wrong and they

[117:02] don't like us complaining about it the city has absolutely no power it feels like we don't trust the city to do anything to Advocate on our behalf so yeah Netflix thank you I appreciate that I unders I know what that housing unstable unstability instability feels like so thank you for sharing that perspective sorry to piggyback and take time but I mean it's it's extremely it's extremely valuable what you just said um ready for a break yeah okay thank you everyone for coming thank you everybody Welcome to stick around we will follow up um it's 7 58 right now take five minutes so we'll be back at three minutes after and we'll be back up at the diocese around yeah

[121:58] that was amazing thank you so much you

[122:01] and Judy for organizing that and just to wrap up too from you know our discussion on our last meeting this was the framework for the start of that and um Adam prepared uh um an affordable housing experience feedback form for all of us so is there anything you want to add to that before we wrap up this piece sure I just ask that you know you think about those questions over the next few days and try to get back to me within the week and we'll take that and put it into the report that we're going to build as we're required to do when we adopted this process we're going to have a report ready for you next time with all the feedback from the people who came to speak to us as well as how you would like to see it change or improve so would it be possible to send out thank yous to the people yeah I've kept all the uh I've kept all the maybe since they provided their information we'll make sure to reach out to them thank you okay we're going to move on to Matters

[123:01] from uh make a motion to reinstate Robert's Rules of Order and I second that all in favor Juliet so we're going to move on to Matters from Council large houses and lots Carl you're welcome board numbers I'm Carl Galler with the city plane Department I'm joined here with Andrew Collins who's also helping me on code changes so I'm going to pass it over to him and then he'll come back to me and I'll talk a little bit about some of the housing options tonight that we want to get your feedback on thanks Carl um so good evening board the main goal for tonight as Carl mentioned is to get your opinions and feedback on the preliminary options but first we'll review the project background in the community engagement and feedback briefly before jumping into some of those preliminary options

[124:02] so for reference city council first identify the large homes and Lawrence project as a work plan a priority item for planning in 2018. last fall they established a project scope the goals and purpose for the project which we'll touch on in a little bit and then since this last February we've been in the community engagement phase as well and so the main purpose for the project from Council is to require more smaller homes in residential zones that are consistent with the character of the existing neighborhoods and that Advance the city's Energy Efficiency climate sustainability and housing affordability goals and policies foreign the council established why on purpose is that the city is experiencing the replacement of more modest a modest more affordable homes with larger more expensive homes and these have often been inconsistent with existing character of the neighborhoods been an inefficient use of land that has exacerbated the city's housing and jobs

[125:01] and balance and also has not been in alignment with the city's energy conservation goals and so to address these concerns the council is asking us to address these issues by requiring more smaller home sizes and Creative infill Solutions that would be helped to encourage my more efficient use of land and support a broader housing economic diversity and the neighborhoods of the city this is the original project timeline you can see kind of where we are here in May we're just wrapping up the initial Envision public engagement period we have a council study study session on May 28th we hope to have phase one potential near-term options adopted by early fall late summer of this year and then longer term options continuing on further and Carl is going to touch on those options coming up shortly uh really click here the main scope of the project from Council has been the residential

[126:00] estate and residential rural zones these are on the screen the lightest shade of tan on your screen here the rl1 is the bright yellow Shades rmx one is the pink shades those are also part of the conversation which may be um if we let's say we do a cap on square footage that may play apply across the board other options may only be focused on the large lot areas which is the re Zone and our R zones just some quick background data this is the overall trends of new home construction size the blue bars on the screen over time the lighter shade of gray bar is the median size of single family home demolitions over the same time period you can see there's been an increase in home size gradually over the course of the last 17 years about a thousand square feet and the new homes have been being constructed are over 2000 or over two times the size of the homes that have been demolished

[127:02] these maps in green here on the left of the screen shows the location of demolitions a single family home since 2000 the blue shows new construction of homes since the same same time period concentrations have been in the Newlands area and North Boulder other portions of South Boulder as well a quick background our land use code regulates home size mainly through the flow area ratio requirement which is the amount of buildable flow area that's tied to the size of the underlying Lots so the bigger your lot the bigger your house can be today there's there's not a hard cap overall on home size so if you have a you know a one acre size lot you can get over 10 000 square feet of Home area so really quick here these are the broad goals for the project from Council which are to study and consider Creative

[128:00] Solutions for potential infill it also includes looking at a hard cap on floor area for a single family development also looking at incentives and incentives and disincentives for preserving existing housing stock as well as other strategies and phasing for making adjustments as well so we've had our community engagement phase since February a series of three open houses at that point in time had a fourth open house last week on Monday in the North Boulder neighborhood um over 100 participants showed up for that we also have a beehard boulder online engagement questionnaire that just recently closed this week with over 350 respondents we'll touch upon just high level feedback as well so last Monday's open house we asked the public we had some options shown on the screen which Carl's going to touch on here quickly we asked them the public to tell us what they liked didn't like in

[129:01] other comments so some of the kind of common themes we heard was the public liked the reduction in a single-family home size some felt it was too big today the light tapping flexibility to build more accessory units and they also liked that there was more variety of housing choices potentially with some of these options we also heard from the community that I didn't like the increase in density with some of the options and they were concerned about impacts to neighborhoods and infrastructure such as streets and parking and storm water runoff and there were concerns that changes could potentially hurt property values some additional comments we heard was that they liked that any kind of cap and home size was tied to allowing more flexibility for smaller units and that they also like the idea of providing more housing for a variety of people to live in Boulder some of the overall themes from the be heard Boulder equestrian question

[130:00] questionnaire so we asked the public you know what were their thoughts on home size currently with new construction there are mixed sentiments on whether new homes were too big or too small about a third thought they were too big a third thought they were the right size we asked the public whether we should pursue a hard cap or restrict floor area floor area requirements over half the respondents said no they were not in favor of more restrictions those that were in favor of a cap on floor area we followed up and asked them what size for that Cappy and their opinions of increments of a thousand square feet their responses tended to be between three thousand and five thousand square feet as a overall cap for for uh floor area regarding um tiny homes we asked that question over half the respondents were in favor of allowing tiny houses as an alternative housing type across the residential zones sentiments were split however on whether to encourage more smaller homes on Lots

[131:01] instead of one large lot one kind of more favorable response was that most of the respondents were favorable to allowing additional housing types such as duplexes triplexes and the re and RR zones and just a quick note on that too the questionnaire is not a scientific survey it's uh just more geared to getting people's overall thoughts and responses on the issue one question about the um were you guys are you guys able to or did I miss it breaking down renters and homeowners when you sign up for the overall be her Boulder questionnaire I think it does track that demographic information we did not filter it through that through that lens yet yes so you will do that and can we see a copy of that if if we can we'll take it with our Communications staff to see if that's possible but yes I just had one other question as far as the survey is concerned when you say

[132:00] it's not scientific um so there's no way to verify exactly who's taking the survey where they live anything along those lines correct it's all self-reporting self-reported and then tracking through there again when I sign up for the overall be here builder website their email and their name as I choose to put it in would you ask a question and on our questionnaire to identify what part of Boulder do you live in so you have a neighborhood information that's self-reported but now it's not a scientific survey with a you know certain population or sampling size okay um okay so I'm just going to walk the board through some of the options that we've been working on as Andrew talked about we've been following the the original timeline which was basically to focus on community outreach on these Concepts but also through the process coming up with preliminary options that we would ultimately present to city council and

[133:01] get feedback on did you have a question so before we go into that I concerned with the fact that we don't collect more um statistically valid data when we use it in Council to make decisions like this because because you know like Claudia had mentioned in in our group I've been to those open houses too and I've seen people put 10 dots on one thing down and we all know that you can register on be heard Boulder with four different email addresses and and we get 300 and then the information is presented as if it's the whole Community when I can tell you that renters are not feeling that way and they're the apathy and so I'm just does anybody else have a problem with this we have been hearing that concern and we are going to pose that question to council I think where we want to get to is getting more specific on what options to move forward on and then from

[134:01] that understanding what areas could be impacted and then Focus the survey in those areas yeah in those areas as meaning that those communities get to make the decisions for the entire town well just to gauge if if there is a certain level of support for the changes that Council wants us to move buy a community for the whole town is that what I'm hearing you say I I think we just if they're if council is talking about kind of keeping the scope to a certain number of zones we would Target those areas with those surveys so if I yeah and so if I'm in North Boulder and I'm a renter or somebody who could potentially afford a market rate or could potentially keep my family in Boulder but I don't live in North Boulder at that time so I don't get a say in my community do you see where I'm going with that so you're pulling the people who

[135:02] um and I'm not saying all of them by a survey yeah it will and you're asking people uh some homeowners and I'm not saying that that's true for the entire neighborhood because you know there's neighbors around me that are different but we have a problem with reaching the people that need the services and the ones who are resistant to it and I'm curious how we're trying to get through that nut I mean I I think this this is helpful you know for us to bring forward to council to show the importance of of taking this step and we can work you know with a consultant on the survey and how to you know make it more broad to address those concerns okay say something I I just want to follow up on that for a minute because I do think that it's it's potentially the the issue isn't

[136:00] necessarily with the consultant but the issue is with the approach and this is a broader question but the approach the city's taking to who gets whose input is most important in the particular thing so it's exactly that piece of saying well these are the impacted neighborhoods so these are the communities that we're going to ask and of course their perspective is valid but it doesn't discount the perspective of the rest of the community I think it's really important that we start looking at that so and I'd be curious how Minneapolis did it you know because we just saw sweeping zoning changes Etc and how they did they pull their impacted um neighborhoods or did they recognize that they have a crisis within their community and they were hearing the voices of the people who didn't have a seat at the table and figured out how to incorporate that into their decision-making process instead of the same 3 000 people that show up because they have the time and they're not

[137:01] working three jobs as we heard tonight just one small Devil's Advocate no [Laughter] affected communities don't bring this up then we would never hear about it as an entire community so isn't doesn't it make some slight bit of sense that the affected Community gets a little bit more input on on the impacts that are imposed I would say no okay well let's use an extreme example of this um if I'm a white supremacist and I don't want blacks in my neighborhood and you come and pull me about whether or not we should have housing for blacks in my neighborhood I'm going to tell you no so does that mean the city goes okay well these people over here don't want blacks in their neighborhood so we're gonna just not do that so I just wanted is your mic on Judy oh no

[138:03] there we go hi I'm just wondering if we can't get back to hearing the rest of the thing um I you know I could discuss those things all night and say I'm not sure that the equation that that you gave is fair to the people in neighborhoods having their own thoughts and concerns so I'd rather just get back to the um presentation if that's okay yes I appreciate that I want to go on record as stating that this is an issue for those of us who don't own our homes and don't have the privilege of having a seat at the table so since that's who I represent it's important to be heard right and I'm just hoping there will be ample opportunity after the presentation that we can have any kind of discussion that anyone wants okay so through this process we've basically looked at different levels of development that range from the current large home that you can get on a lot and

[139:01] moving towards what council has been asking us to look at is taking that floor area and breaking it down into individual units as opposed to being one large house and again not going over the floor area that's currently permitted but breaking it down into smaller units so there's different levels that we have developed through the process so the first option that we've put out is looking at just doing a single family cap so we have a proposal of doing 3 500 there's some other options that we have on the table that are based on larger Lots you know like 4 100 4700 for larger Lots these are things that we're going to be asking Council for more information about what they you know want us to look at um option b is looking at potentially either converting an existing single-family home into a duplex or Triplex which isn't currently permitted in these zones or actually allowing new

[140:02] construction of duplexes and triplexes in these zones C is looking is an option that looks basically like creating rl1 zoning where you just do a seven thousand square foot minimum lot size and allow them the capped house on each of those lots I'll talk a little bit more about that we're not going to be moving we're not recommending that that move forward and I'll tell you a little bit more about that option D is is looking at capping a single family house but enabling people to use the square footage above that up to the current maximum if they were to add additional accessory dwelling units on their property and when we get into options E and F we're really looking at having the capped house and then allowing some level of subdivision on the property and have smaller what we're calling restricted sized Cottages that would be around 1500 square feet in size

[141:02] this these have more um land use and infrastructure implications I think are a little bit more complicated that are going to require a little more study and and may require a land use map change to our comp plan so those are a little more complicated so council is asked at their April 23rd discussion with us to actually break the project into two phases where there could be an implementable phase before the end of the summer potentially by the Fall um and we'll talk about that so so just real quick so this one slide here shows what a house looks like under current regulations this is on a for example a 23 000 square foot lot you could build almost up to a 6 000 square foot home under today's standard so when we move into the options and I'll move through these relatively quickly a shows

[142:02] what if we capped the house at 3500 for instance B shows what if we enabled that nearly 6 000 square foot house to be broken up into a duplex or a Triplex C is the example I was telling you about where it would be a seven thousand square foot lot size with the capped houses you can see in this instance you would get three 3 500 square foot houses potentially which is more floor area than is possible on the property today so that's the reason why we're not recommending that that move forward D shows um what if you capped the house at a certain size and then the extra floor area were to be used as attached or detached accessory dwelling units so an attached accessory dwelling unit can be up to one thousand square feet in size and a detached accessory dwelling unit can be 550 square feet in size so again E and F were moving more in the

[143:02] direction of you know capping the main house allowing for subdivision allowing for smaller lots that could be like around 3 000 to 3 500 square feet um f shows the potential for for more units on the site this is a larger size property so you'd have to have two 2300 square foot uh 23 000 square foot Lots in order to get that density but it's basically showing that but again this this is where we have the concerns about the the implications of of allowing six dwelling units per acre in that area and would require a land use map change in those areas so it's a much more significant change so I'm going to talk about the two phases that we're going to propose to city council the first phase basically would look at what can be done this summer and could be implemented fairly easily relatively easily so what we're proposing as a cap

[144:02] on the single family home size and allowing the extra floor area to be used as accessory dwelling unit so today under the current zoning you can only do one additional accessory dueling unit per property this would enable more than that so it depends on how like how large your property is the more the larger your property is the more adus that you could potentially have there might be a necessity to actually cap that because there are some lots that are large enough that you could see up to like seven adus on the property so we're we're putting that out there but there might have to be a cap on on those sizes also included in Phase One what we're proposing to counsel is the allowance to convert existing single-family homes to duplexes or triplexes in these zones not at this point enabling the new construction that's a little more complicated so that's what we're putting off in what we're recommending for phase two which is really looking at at new

[145:01] construction of duplexes and triplexes and getting into the into the sub uh subdivision Realm so the question that we have for for the board tonight uh and that we want to convey the sentiments of the council is what is your feedback on these potential housing options um and we would like to hear what you have to say and then we'll convey that to council at our May 28th study session next Tuesday so that concludes our presentation happy to answer any questions thanks girl Adam we conveyed a council will we be able to see what you plan to convey prior to you conveying it because we've had some issues in the past where conveying isn't necessarily conveying conveying we can do that we would really appreciate that do you have no questions on the actual presentation I will who wants to go first Juliet

[146:00] um thank you Carl for that really appreciate it and also thank you for answering the questions that I sent around and I just printed out a copy for everyone um so you have Carl's responses at your fingertips there um I I just had a question on your grid and I don't know if you sent a follow-up email on this but um I was totaling the uh the number of lots in each Zone and on the rr1 um the total didn't add up exactly as you have it here you had the total at 130 and for 15 000 square feet or greater it was 130 and then for 23 000 square feet it was 122. and for the the largest number was 110 so it should have added up to 362 is that yeah so is that I'm not I guess maybe I don't understand what that last column is so that's a total number of lots and the entire zoning District so it's 130

[147:02] Lots zoned yeah um was that RR one you're looking at R1 and and it says that there are 130 Lots there are 10 000 square feet in or larger because the smallest lot in that zone is 16 000 so you can't add all these up right it's just a total or Zone okay the relative percentage if you take that column to there yeah so it's a so the overall number of lots then is the total number of lots regardless of square footage that's correct and then how would we arrive at the total number of of lots that would fall into this large category of 15 000 square feet and above we just pull the data from our online map link and sort of the Excel but do you have that there because I didn't realize that these numbers were compounding on themselves does everyone understand what I'm suggesting so you just have to add those three columns you don't add the three columns

[148:00] is what he's saying they don't equate they don't they have to add the three columns in order to get no what you're looking for right no that's I did that I put that in an Express sell spreadsheet myself and was trying to figure out I'm getting it now yep yeah um number so that I I guess what we're trying what my question was was really trying to understand how many Lots in this large category are we talking about so we can frame our conversation about that and to discuss to understand the impact that we're talking at the bottom of the second page has a total it's totaled up at the bottom so that's a total for each of the lots that are 10 000 square feet or greater for fifteen thousand square feet or greater it's the bottom number so 1951. not so many Lots would be impacted in all those zones so that's the total number of large so if we divide so it's roughly 10 percent of the Lots in all in all of uh in all of the zones between rmx1 all

[149:02] the way to Res correct okay and then do we know the percentage then of lots in the two the two zones that are we've you've been asked to focus on primarily r e and RR I don't have a calculator with me so I apologize when my math skills are not that good and fast 300 the first two these first three uh these three numbers and then divided divided by these three numbers I had a question um on the presentation do you have any data on what the Energy Efficiency of the homes that were demolished was like compared to what they were replaced with what do you say 15. we don't have that that data now these first three and were those were they completely demolished homes or did they account for any kind

[150:00] of um additions or things like that it'd be it's based on a demolition permit data um so it'll be a full demolition tool like what someone might refer to as a scrape okay that's right um just just curious about the the framework of all this um so five percent to to your question no one else five percent four point six percent four point six percent okay so four point six percent of the overall lots for re R1 rr2 method contractor maybe about five percent okay thanks guys um am I allowed to talk a little bit more um so I made some notes here and I and I think um with respect to the survey I think it's awesome that you're using all these Outreach tools that you're having open houses and um sessions and and trying to reach in different neighborhoods and trying to reach a lot of different people and you're doing some Outreach with with online survey and um

[151:00] I um one of the things was brought up the idea of how do you how do you make sure you're pulling a representative sample how do you make sure your responses are statistically significant because they think Boulder is a very intelligent population and a lot of people are going to demand that kind of data Integrity so to your point I know you're going to talk with Council about that um and I also want to say that it probably feels like sometimes uh the planning department gets a lot of heat and a lot of opinions no shortage in doubt and I and I wanna um give you some Kudos because there's a lot out there that shows that Boulder is very Progressive when it comes to compatible development and Energy Efficiency compared with most cities across the country and I think it would be helpful in in your surveying and in your discussions to talk a little more contextually with people about how Progressive Boulder already is from an Energy Efficiency standpoint some of the things that and and one of the things

[152:01] that sparked this comment is reading reading the survey responses um from the be heard Boulder some of the commentary people said well how come you know you should just put a um a net zero cap on houses that are over a certain size and I went and looked at the code and there's actually already a cap for Net Zero houses over five thousand square feet and there's about to be one over three thousand square feet right so the public I don't think is really aware that there is already an Energy Efficiency standard in place that's pretty aggressive and I don't know other cities in the country that that do that insulation requirements I know that there's electric car charging and rough-in for PV panels that are required on homes of a certain size I'm not a code expert but uh by all my account I would think that that's a pretty Progressive standard for efficiency and it should be communicated and and provided in the context of the surveying

[153:00] because the layperson is probably not aware of this so that that's some feedback about serving and you should give yourselves some Applause for and and all the predecessors who have set these standards they've also worked across purposes um with respect to affordability because all of those things cost a lot of money to implement um properly in the those efficiency standards um those are some of my comments about that and uh some other comments um with respect to my question around what would these homes cost if you're talking about a 23 000 square foot lot that could have a I don't know what the limit is it's five or seven thousand square foot house that might sell for a million dollars if you subdivided it would you then end up with three million dollar houses or four million dollar houses and I think getting the the notion that we're going to magically have affordability without the input of the Realty Community for

[154:01] example giving some insights into what that really looks like um I think is is an important thing to understand because we need to understand what does preserving some affordability look like certainly a million dollar home one could argue is more affordable than a three million dollar home but Everything's Relative right and I think we need to understand that as survey takers and as a community what does that mean um I think we do need to make sure we consider all sides including the people who have who wrote in the commentary that they chose to live in a less dense area Boulder because they wanted more space and more Solitude and and they have concerns about what is uh what is going to happen if the zoning around them they thought was permanent is all of a sudden changed and the impact of their uh desired life and Solitude is is um not considered by the community I think we have to consider all sides not

[155:00] just um you know the the the making a case for yes we need to improve affordability and energy sustainability and um uh in character because I would argue that that's also preserving character if if someone has chosen to live in a neighborhood like that in that part of town um uh and then do do we ready for I have some feedback for Council comments but I can wait until I don't want to hog all the time those were my main uh points that I wanted to bring up um so oh and one other thing is how would this tie into sub-community planning so these kinds of proposed zoning changes girls answering I think it ties into subcommitty planning in the sense that you know a lot of these areas are in North Boulder and North Boulder already has a sub community plan so I think we'd have to do some analysis to see how the

[156:01] final options correlate to the plan and whether the plan may need to be updated to you know acknowledge certain you know zoning or density changes um yes I just had a question about that 4.6 percent uh at the very beginning uh yeah it's not that isn't the right that um I think the number you were looking for is that it's more like 48 of homes in those three zones or over 15 000 feet yeah yeah 4.6 was all the Lots the total 19789 number yeah I see okay thank you just want to make sure we understood that so uh Juliet are you just saying that your additional comments are under number two and you are finishing up number one well my feedback then is I guess it falls under number one uh in terms of the housing options I I would suggest that

[157:01] if we want to be an inclusive community and we want to give people the ability to subdivide through entitlement what are we going to achieve through this what is the outcome that we're looking for and how will it drive affordable housing so I think we need to look at what are we trying to incentivize through this exercise what are we what are our desired outcomes are we trying to create more Beyond just I find just saying uh sustainable energy efficient character affordability is pretty vague what let's put some hard numbers around it like we wanna make sure that any new development includes a deed restriction or some kind of affordable rental component to it and I know we have inclusionary housing we have all these regulation but if we're going to make a zoning change what are we in trying to incentivize through that change and that's my primary feedback let's understand what it is we're trying to incentivize through this change

[158:02] um okay so now I think everybody's primed because everybody's ready but I think Terry's next I have a question Carl are you looking for each of us to give you our thoughts and then we discuss after as to try to come up with a uniform suggestion great question so on our agenda when we have an input it's usually Steph is presenting to us and then we give our thoughts and feedback just in this preliminary spot if it's a if it was just an informational item they're just here to share and there's no input from us and if it's a decision making it would be something that we would collectively have to vote on and decide so this is just uh he's collecting our individual thoughts thank you yep appreciate it yes this is jack's first meeting so he has a question this is uh this is kind of follow-up Terry on yours which is does counsel or do we know what the the

[159:00] final request from Council is for us is it simply this response to you are they going to ask us for a recommendation at some point do we know that there's any recommendation required I think they just want the general feedback okay so who's next with their feedback did you go down the line I have some of the I can Echo a little bit of what Juliet said around the what are we trying to really achieve here because I think that there may be some some background of this that uh leads to us maybe conflating two items into one potentially which is the limiting home sizes and from my perspective if we're going to talk about limits to home sizes that

[160:01] needs to spread across the community as a whole so we should be looking at all of these these districts these low density districts so that's that's my first thought and I you know again I wonder if these aren't two separate discussions um because the secondary part of this which is saying what are we going to achieve going back to Juliet what are we going to achieve if we do give this entitlement and that's the piece what are the ideas regarding incentives for permanent affordability my take on it is that over X number of years we've created this zoning zoning changes that it happens constantly you know the world moves and it changes so I'm not too tied to concerns about I bought a house and I expect it to be

[161:00] like this forever I mean I think it's I understand it I live in a nice little spot and I bought it because I want to stay that way but when we look at the full community again and the needs of the community as a whole if we're going to entitle something what's going to come back to the community as a whole from enticing that because by doing any of these divisions of property we're significantly increasing value potentially especially if it's just a kind of wide open thing and there is the problem that you'll end up with what's it called Trail up there on 4th Street Trailhead trailhead and you get a bunch of three million dollar houses you know in smaller sized Lots so I think it has to be tied to a permanent affordability link and my overall sense of it is that for this concept of subdividing with limitations and constraints on

[162:03] utilities and services provided um I I would lean towards allowing the most um as possible on those lots I think one of the reasons that this can be really helpful is you know taxes for people living on these pieces of property are going up tremendously and it does give the opportunity for someone to stay on a property still live in their house age in place and potentially sell part of that property or have other income streams from that property and I think that overall it would be a good thing to do I had the same question about the numbers of lots so thanks for that information and thanks for asking the question um again if we're going to change the overall square footage of houses I think

[163:01] that needs to be looked at across the board that's kind of one of my my main pieces um and then I think it's I think it's a great thing to do I think we're losing community in these neighborhoods regardless you know and I think that's part of the reason this concern popped up is because people are like ah this isn't what I bought in for and you know the good intentions have led to a place where it's also creating problems so I think that's an interesting solution to try to look at it and uh my main concern might be for those utilities and services issues that would come into these neighborhoods thank you you don't want to go first no go ahead so I'm gonna you can kind of put a times two next to Juliet's but I'll hit a few points in that um I also sort of agree with the idea that if we're increasing the amount of units there has to be some sort of deed

[164:01] restricted permanent affordability component to that simply because I don't trust that any unit if it is not deed restricted will remain affordable affordability has a range and that range is incredibly high and Bolder so um along the lines of I'm kind of concerned about the lifers of Boulder maintaining their homes and when you put one of these big homes up next to a small home it instantly increases the value and that increases the property taxes and then those people in the small homes who never asked for that get pushed out so in my mind um the the lifers of Boulder much more concerned about whether or not they can sort of avoid that situation so trying to find a situation that most alleviates the issue of major value increases I think is

[165:01] actually important the people who are most worried about value are the people who are flipping homes so I'd take someone who is worried about property taxes concerns much more into mind um yeah I think that's that's about it but Julia times two add those on Juliet Sorry questions first and then I'll make my comments um how does this plan affect the whole Adu changes that the city already spent a lot of time agreeing upon those regulations are in place they'll continue to be implemented if we move forward with phase one as we're proposing the council it would require changes to that part of the code but it would be you know targeted changes basically to you know enable more than

[166:01] one Adu per lot and there might have to be some other considerations that get added to those regulations big but even just one Adu per lot right now would be out of compliance with the saturation level right in in the RL one District yes but in the RR and re there are no saturated requirements okay thanks then the next one is it would help me understand what the reality was for specific neighborhoods If instead of just knowing the the square footage for each house that's allowable like the far per house what the actual far is perhapses for example if there's a fire I'll just make something up I know nothing about that of say seven thousand you can build a 7 000 foot house on a particular lot but there's only 1500 square foot of house now and so that would change the character of the neighborhood and the houses around it if if then people could go all the way to seven

[167:01] thousand so so is there a way that that can be found out what it at what the current actual far of houses actually is rather than just what's allowable well I think that's what we have and that's what some of the data was showing is that a lot of the more modest sized homes that are getting demolished are you know being replaced by being replaced by homes that are like six thousand square feet and were originally around 2 000 square feet in size okay then thank you my last question is I've been trying to study this really a lot and I decided this morning to read the Boulder Valley comp plan the intro and the the section about housing and I'm curious because it did say in it that the only the only time it talked about increasing intensity which I imagine is a euphemism for density was for permanently affordable housing and I don't see in this plan this is again echoing what pretty much everyone has

[168:01] said so far is is to me the whole point of doing this is to slow down the large Lots the large houses that are increasing the expenses for everyone and upsetting the neighbors but also if anything else is going to be done but it's permanently affordable or what's the point it just keeps raising things higher and higher so so that's my question about are you reading that Boulder Valley comp plan differently than I was reading it today or I mean I'd want to know the exact section that you that you read but I mean we are seven looking at things at the different policies uh through this analysis and there's a broader range of policies that and you know we have to look at to see whether it's actually in alignment with but one of them is to increase housing diversity and housing Choice which uh Council directly stated in their purpose statement so that's the main I think thrust and also housing affordability some of the comments have

[169:01] been made if we can require you know the restriction on an Adu or a cottage that gets at that that specific policy as well so sure and I just wanted to mention in the survey that went along with the changes for the Boulder Valley comp plan the two aspects for housing that gain the most attention and we're only one point apart we're affordability which people certainly cared about and maintaining neighborhood character which was just one point below that and they were by far the two highest so I think you've got a twin issue yeah to be dealing with okay so now I'm on my opinion part I do believe that that everybody has the same general interest for Boulder we all really care about it we want it to remain unique in the ways we all love and we want more affordability and I think everyone agrees with that the difference is just in how we think that can be accomplished so in one way we're starting out with

[170:00] common ground and then it sort of diverges after that um I went to that meeting on May 13th too and stayed for about 45 minutes and I looked at the letters to council I looked at the notes that people wrote on the board and I I was there early so it's pretty crowded in one of the rooms when I was there and then I read all the letters that people wrote to console I listened to the planning board meeting and I also re-read the public participation working group report and so I have a point of view that represents I just want to convey how some of the people in the neighborhoods what their concerns were and it's as I recall this whole discussion started out with a lot of Neighbors being concerns about the large homes exactly as everyone's raising their their property values and also changing their neighborhoods in ways they didn't really like and now it's sort of morphed

[171:00] from their point of view into so you can either have of the large homes or you can have your your lot divided into four places with three duplexes each or you know whatever it is and and so I have the feeling that more um that more affordability and diversity does not necessarily require more density because for every study that people have come up with that says and they're good studies that say that that you need more density in in order to create to create more fertility there's also studies and they're in the same cities about San Francisco and Seattle and Portland that show that that does not work that things are more expensive and out of control so I'm not one that sees density per se as the answer I also noticed that the population in the United States is growing at one percent and it's decreasing

[172:00] below one per it's less than one percent and decreasing so you know I just want to mention some perspective I [Music] am so my opinion is I see this as a two-step process and the first thing to do is to put a cap on the large houses which I guess would be a and um and I think all the rest of the points have some viability in certain specific neighborhoods but my opinion is that the second point should be changing the way sub-community planning is done so all the neighborhoods involved are the first ones that come up with the plan I think it's would be presumptuous of me to vote for what I think or to give you my recommendation of what I think would be good for all neighborhoods because as we know all neighborhoods are very unique and so for me I think it's critical that the

[173:01] neighborhoods be given the task of we need to have more affordability permanently affordable housing in Boulder what is your neighborhood coming up with to address that and to me that seems like the right way to do it start with point a as phase one and go with sub-community planning for neighborhoods involved for the second part thank you Terry Carl can you go back to the slide that shows a b c d all the different options there please sure while you're looking for that I'd like to say that in general I think this is a very good exercise a good thing to focus on because I think there should be other options for large Lots 15 20 25 000 square foot Lots other than just one big house I

[174:01] don't think that that is the highest and best use of these properties and I think that if you give people some choices they would they would they would do something different the unfortunate thing right now is there's really not any choices there's just build a big house or don't um and and as we look at the the spectrum of options here I think like most things in life the the options on the extreme left and the options on the extreme right aren't as good as the options in the middle I think the the two or three choices that you've come up with there the duplex Triplex the a little bit smaller house in the front with some adus in the back and then maybe you know the three I'll call medium-sized houses facing the street I don't love the the flag lot in the back there but I think that those three choices are very good options for these large Lots the hard cap that you're talking about I

[175:03] think we already have that in the form of an far I mean that's what far is it caps the square footage that you can build and and I think that makes sense because you have larger Lots you know the far slides with with the size of a lot so I don't know that that's a great option just putting a number out there that says 3 500 feet and that's it because that that's not really accomplishing the goal which is giving people who own large lots a choice to do something different with them and and on the affordability front I'm going to use your example Jacques of Trail what's called Trail Ridge up on Fourth Street Trailhead Trailhead so that was a school and and then you know somebody bought it and another guy bought it and on and on we went and then would it be better to have one thirty thousand square foot house up there that would be worth 50 million whatever the crazy numbers are right would that be better or is what better is what's there

[176:01] now better where we have 25 families living up there better than one family and then so I don't I'm not saying that's the best development or the best option or whatever but but I think the concept being it's better to have 23 families living on that in that area where otherwise there was one or none for a really long time so I think on the affordability front to me I'd rather see three homes and the numbers in Boulder I mean it's just a different reality you know it's a hard thing to get your mind around because you have a 6 000 square foot house brand new today up in North Boulder that's selling for three or four million dollars okay that's that's what's going on now if you were to take that lot and divide it into three or some of these other things you'd probably have three two thousand square foot homes that that sell for a million and a half you know well that's a lot less than three or four million dollars but it's still a million and a half you know that's a lot

[177:02] so you need to take that into consideration uh I can see maybe where there's a few opportunities depending on what you allow to do some Iz stuff some deed restricted stuff and all these Lots um I don't know how that would work quite honestly because I think you I don't know how it'll work but maybe that could be that could happen but by and large I like the idea that we're studying this I like the idea that we're looking for options to give to property owners who own 15 and 20 and 25 000 square foot lots and I think the options in the middle have are pretty good that's my two cents so I'm going to piggyback on everything that you said Terry I'm almost in alignment with what you're saying I still like the look of a hard cap and I like the options in the middle and um I like the phase one and and being able to go a little

[178:00] um harder and making sure that we kind of stick to it and move in that direction of putting a face into place instead of kicking this one down and down and down which we tend to do as a city I'm also going to add a few things that um I think we also need to pay attention to and put some air in while we're talking about these things our city and this world is a very different place than where it was 15 20 30 years ago when people bought single-family homes and had all of this space we are in a climate crisis we have transportation issues we have greenhouse gases we have air climate issues that are challenging China and Dubai we are not in the same situation that we were to have the luxury of just sitting on a large lot and acting like just because I bought this 30 years ago and I I bought in a city that somehow what's happening

[179:00] in the larger world is not affecting us it's as if my mother says this in northern Minnesota we don't have to recycle up here because it doesn't affect us well it does and so does this this climate issue in in our town and in our environment and the fact that we keep pushing all of our workers out into the L towns and create 65 000 commuters on the in coming into our town is our issue so density is our issue um we also aren't required to perpetuate an ongoing impacts of institutionalized classism and racism through zoning and Zoning was a part of classism and racism so when we look at upholding those boundaries on certain pieces of property and in certain areas I think we need to talk about why those originally were put into place I know it's an uncomfortable conversation I know people don't like having it but I think it's important to have and our city is no different we

[180:00] talk about wanting to have diversity in our town when all we do is set up a structure that pushes everybody out of town so you can't tell me that you're an environmentalist or that you care about diversity when we continue to perpetuate zoning issues that affect individuals proportionately differently um I like the idea of deed restricting but I also think we need to be really careful about how things are financed so being very aware that how things are financed and making sure that we're also not choking out the process of deed restricting because I think we also have obstructionists that are in our society that say we want affordability as a way of shutting down all housing so I think being very painfully aware of the fact that if we throw affordability on the top of this just so that we decrease the chance of having more housing then that's also an issue but paying attention to the financing side of this

[181:01] I think it's important that we consider pocket hoods and when we talk about sub-community planning I can't remember Miss King's first name but when Kathleen went thank you when she came and talked to us we all know that we're looking at if we looked at sub Community planning that's two years per neighborhood and we're looking what 15 years out on that I don't know about you guys but if you're paying attention to the climate right now and we go around to all those neighbor neighborhoods I'm not sure that we're sitting on another 15 years of good clean air while we're trying to figure out whether or not we kick this can down the down the street um I'm also really questioning when people utilize neighborhood character as a way to mitigate density and because I am a city Walker I tend to do between 10 and 15 miles every other day through our city and I am starting to document neighborhoods by taking pictures of all

[182:00] of them and I I haven't found a neighborhood that's consistently like Martin Acres was one of the last places that all had the same homes but that's not even changed so I mean that's even changed so anybody who's telling me that neighborhood character is something that they're trying to keep I think I question where the motives are that are coming behind that because to me neighborhood character is about our communities and communities are textured and diverse and talking to each other in close knit and that was the town that I came and moved into in this community and that's not happening in all of these areas that people are protecting neighborhood community or character in [Music] um so I am for limiting home sizes both for our climate as well as the fact that I think we need to consider a lot more density and I'll always have that voice on on density for those reasons um yeah I think

[183:01] we just need to be paying attention to the fact that just because some individuals have bought their house in um and have their areas doesn't mean that we shut the doors and um stick fingers in our ears and ignore what's happening both on a state and a national level we're expecting 1.5 more million people in the Front Range between Denver and Fort Collins and um while we're asking the rest of the country to pick up their share of immigrants or anybody else we're required to to um so thank you thank you I don't know are we getting other comments uh anymore oh David yes um I asked David if he would surmise what the planning board did okay well um it would be a little bit hard for me to summarize um exactly what planning board did because like you uh there were a variety of opinions that came out um so I'll try to we went through the options one by one and I'll give you

[184:01] just a quick couple sentences on each one some of the themes that I heard the 3 500 square foot cap a lot of people felt like they weren't sure that was the right number they weren't 100 percent sure about a cap but when they thought about it in terms of being able to use the far to build other dwelling units then it became people became a lot warmer to it so when it interplays with the ability to create more dwelling units it gives you some flexibility in that area so then yes then the 3 500 foot cap seemed a little bit more palatable one thing that did come up from a more than one planning board member and that for disclosure includes myself was to include RL 1 and rl2 at least and another planning board member brought up that rl2 actually has very significant restrictions because of the open square space square footage restriction which actually makes

[185:01] outcomes in rl2 very interesting and hard to take advantage of the fact that duplexes and triplexes are allowed there and they aren't an rl1 so that was really interesting I thought and let's see subdivisions um I don't again I don't know that there was a consensus or anything like that I know that for myself when I I like to think of the subdivision thing is working well when you pick a really good far to try to preserve a lower density neighborhood which I think can be done so if you had a 2300 square foot lot you going to subdivide to three seven thousand foot square foot Lots having a good far that would keep those new uh I would they could be Cottages like is being proposed or perhaps a little bit bigger than Cottages but not over 2000 or something so that could kind of help

[186:00] preserve the rural feel with regards to affordable housing uh it's interesting because yes affordable housing covenants are nice when you have a neighborhood association or a developer who owns and can manage all that it's a heavy lift to ask individual landowners to put covenants on their properties when they're just building an Adu and I would question that for some of the scenarios so a hard and fast rule on that I think is something that some of us at least would be hesitant on because for you know if you think of the retire in place uh scenario think of someone who has a fairly large lot and rather than building a giant giant house for themselves wants to build a modest size one for them and then subdivide and build another one for to sell off to someone else so you end up with two nicely modest sized homes but for that person to put a an affordable Covenant

[187:02] on that second home isn't necessarily the best solution for them uh so that that's something to keep in mind some flexibility on that uh and then um yeah I think I think that there was warmth towards uh you know mixed warmth towards all the scenarios uh at one level or another and I was actually seeing the phasing for the first time uh that you were proposing so that's interesting to see well I think we did include that in the planning board presentation but it's been more developed since that time as we've moved forward to city council and Dave one more question for planning board um and if you guys have questions for planning board as well um originally this conversation came up too I think Marzell was the original first person to start talking about it and there was a lot of conversation around tiny houses in square footage um with livability standards did you guys start to address that all at all in planning board yeah there was uh there was again not I wouldn't say um

[188:00] necessarily a majority but there were more than one planning board members were interested in the possibility of tiny homes as a as a you know trials or or um scenarios that could be accommodating and I believe there's like three or four around city council as well right yeah three or four people in that so I would just put my energy behind that as well is that I I think it's important for permeability on land we're talking about Wildlife up there as well um to consider the tiny house discussion as well and then Andy um sorry there was a lot of course the guys um there was discussion about um the perception that there's going to be huge numbers of people taking advantages of these things so we thought that it would be good to do some of the analysis as to gee how much of this do we expect it to have what what rate of of change do we expect to see which might help alleviate some concerns because uh certainly not everybody in

[189:00] these zones is going to be wanting to take advantage of all these things right away so trying to understand how how that might go we also did talk about the survey and there were similar concerns to what you expressed here it is certainly a wider topic than just the affected zones we have a new version of the comp plan this is probably one of our few opportunities to actually address in zoning some of the things that we have in the comp plan and that comp plan is not just the name the people who live in a particular place it's for the whole community so so I think that that message was talked about but again there were differing opinions about how important or how useful a scientific survey would be thank you does anybody have any questions for Dave thank you for sharing that appreciate it thanks everybody for your feedback I understand that the board also wanted to

[190:00] have a quick update on the community benefit project is that right that's correct um we thought since you were here that since we haven't heard about it for a little while that we would do a quick um update and then before we go into TMP the report in progress a five minute break and then we'll come back and finish out the rest of our agenda so go ahead with Community okay so real quick we've pretty much concluded the the public Outreach phase for a community benefit at this point we do have a a list of a number of community benefits that were discussed by council at their study session last year there are some other code changes that have taken priority over that project so it hasn't been moving as quickly but we did have a discussion with City Council on April 23rd about also looking at a phased approach to that project like this project so Council had asked that we bring forward a phase that would be completed by the end of this summer

[191:00] beginning of the fall and what we're proposing at this point is looking at a permanently affordable housing related to height modifications and getting something in the code before that phases up so that's kind of how we're proceeding we're working with a economist just like on this large Lots project to see what those numbers would look like as far as the actual requirements it might actually be for like commercial projects looking at a a different commercial linkage fee for areas that are above the height limit that would go into the housing fund but we do need to see if that can be part of phase one or whether that would have to actually slip into phase two which would be the broader range of community benefits so that's basically where we are right now thank you and maybe it's to Jeff actually is that something that will be coming back to us or not

[192:02] I I think once we have some code language figured out once we have the results of the economic study that informs our code language it'd probably be worth coming back to you and getting some feedback on it before we move forward thank you thank you Terry you have a question nope okay everybody good all right thank you Carl um so it's 9 13 right now five minutes we'll be back at 9 17. here you you're still in the same lot right you have a smaller house up front and then you've got two adus in the back that will be what rentals yeah okay so

[193:08] if one of them like

[196:29] I did a good job that could win and it lasted for three months welcome back to 917. we are back with um Matters from Council the transportation Master Plan update my name is Randall Rich senior Transportation planner with the city

[197:00] first time I've had the pleasure to be in front of the board but this is really intended to be a briefing we provided the transportation report on progress as background for this and then we'll talk about the issues that we're dealing with in terms of the transportation Master Plan update highlight a few areas that I think you might have more interest in and then have plenty of time for questions so I'm going to try to move through things fairly fast less than 10 minutes on the presentation and then I'm available for questions so with that clearly transportation is not a recent issue this I don't remember when this was actually in the paper but probably 25 if not 30 years ago before the improvements were made on U.S 36 and so one thing we know is that we've been dealing with this for a long time the city got started and the transportation master plan business in 89 that was the first plan and that was really headlined with this thought of let's do a 15 mode

[198:00] shift moving people out of single occupant Vehicles into something else that was really then reconfirmed in the 96th plan and the 96 plan said we want no long-term growth in traffic as kind of the headline of that plan so that's what we've been working on for quite a while when we think of Boulder you know we certainly think of conscious decision making that shaped the community this is one of the big things we think about while that vote for green belts uh funded was the initial funding for open space it also was initial dedicated funding for transportation so that was four tenths of a cent open space for four or six tenths of a cent for transportation and so this has certainly helped to find the community but then other things have helped Define the community as well and so in the transportation World these are some of the things that have come out of that conscious decision making and the policy direction that was Set uh the the open space or the The Greenway system that we

[199:02] have with over 80 underpasses came out of that the Eco pass Transit village now called Boulder Junction was a result of that policy Direction the uh local Community Transit Network that is the Branded buses that you see the photo of there as well as the improvements that happened on U.S 36 so that managed Lane with the flat iron flyer of the brt service as well as the bike path uh really our direct result of the transportation policy of the city we fought for over 20 years to get those kinds of improvements on us-36 so a very significant aspect of what has shaped the community has been some of our transportation policy so if you took a look at the report progress you saw a graphic that looked like this out of the 96 plan we said we had this Target of no long-term increase in vehicle traffic so 2.4 million miles the green area there just shows our

[200:01] estimation what we've done you can see we actually reached that Target got a little bit below it and now we're trending upward the dark blue or the Blue Area there then also just shows the difference of how people in Boulder travel and how we've traveled over the time relative to the region so if we took our starting point increased it at the rate that traffic has grown in the region we'd look like that blue area so again we've had very significant impact on what the community looks like so our last update was 2014 Big Ideas there were really what we called the renewed vision for Transit so that's building out the transit system in a way that would provide better service for the vast majority of the community and then we did a greenhouse gas analysis as part of that and coming out of that greenhouse gas analysis there was a commitment as part of this plan to get better on our on our vehicle miles traveled and mode shift and to reduce that by 20 percent so now instead of the

[201:02] 2.41 we're down at 1.9 or something that is our Target and we'll come back to that so you saw the report on progress we have this sense that we plan do and check so we publish that report on progress every other year and then we do an update about every five years and that's the process that we're in the report in progress was also what we called phase one of the update process so that was our assessment phase so where are we what do we need to go to work on and as part of that we know that we need to increase that rate of change in all the things that we're doing so one of the fundamental findings so this was in that report of progress another version of that VMT graph blown extended out to 2035 which is the the time frame of the existing plan and you can see that where trend is going the wrong way the little blue dashed line and where we need to be going is the orange line with the 1.9 million VMT

[202:02] Target so definitely ambitious goals and things that we need to be working on and then you may have seen and again in the reported progress this is our one page report card because we're in transportation green is good red is bad right so these are the things that uh that we need to make progress on and basically what we what we've seen over time is that Boulder residents have done a good job in mode shift so more walking biking taking Transit but in the time that we've been working on it we've had essentially no impact on Regional travel so when we did our first Boulder Valley employee survey single occupant Vehicle drivers were about 80 percent uh they're about 78 79 throughout the life of the survey which is within the error bar of the survey so essentially we can say that is one of our biggest biggest trouble biggest problems that we need to address we've been doing a lot of Engagement activities using be heard Boulder it's

[203:01] our digital online tool working with the youth going to senior centers we've had a couple of major events you might have attended or seen that we had a kickoff event a year ago March we had a joint open house with CU in the county in March of this year we were at the be heard Boulder event so we're trying to get out there talk to lots of people and and talk about what we're doing and why we need to do it so then we're just going to touch briefly on the Five Focus areas that we have in the plan the report in progress was also organized this way so these are areas that we say that more work needs to be done in so that's why we call them Focus areas and we'll just briefly touch on each of these so safe and complete streets is probably our biggest focused area so that's basically everything you think about when you think about Transportation so what's in the right of way what's uh you know the sidewalks curbs Street all the

[204:00] modes using that street and then we have this idea of a smart street because we've been looking at the new technology coming down down the road and that's part of what illust is Illustrated here so the idea of more data collection and travel information coming off the street and then ultimately having the capabilities to support new technologies like autonomous vehicles which lead which need a lot of communication so safety is also important so the Safe Streets Boulder report will be going to Council next month as part of their Council packet so they'll be out to the community and you can see what we've been doing in terms of trying to improve safety on the system and then we've been hearing a lot from the community for better system maintenance and performance so whether it be snow plowing clearing the streets taking care of medians Etc we've we've heard a lot of desire to improve those things this is just an area that then

[205:03] um I mentioned the uh mentioned the renewed vision for Transit so Transit continues to be one of our big Focus areas and you can see here that one of the reasons is that RTD is actually disinvesting so they're defunding our local transit system as well as the regional system largely to support the rail system we don't benefit from that currently so that's a problem for us so one of the major uh efforts of this update is What's called the service delivery study that's basically how we get more service in a different way that's not from RTD and so that will be one of the major recommendations of the plan and then we've also been working on a pedestrian plan first real update of The Pedestrian plan specifically for about 20 years and as part of the 2014 we did the neighborhood access tool which really looks at what can you get to in a 15-minute walk in

[206:00] terms of utilitarian destinations so think about things like schools Parks restaurants cafes brew pubs you know whatever it is that's important to you that's what that map is meant to illustrate and then as part of this update we did a survey of the community on the be heard Boulder to ask what what's important to you in terms of your daily needs that you would like to walk to in your neighborhood and this is the the map the draft of the map that's coming out of that analysis darker green is better the orange and red is not so good and so then if we just look at what that looks like the things that are really non-walkable as in having virtually no desk the Nations this really shows you sections of the community where if you want to try to walk to things you can't and this is primarily not because the sidewalks aren't there a few cases that's true but generally the destinations aren't there and so the transportation master plan

[207:00] says that long term we have a goal we'd like to have 80 percent of the population be within a walkable neighborhood so you could in fact get that quarter milk or that beer or that cup of coffee walking instead of having to drive Regional travel then is another big Focus here as I said the incommuters we know that they're growing we know that most of them drive so we're really building on some work that was done by RTD called the North Area Mobility study that is looking at getting brt service like we have on U.S 36 on more corridors serving the community there's been a quarter study done on State Highway 7 or Arapahoe all the way out to Brighton looking at those kinds of improvements and there's currently a more detailed study and more significant study going on right now on Highway 119 to the diagonal and if we're lucky things will actually start getting built out there assuming it gets through all the

[208:00] processes and whatnot potentially as early as 2022 at least RTD has some funding for that and we're chasing more funding for that as well um and then what we call Transportation demand management or Mobility access and Mobility so one of the things that was developed out of uh the transit Village work was this idea of shared unbundled managed paid parking what we call our sump principles so we certainly want to expand that we want to expand Eco pass and then we're looking at a lot of the new technologies that I mentioned going back to that smart Street idea and so you know new technologies autonomous vehicles have been promised for a long time that one image there is some 50s version I was just wondering if the other one was supposed to be blacked out yet uh no but but one of the interesting things is that we've actually had autonomous vehicles for a long time if you go to DIA you ride an autonomous

[209:01] vehicle a train they do you know tens of millions of trips a day and those kinds of vehicles so there are things you know currently out in terms of a couple of the autonomous shuttles that you see one is being demoed by RTD down on the Panasonic campus today but we you know so we're trying to be prepared for those but we're really agnostic and we're really asking the question and trying to develop policies of how do these things serve the broader Community needs so it's not that it's new and shiny but does it help us to reach our community goals and our transportation goals and how do we how do we help shape them to do that and let's talk a little bit about funding because funding is one of the big issues of the plan is it is for probably just about everybody so it gives you a sense of how funding has changed over time as with many agencies operations and maintenance is becoming a bigger and bigger part of our budget our finance guy has done some forecasts where basically the ability to do

[210:01] anything disappears in about 2023 given the current rate of growth in terms of operations and maintenance and this gives you a sense of why that is changing so a project in 2012 that was about 10 million dollars because of cost and of Steel and concrete and labor going up is now 14 and a half million dollars so this makes it difficult to build things and this gives you a sense of what we currently spend in some major categories and then the unmet needs being the green there and so we've got unmet needs that have been identified and this was information that went to Council in their funding study session just a few weeks ago about 30 million dollars and so that's what we would really need to take care fully take care of the system that we have today so that's a big challenge we get most of our funding from sales tax revenue about two-thirds as much of

[211:01] the city does we know that that's variable and tends to go down long term and so that's a that's one of the fundamental issues that we're dealing with the plan and I just want to touch sustainability you know this is how we relate to the rest of the city organization so we try to implement the comp plan we're working very closely with the climate commitment folks we're thinking about trying to accelerate that and this is from the uh the the existing plan and what this really shows are the different wedges what you would get out of the federal fuel standards over time so this is the cafe standards we hope that those remain in force of course they're being questioned at the moment the existing TMP with current funding we think would go to about 23 percent of the needed change and then energy source change and Innovation so cleaning the vehicles additional Transportation demand management efforts land use changes other things like new technology

[212:02] go into that larger green wedge the 40 percent so one of the things that we're then looking at as part of the plan is what's the time frame of the plan well if you look at the science the science says that for greenhouse gas you need to be talking about 2030. and so we've had this discussion with the transportation Advisory Board they've said yeah we think 2030 is the right thing to do it makes the hopefully makes the system safer quicker so you save lives over time it'll improve access to jobs if we're able to build those Regional Transit facilities and provide more van pooling that kind of stuff more TDM more electric vehicles would certainly be needed longer time frame gives you more time to do all that but of course it doesn't meet the scientific imperative we think we might be able to do that 2030 in part because a lot of things have changed in the last five years so electric vehicles both for Transit and personally are much more viable electric

[213:01] bikes are now you know broadly available on the market and in some communities are really making a big impact on mode share people like electric bikes we know that young people have different travel preferences don't necessarily want a car and a driver's license at 16. and we know that there's a lot that we can do in terms of TDM that we haven't done yet so we know that things like pricing parking using the sump principles really give us opportunity to move mode share if we're willing to do those things knowing that they have lots of complication and certainly have some political repercussions so just wrapping up then this is where we are we're getting toward the end of our third phase of the plan so this is really putting building blocks together you know we've done the best practices we've done a lot of analysis we've been engaging the community we have a major cat check in with Council as I mentioned in mid-june there that June 18th date

[214:02] taking some big building blocks to them asking for direction and then we will be back to them currently scheduled September 17th for approval of the plan and with that if you want more information we have a website of course and we have a question of the month on uh be heard Boulder that we'll continue to do and with Adam available for questions thank you Randall anybody have any questions random yeah one really short one so um since I've been paying attention it seems like every council member has run on a Citywide Eco pass yet that never seems to become a reality um so I'm wondering what's sort of the Gap since that seems like it would have a helpful long-term effect on a lot of these problems including maintenance of roads and greenhouse gas emissions yes I mean it certainly would so we know from our surveys that if you've got an Eco pass

[215:02] in your pocket you're five to six times more likely to be on the bus on a given day because it removes a lot of the barriers to using the bus and it helps you get into that lifestyle as well we have we have worked on a community-wide Eco pass at least three or four times that I can remember you might remember last well it was over an 18-month period but ending early last year RTD did a regional Pass Program that grew out of a county-led eco-pass effort the year before or at least was that was part of what motivated that um you know there's some good news that came out of that in the sense of a low income pass and a youth pass and some other things of course fares went up for other people and and we still haven't cracked the nut of a community Eco pass that is one thing that potentially uh would be easier if uh if we moved to providing

[216:01] Transit more locally because then we can then we've got control of that essentially Eco passes an RTD program right so the fundamental issue has always been it's their program we beg them to expand it in the past they have thought that they were getting ripped off by the program um actually their analysis is part of that region-wide Pass Program showed that wasn't the case but we don't get credit for that so so it's uh it's something we'll probably have to take on at a community level or potentially a Boulder County level and it could happen as part of providing Transit service in another way got you thank you here um do we know how many people are riding the bus into Boulder from Longmont diagonal and 36 Denver on a daily basis do we know how many people are coming in on bus um roughly we do I don't necessarily have those numbers in my head I think

[217:00] it's about fifteen thousand between US 36 okay and then I don't know the numbers on the diagonal they would be somewhat lower because the surface is not nearly as good but one of the real interesting factoids I do remember from the 119 study that is going on is a third of those people on the diagonal during the commute hour are from outside of Boulder County so they are coming from weld Larimer or North yep and that was an eye-opener for a lot of people so so it just shows I mean it's another aspect of the challenge of the regional commute so you're outside the RTD district and you know your options are limited because of the distance you're traveling it's either going to be some sort of well it's going to be a shared ride right you're either going to drive yourself or it's going to be bus or van pool or carpooling potentially real-time carpooling I mean there's some technology stuff there that potentially

[218:00] helps and then we're thinking about ideas like you know putting more City money behind band pooling potentially trying to provide electric you know van pools to do those sorts of things because again you know it's a long trip you can get a number of bodies in that in that vehicle and you can make a clean vehicle you're doing a lot of good for greenhouse gas great question did you have one Jack um I got a couple the first one is and this is reading the crystal ball but if you can just kind of give me a sense of this the SE new modes that potentially are coming with AV and you said you're a little bit agnostic on it but um what do you see for a timeline if you think that those things are going to become real yeah well I I just read an article I was seeing them back there

[219:00] 10 10 prognosticators responding to uh lifts to Uber's IPO right yeah yeah from a business perspective you know looking at it and it was very interesting because they were about 50 50 right you know some were saying oh yeah they're going to become I mean some of the folks were saying yeah they want to be and they say apparently they want to be the Amazon Transportation right so provide this complete ecosystem and other people saying well they don't have a path to profitability and the only path that they have to profitability is autonomous vehicles because you basically have to remove the cost of the driver so that's the context there's a reason why they've both Hoover and Lyft have invested very heavily in autonomous vehicles but then I think that what you see in most of the discussion is you know we hit the peak of excitement and hype and now we're in What's called the valley of Despair the technology where you realize it's actually really

[220:00] hard and because of that um just a couple weeks ago the CEO of Ford said it's harder than we thought it's going to be a lot longer and we said essentially that's not direct quote so most people would say you're I mean you're seeing them today right they're running in very controlled environments things like campuses where you have designated guideways and you have a fixed route and you can do the detailed mapping so those will happen I mean they're they're there today and those things will I think become more widespread you're seeing it on a highway settings so you know the Tesla can do that generally pretty well people are demoing in fact there's a demo going on right now for the Postal Service of long-haul Trucking and again it's a relatively simple environment right you expect to

[221:00] be speeding along at 70 miles an hour and you don't expect a lot of pedestrians and bikes and other things to pop up in front of you so that's coming and there's I mean there's already some commercial application there and then the long-winded answer but the autonomous vehicle widely available at a reasonable cost most people would say 20 to 25 years yeah one more which was um and this relates to Alpine Balsam oh sorry haven't been directly involved but I'll give you yeah I was going to preface it by saying I don't know if you're aware of it but I'm curious about the I think there's been some Transportation Planning done around some of the scenarios at Alpine Balsam and I'm just wondering if you know anything or you can give us any kind of feedback on what that's looking like as far as Transportation impact with those scenarios because you guys did study what was occurring there and what is expected

[222:00] correct yeah we did and you know I I saw some of that stuff a while back so I'm not sure I can give you impact um but I can maybe give you some context so there's also an effort to look at city-wide parking code and requirements there and utilization there and what we see is that if I remember right overall utilization in commercial zones is something like 65 percent the last survey in the downtown area utilization I I believe on the public side was in the 75 78 percent private side was down in the 60 percent um so what I hear from our analysis bottom line is that we're we're very much over parked in our requirements and we as a community still have parking minimums most of our peer cities got rid of those 10 or 20 years ago so it's not point of

[223:00] Pride frankly and it's a hard thing but it is a hard thing so we're not as Progressive as we think we are is what we're saying well it's it's an area that uh that when you have when you go to a conference and you say yeah we still have parking minimum [Laughter] so so I and and then we've done surveys um you know the one point the one place in the community where we don't have parking minimums and we in fact have no parking requirements and parking maximums is in what the area called covered by the boulder Transit Village area plan now called Boulder Junction and what we see out there is that there's not even full utilization of the parking so one parking space per unit no minimum parking for commercial you know it goes back to those to the some principles shared unbundled managed paid and if you do that you get all you know you get turnover in the parking space

[224:01] you get a lot more Effectiveness efficiency out of that space and in the case of Transit Village um you are because there's the TDM District in the parking District I mean when you sign a lease out there you sign a lease for your apartment and you sign a lease for as many parking spaces as you think you need so you make that so you have the opportunity to make the economic decision it's not buried in your lease and maybe today you need to maybe tomorrow you need one maybe after that you need zero you don't get penalized for making those choices it's the one place in town where you don't get penalized for being car free in my opinion so so when I said there are things we could do I mean that's an example of the kinds of TDM things that we could actually do that we know have effect that we know help people make wise economic choices because they make those choices explicit

[225:01] thank you anybody else Judy yeah I have a few questions first of all thank you because it was a really good presentation and it was understandable oh goodness but we tried thank you I just want to mention about what Jacques said about self-driving Vehicles did you happen to see the article that was on the front page of the paper on May 16th about it was called expert offers alternate opinions for France it was yeah and and I I'm not good at understanding this especially but wasn't his main point that um sure they'll probably will be self-driving vehicles but probably every person will want one and so it's not going to help the situation well so so I've I've I was not at that presentation I've seen other presentations and I've read articles by him very interesting guy um he said that that is a possibility and so that's why the policy Direction um you know we think is really important

[226:00] and and when it and if you were to look at the whole presentation um he made a big point that if we want to solve our transportation woes and we want to solve our greenhouse gas issues the way we do that is what he called pooled travel you could call it shared travel you could call it you know but whether whether it's again carpooling vanpooling bus you need to fill the seats of the vehicles that are out there and you need to make the vehicles electric yeah I mean that's that's the fundamental premise of his book yeah and that was his final that was the final quote and the article says more pooling plus choice is a key to a sustainable future I'll give this to Jacques because you were interested in that I have a just a couple questions I was interested when you were talking about the service delivery study is that one that you're doing yourself or that somebody outside is doing or um so it's been a consulting firm that we've been working with TDM uh no TMD I have to

[227:00] TMD out of San Diego which is a Transit planning firm that RTD has worked with we've worked with and so they basically have reviewed so they review they did a detailed review repricing of The Rev of the renewed vision for Transit so the work that was done in 2014 and then they did a look at various kinds of funding and service models around the country and I think there were I think there were nine plus a couple of A and B's in the original list and we're down to four that are being looked at now in more detail as ways to to fund and deliver additional Transit service then pull all the way out which is an excellent idea it's and and 119 is there any option of looking for future plans to look at 52 because that's a you know 52 coming in you know from the day yes

[228:00] to Weld County you know that's 52 is a state highway and I know CDOT is thinking a lot about it I don't know if they have plans to do a study but it is a a very busy road it's really simple yeah then I just want to say a couple things I I just think there's a lot of melding between housing and transportation and maybe a couple other things and it would be fabulous if our board could work some with the transportation board for common common issues um and yeah and the other the only other thing I want to say is when you're talking about um pooling being really helpful and bus and the problems with RTD and maybe going more towards planning for Boulder to do more of the bus type of Transportation have you ever thought of a pilot project of using smaller Vans to go up and down

[229:02] neighborhoods and then connect with great services like the skip yes yeah so that's generally called microtransit um and yeah we've actually been talking to some of those folks for probably close to two years now just happens that one of the main providers of that called Chariot went out of business earlier this year and so they were providing of service both down in Cherry Creek and at du campus um you know there are still other companies out there that do that uh but I I think to be honest you have to say it's not a proven model um because it runs you know if you're running through a land use pattern that's not supportive of Transit they basically have the same issues that uh that a regular Transit Agency has they try to address that through the you know the smartphone and the real-time

[230:01] dispatch and flexible routing but I mean Chariot was bought by Ford for 65 million dollars and they closed it in less than two years wow that tells you something I I mean you know maybe maybe there was some fundamental mismanagement or something else there but uh or Fort didn't want it to work well I mean if if you believe what the head of Ford says he says that their future is to be a Mobility company providing services not selling big trucks yeah but we'll see yeah thank you anybody else thank you Randall appreciate it thank you thank you okay next one unfinished business electing chair and vice chair so everybody got the um in our packet the officer election procedures and did everybody read it over does anybody need to recap Terry recap

[231:01] um so what your chair's responsibilities are in conducting the board's meeting in an orderly and Democratic manner assuring the minority opinion may be expressed in the majority is allowed to rule the chair shall preside over all meetings of the board decide All Points of orders or issues of procedures unless otherwise directed by a majority of Quorum present signal minutes resolutions and other documents on behalf of the board coordinate with the division of housing staff liaison on agenda items subject subject to the advice order or ratification of the board discharge such other duties that may be required of The Chair by the city council City staff pursuant to the city Charter applicable ordinance um so I will go about this process is the first step is we'll do chair and then Vice chair am I right uh Jeff any and then with the chair we'll ask for informal indications of anybody's interest

[232:01] um and I suppose we could just do that by you know a show of hands of who's interested in chairs in the chair and then make formal nominations with self-nominations allowed requiring a second so say I was interested in it and I made a self-nomination somebody would have to second me to actually be into consideration so um and then once uh you've been seconded for this um another person like if I nominated Judy and somebody seconded it but Judy really doesn't want to run she can pull herself out of it um and then then we'll have a discussion so each one of the individuals that are interested in it would talk about why they think they'd be best maybe a little mud wrestling later to really just seal the deal on it and then we see who wins and then we go home okay so informal indications of interest for the chair anyone

[233:02] Adam hey second or is that too early yeah yeah too early jump in the gun Judy okay is there anybody else interested in here now do I get to second you get that first well I I think it's um I think what we can also do is um uh yeah second it and then Adam can tell us why and then you'd be a good chair and then I guess we could vote on it because it still has to be four so somebody may not be interested and I guess that's possible too so um and then we also ask questions so yes Judy I second it okay so tell us your little stump speech Adam sure um first of all I appreciate the consideration in general um so my strong points I would say are

[234:01] I'm incredibly dedicated to this board and that it runs well and that all opinions are heard um I think I've shown that even when I disagree with someone I'm definitely willing to hear their opinion and I'm open to criticism pretty fairly um so that that's sort of uh you know the just the gist of it but um more than anything I think I've shown by showing up at every single meeting since this board has been established I've never missed one that this is the second highest priority in my life after my job so that's sort of my level of dedication and I would hope that you know that's that's a an important point to all of you um and again if there would ever be any feedback on how to make things better I realized that the timeliness of our meetings is a is a big issue and I'd hope to help

[235:00] improve upon that sort of thing too but I also want to make sure that we have really good engagement periods like we had tonight so I think that it's important to balance those aspects and we'll open up connections but um what I'd also like to see is if you're going to bring better sodas into the soda machine and if we're going to have candy in the lounge all of your wildest dreams full will come true does anybody have any questions for Adam okay I do which you already know my question which is we know you're running for city council and um I'm just as dedicated to this board as you like you are and I have my one major concern about this is it's taken a lot to try and stabilize this board we've gone through a lot in our last year and there's a culture we're starting to create and if you run and become elected that means another

[236:01] short chair um so I'm just interested your thoughts on that sure so my thoughts on that are there's absolutely no certainty yet would be elected uh as we know there's probably going to be a lot of people running and I'm just one person on that long list so um but if I were to win I think that's four months that you would have an interim chair and I think this board is more than capable of doing that especially with the selection of the proper Vice chair and that's in that sense um and I don't underestimate this board's ability to make wise decisions so um I appreciate your your interest in that uh situation but yeah I really don't see it as a a major problem when the

[237:00] been pretty pretty helpful uh no if he won he'd be off the board he gets to pick the next oh got it I see what you're saying I'm like wait what like no he doesn't the council does but clearly you'd be on the council so does that mean you've definitely decided to run are you still not sure it's a strong maybe okay I can't really declare briefly if it's a strong maybe but if you do run and your chair then I can't vote for you for me I just wouldn't prefer for counsel I just want you to recognize that the tension that you set for us anybody else okay we'll move to uh I guess it's just a vote right all in favor of Adam being our next chair it's unanimous

[238:00] [Music] thank you everyone I will serve to the best of my abilities make us proud okay Vice chair so anybody with indications of wanting to run for vice chair I'm not especially interested but if nobody wants to I'm the one person who's retired and I'm dedicated love the board just we're just indicating we're not stump speeching it possibly if other people don't I think I would okay yeah unless you convince me otherwise then I would step out oh anybody else yeah okay Jack do you wanna either one of you want to say what you would want to be a vice chair do we want to do nominations official I'm not nominated yeah you self-nominate are we supposed to make well I slept on but I have to get psyched oh second yep that's right so are you allowed to nominate yes so he just went throughout himself and went through himself

[239:00] I did that to Mason she didn't pick up like Terry I'll second jocks yep uh self-nomination um thank you and Judy did you want to withdraw or did you want to withdraw okay um so now go into your system speech my stump speech I um I think that by next year I may have enough bandwidth to actually think about sharing which I would be interested in and so I'd like to at least put in some time as Vice chair I also actually look forward to working with Adam to manage the duties of the of the board so um I think it'll be fun to work with them and I think we'll make a good team that's all I got to say anybody have questions for your job Yes actually isn't really a question I just feel that Jacques is really good at

[240:02] building consensus and um I think it would be a he'd be a great addition Jacques is a Libra and we'll talk our heads off all night long trying to create consensus okay so all in favor of Jacques for vice chair unanimous [Music] Okay so we've got three things left on new business which is um the discussion of the mid-year letter Community assignments and agenda settings so I think we could knock this out relatively fast um instead of kicking it down the and you've added earlier in Alpine Balsam updates yeah no I have it written right here it's all right here so I I'm going to be quick question of the mid-year letter was bringing it back into process we had said that if we wanted to do a mid-year

[241:00] letter that actually right now is when we need to decide start to decide on that conversation and do a framework and um Jeff included a proposal on the letter so like the format of it so I guess I would just do a straw poll first of who's even interested in touching a mid-year letter right now anybody anybody I'm just kidding just the instigator um so since we're not seeing a strong interest in it are we okay to just pass by on this one and consider it next year um Judy had her hand up first yeah I'd just like to make a comment about it I actually am happy about this I don't think we should pursue a letter right now I think a lot of people on Council are getting ready to rerun for Council they're trying like crazy to finish their work plan but what I would like to do is US consider devoting a little bit of time maybe 15 minutes at each meeting so when we get to the fall we start

[242:00] thinking of things we would like them to bring up because that new console in January will be doing their Retreat and work plan and it'll be a brand new work plan they'll be finishing up what they have worked on and starting new and I think that's the perfect time for us to give them some of our ideas and so I I think we should start working on that either by a little ad hoc committee or whatever great you'll be the start of that committee and animal work with you to format okay I was just going to say the only thing that I might want to include would have been the synopsis of what we did tonight with the listening session but because I think that's an important piece of a thing that we accomplished that's pretty cool um but I think that can very well hold off until well wouldn't you wouldn't your report be something that you could just send them in include yeah I mean if you're going to give it to us as the board and the report of just wrapping up on this and feedback I think it I think it'd be okay to send it I didn't want to speak for anyone and that can be at the end of the year too yeah well why don't we see what it looks like and then since your chair

[243:01] you can bring it up again all right so do I need to put it in a motion that we're just tabling it or since nobody seconded or did anything we're just gonna um yeah okay great uh committee assignments so for Terry and Juliet so you know in the very beginning when we first started the board there were several things that we kind of divided up on and expressed interest on uh who wanted to participate in a couple of committees that we had created so um and there was some mix around but then when Leonard left and then um Michael's it kind of it looks like just you and I are doing everything um but I I just let me finish a sentence Alpine Balsam um was Jack and I and what we it started out as a strong prop project and we were participating in a couple things and the goal with the committee is you participate in your um your area based on what staff or city council has on their work plan and then

[244:01] you bring it back to the board and update everybody as to what's going on and any questions or anything that is coming along so I'll probably belsim um Jacques has a mini update that he wanted to add to the agenda Community benefit you heard from Carl earlier that it's just kind of been on hold so there hasn't been any update we don't necessarily put it on the agenda unless there's something to update unless there's something to update then it hits it but you know that we're kind of the point person Regional Housing strategy we just got done with that and increased it so I don't know if there's any work coming down the pipe on it but that's Jack and I again we're on it sub Community planning was myself and then Judy sent out the message um reminding us that she did want to be on that board as well and then um these project Liaisons are different than the special committees and a standing committee so a standing committee is something that'll always be

[245:01] with the board but the project Liaisons once the Project's done the committee's done um and so that's why we had more down there and I can't remember what the special committee was was that just a project that we were working on like the affordable housing experience that was a special committee that's right and it was formed for one pro one idea or something along those lines but what we had talked about in the last couple of meetings is that um we had all appointed ourselves kind of and and expressed interest on who wanted to be on these and now that all the officers were reselecting is that we wanted to give you guys an opportunity as well to participate in these if anything struck your fancy um and you wanted to be on these teams it also gave us the opportunity to shake up public engagement if somebody wanted to really participate in that and we change around now that Adam's chair too it might make sense that somebody else is on the engagement piece of it or um whatever so we wanted to put that out

[246:00] there and Jeff do you want to add anything on that um I think you had a desire to make appointments as a board tonight for certainly the committee I was less clear on whether you want to propose any changes to the project Liaisons and yes I apologize for not including Judy um that was oversight on my part that's right um I also it just said committee assignments and I also am interested in there being a committee on board liaison so many other boards have it and are going around to other board meetings and I just think it's I think it's also in our in our ordinance that part of what we'd like to do would be to consult and coordinate with City housing committees and with other City boards and commissions to development so I um correct me if I'm wrong you've brought this up a couple of

[247:00] times and I think we all said sure go ahead do it do we not like you look go ahead and if you want to go go tell them happy to do that that's okay but it's the new composition of the board and I'd like to have somebody else be on it too and I think you asked that again too and didn't you offer to be on that board with her I don't believe so yeah well we can form it and if I did I retract that so we have to vote to form it first sure right um so let's start at the top public engagement is there anybody who has yes I just have a comment because well it's really more of a a question about these project Liaisons to me it's the responsibility of the entire board this entire board to be informed on all of these things we all live in different neighborhoods we have different networks and communities and we have different ways of approaching these issues and these are all work plan items on Council

[248:01] that it's our responsibility to address so I would suggest why do we need um these project Liaisons at all and and instead why can't we all delve deep more deeply and be prepared to discuss these things from our own standpoint so why do they exist yeah Jeff go ahead so um the Genesis of this role was the desire for certain projects to have often multiple boards represented in some kind of a grouping like Alpine Balsam has five boards and there was a request to assign board members to be part of that effort so that they wouldn't have 25 35 people in an event or a workshop or something like that so that was really where this came from it was more you know as these projects move forward we're trying to involve the boards in different ways it was not

[249:01] meant in any way to say to that only those board members should develop the knowledge and expertise so I think it's a practicality of finding a way to engage with the boards differently more than a desire to have people specialize right so it's a point person staff in these larger projects versus our entire board going to it but when when these projects have gotten far enough along they come to us but it was a streamlined way of just being more effective on smaller meetings so for example the community outreach that was done on May 13th with someone someone wouldn't be intentional about who is intentionally assigned to large homes and lots for example would be expected to attend that is that what this project liaison does I'm not I'm unclear exactly on what the project liaison does so what you meant by 25 people on a board right at a minimum I think the expectation is that the person would participate in the

[250:00] staff organized events for boards and commissions I think it's up to you to define the other expectations but that's what the staff request was um if if you wanted to ask those people to also you know be sure there was a presence at the open houses or other events or or go-to Council to represent the position of the board when that item went to council that would be something you could establish awesome as an example the plant Gene from planning wanted to have somebody from every board so what he meant by the 25 instead of having all five of us go from RAB from tab from here to the meeting they asked for one or two point person from each one yeah so then we asked each other who wants to go who has time who you know and that's how we divided up the tasks so that not one

[251:01] person or the whole board went to everything I was concerned about that at first because I thought what if um the two people who were there their opinions didn't represent mine and they were speaking for Hab and we had that whole discussion and everybody makes clear that when they give input it's it's there they're not speaking in one voice for the whole board they're just giving some input so that that um right yeah and more than yeah I mean and we're collecting data to bring back to our board and update but even situation yet where somebody from the board went to speak for the board like I think we've all been yeah um you don't go and speak for the border for the group I think we what we had agreed to was that if that situation ever came up we

[252:00] would make sure that everybody voted and agreed to it but that that's not the case yes Dave yeah um the planning board has had that situation come up and usually we try to send the chair to city council if uh if there's going to be some reason that this planning board is going to going to address and yeah then they do um in general uh agree to speak on behalf of the board in that case but otherwise we as individuals are certainly allowed to go and and explain that we're there as individuals yeah so Julia you can go to any one of the meetings and say you're on the have board but I'm here personal capacity but if you're invited by staff as have you're there to collect information bring it back and make sense okay yep thank you um so we could start at the top so the public engagement is the only one that's standing and right now um Adam and Judy are on it and you just saw the work that went into that and what you guys weren't privy to but you kind of saw the end result was in our

[253:01] Retreat meeting where they had put the framework of something a new process into play that we were all trying to work on so there's a lot of new fun things that are coming up in the engagement committee Judy are you trying to stay on it or do you um if two people want to be on it I'm happy to spend some time telling them all about it um it it requires quite a bit of time and but if other people don't want it I'm definitely happy to stay so either way I'm good so I'm open to being on it um Terry Juliet do either of you want to be on it okay um I don't think you and I are the best communicators just being honest about it so I don't think the two of us should be paired on it um I appreciate all the work that you've done in this but I just don't think that I think it would just be a struggle so I'm choosing that to have struggles in my life right now

[254:01] um so if you want to continue on it that's fantastic um and then I guess we'll just be down to one or Adam USA on it I'll stay on it okay and do you think you can fully do that and work and run for city council and and what happens so the part I didn't disclose the decision I'm down to three days a week in terms of a job so I think it will have the the time okay and if Judy needs to pull more of the weight I think she is willing fantastic okay so stay with Adam and Judy um project Liaisons Alpine Balsam I'm enjoying staying on that one so I'd like to say anybody else I'd like to stay on and it doesn't have to just be two so if anybody else wants to participate you can for the project Liaisons I think the request was two two one or two per board

[255:00] so we'll stay Community benefit I'm not attached if anybody else wants to participate interesting okay anybody else I'll stay so that'll be Juliet and Jacques on community benefit Regional Housing strategy I don't mind staying on that could I ask a question yes is that is that a relevant committee for us at liaison fresh to have right now since it's pretty much done or what do you think well there's ongoing efforts um you'll be getting an update it's currently scheduled for August so I would suggest that at that time you determine if there's going to be a request of you and maybe appoint people at that time and I'll make sure that the staff let the staff know that that's a question you have for them and they can give it some thought before they're with you

[256:00] yeah and I'm willing to stand until then or just whatever be a point person on it too um sub Community planning I am fine staying on Judy you honestly you haven't even gotten to participate yet but I don't really know that is there anything coming down the pike or I am unaware of that although we do have a again in the packet you'll see on the work plan scheduled for your July meeting so potentially the same approach would have you know I'll let Kathleen know and you can if as that's evolved if there's no longer a desire to have board members in that role then I guess that one drops off okay um so I guess it'll just stay uh me and Judy Judy and I and then um we have to take a vote on forming aboard liaison that would

[257:02] attend all of the other board's meetings correct no but we would uh the motion forward we would motion I'm not motion okay I make a motion that we form aboard liaison committee that is for which we will provide a purpose statement to the board as we've already decided in the past to vote on what the purpose is and then everyone can see that and the purpose will not be to go to Every meeting but to select meetings that are most closely related to housing for boards and commissions most related housing and to try and talk all of you into taking a piece that's what they do pretty much in other committees have you know somebody go to the transportation board meetings when well that's why I didn't want to make a motion right away yes please do this

[258:01] in our Retreat and um I I wish I'd known that this was going to come up tonight uh in our Retreat we had last year we had two informal Liaisons to other boards and what we found was that um when you do have a defined ex-officio role or a an actual formal liaison role there's a reason for that and it's pretty well thought out what we found was that the the people who stepped up to be Liaisons to other boards were doing it out of sort of a personal interest and various incendiary reasons but we didn't get much bang for the buck out of it and we actually made the decision not to do it anymore that we were all encouraged to interact with other boards as much as we want to but that actually we would make uh kind of intentional relationships with other boards based on requests from staff requests from city council and things like that so I wanted to disclose that because um you may want to take that into consideration and I'm not saying it should be a show stopper for you but it

[259:00] did we did decide that uh in fact those those there are actually with planning board there's actually some structural things uh the other boards are not actually allowed to weigh in on Title IX type stuff so we have to be very uh careful about any ex-officio on any development projects too so that's a angle that you really don't have but that kind of also made it a little difficult for us to do these informal things thank you so we're a little bit out of structure right now because um for us to adhere to Robert's Rules you would have put a motion forward and then somebody would have second it and then we would have discussed yes so that's why you were being encouraged to put a motion forward before we discussed it so I'll revise my motion I make a motion that we form a committee of me and anyone else who wants to be on it to explore the viability of a board liaison committee how's that and then we can check out talk to other people like does anybody want a second that's a special committee right yeah

[260:01] just a 10 yeah I'll second and discussion all in favor of a special committee we want to call it board of liaisins yeah I mean I want to speak to it then okay okay um so I do think this really is in our city ordinance to do this I mean it specifically says um to consult and coordinate with City housing committees and with other City boards and commissions to develop and support cities housing efforts so I think we ought to at least investigate it it's one of the things one of the seven or eight points in our ordinance so I just think that's something we ought to do Adam the only thing I'll say to that is I think tonight is a good sort of Middle Ground where we asked for transportation Advisory Board update and we can approach it from that direction instead of putting all that weight on a

[261:00] specific person and again I think if you do want to go to other places and request to put something on the agenda okay update us I think that's a good way to go about it okay then then I will just withdraw the motion there doesn't seem to be enough interest in it okay and before you withdraw it does anybody else want to talk about it we're just gone okay all right let's move on agending setting um so then just to finalize that there is no board liaison okay um and that completes our committee assignments Jeff do you have anything else okay uh agenda setting process decision do you want to talk about that sure so as I um shared in when I put this out there was a um there's been any sort of informal mishmash of ways that things get fed for consideration to to put on the agenda and when we were discussing the slew of things at the

[262:00] last meeting we thought it would be worth the board considering adopting something that's a common agreement about how you'll go about it so some of the pathways have been an email an informal email to me or a conversation that other people have had that ends up making it to the to the the um to the agenda committee which is the the chair and the vice chair supported in coordination with me is Staff liaison so we thought we'd propose something and see what people thought about it we want to make sure that anyone who who wants to have an issue considered has a way to get it on the table that's consistent that gets due consideration and to in this process of writing it also address the fact that if you suggest someone doesn't make it on you know through this process what's the alternative so that's what led to this proposal it's a draft it's it's something that hopefully would serve you as a group better and if not

[263:01] then there's um it's not the kind of thing that you think will do that then there's certainly no need to adopt it and we're sure that we didn't adopt um placing the motions and having people suss out there so there was not a vote on that um I believe you did agree to a variety of things one of which was to send items to the chair or vice chair but I'm continuing to continue to get requests so I thought it writing it down all in one play you did it in multiple ways different times so I thought maybe collecting it all would make some sense got it and I think that's the discussion we had was try and combine all those ideas which hopefully I've captured here okay and I've added some things that I thought made sense so I don't so did everybody review it in their packets adopt the hab agenda request process as

[264:02] written uh Juliet has seconded it any discussion well can you scroll down a little bit more yeah you didn't read it no I did read it but I don't remember everything you're kind of aging and now you're old um the only piece about this if I may is that I have um is there a or what would the process beer is there a process for you getting an agenda item from a board member and yes you get that agenda item and for feedback in other words you going back

[265:01] to that member do we need to formalize anything in that you just say oh I have you have questions for more data more information in other words the kind of threshold of of what you need in there a little bit I mean this is good I think it's great and I appreciate that you put that together because I think it's worthwhile um but that would be the only piece I'm wondering if there's any need for that or any reason to do that otherwise I'm fine with taking it as it is Jeff if I'm understanding let me check my understanding that your observation is is how is my how is my ability as a board member to provide feedback on the I think what he's saying is if I'm not clear when I submit my um no what I'm saying is if if I don't want this to be like the city's uh permit application process which is you submit all your information that supposedly was requested but a question comes up and then you are kicked out for that full cycle because it's a waste of our time as a board terrifying question two

[266:01] clarifying questions I think that that could be written in or assumed that the that one of the officers would follow up if that's the case if I don't have questions yeah just to clarify yeah which is why we originally had it put in motion so that that the writer of it sat and made themselves very clear on to what their point is so that um by the time it hit the agenda committee we weren't trying to figure out or right and that's you know I think that's another that's great um you know even when some of us Duty it's not and I have a question too I I'm not seeing maybe I missed it a time frame so it's possible that if all of Hab doesn't know when you're having your agenda meeting and they send something in too late to be in the packet or too late for you to consider at the meeting shouldn't there be some sort of notification to everyone when the agenda

[267:00] committee meets I think that makes sense I mean we were trying to say hey doesn't matter when you can anytime you can request it and the idea The Hope was that if you can hit you know these one A B and C items that should hopefully be clear enough especially if there's a motion attached that there doesn't have to be a lot of back and forth we built in this idea that trying to with an overabundance of caution about serial email meetings just that's why it's chair or vice chair if anyone had a question or had concerns about putting in an agenda they had the opportunity to share that so that could inform the agenda committee another way and part of the agenda process is knowing that on Wednesday when Wednesday it goes out Corey the week before correct okay so the agenda has to go the packet has to go and be posted the Wednesday before our meeting and typically we've met Monday um so Monday the Monday before the Wednesday but not always so I think it's easy yes that's what I'm saying it's

[268:01] like once we schedule it with the officers I can put a note notice out that says this time yeah yes that'd be great to have a deadline practice because it does move around and do we need that in the agenda process or does that we'll add it okay yeah to any other additions or subtractions all right so uh my motion will still stand then which is to accept the hab request process with the amendment of adding the agenda planning date to it notice of the agenda can be exceeding yes thank you second all in favor unanimous and now um Jacques is going to give two sentences to the Alpine and we're going home yes super quick um that was a lie we still have to work our work plan sorry am I going to make this Sim

[269:01] quicker then um I just wanted to some of you may or may not be aware that there's been a lot of kind of volatility with alpine Balsam and what's happening with that process in Council wanted to look at some options about essentially changing the city's engagement with alpine Balsam and at the end of the day it sounds like that what they're going to do is they're going to stick with the area plan process and they are planning to continue with the deconstruction of the facility and maintain their engagement and beyond that it becomes a little bit more vague about exactly what's going to happen but it's still it's still alive it's not just going to get sold off any questions that was it Jeff this is actually a matter from staff but it's directly related the Alpine Balsam because the project is continuing you at your last engagement

[270:00] with Gene had talked about the possibility of Hosting some public engagement they are really excited about that and asked me to check in with you about a couple of dates and availability for the that kind of event and contributions you would want to make um the idea that they have is that it would be one of a series of open houses in this case um hosted in part by the housing Advisory Board um if you chose to do that or just with special participation by housing Advisory board members the dates that they are looking at are either the Monday the 17th of June or Wednesday the 19th of June for either a late afternoon or early evening event at rayback 19th or what 17th or 19th the event would be up to a couple of hours there would be it would be a drop-in

[271:01] event so it wouldn't be gathering for a presentation there would be boards and stations to talk that people could explore the issues and provide feedback on the initial idea would be that as housing Advisory board members you would be able to engage with the participants to to explore their their thoughts and and get their feedback on the ideas for the area plan this is not a site planning exercise I think as Jacques was mentioning the it's less clear how the site planning will go in the future this is more about the broader area what the what kinds of changes if any should be considered some of those changes would involve changing what the residential capacity is or more the possibility for more or or not housing in the area so there's a direct housing Link in the area plan if that's a concept that's of interest to you then I suggest that you find a date that works for those who

[272:01] want to be there if possible acknowledging that it's the start of summer so is um Gene open to tweaking the [Music] I don't know that there'll be any dots on boards but it's possible it would be a follow-up that we could certainly engage with she could provide a more thorough outline of what they intend and ask your feedback yeah because there's a there's a couple of ideas that might be kind of fun in that Judy I have a question too Jeff is this vegan visioned as something that if we had an opinion different than Gene's opinion we were free to voice it there or are we supposed to follow along are we supposed to be cheerleaders for the city's plan because neither is the case I mean there isn't a city plan at this point this is a process to develop an area plan I think that's a good decision that you

[273:03] would have among yourselves to make is the intent to be recipients engage with people to listen to hear to incorporate what feedback and what community participation is like that would be a clear role that would probably not lend itself to sharing your personal opinions with folks or exploring ideas possibly but not trying to sway opinion I would say if you wanted board members to go and as individuals in the community of an interest in housing to express to engage in the process that would be a slightly different role and certainly if you wanted individuals who are there to represent the position of housing Advisory Board you'd need to agree on that and um given the hour and the proximity of the open houses that seems unlikely to me and there may be other roles you could play that I don't haven't thought of yeah so so I'd be interested in um I don't need to share my opinions on it but I'm also not interested in putting for I mean I'd be interested in

[274:01] just listening and hearing what people say and documenting it and it would you know that kind of Engagement with the public would inform however you decide to make a recommendation which is coming as you can see on the work plan um shortly thereafter the phone week so yeah it's a great opportunity to get some of the public engagement goals that you have put in place for this project agreed I think that was your desire that's as we understood it yep yeah just a quick recipe um so the work sorry it's getting too casual uh the work plan item on June 26th then is our crafting of a recommendation at that point um on the area plan components that's how I understand it okay as it's going to council June 4th thank you July

[275:02] June 4th for for their uh they're getting an update on the area plan but then there's like there's a I think it was August date if I remember right yeah that's probably the next study session on Alpine Balsam that will provide guidance to the project so this is before that [Music] oh I'm hearing consensus that we'd like to participate in that do you need to hear from us a date yes um so let's do a straw poll first who's all interested in attending something like this and partnering great unanimous um and who would be interested in Monday I can do Monday and who would be interested in Wednesday a museum either I'm easy on either too

[276:01] so I can go either way so Juliet do you wanna let us know which ones seems like we have more of a majority on the 19th than we do on the 17th Monday is just the first day of my new job so you have a new job yeah congratulations thank you so I think it's the seventh the 19th is what we're landing on is Wednesday feeling good to everybody yeah and do you have a preference the earliest it could start would be four and ready back's open kind of late so yeah um there will be you know the standard kind of Outreach press release social media and that you know next door Etc and we're thinking a three-hour block two-hour block two two our blocks yeah 90 minutes probably is okay too so what I would my inclination is yeah is to go later because families kids getting off work if we're trying to hit people who are getting off work that that would be like to me six to eight

[277:00] yeah okay agreed are you saying they're gonna have it open the whole time or they're gonna pick a time they want your input on what time works best for you and you think America's best for the community so Juliet opinion I mean is it trying well six to eight is in the middle of the dinner hour for a lot of people that that have families and I know there's food trucks it's nice yeah I mean it could be it could be yeah I mean it could be good for for way back too in terms of generating some some business and that would attract people to maybe more people to show up if they could get dinner I don't know it's always a hard it's always a hard call with the time yeah go ahead well I was just going to say I think that that six to eight I mean it's always a hard time but I do think that raybacks is a great venue for that

[278:01] window in time because it you know I take my family there all the time for stuff and it's so it's plus it came up if it's a drop in format you can come earlier or yeah come late or you know so also Juneteenth so yeah so I would I think we're kind of in between that that six and eight time it is okay okay um fantastic and then um obviously the next chair and vice chair will start to prep everybody for what's needed for the recommendation the format and the conversation around the Alpine Balsam um I guess the only thing that we have left is just an agenda check right so the reason why we're also doing the agenda check is has everybody looked forward through the summer and looked at dates are we expecting anybody to be gone on any of our meeting dates I'm gone on June 26th June 26th on I I've let Corey know that okay and uh and and it's uh just for Quorum so to make sure that we don't have a bunch of people I don't want some on time

[279:03] but I will but our divide in in you know information or points of information in advance to everyone anybody else have any conflicts for the summer um I'll be gone on the July 24th and I did not let Corey know that I just want you to know that I moved a bunch of executive committee meetings for my non-profit to accommodate these so oh thank you looking forward to it and then Jeff do you have any um we did put the work plan in just because I know there are questions about work what was coming and when and how much so this is where it currently stands I don't have any real questions about it if you have feedback provide them to provide it to Adam or Jacques for the next agenda committee meeting do you have it rolling into August by any chance at this point we have an

[280:01] update on the Regional Housing Partnership it's possible but unlikely I would say that the entitlement process in chaffa discussion would would be kicked off at that point Community benefit as you heard tonight is a big question mark at this point well August at this point is um you know it's not known beyond that advised process for sending things to the agenda can you just send that page out again to everyone tomorrow or the next day or something yeah usually we try and schedule the agenda committee meeting before we leave so I'll set that with that notice as well great thank you um okay so we're done with is there anything else from you Jeff fantastic so just a debrief anybody have anything from this meeting

[281:03] I just want to say Welcome to our two new members our first all right I'm too busy um but I the other piece I want to say was I really appreciated the engagement piece we did today yeah I think that was great I heard from several people that uh it was a really great meeting and they felt really comfortable in that setting I need a TV tray for my beverages next time but other than that it was really good anybody else running anything thank you for all your hard work that went into that I know it was a frustrating process and um you know sometimes when we give birth it does it's it's hard and this was a birthing process well I have friends where it was really easy the process and you guys did a great job so thank you

[282:01] and this is my last year thank you very much thank you thanks Mason yes so a motion to adjourn seconded all in favor and remember to turn your mic Live from Paris foreign