October 23, 2019 — Housing Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

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

[0:01] [Music] to order the October 23rd meeting of the bolder housing advisory board and we'll start with a roll call let's start down on this end auntie Judy knock Jacques sure you like Juliet Boone Mason Moyer and we'll hopper eight a new agenda review any additions yes yes this is the time if you needed I wanted to add something to the agenda that I think should be really brief perhaps and I sent it out to all of you I hope you all got it that the Community Foundation has their trends report out and they're willing to

[1:00] come talk to us and present for half our presentation up to 15 minutes of questions if we want and the focus this year they found out were housing challenges and so it would give us a good overview of what's going on with the city with a special focus on housing in this city and county and I just think it'd be tremendously helpful for framing our conversations so I would like us to invite them either next month the month after the month after that okay I added that under manners from the board so we can just have a brief discussion under new business ok going to approval of the minutes anyone like to make a motion sure so moved that we accept the minutes and okay seconded any discussion about last month's minutes all right it's

[2:00] called for the vote here those in favor aye unanimous and move down a public participation we have no one signed up so we will close public participation and we are on to matters from the board do we have any committee reports I didn't see any submitted and I'm on the only standing committee so I don't know that I would consider I know I wouldn't consider it a committee report but it it does deal with our regional housing is doing a event up at Cu campus all day on Friday called squeezed out and it's got a pretty heavy hitting lineup of speakers so if you go to see you squeezed out and you'll see the lineup if you're interested in attending anything at the regional housing

[3:00] advisory board plus see you know sorry I shouldn't have said board the regional housing group within our housing department will see you put it together perfect thank you anything else no okay and we'll go into the meat of the conversation for the evening I'm the annual letter to council so did everyone get Judy's draft letter and review it can we pull that up j-just so we have something a reference while we're talking kind of Miss Jeff's profile picture yeah we're gonna to get you in G

[4:08] okay so just to set the stage here the annual letter to council last time we made it a little long so we're trying to make it a little bit more brief this time two ish pages maximum and what we're trying to do is tell them what we did this past year and what we want to do going forward next year so there was discussion about having another letter halfway through the year just in case we had anything big coming up but let's plan on this being the only one just in case it is the only one and we'll work from there so Judy do you want to talk through this a little bit sorry I want to get something on paper to start up the discussion so I put some things up there that I thought might be interesting

[5:00] however Juliet called me today and she had been reading it and thinking about it and had a few other ideas and if she presents her ideas in the same way that she did on the phone I like them better than mine and so that's where I'm at now I'm happy to have some of those be the points or to go to Juliet's I thought were really good thanks Judy I hope I can remember so thank you so in thinking about this annual letter to council and thinking about the the life of a council person the life of a council person is very intense most council members have a job that they go to all day at the end of the day they

[6:01] come here and they have undoubtedly spent countless hours reading thousands of pages of packet materials to prepare for their meetings and then they arrive here and spend another five six seven sometimes hours deliberating thinking listening and they're pushed into making decisions sometimes very late into the night and I would submit to you that after a 16-hour day no one's got laser-focused decision-making capability which is why we don't allow pilots to fly that long we don't want truck drivers to be driving that long why should we be asking our City Council to be making decisions that are critical to our city that that late into the night so in thinking of the broader context my first recommendation would be to think how do we help be a little more laser focused in our recommendations to counsel and help them reduce the number of work plan items that they have so they're not doing 17 things but they're trying to do

[7:00] four really great things and be super effective one of the goals that came out of or what are the I guess it was a goal that came out of this year was that the city was going to focus on achieving the 15 percent affordable housing goal and moving the needle from where we are at seven and a half percent so with that a goal in mind I think we might take that and look at that as a lens for how we work through our plan this year for the next 12 months and saying everything we look at we want to look through that lens of achieving that affordable housing goal of 15 percent and I know it's a target year late into the future but making strides towards that goal and then to get a little bit more specific around that but my notes here is to is to be able to look at that goal in a way that we can really measure it in and and track progress towards the goal so one

[8:00] of the ways that we can better measure is for example with respect to housing is to understand for for example our 60,000 in commuters what is the housing requirement that these 60,000 in commuters have what is the housing type preference what is the socio-economic diversity that we want in this city in terms of income and other demographics and and to sort of ask the council to help and we can help with this put together an objective of what we want the goal to look like what do we want the mix of citizens to look like once we understand that and and we can talk to our end commuters and we can talk to our existing population about what their housing needs are and how do we achieve that mix and we can lay out a plan or how are we going to get to that mix of housing and incorporate that into the the affordable housing goal so I'd like to be a little bit more focused on collecting information and data that we

[9:00] can make decisions on and instead of saying why don't we try this pilot or why don't we try that pilot we don't know if that pilot is going to be effective the other thing is I think about the poor staff supporting this council and this board is that if they've got 17 things they've got to work on and they're running all over the place trying to gather data and trying to summarize it and and deliver it in a way that's understandable and I think that if we can help the staff focus a little bit more we can get better data it's more useful make better decisions and be able to focus on very targeted goals that move the needle going forward so that was my thought and and I really appreciate that Judy took the time to think about things that we could propose and so I called her because I wanted her to know that I was going to share this tonight and I didn't want her to be offended that or blindsided by my my comments or to not value her work thank you so in addition to everything that

[10:01] Julie had said which was exactly what we talked about we also added discussed a little specificity about that and that there obviously is some data out there about in commuters but there could be much more for example if all the in commuters would only move here if they moved into single affordable housing and couldn't afford it then we don't then that should inform our decisions on whatever way we go if they are happy to have townhouses or apartments that should inform our decision so I also think it's key how that data is collected and the questions we ask there been a lot of public concern about how that data is collected what questions are asked so part of what what the specificity that I'm interested in is whatever data is collected that there's somebody from the public chiming in on how that data

[11:03] is collected and to whom the information is sought I also wanted another type of data collection I'm very interested in a really good city and county wide salary study with AMI attached because when people say they want teachers and first responders and city staff to be able to live in Boulder which I believe there's pretty wide agreement on we don't really know anymore what that means financially and if it's even viable right now without all of that being permanently affordable so I just want to see a really good data study of that again with ami attached so we know where it works and then after we do after we do the data collection that we then start having really good public engagement to discuss what kind of housing here are the facts what kind of housing do we as

[12:01] a community really want and have a more robust public engagement process on that okay so just to remind everyone this sounds like an ask of council since they're the only ones who can allow staff to work on projects so we can't ask to have to go collect this data like we can't do that so is that sort of what the intent is here is make that ask of City Council just to make sure what we recommend in order to for us to be more effective in my belief is that we gather more information about the housing demands that we have and we marry that we try to understand what what do we what do we want the city to look like from a demographic mix do we want to have a third a third a third low income middle income and high income do we want to have some other mix and we need to first understand what we want the mix to look like and then what the desired housing preferences are for the

[13:02] people that are in commuting and the people that already live here that are having trouble affording to live here and that would help us having that data and information would help us be a more effective in terms of achieving our goal so yes we need to ask them to get more data all right so there's a lot of questions in this I think one asking have asking staff what it is you actually already are collecting on this and if you know the information that she's talking about and to to be very clear we're asking then in our letter that goes to City Council for the work plan you're saying the housing Advisory Board is requesting city staff do more data collection is that what I'm hearing you say what I'm requesting is that we

[14:00] what our recommendation is is that we frame our work plan around more more grounded information about housing preferences and what the city wants the outcome to be for a housing distribute for our housing distribution and I would like to play a part our board to play a part in opposing those questions and gathering that date not gathering the data but getting very specific about the type of data that we're looking for so instead of just say I don't know what the request is for I don't get what the exact request is yeah this again sounds as though it's what we're going to be doing the letter I believe is suggestions to put to Council for items in other words I feel like I mean I guess I feel a couple of things one is I feel like a lot of his data is there it's already existent

[15:00] I'm just looking right now at the 2014 BBC studied in commuter salaries wages so I believe a lot of the is there I think we as a board could and I don't know that this requires an ask of council in any way but we could say let's put these things together in a cogent form because I think they are scattered about we can look at how they were collected and the like but I think a lot of that data is there so I know to me it's feeling like that's more of an ask of ourselves and I don't know if that is necessary to go to the letter go in the letter to council unless I'm not getting it well I I thought part of the point of the letter was to say this is what we would like to work on next year and we would like you to include factor this into your work planner we'd like to have this factored into your work plan because it's something that we believe is important I thought we're recommending on what our work plan items be based on what we suggested council because they will trickle down to us but

[16:02] I'm a new remember so I don't really know how this works so I guess on that point I saw it slightly differently I thought that what we could be doing is request the council direct staff to gather more data on this information and as I understand the information on in commuters it didn't include some questions that would really help inform that it didn't include if you could move to Boulder what type of house you want because really if everyone I meet just anecdotally when I met people we each had someone that we talked to recently that said they don't want to move to Boulder under any circumstances because they want to live in a single-family house that they live in in Louisville or Lafayette or whatever and they know they could never afford to buy a house in Boulder so they have no intentions of moving here and I think we need to find out if you could move to Boulder questions like that I don't think it drilled down and as far as salary I've tried really hard and I've asked City Council members to help me find the

[17:00] salary studies and I have not been able to find them and if they exist they must be pretty old because I've been trying for a year and a half so even if we did a study like this even if we requested it of City Council we're talking at least probably two years worth of data collecting like we're it's not even gonna be available to us and this next year what questions are we missing so I mean City Council several years ago hire a group to analyze housing and the in commuter and all that stuff I remember coming to many meetings and hearing the presentation and very very short summary was we're really good at expensive homes and we're really good at inclusionary zoning you know whatever it is MI but were bad at the middle right that was the one sentence summary of thousands of pieces of information that we're gathered right that report exists somewhere right yes so that's the middle income housing strategy so that was an outcome of the housing Boulder effort so

[18:03] just a little more context in terms of data collection it's the city there is a high level of data collection that's done for the city of Boulder at the city of Boulder it's something where our elected officials expect that we collect this data it might be helpful just to review that with the board at some point so housing choice survey I think it's a great example we hired BBC consulting to basically do what you're describing all right survey the in commuters the people who live in Boulder what would they like if they could live in Boulder if they wanted to live in Boulder what would they like you know I think the bed you're right a lot of people said no I don't want to live in Boulder I'd rather have a single-family home just outside of Boulder and commute in other people said I'd love to live in Boulder but I need more than a small condo I need something zoom out outdoor open space something more than just for dogs potentially you

[19:01] know a play area for kids I don't think those attitudes have changed a whole lot in terms of the question about you know what is the income distribution in Boulder and how has that changed so the middle income housing strategy looked at okay over time we have been doing very well at retaining sort of the lower income households and the upper income households it's really that middle so the middle is being replaced by higher income households and we're not losing families necessarily but we are definitely losing the income stratification so there's a lot of information out there and it might be helpful for the group to review that and as well and I'll talk about this later the Regional Housing Partnership has done a great job of collecting information on a countywide level and then drills down specifically to the cities and you know looks at okay what

[20:00] is the income of different occupations what do they need in terms of living here so anyway that's just a quick overview we could delve into it a little deeper if you wanted to but there has been a lot that's I just wanted emphasize there's been a lot that's been collected do you have a salary study then I mean it's not a salary study of every single worker in Boulder I mean we will have the American Community Survey next year that will give us very detailed information my concern is Judy did you check with chamber I have just checked with the city and with City Council members I think the chamber has how we always say we want the teachers and the first responders and city staff and all that to live here and then we come up with when I just try and study that on my own by looking at Boulder Valley School District contracts and this and that and I see what the prices are of market rate housing and then I see what the salaries are of people in those incomes is way more than 30 percent of their

[21:01] income so if we really want those people we have to focus on housing that those people want for for those professions and I'm not sure we're there yet I don't feel that we're there yet so if you think we are I'd love to see that info that's that statement right there is the crux of our entire housing issue that we have in the city is that the people that we want to live here often don't make enough to afford to be able to live here and so what we do is we restrict housing prices and III think it's me speaking individually that a lot of people who could afford the restricted housing prices I live in a restricted appreciation home they would rather live in the perimeter areas peripheral areas and have their home appreciate and have a little more room and on and on for me for me them the dad is there right whoa the dad is

[22:01] there it's out there the question is what do we do about it and and I think sometimes the answers are just that's a bad thing nobody thinks that's good but to truly solve that in any major way we would need to create what three people per house 20,000 houses I mean you know that's just not gonna happen you know under no way that that's gonna happen and what kind of houses in what size and what those people want and I mean there's so many variables that go into all this information that we're trying to gather and answer these questions and then we have the information and then what do we do about it okay we change all the zoning laws to allow I mean you know I think that's just such a big thing maybe it would be better to focus on something that we can influence and can control a little bit better have some impact versus talking

[23:00] theory Jay did you have something just a little bit more context I'll be brief so you know over the years as the city has adopted various housing goals you know there has been a sort of desire to segment that out and say okay well our goal is 15% how much do we want of you know very low versus low versus moderate and you know I think there's been a recognition that's a lot of what we do in terms of providing affordable housing in the city is very opportunistic so as opportunities arise we want to take advantage of those if we have a partner who's willing to put forward a significant amount of money on a specific site and they see a specific need we want to be able to encourage that so no so we've intentionally stayed away from having specific targets but things do come up so like the middle-income housing strategy shine the spotlight on the for middle-income housing permanent

[24:00] supportive housing how do we transition people from homelessness into homes so those two are sort of the two most recent priorities at the city in terms of housing and then we've been able to try to focus our resources towards those I don't I don't know if that helps but that's just a little bit more in the context yes and I appreciate that because I think that's really part of the thing here I mean we started off with that whole notion of trying to setting a nice firm goal 15% and how do we get there once we started delving into this conversation we're presupposing a lot of things that yes we want teachers we want first responders in lieu of who I mean where's the priority so I don't know where the priorities are maybe that's one of the things we can ask is where do you want us to focus prioritize a lot of what I've heard here outside of that larger subset really becomes something that either educational sessions where maybe something that staff can you know figure out a way to follow us the information that I know they have and that they you

[25:01] know have pretty meticulously and stuff and I've worked with BBC it's not as I do a really good job but following outside information and having these listening sessions to say okay if you're an in commuter alright we want to have a listening session rather than have you know the last one where it was like this broader question that you know kind of say if you're an in commuter we want to hear from you what kind of housing in Boulder are you looking for realizing that you know there's there's a certain limitation of what we could do as a post if you live outside of Boulder right so starting to have those listen listening sessions where we get some some direct public input or conversation on those things because you know the bottom line too is that when we talk about data well data and we're talking about these things are really surveys which are talking to particular people and everybody's gonna feel a little bit differently so for every person who says I want a single-family house so my dogs can run around the yard and fence not get remember there's people who say I'd love to live in the condo in the city and and I think the point that Jay made

[26:00] which is that you know a housing particularly a community like this has to be opportunistic which means you know we have our our goals or we have our priorities which hopefully you know that's one of the we can approach counsel within terms of you know point us in the right direction but then when something comes up whatever it is we really need to take that opportunity whatever it may be when that when that opportunity arises because it comes and goes so hasten so I'm curious how you want to roll with this are we going to throw our ideas out or all over the place here so honestly we haven't had this process except for the last time we did this was almost a completely different group of people's I really like looking through the lens of the 15 percent permanently affordable housing goal almost all of us voted for that almost all of us think that's one of the highest priorities of the city so I really do like that idea

[27:02] of looking through that lens and trying to focus what we're doing on that the second thing I think is really important is our engagement that we have done with the community I see our board as sort of the way that people normally don't get to say to people about housing so I really like those two parts especially and I hope we can focus on those yes so again my question is how are you gonna structure this are we just rolling out all our ideas or however yeah let's just go down the list I think that's gonna be the only way that everyone gets heard for a little bit and then we can sort of try to find a commonality in that okay so let's do you want to add anything before we okay Mason do you wanna stir one Judy I really appreciated what you put together and thank you for condensing it to two pages I think I saw

[28:01] where you were going to it the same thing and it was interesting because bringing up the data and this different lens Adam and I attended the bhp meeting due to a couple of people requesting that they were having some issues through bhp and I'm pretty sure most of us at some point or another is hearing from like one boulder Junction came and what we're what I'm I'm seeing is that there's no there's no place I mean we have renters mediation but we have no place for people to go to to be heard and that's the word I'm looking for not with their complaints with their like what we were talking about I mean they can go to bhp but like like when I got my space taken away from me at Ponderosa my my only remedy was to come to the housing board that evicted me with my

[29:00] complaint so there's no Oversight Committee so I'm curious what an oversight piece or element with us would look like where we could hear people's concerns and questions so that was something that I was thinking about especially after bhp was that maybe it's a separate set of eyes maybe there's a committee that we just listened if people bring us those thoughts concerns and and and are requesting oversight that it's something that we listen to instead of when we very first formed people would just come and we really didn't know how to take the information or what to do with it next so again the request is some form of an oversight committee where maybe a couple of us around it or something like that I also agree with you Adam the listening sessions I think are our mojo so outside of what the city is telling us their working plan their working plan is for us and focusing us I think getting really clear and what you're saying what I'm hearing from you Danny is that if we're taking that lens

[30:01] and we say that an issue is coming down the pike like we see the council's agenda we can set up you know maybe for listening sessions through the through the year or maybe there's a half hour listening session we get so good at these that they become a half hour listening session with every meeting or something like that and we can say to people is like this discussion is coming up on Council so the month before we're gonna do a least listening session and see if there's anything we could get together and our recommendation for what we're hearing from the people that goes to Council so those are my two recommendations is that we get focused and fine arted on our listening sessions and that we consider putting together a committee for oversight for the people there just so I understand what we're trying to do here is add to what we want to put in the letter for Council is that what we're talking about so yeah we're trying to determine essentially what our agenda is outside of their agenda so we're not talking about Judy what the letter to council is

[31:02] we are talking about what the letter to council is suggestions do next year I think Judy's outline is great I liked a lot of it I would emphasize personally on the first two items which is tiny homes and large lots I think those two go together I think I think putting more tiny homes on these bigger Lots solves a lot of problems so I would like to emphasize those two things out of what Judy put up there but I would think what you did is great thank you anything else to add I think it's too many things and we need to narrow it down and we don't know that any of these are proven without more information so I that's my comment again I really do like the looking through the lens I think it's councils job to sort of put the projects on the plate that are going to get us to the 15% prime affordable housing goals so our part in that is continuing what we have been doing and weighing in on those projects considering the facts

[32:01] that you know what we say to those projects may determine how much those percentages end up being and how much they ultimately add to the permanently affordable housing goal I also really like the thought of adding an oversight committee and that can be a separate committee the full board doesn't have to be involved it can just be a couple people who listen to concerns on a consistent basis and I like the fine tuning of the listening sessions again I think that's been our biggest value add as a board because council doesn't have time to focus on a lot of the details and a lot of things that fall through and while they hear a lot of resident concerns you know if they if people that the housing board was here for specifically their housing issues and that we could learn and reach out to specific groups to hear things that you know council will never hear because they don't have that time to reach out I

[33:01] think that's our biggest value add so those are also my two biggest focuses and I don't think that adds too much to our plan beyond what council was already wanting us to do first it was great to have something to focus in around and get me thinking I guess my thoughts were first just to kind of respond to Judy's list because I had comments on each one of those things and number one simple and basically agree with that one which was just am I not close enough okay kind of the congratulating Council for progress so far

[34:00] number two was the 2a was pilot project for tiny homes I like that I would like to see us consider a broader scope of a pilot project in other words there are other opportunities besides tiny homes that may come up that offer a significant community benefit and if there's some way to get the city process let's say short tracked our fast-tracked for projects that are of a small scope and are showing significant community benefit in affordable housing then I think that could be something that would be really worthwhile there are ideas you know we're testing them out on Alpine balsam on a huge scale when what we could be doing is saying oh here's one one block or half of a

[35:02] let's see how this concept works so I like the idea of a pilot project but I think that the scope ideally if we looked at it could be more broad than just tiny homes so I'd like to see it not limited to just tiny homes and be more of a pilot program the large lots discussion I don't know if that's something that we you know again as Juliet's point I'm not getting too many things on the plate and too many to spread out I think with something we definitely should go back to as a city but again that's a more broad discussion that has to do with zoning in general and I don't know that you know it's gonna be an independent variable so to speak expanding sub Community Planning Judy my concern was just that I don't know how staff would possibly manage

[36:00] that load you know was my only thought about it it's like I agree and again it comes back to maybe a broader citywide zoning assessment so working with the state I had a question actually and I think Jay you may have we may have talked to this a little bit at the agenda meeting but the city already has some form of organization around the legislative agenda for the state right but the city's saying okay here the things that we're looking at is that correct yeah but just a little bit more I mean there is a desire to have have take a more active role in advocating for a housing agenda at the legislature and that's something that we would talk about in probably February having a housing Colorado executive director come and talk about their agenda for housing

[37:03] for the upcoming legislative session and how AB can help advocate that we can educate okay cuz I do think that that's a super important item as far as affordable housing is concerned right now on the state level so yeah if there's some way that we could get engaged with that I think that's a worthy one too to say can we have that on our work plan or how do we do that engagement what would that look like what's that well yeah out of some degree I suppose if we express from our side and interest in it it's valuable preserving the existing housing stock I don't know how that one works I feel like it's a really sticky one as far as first right to refusal on purchasing properties and then the last one

[38:02] supports for renters I guess the question would be just to flesh that out and what is that talking about maybe something more along the lines of a Mason saying with with this listening council though I did have a question about that like it does that become a quasi-judicial thing or are we creating an expectation with it or just how we'd form it but I think it's an interesting idea along that line my pieces that I would put on here I think kind of fall into some of those but one that's somewhat separate is I would really like to see an assessment and a review and this has to do with middle income housing of how the current city ordinances and regulations as a whole impact our ability to maintain middle-income housing and I think that there's a big

[39:02] hit that we're taking on middle-income families because of our processes within the city I just want to ask one thing there that's not something for that we would be doing that's just an ass council I think we could so the role that I would see yeah well the role for half that I would see in that is along the lines of listening sessions okay and then along the lines of actually doing the research to say we're looking at these aspects for instance when the city says you got to have 1.75 kilowatts to meet your energy requirements well that's an ROI that never gets returned it's you know it's so expensive to put 1.75 kilowatts to find other ways to offset or do other things that don't impact the cost because when you take a middle-income family and you had $20,000 to the cost of their tiny remodel it's game over

[40:01] then I've talked to three clients in the last three years at least who've said we're moving we're out of here so this is something that's in the culture of the city and I think it would be really valuable to look into might be difficult but it's something that I think would be valuable to help people stay here so that's kind of one a my plate the other one is the more broad question of zoning and I think somebody said well you know kind of taking these smaller bites affordable housing is a huge issue we know it so I don't see how the small bites are gonna get us there and so if we're gonna do something as a board I think we need to take big bites and we need to stop saying well let's tweak this here we have a 15% I think we need to try to go beyond that and this one isn't necessarily an ask but I think it's just something to consider as we're looking at this and if we can come up with something to say how are we addressing zoning should we be looking

[41:01] at single-family zoning and saying this is inappropriate anymore from historic purposes for future purposes it doesn't serve us as a city so I'd like to look into those things I'd like to suggest the City Council that they start looking into those things seriously the other piece is kind of comes along the line of duties first right of refusal and that one is simply identifying property as much as we have done over the years with open space we've had a very robust program to go out and say ding-ding-ding-ding-ding these are all properties they're privately owned they may be available at some point we need to be forward-thinking and looking at them and I don't know J you may have an answer for how well that's been done so far with with housing properties I would

[42:03] say Boulder housing partners is extremely active in identifying properties to purchase they're constantly looking at what's on the market what's coming up in the market a lot of times they're approached by property owners in Boulder who are interested and offering that the problem is they often can't compete with you know cash offers from other buyers but you know it's definitely something that is on their radar and we say definitely encourages that there's lots of efforts to identify sort of properties owned by the city and the county you know public land that would be appropriate for affordable housing it's challenging I mean there's a reason why those properties haven't been developed over time either they're in a floodplain or they just have a lot of issues associated with them yeah but that's something that we constantly look at age so that's yeah that was kind of a question on my part so it sounds like

[43:00] PHP has that that list okay that's it so yeah those are those are my things I would also like to add to that particular point that I've called Laura Laura Scheinman miss ed her name before and she is like so on that and I told her of a property that I knew that was going to become available and she called me right back and she said they're doing it off market they won't let us enter into it and I mean she is like all over that particular piece so that's good so I went to I just wanted to reiterate the purpose of this led and having read all the letters that boards send each year to City Council there's really two parts when telling them what we're doing and what we're going to want to do in the next year and then the second part of what we're asking them to put on their work plan

[44:00] and I'm not sure we have to worry about you know I remember crystal telling us at a meeting that every year City Council gives four or five things probably not more than four or five things I think she said that that they would like council to put in their work plan and it's taken several years for some of them to get on the council's work plan but they just keep trying with things that they think are important so council will certainly make the decision on what they want to put on their work plan or not I think for the first part of the letter when we say what we're doing mentioning that we want to continue the listening sessions and certainly having one as several of you have talked about regulations and stuff before and we certainly should do one on that as well as other topics and I really like Mason's idea of having Oversight Committee the one thing we'd have to talk through is not only do we want people to be heard but then is

[45:01] there something that board can tangibly do after that to help the person a little bit because being heard is one thing but and that vents their frustration somewhat but can we actually then do we want to try and connect them to the right city staff person or whatever I just think that's something to talk about but I think both of those things are good for what we're doing for what we're asking is a completely different subject and they will they will pick it's like when you go into a buffet and we're the ones setting the table for the buffet and they're the ones picking what they want to select to eat so I think if we have four or five things I don't think that's gonna be too many and I just wanted to speak to the four or five I have as long as I had them there I like the idea of a pilot project for tiny homes or other new ideas on a small scale you know changing it the way you suggested revisiting the large lot discussion the

[46:00] only reason I put that on there is the large lot discussion came from neighbors requesting that there not be so many McMansion scrapes and somehow that subject seems to transmogrify into should there be more should there be more aid to use or triplexes or whatever on those large lots but the issue of scrapes never got addressed and I felt there was a neighborhood that's not my neighborhood but I thought there was some dissatisfaction about that but if it gets voted down it gets voted down the reason why I'm interested in sub Community Planning is although it definitely would take more staff time I think it would ease their life and pull them off of other projects that are consuming so much staff time community time and council time because the same issues keep coming up over and over and over again and I think it's fair to say to each sub community you have to do your part for permanently affordable housing either you have to demonstrate

[47:00] that your neighborhood already has 15% affordable housing in your neighborhood or you have to come up with ideas for it that works for you and I think you settle that that whole discussion in a much more coherent way and take the pressure off all these continual fights over and over and over so that's why I like sub community planning and the tax incentive thing definitely there is a there is a committee that works on that but I I think if we put our recommendation that we think that's really important perhaps that'll give them extra incentive and preserving existing housing stock again that's something that I think the city is trying to do but if we again emphasize that that's really important and then the support for renters I just think that 50% of residents in the city are renters approximately and we should we should mention some considerations for them what's all well I really like the

[48:06] structure of the letter and I like the content of the letter and so I kind of really like this approach within that I like the notion of having some reference there that were you know we're looking through the lens of the 15% like we've talked about is kind of the premise of everything that we talked about thereafter I think delicious listening sessions a really important part of this letter a really important part of what we can do because I think we can be a really effective conduit for you know maybe some unruly public input at times but be able to kind of follow that into the board because like you said I've counseled because like you said they you know when they're on their 16th hour you know it's nice to have have that already disseminated forum so I really think that's an important thing and I think the whole notion of letting them know that we really want to try to focus on those this year and we think it can be an effective thing we want to collaborate with the council and

[49:00] conducting those listens listening sessions so that like if there is a big issue that they're going to be considering basing like you said that we can kind of get a jump on that forum going through the the list that we have here I think the list is really good I like the idea of expanding the notion of a pilot project but I think that can be very effective and I'm very supportive of that the the large lots it just it seems to me from kind of the outside looking in being new again that it is kind of a sticky subject and I don't know if the town the council is gonna want to hear from us that you know will reopen that you know can of worms and so I'm not really sure about that one of them a little more look more about that one I'm I'm sorry a little cynical to the whole notion of the sub community planning because I think what happens with that is it becomes an incredible almost on staff to try to do all that slow community planning and when push comes to shove it still becomes layers and layers of essentially master plan

[50:00] and you're still looking at things from the you know the overall global level even no matter what you have dialed down to the sub community and so I think that's a very big work task to ask or to present there and so I'm a little reluctant on that one the state one I think I agree that you know maybe to expand that a little and say what can we do to help be an advocate at the state level to work with you know cnl or whatever other lobbyists or advocates that we have that we're already coordinating with so that we can give them direct input and we can play a more active role there so not just tax incentives but everything else and the thing that I point out I'd like to see some sort of mention here and you know of all the meetings that have been - we've had some comments that the majority of them from people who live and mobile home communities which is a very touchy subject but that woman came and spoke from Cu law last time around and that was regarding an issue of the

[51:00] state that was a matter of pretty grave concern and I think that's a great example of that is housing right now and there are people who have made their lives there and I think it's incumbent upon us to be able to relay those things and say that's part of what we want to do and that's part of what we'd like to see maybe some direct reference to that particular point or at least to saying how can we do that to be an advocate I think is really important preserve an existing housing stock seems really really daunting to me I'm not sure how to do that one so well I'm that that's the other one that I'm kind of reluctant on the list here everything else I'm really in supportive I think the whole notion of having some sort of Clearing House there's some sort of process for renters is absolutely something that we can be doing and the point you made the excellent point in here that we're talking about half of the populace and and that it's really something that we need to focus on here so in terms of all that those those are the my feelings on that you know in

[52:02] terms of what I throw into the area that you know I think this whole notion we've talked about it pretty much every meeting since I've been here in the whole notion that there is some ability to either expedite a process or have something that's a little less discretionary of process if somebody's coming in and trying to provide the type of housing that we're looking for and maybe the solution session I don't know what it is I don't know how we want to articulate it but I really do think it's that and it's the middle-income families that really do feel the squeeze of that because all those incremental costs of the process and the timing of the process really come to bear with them you know if you're building a high end project you can go through it you can roll through it because you know what's waiting there on the other end so I really think that if we're talking about how we're gonna facilitate these things that's something that we need to tackle sooner rather than later the last

[53:00] thing that I have is just from from my own thoughts and impressions in here you know we're talking a lot about the end commuters and stuff so I just use the school district as an example is what can we do to collaborate with employers to say what's worked together as a municipality and as those employers whether they be another institution like the school district or whether they be a large employer to try to work on that housing issue for in commuters and for your employees so for instance I mean for example a school district I think it's absolutely appropriate it's it's legally defensible for a school district to focus on utilizing general fund monies or what other other you know plenty of other type of revenues capital fund to try to say you know we want to try to figure out what we can do to help augment the housing opportunities for our staff and so that's the one thing that I'm throwing there there is an addition how do we collaborate with

[54:01] different institutions and different employers to help solve this problem because that's really going to be something where any help we can get and that's something where you know let them take the burden on to because those people are coming in and providing that service to the employer and that can be one way that the employer even provides compensation that's my only thought I love the letter I like the structure I say the 15% as an overarching thing and then looks good and I think we could do that in two pages more or less depending on what file we use okay on the table I think we just have to do straw holes in order to see where the few areas of greatest interest across the board are keep in mind everyone can still email or talk to council members on their own behalf about what their personal suggestions are to the council work plan next year but we're trying to make

[55:00] decisions as a full board about what we can focus on and what we can actually accomplish and what we think it's most important for council to accomplish so yes so I think that's a great idea can we divide it into two parts where the first part is what we want to say about what we're doing so we can add in Mason's idea yep there's a lot of one stuff for us and then stuff that we would ask about here so like the Oversight Committee that's a thing for us like and I think we definitely need to flush that one out a little bit more but we could mention in the letter is one of the possibilities of what we might do next year because we think that's a really important thing to have renters so yes let's try to go through first the things that are for council that we're gonna suggest to them that they put on their work plan and we're gonna have to go through the list so can you start at the top again yes

[56:14] yeah even that might be too many because right remember we got our language in the last letter wasn't clear about what we were offering so yeah I guess I have a before question the overarching focus on 15% that Juliet had first mentioned how about if we decide on that first because if we all agree on that that can be the very first part of it that will frame everything else yes my idea here was we frame it with the 15% and then these are the things that we think counsel should focus on to help us get there does that sound about right okay first of all then let's just do a

[57:03] straw poll putting that the sort of the headline is we're trying to help reach the 15% goal I can't see Jack's arm but yes let's do oh you're down I'd like to know why yeah just because I still approach this that 15% is nowhere near our need absolutely contemplated saying that maybe our overarching lyn is 15% or more right and I think counsels already haven't said that yeah so I would just want to form it in some way and I agree that the concept I actually agree with the saying okay look we've decided on 15% let's fill you know that's but still to recognize that that does not meet our need totally fine I'm putting a plus after that 15 okay so no no with the

[58:08] plus okay closing the door okay well we still have five so I'm sorry okay moving on to individual items for counsel to help us reach that 15 percent goal and we'll start with Judy's letter and the first thing on there I see the previous work plan obviously that's gonna continue to happen pilot project for tiny homes yeah people's interests in that one may I make a comment yes so after reading your letter - just so that we have a minor update and you're aware of the fact that Holly Rogan was

[59:00] talking about the fact that liens in December passed tiny homes is a to use but literally nobody applied for the plan so they have opened it up for the entire city for tiny homes because they were gonna start with just 12 and kind of like our ATU things is that nobody's knocking down the door to run and put them up it's the same thing there so they've just expanded their pilot program to include the entire city so I like the idea of what you're talking about talk about maybe it's more than just this tiny house pilot to me it seems like it would be an easy goal as well if we said the tiny house is because I think if we collect the information that Lyons has coupled with some of our ATU numbers that are probably coming through now we might be able to form a request by our mid June July letter so I have this down as two separate items just so you know like any on certain tiny house project and then a

[60:03] streamlining a prototyping project yes just so everyone knows so that one is coming separately so so we're not comfortable just saying tiny home or other creative small project you wanted as two separate things okay and I also want to mention besides liens longmont is in the price of doing one tiny homes for veterans and they're quite far along with it and they have a lot of information yep cool so just tiny homes right now Adam yes if I'm if I might you may so tiny homes has been on a councils work plan for many many years I think part of the problem that this is just my personal observation it's not very well defined everybody has a very different conception of what a tiny home is so

[61:00] like is it a house on wheels is it on fixed foundation you know what what exactly are we trying to achieve who are we serving is it for transitional housing for homeless is it high-end design so someone can rent it on Airbnb in their backyard are we going to allow people to basically permanently park their their RV in their yard so I mean just being super clear about what it is the intent behind the tiny homes I think would help and I think what we're talking about when we do this as well is as an advisory board and taking off of one of the things of the hundred things that City Council would have is that that's the stuff we would dive into the question of what does that look like like we could go right away and look at liens what how did they define it however other communities to find it what do we see the biggest need of it's always of course the social cause going through with the vets or homeless is

[62:00] going to make it more palatable to some then simply going you know like Lions was able to move it forward due to the flooding but you know those are the questions I think we as a group start to talk about and see if we can form a consensus for a recommendation and the first step is getting it on councils work plan yep I'm not sure I wanted to find it any more narrowly than tiny homes because I don't want it to go oh if they only would have said tiny homes for veterans instead of tiny homes for homeless we would have done it for sure it's like to me that's council can look into that I just want to say that we have an interest in trying out a pilot project for tiny homes and and and they they can work where they can toss it back to us and say define it better maybe it's not tiny-house pilot but in the wording we say we're interested in researching and making seeing if we can come to as a board a recommendation for a pilot idea on tiny houses I'd say it should be a tiny RV

[63:05] yes I think if we say it the way you suggested then it's not in a recommendation to council that's something we might want to look into that we of course can look into if we want to if we're asking Council to to direct staff to bring them information about tiny home projects and then council debate it if we say this is something we want to look into that should go we should vote on that for the upper part of the letter not this I understand that so you asked that we make a recommendation before they even tell us to and we're asking them that we weigh in you know right that's I'm the latter I'm not saying it in the letter is that that what we would do is request that they give us the opportunity to see if we could research and form a recommendation what if we call it a pilot if we articulated this as a pilot project to define and explore tiny homes or something yeah so that it's that

[64:02] sounds pretty reasonable yes we are thank you why don't we take it off and put it down as a listening session so that we can get a lot of input about what a tiny home is with upsides and the downsides and where they're best applied and then we can get really good information from a lot of different sources and take and inform ourselves and how we might want to recommend moving forward with that I think since we have talked about this last year - that we're beyond the point where we just want to listen about it and I think that could be a really important part in the feedback but this is something that most of us on the board prior really wanted to see it on through these four or five things straw poll say yes or no or should we be debating them every as we go I didn't but we just didn't have a clear enough definition okay yeah it's hard for me to say yes or no and I'm still not clear what I'm saying is

[65:01] we have to make a motion and we're just doing straw polls for the letter understand my point I want to make the council makes up their work plan for two years at a time it seems and then the second year they just maybe modify a little bit so if there's things we're really interested in like tiny homes which almost made it to their work plan last time but didn't quite get there it's not likely to get there in this two-year cycle so if we think it's worth them exploring with the option that they can give it back to us if they want I think you know I think we should go for it now rather than wait this is why I think just saying we'd like to see a tiny home project in the city of Boulder a tiny home pilot project in the city of Boulder and make it six okay large lots

[66:03] and single family homes I just want to say I think if they want us to talk about this they're gonna tell us to I think this is gonna come back up but we can if we want to say something explicit about it then we can do a straw poll for it and I'm totally fine with that I think it's gonna come back up you think it's gonna come back up okay otherwise we'll just pass it by okay passed by some Community Planning and neighborhoods one at a time okay so all we have is tiny homes so far pretty good this next one this is more our choice for what we want to work on not something that we would ask him them I

[67:01] don't think right J the working with state for tax incentive in aah and rent control I think so we'll deal with that in the next section actually I really like that to be recommendation that they that they ramp up their efforts you said I thought you said once that when that came up for the state mm-hmm no matter what the committee who works on that with Council nobody went down there to do it and so and so I'd like to make clear that we would like that to be on their work plan working you know we're suggesting or requesting that they are more vigorous in working with the state about housing issues okay well we'll just do a straw poll and asking council to be more vigorous as in going to the median I know they sent a letter about the rent control bill so we'll do a straw poll real quick about that or potentially move it to also a committee

[68:02] with us you know could it be one or two people again we make a committee that attends those and reports back to our group that's also a good idea so it doesn't have to be a request of them we yeah okay so sorry put one up to the top for the first part of the letter have it be one of our things that we state that we were interested in forming a committee okay gotcha well we'll pass it by right here then okay preserving an existing housing stock that's what I think all of our programs like the middle-income housing strategy or for so I'm not sure we really need to say anything about that anyone disagree okay yeah we're passing on preserving an existing housing stock supports for

[69:01] renters including those in permanently affordable housing did you want to see this as a to counsel or is that more of a thing that we work on I think there's some way that we should emphasize my wish was that we emphasize that fifty percent of our population of our residents are renters and what are you your mic just allow 50 percent of our population are renters and and we'd like to see counsel focus some attention on them something as simple as we don't have a specific task of them though okay what about defining the what we asking city council to define what we want the population mix to look like and what housing preferences and needs of that population are gonna meet the demand that that

[70:00] population has so that we can focus our initiatives around that through our 15 percent lens John say something I think that maybe not directly in that manner as far as the population mix goes but I do think that I mean I don't think we're gonna put it on the on the ladder but the question is really what are we doing are we still on danishes 1% or are we changing that and going forward as of town considering where we stand right now with jobs housing balance etc etc you know that's a big discussion so I don't yeah do I hear you saying that do I hear what's being said is we want council to decide if our doors are closed they're open because that's what I'm hearing like I'm hearing if we decide if we ask them to decide what the makeup of the population is are we saying we want 20 percent black we want

[71:00] 20 percent wait we want 20 percent I don't understand how we asked council to define what the makeup of our population looks like this I mean I feel little yeah I'm talking more about socio-economic stratification mm-hmm like to Jays point about the middle squeezed out do we want the middle to continue to get squeezed out or is that a problem for our city well I think we've already defined it as a problem as our city and we even see an initiative coming through on this this election so so what portion of the middle income do we want to see living in our city do we want it equally distributed among the other socioeconomics I mean so if if we don't even know what that is what that percentage is and how can we possibly help push housing initiatives that are going to attract that middle-income population and allow them to live here Jay do we have goals and strategies as

[72:04] well I mean your point is well-taken is you know how do we benchmark that I mean it's a bit challenging to define exactly what is that percentage I think the way the city has looked at the middle income is we don't want to lose any more ideally we would gain some ground back but there are much larger market forces at play here in terms of the middle class all across the US and it's really difficult to try to you know deal with that at the local level although it doesn't mean we shouldn't try I just and along those lines like how do we incentivize projects when we looking at building housing who are we building it for right that that's the bottom line or who are we building the house the housing or what when we allow projects on one project the projects happen maybe the question is is it is a older middle-class or real world middle class

[73:05] very different middle class the federal middle-class standards you know I don't anymore another example so you know we the middle-income strategy comes out and we adopt a more robust goal for middle income we also did the inclusionary housing update project in 2018 and that and we included incentives so for smaller projects 20 or less units if you put all those units on site they can all be middle income so that's an incentive for a developer to provide that middle-income housing we have ratcheted up the middle income requirement for annexations as a result of the strategy there are other i.h incentives so basically the percentage can switch if you put more on site so I mean we are constantly looking

[74:02] for new tools to encourage middle-income housing the challenge is you know we're not always going to be we it's going to take a while for those efforts to bear fruit so be used to want to straw poll on housing mix okay or and now I'll let you phrase that how about that what would you your be your ask of council so define what we would like the population the socio-economic population makes to look like in terms of income and what based on the housing preferences and needs of that mix what do we need to encourage around development to meet those needs and preferences not really I think that was pretty clear so strawpoll - okay I thought an idea emerged from here that

[75:03] was really good to consider that we request the council expedites expedite [Music] whatever we call it regulations for permanently affordable housing not there yet [Laughter] okay now we're going through mostly what would what I would define is jocks list the pilot project fast track do you want to say a specific ask you would have of counsel for that so that we can strawpoll it yeah the specific ask would be that the city of Boulder look at developing a pilot project for housing that provides a community benefit in the sense of affordable housing so any kind

[76:01] of project doesn't matter what it is but if it can suggest I'm looking at small scope projects defined as that's why it's called a pilot project so any housing project that will provide a significant density of affordable housing can apply for a sidetrack to the regular permitting process yep Syria I think I think what you're saying is if there's an affordable housing component it gets improved faster and easier quicker yeah you're saying for certain yeah exactly for specific projects that again are small and so somebody comes in with so I would I would be I mean this would be a part of

[77:01] looking at what this is but I would say that it's something that is a specific kind of style or effort at development it's not just oh I'm gonna develop an affordable housing project with five units but for instance the discussion of winter streets and carload low car density neighborhood or spaces that type of a project might we say fast-tracking affordable housing hey that's a slogan J is did plenty bored do something similar to this just now like within the last two meetings similar maker similar requests that the city consider fast tracking affordable housing if somebody had a certain percentage of a plan or is it coming because I feel like there's a conversation occurring right now about this community benefit included at forty

[78:01] percent if you have more than forty percent for permanently affordable then you're being fast-tracked know that you can take advantage of the additional height yeah I haven't seen Planning Board's a letter to council so I'm not feel like there was a certain way I think what Teri's talking about is expedited review that's what it's often referred to for affordable housing projects that's one Jacque one I've heard you describe before is if there's something that's outside of the current with what's currently allowed by zoning the Dodge should get some consideration so there's change yeah correct I'm looking for instead of instead of having to try to go through the standard process or I mean which is years and years to get any type of a zoning variance or a change in what you're allowed to do that we can try to pilot things tiny homes are one example of what that could look like David Adamson's North Street project in

[79:04] concept is another example of that we're looking at trying to create a different model for housing on a one block area that there'd be some kind of format that I know you said that it's been kind of looked at before and kicked around I just think it's worth maybe putting a little more of him to Danny just for in the interest of remedy because I think we're on the same exact page here for this letter if we just said something like explore expedited review procedures for projects with affordable housing and other significant community benefits or something yeah I think that's what we're saying and there's a lot of nuances to it and then yeah as far as kicking it off is a workplan because I think we're you know we've had a conversation before we're having some notion of a concept where there's a process that provides certainty in terms of tying and in terms of you know discretion when you're you

[80:01] know stepping up and doing the right thing I think if we lay it out that way I mean I think I think that gets the message across and then there's a lot of news to it I agree you know yeah it's appropriate but that's probably for another day it would be my thought in terms of how we articulate yeah this is kind of like the tiny homes thing to me you just gotta put something up there and yeah yeah so do you want to say that exact same thing yeah expedited review for projects providing affordable housing and or other significant community benefits you said [Music] exploratory are you typing this too perfect okay straw poll for that

[81:12] all right let's do this stuff again we have zoning yep we're all citywide consideration of single-family residential zoning and its appropriateness overall consideration of single-family residential zoning its appropriateness in a forward-looking city such as Boulder forward-looking what I had was really questions in here

[82:01] which is good Boulder implement of a broad rezoning which would allow for increased housing while focusing new housing into affordable units as much as feasible could we modify the city codes to incentivize aged development which we really don't have those incentives in place except for in a very very mild manner right now and that that comes down to zoning and it comes down to tagging incentives even more broadly than we did with community benefit to zoning and affordable housing yeah that's how I get where you're going but I want to make sure that we are clear on what we're voting on Judy was first okay so this is the only idea that's come up so far that I'm actually against rather than neutral or for I just think it's too much too big too sweeping and and

[83:00] just would be really jumping into the hornet's nest we don't have to talk about yeah yeah we're just doing straw poll in here what I'm getting is the implication that single-family zoning is [Music] it's a question again for questioning it in a good way bad way change it down I'm questioning it in so to speak up a bad way I don't think a single-family zoning I mean it's a major portion of what we have in our world currently I don't know that it serves us well as a community as far as housing our workforce and I mean I hate to call it work for us because it sounds like I'm making a company town here which maybe we are but I think that the idea is that as we've seen around the country in a number of different places people are questioning single-family zoning and I think we should be questioning single-family zoning we should be

[84:01] looking at potentially aligning densities or saturation limits for a number of duplexes but I don't think that any neighborhood should be off-limits for a house other than the single-family house Mason so what I hope is that we don't get into debating back and forth whether or not we believe in single-family zoning because I think that could be done right bloody this evening but what I do think is the interesting piece of what you're saying is that we do have cities and states across the country that are looking into it and if we are a community that is and we're currently grappling with it in social media and other areas that I think if we're going to talk about looking at socioeconomic or any thing along those lines it'd be

[85:01] an interesting frame of a conversation of its time okay I'm gonna say this super quick I actually was talking to Sam Weber about this and part of the way that Minnesota got their zoning passed was they had designed guidelines for how duplexes had to look so they had to look kind of like single-family homes good for base code and maybe that's a road that you might want to take like well because that's not saying I think that's just that's one piece okay okay yeah as Mason says is this something we should be looking at okay that's the question all right one more time and then we're gonna go for this okay I want to be careful that I get you might understand where it's at but people need to be able to work through this process and understand that before we thumbs-up and thumbs-down something somebody's got to understand what we're talking about so I understand the sense of urgency but let's not shut off the dialogue so that we can't each feel heard so if

[86:01] anybody else wants to feel heard before we rush through the thumbs-up or thumbs-down I just want to make sure it's explicit that we know what we're asked counsel is that they put on their work plan a consideration of or a reconsideration of the zoning in the city of Boulder as regards single-family housing perfect couple Adam I got a little question the straw poll that we're doing when we're all done will that be the things where we then vote on each okay next on the list

[87:02] was well I don't think we need to leave this one on the list that's the city city we're not gonna go but I think what we did is we flipped for and won the pilot program is what we were talking about before the Dany clinic Clare afraid for me yeah yes yeah the other one that I have is an effort to review the city permitting process and review process for single-family homes specifically in regards to how that process negatively impacts the costs for families trying to stay in their houses any questions regarding that is everyone comfortable voting there I think it's

[88:00] great that's a great cause I would even expand it to not just single-family homes and not just people trying to stay in their homes just in general the process for which to remodel pop the top anything that's my - so I just want to keep it within the scope of housing obviously well yeah I mean housing I guess I'm just asking the question since we have already determined that our overarching lens is the 15% plus affordability goal does that right I think that goes to the matter of maintaining the middle as well because middle income people have to leave in some cases like Jack was referencing yeah I wanted to focus it specifically on that middle come group because at the lower income

[89:02] it's arguable that there are many pop tops happening and the higher income they are happy to pay the architects and the architects are happy to collect as much as they need for as many I mean how do you say this project is a middle-income project and so it should get special review treatment versus this is a high end you know how do you yeah I think you're right just to I guess express myself I think I'm putting the focus on it just so that council would see where it's really impacting one of their programs or one of their goals so maybe am I does it value the house I would have to look at and figure out right but the idea is to this is like the tiny homes thing we don't have to say here is I think it's important for us to articulate the notion that you

[90:02] know we're focused on middle and come here not to say I mean it'll be hard to quantify but that's the point we want to get across because you know there will be a lot of time to you know flush that out but that's where the impact okay let's just restate it okay then we engaged in a review of city ordinances and implementation of Building Code in an effort to streamline and reduce cost for middle-income families trying to remodel and stay in their homes great straw poll five anything else on your list I'm off well yeah no don't don't add okay we had private public partnerships was

[91:05] what yours was do you want to try to state it in a way that's more nuanced than that or I'd say Explorer partnerships with other public or private employers in an effort to expand housing opportunities for commuter employees Mason brilliant we're doing it with transportation I think it's awesome anyone else anyone need clarity okay yeah Jay explore opportunities to collaborate so you know again it just uses school district to say you know can will they work with us towards developing some project where you know school district

[92:01] employees such as teachers will have you know primary opportunity to purchase units in that development another one might be if the school district was a master lessor on a project and then they can put employees in there when there's need you know especially if somebody's relocating here I think it's a pretty broad notion but the whole idea is that's really something I think we need to focus on to really enhance the opportunities enhance the funding for these things and also bring the responsibility to employers that are you know essentially any employers part of the problem within commuting right so this is a way for them to assume some of the responsibilities of the impacts that they're causing I've just encourage you to add the word continue okay this because of emeriti do continue are you

[93:01] talking about only public employers or are you talking about public employers because I would submit that public employers are probably pretty cash-strapped right now and wouldn't even have resources to finance or subsidized housing for their employees right and so just having children in the be BSD system and knowing what parents have to pay outside of just oh right there's also there's also fine priorities and there's a lot of other financing mechanisms that any public entity can utilize if they want to generate money for something all the value but I think public and private employers and that doesn't mandate for anybody but certainly puts some of the illness on them to try to help be part of the solution and I think that's a good stepping stone for this and if it's going on already then we say continue so then do we need to say it at all if it's just going on right now where do we

[94:01] want to deep asking for a DJ asking to re-enforce yeah continue I always think it's worthwhile to reinforce because because they're going to focus their attention in certain directions and if they like that recommendation of ours then they'll make sure to enhance it as much as possible so I think it's worth I think you should keep it first drawers oh great let's take a straw okay we didn't have any more and I believe that was it so the four that we have if I did this correctly is tiny homes pilot project whatever's Jaques about larger projects

[95:04] sorry small projects but pilot projects okay expedite regulations for middle-income housing that was another and then the continued private public partnerships did the state tax thing that what we plan on doing mm-hmm okay do you want to take a break since we're halfway through okay five minute break yeah I don't think we have any money on this next must either

[101:35] okay so we have our four items for suggestion to counsel now we need to talk about what we want to focus on beyond what counsel brings us from their work plan currently the main things that we do are certain engagement pieces like the listening sessions and that's the

[102:03] main thing we have a few reasonable regional housing strategy but that hasn't been very active recently as far as I can recall you're still on that correct okay and the two things that we have as suggestions for additional focus are working on items going to the state legislature and then the potential of some sort of Oversight Committee for renters were there any others those are the only two that I picked up on Sam again yep the additional focus on legislative issues going to the state government and potential Oversight Committee for renters okay I guess my

[103:02] question that we have for all of us before we decide if we want to add those which I do favor is are there actually volunteers to be on those committees well we don't have to form the committee right now this is just something that we are going to put in the letter as a potential action that the okay board is going to take just because we think it's an important point and maybe we're saying in the in the letter maybe not depending upon how the straw poll goes and we can have a discussion in formation about the committee itself later on yeah get your hand up no I was just is there anything you would like to add to that this cuz I value your opinion why thank you unfortunately I was trying to do something else when I wasn't listening preparing for my agenda item the questions what are your thoughts on an

[104:01] oversight committee for renters I have probably be cautious of calling it an oversight committee I mean both oversight and committee are pretty loaded terms I mean basically what you would be doing is listening to people's concerns and trying to direct them in a constructive way to the appropriate resources right which honestly I think is half the battle the people that we were even talking to is about getting them to the right you know having five different housing boards right there's five different housing boards and not people not sure whether or not something goes to planning but it's not you know I think it's just it's directing it's not just making decisions does that does that make sense yeah which we need to find later I just don't know how to if we're gonna put it in the letter how we phrase it Clearing House renters Clearing House forum or something like that it's more than renters because there are some that have bought into that are being managed by Lexus allure

[105:01] bhp or you know like we had transportation bundling question questions only very first formed each always home owners are concerned about you joy fees yeah exactly so it's almost like a complaint department kind of is I mean you know and I think people need to feel like they I get that it's like but I mean I literally and here's my antidote to it is I literally was at the dog park and somebody came out of the housing complex and walked all the way across and said are you Mason why are you on the housing Advisory Board and then asked me if I would listen to she said she's gone everywhere and needed and ultimately we came to some kind of good paths of where to go but I think that's who we are right we are of the people for the people on this board and we're supposed to be the connection for City Council so I think having that place where people feel like they have somebody on this board to contact maybe housing

[106:01] resources committee because that way we're connecting people with where they need to go I like that so I just have one concern I think that's a lovely idea and a lovely name the reason why I got bumped up to the top part it really started as our interest in recognizing some recognition that 50% of the residents are renters and unless we say something in the letter which can be in the top part about renters specifically we are then leaving out a really important part of our population I guess my question is forming a committee to hear renters owners problems I mean how they gonna know I mean what's the difference me now I'm just coming here in open public session and just saying what they need to say every once a month from what we've seen a lot of people are unwilling to do that anytime but we want to make

[107:03] sure that we have some go-to people who are sort of in charge of that I think it's desire here yes I mean my feeling is I'm here and this is that really I mean again it's part of the public outreach but what we're trying to do and I think it's a worthy thing is we are trying to create a public awareness that the housing board is a go-to place whether it's just an email or whether they want to come in or we specifically do listening sessions for that or as a piece of a certain number of our meetings but we you know that could be decided but I think it's a valuable thing I think it's worth as Judy says pointing out to council that we're all so focused on the the renter and that we are gonna try to be that liaison and be a place where they can go

[108:04] since this was your idea do you want to just try restricting it to renters or do you you know we can obviously include other people too but okay she be open to anybody that needs housing advisory board help okay yeah okay so potentially four means a housing resources committee on the housing advisory board for the public trouble right now I would also like to see if there's some way we can figure out getting in the top part of the letter that we all agree about something about renters even if we just have a simple sentence that says we are particularly interested in renters here's my suggestion we're gonna

[109:01] probably say something about continued listening sessions and we could maybe say that renters who make up 50% of our population and renters rights might be one of our potential listening sessions state legislative items just trying to have a focus as a board on those so we're saying to council we're just trying to have a focus on this we're hopefully gonna yeah so Jay do you want to talk just a little bit more to this point we should potentially be a more lobbying board for state legislative issues surrounding housing so you want

[110:00] me to say more about that all right you want me to help you articulate what that would look like articulate what that would look like so the word understands what they're voting for so I think it's [Music] have would play a stronger role in vacating for housing issues at the state level something I was just curious that so that you saying this is something that's somewhere being discussed or has been discussed I'm just curious the origination of it or where where its living well so the city has a legislative agenda that they craft prior to every session that is something that's coordinated through Carl Castillo at the city and he works with you know the city has lobbyists which is pretty interesting and then there's also all sorts of organizations out there so there's the Municipal League of Colorado there's housing

[111:00] Colorado you know probably half a dozen others who advocate on housing issues a lot of what what we do as staff is we rely on housing Colorado to represent sort of the municipal interests at this new legislature so there that they track bills they have a legislative committee and we typically will support them in their efforts they would like greater support also from the cities potentially from individuals to advocate specifically for housing issues that's a help sure we allowed as a board to do that we can just sit here and decide we want to send a letter whatever pick a position on a state issue without getting council approval or anything as a board you know I think as long as it's

[112:00] consistent with the city's legislative agenda if you want to go off-script I would not recommend that so that's where you might get in trouble but so does that mean we can only say what City Council's gonna say anyway assuming city council is going to say something I mean they don't track every issue but you know think of it not necessarily responding to each individual bill that comes out but how do we shape the actual agenda you know what are the issues that are important to Boulder how do we get that on the various age our organization's agenda that's what we will be talking about in January and February house in Colorado will have will basically come to the board and explain this is these were this is what we see as priorities and you can help them inform their what they what they finally proposed gotcha so if we indicate an interest in that then we can you can like put us on the list so we get that same information and we can

[113:02] then in a committee or something coordinate or you could do it as well yeah yeah my only question here this is like a murky area because it feels like we're committing to something way more than we might be if it's just someone coming and giving us a presentation which we have happen all the time in my mind which is a little bit beyond what we normally do well I don't think it's a role that's been specifically defined for you in the gender I would I would actually want to go back and double-check it I've got to do that while you guys chat I think what you're basically asking counselor or you know you're telling counsel is we would like to play a more active role and state

[114:00] legislative issues and just keep your thoughts I like I'd also like to mention that in our housing advisory board page it says that one of our one of our things to do is to advise city council concerning an appropriate advocacy advocacy for the city in state and federal housing matters so we're already okay to be doing that it's already the key there is your you're advising council maybe that's the the twist in this is that we would say we want to increase our engagement with state legislative issues in order to advise Council on on those things so what we

[115:00] would do essentially just look at it and then we would write a recommendation a brief recommendation to Council in our meeting minutes and and it would go to council and say hey this is happening right now we think it's really important that this city take a little extra effort on it that sounds perfect council could say okay housing board would you engage further on that one we leave it off our letter thoughts right now and have you get a little more clarification on it and then we can add a sentence to the letter if we want since it's not a huge why don't we straw poll whether or not we want it on there yeah let's just do the straw poll what play a more active role in state legislative issues for recommendation to council seven so I will research it and get back to you if it's gonna be an issue or concern okay so those were the only two issues we had

[116:01] issues potential things that we're gonna add so that brings us to how are we actually get the letter written we know all the topics we know it starts with 15 plus percent affordable housing goal anyone want to volunteer to make that happen or what's the time frame we have to approve it next meeting oh well here but it has to be done before the agenda goes out so we can all look at it at the time so a couple weeks oh yeah two page limit for sure also specific are we okay including the parts again J that Judy had at the beginning

[117:02] about what we did this past year in regards to listening sessions I like that already I like that part a lot did anyone have any issues with that okay perfect so just so everyone knows what we're trying to go for ultimately and it needs to be done before the next agenda meeting in November December okay is everyone good leaving that where that is we have you to reckon on it perfect okay we'll move on to ideas for the next listening session obviously we just talked about a whole lot of things that could potentially be there but we should probably talk about when we might want

[118:00] the next one to be first and my best estimate is we don't have enough time to do one before November plus that's gonna be not in this room and sort of holiday season so January yes it would be helpful to know what else we would have Genda for that night so that we weren't cramming too many too many items until one night if we're trying to do a listening session and have plenty of ample time insurance or have ample time basically and along with what you're saying is how about just a couple of people who like the letter coming together real quick and doing reviewing the workplace I'm making a suggested like editorial calendar of listening sessions for and presenting it back to the board instead

[119:00] of going through now yeah so instead of us just trying to like maybe two people sit down and say okay we've got these meetings in 2020 these work items see how it could fit a couple listening sessions into them and take some ideas on what everybody would want to have for listening session ideas so I just want to say the lead time for being able to do the publicity for a topic if we really want to do something in January we have to pick the topic like settle on the first topic we don't have to be Gollum but we have to pick the first topic in November for sure if if not tonight if there's not when we all agree on tonight that's not going to happen yeah and personally when I mean does everybody have kids here at the table like most people go through the holiday season well I know Adam family vacations are we chill for the month of January

[120:00] because it gets so intense on those first one so I don't know if and we also will be hearing back from City Council on the work plan so do we want to wait till Feb anyway first one that's the most reasonable okay I just I don't need to have a full discussion but I just want to keep some topics that we have mentioned in the past in mind renters rights or something around being a renter in Boulder we also talked about accessibility for people with disabilities and seniors we talked about the students talk about process city process right those are I was gonna get to the list of new ones but I just want to and I thought they were all really important so all good potential

[121:00] and then we have the newer ones the city processes have the tiny homes the pilot projecting and public-private partnerships yes housing preference housing person listening brain commuter steering commuters have so I want to just mention something at a previous meeting we voted which we can change that we did vote I believe that we weren't going to have listening sessions about topics that were in the city's work plan because we'd be having public hearings about them so we have to take that into consideration - so maybe the one in February we should pick something that we believe isn't going to come up in the in the work plan I do remember

[122:03] that happening and we didn't want to so I think that's just a matter of seeing where we are at in January and then going from there and I think you know if we had the little sub community committee for a couple of weeks forming the calendar on this like accessibility for seniors out of that could be February because nobody nothing says come on out in the snow like February listening session for accessibility I guess depending upon our calendar here we have to determine who's going to be on that committee to make those decisions since I would say yeah it's

[123:00] two months to do the publicity but the calendar can be done and yeah a week and a half we could submit somebody could submit it by the next one I mean working on it if somebody else wants to work on it with me Juliet do you want to work on it with me since I know we want to look at working yeah figure out a calendar and here with the work plan that we know of right now which may should shift in January sure great let's submit back an idea is you want me to talk about the work plan a little bit yes would that be helpful so we're kind of during a very unusual time in Boulder so we do have a new council coming in so the previous council you know there was a lot of work and one effort to get certain priorities done this year which is why your calendar was so full but coming up there's really not a lot of agenda items before you so there's not

[124:02] specific projects going to council primarily because the new council has to weigh in and determine what their priorities are going to be so I will be talking to you about potentially cancelling either November December or even potentially both for primarily that reason but also the holidays but the really you're listening session I think is the main agenda item coming up the discussion about the legislative effort and then a lot of the other work isn't going to come before you like community benefit the next phase any sort of new work plan items it's going to be spring of 2020 so I just wanted to give you a little bit of warning that there's gonna be there's gonna be a lull thank you okay so moving on we added a item discussion of the trends report and

[125:02] potentially adding that to one of our agendas you want to speak again to that yeah so again the Community Foundation serving Boulder County does research on an ongoing basis in every two years they put out a trends report and they've done a fair amount of publicity about it in Long mountain in Boulder and this this two year segment they have identified the biggest challenge facing Boulder County are its housing and rising prices and it's an excellent presentation and they do a good right-brain left-brain presentation where they give a few personal stories and then they give a lot of data and it's some data that I don't recall having heard before that I think would be really helpful for all of us and I also think it would be helpful for the few people who may watch us on television I think it's actually really helpful for the community to have that

[126:00] information out there just for giving us where housing fits in into our city and into the larger County and so I hope that we will agree to invite them they said they cut down their presentation so it'd be one half hour long with fifteen minutes if we want to use the fifteen minutes for questions and I'd like to have us decide to do it and then work to get it scheduled at a time that works in the next several months when it actually when the meeting will be here and televised gotcha that's yeah that's the kicker right there so that means not November or December ok so I think we can just do a straw poll on who has an interest in getting the trends report and the most likely time would probably be January Jay

[127:00] sounds like we wouldn't have a lot of things on our agenda at that meeting right January January no time to do it with you with Chris barge okay so I'll coordinate it to make sure he could come at that time Thanks and now we move on to matters from staff and my computer just went to sleep so there were some questions about sort of where things are with specific project so I'll talk about Community Benefit first and then the TMP update as well as 30 Perl and then the reason regional housing strategy and then we'll talk about meetings as well so community benefits it passed Council passed the housing advisory boards recommendation they based on your feedback they did remove the reference to or the exemption for

[128:01] nursing homes and assisted living so they deferred that to Phase two and they did keep appendix J however they added two areas that are zoned are age three that are near the Boulder Valley Regional Center and they extended the expiration date to may 2021 and that those are the highlights any questions about that does that make sense we're folks tracking that was that helpful thanks for clarifying just because I know to extend one more year that was staffs recommendation because that would give us additional time to see how how it's going within those specific areas but yeah I think the idea

[129:02] is that it they do still want to see it expire at some point yet anything else with that transportation master plan so I think the desire here was to look at what are the intersections with housing in terms of the latest update the thing to keep in mind with the transportation master plan is it's updated over five years so the changes are fairly minor each update to update this one really had a focus on safety and the vision zero initiative that's been happening so that was incorporated there's 50 action items that are from that report there's also revisions to the pedestrian plan based on feedback from a 18 member community working group quick question sure are those action items prioritized in any way are they just action items I'd have to go back and look okay that's

[130:01] always a question I have when it comes to these major things is do we have priorities right no that's a great question I'm sure the transportation staff could could answer that I just I don't know for sure the one that's really more housing focused the neighborhood accessibility sort of that 15-minute neighborhood concept there's a GIS tool that was developed and and is used to identify specific improvements that could be made so I mean that's where we're trying to get it the prioritization what are the tools to help us identify where we should be focusing our resources also the development part of the 15 minute neighborhood piece is developing a low stress walk and bike network throughout the city so that there are easy connections where people feel comfortable walking or biking a lot of focus on transit service and a new study

[131:03] that was done as well as continuing to strengthen and build regional partnerships based on the us 36 model particularly for the diagonal highway and state highway 7 to Brighton so trying to incorporate bus rapid transit and other issues and then integrating access management and parking strategy amps remember that one I I worked on that for a while but incorporating a lot of the findings from that into the formal transportation master plan and there a bunch of other things but I think those were the highlights questions about that and then can I present pretty please did you skip 30 Perl I'm gonna talk about it right now okay No

[132:18] there we go so the thirty paroled disposition went to council the last month and basically closing will happen November 7th I believe and we you can see construction happening as early as three to four weeks from now so things are moving along so just a little bit of background so it's the old Pollard site at 30th and parole older housing partners was selected as the master code developer and it has a whole mix of permanently affordable housing market housing and I'll talk about each quad and adjust really very quickly so

[133:00] quadrant one will be sold to Morgan Creek ventures they will build seventy six market rate residential units with ground-floor re commercials so the 50% of that will be a little market rents for commercial where's 30th so Boulder Junction on the left side and Pearl is underneath Pearl is to the south Goose Creek is to the north and hotel is on the right yep the Hilton is off to the right thank you Jake I just ask a quick question sure is there a definition is there a definition on the below market rate R and there is I want to say it's 25% the current market rate for that area and it can only appreciate based on the Consumer Price Index annually and there are requirements that you are there be I

[134:01] believe its local actually it changed at the last minute so I I'm a little hesitant to tell you exactly but there are specific requirements so priorities for nonprofits and also local businesses so that quadrant one we'll be sold and the proceeds from that will help to pay for the permanently affordable housing on the other quadrants quadrant two and actually the other quadrants will be conveyed to Boulder housing partners and they will build a parking structure underneath quadrants two and three and then who will transfer back to the city in the city will sell quadrant three but quadrant two they will develop eighty permanently affordable homes between 30 and 60% ami ten of those will be permanently supportive quadrant three as I said will sell to a private developer

[135:00] six to market rate condominiums prior to that the ability parking structure for north will be sold to a private developer and the intention there is to develop homeownership units co-hosting our Co housing or a co-op and quadrant four will be conveyed also forty permanently affordable homes 30 to 60% ami and twenty of those be dedicated to independent living so that's a very quick overview of what's going on there any questions about that one sulphur I'd have to go back and check I'm sorry I'm one more question on the reduced rent on quadrant one no what was that again it has to be 20 25 percent below the prevailing market rent rents

[136:01] for that area for that okay like that it's not the city wide it's like I want to say it's like a one mile radius one mile radius they do that almost per square foot or bedrooms or how do they do it so it's commercial space only commercial spaces the rest is market rate yeah interesting could you go back to the first page for me for a second I just wanted to look at numbers I'm sorry the second page next one there so 76 okay thanks I guess I do have just one question on the permanently supportive housing and the one on the last page that was for people with disabilities and this that I'm guessing that for sure some sort of support for those people are built in to the project in one way or another correct yeah I'm that's unnecessary yeah

[137:01] there has to be some sort of that's I mean that's why it's primarily supported 80 or it's a part of the 80 I believe it's 10 is is 10 out of the out of the 80 will be set aside and then the final one is the regional housing strategy in a and I know I think I heard you guys talking a little bit earlier about it's been quiet for a little bit in terms of that front so is everyone familiar with the regional housing strategy particularly in new members did you have a chance to look through this so identifies a number of strategies establish a regional goal which we've done bolster financial resources secure land development redevelopment opportunities preserve affordability and consider regulatory processes

[138:02] we've been making progress and all those friends of course they've even dumped at the goal the next big focus is going to be really around bolstering financial resources so I think you've all heard council and Boulder County commissioners have agreed to place on the 2020 ballot a property tax measure that would raise approximately twenty million dollars countywide that would be distributed throughout the county and starting probably in early to late spring there'll be more of a push to help educate the community on the benefits in the need and I don't know have you guys seen this by any chance so this will be part of the campaign that will be kicking off in the spring and there you have also been you'll probably be staying on the buses in other places but they wanted to be strategic about

[139:02] when they started that effort so you'll be seeing more and also you will be hearing more about the regional housing strategy and what sort of role you guys can play as sort of helping to promote the regional partnership so I there is a mailing list and I'm trying to figure out a way to add all of the have so that all new members get included as well but basically what you would just it there aren't that many emails I think it's like once every month they basically talk about progress that's being made by the different jurisdictions what efforts are coming up but it's a good resource just to stay tuned with it do you know the specifics of the tax you don't have to say what they are I'm just wondering I know the dollar value and I think that based on the polling they're leaning towards a property tax that's got you to his sales tax okay 20 million just doesn't seem like that

[140:00] much especially countywide yeah and you know I think the 20 million was backed into based on you know what do we need to do to achieve the goal of 12% County I'm catching how much has to be invested so I mean there's sort of a rationale behind it but I think it was also what would be you know palatable to the coders yeah of course yeah zero is a lot less than 20 yes okay anything else there the only other thing is as I mentioned the November and December meetings as you guys have talked about are very light on agenda items will also be off site because they're displaced by the holidays so they one that would not be televised also we will not have a board secretary for November and December coincides with the department holiday party not that those are any

[141:00] reason not to have a meeting just I think others are gonna have similar situation in terms of commitments around the holidays and considering that there are not very many agenda items my the board might want to consider canceling one or both of those meetings and resuming in the new year so I bring that up just for you your discussion we will have the meetings if that's the desire of the group but it would also be helpful if you could identify specific agenda items and what you would like to talk about so the only thing that I can even recall that we have to decide on for sure is the letter to council and that has to be voted on so we have to have a meeting for it and what Ardex listening session potential topic will be Mason so I'm down for a November and I would say skip December I agree with that

[142:01] looks like the November meeting would be the day before things you know we've already changed those dates I'm just you know I can you remind us of what the around the website let me pull that really quick okay good very poignant it's the Wednesday before the normal and so it'd be very Wednesday November 20 mm-hm sorry yes 20 I I also think have November in skip December I think we have to have November that's sort of my feeling as well okay [Laughter] well the reality of it is and we'll know whether or not he is here and we'll still have to make a decision about Jer okay let's know December do they need to

[143:01] vote on that yes officially okay have one so this is a vote to not have a December meeting all those in favor unanimous okay debrief calendar check I thought this process was a whole lot better than our last annual letter especially since we kind of know what is expected of us and we're adhering to that thank you for the new people I realized that it's a little bit weird to go through this the first time but felt like here so he came along with us since we've already gotten the wrist slapped before and I appreciate that that made it a lot easier than trying to do reinvent the wheel all over again so yeah I would probably add on

[144:00] that debrief of that a lot of the smoothness to this was the work that you did beforehand Judy was preparing the letter and I'm having that for all of us to review so it was a good jump off point we didn't have that last time so it was a any time a discussion can be framed around a couple of boy points really helps the cause yeah thank you Judy Rios thank you [Laughter] anything else okay we are adjourned travel safely it's no enough [Music]