December 13, 2023 — Housing Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

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

[0:03] Okay. We're live. Welcome to the December and final meeting of the older housing advisory board. Michael Lichane, the board chair. I'm happy to see, we have great events. We'll do roll call at the moment. What, and, I will ask for, Be back on my attendance. Okay. Yeah, note that we also have our, I'm from finding board, our capital, present and, over staff.

[1:02] We'll do an agenda review and we're coming into the meeting. We're gonna try to wrap it up. A little bit early tonight. I do add some, so more pressure too much. Item 2 is reviewing the agenda. That's what we're doing. The item 3 is approving the minutes from our last meeting, which was on October 20 fifth. We'll have public participation with open comment after that. We're gonna be hearing presentation on, older middle income rental needs assessment. That's an informational item. Presentation by, master, planning, candidate, Peter project manager, housing and human services. Item B, and they're private, well, that we want to get the council before they need for a retreat. You all have, drafts and I've, for a retreat. You all have, drafts and I've calculated ahead of time to discuss that item 6 matters and staff.

[2:03] After that, we'll have a main debrief and a calendar check and we will adjourn. So going back to item 3, Do I have a motion to approve the minutes? October? 20. I'll make a Okay, Okay, before we get the public presentation, they ask if there's anybody in the Zoom waiting rooms. Waiting to speak. Yes, we have one and let me, Danny just got here as well. Okay. As well. Okay, I's also joined by Zoom. If you like to review the rules of contact for public participation. I would be happy to. Thank you.

[3:01] Alright, oh I need to share my stream of You know, so I'll go through this, quite fairly quickly. The city has, developed. A vision for productive meaningful and inclusive civic conversations. See if I can turn this too. There we go. So support the physical emotional safety community members staff boarding commissioner members For more information on this, there's a website that you can go look at. And following our rules of decorum that we've established. Will be uphill during the meeting. We ask that all remarks and testimony and be limited to matters related to city business. No participants shall make threats.

[4:01] Or use other forms of intimidation. Obsenities, racial appetites, another speech, a behavior that stops the meetings is prohibited. And participants are required to sign up to speak using the name at their new commonly known by. And we ask the individuals to display the whole name before being allowed to speak online currently only audio testimony is permitted. And our chair will be enforcing those rules. Thank you. Thank you, Jay. And the we have. Yes, and the waiting room, we would like to speak. Let me see you go. Recognizing and then take over you have 3 min. Yeah. First of all, regarding The people of Gaza haven't got any housing. And when the people of Gaza, 2.3 people have had their place demoed around them.

[5:07] It makes me feel nervous about my own housing. That we could very easily have another 9 11. Right here in Boulder. Ground 0. Or some other random city in the US wouldn't make me feel any better. So. That's a priority. Is to stop. This war and the occupation. Of Palestine. Yeah, there thing I wanted to bring up. Is it theft that I experienced? At the Municipal Building. I was sure that it was homeless people. But yes what? It was a city employee. And in the middle, they, you know. The camera that I'm paying for the surveillance camera.

[6:00] Identified. The person from the children's. Department of Library. And in the middle of his. Being interviewed by the police. He stopped in the middle of the sentence and, and, and took the Miranda. Okay. His Miranda writes. It was declared. Probable cause or a summons. And Michael Dowerty declined to prosecute him. And I, I'm not allowed to talk to him. I haven't seen him. I don't know his side of the story. There's no restorative justice. This is the kind of thing that brings crime to Boulder when people don't have housing or they have a hard time getting housing. He's a young employee. I'm probably paying for his leave without pay but I don't I don't even deserve to know that I don't deserve to know anything about him and he stole from me.

[7:07] So I'm shocked that this has happened to me and that it's gonna happen more and more as more and more people are desperate because they have no housing. And the homeless shelter. I don't know what the costs were on Folsom. But I'm sure they were cheaper. Then opening the present homeless shelter, 24 7. I mean, we're talking about charging people in Boulder for not occupying their landlords not having their places occupied. Well, our own homeless shelters not occupied half of the time and we're pan hefty for that. So what's the difference in price? I would. I know why this distinction between those 2 places. And the library funds are going to pay for it and that comes from me and I'm going to be homeless soon at this rate with but the property tax rising as fast as it does.

[8:05] From 5,500 to 8,500 this year for me. So please. But I'm sorry, I'm really sorry to hear about your thoughts and I appreciate you're using those issues, but, your 3 min is right. Thanks. I hope you can get some justice in that situation. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the waiting room? I would like to see during the public comment. Okay, we'll move on the agenda. I just wanna make sure one saw the, Jellie. Holder, Omar Shelter taking on the day shelter. Not. And, I haven't read the words, that's permanent or temporary solution.

[9:00] I think it's great that it's gonna go somewhere. I don't know. The public can do that without being overwhelmed. The people in the neighborhood don't get through. Somewhere in Boulder and maybe that's a logical place for it to land. I, I don't know. Good commenting, you know, actual opinion there. Yeah, okay, we can go on to matters from the board and this is, for an informational presentation. Okay, so I am not going to do it. It's not. It's all, so I'll just, I'll just give a little, so I'll just, I'll just give a little, practice to, about. So, last. Maybe the summer or the spring we were kind of hearing chatter in the community about middle income. Middle income rentals, like the need to provide some more services in terms of all income rentals and that's something we don't currently do.

[10:05] So, and we didn't have much data to support any kind of work around that. A few months later, Melissa reached out and asked, looking for kind of a placement. For capstone projects and I was like, yes, this is for. So she's been working really hard the past few months and, You know, I'll leave the results in the discussion to her, but. Very happy with your work. So thanks for being here. Thanks. You should be able to. Hmm. Okay, so. I'm Melissa. I'm like, Working on this middle income housing needs assessment for the past few months. And I'm excited to share.

[11:07] So first I'll give a little introduction about myself and then. Yes, a background and purpose of the project and then some main takeaways and then do a brief discussion of the data collected and then wrap up with the conclusion and then we'll have questions but if anyone has questions during it you can also just. So a little bit about me. I'm into older in 2020 for grad school. I'm doing a dual degree with the law school. I'm doing a dual degree with the law school and doing a dual degree with the law school and getting my masters in urban and regional planning. And I'm interested in studying the intersection of planning and law. And post-grad I hope to just continue learning more about it. So like Holly said, I came to the city of Boulder and was connected with her for this project and I thought it would be. I thought it aligned well with my educational interests and also since I've been renting in Boulder for a little over 3 years I was personally interested in what the outcome of the housing needs assessment was going to show.

[12:13] So the purpose of the caps is to determine whether the city of Boulders existing supply of rental units meets the current demand for middle income residents. So I did this by looking at the current housing demand and the current housing supply. And then there's also a forecasting section and the housing needs assessment that shows. Potential changes in demographics and housing needs up to 2028. And then using that information to estimate any unmet housing needs. So we defined middle income as households earning between 80 to a hundred 60% of the area. But really focused on households earning 80 to 1 20% for the housing.

[13:04] This is a high level table of contents for what's in the actual housing. And I'm not going to go over all of this today, but if you're interested, you can, probably will have the final . So the 5 main takeaways from this project were that middle income households do not have enough ownership opportunities affordable income households do not have enough ownership opportunities affordable to them. And that's causing middle-income households to move out of boulder and be replaced by higher income households. And then low income households living in rental units don't have enough rental options affordable to them. And that's causing low income households to be increasingly cost burdened. And then finally, middle income households living in rental units, they might be limited by unit size gaps. So the number of bedrooms in the rental units might not. Align with the household size for renters.

[14:00] So starting to take away one middle income households don't have enough. Ownership opportunities. So the median house price in Boulder is over a million dollars, which is Pretty much double what it was in 2,011 and a pretty significant increase. 2,017. And this chart on top shows. How much the maximum price that a household could afford based on. Different income levels so middle income households would likely fall in this range being able to afford a house. From $300,000 to $499,000. As you can see there's a pretty significant deficit in houses that are available at that. Price range. And then there's a surplus of houses. That cost $500,000 or more.

[15:00] There's just not enough households able to. Afford that price. Can I trust you for a minute? Is this Boulder City or Boulder County? And that kind of aligns with the. Homeowner vacancy rate, which according to the census in 2022 is 0%. And it was decreasing from 2,011 to 2,017 but 0% is pretty low and then the rental vacancy rate has actually increased. Since 2017 Which leads to take away too that this lack of ownership opportunities is causing middle income households to move out of Boulder. So the total population in older decrease from 2017 to 2022. And most of that decrease came from residents under the age of 19 and those between the ages of 35 to 64. But there were also increases in the number of residents between the ages of 65 to 84.

[16:07] And then breaking that information down further. So the red shows. Decreases and the green shows increases. And this really shows that households with the householder between the ages of 25 to 64 making under a hundred $50,000 a year or We've been bolder and those making over a hundred $50,000 a year are. Moving into holder and then I thought this bottom chart was interesting that households with the householder, 65 years and over earning $200,000 or more a year increased by 437% from 2017 to. 2022. Then take away 3 middle income households likely have sufficient rental unit options, but low income households do not.

[17:06] The income distribution in Boulder shows that most households are earning less than $75,000 a year. And similar to the for sale maximums, the rent max months show. In maximum amount of monthly rent that a household could pay based on their Household income. And so. Likely middle income households could afford to pay $2,000 or more on rent each month. And there's a surplus of unit. So Middle income households probably aren't the ones facing these cost constraints, but this really shows. How much of the deficit there is for lower income households. And that's leading to lower income households becoming increasingly cost burden. So the middle income households would be those earning $75,000 or more and their cost burden less than 20%.

[18:08] And then that really switches when you have households making less than $75,000 a year, they're increasingly called. And A year. Does any for the student household? Yeah, all of the information includes students. But if I had to guess, they would mostly be falling into the less than. Burning less than $75,000. That maybe. Yeah, maybe a part time job. And it's 2 75,000 a year. That also open for individual. And.

[19:07] 69% of all renter households in Boulder are And the number of households that are cost per and actually increase from 2017 to 2022 and most of this increase is coming from households that are severely cost burden. So those paying 50% or more. Spending 50% or more of their income on rent each month. And then when you compare the city of Boulder's rates of cost per in households to those of Boulder County in the state of Colorado. You can see that the city of Boulder has. Higher rates of cost burden households and higher rates of severely cost burning households. And then the median gross rent as a percentage of household income has increased from 2017 to 2021 while the. And monthly owner costs as a percentage of household income. And the median gross rent as a percentage of household income.

[20:10] Is 46% while the median monthly owner costs as a percentage of household income is about 18%. And it's expected that renters would be spending. More of their income on housing costs each month, but that's a pretty big difference between renters and those living in ownership. And then finally, take away 5 while middle income households like we have sufficient rental options affordable to them. The rental units might not suit their household size needs. So this is a breakdown of the number of bedrooms in render occupied units in Boulder. So most rental units are 2 bedroom units. And then the second most common are one bedroom and then 4 bedroom is the third most common.

[21:00] And this shows deficits for studio or one bedroom. Units and then 2 bedroom units. And I need an assumption here that a one person household would be looking. Before studio or one bedroom and not a 2 person household would be looking for a 2 bedroom unit but it was also interesting because 4 bedrooms there's a surplus of 4 bedroom units. By kind of a lot of units. Send to wrap it up. There are not enough ownership opportunities for middle income households in Boulder, middle income households with the householder between the ages of 35 to 64 are moving out of boulder and are being replaced by higher income householders. And based on this data there are likely enough rental units for middle income renters but the size of the available units might not meet the renter needs. And low income renter households continue to be cost burden at very high levels. Oh, thank you.

[22:07] And if you had any other Okay. Oh, thank you. That's helpful. If you're aware that has been and, more information helps us. Possible solution so much. Thank you. So I have a question. Do you have any solutions like based on? Yeah. Yeah. Most of my recommendations. Had to do it. Land use code. To kind of make it easier to build. Less expensive housing. And. Make sure that. Boulder preserves its current chair of middle income housing.

[23:03] So Melissa, what kind of recommendations are you making in that regard? Cause that's also something that we've been. Wrestling with over here and this is Dan by the way. I don't know if you just heard. Did you hear what I said? Yeah, he's been here both time. Yeah. Okay. It would most I didn't put a lot of recommendations in the report but most of them were to just update the zoning code to make it easier to build more affordable housing. Okay. Which is absolutely something that we've been. Working on so. That's good to hear. But you choose for data sources used, ACS and, like, city of Boulder, what's on their website? And like a city of Boulder, what's on their website? City of Boulder.

[24:04] Social explorer, but that just, from the census. I'm pretty sure that was it. The projections use a third party, but in. Talk about any of the projections and stuff. I'm always curious about ways to. Measure things like, how much land is owned by different demographic groups or how many 50 bedrooms there are, how many vacant houses there are, things like that. So, if you have a run across any of those things as you were looking for the data you were looking for, I'd be very curious to know. Yeah. They can see what it's interesting in the census because the vacancy rate breaks down by different types of vacancy, which includes like vacation homes. That does vacancy numbers. You can dive into that. So.

[25:03] That's good. I'm sorry. No question. Did you mention what you're planning to do with the research further after this? Okay. Where the The next direction this project is. No, handing it off to holiday. Okay. I mean, this will be extremely helpful for us, particularly as we, you know, talk about this issue with our city council. So having, so because we, did, you know, we did the housing needs analysis and that was the way back in 2015 or we found 99% of all. Rental, and boulder were for affordable to middle income. So we knew that that's been eroded with the rents increasing significantly over time. So it's super helpful to have that information for us. And understand we're going to focus our attention. So my question, how's doing the rental vacancy rate? So, what is that tell you? About our market. So they're still considered like the healthy. Level but You wouldn't really want them to get much higher.

[26:11] There's no like standard. Rental vacancy rate that's like go across the board you kind of just have to compare it to like past years in bolder and keep it around that level. So I don't know the increase. I guess you probably wouldn't want to, much more just because it was lower before. Or within that if it was increasing with that, directly put down room pressure on rent. Yeah. I mean, it would be good for renters, but then. I guess it wouldn't be very good for people trying to make an investment on their rental properties. Really make people want to rent apartments. Yeah, the rental, the rental that they can see data. You use like the 2,011 and then a post pandemic number to see the trend like to try to identify a trend.

[27:12] And it is trending up those those restful vacancies are trending up. I don't think so. I think we were just trying to, Like in the data, try to not reflect like this, the exodus of the students during. That's because I feel like most of us aren't like, a, little bit, like, a, It does because that's how they're living in older. Yeah. Well, no, sorry, not all students living in Boulder. To tell students. Yeah. Well, no, sorry. Not all students. All students living in So I have a question. Was there any thought to sort of doing a deeper dive in terms of household size? Because it seems to me like if you're a single or you're a young couple, then there might be a greater appetite to live in an apartment.

[28:14] Historically in my mind, once you have kids, and then you start factoring in things like, what's the school and do I have a backyard and then there might be more of an impetus to move out of town because you really want to have a single family detached home with the yard. Whereas I think of many places like in Europe, for example, where there are apartments or condos that are big enough and people just expect to like raise a family in Paris and the expectation of like a single family home is very different than what Americans expect. So long we need a question, but was there, sorry, was there any? What did you do a deeper dive into like family size and how that might relate to affordability or the decision to move in or move.

[29:03] It did not, but most of the households in rental units are non-family households. 75% or non family households. And there I found information that said most renters. Don't have kids. I remember like 90% of renters don't have kids or something. When you say non-family household, does that mean they don't have kins or it means a single person? It means they're not. Mary. Not married. Yeah, or not kids. They're not related to the people in household. So like you could have roommates or house mates. Okay. And I'll just have the question about the household size. It's really tricky here. As the data show, there's kind of like a demographic transition happen. It's happening here where there's like an aging population and with an aging population that changes household size dynamics.

[30:07] And so trying to adjust for like what that looks in a forecast to what we have. Have now to what we might want in the future to what we will have if we don't change, you know, so that that's a that's a tough one to answer because we're seeing a more aging population. That's right. This came top of mind for me too when she was presenting because it's kind of a people have a lot of expectations around how much house they should be able to look forward at different stages of their lives. And I have some anecdotal evidence that suggests that. I've known, you know, families where it was 2 parents and 2 kids and they lived in a smaller condo. Compared to a single family home and they moved out to Lafayette because they wanted the full. You know, And,

[31:03] I just, like for me, I always wanna like resist the notion. We all need to have single family homes and that there's like a path to affordability through single family homes for all families. You know, and, So I'm not saying anything you were saying was like, you know, you know not sensitive to that but I just always wanna repeat every, you know, every, every now and then to just say. There is some extent to which people will have to like adjust their, their housing requirements. In this path to affordability. I guess that maybe like was about setting. If let's say you have a single family home and you want to downsize. I feel like there aren't a whole lot of options to to reduce the square footage of your house and even if you don't necessarily reduce the cost of your house.

[32:09] And so some of the solutions we might be talking about is a greater variety of housing types and housing prices, right? But I think you also raise the point which like is this expectation that If you have a family, you need a house with a yard, right? Even though there could be 4 bedroom units that are adjacent to a park or that have a jungle gym or whatever. And so. Yeah, people get to vote with their wallet. Let's talk a question. The programmer in JD, urban planning? That's kind of, but you can get it now. It's pretty cool. So is it for your program? 3 years of JD and then one year. Like 2 and a half years in law school and then one and a half of the masters.

[33:10] Yeah. That's really cool. I never heard of that. Great deal. Okay, Yes. Jamie, Seems like you did a lot of statistical analysis here. That's really what this project is. Did you do anything in addition to that? Like. Type business and I think that. Yeah. Do you have any analysis of demographics? Yeah, that's in the full report. It didn't show me a lot of information just because feel like. Most of the residents in Boulder.

[34:02] Are white and so it didn't Show anything. I guess very notable. Not really sure like. Yeah, it's in the final. It's in the actual report though. We're gonna get a copy of it. Yeah, Holly will get the final report tomorrow. Okay, I don't think it's tough because even in the residential world the last couple of years. It's COVID and the fires. It's been such a war when change. There was a point after the fires where there was like 2 properties for Red and Boulder. Because everybody needed a place to live so they just float in everywhere they could go and then COVID and then A lot of the hourly. I don't know if it's been a, but the hourly jobs. Increased by a lot in the last year.

[35:02] And so the data is tough because you're looking at the census, which is a couple of 3 years old, right? To use one. And then there's today and there's so much change between then and now. I mean, if you think it would change that much, but it has. And so you have kind of new criteria. It's wild. Residential temple world is. Really different than it was 2 or 3 years. Well, just say that American Community Survey that she did. Use the data for it came out in September for last year. So it's it's not ancient data, but hopeful. Of course, it's all kind of like. Statistically sampled, so it's not, It's just, you know, stats, but. Yes, yes. Pretty good guesses.

[36:00] Comments questions? Thank you. There's some excellent food out there. And you, yeah, you don't have to stay, but you're welcome to stay. That's 4 s before we. You know, so, Jenny and Polly, how is HHS gonna use this data? Maybe that's obvious. But. I don't know. Well, I would love. But I'm seeing. I'm sorry. I think there's some some. Yeah, that's some great data in terms of, you know, demographic trends that we can identify to present to counsel to kind of help tell our story about what. What is going on in our housing here is special. So I would hope that some of this is just used to kind of help tell that story.

[37:04] In terms of middle income folks leading. Older. Yeah, yeah, there's like this full, story, but I think we kind of I'll have like an intuitive sense about what's going on, but the last data, from 2,015. So he'll be next to like, we just looked at, you know, this is what's going on next. That's what she said. You're a high income family. No problems. Right. Yeah, and if you're middle income, you're probably leaving older. And if you are lower income, you're very cost. Yes, and the extent to which that includes students like what percentage of that lower income population. I'm not sure what percentage of the population includes students. I don't think you can both out of the census. As far as I know, but that lower income probably doesn't. But you know, we talked about this and we're looking at like the market dynamics here.

[38:03] I was looking at the rental market and that ownership market and to just take like a whole population now and say that they shouldn't be counted. We like, I don't know, it didn't feel right since they are contributing to the market. When I was a student, I absolutely spent more than 50%. But that would also have, you know, other sources of insurance. Just what paycheck said. So yeah, you know, it's family, there's, yeah, you know, it's family, they're student. You know, it's family, they're student. In terms of that, yeah, that cost burden, like what percentage that cost, students and where are those. Beyond our scope. I do think there may be questions about, you know, if you're saying this huge chunk of the population is extremely cost fair. To what extent that is the student population. That's the students don't count. Being cost-burned as a student can look very different than being cost for the working adult sure.

[39:06] So it's like, you're not working. Again, the parameters alone. It was a range because it kind of depends on the size of your household, but. So it could have been anywhere from. Set a house a one person household making $70,000 a year to Pretty much somebody need an 8 person household. A $198,000 a year. Would it be safe to say like 2 person household middle income would be 100,000. Yeah. So 2 people making 100,000 a year which around here. Very doable. They rent a place for 2,500 to 3,000 a month.

[40:02] That would be about 30 to 40% of the total income. So it's kind of on the border of cost burden, right? Little more. I think there's a lot of that happening. I think there's a lot of that. Yeah. Just go back to what Laura was saying. So your summary of sort of the big takeaways. So, point on, just saying that. What I think big takeaway for me is middle income. Yes, they can still afford to rent and bolder. They're not cost burdened. It's when they make that decision to buy. And so for me, it's not, and it's not a lifestyle choice, it's not in a having kids. It's when you make that decision, yes, I wanna stop renting, I wanna start by. That's when people are leaving sitting exactly. Because would that even extend to like if there were condo units you could buy?

[41:05] And I know this not a whole doesn't seem like there's a whole lot. That's my point. The ownership, the gap between what you can rent when you can buy is just enormous. Correct. Yeah, you're looking at ownership, the gap between what you can rent when you can buy. It's just enormous. Correct. What Yeah, cause let me clarify. In my mind. There's more single family homes to buy. But there aren't a whole lot of condo units to buy. That's correct. And that's an impression. That's not I know, production is just, 15 years since 2,008. So the point that you are making is they're moving out because they want to buy, because they want to buy single family because maybe it's like you can find any condos.

[42:06] I don't know. I think they can buy more. So they can get even if it's not a single family house, they can get a condo. That's bigger. More bedrooms like she was saying, you can't always find. Number of bedrooms that might be suitable for their house. Oh, look at the gap between running up. Thanks for apartment. Let's call it 2530 a 1.2 million dollar house. Interest rate. So, and actually I talked to my son about that at least 28. He's like, yeah, I'm gonna keep running for. Long time because the you know the economics of playing aren't there at this moment. But there are people still very much fine and they'll And then your last point about, low income folks being increasingly cost burden.

[43:01] So I, I guess my advice is enough to get hung up on the student issue. We do, we just know that people working in Boulder. So I think one of the interesting things we were just touching on it before, but with all this data. Sorry. It's hard for you and I can't talk. But, is really that whole notion of, you know, we also need to be kind of cautious of the False equivalency because if people are leaving because they want bigger houses, bigger yards, newer houses, etc, right? That's not a arena that we can really kind of delve into, right? Boulder is an older town. It's got older units. Sitting here looking at my house. I have aluminum windows from 1971 in here, right?

[44:02] You can see Earth behind me actually. That are long and moderate income are severely cost. And that's why the city's focus is on providing for Oh cool. And so I think that's one of the big challenges that I think from that data that we need to figure out is. Who's leaving because of the type? Of units they want and who's leaving because of the affordability of the unit. So those are 2 different things, right? But, you know, there are probably some people leaving like we're talking about big yards, new houses or whatever. That's, yeah, that's just the one thing for me. That's one of the cautionary tales, cause that's not something that we can. Really delve into it's just not part of this community and there's no way to. You know, change that now at this point in time as it's pretty built out. Alright, so. And I would just add Danny too and it's hard to predict, right? So what are the housing needs? Right. We know the household size is changing. That's all dynamics is changing. So that's what, you know, the approach is to provide a diversity of housing types. Yeah, exactly. Alright, we're not trying to dictate. Yeah, no, we need more. You know, family housing.

[45:05] You do know is making. Right. But I think Phillips, point that he was making about just the whole notion that You know, it's not just single family, it's not just ownership, there's other types of living that you could do and when you live in a certain community I mean I think that's really salient here because I think that's you know, gotta be part of it even if you're middle income. there's the to me. There's a huge benefit to live in Boulder as opposed to other communities that doesn't have anything to do with you know your finishes or the size of your yard etc. And so I think that's one of the things that we know we need to try to figure out here as we go along. Cause it is really challenging, right? And I just, The other thing I'd say is Pretty stunted the. The demographics in terms of the age. I didn't realize it was that much in terms of the. 65 plus. They're migrating in was it 400 and something percent?

[46:01] That's pretty high. Yes, they're just going into it. It's 65. Okay. Good move in. 200. Okay. Okay. Okay. Right, numbers been used for years. That was about 60,000 people that Working, older, they don't live in. I don't know how that's changed. Work home and the whole post pandemic workplace. We're not we're not gonna Thank you all those people back to Boulder. It seems like, or even capture, all the new people moving to both the county. It seems like a reasonable goal would be ensuring that our public schools have kids. You know, it's, 2 things. Okay. So we have some diversity in our community. Thanks, that, there's some, but also a little, And.

[47:05] You know, I think that's what we're after. We're not trying to solve all the problems and provide the right house at home for every single person who wants to be in Boulder, but if we can. Help some of them achieve that call, then we have a better community to more complete community. Absolutely. Okay, kind of gets me to some of the points in the letter. I have. Not to for close on this discussion, but we could move into that. Or the attendant. What it is? Thank you. After hearing the housing advisory board for the city, talk about this issue. Does it raise anything for you? Any thoughts that you want to share? I think so, but. I don't know, I'm interested if any of you read the full report, what your thoughts are on it.

[48:04] But yeah, I like this project. I thought it was really interesting. All the data points that came out of it though. Okay. Yeah. Thank you for your contribution to the city. Yeah, thank you very much, Lisa. And if anyone's gonna read, it's gonna be this group. I will send you. Nice to. Hey, next to Good morning. And, the, 2020, 2020, 2025, This is an informational item, but there are some points in it that I want to debate. I think, well, first of all, I just wanna say I'm grateful and don't work all of you.

[49:01] Yeah, but feel like we had a good influence. Council, that made some significant policy changes. You know reflect our values as a as a more than as a. And, you know, I know I'm talking to people on council that they listen to really. Important thing. It doesn't solve everybody's problems, but it's very bad to see here, long smoke, talk to ourselves. So, a lot of this letter, the way I've drafted it, open to any changes. It really is just kind of a summary of where we come from and then a little bit more on where we're going. And, the way I've written this first draft is really just encouraging council to monitor their progress. Continue to innovate but be pragmatic, you know, see practical achievable goals. Don't look for silver bullet solutions. It's not. This is not one thing we're gonna do that's gonna fix all the house.

[50:01] About today's point about having diversity. But there are a couple of things that, Sorry to discuss outside the meeting because we have to all be together. And, a big one is. The future of the airport, something we do pretty well in the last year. And apparently there is a decision point, so called the fork in the road coming up with council. Early early, 2025 and the, to come up with an actual recommendation on that. I don't think we have to do that tonight, but it would probably be on the agenda. In January. And the other thing is really brand new. And, we, for the middle. Missing. And. We can have something positive to say about, not again, not trying to solve the whole problem.

[51:03] The broad suite, but like, what can we do given the opportunities? . So what occurred to me, open discussion is that we have. Maybe an opportunity at a moment in time with. Kind of a pause in the commercial real estate market potential to convert some under used buildings to transitional. How can that be done? There is a nonprofit called Bruce House. That's their mission and they're good at it but they only sort of. You know, maybe 70 or 80 people, I think. And they focus on folks who are. Willing to commit to work who are. And they're also willing to pay some. Some portion, they give them jobs, and they have to pay some portion of income to, basically get a I think it's a pretty humane model compared to slipping on the street or under a bridge.

[52:06] And, also they have a very high success rate. For, transitioning into. Permanent housing, I think, to be here. Is just like the 75%. Exactly. So. It's really curious to have a discussion. Amplify that idea or see if we have a role with, discussing it if the city can take a greater role. What are the opportunities and is that something we would want to include? In this letter. Lots of, folks to fall in on there, so we're trying to. Come up with with all good intentions, policies that can help. And, it gets contentious. It's disagreeable. And, my goal to introduce that kind of conversation. I can see again focusing on those.

[53:01] We are most capable of. Excepting color and moving out of their lives. And Not trying to solve, you know. That's just a really hard issue. Can you clarify is this letter? What we are going to be working on in 2024 or what we're recommending that city council. New introductions and. The point is to, give council food for thought. If hardly a new council, I think it's still gonna be very pro housing and they're gonna have retreated. Is that March, March, of March and they're used to the idea of getting a letter from later so this is my effort to see that conversation.

[54:06] So I have Okay. Just every year. We have a letter to council every year. I've been here since 2018. So we always, you know, this is. All of that model too. They're expecting it. Yeah. But just to be clear, so, Michael is proposing potentially to send it. This month, council, they haven't created a subcommittee to plan their retreat. So they haven't asked the community is boards and commissions. Specific questions, which is what they usually do. Typically it's very targeted in terms of what feedback they want. So you might have to do another one. In March, which is fine. I think you could recycle a lot, but just want to be clear. Right. What Michael saying is this is food for thought for account. This is, are thinking about their priority should be for the next 2 years.

[55:04] So. I misunderstand. I thought that they did not ask last year. And then is the is the retreat, pushed to March because it's a new council. Thank you. Okay. So does it actually make any sense for us to approve a letter tonight and send it on or is it curvature in your opinion? Should why not send it? Doesn't hear anything. Well, will that make anything redundant or make it superfluous if we're going to send another one of March? I guess it'll be my question. Let me just see this being a re emphasis. A bit later, especially when we can get a little bit more specific. On the issues that we bring up. We do it again in a couple of months. I think my vote is to wait because I'd like to flush this out a little bit.

[56:03] I definitely like what you did, but I have some suggestions and I know. And. And one of my suggestions is if we had something that we wanted to present to council and we got the support of other organizations that said, we had something that we wanted to present to my suggestions is if we had something that we wanted to present to council and we got the support of other organizations that said, hey, these 5 organizations think that City Council should focus on these housing issues, then it's not just coming from. it have in Better Boulder and whoever else we can get to yeah whoever else we might be able to get to agree with. I'd be a I'd be a little reticent with that. I mean, I think in terms of this being. Our direct communication with counsel. I'd be reticent to throw in other groups because I think it changes the tenor of the the messaging and everything and so I mean I think one way or another It's useful to have a letter right, you know, from HAD rather than saying, you know, and in conjunction with these other organizations.

[57:09] I just, but I also think maybe It does make sense to you know, hold our powder a little bit right now, I'm not quite sure. I could be convinced either way. For whenever it's gonna, resonate more with the council. And when you say other organizations, are you specifically thinking of? Non words as opposed to seeing if. Tab has anything that we're in agreement with and doing it that way. You know, I don't think I thought that through so far and I understand Danny's perspective like. You know, it is hard to get consensus among various groups. So not that I'm retracting, but I hadn't thought maybe I hadn't thought through my suggestion as well as.

[58:06] Others who've been on your I don't know that that opportunities, there's opportunities to. Right. Or collaborate and get multiple groups together. Based on a specific issue that maybe council asks us about or something like that. But, to traditionally, it's like, hey, counsel, this is what we're doing, this what we think. You know, this is us, the toes of the letters have gotten so much better in the first, which we're like attacking. Attack, and so, but this is, there's a lot in there. There's a lot in there. There's a lot in there that covers a lot of territory. Which I think is good. What was the latest on the airport? Yeah. Okay. Cause I know we're flying around with some different ideas. The latest job, yes, we know, we don't, I've heard there's a boat coming up on the airport. In March, maybe. Oh, who's? You have an update or? I actually talked to Natalie today. Now, the director of transportation.

[59:20] And so And that report will be delivered to council in January. Basically, here's the engagement effort that they did about the future of their work that Phil and I have been reporting on. And then in March, likely in March, they plan to go back to council with the results of. That council asked for the last time council talked about this and that is the financial analysis of you know what would it cost to run the airport on our own? What would it cost to try to get out of? Our grants assurances with the FAA, what would it cost if we have to litigation? So that's the financial analysis piece. There's a legal It's about, it's, it's about what with the, potentially look like.

[60:02] And then there is a statement from the FAA that they're coordinating like what is the Fa's position. About Boulder decommissioning the airport, which I think we know what we can expect there, which is No, go do it. Yeah. Alright. There will be more detail on that. So staff are going to come back to council with the results of all of that research. And then basically my understanding for, is ask for direction given what you now know about the public engagement and what happened there and the research that staff did. Do you want to continue down this pathway of looking at decommissioning the airport or do you want to close that door and invest in the future? That's March. So it could be a watershed moment where the door closes forever. As far as this one, that's March. So it could be a watershed moment where the door closes forever. So it could be a watershed moment where the door closes forever. As far as this is forever, we're the door closes forever. As far as this is concerned, for this forever, which would likely result in an airport master plan that or you know more accommodating to jet traffic and that sort of thing.

[61:00] Or council could say we need more information or council could say we want to pursue the commissioning go down that path. So they're gonna put the questions, what council does is unknown, of course. So what I think is interesting is if you think about the presentation that we just had. And the. And the conclusion, which is that there isn't enough middle income housing. That's I think it would be if what city council is gonna do or what staff is gonna do in the first quarter of 2024 is talk about all the costs and burns and obligations in the hurdles associated with. The potential decommissioning of the airport. I think if we want to balance that we should talk about. All the potential problems that we solve if this 200 acre site could be developed into housing for middle income and lower income, different property types, different population to support our schools, whatever life.

[62:06] I think, I think what we really should encourage is an exploration of the potential of what the of what the airport could be. And that was that was not done through the community conversation. It was a very, very basic vision of. You could have a neighborhood and that neighborhood would have housing and commercial areas and open space. That was like the extent of the vision was provided. And that has been one of the things that I have really pushed. Throughout that community conversation is the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan basically promised that at the time of the next airport master plan update the city would work with the community to evaluate the potential for housing and neighborhood serving uses at the airport, which in my mind, people can read that sentence and think different things. But in my mind, that means more like what you're saying, Karen. What, how could this property, if it were a neighborhood, help the city to meet the goals in the Botha Valley, comprehensive plan.

[63:01] And more than that, what is the unique potential of having a piece of lands that is not built out that the city owns and therefore can use it as like a subsidy to get the kind of housing that we want. There just aren't that many opportunities. And, where our housing site is already built out, it is older. It is not necessarily the products that people want in 2023 and. So. I'm excited by what you're saying. So. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, Not being, You're saying make the case, neighborhood with mix. First housing. Rather than take. The commission in the airport period that's Look at the all the benefits you can get. So I would move this up to the like you know how you have 2 sections right like I think this should be priority like let's do an evaluation of what the potential is, right? Like I think this should be priority.

[64:08] Like let's do an evaluation of what the potential is while you're looking at. I think this should be priority. Like let's do an evaluation of what the potential is while you're looking at all the costs and you can do sort of a is it worth all this potential cost and litigation and whatever look what you potentially could get. Oh, somebody did that. Didn't somebody do that? So, what I can tell you is that if we had to pay the FAA back. For the lands that they helped us to buy. It's 79 acres. They would have to be sold in fair market value. And then that money would go to the FAA. And that's just for if we have to pay them back to the land. There's a legal argument to be made that we might not have to pay them back because it was just so long ago and the agreement's right. But if we did have to. Pay them back. 79 acres at market rate. You can do that if you pay 3 million dollars an acre.

[65:03] That's what like or 2 million dollars an acre. It's a hundred $59 or whatever. So that's, that's the cost. That doesn't include the cost to mitigate or anything else, right? And then if we sold all of the land, 179 acres. Excuse me, sorry, the whole airport is a hundred 70. And you can calculate what it would go for at market value. The portion of the FAA helped us to purchase is 49. That's a hundred. So it's 49. It has a claim line. That's a hundred 7. So it's, it has a claim on. 130 to take off. True. Oh, 79 was me making a mistake. You're raised and 49, that the FAA helped us purchase a hundred 79 total the airport lands. That makes sense. I think the numbers if you were to sell it to private people, you would generate enough money to. Or, That would work.

[66:08] Those numbers work. The benefit is more, right? And then you just gotta plan out, figure out how much of it's this and that the other thing. But is our, we want to today. Make a decision to suggest ESD commissioning. Or no, that's gonna go over, we want to have it fully explored before we make a decision. Well, I think that's what Karen is. Yeah, if you can clarify what's gonna happen in March, best as you know. Let me ask. Is this just like another ramp to be taken or not taken or is this like a really big decision point? Like is that? The housing future there. 900, and 3. It very well could. So what Natalie expressed to me is that they need some players because I mean the transportation department and staff in general because There are decisions that have to be made like.

[67:06] If we keep the airport. This whole debacle around unleaded fuel. How do we encourage getting off of leaded fuel and getting onto automatic fuel, the city could take steps to subsidize the unlimited fuel. The city could take steps to subsidize the unlimited fuel or do other things to try to make it actually happen. To do other things to try to make it actually happen faster than it would otherwise. They need clarity around that. And this idea of are they going to continue to pay consultants to pursue litigation potentially they need to know should we keep our consultants on contract or end the contracts this idea of. We are, we currently have a pause on accepting FAA money to do airport maintenance and repairs. Right? The airport manager wanted to take money months ago and the city council said no we're not going to take any money until we make this decision in March. So they need to know, can we take the money or not? So staff really want clarity of, are we really going down this pathway of decommissioning? Are we really going to keep doing this? Or do we close that door and go down the pathway of the airport master plan?

[68:06] As if we're just gonna keep it. It could be just a decision to continue to explore. It could be and you folks could make that recommendation. I mean, sounds like Karen, that's your thought is to say, Hey, don't close the door in March. You haven't fully explored the benefits. Is that what you're saying? Or would, would you be more inclined to just like recommend decommissioning their place? Well, my gut is. Let's decommission the airport and not make it an airport anymore. But I think that we're not going to be able to convince people. To make that decision until we understand both sides of the the pros and the cons, right? So if the city is already gonna do that analysis of the costs and the obstacles and the steps and the Gation, we need to know why are they going to do all that hassle and all that money unless there's an incredible benefit.

[69:04] And as the data showed today, like we're losing population of middle income. It's being replaced by older people who are wealthy, our schools are losing enrollment. Like we have this, everyone seems to acknowledge that we have a missing. And so If you're gonna do this all this analysis of like all the obstacles and hurdles to decommissioning, let's. Dangle that carrot of like, but here's what you'll get in exchange for it. Like here's the sort of utopian solution to Boulder's housing, So. Yeah. Sorry, I absolutely agree. I mean, here's what I'd say. I've been mitigating for 25 years. First thing I ask a client before they litigate is what are you trying to accomplish? So what is the goal? In other words, right? And so I think Karen, you're saying it's absolutely true because what What that does is it sets a very palpable, tangible goal for everybody so that everybody understands.

[70:07] Why we're gonna take it on because it's not like, all right, you know, we're just gonna litigate with the, literally with the feds and, you know, but just Check a couple of boxes and that'll be done. Litigation is never that way. You know, he's not going to go into it to lose either. They've got their own agenda as well. But I think the whole notion here is that if we have something concrete instead of saying, Hey, wouldn't it be great? We could put some houses here, which is kind of the way it's been. I think the master planning of the airport can really help. Congeal support in the community. To take on what's going to be a very arduous step. To get to that, get to that next level, right? And so I think what I like instead of saying, hey, vote to decommission because there's so many things there that are outside of our purview. I think the whole notion of saying really start. Planning for, analyzing and then giving proper weight to.

[71:04] What can be done in the alternative if we get there. Is kind of what I like to see in a letter and kind of what I think really works here because that's that's really the question. And like I said, Before you make a decision to jump into something like litigation, you always want to know where it is I'm trying to accomplish is it money is it you know a good idea whatever it is right and I think you know from that perspective, the more concrete we have something that we can share with the community that we can all kinda you know, circle the wagons around the, the better, more successful it's going to be if we need to move forward on that next step, which you know hopefully we did. Well, I mean, try to answer that. Question Danny, I think people in this room would like to see. You know, basically 6 holidays, dial neighborhoods in one cluster of development that's pretty close to the core.

[72:03] Transportation. You know, that could be the shining object that you. I mean, I have a question like it's always easier to negotiate if you know what your opponent wants, right? So the FAA wants the the airport to continue in operation. And if we ultimately can convince them like We don't really want to do that, but here's something else that you need, right? Like, do they need pilot training? Or do they need, you know, I don't know. Is there anything else that they might need that we could give them in exchange like a piece of land so that they could have simulators or repairs or no? Or is it? Just see that judge that tells them, no, they can't have an airport. Yeah. Hey. They're, yeah, they're more about emergency services. That's built into that scenario. Like if we do have a neighborhood there that would absolutely be better. And that would absolutely be better. The emergency services would not go away.

[73:05] There would be a helicopter, area in whatever this new, services would not go away. There would be a helicopter, area in whatever this new, airport, neighborhood might be. But my understanding, airport, neighborhood might be. But my understanding from talking with, everybody in that airport community conversation and Phil, that looks like you're having the same impression is that the FAA is not going to negotiate. No. The FAA wants the airport as it is and growing. There's nothing that we can do that will convince them to decommission just part of it or to, you know, they've already done that with a very small parcel, which, was, the, Bellow, Condos, Right, They're, So this battle here in Boulder for them is not about boulder. It's symbolic of the whole system is not about boulder. It's symbolic of the whole system, the whole network. They don't want airports. It's symbolic of the whole system, the whole network. They don't want airports anywhere to close. They don't want airports anywhere to close. It sets a precedent. It shows a pathway for how to do it. It sets a precedent. It shows a pathway for how to do it.

[74:02] They don't want that to happen. It shows a pathway for how to do it. They don't want that to happen. And understandably from their position, their their job is guarding the civil aviation network and growing it and expanding it. It's not reducing it. Hello. And Laura, if I'm not mistaken, that's their approach. To any community that tries to take this step, right? That's kind of their and approach, right? I understanding. Yeah, I think the only successful decommissioning without protracted litigation was, Chicago. They had a downtown airport that they, right after 9 11, the mayor had the city work crews go out and dig up the runways over and and then he went to Congress and basically said we're not gonna have an airport in downtown Chicago it's a terrorism risk. Right, so it was very special circumstance and a very hardball negotiator in that mayor. We're obviously not gonna do that here in both, Yeah, to get the update about it off. Okay. It's seems like. The test before is small.

[75:09] In the sense that all we're trying to do is think about what we might say ahead of a march. Yeah. Meeting for city council to encourage them to. Keep the dream alive. I think we're, you and I are on the same page for the most part. I, I do want to just caution a little bit of. You know, I, I don't see the airport as such a silver bullet solution to. Howing problems. It is, it is a really nice. Opportunity that I think I wanna. You know, tackle with custom. But That said, I do feel like, some of the work that have to do around. Preparing for what's next in the Boulder comprehensive plan, 2025, you know, we keep getting this.

[76:00] Messages from people like Carl. Well, there's only so much we can do. Sweking zoning on the margins because this is what's in the BBCP, right? So like I don't like I love I love the notion of the commission airport. I hope it happens. I wanna do what we can, but I also like. Just sort of acknowledge that it's like one piece in this, you know, lots of stuff. Proposing, you know. 8 different things. Can I add one? Sure. So, there's a few times. But it'd be great if you guys could include in your letter. The our work plan item to basically apply, some sort of link contribute to demolitions. Of residential homes. Yeah. Absolutely agree with that. Yeah. You might get uploaded on that one. That's fine. You know how to spend some disconnect down small anywhere.

[77:12] Then don't do it! Don't do it, right? That's the whole thing. Yeah, they're just fine. They just stuck in January. They're fine. That sounds good. That was more than 71 windows. I'm sorry, I'm like, for the demo, it's a fee based on how much new square footage you're gonna, you'll be proposed. So it could potentially also apply to large additions. Yes, that seems to make. But we'd have to do the, the Nexus study to determine whether what we could apply and if we could apply and if we could apply it. It's gonna have to support your Nexus study. Doing some kind of fee to support affordable housing when an older home or significant expanded.

[78:01] Well, everything that we heard today, everything that we've talked about and the whole notion of the lack of supply. And so every time if you take a lot of the homes You know, I've been South Boulder my whole time here. So you take a lot of those old homes in South Boulder. Every single time one of them gets bulldozed or remodeled it gets turned into a giant trophy home from the demographic that we saw in green. And move the demographic that we just saw in red in that presentation. So I think the whole notion. That that as having a. Very real on the ground effect at the opportunities. And that and that one goes to Reynolds too because the extent that we were talking about people wanting to you know, if you have kids and you all live in a single family home, etc. That's the model that you have in terms of what's affordable that you can rent. I know plenty of people. Who live in rent in a lot of those homes. And what happens is those rentals then get turned into trophy homes, people that might not even live here, you know, the whole.

[79:06] The whole year and it changes the entire profile of what we're looking at right those are homes that families can rent and live in. They're usually somewhere between 2,000 $504,000 a month. They have yards they have a little garages they have storage etc. So once that homes dosed, it's gone. So of course you can't stop somebody from doing that, but I think the whole notion that say just like everything else, there needs to be some linkage, there needs to be some accountability. For the effects that has on the overall community, I think makes a lot of sense. And I think. Once we do the study, we absolutely need to do that study, but once we do, I think we're gonna find out that it is, you know, pretty well defensible to given the particular circumstances. So. I think it's huge. We talked about that a few months ago. I think that's a really, really big one.

[80:06] Okay. Just to clarify, they're not, they're deconstructed. I encourage anybody. To go watch an old house be deconstructed by the city of Boulder's requirements and standards. Okay. Go out there and see what happens and how it costs 4 times as much to deconstruct a house instead of Big and then, and then when you pull the permit, actually, if you, I check myself, if you deconstruct the house, then pull a permit for a bigger house. You don't have to pay the inclusionary housing. Cache and whatever you want. You don't have to do that in that situation. Right. So that's, so that's maybe, sideways say a linkage fee might be a sideways. Or work around to actually paying for. No matter if there was a house there. It may be saying the same thing 2 different ways. And that's exactly that. Right. But, and that's the way we thought. Thanks, those 2 things are somewhat synonymous.

[81:03] I mean, I think that's the point. Yeah. That may be the point. Yeah, they just they can't do it with the the inclusionary housing program that they have now because that it's not supported by the logic behind that program, which is why they have to do the linkage fee study, but it's the same concept. Same idea. We're paying for for any new house, matter if there's a. For any new house, if there's a house, they're not. Yep. Got it. Yes. We want to call the, there you go. I think that's correct. I would say just to Danny's point about the, you know, it's a small house and, just to Danny's point about the, you know, it's a small house and, or in South Boulder that's being deconstructed and replaced with a trophy house. So this is one of those concepts from that missing middle book, which I forgot to bring that for you. I'm sorry, that for you. That we currently are not allowed to take that same building envelope that could be a huge, you know, 14,000 square foot trophy home, but they are going up. And divided into 8 units or 6 units. We can't currently do that with our zoning code, but this is an opportunity to say.

[82:05] To explore an idea like that, which is it's the same building envelope that you could do with a large single family home and you can divide it into multiple units that we'd have to do like an infrastructure study and some other things. To support that in the comprehensive plan. And that's what Carl Giler was saying. That's a step too far. We can't do that with zone for affordable housing. Farthest that they went was you can have a duplex in a place where you could subdivide or try Flex in a place where you could subdivide. But this idea of taking that same building envelope and dividing it up into smaller units and selling them. That's not supported by zoning for affordable housing. It could be done through the comp plan revision potentially. Yeah. It's at least an idea that we could ask. So I would really like to see that in this built like elaborated on, and then getting back to your concept of like elaborated on. So I would really like to see that in this built like elaborated on in the to council.

[83:01] And then getting back to your concept of I realize that it is a can of worms and that we don't necessarily want to get into like all the all of the permanent supportive housing treatments and case workers and amenities that are provided but I would like to see some exploration of different housing types. So there was recently an article and I can't remember where I saw it which talked about like group homes where people rent. Where people rent a bedroom and then there's like a community, you know, you community kitchen that shared in bathrooms that are shared or. You know, I know people talk about how you can't convert an off. This building into apartments because there's not enough windows and all those kinds of things but If you could convert those into SROs and like, yeah, or hostels like if we could start exploring.

[84:03] Cheaper opportunities that aren't necessarily what most of us think about as a one bedroom apart. You know, to your point about office building. So. You know, all of spillings, they're, they're big downtown Denver, so, they have a whole block. Those are the ones that are hard to convert. Maybe lower any higher buildings that are not. That's one of the things Britch House is doing to this storm. So not to. Just want to comment then. I think it's gonna be too hard to, This letter tonight, adopted. So can we do that? I'm not being adopted in January, would that still be timely? I was gonna make a suggestion. That might be a path forward. Cause I mean, it takes effort, right?

[85:01] If you took the time to write in the letter. So if you want to flesh these ideas out more, I think I would say it's for each individual board members responsibility to take that out. So, one option is this is to basically. Supported Michael's letter, send it off and you could include some, says we will flesh out these ideas more and share it with council prior to the year retreat in March. When is the council activated? Are they already? Yeah. The soon we can get them a lighter better just to like introduce ourselves to those new members and let them know more about. Anyway, sounds good. Like would you want to take another stab at it based on what? It's easier for me to take those through an email and digest them, try to do it on the fly.

[86:01] If you wouldn't mind taking 20 min. Before. You're doing that and telling me I'd be happy to do. You know, do some of the, revising. I think that's just fantastic. I guess very pleased by that. Yeah, enter this conversation. And remind me, what's the impetus of sending it to them in January versus February? Versus March. Okay. Well, at some point they might ask us to answer specific questions. Either result in our letter if we waited for that to happen or send the letter and then send another letter. Yeah. I kind of like the 2. Sorry, I like the 2 bites of the Apple thing. I like the whole notion that desire to reach out to them and introduce ourselves. And, and, you know, be able to, you know, use our own discretion in terms of what we communicate and then certainly if we have things we have to answer, be it in March or whenever it ends up being.

[87:06] That's fine too. So I like the 2 letter approach. My God, I promise you I'll get you red line comments by, Tuesday morning. Okay. I haven't store window behind it. It's so it's. Okay, come break through your single pain window and, take it from me. Put some plastic up there with some duct tape. We do! We do every day, right? 3 grab. Me too, I don't have a The war spot my house is out on the outside right in front of the windows Thank you. But, as a matter of process, can we accomplish this? True, around robbing an email, so do we have to like meet again in January and vote on it to approve the letter? Before forwarding into account. I would say it depends how much you want to change it. If you're just making minor tweaks, based on people's That's fine.

[88:08] Make more of a case about the airport. You know, Can you say something? My sense is that we, we, all take the opportunity to weigh in as much or as little as we want. Like I, have some thoughts that have been kind of stirred up this meeting. And I'll probably, you know, I intend to send you. So, right. So if we could meet again and talk. About the latest draft. And vote on it. Meaning to do that, does that make sense? I don't Good. You would have to be opposed to meeting, right? Because you feel like doing it in the already scheduled January meetings to. Let me join your virtual meeting for the web.

[89:13] Hmm. Let me know what's the notice new draft with red line comments and We'll put that known as corporate. Oh, we can. So public notice wise, I mean, even if we just table that, you know, table this issue or continue to that date for a special meeting and there's not actually a phone in public noticing, but I, I don't want to usurp that, but it's very practical to do. We can do that. Zoom conference and make it easier for logistics if we don't have a space that we could use or something like that. But I think that's a that's a good idea. But it's still like to be a public meeting. Yeah, sure, right, absolutely. Where do you wanna look at dates or not? I'd say it's fine process what we've done with planning board is like I've given a draft letter to planning board.

[90:03] Either we've discussed it in a meeting where people have sent me comments and then I consolidated it and then brought it back to a public meeting. So I think that is kosher as far as process, but you can't. If you do is have everybody sending everybody's comments to everybody and commenting on everybody's comments. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. What's the concern about just doing a draft sending you our comments and you can't. Yeah, yeah. Okay. What's the concern about just doing a draft sending you our comments and you coming up with the draft on January 20 fifth one of those it's just it just has to do doing a draft sending you our comments and you coming up with the draft on January 20 fifth one of those it's just it just has to do if it's not an issue, we, we could do that. We could just stay the course and by the way, don't pick that 20 fifth. That's why I haven't checked the actual date. Do you want to do a special meeting? I would recommend we do a zoom moment. Significantly. Yeah.

[91:01] It would have to be a super long meeting. We're gonna have to incorporate the public comments. Realistically, on Monday, so if we did the third. That would be 3 weeks before, but as a third few soon after the News, and if you're at the tenth, then it will be only 2 weeks remaining. Let me, Hmm. I mean, the easiest thing is just to wait till January, our regular January meeting. Is that agenda very full? In mind. Change our letter after hearing. Jobs again after that.

[92:02] Okay. I do think council will be eager to hear whatever we have to say, especially the new members. Yeah, like, Yeah. Okay. I'm available on the third. You can make it work. Yeah. Around the same time. Danny, can you do the third? On Zoom. Which for me? Okay. Great. Well, the other big Item to discuss in the letter is. But we Almost transitional. Yeah, absolutely. It's the, you know, it's wrong that we, can't talk about housing without.

[93:02] Talking about the house. But maybe we don't use that word. I don't know. It's like, it's not okay. I can't keep track. Really affordable housing solutions, right? Like HRS and. Just roof houses and local. Yeah, dorms. Just, just, just, just, just, to, just, just, the, micro, like, just explore the options for deeply, like, let me back up. I had mentioned in a previous meeting that would be really good to sort of explore why does it cost $700 in theory to build a unit, right? And so one of the things we talked about is how can we create units that are less expensive on a per unit basis. So if it's a dorm, or something, those are always where like the cost to an individual is significantly less and whether we call it house to an individual is significantly less.

[94:11] And whether we call it housed or homeless, I just think it's all ways where like the cost to an individual is significantly less. And whether we call it housed or homeless, I just think it Well, I do think this is the only issue. The city and housing strategy for the homeless includes giving them homes that they do not save for that the city is subsidizing. So it is a little bit of a different issue but what I hear you saying Karen is building the ladder right like how do you go from a subsidized transitional unit to being able to forge your own place when you need those really deeply afforded units and that that wrong of the ladder is currently missing just like the middle income is missing. Just like the middle income is missing. Or missing a couple of rounds.

[95:01] Yeah. What I hear from you is Like how do we just get somebody with? A roof over their head off the street and into a building with their roof over their head. Well, I don't know. What do you think I said? As you said, it's more topic. Well, I don't know. What do you think I said? As you said, it's more topic. When I was All that's needed. Agreed, but this board shouldn't be addressing mental health and addiction and those issues. And so like it almost almost everybody or my understanding is that. If you have a mental health issue or disability that you can get income from. Government that will that will subsidize some of your rent right and so and so I'm less focused on where is the income coming and more do we have. Of a variety of housing. Types and options for. All different income levels. And my understanding right now, like if you look at Lee Hill, that was like a 600 square foot one bedroom, right?

[96:03] Like that's an expensive unit to build, right? But they're, but there used to be housing options for people where you rent a room, Right? Or you live in a house with the kitchen that you share with 6 other people or. Hi, and pallet homes as like interim solutions until something is built like we don't have any of that as far as, currently, currently not. You know, it's a whole suite of services. Building it's probably very expensive to are like really nice size one bedroom. No, to, to go over the place, but what Denver is doing, which was modeled after what Houston started doing, which was modeled after what Houston started doing 6 or 8 years ago.

[97:00] I think is a great idea. And it seems to be working. But it requires the city stepping up and you know, I don't know you can do it here too you know from as many options but Bye, old motels. And just you're at least not on the street. You're in the Moto. Of light, charging for your phone. Stop. Can at least, we can't do that works because you're probably not, but, but sounds silly when we talk about a, about some of these old, really old ugly office. I mean, you know, and I'm not saying convert them into residential, but it's a roof over your head and about some of these old, really old, ugly office. I mean, you know, and I'm not saying convert them into residential, but it's a roof over your head and bunk bed it out and make it like a hostel. We've all a lot of us been through your urban hospitals and you just walk into a room and there's a shared bathroom and it's somewhere to sleep that's not outside. You know, it's somewhere to sleep that's not outside. And that to me helps. A lot of people who can do it and all that and it gets rid of the events and and then.

[98:03] So, Jayne, would that require a change? That's, and, and, and, and, so, Jay, would that require a change, the, the, would that require a change, the, the, calling plan to allow for boarding house type situations, hostile type situations. I don't think those are currently legal. Or is that a state level issue? No, I mean, like this shelter, bolder shelter for the homeless. It's, It's a condition. You just have to go through a process. So, but the whole sort of a nonprofit run. So if you, but if you're a private. You know, landlord that wants to convert an office space into, yeah. No, that's not That's not allowed. Right. So would that require a comp plan change or what would have to change? You should make that be allowed. I think you'd have our time giving the community to agree that that's a good idea. Better than sleeping on the street. Is it better driving? Anyway, we can talk about that. I'm just. It might be our cell, but what would be required. I'm sorry. It might be a hard sell, but what would be required? I'm sorry.

[99:00] It might be a hard sell, but what would be required? I'm sorry. If you're required, I'm sorry. It's, so, given that it would be a hard sell. It would not be easy to accomplish, but what would have to change? Is it just? Is it an ordinance? Is it an ordinance? Is it not plan? So I think it's zoning. I don't think it's the call plan. It's still be an. Like off tool type redevelopment and this residential. Using. There you have to change the use of the building, different building code requirements. It's very expensive. You have to upgrade it. Different building code requirements. It's very expensive. You have to upgrade it. You have to upgrade it. You have to. Forget all that. Actually, I know I understand checking all the boxes. Anyway, we, we got a reservation. You know, again, going back to the bridge house. Example, and this is, you know, ballpark. Like a 3 story commercial building and put a bunch of bunk beds that sounds really expensive. It's like a thousand, $100,000. Okay. You code.

[100:04] Forget all that. It's a bad inside of them. Sweeping in canvas. So you currently have a bullet point on that second section that says for 2024 and beyond have will investigate such initiatives as And you have a bullet point that says. Well, continuing hands focus on missing middle housing discuss solutions to provide transitional housing for a portion of our unhoused population, incremental not long size fits all. Focusing on housing, not police or social services. So I think what I'm here is maybe rewrite that a little bit. But It sounds like this is not something that you're gonna agree on the solution, but maybe you can agree that you wanna talk about it. Right, I agree and I like that approach. Let me be more specific and what I was trying to convey, which is. This is a solution for people who are capable. A fairly high degree of health care. It's not gonna get the. Crystal Mathematics or the severe mental health problems.

[101:04] Just free me on the street. It's a little controversial actually. Some people say, how can anybody get mentally? Well, if they don't have a and others like, that doesn't work unless you the treatment. I don't even like in that discussion. I just want to say there's people capable of and preview their lives with some form of housing and let's try to provide it. Getting into the mental health counseling and drug addiction and all that because Not framing it in terms of unhoused folks. Like it's more about. How you kind of recap, you said what you said, about. Filling in those ladders of the housing ladder, right? And I guess for me, I'm all for having a lot of housing types at a lot of price points and.

[102:04] I would definitely be in support of. Some dormitory style housing or home. So, that sounds great. That's great. So the big question for me is this just belong in the, Yes. Yeah. I, I mean, I think it is worth just kind of reiterating why we've been reluctant in the past. You know, because Everyone is thinking about this and I don't I don't wanna like Come in to this issue like shoot in front of the hit like, oh, you know, let's just do this. Let's do that when it's like. There's been so many people that have gone before us and I've thought so carefully about these issues and it's there's a lot of ongoing efforts that that are underway now, you know, and so I, like, in some respects, I think we gotta, we have to be cautious in terms of, thinking about how we

[103:21] Right. That's why I like Karen's point. can engage with. Currently going efforts and not just be making more noise. Yeah, I think, I think make all the noise you can make because whatever it's been doing is not working. Yeah. I've looked here, and I've never seen it like this. It's never been like this. It's never been like this. And whatever this program, I appreciate the efforts and the programs and all that it's told wonderful and all the part and parcel to the solution but more needs to be done. Which, even the, over what you just said. I mean, so one thing that, Tina said when I interviewed her this summer was that, hey, maybe we ought to treat this like a crisis. You just said it is and we have weekly press reports on what we're going to address this like a crisis. US said it is and we have weekly press reports on what we're doing to address this emergency not unlike what they were doing at BSD during the COVID pandemic weren't.

[104:09] Parents are up in arms and they wanna know when my kids can go back to school and what's going on. So you have a first, you have a press conference every Thursday or whatever that says, you know, city council. Wants to go all in and treat this like a crisis. I think we should be ready to say, hey, we're here, we'll help you, you know, and for me it feels a little weird to like. Trying to jump out ahead of them. Maybe, maybe it's not. That's what they say. So, I want to provide a little perspective. So, Lee Hill, for example, is permanent supportive house. So there's like 3 legged school as a unit. There's a voucher for income like rental payments and then there is money available for case workers. That is a very holistic approach to how you how you help people who are unhappy, right? Rich House has a different model, which takes a very small subset and says, if you're willing to help people who are unhapsed, right?

[105:14] Rich House has a different model, which takes a very small subset and says, if you' plans and requirements and goals. Will give you a place to live, will train you, will like do all those things. So those are both very like robust programs that that sort of cover the gamut of housing and services and helping people. What I'm proposing that have do is not a holistic approach, it's Let's just look at units that maybe cost. $500 a month. $800 a month to $300 a month. Like what are the various housing? Or? Configurations that can be of different sizes and different price points, but not trying to solve mental health or addiction, whether you have a job or where you get your income from, but just a cheap roof over your head where you pay rent.

[106:09] Okay. And I absolutely, I absolutely agree. That's. I absolutely agree that was a point I was agreeing with. Exactly. I think as long as you're saying even if it's $0 a month If we're talking about housing solutions, then I think that's within our wheelhouse. Once we start peering into some of these broader issues, I think we're trying to. Running the risk of, we're, Terry, if you remember, yeah, we kinda. Got into it a little bit city council a while ago on the same kind of notion But I think if we're talking about units and what we can do and how we can explore that and how we can kinda. Be healthy part of the solution. And I think that's something that. You know should be well received and is definitely something that you know within our capacity. I have a tendency to oversimplify things and I get that. But over here we have a lot of people sleeping outside right now. It's 20 degrees and freezing. And over here we have a whole bunch of empty buildings all around town that have heat.

[107:03] Yeah. And water in the bathroom. There's gotta be a way. Put that together a little bit better than we've been doing it. That's what I'm saying. You don't know if it's quick. For a year, yeah, yeah. Without an autocrat taking over. Sometimes you just got it. It's a stream. That's my oversification. Get it? But it's it's it's almost criminal in my mind. You're driving down the string. You see, these 4 people see, and I look over here and this is something building. It has been mentioned 3 years in, but we start with. Hello. Okay, I'm sorry. I think we have a lot of consensus. I think we have a lot of consensus and where you go on some of these issues with this fantastic. So, and my understanding We will be circulating some red lines of this. Or the end of the year so that January third we can have the Zoom Meeting.

[108:06] Review a new draft. Approve it or just group it to send it to the council. That's a Letter number 2. But we sent it to you, right? We don't send it to everybody. When do you need it? Number 40 s. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So comments to Michael by December for the second. And Michael, you'll get a new draft out for the January third special. Do you need anything else in terms of setting up the January third special meeting? Just need a vote. Make it official. I hear a motion to hold a special meeting by Zoom on Wednesday, January third. Benny, I have a second. Hello. Hello.

[109:01] Anyone disagree with that? Yeah, that motion passes unanimously. Thank you, everybody. We can do with the agenda, which would be, I just have a comment. Can I make a comment? I, I just have a comment. Can I make a comment? It's kind of a meta-comment, to. How to how to make a more powerful more a letter because we were talking earlier about collaborative letters and I just wanted to say one thing about that kind of held on to. And that is. For me with that raises, it is what tab did this year. And I'm not sure if Tab actually did it or if it was individuals' within tab and I don't quite know how it is going to unfold, but. You know, members of the are really eager to have to get city councils. Show they're shaken around parking minimums and get that to be a top priority this year.

[110:11] And so. They made an extra effort to reach out to lots of different people in the community to get them signed on to their letter. To you know get city council's attention. And I, I just wanna put that out there as like. There is some precedent for if we have an issue that we really want like, you know, city council pay attention. We, want you to. Think about this, that there's strategies for going up. And I kind of feel like one thing we might consider, you know, as we're, making plans for next year in the count plan. Is kind of have it in mind. To have something ready like that for. 2025. Good to be see the update. And you have examples of, some of the partners and the group.

[111:03] Well, I think it was mostly other advisory board members. And the group. Well, I think it was mostly other advisory board members. So, from other, from other advisory boards. Yeah. I think I saw your name on it. But you did, you're right. Anyways, Something to think about is if you know, is that we can deal on an issue to really push if it has like maybe zoning, you know. When you talk about the 6 to 8 units in a building that looks like a McMansion, you know, that's what I live for. I wanted to make that happen in Boulder. And so if there's something change we can make for the VVCP to help that. Happen. I would. Oh, right. That's my point.

[112:03] Is like, you know, if, if we lead up to something that's big and we want to get attention for it and we coalesce around an issue like that. Then we could really, you know. Put together a letter that's kind of above and beyond the usual thing that we the usual project that we had focused on. Is a big issue. Not a general, Okay. Okay. Okay. Nothing. How are you doing, Jane? And you're at the city, but you're at the city. Everybody back. Nobody, how many people are back in the office? Not very many. 2 days a week typically is the city says, I'm not sure how many people actually doing.

[113:04] But it's also So just second day of the week too. So like if you go in the office on a Monday or Friday, But if you're there on Tuesday, Wednesday, Interesting. But it's just gotten more efficient for people to not go to the office and get on with Zoom call. Not going back. No, no, B is progressing and they're still trying to figure out how do we basically consolidate all the city staff into one location. That's you will see for the housing you'll see drawings actually quite soon. I think they're still figuring out. Correct me on this. So some surplus city property used to help. I'll find awesome.

[114:02] At all. Yeah, so I mean that's personal A, basically the northwest corner. Has pretty much always been envisioned, for basically townhomes. But we have taken, everything through, to all the infrastructure has gone through for base code. Review and then the actual design is coming up very shortly. And then basically a developer will be able to purchase that property. You have all the, and, all the infrastructure, and, and be ready to go. So that, and then that proceeds from that sale will help subsidize the. BHPS project, 2 of the other persons. And there's a question about one of the other ones, which is the north, eastern corner. So we have a design for a building on that one, which is just a variety of You know, types, everything from studios to 3 bedrooms.

[115:02] Whether or not it'll be ownership or rental, or if we just sell it entirely. Will depend on. How much everything else is gonna cause. Townhomes on that northwest corner. That word townhome makes me think no neighbors above or below. It's always Is that or they're creating a metro district? No. That's basically both older housing partners and the city are code. Master. Developing the site. The horizontal infrastructure and then it will be each whoever is controls whatever parcel responsible for all the protocols. That makes sense. But there will be a parking district similar to, we've talked about.

[116:02] So all the. You know, some principles, there'll be mobility. What are they called, mobility, Hubs. Okay. So office building? Yes. I'm sorry. That's the medical, repurposing. You know, I haven't actually seen the design. So I mean, there So I can't tell you for sure if there's a, What is that? Was that designed pre COVID when everybody was showing up 5 days a week. Yeah, because I think we're learning how to start telling work this time.

[117:02] So basically, and stuff do not have offices anymore. We're supposed to reserve a space while I come in. Okay. It's gonna be a lot of empty office space out there. 10%. You make it attractive people might come. Good. Honestly, the challenges is that they think they underestimate how many people would be one to come into the office. The address numbers, well, for the more demand and they have space for Okay, well there's some good updates.

[118:02] Are we ready for item 7? Being debrief and calendar test. I mean, a good meeting, full space and, I remember present in person or on zoom. Excellent presentation from Melissa Klein. I'm a graduate student. Renewable income housing assessment. Lots of great data that we can use thinking about. Missing middle housing we had one public participant comment period. We had a really good discussion with lots of changes proposed or another account. And decide the best way to process. That discussion would be that. From individually send a red line to me, Friday December 20 s. Just those comments and we will discuss some of the special zoom public meeting. On Wednesday. January third and hopefully, approve a final graph. And we have another January meeting on January, twenty-fourth where Chris Boo Johnson, long where we'll come and discuss with this.

[119:14] How is this mysterious? Which would be a very critical step. To achieve some of the goals, I mean, the, count plan until it is revised. The person that asked about the planning reserve to and what others. Gotcha. You know that. I mean, the airport is not the only game. Yeah. Surprising and other areas. Well, any other thoughts?

[120:02] Have the holidays everybody. Good meeting. Do I hear a motion to adjourn? So move. Second. There. Thank you very much. Happy holidays, everybody. A what? Yeah.