January 23, 2024 — Planning Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

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

[0:00] Okay. alright. So no one's no one signed up for public participation. We have one hand raised. Okay? Hi, all. Yeah, we just have one hand raised. So. Lynn Siegel. please go ahead. You have 3 min. Are you ready with the timer, Amanda? Yes, go ahead. Go ahead, Lynn. Yeah. I'm still kind of grocking what Steve Pomerant said in his. It is discussion of the residential growth management issue that was repealed, and you know it's never stopped us. as you would say, there would be 4,000 affordable units available per year if we went to the maximum of 40 per development.

[1:00] And and and that's really something I hadn't realized. Steve always opens my eyes to things. I'm glad for a lot of affordable housing, but considering this limit has never been established on affordable housing. The question is, why don't we have more affordable housing in boulder? And the only thing I can guess is that we really wanna maintain what we've said there should be, which is 25% effectively, with inclusionary housing and not meeting the jobs, housing, imbalance and or having ex, you know, having impact fees on the developers so effectively. What's happening is that we're getting these affordable developments from Ly tech funds and from the Feds that are pushing growth. And and now Gerard's pushing growth all the way from the bottom up, you know the States.

[2:01] So this is really. And II mean it. It might not be so bad that the residential growth management was repealed, although I oppose that repealing it. But the fact that there's not going to be. Much effect of. It implores me more than ever for you to say that we need to do impact fees. We need to get a reasonable 140%. Or more inclusionary housing. We need to tame this this thing, or you know what this Virginia, this 90 year old woman that died on Alpine and Broadway. You're gonna have blood on your hands like Net and Yahoo. with the kind of excessive growth and density that's going to happen

[3:01] in bolder as a result of Jared Polis and his growth propositions, you know, from ad use and triplexes on every corner. And all of this this intensity of use, because people are the victims, too. People 90 years old, and she couldn't make it to a natural death. That's just stunning and do something about Dark horse. Recommend a council that it be landmarked. No development of thinking. Okay, anyone. Alright. If we had minutes to approve. This would be when we would do it, and we have none. Now we would be doing dispositions, call ups and continuations, and we have none. This is now when we be having a public hearing, and we don't have any public hearing items. So we're gonna go straight to matters. In this case, process streamlining process, streamlining code changes introduction. And I've been asked to remind everyone that this is your opportunity to register concerns and suggestions. It's will be much harder to make changes when the staff comes back to us with a full ordinance.

[4:21] Yes, sir. if I may start before Carl and Lisa. Jump in with your permission, of course. Thank you. Well, good evening. Planning board members. We appreciate the opportunity to bring this item before you. I wanted to just provide a little context, both on the department staff and and and myself personally. I don't know how much we've they let this for you especially recently, but the department and the city overall undertook a review of its business practices. About 3 years ago there was a report called the Tipton report some of you may have heard about or know about. There was a subsequent project called The Big Project

[5:03] Adequately as differentiated from the small project as opposed to the small project. Yeah, I've had elements that were called design, the future so very comprehensive. Look at much of what we do, including creating the department. The department did not exist 3 years ago in the way that we know it today. And I've been a part of that journey, of course, but not at the beginning of it, but very much understood the rationale and and supported that which was. Basically, we need to be aware that the world was changing. Move to electronic submittals, create other options. The pandemic kind of fast forwarded us into that in a way that we weren't completely prepared for. But we were frankly more prepared than many jurisdictions, and we're able to. you know, pivot relatively quickly, to accommodate that. But it didn't represent our full implementation of that. We've been really doing that since then. A lot of that has been designed to provide more predictability for the public and just operational excellence. In fact, I've really complemented the city that when my position was posted a year and a half ago, they were looking for somebody who could simplify things and provide operational excellence and despite that they hired me.

[6:21] But so I took taking that to heart, and that really is I think, a responsibility of good governance. It's responsibility of using taxpayers dollars in a in an efficient, wise way. And it's frankly what the public expects of modern government and you know, we've been aspiring to that ever since then. We don't have a hundred percent of right. There have been some criticisms in the press that were warranted, based certainly on older information somewhat. Some of that's been wrong, but we do recognize that we continue to provide process improvement, including tweaking in office hours. And when people can meet with us and what it looks like to interface online and those types of things. So just, the broader context is, we recognize we have a responsibility to provide good governance. And that's a commitment that we've made

[7:10] for tonight's purposes. I wanted to give you the context of a conversation that I had with Council last year about this time, as part of their annual retreat we had brought forward, or I had brought forward as as one of the updates cause. We were giving updates on things broad and and narrow about the processing improvements we had made, and and we're making, and the plans for doing that, and and council has been curious about that, and wanting to hold us accountable as they should in the context of that conversation, though they said, you know it's it's our observation that there are probably things in the code that dictate time frames, you know. They they say X amount of things should happen, or certain things should be brought forward in that. And I said, Well, you know, of course, that's absolutely true.

[8:00] That represents the sturdy guard rails that the public and prior council members have laid out to manage that. But it is different in each jurisdiction, and there's a different threshold for every jurisdiction. They said, well, we are giving you permission to go and bring us a list of things that we could consider to potentially lessen those those requirements where appropriate. Maybe the guardrails have already been established so long that that the way they were envisioned aren't needed, or we've got different guardrails in place design guidelines where we didn't have them, those types of things. So I said, sure we'll we'll be happy to do that. I'll be back in about a year, and went to council and or went to staff and said, Hey, we've been given. They've opened the door to say, We can look at this. would you be able to do that? And they said, Well, yeah, we already have the list like, well, okay, that that doesn't surprise me, because I know as I've done this for years

[9:04] and more in, you know, practicing it and doing development review and those types of things myself. I always kept a list of the little things that were problematic which maybe are small incidental things which we've got another set of those coming to you at some point. But also the things that are like is this really relevant anymore? And what is that? And and so Staff really did affirm. What II kind of suspected already is that we've been hearing from the public, from boards and commissions, from the people that we interact with, that there are things that that are difficult. And is there an opportunity to push down certain decisions to a lower, a lower decision, making point so council to planning board or planning board to administrative these types of things. And that's really been our philosophy as as we've gone into this project. I also wanted to bring to your attention things that you've seen in the last year that had not always is their primary purpose, but certainly a secondary purpose of

[10:08] providing more predictability and streamlining. If I can use that word. And those were things like the accessory dwelling unit approval process, the use table. other amendments that that we've had, and and maybe probably so I'll cover some of those as well. But I just wanted to give you that broad perspective, that we recognize that there is a balance between accountability and providing sturdy guardrails. And at the same time providing good governance and using staff time efficiently, using your time efficiently making things predictable for the public. And that's the spirit in which we're bringing this forward tonight. We do look forward to your feedback on things. It is a helpful reminder that this is an early stage where it's useful to get all the thoughts where we can. And so that's where we are. I'm happy to answer any questions in that

[11:01] context. is your hand up? Oh, no, okay. Sorry. Now is your chance to ask Brad all these questions. Anyone on the at the dies have a question for Brad. Laura, do you, Laura? Do you have a question for Brad. No, I heard a no, but it was very faint. Okay, Brad, thank you very, very much. but that I'm I'm happy to. I'm not sure who's starting. So please, sister, and just 2 2 little high house housekeeping items. One. Our goal tonight is to wrap up by 8 if we possibly can. My goal is to wrap up by 8 if we possibly can. And what we're gonna have is presentation in segments. And at the end of each segment we'll stop and have questions which enable us to go back and forth. Take it away right alright. Good evening. Planning board. I'm Lisa Hood, Senior city planner. It's really nice to meet with you in person. This is my first time seeing you guys in real life. So it's nice to be here. And I'm excited to talk about these process streamlining updates that Brad already gave a great intro for.

[12:09] So the the per the purpose tonight is, this is an informational item informal. You don't have to take any action. But, like Sarah, alluded to, this is a really great opportunity to make an impact on what we ultimately draft into the ordinance. And so this is a really good time, really good timing of this check in make sure that we're aligned with what you want to see change with these updates. And then also, if we've missed anything that you'd like to add things like that. So like Brad mentioned, we have done some initial analysis over the last few months of items that we think are opportunities to streamline processes. But I know you all talk with people and hear things. So you might have additional ideas. So yeah, really, looking forward to hearing your feedback tonight. This ordinance right now is scheduled to come back to you as a public hearing. So an actual ordinance that you'd look at at the end of February, and then go to City Council at the end of March

[13:04] you would have seen in your memo. We have 5 key issues for you tonight. 4 of them are kind of the topics that Sarah mentioned will stop after each one to discuss. And then the fifth one is whether you have any additional key issues or other things. We hadn't gone gone over. Brad already gave a great intro to this, but since I went through the trouble of putting these cute icons on the slide, I'll go so city Council gave this direction at their 2023 retreat for staff to investigate potential policy or code changes that can make development review processes simpler and more predictable. Like Brad, mentioned. Council members and staff do hear challenges about the duration of land, use approvals in boulder and permit approvals. And then we also have the Boards and commission analysis work that's going on. Looking at the work that you all do, and the increased workload that the appointed members of boards like yours are dealing with. And so all of this is really informing why we're here today.

[14:05] Brad also already started talking about this. But it's okay. But just to highlight the process improvements that we've already done through the work you have seen Carl and IA lot in the last year. But Brad mentioned the transition to online phone and in person, staff and staffing updates that have happened for just PN. Ds services. And then a ton of code changes. So we went through the Site Review criteria which made things more predictable and scriptive. We had the accessory dwelling unit update which turned it into a one step process and created a much simpler approval process. For them. We had the multiple ordinances of use. Table and standards. More uses are now allowed by right. We had the ordinance that extended the amount of time that a land use approval can be valid before it expires, which provides more flexibility for older approvals, especially during Covid.

[15:01] We also had zoning for affordable housing which provided flexibility for more housing types. And then, finally, most recently, the residential growth management system which Council voted last last week to remove so that will reduce overall. Permit time as well. The engagement plan for the process streamlining ordinance that we'll be bringing forward to you starts today. So this matters item engaging you all and your expertise in these topics. We're also gonna have some stakeholder meetings next week with applicants. We're meeting with some applicants that are frequent flyers, lots of applications, lots of experience. And then we're also meeting with applicants who maybe have only experienced our process once, just to hear about their experiences and their ideas for opportunities to improve these processes, or where it's already working, really well. Also looking at that. And then we'll go through the public hearing process with like. I mentioned bringing the ordinance to you in late February, and then city council in March. So this all is intended to be a consult level of engagement.

[16:06] Like I mentioned, I have divided the presentation into each of the key issues. So I'll kind of give you some background on the specific development review process that we're focusing on. And then some of the analysis and data that we've looked at over the last couple months that informed that. And then some of the potential changes that staff has come together and brainstormed. How could we improve this or streamline it or make this go faster. So I'll start with planning board call ups, which is obviously very influential to you. And I just wanted to create kind of a flow. Tried, I know, you see, call up memos. They obviously start. They're on your agenda every time you see it. But I just kind of wanted to walk you through. How that process works. So Staff takes in an application, does all the analysis makes the decision, writes the memo that ultimately shows up in your agenda, and then you all decide whether to call it up or not, and only one planning board member has to want to call it up for it to be called up. If it's not called up, then that staff decision is just final.

[17:06] If it is called up, then you all schedule or reschedule a public hearing for you to hear the application and make the decision yourselves. And then any decision of the planning board can be called up by city council. So there's kind of 2 levels of call ups. But we're really focusing on the planning board side for this over the last couple of months we've been doing some data analysis. So we looked at all of the applications that have been brought to you in the last 5 years. So I think Sarah is the only one that would have seen all of these. And I remember them all. Yeah. Cause we're interested in seeing what types of applications not every application is subject to call up. So we wanted to see which ones are you seeing the most of, or do you not see very frequently? And then which ones are actually called up ultimately? So you can see from the graph that those flood plain permits and wetland permits actually account for over 40% of the applications that are brought to you. But if you look at the data on how many are actually called up. We've only other than last week had one call up of a floodplain permit. So that percentage is only 2% of those call up memos that are written and brought to you are actually called up.

[18:18] User reviews are also a common application that's brought for call up. That's the next key issue, so I won't talk too much about that here. But just looking at overall, only 6 applications were called up in those 5 years. So it is something that I think the total number is 172 applications that you have to review the memo and look at and decide whether to call up or not. And only 6 of those rows to the need for the actual call up in the public hearing. So our staff has been getting together and brainstorming opportunities for potential changes. After looking through this data. And so these are some of the initial ideas for each of these sections you'll see the little graphic at the bottom, which is what we think. Wh. Who? Who it will save time for so this call up these potential changes could potentially save time for planning board for staff. That's us, and for applicants.

[19:16] But the potential changes related to call ups. Well, first, I wanted to just note that call the call up opportunities do add time to the development review process. So each of those memos takes at least 2 h, maybe more depending. That's the simplest case. For each for a staff member to write, and then there's time to review it. The time that you all spend to review your agenda packet. Things like that. As well as just getting on a planning board agenda adds at least 2 to 4 weeks, and that's just for for call up, not even for the actual public hearing. When you're being scheduled. So it does add time to have that call up potential to the overall process. So some of the ideas that we had were to evaluate the call ups, the applications that are currently subject to call up and look at the benefits and drawbacks of those most frequent applications, especially things like the wetland and flood plain permits. Whether there is much benefit to having that call up potential, or whether there's more benefit in having that process more streamlined.

[20:21] And then looking at all the other applications that are subject to call up as well, and trying to weigh that. So not any particular recommendation on which ones right now, but just that that would be a potential changes to amend that part of the code. Another idea oops. Another idea that was brought up was potentially requiring more than one planning Ben Port Board member to call an item up. When city council does call ups they have to have a majority agree to call it up. So it's not just one member. So that was just another idea of a potential code change that could impact the number of items that are called up. And then, finally, this isn't really a code change. But we also have been discussing as a staff the improvements that we could make internally to how we write those memos to make them more standardized and have some more standard practices that could make the drafting of the memos go quicker.

[21:16] So that's all the background that I have on call ups. So these are kind of my discussion slides for us all to discuss. I'm happy to answer any questions, but the question for you is whether you support changing any of the call up procedures in the way we've talked about. Can I suggest you put go back one and have those 4 items. So we can comment on this. Okay? Who would like to go first? George? Thanks, Lisa. quick question for you. Of the 6 out of 172 call ups that were agenda. how many of those 6 resulted in a change from what the item. Actually. So so I've seen a lot of some callups. And they just okay, they get called up. And then nothing changes, anyways. So I'm just curious of the result of the 6 call-ups that were.

[22:04] yeah. I know for sure that the floodplain permit was just approved exactly how it was originally presented. I'm not remembering the exact details of the Site Review Amendment or the Use Review, but I can look into that and have that by the time we have the ordinance. If you know, 5 out of the 6 resulted in nothing happening. Kind of informs us. You know how how that process actually is working, and if it's necessary charles, who's listening in, says none were called II don't know. See, I do actually remember all them. No, I think there was one. Do you remember it was a restaurant that wanted more? Well, actually, it was a use review. Maybe maybe it wasn't a call up. It was the use review of

[23:01] John what used to be John's, and is now fish and fowl, or something. Yeah, that wasn't. That wasn't a call up. That was something that we actually referred to the Planning Board because they were operating in a manner that was inconsistent with their development approval. Oh, by the way, Charles Farrell, planning and development services. yeah, to Lisa's point. We can go back. You know, and take a look at the record, but I think in my recollection the call-ups that we've seen that have come before the board haven't really resulted any substantive changes. I think there may have been a referral to dab on one of them. But We can have that information when we when we come back. In my recollection. I don't think that there were substantive changes, though. Questions. No. Ml. so I have a couple of questions. I'm thinking about the flood plain and wetland

[24:04] we a number of times the question has been raised. It's like, Well, what what are we supposed to be thinking about when we review these? So I think without having some kind of education around. What is it that you're looking for from planning board? Those kind of don't really speak to our expertise. I mean that those are specialized things. So unless there's a education component, I think that you're not getting top level planning board input on those would be my thought about that. In generally I'm I don't have you know, the whole document here, but I think you said the requirement for callup could be removed for those if they're found to have limited benefit. To call up so is limited benefit defined somewhere. No, I think that actually, this kind of ties to the Flip Lane comment that you made to a lot of the benefits that applications have by coming to you is that you can use more discretion. You know you're using. You're making discretionary approvals

[25:13] and decisions. And what's unique about the or odd about the floodplain and wetland permits coming to you is that those are usually, you know, engineering is usually pretty objective standards where planning can be a little more fuzzy grey area. So we're bringing something that's already a very objective standard to a board that's supposed to apply discretion. So it doesn't quite fit the way that you know, some of our other site review where you're really talking about the impacts. And you know, design and things like that. It doesn't work quite the same way, kind of like what I was already saying. Yeah, what kind of are you looking for? Can a member of the public call up something. and that just requires one member. Yeah. So that's a great that's a great point to clarify. So it's actually called an appeal with when it's a member of the public, but it essentially follows the exact same process. So a member of the public, they don't even have to be a resident of holder they can appeal a decision within 14 days, and then it's brought to you for decision.

[26:17] Are we looking at changing that? There, I do have one item on appeals. But not not substantively changing that just I'll get to it. But so one of the kinds of call ups that you listed was Site Review amendments right. and I'm sure could have looked this up, I guess. But I didn't. I don't understand what you you talking later in the memo about the difference between a Site Review modification and a Site Review amendment. But I still don't understand it. Can you talk a little bit about what the scope of a Site Review amendment is sure, and I actually have a graphic that I can use. That will be in the future. But I'll give you a little sneak peek

[27:08] So when we talk about minor amendments later that I made this graph, so when you have an approved site, review there and then there's some amendment, some change to it there the applicant has 3 options. They can either do a minor modification, a minor amendment or a full Site Review amendment, and those are cascading in terms of complexity or potential impact, or things like that. So minor amendment has. or a minor modification is the smallest change. We have specific standards, I'm sure Carl has them memorized and percentages that you can go up to with a minor modification. That's an Administrative Review minor amendment. Ha! Additionally, has standards. Related to like, how how much can you change the setbacks without going into the full amendment? And then Site Review amendment is essentially just a new site review, like, the change is so significant that it's essentially just re-reviewing the Site Review. That's right. That's perfect.

[28:05] That make sense? Yeah, that was helpful. if so, if we were to get rid of the call up on site on Site Review amendments. would there be a situation where someone could basically submit a sort of a simplified or a an easier site review and then send it in and then get an amendment to that would make it potentially a more challenging thing from the review standpoint, in other words, something that maybe would be less likely to be approved. And and if there weren't a call up mechanism. then not have any opportunity for for planning board to review that.

[29:07] Yeah. And that's kind of how it breaks out. Now, so are you gonna answer amendment acknowledges that it's a large site review in general, and that there could be changes associated with a better could be quite a bit different from the original Site Review. So the scenario that you noted is possible. They might get approval for something. A certain number of units or a certain configuration start building it, and then a certain phase might be completely changed in its orientation, where it could potentially have impacts, or be quite different than what the public that might have been noticed before was thinking it was going to be. So. That's generally something that falls into that amendment category. And then the minor amendment and minor modification have those limits that we've set. Essentially, that would say that it's not so much of a change that you know, this would seem like a drastically different project if you thought once it was ultimately built.

[30:08] Okay. great. Thank you. Can I just follow up, and then, Laura, I'll call on you in a second when the development at thirtieth and Pearl changed the 10 row houses or 5 row houses into an apartment building. Did that have to go through a Site Review amendment that was a minor modification. The buildings were largely the same in their appearance there were, it met the criteria for a minor modification. They just made configurational changes within the building. The number of units was the same. It met the criteria. But, for example, given that we now have requirements about types of building types of units. would of housing units. Would that have theoretically, could that have been? A a site review amendment process? Well, I mean, I think in a site Review there is a criterion that says dwelling unit type does not change. That's not the criteria and a form based code. The emphasis is more on the building, you know the architecture, the massing, the height the configuration, Laura.

[31:18] Thank you. And I'm sorry my Internet is a little bit shaky, so I hope you can hear me. Okay. And then I can hear your answer. But my question is around, the public appeal, Lisa, can you describe that a little bit more? Does that apply to all of these types of things that are potentially going to not be call ups. Yeah, I believe that it's so. It's in one table of our land use code. And where there's a call up potential, there's also an appeal. Decision authority, that how that's drafted. So yeah, it essentially follows the exact same process. Where. But the person just has to submit a written statement that they would like to appeal a decision that has happened within the last 14 days, and then that is scheduled for a public hearing in front of planning board.

[32:11] Okay, thank you. Okay, I have a question. And then I think we should give you some feedback on this particular item. the origins of the call up process like, why, why does it exist? What is the purpose of it. I think. Going back in time. Boulder got to a crossroads where every single application could. There was no capacity to bring it all to planning board. So, in order to to deal with that, they they delegated some of the authority to staff on the approvals, but still looped, you know, planning board in on the process so that it didn't all have to come for public hearings. Just the volume we're talking, you know, all the way back to like the seventies and eighties. So it was a it used to be. Everything came here, and then they reduced the amount of flow and stopped some things at staff level.

[33:06] Fred. Yeah, if I can just add. And and I didn't really have this conversation with Steph. But I'll just make a personal observation from other places. I've worked and kind of what I've perceived over the years as a standard approach, and that's kind of flipping. What we have here is call-ups as being more of an appeal process. So and please disagree. We haven't talked about this, of course, but my sense is that it's much more common to have an approval process, and then an appeal option. So, in other words, it's not just prospectively brought forward where you can go, yes or no, but it's either brought forward at the initiative, the applicant, or in other cases. the public. And there's variations, you know. It can be the participating public or the public at large, or something. So. at least in my experience, it's fairly unusual to actually have this perspective process.

[34:01] which again requires that we write memos take administrative time. Take administrative time, for you know, lots and lots of different capacities. Attorney's time we are. We have not even contemplated the idea of changing that whole paradigm. But I will just say my personal observation is, it's it's kind of an unusual paradigm. I don't know if you found otherwise. No, I would say, I completely agree. I think the appeal an appeal process is much more common that you know, an applicant or a neighbor can appeal a decision that they're aggrieved by. But the callup is somewhat unique, and in my my impression is that it's often for smaller towns. Like the the Town Council usually wants to be more involved in all of the decisions. So I've mostly only seen that in fairly small communities. Okay, correct. I'm trying to understand what the practical difference is between those 2. Then if there's an appeal, then nothing it can't. Things can't really go forward until the appeal time has

[35:07] has lapsed. And so how is it different? Well, the practical difference of the appeal times, of course, vary. You can set them, but they're gonna be 14 days, 30 days or something. But you're not preparing memos and writing up a whole background on something that then essentially is useless. 90. What? 8% of the time. So we do a lot of work for things that aren't happening right? But I'm sorry. But you're bringing. There's a reason that you put something for callup. Right? Yeah. And I'm not disputing the need, and nobody's suggesting we change the paradigm for it. That has been decided as a as a guardrail for for Boulder. We're just talking about the practical limits potential limit question. I just my question was. why do we have call-ups? And because the appeal process would would be time limited. And if right versus there's there's got to be some difference. There's a purpose to the call up process, and I'm trying to understand? Well, the only difference is it prospectively asks the decision makers, do you want to call something up instead of coming reactively from somebody who initiates it? Yeah, George, and then I'll go back to you.

[36:20] Perks. Discussion around the site review process resonated with me as something that you want to see us planning more to what Ml. Said around Flood. the other the other, you know, Wetland issue. Those are things that I don't have any experience with. I wouldn't know what to call it and whatnot. So I, it's just it's interesting, because I think that there might be an opportunity to maybe eliminate a portion of the call type of stuff, whereas we wouldn't necessarily want to have complete staff discretion in places like major site amendments and things like that. And I'll add, on the flood plain and wetland part that, you know, we met with our engineers and and attorneys on that subject, and we're trying to explore

[37:10] why, it was even set up in the first place as a call up, and why it gets sent to planning board when there's no discretionary criteria, and no one seemed to know. So Laura, so Laura has her hand up Laura just quickly on that subject of the Wetland and floodplain callups. Does the Water Advisory Board have any role in that. They seem like they'd have more relevant expertise. I think it only comes to planning board. Only planning board. Would there be any benefit to having the Water Advisory Board have some role. If we don't have call up there. I think it would have a similar issue of. They're not really discretionary standards. but I don't know enough about the water advisory. Important wouldn't be able to make decisions anyways. Right?

[38:04] Okay, thank you. So I just want us. As long as we're just go through and give some feedback. Is there any benefit to the city to have the applicant go? Know that the call-up process is in front of that? I mean, does it? Does it change be? Does it change behavior? Does it modify what they might be going after, if they know that there are additional approvals. And is that a benefit or a negative, just kind of curious anecdotally? What your thoughts on that. if you're asking, does it influence their decision to move forward with a project or not? I think there's a element of uncertainty that comes from call ups so it might dissuade them from moving into it. We have talked to people that have told us they opted to not do something because there was a call up.

[39:00] yeah. And I was actually gonna say the same thing. It adds a level of unpredictability to them, you know, it's either. And we'll get into this more in the next key issue. They can add a significant amount of time, you know, if it gets called up by planning board that adds a month. It took a month to get on the agenda, anyway. Then it could take another month if it gets called up by city council, so it starts to just kind of add up to the time, and then you might end up with the exact same thing at the end, or something significantly different. So I think that's the main concern. But I don't think that I don't tell tell me if I'm wrong. I don't think it influences like what they put in their application. Necessarily. And the Ca, they're they're not often called up. So. It's infrequent. you know. We'll talk more about user views in a bit. But I mean, I have heard people that have been, you know, dissuaded from the user view process because it is that public process that has a call over, could go or has to go to planning board, and in some cases it might be a use that totally, you know, makes sense.

[40:04] but they they are asking for a variance from the thing that was. They're asking for a variance. That's significant enough that it comes to us with a floodplain or wetland. No, no, with any of these. That's that's why they come. That's why it's coming through. There's something that Staff is like we're gonna hand. This we want. No, I'm to ask about Site Review and use for view. Well, user view certainly is like it's specified in the use table as a you. So it does require that discretionary review. It may might work in one location, but maybe not another. And that's why that process exists. Site review obviously is, you know, trips the threshold. And I think just going back to what you're asking like with the purpose of call up is. if you had had to have a public hearing for 172 of those, you know, we brought 172 applications in the last 5 years, so it's to cut down on the amount of

[41:03] projects that you have to fully review. That would have just gotten approved. So that essentially, is the main purpose of callup, and then those that rise to the level of needing. or if you all feel that it needs a an additional review and the hearing. Then it has that opportunity. That's the purpose of callup. Sorry I interrupted you before Kurt, did you have? Okay? Oh, go ahead, Emily. So on the how does Staff decide what goes on the call up agenda? So the we have in the table which types of development review applications are subject to call up. So if you have any of those applications once the decision is final from the staff perspective, then we have to schedule it on your agenda. And it's easier to schedule a call up than a public hearing, but it still takes 2 to 4 weeks to get just a call up on your agenda. So it's a pretty obvious process. If if you have that little

[42:04] asterisk on your use, or you know whatever you know, that you're gonna end up in that. So there's not. That's not ambiguous. That part isn't ambiguous. It's just the part about whether it actually gets called up is they don't know. Yeah. So just to put a finer point, if if I can add to that, so one proposal would be to take a few of those asterisks off certain types of applications, ie. Wetlands and flood plain. We could do more if you wanted. But that's that's what we're bringing forward. So I'll just go ahead and give my. I think it makes sense to remove the wetland and flood plain unless we have another John Gerstel on the board, who actually knows what he's talking about. But I definitely think just my experiences. It's very worthwhile to have the Site Review and use reviews remain as a call up opportunity. Oftentimes what happens is, one of us will call, say, we want to call it up, and we'll get some explanation from Staff as to what actually is the question, and we'll go. You know what? Forget it, but I do think it's valuable to at least have that that

[43:09] opportunity. and in terms of more than one person to call it up. I don't know. Given the given how few things are actually called up, I'm not sure that's a necessary additional step to take. But I'm that's just my opinion. Kurt. You want to give some feedback. Sure. Well, as the person who distorted your statistics. I will say that I generally, despite that, I generally agree. I think. Yeah, unfortunately, it's a it's a little bit complicated, because, as Ml. Said we, we still I still certainly don't completely understand the wetland and floodplain process, and

[44:00] in 9 3 9 the there is terminology that seems not completely engineering-y. It seems somewhat value laden like minimization of impacts. And there's something about best management practices or something like that. So those to me do feel like value judgments. Nonetheless. II think that the statistics are pretty clear that that these, the benefit of potential callups for flood. plain and wetland applications is not worth the cost. So I would I would support removing those. I think that the Site Review Amendment again, it's basically like a site review, and if we believe that

[45:02] Site Review is a valuable process, which is a separate discussion, then, then, as I review amendment, it seems like, should be certainly should be subject to call up the used reviews. I I'm I guess I'm somewhat in slightly different position than Sarah. I I think there are places where use review call ups would be certainly be appropriate. I would love to see fewer of those stars on the use table. And I do think that requiring a majority, or maybe 3 people on the the planning board to call up would make sense. I mean, I I completely 100% trust the planning board that we currently have. But you know there could be

[46:02] a planning board or one member at some time who kind of abuses the process. and that would be unfortunate. So I think, having at least requiring more than one would be appropriate. George. Sure! I could in in the running, for it's a charter requirement as well. That helps just sort ofify that

[47:01] And then. yeah, that's it. I mean, the other ones are are are minor components. I'm kind of in the camp with with Sarah, I think, and and and with Kurt as far as use for site. Review. Ii think use review is important. What we can. We can debate should the use tables be further change. But either way, if they are use. Review is still going to be important. If we've elected to only put certain uses in certain places, and there's a change. So from that aspect. II think one person from planning board as it stands now. I it doesn't seem like it's a material process change to what's already occurring, and I don't know that there's really a savings in time, and you know, in reality so I would leave the effort of leading that in, and I would think that just with the removal of the the floodplain and wetlands, that's

[48:06] but almost 70% of the call up memos and staff time that are dedicated to that and other people's time. I think that's that's a great saving. So. I believe it like that. Ml. I'm pretty much in agreement with exactly what George was talking about here. I think that the flood, plain and wetland can go off the call up I think that the site and use review might still get benefit. By a call up opportunity. and I oh, I I don't! I'm I'm not fearful that one person would kind of run away with the process. So I think, having one thoughtful person still be able to call up something. I think that that is II would continue supporting what we do now regards to that and I think those are the

[49:01] items. Thank you, Laura. Thank you. So I think the person that I resonated with the most was probably Kurt. I agree with everybody, Wetland and Floodplain. We don't need to be reviewing at planning board. I'm open. If Staff want to come back with other categories that they think could be eliminated, that we haven't talked about tonight. Ii don't know that our discussion was exhaustive, so I'm open to having other categories be potentially eliminated when you come back. And I do think it should be more than one planning board member to call an item up. Always thought that that was a little bit strange that, you know we we're a 7 Member Board, and any one member can can place that claim on everybody's time. the whole board and staff, and the applicant. So I do think that if if it is a thoughtful call up that it would get support from other board members, and I do think that that is a safeguard against that that outlier scenario where you know, there have been boards where maybe one member goes a little bit off the rails, and

[50:00] I think that, procedurally speaking, it's good to have more than more than one person support that call up before you go on. Just a thought to curt questions about the value elements of the wetlands. Maybe that's an area to go back and see if there are some actual criteria that can be set. So then, sort of, you know. you know, I think it was minimal damage or limited damage. Well, is that 30% is that 50 that might be a worthwhile thing for Staff to go back in and examine if I if I could comment. Sure. So, Kurt, correct me if I'm wrong. But, my! My! Take away from the one project that you just called up last week was not so much that you thought that the way the design was implemented had too much impact, but that you thought perhaps the decision to have a horse turn around was unnecessary and created too many impacts. And that's more of a the whole project design rather than

[51:05] is the design implemented in a way that minimizes impacts. So that I wasn't quite sure exactly. If that's even within our purview to question based on a wetland and floodplain development per permit. Well, I'll I'll just respond to that and say II completely agree. II don't know whether it's within the the scope of what is considered minimization. I mean, the argument that I've made is if you say you're going to minimize the impacts. and in order to achieve a particular goal. and the goal is sort of is already achieved because there's there's nothing to actually be done. Then the the way to minimize the impact is to not do the thing in the first place. So it gets into this philosophical discussion. But yeah, it is. It is very much not clear to me whether minimization

[52:08] is is in the context of doing the thing or whether it considers basically the no build option, the the the I guess we should be careful about getting too much into this item. But the the memo does talk about the no build option. It sort of considers whether the no build option should be the the, the course taken, and so that to me opened up the possibility that oh, maybe that is the the context for minimization should include that. But yeah, it's philosophical question. I don't know the answer. Quick, quick clarification around. One person or many people. Needing to to to call something up.

[53:02] we'll go back to the the public's ability. So if just one person from the public can call something up. I guess that that's that's what is odd to. I'm kind of looking at my planning board colleagues to say it's odd to me that one person from the public can call something up, but it would take a 2 or 3 or majority group from planning board to call the same item up, so I don't know if Kurt or Laura you guys have thought about that but I'd be curious what your thoughts are on that, because that seems really inconsistent to me. I think you're going to have an item on that right. the the one person appeal. Yeah, we, I mean, it's not. It's not like substantively changing that process. But talking about the fact that there's no fee associated with it.

[54:01] Okay? So you don't want the public to be able to appeal right? I think that that is not an appropriate process of for one person to be able to appeal. Or do you have? Do you have thoughts on that. I'm sorry my Internet was going in and out, but you're talking about the ability for one member of the public to appeal to the discussion that you brought up around sort of multiple members of planning board meet being needed to appeal something. But yet only one person from the public and appeal that. Yeah. I hope I hope we'll have more of a conversation around that when we get there. But II do think that the people who are probably going to be the most qualified to notice. If there's something that seems to miss about a project are gonna be the people who are directly impacted, you know, like a neighbor, or something like that, and it does whether that should go directly to one person appeals, and then the planning board must hear it, or maybe one person appeals, and then it becomes a call up item, and the planning board can decide whether to hear that challenge might be a more appropriate process rather than it automatically goes on our agenda.

[55:12] Okay. alright. Let's move on to item the second of your 5 or 6 categories. Alright, moving on to user views. Thanks for that was very helpful discussion, very focused on the points we were talking about. So now jumping into use reviews. So it's somewhat related, and you'll see a kind of similar flow chart with your with this but just starting off with use review. We've already been talking about it. So I know you're familiar. It's the discretionary review that ensures that a particular use that's proposed is compatible in that actual location. And the thing with user review is that we can add the city can add standards or conditions to ensure the compatibility. So if you're putting in a gas station. Make sure there's extra great landscaping, because there's residential use right next to it. You know. Very case by case situations

[56:02] most in Boulder are the staff decision that's subject to call up. We'll talk about a different situation in the next key issue. But for the most part their staff decision, first subject to call up one thing that's kind of unique about use reviews compared to other applications is that this is where we see a lot of interface with our small businesses. So a lot of our applicants are small businesses applying for their their use. Review. What that means is they're less experienced with our process, which makes it challenging. And also they're often not working with design professionals who can draw the plans and things like that. So in some cases, with these smaller businesses. It can be a. It can seem like a much more cumbersome process because they've never done it before. They don't do it 6 times a year and haven't done it in boulder before. But you're familiar with the use table outlines. What's allowed a conditional use which is an administrative review or prohibited. We looked at the data for the last few years on use reviews. The pie chart and the bar graph are actually the same data just looking at it 2 different ways, looking at what types of uses were most common for requiring a user view. Restaurants and nonconforming uses take up more than a third of the use reviews that we've had in recent years as well as indoor athletic facilities. That's like Gyms.

[57:22] But, as you'll remember, from the use table project, the module 3 really focused on trying to make more restaurants allowed by right. So they wouldn't have you know, the 1,500 square foot restaurant falling into a user view. So we've made a number of changes through the use table process. That will probably impact the numbers in the future. But for the last few years it's been about 19 applications for use review per year. And when we were looking at the data we looked at every application type. How long each of them are taking use reviews really stood out as something that we're potentially having a timing issue. the Median days to approval for use. Review. And we've heard this from applicants is right, is about 200 days. That's almost 7 months from the time you apply to when you get your final approval.

[58:09] And we've looked at the amount of time. You know. There's some amount of time for any application where the applicant has to revise plans, and it's back in their court, and you know, however long it takes them to revise. But even when you account for that the amount of time that's just in the city's control. The median days is about 150. So that's 5 months. Just of city time to process a use review. So this is an opportunity that we're seeing. You know. We've heard complaints about this, but are also seeing it in the data. So we really wanna focus on what opportunities there are, what the user review process to trim up that time. Because, like I said, this is the the process that small businesses interface probably the most with and want to be able to support those businesses. So

[59:01] I made this flow chart. This expands. It's a little bit similar. And I mean, it's similar to the call up process. But it expands specifically for user view. So I'm gonna walk you through a use review approval. And so this, this assumes that it gets a approved at the end. There's obviously the the other result that it would not be approved. but the application is submitted. It's assigned a case manager, one of our planners, the planner, re routes it to all the city reviewers. So that's like landscaping engineering, fire city attorneys. Office. Very inter departmental review. And those are on review tracks in best case scenario. That initial review. There's no problems with the proposal that can be approved by all of the city reviewers within 3 weeks a lot of times. There are many rounds of reviews and iterations where they have issues, and that the staff issues comments. And then the applicant has to revise their plans. Things like that, so it can take several months to get through that process. So anywhere, from 3 weeks to several months.

[60:03] when staff completes their analysis, all of the comments are resolved to our satisfaction. Then Staff renders their decision. That decision is brought to you all as a call up opportunity like, I said, that takes 2 to 4 weeks. Once that decision is made to get onto a planning board agenda. That's where it splits into whether it's called up or not called up. If the user view is not called up. Then the staff decision is final. Something. that's particular to use reviews is that after that decision is final, they, the applicant also has to complete a development agreement. So that's a legal document between the city and the property owner that basically lay out the conditions of approval and the official status of the approval of that use review, and that's recorded with the county clerk and recorder against the property. And it says in the code that that can take, the applicant has 90 days so that can take up to 90 days to complete that development agreement. So that's just an initial, an an additional step that's added at the end of the process.

[61:08] If planning board does call up the use review like we talked about. There's 30 days for there to be a public hearing and planning board to make a decision like I mentioned before city Council can call up any planning board decision. So that's an additional 30 days. And then if you make it all the way through there, then you get to the Development agreement which again can take up to 90 days. So you can kind of see all the points in the process that can add time. It can go pretty smoothly and in the smoothest situations. You can get through a user view to approval in 80 days. So that is almost 3 months. You're doing my math right? Yeah, but that meeting that we're standing at right now is about 7 months. So that means we have applications that are taking longer than 7 months right now. Some take over a year. So that's why we've been hearing some complaints about that and so we've done a lot of brainstorming with our staff about what potential changes could be made to the user view process to try to streamline it. And one of the main things we've been thinking about is that some of the a lot of these user views don't have any site changes. So think of like a large cross fit.

[62:21] Jim, that just wants to go into an existing industrial building. They have no changes to parking. There's nothing outside that you would notice. Change that use. But we require use. Review. So in those circumstances where there aren't, site changes, one opportunity would be to process those administratively so, more like our conditional use process where there, and that would save time at several of those kind of decision points, because it would be routed to fewer staff. It wouldn't go to the full Inter Departmental group. It would just go to whatever relevant if there was some engineering issue, or if there's no engineering, don't have to look at it. It wouldn't be subject to call up so there wouldn't be that potential unpredictability of that that part of the timing. And then the additional or the administrative

[63:09] reviews don't require the development agreement. So that last step that could add 90 days would also be removed. In that situation we also thought about there could be some new process that we don't have now an alternative process. Instead of using the conditional use process, that where we could review parking or site design issues in some other way. We also thought about limiting, and we kind of talked about that with the star, the asterisk that you guys were already talking about limiting the types of uses or user views that are subject to call up so that could be saying non residential uses don't have to. Come to call up. Those can just be staff decision or residential uses, or you know, it could be any number of things, but just further kind of funneling that down to to streamline time for some of the use reviews.

[64:00] And then also just looking at the development agreement process. It's a fairly unique process that boulder has to do that at the end. Most other cities don't have the kind of legal, contractual aspect with use reviews. And so whether there's process improvements, we can do to just make that go faster and be simpler. We've heard from applicants and from staff that that can prove to be kind of cumbersome. And it's right at the end of the approval. So it adds this time, so there might be some potential opportunities there as well. So, and we think that changing some or modifying some of the processes for use to review could save plenty more time, staff time and applicant time. And so that brings us to key issue number 2, which is whether planning board supports implementing changes that would reduce the number of use reviews, such as the examples that I had given on the previous slide. Great can go back to the previous slide. No, we're responding to George. Yes. right? So full disclosure.

[65:02] I love this type of stuff every day, cause I'm a commercial landlord, not in this municipality, but have. like 30 different retail locations myself. And so I get all this stuff at a very deep level, and I've seen it cause tremendous pain. on the side of small businesses wanted to talk about you had mentioned the recent changes relative to square footage and how that might affect the graph that you showed us. Because I think that that's really important, because when I think of small businesses and like change of uses from some kind of retail environment to your restaurant, or something like that, you generally talking under 4,000 square feet, or something to that effect. And so I'm curious. The changes that you've already made how you anticipate that changing what you just showed us. Yeah, you've actually just a little light bulb in my head went off for another data point that I can get, which is what the size was of each of those user views. Because right for restaurants, we amended it so that restaurants under 4,000 square feet would be allowed by right

[66:10] and then, for, like indoor athletic facilities, we changed it so that those that are under 5,000 square feet would be allowed by right. So I think we could look into the data a little more to see how big of an impact those changes would like in an alternate world of scenarios. How many of those would have gone through? It's got to be like 2 that are bigger than 4,000 square. We're close to it when once per foot just calculated. So I think that would be helpful for us to understand, because I think, from a small business perspective, which is really what I think of sort of mon pops like the like, the like. The person that there's that change of use at the the pharmaco location on Perl, where they did that. Yeah, the division there. And they have 2 shops there now.

[67:07] even, I guess, and that's the other. So so along that line of questioning, right? You had mentioned either way, it could be a 5 month process, just with the city involved with planning board involved sounds more like more like a 7 month process on average. And I understand these are averages. And then I'm not familiar with the development agreement side of things. I haven't. I haven't experienced that personally and other municipalities I work in. So I'm curious how important that is, and are there thresholds for that, too, because I would imagine the square footage threshold. For that I would imagine the development agreement is put in place to to use Brad's parlance, you know, guard rails on what someone's gonna do. And I would imagine that there's probably also benefit to a square footage threshold there, because I think the larger the development, the larger the impact, larger the concern for the community. If we're talking about something that's already by right, like a restaurant that can switch over under the newer Regs.

[68:10] Does development agreement need to be put in place? Still. yeah. So the development agreement only applies if the Use Review was required. So we require them of like site reviews, user reviews, a number. Correct me if I'm wrong. Hello, but so any use review has to get the development agreement. That is one change that we've also been kind of talking about as staff is whether, you know, if we did amend it or change the code so that the the use reviews that don't have site changes are reviewed in some kind of administrative capacity. Or even if it stays as a use review. Maybe if there aren't, site changes, they don't have to do a development agreement. The development agreement is it's much more into the legal side of things. Which is why I'm saying hell is the expert, but it involves the property owner. They have to prove that they own it. It's really like a contract that they're writing afterwards.

[69:07] yeah, it's it's required for all use reviews for all site reviews. I think, for form based code. We created city manager discretion on whether or not to require a development agreement, and the thought was to have the ability to require it. If there is a lot of public improvement, construction and dedication requirements. the development agreement. the benefits of a development agreement are that the property owner has to sign it, and it officially accepts the agreement and the conditions that may be imposed and the conditions a use review approval is subject to is the specific operating characteristics that are described in the application for the use versus conditional use. For example, there may be some conditions in the code, but they are the same for all businesses in a use. Review.

[70:04] What's approved is what was described in the written description, plus conditions of improvement that are imposed. So it creates a record of what was actually imposed, and that's recorded against the property. and if somebody buys the property, they they see what those obligations are if it was just approved, there would still be a request. a requirement, because it's a regulatory approval to comply with it. But you would find out about it from the previous property owner. Or if you ask the city, if if a recorded development agreement is in existence, then then there is a clear record that that there are limitations to that to a particular use that may currently be on the property. So those are some of the benefits associated with a development agreement, right? But when you're going through a change of use or something like that.

[71:00] there's all kinds of There's all kinds of things that, for instance, the property owners signing off of during the permitting process, and that entire. Yeah, they have to. They have to assign the application. Yup. I just wanted to follow up on that. You said that most municipalities don't have this development agreement. do they have? How do they deal with whatever we're trying whatever problem we're trying to solve with the development agreement. Yeah. So to clarify. I've been looking at several nearby communities and also within Colorado, just making sure, because we have state walls that are related to it, and other municipalities might have development agreements, but not for use reviews. So they typically development agreements and other communities are applied to planned unit developments or things that have public improvements. Because there's some assurance that needs to be locked in. It's very unusual for user views to require a development agreement. I haven't found. I don't. Yeah, I haven't found another community that does it.

[72:05] But other communities, even in Boulder County. I know Longmont. They'll still record something with the the county clerk. But it's not a development agreement. It's just kind of a notification document, and it will still show up when you do. A clerk, clerk, and recorder search that says there was a user view approval here and go to go to the city to find information about it. Does that help. Emel? Do you have some questions? No. Laura, do you have any questions? No questions. Thank you. Wait. I'm sorry. We'll go back to Ml. And we'll come to you. Eml, go ahead. It's okay. I'm just trying to think about use reviews that come in with the Site Review. But if they didn't have a site review, then they'd be an independent use review residential on a ground floor in a mixed use.

[73:05] those fall under use. Review. Is that correct? Correct? So under what would happen to them? What would happen to them if we. what changes do you see making to that scenario? Well, in these potential changes, we're kind of only contemplating changes to where there wouldn't be site work. So if you're building a new building that has residential on the ground floor, that would be site work. So that would still be we're not, really, we don't really have Anything laid out specifically that would change the process for that. So use reviews that aren't coming in for Site review. that are addressing residential on the ground floor. And I think that requires a review in a mixed use or other non residential, those would remain as a requirement.

[74:10] Yeah, there wouldn't. The the changes we're contemplating are more for the sides. But businesses that aren't changing the site right? You're saying in an existing, or I'm interpreting. What you're saying is in an existing development where you've got commercial on the ground floor. making sure that there's still a use review in place. If that commercial switches over to residential use is shifting, and we know it's not in a residential district, because then it would be a non issue is that still. would that still come under? A review process? I think that I mean we haven't drafted any of the ordinance yet, so we could certainly pull that out. I don't think that's what we were envisioning right now. We're envisioning more of like the gym going into the existing building but maybe for those circumstances we would still want to have some discretion where there are those specific use review criteria about ground floor. Our user review standards. There could be certain circumstances where that still makes sense. Yeah, I think just in light of

[75:26] us looking for opportunities to create more residential, and maybe the owners looking for opportunities to create more residential. You know, those, maybe, is not something that historically might have happened. But now, it might be something that make sense. Okay. I'm I just have one quick question. Still, I just wanted to clarify about the routing to staff. So currently.

[76:09] currently, if it's a full use review. then it goes to some predetermined set of departments, including parks and fire. And okay. And there's someone like assigned in each one of those departments to look at these things. That's like Appendix D, and all of our proposals where it goes through like where you see all the comments from all the different departments, and it goes through various iterations, right? And I've thought about that with site review, but not yeah, not really with use. Review. Okay. it'd be just some broader context. Really, the I call it referral process. I always forget what we kind of call that. But when we're sending it out to those agents, that that really is, the essence of planning is what we're our our function as a department, philosophically and in practice is to be a one stop shop. So we are representing all the in the disciplines. We're representing all the different departments.

[77:14] But we also want to reach out to those departments and specified in individuals or groups within those teams to get another level of expertise or have them answer specific questions. There are jurisdictions that have experienced experimented with the a army of people around a table each time. We have philosophically not done that for years and years, which I think is the right thing to do. But I just bring this up to say that that whole process is the essence of how we add value to an application and make sure that it is meeting code, and that you do the problem solving when we reconcile competing interest on a property, ie. The stormwater needs to go here. Trail needs to go here. They bet both can't go in the same spot.

[78:04] Those are decisions and and actions that are getting done daily on dozens and dozens of cases. So I just wanted to kind of characterize like of all the process that you're seeing my mind. That is the thing that adds value to to what we do and and why we exist essentially. follow up on that. Yeah, yeah, no, that's great. But to follow up on that. If in the canonical example of the crossfit going into an industrial space. why does that have to go to parks, for example. Well, we use discretion. Everything does. It's not cookie quarter cutter right every case. The planner keep me honest here says like no, it it goes to this, this, this and this person. And it's very customized. You review the application when it comes in. And we look at what they're asking to do. We look at the site. We look at the space. There are some standard referrals involved with everyone.

[79:00] But sometimes we'll take one off if it just doesn't make sense for them to look review it. And then we might see that there's another referral that might need to look at it based on what they're asking for. So there is some discretion. Okay, I misunderstood. I thought, no, not at all. And there's literally dozens and dozens of what's the term we use not referral agency. But so it's our development Review committee. There we go. and it. It's everybody from who you would suspect like fire and Parks and those. But it also is occasionally the State water engineer, or the division of Wildlife or Boulder County, you know. So it's a long, long list. Okay, but the the message, the the key message that I'm getting is that somebody makes an informed decision about which ones it goes to and which ones it does. That's great. Thanks. Alright. I have a bunch of questions. The first is so you talking about how the processes take a while, although I don't see a huge difference between 5 months and 7 months. so I think it would be helpful when you all come back to

[80:06] more fine-grained, which the ones that are taking an extraordinarily long time. Why are they taking an extraordinarily long time like and maybe it's the square footage, or who knows? Back and forth. Right? Yeah. So to clarify the 5 month to 7 months that the 2 months is in the applicant's court. So that's when the applicant has. The city has requested that the applicant update their plans. And that's just the time that the applicant is taking to update their plans. So it's 5 months of city review time. 7 months total. Yeah, I'm sorry. So again, you know, there's the controllables and the non controllable. So we only control half the equation as least is explaining. But when we bring forward these kind of analysis, we're talking about the part we can control and how this can shave off 2 weeks, 3 weeks, or a couple months. you know, when somebody, Charles like this. I appreciate that, you know, when somebody's paying triple net lease for 2 months.

[81:09] you know, that can be tens of thousands of dollars. And and again, it's not our job to to make everything work all the time. I mean, it's their responsibility to meet the law. But we also recognize that there's a real financial implication to these things. And so that gets back to my earliest comments about government responsibility. That's so. A question I want to ask is and I hear about this from residents who are trying to do stuff with their houses, which I realize is not the situation we're talking about here, but staff limitations are often a huge barrier for people who are doing work with the planning department. So it would be helpful to understand how much of that plays a role in these longer periods of th. This, this, this process as well, because you mean staff resources like capacity fundamentally. And Charles, keep me honest on this. But fundamentally I would say for the last year that it's not been the case, and I would also say that if it is applying to single to the degree that it has

[82:16] or can apply to single property owners. It's it's happening to large companies, too. I remember having this conversation about a year ago, when there's some back and forth related to some specific incidents and criticism. It's like, well, you know, you guys are making sure to fast track all the big businesses. And I'm here to tell you if you talk to those big businesses, they would disagree so you know, we are equal offenders if if I just in terms of like you're talking about. I don't necessarily have a problem with streamlining. Some things. However, we're not. And our job is not to right. Our our job is not to yeah rubber stamp stuff. That's not actually our job. Yeah. And I will tell you honestly, I was struggling with the term streamlining. I'm not sure we really, you know

[83:03] knew what the right word was. I used very clunky description in talking with this staff of things in the code that add additional time that maybe don't need to, but that seems like a lot more words than screen. So let me just excited something else. But I understand your point absolutely. And and you know that gets back to what I said. It's not our job to make applications perfect or to fair enough, and I don't. I don't think that's what I'm trying to tell you. That's what I'm trying to tell you. I'm not sure if that's what I'm trying to tell you. That's what I'm trying to tell you. That's what I'm trying to tell you. That's what I'm trying to tell you. That's what I'm trying to tell you. That's what I'm trying to say, I'm not sure if that's what I'm doing. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to tell you that I'm not sure if that's what I'm trying to say processy inputs. But processes are run by human beings. And so that I'm just putting that out. For if it's a human, if there's also a human being dimension problem here to be aware of that. Yeah, just 1 point that I wanted. So the reason that use reviews kind of have risen is that we looked at the times for every single kind of development, review approval, and these start out as taking way longer than like our minor modification process which is going to the same people.

[84:14] So something. That's where it puts a little light at it of what's going on here that we need to investigate more because it stands out among the other application types as something is making it take much longer than our other application types. I'll just elaborate, too, to say that I am sorry to interrupt you. I just wanna go back to something I said earlier. There's processing which we've been working on very deliberately for 3 years. And then there's built in institutionalized things. And that's what we're talking about today. And that's what I was characterizing earlier, as we. We already were working on processing, and we'll keep working on processing. We're committed to process improvement, constant process, improvement.

[85:02] What we had at least as it's been characterized to me what had never literally been greenlit by council was to look at codes. And so that's the distinction. Thank you. Don't don't go anywhere, cause I'm sure you'll have comments on Mic. So the the other 2 questions I have. Can you go back to the your 4 point? Do you think there other one develop alternative processes to review parking and site design issues? We'd like skipped right over that as a discussion point? What can you unpack that a little bit. Yeah, if you have any. Yeah, it's nothing specific. I mean, we're also open to ideas. But I think in in my experience of looking at user views. It's typically the user views that have some site improvements involved in them that often complicate the review and maybe add a lot of time. So it might be something like creating a new process for uses that don't require site, review, or site changes. So we're trying to explore whether there's a

[86:03] bifurcation of the process that might have a lower tier of review for uses that are just going into an existing space versus ones that might necessitate changes on the site. But what does that have to do with parking necessitates a higher parking requirement? So then they have to reconfigure the parking lot, and then, when they do that, they trigger the landscaping requirements and things like that, so those obviously have to undergo a bit more review versus a use that just can go into that space, not trigger those things, and that the first and second bullet kind of tie together. Whether it's more. you know whether we use our established conditional use process, which is an administrative, or we could come up with a new kind of administrative process that would exempt those use reviews that don't have site issues.

[87:06] applications that only have parking or site design changes as opposed to more comprehensive site like Site design. Well, I guess I think these are just 2 examples of anything that involves changing the physical site. So way I think of it is some use. Reviews are. Essentially, I'm just swapping out one use for another. I'm not changing the building. I'm not changing. II am changing the use. So that's why I have to do that. But it's, you know, functionally, what in building permit terms is called a tenant improvement. But there are requirements in the current code that that still go through use review. That's as opposed to anything that causes physical changes to the building, either because it's sought by the by the owner, or it's triggered because the use requires more or less parking floor area or something like that. So that's an addition. That's a change to the exterior to change the thought here on on bullet point number 2 would be an alternate.

[88:18] conceptually an alternative process. That would be more robust. When there are these kinds of changes compared to something. That's just we're putting a crossfit gym into an industrial site. So I'm gonna follow up with my last question, which is about public input. So th what I'm hearing so far. in the first section. And this section is for for probably for some good reasons, is reducing the role of planning board, reducing the places which planning board intersects with proposals. Planning board is also the place where many, many, many public people in the public come and actually speak about something that is happening in their neighborhood. That they are, they are upset about or like, or whatever their position may be

[89:11] so. I'm just a little concerned that we take into account these, the the fact that planning board serve meetings serve as a public hearing as a hearing from the public. but things that matter to them, and that we not forget that in the process of trying to streamline things for developers or for small business owners. I think we just have to make sure that we're balancing those interests then, George, and then alright. So I've got a number of comments. And then I'm done. Number one, I think we hit on something really interesting when you, when you brought up that graphic with the Gyms and the restaurants and the square footage stuff.

[90:02] I'd I'd really like to understand the impact of the changes that you've just made because it sounds like they're super impactful. right? Because that gym was 24, and the restaurants were 26 and probably 90 plus of those cases actually probably fell in that bucket already. And so just want to be clear that you know I like the idea of we've already made. You guys have already made it pretty. Sounds like a pretty sweeping, positive change that will affect this, and I don't want that to get lost doing additional stuff just to do it when we already you already made the bulk of the change that you need to make with that one adjustment. And it sounds like it did. I guess, is that the use for views will dramatically shift with the changes that have already been made. number 2. In addressing something that Ml. Said, which I don't know if that was in her intent. Right? I want to say I'm totally freaked out

[91:05] with the idea that we could approve a development, a mixed use, development and planning board, and there would not be so with with retail on the ground level. And then there not be site changes. and then a developer could come back in later and claim I just can't rent the space because he doesn't want to rent it for below what he thinks he should get for it, and he could monetize that for more apartments like by converting that ground floor without any use for you don't know if that's exactly what you were saying that freaks me out. Because I know that those are hard fought processes. When a when a large apartment development comes in place and there's ground floor retail. That's important to the overall development agreement. And so I don't want that to get be a point where these spaces are subdivided, you know, below 1,500 square feet apiece, and there could be the possibility of a developer coming in and modifying what was intended to be community serving retail

[92:07] as to be shifted over departments just because it's more financially beneficial to them. I don't know if that's any of the intent to that, but I just wanted to register that concern. I don't think it is, but it's an unintended consequence depending on how we work things. yeah. I'm not a I'm not a opposed. Can you bring up the 4 things I agree that if you're not changing the the the physical properties of the site, you want to change a use. I don't don't think that that necessarily needs to facilitate, be it in a use for you as long as it's capped by some kind of square footage as the bargain with the community. Agree with Sarah's comments around making sure that material changes, and I don't know how we define material changes and maybe square footage is a good place to start material changes to use. I think the public needs a forum for that.

[93:03] and the development agreement sounds like that's an area. But again. may or may not be need to be tweaked, because the development agreement sound onerous to me as a small business owner as like a restaurant guy who just wants to get my restaurant open all of a sudden I had a 90 day process to do a development agreement on top of the change use. But it sounds like that's already been addressed. So the question is. are there larger changes of uses where where the city finds the development agreement to be important. I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm just leaving that as feedback. That's it. Sure. Yeah. First of all, I appreciate george's point about the fact that that a a lot of these improvements, based on that graph potentially have already been made. However, that doesn't help

[94:05] the people coming in for nonconforming use. or you know, a lot of others. So a. There's still plenty of people who I think, are hurting. As a result, small business owners who are hurting or potentially unable to achieve the business, to to do the business that they're trying to do because of this timeframe, and so I don't think that I think we should be very appreciative of those changes, but I don't think that we should let that we should. We shouldn't let up on these changes based on that. Is is my input I agree with a lot of these, as I think do others? Certainly, the the the applications that don't involve site changes, I think should be reviewed administratively. I think that would be great limiting the types of use reviews subject to call up. That sounds great. And the development agreement. Yeah, it sounds like

[95:13] it sounds like for some of them. There's already the city manager. Discretion as to whether that happens for for certain, for the for oh, for the form base code, remember right? And so it seems like that could be the case for all of them. If there's something where. you know. Staff looks at it and says, Oh, yeah, this needs a development agreement. Then, of course, we should have the tool available. But I don't think we should do development agreements just because we we do development agreements for everybody. And Mel, do you have any comments? So you know, II think this is starting out as a question. But I think it's a comment. Ii generally am in agreement with the direction you're heading in there, you know. I think the consideration

[96:08] changing a use. where there's no site. a design issues that are triggered that would require a more robust process. One of the statements that you have in in your packet is, if a particular use is demonstrated to be appropriate to the proposed location. And I don't know whether there's criteria. Yeah, yeah, there are. In 1915, we have the use review criteria, and then certain uses also have their own standards. That apply on top of that use. That is appropriate, because that's really if they're just trying to switch a use. And I again, I'm thinking about the residential on the ground floor in those other zonings. and are there criteria in place that would address

[97:01] some of the I mean. when you think about a a more public use on the ground floor switching to a private use that changes the contextual relationship to its surroundings. So there are implications. And if we don't have criteria in place, that sort of checklist, what's happening? How is this? Changing, how the public might use the area and and those kinds of things. That level of criteria is what I'm I mean, I think that's the value of planning board. Looking at these kinds of things is to say, Okay, what's happening to the public here as opposed to is the building still safe? And you know, does it meet the landscape requirements, etc., etc., the human aspect, the values. So that's really my, I. And I think it would just go across the board. Do we have the criteria in place that take into consideration kind of the values that are brought to the table when we have a Sarah was saying, the public giving us input. And you know all the various perspectives of people on planning board.

[98:10] Alright, and my only comment, ha! I I'm I'm I stand with George on all stuff comments he made, and Ml's comments we did not discuss nonconforming uses at all. And I don't know whether that's because we're not discussing them. But my experience with user reviews for nonconforming uses is. It's a very valuable. very frustrating, and often contentious, but a very valuable process to come to planning board, so I wouldn't want to change that at all. Yeah, that is, that's the conclusion that Staff came to as well. So it is a number. We do have a number of nonconforming uses. But we do think that it's a valuable process. Kind of unique situations when they're nonconforming. So Laura doesn't ever hand that, Laura, are you there? I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes, we can.

[99:02] Yeah, I'll just say, Thank you. I'll just say that. I think everybody made really great points I do wanna uplift the idea of a lower level of review for uses that don't change the physical site, although I do think it's a really good caution. And I wanted to ask Staff, would that allow a change from a commercial use to a residential use as as folks have asked about? Yeah, I think that wasn't the intent that we were thinking of. But I'm really glad you raised that point because it's something we could fix in the drafting, you know. Say, site changes except changing from commercial to residential. So I'm glad you raised it. Yeah, I think if you could rule that out, that would go go a long way. yeah. And and I think everybody else made great points, and I support my colleagues. Thank you. Alright. Great! Why don't we take a 5 min break, and then we'll finish. We'll go through the rest, so we'll be back at 7 50. I know I tried. I did try.

[105:45] so we're still on the used review theme. This is non residential uses in residential zoning districts. So I mentioned many slides ago that there was a different situation that didn't follow the call up for use reviews, and that is, we do have a few uses that automatically require public hearing. So they're not subject to call up, they just automatically come to you. And so one of those is non residential uses in residential districts. The others,

[106:13] are like oil and gas is one of the other ones. This this part of the code has been in the code since the early 19 eighties. We kind of talked about this with the use table changes. That Boulder was one of the first cities to really do mixed use zoning. So in the early eighties mixed use. Zoning was a very new thing. and so we're kind of dipping our toes in the water at the time. In early the early eighties. Now we've had 40 years of mixed use, zoning and kind of understand the impacts that there might be with non residential uses in residential districts. So it's a little bit different of a situation that we're in now. You might remember that several of these applications were recently brought to you. There was an acupuncture clinic, a massage therapists going into like existing office parks in Pu d's in residential districts, and I think most recently was the school daycare.

[107:07] One that was also in a residential district. So those are the types of applications that automatically require the public hearing. As we've talked about with the whole process. Going automatically to public hearing. What we tell applicants is it takes it at least 60 days, or it adds at least 60 days to the process to have to come to public hearing automatically our proposal. All of those recent applications have been approved. Like I mentioned over the last 40 years we've really learned a lot about mixed use zoning. There's only a few limited uses that are even allowed in the non residential or non residential uses that are even allowed by use. Review in residential districts, things like offices, acupuncture, the things that you've seen, private schools. So it's not like any non residential use can go into a residential zoning district. It's still dictated by the table. The use table. So the potential change that we saw here

[108:00] was to simply remove the Automatic Planning Board Review for those types of uses, and there would still be the opportunity for appeal. Or call up of those uses. So it's not necessarily that you would never see it. It said it would not automatically come to you. And that's all I have on that one. I'm gonna ask a question. So that PUD, yeah, it was a Pd, that lab residential. But was all office space. It was really just a question about what types of uses it was Meta. It was medical, and the question was whether massage and acupuncture or whatever would would be appropriate. Right. So I'm not really sure that's a legitimate example. I guess I'm a little more thinking about I ideas that I've heard occasionally in the 5 years I've been here of. Why can't someone have a business in their house?

[109:00] And you know that that would be a non residential use like a a let's call. Let's say it's a a jewelry retail jewelry business in their house. Versus just working from home, and I guess III guess I feel pretty strongly about maintaining the residential sense of residential neighborhoods. That's just a an opinion I have. And so I'm I would like to know more about what would be the implications of, or of not having use review of for this for non-residential uses in residential districts, and like, I don't really bye. now that we've changed some of the zoning for residential districts, I just am. I would like to know more about what the actual potential implications are sure. So a couple of clarifications so it wouldn't be removing use review for them. It just would be removing the automatic planning board hearing. So bear a unique

[110:07] use that comes automatically to you. It doesn't even have the potential to not be called up. It has to come to you. So that's what's unique about it. And we wouldn't be changing the you in the table for that. It would still require a use review and then another point of clarification. We have home occupation standards. So if there's some kind of business in a house that's regulated by our home occupation standards. And there's limitations on how big it can be like the signs they can have. They can't have employees. things like that. And then. Another point is that none of these non residential uses are allowed in our lower density. Residential districts now. So it's only in our higher, like Rl, 2. And above, where these few uses like offices, can be allowed through user view in the residential districts. So you're proposing eliminating the Automatic Board Review and just being administrative. Well, it would be a use review that would be subject to call up or appeal.

[111:10] So we're adding a call. We've just talked about reducing the number of columns, but now we're adding a column. Well, it would be well, it would be adding a call up, but removing the automatic hearing. So it would just be a maybe, if you have a hearing. what's that? Instead of a for sure so, and that it is a time difference so, and it takes at least 60 days to get a hearing, because there are only so many items that we can put on your agenda each time you know. A call up doesn't necessarily take up time, so it's faster to get a call up onto your agenda. So a call up to adds, about 2 to 4 weeks, that the for sure planning board hearing add 60 days to an applicant's timeline. Okay? Well. I'll just my personal opinion is, if we do it that way, then it's still. Then we should stick with 1. One planning board member can call something up. But I'll go. George.

[112:00] yeah, I have a clarifying question. So I'll take that the the the office to the spot school, or whatever it was. As an example. So in that example that was a conversion primarily converting existing spaces. Or is this new uses? It could be new uses. But the most recent applications that we've had have all been conversion of existing. So so in the case of like, let's say, that office didn't exist. It was just vacant land. and you wanted to put a non residential use there instead of a residential use. Does this apply? It would? Yeah. And and then the user review would be required. then the user group would be required. I mean, what's proposes. The vast majority of user views are staff level with with the ability for call up or appeal. We're just proposing to take non residential uses in residential zones off the automatic appeal public hearing

[113:05] process. But in that case, like, where was they can land, for instance, you'd still need like cyber. You you wouldn't, wouldn't. It wouldn't fall in this category because you'd also have site review and all kinds of other stuff. Right? Yeah, I mean, you'd have to know how big the building is to qualify for site review and things like that. But yeah, there would be more complexity of that review than just the confusing me. Cause that example, or is there an example that I guess? But I don't want the unintended consequence of teasing, taking away housing inventory for let's say. just pick me used office space and going against what we've been working hard to achieve, which is trying to balance the the supply and demand for for Workspace versus housing. And so is there a scenario that you can think of where that would happen where we wouldn't see it and under, I mean planning board would still see all of these through the call up process.

[114:08] It's just a matter of whether planning board wants to call it up instead of it, just being automatically brought. Okay to planning board. I think I'm at the level of understanding. Sarah wasn't the beginning, which in that case I would. My only comment would be, I would just want it to be available to at least to just be one planning board member that could call it up. But outside of that kind of makes sense so. And they're also point out that there's a criterion in the use of view criteria that exist today. That is a presumption against conversion of residential to non residential that can be reviewed by planning board. Okay? Yeah. Cause it's it's it's, you know, I'm just looking at the headline. And it's confusing and so maybe that's the feedback is when when this comes back to be presented, just clarify exactly. Cause I think I'm confused and chance of the public would get confused, I think, because it's an outlier. Yeah, it's an outlier in our process. And we're proposing to just put it with the rest of the user views. Thank you.

[115:08] No, I think that what you're trying to do is thumbs up. Sorry about that. The massage school thing came to us. We were all like. why is this really coming to us, you know, and so this would avoid that. And so III strongly support that. I will disagree with my comrades and say that I think that again call up of, you know, more than one person would be appropriate, maybe 3 members or something. I may be in the minority about that. Laura. I agree that this is a good change. II like making it the same as the other user views that it's subject to call up or appeal, and I agree with Curd. It does not change my views on whether one planning board member should be able to call up an item

[116:14] that what you need. Yes, thank you, Aunt Alright. Done with key issue number 3, are. Let's see. So the next for key issue number 4. I've kind of grouped several smaller issues. And so I'll go through those quickly. The first is development review extensions. So this is also an application you've seen recently. Most applications. Site Review. Use review things like that have 3 years to substantially complete the work. and if they are not substantially complete, they can request 2, 6 month extensions through staff. So Staff just approve that if they need more time than that, they come to the planning board for additional time. They have to prove that they've been re reasonably diligent in pursuing completion of the project, that they have good cause things like that. But I think what we've run into with some recent projects is that the code is unclear about what the limits are

[117:07] planning board extension. It doesn't say like planning board can extend it for this many years, or things like that, the way that it says that about staff so the or even when that that extension starts. And so one of the potential changes to provide some additional predictability in the code would be ex clarifying those extension limits and start times potentially increasing the amount of time that staff can extend it. We looked at some other communities that have longer extension approved by staff. So maybe 2, one year periods by staff before it comes to planning board. And then also, there's some opportunities that we've discussed as staff over time with the definition that we have of substantially complete. That also differs a bit from other communities, and just making that more black and white is pretty nuanced right now. So it can be a little bit more. Difficult to implement.

[118:01] So that would be the potential change there again. This is the result of Staff's analysis or views over time, but also some recent applications that you all have seen. extensions would have been requested. I'm not sure I can look that up, though, because I just I mean it changes sound fine to me. But if most of these are Covid related, maybe we're we. We've identified something as a problem. That is, in fact, not a problem. Yeah, I think I well, and II don't think it's the problem with, like the number of extensions that we're requesting. It's more that the code we're finding in recent examples that the code doesn't really set a limit to or set any guard rails or

[119:06] instructions for what you're supposed to do with those extensions, and in most circumstances there would be more specific standards. For what you're reviewing. So we think that adding that could add some more predictability. It is, let me sorry. Just one more question other than wanting to other than wanting to get a development review off Staff's plate. What is the point of a 3 year framework? Just what? What's the value of that? Having a an expiration. I think that it's so that these you know our codes change over time, and so they have an approval that's in place with those rules at that point. And so if it was 15 years ago, and we had totally different rules. And now they're developing. It's not really what the public's anticipating anymore. The codes change over time. So it keeps it current right? You might have approved to drive through 15 years ago. That wouldn't be appropriate. Right? And then you're wondering, how is this drive through showing up? So it kind of keeps it current with our regulations. And also I don't know if there's any additional.

[120:08] Well, I mean, obviously, the 3 years is what has been found to be a reasonable time to Co, you know, move towards completion of a project. I think Covid has certainly impacted projects abilities. But I think it goes beyond that. I think cost of materials has been something in in recent years that has complicated the completion of projects. So we find that we're dealing with a lot of site review applications where they're panicking to try to get it done and figuring out whether they're substantially complete per the wording in the code. We give staff extensions. And oftentimes it's it's a little strange, too, because we we do bring some projects before the Board for extension that were projects at the Planning board did not look at it as a Po. A public hearing before, but is now then having to come to planning board. So it just seemed like something that begged for some flexibility.

[121:05] Who has questions, comments. anybody be anyone dramatically opposed to this idea? Okay, great. Please move on to Number 5. One project, and it's just like, huh. So I think clarification 2 thumbs up. I mean, it's just really nice to see when the problems are getting solved. And I really appreciate that. Okay. okay, so moving on to minor amendments. We've talked a little bit about that already. But, like I mentioned before, there's 3 levels. There's 3 different types of amendments of site review kind of inching up in con complexity as you go further to the right. The minor amendment process we're finding

[122:09] Applications are are having trouble meeting the standards. And so what that means for minor amendment. What that means is that if they're unable to meet the minor amendment, even if they might seem relatively inconsequential. If they can't meet those standards, they're pushed into the Full Site Review Amendment, which is essentially a new site Review. And so that's kind of a drum, maybe like a a A more extensive review than that change really needs. And so, looking at our minor amendment criteria it our standards it. They seem a bit outdated at this point. There's a really specific kind of development that they're kind of envisioning with those minor amendments. More of our planned unit development many decades ago. So we thought that there would be opportunities to look both at the minor amendment and also minor modification standards and make sure that that's really capturing those minor changes that we don't think have a material impact on the character of the development that's been approved. But that those changes that are that do have significant changes. Would be falling into the Site Review appropriately. So kind of just checking those thresholds and making sure that things are falling into the right buckets.

[123:20] That they should be. So. That's the potential change here is to evaluate and modify the minor amendment standards to ensure that those small changes are falling into that and and also into the minor modification standards as well. Yeah, go ahead. And then I'm out. And what is the process? Difference between being a minor MoD in a minor amendment? So a minor amendment can be called up. And then, right? Yeah. Minor amendment is a site review. It just has a cheaper fee, and it has a smaller scope of criteria that apply to it. But it's still a site review. It has the call up and appeal

[124:01] associated with it. And then the minor modification is purely administrative. So staff is the final decision. Okay? Okay? Ml. so if I understand what you're saying. what you're looking at changing is you're looking at changing the thresholds. Is that correct? Well, it's changing the standards which establishes the threshold of which one they fall into. Can you give an example? Sure. So I've been looking at some other communities. This is pretty common for other communities to have kind of like a minor amendment process. But other communities, and some of our minor modification criteria. It's usually it qualifies as a minor modification. If the setbacks don't change by 10 or something like that, they can't be larger than that, so there's usually a threshold in that standard of what can be approved as a minor modification. So we haven't done the work of looking at those actual meeting with Staff tomorrow to know. But yeah, it would be looking at those and seeing what those lines need to be. So giving more definition.

[125:14] So so site re setbacks prompts me to think about setbacks which I don't normally think about on a day-to-day basis. But you know, one of the purposes of setbacks is light on. Well, what do we call it? Solar solar access? And you know, a 10 modification could actually have pretty significant impact on solar access. Now I realize that it's like a Rubik's cube, and this piece moves like this, and whatever but I just I would. I know you will all be cautious, but to think about the implications of the minor modification, not just on the applicant who is asking for it, but on the surrounding properties, because I, it could have a very significant impact still, would have to meet the solar access standards. And if it's the exterior of the development where it impacts a property that's off site.

[126:11] You can't modify the the setback in a minor modification, for instance. Okay, so if it goes to a minor amendment, there would still be, and they want to change a setback. There would be public notice for that. And again, still have to meet other standards. Okay? And I would also say that this re, this in reinforces for me the need to have site review amendments. Call up if you're moving more things further you're changing the standards. So more things fall into, just administ into administrative processes. Then the things that are above that standard really need to be call up options, opportunities would be my take on it. Laura. this all looks good to me. Thank you.

[127:00] Georgia, and I think George is speechless. Okay, any other comments before we move on to, we have anything approval. So II think that's a great idea. There's only 2 left. Okay. So now we've gotten to appeals which we've talked about a bit already tonight. But any interested person can appeal Mini Development review decisions within 14 days of the decision as we've talked about. They're pretty infrequently filed. We don't see them very often. But one thing, when looking at other communities, processes versus ours that we noticed stood out was that we do not require any fees. So in other communities, when there's an appeal, typically, there's it's usually a fairly small fee, not anything exorbitant. But a small fee. That kind of the the person appealing has to pay in order to Co essentially cover staff time. And so one of the potential changes that was brought up to was to charge a small fee.

[128:02] Alongside those those appeals for for that staff time, but not material changes to the appeal process. But what what other communities charge? It's usually like less than $200 around $200. Go ahead. So II guess the question would be, II understand the the 200 bucks to to cover staff time, but and be concerned about someone not filing an appeal because they don't have the means or something to that effect. And it doesn't sound like it would be a material amount of money either way to the city. How many appeals are filed a year? I think we've only seen a few in the last year, or the last few like less than 5. Probably. Yeah.

[129:05] So it's not a material amount of money to me would just create an impediment for someone that actually wanted to file an appeal. We're not getting a lot of appeals. So why, why, I guess beyond, I don't know what it would really do. Except annoy the public. It seems like an equity issue. Go ahead. Yeah, II totally agree. II am strongly opposed to the fee. From exactly the equity standpoint. I just heard on the radio this morning that this is the anniversary of the ratification of the 20 Fourth Amendment which eliminated the Oh, it it for for paid poll taxes. And to me this is a little bit like a poll tax. and so I yeah, I don't think that the fee would be appropriate. I guess my question would be. how many communities have this process at all? Apparently some do. But is this standard that one person can call up a decision.

[130:09] Looks like Brad wants to. Oh, yeah. Well, we got already kind of talked about it that the call up procedure is a little more unique, more unusual and appeal processes are more typical in other communities and at least other communities that I've worked. It is just one person, but there is a fee which II think the intent with that is to make sure that you know. they're serious about that appeal. Yeah, yeah, they're not just appealing everything. That's part of what I was gonna say, too, is. And you know there's a philosophy that these are service fees, and it does cost, obviously. staff time and such, and we wouldn't recover the full amount. But just mo mostly. So people aren't doing it frivolously. And I think there's a legitimate discussion to be had about

[131:01] what an interested person is, so that could be a person that you know attended the hearing, or wrote in a letter or both, or you know you wouldn't have to have it. Just be the public at large. I mean, there's variations that we can bring forward. So one other possibility I'd like to throw out there is, instead of having it be one person, have it be a petition of 5 people, or 10 people or something like that, and that would also reduce the number of sort of nuisance appeals. But if if there actually were constituency that was interested in the appeal. You can get the signatures. There's no cost, so it's equitable it. But it would make sure that it wasn't just one. Maybe I can suggest a variation on that. And that's maybe we just survey a few other jurisdictions to see what they do. 1 one just thing that comes to mind with that idea is when

[132:00] you know you have one project that affects 4 people and another one that affects 500, or has got everybody's attention in town. Any number kind of feels a little bit arbitrary, more than one at that point. So I don't have a solution. That's just an observation that 5 could be a huge threshold for something that only perceptionally affects 3 people around a particular project versus one that so I'm gonna turn to Laura in a second. But my alternative suggestion would be like you said a number of appeals that a person can submit before they become a nuisance submitter which I I've never seriously, I mean, I don't think we have a problem with nuisance submitters. So, but if that's the if that's the problem we're trying to address. Then let's create a barrier to someone who just willy-nilly is up filing appeals and and get away from the equity issue. Laura.

[133:02] II think this is a complicated subject? You know I had thrown out another potential solution to avoid nuisance appeals, which is that any one person can appeal it, but then it becomes a call up for planning board rather than it being automatically a hearing for planning board. That would not avoid the problem. If you have a planning board, that is, you know, dead set against hearing appeals, or has some kind of prejudice. But hopefully, you've selected your planning board appropriately that they could recognize a legitimate community interest that that needs to be heard through the appeal process. That that's one solution. The the only other thought I have is that this seems quite similar to me to what Council is struggling with with people being able to basically file complaints against council members, ethics, complaints, and I don't know if there's some parallel there to how they are trying to avoid nuisance, ethic complaints, and to our planning process. But maybe that's worth looking into. What kind of solutions they're thinking about.

[134:02] Yeah, George. I think we're trying to solve something that's not a problem. And I think we need to move on is my opinion. We've got lots of problems. This isn't one of them. I think when this becomes a problem, it should be revisited, but until then I don't think we should solve something. That's not a problem. Alright any other additional comments. I'll just add that I agree with adding a fee could become an equity issue. So let's not let's not go there. And should this end up with the idea that maybe it's gonna take at least 2 people to file an appeal. At that point I would say I would anchor that to how many people on planning board it requires to to take cause right now. I think that the public can do it with one and make sense if the planning board can. But if the public can needs to have 2 people. Well, then, I would carry that over just as a a concept kind of like

[135:08] we have the same rights as the public. Alright. Thank you. That's helpful. Last one this is public art. So this is something that's been brought up. I think city Council has, or some of the council members have brought up this as an issue that they've heard about but on public art, on private property. So artwork that's on private property, not on public right of way. There the artwork is subject to our accessory structure standards which can prove limiting and increase approval. Time for something that includes public art. And so one example of that is the setbacks for accessory structures is 55 feet. So if you wanna have artwork closer than that. You have to go through a different process. So this is kind of a simpler change than what we've been talking about and doesn't impact planning board necessarily, but just looking at ways that we could simplify the approval of artwork. Either exempting them from or accepting it from step by requirements or reducing the requirement for artwork or any other opportunities. We haven't get gotten too far into

[136:16] what those changes might be, but just trying to keep that open as something that one of the opportunities that we want to look to improve this project does. Does a artwork on private land, public art on private land have to be evaluated by any other standards then meeting setbacks, and no, not that I'm aware of. Nope. So then I would my own personal response to this would be, reduce the setback requirement. But don't eliminate it, because God knows what somebody thinks is art, and they'll put it up, you know. You just don't know. I'm thinking actually about my brother's house in Washington, the town home, and there they share a front.

[137:04] and the next door. Neighbors put up this giant brass hand. you know it is on their property, but it just seems like there you could end up with some conflict. So you have to look at art at times to make sure that it's not trying to sell something, or that it doesn't qualify as a sign. But yeah, but I think we might have to have some guardrails. As to what is our. That's a sticky wicket. That's a very sticky wicket. Laura. Does it have to meet any standards around things like height or solar shading? I mean, we would look at it like in like today. We would look at it like it's an accessory structure, depending on how it's designed, and it would be subject to height, limits, setbacks, II think, shading as well, I mean for something large.

[138:04] So if you modified the setback that would not affect, you know the height or the solar shading, that it would still have the same requirements. Okay, thank you. Grantham. So I'm thinking that we're talking about the front yard setback. So I would. I would think that looking at an option to a front yard setback could be reasonable. There should be some thresholds insofar as impeding of a sidewalk or public. You know things that overhang, or that II don't know. so I think that there could be some things that you could. You could say a 10 foot front yard setback, or something. But if it's like no front yard set back, then I think the thing to protect is the public passage.

[139:07] And I is this problem. I mean, no one's asked the question, is this really a problem? It has been like with what like, yeah, I I've I've gotten literally no less than 2 in the last couple of months that have kind of fallen into this. And so these are people that you know have a house. II didn't mean to catch off curl. Oh, okay, have what you would call a residence. And and yet there's lots of yard art, or maybe there's not, and some of it's for sale and such. So this is just trying to create some guardrails around that and and and and simplify it when it is overly complex and great clarity where there's not complexity. Okay, so this is, that's I'm confused. So this is not removing guard rails, creating guard rails.

[140:02] II would say a little bit of both right, because when people have come in and argued, well, this is just this is not a commercial setting. This isn't commercial, but yet it is, you know, from a zoning determination. Then we can say that. you know that's guardrail. But there are many instances where it's not. I know. I've heard complaints from time to time, but you know. accessory structures in the traditional sense are meant to be set back more than the principal structure. So typically more in the backyard, you don't wanna a shed in front of a building where it gets kind of weird is if you have a building that is allowed to be at a 0 or a 10 foot setback. and all of a sudden they just want to put some art near their entry. Our 55 foot setback is going to say, no, you can't do that. Looking to differentiate between an accessory structure in art

[141:11] thing outside of an accessory structure. Right? So create that whatever you haven't defined it yet. But you will define that and present that right? Right? Yeah, okay, thank you. Yeah, because if it's not a structure, does it? I mean cool. I assume that if you put art on, for instance, offense. it's just that would not be considered art. we'd still have to be in compliance with the fence standards. All. So we would. Yeah, we'd have to. But like the fence standards have a very. It's only an 18 inch setback or something like that. Right? So this is, I'm just saying, if we're talking about a 10 foot setback for the art then, and you want to just paint a mural on your fence.

[142:04] then that it's a would say that you couldn't. So I just want to make sure that we don't get into the sticky problem. So that's something we're at, you know, looking at that flexibility in the code. But also, you know, define it better. So we know how to deal with it. Different circumstances. Okay. Well, yeah, II certainly support this. And my, I would. I would go with what Ml. Was saying, which is, I think, what she was saying was minimal setback. but certainly make sure that there aren't obstructions of the sidewalk, for example. I'd like to be the person who is the arbiter of what's art to ask Sarah.

[143:06] And right now well, that's it. For the key issues that I had teed up. But I also wanted the opportunity. Just to open ended. If you all have additional ideas for process streamlining, or things that you've seen that from your perspective, maybe aren't working efficiently, or could work better, or things that are working well. Just really open open to other ideas. These are what from our staff and initial analysis, we thought rose to the top. But we are definitely here to hear if there's other items that we need to focus on as well. Or look further into. Alright. Laura has comments just a quick one. I don't know if this fits in this particular code amendment process. But one thing that has come up several times in our concept reviews is differing opinions of what is required in a concept review, and I don't know if there's a way to standardize more. A template or a set of here is what is required for a concept review, so that we don't

[144:05] have different people thinking that different things are should should be happening. Do you like me to take it? I know Charles, too. The! I have never not heard this debate in my planning career. And and so here's the balance we try to manage is we don't. We don't want to create a lot of upfront costs for an applicant to an extreme amount. And yet we're balancing that enough against having enough detail that we can provide meaningful contact or comments. And that's true. Whether it's a staff review, or, you know, planning board review. The challenge. If we start asking too much of the concept plan in very practical terms is the more money people put into things, and the more energy and time, and

[145:03] commit themselves by purchasing, and whatever the the more emotionally attached, they get to a a particular design. and it becomes much harder at that point to say things like. Hey, you need to rotate the or you, you know, we think the road you would solve problem X by rotating the building 90 degrees, or you would solve Problem Y, if you reduced the mass on this side of the of the site and increased it on this side because they've already now started doing engineering. They've started doing things that have real cost implications by iterating with architects and engineers like that. So II would advocate. It's very, very important that we maintain flexibility, in that we do have some minimum requirements for for concept plans. So there's some continuity. But you know, finding that sweet spot is is hard. And and I think it's important that we maintain flexibility around that. Can I just raise a point? What can I respond to that?

[146:04] Sure. I just wanna say I absolutely sympathize with where you're coming from, Brad, and I am actually fine with less like I am fine with not having materiality. I'm fine with not understanding the roof line or exactly how things are. Gonna go. I think that is the kind of input that we can give at concept, review and so I like knowing that there are certain minimum standards. I would like to know more about what those minimum standards are, so that I can judge and say, did they meet them? Okay? Then I'm not gonna have an issue with that, because they met the minimum standards. Ii think it'd be good if if we all knew what those minimums were. And I yeah, I support not asking the applicants to do too much at the concept level it the 2 it gets too cooked. It's hard to to back out of that. Yeah. And just to clarify something. II meant minimum submital requirements than standards. That's a more accurate description, and maybe that's a difference without a distinction. I just want to be clear.

[147:00] So I will note that over the period of time that I've served what we have gotten has definitely spec specificity has declined over time. So at some point prior to Covid. the concerns you've raised were perhaps not as as front and center as perhaps they are now, I mean so I just it'd be interesting to unpack a little bit, perhaps not here, not now, but to unpack a little bit. How it is we've had that decay change in emphasis or something I don't know. No, especially I mean, I think it. Really. You know, we've seen this over time, and I've seen it with every iteration of planning board where it swings too far in either direction. There was a time where we were almost getting. Excuse me, site, review caliber concept plans

[148:03] and it felt very disingenuous to the board, because it felt you know, like it was already cooked. Umhm. you know, and then we've seen, you know, cocktail napkin sketches where scratch their head inside of. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this but in kind of tracing the lineage of the the process back, and it was very intentional to span that gambit. And the way that it's been explained to me all these years is that Site Review is a very time consuming and expensive process. So we need it. Inexpensive and efficient way to solicit feedback from the public, from staff and from the board. and our applicants know that if you submit a more detailed concept, you're going to get more detailed responses in the case of the concept that we did last week. It was such a huge concept.

[149:03] that sometimes an applicant is just trying to see what way the wind is blowing. So for them. It's less about the materials that are going to be stuck on the facade. They recognize that they're going to have to make significant refinements as the process, whereas I think for a lot of applicants that submit less detailed concepts, it's really just about taking the temperature of the community, taking the temperature of the board and really highlighting. You know, key issues from a regulatory perspective on the staff side. So I guess I conclude by saying it was very intentional. I recognize that it can be frustrating when you know, you're looking at massing diagrams. And you know, site Plan, it's like, well, I don't really understand how this could, you know, evolve into something? but I think our applicants actually really appreciate the process and the flexibility. For you know Brad's point, you know, to submit something that has less detail. And they're just trying to get the temperature of the community or something that has you know, much more refined level of detail.

[150:10] You know, to get more detailed. Comments early in the process. So it's certainly not the first time we've heard this, Sarah, but I am happy to share the the application with the board, just so you can see what you know. We're soliciting from the applicants. You know. And again, if it's helpful to have subsequent conversations about that, we're all here. Great. That'd be interesting to see. Eml, thank you, Charles. Emil. So I don't think that this is as complicated as we think it is. A concept plan or a concept in and of itself by definition, is the big picture right? And I think that if we

[151:00] emphasized. let's get the big picture within its guard rails, and then we'll work out the details, IE. Let's make sure it meets the land. Use definition. Let's make sure it meets the zoning requirement. So come in within the big picture. the big picture that applies to that site as opposed to come in. It's not meeting zoning. It's not meeting land use. It's not meeting height. It's not. It's not meeting so many things. II think that if we set a requirement to come in. meet the Boulder Valley Comp plan landings start with start with a given rather than everything is off the table. You tell us how far we can go. I think that makes it very challenging to give the kind of feedback

[152:04] that they're gonna be able to then come back with a finite site review. When it's when it's not at the concept. You know it. There's too many variables that show up. And it's very, I think a concept by definition is the big picture. And you know what I what I and I completely agree with Sarah. In the 2 years that I've been here it has declined. What has come increasingly is the big picture is. There are no rules. And let's just go all over the map. That's a very difficult position for planning board to give feedback other than you know what you heard in the past was. There's not enough information here. We can't, really. We'll we'll try to speak to things, but there's not enough here, and I would say that if we have the base.

[153:02] if we have a base that we can speak to, and I think that the Boulder valley compound land use and the zoning are the base. That's where we start from. That gives us the regulations for what and how and where all of everything. Will you all know this? Right? You're the planning department, but we're not seeing that. you know. We're seeing everything's possible. and let's throw confetti in the air, and that is difficult. And and you know, for the argument to come back is it cost us too much money? It's like. Hello! We're a city. We have regulations start with those start with the regulations that we have. and that way we don't spend our hours because we do have to review things. They're big packets ahead of time hours and hours and hours. Of unbillable time on our part, which is fine. We signed up for that, but it's not beneficial. I don't think to anybody in the long run.

[154:03] so what I'm hearing, if I can just repeat it is that maybe there's been a sense that some, maybe even many projects. have come in that at least on the surface, don't seem to meet the basic requirements of, say, the Zone District Bulk standard, those kind of things. And and there's a lot of twisting and turning about. Well, we would want to get a rezoning and a this and a this. Ii don't know that I necessarily disagree. And and I really would value Charles input on this. My sense in the limited time here is that people have kind of brought the doesn't fit in this box. Well, kind of project forward and I don't know if that's just a a function of kind of coming out of Covid, and people finding sites where they've got perspective, that this really should work in place XX or y, but

[155:01] it. It feels like there's been a little bit more of that. I don't know that that's completely controllable under any paradigm, you know, we could talk about more or less for concept plans. People are gonna kind of bring that stuff forward. I do feel very confident that Charles and Company vet that, and try to coach people into a spot, but I don't know. Have you felt it a trend in that direction, Charles? Last couple of years? Will always be more detailed than others. And to your point, Brett, it could just be the types of projects, I think. You know, that we're seeing. And I think last week's was again a really good example of you know, an applicant again, I think really what they were after was. you know. Does this have any legs. We. you know, and II don't think that they required a a huge amount of detail to to get that feedback, and I think that they found the feedback from the board very helpful. I think the other thing that I would add, ml, is that

[156:05] you know big part of an initial analysis that we do, and the criteria and guidelines for the review of a concept plan, the second. you know, criteria, and if you will as consistency with the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan and other ordinances, goals, policies, and plans, including without limitations, sub community plans and sub area plans. So that's something that we always provide an analysis on. It's kind of the mainstay of the concept plan processes. You know, the staff analysis is really designed to you know, highlight those regulatory key issues and consistency with the. So I think that's something that we actually do a pretty good job of analyzing each one of the concepts regardless of the level of detail. Or you know the level of materiality or building design that the applicants coming forward with, yeah. Good point, Charles, because I do think last.

[157:04] And I think we all said it last at the last review. That we really appreciate a staffs analysis, because it was pointing out what we were seeing, which is you know, there's there's a lot of non, non, I don't want to use the word compliance, but not addressing the basic fundamentals of the Comp plan land use and and the zoning. So you know that I think you get that point? II have one more comment and or 2 more comments. One of the things that you're trying to get at is predictability which? Yeah, I'm I'm a practicing architect in the city. I like to know what's what's gonna happen to my project. And so I think to that end, I think. Clear definitions and criteria. you know, can't II know. I remember when this is like 2 months when I was on the board, we were doing a lot of the legislative reviews on some of these processes.

[158:06] and had I known. had I been, had it been 2 years later, I think I would have had different input, because it is important to make sure that we understand that the public understands what is the criteria? What is the bottom, and maybe on constant plan. It needs to be more clear. Meet our Boulder Valley land, use, meet our zoning and then we can talk about the Wiggle room. you know, but you've got to. You've got to start with acknowledging that these that these regulations are in place, and that you know we've gone through a lot of time and effort to put them in place. And and you know, let's let's start there. Secondly, and I think Sarah brought this up. The idea of do the development applicants have access to staff in a timely manner? Because again, I'm a practicing architect here in the city

[159:03] and my little tiny projects, you know, under 800 square feet. they can take months and months. and so if an applicant has is subject to not getting access to the staff. I think that's something. There should be a part on your spreadsheet. How much of this really is? They're waiting. They're waiting to get a meeting. They're waiting to get response. They're waiting for some information. And maybe it it it. I know. I know, Brad, you said the big project is little projects you're, it's it's it's not like it. Just is a is a situation. But I think that that I know for me and my projects. It is a factor. and I get it. You know you've been understaffed. We've had this and that beyond. Just keep keep your eye on that ball, because I think it does

[160:01] have a place in the way the projects, the projects play out. and I think that I think that's all my, all my additional comments. But I just really love that we're going through all of these things, and that you're bringing forth. You know what have what you've seen to be problem areas areas that we could do better at. And I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. sir. I just a little bit of clarification on our customer service expectation once there is an assigned planner or engineer or case manager. in our service customer service expectation. or else I might need you to check me on this. But I think it is that there be a some sort of response within 24 h, even if it's I don't know the answer, and I need to get back to you a little bit later. But. You know, I think some of what we've continued to lean into is this question of initial accessibility. And that's the making appointments for inquiries, inquiring

[161:12] Through phone and things like that. We? We know we've got some work to do on that. But we've we've got statistics. We've got that our business and sports Services Division has done a really excellent job of providing metrics, and we know that we're trending the right way. Thank thank you. And, George. Thank you. no, II really don't have many more comments right now. I think I think it's I think it's great that we're going through this. I I like caution, and I think, like everyone's just exuberant whether it's on council or public, or us, or the city, whatever whatever's going on. You know, people want changes. They want fast, and I would just I would. Just. I just want to take stock of the changes that you guys are are already making.

[162:00] and make sure that we acknowledge the pro the progress of what you've already done. Hard work to put in place like that restaurant and gym thing we, when we parse that out it felt like the bulk of the work is already solved within the problem that was presented. And so I would be supportive of staff pushing back to really to, to demonstrate what you all have already done and are doing, and to make sure that we give ourselves as a city enough time to collect data so that we're not making changes to things that we've already made changes to. But we haven't had enough time to realize. That's good. Sure, a couple of things. Just quickly going back to Laura's point. III agree that it would be helpful either to clarify whether or what level of detail and specific specificity is appropriate in compo in a can't talk in in a concept review, or, if that already exists.

[163:09] help us to understand that getting to Ml's Point. Certainly, you know. Consistency with the the bullet comp plan and the land use map is a requirement. and we all weighed in on that one way or another which the fact that we weighed in to me indicates that there was enough specificity to weigh in on that right. Nobody said. oh, gee! There's not enough here that I can tell whether it is consistent with the Comp plan and the and the land use map. So I think that those are kind of different issues. Certainly the this consistency is a that that is something that is a requirement. But I feel like we're getting enough enough detail in order to meet that

[164:02] One other thing I was talking to someone who deals with this sometimes, and they were saying that And this is not really a code thing, I guess. So maybe it's not appropriate here, but the the with every application you have to fill out, and a land use review. and plus whatever other thing you're doing, like concept, review or site review, or whatever. And they felt that that was redundant. But that that's not a good thing, I think. Just a process thing. the one code thing that I want to bring up, which is probably not appropriate here, but I'm gonna bring it up anyhow, because Lisa kind of opened up the door is the voodoo donuts problem and as we all recall the voodoo donuts problem. as we all recall. The voodoo donna to paint their their billing voodoo pink, and then they had to repaint it because the sign code says, list colors, as the definition of assign includes colors and then it was deemed to be too large it for assign.

[165:17] And so at some point in Kurtz world the word colors would come out of the definition of a sign, because if a building is painted, you know a particular color, and it happens to be somehow associated with whatever company or person, or whatever is in that building. To me that just doesn't qualify as a sign. And perhaps, more importantly, it doesn't qualify. It doesn't strike me as something that is annoying. Or, you know, overbearing or anything like that. So just a suggestion. yeah, I can speak to that. I clearly missed that reference that Lisa made but happy to. It's all good. Yeah, no, it's all good.

[166:06] I can tell you that every jurisdiction struggles with this sign, codes I've submitted are the most complicated zoning codes that that exist because they're very hard, and they're being made more hard by some. a relatively recent Supreme Court cases. I try to scroll through it in the code. And I'm like, Yeah, it. It's hard. And the the bottom line is, nobody likes what they don't like, but they but they do like what they do like, and we get asked to regulate that and and what we do know is when you look back in time, and you see the landscapes and the streetscapes from the 19 sixties and such around the country where it was just a free for all. People don't like that. And there is this legitimate concern about an arms race where everybody gets the flashiest. most colorful, most because signs by definition are supposed to get your attention. But everybody's trying to outdo each other. It just becomes a

[167:03] communal blight, is, is kind of the consensus. But where do you draw the line? Is the question. And really that corporate architecture? the the the envelope is pressed every time. And so we do try to create some parameters around that and that same. Oh, the Pink building would have been fine in this context becomes the how in the world did you allow that giant yellow bubble to be built? And and it's like, Well, we can't say no to that. And yes to this, because you've got to have one set of rule. So there are these times where what seems like common sense? it should prove, you know, should should be an easy thing to call it. It just is not, and we are put in the place of having to make those zoning determinations. One of the first weeks I was here we got a mural proposal, and it had things on it that represented food, and it was for a grocery store, and

[168:06] is that promoting the sale or not promoting the sale? Yes or no? And so we have that conversation. There's a not to be named Pizza Place, not far from here that opened recently and put pizzas all over the wall, and we're having a conversation with them about that. So you know, we it's a balance, and all I can say is that staff and the attorneys have worked really, really hard to create a code that creates consistency. And and it's super super hard for for sign codes. And I've for what it's worth. I've had this conversation with a couple of council members, too. So we we get it. I appreciate it. And I also have worked in places where we've also had to have them repaint their building. So it's we're not the Onlyra Laura. Do you have comment? I have 2 quick comments and one question. First comment. Brad. Thank you very much for that explanation of the struggles with the sign code that was very enlightening. Second is a question which is related back to the concept review discussion, which is

[169:11] the staff ever tell an applicant? No, you may not bring that concept to planning board because it is too far off of our code. Or did you just gently explain to them what shenanigans it would take to achieve what they want to achieve. Sorry, I'm being a little indelicate. But do you just explain, based on the code. What maneuvers would have to happen to make what they want happen and advise against it? I can take that one, Laura, I think the answer? Your question is, yes. you know kind of happens both ways. There are times when you know an applicant wants to float a radical concept. That is so far beyond kind of the regulatory pale. You know, that will advise them. you know, and I think a good example of that is relocating.

[170:02] the Bemoka building up to, you know, North Boulder on the corner of Broadway, and Violet it's very compelling concept, but it violates every single stitch. You know the you know the underlying land. Use the zoning you know, it's inconsistent with the North Boulder Subcommittee plan, but it's a really compelling idea. You know. So I think that's a great example of something that you know. We counsel the the applicant that you know, this is really outside of the parameters, and you know, guardrails that have been set up in the code. But you know the process is set up so that you can float the idea and see if it you know, gets any traction. There are other times, though, where I've had to sit down with an applicant and be like, I just don't think this is a great use of your resources. You know, to float this concept because you know Xyz reasons. But if you want us to move it forward. You know we're compelled to do so.

[171:02] So there have been times where we've had you know, applicants do a better job of refining applications and resubmitting them. Very rarely do the concepts go away. They might just come back in a bit of a a more refined form. So but I think the the process is really set up in earnest to you know, help people explore concepts that are kind of mild to wild. So. But I think the Beboken example is a pretty good recent example of something that was radical that we brought forward. Okay, so that's a great example of something radical that you brought forward. So it sounds like you, don't. You don't really say to folks. this stops here where gatekeeping you may not proceed. This is too wild, this is too beyond the pale. Not especially no, you know again. We'll advise applicants early in the process that you know, if a concept again requires, you know, rezoning all the way through annexe, you know if it if it hits every branch of the tree, and it just doesn't look like

[172:09] you know, it's realistic from a regulatory perspective. We'll say that. you know, and we'll help them understand what the you know. Implications are from a resource perspective. But if somebody submits an application. you know we're we're required in effect, to bring it forward. But we will counsel an applicant. I think that's really helpful for us to understand that just because it made it to planning board doesn't mean that staff supports it, and then you are trying to counsel applicants about why their concept might be quite difficult to achieve. I think that's good to know and then my last comment, I just wanna kudos to counsel for opening the door for you folks to identify these process improvements and kudos to all of you for bringing forward these suggested changes. I'm really excited to see what you come back with, and I'm really grateful that you are going through this exercise of trying to make this process easier on all of us and eliminate some unnecessary red tape. So thank you so much.

[173:07] Okay, I'll get the last word. I'll take the last word, I guess. My only comment, based on the conversation we had today was the one thing I heard that I think was on which there wasn't like real shared interest or agreement is how many people are needed for callup and my suggestion to you is that you contemplate setting that question aside until you've kind of done what George talked about, which is. figure out the changes that you've already made, and that you're proposing to make what, whether or not, that's likely. I don't know if you can figure out likely. But what are the implications for the number of proposals that would be coming to us as callups anyway. Instead. And just maybe park that specific question of the number of people needed for callup

[174:04] until you've sort of worked all these changes through the system cause I think that could be a an area of contention for something that otherwise sounds like it. There's not a lot of other areas of contention that's my own only suggestion. Okay. are there other matters after this? Not this 3 h matters. Oh, we have a matter. Go ahead, George. Ii wanted to bring up. I think it was something that was brought up with. How I don't know. I hate. 9 months ago something like that. I think it was something you brought up, Sarah around. So when we have public hearings or public comment just figuring out a way. If it's appropriate to ask the public their relationship to the project. because what experienced in the most recent hearing

[175:03] was, it took a little while to get from 2 of the 2 of the 6 people that were in favor of that project, to realize that they had a financial relationship with the developer and and there may have been more. But we didn't suss it out as a board. and I'm concerned that at some level our public hearings may be getting impacted on one side or another of a project by people that are motivated beyond just their citizenry and their their their willingness to speak their mind. Because they are connected. and a financial capacity to the people that are putting up the project so I don't know if or how we have that ability. But I wanted to ask you, Hello.

[176:00] is there? I know we we brought it up about a year ago, but I don't think we've ever done anything about it. I think that back in the day when Lori was here. She actually worked on that. And she developed some language that you guys used for a while at the beginning of a crossrajudicial public hearing, asking people to make that disclosure. And I think it goes towards credibility, I guess, and how you evaluate the the testimony that's being provided. If somebody doesn't disclose or always untruthful about it can't really do anything about it. But I think back and back. Then you decided you were going to ask it and and evaluate the statements that we are going to get based on what was being said.

[177:14] asking you to whatever this, whatever the language is, and then it can be reiterated by whoever is chairing the meeting. That'd be great any other matters. Okay. it is 9903. I hereby adjourn this meeting. 803. You guys, very much.