February 27, 2024 — Planning Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

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

[0:00] Them having to have appropriate parking for all those residences. They can't, they can't pencil it. And so they're arguing for demolishing this hobby, Wagner, this kind of Japanese design. If you know that building, it's it's horrible that because these kind of things are happening without a con, a a side consideration of what you're actually doing is you're making it an argument for demolition of this stuff when it shouldn't be. Because that's what brings people here. You're killing the okay. Now we have Lisa Spalding. Please go ahead, Lisa. Thank you. I'm surprised that the city attorney's office has allowed a current member of the planning board to lead a petition to close the municipal airport. This has nothing to do with my opinion on whether or not to close the airport. The use of the airport may well come before the board during the member's tenure. but whether or not she is currently acting as a private citizen, the airport supporters would surely demand that she recuse herself

[1:09] for leading the petition. If the public sees this as a conflict of interest, it could distract from the important aspects of what will become a controversial decision on the fate of the airport. I'm not aware of recent scandals involving the planning board, but the work you do is very important, and I urge you to maintain a neutral neutral position on matters that will come before you. The residents of Boulder deserve a planning board. They feel judges matters fairly. I asked you not to include the airport in your letter recommending matters for the City Council's 2,024 work plan. This could be interpreted as lobbying, and adversely affect both the public's faith in the Board and the way residents view the airport. We all have issues we care deeply about. But board members should be aware of how the public perceives their actions. Thank you.

[2:03] Thank you for sharing your comments. I see no other hands raised for open comments. So over to you, Chair. do we have any? Alright? So we all right. We have no one signed up to speak. So now we go to approval of minutes. Did we have minutes to approve in this we had no approval, no. alright. So now we go to discussion of dispositions, planning board, callups and continuations. We have call up items, site review amendment to redevelop a parking area on Lots 4 and 5 of the Pearl, East business, park 4, 8, 4, 5, and 4, 8, 7, 5, pearl east circle, with a new 3 story, 109,087 square foot research and development building, and the call up period expires on February 20, eighth, 2024. Does any Ml. Has her hands up? Hopefully. It's just one hand so I had reached out to ask some questions before, and I have one final question. Let me see Chandler. I think this is your

[3:14] project. Yes. I have a so my question is, you know you talked about the or you clarified that the parking. Wait there for a minute, so can you start over again with the parking, and then we lost you. Oh, sorry am I? Am I still good? You're still glitching, but we can hear your voice. The parking is 15 more than required for the specific site, but across the whole PUD. There is a great reduction in parking. So my question, Chandler, is, does the entire PUD. Have access to the parking on this site?

[4:10] so just to just to clarify. It's it's actually kind of the reverse. So the the site as a whole, the 9 lot, PUD. Is over parked by 15 spaces. But this project in particular is significantly below what would be required for the building. Okay, no, yes, that is a different understanding. I thought this particular site had 15 over what was required for its use. But I'm hearing you say, no, that's not the case. Yeah, no. This this building, this 109,000 square foot building is only providing 81 parking spaces. It interior to the building, so that would equate to a pretty significant parking reduction. If this were happening just on its own lot. but across the entire Pd

[5:03] is shared parking. So the employees of this building would have access to additional parking if they desire. But yeah, overall, it's it's reducing the surplus across the pud significantly from something like 400 484 spaces. I believe they're over now to to just 15. So it's replacing a ton of surface parking with this building right? And any need from this particular building could be accommodated elsewhere on the ped is what I'm hearing perfect. I have no need to call this up. I just obviously was still confused. Thank you so much for your answer. Sure. Thanks. Ml, Mark, you turned on your mic. Yes, I just have a question, and that is just it. I haven't analyze this building in relation to the code, but is the reason that this is not required to come before planning board is that it doesn't meet any of the thresholds, or does it have something to do with the fact that it's a PUD from a number of years ago.

[6:15] Kind of both, I mean. The the project on its own doesn't isn't asking for anything that would require an automatic planning board hearing, and because they're part of the PUD. That has shared parking across the site they're able to average the parking essentially across the Pud instead of treating this as its own individual site. Because, yeah, if it was just its own site, then a 60 parking reduction W would require a planning board hearing but because it's in a pub. That's not the way we calculate the parking requirement. Okay, thank you. Laura. Do you have any question, does anyone want to call this up? But Kurt has a question. But yeah, thanks, Chandler. I thought that there had been some pud amendments in the past that allowed certain uses on Lot 4 and certain uses on Lock 5.

[7:12] And now we're eliminating the lotline between those. So how does that work in terms of those allow uses. The elimination of the lot lines doesn't really affect the allowed uses. Those approvals run with the land kind of regardless of whether they're subdivided or not. so yeah, the previously approved existing uses. Those are still valid. Okay? So in theory, part of this building would have some uses allowed on it, and part of the building would have other uses allowed on it, cause the the building is splitting the lot line right? Right? Yeah, I'm honestly not. 100% familiar with the previous approvals you're referring to. But I'm assuming they were for developments for the actual buildings that got built.

[8:07] so I don't think that any approved uses that weren't allowed by right through the zoning would kind of transfer to this building just automatically. This building is not asking for any you know. Use for view uses. So this is just the research and development building. And then the previously approved uses would still apply to those existing buildings where they're located. Okay, thank you. Kurt, did you want to call this up? Nope? All right. So we are not calling this item up, Chandler. Thank you very much. Return to your previous previously scheduled evening. We're gonna move on to public hearing items. We have one item tonight public hearing and consideration of a recommendation to the City Council regarding a proposed ordinance amending title, 10 structures, Brc. 1981, repealing the 2020 city of Boulder Energy conservation code and adopting by reference the 2024 city of Boulder Energy Conservation code

[9:07] and setting forth related details. Josh is gonna be presenting to us online. And I think we have Robert Robert. Here as well. We've set aside 90 min. Total. Hopefully, we'll we'll wrap up in that time, and we expect 15 to 20 min of presentation. And Josh has asked that we go through the presentation before we ask questions. Take it away, Josh. Thank you very much. I'll actually pass it on to Rob to go ahead and kind of get things started for us, and then he'll hand it back off to me for the presentation. But I'll go ahead and let me see if I can share my screen courses. Right? Let's see. Alright. You know. Where did that?

[10:02] What's right here? Alright! 1 s. Let me share my screen. right second. there it is. Let me make sure it hasn't come up yet, Josh, not a problem. Sorry. I'm just making sure that I get. I have my. I have a couple of monitors. And I'm making sure that I get the right screen in the right there space. Alright, I think. Okay, we're good. So I wanna present that slide perfect down here, alrighty! And why is it not showing up on screen to there we go. alright great, alright. and Rob go ahead and take it away. Oh, well, thank you, everyone. We appreciate the opportunity to present to you tonight on the 2024 city of all the energy conservation code updates from the 2020 conservation updates. So some of the staff that have worked on this, I'll make some introductions with Brad Muller is that director of planning and development services

[11:15] Jonathan Cohen, Director of Climate initiatives myself. I'm the chief building official here at the city of Boulder and Carolyn Elam, who is our Seni sustainability senior manager. And of course, our subject matter expert Josh Hansen, who's a energy code compliance principal examiner. So the agenda for tonight's presentation, we're just going to go over the timeline for adoption and the overview of the top residential and commercial energy code updates from the 2020 version of the code. So just a little introduction on my part. What is the energy code? Well, the energy code is the document that lays out the minimum energy efficiency requirements for new construction alterations and additions to every building here within the city of Boulder.

[12:01] Why is it important? Well, it's important, because buildings are major consumers of energy. Strict energy codes help reduce energy costs to businesses and residents and reduce the number of energy costs burdened households across the city. Furthermore, the energy code is one of the most effective tools we have to cut greenhouse gas emissions, encourage the transition away from fossil fuels towards renewables. So with that a little brief history of the City of Boulder Energy Conservation Code, which I'll refer to as the Covid from here on out. So the city of Boulder first created the Covac in 2,017. The 27 Kobe was based on the 2012 Iec, which is another acronym for international energy conservation code. That's a code that's created by the International Code Council. We created our own code here in Boulder to reflect the desire of our community to push the envelope. Energy efficiency beyond the base level laid out by the International Code Council and adopted by the surrounding jurisdictions. In 2020 this code was further updated to create the 2020 city of Polar in energy conservation code. And that was based on the 2018 Iec CC, tonight, we're presenting the third iteration of this code, which is the 2024 Kobic. This code, this Kobic, like the previous versions, is based on the Iec C code. It's based on the 2021 Iec. CC. Code.

[13:07] This code was developed by Staff. Now consultants Marisco, over the last 8 months we've created this code and the direction of Council Planning board. The Environmental Advisory Board, with a significant amount of feedback and public outreach. proposed changes this time round have taken a slightly different direction from previous updates to the energy code. We've acknowledged that we're beginning to reach the point of diminishing marginal return on investment with thermal envelope upgrades both in terms of financially and in terms of embodied carbon. So major focus of this update is building electrification, which is the next major step towards achieving our climate goals shown in the infographic below. as you can see by 2030, we're aiming for an emissions reduction of 70% net 0 by 2035 carbon positive by 2040, and I'm pleased to tell you that we've actually taken some steps towards that 2040 goal with this version of the Covid didn't exist before with some embodied carbon provisions that weren't didn't exist previously. With that, can I have the next slide, please, Josh?

[14:06] So our timeline with this the draft code first became of available for public review on the thirtieth of November last year. Tonight we obviously have our planning board hearing first hearing, first public greeting with Council will be on the 20 first of March, and second public reading will be on the eighteenth of April. We're targeting an implementation date. So this will go live date. Any projects submitted after the first of July. assuming everything goes to plan will be submitted under this card. Gonna have a little bit of delays, any projects that are currently in the pipeline don't have to redesign to a new card standard. So with that, I'm gonna pass you off to our subject matter expert Josh, to give you a overview of the actual card updates. Thank you, Rob. So before we kind of get into the overall updates for the energy code. Let's take an I. Let's take a stroll down Memory Lane, we'll say, and we'll look at kind of where we currently sit with the current 2,020 codec on the commercial side. First. So the current 2020 kobe

[15:01] requires a 20 to 25% energy use intensity savings over their ashray, 90.1 2016 baseline. Think of this energy use intensity savings as a miles per gallon for buildings, with the lower the number the better. Another thing, the 2020 cobe introduced was performance back stops, and these were seen in the in the envelope requirements that could not be gone below as well as some of the mechanical efficiency requirements. The 2020 cobe also introduced a solar requirement that would require a 5 set and 5% energy offset of the entire building's energy use at a minimum, and also introduced Ev or electric vehicle capable, ready and electric vehicle service equipment requirements for parking that's associated with these buildings. We also introduced a difference, a little bit of a change from the national code, which is a level one through 4 alteration. With the 2024 kovac, we continue to push on the energy efficiency requirement. That said, we look at 10 to 15% energy use intensity savings over the Ashary, 90.1 2022 baseline. The reason for this is as the codes we have gotten stringent, more stringent over the years. We see that there's less of the need for an additional 20 to 25% savings, and that 10 to 15 savings is usually going to be sufficient on these projects.

[16:15] And the reason for that, too, is we're also looking at the all electric new construction requirement, with exceptions, on the commercial front. We've also expanded the electric vehicle requirements to align with the the State model code as well as updates to the levels of alteration to help with simplification for that process. And we've looked at also modifying the all electric and electric ready requirements for existing buildings on the residential front. The 2020 kovac required any homes greater than 3,000 square feet to be net 0 energy. We also introduced performance backstop similar to the commercial counterpart, but these are in forms of energy or envelope values that you could not go lesser than we also introduced solar ready requirements for future installation of solar on roofs, as well as offset requirements for any outdoor heating like pool heating, spa, heating, radiant, heating things of that nature.

[17:03] We also introduced electric vehicle, ready requirements for single family duplexes and townhomes, as well as the level one through 4. Alteration with the update to the 2024 city of boulder energy code or the Kobe. We're introducing an all electric new construction requirement. With no exceptions. We also are looking at Pre and post solar er targets. So Eri is similar to the EU we talked about in the commercial piece. It's a miles per gallon on the building, the lower the number the better, and of course we're trying to target 0. On these. We also introduced solar ready and electric vehicle requirements that align with the state codes similar to the commercial side. And then also, we updated the levels of alteration for simplification as well as modifying the all electric and electricity requirements for existing homes. So let's go ahead and jump into the residential piece on the update. So the energy rating index, previously, as I mentioned any homes that were greater than 3,000 square feet needed to be at net 0. This is still the case under the 2024 Co. Back. The difference is

[18:00] before getting to to net 0. We require projects to hit an er 50. What this basically entails is that buildings have to rely on envelope mechanical lighting. a water, heating efficiencies really to get down to an Eri of 50 before putting solar on. What this did is this really helped us reduce or eliminate the need for requiring a backstop, because we're basically requiring efficiency to get to an Eri of 50 and then solar renewables to get down to 0. And the saying, usually that you hear, or I've we've heard many times is efficiency before renewables. Something that's a little different from this code for our from our previous code is for any unit or for any homes that are less than 3,000 square feet. We also are gonna require an er 50. But instead of getting to net 0, like the larger homes over 3,000. We're gonna require some portion of solar to at least get them to an er 30. This really helps to provide a pathway kind of for these homes on our on our path to net 0 by 2030.

[19:00] Another update to mention is that we've updated our prescriptive compliance pathway and actually lifted the threshold from 500 square feet to 1,000 square feet. This is to really help with smaller homes and 80 Us. In city of Boulder, as well as existing building additions. We've also looked at restructuring of the R. Value tables for the 2021 and the 2024 Icc. Or the International Energy Conservation Code. This is actually a requirement by the State to align, if not improve, over the 2,021 international energy conservation code at the next update for the energy code. So we're making sure we align with that as well. One other thing I wanted to mention that I don't have on this slide, but there are many programs that are out there that are above code that are also available that we would definitely be open to considering. I know that there's a ton of money out there for the Inflation Reduction act and a lot of projects have the available to be able to take a to be able to take credit for some of those and really kind of help them push the envelope. No pun intended above and beyond, and also there's not just money from the Federal Government, but many of the utilities out there as well are offering incentives.

[20:04] The next item I wanted to look at is, as Robin mentioned, we're we're working really move to an all electric code on this. So what this basically says is that any mechanical systems for heating, cooling, water, heating, cooking, close drying fireplaces, pool spa heating shall be all electric or fueled by another other non fossil fuel derived energy source. Another update that we made to the energy code to help align with the 21 Icc as required by the State, is, we've introduced a point and credit system to require an additional level of of conservation. something that we really kind of turned away from from the the international energy code is not just focus on building an energy efficiency, but also look at kind of other aspects of of conservation and not just focus on energy. So from the from hearing resounding responses from council and the boards, we've also included some embody cardin credits to really start our path on addressing and body carbon encoded in some materials.

[21:01] And so more information on some of those additional measures are, gonna be pound on page 13 of the memo, and, as you can see, we've got a list of some of the measures in here. There are more that can be found in Section R. 408 of the actual draft code. That was a attachment, a of the the memo that was sent out. and one of the last pieces I wanted to mention in the residential space is what we've done with the existing building piece. So on the Additions side. as I mentioned, we've lifted the threshold from 500 square feet up to 1,000 square feet for anything less than that to be able to pro to follow the prescriptive pathway or the modeling Eri path, or miles per gallon path. Just make sure they're modeling anything that's over a thousand square feet would have to comply with the er i path which requires modeling. As for the compliance side of things, this is really the same as the 2020 cobe it requires a 30% reduction from the existing building. Eri, or you can meet an Eri of 50, which is actually the new construction requirement prior to installing solar.

[22:04] One of the other key changes that we've made and implemented in this also is the new equipment and appliances shall be all electric and then also I skipped over an accident. Air leakage testing has also been adjusted to provide some flexibility in existing buildings. Boulder has a lot of older home stock. And we can we understand that? And we want to reward people for doing the right thing by making their homes and buildings tighter, and not penalize them for being unable to hit new construction targets that may be unattainable all right on the flip side, looking at alterations. Before we get into that, just to kind of give a quick overview on kind of our levels, one through 3 alterations. So a level one alteration is. Say, you're doing a kitchen remodel. We're replacing cabinets in the kitchen, replacing a couple of fixtures. That's a level one alteration level, 2 alteration as well, we're replacing cabinets and fixtures. But we're gonna move some of the walls around the kitchen as well. All right. That's level 2. Well, now, that's kind of exceeded more than 50% of the building space itself.

[23:00] That's when it becomes a level. 3 alteration is when it exceeds 50% of the the building area. So for level one through 3 alterations, there is no requirement for all electric or electric. If it's a level 3 alteration and they're going to be replacing the mechanical equipment as well the replaced mechanical equipment that space will have to be made electric ready for future installation of an electric appliance or equipment. If it's a level. 3 alteration. But what we're calling really is a gut rehab where they're replacing mechanical equipment and substantially altering the envelope. If the if the space conditioning equipment was combustion, or say, natural gas. It cannot be replaced with another natural gas appliance, but it can be an all electric primary space conditioning piece of equipment can be installed so like a heat pump can be installed for your primary or principal source of space conditioning, and the furnace may be retained as a backup source if desired at the end of the day. With our code we really don't want a strand strand assets that have really a long lifetime possibly ahead of them. We know some of these equipment can last for years, and so that's the reason with the furnaces. We don't want to discourage people from getting away from ripping them out. If they think that it's gonna help them kind of on the back end. They can really retain it.

[24:13] As I mentioned, with the air leakage testing being adjusted similarly to additions, we don't wanna penalize projects for not being able to hit new construction targets, but being flexible and understanding and working with them, and and giving them credit where credit to do for just getting goods, air ceiling and reducing leakage in their homes. and then also in terms of eri compliance. It really is the same thing as the the additions with 30% reduction from the existing building or an Eri of 50. Another thing that's been also introduced is we actually have a true compliance process that's been detailed out for easier understanding. So when you come in, you're looking to do an alteration. We've got some kind of guidance built into the code to help know that, hey? When we go into permitting. These are the items that are going to be needed at the end of the project when we go to final inspection. These are the items that are going to be looked at that way. Everyone kind of is on the same page, going into these projects versus getting to the end of the project and going. I didn't know that was required. So we've actually start decided to build this into the code to help

[25:07] some other notable mentions on the updates is we actually have a new minimal, renewable energy systems requirement. What this does this allows the chief building official to be able to adjust the post solar er target. If, say the Mac, the the roof space has been fully maximized. Say, we've maximized the roof space on the building. We need to go off site for an additional, say 15% of solar to ensure that we actually can meet the whole requirement to get it down to net 0. we are trying to discourage going off site. We want the solar to remain with the property. And so in that being said. we have the ability to say if they can show us that it would take an additional 15 to comply. We have the ability to adjust that er target and say, You know what with what you have on site is adequate, and we will go ahead and apply that in in for Comp. We'll prove that for compliance. Excuse me. So, jumping over the the commercial side of things similar to the residential piece, we require all electric, basically mechanical systems for heating, cooling water, heating clothes, drying, cooking, and shall be all electric fossil fuel, as well as cool and spot heating as well as just under a different section of the energy code.

[26:12] But we do have exceptions. And so a lot of these exceptions really circulate around some of the occupancies the unique occupancies that we still really have in boulder. And so these are exceptions for any systems that are serving laboratories or hospitals, or large industrial occupancies or emergency generators or commercial cooking equipment. There's a couple of footnotes and caveats to be aware of. So for any of the listed exceptions, the first thing I will mention is that space and water heating have to be all electric but where the energy source is fossil fuel. it shall be offset by a hundred percent on-site renewable energy. The second footnote or caveat is that for emergency generators, commercial cooking and scientific and industrial process loads are gonna be exempt from this offset requirement. The reason for this is a lot of these instances. Most of these occupancy types are going into an existing building that they don't own. So it puts us between a rock and a hard place to really require solar to be installed on a roof, plus at the scale for some of those offset requirements on like commercial cooking, for example.

[27:13] It may not be feasible. And so these are some of the things we've really taken into account. Some more information on this can be found on the memo starting on page 7. The next item I wanted to talk about is kind of our performance targets and where they were and where they are. First, we're going to look at basically, 2 of the 3 paths that the 99% of the projects go through through the city. The first one is the fixed performance target path. So, as we mentioned, this requires all electric new construction. With the exceptions, as we mentioned. What we've done is we've left the EU targets the same as the 2020 kobe. The reason for this is by moving to all electric. Basically, we're removing that silver bullet. That was natural gas because of the low cost per unit for natural gas electricity as a higher cost. So a lot of the times. If you have natural gas in the building, it's an easier path through compliance by doing that. It's gonna require some design teams to really kinda go back and think about how they want to achieve compliance. And by doing that, that's kind of why we left the targets the way they were. That being said, these targets are pretty aggressive as they are currently. And so that was the other reason that we

[28:19] we really didn't want to move the goalposts on people while taking away their silver bullet at the same time. But from some of the feedback we've had from some from the Boards and council. We've added some additional occupancies, as you can see, for large offices, retail stores as well as restaurant targets. This path will also no longer require 5% solar offset. That said, these numbers will require some portion of solar. Whether that's 3, 5, 10, I don't feel that it's up to we. The city needs to dictate that anymore as the projects are gonna have to do it. Moving forward. Anyways. Another thing to note is mentioned previously is natural. Gas that's used in any of the projects has to be 100 offsite or renewably offset. and no more than 10% of that offset can count towards the energy count towards achieving the energy, intensity target of the building.

[29:07] and then only on site solar can be used. We're trying to get away from the off site requirements or off site allowances. Excuse me. The next modeling. The next path we want to look at is the modeling baseline path which basically, this is a path that if if you don't have an occupancy that fits into one of the categories to the right or multiples ones of those, then you could go the modeling baseline path similar to the fixed performance. This is still an all electric new construction requirement. Of course, with the exceptions, we've updated the baseline, as we mentioned to the Ashary, 90.1 22 standard. And then we also are looking at requiring at least a minimum of 5 of solar on this project as well. And the reason for that is with the model baseline path there are, there's more flexibility in the modeling. And with that being said, we wanted to ensure that, no matter what, at least 5% of solar was being installed on projects.

[30:00] A couple other updates that we did in the commercial piece is building thermal envelope testing. We've updated the commercial air leakage testing requirements from point 5.4 down to point 2 5 cfm. Per square foot of the envelope. This is actually in alignment with the army corps of Engineers, as well as fort Collins has been doing this for the past at least 6 years. There are some exceptions for projects. that may not, that have an issue with complying. And so we've given a pathway forward for projects, and just don't throw our hands and say you have to. Well, you have to meet this but we wanted to give solutions. We've also updated the dwelling unit enclosure testing from point 2 5 down to point 20, this is more to align with the the residential counterpart with the 3 air change requirement. It's not comparable to do 3 air changes in multi-family because of certain certain situations in the unit that we can discuss if there's any further questions. so that's kind of why we don't want to push it down to like point 1 5, which is relatively where the 3 3 air changes is. The other thing I wanna mention here, too, is we've also introduced sleeping unit testing as an option versus doing the whole building test some folks might want to isolate sections of the building and be able to test those as well, and so that gives that ability

[31:07] And by by introducing these are updating these testing values, we've also added some additional references to air, barrier, air ceiling and installations installation specifications. So we're not just gonna say, you have to hit this target. We're gonna show you tools as to where requirements can be in order to help meet these requirements and help hit this, these testing values. We've also updated and added duck leakage requirement or duck leakage testing for multi-family as well as ventilation testing which aligns with the 21 energy code. So we've updated some of the prescriptive minimums as we've mentioned in envelope lighting electrical and mechanical efficiencies to help align closer with the international codes as well as the Ashram 90.1. As you can see an envelope, we've really increased the what would framed wall value for group R. Multi family. From R. 13 to plus 9 to R. 13 plus 11. We've increased lab our value for multifamily from R. 15 to R. 20

[32:01] we've also increased the solar heat gain coefficients for operable windows. This is a bit of a change from the old code because it used to focus on elevation in terms of the efficiency. Now it looks at fixed windows versus operable on the mechanical side. We've updated efficiencies for air conditioners, heat pumps, package units and boilers. And we've added additional tables for Vrf systems unit serving computer rooms, indoor pools heat pump recoveries and so on. A lot of those updates were really to align with the 21 energy code as well as ash ray. We've updated lighting values to line with both codes as well. And similarly with electrical some of the new things to mention are the automatic receptacle controls and 50% of the specific spaces as well as energy monitoring for buildings over 25,000 square feet. similar to our counterpart and residential. We also have our additional conservation requirements for commercial this differs a little bit here, because with commercial, since we do allow a mixed fuel or natural gas, and some of the building occupancies. As seen by the exceptions, we have different credit amounts for mixed fuel versus all electric buildings below are some of the samples of the additional conservation measures that we've incorporated. And as I've mentioned, we've looked at really kind of bringing in some embodied carbon reductions, so we can start to start addressing that embodied carbon piece and look at carbon emissions.

[33:16] We've also looked at providing credits for heating and cooling efficiencies. Heat pump water, heating battery storage just to name a few. Some more information on these additional measures are in page 13 of the memo, or you can check out section 406 of the attachment a, which is the 2024 goback. The next item I wanted to go over is kind of the electric vehicle requirements and the updates really to help align with the the model State code. So as you can see on the right, that's where we were with the 2020 cobe. The 2024 cobec piece is kind of where I'm really going to focus. So everything in that table that's in black is in alignment with the State code. Anything in green is really where we're looking to exceed the State code. So, for example, for less than 1010 spaces, the State requires electric or electric vehicle ready

[34:03] for 15. We looked at. Why not require 100? It's only 10 spaces. Let's future proof these spaces. It's minimal for anything greater than 1010 parking spaces. The ev capable was at 10, and ev capable light was at 30% requirements by the State. We pushed those to 40 and 40. The reason for this, too, is that looking at this now, 100% of parking spots in a multi family project are now gonna have some portion of ev a couple of other things to note. Here we do allow trade off for up to 5 spaces for one level 3 charger. And so, in terms of a level 3 charger. Think about a Tesla super charger that you see at a gas station a level 2 charger would be a 2, 20, a 2, 20 bull, 30 amp. Charger that you might have at your home or at a You know, one of the sealed city locations, possibly. And then also level. One charger is basically going to be like a plug into an outlet and a really slow charge kind of like a trickle charge is what I think of on those. And then the last comment in here is, once all the ev spaces have been achieved, or have been allocated. Any remaining spaces say that if it's specifically for a parking garage

[35:06] shall be ev capable light, which basically means they have to install conduit to make sure that there's space available for electrical service in the future on the commercial side of things. We've really updated kind of to to make sure that we are. We wanted to exceed kind of what state requirements are, and so as you can see for the Evsec installed spaces we require to which currently the State requires none. And the reason for that is, we already were requiring. excuse me, where was it? So we updated that excuse me for to be in alignment with the State. so, and then for that, what we did is because of it being less than 10 spaces outside of the Evsec and the Ev ready space requirements. What this would do is basically any of the remaining spaces just need to be ev capable light, which means they need to install the the conduit and make sure that there's panel space available. If it's greater than 10 spaces.

[36:03] they have to have 5 Evsec. This is, I think, different from the 2% requirement of the state. 5% is currently how we were previously ev ready is that 10%, the State only requires 8, and then on the Ev capable light. The State's only looking to require 10, and we're looking here to require at least 20%. Similarly, to the residential piece, we're also looking to allow a trade off of tenant spaces for one level. 3 charger. Here, we're really trying to encourage love. Excuse me. excuse me. we're really looking to try and encourage level 3 chargers, especially in terms of the commercial spaces here. So that being said. we did have a couple of questions for the planning board. and so the first question is, does planning board support the 2,024 Kovac as drafted in attachment. A second question is, does the planning board support the allowance of natural gas water heating for affordable? Would would this planning board support the allowance of natural gas water heating for affordable multifamily projects on a case by case basis.

[37:01] and then 3 with the planning support, support a motion to recommend to the City Council the adoption of the 2,024 city of Boulder Energy Conservation code. Thank you for your time. and I'd leave it open for any questions. Alright, thanks, Josh. I think we're going to have a bunch of questions. If you could take down the slide and bring back our other board members. Yes, and what we'll we'll take. We'll start with clarifying questions and then we'll go to public comment, and then we will come back for discussion. And if I don't, Thomas, if you don't mind emailing the key questions to Curt and Ml, so that they have them in front of them. That'd be great. All right. So let's start with clarifying questions. Hands up. If you have a question. Mark has a question I'll do a couple and then and then give it a break and see if someone else asks similar, or takes care of my questions for me. I'm familiar with commercial solar

[38:07] in a multi-tenant property and on site. And is am I correct in that excel due to them, being a publicly regulated utility. having exclusive rights to provide service in our area. does not allow anyone else to other than excel, to meter electrical production to their tenants. Think I'll take that one. Good evening. Planning board. I'm Caroline Elimin with the climate initiatives department. Great question. Mark the the rules have changed a lot around. Master metered solar systems on multi-tenant properties. So set a bill.

[39:01] it's 21 to 61. But I might be wrong on the exact number which was sponsored by our own Senator. Denver actually modified the requirements. So yes, the master metering is that metered by excel energy. But there's new processes in place now where those credits can be allocated to the individual units. And so, for example, taking a multi family housing property. With the centralized solar system they can allocate a share to each unit. On that property of the net metering credits that would then apply to the individually metered residential units. If that answers your question mostly. But let's say, I have a on site solar system producing 110 of the annual electrical consumption. And I, it's Commercial Building, 3 tenants in the building. am I able to actually bill my tenants as a building owner

[40:03] for their consumption. So if someone you uses 2,000 kilowatt hours a month. and am I able to charge my tenant for that electrical consumption that I produced on my roof. Yes, my understanding is you can. I have to pull that bill up again to look at what what limitations might be on that I think you're limited in how much you can charge, but it allowed for you to recover the cost of that system. Okay, thank you. I hope I hope that's the case. Because our our, this future focus on on Site solar again, has has some real implications for both residential and commercial landlords. E. As they try to allocate and recover costs for installing the system.

[41:01] the level of alteration. When we talk again. This this stems from personal experience. And so I'm I'm kind of curious. First of all, who decides If something is a level 3 or greater than level 3. Who who actually makes that determination? Because in in a remodel situation I'll just recount my personal experience. We modified the envelope of our current residents by 14 square feet. We added 14 square feet on a 2,400 square foot home. but we touched darn near because of mold asbestos. Poor lighting! Just it was flooded in 2,013. There was hardly a surface that we didn't touch. So would you know, are we because we didn't modify the envelope?

[42:02] Are we a level 3 or lower? Or would we be a level 3 or higher. Or would that be a judgment call by a building inspector, or who who would make that that decision? I can take the crack at that one. So I mean, basically, those levels are spelled out on the international existing building code. Josh kind of did a pretty good job of explaining what they are. But anytime you ultimately more than 50% of the floor area. So in your example, if you say, took off all the drywall and tore down interior walls, and that exceeded 50. That would be a level 3 alteration. Now, if you were just doing flood repair like let's say you had flood repair, and you just flooded the bottom. That would only be level. One alteration change the layout of the space. You're not changing the installation labels, or anything like that? Does that kind of answer your question. Yeah. You know wh. What? When you get into asbestos mitigation. you want to install a light fixture. But you're now cutting into Drywall that has as best contamination. and you start removing large

[43:04] of drywall, and I would imagine it would be very subjective and maybe counter to the goal of reusing an existing house, because if if by going to a higher level of alteration but if I'm going into a higher category. Does that actually incentivize me to just scrape the house and start over with different systems and stuff? So so that's a great question it, really. And we're trying to avoid that with this code update. So no, we're not requiring you necessarily to bring the entire building up in terms of thermal envelope in terms of insulation. When you do that, we are requiring you to install an electric heating system. So if you were to take all your drive will off and expose all the walls. And you're gonna reinsulate. You wouldn't necessarily, you would only need to achieve a 30% improvement over where you are at full.

[44:06] So that isn't isn't a big lift. But that's in recognition of the fact. We have a lot of 100 year old homes in boulder, and we we don't want to scrape those. You know. They have 2 by 4 walls. They're leaky if we tell them they have to achieve the same stance as a current building. Well, there's it's not possible, or or it's not economically possible. But at that way still gonna scrape it. So this whole card update was intended to minimize the impact on that, while still recognizing want to see some improvement and carbon efficiency and energy efficiency moving forward in the future. So to that end, if and Greg, I appreciate that answer. if a homeowner is going to be required to, because they're doing level 3 plus alteration to change their mechanical systems. is the level of cost, effectiveness of ground source, heat, pump. air, source, heat, pump, etc. Now

[45:05] close to within 1015% of that of a 97% efficient condensing gas furnace gas, hot water heater. Yes, let me just clarify 1 point here. We're not requiring anyone to replace them mechanical systems. It's if they do a level 3 alteration. And they tell us, Hey, we're also going to replace it at that point. We require all that principle. But to answer your follow up question. Yes, most pumps we're seeing on the market today achieve a coefficient of performance of 3, which means they put 3 units of energy out for every unit of energy going out. So actually getting 4 units total, because you also get that that waste heat is recovered from the unit itself. So about 4 400 efficient effectively to your point, the very best convincing boiler on the market right now is 97% efficient. So even if electricity is 2 or 3 times the price of natural gas, it's still cost competitive, and the price of the units themselves have come down substantially in the last 5 years, and the trajectory is just gonna keep falling. You know, they get the price is gonna keep going down. So that's why we feel this is the time to do this electrification. It's it's actually cost effective at this point in time.

[46:10] Okay, I'm gonna ask one more and then I'll I'll be done for a little bit. Why would you choose to? Only allow for the or not allow. require the electrification for charging of automobiles versus a broader range of vehicles, bikes, micro mobility. things that we may not. You know, have scooters, whatever it might be. Right now your definition of a vehicle seems to be strictly auto light truck. Why that limitation be honest with Base this mostly mostly on the state requirements for Eb charging. I'm not aware of any, and

[47:04] I don't know that much. To be completely honest with you have any after market charging, you know. Here we have the charge point systems which have a standard ebs electric vehicles. I'm not aware of any technology like that, specifically for bicycles or scooters, or anything like that. Most of that equipment that I've seen seems to just plug into a regular wall outlet. Ex bingo, so that that is The requirement of a hundred 20 volt. Three-pronged wall outlet would go a long way towards you know there's myriad thousands of different styles and voltages of chargers, but the an out, the. you know, surface mounted outlet strip on a concrete wall in secure bike, storage and secure micro mobility. Storage would go a long way towards, I think, helping us not only reach our goals for vehicle electrification with a broader expansion of the term vehicle.

[48:06] I appreciate that, I will say in the residential code that's required by the National Electric Code, you've got to meet outlet spacing. But on the commercial side of things it's not so that that's probably something we could look at adopting when we adopt 2,024 building code because we already have some amendments, and they're along those lines. But that is great feedback. Thank you. Okay, I'm done for now. Thanks. Excellent. Alright, ml, I'll call on you next, and I see that your cat left the cat left the building. They're circling me. They want their dinner. They have questions. Yes, thank you so much. Josh, and is it Adrienne? Oh, Rob, sorry. For your presentations. I am. Gonna ask some questions that were part of our packet. in different kinds of categories. So in the public input.

[49:05] there was a question about making Slavage insulation mandatory. Did did that get incorporated? Is that 402 point 2.9 point 1? It did it get incorporated in so Slab edge is not mandatory. It is a option, I mean. basically when you model it. If now, if you go to prescriptive and you had to build a home prescriptively, yes, it would be mandatory. With the modeling piece of it you're able to model and use, maybe overcome it with better wall above grade walls, better windows, things like that. and so that's kind of where we we were with that that actually, comment came from another municipality, because that ship sailed on them, and they recommended it to us. And so with us, honestly. if you're going prescriptive and building code, it would be required. If it's modeled. There's certain buildings that we do see it that do come in with slab edge installation. But the get the way that the code is really designed is that it provides that flexibility and modeling to be able to trade off certain requirements. And that is one of them. So

[50:14] okay, thank you. In the background. Information on page 7 the planning board feedback one of the things that one of the comments you made was that several city staff have committed to exploring exploration of an embodied carbon program as a 2024 work plan item. operational energy deserves its own

[51:08] card so we can address it correctly. What's your end game with that? I mean, I saw that it is incorporated into the proposed amendments here. But what does the end gain with this bigger work plan would be to create an embodied carbon code that regulates more than just building carbon emissions. But site carbon emissions. right now, we're still at a pretty early days with, you know, with environmental product disclosures and the ability to even measure that. So right now, we're just kind of in the scoping stage of things. I will say we do have intention of adopting some portions of the Mbi. Embody carbon overlay with the 2024 code adoption. But that'll be a preliminary step towards a longer longer term project. Okay? Maybe I. The only thing I would add is, I mean, I think our intention is to also have a clear roadmap of how we're gonna make incremental changes over time towards an established goal. And so we'll be talking with planning board and council, and in the coming year about you know what those target should be based on, on what we're finding in terms of best practices and an opportunity. So I think we're looking at. We need to study kind of where we're at

[52:23] and where the challenges are locally, and then lay out that that long term plan and then start to implement it through. Not just regulatory strategies. But if there's voluntary things that we should be looking at as well is. I'm under am understanding that the goal is to have a carbon code right? Brad has just stepped up to the podium. Hi, Brad. okay, Brad Mueller, director of Planning and development services.

[53:00] A. As either Carolyn or or Rob mentioned. We're still in the scoping phase for that. Ml, but what we do know is that it likely needs to be comprehensive staged over many years incremental as Carolyn alluded to. We wanna make sure that we're thinking carefully about how any new regulation can also be enforced over time cause. This is relatively cutting edge. And we also wanna make sure that we're thinking about city policy and the practices of city construction relative to that as well as whether that there are appropriate carrots to add to the sticks that that are envisioned through code regulation. So it in in summary, we we envision a comprehensive look at the at the whole concept of an embodied carbon. Would this have?

[54:01] A useful component to consider carbon impacts of projects holistically as they come up for review or legislative updates as they come up, you know, rather than just say, here's the target. And here's the code to implement. you know, to help us achieve that target. So would it provide all the research you'll be doing? Would that Could that lead to some manner of a of a filter for a carbon filter, if you will for us to, for anybody to be considering what are the carbon impacts of the decision that's beforehand, and it may not be A specific building strategy that we're looking at. But it could be Carolyn. You're nodding, you understand? I think some for calculator. Way to assess is is definitely a great portion of this. We're just starting to craft

[55:07] a request for proposals that would go out to bring in a consultant to help us develop this. And then, and I think that's a great idea. And you know we we fully understand that. It's not just the construction code. Whether it's the energy code or new construction codes that impact and body carbon decisions. And certainly, you know, we understand that some of the other requirements may have and body carving consequences. And so it is our intent to try and better inform that decision, making by understanding what levers are are impacting that. So I really, I really like where you were heading with that I'm glad to understand what I'm asking. That's very cool. Thank you so much. let me see, I have one last general question and on and maybe I didn't understand it. But this is again in the in the sort of preliminary on page 13 we have a table 3 and maybe no, I don't think you looked at

[56:12] so the ev charging infrastructure requirements for one to 10 spaces in group R, none are required to be installed. Is that correct? Is that 0? So they're so they're all fully wired circuits, but not but we don't currently require an actual physical charging station for the small. the small lots we do require all of them to be terminated at a junction box or or outlet, so that you could add one later. But we didn't impose the requirement of providing one as as compared to the larger lots, I'm just acknowledging that there's a pretty substantial cost to that equipment.

[57:00] And we're we're, you know through code, trying to at least future proof for for occupants, so that, you know, if, for example, they do have charging needs they can work with. You know us with smaller landlord to be able to. Add that charging infrastructure so that you at least don't have to run the new circuits. It's it's just. You can just install the station. But we understand there's a lot of complexity to how you recover. You know how you manage access to charging infrastructure. And and on the smaller lots we were just concerned about driving affordability up by requiring the actual equipment to be installed. So that's what you're seeing in. That is the balance we were trying to strike. Got it? Okay. Thank you. Tho those are the questions for now. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time. Oh, okay, thanks, Amel. Kurt, your turn. Great. Thank you. And I'm sorry. I feel very uninformed about a lot of this stuff. So I'm sorry if a lot of my questions are fairly ignorant. One quick question follow up on that previous question. You talk about the Ev, charging in terms of a lot.

[58:07] But a single parcel may have multiple lots. Right? So does it really mean the amount of of spaces for a parcel. Correct? Yeah, yeah. Okay, correct. So then. let's see. on the residential side, we've got these limits of a thousand square feet for certain things, and 3,000 square feet for certain things. Those are for the entire building, right? Not per unit. So you would have the same requirements for a 3,000 square foot single family houses for 3,000 square foot. No. no, it's that's per unit for multi family. So if each individual unit is 1,000 square feet, it would fall in 1,000 square feet rather than the 3,000 square feet under your using your scenario.

[59:14] Okay? But I. So that's for multi-family. The R. 2. Right? No. Sorry. No. For also for residential duplexes. yeah. All of those are per unit. Okay. Great and then so there, there are requirements for the on-site offset? Right? And is that based? How? How is that calculated? Is that based on installed capacity, or is it based somehow on actual production. It's basically obviously 3 in the different.

[60:02] So so we can model the usage for the building and figure out how much energy that building will need. So then, if if it's over 3,000 square feet, you need to match the solar system to ensure you're at 0 energy. So if we calculate, you need a thousand kilowatt hours per year, you gotta match the solar system based on the design parameters. You know the available roof area and shading and all those considerations to. I mean, obviously, we don't know until it's actually installed. But we're approximating with with design software to get a close, approximate approximation of net 0. Okay, so you're using some kind of modeling to say, we believe this size solar system will actually over the course of a year produce, on average, the same amount. This certain amount of energy model developed by Nrel to estimate the the solar productivity in our area. So that's that's a pretty standardized process.

[61:02] Okay? Then I wanted to follow up on a couple of the questions that I asked by email, and thank you very much for your very extensive response to my kind of complicated questions. Which, again, were a lot of them, were coming from my ignorance. But I had this question about the marginal carbon intensity of the electricity that excel is currently delivering right, and I realize that that varies by time of day. You know, with the if the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, they might be curtailed. Renewable generation! That's available right now, but at other times. if I plug in a one kilowatt load that additional inner power is going to be coming from Cole. Right? So do do we have data on that. Really, the question is clearly, electrification is the way to go long term.

[62:04] You know, we're gonna be moving to that as we electrify the grid. But at this time. by replacing a an efficient natural gas boiler, for example, with a with a heat pump, or whatever with with electrical equipment? Are we actually reducing the carbon emissions. Yeah, no. And thanks, I think it's a it's a great, and it's a very complicated question. II think I usually tell people you know the T. Pop is the the gift that keeps on giving. The electrification is the gift that keeps on giving, because our grid is continuously getting cleaner and cleaner over the lifetime of that equipment. But where is it today is is a really good question. I'm sure you you obviously didn't have a chance. I we sent that pretty like this afternoon, so I know you wouldn't have had a chance to to look at the study. But certainly some of our peers and colleagues.

[63:03] Yeah, so there's there is a link to a study by Southwest energy efficiency project that took the It attempted to get at your at your question, which is, what is the marginal emissions impact over the 15 year life of the equipment based on the forecasted emissions of of the grid and everything we see. Says that an electrification solution was on par with a natural gas solution about 2 to 3 years ago, based on the green mix. And so we're already doing better. And with the retirement so we'll only have one operating call unit in Colorado after 2026. So acknowledging that this is the 2024 building code. So within a 2 years there will only be public unit 3 sometimes called Comanche

[64:00] that will still be operational, and it's set to retire not later than 2030. So within the lifetime of of the equipment we're installing at this point. We are are very rapidly, not just on par with natural gas appliances, but exceeding it in terms of emissions. Reduction, even acknowledging that currently like, if you're needing your home at, say, 40'clock in the morning. You're dealing with 30 or admissions at that point in time. But during the course of the day. We're getting solar resources, and when resources no winter months, it's already cleaner, and if you take, have the opportunity to look at the heat maps I kind of shared. You can see how those emissions are rapidly reducing in the next 6 years. So those are the numbers on that green our emissions. Great emissions. So they give you a sense of of what's producing at those times. And definitely happy to dive into a lot more detail, I know, because again, it's a really complicated

[65:00] condition. I will just say our analysis continues to show that we're already saving emissions. Simply by going to electric even with today's grid. Mix even with its diversity. During the hours of the day. Okay, again, the the, the the green spreadsheet sort of the 2 included there that was dealing with the average emission. Mix not it is the hourly emissions factor. No, that's not a marginal quantity. Right? That's the average mix. it is. But it's based on hourly. So it's effectively trying to model the marginal look. So it's not like an average over the month or over the year. It's looking at an hourly basis. So effectively looking at the grid emissions intensity, and those given hours based on the hour of the day and the month of the year. So the 24 is the 24 h.

[66:07] and then it's broken out by months based on what they're consistently seeing as the total emissions, intensity or marginal, hourly marginal emissions. Intensity. Okay. alright, I'll I'll move on to a different question. So thank you for that. That's about the windows. And I had some discussion with an architect who is concerned about this. My understanding is that most of the windows, basically, most of the windows that are available in this country are built at lower elevation right? And so they achieve high efficiency, usually with by filling them with argon. But in order to send them here, they need to essentially puncture that put in a breathing tube. So all the argon escapes. And so, even though they may be rated

[67:07] point 2 7, or whatever they don't actually achieve that. do you have any information about that? I was seeing something on the signature windows. You know, the local window and door supplier. And they have a piece about this that says, basically you can't get windows, or it's very difficult to get windows that are actually that efficient. So that's true, for very high efficiency windows, particularly some of the European triple pane windows through, imported from Europe. With point 2 7 double pane windows. Those are manufactured locally. You can buy them at Lowers and Home Depot right now they're low cost builder grade windows. They achieve that at no problem between 6 to 9,000 feet elevation. When you get beyond that, yeah, you need to stop putting breath in them, that we all know boulders about what? 5, 6,000 feet! I'm not sure what the exact elevation is here.

[68:00] Josh might have some info on this, too. I don't know if you wanted to weigh on Josh. sure. And so yeah, to your point. Yeah, a lot of those windows, you can buy them locally. The other thing we actually did, too, was we had some feedback that we actually were looking at, doing something similar to what Denver did, where basically, Denver said, well, if if you're gonna have more glass in your building over 15% window to wall ratio, you need to do a point 2 5 window. We honestly thought that was too far kind of to your point. Right? You know. The point 2 7 is in our current code, and it's been there for the last 3 years. We've been building using these windows. and we've we've heard some feedback in terms of that, but we haven't seen We haven't seen a ton of issues with it. The other thing, too, is that you can install a point 2 7 window across all your windows in the house, or we have a weighted average where you can kind of take an average of certain windows across the building, and you can still show compliance as long as that weighted average meets the point 2 7 requirements, so you could have windows that are point 3 3 depending on the size of them, maybe a point 2 6, because of it being a smaller window, things of that nature, but they all wait out, and they have to meet that point 2 7 requirement. We do see some projects that go ahead and install those just for simplicity, you know.

[69:09] for simplicity. And just, it's easier just to do that instead of having to do the calculation. But but yeah, we we've heard similar to kind of what you were saying. We've heard that that that argument as well. And but to Rob's point, you know, you can go into lows and boulder and actually buy a point 2 7 window to install in your house so, or I think, Rob, you're in Wheatbridge. Right? Sorry. Okay. And so when I go to home depot, and I buy a window that is rated point 2 7. When I install it here, it actually will achieve point 2 7 correct as long as it's a high altitude window, which, if you go to home depot lowers, that's all they sell. They don't sell windows with breed the tubes in them at the local stores. Okay.

[70:00] okay. Great. I think that is all I have for now. Thank you. Laura. Yeah, I just have one. Thank you. Kurt took one of mine. The other one is also about materials. So this I am not an expert in this. I'm way out of my depth. But I really was interested in this question of blown cellulose versus spray foam, insulation. And I think the concern here is that if the the installation values that are required to be achieved are super high, then the easiest, most cost effective way to do that is, with the spray foam in the walls, which has a lot of issues in terms of embodied carbon and in terms of recyclability of anything that that foam touches basically can't be recycled in deconstruction. And so is there anything in this update that would encourage people or allow people to use blown cellulose, which is, I understand, that actually might have a negative carbon impact because you're embodying that carbon in the cellulose versus the petroleum based phone product.

[71:02] Yeah, I can take a crack at that. So first of all, one problem with this is, we're bound by House Bill 1362. I think it was, which is a State bill that we must adopt the minimum standards set forth by the State energy Code, which is the 2021 Iec. And unfortunately, prescriptively. when you're talking about a standard 2 by 6 wall assembly is, which is what most design professionals and builders are familiar with. If you don't want to use continuous phone on the outside of the building, the only way to meet that. as as you pointed out, is by using spray phone, you should r 30 cavity and you can only achieve that with closed Cell farm. However, our code, anything over a thousand square feet needs to go through a modeling process. If you model to Josh's Point about the slab edge. You can trade things off so you could absolutely do cellulose and the walls which would achieve about an R. 18. In order to do that, you might need to do a slightly higher insulation level in the attic or slightly better windows. But it's definitely possible to meet our energy code using entirely cellulose, which, as you pointed out as a negative and body carbon product. This is something. As we move forward with an embodied carbon code, we hope to address, and actually think of a way to incentivize people to use it right now, we don't really have a I don't have a good answer. We don't have a way to actually force them to do so, because we're we're sort of limited by state law.

[72:14] Thank you. It's great to hear that you're thinking about this, and that there may be some future steps to actually incentivize the blown cellulose. Thank you so much. It's good to know that trade offs are possible? That was my only question. Okay, any last clarification questions? Yeah, I know. I don't know if Kurt has more of. I have. I have a couple more. Okay? you're in the code, in in the proposed code. You talk about schools. middle middle schools, high schools, etc. Intern in referencing the I'm Josh's. Maybe he's he was looking like he was. Not, anyway. Okay. Alright, I was like.

[73:24] doesn't would this code would only apply to private schools. Is that correct? Yes, we don't have jurisdiction over the state schools. Okay. does the code as proposed, both specify? Or is low carbon concrete and low carbon steel at a state that it meets azure iso some standard

[74:00] that we could say we we don't wanna say a brand or a a technology. We wanna we wanna specify the use of a standard and our low carbon steel and concrete at a state where we can require suggest, incentivize, low carbon seal and concrete that is and meets an international standard or a national standard. Not really, would be my clear answer that one to Carolyn's point about us still scoping on on bodied carbon. That's that's a big part of the reason we don't have a firm code requirement around that yet. We're still honestly, the industry is still figuring out how to even measure embodied carbon. The example I like to use. If you have a low embodied carbon batch plant. That's Pueblo. By the time it's trucked to boulder, as it's still low on body carbon concrete. Right? Probably not. So there's still a lot of research to be done around this this area well and Rob, to add to that, there's actually only one municipality in the country that has a low and embodied carbon code. And that's actually, I think I can't think of the name of it. It's out in California.

[75:08] But they literally have a low carbon a low embodied carbon concrete code. And I can tell you exactly who it is. Yeah, no, I mean II would I would agree with what Rob said. I think part of our motivation for including some embody carbon measures in the points portion. The above code is to start to gain some of that experience without being prescriptive. At this juncture, as in parallel, we, you know, seek to learn more and and really refine our path forward. So okay. all right. the last one. So I I'm kind of II have been involved with energy since. I just graduated from see you and got a job selling thermal solar systems. So I actually, you know, it's like, Yeah, I'm I'm into this stuff. Back. When thermal solar systems under Carter were highly incentivized.

[76:16] So. But as I read through this code myself but so III was really interested in reading this, and I was also like Laura, I'm way over my head. There's a lot of this stuff. So my question is especially for residential contractors. Does the city offer. Do you plan to offer tools, educational resources, seminars, etc., for how how to how to meet the code? So you don't just have a crowd of angry Hvac contractors, you know, railing against

[77:01] the new onerous. terrible. You know. I can't do my job. I'm gonna go out of business sort of thing. So you know, what would be your response to that? Yeah, absolutely. We plan to have some trainings on this. Once we once we get close towards the adoption stage. We've already done some outreach without design professionals. We had a meeting Chamber of Commerce last week, and prior to that I think it was in November last year we met with a large group of architects and engineers and discussed their concerns. To your point. Yeah, that's probably the next stage of the outreach is actually getting down to the level of Hvic contractors. They're probably gonna be some of the more effective stakeholders in this, I think a high level design is already pretty comfortable. Honestly, most of the large terms we're seeing in Boulder would already comply with this code. They're already doing this stuff. I think Carolyn mentioned earlier. All the housing partners is already doing all electric. So a lot of these things that we're proposing already being done by people that are willing to push the envelope. Anyways, they're not necessarily new ideas within the city.

[78:05] We're also very close. Yeah, I think if you've been following the Marshall rebuild there was a lot of work to to support. The reconstruction around all electric and and high efficiency, heat, pump adoption. So we also intend to bring a lot of those lessons learned to share with with our architectural community as well around. You know where they see some of the opportunities. So for sure it is. We certainly learned when 2,017, when we first adopted the net 0 code. We saw some unintended outcomes in the in the way architects approach it, the switch over to an electric heating solution. We did a lot of outreach at that time, and just haven't seen a lot of those issues surface but definitely want to learn from that and and carry that forward with training and support.

[79:02] I I'll just conclude by saying II was really impressed as I read through the comments, the table of comments other than one both the quality of the comments and your appreciation and incorporation of a lot of that. Anyway, I thought that as I read through that. I thought that was exemplary. So thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that, Emil. You have your hand up. I do, Sarah, do you have questions before I go for my second round. So i the 2 follow ups. We were talking about the grid and how excel will deal with this electric push. So I'm wondering. and I don't know that I saw it in the in the code updates. Is there a sort of companion component to on-site renewables that would include batteries.

[80:08] I mean, that kind of starts to mitigate the impact to the grid. Josh, did you uncheck that? So yeah, we've actually included so with our, with our 400, our 408 and C, 460, the additional conservation requirements. What we've done is, we've actually started awarding points for using that and kind of looking to to move in that direction. Cause, as we've learned, we know. And and you probably you'll probably hopefully agree with this as well. But when you partner Solar with batteries, that's really your best payback, right? And so that's really kind of what. So another piece that I didn't really mention this. But we also have a a requirement in the commercial section for electric. What is it? A battery storage, ready space that's required in in the mechanical room. So to to your point, to kind of look at future proofing and make sure that there is available space ready for batteries. I mean case, that's the next step that the building owner wants to do for these new projects. If they want to go that route. They're already gonna be having to do solar on site. It would make sense from a commercial standpoint like you mentioned to consider battery storage is one of your options really to to achieve compliance with the energy code. I think

[81:12] that being said we didn't wanna require it. At least at this stage yet. And so that's why, with these options, with these additional conservation measures, it's a way to really kind of start dipping our toe in the water, because now that it's in code, the next step we can do is well, let's move from an additional measure to make it a mandatory, why not? And so that's kind of where our starting point really is to get it kind of codified. And then the next step would be to looking at using, you know, possibly mandating in one of the next cycles. So yeah, because I think a lot of the people that push back on electrification are, speaking to some of the issues with the grid and how the grid may not be able to handle all the additional electric needs. The other thing with the battery component, the storage on site. You know, the biggest producer, or maybe the only producer is Tesla ones, and they include the inverter.

[82:11] And when you put a Pv. System up without a battery you get an inverter. So there's some cost inefficiencies there would not having a sort of co co installation between the 2. There's a reciprocity there that could be, I guess. Highlighted. So another question that I just wanted to do. Some follow up on. You talked about the embody carbon, and my question around that was like concrete, and I don't. There were II don't know how many you had with embodied carbon requirements, but they all had. X's. So what

[83:00] right? X percent? Sure, what's what's that? So thank you for actually mentioning that. So what that is is, if you look at the table in that section, there's percentages that that have points under them depending on what route you're taking. And so for the embodied carbon piece. Say, you're looking at embodied carbon and insulation, and you're able to do a 50% reduction right from the baseline. There. you could take points. I think it's 3 points in that table. If you go to the table that's in say, and look at that, that X is to correspond with what percentage that you're achieving above that table. And so that's yeah, it's basically there. Yeah. but it but it gives the option of not just saying, Well, you have to do a 50 reduction, but it's like, well, you could do 50 or 25, or 10, and you get some type of points for doing it. But kind of to your point. We want to kind of incentivize people to start looking at that, even if it's 10% at the beginning. But hopefully they do some other options that are 50. So so getting it on the table. Yeah, exactly.

[84:06] I'm gonna cite some specific ones. And the questions associated with them. I'm looking at the existing buildings. C, 502 additions. C. 502 dot, 1, one and 2. They set a monetary value of 500,000 to trigger one compliance or another, and what I'm my question is. is a monetary threshold valid anymore. I mean, cost of things are pretty volatile. So I'm just curious as to that being a dollar amount being a threshold versus some other data like square footage or or something. It I mean. Just look at the market in the last right handful of years at $500,000 2 years ago meant something very different than what it means today.

[85:06] Yeah, I mean, I could speak a little bit about how we landed at that number originally? Which doesn't answer your question about. Is it the right number now? It used to be a 8% of assessed value number, which was particularly problematic. We saw a lot of side variability. And so at the time. So this is going into the 2020 code. Josh's predecessor. Did a lot of engagement around. You know, reviewing project sizes and the types of scope, and landed at that $500,000 number at that time. Which is kind of carried forward. To your point. Certainly, when it's volatile that can trigger projects in or not. I think we struggle a little bit to mark's earlier question around

[86:00] trying to get into square footage, and some of those complexities of like, what are the other things that might trigger? So it seems like a reasonable number at the time. Certainly something we can continue to monitor and and revisit as we go forward. Yeah, okay, II guess it's challenge. so let me see one more question in the residential energy efficiency are 406 table, the table 406 dot 3. So new construction that's greater than or equal to 3,000 square feet without on site renewables has an Eri of 50, and that's the same as a small house. Why wouldn't the number will be smaller, just like, you know, one

[87:00] over on the with site removals where there is a difference between big houses and small houses. Why don't we have higher requirement for big houses. So I would say I would. I would actually say that we we do still have a higher requirement for big houses. So what it is is basically, what we're trying to do is outside of the houses that are less than 1,000 square feet unless they decide to go ahead and model. Anyways. they all need to hit an Eri of 50, and the reason we've looked at that we've kind of done some math and backed off to kind of see, you know where this would be. The international code. Actually, I believe. the 2021 Icc, I think, actually has the target, I believe, about a 50. I think it is, if I remember correctly, appendix is a 47. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. And so so with that being said with the smaller homes. It's got the same requirement of that pre solar requirement. But on the back end they're also now required to install some portion of solar to get them to an Eri of 30.

[88:06] So so it's it's it's not. It's a similar. I would say. It's similar to what we currently have versus the current code, basically, as it sits, as you know. If you're less than 3,000 square feet, it's on a sliding scale to to get you kind of down for your Eri target. What we did is we took a step back and we wanted to just kind of go across the board and make sure that everything could hit an er 50 before throwing solar on which there's some hills to that'll have to be climbed there just for folks that aren't used to doing that and then you can put solar on. And so with the homes that are greater than 3,000 square feet that are already doing all electric. This really won't impact them with homes that are less than they're doing all electric the impacts going to be. Now they're having to put some portion of solar on there. And so that's kind of why we were coming up with that understanding is instead of constantly going down and saying they have to meet a lower requirement. What we wanted to do is put efficiency before renewables, and then make sure that there's installing some portion of solar in order to get us down to that 0 requirement of 2030.

[89:05] So it's a jumping stone. Exactly. Yeah. So more farm on the building. We don't want to get to the point where people are putting a ton of spray farm in a building to achieve an er 40 or something without solar. Right? Great answer. Thank you so much for that. no, I think those are. No, I do have one more question, and it's in the commercial commercial energy efficiency. I am looking at

[90:01] page 1, 27. And it's where the adjustment for unusually cold years. It's actually it. The I'm now looking at the actual code so adjustment for other factors, the chief building official may adjust the assigned Eui target for conditions other than those identified in this section. If the chief building official finds the conditions represent reasonable changes impacting the building use characteristics that were not anticipated. So I guess 2 questions. Is all this new? And if not, what's an example of that? I think. Josh, is this the section for the voluntary pathway to go for an outcome verified. Assuming I'm accurate. In 2,020 we introduced this section

[91:04] with the idea that we would offer some flexibility if somebody wanted to model a different outcome and prove that they could achieve it. Once constructed, we haven't had anybody go through this pathway, but the idea is that. You know. Let's just say they said, an Eri sorry Eui of 36 for their commercial office building. and they have to demonstrate a year from completion of construction that they hit that number. If they didn't hit it, the the way it was structured is they would have to invest up to a certain amount to try and get back to that 36. But if the year where they were measuring it was abnormal, then we could compensate for that again. We haven't had anybody go through this. I think we just chose to retain it. For that flexibility within the code, but that's the concept behind it. So it, yeah, so that was that was my follow up question with the procedure for non-compliance and it sounds like, you don't have one. So you've never gone to. Yeah. I mean the the compliance. We pulled the deposit. For them based on the formula, which is, it's it's in the

[92:19] It's established. Some in there they would. They would have to invest up to that amount and not more. So the intent was not that we would find or penalize them. But it was in trying to drive people towards you know, coming out time that their outcome verified code. At 1 point, I think we envision actually requiring that of everybody. I'll be back speaking with you, and city Council in the coming year about updates to our building performance requirements, where I think we actually want to get at the outcome. Verified performance. Through different means. Then then the time to construction code, which is what the energy code is so definitely more to come around that again, we retain that section in in the code for the time being.

[93:07] Oh, go ahead! I was gonna say, to provide that flexibility. If someone wants to go that pathway, we'd be definitely open to it. But I think a lot of the thing is is that kind of to to Carolyn's point is, we haven't seen a lot of them go that way because you have to model it to know how the building's gonna perform. And when you model it, you can use that model for compliance instead of going. I wanna wait 2 years and see how we perform. And then it's kind of well, how do you enforce that? With a permit being open for that long? And so on. But that being said, I will say this, if we had projects that were interested in that, we'd be definitely open for them, wanting to come in and come through to your point. We haven't seen anything yet. Yeah, yeah, that if that would involve a commissioning component. yes. Well, most buildings. It just depends on the size of the equipment. It will will require commissioning some level and with multiple all commercial projects it requires at the minimum lighting lighting control, functional testing which is commissioning. So. okay, well, thank you so much. I appreciate your answers. Thanks, Emil and Kurt. You have your hand up. I just wanna make sure you're asking a clarifying question.

[94:08] versus a. I'm really curious about this question. Okay, great so I'm following up on the questions about the additional conservation credits. I. There was some discussion, I think, from Mark about the embodied energy and concrete to embody carbon in concrete, and what I was hearing from in response to that is, we don't really have a good way of measuring embodied carbon in concrete. And yet we're we're issuing credits based on that. So how does that work trying to chime in and hopefully answer this? So there are standards that are out there, the one that we referenced. Actually, that we're using the code is the Nbi standard that Rob mentioned. That's it's actually an overlay that Nbi the the new Buildings Institute actually help develop. There's other. There's other there's other firms out there that are working with other ones. I know that the civil engineers have a have their own document. They're coming up with an Asme there

[95:14] as Sme standard. Excuse me, and then also I know that I believe our consultants actually are working with ashore to hopefully have a standard by May. As well. So there's a lot of different options. We're trying to keep kind of the the pipeline open in case we see something that really fits. What we're looking for, plus what we're looking for is with these standards. They they've got to have alignment right at some point. And so that's kind of what we're we're really looking at, plus to this. This being kind of the new frontier on things. We? There's just not a ton out there that that currently is out there. I can tell you that. title 24 in California, just recently updated to their 21 or 22 last year, and they just now include a requirement for a whole building life cycle assessment which basically factors into the embodied carbon of the of the building as well. And so that's a brand new thing that was introduced out there. That's something we're also looking to incentivize here as well to to have people start going down that path and learning more about kind of embodied carbon and what they can really do to to reduce our impacts on it.

[96:11] I don't know if that answered your question. I apologize. I can take a crack at that, too. So yeah, there isn't really an industry-wide standard. Yet, as Josh alluded to this summon development, and this is not a requirement, this is an optional additional credit additional credits package. So we wanna be allowing, you know, looking forward to the future for things that are available, and saying that there are some companies like what I've seen right here in bold already. There's a company called carbon cure, which makes low on body carbon, but that's a brand that's not an industry standard. So we could use that for this additional efficiency measure, but we couldn't require it as a prescriptive measure, because there's only one company that I know of in the front range right now offering this product. and just to clarify that these are these are additional credits. But you have to achieve a certain 1010 credits or something. Right.

[97:02] So you, they're sort of optional, which which you choose is optional. But you need to choose some right. We're assigning credit based on what's that? What we currently know and believe to be. The the carbon reductions associated with those credits. I think what we're we're saying that's required. Those standards be met by all projects as an mandatory requirement we are somewhat concerned about, because it hasn't fully been vetted and improve it, so I think we're willing to acknowledge that there's a little bit of risk that they're not going to cheat the emissions reductions that we've tributed to them with the scoring system. But we're we're trying to introduce them, to start to get usage of them so that we can then inform future updates where we may make them more prescriptive right? And I understand that part. I guess my question is, how are you measuring? If someone comes to you and says, I'm building this building, and the foundation is built with

[98:09] lower budding carbon concrete. How will you verify whether that's correct or not? So we'll ask for the environmental product disclosure for that product which. as I said right now, I'm only aware of one that can even offer us that which is carbon keel right now. Hopefully, there'll be 20 by the end of the year. I can't promise that, though. So we do have. We do have a way to measure it. It's just in its infancy right now. And that's that's a very valid point to come back loop back to the embodied carbon debate. That's kind of the biggest problem with having an embodied carbon code right now is the question you just pose to me. How do we actually operationally measure it? How do we enforce this in the field? I mean as an inspector. When I go out and inspect a foundation, I have no way of knowing what kind of concrete it is. This is gonna be an element of trust there, right if they tell me they using carbon Q, and they have a receipt from carbon Qer. That's about the best I can do I don't know. Okay, great. And then one other point regarding this section in our 40822 battery storage.

[99:06] it says the battery has to provide minimum power to the demand to run the Hvac system refrigerator in 2 loads. So that showed that talks about the power rating but not the energy storage. I'm not seeing anything about the actual energy storage in for the batteries. I think I think what you're trying to get at is like. Is it a like a 3 Kw battery versus does it deliver X. It's energy versus power. Right is power. The question is, presumably it's rated based on power, but also energy storage. But I don't see anything about the energy storage here.

[100:04] cause you could say, Oh, you know it. It delivers the necessary power, but only for 3 min, or whatever. And I think so dark apologies on this. It's been a second with this, this actually requirement. But I believe that also, with the references to the Nec. And the Irc. There may be that that may have been where we actually had it in there, if I remember correctly. but we can let me loop back on that. Yeah, let's let's take that as a terrifying one, because there's there's more behind it. we're like, wait. I don't remember what that reference exactly says, but it's it's it's more than a minute. Of those loads for sure within the standard. Okay. Sounds great. Something to look at. And then the final one was a follow up again, on my question about the the move away from yeah.

[101:03] towards onsite solar, in a way, from offsite solar and about the Eroi of onsite solar. And I didn't really see a response about that. I mean my understanding is the er roi of onsite solder almost invariably is lower than that of utility. Scale solar right? If it were higher, then the utility companies would be coming out, knocking on everybody's door as in the put solar panels on the roof. They're not. And so how? How is that? Why, really are we pushing, moving towards this on site requirement? II understand that the renewable energy credits are kind of hard to administrate. Is that really the motivation? yeah. So maybe like, looking back at history. So we have a few motivators for doing local generation

[102:05] early in our our ventures. And when we first started requiring solar, ready zones and solar into code, which has been in place in Polder, for I think we've been requiring solar on on various projects for for several code cycles. At this juncture was acknowledging that the grid was far from the trajectory. It's on today. Right? So at that time there was no pathway to even 50% renewables, much less the 80%. We're gonna see this decade. So that was the original genesis of local generation. But there's other values that local generation supports. That have been formed, continuing to require it to include energy affordability. Because it does provide it pays for itself over the lifetime of the building. Certainly much less than a lifetime of the building in the system. When you're doing it at a time of construction, and through that metering credits it lowers, costs.

[103:05] creates local jobs. We know that distributed resources are valued by the utility by providing generation closer to where the loads are. So it's not. It's not just about the emissions reduction, because I agree with you. The more local generation we put in place to lower the value of the greenhouse gas reduction that that distributed generation causes, because at some point. the when the system over generates. It's our local generation that won't be curtailed. It's the utility assets that will be curtailed right. And so it does have a diminishing value. We did not want to take a step back. With this code in terms of the other goals and other values that the community has kind of put behind local generation goals. Fully acknowledging that we certainly don't want to impose requirements that neither provide cost benefit.

[104:02] local economic development, distributed generation benefits such as renewable energy credits. Those have no meaningful emissions value to them in in our opinion. And that's why we took those requirements out of this code. We don't want to drive. People spend money for a Solar garden subscription. That isn't providing incremental emissions reduction and and doesn't create local generation for us. So that's that's the intent behind what you're seeing, acknowledging that we didn't want to take a step back and say. now. you know, we require all the homes we've built in the last 10 years. But solar on. But today is no longer required. There's other values that that solar still delivers. And we wanna, we want to maintain those at this structure. if I understand, is, there's not really a verifiable way of guaranteeing that we're if we're asking for off site

[105:01] generally carbon free generation, that it's we're creating a net carbon reduction correct correct, which is, which is different than you know when we talk about great emissions. Right? But we're talking about a subscription or a Rec. Ii could go on for hours about why, those do not contribute emissions reduction, and I'd much rather put our local seller on rooftops here. Which actually do still contribute. It's just. It's a diminishing value. But it's still very much a value. Thank you. Y'all done. Kurt. Okay, excellent. Yes. Go ahead. Sorry. I have one question about how this relates to zoning, which is a different question. Do you want me to ask it now or hold it until after we go through commenting on the Kovac. Is it relevant to what you're gonna suggest as an addition to the ordinance? Or is it a question with, is it a question that has to do with? You're curious about something that is a future issue?

[106:07] It is about how this might tie to future zoning changes bread. Just. we have a question about how this might tie to future zoning changes. Yeah, can I? Just really quickly? Yeah. So my understanding is like, we talked about the that doing spray foam insulation is not as good as putting exterior in exterior insulation on the building. For various reasons the spray foam in the walls is is less good. But my understanding is that sometimes zoning code gets in the wave, like if you put exterior insulation on the building that counts against your far, and sometimes it can conflict with setbacks on buildings. So if somebody's trying to modify their building, to put on exterior insulation that can be discouraged by our zoning code. So I was just curious. If that is something that's coming. If if there's thought to trying to make that easier for folks to put on the exterior insulation.

[107:07] I you know I can't say it's coming, because that's what we need to explore all those things. So we are you know, preliminarily aware of those kind of interplays. I think as Josh and and Rob and Caroline have have represented. We're really just dipping our toe into the embodied energy with the energy code or embodied carbon with the energy code. There are a lot of questions around the embodied energy, and and that is one of them is the interplay with the zoning code potentially the interplay with other building codes interplay with implementation. Rob spoke to the measurements. So you know, probably, is the answer. But that's that's why this is gonna be a comprehensive look at all those things. And it's it's not gonna be easy. We're gonna be. We're gonna be spending a lot of time doing some kind of tip of the spear, thinking on this one. Okay, thank you. Thanks for your indulgence, Sarah. No, I just think! Alright! We are 6 min past the amount of time I hoped we'd get this done with, and we haven't yet gotten to public comments. Thomas, do we have anyone who wants to make public comment?

[108:19] I did not see. Let's see. Okay, mine should ask for. See May. If folks have, if anyone online has a comment they want to make in public comment on this, please raise your hand now. Still, nobody. Excellent. Okay. Then we will move on now to our discussion. Josh, would you mind putting up the questions that you have? Or actually, you know what we all have the questions in front of us. Put up the the motion that you want us to make.

[109:00] that you're proposing and is it possible to do that where we can still see Kurt and Ml. That's up to you. I don't. I don't know any way to do that. You don't. Okay, then do not bother to put up the motion because we want to see curtain. Ml. alright. So the Josh has put out for us 3 questions. Which will, I guess, guide our conversation. The first is, does planning board support the 2024 cobe as drafted? And Kurt, since you started with the most questions we'll start with you. Your thoughts? Yes, overall. Well, I think this is. This is sort of related to Number 3, right? It seems like kind of getting at the same question. But overall I do. I think that tremendous amount of great work has gone into this. I really appreciate all the detailed analysis

[110:03] that Staff has done. I do have one potential. I mean, or suggested amendment, or additional motion, or something. But overall, the answer is, Yes. alright, ml. ml, it's deep support. The 2024 cobec is drafted. is this, the ordinance is at the end of the passports. So there is that chapter 36, which is about waste recycling that we didn't wasn't really included in your presentation, and we didn't really talk about it. I have some thoughts about about that one. So

[111:01] I'm not sure. Where. How are they? Thoughts that you would like to present in amendments to the motion? Or are they questions that you have for staff. I think they would start out as questions. Okay, if you don't mind, I'm gonna finish going around the horn on just this first question, and we'll come back to your questions about chapter 36. Alright. thank you. Okay. Mark. in answer to question number one, the answer is, Yes, with. Yeah, am I okay? The answer to the the question, and number one is, yes, with II will make a proposed modification, and I'd like to take just a second and make a suggestion. for when we get to the motion making. I'm going to suggest that we

[112:06] take the main motion, and rather than go through amendments and voting on amendments that we take a vote on the main motion, and then have additional motions that we record the vote up or down, and the vote count outside of that main motion, because I think the main motion in this case the code and supporting the code. is worthy of just a a clean vote on that. And and rather than I'm amending. And then I'm amending your amendment. That's my suggestion. Okay, just thumbs up or thumbs down on Mark's suggestion as a process thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up. Great. Okay? Yes, I support the 2024 Co. Back as drafted. I really appreciate all the work that staff have put into this. It's clear that you've thought about it very deeply at a detailed level. That is way beyond anything that I could absorb right now. And I appreciate the approach that you've taken. With.

[113:09] What do we know and feel confident about that? We can mandate or prescribe? And what are some things that we want to experiment with and learn more about? I think that's a wonderful approach to take and I appreciate it. Okay, so, Amel, let's come back to you and the questions that you have, and if I might ask both Kurt and Mark and Laura, if you're gonna offer alternative or additional motions to go ahead and start drafting them now and send them off to Thomas when you have them drafted, and in the meantime we'll go through Eml's questions about the waste question. Thank you. So the general question I am wondering about in chapter 36.

[114:00] You use both the word demolition and deconstruction. Do they have 2 different meetings because implied? I mean, they have implied different meetings. But I'm just wondering why we have demolition at all. Are we encouraging deconstruction. Carly? You look like you were not in your head. Do you want to answer that? Well, I wanna let Rob answer it. But I mean you're correct that they have different meetings. I would. I mean. yeah, de deconstruction is is the physical, dismantling. I mean my understanding. And and this is not my I'm the energy person, not the circular economy person, but acknowledging that not everything gets fully deconstructed. Is is the intent behind, including both words. There? Yeah, no. I largely agree with you on that. So demolition. And this context is typically around additions and alterations on small homes where it's maybe not economically feasible or often involved with historic buildings. A lot of the time we run into materials that are contaminated with is based off some lead and deconstruction just isn't possible, and small residential alterations.

[115:20] The other thing I'll comment on is we've noticed this is a real equity issue with people. In terms of trying to deconstruct things and holding up certificates of occupancy because contractors have a really hard time tracking this and countless times since I've been here, Ceos have been held up for weeks at a time because of our deconstruction, waste dominance. We wanna be able to consider it that we want people to deconstruct as much as possible. But we also want housing, so we don't wanna hold it up, for, you know, perfection get in the way of good right? So I guess I am not. I'm concerned

[116:04] that the process there are like Boulder County, for example. has a pretty unit. High bar for deconstruction. So it I I'm I'm not sure that the equity issue is out outweighs the environmental impact of demolition. and the values and goals. I mean, when you see old lumber getting tipped into dumpsters again and again, and again and again. That's so easy. We've got resource here at time. So a anyway. So my question. is.

[117:02] can So demolition is is a is a process that is generally used for concrete and masonry. Those get, you know, broken down and and usually recycled. Everything else deconstructed, you know, would things and and steal things, and they're deciding every project I've worked on that has had an exist. Instruction has been deconstructed and all my projects are tiny. So it it it does happen. It is real. We have facilities to do it. Great people doing deconstruction, and of course we have resource as a place to take a lot of our materials, too. So the questions that come up for me are. If our language

[118:00] encourages people to think by using demolition rather than deconstruction, and only use demolition in the precise places where it it it would be. It's the only choice. you gotta start by giving people the language so that they can even begin thinking this way. Most people automatically say, well, I'm gonna demolish. And you're like, well, aren't you gonna save the windows, or save the wood or so it's a mindset, I think, that is set up in this chapter 36, that I find. I think we could do better. And the other, the other question I have about it, or concern I have is under diversion requirements. It talks about 75% of waste tonnage. So that's wait.

[119:00] Right? That's weight. And yet you talk about 3 at least 3 material pipes. And you talk about volume options. So I wonder how you accommodate. which is why all you ever see getting recycled is concrete. That's why we get the outcomes we get is because of the language that people see. And they say, Well, I'm gonna you know. No. So so we already required tracking of this. So if you're demolishing an existing structural or deconstruct, you are required to deconstruct it, and you are required to meet that you're required to submit a spreadsheet with the receipts, tracking the tonnage, all the volume to climate initiatives. Now, that's not my department or division, or anything. But I'm se somewhat familiar with what they do, so that is already required. And and bulk is code, where the demolition aspect comes in is when we're talking like a small alteration. We don't want to discourage a homeowner from putting an addition on an existing home or anything like that. So it's viewed as being a

[120:06] maybe an unnecessary complexity and unnecessary expense. When all you want to do is tear out, say, 200 square feet of wall. We don't want to make them deconstruct that and track it for for every small environmental guide. But if they demolishing an entire struct structure absolutely, that's required right now that they deconstruct and track that waste. So that would be my set. My next set of questions. Because I II mean, I'm a I'm a practicing architect in the city of Boulder, and I have a sense of what goes on in a lot of places. I'm curious as to how many projects forfeit their deposit and and bypass the deconstruction requirement. Often they can't, because we won't issue them A. CO. If they don't comply with that requirement. and is important in the deposit. An option. What's that? Sorry?

[121:01] Yeah, I think that would be something. We certainly track that Emily and II know it's it's not the numbers, not 0. Right? So we do have some for features. I think the one thing. And again, I'm really realizing we're not the subject matter experts explicitly on this, but I know that our my colleagues, in our circular economy team, have been doing some working group sessions with builders in a community to to better understand where the successes are, where the barriers are, and it's my understanding. And and I don't know road. If you recall this sort of Brad recalls this, I believe the intent is they are going to come back. II got a counsel later this year for updates. To the specific requirements around deconstruction. They just were not ready in time for our energy code update. So I do know, in working project right now. I just don't have enough knowledge to be the explicit, answers II do know that there have been some who have forfeited their deposit and

[122:11] in full. So we've never had a chapter 36 in our energy code. Is that what I'm understanding? No, it's been there. This is the same chapter. That's that was in the previous. Oh, okay. So this said, a new chapter 36 is added to read. Yeah, it wasn't 2020 go back as well. It should probably have been amended to not send you chapter in the 2020. So acknowledging that There's there were definitely some learnings. Very much to your point, and I know that that's what the team is working towards. Right, and I guess I would encourage I would encourage the language to be m more directive the thinking right right now. People think it's a demolition permit, because it's called the demolition permit. So they're not thinking they're gonna have to deconstruct much of anything.

[123:09] So I that's as in the energy code itself, you're talking about jumping stones, and how people you know how we begin to normalize and standardize this way of thinking and doing things. II think that this waste recycling piece oh is, is not as as direct as it could be. There's a lot of waste that comes off of I I'm horrified when I go to chops sites, and I see what goes on. You know there's a lot of stuff that is not being processed as we think it is.

[124:03] and I'm not sure how to close the gaps. I think one is, you know, just start getting people used to thinking that, hey? We're deconstructing. You know we're reusing. We're recycling, we're repurposing. We're not tipping things into dumpsters. No, if I can just kind of respond to that in general, then is we we appreciate that feedback. And those have been conversations that I've heard internally as well. We recognize again. that this is really one step towards those larger kind of cultural shifts and language shifts. And and you can be sure that as part of the embodied Karmet project because it's project, these are the types of things. We'll look at. One of the challenges with demolition permits is that they. you know, come through the State, and that's what the State calls it so, you know, I mean, we're we're kind of working within the framework that exists culturally right now. But but we recognize all the things you're saying and words do matter, and we'll we'll continue leaning into that. I don't know that there's a

[125:07] editor change that we could suggest tonight for for the energy code. But we appreciate the feedback. Thank you. Josh, what did you? Wanna I was just gonna add that kind of to what Rob said, you know, earlier on with with the deconstruction requirements. So the update really there was. We were seeing a lot of issues with projects coming up for Co. At the end of them, and having to scramble to compile all this information. And so the update there was really to get way ahead of that. And after rough. ask for the information. Then that way, if there's any questions, any issues, you get it ironed out right it rough by the time you get it final. Everything's nice and nice little package. We can review it, stamp it, approve it, and move on. And so that was kind of the intent there is to kind of start getting out ahead of these issues and start working with the the contractors closer to really understand those requirements, you know, maybe have a mulligan at the beginning, and it doesn't comply. But here's all the correct documents. So by the time we're at final. There's nothing really there to hopefully hold up for Co. And we can kind of move ahead

[126:10] kind of really streamlined the process more. And then II just wanted to ask something for clarification, just because I know I haven't been at the city much, and we keep on saying that this is part of the energy code. This is part of the ordinance for the energy code. And this was in the old ordinance for the old energy code. It's actually not part of the energy code. Please please correct me if I'm wrong with that at all. So okay. you are correct, Josh, thank you. Yeah. II was gonna address that, too. We made. That's included in the ordinance that adopts was intended to adopt the energy code because there were some references to the old energy code. So we we did a little clean up. But the substantive part of the ordinance wasn't really part of this scope before of of that demolition ordinance. I guess. So I should stop asking questions. Maybe just we'll ask them at a later date. Yeah, thank you. Brad, I appreciate your update on the conversation. I think it's an important one, and I'm very appreciative that the Department is

[127:19] Looking into the shortcomings of the way we deconstruct in our city. Okay? Great alright. So we'll go to question. I'm gonna eliminate question number 3, because it's the same as question number one question number 2. Does planning board support the allowance of natural gas water heating for affordable multifamily projects on a case by case basis. Is there anyone who is uncomfortable with that? Alright. alright. So are there any comments folks want to make before we go to motion making?

[128:00] Okay, great. I do need you to pull up the actual motion. Please. do we need the original motion language as well? Let's start with the original motion. We'll vote on that, and then we'll go to the other motions. So just pull up the original motion. First Cause. That's what we okay, Josh, could you send that over to me, please you? I can share it if you want me. Amen. I'm gonna show it from the actual memo, because it differs a little bit from what is in the actual presentation just for simplicity purposes. So here's the actual memo for the motion will second and share alright, so we are. this would be a motion to recommend the City Council. The adoption of the 2024 city of Boulder energy conservation code by way of the ordinance drafted and attachment be of this memo so moved.

[129:01] I wasn't thinking I wasn't making the motion. I was reading the motion. I just wanna make sure. Hella, that that is appropriate language. It references an attachment. I just want to make sure. That's I don't remember us doing that recently. Yeah, I think you can reference the attachment to the staff. Memo II would just say the staff memo instead of this memo. Alright. So would someone like to make the motion with that addition, please make the motion. I move. That planning board recommends to city council the adoption of the 2024 city of Boulder energy conservation code by way of the ordinance drafted in attachment. B of the staff. Memo. I'll second that. Okay. Ml. Seconded it. Sorry. Alright, so I will read it again. One more time. There will vote motion to recommend to City Council adoption of the 2,024, city of Boulder energy conservation code, by way of the ordnance drafted and attachment be of the staff. Memo Laura. Yes, Sarah, as an I, mark

[130:10] ML. And Kurt, we can't see you. Okay. That was a yes from Kurt. Alright. So the motion has been adopted. Now let's bring up the other 2 motions proposed motions. So Josh, you have to take down your thank you. Not a problem. Sorry. Oh, thanks. I appreciate that. Okay? Mark. can you please make your motion? I move that planning board recommended council in regard to the 2024 COBE. CC. That council directs Staff 2. And II only reason I put the triple dot there was. If anyone else is making

[131:05] emotion that they wanted to incorpor, use that first part of the sentence. So that was just by way of clarification, that Council direct staff to incorporate a change of the definition of electric vehicles to include e-bikes and other micro mo mobility options. I'll second that mark. Okay. any comments. Questions. I have a question. Okay. Whoa, I just wanna ask Staff. would there be any unintended negative consequences of doing it this way, or would you propose a different way to do it like, how do you? I think Mark's intention is clear, and I just want to make sure that we're not going to accidentally introduce some complications. No, I think you're just asking for a definition change which on the face of it, that's that should be a simple thing for us to accomplish. And in terms of actually implementation. I still stand by. I think that's probably belongs in the 2024 Ipc Updates in terms of requiring outlets for

[132:05] bicycle rooms. For example, I don't think that's probably beyond the scope of the energy code, but the definition change is a great idea. I support is the sorry go ahead. and I haven't had a chance to to look at the code, but I wonder if, with the change of the definitions, the ev requirements would apply to ebikes which which don't quite fit in in terms of how they're drafted specifically for motor vehicles. right? And, in fact, to your point, or whoever's point about. I'm sorry your point about unintended consequences. If suddenly they put in 10 e-bike, 120 volt. E-bike charging stations, and said I met the code. That would be a terrible unintended consequence.

[133:00] so maybe explore. explore, incorporating a change. Well, we can. We can verify this but we actually prescribe what constitutes the actual infrastructure in terms of rated circuit and and charge, you know, and what constitutes an AV. Charging station. So I don't believe that they could meet our our code putting in 120 volt. Charger. so II think we're okay. We can double check that. But we do specify pretty prescriptively, like what the apertures and the specific rating of the equipment, etc. So I think we would be okay to Rob's point with, with all respect to Carolyn, to your comments about that. I wonder if that creates kind of a of you know a 6 point step to get to that, though, and and to Rob's point of just taking it under advisement and then bringing it to the Ibc. Might be the most

[134:03] direct way. We are trying to simplify codes. And and I just wonder if that's a more direct route for us to address that. Yeah. So in fact, let's let's let me address motion maker at some point gets to address it. So my intention here obviously, is to how II was actually surprised that in fact. it wasn't in Tdm code. It wasn't in our actual building code that here we are. We're talking about the energy conservation code, and we're talking about the requirement for electric vehicle charging. And so so I made the logical jump that. Well, if we were, if if this is part of the energy conservation code for that. We're going to require electric car charging. then. Well, this would be a fine spot to require other electric vehicle charging. So my intention was to require other electric vehicle charging not to

[135:06] jeopardize or impinge upon the requirement for electric car charging. So if, in fact, the right place for electric bike, micro mobility, charging requirements is in the building code. Why is it the right place here for the for a car charging? That's a very good question. I mean, a little bit of that is informed by a lot of the service capacity requirements that come with electric vehicle charging that have energy consumption needs like that. That's why it started to get seated back when the 2021 code was being considered by the Icc. It's now in the State energy model code. So I think we continue to re retain it there. But that's just the genesis of how it landed in the energy code.

[136:09] That's a great explanation. And I'm I'm considering I don't know if it's how was it allowed to vote? No, on your own motion, we just withdraw it. No, but I yeah, I think we have. Have. We had a second? Yes, I think Ml seconded it. but he can he just withdraw the motion real quick? Does anybody object to mark withdrawing the motion? No. I can't see any current. Or Michelle. Do you guys object to mark withdrawing? No, I see. No. Okay. And I'll simply say that it needs to be in the building code. It needs to be in our Tdm requirements. It needs to be somewhere. and maybe this isn't the right place for it. So there we go, well received. Thank you. Motion, please.

[137:08] Alright, Kurt, do you want to make your motion? Yeah. I move the Planning Board recommend that city, that council request staff to study possible modification modifications to the Covid to improve equity and housing affordability by significantly graduating the stringency of energy standards based on residential dwelling service. And may I speak to this? I'll second, that okay, so my concern is that currently, we really, we impose the same level of energy Co energy requirements on a 1,500 square foot house that we impose on a 2,999 square foot house, and we impose the same on a 3,000 as on a 5,000 square foot house, and under the roadmap that was presented to us.

[138:09] Even that distinction at 3,000 square feet is going to go away by 2030. If we go down that that pathway, so we'll have the same level of energy requirement really required for a 1,500 square foot house as for a 5,000 square foot house. And to me that's equality. But it's not equity. It's kind of like a flat tax, right? The flat tax is not equitable. And so I'm concerned about that direction. And I would love to see whether Staff can find ways to to to require higher levels of energy efficiency. For larger larger houses. So that's the idea.

[139:02] Yes, Mark. So in in support of that as the second. I want to say that there are so many instances. in life, in our tax code, in our current energy code. where we do equate equality with equity. And we we don't look to those that have the most to contribute the most. And I think Kurt's motion speaks to that progressiveness as in progressiveness of a tax code in in that progression that that needs to take place more often than it does currently go ahead. Sorry didn't see you had your hands up. That's okay. No problem. I wanna ask the same question. I wanna ask Staff invite Staff to respond about is this something that? Are we missing something? Would this have any unintended negative consequences like I don't understand? For example, is it much easier for a small structure to meet the that same 50% requirement. As for a bigger structure, it's much harder like II don't

[140:22] know that I totally understand the technical piece. So I just want staff to invite staff to reply. Yeah, thank you. So larger homes required to be nits are already anything. Over 3,000 square feet is already required to be net 0. So it'd be hard for us to mandate anything beyond that, right? Because then we'd be asking them to literally suck common ducks, hey? Maybe we'll get there in 20 years on a residential scale that will allow us to do that. So we already do We already do require that in terms of the smaller homes. We do have some things now. They're really aimed at accessory dwelling units. So you might have noticed we allow a prescriptive pathway for units, a thousand square feet or less. We acknowledge nobody's building homes, that small and boulder right? But they are building accessory dwelling units. The idea behind. That is, that's a much cheaper pathway. You don't have to hire design professional to come up with an energy model. You don't have to have all these experts. You just look at a simple. A cookbook of options is the way I would describe it, and you could, as long as you comply with that cookbook of options.

[141:22] We consider the house to be completely code compliant. So it's it's it's intended to make it simpler and cheaper and easier for people to build these small dwelling units. It's a little harder in the terms of the middle differentiating between, say, 1,500 and a 3,000 square foot harm. The thing I'm going to throw out there is. We are still bound by the minimum standard set by the State. So we're a little bit beyond those. So we we could maybe go down a a touch. But the state Eri requirement is actually 50 already, so we can't go less than 50, anyway. So it'd be hard for us to say, well, if you're 1,000 to say 2,000 square feet, we'll let you do 60. We can't do that. That would be preempted by state energy code, anyway. So we've tried to address this. But I will acknowledge it's a difficult conversation. I mean, it's

[142:06] and back to the other point I'll make with the Equity versus the quality side of this. If we allow people to build or developers specifically to build less efficient small homes. Is that really equitable because the energy burden on those homes, they're not gonna have an electricity bill or a gas bill. If we're like gas, right? We don't know what those prices are gonna do going into the future, whereas these people in a 6,000 square foot home. then it's 0. They have no energy bill for the next 30 years, or as long as that solar system lasts, so I'll just throw that food for thought out there. I don't know if Caroline and Josh want to weigh in on this as well. Yeah, thanks for making that last point, Rob. I think that was where I was going to lean in, I think first. You know all of our analysis, says you know the incremental cost between where we are today, and the the 50 hers as required it. It's not there, right? The the ways to get there are already cost effective. So

[143:05] when we looked at what we had unintendedly done in in the name of equity, historically, is exactly what's being proposed. Here is we set more stringent requirements for the larger homes and less stringent ones for the smaller homes, and we heard quite significantly from community from some of our engagement. With our connectors and and others around the equity topic that the consequences they did have the less efficient homes. And when gas prices skyrocketed. Yeah, they they were seeing, doubling of utility bills, while our most fluent homes did not experience any impact of of energy pricing because they were meeting their load on site. That that's very much the opposite of of equity. It's and we neglect to think about the long term operational costs. When we think about first cost. And and so this first cost is relatively small. It's not driving up the cost of construction or cost of affordability, the consequences where we would straddle future occupants with higher energy costs, which is certainly concerning and and kind of counter to

[144:11] where we've landed today through feedback from community, through our earlier conversations with the board and Boards and and Council as well. So I would certainly be concerned about that. I think. it. It's it's also worth noting you know, when we think about incentives and other things around performance. What we put in place here make all these homes eligible for utility incentives. That would go away if we sacrifice on efficiency as well. So we'd be giving the incentives to the larger phones. That are all electric and high performing, and we'd be taking away incentives from smaller homes in, in the name of of, you know, saving cents per per per square foot based on the analysis technology. That solar is is an incremental cost. I would potentially offer a different answer there. But we do know that it provides cost stabilization for all electric construction. So that's why we

[145:09] continue to add the increased solar requirement and taking the the er from 50 down to 30. Ii definitely there be very concerned sacrificing anything on the 50 Eri for for smaller structures. We wanna have a conversation about pushing the larger ones to a 47 which is the appendix, I mean. II think that's maybe on the table. But again, we're giving them the better homes. And is that the outcome? We really wanna be driving? Okay. Thanks, Caroline. Emil. Thank you. Yeah, II absolutely support what staff is is saying. I don't think we're doing anyone a favor by promoting lower performance for any product. So I won't be supporting this. This amendment.

[146:02] Hi, yeah, thanks for your responses. So first of all, all this is asking for is that staff study this right? II don't know what the answer is, but I think that there potentially are some creative ways of going about this that we haven't discussed here. There might be some actually some sort of transfers that might be available. To allow, for example, larger houses to install solar, that that then, would apply to a smaller house, for example. or, you know there, there's there's a lot of creative things that we could potentially think about. And so this is just requesting that that we study it and see if there's anything we can come up with, it's imposing absolutely no requirement that anything actually happened. But I think it's something that is worth studying. Because.

[147:01] there, there is a significant impact. On, you know. Certainly on the affordability. But there's more important, you know, people building really big houses have a huge Carbon footprint, just by virtue of the embodied carbon, if nothing else. But then you include all the stuff that they end up putting in their houses, and so on. They really are bearing a much greater burden of the the carbon emissions in this world than people living in smaller houses, living smaller lives, and I feel like we need to address that somehow. And so this is requesting that staff study that and see see what you can come up with. I know we've got a bunch of really brilliant creative people on staff. And I think that there might be things that we can come up with. If not, then at least I think it's worth

[148:05] putting in the effort to dry. Okay, thanks, Kurt, alright. So if there aren't other comments if you could bring the motion up again, and I'll read it, and then we will vote on it all right. A motion, a planning board makes a motion recommending the Council. The Council requests staff to study possible modifications of the Quebec to improve equity and housing affordability by significantly graduating the stringency of energy standards based on residential dwelling. Unit size. Ml. no. mark. Yes, Laura. Yes, Kurt. yes, and Sarah's a no. So the motion fails. Alright. Staff. Thank you, guys very, very much, for all the time you have put into this. And for answering all of our many, many questions, I'm sure there will be more to come.

[149:01] We will take a 5 min break, and then we'll come back for matters. Thanks all. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

[157:05] Ml. And Kurt, if you don't mind coming back online, that'd be awesome. You're hearing a lot of noise. It's us opening chocolate ship cookie bags. except, of course, Laura, who's being very, very, very healthy. Don't you wish you were here? Those were Vegan cookies. I'd be all over it. That's like saying I need to be diabetic, and it needs to be low salt and low fat. You take too many things away. It's just, I think if you're gonna eat a cookie eat a cookie. Alright we are back in session Eml, I think will join us is is

[158:01] when she can. She's still on the zoom call. She just doesn't have her video on. Alright, alright. So our what we have to deal with tonight in matters is the letter to city council. And I wanna before we start, because there's been some back and forth about exactly like, what is the purpose of the letter. So I just wanna read. And then I ask Brad to speak to something. I just wanna read the letter that came from the City Council assistant about the letter. This came before we started this conversation. I think it'll help us to all be on the same page. So it's hello board, commission and police oversight, panel chairs, staff liaisons and department directors. I hope this email finds you. Well, during the regular city council meeting on February first, 2024 Council members expressed a desire to hear from the city boards, commissions, and panels as they embark on their annual retreat, occurring April third and fourth.

[159:06] Their specific prompt is as a whole board. Commissioner Panel City Council invites you to share the top. 2 or 3 community issues or opportunities on your mind and or the top 2 or 3 items on your group's existing work. Plan for Council's awareness ahead of their annual retreat. Please note the following feedback can take and be taken in any can take any written format, a letter, memo, etc. Council members are most interested in hearing from groups as a whole. In your mess messaging, you are welcome to acknowledge dissenting or minority opinions to the majority consensus providing written feedback in response to consoles. Prompt is completely optional, based on your groups, ability, capacity, and desire to do so. And it gives the date. The information you provide will inform individual council members of your perspective as they develop proposals for council priority actions in the 2024 25 term. So I just wanted to lay that out. We do not need to have

[160:03] complete agreement. But if we don't have complete agreement, we're gonna we have the opportunity to talk about the things that we don't agree on, or why we don't agree on them, or or subtleties that we have regarding particular issues or topics. And then, Brad, if you wouldn't mind. Yes, good evening. Planning board again. First of all, since it did give you wide license on the format, I was going to make a staff recommendation that it be in the form of interpretive dance. Now that that's just a suggestion. So but more to the point. I have followed some of the email discussion about then, in particular questions or or discussion around parking. And Tdm. entirely. The Board's choice, of course. But I did wanna inform you that much like the embodied Energy Work plan that we just kind of alluded to.

[161:08] We have work plan for a large number of items, but some of the key ones, or one of the key ones is a comprehensive look at parking, in fact so comprehensive! I don't. even though, that we should be calling it parking, but it's essentially a look at parking management for on street and off street parking which we're just starting to scope. But we recognize that It needs to be a comprehensive look at all aspects of parking, not only traditional zoning kind of minimums, maximums, whether to have those, whether they're more or less those types of traditional things. But in addition to that being one leg of the stool, 2 other legs being Tdm's traffic demand management, providing more continuity and specificity

[162:01] and predictability around that is envisioned to be explored, as is Npp, the neighborhood parking plan. which has historically been used as a reaction to a need. There's a lot of people at Chautauqua at the university. So let's create parking in the neighborhoods affected by that, and turning that question on its head about whether it could be potentially, prospectively used as a tool for densification and new development in existing areas, and and somehow interplay with a new development. No conclusions on that, but just giving you a sense of the scope of the project that we've committed to as a work plan item at this point again. It certainly something you could include in your letter and and reinforce, but just do know that it's it's being planned. And if there's other items that come up tonight. I'd I'd be happy to let you know if that's already on the plan as well. Great thanks so much. So why don't we?

[163:01] Kurt and Laura, you guys are in charge? I do have a suggestion, which is that we start with the stuff. We were all pretty much in agreement on. See if we can get check those off first. and then get to the stuff that there seems to be some friction over. how does that sound to you guys? That sounds good to me. And I just wanna clarify an assumption that I have, which is, you know, the I really appreciated you reading the guidance from from the Council Assistant. Yeah, of what they suggest. We do. It sounds like majority consensus with minority. Dissent is possible. And so I guess my assumption was, this is, this letter is coming from planning board, and our decision rule is, 4 members need to say yes, to something to have make it happen. So my assumption is that in this letter, if 4 members want an item to stay in, then it would stay in, but absolutely opportunity for dissent. You know, to to describe that in whatever way the people who are not in the majority would like to

[164:00] does that work for everybody. Well, it works. It works for me. I think we'd wanna wait to. I have to say we've never. I've never been in a situation where we voted on elements of the letter, because we generally tried to reach consensus. But it's totally fine if we do it this way, but I think we should wait then until next week to have our vote, because George will. Actually, we'll all be the 6 of us will actually be here next week and that will be the last time. The only time that the full board meets before the letter is sent off to is finalized and sent off to city council. I think that sounds great to me. I would like for George to be part of this discussion, too, so maybe we wait until next week to think about which items are in and which items are out. And this week we just focus on clarification. And any word smithing that kind of thing. The other question I have is whether you know city Council has suggested top 2 or 3 items.

[165:03] I'm not sure that that is a restriction that we are only allowed 2 or 3 items. My sense is we don't have a whole lot of items on the list. Some may drop off if people feel that that they're already in the work plan, and we don't need to have them, although I'm totally open to keeping them in as a way to uplift or support or elevate staff priorities. but maybe next week we also talk about whether we feel we need to pair down to 2 or 3, or if we're okay with including more. And again, maybe have that conversation when we're all here. And what are folks? What are folks thoughts about that plan. Well, I my only my only comment is that we we do have a limited. There was a lot of emails that were did not comport with the Colorado Open Meetings Act and this is an opportunity to legally wordsmith, or if if someone says, I really want to put that in. And you know I've drafted this thing, and I'd like us to take a look at this tonight. Then I think this is an opportunity to do that.

[166:12] I'll just voice my quick opinion. In light of Brad coming forth and talking about the holistic view of parking Tdm. Neighborhood parking program, etc. I've been thinking a great deal about that, and I looked at your click, send here. I looked at your wording and the fact that you had it broken, those topics broken into 2 items. So I edited that into one, and I support keeping it in. And because a. It's great that it's in the work plan. But let's continue to emphasize it, because it's important to me. And I think it's important to most of the board. So I've drafted a little bit on that.

[167:05] and if we want to look at that tonight, I'm I'm I would be happy to do it. Yes, I'm I'm sorry if I seem to imply otherwise. I definitely think that's a great use of our time tonight is to look at what's already drafted either in the draft letter that Kurt and I proposed, or absolutely certainly anything that anybody else wants to bring in tonight for consideration, wordsmipping. And then we would have a a compiled letter for next time that we have worked on tonight to do the the voting and the final word smithing, and to Sarah's point. If there's things that the 5 of us here tonight say. by God, we love this, and we're going to keep this in spite of George not being here. then that's that's a clear indication. And if there is clear consensus tonight that hey? I'm not interested in that, then again, not to try to ace George. I want his involvement and his input. But if it's really clear

[168:03] that George or not. this something would would not be included whatever. Then I think, let's let's just go efficient. So, ml, why don't you? You have something to say? And I'll just say George did send us his thoughts. So we we do have them. But I there's we only have 5 of us here tonight. and there's only 6 of 6 of us on the board, even though it's a 7 person board, and I think it would be best for board cohesion if the 6 of us are able to finalize the letter. So, Emma, I'll go ahead, please. Thank you. So I have a question actually for Brad. And can can you? And my question is. would inclusion of a holistic carbon reduction impact lens.

[169:02] In our planning board letter. Would it give you and your staff any additional support from counsel would it make? Would it make any difference to your work if if we put something together that encouraged a tool for the boards and commissions and city council to use in in that regard. Honestly, I don't think it would. Ml, we are already gotten direction in maybe direction is not quite the right word. But we had had done a study session in the fall with Council on the energy code, and they had brought this issue up of embodied, and there was a lot of head nodding and agreement that this would be an important thing to bring forward as as a new work plan. Item it. It came in the context of some people asking, boy, shouldn't we be including this in the energy code? And and we explained that that really goes beyond the energy code into Ibc, and also

[170:14] would mean probably another a year delay or longer in the energy code. Then there was consensus that really. you know it wasn't something they wanted to do. None of us did but they they already expressed a clear preference, so no, I don't think there'd be any advantage. I appreciate that. You know, I'm just. I'm just looking for a tool, you know, that can that can help guide the decisions because it seems that it's a pretty significant consideration that we don't really have criteria or means to Look at the decisions we're making, too. So I appreciate that Staff is working on it, and I won't be trying to draft up something for our later.

[171:01] Kurt. Do you mind if I let Mark go. He's he's chomping at the bit to respond to Ml, I want to let him do that. Mel. You're I just wanted to respond in in the sense of saying, your idea got me thinking. And I spent some time. And I'm gonna ask if you have on the city's website for the Climate initiative website. And there is, there is substantial. There is no shortage of of tools and lenses and goals available to us, and that the city has has adopted. And my concern with your proposal was that it, it potentially is another work item to create another lens, to create another sort of thing versus actually creating actionable

[172:00] code or requirements. And so that that was after spending time on the climate initiatives site and looking at their work if I was, my feeling was, we have a lot there, we just need to implement it. Emel, do you want to respond at all or no. Okay, alright, Kurt, you've waited patiently. Thank you very much. Thanks. Yeah, just quickly. II we can see where the discussion goes tonight. But my feeling is with this letter, less is more, and my preference would be if there even 2, or perhaps 3 things that we can really get consensus on among this whole to all 6 of us. That that would be great, I think, if we start to get into the sense and says this. But ml, things that and stuff it could get really complicated. And the reality is, council has a lot of these letters coming in, and if anything gets beyond half a page or something. I think they're gonna have trouble processing at all. So I think the brevity brevity is would be a good goal.

[173:13] Okay? Alright. So maybe we start with what we have consensus on or or let's run through and see what we have consensus on. Can we get the letter put up somewhere. okay, Thomas is gonna put it up. Okay. Thanks.

[174:03] The only thing, George added, was the idea of an area plan for a diagonal plaza. Okay? And then he had some thoughts I actually brought his in. He had some thoughts about trying to take out some of the stuff. That was more wasn't really database, but was more I an opinion about what a consequence might be. I should go back and read you. I've got it right here. I avoided looking at it because of the whole, and now I wanna I didn't go back and read it, which is a well, we did put it. His letter was put into the public record. I still have time to read. I'm happy to read it while Thomas is pulling this up or not at your discretion. here I'll read it alright. So this is George's letter. All. I will be on an international flight the evening of our planning board meeting on Tuesday, and will not be able to attend. Thanks, Kurt and Laura, for providing the initial draft of the planning board letter.

[175:08] Here are some brief comments below, on what I am in support of, not in support of, and would like to add that I would like to be considered at the meeting overall. If I had my druthers I'd limit our letter to 3 items housing, affordability, zoning in Boulder Valley comp plan, housing, choice survey and a sub community plan for the diagonal plaza area. These are 3 impactful areas that will come before planning board and may not be on Council's priorities. I am also okay with adding the Tdm. I like limiting the 3 topics, but believe this is also important. and may not be prioritized by City council without our letter. I'm not okay with the airport, for the reason stated below. Parentheses. I don't have an informed opinion on the airport, because it's not an issue. Planning board has weighed in on further clarifications and thoughts on wordings below number one housing affordability as a focus area of the 2025 Bvcp update agreed. This should be on here. However, it's important not to overstate. It's not clear to me. Nor am I aware of any data that quote relative affordability has been improved. I would strike. That seems more like

[176:13] a political statement, not a data-driven statement. Item 2. Airport. This has not come to planning board in any meaningful way. We have not been studying it as a board, and I do not believe it's something we should weigh in on at this time. I do not have an understanding of the scenarios suggested. As it is not something. We've studied it. Pant, Pb. While I appreciate Laura's passion on this, and think she's leading a petition for the closure of the airport as a private citizen. I don't think it's appropriate that Pb. Weigh in on it without at least a study session of our own, or something coming in front of us that said what is clearly missing from this letter that has come in front of the board is subcommunity planning process for the diagonal plaza area. I believe we should replace the airport topic in this letter with urging a planning process begin in the diagonal plaza area. Given that redevelopment is happening now. Redevelopment there is happening now.

[177:03] and it is something that planning board has weighed in on 3 housing choice survey. This is critical for bold for bolder, and is at the core of much of our work. I would emphasize that we need to understand the needs of middle income and our community to retain and build this part of our community. As it is clear, a Barbell effect of luxury, housing, and low income housing is being developed while middle income housing is rarely, if ever, seen in planning in a ever seen by planning board. I believe this can also inform the airport and other planning efforts like future subcommittee plans, I'd move this to topic 2 number 4. Okay with Tdm, as worded. I think off street parking will be coming up, and they're varying views in the community stated in our meeting, I think leaving this out would be would be fine, because I'd like the things we suggest to be prioritized outside of what we know is already being prioritized by this Council. We are preaching to the choir rather than making an impact with this item. It is also true that Number one which was housing affordability as a focus area of Bvcp already includes parking as a component

[178:08] further stating that reduced or eliminated parking requirements would lower housing costs is not necessarily true, neither is that neither is that by doing so would necessarily result in more green space, etc. Some of the projects where we unbundle unbundled parking, like olive, have not yielded any additional affordability. I'm wary of data, light political statements in our letter from planning board. Thanks all for reading this and incorporating these thoughts into the next draft of the letter. Sorry to miss the meeting on Tuesday. All the best, George. I've placed the draft of the letter here, and then Mark's drafted section is below. Whenever we're ready to review that. Okay, why don't you guys go ahead and take charge? Kurt, do you want to lead on walking us through this first one. Sure, I can do that.

[179:02] So I'll I'll just read it. Housing affordability as a focus area of the 2025 Vvc update last year. Zoning for affordable housing project made important progress in allowing more smaller housing units to be built on a given site in certain zones, thereby improving housing, supply, and relative affordability. However, these reforms were limited in some zones by restrictions in the land, use descriptions of the Bvcp. We urge council to direct that one focus of the coming BBC update, be modifying these descriptions to further build upon the model of zone for affordable housing to unambiguously allow for and encourage more affordable dwelling types. and I think George wanted to strike the thereby thereby improving housing supply or the relative relative affordability. Yeah, so I have a suggestion, if you don't mind. II tried to come up with some alternative language that was much shorter, since we are trying to make this concise

[180:06] and it was as part of, because I think the II think it's something we want to encourage council to look at. and it's very simple. You don't need to type anything yet as part of Council's planning for the upcoming. Bvcp Update, consider additional land, use description revisions as a possible tool to catalyze more diverse dwelling types to serve the varied housing needs of our community. Oh. I don't want to interrupt you. This is not inconsistent with potentially adding this to the letter, but I did want to advise the Board that we had committed at the zoning for affordability. housing, affordability discussion with Council when they adopted that last year to a 2.0

[181:00] review of potentially expanding on on some of the discussion that came out of the council meeting. So we're already embarked on that, and part of that is looking at the the Zone districts and and how they interplay with the Boulder Valley. Comprehensive plan again. That doesn't need to dissuade you from having this. I just wanted to give you an update on on some of that progress is already being. Does does that work? Does that work plan? Item, have a name? Zoning for housing affordability? 2.0. Okay, actually, I think, phase 2 is the term that's using. So we could just much the same way. We could just be surfacing that other way. We would with Tdm, we could say, we incur we? We are supportive of city council, continuing to pursue phase 2 of zoning for affordable housing. Yeah. that saves us a lot of space.

[182:00] Kurt, what do you think of that suggestion? Okay, so just simply saying. II mean, it sounds like we might have a section of the letter that says, here's our top priorities. And also we just wanna uplift and support these already committed to work plan items such as zoning for affordable housing phase 2, and the parking and Tdm management reforms you're saying. and not add anything to it. But just say we love this priority. Please keep it in the work. Plan that to me could be a coda rather than item by item. and that would save council some time. It would save us some time. So my response to that is our job. We don't want to make more work for counts for staff. I think if we can indicate that we agree with the direction that council we'll be discussing at the or the items that counts will be discussing at their retreat. Personally, I think that's super helpful to them.

[183:10] If we totally disagreed. That would also be helpful to them that they know that. But I think the fact that 2, at least 2 of the items that we have are already on the work plan, and therefore dovetail nicely with what planning staff planning staff will be bringing to planning board in the coming year, II would actually prioritize that over new items. That's my sense. I would be fine with putting it first, right? But I'm just suggesting that it be shortened and not necessarily take the place of new items. Go ahead. And then I wanna that are really important. If if no one told me what

[184:02] staff already had in their work plan. and I had to prioritize. I would prioritize the housing affordability focus and Tdm. Regardless. But in the fact that just because Staff has them in their work. Plan doesn't mean that they don't need support and prioritization prioritization. And to that end I do question. II don't want the housing affordability 2 to be tied to the Bvcp update. Really at all. Cause, that's something that could. I don't know. Could it get done in 2024 long before long before the Bvcp update is done. So just implement your question that 2 in 24. Yeah, that's very much the end. Could it be in preparate also in prepar, and it will serve to serve to inform the Bbcp update. But I don't want to tie to the Bbcp update. I want it to happen before that. So does that make sense

[185:09] it? It does. But I thought that some of the items that were being considered in phase. 2 were put into phase, 2 at least, some of them because they would require changes to the Bbcp. And that Staff could not do that without changes to the Bbcp. But there may be some of them that can be done in advance of the Bbcp Update is that Brad? Am I remembering that correctly. You are. That is a little bit of an open question. We're studying that right now. You know it's fair to say that there will still be a look at the land. Use types in the update to the comprehensive plan, and that'll get into housing and housing types and density. So. That that's why I kind of preference and said that I don't know that they're necessarily mutually exclusive. You can include both. But I just wanted to make sure you were informed with the information that we are

[186:00] working on zoning for housing affordability to phase 2. Thank you, that's useful. I'm sure that we can write this in a way that says we're supportive of the zoning for affordable housing project phase 2, including items that may inform the update. Ml, you have your hand up. do I'm like, Oh, yeah, III will weigh in on agreeing that the sort of lend support to the work that is already being done by Staff. I think it. I think it's important for city Council to hear from us the things that we feel will help us be more effective. And so I think both the and I'm not exactly sure how much further the housing, the zoning for affordability can go with regards to

[187:08] making more opportunities available. I think the sort of stop the breaks are right now. The break that is on on hold for being able to fulfill what the zoning allows, ie. Duplexes and plexes, and in the other other zones that are limited currently by the intensity standards. identity and intensity standards of the land use? You know, that's a BBC thing. So I'm not exactly sure how much. how much zoning itself. How much more zoning itself can do? Of course I'm not working on it, and I'm not Brad. I I think that including Vvcp in that language will be important, because it holds some very

[188:05] big breaks on on housing affordability insofar, as land use goes and the Tdm. And the parking. I think, Mark, you, had a combination so that they would be kind of one. You should have that as as an email from me. Do we have some resolution on this first item. Well, I was saying, just to, just to conclude was, I'm in agreement that we prioritize and put at the top support things that staff is already working on before we outline. You know the couple of things that we are putting on the table that might not be already on staffs. So I will. Just supporting that

[189:00] format. Thanks. And, Kurt, what are your thoughts? Yeah. Well, I think there both of these items, both the the zoning for affordable housing 2 and the combination of Parking, Tdm and Npv. Are things that we could mention briefly and just say, as other people mentioned, we can. We support Staff's direction in. you know, in regard to these, I do think that for the zoning, for affordable housing. We should mention the relationship to the Vpc. Because I agree that that's an important component. Anybody have a problem with it sounds to me like, we're mostly all saying the same thing that these 2 items are already on the work plan. We want to reinforce them as priorities, and we want the housing. 2.0 2 connect to the Boulder Valley comp plan.

[190:01] inclusive, but not exclusive. Whatever. However, you want the language to read. Yep, okay. That's what I heard, too, and I think Kurt and I can make those changes excellent if you're okay with us. Continuing to be there. you signed up for it. You can't get out of it now. A wiggling, you see, is an interpretive dance trying to wiggle out of it. II might suggest going to things that we know are more sure we can skip this one for now, for now I don't know what else is on there. Kurt, what's next. That is, oh, the housing choice survey. I take it, this is Brad. This is not something that's on your work. Plan the housing, housing choice survey. Okay. Sarah, do you want to walk us through this one? You don't necessarily have to read it, but you want so as I said, yes, last week. we haven't had a housing choice survey since 2014. It's now a decade later. Lots of things have changed.

[191:02] I think, as we move forward with whatever kind of zoning changes we have. We want to know what the housing needs and desires are of people who live here, and people who commute in here and missing middle. I think it's fair to say that most of what has been built in the last 10 years meets the needs of a slice of of boulderites, and doesn't meet the needs of many, many others. Which is why we have so many in commuters. So I think it's actually a valuable building block for any discussion of zoning, housing, policy, height, density, intensity, you know, setbacks, it's all driven by what it's II personally think it should all be driven. Not all, but it should partially be driven by what we understand the needs. The housing needs to be

[192:03] so I think it's a valuable add to the discussion. So that's my take on it. Mark, is it? Okay? If I go ahead? Yes, take it away. So mark. My! My question about this is. is this asking a question that we all know the answer to in in terms of what do we want. We want missing middle. I agree. We are building X, we're we're building low income housing that's supported by Bhp, we are building rental apartments of one and 2 bedroom sizes. and we're building expensive single family homes. you know, where someone wants to tear down the house. and so we know what's what's missing. and but by doing a survey we we answer that question again. but is the is the actual solution to that? The construction defects

[193:03] law reform of construction defects law, that that in combination with insurance restrictions No. One and developers not getting insurance. is that the actual cause of us, not building for sale, condominiums and flats that we would be building because there's a huge demand for them. But no one can get insurance, and the construction defects laws that we have on the books are prohibiting that. That's what I understand from the development community is, we know we know they want it. We can't build it. Well, so if you actually read the 2,014 housing choice service the plurality. No, there's no majority for any one particular housing type. But the plurality for us particularly, for in commuters who already own a home with a yard and parking. they want the opportunity to own something, and they want a yard right? Because many of them are families with kids, and we don't build that. And our condos aren't that way, either. I live in a condo. I do not have a yard, and most condos don't. They might have a slab in the back the way we're building them now.

[194:10] So the I think that it's the the policy solutions which are state issues are state issues, but there are local issues that have that would affect zoning or rezoning. And I think that we have operated. We have let our housing policy be driven by what developers want to build. not by what? Folks who want to live here need or work here need or not adequately reflecting the needs of folks who want to live or or care need, and the consequence is that we have families with children moving out of town. They're moving to Louisville, Longmont, and Lafayette. Our school populations are declining.

[195:00] That is a problem for a city that you want to be a robust, multigenerational city and also more socioeconomically diverse city than what we have. So I still think it's valuable. I mean, if if there's not, if people aren't in agreement with me, that's totally fine. But I still think it's very valuable. And I actually would love to hear what what Ml. Has to say. since we can't see her. Eml, did you have your hand up? I didn't, but I had my eyes open. Please go ahead. Open. I you know. And hearing both what Mark and and Sarah are saying about this. I think we're talking about. Or I think the intent was, let's get some data. We're working on old data. If we're working on data at all. the. you know, the the most amount of housing that we have.

[196:03] that we have. Passed on this board has been student housing. and it's been a mighty lot of student housing. and I don't know where that need falls in the category. What percent of the need is that in our city we don't know. And I think, this arms item is simply saying, we just need more information. So I I like information. I think data driven explorations. Are a wise way to perceive in many instances. So I I don't. I don't see it as seen a a problem. I think that the City Council might be reminded, oh, yeah, we did do a survey back a decade ago, and maybe this time

[197:04] so anyway, that's my thought about that I think I think it's about gathering current information which which it's always useful. Thank you. Ml, Kurt. You have your hand up, and I also have a comment. Okay, sounds good. I don't think they support this. I don't think that the obstacle really is lack of data. I mean, we had data in 2,014, and we didn't really act on it. And we could get data again. And I think it would pretty much show the same thing, and the question is would react on it. I think the obstacle here is more political will than the lack of data. So if this is going to take time and resources, or staff energy, or whatever that could be better devoted into into other things. Then I don't think that it's a worthwhile exercise.

[198:03] Thank you, Kurt. My comment is. I definitely believe in getting data and old data. Decade is definitely old data. The major criticism that I have heard about the housing. Choice study is that it's divorced from economics right? Like everybody wants a house with a yard. But the price of that in boulder is going to be very different for the square footage than what you get somewhere else. So I guess. would it be possible to do another housing choice survey, but include the economic piece like, would you be willing to move to Boulder if you could get a town home with a yard that costs X amount and give realistic costing of what these different housing types would cost. Because, yeah, everybody will say that they want a certain housing type. But when it comes to making that choice for their family. They're Gonna look at. What can I buy in Lewisville versus? What can I buy in Boulder and make a realistic economic choice. So I'd be supportive of doing a housing choice survey if it included some of that economics somehow, and I don't know how to do it. You know I'm I'm not the surveyor, but I don't know. What do you think of that, Sarah? I think that would be fine. II think so.

[199:14] you know. when we did, when we did the zoning for affordable housing. What we approved was allowing triplexes on larger lots. and I said several times, I think to Brad. why aren't we considering? Allowing small cottage multiple small cottages on large lots like pop poplar? Is it called Poplar Grove? That area, those 10 little cottages. And it's not what we considered. But there are large lots like we. We could revisit this question of what we're allowing on large lots which would allow us to build the kind of small single family homes that share a yard that you know, share a common area and have one parking spot, and you know all that stuff

[200:03] if we're thinking creatively, and we are incentive but not incentivized. But we recognize that that is a desired housing type rather than or we'll just build town. And II can't now remember why we chose town homes over something else for those large lots. But if I think I think we can be thinking we can marry the new data with zoning afford, with zoning changes that might bring us more diverse housing stock than we are getting that we have gotten in the last 10 years. Thank you, Sarah. Can I ask Brad in zoning for affordable housing. 2 is doing the kind of large lot reassessment to allow for cottage homes and that type of thing that Sarah is suggesting. Could that be part of the zoning for affordable housing. 2.0 is that on the table I think that is being considered. But I can't say that perhaps

[201:00] absolute share certainty. you know. Perhaps we could put that in that item that we would suggest, considering that cause. I think I saw a lot of heads nodding that people might prefer cottage homes, small cottage homes to duplexes, and I mean a preference is just. Oh, it's widening the aperture like I don't think it's a preference necessarily sorry. II will check with Hello, real quick. She's been in a few meetings. I haven't been, you know. If there's been discussion about cottages versus town homes, and some of that discussion. I think we're not quite that far along. Yeah, that's what I remembered. Yeah. maybe we could tuck that in. But Kurt oh, I was just gonna say that II totally agree with Sarah. I think it would be fantastic if we could allow small cottages on large lots. I think that would be wonderful. I'm not sure that we need more data to do that, though I think you know we could. We could do that tomorrow. And we know I can. 100% guarantee that if we somebody built those they would, people would love them right, would buy them or rent them, or whatever.

[202:09] It's just not clear to me that we need more data for that. If basically, any kind of reasonably attractive housing that we provide in Boulder people are going to walk. Thank you, Curt. I'm all your hand is up. So I'm just thinking aloud. Do. Is there a connection between the supporting the continued affordable housing? zoning exploration? And this this survey to try to to speak to what Mark was saying. It's just like, well, we don't do anything about. We have data, but we don't do anything. We don't do anything that actually informs a different outcome. That I'm wondering if we can intend

[203:09] actionable items by relating the survey to accountability in zoning, just to start creating pathways to achievable results to getting some results. I think that has been our disconnect where you talk to anybody in the city boulder, and you hear the same thing right? We we wanna be able to either stay here if we've already. We're already here, or we want to be able to to live here and and not be subject to rent and not be subject to all those uncertainties. so I'm I'm just wondering if making a relationship between the 2 would be put new thinking in front of council so that it it's it's like.

[204:04] we want different outcomes. Yeah. thank you. Ml, being an integrator here. Sarah, you're the author of this item. What do you think about is there? Do you see some kind of merger with the zoning for affordable housing? Or do you feel like it's still a separate item? Well, I think that since the 2.0 is already happening, it should be a separate item so that we again, we're prioritizing. What's we're we're reinforcing support for what's already happening. And then we can have a separate item that says, we see this, we we see this the collection of this kind of data as helping to inform the 2 point o work. So make it separate. That's how I would go about it. Okay? So I'm gonna defer to the original author of that provision and say, Sarah, are you okay with including you said, you're okay with including something about pricing, trying to include economics, economics, economics of it. And if if that's what a consultant

[205:05] is able to do. Okay? So in terms of next steps for that particular item, you know, we talked about some of these other items. We can condense them down a bit. But it seems like yours is a a new item. Would you suggest any changes to the language based on what we've talked about tonight other than including that economic piece? Or do you want to just sort of mul on it and bring it back for next week? Well, I'm getting ready to go on an international trip. So I'm not actually gonna be working on this. So I, you take this and edit it around as you see fit, and add what you see connected back to 2 and add the economics piece. I'm fine with whatever you come up with. Okay, thank you. Like, I think you could actually even edit it now, but you could probably edit it down quite a bit. And to add back in the the 2 items that Ml. Has brought up the connection to 2 and the economic part. Okay, I think Kurt and I can do that if you're comfortable, and if you want to send us any edits, if you like. You're just struck by inspiration. And you want to move on to the next item.

[206:19] Okay, moving on. Can we pull back up the original. Okay? So refinement, adoption of Tdm policy, mark, you, sent us some language that would combine this to the bottom at the very bottom. Okay. yeah. Go all the way to go into March language. Now. is that Mark's drafted section. Okay, stop and stop there. So II just drew a line. I was editing your stuff. And anyway, all that stuff below I'm not including. So start with Site Review applicants. Yes. Okay, do you want to give us a second to just read through it for anybody who hasn't read through it. No, just read through it. First. Okay, I don't think it. We don't need to read it out loud, but we can just take a look at it.

[207:18] Alright. Okay. So just one thing that jumps out at me from a facilitation perspective. Did everybody have a chance to read it? Yeah, I see. Ml, nodding. Kurt, did you have a chance to read it yet? Kurt's nodding. Sarah's good. The one thing that jumps out at me is it doesn't currently refer to the fact that this is a work plan item for staff, and I think that we wanted to just kinda uplift it as staff are already working on this. But I also see there's some stuff in here that you might want council to think about right like the fact that the current tdm, toolkit is vague, subjective. You wanna be creative and forward thinking so. I'm wondering if we can combine this into something short that refers to Staff's current work plan. Item.

[208:04] sure, I think the the last paragraph. So you know, adding a few words to the last paragraph and adding on that, this is this, this, for something like this is currently a staff work plan is is fine. You could. Yeah. okay. Do you want to take a stab at that? Or do you want me and Kurt to take a stab at that for next week. Why don't you take what I have and condense it down? Okay, shut it down. Kurt, are you good with that? Kurt's got a thumbs up any discussion, Eml or Sarah. I think it's fine. I would actually just use the last paragraph. I think the last paragraph like sums it up really nicely, and add add some clauses and and be done with it. It was beautifully written, and I think it's well. It's well taken right that you have made this point

[209:11] several times, and I think we've all heard it. And we all agree with you that this taking on this work plan. Item. Say again, Brad, are we talking about? I don't know. It's almost it's 9 37. So George had an item relate to diagonal plaza. I don't remember the name of that project. Bill Hollick's project that is on the old sports authority parcel at Diagonal Plaza, and at the time there was a discussion of well, there was a discussion of should there also be an area planning process? Because that is a very large site, and it's owned by. There's multiple parcels with multiple owners. And if everybody builds their own thing, you're not going to have a very cohesive or coherence neighborhood. And it could be this really incredible neighborhood center?

[210:18] and so again, I'm putting words in George's mouth. I don't know exactly what he was meaning, but I think that that was a it was a It's a really good idea. Frankly, area planning is a very valuable way to create cohesive. cohesive parts of the city, and in that area in particular. This is this is just my opinion that diagonal plaza in particular, should be a center, a neighborhood center, where all the surrounding suburban style neighborhoods are able to bike and walk to for restaurants and grocery stores and the gym, and whatever you know, whatever else, and if we don't have an area planned for that we are, we cannot guarantee that that part of town is going to get that kind of

[211:11] a heartbeat. So I actually think it's a really good idea. Okay? And I just looked back at George's email to make sure I'm remembering it. And the only thing he says is a sub community plan for the diagonal plaza area. I think he means a sub area plan. But yeah, an area plan. Yeah. And area plans are actually a fundamental part of the bowl of rally comp plan. We, we encourage area planning as a. as a, as a tool for building a this is not the right language, but building comprehensively. So anyways. Kurt has his hand up thoughts. Kurt. Yeah. My question is whether this is mooded by the fact that this project is already going forward. I mean, that's certainly not covering all of diagonal plaza, but I think that they pro the area plan probably would have had more valuable value when we had the entire site to work with.

[212:08] So I don't know, Sarah, you have any thoughts on that. Well, II agree with you about that statement. It would have been way more valuable to do the area plan before that project went through. There were pressures there were. There were public a lot of public comments pushing back against the idea of an area plan prior to building. some of which had to do with that development, I believe, is in the opportunity zone, and the developer was eager to benefit from it being from getting started. financially benefit, I mean. He even said that they were excited. It wasn't Bill. It was the guy from trammel crow. Thank you. Trammel crow and so then we suggested, Well, why don't we do them? Side by side you go ahead and build your building, and at the same time we'll be doing an error plan, and that got shot down, too. But I think that you're you are correct, that it would have been more valuable. But there's still

[213:09] three-fourths of that acreage left. so I don't think and what's being built is attractive, and it's got it, you know it's it's nice enough. II don't. That's not. I don't mean to be dismissive of it. It's it's a nice. It's nice, and they've created a including the older housing partners buildings that are part of that area. So I think it's still a very. I can make a good argument for it still, being a very valuable process for the city to undertake. Curt is nodding. Did you want to respond, Kurt? No, thank you. Okay, Mark. Just clarification. is an area plan. What what is the size requirement for an area plan? What? How do you define an area and versus a subcommunity?

[214:06] And and is this more like a parcel plan. Because it's act, is it? Is it small for an area I was gonna say, the size was 8.3 6 acres, but that seemed flipping. But it is getting a little late. No, II don't know of any distinction between sub community and area plan, but I I'm also relatively new. There might be some distinction, and I think there are 10 set subcommunities that comprise the entire communities. Yeah, the entire city of Boulder. So you can go and see a subcommunity map and see. Every inch of boulder falls into one of those subcommittees and area plan is something smaller that fits within a subcommittee plan for some defined area. But I don't know that there's any definition of what would need to be in an area plan. But it's not as it's not as it's not as onerous as what they did for East Boulder subcommunity plan. It's described in the Bvcp. I think it has the subcommunities and then talks about what an area PIN is. And

[215:11] there have been very small area plans. The Junior Academy plan was an area plan. So that okay. any more discussion before we move to our. What I think is our last item. Okay, can we put the language back up from the original letter?

[216:02] If you tell me where to go? Scroll up, please to item number 2. Okay. So further study of airport scenarios 3 and 4. Has everybody had a chance to read this. This was in the original proposal, seeing nods from Ml, okay. And I know Kurt has read it. So I will just briefly say that I will respectfully disagree with George. I think this has come to this body in the form of. There was a liaison to the airport community conversation for a year, which was me and I spent a year learning about this topic. We did have very abbreviated discussion about it here, at planning board and in our in our meeting, I think. 2 2 meetings ago we had a very lengthy report from Staff with the conclusion of that airport community conversation. and this item is meant to build upon that conclusion from the airport community conversation and suggest a next step to fill in some missing data.

[217:02] Could we scroll down to these 2 diagrams. So I take George's point that he doesn't understand much about these scenarios, and I would say not to be flippant. But nobody really does. This is the extent of the description of these scenarios that exist that 500 page report that was given on the airport community conversation. There's no additional description of what these scenarios mean. And so this item is just meant to say, Hey, this doesn't feel like enough information for Council to make potentially a very significant land use decision. And one of these scenarios. Scenario 3 is airport growth and addition of uses within the context of an airport and the other one is the decommission scenario decommission replaced with a neighborhood. So this is not favoring one of those over the other. These were the top 2 scenarios that emerged from that airport community conversation. There were 4. These are the 2 that rose to the top based on staff analysis and based on community. Input. And so this is really just meant to say.

[218:03] these sketches are not enough information to make a very serious land use decision, and that we, as planning board think that Council should have more information. So I'll stop there and say any questions or discussion. Is it okay? Yes, Mark, okay. Would you envision that the the studying or expansion of, or elaboration on items 3 and 4 from this from the would have does that change anything as a community, informed enough now about a decommissioning possibility cost the actual possibility at all. Do? Did the airport study give us enough information? And would this have to create additional information. Or is this just these 2 scenarios? We already have this whole

[219:13] decommissioning piece over here to inform a decision? That's a great question. So we do not yet have that information. But Council requested that staff study the feasibility of decommissioning both economic and legal feasibility, as well as talking to the Faa and come back with results. Those results were initially thought that they would come back in Q one of this year. But Staff have informed us that it's going to be Q 3 of this year. And that's why there's that line in that item that says that at Council's discretion they could hold off on this work plan item until they get that feasibility information and then see if they want to direct staff to pursue further information. The main concern is just putting it on Staff's radar for the work plan, so that we don't end up in the same situation that we had last time, where it wasn't in the work plan, and that is part of the reason why that additional analysis has not been done.

[220:05] And I did want to ask Brad. You know, Brad, you mentioned that there were items in our letter that Staff might already be working on. and if Staff are already working on this to your knowledge. I'm happy to bump it into that section of we support that staff are already working on this. Yeah, we're we're not working on it in in the same sense, we are certainly engaged with transportation and mobility. Who is the lead sponsor in this? But this kind of gets to earlier conversations about land use designation versus the process that they've been initiating on the scenarios and others. Thank you, Brad. so it sounds like it's not currently in Staff's work plan to do to do this work? So

[221:01] Laura, who who did? Who developed those scenarios? The scenarios were developed by the transportation staff and their consultant, Kimly Horn as part of the airport community conversation. So they what if I understand? Maybe I don't understand the The recommendation here? the item we're asking. planning. Who are we asking to take on the the steps that you feel the gathering of information and assessing that information so that city Council can have a better understanding of. Who are you asking to do that? Yeah. So I assume that it would be a collaboration between transportation, notably the airport staff and planning, planning and development services.

[222:05] The housing, the the decommission and create a neighborhood would require planning PN. Ds, input and possibly also so that scenario 3 does include, as it says in the title, Limited Housing, which would be work, live work, housing over hangers. And I don't know if P. And Ds. Would need to comment on that, or if the airport staff are able to do that piece. But I assume it would be a collaboration between those 2 departments. And right now they don't currently have a collaboration between those 2 departments. The Airport community conversation, as Brad noted, was led by the transportation department with, I think, very limited input from P and Ds, and no significant input into the development of the scenarios, as I understand it. But I could be wrong about that. No, that's correct. I mean, we're collaborating in as much as we're. you know, making sure that yeah same city. And also, you know, making sure that we're informed.

[223:03] you know, that the transportation mobility is informed about any land use aspects of it. But to date that hasn't been part of that hasn't been a main part of the scope of their work. This is what's being advocated, as I understand it. Thank you. Did that answer your questions, Emily. maybe I need to see the language again. Shall we pull it up? Yeah, that would be helpful. Thank you. Okay. While we're doing that any other questions or discussion. The hour is growing late, but I appreciate everyone's indulgence that just because this item is last, it doesn't get short shrift. So yes, thank you. So I'll I'll comment and Laura and I have discussed my concerns which have to do with her wearing 2 hats here and

[224:01] I don't need to go into those concerns because she and I have had that conversation, but I think it's risky for public trust in a board that has the responsibility and power that we have for a member of the Board to be both privately, the lead on a on A for pursuing a particular outcome which II may or may not actually agree with. And then bringing to the board an effort to help move that forward. So I have most. Mostly my concern is about the implications of of of the intersection of Laura's personal advocacy work and her role on planning board.

[225:09] And, Sarah, I appreciate you bringing that up. You probably can anticipate. My response will be to turn to Hella and say, I do think it's important for the public trust, as Sarah pointed out in this body to clarify what you know, what the city's code of conduct requires, and whether planning board discussion of this item should be in any way related to hindered by my private political speech. Ii don't think that it? I think planning board discussions of the item is okay. And II think it's fine for Laura to bring up the item. Laura does have

[226:01] private political speech rights, first amendment rights when she's acting as a private citizen. And I've looked at the code of conduct and the code looks at conflict situations mainly in terms of whether there's some kind of value that's conveyed to the public official that's acting, whether there's a conflict. But if the the private citizen is in the same situation as a large group of the community. Then there is no conflict and in. In Laura's situation. She's not receiving any kind of personal benefit from her, her efforts and association. What? What might happen at the airport or not? She. She doesn't have any property interests out there. Her family doesn't. She doesn't have any contractual relationships where where people with whom she has those relationships might benefit from it.

[227:05] She would be affected by what happens at the airport in the future, just like most members of the community, would be affected. So if I could just respond to that because this is we've already had this. You guys should know we've already had this conversation. And I don't think this is a question about code. I think this is a question about wearing one hat at a time, and I appreciate Laura's enthusiasm and focus on this particular issue. But II there are hundreds of residents of Boulder who disagree strongly with what your hope for outcome is, and they're going to come before planning. Maybe they'll come before planning board. If this ever comes before planning board. and essentially you're it's a

[228:00] it's a appearance. Impropriety seems like such a strong word, but it it I just think the appearance of divided interest on your part is really problematic, for for how the rest of the community understands our responsibilities here. So I've said this to Laura. We've gone back and forth on this. We're not going to be in agreement on this, but I want people to understand why I'm why I have a problem with this. and and I would like to respond to that. And then mark so member. And and this is something that I've talked about with the attorneys, and I talked about them. I talked about this issue with them before I acted in any way politically on this issue. Outside of planning Board as a private citizen. that by being a member of planning board, we do not give up our rights of political association or our rights of political speech. Members of Planning board have written letters to the editor. Members of Planning board have expressed strong opinions to city council, both in writing and verbally.

[229:02] Members of planning board have donated to political causes. They have endorsed political measures, they have worked on political campaigns, and I think it's a very slippery slope to say that we don't have the right to do that, and I understand that you may see a petition effort as being different from those other things, but I don't think they're different in kind. and I don't think that's a road that we want to go down is saying that just because a planning board member expresses an opinion in public, even a strong opinion that they are then somehow compromised in talking about that item before planning board. Because you're this is one thing I talked about with Hella and Laurel. Our other attorney is that if planning board members were expected to not have political speech and to remain neutral on legislative topics, not quasi-judicial, but legislative topics. You either wouldn't get anybody applying for planning board who has any kind of experience on the issues, or and this is my personal take. This is not something that an attorney has said. or you risk having just driving that activity underground and not being transparent about it. So my personal choice is to be transparent about what I am doing and why.

[230:08] And here, for this particular item before planning board, it is not advocating an outcome is advocating for good planning. It is advocating for data the same thing that we were talking about with the housing choice study. It's saying that we don't currently have the data for City Council to make an informed decision between these 2 scenarios, one of which will be heavily supported by people who advocate for the airport. and one of which will be heavily supported by people who advocate for decommissioning. This is not thumb on the scales. This is advocating for good data. So that's that's my pitch about why I'm bringing this forward to planning board in this way. If 4 members of planning board do not agree that this should be in the letter, then it won't be in the letter. But for me this is something that is a potentially a really significant planning issue for the city that has not been adequately described, not even studied, but even described, of what these scenarios mean.

[231:02] So I will stop there. Mark, you, had your hand up. Yeah. I sometimes sometimes an item in a work plan letter. It's just an item in a work plan letter. And if I read that item on its face to explore the 2 scenarios that were the highest vote getters in a Council initiated process, regardless of anything you had to do with it outside of that. So II, Sarah, I share your concerns about the appearances of impropriety, etc. But in this case, when I read the suggested language and and look at what it is. And I look at that and leave everything else aside. That's actually, I think that's a good work plan item. So I'm gonna sit. Leave it at that. Kurt or Ml, Ml, has her hand up.

[232:04] Thank you. So I you know, III think that the bottom line regards to the 2 hats are the one head or the many hats. I think it's a matter of perception, not legality. Really is what it what it'll come down to if the you know. citizens of older perceive it as Oh, my gosh! There's a conflict. But anyway, that's just my perspective of that whole thing, the the I think for me. And I wonder if if Brad can I ask you a question here you have to come up. So in looking closer at what Laura is proposing to me that looks like a concept design.

[233:02] I'm not sure what it would look like to you. But I'm wondering, is this sort of something that planning and development or city in some capacity would do outside of a working group or a directed like the airport study was. it seems to me like it's a concept plan. Yeah, II don't know the exact semantics. I don't know if you could put that back up there again, Thomas, but when I've read the letter as drafted, II kind of interpret that as a work plan. where was the language? There? It's in the middle. It says, a work plan item to estimate potential full and impacts of each of these scenarios, including factors such as potential number of housing units, including permanently affordable housing, potential number of businesses, etc.

[234:06] Yeah. So whether you know you would call that a concept plan or a sub community plan, or a. you know land use type plan. II mean, these are all things Kevin implied by that? I don't know if that answers your question really is. does this Oh. recommendation just to cancel? Does this sound like something that your department for a city department would could undertake. Is this a common thing? Do you guys do this? I can. I just clarify. This is not meant to be the level of detail of the kind of concept plans that we see. This really is meant to be estimating impacts round numbers, because right now, the only numbers that we have on this are coming from advocates, and the idea here is that it should not be coming from advocates to be coming from city staff advocates on one side or the other

[235:09] so to answer, the question, yeah, I, this is the type of work of planning department would do. Obviously, would we? With direction, we would have to weigh it against other work plan items direction from council. That kind of thing. But and would you know, would we have consultants? Yes, no. would. Obviously, we'd work with other departments, too. So this is common. this this would not be something that that falls out of what regular scope of of work items? No, I think it's within our our it's within our competencies as a department. Thank you. Can I make a suggestion? The last sentence, the work plan could be held to start after the staff report is delivered regarding feasibility.

[236:05] I might move that up. since we are There's still information coming in. That council is going to take into account as they decide. and we got 9 smart people on council. They're gonna ask all kinds of questions. So I have no doubt that whatever comes back to them in will prompt lots of conversation. But I think if if we if this work plan, item proposal is included to frame it as something to happen after the decommissioning report. The feasibility report comes in a to me. I'm more comfortable with that. Just because it's it's a more

[237:00] it meets. It's more reflective of the actual timeline that the city has is working on. I would be fine with that. Thank you for that, Sarah. Okay, any more discussion of this before we say we'll come back with a new draft of all of the items that we discussed. I don't know, Kurt, if you I don't see your hand up. But you've been quiet. Hi! I'm just getting tired. But no, I don't have anything to say. I've been taking some notes on some of this. And so, yeah, I'm I'm good with everything that's been discussed. So I will close this part of the discussion and turn it back over to Sarah. I just want to say, thank you, everybody, for your great comments, your good humor, and your patience with all of this tonight. Great, thank you. A debrief calendar check anything we need to know, except that all of March. Our meetings will be online, so no free, no free lunches, no free dinners.

[238:05] Yes, and just that. I've got. I went ahead and scheduled the second draft review for this item that we've been discussing for next week's meeting. Great! Thank you so much. You are awesome. Thank you. Brad, anything besides, you like to go home. No, I appreciate the robust discussion. And it does bring to mind that maybe we should bring a summary of our work plan to you at some point in the future. So 2 thumbs up from me. Alright, that'd be great. A thumbs up from our folks distant. All right. I am adjourning the meeting, and is 10 6. We will see each other next week via zoom. Oh, sorry! Hello! Sorry! I'm sorry II may have missed it. The next plan for the letter are Curt and Laura gonna work on a next draft.

[239:00] Okay, so Mark is kidding. Mark is our fiercest defender of open meeting laws. So I think the next step I'll I will clarify so that you hear us say it, that the next step is for Kurt and I to take the feedback that was received tonight, create a second draft and send it to this board for absolutely no further comment or discussion until our next meeting. and II would recommend that you send it to Thomas, and then that Thomas adds it to the packet. Oh, great idea! And then any further discussion of it should occur at the next meeting. Ella had an ulterior motive of making our process better. Thank you, Hela. We will do that. Thank you. Anything else. Hela. No, that's that's it. We are now at 1007, officially adjourned. Goodnight, thank you.