December 3, 2024 — Planning Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

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

[0:26] Looks like. Amella dropped off of the attendee list so she might be having a problem trying to join as a panelist. Looks like maybe she left and is trying to rejoin. okay, okay, well, I think we do have a quorum. You do. At 4 we should probably go ahead and start the meeting. Let's go ahead and start. So good evening. Planning board. It is 6 0. 3 Pm. Call the meeting to order and pass this over to board Member Kaplan. Thank you. So good evening, everybody. I'm Laura Kaplan. I'm not the chair of the planning board. We our chair is absent tonight. George couldn't be here, and our vice chair is also absent. Mark could not be here, so we need to elect an acting chair, and I have volunteered to serve as acting chair. If that is acceptable to the board.

[1:13] does somebody want to make a motion? I move that Laura be the acting chair for this meeting. Second, any discussion. Okay, I guess we'll go ahead and vote on. That is a show of hands. Or does it need to be roll call? We can just do everyone in favor. Say, aye. everyone in favor say, aye, aye, opposed. Okay, motion carries. I will be the acting chair for tonight. Thank you. Folks today is December 3, rd 2024. Thomas, are we recording? Yes, we are, thank you wonderful. And aside from Mark and George, who are absent, I think all board members are present. Mason is joining us online, and Ml. Will be joining us online shortly. Here in the room are myself, Claudia and Kurt.

[2:07] We only have 2 public hearing items on the agenda tonight. There are no approval of minutes and no discussions of dispositions or call ups or continuations. I'm just going to briefly name what those public hearing items are before we go to public participation. So the 2 items that we will have public hearings on tonight are around occupancy and changing the city code related to occupancy, to comply with state law and similarly with adus. Looking at the city code updating that to comply with recent State law. So if there are members of the public present who wish to speak on either of those 2 items, please hold your comments for those public hearings, and with that we will do open comments, and I will pass it over to Vivian Castro Wooldridge. who will go through the rules for public participation, and run the open comment session. Thank you. Chair. Good evening, everybody, and thank you to the members of the public who've joined us tonight in person and also online. And I'll just read through these roles. Sorry these rules rather quickly.

[3:08] 1st of all, the city is engaged with community members to Co. Create a vision for productive, meaningful, and inclusive civic conversations, and this vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members, staff and board and commission members as well as democracy, for people of all ages, identities, lived experiences and political perspectives. And we have more information about this vision and the process to develop it on our website next slide, please. and the following are examples of rules of decorum found in the Boulder revised Code, and other guidelines that support the productive atmospheres, vision, and these will all be upheld. During this meeting all remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city business. No participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person. Obscenity, racial epithets, and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability to conduct the meeting are prohibited.

[4:00] and we ask, the participants identify themselves by 1st and last name in person. And also if you're online, and if you're not able to do that, you can let us know your 1st and last name, using the QA. Function. and to let us know for those of you joining us online, that you would like to speak. You can hit on the hand button virtually, that you can see here on the screen. And you can also get to that same virtual hand through the Is it the emoticons button? If you can go to the next slide, Thomas? Through this reactions button, and in person. I believe you have to sign up and Thomas can help you with that in person. So next sort of step in the process is, if anybody would wish to speak for open comment, we would start with people who are joining us in person believe we have one person, and then we'll go to our participants online, and each person will have 3 min to speak to items that are not public hearing items. And we do have a timer in the room.

[5:05] you can just close the slides, Thomas. We have a timer in the room. We do. We have a problem with that anymore, Thomas, or we should be able to see it throughout. I'm just gonna try to switch back and forth between the 2 cameras that we do have available. So right now. Okay. The timer up. Great. Okay. Should we start with in person. Yeah, that would be great. We do have one person in the room signed up to speak, and that's 1st speaker, is David Olskamp. David, please stepped up to the podium and give your comment. Thank you. Hi, David Olskamp, 1590, Hawthorne Avenue. You guys know me by now. I've been here for 2 meetings. Just was here to kind of provide an update. I had a meeting with the city attorney's office on the 20 second. It was very productive in terms of actually walking through substantive matters. We looked at

[6:01] the permit documents which again have the wrong address. They were for a different shed. wrong property owners. Wrong address, then, for the encroachments. We looked together at the Redfin listing 2017 before the current owners bought the property, and there's no patio and the city's memo again. One of the things was kind of like, oh, this! These people bought it. They didn't make any encroachments themselves, so we're just going to try to help them out. But unfortunately they did make encroachments. So just those were some of the factual things that we went over, and there was no disagreement. It seemed in terms of that. There were errors made in terms of the information was presented this this body, and so I just really haven't heard anything from the city yet since then. So I was just here to kind of understand, if you guys have received an update and what the status is. I kind of feel like a human pinball, 1st talking to planning and then to the attorney's office, and then, you know, not hearing anything back. Yep, so I can provide planning board an update. I will be providing you all a memo by the end of this week on the a legal confidential memo to you all in the end of this week, and

[7:12] we'll give you updates on that. And we can follow up Mr. Oskamp as well. Following that memo. okay, thank you, David, and thank you, Christy. David, your time is still going. If there's more that you want to say. not too much, I mean, I think I had asked. I said, like, could you guys just write a memo coming from? You guys would carry more weight than for me? I mean, these are the things I've mentioned there, and those were among the other things I mentioned in my initial appearance here they were just, you know. Mistakes were made. And you know, you guys were given information that unfortunately was incorrect. Don't think that anyone intentionally did it, but they were material facts in terms of what you guys relied on to make the decision. When I asked kind of that memo could be done. It was kind of like, well, we're city attorney's office serves the the city. I'm not as just a resident, I guess the client, so I can't direct. And so I'm happy to hear that there's gonna be a memo. I would love it if it was actually non confidential. Given the fact that I don't necessarily see a purpose for it to be confidential

[8:13] because it relies on public records and information. Okay, thank you. Generally we do all of our comment, and then we have a chance for both staff to respond, and for the board to respond. So thank you so much, David, we'll go to the online commenters. Great and just 1 point out, Ml. Has been able to join us. so we have one person with their hand raised. If others would like to speak for open comment. Please go ahead and raise your hand, so we know that you would like to speak. Please go ahead, Lynn Siegel, you have 3 min. You, said city attorney, who? Teresa? Yay, Vivian, I'm wasting my time here, please.

[9:01] I asked you who was addressing David. You, said the city attorney. I don't know who. There are lots of city attorneys. This is a public comment, forum. It's not a question and answer of the Board, so please continue with your public. No, I need my question answered, please. I'll wait in the Qa. I guess. and this is my time, so you cannot take it away from me. please, who was addressing David. It's not an act of Congress. It was Hello, Pannawig, that he had. That's enough. I know. Hella. Good. Thank you. Okay. My concern is this, 5 bedroom apartments increase. The occupancy limits a lot. I know that's on for later in the hearing. But this is interrelated and those are at 7, 7, 7 Broadway, and increase the density considerably. I've never heard of 5 bedroom apartments.

[10:04] There are 2, 3, and 5 bedroom apartments in 5 stories, and over a couple 100, maybe 400 bedrooms rented by the bedroom. Since this onset of renting by the bedroom. It changes the whole game on financial ability, for you know, people to live in boulder and and also, for you know, for affordability. In general, it raises the property values considerably, and taxes, etc. So My concern right now is I'm getting I'm getting a energy retrofit from this from care program. And it's it was just a complete waste of money. And I think you should know about this, because now I have to have it removed

[11:02] or or abandon it. I'm not going to use it because part of the retrofit I wasn't. I was not given any options. I was not told what was going to go into my property. It's not. I'm not going to use it. So it's a waste of funds from the State of Colorado, the county, and the city. And this is all something you should be concerned about, because it's about affordable housing, and I was given an error handler, which doesn't, which I don't need. I needed a mini split. It's a lot more expensive to put in. It's a lot more labor and everything else. So you need to do things like including the client done. Thank you, Lynn, for joining us. Any other persons joining us online from the public who wish to speak. Please raise your hand now, otherwise we'll move on to the public hearing items.

[12:02] Okay? Looks like nobody else over to you. Chair. Thank you, Vivian staff. Would you like to respond to anything that you heard in open comment that you haven't already responded to? Okay, thank you. Board members, any responses to open comment. Okay, I have a couple one to address the gentleman here in the room. Is that so? We do rely on the city attorney's office to advise us as a board, and I'm sure that when we receive the memo from the city attorney's office that will help us understand if there is some action that we can or should take as a planning board. But we won't know until we read that memo, so I'm sure you can expect to hear from either us or the city attorney's office at that point. So thank you so much again for bringing this to our attention and for your persistence, and for for following up on this issue. And then I just want to clarify for Lynn. Normally we have a camera on staff when they are speaking, and so the person who is representing the city attorney's office here in the room tonight is Christy Fitch, and as she mentioned. She spoke with Hella Pannawig, who also helps the planning board about the particular issue that you asked about.

[13:12] So thank you again, to folks who are here for public comment. The public comment section for the open comment is now closed, and we'll move on to our 1st public hearing. Item. So the 1st public hearing on our agenda is a public hearing and recommendation to City Council regarding proposed ordinance, 8, 6, 5, 1 amending title, one. General administration, title, 4, licenses and permits title 5, general offices, title Ix. Land use code and title, 10 structures. Brc. 1981, to update residential occupancy standards to ensure conformance with the Colorado House Bill 24, 1 0 0 7. Concerning residential occupancy limits and setting forth related details. We'll start with a staff presentation, as always. Then the Board will have a chance for Q. And A. Then we will have the public hearing on this item before board, discussion and deliberation.

[14:05] So I will pass it over to. Is it Carl Geylor? Taking this item? Thank you, Carl. Good evening. Planning board members. I'm Carl Geylor with planning and development services before you tonight is ordinance 86, 51 related to occupancy. So the purpose of tonight is for planning board to make a recommendation to City Council on the ordinance, as any change to Title Ix does require the Board's recommendation before City Council takes action on the ordinance. The key issue that we've raised for the Board is, does Planning Board recommend any modifications to the draft ordinance? Sorry? Okay. So the Board will recall that we had talked about occupancy last year in 2023, we had a work program. Item, that where we were directed by Council to make changes to our land use code relative to occupancy. So some of these slides may look familiar. I wanted to start with just the slide that differentiates between the 2 ways.

[15:12] that the city has regulated occupancy through the years. There's occupancy limits that are life, safety related that are in building and fire codes. Those have been in place for for years. They set a maximum occupancy to a, you know. to avoid any dangerous situations, you know, for evacuation and and unlivable spaces. So zoning regulations that typically had more restrictive occupancy levels based on other concerns about congestion. There's also been some motivations of discrimination that are the roots of occupancy rules that have gone into zoning codes, and that's been daylit in many of their in recent years. So I just wanted to point out those 2 things. So what the State Bill talks about is zoning regulations that are based on familial relationships.

[16:07] And that's the way that Boulder has been regulating occupancy for many, many years, I believe, since the late fifties, early sixties. The city does have a pretty open and expansive definition of family which remains in the code for other parts of the land Use code that reference it. But it doesn't restrict. You know the way it's worded now, the number of family members that can be in a building, but it does restrict on unrelated folks that live in dwelling units. As it's written in the land use code today. So the changes that were made last year were part of ordinance. 85, 85. So basically, if you remember, most units in the city of Boulder had a maximum of 3 unrelated or 4 unrelated, depending on whatever zone they were in. The changes in the ordinance from last year basically moved that up to 5 unrelated per per unit.

[17:03] So I won't go into the details of that ordinance, but that's in essence what ordinance? 85, 85, contained. Following passage of that ordinance, the State passed a bill, Hb. 24, 1,007. That was passed in April of this year, and it basically notes that enforcement of occupancy standards that are contrary to State law must cease enforcement. On July 1st of this year the law says that local governments may not restrict the number of people that live in a dwelling unit based on familial relationship. So it's again, that's targeted at zoning codes that have, you know, unrelated language and family language. It does allow occupancy limits that are based on health and safety standards. So international building codes, fire codes, things of that nature are permitted still

[18:01] occur according to the State bill that was passed. So in response to that bill Staff began work on this ordinance that we're bringing to you tonight. The city has also ceased enforcement, as of July 1st in response to the bill. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the ordinance that we're recommending approval of basically to remove any inconsistencies in the land, use code with the State law, and to avoid any confusion or ambiguity for landlords or property owners in knowing how many people can live within a dwelling unit. So the ordinance before you tonight is, it's a lot of pages. I think it's like 89 pages, but a lot of that is because of the last change that I'll talk about, but for the most part it removes all references to residential occupancy in Title 9. The Land Use Code. Any references to unrelated persons. All those references to the former occupancy standards are have been updated to reference. The existing building and life safety code occupancy limits that again, the city has been enforcing for years already.

[19:10] and those are contained in Chapter 12, which is the property maintenance code. The property maintenance code just adopts the International Property Maintenance code, which is the Ipmc, so that's what the city would be using for the occupancy limits. It would also be removing the enforcement standards of occupancy from Title Ix, and would move them into title 10 structures. Again, since it's a building code or life safety code type of topic. You may recall that the city has cooperative housing as an allowed use in the code to get a co-OP in the past. An applicant would have to come in with a permit and get approval, basically to go above the occupancy limit within the dwelling unit. So as of the change in the ordinance last year. That'd be like 5

[20:04] occupants that are unrelated if they wanted to have up to. I think it's like 11 or 12. They could get special approval that would now be irrelevant, since we would wouldn't have the unrelated language in there. So all of the cooperative housing language is proposed for removal from the ordinance. There's also a reference to any prior approvals. There are some approvals that may have conditions of approval or restrictions on occupancy that may go beyond the current. Ipmc, so this would make it clear that those would be null and void. We've also taken a look at some other housing arrangements like group housing, congregate care facilities, custodial care facilities, residential care facilities. group homes, boarding and rooming houses, fraternities and sororities and dormitories. We've taken another look at those and we've removed anything related to occupancy. We have proposed some intensity standards, some of which are actually have been added since the version that the Board has seen just trying to find an equivalent. That's that's in the code that doesn't use occupancy as a

[21:15] an indicator. I'm happy to pull up that language of the new language if the Board wanted to review it tonight. The reason that the ordinance is lengthy is largely because, looking at some of the State regulations as as a lead leader, and looking at some other jurisdictions that have been doing this terminology like single family, and multifamily has been changing in a lot of those codes going to detached dwelling unit or multi-unit units. So that's largely why the ordinance is so expansive because we've been making all those changes throughout the entire boulder Revised Code to make it detached dwelling units or multi-unit dwellings. So Staff is recommending that planning board recommend approval of the ordinance to City Council, because the changes would update the occupancy limits to align with the health and safety standards of the Ipmc. Removing any references to familial relationships on occupancy and also in line with what the State Bill is intended, is opening up more housing opportunities in the city. Again, it'd be another method. In addition to

[22:19] the many ordinances that we've been considering lately to make it easier for people to find housing, to not have the the cost of housing just increasing infinitely so trying to mitigate that the best we can. So this would be another way of doing that. This is the motion language we have for planning board tonight. Should the the Board agree as far as next steps? The plan is to go to City council for 1st reading on January 9, th and then have a public hearing with City Council on February 6.th So we'll convey the the recommendation of planning board to them on those dates. And then, in conclusion, is the the key issue. So happy to answer any questions.

[23:04] Thank you, Carl. Questions from the board. And we can start with our online folks 1st tonight, Mason or Ml, just to mix it up a little bit. Ml, you've got your hand up and you're smiling. Go right ahead. I do have my hand up. Thank you. Thank you, Laura. It's great to have you, Cherry. So I have 2 questions. Referring to the International property maintenance code. Do we currently use that? Or is this an entire. We do, and we have been for years. Okay. So it's not a new. It's not a new reference for for staff or for applicants, or anything. Yeah, it is helping people. I see. Okay. Yeah, we've been implementing that. And then I think this question has come up historically, and I don't remember the answer. But the piece that says

[24:01] that. And this is interesting, that it's in the no. Actually, this is, this is about the different ordinance. So that that's my only question about that one easy, peasy. Thank you. Thank you, Carl. You're welcome. Thank you, Ml. Mason. Anything at this time. No. No. Claudia or Kurt any questions, Kurt, you got your hand up? Yeah. I had asked some questions by email, and thank you very much, Carl for your excellent responses to those I did. Wanted to follow up about the question about boarding houses, though, because. 1st of all, reading the definition of boarding house. It wasn't clear to me what the different difference was between a boarding house and any other rental. Really, the definition is, boarding house means an establishment where, for direct or indirect compensation.

[25:03] lodging with or without meals is offered for one month or more. A boarding house does not include a fraternity or sorority. So so it's not clear like what what makes a boarding house versus something else? But then the in the version at least, that we saw, and maybe you have a a modified version in the version that we saw the it. It seemed to restrict occupancy in cases where the number of units is limited, which is not true in all zones, but it is true in some zones. So any thoughts on all that I guess my thoughts are. We don't often come across boarding houses. It's not a common use, I think it was. I'm sorry. Oh, there, there's 0, according to Charles, so it's a use that I think that was common, maybe in the past, and has been phasing out.

[26:06] It's kind of the same thing with like rooming units. I saw your question on rooming units, and I'll answer that question with the reason we don't refer to rooming units in the code right now is because it was an allowed use back in, like, say, like the 19 thirties. But the city has been largely phasing out that use for other types of housing uses. So it's not a. It's not a use that gets established anymore. It basically is allowed to to remain. But what generally happens these days is because the units are so small, they they end up converting to like elus or other apartments over time. So it's not something we see commonly, or same as boarding houses. So I think it's something we'd have to like. Look at more and determine whether it's it's necessary to have in the code, you know. Maybe as a as a future code project. Okay, that sounds good. So just just to make sure that I understand the well.

[27:08] apparently there aren't any of the boarding houses remaining. But if somebody, if somebody had, was renting a housing unit, would there be any situation in which the city would go and say. Oh, what you have actually is a boarding house. because I, from the definition, I can't see any way of making that distinction. I'm not sure that that would be something that we would see, since it's not a use that we have in the city. Typically for these types of uses, we rely on the zoning record. So a lot of times like we'll have a zoning data sheet, and it'll say this was approved, or is a continuation of a boarding house or rooming

[28:01] building with rooming units. It's rare that we would see anything get established that we would say, that's a boarding house. It would probably end up being something different, you know. Okay. but you you don't feel that it's appropriate to just take it out. In this case I would say, I'm hesitant to until we do more analysis on it. Okay? Okay. Great. I think that is my only question. Then, thank you. Claudia. Thank you. Just a couple of questions here. I'm glad that you brought up the the issue of prior approvals, and that that is addressed in the code change. I'm just curious. Is it? Is it common that we have explicitly stated occupancy in prior city approvals. I remember at least one case where this has happened. But are there others? And will there be any process of notifying

[29:00] property owners or annotating those existing approval documents. I don't know that it's common, but I've certainly seen it, especially with like a use review where occupancy might have been restricted by condition of approval. We we at this point do not have a method of going out and doing the research of all the conditions that have a condition related to occupancy. I think they would have to understand the change and and know that they they would be able to abide by the the new standards. Okay? And then, more generally, I'm curious about what kind of process you have planned for informing and educating landlords, tenants, and the broader community about about any new rules I know. We've only had about a half year under that 5 unrelated rule that was passed, but I've already heard plenty anecdotally about out of date, occupancy postings that at rental properties and the like. So is there an educational process planned? Are there going to be resources available for computing new occupancies.

[30:05] Under the international code, we do have a current website on occupancy limits. So if you Google boulder occupancy limits, it takes you right to the Ipmc. And it has a description of how it's calculated per unit. So we've been responding to inquiries on this almost on a daily basis for several months now. So there, there's a lot of education already happening. And then I would say, we use the planning newsletter to update everyone on changes that happen to the land use code. So I think we would use that method. And then just a quick question, I think for Christy. I just want to educate myself on this. Why are some sections of the code? And specifically, I was looking here at the Chapter 11 of Title 10 on Cooperative housing that that's being proposed to be struck completely. Why are those sections retained as reserved in the code? Just curious what that means, and when you use that designation, and when you don't

[31:05] so reserving sections, so I think most of it has to do with the way that we work with Muni code and our codification. So if we reserve those sections, we can go back and add them into their into those sections. So we have, like another chapter, we can add to a section a lot easier than it would be in other situations. So it's really a would that be specifically reserved for what was there previously? Or could it be used for anything? It could be used for it? Okay, thanks. Any other questions from the board, Kurt. Sorry. I realized I have a couple of others. And just to follow up on the email, I raised questions about 9, 6, 3 j. And 9, 6, 3 l. Sub. Down a ways that both of those seem like they're just

[32:03] referring to another section of the code, and it sounded like you might be amenable to just getting rid of them. I just want to confirm. Huh! I think in the case of like congregate care, the the prior, the language that's proposed to be struck from the code related to intensity and occupancy. So we removed the occupancy language. But we, we did add basically that there's a reference back to the intensity standards. So that particular language means that they have to submit in some cases a conditional use application. and then it just. They just have to demonstrate that they meet the intensity standard. So it becomes a use standard. just by demonstrating how many units are in it. Okay, so the bottom line is, you would like to. You feel that it's important to retain that language in that we felt that it was important to keep that in there. Okay, okay, that's fine. I just was thinking it was a possible cleanup, but sounds like no. Then my final question, really, this time.

[33:16] is. I also noticed in 9 9, 6, the parking standards, a table, 9, 2. It requires again, for these rooming house, boarding house fraternity, sorority group, living and hostels. It requires parking in the number of 2 spaces per 3 occupants. And I'm not objecting to that. I just want to verify that that legally would not be interpreted as sort of another backdoor occupancy limit. We didn't identify that as something that would conflict with the State Bill which relates to how many people can live in a unit. Right? So we didn't propose a change that obviously the parking regulations are being evaluated now, and we'll be looking at that as well.

[34:14] Okay, sounds great. That's it. Thank you any final questions from the board? Okay, I have none. So I think at this point we go to public the public hearing. Yes. Pretty. Thank you. So. public hearing, we'll start with participants who have are joining us in person and then go to those online. If you are joining us online, and you wish to speak for this public hearing. Item, please go ahead and raise your virtual hand. And, Thomas, do we have anybody in person who wishes to speak. Thanks, Vivian. We don't have anybody signed up in person for public participation. Okay, so we'll go directly to online participants.

[35:01] Give folks couple few seconds to raise their hand. Maybe the people are here for the second public hearing. Item. okay, we have a couple of hands. We'll start with megan Coles, followed by Lynn Siegel. Please go ahead, Megan. 3 min. Hello, everybody I am so delighted to see this matter come through where we're lining up the Boulder code on occupancy with the State law requirement. I. 2, 2 points. One is, I wish we could give back to Charles Farrow and the Carl Geylor the hundreds of hours they have spent since 2013 on the occupancy, ordinance, on public hearings, on thinking this through, on helping to lead the community through to a satisfactory resolution of this, and now that the State has taken it out of our hands, it almost looks silly that we spend all this time, but

[36:14] they've really they've done such a good job in leading us through to a better place last year. And now we are going to get to a really good place. I share point 2 is, I share the concern for the parking requirement that Kurt Nordbeck just pointed out, because it sounds like another way of of titrating density in a way that really cleverly undercuts the State statute, and I understand that Lisa Hood and and other planners are working on the Amps project to bring that to a conclusion. By the way, that has been amps. We started in 2015. So it's been going on for 9 years now since we've been thinking about cutting drastically the parking requirements coming to a new understanding, as we are both locally here in Boulder, but also through the literature on the subject of parking, understanding the extent to which parking

[37:23] burdens the cost of housing and increases the cost of it. So I'll just stop right there. I commend the board for taking this issue up and and again to staff. Many thanks for the years, the now 11 years that you have been working on this subject, and I hope we can pass this ordinance and then not have to worry about occupancy again. But I would like to hear further discussion about the parking issue. Great. Thank you so much, and with time to spare.

[38:01] Next up, Lynn Siegel, please go ahead. You have 3 min. Well, I come out on the other side of this, as I always do with Macon. I don't support any of Jared's proposals, and I've had up to 17 people in my house at one time. so call me a hypocrite. But I managed it well, there weren't any, you know, parking issues. People didn't bring their cars on Airbnb, anyway. But I'm curious now, and the thing that I don't like about Jared's, you know. densification is that it was not used to leverage against raw growth, which is just being pushed like heroin from the Federal Government with lihtec funds and all of the matching type of funds that drive developers to want to create all of this stuff. And and I do bring up again 777 Broadway, which ironically, was going to be the homeless shelter 20 years ago, and is now going up with 5 stories, 68 units, and from 2,

[39:18] 3, and 5 bedroom units. Now, theoretically, in a 5 bedroom unit. If you had a couple per bedroom you could have 10 people in an apartment. Which creates a lot of demand on our open space. And yeah, you could say, parking and those kind of things kind of are an issue. I don't know if this occupancy ordinance has anything in there that would limit the number of people per bedroom. But, I find it very fascinating that this developer I've never heard of 5 bedroom apartments before, and

[40:09] considering the millennium with, you know. 930 rent by the bedrooms. situation like there's a massive amount of intensity of use. and we have a huge deficit for our open space, and we don't have the means to, you know, the carrying capacity for all these people in our community, I heard someone say, actually, and I always mix it up. But we have 70,000 people here of permanent residents, and the rest, you know, I guess, to the 107,000 is the University considering the quantity of time they use here. But and the universities always had a lot of pressure on on our situation here. But it's concerning that we aren't leveraging that densification with something to hit it to the developers. More thanks.

[41:13] Thank you. Nobody else has their hand raised. I'll wait a few more seconds. Give people a chance. Okay, that concludes this public hearing over to Chair. Thank you, Vivian, for leading us through that public hearing, and thank you to our commenters tonight. We really appreciate hearing from you. So that closes the public hearing. And now we go to board deliberation on this item. So my sense is based on the questions that there's not going to be a lot of discussion, but perhaps we could start with a motion and then discuss the emotion in a second, and if it gets a second we'll start discussing that motion.

[42:01] so could we get the language for the motion? Please put back up on the screen, Carl. Thank you so much. Would someone like to make a motion right? You bet Claudia would like to make a motion. Thank you. I move that the Planning Board recommends that city council adopt ordinance 8, 6, 5, 1. Amending section 4, 2018, rental license fee. title, 9, land use, code and title, 10 structures of the Boulder Revised Code, 1981 to update the occupancy regulations and setting forth related details. Second, we haven't. We have a motion and a second, and I'll ask Claudia to speak 1st to her motion since she made it. And then, Kurt, and then, if anybody has any suggested modifications, we'll do that next.

[43:10] Thank you. So overall. I think this is an incredibly important ordinance to help Boulder stay in step with New Colorado State law to encourage a variety of housing and living situations in the city of Boulder. and also really to further the city's longstanding commitments to nondiscrimination. Much of the discussion around occupancy has been in the realm of planning, and obviously we are the planning board. But I think over the years that we have heard about this, we also recognize that this is a human rights issue. And I think we, as a city, are better when we integrate these realms. I really appreciate, amongst other things, in the proposed ordinance, the removal of family from our terminology around dwelling units.

[44:02] This might be small and invisible in code. It's actually really impressive. How many places it shows up there. But it's a value-laden language. and it pops up in a lot of other places in the city. Even in our recent area, 3 study, where I noticed there was a distinction made between residential communities and apartment buildings. as though those 2 things were opposed to each other. So I hope that we can continue to make language changes like this standard as we move forward developing code and ordinances in the city. And then I wanted to say a word, too, about co-ops. Our city code since 2017 has had an entire chapter on cooperative housing that we saw in this ordinance, and it was put there ostensibly to permit that kind of housing, even though it was only ever used once to create a new cooperative housing community.

[45:00] And I think it's very powerful to see that section of the code being struck through in its entirety. Especially given how discriminatory it is. It's a hyper prescriptive chapter of our code. It has buffer zones like those that this board actually just recommended that we reject around psilocybin facilities. But we wanted those buffers around housing communities. It contains special provisions that require people to vacate properties if they run afoul of a complex permitting code. and a whole bunch of other things that we don't demand of people who live in traditional families in the city. So I'm really glad to see that this piece of our code may be going away. But I also want to recognize the efforts of community members who worked for years to get even that level of recognition and rights in our city. and it is kind of bittersweet to see their efforts literally being erased.

[46:01] So I hope, even as we recommend approving these changes to occupancy limits, that we will have some institutional memory about how long it has taken us to make progress on this issue, and where we're coming from. Thank you, Claudia Kurt, you seconded. Do you want to make some remarks about the motion. No, after Claudia, there's nothing I could say that would be more eloquent, or or add anything. So I really appreciate your words, Claudia. That was wonderful. Thank you both. So at this time I'd like to check and see. Is there anyone on the board? The 1st question I have is anyone who would like to propose any amendments to the ordinance that is before us, that Staff has proposed, before we continue the discussion and vote any proposed amendments. Okay, seeing none, we can continue the discussion before we vote. And I think, ml, I saw your hand up.

[47:06] My hand was up and down, and I I just really want to appreciate Claudia for your very thorough and Comprehensive perspective about this ordinance. I think that sometimes we forget the far reaching consequences of some of these. oh, land based considerations that come before us. So I I really applaud that you have expanded and reminded that at the end of the day this is about how we live in our city as people as well. So thank you for that. Thank you, Ml. Mason, any comments on this one, I'm gonna say.

[48:00] Second Kirk Claudia really hit the nail on the head. Yeah, for sure. I have just 2 quick remarks. One is just a factual thing that came up in public comment about, does the Ipmc international property maintenance code limit the number of people that can be in a bedroom. And I just want to point out for anybody who may be curious about it, because I'm sure it's not just one person who has that question that the Ipmc does require that each bedroom be no fewer than 70 square feet in size, with a minimum of 50 square feet feet per occupant, and that is intended to be a health and safety regulation, and so that still stands, and that is going to be. And there are also some minimum living areas for living and dining rooms based on number of occupants of in the dwelling unit. All of those standards still stand. So if anybody is thinking that this is going to result in people stacked like firewood, to use a very offensive kind of image that I've heard used before. That's not going to happen right? This still will be sufficient health and safety backstops on occupancy. It just won't be related by familial relationships, which, as Claudia pointed out, is

[49:14] can be a very discriminatory way to to regulate occupancy, and we're glad to see it going away? I think we all share that sentiment. And then I just also want to recognize again all the work that Staff put in on the prior stages of occupancy that got us to the point we are at tonight, where this is not a flashpoint in the community. and that we have had the conversations that we have needed to had we have evolved our attitude towards occupancy. We've aired a lot of our concerns and a lot of the history, and really evolved our understanding of why this State Bill has come to be, and what it will mean for our community. And I think this will be a very positive thing for our community. So thank you again, Staff, for all of the hard work that you put into getting us to this point tonight, where we're going to be done with this item in less than an hour. So thank you.

[50:03] Okay, any other discussion before we vote? Can I just quickly add on to that. I also want to express my appreciation to Staff. I think it's very rare that we review a complex ordinance like this and end up not making any amendments, amendments to Staff's proposal, and I think the fact that we're not indicates how thorough your analysis and and edits were. So thank you very much. Seconded. Okay, let's vote. I'll start with folks online. Ml. Oops! Yes. Mason. Yes. Kurt. Yes, Claudia, yes, and I'm a yes. So that's a 5 0. Okay, thank you very much. To Carl and all the staff who worked on this, and we're going to move on to our next public hearing. Item. So this is a public hearing and recommendation to City Council regarding proposed ordinance, 8,650, amending title, 9, land use Code, Brc. 1981. Our favorite chapter to amend standards for accessory dwelling units and setting forth related details.

[51:23] Okay? And as always, we will start with a staff presentation. I think it's Lisa Hood here tonight for us from the planning department to give the presentation, followed by board member questions, public hearing, and then board, member deliberation and action. So, Lisa, it's over to you when you're ready. Good evening board. Just give me one second to share my screen. Alright, all right. So I'm here tonight to talk to you about our accessory dwelling unit update

[52:04] the purpose, like similar, very similar to Carl's, is the for you to make a recommendation for city Council to city council on ordinance, 86 50, related to accessory dwelling units. The project scope for this is to align the adu standards in our city code with the recent House Bill 2411, 52, and essentially make the city of Boulder what is defined as an adu supportive jurisdiction per that State law. And I'll explain that further. So as part of the House Bill that was passed this last session the State set out certain requirements for subject jurisdictions to be meet, the qualifications for an adu supportive jurisdiction. And if you're an adu supportive jurisdiction, you can qualify for this new Grant program that they established through the State Bill called the Adu Fee Reduction and encouragement grant program

[53:01] in that. It's a competitive grant. But you can get cities can get up to $15,000 per adu built. They're appropriating 5 million dollars per year for the 1st year, and the city can use that to provide financial assistance for a number of things so constructing affordable adus or supporting the construction of affordable adus, developing Pre-approved adu plans providing technical assistance and other opportunities to help support more adus being established as part in order to qualify for that Grant program. The city of Boulder would need to be considered an adu supportive jurisdiction. There's 67 jurisdictions in the State that are subject to the House Bill 1152. It relates to like being within a metropolitan planning organization boundary things like that. But you have to have a city code that meets a number of requirements. First, st we have to come into compliance with the State per the State law. By June 30th next year

[54:07] cities would have to or subject jurisdictions would have to have an administrative approval process for accessory dwelling units or adus in any location where a single unit detached dwelling is allowed also for adus. The standards cannot require a new parking space. The State Bill does lay out some limited exceptions for that, but in general it's not allowed, or the State says, that the subject jurisdictions would not be allowed to have a requirement for a parking space. Also subject jurisdictions may not require owner occupancy of the adu, so that the property owner lives on the site except at the time of application. So that's another limited exception. And then the State Bill also talks a bit about not having restrictive design or dimension standards, and then they define what that means. It includes things like specific architectural styles for an adu. Size limits that don't allow for between 500 750 square feet.

[55:09] and then minimum setbacks or lot sizes that are more restrictive for adus than they would be for a single unit dwelling in addition to the State Bill guidance. This also, this ordinance before you tonight also aligns with many of our comprehensive plan policies which support a diversity of housing sizes and types, as well as the support the creation of additional accessory dwelling units. I wanted to provide a little bit of background on adus. Many of you were on the board when we went through a recent update in 2023. But I showed this graph at the time, but it shows the history of Adus in Boulder. They were 1st made legal in 1983, and then you can see the blue bars are showing how many adus were approved each year, and then each of those yellow

[56:01] lines is a major change to the adu regulations in the city, and then you can see how the kind of numbers of adus responded to those code changes. So I just quickly updated the graph that we had done last time. So we removed many additional adu code barriers back in 2023. It was a major city council work plan, priority project. And those new rules went into effect on September 1, st 2023. So it's been just over a year. We've had 37 adus built since the new rules went into effect. That's completely built to being occupied. And then there's still 21 that are in process either of having their plans reviewed, or are under construction. So I'll provide a bit of a summary of the ordinance. Unlike my typical presentations that are 35 min long. This one is much shorter. So you're in for a treat. But so there's 2. There's basically 2 themes to the changes that are in the ordinance. There's process and applicability changes that needed to happen to align boulders code with the state regulations or the State bill. And then there's also design changes. So I'll walk you through each one.

[57:17] The 1st is allowing adus in more zoning districts. So we had already over the multiple, especially the more recent adu code changes in 2019 and 2023. We had already opened up many more zoning districts to Adus, but in order to align with that state requirement of every district that allows a single unit detached dwelling has to allow an adu. We did open it up to many more zoning districts where you could have an accessory dwelling unit. We've removed the minimum lot size requirement right now, the standards say that an adu can only be built on a lot with a size of at least 5,000 square feet. That was something that was reduced from 6,000 square feet back in 2019. But the ordinance tonight eliminates that entirely so, no minimum lot, size, requirement. In order to do an adu.

[58:11] Also, we have proposed to remove the owner occupancy requirement. The State Bill says that subject. Jurisdictions may not require owner occupancy, except, like I mentioned at the time of building permit, and in our analysis we determined that there was limited utility to having that requirement. as we can't enforce it beyond the one day that that someone applies for the application. So we propose to just eliminate that entirely to remove that administrative step of that would only be able to be enforced for one day. We've also proposed removing the requirement for recording of declaration of use for our market rate adus. A declaration of use is a legal document, that since the eighties we've been requiring all accessory dwelling units to record against their property. That, says I got an accessory dwelling unit approved by the city, and I'm going to comply with all of the regulations that were in place at the time

[59:11] we've because of that was that was largely tied to the owner occupancy, requirement and used for the enforcement of that. And so because we're proposing to remove the owner occupancy requirement. We're also proposing to remove the requirement to record that dou declaration of use step. That's also a kind of more burdensome administrative step, so this also will streamline the process of approving adus. We are, however, retaining the requirement for a declaration of use for our affordable adus, because that is the only legal mechanism that we have that says that they are sworn, or it's their sworn certification that it'll stay at an affordable rate. And then finally, for this process and applicability set it also. The ordinance also voids any pre previous prohibitions on adus in plan, unit developments. This was something that came out of the State bill as well. So if there's anything in an old Pud plan, unit development or other types of reviews like site reviews use reviews that, said adus, are prohibited here. Those are now with the State Bill and and the aligning ordinance. Those would be

[60:21] voided, and so adus could be permitted in those areas. The State Bill also states that because it has to be an administrative approval process, we it would have the the change to the Pud would have to also be an administrative approval process. So we've put into the ordinance just clarified that it would be a minor modification process if someone needed to do that, because that's our administrative way to modify a Pud or a site review. So those are all the process changes in the ordinance. Now the set of design changes. The 1st is related to maximum floor area, and this one I actually have a separate slide on, because I have to go into more detail, but it ensures that attached adus of at least 750 square feet are allowed.

[61:09] I'll explain that more later. We've decided, or we're proposing to remove the one space parking requirement for market rate adus right now there is not a parking space requirement for affordable. So the only parking requirement is for market rate. Like, I said. The State Bill has some limited exceptions where subject jurisdictions would still be able to require parking. It would have to be in a location that doesn't have any on street parking. The site doesn't have any parking, and the zoning district requires parking. So in our analysis, we don't think that there would be many circumstances where that would actually apply. And so, for simplicity's sake, we're recommending just eliminating the parking requirement for all adus rather than trying to draft in that kind of odd and atypical exception

[62:01] related only to detached adus. We're proposing to remove a requirement that we have right now for a certain amount of private open space. because the State Bill says that you can't have specific architectural standards for a for an adu that you wouldn't have for a single family or a single unit detached dwelling for attached adus. We also have a standard right now that requires screening for a side entrance. So that's another architectural style, that or architectural style standard that we're proposing to remove. And then we've also proposed some language to align the maximum height and building coverage of attached adus in the rear yard setback with detached adus. And I'll explain that that one's a little more complicated. So it's got its own slide as well. But 1st I want to go back to the maximum floor area. So in your memo you might have noticed, and in the ordinance this table on maximum floor area had stated that the maximum for

[63:04] small houses, so the way the math works for attached is for a market rate, it would be half of the main half of the the principal structure. That's the size that you can get for your adu. The State bill. Like I said before, we have to allow between 500 750 square feet. There was some clarification that we had from State officials in the time between the Memo publication and now, where we now have more assurance that the the actual minimum maximum is 750 square feet. So we've amended, we'll amend that for the 1st reading, but it's just a little a slight tweak where these the highlighted areas were slightly different numbers. But we've confirmed this, this with the state that this is their intent. And so that that changed just from 500 to 750 for those where it's assured that. assured that you would, a small house would still be be able to have a 750 square foot. Adu.

[64:06] even if the math didn't work out that that was half. Does that make sense? Okay? And then the last one I wanted to explain is this rear setback, so the State Bill says that there cannot be a rear yard setback greater than 5 feet required for an adu for our detached adus. We already are in line with that, because detached adus in a separate structure, have either a 0 or 3 foot setback requirement. But for our an attached adu that would actually be called part of the principal building. So it's not an accessory building. And for principal buildings the the rear yard setback is typically 25 feet in many of our districts. And so that's a fairly significant change from 25 feet to 5 feet to allow the attached adus. And so this graphic is kind of showing in the the hatched area that difference between what the rear yard setback would be, just for a principal structure that doesn't have an adu in it versus a principal structure that has an attached adu

[65:06] in order to align the current regulations for attached adus and detached adus and also kind of limit the impact of additional floor area in that reared setback area we've recommended or proposed establishing a similar map or the same maximum height for those attached adus of 20 feet, which is what you could do for a detached adu. as well as in in several districts requiring a maximum building coverage of 500 square feet in that area. So essentially what you could do as a detached unit, you'd be able to do as an attached unit as well. And then that graphic is meant to help explain that in the code. And so that would be part of the ordinance as well. So those are the changes that are in ordinance. 86, 50. I also have a suggested motion. But I'm happy to take any questions.

[66:03] Thank you for that presentation. Lisa questions from the board. We can start online again with Mason and Ml. Questions for Lisa. Mal. You can go first.st Thank you. So I have. I have. Oh, one question that wasn't answered, and that is. we've made all the all those changes to our. We've up zoned a lot of our residential land and what happens to the opportunity for adus. where there's also opportunities for flexes duplex. Threeplex fourplex.

[67:07] Yeah, that's a great question. So the adu standards, as they've been since 1983, when they were 1st adopted in Boulder, are only an accessory use to a single unit detached dwelling. And so we've because this, the intent of this ordinance is to align the State or the city regulations with the State Bill. We didn't explore expanding that beyond adus for single as accessory to single unit dwelling, detached dwellings, we also part of the thought, for that was that in those areas that now might be able to have a duplex on a lot, we think that it'd be more likely that people would choose to do a duplex rather than a house with an adu, or do a triplex rather than a duplex with an adu, because the adu wouldn't come with these addition or the duplex, the second or 3rd unit wouldn't come with the same standards and limitations that an accessory dwelling unit would. And so we think of the adu as mostly being

[68:11] something that is additional to a single unit, detached dwelling. And in those areas where they can do duplexes and triplexes. We assume that property owners would choose that route. Does that answer your question? Hmm! I I understand that that's the thinking that's been applied. But what I'm wondering about is, clearly there'd be other ways of thinking about this, and as long as it would meet the zoning requirements of height and setbacks and all of those other things. I'm not clear on what, how, why, the land use wouldn't. And this regulation about allowing accessory dwelling units every place we have.

[69:02] Oh, detached unit! Why, why, it wouldn't apply. Yeah, I think it's just the 40 year history of adus in Boulder is that the adus were an accessory used to the single unit detached dwellings. And so and we've gone through 2 pretty significant overhauls of the adu ordinance or the adu standards in the last 5 years. 6 years. And so that's that's never been. And we've done a lot of public engagement at both of those times. And so with each of those, we never really expanded the applicability of adus beyond single unit detach. And because that's not something that was brought up by the State Bill, we wanted to keep the scope limited to aligning, making sure that we are aligned with the adu supportive jurisdiction definition in the bill, and we haven't really taken any additional steps beyond that.

[70:02] Okay. So basically, our Upzoning hasn't been informed by this. I mean, it's a. That's in process as we speak right? So I'm just thinking, I mean, why why aren't all these things that are in motion? Talking to each other and seeing what what might be, in fact possible to bring to the table. Yeah, I think there's there's a lot of projects going on at once right now. And so certainly they're all informing each other part of the reason for the minimum lot. Size requirement being eliminated is because we know that that's something that's being explored in another project. But I think that we really wanted to keep this scope, as I mentioned, because there are so many projects going on right now, we really wanted to keep this scope of this project limited to aligning with the State Bill, and if there are future, there might, I would anticipate future direction, especially through the Boulder Valley. Comprehensive plan update related to adus and housing. And so if there's a future phase, or you know, you can see over the last 40 years that the adus are a constant

[71:14] iteration for the city. So in the next iteration, maybe that is something we would want to take on. Thank you so much. That's my. That's my only question. Thank you, and if I may colloquy on that before I go to you, Mason, would that be all right? Yep, thank you. So I also had a question about allowing adus with plexes, and I fully support and agree with Staff's desire to keep this particular ordinance narrow to comply with the State Bill, and so expanding what types of units are eligible for adus? I don't think fits within that scope, but I would like to put down a marker for the future, that I think it's worth exploring, whether having adus is something that could happen, I'm thinking, for example, attached adus where somebody wants to take one floor of their building and make it into a mother-in-law apartment for generational living. Or maybe somebody has a lot that has a weird easement across it, and it's not appropriate for a duplex, but they have enough lot area that they could put an adu, you know, on the other side of that weird easement. So I think there are potentially cases where

[72:20] people might want that flexibility. I'm not sure why we wouldn't want to do that, but I think it bears more thinking and more discussion. So I'd love to see that be something that is brought up in a future phase when we think about adus, especially if we're going to be expanding the ability of people to build plexes in the city, because right now it's not really a thing. So I'm not really surprised. It didn't come up in the public outreach. And so few people have that kind of living arrangement. Okay, that's my comment. But again, not for this ordinance tonight, Mason, over to you. I. I was looking at page 1, 98 and it talks about lot limitations. It says that accessory dually welling unit may be established on a lot with one

[73:02] detached dwelling units. I was wondering how one is defined here. and if it is purposely excluding group residencies and other things that have. you know, different definitions of what's it? A unit. Yeah, so it's 1 detached dwelling unit. And so that the current language says, a a detach, a detached dwelling unit. And that's been a little not a little less clear on some. There's only if there's some lots that have more than one detached dwelling unit on them. And so the intent of that is just to make the interpretation of that more clear that that is intended to be a lot with one detached dwelling unit rather than you know, you could have 8 detached dwelling units. And technically, there's a detached dwelling dwelling unit on that lot. So we're trying to clarify that the intent of that is is to only have this be accessory to one detached dwelling unit.

[74:06] And as your question also talked about group residencies, so that would the detached dwelling unit. Definition is just a single dwelling unit. So it's it's not group, a group residency. but the occupancy. Yeah, just from right. I remember seeing in the. And I'm I'm relatively new. So maybe I'm just interpreting things wrong. But in that Group Residency sort of definition. It says, you know, 8 people equals one unit totally hear that. So I didn't know if. But I I think what you're saying is that detached one unit has a different definition. It doesn't really matter how many people are inside of that detached one unit. Exactly. Great. And then some questions about setbacks. We had an email that was talking about building an Edu over a garage, and they were concerned that they wouldn't be able to do that because of setback requirements.

[75:02] Obviously the height thing was taken care of. I read that, and you explained it, but I didn't see anything in the language about setbacks. so if it's if I don't need to go further, sorry. Yeah, no, I'm glad you brought that up, because I actually chatted with the gentleman who sent in that comment and explained that this doesn't change the setbacks for detached dwelling units. We have a number of many of our adus are actually built above garages, and so for detached dwelling units. It's often a 0 foot setback or 3 feet depending. It kind of depends on whether you can get an agreement from your neighbor to be right on 0. So this, actually the ordinance. The comments were worried that it would make it more restrictive for that. But it's actually the opposite. It makes it much more permissive for attached dwelling units, and it keeps the detached dwelling units the same which is at 0 so essentially. that can build

[76:00] up to their lot line for a detached garage. And so we've had. We've seen many detached adus be built above existing garages or at 0 feet or 3 feet lot lines. And then what about non-conforming buildings? Would the detached you need to conform to current zoning and land use standards. Yeah, actually, that was something we tackled in the last update. We added some language to make sure to support the adaptive reuse of existing buildings. We added some language to make sure that people would be able to convert existing structures, regardless of whether they were too high or too big, or, you know, in the wrong place, they would be able to do that as long as they weren't making additional changes. so could be because we did run into that in a couple circumstances where people weren't able with the previous rules before 2023, they weren't able to adapt an existing building which is really the least impactful one of the least impactful ways to introduce an adu.

[77:03] So I think we've tackled that issue. So. So that was about converting. What about a detached dwelling unit on a lot with not conforming? Would they be able to meet the like. The setbacks. so say the setbacks don't conform. Would they be held to the current? Setbacks in the code, or to the Nonconforming. There's a certain amount of flexibility that nonstandard. So usually we use the term nonstandard when it's something that's related to the physical form rather than the actual use. And so, non non standard lots can be developed with an adu. There's some circumstances where folks have had to go to our Board of zoning appeals. Why, wow!

[78:00] The long break last week. Closer! Bozo Where where they've had to get some flexibility for things like that, but for the most part because our detached accessory structure setbacks are so permissive at 0 feet. It's unusual that they would be non-standard for a setback. Great, so they could go to both side and get an exception potentially. Yes. And I know I'm stretching the scope of our conversation by asking this question. So please just humor me. Have we heard anything about boulder, MoD building prefab, or modularity, to use. That isn't something I've heard about when when the State bill was passed in the spring, actually we toured a factory of to see that in person. But it's not something. It is something that's tackled in, or it's addressed in the State Bill as something else. That subject jurisdictions can't have more restrictive

[79:01] rules for factory manufactured adus. But we don't have specific restrictions against that. So there wasn't really any change we needed to make. But beyond that I don't know much. Makes sense. Thank you. That's all my questions. Questions from board members in the room looks like Claudia. You're up. Got one. So if this update passes. what remaining provisions or incentives do we have for affordable adus? Because I see the the parking exemption was one that's going to be gone. What else do we still have for affordables? So for affordable adus, and also historic. So on properties that are landmarked. they are allowed to have a larger floor area for the adu, somewhat significantly larger, and so that would be a remaining incentive. But we are really hopeful that the Grant program is what we'll be able to kind of retool by using the the financial assistance. Through the grant funding we'll be able to retool our incentives for affordable adus, because, like I mentioned, we can use the

[80:11] assuming we would get the grant funding for an adu supportive jurisdiction. We'd be able to use that to support financial assistance for those affordable adus so that could be like using that money to pay their building, permit fees or to exempt their building, permit fees, developing pre-approved plans. So plan sets that people can use things like that. So we're hoping that's going to be something we'll have to address when hopefully, we qualify for those grants, and then we'll come up with a new set suite of incentives. So the grants and how they would be administered. That is outside of the code. Is that correct? Yeah, I'm looking for things still in the code that make it like, what is the point of still having the the distinction between affordable and market rate? So it's it's there's a size allowance. Yes. Okay, yeah, thank you.

[81:02] We've eliminated a lot of the restrictions so much left. Kurt. Thank you. I have a few questions. One going back to Mason's question about the terminology. Well, either the current terminology, a detached dwelling unit or the proposed terminology. One detect dwelling unit. In any case, it sounds like you are not allowed to. If you have an empty lot, you're not allowed to build an adu with the plans to 2 years down the line. Build a house. Is that correct? That's correct. I have seen a couple circumstances where someone builds a fairly small house, and then they build and an access. That's the principal building. And then they actually build a smaller house for the adu. So it's not unheard of. But the adu, by its nature has to be accessory to something, and so there has to be a principal use on and principal building on that lot first.st So you can't have an accessory building that's just there by itself.

[82:12] It has to be accessory to something. So we have lots of circumstances where they're built at the same time, or there's an adu within a new house, or something like that. But no, you can't have an adu by itself. Why does it have to be accessory to something other than just the terminology. Well, it wouldn't be an adu. It would just be a principal building. and you wouldn't, and I don't think you would want it to be an adu, because the adu has size, limits, and certain standards and things like that, that you'd have to comply with that a principal if you just had a small house that was a principal building that wouldn't kick in as an adu. Standard. I can just imagine somebody has a lot. I mean, probably doesn't happen that much in Boulder given the all the financial realities. But I could imagine somebody having a lot

[83:03] and having enough money to build. wanting eventually to build both an adu, a principal house, and an adu, only having the money at 1st to build the adu, wanting to build it in such a way that it will eventually be an adu. But but yeah, not being able, not having the the means or the desire, or whatever to build the principle dwelling first.st It's not clear to me other than the terminology. Why, we would prohibit that. Yeah. And I don't think we actually would prohibit that. It would just be a principal building. It just wouldn't be called like you, said the terminology. It wouldn't be called the adu until it's accessory to something. But but, for example, they couldn't put it at 0 rear setback. No, because it would be a principal building, right? Yeah. So that's why they would want to build it as an adu.

[84:03] and I suspect that if they built it as the principal structure, then, if they wanted to build the adu, it would have to be smaller than the small unit that they built, intending it to be an adu. They couldn't build a bigger principal structure. Second. even if they, I guess, even if they submitted the plans and said, We want to build this house in this adu, but we want to sequence it. So the adu gets built first.st They couldn't do that. Well, it wouldn't be an adu would be the principal building until there's until there's something that's accessory. But I feel like, we're getting hung up on the word accessory and not focusing on the actual, the physical layout of the lot. And what really is intended there. Yeah, I mean, we've definitely I can think of one example that I've talked to someone about where they did build a small house that complied with the adu standards, and then they built the bigger house, and the the adu that was the original principal building became the adu. If that makes sense, it's kind of a brain twister, but

[85:03] essentially, the people could figure out the sequencing to build a small house, first, st live in that, and then build a bigger house and then call that small house the adu as long as it aligned with all of the many standards that we have. we haven't seen that much. Okay, yeah. And maybe it's more of a hypothetical problem than an actual problem. But okay. maybe I'll come back to that. Next question is about hoas, which I realize are regulated at the state level and not at the city level. But is there anything? Well, I guess the the question really is, just what is the situation with adus in an hoa for everyone's edification, mostly mine. Yeah. So so we don't regulate hoas like you said in the city code. But the State Bill did have so the same thing that I said about puds where any pud that prohibits an adu is is void. The State Bill says the same thing about anything in an Hoa covenant. So that's not something we regulate or enforce. And so you wouldn't have seen it in the ordinance, but it is in the State Bill, it's tackled through that.

[86:17] So then, if there is somebody with a house in an hoa, and they want to build an adu. These same requirements and restrictions would still apply right? So it voids the prohibition of the adu. But in order to get the adu approved through the city, you still have to comply with all the other standards. Okay, okay, that makes sense great. Next question. Can I call liloquy on that with you? Absolutely. So Lisa regards to an adu in an hoa hoas! And or

[87:02] I'm going to expand that to an hoa with a pud. Puds have their own requirements. They make all their own regulations insofar as setbacks and stuff. So what happens to How does the adu relate to setbacks that aren't the city setbacks for adus? If they're coming into a context that was governed by a different set of of land use requirements. Do you want to take it? Okay. I was just gonna see if you guys want to add on to this. But the State Bill just says that any pud that prohibits an adu is void. We can still have the standards that we are proposing in the ordinance that they would have to comply with. But if the Pud needs to be amended, so if the setbacks are more restrictive than what our adu setbacks are in our code or in, are considered a restrictive design standard per the State Bill. They can do a minor modification in order to amend the Pud to allow that. So

[88:22] we're still ensuring that there's an administrative approval process in which they can get flexibility through the pud. But generally we don't actually have a lot of puds that specifically prohibit adus, because a lot of ours actually predate when adus were made permissive in the city. Right. It'll be the hoa's that govern the puds right? Because that's really where that authority lies. Right now. But I thank you for the for the answer that there is a process whereby people can work through the setbacks and all to to make sure. Yeah, okay, thanks. Thanks, Kurt, sorry for interrupting.

[89:08] Not a problem. Thank you for clarifying that that is something I didn't even know to ask. My next question is about your diagram about the heights for the attached adus. And it's really just where the low point is measured. It looks to me like the intent is for the low point to be measured with respect to the added structure. not the overall structure. Is that correct? Yeah. sorry. Yes, and that's what we do for, like any type of addition, the low point actually moves. So if you build an edition, it's from the that. the highest side, it's very complicated. Highest side, 25 feet out. So if you move even that deck

[90:02] post out that can change your low point. And so, similarly, if an adu was built, that would might might change the low point. Their low point could be on the other side, and it wouldn't have no effect. But does that answer that? Oh! And I was trying to get well. No, so right, I understand what you were saying. But if the let's say in this diagram, the low point, instead of being on the adu side, is on the other side the far side of the principal structure. then the the allowable height of that adu is not necessarily 20 feet right? And that's how that's how additions also work. It's it's well, that's consistent with how we've been administering our code since I think 1971 when we established them.

[91:02] Methodology for how we calculate height. So any addition, you know, to Lisa's point, if a new low point, we're going to be struck, but it would be on, you know, the opposing side of the building. Then it would have potential impacts on the height. But again, that's been very consistent with how we've administered the code for quite some time. Okay, okay? And again, I think it's really Deb. It's designed to make sure that we're giving consideration to the massing of buildings on downhill sides, because they can feel taller than you know, something that has more mild grade. Yeah, okay, okay, that sounds great One final question is about the roof pitch. The the height as a function of roof pitch. So adu! Maximum height is restricted to 20 feet.

[92:02] but it can go up to 25 feet if you have a greater than 8 and 8 12 pitch, I think right. Is that not again from a legal standpoint. Is that not considered an architectural style? Yeah, that's a good thought. But actually, the it's more permissive than a typical accessory structure. And so, by being a more permissive standard, we're able to keep that. So it provides more flexibility for the adu than a a garage would have, because the garage is at 20 feet. No flexibility, so it's not even though it is a architectural standard. It's not a restrictive standard, because it's providing additional flexibility to the adu, but I thought that the the State law said that the an architectural style couldn't be more restrictive than what was applied to the principal dwelling, not not compared to a an accessory structure.

[93:04] I think that is how it's written, but it it's still more It's more permissive than a single family or single unit. Detached dwelling would have like we can't. We can still have accessory height limits that are lower than the principal structure. Does that make sense. because it's applicable to every accessory structure. It's just ensuring that the adu is not more restrict or the rules for an adu is not more restrictive than something that's not an adu. an accessory structure. Okay? I misunderstood that. So it's okay. It's compared to an accessory structure like a garage not compared to a detached dwelling unit, right? Right? So we can still the subject. Jurisdictions can still have accessory height limitations. There's actually no specific

[94:06] language in the staple about height. We the there it just can't be more restrictive than it can't be more restrictive for adus than for other similar uses. And so the 25 feet. If you have a higher, steeper roof, pitch is actually more flexible, and that was to accommodate like having an adu above a garage, sometimes you need that steeper roof pitch to accommodate the floor area. Okay, great. Thank you. Any other questions from the board. Okay, seeing none. First, st I would like to apologize for commenting instead of questioning, I should have held my comment. Sorry for that. Now we go to our public hearing. I'm not. Vivian is still online. I am. I'm here. Thank you. Welcome back. Please take us through the color, caring.

[95:01] Sure. First, st Thomas, do we have anybody in person? No, we don't have anybody signed up in person for public participation. Thank you, Vivian. Okay, great. So we can move to online and just ask that members joining us online raise their virtual hand. And we'll just go down the list reminder. In the meantime, as we wait, that each person will have 3 min. May I make an observation? I think that some of our commenters are hoping to go last, and so they're waiting each other out. And so maybe, Vivian, you just want to. If the same 2 commenters want to comment, if you could just flip a coin to see who goes 1st or reverse order from what we did for the previous hearing, or something like that, because I think folks are waiting each other out. That's my strong. Yeah, yeah, that might be. And I don't want to make any assumptions about who's going to speak. So just ask that people rate, go ahead and raise their hand.

[96:04] and I'll probably just call on whoever appears 1st on my screen, and I'll just maybe count to 5, and otherwise we can close the public hearing. I'll I'll count to 5, 1 to 3, 4, 5. Okay. Seems like we don't have anybody who would like to speak for the public, hearing. Okay, I'm going to close the public hearing. Then. Thank you. Okay, thank you so much, Vivian. All right. So do folks need a break before we go to deliberation? Or should we just plow through. Looks like everybody's willing to keep going all right. Shall we do this the same way as last time? Let me just get a sense. Is there anyone thinking of proposing amendments to this suggested motion. If so, please let me know. Indicate. Give me the eyebrow waggle or a high sign. Somehow.

[97:03] Okay, I don't see anybody thinking of suggested amendments, so why don't we have someone go ahead and make the motion, and a second, and then we'll have our deliberation and vote. Kurt would like to make the motion. Okay, I move that planning board recommend that city council adopt ordinance 86, 50, amending title, 9. Land use code and title, 10 Structures. Boulder Revised Code, 1981, to amend the standards for accessory dwelling units and setting forth related details. Is there a second second motioned and seconded Kurt, would you like to speak to your motion? Well, I don't have anything eloquent written up the way some people to come to planning board with. But I'm very excited about this. I think that this is a sensible progression in the our long and

[98:03] but but rather persistent process of liberalizing our accessory dwelling unit rules, and allowing this as a a relatively sustainable, relatively affordable and and flexible form of housing. So I think it has a lot of benefits, both for the the property owner and for whoever is living in the the accessory dwelling unit often is a relative, a parent, sometimes a renter. Sometimes it's the property owner themselves. Adus. Just allow for tremendous flexibility of the use of of our relatively large, single, sorry, detached dwelling unit lots. Which I think is great, because otherwise the uses are very restrictive and and very limited to

[99:06] people who can afford to live in them, which is unfortunately a diminishing number of people. So I strongly support these additional incremental changes to bring our code in line with the State law, and I'm excited about becoming a whatever. The term is, accessory, dwelling. supportive jurisdiction, and potentially getting some funding from the State. and supporting especially the affordable dwelling accessory dwelling units which I think would be great. Thank you, Kurt. Claudia, you seconded. Would you like to speak? Nope, okay, Mason, or Ml. Any comments on this one? Ml. Has her hand up. Yes, I do. Thank you. You know these seem like logical and quiet little moves that the State made. But I think that removing the parking requirement is huge. That was a big hurdle

[100:15] for these little houses to have to have to accommodate additionally, the the reduced setbacks for the attached adus. You know, both of those. I think you're gonna have big impacts. They don't seem like they're you know, just looking at the the 2. The nature of the 2 changes. It seems like they may not be big, but I think that those will have a pretty big impact, and I'm I'm glad to see that the State stepped up. I don't think we've gone far enough yet, but, as Kurt said, you know, we tend to take incremental steps. And I am. I'm really glad that we have

[101:03] accommodated the this. The state of regulations in our local adus. Thank you. Ml. Mason comments on this one. In the ad. Happy to see this done. Thank you, and likewise I'll just say I'm very happy to see this done, and once again I want to commend Staff for your excellent work. I think all of the changes that you have proposed are very sensible, and they do a great job of bringing us into alignment with this State Bill. I think it'll be very beneficial for our community. So thank you so much for getting us here. All right. Let's go ahead and vote. Oh, Kurt. Sorry. I want to add a couple of things that I understand why Staff wants to limit the scope of this to meeting the requirements of the State Bill.

[102:00] and that completely makes sense to me. But I do think that there are some ways that we could, as Ml. Said, continue to go further, that I think would be sensible and reasonable and equitable. And so I just want to raise those one, Kurt, can I ask you to wait till after we vote, and then we'll have discussion of next steps with Staff. Maybe. Sure. How about that? That would be fine. All right, let's go ahead and just keep this clean vote on the suggested motion. So Kurt? Yes, Claudia, yes, Mason. Yes. Ml. Yes. And I'm a yes. So that's another 5 0 for you tonight. Thank you so much. And I think we have some last words on potential things we'd like you to consider in terms of next steps of evolution for Adus Kurt. Take it away. Okay, so sorry. I was giving a long introduction, which was unnecessary, but one was already raised which is the restriction to a lot with exactly one

[103:07] detached dwelling unit. I think I have 2 concerns about that. One is, I think, that as Ml. I think, was hinting that, and and Laura too, that there can be cases where, for example, you might have a duplex on a lot, and you could build a triplex. But there would be reasons why, for example, just from the standpoint of flexibility. or that that you would want to to build an adu, and I think that there are benefits to the city one. They're restricted in size, which I think is a big benefit in terms of sort of enforcing natural affordability. And secondly, I think that by that that they tend to allow better preservation of historic material.

[104:03] Because, again, if it's detached, you're not even touching the historic. If it's a historic building, for example, you're not even touching that. And if you're doing some small internal conversion. Then again. you're you're preserving historic material. So I think there are benefits to that from the historic preservation standpoint. I also. And maybe this isn't a big deal deal, and I made a big deal of it in my questioning, but I do think that it would be worth considering allowing someone to build an adu before there's a house on the lot just from flexibility standpoint. and the last one that is a concern to me is the prohibition on independent conveyance. which is a restriction on condoization, basically in 2017 or something.

[105:01] The consultant Kaiser Marston did the middle income housing study which found that the the biggest challenge in terms of housing affordability in this city is not rental housing, but it's for sale housing. And so why we would prohibit creation of small relatively affordable for sale units is beyond me. I think that it would make tremendous amount of sense to allow for conduitation which would produce one small unit, which would be the adu which by by its nature would be relatively affordable, and it would also producing the A for sale unit, which is the the principal dwelling, which naturally, it seems to me, would be less costly than it would have been

[106:06] on its own, because there are restrictions on the lot. Now you've got this condo association. and you know there are limitations in that that diminishes the value somewhat of that of that dwelling unit. And so it seems like it's a mechanism for making both of them more affordable dwelling units that in the for sale market. So I would like us to consider eliminating that restriction. Thank you. Thank you, Kurt. Any other board members have thoughts about additional things to explore with adus in a potential next phase at some undetermined point in the future. Ml's got a hand up. I do have a hand up, and I am completely in agreement with Kurtz bringing up. That was one of the comments I was going to bring up the statement of no independent conveyance in our code. You know 80 users, the smallest detached dwelling units that are provided in the city. You cannot get a new small house

[107:16] in the city except through an adu and we are busy up zoning our residential zoning areas, zoned areas in order to get that missing middle typology. But we don't have anything to account for middle income affordability, and I think that the adus condoizing the adus would provide entry level housing for entry level homeowners and for people wanting to downsize. You can't buy a new small house in Boulder, and I think that that is a market that is real, and adus if they were condoized adus could

[108:14] could supply that very real, very real need. So I concur with with Kurt's suggestion, and I would urge Staff to take a look. I believe there are jurisdictions in the Pacific Northwest in Vancouver, and maybe even in California that have allowed condoization. And it'd be great to start getting data about. I've never seen anything except for good impacts from bringing in another housing type that inherently is affordable into the market, and especially in a market like Boulder, where land is so valuable. So that yeah, that's

[109:01] let's try to get that into our thinking as we go around. Come back around to 80. Use in the future. Thank you. Other comments from the board at this point. I'll just say, maybe this is something that can be considered through the Bvcp update and looks like you folks were thinking that, anyway. So thank you. And again, congratulations to Staff for this recommendation to city council. We we look forward to hearing about the next steps and thanks for joining us tonight. Okay, so that closes our second public hearing item. And now we are on to matters from the planning board, planning director and city attorney. I think our only matter from Staff tonight was to just remind you that we are going to set up a retreat in the New Year. Thomas is going to send out some potential dates, probably for February or March. Kurt and Mark committed to be on kind of the Retreat Planning Committee. So.

[110:02] But I want to start thinking about doing a little bit of brainstorming in the New Year, about what an agenda would look like, and how we want to spend our time together. But it has not fall. It did fall off our radar, but it is back on our radar, and we will do something about it in the New Year. Thank you. Charles and I want to especially invite our most recently joined members, Claudia and Mason to think about what might be useful to you in a retreat with your fellow planning board members, because I think it especially in my 1st and second year. It offered a lot of benefits to me in filling some of the gaps and some things that I felt like. Maybe I needed to get up to speed on. So if there are things that you feel like we could cover in a retreat that would be useful to you. Please talk to Mark and Kurt about that. Our subcommittee. Okay, thank you. And thank you, Charles Brad. I see that Brad, planning director has approached the podium. Brad Mueller. planning and development services. I I mentioned to you all in September or so that we were going to be bringing an awful lot to you as the year concluded. And you're you're seeing that now

[111:04] really appreciate the team, bringing that all together by the end of the year to meet a variety of self-imposed and other people impose deadlines, and we appreciate you kind of hanging in there with us, with the extra details and meetings and all that. So we're in the home stretch here, and thanks for thanks for being there for us, and and always giving the good consideration and counsel on items next year, as you know, will be Comp plan, update year. So we'll we'll have twice the fun for you. And we're still going to keep you plenty busy through December. Right? Yeah. So we're not out of the woods yet, to be sure, and not even close, to be sure, but appreciate all that, and look forward to more to come. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have on things, any questions for Brad. I have a question. Yes, we only have one more meeting on the calendar for December. What do you have planned for us for this meeting? There are 16 items on the agenda.

[112:07] No, I don't know. Do that. That is the only agenda, the only yeah. I think we have like a site review, 2 site reviews. Yeah, there's a there's a site review of a call up on East Arapahoe. And the other item. oh, landscaping and wildfire matters. Update? Which is a pretty meaty. Yeah, that's pretty meaty. Yeah, that is meaty. Okay? Looking forward to that. Yeah, it's actually 2 in one. We're cheating. Yeah, exactly. It's actually 3 items. Yeah. thank you so much. Thanks. You bet. Yeah. it's all been fun. Can't wait to go sliding into the New Year with you folks, but if it's meaty, Laura's going to have to recuse herself. The Vegan meat exists. It does. Laura, I have something I wanted to bring up. Yes, let me just check real quick anything from the city attorney before we go to matters from the board members. Nothing from me. Just look forward to my memo. We will look forward to that. Memo, thank you. Okay. Matters from the board. Starting with Ml.

[113:08] Yes, so I I have brought this up a couple of times, and I just wanted to check on the status of it, and that was the The, I guess. Thank you. Gathering for Sarah and Lisa as they left the board a year ago. We usually have that gathering a dinner and get together. And I'm just curious as to what's happening with the planning for that. I think Thomas had initially reached out and maybe didn't hear back. But I think we committed to reaching out again. Yeah, we've we've reached out and communicated with them a little bit, and it's just kind of fallen off of everyone's radar. They've had busy years as well as us. So I am going to go ahead and reach out to them. And hopefully we can plan something, for after the holidays, beginning early next year.

[114:07] That'd be great. Formal, send off. Yeah, that'll be great, you know, just to thank them for their for their service on the board. And I want to see that very cool, original map of Boulder again, and that tends to be gifted to the people leaving the planning board. So thank you for following up on that, Thomas. Absolutely. Yeah. And I'll be reaching out to the board as well to poll everyone for availability. Thank you. Any other matters from board members all right, seeing none, and the objection to adjourning. we are adjourned. Thank you. Everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Good night, folks. Thank you for sharing Lisa. Lisa. Laura.