April 15, 2025 — Planning Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

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

[0:00] 601 on April 15th, tax day. And I'm going to call the meeting to of the um city of Boulders's planning board to order. Um the first item on our agenda is public participation. But before we go to public participation, I'm going to do agenda item. Mark, sorry, I I don't know if it's my audio, but I can barely hear you. Vivian, you're having an issue. No, I can hear him really clearly. Okay, it must be mine. Continue. I'll figure it out. Thank um Okay. Uh we are going to do um a slight uh I think we will do a slight agenda modification here before we go to um our uh public participation item. Uh we had a um a mishap with the packet and uh the um one of the agenda items was not present in the packet until uh

[1:02] late yesterday. Uh, and as a consequence, um, I am hoping to entertain a motion from someone on the board to continue, uh, item what is currently item 4A to a future date. Um, could I ask staff, do we need to know what that future date is? We've proposed May 27th. That keeps us on our city council schedule barely. Yeah. I'll add to just to make the distinction. So when you continue to date certain date X, it means we don't have to renotice as well, which is always preferable from a public awareness standpoint. You do have the option of tableabling and then then it needs to be renoticed and such. So we always want to advise you to t to when you can to continue to a date certain and as Charles just offered up, we're always happy to suggest one. Okay.

[2:02] May I just ask how what else is on that agenda? Oh, that's easy. Not yet. Okay. Um, I would entertain a motion to uh continue the meeting to date certain May 27th. Continue item 4A from this agenda. Go ahead. I move to continue item 4A to date certain of May 27th. I'll second. Any discussion about this? Okay, we'll take a vote. Um, George, I'm going to start with you. Sure. Yes. Mason, yes. Laura, yes. Kurt, yes. ML, yes. And I'm a yes. So, we've continued that item and we can uh move on to our uh public participation and um

[3:01] Vivian is here with us tonight and she will introduce uh our our methods and procedures for public participation. Public participation is for any item that is not on our agenda. So, we have we now have one uh public um one public hearing item on the agenda, item 4B. And so, uh anyone in the room or online can speak to any item other than that particular uh item. Okay, take it away, Vivian. Thank you, chair. Good evening, everybody. Um I just wanted to quickly check with our council, I think it's Hela tonight, if I should go ahead and read them. I see we don't have any members from the public online. Um Thomas tells me we don't have members from the public in person either. I don't know if that's changed in the last few minutes. If I could get some guidance. I don't mind reading them.

[4:00] Um do the rules of decorum that you read merely pertain to speaking during a public hearing or to the entire meeting? Um they speak to they are geared towards the public. Go to the next slide. So, why don't I just read them maybe just for consistency, but I'll be I'll be Yeah, I think they go beyond just speaking during public participation or public hearings. So, I recommend that you do read them. Okay, great. Thank you. Um, so thank you. I'll just go through these. City has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive, meaningful, and inclusive civic conversations. And the vision supports physical and emotional safety for all participants in the meetings um as well as democracy for people of all ages, identities, lived experiences, and political perspectives. And we have more information about the vision and our community engagement

[5:01] process on our website. Next slide, please. And I'll just share some examples of rules of decorum found in the Boulder Revised Code. And these will all be upheld during the meeting. All remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city city business. No participants 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. And we ask that all participants use their first and last name. Next slide, please. Um and to raise your hand, you can use the virtual hand um icon if you're online and otherwise you can sign up uh through Thomas to speak in person. So there still nobody in the room. Thomas, can you just confirm for open comment? Yes, that's correct. We do not have anybody from the public in the room. Thank you. Okay. And there's nobody

[6:01] online either. So back to you chair. Thank you. I'm not hearing you. Are you, George? Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't have my mic on. Okay. So, uh, before, uh, as part of public participation before item three, I just wanted to take a second and, uh, mention two things. The first is a uh a big thank you to George Boon for chairing over this last year. George did a thank you. Thank thanks every a great job through a number of meetings that were uh were difficult and challenging and uh George you managed those uh deathly. So uh a lot of appreciation for the work you did over the last year. So thank you. Um the uh the one other item

[7:01] and this is it's a small item I I just wanted to um mention for those that don't get the camera or anything. um uh the passing of a former staff member uh a former director of housing and human services in the city of Boulder, Susan Pertie, uh passed last month. And um uh she essentially had what Kurt Fernho's uh position is is now. And this was before the days of even BHP when the city's housing authority was more uh directly affiliated uh with the city and um a number of uh lower income affordable housing projects that that have come across to us for modification or whatever um were were built under that era in the uh in the early 80s. and and um her involvement uh precipitated

[8:01] my involvement in in city uh housing policies and so forth by um she appointed me as the student representative when I was attending CU to the citizens committee for housing and community development which was a big working group of a very diverse working group in the city of Boulder that administered Reagan era block grants and how we and we decided how those funds would be administered and many of them went to either uh the building or the maintaining or improvement of affordable housing projects. Um so anyway that was uh back in the early 80s but anyway she was a great person and uh an exemplary of a um a a great city of Boulder staffer. So just a note there. Okay. Um we will go on to um item three um

[9:02] dispositions and uh callups and continuations. Uh item 3A is a possible callup item. Um Hela, so I do read this. Do I read the full title? Um I think we do typically read the full full title. Okay, sure. Final this. So, this callup item, item 3A, final plat to subdivide the 7.47 47 acre city-owned property at 1100 Balsam Avenue to create five lots and to dedicate additional right of way for Broadway, additional right of way for Alpine Avenue, additional right ofway for Balsam Avenue, 10th Street right ofway, Aspen Place right ofway, utility easements, a public access easement, and a drainage easement. This application is subject to potential callup on or before April 22nd, 2025

[10:01] reviewed under case number TEC 2024-000043. Are there questions? Uh, anyone want to call this up? Kurt, I have questions. I feel like I may have asked these questions when this came before us before, but I my memory is terrible. Can someone remind me why we are providing this additional right ofway with for Alpine Balsam and Alpine, Balsam and Broadway Chandler, are you on the call? Uh, yes, I'm on the call. Um, sorry my camera doesn't seem to be working. Um, hi this is Chandler Ranscock with the city of Boulder. Um, so the question is why are we getting extra rightway

[11:01] for I mean the Alpine and Balsam rightway are both to expand those rightways to allow for the on street parking that's shown in the improved site review plans. Um the additional Broadway right ofway was essentially to uh create area for um flood improvements and to create frontage on um the lot the north eastern most lot which is going to have the mixeduse building. Okay. So, Alpine and Balsam are Well, so let's see. Alpine already has on street parking, right? Yeah. So, I I think there's um Sorry, I'm I'm not I haven't been looking at the site review plans recently, but um yeah, I think that there's expansion um of Alpine to the north um which is consistent with our transportation plans. Um, I thought it was for on street parking. It might be

[12:02] to um increase on street parking. I'm honestly not entirely 100% sure. Okay. Okay. And the that that chunk on the north lot on Broadway, you say that that's for the flood changes, but that doesn't seem like right flood changes and also to provide frontage to the lot that didn't have lot frontage. Okay. But there are no changes to the street contemplated per se. Correct. Okay. Uh okay. Um my other question is also street related. Um uh well sorry there are two regarding basically the 11th street um the the uh

[13:00] what what will become 11th street. Uh, first of all, that's shown as a 60-foot right away and I thought that we were I believe we are building it or the city is going to be building it as a private street. We it's being designed as a private street and I thought that that was to make a street that is smaller, narrower than what would be allowed under the DCS and 60 ft seems like that's the DCS compliant rightway width. Do you uh for Well, it's an outlot. Um it's an out. Yep. And yeah, the street will be narrower I think. um if there's the additional um room is most likely for um the sidewalk improvements. I mean, there's loading zones and um landscaping that goes beyond what our typical standards are. So, I think overall they're trying to make it a special street. Um the street itself

[14:00] will be narrower, but there will be um extra things on the sides of the street. Okay. And then the last question also about that outlaw a in theou that was talking about maintenance. So again, that street is going to be a private street, right? It's not going to be city a city dedication. And I saw reference to maintenance of other facilities, but I didn't see anything in theou related to maintenance of 11th Street in effect on that outlot A. Do you know how that is to be handled? It is. It should be in there. We spent a a lot of time talking about it. Um Hela, I don't know if you actually want to jump in here. Um yeah, it might be it might be referenced in the outlaw table on the plat itself as

[15:01] city- owned and maintained, but the intent is for the city to maintain that. Uh okay. And so what if at some time in the future plans change and the city decides to sell this property? Oh yeah, that's right. What What would happen? What would happen with the maintenance? Would the city then still be responsible for the maintenance or would that go to the new property owner? I'm just And are you when you say this property, are you referring to the outlaw? Well, that's a good question. Um, yeah, I mean, presumably the outlot would not be sold. The outlot, I assume, would go with the other lots if the entire package were to be sold, for instance. Yeah. The way it's set up is that that it remain in city as city property and it there would have to be an amendment

[16:00] of the plat because it designates it for city purposes and the outlot itself is not really a developable lot with with like a use other than city purposes such as utilities or street purposes that's designated in it. Um for the other lots there are as you mentioned there are some things that um theou addresses for maintenance and it is set up that in in a manner that the future property owners of the different lots will be responsible for maintenance of certain things. Okay. But if a 100 years from now or whatever the this gets sold, it there would be the opportunity then to modify theou to to either like transfer the maintenance responsibility or somehow clarify what happens with that the maintenance responsibility of that

[17:00] outline of the outlet. Yeah. Um, yeah, I guess it would require a subdivision process because it's it's a city function, a regulatory city function similar to a street that's designated in the approval documents this way and not just something for private parties, but a regulatory element under the code. Okay. All right. I basically I just wanted to verify that it was something that had been thought about and it sounds like the answer is yes and so yeah it's been extensively thought about. Okay, great. Okay, thank you George. Oh yeah, you're muted still. Sorry. Um I just had a quick question. um more procedural than anything else because um

[18:00] I don't live too far away from here and this this site is clearly very fully under construction. So I see the drainage way already being built and so my question is if this is available for callup and there's all this work already happening I I don't really I don't really understand we don't even have a a choice right I mean there's no it's it's going um not so they they were able to get some um grading permits and other site work permits um prior prior to the subdivision happening related to the flood improvements, but they can't actually get building permits for any of the structures unless this is approved. Got it. But the city's already going full throttle and investing. So, um that's it. That's it. I just I was just curious on how on how this all worked because it it seems a little um seems like it's going. Uh but uh understood

[19:00] what your your answer. Thanks, Claudia. I also have a procedural question. Um, am I correct to assume that all of the lots slated for housing development here are going to be transferred to BHP or other private developers? Um, and if so, when does that actually happen in the process of development? Um, that's correct. And I believe that's outlined in the original memorandum of understanding for the Alpine Bman development that happened before um the formbbased code or site review. I think there are time frames following subdivision. I am I do not have those memorized. Um but I know that BHP is uh hoping to purchase those lots and start development as quickly as possible. Okay. Um more generally, what is the official process for the city divesting publicly owned parcels? So if there were to be transfers in the future under theseUS, what would that process look like? Uh I I do not know. I would have to

[20:01] defer to Hela if she if she knows that process. Yeah, any conveyance of city land requires council approval and I don't know if that's already happened through that MOU or if there would be a separate approval. It may already be approved through what was done in the past. Okay. Thank you. That's just for my learning. Any other questions on this uh item 3A? Okay, seeing none, seeing no desire to call it up, we'll move on to item 3B. Call up item. final plat subdivide the 1.36 acre city-owned property generally located at 2655 Broadway 1136 Alpine Avenue and 1135 North Street to create two lots and dedicate additional alley right ofway and several drainage

[21:00] easements. This application is subject to a potential callup on or before April 22nd, 2025 reviewed under case number TEC 2024-000058. Uh questions, comments, or desire to call it up. Okay, are you guys uh Okay. Okay. No, but okay. No, you've examined the map and no questions or callups. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Okay. Uh moving on then to um uh item 4B since we have continued item 4 A. Item uh 4B is a public hearing item. Um the item is public hearing and recommendation to

[22:00] city council regarding proposed ordinance 8695 amending chapter 10-8.5 wildland code BRC1 1981 to adopt by reference the 2024 edition of the international wildland urban interface code of the international code council with certain amendments and setting forth for related details and recommendation to city council regarding proposed updates to the city's wildland urban interface area to which the wildland code applies. So just for everyone who's not online or not in the room um uh we'll hear from staff uh give us a presentation which will be just so everyone knows going to be a little longer tonight because this is a big uh and complex topic. So, uh, staff's presentation is going to run up to and around 30 minutes, which is longer than

[23:01] normal. We'll follow that with clarifying questions, our open it up for public hearing, and then the board will deliberate and make our recommendations. So, thank you, staff, and take it away. Thank you, chair. My name is Lisa Hood. I'm a principal planner with Planning and Development Services. I'm joined tonight by Chief David Lowry from Boulder Fire Rescue and Rob Adriens's our chief building official. Two different chiefs. Um we are excited to bring this item to you tonight. Um had a very long title, so you already got a preview, but to talk about the code and policy updates as part of the wildfire hardening project. You may remember that I was here back in December to introduce you to this project. And so now we're back with lots of details. The purpose tonight is for planning board to make a recommendation to the city council on ordinance 8695. This is slightly different than land use code amendments that I bring to you because the power comes from the city charter um for planning board to

[24:02] get notice of things like this that relate to the building code. So you'll also remember that you recently uh reviewed the other international building codes just a couple months ago. So similarly, um that's why you're seeing it tonight and why you were asking you to make a recommendation that we take forward to council. We talked about this back in December, but you will hear this acronym a lot. So I'm going to go over it again. What is the WOOI? The WOOI is the wildland urban interface. It's the geographical area where structures and human development meet the meet or intermingle with wildland or vegetative fuels. The map on this slide is our current identified WOOI area. You can see it mostly follows the western boundary of the city. Like I said, this is all a part of our larger wildfire hardening project schedule or project. So, this is the schedule for the project. It was identified by city council as one of their 2024 2025 council priorities to

[25:01] work on wildfire hardening code and policy updates. And so, this is just one step of the overall project. This is the building code specific change. You can see the star. We're right here at the beginning of quarter 2. This is the first step. We'll also have a check-in with council this summer. And then we'll have additional changes that come along with the water wise landscaping project um early in the fall. If that's not complicated enough, we also have a state process that's going on. The state a couple years ago passed a bill um to establish this wild wildfire resiliency code board. And so the state is developing a statewide model code that jurisdictions have to adopt kind of like a minimum code. The codes that we already have are very similar to what those would be. So it's not a lot that we have to do to comply with the state, but just for you to be aware that there's this other process kind of happen happening simultaneously. I'm going to talk a bit about the policy background for the project and some of our current efforts related to wildfire

[26:00] mitigation, but the star of the show is going to be Chief Lowry, who will go into uh lots of details about the actual code changes. So, um even though it's a council priority for these last two years, there it's been a city priority for more than 30 years to work on wildfire mitigation. So, I'll walk you through the timeline. Back in 1991 was when we first formed the wildland fire division. In 1994 the was when we passed the city passed the ordinance prohibiting wood roofs. We hired our first seasonal wildfire crews in 1998. Our first community wildfire protection plan was adopted back in 2007. Those seasonal wildfire crews became permanent specialists in 2012. And then related to what you're seeing tonight, uh the city adopted the first version of the or our first version of the international wooi code back in 2014. That was the 2012 version. Um 2016 we opened uh fire

[27:00] station 8 and then we updated that international wooi code back in 2020 adopting the 2018 version of the international code uh which is what's currently in place. We also updated the city's community wildfire protection plan last year and so that's guiding a lot of this work as well. There is significant policy framework for this project as well from our strategics plan to our sustainability equity and resilience framework and even policies in the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan. But specifically that community wildfire protection plan that was adopted last year uh recommended an implementation strategy where we would look at our building codes and make sure that we are incorporating effective wildfire resistant construction practices. So that's what's really led to this project. It's dramatic. Um, also just to put this project in perspective, this is a nationwide, this is a graphic from a nationwide um, learning network related to fire adapted communities. But there are a number of

[28:01] different um, programs and in um, efforts that a a community goes through to adapt to wildfire. And you'll see that regulations, policies, and plans, codes, and ordinances is just one piece of the overall very multiaceted approach that is needed to really adapt a community to the wildfire threat. And so when we're talking about this project, it's it's one piece of a larger puzzle. There's a lot of work that's going on at the city in all of these different areas, which I'll talk about as well, but just wanted to highlight that as well. So seeing this in the context of the city of Boulder, pretty much in every department, every single day, someone is working on wildfire risk mitigation. This is just a um a sample of some of the projects that all the different departments are working on to um mitigate fire risk. We also have a number of key partnerships both internally and externally. And then when we think about the kind of key elements

[29:00] of wildfire mitigation that city the city is focused on, it really boils down to regulations, education and incentives, plans and policies and programs and operations. So all of these together combined kind of similar to that wheel graphic um for our wildfire risk mitigation approach. And the focus for this project is really focused on just the regulations side of it. And specifically tonight, we're talking about that international wildland urban interface code, which is how our building code affects new construction in the community. Now is my time to pass it to Chief Lowry. All right. Well, thank you. Um, couple of things. Um, really do um appreciate your time and uh listening to this. It's an important subject. Uh, so we're gonna I'm gonna kind of start out in um a way that we kind of talk about what we have right now and then we're going to kind of move into changes in the can

[30:02] I into the new uh code. Um, and then we'll talk about amendments. Right? So, I'm going to kind of let you know realistically when we hit those proposed amendments that we're proposing because I think that's really kind of the important part of of us changing the code. remembering that technically, you know, we have the 2018 adopted right now and prior to the 2018, we had the 2012 adopted, right? So, this is not our first uh goround with this international code, right? We've been using it since well almost a little over a decade now, right? Um so, it's not new to us. In that particular 2018 code, you know, we already have the home we've been doing the home hardening. You can see kind of the list of things. The fire resistant building material, the venting, the screening, the roof coverings. Roof coverings are somewhat easy because you all know we already have a separate ordinance for roofs that was passed in 1994 on that one. Uh so everything else

[31:00] that we have what we what will come and I'll point this out um is is most of our amendments that we're proposing for this particular code are going into that more vegetation type management. most not all. Right? So um so I'll be pointing that out um of what it is and as we kind of go through there I think it's important uh to understand kind of the setup of this particular document right and again uh you see for those who are here right it's not a big code right it's a fairly simple uh uh written type code that we follow so chapter one and chapter two are administrative chapters right just like any international code that we're dealing with. There's really no difference there. Chapter 3 is a very small chapter. Uh there's only five sections on it. It takes less than a half a page in this particular code, but it tells us that we need to establish

[32:00] that uh that interface area of our community, right? It literally directs us saying that we need to identify that and we're going to talk quite a bit about that, right? We got some graphics for that. uh we have done that. We're proposing some changes to that in in this particular area. But that's really all the chapter 3 is. Chapter 4 is really that the the uh area the interface area requirements basically focusing on emergency uh access into those areas and water supply. Well, we are an established community. we have all that written already in other uh of our codes and standards and uh the DCS that we have already has a lot of that laid out. So we don't really amend anything in chapter 4 other than referring it to the DCS in other words right of going through there. But when we get to chapter five and chapter 6, those are

[33:01] really the meat and potatoes of this particular document, right? Chapter 5 is the ignition resistant construction or that home hardening that that everyone is kind of familiar about, right? And that is uh kind of a significant we to be quite frank with you guys, we don't really have a ton of amendments to that particular chapter. A few, but not a ton. And then chapter six is what's called fire protection, but really think of chapter six as that vegetation management planning or the defensible space, maybe a term that you're familiar with, right? And that kind of wraps that that particular up. But I think it's important to understand that when we really start talking and I start rattling off these proposed amendments to you guys, and I'll I'll let you know what chapter they come out of. It's really all focused on that chapter five and chapter six as we move forward here. As you know, when the the international code council updates these codes and standards every three years, we do every other uh uh publication of that

[34:00] particular thing here in the city of Boulder. There are changes that are already made in that particular item. So, pointing out and I kind of stole this from Rob here from when we did the um international code adoption that it's probably good to point out some of the changes that occurred uh not that we're proposing amendments to, right? These are just naturally in there. Now, obviously, there were some administrative changes to chapter one and and chapter 2, the definitions. Nothing really big deal. That's kind of aligning them in the format of the other eye codes. Um, but then the next four bullet points that you see there are all really um well, they're all in chapter 5, right? Is so when we really think about changes that were made, these are in chapter five. And quite frankly, if you're asking me, I don't know if you are, but if you were, I'd say these really aren't that significant to be quite frank with you. Right. Um there's updates to what they consider ignition resistant building material, right? From the last publication to this publication, more tests are done, more

[35:01] information is brought about. So, they've updated that slightly. Uh they added flashing requirements to the CLA to the ignition resistant class one section. which is good, right? Building code, international residential code kind of already requires flashing. It's not that's not really going to create too much of a hardship out there. Uh they didn't add it to class 2 ignition resistant or class 3, but they did one and then they updated the requirements for our vents. When I mean vents, I mean screening of vents uh so embers and flame can't enter those vents and into the house. Uh they updated that for class one and class two. They what they did is they added a performance-based requirement for the vent, right? So, I I really don't know, but I'm assuming that there are some vents out there that are able to pass a certain test performance-wise and not have screening around it. That's my assumption. I honestly haven't seen anything, but they

[36:00] did leave the prescription uh areas for the vents still left in there. In other words, um, a horizontal or vertical vent can't be more than 144 in 12 by 12. Um, and that vent needs to have 1/8 inch screening metal resistant to embers and flames, right? That's what's always been in there. So, that is still in there. And then in the uh ignition resistant class 3 area, they added that requirement for the class 3 with it previously was not there. Funny thing, they only added the prescriptive requirements. They didn't add the performance requirements. I'm not sure what they're thinking the difference there is, but the prescriptive requirements is added in the in the uh ignition resistant 3, which is good because we would have proposed an amendment to have that added if it didn't, right? But we are just talking about the screening of the vents. that chapter 3 thing I was talking about, right, where we need to designate a WOOI. We did that um all the way

[37:00] actually back before we adopted the 2012 edition um when we published our structure protection plan uh and then we have updated it and made some slight changes to that over the years. The graphic that you see on the uh screen right now is what currently as we sit here tonight have as our designated WOOI. The different colors represent that ignition resistant one area, the ignition resistant two and ignition resistant three area on that. That is what we currently have. What we are proposing to have um is we're proposing to expand that, right? Um and that expansion is coming from a few different areas. one um and kind of the easy one to kind of tackle is that that uh state resiliency code that they're uh trying to publish or trying to get pushed through legislation right now. Um they have a WOOI map in in that particular

[38:00] document as well. And as I think Lisa alluded to, we have to meet at least that minimum map that they have. And I can't really speak to their map. I tell I'm not a fan of it. But um if I were to speak to it, but they basically used a lot of spatial data and um but it's not really specific to what we know as our community. So some of this area is added to that. So I'll kind of give an example right about in this area right here where you see that laser pointer going on. Uh that is Stasio Ballfields, right? And technically I probably would not have included Stasio Bfields as an interface area but the state did. So we are right and that's just kind of an example of of us meeting that minimum type area. Now that doesn't hurt anything to be quite honest with you. Um it it's not going to cause any hardship. So um so some of those areas are uh are done that way. Some of those areas we they had included and we probably should

[39:00] have already had included to be quite frank with you. So, it was a good uh area for us to do a review to. Um, and then the other area in the bigger area that you kind of see that is expanded in that yellow on that area where that laser pointer is going right now really was expanded based on a couple of things. One, um, we knew we probably needed to expand it based on ember casting, right? that we know that uh embers can blow into our community and they can blow from, you know, feet depending on the winds and the vegetation that's generating those embers to miles uh depending on what's burning and the wind velocity that's going on. Um so what we looked at is we looked at some embercast modeling out there um plus the knowledge of our uh wildland uh firefighting division as well. And uh based on the modeling that we used and came up with and obviously we weren't using uh hurricane force winds or it would have blown all the

[40:02] way. We looked at what really what we looked at in the embers that could be blown in that still had enough heat or energy to them that could still possibly ignite vegetation material if they landed near your home. And uh you see in the north part of town, we go across Broadway in that particular area. And then we uh as we move more into the center of the town, we uh we ran it down Broadway. It really was a little bit west of Broadway, but Broadway makes a nice even street to draw a line down to to kind of call this. And it never hurts to be a little more conservative. Um and then we followed that all the way into the south part. Uh did extend across a little bit right around that color area which uh the model showed that it went across. Um and then and then took it back to Broadway on over included some

[41:00] of the west areas and then some of these other areas that I'm going to put that uh pointer to like the area right here and this and what we commonly you know kindly refer to as that flag pole in there. you know, that is all open space type areas. And this, if you're looking at your packet, this is probably a little bit different because we recently just made that. And and realistically, we didn't include it originally because it's open space. We're not building homes on open space. This code technically wouldn't apply to anything on that open space. However, it was brought up to us that well, open space does have restrooms at some of the trail heads, right? And if they were to need to redo those bathrooms, they would need to meet this particular code, right? Uh I don't think anyone was going to fight us on that. Uh and and the more we looked at it, the more it kind of looked funny having the areas outlined a city of Boulder and not having it shown as interface that we

[42:00] did. So we added that particular area. We also added like right in here, that big long area right there, that's NIST. Uh that's federal government land a little bit right in there and then that kind of that lighter color um is the incar particular area. We don't have any authority on that particular land but yet it still falls within the city of Boulder and we're still going to like just for sake label it as interface right uh on that particular area. So it just really kind of made the map look a little cleaner and a little more filled out to be quite honest with you. I think it should be noted that earlier before that um in that earlier map uh right here that we had about and I'm approximating about 4,600 parcels that we were looking at as interface. When we add this new particular map, it does it right uh pretty close to 1,600 parcels. That's quite a jump to be quite honest with you. But I do want to point out the color and that is that yellow color and that is that ignition resistant uh three

[43:00] color. So that leads me to this particular slide right here. Right? And so what does that mean? When I talked about that ignition resistant 1, two, and three, these are the requirements that a building from chapter 5 would have to be built to um on that particular area that you can see on that left hand side the requirements uh for that particular area. Like the very top one, roofs all have to be a non-combustible roof. If you're within that WOOI, that counts for ignition resistant one, two, or three. As you can see across that board and then you can kind of look down and see, well, ignition resistant one is very stringent. Ignition resistant two. Well, it's pretty stringent, too, to be quite frank with you. There's really not a lot of different, but you see a dramatic drop off in that ignition resistant three. There's not a lot of home hardening in ignition resistant 3 particular area. It's more of those smaller items like the gutters and the vents. The roof is included, but since we already have that ordinance since

[44:01] 1994, that's not really much of an issue for us, right? We have a couple of things uh that we have local uh uh uh labeled as local amendment. I'm going to get to those right in their own individual slides here coming up. But I guess my point here is is that when we expanded it from 4600 to 1,600 acres, that's 98% of that is all that ignition resistant three, which we're really talking about that vegetation management planning really. And we're not talking about windows and uh the glazing and the sighting and and the eaves and items like that, right? You know, the fact of the matter is is that if I go uh back, um those homes when those embers try to hit those homes, we're looking for that vegetation to catch fire, not necessarily the siding. It's sticking to the siding and catching fire. We're not looking at direct flame impingement from the w from the vegetation coming from

[45:00] the wildfire. Right? So, kind of kind of don't forget about this this particular slide. And if we need to come back, we certainly can as we kind of move forward to that. Um, and then just a little more explanation when we talk about those class 3 requirements when we start looking at the building construction in that class three. We're looking at obviously the roofs. We didn't include that since we have our own ordinance on that, but gutters and downspouts, vents, underfloor areas, which quite frankly is not common in our community. Uh that's really talking about like if you're building on a slope and and you have a large area that underneath uh you may see this more in Boulder County. You don't see it too much here in the city of Boulder or any um decks and fencing. Fencing will be a local amendment that I'll talk about here. Um that that would be for new construction. They modified something for whatever reason they needed to replace their gutters and their plastic gutters. Now they would have to go to metal gutters, right? um on that type of situation, the fire

[46:00] protection. So, think of that left hand side of that is the chapter five and the right hand side is that chapter six requirements that fire protection. Um and we're looking at new construction that uh we have proposed the non-combustible zone. Again, these are separate slides that I'm going to going to talk about here. We talk about lowflammability plants in the defensible space. Another amendment that we're going to be talking about, we're not going to allow any junipers to be planted in in the designated WOOI area, which kind of goes in line with that low flammability plants, but we're going to kind of make that for all the WOOI area. Uh, and any fuels modification, which are kind of those top areas right there. Uh, the fire protection requirements. Um, when we start looking at that, this is really that chapter six requirements that I talked about. Again, I haven't really gotten to any amendments yet, just so you know. This is all the intro to those amendments. So, um, when we look at that, um, and we look at where do these requires when we

[47:01] talk about those fuel modifications in that defensible space and you see that green up that green box up there where we talk about that the buildings and structures constructed in compliance with a conformity defensible space category, that is new construction. We did make an amendment in chapter 6 to only have that required for new construction. We're not proposing uh the fuels modification to be retroactive to existing parcels in the WOOI. Now, we have recommendations when we do our detailed home assessments for that obviously um but it's not going to be a a retroactive requirement. And so we talk about the trees and the canopies of trees that hang over that. The dead wood and litter is more maintenance, but it does appear in both areas. The non-combustible zone, which will be a local amendment. The fuels uh being low flammability fuels, that's a local amendment. And the junipers will be a local amendment. Uh the maintenance of

[48:01] that, now when do these apply? The maintenance of this applies to new and existing, right? But the maintenance is really that regular maintenance as far as removing the dead wood, leaves, needles, items like that. Uh cleaning your gutters, right, of getting that that material out of there. If you had a um uh an existing uh chimney uh for a fireplace, indoor fireplace, and you didn't and we could tell that you didn't have a spark arresttor around it to prevent uh embers from coming out from that, we would require you to add that, right? Um most all do, right? Uh liquid petroleum gas installation doesn't is not really something that we deal with here in the city of Boulder. It's more like I need uh LP gas to heat my home in the wintertime. We don't obviously have that too much within the city limits of Boulder. And then the storage of firewood and combustible materials. We have that in our current amendment that we can enforce now where it's it's

[49:00] really what it's saying is, you know, don't store your firewood underneath your combustible deck, right? Because it's going to blow underneath there and catch fire. Um so we that's not different than what we currently have in our particular area. So with that said, let's get to some of those amendments, right? And so we have a couple of proposed definition changes, right? One of them I would say is signific is is not very significant and one of them is significant. The divisible space is already a definition in there that we amended slightly. Uh and it's more and I would tell you it's kind of more for selfish reasons for myself and my team. Uh if you look at exactly what's written in there, it talks about that we need this defensible space for suppression efforts. Um if you just read it word for word and quite honestly when we talk to our community and we're doing uh the detailed home assessments out there, we're really talking about defensible space in the term that we want to change that fire behavior, right? We want to make a difference in how that fire is

[50:00] reacting when it comes in contact with your parcel or your property. So, I don't want homeowners really thinking that if I do this, then they're going to have uh they're going to be able to defend my home, right? Because we all know that wildfires differ from, you know, kind of a a mild or moderate to what we see in Marshall and Lahina and the LA fires, right? Where we can't defend homes in in wind type like that. So, we want to give the homeowners a realistic point of view of what we're asking them to do that when that fire enters there, you can make a difference if you make some of these changes in how that fire is going to react before it approaches your house. Um, it's more of a community approach uh of where we have suppression efforts, we have mitigation efforts, right? Uh, so that's kind of what we want uh to do. Um, all in all, I don't think anyone would notice that change to

[51:00] be quite honest with you, but it means something to us. The non-combustible zone is a significant change that we're looking at. It's not a term that's currently in uh uh the uh the WOOI code that we have written in. So, we've added this based on an amendment that we're going to talk about in chapter 6. We used the term, we needed to define the term and that term is saying that a non-combustible zone is a five- foot area around building and other structures having no combustible material in or vegetation, right? Uh so we're literally and I have some pictures when we get back there of what we're really talking about that. Uh so that's in chapter 2. We don't do anything in chapter 3, right? We it tells us to define a WOOI. We talked about that WOOI and and and our changes to it. Um all all the changes in chapter 4 are basically we refer to our design and construction standard uh based on our water and our access that we already have written uh in there and all those are acceptable. When we start getting into um chapter five that ignition

[52:02] resistant building construction type material in the in our current area we have an amendment in the decking area. Um, and really what we do is is we came uh uh we require what Boulder County requires is kind of the simple way of saying it, right? Um, quite frankly, there's a section written in there that has some materials listed that no, we can't find. We I mean it it must be produced somewhere, but none of us can find it. And that's the reason Boulder County changed it when they adopted it um uh back in 2018. And I think they actually did it in the 2012 as well. Uh and then when we adopted the 2018, we came in line with what Boulder County requires as far as decking material. Um and so we're trying to stay in with that. Um and we've added one slight change that you you can't use two eyes, right? Basically,

[53:03] um not really significant. And you kind of see what we're talking about. uh we're talking about the actual framing type material when we talk about that ignition resistant material as well as that surface of that decking material. Now, an amendment that we did make is in our class three doesn't have anything about decking. And so, we did add an area that says that the surface decking material, the actual decking that we walk on needs to be that ignition resistant materials, right? And that's all going and saying that we've expanded this WOOI based on the fact that we now have ran ember models showing where embers could land that have enough energy that could start fire where they're going to land on a flat combustible service surface. We probably ought to have that a non-combustible material. Again, new construction, right? Not retroactive, right? So, we're on that class three here, that second bullet point, we're talking about this area right here. Uh on that we also

[54:01] state they obviously have the the option to build a framing out of non-combustible material but they're not required. We're trying to look at the cost right of this of this type material as well. And that framing and that non-combustible framing the cost really adds up. The other factor that when Rob and I were discussing this is the whole thing is that that you know don't don't quote us on this but we're like pretty much 95% of all the decks that are pulled permit have a composite type decking that more than most likely meets that ignition resistant construction material. Right? Not all of it does, but a lot of it does. And so we're looking at like this picture right here that that that pointer is that is a non-combustible type planking that they've put on that particular one. It obviously comes from the the web page on that. These come from pictures that we have taken here in town. We also added that listen, you can still build your framing out of combustible material, but if it is up off the ground in an area,

[55:02] we need you to cover that or or enclose that or screen it, right? And so this particular is a nice picture of the decking that was put in that they they they put a board in front of whether intentionally for my picture or not. I can't really speak to that. Um but it won't allow embers to blow underneath that and obviously it won't allow leaves and debris and pine needles that that ember could blow into and catch fire. This particular um is uh is a gentleman that works for Boulder Fire Rescue. It's obviously a combustible deck. it's existing. Uh but he has added that screening along that particular area right there. Uh added that screening to protect so no embers can blow underneath that particular area. Right. Um so that's what we're adding kind of to emphasize that just a little bit more. Um that you know we are trying to make these decisions on research and science. It's being published out there. Uh this is done by uh IBHS the insurance

[56:02] institute for building and home safety. uh out there. Um it's a organization that does all this research and probably be a really fun company to work for because they build these homes in these decks and appendages and then they have these big fans that they dump a whole bunch of flaming material in and make ember storms happen, right? And they blow them against these homes and and items like that and see see what works and what doesn't work on this, right? And so in this particular one, they uh have a combustible deck uh over on this side here, not screened in. Uh not a 5-ft non-combustible zone on there. Uh and it it it seemed to have caught fire. This particular side of the house, the embers, you know, were blown against both sides. They have a non-combustible deck. They did screen it in. They did add a five- foot non-combustible zone around that deck and it's, you know, didn't affect it at all on that particular one. So, I don't, you know, I

[57:01] guess my my my point is it's not just because it is kind of a cool picture, but it is kind of one of those deals that hey, you know, there is a lot of research going on about this and this is the information that we're getting back of what's working in these areas and what's not working in these areas. So, we're trying to make our decisions about this in an educated type manner. The next area uh proposed amendment that we're talking about is the fencing, right? Um and again, this would count for ignition resistant one, two, and three. We're literally proposing a new section at the end of chapter 5 that says what we have on the screen is that that new fencing, new construction um in fencing or gate sections within 8 ft of a building to be non-combustible, right? Um, and this again I have to emphasize this is for new construction uh or if you replaced a fence like you know fences have a

[58:00] limited lifetime uh on there. We we stretch them out as long as we can obviously but um if you were to replace it if you were in the designated WOOI area it would need to be that section between your house and there would need to be non-combustible. And you see some pictures that we have taken uh as we do these detailed home assessments across town. Uh I just want to point out, you know, this is a gate gated type area. I honestly I don't really don't know if that's 8 foot, but I I I think they've done a great job of adding a gate section that is non-combustible. Uh this one obviously is a little more high-tech, a little more nice um of going through there. And this one is another more economical type section of a fence. Now listen, chain link would count, right? Um, and if you Google um, you know, non-combustible fencing or fencing compliant with WOI standards, there's a lot more companies coming out that are meeting this requirement as far as

[59:00] decorative type fencing. But again, I just found this picture the other day and I like, Lisa, can I add this to it, please? Um, but this really emphasizes the point. If you guys remember back in, I believe it was 2012 or the beginning of 2013, the Waldo Canyon fire down in Colorado Springs, right? So, a lot of the big research from the organizations like IBHS and and NIST who who looked at that Waldo Canyon fire and that confration that occurred um was the fencing, right? that the fencing caught fire and it literally acted as a fuse from uh from it being on fire, it burning and then burning next and onto the house. And I and I think this picture shows it. This is a uh from Balt Springs, Texas. A grass fire down there. B Springs is a suburb of of of um of Dallas. Almost said Denver of Dallas down there. Um it's like not in the middle of it, but it is not it's not like in the rural part, but you see this

[60:01] fencing that burned burned right along down in there and then it's hitting that house right there. So I think that really emphasizes what the research showed us from all these other fires including the Marshall fire by the way uh of that the fencing is a really critical key point. We used to say five foot that was moved to 8 foot and really it's between eight and 10 foot depending on what what what journal and and what research you see it's either eight or 10 foot. Um I think the majority are saying 8 foot. So we landed on that 8 foot. But I also wanted to point out um because I know a lot of people look at this and say like I want privacy. I I don't want that small rod iron fence coming through there. I don't want a chain link fence. There are options out there, right? And a lot of like e even the composite deck manufacturer Trex, right? I'm not like you guys aren't like I've never heard of them, right? Trex even has a a non-combustible fencing material now that you can look at, right? But this

[61:02] particular homeowner here uh went with metal, right? And there is uh an aluminum fence company out there that makes makes stuff, but they did a really nice job here. I I have to tell you is that this area is literally the wood planks that they had on their fencing and they switched over and they added metal to this. Now, in full it's full disclosure, that post that you see right back there, that's still wood, right? They didn't change that out, but I do think they're really out of the box thinking and thinking of that. And this particular one is cyber uh uh fiber cement board, right? Again, that's not going to be your cheapest option to build, but people who are looking at something other and a decorative option uh that they could uh use and still have a a privacy type fence, there are options out there. And this is just some that we had that we were able to take in our community. So, fencing again would count for ignition resistant one, two, and three for new

[62:02] construction. So, I mentioned that non-combustible zone earlier, right? and uh that five that 0 to 5 foot non-combustible zone that we defined. And this is really kind of an example of what we're talking about here. Um this is this particular graphic comes from the Colorado State Forest Service. Uh we typically look at our homes and the defensible space in these zones. If you were to look up California and their zones, they're actually they're what we look at zone one is zone zero and then they go zone one and zone two. Colorado we use zone one two and three right it's all the same the numbers are the same just in case you're you're doing some research there but we're really looking at this zero to five foot area right that we have proposed uh what we have looked at that in new construction that we are looking at that fuels modification that we are asking for a uh a a a new new area a non-combustible zone uh for that 0 to 5 ft right meaning

[63:01] how how I defined it is there's no combustibles and no vegetation in that particular area. Right? And I know this is significant, right, for new construction. This is going to take landscape landscaping and architects to kind of think about what we can do to make this look nice. I just want to point out obviously this one here where the cursor is at is probably existing. They didn't, you know, this is just something that happens. If you were to come to my house, I have five foot around my home. Not because I put it there, because it just came with it came with it that way. Just so happens, right? Uh and I think this happened in this way, but it is a nice example that we're not talking about you need to put rock all all around your house. Listen, you could create a sidewalk pavers. Uh this is, you know, a different a different type of paver or slate, right, of coming through there. I I I've seen other ones online and some other publications. I didn't want to I wanted to pull things that we can p point out here in town. This particular one is

[64:00] nice. Now, this one this homeowner did do the work to modify their existing landscape and they made that 5-ft non-combustible zone around their home. They did use rock, but they decided to go with pearl, right, instead of the larger river rock. They thought that looked nicer of going through there. Uh, and if you actually look back in the back area, they did the fencing as well. if you look back in that particular area. So that this particular home did a really nice job uh of creating that defensible area. I do want to say again, I know you guys like he's already said that a million times. We're not talking about a retroactive requirement here, right? This is going to be for new homes built or new construction built in that particular area. um on that along with that um and if you kind of look down you see where uh I stole the graphic from now um in that zone two that 5 foot to 30 foot area I said we're

[65:01] proposing that low flammability plants in those particular areas right and so uh for new construction and new landscaping in that construction from that 5 foot to 30 foot uh we want those plants to pulled off currently right now as we sit here this publication from the Colorado State Fire Service of what constitutes a low flammability plant. Right. Uh it is our intent as the city to publish our own uh uh uh plant list that will also coordinate with uh the water-wise landscaping as well as some of our climate needs uh pollination shade uh items like that. I will be the first to admit that if you open that up um you will not find enough trees on there, right? It's literally void of trees to be quite frank with you, right? Um but honestly, any deciduous tree would be fine to plant uh in that

[66:00] particular area. I don't have any issue with deciduous trees. Uh my division of my division wildland sheep, he has no issues with deciduous trees. I think if you look at some of the research coming out on the LA fires, deciduous trees held up great. They actually helped somewhat. And the deciduous trees that burned, they're looking at um didn't catch the house on fire. They're looking at the house catching that tree on fire actually is what some of the research is coming back at. Um so we do plan on adding some of that and meeting our water wise requirements. uh and that will come later in the year like uh Lisa had talked about and that obviously counts for no junipers in that particular area. However, we did add a section that talks about that no juniper specy will be planted within the WOOI. Right? So, that plant list that you see right there is from 5 to 30 feet. And if you actually if you can look at the graphic close enough and I know we have it kind of small here. I guess I could go back, right? Oh, I skipped it. If you

[67:01] look at that graphic closely, you see that there are no like evergreens or conifers planted within this particular area, but you do see them in that uh between that 30 foot and 100 foot or that in that zone three area. So, we're not prohibiting conifer trees to be planted in that area. We would prevent junipers to be planted in that area. Right? That's what we're trying to really avoid is that particular species. Now granted, there's not a t, you know, the parcels that exceed 30 feet are not the most prevalent in our community, right? We understand that there's a few out there. So, we're not looking at that and saying that that counts for everything. So, that's confusing, right? I mean so we created uh not we Lisa and her team actually created some additional slides here to talk about that when we talk about non-combustible decking that's ignition resistant one two and three that has those requirements. The ignition resistant three we've modified

[68:01] a little bit to only say the top has to be non-combustible not necessarily the fra framing. Look at the economics in in that particular area. When we start looking at the non-combustible sighting and glazing and some of those more expensive, higher type uh ignition resistant materials that come out of chapter 5, that's really only an ignition resistant one area and ignition resistant two area. Kind of highlighting what that may be. Obviously, vents and gutters and all that still included in in that particular area. when we start looking at combining some of that uh when we start looking at adding in that um chapter six requirements right uh getting that vegetation or that fire protection plan in ignition resistant one and two obviously also includes that non-combustible zone and those low flammability plants and then when we get into the ignition resistant three you just kind of take out all that home hardening type area and it includes the

[69:02] non-combustible zone low flammability plants and I think I missed fencing is in all three of those as well. Right. Those those that fencing would be for all new construction in all three of those areas. But with that, I think we're done, but we just got a couple more slides and Lisa's going to take us home in that. Yes, just Yep. Just a few. I just want to give you kind of the context of where we are in the process. So, you all are seeing this ordinance before you tonight. We are actually going to city council for first reading on Thursday. Um so they'll see the same ordinance that you all saw in your packet. Then the second reading is in about a month. So it'll be May 15th. That's where we'll have the public hearing for city council. Um there's lots of opportunities for people in the public to participate. We have a beheard Boulder page. They can attend our meetings. We're also setting up some office hours to answer questions. And we do plan to send a a mailer with general wildfire information as well as an

[70:00] announcement of these changes uh to all the properties that are within the proposed WOOI area in the next few weeks. Um like I said, this is just the first step in the project and so the this is the focus on building code. The land use code focus will come later in the year. So we'll check in with council in July and then shoot for adoption in September and October. Like I said, there's so many other things that the city is working on beyond just the code and regulations. So, I wanted to highlight the detailed home assessment program. Chief Lowry mentioned it. Um, but um that's the great education and incentive side of things. And so, um, these numbers probably are out of date by now, but since the program started in November of 2023, they've done 519 detailed home assessments. that's when they go out to the property and identify the issues that might be on that property that would um increase wildfire risk. So, um I think it's been very well received by the folks that have done them. They've got um lots of signups after the LA fires. So, there's a lot of

[71:01] work being done on those detailed home assessments kind of pairing all of those different facets of wildfire risk mitigation. We also have our wildfire resilience assistance program which uh gives grants to PE help people complete some of those improvements. And so both of those are kind of recent additions to the city's toolbox uh to battle wildfire risk. We have a suggested motion for you tonight. I just want to highlight there's kind of two different sections because there's the um recommendation related to the ordinance and then the recommendation specifically to the map. And so just highlighting that and we're happy to take any questions. Thanks. Great. Thank you both. Great presentation. Very thorough. Um, now we, uh, go to questions from the board. And, uh, who's got some? Mason. Oh, okay. I was looking left. We're going to go. We're going to start there.

[72:03] Sure thing. Um, so you iterated on a number of occasions that um, this is for new builds, but you also iterated that uh, like the replacement of a fence would trigger this. I assume that there are some kind of triggers with remodels, etc. Um, what are those? Yeah, so it'd be like any other building code type thing. So let's say you were placing a deck and you were in the IR1 zone. Then the deck itself would need to be brought into compliance with the IR1 requirements. Nothing else would be required. It's not like replacing the deck would trigger you to replace the fence. Same if you were replacing the fence and Dave kind of alluded to this. Then yes, the deck would need to be up sorry the fence would need to be upgraded, but you wouldn't have to fix the deck for example. So it would only be the components that you're actually working on that would be needed to be bought into compliance with the chapter 5 requirements. if it helps. It's the

[73:00] transparent. Like if you look at the graphic, the transparent stuff on these, you don't have to update. So if you're trying to redo your deck, you would just have to do the the deck replacement and not not the landscaping and other things. Does that help? Yeah, for sure. Um I was wondering how this interacts with landmark buildings or landmarking assuming they trigger, you know. Yeah, I can take that. So um once again it would only apply in new construction. Now if there was a conflict with with you know historic preservation requirements, we can work with closely with historic preservation to work around that. But typically most of the time, for example, if you have say a specific wood sighting that you need to replace and you're on a listed landmark property, you can actually special order fire retardant treated wood sighting. So that's an option. You can also do things like put gypsum board underneath the siding and use combustible siding. So, it's it's not really a huge barrier to historic

[74:00] preservation. Um, some of the compromises we've already discussed amongst ourselves and with historic preservation folks would be like, hey, if someone really wanted to and they came to us and they we wouldn't necessarily make them replace all the siding or allow them to replace all the siding, I should say, but we might allow them to replace 6 in of sighting around the base of the building, which is a pretty significant impact, reducing the hazard for that historic structure without changing the character of it. Right. And I may just add to that a little bit. You know, we have had this conversation. Uh it's not the first time the question has been asked. Some of our public meeting I think it was asked as well. Um you know keep in mind that uh you know historic preservation has a vested interest in maintaining that home and you know they don't want to see it burning down as well. So um you know they they they want to kind of harden that home and and try to see it in compliance. But there are options that we have out there to to make it work when that does occur. I think one of the question was about the fencing, but you

[75:00] know, you don't see a lot of wood fencing on historic homes. You see a lot of rot iron fencing on those types of homes. So, um, so I, you know, we don't really foresee that being a major, uh, hurdle for us to overcome. Great. Um, are there any mobile home parks in the WOI and how would this impact them? There are, uh, most notable Ponderosa, right? And uh last year we actually worked with Ponder Rosa on uh getting them grant money and uh getting some work done in that particular mobile home park. Um when we look at the WOOI map again we don't really have to go there but uh we have included the meadows in an IR3 uh the 19th and violent area right not only because we think the embers can hit in that particular area but you know before we had me not we it's it was me uh kind of forgot about the eastern part of the meadows and what's directly across on Highway 36 right and if we had we don't

[76:01] often have fires blowing east to west, but if we did, that would obviously they're they're right there in the bullseye of something coming across that particular area. So, we have included that. Uh, and again, it is really tough to home harden a a mobile home, but they do have decks, appendages that fall into that area. They have vegetation management planning of coming into there. So, that particular one is um I had included the one at 30th in Belmont. I can't remember the name. I apologize. Uh I always think I'm going to get it wrong. So the one at 30th in Valmont, um I had already included a little bit of that area before we expanded it. Um we may look at some other stuff. We have another uh model uh that uh talks about the vulnerability of our city um that uh that we just wrapped up with um a professor from Colorado State University and uh and that shows some v

[77:02] vulnerability in our other uh some of our other mobile home parks. So, we're looking at that pretty closely. So given that this isn't a retrospective requirement, do we have any and I I imagine this might be a little hard to answer, but do we have any idea of how long it'll take till there's like a reasonable adoption of this across are we? That is a good question. And are you talking about like with the work that we're doing and everything, how that makes uh when we can see like if we had a fire, you know, the impact uh that we can see some other result. That's a really good question. I'm I'm going to give you an answer. Um long time. Um so here's the situation that we're in, right? I mean, uh, the city of Boulder, so I think, well, before I get to that, I mean, like Lisa did some research and I think, you know, from the time we adopted the 2012 edition, which was in 2014, uh, right

[78:00] after the floods, by the way, um, till now, there were approximately 900 building permits issued within what we identified as our current WOOI area, right? And so think about 900 out of 4,600 parcels as as we kind of look at that, right? Um, and I would tell you that, you know, the if you were doing some research in the industry, uh, most notably the, uh, IBHS Institute out there, they're looking at and saying that really to make a difference for a neighborhood. And they're looking at neighborhood, not community, but for a neighborhood, about 70% of those homes need to have that mitigation and some hardening done on it. So if we look at it in that, we have a ways to go. But the issue that we have here in Boulder is that we're not building neighborhoods, right? I mean, we're replacing home by home gradually over the the stretch of this area,

[79:00] right? Um, you know, we pretty much every home is a custom home these days, right here. We're not we're not we're not eerie or superior that are building these neighborhoods. Uh, so it's going to take uh quite a bit of while. Then, you know, you add, we just expanded the WOOI to 16,000 parcels uh to try to get to 70%. I'm not sure when we would be able to hit that, but we can make differences, right? Um we can look at this model that we have coming up that really shows these vulnerable type areas and we can look at that in the sense of of do we need to target these most vulnerable areas, right? And so if we do have it, we can maybe again that defible space change the way that fire reacts and moves and add that area that we have a better suppression chance in that. So that's kind of our intent and some of our targets to it. Um but yeah, it's it's it's tough for existing

[80:01] community to look at it in that manner. Oh. Um yeah, if I can just add to Dave's comments really quickly and not to get ahead of the board's discussion or try to you. I'm sorry. I'm I'm Brad Mueller, director of planning and development services. Thanks. It's getting a little late. I'm usually so good about that, too. Um uh so I don't want to get ahead of your discussion or anticipate questions too much, but I'll just real briefly say that um the council when we brought this as a study session in December had a brief discussion about retroactive code enforcement, those types of things, and made a definitive uh vote to not do so. um we can give you the background of the the challenges of doing that um and the policy direction behind that as well as uh give the context of this being a part of a building code building codes being for new construction. So I just want to provide that context again not wanting

[81:02] to over anticipate what your question might have been about. So thanks just curious. Yeah I'm sorry I know you like data. So, um, we have been looking at the 16,000 properties that would be in the new WOOI area and how many building permits we've had over the last 10 years. Obviously, changes based on econ, you know, lots of things. Um, but we're trying to figure out what the average number of building permits has been. It's hard to sort through all that data of which ones of those are new construction, which ones are just decks. So, we're in the process of that to try to anticipate how many permits are we going to see per year that would be um brought into compliance with these new rules. So, we'll have um that data soon. Um and then I also just wanted to emphasize, I think I've said it many times, that this is only one part of the approach. And so, this is almost every community only applies building permit requirements like this to new construction, but you have to pair it with education and incentives and programs and operations. And so, it's really it's a really important part of

[82:00] the whole, but it is just one part. Great. jump back that way. ML, you you go and then we'll we'll go to Laura and we'll back we'll alternate back and forth. Okay. Thank you. Um so I I have a number of questions. So feel free to stop me when I've asked too many because I've got a big long list. Um so I will start with um something easy easy. It looks like the map and the numbers we have increased the WOOI area by 71%. Does that sound about right? And um have all the land owners in the newly identified WOOI area been notified so that they have a chance to respond to that is part of the plan. We will be sending a mailing both about the the code changes and then also like the detailed home assessment program and the grant program and things like that. So they'll be getting that within the next few weeks. It's after it's a done deal

[83:01] or before No, because we still have a whole month until it goes to city council and so that we have this kind of longer time span between this public hearing just due to scheduling. So um we'll be sending it out closer to the city council hearing which was the recommendations of our communication staff. So along that same thinking um do we have data? Do we know how being in or not in a WOOI will impact insurance insurability? If you're not planning to remodel your property and you are in a WOOI area, um I think that that's going to impact the way the insurance looks at your property. So, a new insurance would come up. Um it's a difficult item to address since insurance is a independent private business and we have no control over insurance right um it is our hope right

[84:01] that the more work that we do uh and are able to do that we can give insurance companies uh the reason to say yes to insuring our community and our individuals right um right now you know insurance basically bases everything off risk, right? And so whether you live in Florida and they're looking at the risk that you are to a hurricane or California and your risk to earthquakes and wildfire, they're looking at the front range in Colorado as the risk of wildfire. A lot of insurance companies have already completely left Colorado and do not participate. Others are talking about leaving Colorado that the risk is just too much. um we simply don't have control over that. But that whole big wheel that had all the pies in it, right, that Lisa showed that fire adaptive community, the more work that we can do and show that insurance

[85:02] that, you know, we have as a community, not as individual partials necessarily, that we are trying to make a difference. um and that you you know the risk that you're taking on is less than it was 10 years ago. Right? The fact of the is we have met with insurance companies. We have talked to them. Um our local insurance adjusters are wonderful. They want to insurance homes in here. It's the underwriters that they have to answer to that are making that decision. and and we simply don't we just because we do this we can't dictate that they must insure. So the question has more to do with the fact that we've expanded the WOOI area by 71% um by however you know 50 however many thousand houses. The insurance company doesn't look at our WOOI. They don't have a they they

[86:00] look at our they look at zip codes right now and they determine that that that zip code 80304 is a brush what they refer to as a brush zip code, right? And that it puts it at a higher risk. Okay, thank you for that answer. Um let me see. So, uh, when I'm looking at your materials that you were pointing out there, is there a consideration for materials that, uh, reflects the increased heat island that some of these hardcaping is going to produce? Is there a relationship, a synergy between Yep. what you're doing? So, what what do you what are you I mean, we we we have discussed this obviously. We know that a city priority is climate and uh we work with our climate partners as as as as collaborative as as as we can. So, right that 5 foot non-combustible zone that was a big topic of discussion and we go

[87:00] through there. Um here here here's where we landed right um all of the research uh in wildfire um if you look at it and if you were just to ask me um if you said what can I do to my home? I mean the roof is probably your number one item. We don't really have that issue, right? We already have the class A roofs in the city of Boulder. Um that zero to five foot and your vents, right? If you can't do anything else, start with those three items, right? Um and then when you just the question um is in the material for that five foot area are you is there a relationship between say you're looking at it and you say okay I know it's got to be within these categories is there a connection between say um the crusher gravel versus the big stones versus the paving that says this is going to have this heat island effect. this is going to be a lesser heat so

[88:01] that people begin to develop a consciousness of the crusher stone is going to have a lower um heat island item effect than concrete. So I can't answer to the specific material, but what I can answer is is that the zero to 5 foot is one of the more important items to wildfire. And when we tried to do the looking at at does does it create a heat island, there's not enough research to prove that that 0 to 5 foot around a home actually creates a heat island. So that's the research that we looked at, right? Yeah. Um, so I can't really from the pearl that I showed you, which was kind of different, um, to a larger river rock or other thing. I can't answer those specific material. We know for a fact, the science and the research shows that it makes a difference in a wildfire. Logically, it's going to create some heat island, right? But there's really not the science to show that right now. Rob, I think that there might be when you look at materials,

[89:00] there might be a rating. Sure. I'm sure there is that can be added just, you know, let's let's create the synergy between we're we're doing stuff to avoid, you know, getting our community burned down, but let's also do stuff to keep the climate I think we can look at that in the landscaping standards coming up this fall. That's my last question. Oh, sorry. Okay, I'm I'm done. Those are all those aren't all my questions, but um I'll let other people get into it. Thank you so much. Okay, Laura. Hi. Thank you again for the presentation. Just a few from me. Um, one, I have a question about the relationship between so so the the maintenance I know that's not part of the building code, but the maintenance of like raking the leaves and the pine needles up. Is that something that is impacted by expanding the number three wooi zone? Yeah, I mean the maintenance is is through all all the zones, right? the the one, two, and three, right? So, the

[90:02] the maintenance and the removal of dead wood and and the care of your tree and I don't like that that that really is through all three of them. And so, my concern with that is just the impact on pollinators because that, you know, we always hear don't rake up your leaves until after the breeding season for pollinators and that kind of thing. Is is that consideration being taken into account? How can we, you know, think about the pollinator season and the wildfire season and have um the least impact possible upon pollinators by expanding this WOI zone? I think we could look at that and look into that for sure. Right. That's an important subject for sure. Okay. Thank you. Um, next question. So, for very small homes and apartments, and I assume there are some apartment buildings in the WOOI, um oftentimes that area right off of your deck is the only private outdoor space that people have, and they tend to put their garden there, their planter boxes, their their house plants. Um would that

[91:00] be prohibited by not wanting vegetation in that defensible space? Would not. It would not. No, we we had that question. I didn't like in one of our public meeting we didn't have a really good answer but since then I've looked into it and right when we're really talking but we're talking about the plantings and like uh big pots and things like that can still be placed in that area with flowers and the whole premise of that is that what's being planted in there just isn't large enough per se to to probably and if it's offset from your house a little bit even that it's probably not uh significant enough to to have enough radiant heat to catch that home on fire. Okay. So, like a trellis with a vine. Someone could do something weird, right? But but for the most part, yes, those types of things are are allowed. I hear that millennials really love their plants. They've heard that, too. Like, and some of my friends who are millennials, they have like the the trellis with the vines and like green everywhere. So, I don't I don't know if there's like some kind of Yeah. And I,

[92:01] you know, the other thing on that is I think we work with condominium associations and uh property management companies in that and we try to look at what's reasonable, right? I mean, I've come across a few things that I'm like I mean, no one should own that many plants. I mean, um, and you know, they're spilling out into the exit way and and things like that, right? And so it it does come down, you know, what what is reasonable and we definitely want to see be reasonable about this approach, right? We're not trying to impede the quality of life out there. Okay. So it's not a blanket prohibition on all plants within 5T. Okay. Okay. That's good to know. Um, this might be a very weird, idiosyncratic and not very common example, but I live in the WOOI and we have a deck that is over our garage and it's cantally delivered out from the house on beams that are part of the structural foundation of our house and those are wooden beams. So, how would the if we wanted to rebuild our deck? Is

[93:02] that a is that something you guys have looked at? Yeah, absolutely. So wooden beams, you know, as long as they're more than a 3-in cross-section, are considered mass timber. And they are an approved method of construction, the wildland urban interface. I mean, it's like if you think of a campfire and you throw like a 6-in log on it, it takes a lot longer to burn through than a 2x4 would, for example. Okay? So, so mass timber is approvable. Now, the framing, depending on what ignition resistance zone, if you were to replace that, you may have to use fire retardant treated lumber for the framing if it's not mass timber like that. But the beams would be fine as they are. Okay. just just curious because those are part of the structure of the house and so I didn't know if we were unique in that or if that's a more common thing in some areas but actually quite often we see people constructing decks purely out of heavy timber sections as a method of compliance with the wildland urban interface. Oh, fantastic. Okay, good to know that that it's not all wood is prohibited. Okay. And then I did see in the memo that not in this phase, but perhaps in a future phase, you've been asked to look at applying this to um

[94:00] homes upon resale or rental. And can you give us an uh just an overview of how that's going and what the schedule is for that, what that looks like? Yeah, so we're still studying that. Um we're trying to understand kind of similar to the question about data like how big of an impact would that have um both on how many properties would come into compliance but also how much of a resource impact it has like how many staff it would take to implement a program like that. So we're still in the process of studying that. Um the the plan is that when we have that check-in with council in July we should have that information by then. There's also some legal research we need to do. Um it's slightly different to have like a retroactive requirement for landscaping. So, we're looking into the legal implications of that as well. So, it's a little more complicated than it might seem, but we will be ready by the summer to talk more about that. Great. Uh, let me just add one potential complication that's probably already on your radar, but something that I think about when I think about applying this to homes upon resale is that a lot of our homes get torn down upon resale. And so, you don't

[95:01] want to be requiring a home to put in a lot of upgrades and waste a lot of materials. Basically, that doesn't serve our environmental goals. It drives up the cost of housing and it doesn't do a darn thing for the WOOI if you're putting in all of this stuff that's just going to get torn out. And so I'm sure you've already thought about that and so I just wanted to make sure that's on your radar. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Kurt, are you are you ready? If if not, I can jump to Okay, sure. Yeah. Um and again, stop me if I've gone too long because I got a bunch. Uh the first question is you've you've referred a bunch of times to homes, but I just want to confirm this applies to all construction, right? Residential or non-residential structures. Structures. Yeah. Great. Okay. Uh then let's see. Getting back to the 30 foot defensible space zone. Is that the right term? Um, you brought up the question of the trees, which I was wondering about too,

[96:00] and I looked up in that uh the CSFS thing, and it there's two kinds of trees. There's aspens, which are terrible thing to plant anyhow, and crab apples. Um uh so and I understand that you're going to be working on that, but that change is not going to happen until August or potentially later. My concern just primarily about the gap between whenever this gets passed and whenever that list gets updated. Yeah. So the the schedule is that the plant list would come with the um landscaping change which I think is scheduled for September. um this this the WOOI code doesn't go into effect until August 1st and so it's a really short period of time if we look at how many permits would actually be pulled in that period. We've actually had conversations with our city forester and staff and concerns about that. So, but I think that um it's generally going to be a pretty limited

[97:00] period of time that we would be using that Colorado State Forest Service, but we wanted to have something to point to in the meantime just knowing that the plant list is something that's going to take longer to develop. and and we would also work with the homeowner or developer or whatever and take a look at that and once again deciduous trees not an issue. Okay. So there's some flexibility. Yeah. It's great. Not worried about that at all personally. Yeah. Yeah. We we'd make it right. Great. also on that subject. So as as you sort of referred to in that image from the document, it's sort of envisioning a an exurban site or a rural site, right? So that's not what 99% of the properties in Boulder look like. So when you go out to 30 feet, all of a sudden you're probably at the property line and you might be five feet from your neighbor's house. So you could be, you know, prohibiting

[98:01] these combustible plants around your house, but allow them potentially very close to your neighbor's house. So have you guys thought about how that works? We have um and it's tough, right? I mean um you know uh NIST uh the National Institute of Standard Technology uh in all their research they have a a home mitigation type research program and that and that's and that's kind of the main point of it right that you know if I tell you to move your and this is you know for a structure if I tell you to move your shed at minimum 10 feet from your home but you move it 10 feet from your home so yay you protect your home but then you move it within and 8 foot of your neighbor's home. Boo, we didn't we didn't gain any ground there. And so that's kind of something similar that, you know, we'll have to kind of look at. Uh but again, it's very very difficult to say, you know, at this one new home being built that they're going to do the

[99:02] everything correct, right? Uh for new construction, including low flammability plants. Yet on the other side of the fence, their neighbor has a 150 year old junifer that is looks like, you know, someone who would eat Seymour. So, um, [Music] so it's tough because it it's it's, you know, you're right, you go from one parcel to another and your point is very valid, right? This code is written for everywhere. But when you start really looking at it and especially if you got into chapter five and started looking at the the hazard analysis to determine ignition resistant one, two, and three, it's it's really like that picture of that parcel. It's not really looking at an urban type community to kind of identify that. That's the reason we have kind of pre-identified it right for uh our developers and architects uh on that. Um, I don't I don't have a great

[100:02] answer for you. We've certainly thought about it. We address it. We address it on Tet Home Assessments now that you you look great. And then even though we can't really comment on the neighbor, it's like uh that's bad next door, right? You know, so uh and we can't force them to get a detailed home assessment. we can't force them to do a lot of that work. And that's where it comes back to this being a a part of the puzzle. Um because there's the education and incentives for the other homeowners and the programs to educate people about why they should make updates to their home that need to be paired also with the regulatory approach. Right. Yeah. And as I think you addressed, there's there's two parts to it. There's what's on their property and how it affects you. But then there's also what's on your property but outside the defensible space and yet affects them because it's very close to their

[101:00] property. Yeah. Great. Um I wanted to follow up. There was a question about the maintenance requirements and I I wasn't clear. So potentially is there going to be code enforcement going around and saying, "Hey, you have a stick there." I mean theoretically is that is that part of what theoretically? Not really. We're looking at looking at at Brad theoretically. Yes. In in some sense, right? I mean, it's kind of our duty. Um how how that we're still trying to work out some details and and what it may look like. Um essentially like right now it's complaintbased, right? So, a neighbor complains and says, "My neighbor stores all their firewood underneath their deck and they can't do that." Right? And I'm like, "Right." If they're in the WOOI, that is right. I'm like, "Right." And so, there's other challenges that we

[102:03] have, if we can even see that, right, from a public way because we can't trespass. So, it's going to be a challenge. We know that. And I'll let Brad maybe give a more elegant answer than I give. Uh so again, Brad Mueller, uh director of planning and development services. So um there's both a um uh there's an administrative, you know, how do we administer a code aspect and there's the aspect that it's part of the the building code for new construction as well. So primarily enforcement is going to be around new construction. and you were supposed to build the the deck out of the fireresistant material and you didn't. We're going to do enforcement on that. Um to the question of uh existing conditions, you know, um um there there is a grandfathering of existing conditions and we have to weigh that fact. Um an analogy would be uh we

[103:03] do code enforcement on on building codes for example today. If we get a complaint and we go in and there's a clear life safety issue, uh, that's going to be seen as a violation, there's a hole in the floor, that actually has happened. Um, then we're going to say, well, that's a clear life safety violation and the building code requires that there be a floor, not a hole. Um but uh we are not going to necessarily um do enforcement on the fact that a sink was moved after the fact of of when uh when the building permits were initially approved 35 years ago. So there is um both administrative discretion, there's administrative policy that we will need to evolve into and then there's the fact that ultimately it's tied to the building permits. Does that answer the question or does it raise new questions I can answer? Yeah,

[104:00] but yeah, I I think so pretty well. I I'll just Well, yeah, that's helpful. Yeah, thank you. Let me try to add something just as an example. I was at a home um couple of weeks ago. They had a a small fire and I was there to kind of talk to them about them. Super nice people. And as we were talking about it, I kept looking over at their neighbor's yard, right? And this is weird. we were on the roof is kind of where the fire occurred. So, I was standing on the roof with the the homeowner and uh it's not something we do all the time, but but they had this big slash pile in their backyard, right? Uh right off the alley and and and the guy said, "You know what? It's been there for a couple years. You know, can something be done?" And I'm like, "Not right now." Right. I don't have that part adopted in the 2018 as far as maintenance, but when we adopted 2024, you're right. That is something that if a complaint was filed and we can walk down that aisle alley and see it that's presenting a unique

[105:00] hazard kind of like Brad was saying to that that you know that home the neighbor's home the home that literally right across the alley because if that were to catch fire even if the homes don't catch fire that's going to create embers again right and and now my ember model is off because I'm basing it off kind of our backdrop ember model but that's going to start blowing more embers uh into those homes over there at that particular time. I would be looking at that that yeah that we would want to go address that with that particular neighbor and say can we you know you need to remove that and maybe remind them that we do have that uh a wildland uh assistance program out there that technically they can qualify for a grant to maybe help them remove it if that's what's pro prohibiting them. Right. So we we definitely want to work with it, but things like that, you know, when it does come in as a complaint, that's presenting a hazard, right? Whether to their home or to the neighbor's home and

[106:00] and we kind of want to address it. It's not going to be perfect at the beginning. I don't want to relay that that we have it completely figured out. It's going to be challenging, but it will it will have to be addressed. Great. Thank you. Um, one last question and that is about motor vehicles. Are there models that indicate the how the presence or absence of motor vehicles affects fires? Is it not a factor? I see I look at pictures of like the Marshall fire or the eaten fire and you know there's all these burned out cars and I don't know whether they contributed. I mean, there's a lot of gasoline there or lithium batteries or whatever. Is there any data on that? I don't know. I don't know if there is really. Um I mean, I know LA right now is really battling. I saw something that

[107:02] they have like 30 over 30 30 to 300 tons of lithium ion batteries to dispose of now coming from cars and and other appliances pulled out of the fire right now. I don't know if there's a really a correlation or or how it impacts the fire. Obviously, evacuation, you know, in the the Palisades and Eden fire, it had a big impact on the evacuations when people stopped and left their cars and started getting out. Um it has an impact on our uh emergency response into the fire, right? Because we're trying to go in the opposite direction that everyone else is going. Um, but as far as adding fuel to the fire, for lack of better words, I'm not aware of any research on that. There's probably something out there, but I I I can't speak to it. I guess I haven't seen research, but there was an insurance report after the LA fires that did kind of group um on street parking similarly to fencing as a

[108:00] connective fuel, but I don't know that that's actually research. It was just that um like a something they noticed in those fires. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Gloria, are you ready? Okay, thank you for all the questions and answers so far. Um, like my colleague Laura, I've been thinking about apartments and similar structures and how these codes might or might not apply. So, all of the examples in your presentation um that I saw at least seem to reference single family or single unit detached dwellings and I'm curious if the code contains any different provisions for multi- family versus single family dwellings. Uh short answer is no. this would apply to structures as opposed to um and you know I think the examples we use mainly in our wildland urban interface most of the structures are single family or single unit dwellings that's that's why

[109:01] you typically see that it takes some exception to that but um that comes with the expansion that we're talking about is there any distinction um between structures with fire suppression and control systems um and those without again thinking about that multif family versus single family scenario no this um almost entirely on the exterior of the building. So that the presence of a automatic fire suppression system doesn't have any impact on the requirements and we for um res like IRC homes which be single family homes and duplexes those all require fire suppression systems in Boulder anyway for new construction. So doesn't really play into it. And then commercial, right? and and and so this code requires fire suppression to be installed in new homes built within the WOOI as well. We already require that, but it does require it. And the premise of that is that any fire starting from within the home does not spread to the WOOI, right? It's not preventing if if if there's already a

[110:01] wildfire approaching you, uh a sprinkler system that's for the inside of the building is not going to stop that and prevent that. Um but but the reason it's in this particular document is that a house fire should not progress to create a wildfire. Okay. So just to make sure I'm clear on this from the perspective of the WOOI code, both interior fire suppression and exterior defensibility is required. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Um you assured my colleague Laura that some small or contained vegetation could still be allowed in apartment scenarios. Where would we find that kind of exception in the code and what would make something allowable versus not? Yeah, I don't think it's directly pointed out in the code. Um, as I said, this was asked at one of the public meetings and I didn't really have a good answer. Uh, but doing research for uh other communities, mainly in California, they're kind of ahead of the game in a lot of it. Um, that that they seem to allow it and and show it in pictures and

[111:01] stuff. So, yeah, I'm like, it makes sense. It's not really designated. it's not really addressed in the code. So, I can't really point to that specific item. I'll just add that this this highlights a difference between the land use code and the building code where the building code has a lot that our chief building official has a lot more discretion um to have flexibility with rules where the land use code does not. And so, you're probably more used to like very black and white and bu the building code is a little more gray. Okay. But it does it it does seem though that what we're being asked to adopt specifically says that 0 to 5 foot um non-combustible zone. Um how would you make exceptions to that or would you like it what I'm hearing is that there might be exceptions, but I'm also seeing in the code that there are none. Yeah, I I don't know if I would call it exceptions. I would call it, you know, what's reasonable and what we're looking at and what's part of the construction. Because when I look at it, that 0 to 5 foot landscaping area is part of the construction. when you bring in a pot

[112:01] and set it after you move in. That's not Okay. Yeah. And if I can elaborate and invite maybe Rob to give some I'm Brad Mueller still. Uh if I can elaborate and uh Thank you. Uh elaborate and also maybe uh invite Rob to kind of give maybe an example about this. And to Lisa's point too, um the building code is different than the zoning code and and there is administrative practice in particular that's exercised in the building code. Hoping you could give some examples of of how that's done inside a building with electrical or something. But the point being that um you know we need to make uh judgment decisions on a very regular basis when doing inspections and when we're going to see plants on on a patio that are normal and even if there's raised gardens and those kind of things, we understand from administrative practice and history to interpret it one way. But if somebody takes the entire patio and builds up

[113:01] eight feet of dirt and puts in trees and things like that, we're going to interpret that as being the moral equivalent of having landscaping adjacent to the house. Um, and and that may seem like an extreme example, but we do see those kind of things. And you can give some real life examples, I'm sure, in a building context. Well, yeah, I I can speak to the specific example. The way I would look at what what's being described is kind of like looking at furniture inside a house, right? Like the building code regulates egress windows, pathways, stairways, things like that. We don't regulate where you put furniture, which might block those things. We don't come in after the fact and say, "Hey, you can't put a a dresser in front of an egress window." I mean, certainly don't encourage it, but the building code doesn't have any authority over that. So, a pot plant is not a permanent fixture on a like, it's not like digging a hole and planting something that's going to grow there forever. So, I mean, you could also have something like a a plastic hose on a plastic hose reel in that non-combustible zone, and we're certainly not going to come along and say you can't do that, right?

[114:00] Okay. May I continue? Is there any point at which um landscaping work and renovations would trigger the application or enforcement of the non-combustible zone and defensible space planting requirements. So, let's say you have an existing structure. Um, you're doing a major piece of work on the landscape. It's a very good question. Uh, it's kind of tricky because the building code doesn't really regulate landscaping and we don't require a building permit to do landscaping work. The only exception to that would be if you're building a retaining wall that was more than 36 in high. And yet we do have some like I mean we have site review approvals and things like that that actually do have landscaping plans involved. Is that a level at which this would start to apply? That's but that's not a building code. So that that's more of a land use code that's getting out into this is where I this is where Lisa and I's worlds intersect and I probably shouldn't even comment. No no I think this is where so when council adopt or

[115:00] council decided that this would be one of their council priorities. It was wildfire hardening and watered landscaping as one thing. Really the only intersection is that they both involve plants at some point, but the um the landscaping part that um we'll work on later this year will have more detail about and other cities and communities might have like a vegetation management plan or something that they have to do with their landscaping plan when they submit a building permit. So, we're going to dig into more details. We wanted to do the really um important things that Chief Lowry talked about that have a big fire impact in this building code, but the more more heavy detail on landscaping and what's required is going to come later. Okay. Yeah. So maybe I'm just flagging for now that when you start talking about multif family um properties, larger projects and the like, some of these things get a little bit messy because I I get the sense that the the origin of a lot of this code discussion comes out of single family houses on that kind of traditional um wildland urban interface. Yeah, I think we'll have to expand um

[116:00] the the scope when we think about the landscaping and um I think you've made a really good point about thinking about the different land uses. Again, building code doesn't really think about different land uses. It's just structure as a structure. But as we get into that land use code, we'll get more into our familiar territory where we talk about that. Just two more quick questions then and hopefully these will be a little easier. Um, so you're proposing a list of plants that are somewhat approved for defensible spaces. That's that Colorado Forest Service list. And I'm just curious if that is meant if that's adopted into the code. Is that meant to be a an exhaustive list that is thou shalt choose plants from this list or is that a suggested um list? The way it's drafted is that you have to use low flammability plants and then it references that Colorado State Forest Service. But kind of to Kurt's question, um, you know, it's a really limited time that we'd be using that and then there's a little bit of flexibility on what we could do with that. And so, um, the the official plant list that will come with the landscaping project, we're envisioning like hundreds of plants and there's only 160 in that

[117:03] Colorado State Forest Service. So, it'll get a much more expansive and we're envisioning that that plant list will talk about what plants are um you know like climate adapted and water-wise, fire resistant, have lots of different features. So, it's kind of bare bones right now, but it will get expanded. Okay. Absolutely. I appreciate the idea behind that. I always recognize too though that these kinds of lists are required to be updated over time and and how that evolves may evolve on a very different track from our code. Right. Okay. Um last question just has to do with um landscape irrigation. Is there any provision in the code in any of the guidance the models etc for um how do we account for irrigated landscapes? Folks have sprinkler systems um things on watering systems. Does that change any of the dynamics we're talking about here? No. Okay. So it does not matter if we're irrigating landscape versus zero escape.

[118:02] No, I mean obviously if you have an irrigated landscape it's going to be a little less flammable, but it is not part of this code. That's not even a consideration. Okay, great. Thank you, Claudia. Um I don't Two people have gone missing. One your kid. Okay, she was picked up. Okay. Okay. I was like I looked out. Oh no. Where'd she go? Okay. And uh George. Okay. George has reappeared. George, um do you have any questions? No. I I think you guys have covered it nicely, so I'm okay. Okay. Great. Um uh I'm I'm going to call on myself now for just uh a couple um in the Marshall fire. So when when you show the map and the three different zones and it it's really logical that the western the western interface is red and then orange and then yellow. It makes sense as you

[119:01] go east and yet we have the Marshall fire. So would I would imagine if you had um the Yeah. If if you mapped the homes that burnt in the Marshall fire, wouldn't all almost all of them had been in a yellow um three zone three. I think a lot of them wouldn't even be in the WOOI, right? I mean, that's the point, right? And so, keep in mind though, the Marshall Fire started on the west side of town and moved eastern, right? And so, the ignition in the wind direction is is is what's predominant in our community. west winds blowing east, right, of going through there. So, the Marshall fire held true in that sense. It was a grass fire, right? It was a fastmoving highintensity grass fire. Keep in mind in a wildfire, you know, what we're trying to accomplish here is we're trying to not allow that first home from igniting because once

[120:00] that first home ignites, the likelihood of a second home igniting increases quite a bit, right? And then you start getting that domino effect. And essentially once we get between four and five homes burning, we we're losing, right? We we've lost our ground and we're moving from a wildland fire to an urban confilration, right? Because now we're at the point where it's going to be very difficult to stop that from moving to another house, into another house. The radiant heat is so intense and the embers now have grown larger and more intense coming from a a structure than from vegetation. Right? And so that's what we're trying to that's what this code really is trying to prevent is that first home from igniting. So when you start looking at the Marshall fire and you start looking at um uh area in Lewisville, Harper Lake

[121:01] area, right, u our old fire chief, Chief Donner, lived in that neighborhood, lost his house there, right? Um you know, I would not have included that in any of these zones when I'm looking at Lewisville, right? U now my perspective may be a little bit different. the open space across from Harford Lake and stuff. May I may start changing my deal, but prior that I wouldn't have included that in WOI. I certainly wouldn't have included the brand new hotel in in uh in uh Superior Superior um that was surrounded by parking lot, right? Uh in that particular situation either. So I think when we start looking at Marshall fire and we start looking at Lahina and now we have obviously uh the Palisides and Eaton fire but prior to that we had the Tubs fire in Santa Rosa California and a few others even going back to 1991 the Oakland Hills fire right that when we get into certain

[122:01] conditions it's a natural disaster right and we can't really do anything just like we can't change the direction and the path of a hurricane we can't change a tornado. Um that at some point mother nature has taken over and until we catch that break, right, to start performing that suppression action, right? So what this code is trying to accomplish is that first home from igniting and giving us a suppression effort to prevent that with our what we refer to as our structure protection. Okay, great. Thank you. Um, uh, councelor Benjamin sent out a hotline note today that was interesting and especially in relation you they're going to be seeing the same information soon, etc. So, um, he talked about the detailed assessments and and access to those detailed assessments and looking at one house next to another, etc. My question

[123:01] is the detailed are those detailed assessments uh public record and can be avail are they available to everyone including um insurance companies and at the same time is there so I assume the data is shared either for the benefit or the detriment of the homeowner in that case. Yes. Is that right? It is not right. Um, now obviously everything that we kind of operate in is is public record, right? And subject to court, right? And I have the city attorney's office uh looking into a detailed home assessment like a a completed one of what information is is subject to the coral law. Uh, and that would be made public. But right now, we do not that is not public record. Uh, we don't share that. Uh, some of our homeowners are very adamant that it not be shared. They don't want I mean essentially the way I look at it is that

[124:01] it could only help with insurance that if you took these recommendations and made some of the corrections that it would have your insurance company the ability to look at and saying you've lowered your risk, right? Um but it's not always viewed the same way that that that I look at it that um we are looking at uh trying to create like a heat map of where they're occurring but not pinpointing homes themselves. What council council Benjamin uh talked about was two things. He talked about the curbside assessment program uh that we currently have, which is a a much which is when when we go down in a public area, a street, a sidewalk, not on people's property, and we look at a house and we kind of assess that house. There's actually 13 items on that checklist uh of whether it is a red, a yellow, or a green, right? Green

[125:01] being you look great. Yellow meaning that you know you you can make some improvement and red meaning that's you don't look good, right? Uh that is a public facing on the website that you can go to. It's not the easiest to find, but it is on there that you could go through and find your house and if we have done a curbside assessment, you can like, "Oh, they look at my house as green. Yay." Or, "Oh, boo, it's red." That was all done to try to encourage people to have a detailed home assessment. A detailed home assessment is a voluntary program, right? It is not a mandatory program. And likewise, all of the uh recommend all of the items that we may talk to you about on the report that you would get uh as the homeowner are recommendations and not enforcement. Great. And and you've corrected something for me. I was quickly reading his note and I was conflating a detailed

[126:02] home assessment with a curbside home assessment. He mentions both, right? He's talking about the curbside assessment and if you're red or orange, it would mandate a detailed home assessment which currently is only voluntarily, right? I don't know how we're going to answer yet. Well, I I appreciate you taking more careful reading than I did of his I had to read it a few times, by the way. Okay. Calm myself down. Okay. Um, last thing, and it doesn't relate to building code, but we are talking about urban fires and their effect. Do we as as a city we manage our our water system? Um and the water systems in California and Lahina and other places uh have been stressed. Nothing to do with water policy that that sort of thing. But they have been stressed because too many people were drawing at one time. If if we have a fire in in Table Mesa and we

[127:00] really need water directed, water pressure directed, do we have a way as owners and managers of our potable water system to ensure that we have water in the area where it's needed and maybe, you know, people are cut off for hours or a day or whatever from potable water in their home. Do we have a system? And maybe this is the wrong group of people to ask, but certainly we need to involve our utilities department, Crisville and his team out there. Um, so it's a little bit of of I want to say a little bit of yes and no, right? I mean, first of all, our utilities are extremely strong, right? Our utilities division does an outstanding job. We've actually looked at our water system based on a wildfire coming into the city and we've determined that yeah, we've we've got a really strong water supply. We could be flowing, you know, up to six to eight hydrants simultaneously

[128:02] um and still have enough water to fight that fire, right? That's typically not how a wildfire is actually approached. It's not it's very different from a structure fire. Um so we've looked at that but obviously water is a limited resource one way or the other right and if enough uh uh stress is on it we are going to have issues with the water the Marshall fire experienced that right um so we we are you know it's it's not a Boulder fire rescue suppression effort uh we have other including our utility department that we know that we have talked to them about that hey we may need to start isolating areas that where we need water and is that possible and the answer is anything is possible. It's just a matter of getting that coordination um and getting them in safely of what we need to do. It's not easy. We are in talks about it. We have a um you probably probably

[129:00] don't want to hear about it, right? But we have we are kind of discussing the urban confilration plan of like if it starts to happen, you know, the plan and the utilities runs a big part of that of trying to make sure that we can get water to where water is needed to try to uh minimize what's happening. Great. Thank you. I think I think your last sentence that you guys are working on a plan for a urban uh confilgration is is a good thing and keep in mind no fire burns the same. So we're really I mean it is kind of that as I said we can't have I mean we need to make sure that we're asking a utility individual to come into a hot area uh that they can do that safely as well. Right. and we don't want to put them in jeopardy. So, it's it's a plan. Probably a messy plan, but fires are messy. Yeah. Okay. Great. Um, if

[130:03] there are any other burning questions, okay. All right. Yeah. I just wanted to have a quick followup to something that you asked. Did you consider the possibility of just designating the whole city as as class three? Uh yeah, we've we we've looked at it. Um we've considered it. Um again, that run kind of runs back to um you know, we we don't want this to be a hardship on our community and our and our residents of our community. Uh I don't think the class 3 is much of one. Um but it could be. And then, you know, kind of back to your question about enforcement. Um, you know, we're trying to figure out the enforcement on what we have and then we expand that to the whole city. Um, you know, if you look at that CWP, it has a WOOI map in it, uh,

[131:00] that almost covers the entire city. It's a it was done through spatial data, uh, with really no knowledge of our city whatsoever. Hate it. I asked for it to be removed. It didn't. Um so um so yeah and then after the Marshall fire this was brought up as well. Well aren't isn't the entire city um a WOOI? And when you look at it from our perspective Robs and myself and we're talking about really the building code um we we do want to be considerate to our residents on the impact that the building of this would have in that particular area. We will do a detailed home assessment anywhere in the city of Boulder, right? You don't have to be in the WOOI to get a detailed home assessment. Our recommendations stay the same, right? To be quite honest with you, right? I mean, we're not, you know, there's no shs in there, but you know, if you have a tree that is

[132:01] overgrowing your house, you know, we recommend that it be cut back to around 10 foot. Now, the thing there that also removes shade from your house, right? when we start talking about climate, our climate partners, we we we want to cool Boulder as well, right? That that benefits wildfire actually. Um so it is just a recommendation, right, of when we're looking at that. Um but if we did the whole city then it becomes more mandatory and and realistically yeah I mean it it's we tried to look at it from a a resident type situation and and the hardship that it could um bring to a lot of our our our our cities that needed to do work on their property. Great. Thank you. Okay. Um that concludes the question period of this uh item and um I'm going to ask first uh are people feeling the

[133:02] need for a quick break or are we going to push through any push through? Okay, let's um we'll do that. Uh we'll move on to the public hearing now before we begin deliberation and a possible motion. Do we have anyone? We don't have anyone in the room. Nobody in the room. We've got a couple of folks online. Uh please go ahead and raise your hand if you'd like to speak for the public hearing. We'll give it a few seconds, but not seeing any raised hand so far. Uh we have one raised hand. Glenn Seagull. Uh, Lynn, go ahead. You'll have three minutes to talk. I have a um condenser, a 3-tonon hyper heat. It was installed on my sideyard setback

[134:01] entirely blocking my passage through the sideyard. Now, I would never have approved it being there because I know better, but I was gaslighted by the county 10 years ago when I tried for retrofit. And I exposed the fact that the contractor I'd been speaking to that they were referring me to had a a job they were doing, a solar job, putting a solar installation on and it turned out there were it was being done under adverse conditions and the vendor declined doing the job. So David Hashimanji with Energy Smart with the county threw them off of their vendor list. Um at that point I did not feel confident in the county doing advising

[135:02] me in my retrofit or having anything to do with the county after that kind of a situation. That was really unacceptable. I went to David and I asked him. He wouldn't tell me. He said they were just dropped. I went to the vendor and they told me what happened, what really happened. Um, as a result of this, I was gaslighted 10 years later on my energy retrofit. Now, this one 10 years ago was not free. The one I got now is free. And they stuck all this stuff on my house without my consultation, without my input, intentionally going through the county on this care program from that gaslighting 10 years ago. They put this condenser on the side of my house. Now, I live not far from 311 Mapleton, and I've seen their fire repression

[136:02] system there, and I'm unimpressed. Um, and I'm also unimpressed with the fact that that clientele is going to be first end out of this neighborhood. And I'm not confident that I can fight my own fire. And this condenser is also not anchored. So if a wind blows it over and rips it out of my house, I'm going to have live electric. And this is a big problem for me. When I expressed this problem to the people with the city that were overseeing this situation, I was thrown out of the program. I said, I can't have that condenser on the side, but the condenser sits there and it's not anchored. And this is a real big concern, isn't it? And nobody cares it seems like to me, but I do because I want to survive a fire.

[137:01] Thank you, Lynn. Uh, that concludes your time and we actually have no other attendees in the audience online, so I'll go ahead and pass it back over to you, chair. Great. Thank you very much, Thomas. Okay. Um, so this is an advisory item. We are providing feedback to the staff members present and we also have a suggested motion and we can make additions, changes, we can we can do what we like with that motion language. Um but the first thing would be if people want to have a round of uh board discussion and thought about this, if you have additional input that you want to make direct um and speak to the uh proposed changes to the ordinance, you can do that. But let's before we go into

[138:00] motion making any any uh additional discussion or uh input or direction individually to them or to the board. I do acknowledge this has been a very complete Q&A session. So, and uh and you've you know they've been noting our our feedback, so don't feel obligated. But Claudia, it looks like you're ready to Thanks, Mark. I do want to make some general comments before we get to motions. Um so, I just want to say first of all, I am I am overall supportive of these updates as they relate to building construction and remapping of our wildfire zones. We know that the risk zone is larger than has previously been mapped. I think that's really clear to folks. Um, and I also have confidence that we have very good tools and materials for constructing our buildings better. Um, I do want to flag a real concern that I have for how the landscaping component of this code

[139:02] intersects with some of our other planning goals. Um, we talk a lot in this body here about how do we create a green and livable city with access to shade and environmental amenities. We are slowly embracing as a city infill development, smaller building lots and middle housing types, which affect the amount of space available for landscaping and buffers. And we're taking equity a lot more seriously than we used to, which means taking a hard look at the differential impacts of our building codes. My biggest concern here is really with that five foot non-combustible zone. um that would be required now in a much larger area of the city. It feels like this assumes that single family and lowdensity development and the street types associated with that are really what we're talking about. And I think that makes sense when we're talking primarily about areas of

[140:02] the city west of Broadway where property values tend to be quite high, where low density zoning prevails. Um so that makes sense in a lot of cases, not all, but a lot of cases west of Broadway. It feels really different if you start thinking about what it means for the kinds of building patterns that we see in places like Holiday Neighborhood, Boulder Meadows Manufactured Housing Community. These are two that I know really well. Um, and that we might be seeing in more of the city if we continue to support more middle housing types in our policies. So in these places we have limited setbacks and small lots and that means the kinds of non-combustible zones being proposed effectively eliminate a lot of the available green space for many properties. I want to give you the example of my own home um which is blessed to be in the center of a city block and it has generous for the area 15t setbacks from internal walkways. So, a 5-ft no planting zone um

[141:03] on a property like mine would capture onethird of my yard and my neighbors yards. Other buildings in our area have only 8ft setbacks from city sidewalks and they would lose more than half of their theoretical green space. So, if you walk around my neighborhood, you will find that these kinds of small setbacks are well-loved and well used. They are filled with pocket gardens and durable plants that buffer homes from harsh weather and busy streets. And they make our sidewalks inviting places to walk and play. And what we do in these kinds of small setbacks is a big part of the livability of these denser and more affordable areas of town. So I understand that the proposed update will only be applying to new construction. I do worry though that these kinds of requirements will essentially make illegal um or much less quality many of the urban design elements that make higher density

[142:00] neighborhoods good places. Um and so I would appreciate if we struggle with that a bit as a board in our recommendation. Um, I certainly have a a minor amendment that I would like to make to um any proposed motion here as we give advice to city council. Um, because I think this is a larger concern as we start to look at expanding this this Wooi code where it applies in the city and what kinds of neighborhoods it applies to. Thanks. I so appreciate that your thought in relation to multifamily homes and it and it goes back to I think something that um I have struggled with in our open space requirements and that is the that when we look at multif family developments that fulfill their open space requirements via linear open spaces that are long and narrow that this this

[143:03] recommendation or code uh would make those even less less welcoming. And it also points out that fulfilling open space requirements is is to my way of thinking better served with large communal open spaces rather than strip and linear open spaces and we don't do a great job differentiating that in in our site review requirements. So anyway, I appreciate those comments. any um anyone else I guess go ahead. Yeah, just to call you on that. I I guess I want to ask our colleagues, the staff members in the building department like Brad and Carl who are and Charles who are present tonight. Uh if if any thought has been given to how this would impact our uh open space requirements if

[144:00] at all. um and and what that looks like for these buildings where we do want to have welcoming, inviting, usable green space and now we're adding a 5-ft non-combustible zone. Um I can try to tackle it. Charles looks like he might have something to add. Um so one other thing with the landscaping project that you might remember we talked about um in December is that the state has also limited the amount of non-functional turf that we're going to be allowed to have. Um there's another bill actually need to check on the status of it that would apply it to multif family as well which um I believe planning board and city council also directed us to do. So there's a lot up in the air about what the landscaping requirements will end up um doing but as for the actual building code it wouldn't impact the open space necessarily. So, this 5- foot defensible space with with no planting allowed or no permanent planting allowed would still count as open space under the code. Yes.

[145:04] And I see Brad is approaching the podium. Brad, I'll say your name. Brad Mueller, planning director. Thank you, Brad. Um, just adding to kind of that uh clarification of interpretation and and fully appreciating the point that's made, not not trying to um suggest otherwise, but I I think one saving grace that we feel as staff is recognizing that there are parts along the front range and and even beyond where similar rules have been in place and designers and property owners have risen to the occasion to find a way to kind of ensure good design and livability and implement these and it's hard. um this is a perfect example of competing goals and and trying to manage that. And I think your point is very well taken that it creates yet another constraint on design opportunities and

[146:00] design um solutions which by definition in a dense uh um environment or condition are are limited already. If you're a designer or architect and you've got this space versus this space, your your options by definition are going to be less. Um, I think we're going to have to live into it and um and it's it's just a perfect example of why a planning board exists to struggle with competing values. So, thanks for the feedback. That was my non-answer answer. Okay, Mason, as uh sorry, this isn't this isn't planned. Um, as someone who also lives in in multiple family housing, I I I uh I really appreciate your comments, but I'm also concerned with, you know, these are these are the facts that are before us. And as someone who's served a six

[147:01] years of the treasurer for for my HOA up on Shangh um we had a lot of trouble getting insurance and definitely getting insurance that we could afford um to keep our HOA um uh fees at a reasonable level. And although as Brad mentioned, it limits you know our options um we have to we have to live into it. And I'm I'm hopeful that um that these changes as they're implemented across these zones will lead to um insurability which you know without insurance you know you can't get mortgages you can't get it's not livable essentially. So um as unfortunate as it as it might be I think it is a a necessary uh reality that we live in. Yes, I it's it it is it is one of those

[148:01] great conundrums that that we we face in the world. We have the world that we live in and we have our goals and we have competing goals. So um any any additional discussion ML? Yeah. Yeah. I'm Yeah. Yeah. Speak. Yeah. Perfect. Um, so I I will just say it maybe clearly and concisely um that it would be great if we could encourage that the requirements have a means to provide options um optional attributes beyond ignition resistance. So that start to speak to heat island impact or embodied carbon so that when people are making their choices around the materials they can weigh it in a more holistic way. So okay this is an ignition resistant material but it's got a big carbon footprint. Is there one that has a lower carbon

[149:00] footprint or is there one that has um uh a smaller heat island impact? I I think it will this is a great place since it's kind of maybe a little bit newer for people to just think broadly and holistically as we're doing these things to to harden our our houses and landscape that we also broaden our lens to include these these bigger considerations attributes I think of them as Any other comments directed to staff? Yeah, I have a few comments that pretty much I think were suggested by some of my questions, but um just some things that I think would be great to think about in the future and I it sounds like you already are, but I'll just reemphasize them. One is the issue that

[150:00] I brought up of how the the defensible space on your property affects the adjoining property and can we think about it not based on parcel by parcel but structure by structure maybe um and think about spaces around the structures and not just within the given w on the given parcel. Um, regarding the maintenance requirements in particular, I'm always concerned about the equity implications of any kind of complaint-based enforcement mechanism, you know, because there certainly can be inequitable application of that. And so it's just I don't I don't have obviously there's not a great solution, but I I hope we'll be thinking about that and keeping in mind that that is not ideal from the equity standpoint.

[151:00] Um just from a terminological standpoint, we talk about home a lot in this stuff like detailed home assessment. Again, it's really not about homes, it's about structures. And so I think it might be clearer to change some of that terminology in in what we have just to make sure that everybody knows what we're talking about. Um I raised the question about motor vehicles. Largely I was thinking and I didn't follow up on this but largely I was thinking about like if I park my Hummer with a 40gallon gas tank or whatever right next to my house well that seems like it's at least as dangerous as having you know uh chips down as mulch or whatever. I don't know. But as we get information about this, I realize there's not a lot of data, but as we get data on this, I think it would be good to update um regarding that. And the last thing is you brought up the

[152:01] urban confilration plan, which I'm really glad to hear about. And I hope that as we're developing that, we also think about the not not just what happens during the confilration like I mean obviously that's critically important. How do we fight it? How do we ensure evacuation? How do we deal with all this stuff? But I would love to see as a as part of that the followon planning. How do we if we god forbid you know a thousand structures get wiped out like in the Marshall fire. How do we avoid what I see as a failure uh post Marshall fire and what I'm seeing as a failure post Eaton fire at least where things just kind of get rebuilt the way they were and we'll end up at some point largely

[153:04] maybe you know maybe they're a little more fires safe than they were but the the general design hasn't changed and can we use that as an opportunity to really rethink think more holistically. Okay, we're we're basically starting from a it's a green field development except it's not green. Um and and so how do we rethink from a big picture? How do we really want this to be rebuilt rather than just structure by structure? Thank you. Um, so first I just want to really thank Lisa and Chief Lowry and Rob and the rest of the team that worked on this. It's clear that there's a lot of thought, there's a lot of complications, there's a lot of competing priorities, as Brad says. Um, and and you're doing a great job of

[154:00] helping us navigate this. So, I just want to I just want to say thank you. Um, I will take the opportunity to just reemphasize quickly two points that I made. one um trying to minimize the impact of the maintenance and the raking of the leaves and the pine needles not just on pollinators but on wildlife in general and I know that you you have good coordination across city departments and you'll be thinking about that so thank you um and then the other one about um if we are considering putting building code requirements at the point of sale um thinking about homes that may be torn down and so just emphasizing those again I did want to tag on to Curt's comment about equity and just testify that I was walking with a council member through my neighborhood and her number one observation, her very first observation was if these weeds were on the hill, there would be code enforcement complaints. But because you live in, you know, west of Broadway, um, near a trail head, it's sort of a privilege that we as a neighborhood

[155:00] don't ask each other to do lawn maintenance because we like that wild look and we like that sort of blending into the the west part of the open space. And we also, a lot of us live on hills and have very rocky yards and it's extremely difficult to mow. So we go out and weed whack maybe once a year and there's no code enforcement complaints and that's a privilege that we have. So I think Kurt, you're exactly right that there's there are big equity concerns with complaint based enforcement and I hope that my neighbors aren't mad at me for outing ourselves, but um but it's true. Um, and then this has nothing to do with the item before us tonight, but just a really quick plug for um, you know, Claudia pointed out, we as a board, we are trying to push the city in certain directions and in in addition to a very climatefriendly city, we're trying to make carbased um, living not mandatory, right? That um, cars are optional. And and I have big concerns about what that means for an evacuation. And I know that one of the things that that is really recommended is the sort of like neighborhood neighbors taking

[156:00] care of neighbors approach. And I would love to see the city be more active in helping neighborhoods develop plans for evacuation. Um because the city cannot have a fleet of vehicles that will get us all out if we don't have cars, but a lot of us can help each other. And so like knowing who are our neighbors who are seniors or have children or have pets or have disabilities and need help um helping us do that, facilitating that would be such a boon. So and that's another piece of that wheel that Lisa was talking about. So thank you so much. Okay. Uh George, you don't have your hand up, but just one final. Okay, great. All right. Um, now, uh, we move into motion making. I'm just going to make a comment before this. And Claudia, if you have, um, things that you'd like to incorporate in into a motion, advis motions like this,

[157:00] advisory motions, I perceive as different, a different animal than uh, motions in our quasi judicial hearings. Okay? where we vote on amendments to that main motion that are specific conditions and they need to be incorporated into the into the site approval as as an example. And so we sometimes are forced ultimately to vote for approval or denial based upon the conditions that we've incorporated. These advisory motions can be broken up. There's nothing that says we can't adopt a main motion and then say planning board also advises the following and that might be a 43 vote or whatever but it it doesn't have to be part of the of the main motion. And then there were I think back

[158:00] to times where people ended up voting against the main motion that they mostly supported because it had a uh an an item in it that they opposed. And so by breaking it out, again, we can do this any way any way we want, any way the motion maker proposes it. But I just I just wanted to make that distinction. I've been thinking about this a bunch since I'm actually actually now the chair and and I'm not an expert on Robert's rule. So even though I I I have been no I'm not but there's there's nothing in there that says that that we cannot have more than one motion especially in an advisory capacity like this. So, having said all of that, does anyone have a motion that they'd like to make? And um we can start with a big motion and then move down. We can start with an advisory motion recommending a change. Anyway, I

[159:04] I I hope I haven't confused people, but uh I just wanted to open it up to maybe a different set of thinking on advisory motions. Yes. Just as a process suggestion, I would love to hear what Claudia has in mind before we actually put a motion on the table. Sure. Would that be all right? Yes, I appreciate that, Laura. Um, I did send some language over to Thomas, so perhaps we can get this up on the screen. Um, and I am somewhat agnostic or open to suggestion about whether this should be an amendment to our main motion or or a separate motion. Well, I think to Laura's point, let's let's take a look and see where you're taking us. And while we're waiting, I I just want to acknowledge Kurt for letting us know that he owns a Hummer.

[160:00] All right. So, the language that Hummer um the language that I've suggested here is is absolutely in the spirit of giving advice to city council. Um, and I, as I said, I think this can stand alone or as an amendment to a main motion, but I recommend that city council request amendments to the non-combustible zone requirements that protect opportunities for vegetation and green space in multif family housing, higher density zones, and areas of the city with small lots and minimal setbacks. Yes, please. I would like to ask a question of staff. Um, so we've given various recommendations from various planning board members of things that we would love for you to investigate and incorporate if possible. Is this something that would is that you could treat in that fashion of investigating it and perhaps incorporating something um or would we need to make this a

[161:00] separate recommendation? I think we've done it um kind of differently in the past. I've definitely done summaries of just this is the conversation that we had or even point to the minutes. Um so if you wanted us to just provide a summary of all the questions and comments that you had that could be totally separate from the motion. I don't know H if you have a preference legally whether it's like within the motion. Um it can definitely it really comes down to what exactly you want to recommend. Um if generally you want to recommend adoption of this code um and you don't want to condition it on any kind of changes. If there's nothing that you don't support unless a change is being made, then you could recommend the code and do separate motions on what other what additional clauses or amendments you would like to see or recommend to city council. Um, and I think it's a little bit

[162:00] different to it's a different recommendation to ask staff to look further into and for council to consider it versus you already recommending it. So, it it does come down to what you actually want to say. Kirk, I would just say that my preference Well, first of all, I would support this amendment and I would I think that it would be most appropriate as part of the main motion and not as a separate motion. That would be my preference. And I'll simply say I would also support this and I I would I think um our uh comments and advice do get noted and recorded but I think that when we have uh um advice that we want to give to council that we want to make sure it gets there in a formal way and that it's

[163:02] concise, it's formal that that uh it rises to a different level of advice than yeah, we ought to consider, you know, I mean, we provided a lot of advice tonight, but I think that um if individual board members have things they feel strongly about uh and this would be a good example, then then motion making is the is the path to do it. And whether it is part of the main motion or not, um we might do a quick little straw pull. might just be uh great for everyone. Uh and so we don't have to have it as a separate motion, but if people are um it also gives by making it a separate motion, it gives people the opportunity to still support the the main motion and oppose something that they might feel strongly opposed to. Okay, George. Yeah, I I um I agree with the last thing that you said because I I

[164:02] think it was Mason that commented and I I it it's my preference, at least for me personally, to defer to the experts relative to um this this fire area and what the data may or may not support. I I don't feel comfortable necessarily recommending that we look differently at multif family or not because the facts of fire are the facts. Um and so I would prefer that we make a motion to adopt if everyone's on board with the general thing and then if people to to your point right people feel strongly about certain things it will give board members an opportunity to yay or nay if if we need to do that. um because I don't think with Claudia's motion, I don't think I would be supportive of it at all um when I'm actually very much in support of what was presented. And so that would be my suggestion in order to get convey people's uh um thoughts and

[165:00] opinions um and not necessarily uh have something that I think we probably all unanimously agree on that is a good idea. Having having heard that, I'm going to make a process suggestion that we um that someone makes the main motion and maybe George does that unadultered. We vote on that and then we follow it up with uh with a secondary motion um that planning board also recommends and we and we note the vote on on that motion and whether it passes or fails and what the vote count is. It hasn't even been made. Yeah, that that hasn't been made that we we just we had we had looked at Claudia's motion, but it hasn't actually been moved and neither has the main motion. We don't have a motion on the floor.

[166:06] [Laughter] Um, so I'm looking at this and um, I understand what you've been saying, but I'm wondering, it talks about requirements that protect opportunities and I don't know if that has enough specificity for staff or what exactly you mean by that. So, sure. Can I speak to that? Do so. What I'm trying to to do with this language is is actually respect some of the expertise that staff has here that I don't know necessarily what the best ways um to codify opportunities for vegetation and green space in multif family housing is off the top of my head. Um and I also don't know that city council would either when they have this same discussion on Thursday. Um, but what I am asking for

[167:02] here is is for city council to request staff to actually take a closer look at something which I interpret as a bit of a blind spot in how these code updates have been brought forward. Um, because like I did say in my comments earlier, I felt that most of the material that we have been using for reference material, for source material does seem to be quite specific to single family type neighborhoods. Um, and I don't see a satisfactory way of addressing some of these other neighborhood types that are going to be drawn into these wooi zones. Okay. Not not to cut that off. I just want to say that we don't have a motion on the floor. So, um, uh, again my suggested and and people can do differently because once we have a motion, then we act on that motion. My suggestion would be that we move and

[168:00] vote on the main motion as a as a kind of un unadultered item and then people are free to make additional motions, additional recommendations and we vote on those speak to those and vote vote on those. Curtain. I move that planning board recommend that city council adopt ordinance 8695 amending chapter 10-8 10-8.5 if that's right wildland code BRC1 1981 to adopt by reference the 2024 edition of the international wildland urban interface code of the international code council with certain amendments and setting forth related details I We'll second and I think we can do it as one motion.

[169:00] Hela, is it one motion or two? It can be done either way. Oh, okay. I will wait to second until you finish, Kurt. Sorry. and planning board recommend that city council update the Wland urban interface area to which the Wland code applies as proposed in the staff memorandum. I would now like to second that motion and that other motion that it's all one motion. Okay, we have uh a motion and a second. Now, uh, if anyone wants to, uh, as motion maker, you can speak to it. If we're, if we're done with, uh, deliberation on this main motion, we can go to a vote, but I, but there is an opportunity for anyone to speak to this motion. Okay. All right. I uh, I propose we uh, I will Mark, I would like to offer mine as an amendment to the main motion. I I would like to see Oh, okay.

[170:02] If it goes. Great. Thank you. Okay. So, I would like to so so offer an amendment. I move to amend. There you go. Okay. I move to amend the motion to recommend that city council request amendments to the non-combustible zone requirements that protect opportunities for vegetation and green space in multif family housing, higher density zones and areas with small lots and minimal setbacks. I will second. Okay. We have a motion and a motion to amend. So now the uh as motion maker um you are entitled to speak to your motion and the second and then anyone else. So have at it. I will just say I think I have said my piece on the importance of this work previously. I am offering it as an amendment to the main motion because I think this is an important

[171:00] part for me of recommending making a fullthroated recommendation of these changes. Okay. Anyone else want to speak to this amend this amendment? Yeah, I'll speak to it. Um I love the spirit of the amendment. I understand where it's coming from. What I've heard from staff though is that a building is a building, a structure is a structure and that the recommendations that that they're putting forward the the what we're the ordinances that we're looking at today apply to all structures because of the safety needs. Um and I am not sure that we should and they've also speak spoken to the fact that things that are not permanent um are allowed. Um so although I don't think this does any harm and I I like the the spirit of it, I won't be supporting it because I feel like it's

[172:00] asking for work that maybe could take away from other work. Laura. Um, thank you, Mason. Thank you, Claudia and Curt. I like Mason. I totally understand where this is coming from and am supportive of the spirit of this. I should have brought this up when we were talking previously, but I was trying to respect the process. I I can't support it the way that it is worded that city council request amendments to the non-combustible zone requirements because my understanding is that this is part of the international WOOI code. This 5- foot this defensible space isn't something that st that is particular to Boulder. This is an international standard. Is that is that no? Okay. Five. Where's the five foot defensible space? That is a local amendment that we are proposing. Okay. The the non-combustible zone is a local amendment. Where does that come from? that comes from the research from like uh the the IVHS and Headwater Economics and NIST and all the places out there

[173:03] doing the science and research that comes from them. Okay. And um are there other jurisdictions that have implemented this 5-ft defensible zone? Like is this sort of a standard best practice? In Colorado, I think in California, yes, but not in Colorado. Okay. All right. Thank you for that. And I apologize for my misunderstanding. I thought this wasn't part of the international code, but our proposal, but even even with this answer from staff, I'm uncomfortable saying that we are requesting amendments to the non-combustible zone requirements, which assumes that we know that those non-combustible zone requirements need to be amended, need to be changed. I would be much more comfortable with an amendment that said something like requests that city council direct staff to research opportunities to protect vegetation and green space in multif family housing, higher density zones in areas with small lots and minimal setbacks, right? Like that's let's research it and maximize those

[174:00] opportunities without saying that we know that the solution is to amend the combust the non-combustible zone. So, I can't support it as written, but I might be able to support it in a different format. Oh, thank you, George. Um, yeah, I'll just I'll just reiterate what I said, which is I I like the main motion. I I think we can separate these things. Um, I won't be supporting it uh now because of this. Um, so I I think it might be worthwhile, but obviously that's up to Claudia. Okay. Just to um move things along, I'm going to uh I will be voting against this amendment in the hopes that it might come back uh as a separate motion with slightly modified wording. So just um

[175:00] does anyone else want to speak to the amendment that's on the table uh before we vote on the amendment? Okay, let's So we are now voting on the amendment as up on the screen. Uh a motion to I I'll I'll just reiterate it. A a motion to amend Oh, I'm sorry. Uh, a motion to amend uh by Claudia Hansen theme, seconded by Kurt Nordback, recommend that city council request amendments to the non-combustible zone requirements that protect opportunities for vegetation and green space in multifamily housing, higher density zones, and areas with small lots and minimal setbacks. So, uh, we're going to take a vote. Mason, no. Laura, no. Claudia, yes. Kurt, yes. Eml, no. And George, no.

[176:05] And I'm I'm a no. Okay. So, the amendment uh fails and we are back to uh the main motion. And um is there any more discussion on the main motion or any other proposed amendments to the main motion? Laura, I just want to check in with Claudia and Kurt. Are you folks okay with or planning to propose this with slightly different wording as a separate motion because I would like to see it come back like Mark? Well, I we we're really on the main motion now and we have voted down the amendment. Yes. But Claudia also has the opportunity to offer it as a different slightly differently worded version as an amendment, but I'm hoping that she will agree to do it as a separate

[177:01] motion. It is just a matter of process. I just want to check in and make sure Claudia is okay with where we're going. I think it will reappear. Okay. So, we have a motion uh and that is uh planning board recommends that city council adopt ordinance 8695 amending chapter 10-8.5 wildland code BRC1 1981 to adopt by reference the 2024 edition of the international wildland urban interface code of the international code council with certain amendments and setting forth related details and planning board recommends that uh count the city council update the wildland urban interface area to which the wildland code applies as proposed in the staff

[178:01] memorandum. Okay, we are now going to vote on that. I'm going to go around the same order. Mason, yes. Laura, yes. Claudia, no. Kurt, yes. ML. Yes. And George, yes. And I'm a yes. Thank you. Okay. All right. So, the main motion has passed and now uh there's an opportunity uh for any board member to make any other motion. I would like to make a motion. I would like to make a motion and I am finalizing the language on it as we speak. If you can give me a moment. Okay. So, I have just sent some language over to

[179:03] Thomas. Sure. Um, Hela, it was my understanding that city council was going to look at this amendment in two one was for everything in front of the and and then the second one was for the map that they're going to be looked at separately. Um I saw that I think yeah I think the first thing that's coming up at city council is first reading of the ordinance and ordinances have to have two readings except for in cases of emergency. Um however the map is adopted outside of the ordinance. So that will be approved just through a motion and that only requires it doesn't require two readings. Oh, okay.

[180:00] Our council has asked to approve on first reading the ordinance, I think this Thursday, and then at a later date, there'll be a public hearing and a discussion by council of the ordinance and consideration for second reading when it could be adopted. And at that time, council would also consider adopting the revised map. Okay. So, if if ours is together, it's irrelevant. Yeah, it's fine. Cool. So, may I make a motion? Yes. I move that the planning board recommend city council direct staff to research opportunities to protect opportunities for vegetation and green space in multif family housing, higher density zones, and areas of the city with small lots and minimal setbacks. Can I make a friendly amendment? Suggest a friendly amendment? Yep. Please replacing the term multifamily housing with multi-unit housing. That mean

[181:03] terminology. May I also make a friendly amendment suggestion for wording? Yes, please. Just to eliminate the double opportunities. Thank you. Yes. Perhaps recommend that city council direct staff to research um methods or mechanisms. Yes, I will take methods. Would you make your motion again? I will make the motion again. I move that planning board recommend that city council direct staff to research methods to protect opportunities for vegetation and green space in multi-unit housing, higher density zones in areas of the city with small lots and minimal setbacks. I will second. Great. Uh is there any discussion

[182:01] uh at this point on this separate motion? Okay. Hearing none, we'll uh we'll take a vote on this. And I'm gonna do it in the same order because I can't switch things up tonight. Okay. Mason, yes. Laura, yes. Guadia, yes. Kurt, yes. ML, yes. George, no. And I'm a yes. Okay. Okay. Um, any other proposed um motions, not amendments, motions. Okay. I think that concludes this item and thank you to uh staff for uh a really complete presentation and I think it came with good discussion. So thank you very much. Thank you guys. Thank you.

[183:00] Okay. So that closes um that agenda item and now uh we're going to uh matters uh and under the and I'm going to uh offer an opportunity for uh the planning director and attorney with any matters and then and then matters from the board. So, uh, Brad, do you have anything for us tonight? Okay. All right. Uh, Hela, how about you? Nothing from me either. Thanks. Okay. Just just a question. Were we going to receive an updated agenda for our retreat next week? Is that something we were going to discuss tonight? The final was sent out, so you should have it. The final was sent out. It was I don't I sent a final draft out last week.

[184:03] Yeah, I can resend it if that's helpful. I also sent the final to you, Thomas. Did Didn't we make some changes like 30 and Okay. All right. I don't remember seeing it, but I Yeah, I don't remember. I Let me check my outbox because he's sitting in my outbox. We blame Microsoft for everything. It happens to me all the every time I send Brad a lot of emails and he'll be like, "I never got that." I'm like, "Oh, it's sitting in my outbox." Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I don't I'll resend it regardless. Thank you, Charles. Okay. Uh while he works on that, we we don't need to wait on that. Um Okay. at at our last meeting. Uh so now we're to the matters from the board and um at our last meeting uh we discussed um making better use of this

[185:03] time and and there have been some uh discussions not violating any open meetings um thing here about uh what what's appropriate, what's inappropriate, what might be uh concerns about future uh abuse of of the privilege of uh of having uh having matters uh uh a broad range of topics under matters discussion. And so I'll just say I just want to emphasize I went back and looked at our procedures and our code and the the matters time is stated in our procedures as a time for any board member to bring up a matter that they would like to discuss. So it's there's really without limit, you know, there's there's a there's an implied sense of gee, you don't want to be

[186:01] promoting your car dealership or something. It should be matters relating to planning. Uh, you know, Kurt might be soliciting advice on what color to paint his Hummer. I don't know. You know, um, do we like the lightning bolt on the side or whatever. Um, so I I just want to open it up and and know that um we we are all uh respectful of each other and um and that obviously uh if someone goes too long, brings up wildly inappropriate stuff. That's another thing we can discuss in matters is hey this is this is not great. But I I do think it has been an area that is underutilized and um and I would encourage us to take the opportunity to either debrief, you know, someone might say tonight, Mark, that whole motion thing, you're really wonky

[187:02] on that. Whatever it might be. Um anyway, I want to open it up to matters from the board and um and for people to feel uh and don't feel intimidated and to feel free to bring up matters and uh discuss them uh in an appropriate way for in this setting. So is there anyone does anyone have a matter that they'd like to bring up and discuss? Laura, I just want to tack on very brief briefly to say I'm super excited about the idea of better utilizing this time for two reasons. Number one, because of open meetings laws, we are not supposed to be talking offline. And so this is our time to talk to each other about anything that we think needs to get talked about and do it openly and transparently in a in a public forum um and have that opportunity instead of things not getting addressed because it's so difficult with the mechanics of the open meetings laws. So I think this is a wonderful opportunity for us to be able to talk together all at the same

[188:00] time and with our public transparently and for me that includes the second thing which is I would love to hear more about what each of us is being influenced by um and I think that is also very appropriate to share with the public like if we have read a book or seen a video or a news conference or something that is shaping how we think about planning let's have some of those conversations together share with each other discuss our philosophy around planning a little bit more what we're each bringing um again with each other and transparently with the public. I think it's good for folks to know where we're coming from and why so that this process doesn't seem so so Byzantine and incomprehensible. So that's my two cents. So I'm excited. Okay. I'll add I'll add that um if in anticipation in preparation for a meeting uh a board member says you know I'm going to bring up something in matters that um is of significance of

[189:04] consequence might involve uh questions to staff you know whatever it might be that is if it's a weightier item I would really um recommend that you either send a little summary or uh notification to the whole board or if you want to send it just to uh Laura and I by Friday we have an agenda meeting and those and and on Mondays at one and um I think it would be if you have something of that nature that is uh uh more um might require more research or might require staff time or whatever that send that to us so we can notify people. Oh, I see George has a hand up. Great. I can not we can notify uh staff that to anticipate this and it'll be very helpful. So, uh

[190:01] George, thank you. Um I'm going to put my two cents in, which is I'm a fan of efficient um short meetings that gets the work of Boulder done and the public. I I think there obviously is a opportunity at matters to bring up important issues. Um but we're paying city staff to be here. Um we're volunteers. We're spending hours on this packet. We're spending hours in these meetings. And I want us to be extremely respectful of each other's time. Um and bring up important things obviously. Um, but I for one don't want to spend a lot of time during this section to be opining at 9 plus o'clock at night. Um, or hearing people's opinions um that go on and on. So that that's kind of my perspective. I I like things tight and efficient. Um, and so I'm I'm okay with using matters um to bring things up. I think that's always been available to everybody, but I want to be cautious

[191:01] about um how much time we spend here, especially given that we've got um staff um present as well. Great. Thank you, George. Okay, M. Oh, thank you, Mason. Um, yeah, just tagging on to what George said. As 30 in the morning, I I and typically goes to sleep 30, I appreciate the the the use of matters as well as the efficient use of matters. So, I like your idea of mentioning it beforehand and maybe taking turns so we don't have everybody with a matter on any given night. Um, that would be very nice for me and I will stay up late with you guys and have a lock in if we need to. But um otherwise I'd like to avoid it. Okay. Any other comments for matters? It's not a matter for matters. It's just I'm I'm going to kind of go with what Mason and and George were saying that um

[192:01] I think if if we get kind of like a heads up ahead of time and it is something that is um impacting the way we work or the thinking about um why and how we do what we do, I I'm all in. But otherwise, yeah, I like to walk myself home at a decent hour after these meetings. And again, the staff is here. So, I I want us to be um conscious of the uh the effort that is being made to have a conversation. Okay. Hearing no other matters. Um I think uh uh we're going to have last call and um we'll adjourn. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.