July 15, 2025 — Planning Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

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

[0:16] Are we ready? Okay? All right. Good evening. I'm going to call to order the city of Boulder Planning board meeting for July 15, th 2025 tonight. We'll begin with a public participation for our for any item that is not a public hearing which I want to clarify that we have one public hearing. Item tonight. Item 4, B, so you're welcome to speak to anything other than 4 B. And if you want, I understand there's some people in the audience that want to speak to 4 a. That is a public hearing. That item has been closed. But you're welcome to speak to it anyway.

[1:08] So, Amanda, I see you online. Are you doing our rules of participation. Yes, I am. Good evening, everyone. I'm going to take you through just our public participation guidelines for tonight. Thomas is going to pull up a slide for me right now. but we'll get started. Thank you. All right. So the city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive, meaningful, and inclusive civic conversations. Hey, Thomas and Amanda? I don't know if it's you you're or you're a little light on the volume. Am I? Oh. There we go. We've got some room on the volume over here. I just turned that up a little bit. Okay, great. Thank you. All right. Thanks for joining us again. Everyone this evening. The city has engaged with community members to Co. Create a vision for productive, meaningful, and inclusive civic conversations. This vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members, staff and board, Commission board and Commission members as well as democracy. For people of all ages, identities, lived experiences and political perspectives.

[2:22] For more information about this vision and the community engagement processes. You can visit our website. The following are examples of rules of decorum found in the Boulder revised Code, and other guidelines that support this vision. These will be upheld during this meeting all remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city business. No participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person. obscenity, racial epithets and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability to conduct the meeting are prohibited, and participants are required to identify themselves, using the name they are commonly known by, and individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online. Please disregard that last sentence. We are, we allow in person participation and online participation this evening.

[3:18] So for those of you joining us on the Zoom Webinar, and we'll start in the room in person with with folks that would like to speak this evening. But for those of you that are joining us in zoom you may use the raise hand function if you'd like to talk. I don't see anybody joining us on the phone tonight. Oh, yes, I do. I'm sorry. I apologize. If you are on your phone and you'd like to speak. You may press Star 9. That will raise your hand. And you can also find the raise hand button in the reactions at the bottom of your zoom screen. So with that as as the chair, as chair Mark mentioned. if anyone would like to participate in person. 1st we'll start there and then I'll monitor online.

[4:07] Yes, we do have one person signed up to speak. and please say your full name before beginning. Thank you. Yes, press that button. Okay, thanks. My name is Leonard Siegel. I'm speaking tonight on behalf of historic Boulder, and I just wanted to add a perspective. About 1836 19th street, and in particular we support the repurposing of this property as a single family, dwelling primarily because it is the best surviving example in boulder of a very important design approach called postmodernism. That was popular from the 19 seventies to the 19 nineties. Architect Robert Venturi, from Philadelphia, was the founder of this design, approach which rejected classic modern architecture as exemplified by the work of Mies. Van der Rohe. This building on 19th Street, is very reminiscent of one of the most famous postmodern buildings, the home of Van Aventuri.

[5:04] Yeah, the name sounds familiar because it's a mother of Robert Venturi. This building is a playful reimagining of traditional colonial styles of design with a more contemporary sensibility in the composition of the front facade. Historic boulder believes that, allowing this building to be repurposed as a single family home will result in this rare architecture, example being preserved instead of being demolished just to achieve a higher density. Use here. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you, Leonard, and I do not believe we have anybody else in person that wanted to speak to the open comment. so we can go ahead and move to folks online. Great. Thank you. So anyone participating online now is your opportunity to raise your hand, and you'll have 3 min. So far I've got one hand raised, and we'll start with Lynn. Siegel Lynn, you have 3 min.

[6:06] Yeah. I agree with Lynn. this 1836. There's always this argument. Single family homes are, you know, we shouldn't even allow them the zoning for them. You know what I'm going to bring up my points tonight are the need for less and less density and for for our costs not being allocated, except, you know, up at the limelight when we taxpayers end up paying for their 20 year projection of costs. taking 45% of the income from the the the people that stay there on the taxes that the city of Boulder approved. That's how we finance things. And and then we don't have money. We have 10 million dollars deficit. We can't hire anybody, you know. We've got deficits in open space and everything else. So I support that also being a single family home. And you know what a single family home is the cheapest way to live. You can have multiple people living in there.

[7:15] you know 4 or 5 people in this household. You know what the planning board is proving nowadays is apartments up at Cu, with 5 frigging bedrooms or 6 bedrooms. What what is that doing? That's increasing the density. And it's helping out the developer because they don't care. They only have to build one kitchen, and you know, less bathrooms for all those people. And so it's less on infrastructure. But the city's infrastructure. What we need is something that that employs carrying capacity of this community. That means water, quality, water, quantity.

[8:03] the open space, the police, the fire. The transportation costs. All of this needs to be embodied in in a cost per person. and when you have any amount of density, then it's better attributed because it actually goes to how many people are going to be impacting this culture and quality of life here. And that's why it's not a simple thing that you just approve this. Or you know you approve another height, amendment, or whatever what you need is, you need to pay for it first, st and I don't want to pay for it. I want you to charge the developer for it, or they should know what they're costing this community. So sundance the flood at sea. Oh, do you know 94 million dollars for that

[9:05] giant flood mitigation project that's going to dewater the area near it, and then we'll have more floods. So it's not a good idea. I support the lawsuit against Cu South. Thank you, Lynn. Great! It looks like we've oh. anybody else that would like to speak online this evening. I've got one hand. Another hand raised. Joan Bell. Joan, you should be able to unmute yourself, and you'll have 3 min. I'm not sure I'm speaking in the right part of the meeting. So that's why I lowered my hand. I'm Joan Bell, and I live at 2131 Arapaho, across from. Joan. If you would like to speak to the Arapahoe item, there will be an opportunity for that later in the meeting.

[10:03] That's fine! That's fine! That's what I was wondering. Hey? Great! Thank you so much. Thanks, Joan. Okay. At this time I don't see any other hands raised for open comment. Okay, that will close our public participation and in our call to order. I don't usually take a roll call, but I just wanted to note, there are 5 planning board members here and 2 online. So we have a full contingent tonight. Okay, the next thing is, item 3, which is approval of minutes, and we have 3 sets of minutes to approve and this this may be interesting with the changes that were made late today. So anyway. Approval of minutes. Item 3. A. The 1st item is the February 4, th 2025 draft planning board minutes.

[11:03] Do we have comment, corrections, or a motion to approve. I just have a question, what we're approving are the minutes as amended by board Member Kaplan? Yeah. So I did not have any comments on the February 4th notes. So those are the comment that those are the notes that you saw last week that went out with the packet. I did have comments on the other 2 sets of notes. Excuse me minutes that I'm happy to walk through tonight. If people did not have a chance to read it because they were not presented in track changes, so it may have been hard to find what changed. So I'm happy to walk through those for the other 2 sets of minutes if people would like that. But my question is what we're approving. What is before us now is the amended minutes. Maybe I don't know whom I'm looking at is so I think, Laura saying, for let's just take it. One item at a time for item 3 a. It is the minutes that came last week.

[12:01] Is that correct, Thomas? Yes, yes, correct. Okay. For the other 2 sets of minutes. There were some updates sent by Laura yesterday that have been reviewed and implemented into the draft minutes. And those are the current version that's in the packet. Okay, that answers my question. Thank you. Okay. So for item 3, a. The February 4, th 2025 min. comment or motion to approve or motion not to approve. I'll move to approve. The February 4, th 2025 draft planning board minutes. I'll second that motion. Okay, we have a motion and a second, any discussion. Okay? Seeing none. We'll take a vote, can we? It's okay to just do a show of hands on approval of minutes. Or I think I think you have to do a roll call because we have online participants. Okay?

[13:03] All right, Mason, I'm going to start with you. Yes, Laura. Yes, Kirk, yes. Ml, yes. Claudia. Yes. And George. I was absent so upstair. Okay, all right. And I was there. And I'm a yes as well. Okay. Moving on to item 3 B, the February 18, th 2025 draft planning board minutes. Now these have been edited, and you made your suggested changes known yesterday, and they were incorporated in the additional A packet today. Is that correct, Thomas? Yes, that is correct. Okay. And, Laura, since you are the primary editor, would you like to just make a few comments on this I'm happy to. Did everybody have a chance to read them today and feels comfortable with them? Or would anybody like me to walk through the changes one by one. Most of the changes I made, I think actually all of them were, for this set of minutes was just to add the rationale and any counter arguments that were presented for each motion.

[14:16] the the reasoning here being to document, why did why did the motion maker make the motion, and what counter arguments were presented, and then there's the result of the votes. So my question is, I had time to review your email carefully. I did not re review them in the in the minutes as drafted that were submitted today. My question is, are you comfortable? I was comfortable with your suggested changes from the email. Are you comfortable with the way they were incorporated into the set of minutes? I am, I think, the one clarification that Staff made was that they specified. Who was the person speaking rather than saying, Here's the majority logic, and here's the counter arguments. They. They said this was an argument made by this person, and I'm comfortable with that. And and I think I did review. And I think this set of minutes is complete with the changes that I made

[15:14] great. Thank you. Any other comment. I'll just say that I appreciate that change by staff, because I was a little bit uncomfortable with any of one of us sort of summing up the argument. But if it's documenting a discussion that was happening, and a point that a board member was making, then I think that that's completely appropriate. Okay, seeing no further discussion, do I have a motion to approve those minutes? I'll move to approve the February 18, th 2025 min. Second. All right. Motion a second. Any other discussion? Okay, I'm I'm just keep it simple. I'm gonna

[16:01] oh, you were absent right? Okay, Laura. Yes, Kurt. Yes. Ml, yes, Claudia. Yes. George. Yes. And I'm a yes, okay, all right. Moving on to item 3 C. The, May, I comment, yes. I'm sorry. Finish your sentence. Okay, okay, well, is your comment regarding 3 B, or is it about 3 c. 3. C. Okay, all right. Moving on. We are now ready to discuss approval of the March 18, th 2025 draft minutes. Laura, you have a comment. I do so. I realize that the previous set of changes I sent to the whole board. This set of changes I only sent to Thomas. So if people want me to walk through this set of changes one by one, you have not seen them unless you read through the notes the minutes. Excuse me that Thomas sent out today.

[17:00] Can we do this in a couple minutes? Yes, okay, I'm comfortable. Is anyone object to Laura walking us through these minutes so we can actually get them approved tonight. But do it in an informed manner. Any objection. Okay, I will say they're similar in nature as well. To the other edits with them being added rationale for some of the individual motions, and in general counter arguments that were made for those that voted against them. And, Thomas, did you review the changes I sent you against the video to make sure that they matched what people said in the meeting. Yes, and you felt comfortable as staff that they matched the arguments and counter arguments that were provided. Yeah, we we reviewed those, and those arguments sounded the the way that you wrote. It is mostly what I copied into, and then just changed some of them to say that it was your position rather than the majority. and I appreciate that, and I will strive to do that in that manner in the future. I think that's a good pattern. I agree with Kurt. It's much clearer to say who said what? And I? I tried to do my best to summarize people's arguments faithfully, and I appreciate that Staff reviewed that to make sure they were also comfortable, that it matched the video.

[18:15] So with that said, Do people want me to walk through one by one? Yes, okay. concisely. Okay. So there was one sentence where Staff summarized something that I said, and I asked them to change the language. So then, the previous language that they had said. L. Kaplan believes Staff and some of her colleagues are permitting too much flexibility in the interpretation of codes and plans. Believing that a board has a stricter duty to uphold criteria based decisions, I reworded that slightly to say, L. Kaplan argued that the Board has a duty to uphold the Site Review. Criteria plans and land use code as written rather than to flexibly interpret the meanings of words in order to approve projects that board members find desirable which I thought better matched the comments that I made. So that was my own comments that I rewrote

[19:02] for the motion about the 50 per. This is having that. This is the 30th street project in the Tvap for that motion about having the 50% business space commercial space on the ground floor facing 30th Street, added the rationale. That which I spoke to that allowing the neighborhood to use. The planned co-working space is more in line with the character described in the TV app of the 30th Street as a main street business area with neighborhood serving uses so added that to the record for another motion about the functional courtyard at ground level, I spoke to it so, adding the rationale that I spoke to that this would provide a functional courtyard at ground level as required by code for a height modification. Let me actually make sure I'm reading the exact language that was added to the notes. Sorry I'm going to have to go back and forth a little bit here.

[20:02] because I think this might have been reworded slightly by Staff. I don't know, Thomas, if you want to read it, or I can find it. It was the motion at 3 17 Al Kaplan proposed this, saying, it does 3 things to make it more desirable. It would provide a functional courtyard at ground level, as required by code for a height modification. It would remove the wall, the unbroken frontage of a building that is either 4 stories tall or one story tall, 300 feet along the Goose Creek path, which is in conflict with the idea of having no frontages that are more than 200 feet long, and it would have consequences for the number of parking spaces in a transit oriented part of town. and then I summarized the counter arguments. Here the counter arguments were that it would result in lower quality open space by breaking up the elevated courtyard, creating more shadows from the building above, making it less accessible and usable for building users and potentially create security issues. So that's how that one went.

[21:01] And then for the motion at 3, 2750. This is the motion that I made that the 30th Street frontage be no more than 3 stories for that depth of the commercial spaces on the ground floor. Board. Members in favor said it would break up the massing along 30th Street and better align with the Tvap 30th Street Character District as required by the Site Review criteria. The other board members questioned the benefit of the change, pointed to the drawbacks of losing 6 housing units in exchange for potentially odd architecture, and argued that a 4 story building without tearing is appropriate to create a strong and consistent urban pedestrian environment for this street. Hopefully, I did justice to other folks, arguments there and then, and actually this last one, I don't think it made it into the minutes, and I'm I don't know if that was just maybe an oversight. But I suggested, and I will still suggest that we summarize the rationale for Kurtz Amendment at 3 44.

[22:01] This is the motion that Kurt made to change the affected 30th Street frontage to read the 30th Street frontage south of the stairwell. and I suggested that the rationale for that proposal was to potentially have a better architectural design, and to lose fewer housing units. whereas the counter argument is that this change would not fulfill the purpose of lowering the full 30th Street frontage to 3 stories to align with tvap and respect the public process that tvap went through. I would still like to see that added to the to the minutes. Thomas. can we have? Do we need a formal suggestion, or Hello, formal, a formal motion to modify the minutes to add Laura's request into this set of minutes. I think Thomas said, that he'd already incorporated the changes into the minute and and placed them into the packet.

[23:01] Is that correct? This one. Amanda actually reviewed this set of minutes. But I do believe if we want to make a if we if we want, I believe that the Board can edit minutes, but and then approve them here, if they want to make one specific addition. If that's correct, do you want to make edits in addition to what's currently shown in the packet. Yeah, yes. So okay. I see. Amanda's got her hand up and. Yeah, apologies. Laura, I think. When I was finishing this last one I should have probably reached back out to you and or Kurt, just because I had read it, as you know, that it was Kurt's amendment. So I, if you guys all agree and would like to add that last sentence and piece. We're happy to do that as amended. So you can still vote on that this evening. But that was the reason I didn't include it was just because I I kind of interpreted it as Kurt's amendment and

[24:02] wanted him to have the opportunity to be okay with that language. If that makes sense. Do that. Yeah. So that language actually sounds okay to me as I heard it now. So I would, I would be okay. I mean, it's the Board's decision. It's not my decision, right? So I'm gonna I'm gonna suggest a motion to approve the minutes as amended in the room tonight with the language Laura is suggesting, that sounds good. So I'm someone want to make that motion. I'll make the motion. Do I have to say more than that? Yeah. yeah, you want to move the you want to move the minutes as amended. Yes, you do. I would like to move the minutes as amended to include the language that Lord submitted, based on Kurt's motion. Great. So do we have a second.

[25:00] I will second. Okay. Any any further discussion? Okay, Mason. Yes, Laura. Yes, Kurt. Yes. Ml, yes. Claudia. Yes. And George. Yes. Okay? And I'm a yes, okay. Before we conclude that, I just want to express some gratitude to Laura for doing careful editing and thoughtful editing. And and even though I had not read the edited minutes today, but from based on your email, I thought that the comments made were respectful of both sides of an argument, and we've had some, you know, narrow votes, and I thought they were accurate in their representation. So, anyway, and so thank you for that. Thank you to Thomas and

[26:00] Staff for putting in the minute. And second times on the Youtube video from the Youtube video is very helpful and the names so and again, minutes are an ongoing discussion between the board and staff. But I appreciate the efforts in this. These 3 sets of minutes. Okay, we are going to move on now to item. unless anyone else has any other. I didn't want to dominate. If anyone else has any other comments. Okay. we'll move on to item 4, A, which is a continue continuation of consideration of site, review, amendment and use review to allow the existing structure at 1836 19th Street, to be used as a single family detached dwelling unit in the Rh. 2 zoning district, and to amend the existing Pud. p. 83, 64. To maintain the existing rear deck reviewed under case number lur. 2022, 0, 0, 4, 4, and lur. 2023, 0 0 1 0.

[27:18] So what we're actually doing tonight is considering the denial findings as drafted by staff based on board comments. That's correct. And if Thomas or Amanda, if you could give me rights to share my screen. I wanted to show some additional changes that were proposed by Laura, and walk the board briefly through those for the Board's consideration, you should have screen sharing ability. Now, thank you.

[28:05] All right. So I'm the screen's showing the denial findings and any changes I tracked in here. I'm going to to move something on my screen here real quick. So I'm going to scroll to them. The 1st is just a little change. and I should say that I can take credit for the drafting of these laurel, and Shannon worked on that. Could you go either a little closer, or Thomas, can we get a little more volume? Zoom in a little bit? That's better. Okay? So the 1st is a little strikeout. But really the language was just moved further down below, because there was a proposal to include a brief statement that explains that why this Irv was approved by the Hughes Review was denied.

[29:00] So as part of that, that language had been moved down here. There's a little bit of background provided just for that same purpose, and languages added that States in 1983, the city approved. Case p. 83, 64. A pud which can be amended through the Site review process for the property. The Pud included modifications to setbacks to allow for a 1 story structure. The site design included a parking forward design with 3 parking spaces and a rear yard along the ditch that flows through the southeast corner of the site. The Site Review Amendment is required because the existing site was originally approved as part of a pud. There's an existing rear deck which was not shown on the originally approved plans which the property owner wishes to maintain. Keeping this deck requires approval of a setback modification. So that just adds some factual background from the staff memo.

[30:02] And here is the actual language to address that the Site Review was approved while the Use Review was denied, the Site Review Amendment was approved as a majority of the Planning Board found the Site review amendment related to the rear deck met the Site Review criteria. The Use Review was denied by a majority of the Board. Therefore the denial findings will focus on the denial of the Use Review. I'm going to scroll down further. We struck, however, which was a clerical mistake, didn't belong there. And then in the actual findings. Sorry I have this extra window on my screen that keeps blocking the language for me. We added some language as suggested by Laura to address findings specifically based on number and percentages of detached dwelling units and structures

[31:04] compared to multifamily. So, it was added specifically along this segment of 19th Street, not including the subject property. There is one detached dwelling unit, the remaining 56 residential units are located within multifamily buildings, accounting for approximately 98% of all units in terms of structures. The single detached structure represents approximately 17% of the buildings along this portion of 9th Street. 19th Street, while the 5 multifamily structures make up the remaining 83% across the broader Rh. 2 zoning district detached single family homes constitute approximately 47% of all residential structures, with the remainder being multifamily, when measured by dwelling units, 35 detached units account for approximately 7.6% of the total, 461 residential unit compared to 92% located within multifamily structures.

[32:06] This was then also included in the conclusion based on this distribution. The planning board, determined that the applicant failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the proposed detached dwelling unit is located in an area where detached dwelling units predominate. And actually, areas. I'm going to strike this out right now, because that's extra language. Considering both number of units and number of structures, this analysis applies both along the segment of 19th Street, where the property is located, and the entirety of the Rh. 2 district. Those were all the proposed proposed amendments to the original draft provided by Staff. Great, thank you. Hella, okay, we're ready to discuss this. And and we're going to just have a little freewheeling discussion before motion making. I think there might be questions, comments, etc.

[33:09] Kurt, you've got your finger on the on the button. There you're ready to go. I do. Thanks to Laura, I actually flagged both these exact same issues in the draft findings. The one additional amendment I would propose is within Laura's text to replace single family with detached single unit, and multifamily with multi-unit. which I think is a consistent with our current terminology and b actually clearer in this context, because we're making a clear distinction between units and structures.

[34:02] Does anyone? So we're kind of editing on the fly. Is that correct, Hela? Yes, I'm trying to do that? Yeah, no, I. The I understand the pressure and weirdness of editing in the room. But anyway, that's 1 of the that's what we're doing. Okay, yeah. So this is the 1st one, I think. Multi-unit dwelling. Was it? Kurt? Yeah, multi-unit? Oh, was it building here? Or personally, I don't have a strong preference between building and structure. Well, no structure actually would be better. Because, yeah, we are referring specifically to structures.

[35:17] So it keeps jumping on me. This is where Matt Benjamin would make a dad joke. Anybody got any dad jokes? So the next time I see single, it says single detached structure and doesn't refer to family. I'm assuming you don't have a problem with that wording. But it's the family that we're trying to delete. Right? Yeah. And I would change that to detached single unit structures.

[36:10] So is it appropriate to tell a dad joke? When does a joke become a dad joke when it becomes apparent? Oh. I changed it to building code instead of structure because we had. Well, I guess we have both above, we said multi-unit building. I guess we have both.

[37:02] I think I caught them. That looks to me like you got it. That's great. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay, any other suggested Edits. Before we have a motion. Okay. And I'm seeing Claudia online. I don't see George, anyway. If if I'm not seeing you, you can just holler out. Okay, all right, I want to clarify one thing. So the item before us tonight is to approve the denial findings as drafted. This does not change the vote on the Use Review or the Site Review is simply an adoption of the language of the denial findings. So, for instance, I'll be clear.

[38:01] I support the language of the denial findings while I don't support the denial. So my vote for my vote, my vote against the denial is still recorded in the record, and then a vote for the denial findings. Is that completely incongruent? Or you get my question. Yes, I get your question. Yeah. The Board already voted to deny. If that's what you want to do. I recommend that you make that clear on the record that you're voting for the denial findings, because you find that they represent the findings that were discussed by the board members that voted to deny. But okay, it doesn't change your vote on that you made at the last meeting. Okay. when I go to vote, I will

[39:01] be sure to be clear about that. And any other board member may do the same. Okay, do we have a motion in regard to the denial findings. So I will move to approve the denial findings for the site and use review. Oh, I move to adopt the denial findings of fact for use. Review application, lur. 2023, 0 0 1 0 prepared for the Planning Board's July 15, th 2025. Consideration. Finding that the applicant has failed to demonstrate that the application meets the review criteria. and, if I may suggest to add, with the amendments presented tonight

[40:00] with the amendments presented tonight. Thanks. Okay, we've we have a motion. I'll second, okay, we have a motion. We have a second, is there additional comment or discussion? Okay, I'm going to just Claudia has her hand up. Okay, great, thank you. Claudia. Thanks, Mark, and thanks everyone. So I'll start off by saying, in my opinion the staff's denial findings, as written, do accurately summarize the discussion of the Board majority, and I will be supporting their adoption. For that reason. I do want to add a however, to that, and that is to say, I continue to find it troubling that we are applying the code here in a way that renders a physically sound and otherwise code compliant existing structure to be legally unusable without significant modifications.

[41:05] I think that the Use Review criteria that the majority is citing for this denial was originally adopted because it was identified as an appropriate way to discourage the construction of new detached dwelling units in these high density residential zones. We are talking, however, about an existing structure with a lot of useful life left in it. and, furthermore, that the code does not identify a mechanism or measurement for determining the predominant residential typology of a neighborhood. So I think that means we can use the measurements that the majority is using here in this argument. But we are not bound to. So I will be voting to approve these denial findings, because, as I said, I think they accurately reflect the discussion of the majority. But I do want to note that I still disagree with that original vote. Thank you while while I have my mic on. And Claudia has just made those comments, I want to say that I completely

[42:04] incur with her and mirror her sentiment. In addition, I will point out that this presents the applicant with an opportunity, without adding any additional density, without adding any additional housing. To break the unit up, add a very small kitchen, and suddenly come into compliance without any benefit to the city, the residents, etc. So this is a this is an example of a time where I think the code has has failed us, and I, too, will be voting for the denial findings as an accurate representation of the majority's wishes, but again emphasize my vote

[43:06] against the denial, or for the use for the use review. So. having said that any other discussion. Ml. thank you. I would just like to remind us that I think we understood at the original meeting that by right the applicant can turn this into a duplex, and, in fact, they had already turned that existing building into a duplex without deconstructing it, demolishing it. The issue that came up was they couldn't provide enough parking. and we know that the parking citywide is being reevaluated. So the idea that we are pushing this site to deconstruct the building is not correct, and that the current

[44:05] property does not have a use by right option. It does have a use by right option, and that was clarified at the last meeting. I just want to remind us of that great thank you. Any other comment, Kurt. I'll just add that 1st of all, I feel that the denial findings do accurately capture the sentiment of the board. So I appreciate that. And I also feel that, based on the existing code that the denial of the Use Review was appropriate. But I also feel that that's an unfortunate outcome. I feel that the culprit here is our code. I would be very, very disappointed if this building were to be demolished. I think we heard testimony tonight from historic boulder about the value of this existing building. Certainly it's a solid building. It's got interesting design, and I think it would be a terrible outcome if it were to be demolished. But that is in my reading of the code.

[45:08] That is where the the code takes us currently. And so I hope that this will be an opportunity or spur an opportunity to revisit some of these parts of the code to make it more flexible for this kind of situation. Laura. So I'll just briefly thank staff very much for the work that you did to write up these denial findings and to incorporate the changes that were suggested. I think you did a great job. And I will also just take a really brief opportunity to say, I still think the denial is appropriate, and to remind us all that changing the use on this property does not guarantee that this building, whether we change the use or not, and allow single family, residential or not, that does not protect this structure right? The structure has not been landmarked by our action tonight, or anything that we do. So if we say single family residential is appropriate, then this could come in for another site review and use review to demolish the building and have a large single family home. Right? So we're not protecting the structure necessarily with our actions or not.

[46:12] Thank you so much. Great. Thank you. Okay. I see no other hands. So I would. We haven't had a month. Okay, yeah, yeah. Okay, you you moved. And and you seconded, okay, all right, then, let's we're going to go to a vote. Mason. Yes, Laura. Yes, Kurt. Yes. Ml, yes, Claudia. Yes. George. Yes. And I'm a yes, okay, we have concluded. We have concluded agenda item for a moving on to agenda. Item 4 B.

[47:08] This is a. This is Concept plan review for the proposed redevelopment of the Naropa campus at 2130 Arapahoe Avenue, with 2 new buildings containing approximately 133 residential units in a variety of one to 5 bedroom layouts. The proposal would require a Boulder Valley comprehensive plan, land use, map amendment as well as a rezoning from public. P. To residential high. 5 Rh. 5. The proposal would also require a height modification to allow for the building to exceed the 3 story, 35 foot height limit. The proposed design would maintain the existing historic Lincoln Hall Building, reviewed under case number LUR. 2025 0 0 3 3.

[48:06] So the way this is going to go we're going to as usual. Staff will make a presentation. We will. The Board will ask any clarifying questions. The applicant will make a presentation, and have up to 15 min, followed by again by clarifying questions from the board. Then we'll go to a public hearing at which any members of the public, either in the room or online, may speak to the item, and then we'll close the public hearing and move on to board, deliberation and comment. So, Chandler, you're presenting. All right, thank you, Mark. Good evening. Planning board members, as Mark just said. I'll be presenting on behalf of Staff the 2130 Arapahoe Avenue Concept plan review. Just a reminder. You guys are all familiar with this. But the purpose of concept plan review is just to review the General development plan, including land uses, circulation patterns, alternative transportation methods, architectural characteristics, etc. It's intended to give the applicant comments from the public city staff and planning board early in the process before they submit a formal development review application.

[49:22] and there is no formal action on the application tonight, so no approval or denial, just comments and feedback in terms of public notification. Written notice was sent to property owners within 600 feet of the subject. Property Notice was also posted on the property staff, has received comments from neighboring community members expressing concern with the proposed project. These concerns include traffic parking impacts, noise concerns regarding building scale and potential impacts to surrounding infrastructure in terms of the location of the site. And I apologize. I was not able to get my notes up. So I'm going to just be winging it based on looking at the pictures just like you guys. So the site is located just south of Arapaho Avenue, near the intersection with 21st Street. It's just north of the Cu. North campus

[50:15] and just south of the Goss Grove neighborhood across Arapahoe to the north. As you can see, the Arapahoe village shopping center and the village shopping center are located just east of the project site. As mentioned in the memo, the the applicant is requesting a land use, map, change, and a rezoning. As part of this. So the current Boulder valley compound land use is public or semi-public. and public land use designations, encompass a wide range of public and private nonprofit uses that provide a community service, and they're dispersed throughout the city. They typically include municipal and public utility services also includes educational facilities, government offices, libraries, and the jail, etc.

[51:02] What they're proposing is Hr. Hr. Is the high density residential land use. These are generally located close to the University of Colorado, in areas planned for transit oriented redevelopment and near major corridors and services uses consist primarily of attached residential units and apartments, with some complementary uses allowed through zoning. So this is just a shot of the existing. Oh. thanks, Charles is getting my notes for me. all right. So it's worth noting that until 2016 the site had a split land use designation in the Bbcp. Of high density, residential and public semipublic, with a zoning designation of Rh. One or residential high one during the 2015 Bbcp update process. Naropa University initiated and received Council approval of a land use, map change and rezoning to convert the entire site to public semipublic land use designation with a public zoning district in order to facilitate, build out of the campus under Naropa's University master Plan.

[52:10] So the existing zoning for the site, as shown here, is public, which is defined in section 9 5, 2 of the land use code as public areas in which public and semi public facilities and uses are located, including without limitation, governmental and educational uses. As mentioned above, the existing zoning and land use designation were put in place during the 2,015 Bvcp. Update at the request of Naropa University. the benefit to Naropa and receiving the land use and zoning designations of public at the time, was that it removed any limitations on floor area for any improvements that Naropa might choose to make. Naropa is now looking to vacate and sell the 2130 Arapaho campus, and the potential buyer is seeking to change the zoning to residential high 5 or Rh. 5, which is defined as high density. Residential areas primarily used for a variety of types of attached residential units, including without limitation, apartment buildings, and where complementary uses may be allowed.

[53:05] So this is just an aerial shot of the existing site. The current campus contains 16 buildings, totaling approximately 72,000 square feet, or about a point 4 4 far. They're organized around the landmark Lincoln Hall at the center of the site. None of the other buildings are landmarked or hold historic designation at this time, although there are 2 buildings that are eligible for landmark designation. The buildings are interspersed by green spaces, and contain 3 sycamore trees and one oak tree that are identified as Colorado champion trees. There are currently views of the flatirons across the site from Arapahoe. Looking southwest. Currently, there's an internal private drive that provides vehicular access from Arapahoe Avenue south to the intersection of Marine Street and Grandview Ave. And to the parking lots on the south side of the property. The Marine Street right-of-way terminates at the south end of the Naropa property, and Grandview Avenue right of way terminates immediately to the south on the Cu campus. 20th Street also provides access to the short section of Marine Street that accesses the property.

[54:09] This image is just more clearly shows the existing building locations on site as well as the existing champion trees. There are currently 100 surface parking spaces on the site as well. This is just another aerial of the site showing the building scale. You can't really tell from this. But the landmark Lincoln Hall Building is 55 feet and in height. When you take the tower into consideration. so as shown in this aerial image. The project site, again, is adjacent to the Cu North property on the south and east. and a mix of retail lodging and restaurant uses. To the west. To the north, across Arapaho Avenue, are a mix of single and multifamily residential buildings, which range from one to 3 stories in height. Arapaho Avenue is served by the Jump bus route with an existing eastbound bus stop located on the northeastern edge of the property and a westbound bus stop just across the street.

[55:04] Folsom Street is served by the Hop bus route with north and southbound bus stops located just south of the intersection with Arapahoe Avenue. There's an existing multi-use path shown here in blue. which runs along the Eastern property boundary and connects south to the Boulder Creek path through the Cu campus and then east to Folsom Street as well through the Cu campus. This is an aerial view of the site from the East which shows the broader context of the area, including the existing adjacent Cu student housing the Boulder Creek path and the boundary of the Boulder Valley Regional Center, which is roughly one block east of the site. so as noted previously, the site sits immediately north of University of Colorado campus. It's adjacent to the North Boulder Creek campus identified in the 2021 University of Colorado Campus master Plan. This image was taken from the master plan

[56:04] with the proposed project added in the Nbc. Or North Boulder campus area is the is in the process of redevelopment, with approximately 1 million square feet of new student housing and amenities planned in a series of buildings that range from 5 to 7 stories tall, and some construction has commenced out there. so, in terms of the proposed project, it would entail demolition of all the existing buildings on the Naropa campus site, with the exception of the landmarked Lincoln Hall Building and the Arapahoe House Building, would be relocated. The site would then be redeveloped with 2 new residential buildings containing both apartment units and townhome units. In total there would be 133 new units and 576 bedrooms. So a mix everything from one to 5 bedroom units. host of on-site amenities are proposed. total campus far of 1.3 7 is shown on the plans, and they're also showing 91 parking spaces, which is 57 code compliant spaces and then 34 tandem spaces or spaces behind spaces.

[57:14] So in terms of site design. as you can see here, the new buildings are arranged in a U-shaped configuration around the Lincoln Hall building so intended to keep the Lincoln Hall Building as the focal point of the site. They're showing a new private drive slash walkway just east of the original location or the existing location of the private drive and walkway. They're also showing a drop off Lane off of Arapahoe Avenue primary access would be maintained from 20th and Marine Street. The new multi-use path is shown south of the building, which they're saying they're in discussions with Cu about connecting to the multi-use path on the Cu property. and then extensive landscaped courtyard with amenities and the preserved champion trees

[58:08] in terms of the building design. The new buildings are 4 stories, and close to 55 feet near the Southern property boundary on Cu. and then transition down to 3 stories and about 40 feet along Arapahoe Avenue. The primary materials are a mix of brick, cementitious siding, and metal panel. There's a mix of flat and gabled roof forms again, Lincoln Hall would remain, and is intended to really remain the focal point of the site. The project includes vertical window bays. Amenities are located on the 1st and 4th floor of the main building, which is shown in the image on top here. So I think it's a gym and study room on the 1st floor there, and then rooftop deck on the 4th floor, so creating some activity at the street level and kind of eyes on the street again. There's an at grade parking garage shown which would be accessed from Marine Street, there would be units above

[59:09] in terms of access, circulation, and parking. Again, the project maintains the current vehicular circulation pattern via 20th and Marine Streets for primary parking access. While relocating the existing private drive aligned with Grandview Avenue westward to align with 21st Street. Sorry if I said East before, I'm not sure what I said. The relocated drive is intended to serve as the main vehicular access point to the development's primary entry, and is designed as a shared pedestrian prioritized space. A separate drop off loop is proposed directly off Arapahoe Avenue centered on Lincoln Hall. This feature is intended to accommodate Rideshare services, deliveries and emergency access. Again, parking will be located in at grade parking garage located beneath the main building, and shown here as mentioned above, or, as mentioned in the Memo, the Concept Review. Application was submitted in May of 2025, at which time the city's minimum parking requirements were still in effect.

[60:02] Accordingly, the applicant indicated that an 85% parking reduction would be required to allow for 57 spaces where 378 spaces would otherwise be required. Given that the city is in the process of removing minimum parking requirements and the recent passing of the State Bill, a parking reduction request would no longer be necessary. At time of site review. however, the parking, however, the project would still need to demonstrate compliance with the access, transportation and mobility section of the Site Review criteria which require site design techniques, land use patterns and infrastructure to support and promote alternatives to the automobile as well as a Tdm plan that will result in a significant shift away from single occupant vehicle use to alternate modes and what was not included in that rant there was that they're also providing 356 bike parking spaces. 280 long term and 76 short term, which is in excess of the code requirement of 20 of 266 bases. So that was my summary of the project. I have the key issues Teed up. We will get back to these after the applicants presentation. But there are 3 key issues brought forward by staff. The 1st is considering Bvcp. Goals and policies would planning board, support a land, use, map, change, and rezoning of the site in order to allow for the proposed residential density and intensity.

[61:23] We will come back to this, I'm sure, but I have here the criteria for land use, map changes found in Appendix B section A of the Boulder Valley Comp. Plan for reference. these are additional findings that Staff has made that that we believe are in support of the land. Use map change so the public use will no longer be in operation. Naropa will be selling the property. The site is located close to Cu, and near major corridors and services which is consistent with the Hr. Land use, designation, definition. and the site was previously designated Hr. And is adjacent to Hr. Designations to the north and west, and so the requested land use map change would effectively be returning the site to its original land use designation, and would remain consistent with the surrounding area.

[62:14] These maps, again for reference, just showing the existing public which matches with the rest of the Cu property to the south and east, and then the proposed Hr. Which matches with the existing land, use designation to the north and west. Sorry I'm having trouble with my cardinal directions today, as noted above in terms of the rezoning staff, made a comment about the applicant's response to the rezoning criteria, and found that it was likely not supportable at this time, but that it may be supportable by amending the analysis to respond to a different criterion. It really all comes down to the land use map change. If the land use map change is approved and this is changed to an Hr. Land use designation. then the rezoning would likely be supportable through the 1st criterion in the in the rezoning criteria, which is that the proposed rezoning is necessary to come into compliance with the Boulder Valley. Comprehensive plan map.

[63:10] In addition, another factor that we're taking into consideration is that the ongoing implementation of the Cu North campus master Plan will likely have a major effect on the surrounding area of the site, and that as this builds out, it may be possible to argue that the land or its surrounding environs is changing to such a degree that it is in the public interest to encourage a redevelopment of the area to recognize the change character of the area. But again, these, it will ultimately be up to the applicant to make these arguments at the time of a rezoning application. So key issue number 2 is the proposed concept plan consistent with the Bvcp Land use map and on balance with the goals and policies of the Bvcp, particularly those that address the built environment. Key takeaways from this discussion would be whether planning board finds that this project complies with Bbcp goals and policies that address the built environment.

[64:07] and whether there are any Bvcp goals or policies with which the Board finds the project either consistent or inconsistent in terms of how this criterion will be applied during Site Review, section 9, 2, 14 h. 1. a states that in applying this, the approving authority shall consistently interpret and apply this criterion, and consider whether a particular goal or policy is intended to be applied to individual development projects or is to guide city policy decisions such as regulatory actions. The BBC does not prioritize goals and policies, and no project must satisfy one particular goal or policy, or all of them. in terms of the project's conformity with the Bvcp. Staff, finds that overall the proposal is in keeping with the intent of the proposed high density. Residential land use, designation. It is high density attached, residential near transit services and adjacent to the Cu North campus. It would likely also fulfill community needs related to Bbcp. Policy, 7.1 0 housing for a full range of households.

[65:09] Staff's also compiled a list of BBC policies that address the built environment and are intended to apply to individual development projects. These include policy. 210, preservation and support for residential neighborhoods. 2, 25, improved mobility, grid and connections 236. Physical design for people, 237, environmentally sensitive urban design, and 2 41 enhanced design for all projects along with all of the sub elements of that policy key issue number 3 will just be the discussion where planning board can provide feedback on conceptual site plan and building design. We've identified several issues with the current design which will need to be addressed prior to Site Review submittal. While the project achieves a high level of design quality staff did have some concerns regarding the placement and treatment of building entrances, the scale and massing of certain portions of the building

[66:01] proposed site, access and circulation, as well as Tdm. Measures to reduce the need for parking. These are just some considerations that I can bring up to assist with the discussion. and then these are the specific criteria pertaining to height, modification requests which I've summarized, but which will also be available once we get into that discussion, because they will be requesting a height modification. So we will be asking for your feedback in that regard as well. This is just a picture of the site showing the existing views of the flatirons as seen from Arapahoe Avenue. and then key issue number 4 can be any other issues identified by the planning board. Thank you. Thank you, Chandler. That was great. Okay. Now is the time for clarifying questions from the board directed to Staff.

[67:00] Anyway, I'm assuming there's a lot. But is anyone ready to go, Mason? And then we'll go to Claudia. So again, thank you for your presentation. what timeline and procedural alignment would you recommend for a Bvcp Land use map? Change in Rh. 5. Rezoning. said another way, like, what? What does that timing just look like in terms of a roadmap? So they could either request to do it through the Comp plan update, which is kind of just now getting underway, or they can request the land, use map change outside of that process essentially as part of a rezoning application which could happen concurrent with Site Review. So in terms of the the fastest timeline, it would be outside of the Comp. Plan update process, and it would be submitting site review, rezoning, land use map amendment request all at once. and in that case, you know 9 to 12 months.

[68:00] Great. Thank you. I think I saw that there needed to be vacation of portions of Marine Street. Correct? Yes. So this is. This question is coming purely from my ignorance. But I've only been in one conversation around street vacation, and my understanding is it has pretty high bar. I'm wondering if you. Or maybe this is also a question to the board. What would constitute an acceptable public benefit for that vacation? Given utility constraints? Yeah. And I didn't. I didn't go into any depth, really on the vacation, because, it's it's not kind of a key issue that they brought up in their application. But you know. Essentially, there's some, I believe, wastewater utilities in in the existing portion of Marine Street that's in the little notch in the property. If they got rid of those. I don't know that the city would find it to be a huge benefit to keep that portion of right away, because it just dead ends in their property.

[69:03] So I think I think if those utilities were removed it would likely be a supportable vacation request. And then I think you briefly touched on it. But I was hoping you can go a little more in depth on the impact of the potential historic preservation of the 2 other buildings on the property. I think there was one that's due to be moved. And I don't know if that changes things. Yeah, there was a comment. Historic preservation staff made in the Staff Review comments that basically acknowledges that the Arapahoe House and I think that there's a much smaller building called the Tea House, that are both chestnut chestnut house. Yeah, that are both eligible for historic designation. They would have to come in for a demolition permit before they were able to do anything at that time. I think historic preservation would probably do a deeper dive and determine whether it was okay to relocate the building or not. I know they've expressed a desire for them not to relocate the building, but I don't know that that means that it's not possible.

[70:05] So yeah, that those decisions would be made kind of later in the process. Does a relocation have the same sort of requirements as a demolition permit that I'm not sure of right. Now I can look that up and get back to you. I believe that it does. A relocation is considered a demolition. Okay? And that's all my questions at this time. Great thanks, Mason. Claudia. Alright, I've got a few here. I wanna start by trying to get a better understanding of what is allowed under public land use and zoning as opposed to the high density residential. And I was curious if if Naropa was to retain this property, I know they're not. But this is how I'm trying to understand this. If Naropa were to retain this property and they were proposing building a similar student housing complex, would that be allowed

[71:05] under the public land use and zoning. So what I'm trying to understand here is the key variable. Is it the ownership? Of that land, or is it? And the purpose being nonprofit and explicitly aligned with education? Or is the key variable? The housing? Does that make sense. It does. Yeah. And the key variable is the owner, and how that owner is classified, and how that housing is classified. So if it if it stayed under university ownership. and they were building housing. Yes, that would be allowed. But as a private developer you could not develop residential housing. That's not affiliated with the University on the same property. Okay, so is it correct to summarize that as saying, the land use map can actually constrain the ownership of particular parcels. I guess to the extent that the land use map affects the zoning.

[72:02] Okay? All right. That's an interesting. Can I ask for a clarification on that. Yeah, please, do. Yeah. So so, Chandler, I understand that if Cu were to want to build housing there, Cu can build whatever they want, they're not constrained by Boulder. But if it were Naropa, I thought, they're still constrained by the public zoning that only allows 6 units per acre of residential. That's correct. Okay? So it's not about whether it's Naropa or a private developer it's about, is it zoned public for an entity that is subject to boulder zoning? Yes, whether that's Naropa or a private developer. As long as it's zoned public it can only be 6 dwelling units per acre for residential correct. Okay? All right. So, Naropa, is it? Try? Private educational institution could not build a high density student dormitory on this site under the current zoning. Okay, thank you. Another thing about the land use map change that's being proposed. One of the criteria in the Bvcp. For that land use map change.

[73:10] I think this is criteria letter C is that quote, it would not materially affect the land use and growth projections that were the basis of the comprehensive plan. What are those projections? Where do we find them in the plan? What is that actually referring to. You know, I've been trying to get that information as well. Okay, it is in the plan. I'm not sure where on the planet is There was a heat map in the applicant statement that talked about future growth projections. I'm not sure where that heat map came from. Sounds like, maybe from the Comp plan.

[74:04] So I just want to flag. If this is going to be a criteria for a future decision, we are going to need some information clarifying, I think, from Staff what this is referring to, and then hopefully, the applicant could also address that in their application. But this feels very fuzzy. It's just a kind of free, floating criteria here. Yes, understood, and I mean my understanding is that there are very few single parcel projects that would material affect the land, use and growth projections that are the basis of the comprehensive plan. Okay. Okay. So I found the growth projections that the plan was built upon. And it's in the Comp plan in my printed version on page 9, and it says, over the next 25 years area, one is projected to add about 6,500 housing units, 19,000 residents and 19,000 jobs. Cu student enrollment could increase by a range of 5,000 to 15,000 additional students by 2030. Most of the growth that will occur in area 2 will be preceded by annexation to the city, therefore it is included in the projections for area one.

[75:16] Thank you. Hella, that's that's actually really helpful and helpful for this particular case that it's also discussing cus enrollment growth. Great? Can I ask a couple of more questions. Mark. Sure. Okay. That's good. I had a question about historic preservation. So this proposal has the Lincoln School Building, which is landmarked at the center of the proposal. and beyond preserving the actual structure that is there. Now as a landmark, are there any criteria that we will have in a site review that relate to that Landmark Building, for example, would would there be any criteria related to the site plan, or building design that would somehow touch on

[76:05] the Lincoln schools. There are not criteria right now that directly respond to a landmarked building on an existing site. Okay. So as long as the building is preserved in its landmarked form, there is nothing more criteria related that would come up at the time of Site Review. That's true, unless they make any. So there's a landmark boundary that also extends past the building. So any changes they would make within the landmark boundary on the site would have to go through a landmark alteration certificate. Okay? And do we know what that boundary is, and how the current. Plan. Proposal interact with that. I I don't know what the boundary is at this time. Okay? And then one last question, for now the Naropa site, as it's currently laid out, is quite permeable to, you know, members of the public passing through across the site from north to south. There's, you know, there's that private access drive. There's, I think, a fair amount of just pedestrian access. If you wanted to walk through there, is there any like official easement?

[77:19] public right of way, etc, through that site from north to south. There's not. There's just the existing multi-use path boundary on the eastern edge of the site or. Okay? So what we're used to in the current conditions is kind of informal informal access through that site. Correct. Okay, thank you. I'll let someone else ask some questions. Gloria you raised earlier, and we'll go to Mason. Sure I can go. I'll try to. I'll try to do this quickly. So who's the owner of the property now? Is it still, Naropa. to my knowledge? Yes, okay.

[78:02] in your presentation you talked about primary access is the primary vehicular access 20th Street to Marine? Or would it be the private drive that is proposed? They're saying the primary access would still be 20th marine, but would like to have the private drive also serve as vehicular and pedestrian access. Okay? And I saw some staff comments about wanting to preserve that private drive, mostly for emergency vehicle access. Is that Staff's position, or is staff open to having it be more of a vehicular private vehicle access? It would have it so they're technically allowed to only have one access point onto the property from the lowest Category Street. So in this case, since Marine Street is the lowest Category Street, we would require that they take access off Marine Street. They can ask for an exception to that. They have to provide a traffic study and a bunch of information showing that an additional access point is needed and that it can be safe.

[79:00] So transportation engineering staff at this time does not feel that additional vehicular access off of Arapahoe is safe or warranted. And so does that include that drop off circle in the front of Lincoln? It does. Okay. And Grant, you know that's not set in stone. It's not a guaranteed no, but our starting position is no, unless you show us why it has to be. Yes, okay, thank you. So I get returning the property back to residential high density for the land use for the zoning. How was Rh. 5. Determined to be the appropriate zoning. I can let the applicant respond to that when they do their presentation, but essentially it comes down to far. I don't think that they felt that the project would be viable under the 0 point 6 7 far, which is allowed by Rh. One and Rh. 2. Okay, thank you. I saw in the packet maybe a little bit of disagreement between the applicant and staff. On what are the public rights of ways and or public realm for the purpose of the site. Review criteria. What does Staff consider to be

[80:10] the the public right of way or the public realm facing elements, the multi-use path, the private drive, and certainly Arapahoe. But what what does Staff consider to be the public realm, or public right of way? Public right of way, I think, is is just right of way. Public realm, I think, in this case includes the multi-use path on the side of the site. That's the way that we kind of discussed it internally, and the way I wrote my comments on that so public right-of-way is just Arapahoe. and the portion of Marine Street and Marine Street. What about that private drive? I don't think I mean, it's up for discussion, right? The public realm kind of changes depending on the context of the project. So I think we can argue that the public realm would be the private drive. In this case I felt like the multi-use path was more likely, you know, more more likely to see large amounts of foot traffic. So that was more of a public realm than the private drive. But

[81:17] sorry. That's okay. Thank you. If you have more comments on that later feel free to embellish on that. So for the following up on the historic preservation question. You know I have in the past expressed reservation with planning board being asked through Site review to have an applicant voluntarily request to be landmarked as a condition of Site Review. where we, the Planning Board, do not have information from the Landmarks board about whether the building's merit rise to the level of historic significance to landmark over the objection of the property owner. And I've asked. I know there's a sequencing issue, and Staff had said they would think about that.

[82:01] are we? Before Site Review going to have information from the Landmarks board about whether they consider these additional 2 buildings to be worthy of landmarking? I don't know if they come in for demolition permit before site Review. Then it would go to the landmarks board, and we would have that information. But there's no requirement that they come in for demolition permit prior to site review. Okay, it's the same sequencing issue still exists today. Unfortunately, okay, thank you. That's it for my questions for staff. Thank you so much. Okay, we'll go to Mason. I looked it up, but I just wanted to confirm the neighborhood across Arapahoe is in an Mpp. Correct? Sorry. Are you? Are you asking? Yes, just confirm that. I'm not. I'm not sure of. We can. We can look that up. Yeah, okay, isn't Goss Grove, the one that's meant to be the pilot project for a new neighborhood parking program.

[83:07] I was actually going to just confirm the same thing. But my understanding is Goss. Grove is currently an Npp. And it is the pilot for the potential new Npp. So all of 2026 Goss. Grove will likely be a pilot under some new Npp proposed regulations that include Rtd Eco. Passes, etc. That's correct. That was it? Okay? All right. Ml, thank you for your presentation, Chandler. I have a couple of questions just based on Bvcp policies. So regarding these champion trees.

[84:07] Do we see any issue with the way the buildings are proposed, or with the way the parking? I don't know. I looked at those sections. Is the parking below grade or right at grade. Is there any process that the root system and the long term sustainability and viability of those trees is been researched and thought through, do we see that or not during concept review? But that is something that we would definitely look at at site review at site review. Yeah, okay. and what is this just weighing in from that department? Or are there specific things that are going to be required? How does that look? Well, they'll be required to provide a detailed landscape and planting plan, and then our landscape architect will be looking at areas of disturbance as part of the review of the landscape plan. Okay? So the disturbance of the site relative to the viability of those trees will be a consideration. Yes.

[85:14] So speaking about the Goss Grove neighborhood. I'm curious in a number of different Bvcp. For example, 2010 preservation and support of residential neighborhoods, etc. They talk about compatible character is the Goss Grove neighborhood. Has that been involved in the conversations? I see that Cu and what Cu is trying to do with their master plan and all has been has informed the project. What about the actual residential neighborhood in the city? The Goss Grove neighborhood has that has that informed the project in the conversations that you've been involved in. I can let the applicant speak further to that if they've had any conversations before they submitted. But

[86:02] as as far as the city goes, I mean, we just sent out the standard public notice, and we got comments from a handful of neighbors. So meetings with the neighborhoods and those kinds of things. They wouldn't be required for concept review but for site review. That is that a requirement? It's not a requirement. If the applicant wishes to hold them, we, we support that and we can facilitate them. But it's not a requirement. Okay? Think I think those are all my questions. Thank you. Thanks. Ml, Kurt. Are you ready? Thank you, Chandler, and, thanks to my colleagues, who have already asked a bunch of my questions, I have a couple of questions. 1st of all, about the proposed drop off Lane. 1st of all, those that would. That would count as 2 accesses from transportation standpoint. Right? Okay? So I count 5 proposed accesses. Is that curb cuts. Is that what you counted?

[87:11] Oh, because the private drive also connects because of the private drive. Right? Yes, okay, that'd be 5. Okay? And then the it looks like much of that drop off. Lane is within the landmarks boundary. which, for Claudia's information, is shown with a dotted line on page 1, 22 of the packet. There's kind of a an angled, angled, dotted lines going out from the corner the north corners of Lincoln School that go out towards the the property line to the north. and it looks like it encompasses most of that drop off Lane. So the sorry to get back to my question.

[88:06] would that require? Then an Lac? Yes, 2. Okay. Great. Then the Drc comments from transportation refer to the transportation master Plan and say that it calls for bike lanes on Arapahoe Avenue. When I look at the low stress walking bike network map in the transportation master Plan. I do not actually see that on this section of Arapahoe. Do you have information one way or another? Am I, looking at the wrong thing? I don't think you're looking at the wrong thing. Kurt. I read those comments, and

[89:00] and I kind of went by them quickly. But I thought that the comments, or that the applicant was referring to bike lanes. And the and the city response was. that's not in the plan. Yeah, but that's that's that's my understanding. I read it differently. I think we said that the maximum that we would require would be a slight widening of the existing multi-use path on our on Arapaho from 8 to 10 feet. Okay, what? What I have? I don't have it in the packet in front of me, but I copied it down, and it says, this is from Will Johnson. in the Drc. Comments, and will, I believe, wrote while the transportation Master Plan calls out, Bike lanes on Arapahoe Avenue. This is, this is, may not be feasible at this time. I'm reading it exactly as it was written.

[90:01] The sidewalk along Arapahoe. Ave essentially serves this purpose. The applicant is advised that Arapahoe Ave enhancements would will likely not be required, etc. So I'm just trying to assess. My. My question is, are these bike lanes really in the master transportation? Master plan or not. I'll have my map squad. Look right now.

[91:06] Yeah, it is. It is showing proposed on street bike routes. Okay, okay, good to know. Thank you. And then last question is about the quote, unquote private access walk on the west side would. from the standpoint of the Dcs. What is? What sort of facility is this considered to be? Is it a driveway? Is it an alley, is it? It would probably be considered a driveway, a driveway? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Great. Those are my questions. Thank you. Okay, George, are you ready? Yeah. Just a few quick questions, Chandler, if you wouldn't mind in your presentation if you could flip back to where the massing of the buildings.

[92:03] that sort of massy mapper that was really helpful. Actually, that's that one. So I'm trying to understand. The I see the project there all the buildings that are shown? The new 7 story? One. The 4 story, the 5 story. What did any of those go through a city of boulder process, or are they? all cu buildings that have been flagged. Those are all Cu buildings located on State owned property. So they're not subject to city zoning requirements. Got it so. So everything that's been shown there is is has not gone through any city of boulder planning process. Process. What are the building heights surrounding this building that's proposed on that would be applicable to to boulder zoning. What are those heights? Because we're not being shown that.

[93:01] Yeah, all one to 3 stories. And. Nearby surrounding blocks. Yeah. Okay. Hey! George! George, can I interrupt for just one second before we get off of this image? Because my only remaining question that I had, I think. is this image showing 6 floors, 5 floors, etc. This is part of Cu's plan. This is not what's on the ground. Correct today. Okay. I didn't know if everyone knew that because I wrote around there today, there are lots of two-story buildings just to the south of the site that I guess Cu will be tearing down and building higher, taller, higher density buildings. Yes, and and also this is not set in stone. This is not approved. This is not final. This is just their master plan. So yeah, things to take into consideration. Sorry sorry to interrupt. No, that. That's that's helpful. Because I'm trying to understand its context in relation to what's actually going on in this neighborhood. So

[94:07] so so some of this is proposed. Some of this is under construction, that where that big crane is, that's that's what's the 7 story thing that's under construction. Now is that right? Yes. Residence, one. Got it. This is led to in the memo, I think in the memo I read that Overall Staff finds the proposed 4 stories. Buildings were in keeping in scale of the neighboring Cu campus. South. Okay, given the proximity to the project staff finds it appropriate to consider Cu North Campus as part of the immediate context. So that's an interesting phrase. So Staff is finding that it's appropriate to consider these things as the context, even though they haven't gone through any bolder process. I'm trying to understand why that's appropriate for us to consider.

[95:06] Well, there's they're still there. Right? It is. I mean, it is part of the context, regardless of whether it goes through our approval process or not. I think that's the way we saw it. And yeah, I mean, I think we tried to be careful about saying that the Cu master plan should be used as the basis for saying that the massing is appropriate, but acknowledging that it's adjacent to Cu, which is not subject to our height limitations, and which has. Well, that's what I'm trying to understand, because that's that's what it's basically saying. It's saying that the massing is appropriate because of these buildings. But these buildings are in a like like the building that's currently under construction would never get approved through the boulder process. So it seems disconnected with our process to say that this building that we are this building that we're looking at is appropriate because of a building that would never be appropriate in our zoning because and we just don't have control over it. But we're yet we're what we're saying.

[96:08] It's just confused. It's confusing as to why we would use that as a defense for this building, given that, the area around it is that we do control is all one to 3 stories. Understood. Okay, and then the you know, I'll I think, along that in the presentation it was talked about that we're that we'd be returning it to Rh. Zoning. But the zoning that was here was Rh. One right. Yeah, I think the returning to is just the Hr land use designation. Right? So what's the difference between Rh. One and Rh. 5. Can you? Can you explain that to us a little bit better.

[97:00] It's it's primarily floor area ratio. Rh one has a 0 point 6 7 far, and Rh. 5 has a 1.5 far. Okay, so it's basically almost 3 XFAR. What was what was the zoning here versus what has is being asked for? Is that correct? Yeah, whatever whatever the math is, that point 6 7 to 1.5, maybe more, like 2.5. 2.5 2.5. Okay? Those are my questions. Thanks. Okay, Laura. thank you. Just a couple of quick follow ups from that. What is the height of those existing buildings to the East. Those 3 story residential units that exist now that are Cu property. I'm not sure the applicant might know the exact heights I'm assuming they're somewhere in the 35 to 40 foot.

[98:00] Okay, okay, thank you. And then. just to clarify, we know that Cu is a sovereign entity. They're not subject to bolder planning or building regulations. If Cu were to buy any private property in the city, does that then become State land that is sovereign and not subject to? And they can buy any property they want. Yes, they could buy something on Pearl Street, Mall if they wanted to. Yes, okay, all right. Thank you. If it's used for university use if used for university use, so they can't just like, buy up a property, build a building and turn it over to something. Non-university. Yes, okay, great. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to call on myself. Does anyone know what year the Ginsburg Library and Wilson Hall were constructed? Not off the top of my head. I thought, the Ginsburg library. Okay, yeah. Yeah. Adrian probably does. Okay. I can say I can save it for for the applicant. Okay?

[99:04] All right. When we look at a land, use map change and a zoning change. I know there, there are criteria. There. Is there any more discretion offered to planning board, then any other standard site review criteria. So yeah, is there any more discretion offered? Looking at the land use map change? That's a legislative decision while they are criteria they are. If those are met, it doesn't require the land. Use map change to occur because it's a legislative decision. If rezoning is requested. If it's not part of a general rezoning of the city, then that's a quasi-judicial decision, so you would be bound by the criteria, and if you found that those were met you would have to approve the rezoning.

[100:05] But there are also discretionary standards that you you review in a rezoning because you would have to find that it's consistent with the policies and goals of the Bvcp. Great? Thank you. Okay, that's that's all of my questions. Everyone asks all my other ones. Does anyone have any final questions for staff? Or if not, we're going to move to the applicant presentation. And if I'm if I'm missing someone, Claudia or George, let's no okay. Great time for the applicant presentation. I'm going to set my timer here. and you guys can get set up. I won't start the clock until you've successfully. Oh, it looks like you're up there. Great, very good. All right.

[101:04] Okay, thanks. You may begin. Okay. good evening. Planning board members. My name is Olivia. Praise Paprick, and I am here on behalf of core spaces. The developer of the project. Most of you may be familiar with core spaces as we have developed other properties within within boulder. However, since you've recently heard about Core during another Cpr, I'll kind of keep this brief closer. Yep. yep, absolutely. Core is a national developer with a focus on purpose-built student housing. And this this slide focuses on a couple of our local developments here in Boulder we, we currently strive for our designs to create a true home for our residents and for this home to be an integral part of the college experience as well as the surrounding community. We are here to speak about our proposed project at the current Naropa University campus on Arapahoe. Core has been working alongside with Naropa's president, Chuck Leaf on this on the sale of the land, and he's actually here tonight to speak during the public comment. I will now turn over this discussion to our architect, Adrian Sover, to walk through the rest of the presentation. Thank you.

[102:10] I told her. She had 38 seconds. Adrienne sofer, sofer, Spartan architects. 25 0, 5 Walnut Street. you know where the site is, but just briefly to look at the surrounding context. Goss. Grove Neighborhood to the medium density residential to the north, the Boulder Valley Regional Center, which is high density, commercial University of Colorado campus to the south and associated High density residential to the east. I noted the area to the to the west of the campus south of Arapahoe as being transitional because it's RH. 1, and is potentially in a change in a different way than all the rest of these areas we're talking about. I think the slide that you were talking about board Member Kaplan was this one which was the heat map that showed where

[103:01] expected residential density is to to occur in the city, and you'll notice, though it's a little small on the screen, that that orange dot pointed to. Adjacent to the project site is one of the main areas where residential density is expected in support of student housing. Primarily this is a composite showing the proposal for the the current site, which is, as you know, the Naropa campus. It shows Cu residence, one which is partially in the Rh. One. as well as a number of projected buildings. That would be part of Cu's master plan, which is likewise in the Rh. One, because those properties are owned by Cu, and it's expected that Rh. One may well continue to change. rh. One, as you can see. Here is the green on the left, the residence. One is partially in the green zone adjacent to the P public zone, which is the hatch, and there are other areas adjacent to it as well. The Rmx. One is an far of 0 point 7 4, which is actually higher than the 0 point 6 7 far of Rh. One and Rh. 2. Up above the Rmx. One in Goss. Grove is also a 0 point 6 7 far. The P zone

[104:20] is essentially around Cu, and you can see residence one here under construction is the 7 story building that we were talking about earlier or staff pointed to earlier. Here in this map. It is. We've looked at it enough times. I don't need to dwell on it. We'll just keep moving, because I talked too long. Surrounding the public zone. All around the campus is high density, residential, with the exception of the single family neighborhoods that are being protected by the higher density zones which attract the student housing developments. the the only exception to Rh. 5 being or other high density zones around the campus is on the north, and so in general, you'll find that Rh. 5 and higher density areas are surrounding the campus, and we're simply looking to

[105:09] protect as much as possible that area north of Arapahoe by allowing for density to be south of Arapahoe. So I'm sure we'll talk about that more today. This is zone public. Pardon me, the land use is public. That was part of a land use map change requested by Naropa in support of allowing them to do greater density on their site and not be limited by the limitations of the Hr zone today. We're, however, asking that it be turned back to high density residential, because it's not that you can't do residential in the public zone. It's just that the density of residential is limited to. I believe it's 1 dwelling unit per 7,000 feet. Looking at the this is the survey. What's there today? You can see the landmarked old school building, and the landmark boundary that was asked about is the area in the lighter blue to the north of it, towards Arapahoe.

[106:10] the sizable and very sizable champion trees are identified here, as well as a number of trees throughout the campus which give this the green campus like feel that we're used to seeing today, but they're mainly around the Arapahoe side of the site. There are a few trees to the southeast. There's a green space there south of the largest champion trees, but mainly they're to the north. Arapahoe today is one lane in each direction. In order to fight a fire emergency vehicle. Access would be fundamentally on Arapaho. The fire marshal is generally loath to close down a street like Arapaho, to fight a fire or to provide emergency access, because it's only one lane in each direction, so they would have to find a way to either pull off onto the ditch there, which is open, or I don't know what they're going to do if they ever had to deal with that.

[107:04] We also want to point out that 21st street today does not have a bike path designation. However, it does have a pedestrian activated signal on Canyon. and yet it does not actually go through this campus as a public access. The main vehicular access is along 20th to marine. On the south side there is, of course, the existing former 21st Street, which is vacated, but it's very narrow, and is more a bike path than anything else, and then beyond that there are a number of buildings on the site. The Arapahoe house, as well as the chestnut house and all of the gray buildings we've identified as being removed. There are a number of surface parking lots, and all of that is being taken out with this proposal.

[108:00] In addition, the entire campus is in the hundred-year floodplain. So that affects everything that we're doing. So when you take out what we believe is essential to maintain. We've identified a maximum building envelope in this yellow golden zone. And then what do we? What do we think is appropriate here around. That is, firstly, we know that we're going to try and retain the existing structures of value which the Arapahoe House and Chestnut House have been identified. We are going to do our best to maintain the campus-like feel along Arapahoe, and certainly the view shed towards the historic structure, and without a doubt we are going to protect and maintain the champion trees, all of which have been identified, and our landscape architect is here, and he can talk about how we're planning to protect those. Additionally, we, we have a site access along the 20 Second Street Bike Path, which we believe and Staff does, too, should be in some ways a pedestrian activated signal. And we're showing a new connection along the western side that aligns with 21st street

[109:15] and maintaining vehicular access in the in the current location with a limited, shared street winter flight arrangement coming north south on 21st to provide drop-off and access to the front door of the of the of the camp of the residential building. And we have to lift all the structures out of the floodplain above the flood. Protection elevation adds actually 7 feet 10 inches in height at that southeast corner. So even the smaller buildings on the site that are to be retained. If they are, they have to be raised up out of the floodplain, too. So that means lifting them or putting a moat around them. Otherwise we can't really improve them. A look at the connections plan that this is our our copy of what the connections plan says. It's a little hard to read the city's maps. So we just made our own today. Canyon 21st has an enhanced crossing, however.

[110:13] 20 Second Street does not, and that is the the existing bike route that goes southward to the campus. It also now has a pedestrian crossing at Arapahoe, but it isn't signalized. We we know that there is the Goss Grove bike loop, and that's great. But it doesn't show that connection that I mentioned earlier across Arapahoe at 21st Street, and we think that that's important to make. And so let's just go up and blow that up a little bit. Going back to our maximum building envelope. 21st street oops go back one here. 21st Street now does not go through. We're showing that that private drive is really only about a glorified bike path. It's about 8 feet wide. It's not to say that cars don't drive on it. It's just that. In the 30 years that I've been going to Naropa I never have, and I haven't seen anyone do it myself.

[111:11] So we are assuming that that's not appropriate to maintain as an access. We're showing it moving over to 21st Street as a 1 earth and a line with the north-south route that goes past Canyon. This then, links down to Marine Street on the south and connects to Cu. So in that zone we're looking to do an enhanced pedestrian oriented one earth that allows for emergency vehicles, but also drop off to the front door of the new building, and this is a shot of the locust walk in Philadelphia, at the campus of University of Pennsylvania. It's a former street locust runs the full width. Pardon me the full length of Center City, Philadelphia, and in this area it's pedestrian bicycle and service vehicles. Only it doesn't have the need for

[112:05] drop off access, because there aren't any residential structures in this portion of it. But this is the kind of character we're hoping to create along here. And that's what we're showing in these rendered images along that walkway. So then, moving forward, we're showing the connections around the site today, there is a link on the east, and there are long term bike parking would be in the garage with its own entry into that garage section to access those the bike parking spaces. We are hoping to get access improvements in conjunction with Cu extending that path eastward to their existing access. We also have short-term bike parking on the site in multiple locations as well as A B cycle parking area on the south side of of Arapahoe there, and I won't go through the numbers, but we can, if you want to know.

[113:03] I'm sure there's concern about parking, and we can address those issues if you would like to raise them. So this is showing that this in the context of what's there today. If we look at this in relation to the larger map, we're trying to maintain and enhance the connections going around and through the site. Looking at this in relation to Cu's master plan, the originally planned configuration of residence. One, you'll notice, does not look like what it is, and I'll show you in a moment. But there was also parking structures shown next to the Naropa campus on Arapahoe, and next to residence one today. Residence one. Come on. Thomas, can you do it for me? Just advance it. One. Why, it's not going okay residence. One is a completely different configuration, and the the the recently discussed parking structure has been moved over to Folsom and Arapahoe, which is clearly a much better place for it than trying to go down the one lane Arapaho to a four-story parking structure.

[114:10] I show this slide because it comes up in the Staff Memo that there's intended or should be permeability through to the new structure south of the Naropa site. But we don't know that that structure is going to look like it is in this diagram, any more than we knew that residence. One would have the configuration it has today, as opposed to what it had in 2021 on the master plan. But we do know they're planning to do buildings in these areas. So in terms of connecting to that building. All we really know is that there's something going north-south to the west of it, likely something going north-south to the east of it, because there are already connections in those locations, and then diagonally from the northeast to the southwest to connect to the main campus of Cu In terms of building floor plan, the main access to the you've got a long minute left. I'm sorry I'm just. There's too much. We have a land use map change that we're talking about, too. All right, keep going. I'm moving with the main entrance to the common areas of the building are off of that walkway that connects to 21st Street, and then the.

[115:24] We have individual townhouse entries everywhere. We can do it. That includes on the south side. As long as we can get permission from Cu to do it. And we're also showing that the potential for those entries off the bike path are there. Staff has rightly pointed out that that would be something that you might be looking for, but in doing so we would also be wiping out the potential for trees there, because of the height difference the steps to get up to that 1st floor. Remember, we've got 7 and a half feet of grade transverse. So again, we can discuss that with staff upper the upper second floor, we are showing outdoor areas, and then on the 4th floor, where we have a deck that gives us views of the flatirons and common spaces that adjacent to that outdoor amenity area.

[116:09] And I think we're getting there. This is probably the oh, Arapahoe frontage. Our goal was to create something that enhanced the view of the existing school structure and embraced it in a similar manner to, I lost my slide of the University of Virginia. But basically, we're creating elements that flank that main structure in the middle and create a permeable entry into the the former campus area in a similar way, maintaining green spaces, and so on, and to do so we had to move the Arapahoe house that allowed us to then have access through to 20 on 21st Street. What's happening here? So you can see the new buildings flanking the existing school structure.

[117:01] I don't know. Okay, just for one second, with agreement from the board. If I stop the applicant now, I think we'll come back to a bunch of this stuff in questions. I'm agreeable to a couple more minutes to help answer some questions that I think we all have drafted. Is that okay? With everyone or okay. I I well, I I'd like to flag something. I I prefer. We don't do that because I think it's inconsistent with everything that we've done up into this point. So I think applicants need to get there 15 min in, and then we should be asking questions. But they need to be prepared to present and. Go ahead and wrap it up, Adrian, and then we'll start with questions and we'll we'll leave your presentation up and and go from there not to belabor the point. But this is also a land use. Map, change and staff went over to. So I can't advance the slide, Thomas, can you do it for me?

[118:04] Thank you. So this is the view along Arapahoe In terms of the massing. We try to create a series of of larger outlines of buildings along the sky, to create variation in various masses along the south side and along the west side. and that leads to the the renderings that are in your packet, and then, lastly, 7 and a half feet of or 7 feet 10 inches of building elevation increase is required to get above the floodplain protection elevation. I do have a series of points to make relative to staff comments which we can come back to. Thank you. Okay, great. Thank you for that. So now it's time for clarifying questions from the board. And again I would urge us to

[119:00] ask questions and save the commentary until our discussion and deliberations. So who is ready to go with questions? Kirk, thank you for the presentation. Let's see, the 1st question is about the elements of historic preservation. So 1st of all, you've shown in some of your your pictures renderings you've shown Arapahoe House being preserved in others. Actually, it doesn't appear. But I guess the proposal is to include that as relocated. But I'm also curious then about the program for that building. because that didn't seem to be shown the the program to that building is unclear to us right now we've had discussions about the possibility of it being.

[120:01] I'm going to let President Leaf speak to this in some way, because he's got some thoughts about it. But we don't really know if it's going to be residential use or some other supports facility for the residents. But the slide that I was going to get to had more information on that. But we can come back to that. Okay? And then following up, I think, at the beginning of very beginning of your presentation, you also referred to preserving Chestnut House, but that didn't appear anywhere in any of the materials, and we were not intending to do that. We had conversations about that with historic boulder. We recognize now, after having that conversation, that it is as old as Arapahoe House. It's from 1,900, and we are looking at either relocating it on site, like we're doing with the Rapa house, or we're open to. If somebody else wants it, they can take it. But we are recognizing that that is something that has some value. So if it were to be relocated on site. Where would it go? I'm going to have to show you that slide.

[121:05] I think that's seriously, yeah. If you show it if you show it. Yeah, I'd like to see the slide. Well, I might be they are. Yeah, you may believe it or not. Is it a microphone on this is is your microphone on? Okay? So bring your mic close, please. So Arapahoe House relocation right now you can see it's in the center of what is the alignment of 21st Street. If we don't move it, we can't do the winter from that location. It's pretty straightforward. Similarly, with Chestnut House.

[122:07] Chestnut House is right in front of essentially the the principal buildings, public areas, and what we would propose to do to keep it on the site is to allow us to move it adjacent to Arapahoe House, to the west of the of the one earth. I'll stop there and wait for the next question, which will advance the slide again. Okay, that's sort of what I figured. But I wanted to verify. Yes, great, thank you. And maybe you have a slide for this, too? My other question is about the Marine Street right-of-way vacation. Can you show exactly the area that would be vacated? Yes. I'm sorry I need to share again. But I'm going to have to get my glasses.

[123:15] Sorry. So this is the survey. I don't know. Full screen. mind full screen. Okay? So basically, I can't get the cursor to show, because I've got all of your other images on here. But I'm sorry. Is your is your microphone on?

[124:03] Okay. Thank you. We just need it to be on mic to be on the video. Okay, so this is the area of Marine Street we're talking about. It's just this little section that is sticking into what is otherwise Naroka's property. And it's the area that is east of the North South alignment of Grand View. So it would just be about 65 feet, that is east of Grandview. And if we maintain public street sections in that zone. It confuses any public driving on Grant trying to get to Grandview because it looks like the road actually continues eastward when it stops at that little boot of the property. And so all we're asking for is that the public right of way in this section be vacated to minimize confusion about where you're going. You're not as a public member, just driving straight eastward unless you're going into the parking lot. That's the point.

[125:06] And today all of this section of Marine Street is already vacated. Marine Street does not exist past the cursor. Okay, thank you. That helps And, by the way, that's not the way it reflects in city maps, but it is on the Alta survey. Thank you. Then, since we're on the topic along that's outside, you're showing a proposed multi-use path, I guess pedestrian connection, and I think by connection, and you say, contingent on agreement with cu or something. Can you explain? Yes, you can see here that the cus pardon me, Naropa today owns this section which has been referred to by staff reasonably well as the boot. Once that Marine Street access ends east of the boot is Cu.

[126:06] and that portion of Marine Street that may once have existed is See, use, property. And so we've been in discussion with the Campus Architects office about the possibility of of that being an extension of their bike path which is running to the to the southwest here, and we're still in conversation with them, but they're open to it. It's not like it's out of the question. We likewise have some. If you look at Naropa's. Pardon me Cu's master plan. They actually have a road going through here which is on Naropa's property. So there's some kind of give and take that we're hoping to get to great. Okay, thank you. I think that's all my questions. For now. Okay, I'm gonna check online.

[127:02] Okay? All right. Who's ready here in the room. Okay, ml, Hi, Adrian. I didn't recognize you. Your hair is like summer hair real short. I like it. You don't look like Adrian. Sorry. Don't mean to get personal here. He's my neighbor. So the question I have. And I asked this to Staff, and I just want to hear your version of it. So there's a lot of attention given to Cu's master plan and its goals. My question is, what about the neighborhood, the city neighborhood, the Goss Grove neighborhood. What kind of outreach, or what kind of contextual understandings have been garnered from that neighborhood? Well, we know that Goss Grove is a different zone is a different neighborhood context and that it's a it's a. It's a neighborhood that today has a lot of students in it, living in

[128:03] small, multifamily structures and in small single family structures. I'm sure that we'll be having some outreach in terms of having a community engagement on this project. As we get past the concept phase. We're not going to try and pretend that this building would fit in the Goss Grove neighborhood, but it fits south of Arapahoe, and, in fact is in keeping with the long term plan for substantial amounts of housing on Cu's part south of Arapahoe. So it's important to note that Naropa today is prior to Covid, at least mainly a commuter campus, and there was a lot more traffic coming to Naropa on a daily basis, both in terms of staff and in terms of students. Then we'll be coming to the site on a daily basis when everybody who lives here is already here, and they aren't going to be driving here because they're already here. Right? I'm not. My question isn't about access, and that sort of thing in terms of impacts on Goss Grove. I've seen emails, and that's why I bring it up. Got it so just Fyi. I'm sure you've seen this.

[129:17] the neighbor, the Goss Grove neighborhood, and an area that includes the site is listed on the city as a potential local historic district. Has that had any role in your thinking about this? I would say I'd love to hear what staff is, what the plan for a local historic district going forward is. I think it's just something that the city identifies where. I'm not sure if this is identified as a possible historic district as is the hill it has. Yeah, it had some outline. It was discrete. It wasn't just blanket. So that's my question is, what about Goss Grove? And I think I've got your answer. I appreciate it. Okay, thank you. Sure.

[130:02] Mason. Yeah, along that line. if I'm reading the images correctly in the packet, it looks like the massing of the structure is pretty tall up to the Arapaho frontage. Have you given any thought to transitions to Gosgrove? I think we absolutely have. We have, inasmuch as the building actually steps down along Arapahoe from 4 stories down to 3. I don't know if you could hear that. No, actually, let's have you go back to the podium, and I don't think. Anyway, we'll see if you go back and forth. Good exercise. You're right. We definitely gave it some thought, and that's why the building does step down from 4 stories to 3 along Arapahoe. We also have some roof shapes that make it a little taller, but that's also because we felt that it's appropriate that not everything. Be flat roofed just to make it smaller.

[131:06] Okay, all right. Claudia and George, I don't see any hands up. Oh, Claudia, there it's go. Okay. Got your hand up. There you go. Yeah, I'll just ask one question, and that is, could you walk us through the design decision to add that pickup and drop off loop off of Arapahoe? And is that a function that could be accommodated somewhere else on the site? Do you need that to satisfy emergency access requirements like, what kind of what's your decision process on on proposing, adding that loop drive. And I don't know if you can see. Adrian's gone back to the staff desk and is calling, but bringing up a slide for you. I always like visuals. Thank you. So going back to the same slide, I'm going to just quickly

[132:23] apologies. Okay, so turn on the mic to Adrian screen. Okay, we'll just move quickly through the Arapahoe House relocation, the Chestnuts House relocation, and

[133:06] The vehicle drop off. We recognize that staff feels that we have too many penetrations on Arapaho. And so the main thing here is, how do we get access to serve both the townhouse building on the northeast corner and the existing school structure for emergency vehicles as well as provide drop off for Ubers. Doordash, and so forth. And what we've come up with in conjunction with the conversation with Staff is that it might be possible to widen the connection at 20 Second Street to allow for emergency vehicles to just pull in, not to drive all the way through, but to pull in and in conversation with the fire marshal, I think he's open to this. It will. It again means that Cu supporting it because half of that 20 Second Street

[134:04] vacation went to see you and half went to Naropa. We're fine with doing it, but we're going to need cu support for the other half. I think they're likely going to be fine with it, because in the in the long run they're going to need something similar. So in that regard, we're happy to get rid of that drop off, and as long as we can use the one earth for Doordash and the like, so hopefully that addresses that. Okay, I think I think I might have missed this in an earlier comment. But is the implication that currently emergency access to that Lincoln School is through one of these little unused driveways that you were highlighting. I. Like, if. If you were. Remove that. Do you need that loop to get access to the school for. No, I doubt very much. The fire marshal is pleased with access to Lincoln School today, because we don't know how he could do it without driving right into that ditch. Okay.

[135:00] Thanks. Okay, Claudia, was that it for you? All right. George, do you have anything? If not, I'll keep going. Nope. Okay, thank you. Okay, I'm going to ask a few of my own questions here. and I know this is concept plan. And I know we have parking changes coming. but as as a policy at your other places and those in Boulder is your parking completely unbundled? Meaning paid parking? I can answer that question for you. Yes, it is unbundled, unbundled as its own separate rental policy through our properties. Great do your leases. And again, we've had some other student I get confused about which student housing developer we're talking to in a given night.

[136:03] That seems to be who we talk to a lot. Do your leases specify? You're you're coming without a car, unless you you have made either purchase parking from you, or have can demonstrate parking availability somewhere else. They have in the past when required by certain cities. Yes. but it's not normally part of our rental property. so we certainly can have some language in there on that, that they have to state that they are bringing it to our property, or to a you know city approved, or campus approved parking lot. Okay, during. And this may go back to Adrian here during your site design. So I visited the site today, and both the Ginsburg Library and Wilson Hall. They seem to be nice nice buildings, and I understand repurposing buildings for residential use is can be difficult. But

[137:10] what consideration did you give, especially Wilson Hall, which I think is an attractive building. So tell me what your thoughts were there. Yeah. happy to. But I'm going to ask someone to assist me with this. Sure. But 1st of all, it's a two-story building that is an office building, and the floor to floor heights are not compatible with what we need for residential. We we thought a lot. We thought a lot about it. We looked at whether or not could be converted, but we did not feel it was an effective way to it just didn't make sense to try and do that. And I'm going to. Who's going to do this, you, Jake? Or and this will allow you to answer my question of the construction dates of the Ginsburg Library in Wilson Hall. Kate Adams. So for spurn. Yeah, we had. We looked at it from a standpoint of just the general space layout, and I don't know if you guys have been in that building, but it's a steel frame, and there's actually like large open spaces. So in order to orient the units, and we had someone from core go by there as well. It's really not the right depth to do that and get windows

[138:22] on all of the units. It's set up much more for an office which some offices can do, that the other thing that we looked at was in general. I know some of the concern about keeping it was. you know. Embodied energy has been a big concern in the city, and we talked to our energy consultant. And we haven't talked to someone who does those reports specifically. But our energy consultant told us that one of the big issues. one of the big considerations for keeping buildings is, if they have a lot of concrete, because concrete is the biggest driver of embodied energy, bringing it from somewhere off site and having and also building it. And this building, according to a couple of the assessments we have doesn't have a ton of concrete. It's a steel frame, so it probably has some concrete topping, and it has the foundation.

[139:14] Once again. You know, we could look at repurposing some of that on site. We've talked to. Core's preferred engineer about that and your question about what year it was built. We have 2 kind of dates. There's 1 date that says 1990, but we actually have a survey from 1997. That shows a completely different building there. So we believe that it was built after 1997, somewhere around 2,000, the home library in 1990 and Wilson hall. 2,000. Okay. all right. Okay, So I don't want this to be interpreted as a comment. But so to me, Naropa is is kind of like the downtown, especially if you've been here for a while. It's kind of like the downtown mall incar Chautauqua. It is iconically bolder. What what in your development plans

[140:09] other than the preservation of Lincoln Hall. Acknowledge what the site is today. We acknowledge Naropa. That's a very interesting question, I think, in terms of its physical presence. I think we did as much as we could to maintain the campus-like presence along Arapaho, maintain the street frontage. The quality of the landscape and the trees. and that's strictly physical in terms of its historic value as the educational center for the Shambala community for many years, and and and broader than that. I think that's something worth considering. I wonder if President Leaf has any thoughts about that?

[141:03] Curious to hear what he might say when he's asked to come up. If you have a comment, we'd entertain it briefly. Thank you. Thanks. And just a couple of things. 1st of all, I'm feeling a little bit like this is Naropa's funeral. We're not leaving Boulder, and I do want to be really clear about that. That consolidating at 63rd Street and anchoring the east part of Arapahoe is very much our plan, and so I just somehow that is not coming up. So there will be a Naropa presence in boulder, both physically and culturally and educationally. So I have talked to Joe Gato from core properties about some things on the site, especially around the green space that actually paid homage to what happened on that site in Europa. We have a lot of archival material that would work for that, and core is open to it. It's their ultimate decision, but something we would support.

[142:00] Great. Thank you. Okay, I think that is the end of my questions. And just last, call from anyone else. Okay, seeing none. before we go to, I think we're going to have some serious public comment tonight. Do we need a break, a quick break. Okay, Thomas, I'd like to do a break. It's 8, 23. We'll return at 8 30.

[149:34] Thank you. I do forget that sometimes. Okay, we, it is 8, 31. We're going to call the meeting back to order. and we are going to open the public hearing.

[150:03] And we've already read the rules of decorum. And. Thomas, you're managing this. Is that right? Yes, and Amanda will be assisting some with the online portion. But we do have a few folks signed up to speak. Okay, so we're going to go in in the room 1st and then followed by online. Yes, okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Chair. We do have a couple of people signed up to speak in person. 1st up we have Rick White Rick. If you'd like to approach the podium and go ahead and give your comment. You'll have 3 min to speak. Thank you. Thank you. I brought my summer hair, too. I just want you to know. Thanks for taking the time to renew this project tonight. I am here. My name is Rick White. I am from 8 55 Circle drive in Boulder, and I'm here as a representative of Nalanda Bodhi, which

[151:00] is a nonprofit community committed to the study of Buddhism and practice of meditation. The lawn to bode has over a hundred members, and has been part of the boulder community for over 20 years. 20 months ago we were in this room, and we had the once in a generation opportunity to purchase the building. At 2111, Arapahoe. The building across the street from this proposed project on the north side. On that site we're building a public space for education and meditation. That's very consistent both with the character of the neighborhood. And the site's former use as of the Naropa campus. If you viewed this, Hello! Is that me? Someone may be online. I don't see anyone unmuted. But okay, carry on, and we'll see if we okay. We viewed this purchase as a precious opportunity for boulder, and as such we've tried to be an exemplar of what it is to be a good developer in the neighborhood. We've worked with designers, the city of Boulder planning department, the neighbors. We've shoveled, the neighbors walks. We've mowed the the lot when people were concerned about fire and allergies.

[152:26] We've done all the other stuff, developed transportation plans, renewable energy bike, storage and all the rest. And really we've tried to comply with both the spirit as well as the regulations themselves that are appropriate for this neighborhood. And we're really confident at this point that we're headed towards an outcome that's going to be great for boulder and great for Nalanda Bodhi. and one that's going to be very consistent with the traditional character of the neighborhood, and with the fact that it's in a flood plan. Unfortunately, the project, as we've heard it described today to us, feels that it has not really pursued a similar approach. There really has been no outreach to the community, at least that we've been witness to, and it's our understanding that it seeks height allowances and massing really well beyond the traditional character of that neighborhood.

[153:22] In our understanding it seeks to maximize units with substantially inadequate attention to parking. to neighborhood traffic flow, and to community amenities, and we believe boulder is moving, and we hope it's moving towards a carbon free world. But the fact is today that a project of this scale would substantially increase density. Okay, thank you. Your 3 min are up. Okay, you're not going to give me 30 seconds for this. Just if you got sentence to wrap it up. But please.

[154:04] thank you. Okay. thank you, Rick. Next up we have Charles Leaf, Charles. If you want to approach the podium and give your comment. You'll have 3 min to speak. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Charles Leaf. I live at 4 0 6 7, Guadalupe Street, in Boulder. I am the president of Neuropa University 13 years today, it turns out, according to Linkedin and 16 more days to go. I'll be retiring from this job, but I will be remaining, at the request of the Board of Trustees and the new President, to be the main point person for the work being done on this campus regarding real estate and planning, and also the work that we'll be doing at 63rd Street and Arapahoe. So I'll stay engaged in this project for a long time. I think it's important for us to look at the broader context, understanding that that's not what you're looking at completely tonight, but from 2,015, which is, when Naropa requested and received the rezone to public to 2,025. Higher education in the United States has gone through a seismic change.

[155:17] We are a university that is, two-thirds graduate programs, 1 3rd undergraduate. We are university in a very expensive to live in city, meaning that we are now 85%, a transfer university. So most of our students are coming at the undergraduate level for the last 2 years, graduate program is different because it's a professional degree. But students can't afford 4 years in boulder. And so that's something that we're looking at the average age of our student now is 30 at the undergraduate level, and 32 at the graduate level. So it's a huge shift. 500 colleges of 2,000 students or under, have closed in the last 9 years in the United States, and that is double the 10 years prior, and is probably half what the coming 10 years are based on data that we see.

[156:07] It's very expensive. A lot of the schools that have closed have closed with sizable real estate assets, and without the ability to figure out a way to leverage those assets in order to maintain their academic mission. In Naropa's case we are now, and it's a result of the demographic shift with fewer younger people coming into college. Certainly with Covid, where overnight, we moved to being 100% online university to today with more planning and deliberateness. We are now 48% online, 55% of our staff and faculty are hybrid. mostly working at home. Many of them are not living in Colorado because we have so many online students. And so the need for the campuses that we've had has completely changed over this time at the same time and not getting into the politics.

[157:05] the current legislation, and what's happening with the Federal Department of Education and student financial aid means that for a university like Naropa to survive, we are going to have to be able to invest what is otherwise our real estate equity as much as we can into allowing students to have an affordable educational opportunity. And this was the primary reason. After many, many attempts over 5 decades to buy the campus, we finally began the conversation, and resulting in the relationship with Core. Great, thank you. Hey, mark just a point of order for my own clarification. The speaker just spoke. Basically there are the applicant. Are they permitted to speak during public comment? They are. My understanding is, yes. Does Staff have any? Yeah, they're all shaking their heads. Yes. Okay, thanks. Appreciate that.

[158:00] Thank you. Next up we have Leonard Siegel. Do I need to state my name again? Leonard Siegel? Nice to see you again? I just wanted to say that I'm very glad to see that the design showcases, the landmarked Lincoln School building, that we also recognize the extra effort being made to preserve both of the historic houses along Arapahoe Street. and we've made it known to the designers. And now the planning board that as preservationists, we would advocate that the design of the new apartment buildings incorporate more of the architectural elements of the Lincoln School building, even though that's not a historic mandate. But it's a good design practice and good historic practice. Since the building is being used as the centerpiece of the development, we're not suggesting copying it. We're talking about being more inspired by the school's symmetry, the strong brick color, the window patterns in the roof forms, and we've also made it known to the designers. And now to the planning board, that if the second house, the chestnut building cannot be saved on site, historic boulder would

[159:21] be willing to participate with the developers to help to find a new home off site for the Chestnut building. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Leonard. We do have one more person signed up to speak in the room. and the next speaker is Jonathan Singer. and if anybody else is wanting to speak, but did not register. Just please approach the podium after Jonathan, and state your full name before giving your comment. Thank you. Hi. I was going to say good afternoon. But good evening. I'm Jonathan Singer. I'm the senior director of policy programs with the Boulder Chamber at 2440 Pearl Street, and we're coming here in support of what the applicant is talking about, and want to

[160:03] pass on our thanks to city staff as well as the planning board for their due diligence tonight, and really looking at what an opportunity we have here. Core really does represent in many ways a gold standard process for a property that is in need of revamping. I took a look at the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan. and saw references to everything from growth management, maintaining neighborhood character to economic vitality and transportation. But what really caught my eye this time was actually looking at the Bvrc. Which just abuts this area. And out of those 7 guiding principles I just wanted to focus on 5 of them. Today. we talk about encouraging mixed use and doing that in the right place in the right time. The amenities that core is talking about in terms of what they are doing for students right now fits in well with that mixed use. Number 3 talks about encouraging infill in appropriate spaces. You've already heard Adrian and others talk about how infill here would truly meet that goal.

[161:13] We hear about a multimodal focus on hubs. This is right along Arapahoe. If you're going to have density, if you're going to support a student population, this is the place to go. We see students moving further and further out of the city. Now you're seeing increased transportation on us. 36. Because students are out in Louisville and Lafayette and Longmont when they're trying to participate as students here in Boulder. 5th or 4, th also looking at parking management strategies. And what that looks like. This fits well within that. And you've already heard that referenced in the previous presentation. And then also does this comport with with safety. And once again, when I look at safety, one of the things that we all take the biggest risk on. Every day is getting on the road.

[162:03] and this abutting to the University, providing housing for students going to the University of Colorado is an opportunity once again to improve safety, not only for those students, but for our community at large. And I'll just close on this, looking at the commercial and retail options just next to this area. this is ideal, an ideal spot for those who want to grocery shop, who want to enjoy our restaurants, and who want to be able to get to school in a safe manner that provides something for the entire community. So I look forward to the further deliberations and discussions, and I want to thank once again the applicant for putting forward such a great gold standard process. Great thank you. thank you, Jonathan, unless we have anybody else in the room that would like to speak. I'm going to go ahead and pass it over to Amanda online to assist with the online public participation.

[163:03] Great. Thank you, Thomas, all right. So if anyone is with us online, now's your chance to raise your hand. So far we have 2, so we'll go ahead and start with Joan Bell, followed by Lynn Siegel. Joan, you should be able to unmute, and you'll have 3 min. Okay, I met 2131 Arapahoe since my daughter was born in 1978, 5, 7. Story building is not what the neighborhood needs. I know we need housing, but I just want you to know

[164:05] it's an old neighborhood, and I can't argue with a lot of the architectural things. But why the why do they have to? I'm sorry. I think I need to go away. Hey? Thank you, Joan. Next up we have Lynn Siegel. And just to remind everyone that's joining us on the phone, you may press Star 9 if you would like to raise your hand. I'm sorry I just lost. Oh, no, there's Lynn. Sorry there's Lynn Kay Lynn. Go ahead. Joan, you're spot on spot on, and I've got to put in a plug for Palestinian justice. First, st because this, all these problems, all these financial problems are all coming from our intervention with Israel and Palestine. We've got to get out of that. The New York Times today.

[165:18] They're on the side of the Palestinians finally. So that's that's your most fundamental problem here. Now. Naropa, to my understanding. When I talked to Chuck about this way back, he said, no, we're not keeping Naropa because it's on a flood plain. We can't deal with it. See? You can, because, see, you can do anything. see who owns this city. What? What is the story here? The millennium? The millennium, should never have happened. They should never have been given a flood of, you know lineation, never any height amendments, none of that should be for this project core. That's great good for students. But you know what the student population is driven by the housing ability.

[166:15] And that's what we need to control, and we can't control it. See, you can grow as much as they want. They can buy as much as they want, and they can do whatever they want with us, can't they? They can't. So the one thing we have is we can control their population, and we can do that by not laying down on our knees to every demand that they make of us. I mean, up at the limelight. That's a sin, Moxie. In the limelight, the limelight. We're paying our our taxes from those people that come there for the 1st 20 years we're giving that up. Why should we be doing that? The city of Boulder? This is not a benefit to us.

[167:01] We don't need sundance here. We don't need all this stuff. When my dad came here in 58 he wanted to get away from New York City instead. What's happening is Cu puts in 5, 6, 7 bedrooms, apartments. Oh, that's great for Adrian sofer! That's great for the developer. That's great for core, because they have one kitchen. and they have, you know, a couple bathrooms for 7 or 10 people in an apartment. But you know what what we need in boulder is single family housing only not all this multifamily housing, like all these progressives, quote unquote want to fill in with this town. There is one way to control this situation, and that is to hold back on cu stop cu south. Stop that ridiculous flood. 30 seconds. Amelia project. There, that's huge. That's going to

[168:02] take the water away from that whole area just to the east of it and cause more flooding, worse flooding. It's a bad. Lynn. I'm sorry we did not start your timer correctly, but your. 38 seconds. No, you don't. So, Lynn Rapid. That's 5 seconds seconds. Lynn. Wrap it up in about 5 seconds. We'll just stop. What can I do but go on. It up in about 5 seconds. Please. Well, why don't you put in the right time for me? That's not fair. I rely on that time box. Okay, Lynn, use your remaining time to conclude your remarks, please. Okay, thank you, Lynn. No, that's very simple. No.

[169:00] Okay, thank you. Let's see, I don't see any other hands raised at the moment. Give it one last second. Here. I don't. I'm not seeing anybody else online that would like to speak so. Okay. I just want to ask if if Joan wants to use her remaining minute, or if she feel comfortable coming back on. I don't know if Joan can hear me, or she's still listening. She does have her hand raised, she finished early and was struggling a bit, so we'll just. Just unmuted, Joan, if you'd like to have one more minute. I'm sorry I'm I'm so I I couldn't understand the legalese, and so

[170:03] I'm glad the trees will be saved. 400 more people in a neighborhood. and I was glad the design of the building was good. But what's with the stuff on the top? Oh, I just want Gus Grove not to be forgotten. and I know the south side is not Goss Grove, but I think we just need some beauty here. I mean, when I was looking.

[171:00] Boulder Junction is awful. Oh. Page. Limelight is awful. Okay. all right, Joan, thank you. I we wanted to give you. We wanted to give you your remaining minute. Thank you very much. That's okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Joan, and I don't see anyone else on our online participants with their hands raised. Okay, all right, I'm going to close the public hearing and offer the applicant if they wish to respond to any public comment. They have a brief minute or so to do so. If not, that's perfectly fine. Okay. not at this time. But if at the end there are things okay. Great. Thank you, Adrian. Could you just turn off that mic? Thanks.

[172:04] Figure out just it should just be a button there, and now there we go perfect. You did it. Good. Okay. Okay. So Chandler, could you? You had the for questions. And I think if you have, you have them on one slide. Great. Okay? So now it's time for board, deliberation and comment focusing on the key issues. As of late, we've been going down the line and letting each member answer the key issues in whatever order they'd like, but to do it all at once, and I think that that rather than breaking it up. And one question going around. Anyway, we're going to do it so that board members

[173:01] address all 4 issues at once and can put them together any way they like, so is anyone ready with their comments and thoughts? Don't jump too fast now. Okay, Laura. I can go first.st I want to say thank you again to staff and to the applicant for thoughtful presentations. A lot of good information here. So I certainly do think that a land use map change and rezoning to allow for increased residential density, is appropriate. The question of Rh. 5 versus rh. One, I mean, this is this is a tough question. The you know, really good points were raised about the proximity to the university, the proximity to the Boulder Valley Regional center. There's transit on Arapahoe. There's a bus service on Folsom. There's a b cycle station already here. This is a really well connected site.

[174:08] and also it does not have this level of density currently. And so I would be looking in site review for the applicant to make a really strong argument about why Rh. 5 is the appropriate density here that does not necessarily rely upon future development that has not yet been approved. So that that's my comment on that. Is it consistent with the Bbcp land use map and on balance with the goals and policies of the Bbcp. I would say preliminarily, I would give that a yes, I mean, I think Staff pointed out quite a lot of goals and policies in the Bbcp. That this is consistent with, especially around compact development. I do think Staff also pointed out in the packet some policies from the Bbcp. That the applicant should pay attention to, and I support Staff's comments and analysis on that.

[175:08] you know, regarding the the criteria for making the land use map change and the zoning change. I do agree with Staff that showing a mistake of fact is not the strongest argument here, and I would be looking for the applicant to make an argument based either on consistency with the Bbcp Land use map or the fact that the there has been a material change in the neighborhood. So I would. I would strongly recommend that feedback on the conceptual design and site plan. So that's, I think, where most of my comments are. I do support basically all of Staff's comments about the Site Review criteria, including access and circulation. Tdm, bike and pedestrian connectivity site, permeability having architecturally defined entryways along the public realm. The comments on windows and blank walls, balconies, building length and architectural design.

[176:04] You know these criteria in the in the code are not optional, and I have voted to deny projects in the past because they did not clearly meet the Site Review criteria. and I would do it again as needed. So so I would encourage the applicant to bring us a project that you can clearly show how it meets all the Site Review criteria. We've had applicants in the past make the argument that the Site Review criteria are not that important, or that we should be extremely flexible. You may know I'm not inclined to be extremely flexible about dictionary definitions of words. I also support Staff's analysis of public right of way and public realm, and which criteria applied to which that was in the packet. So I would encourage the applicant to to look at that with the right of way vacation. I think staff have outlined what would be necessary for that, as well as having additional access points, and how what kinds of arguments would need to be made, and I'm very likely to support Staff in that at site review time.

[177:11] I do appreciate the applicants bringing down the height a bit along Arapahoe to make a transition towards the Goss Grove neighborhood towards the north. You know we've had applicants really fight us on not having maximum height in every dimension, and I appreciate the sensitivity here to the landmarked building, and to having lower heights along Arapahoe. the open space. You know I did walk around this property, and I think you've made a good decision about locating a community gathering space where those big heritage trees are the champion trees. It's a beautiful part of the site. I think it does meet our criteria. I would be looking for it to have the kind of amenities you know, seating and other activated uses in that area that would help it meet the criteria.

[178:03] I was a little skeptical at 1st that you had the appropriate courtyard, but I think you've chosen the right location. Given those trees. I love that you have concealed the parking. I think that really helps it. Meet our site. Review criteria and the parking reduction numbers probably won't matter by the time of Site Review. But I do think that you've done a good analysis here really appreciated seeing based on your past experience with student housing, how many students bring cars? And this seems like an appropriate amount of parking. And I agree with Mark's comments earlier about the the Tdm. And having the parking be unbundled, and and all of that. I think we'll be looking for that in the Tdm. Oh, and the If you have leases that require your lessees to show that they have a parking space somewhere, either with you or another paid parking space in the city or dedicated parking space in the city, so that they're not overflowing into the neighborhoods. I think that's always a plus for us as part of your Tdm plan.

[179:05] I appreciate that you're working with staff about their concerns with that drop off loop and the number of access points. So we'll be looking for concurrence with Staff when you come back at the time of Site Review. That is always helpful. If you're on the same page with staff and I'll just conclude by saying, You know, I hear the applicant saying that you're very receptive to the historic preservation concerns. I personally, as a as a board member. I do not like to get out in front of the landmarks board, and so I would not personally be willing to require you to do more than what is landmarked, or what landmarks board indicates. These are buildings that should be preserved, that that merit, landmarking, not just, are eligible because eligible for landmarking just means it's over 50 years old and relatively intact. There are additional criteria that the landmarks board administers through the code about what

[180:02] would compel them to actually landmark a building if the property owner doesn't agree. So if you've if you've already come to agreement and you're fine with what's being requested, that's great. I just want you to know where I stand as a board member is. I'm not going to personally compel you to do. Get out in front of the landmarks board. And I think that concludes my comments. Thank you. Great thanks, Laura. I'm just gonna check. Okay. Kurt, you ready? I believe I am ready. Yes. on issue number one. I believe that the this does meet the criteria for a land use, map change. and for rezoning. and in particular, I feel that it's consistent with the policies and overall intent of the Comp plan. and I feel like Rh. 5 would be an appropriate zone district. Given the context, it is a little bit difficult, because we're sort of working on interpolating between what is currently there and what is proposed to be there in

[181:19] 30 years, 50 years whatever. And so in one direction, you know, potentially, this could stand out as being denser than what is there now? On the other hand, in the other direction. 50 years from now this could look like something that is oddly low density compared to what Cu will be building, and so I think we need to think about the future. And pretty clearly the direction that Cu is going is towards significant building in this area, well beyond what would be allowed by if this were under city purview.

[182:02] And so I think that this the Rh. 5 is appropriate. I think it has. It certainly is proximate to to Goss Grove, which, of course, Goss Grove itself used to be our zoned Rh. 2, until maybe 15 years ago it was down zoned to Rmx. One. It, but I think it has enough sort of detachment from Goss Grove that the the the Rh. 5 especially given the the way that is being proposed to be designed would be appropriate for key issue number 2. The main concern that I have, which is something that Staff brought brought up repeatedly is about the permeability, and in particular the lack of a north-south connection through the middle of the site.

[183:03] That's a concern. It's not in a hard, overriding concern, I guess. Given the location of the current pedestrian and and bike connections to the south. which are really on either side of basically on either side of the existing site. There's not really anything currently, there's certainly nothing currently that goes down the middle of of this site or goes south from the middle of this site, and there doesn't seem to be anything proposed on the Cu plan that would go south from the middle of the site. It would still be great to get some sort of permeability through there, like even something that maybe provided some kind of a pedestrian connection along the edge of the parking area, through into the courtyard and to the Lincoln School area, and so on.

[184:03] But that is not a hard and fast, I guess, concern for me. It's a concern, but it's something that could potentially be addressed. Key issue number 3. I think that the North Side drop off Lane as proposed, is not appropriate. It's not consistent with the design and construction standards or with code section. I think it's 9, 9 5 and so I I think that that should be removed. Similarly, I have concerns, and I guess I'm kind of going into key issue number 4. But anyhow, they're sort of similar. I also have concerns about the private access drive on the West.

[185:00] The the applicant showed us a lovely photo of a sidewalk and bike path in University of something which was portrayed as kind of a model which I think would be great. But what we heard was that that was for emergency access, only sorry service access only. And so if this West Side access drive were a pedestrian bike. emergency and service drive, that would be, I think fine, but to have significant number of private vehicles going in and out of a curb cut on on Arapaho, I think, would not be appropriate. I think it, it is again not consistent with the access rules in 9 9 5, if I have that right

[186:05] and so I I would strongly urge the applicant to rethink that I also have continuing on the access issue. I have concerns about the Marine Street right of way. I think that we should right away vacation. I think that we should only be vacating our right of way in when there is a very clear and compelling reason that we're getting something better out of it, and it's not entirely clear to me that that there is a compelling reason for a vacation in this case. and particularly if well, particularly, I think, that there should be a path along the south side, as it was proposed as sort of a conceptual or possible path in the application contingent on agreement with Cu. I think that that path along the south side multi-use path is very important, and if that were to be created, I think having this right away actually would be as actual right of way would be beneficial.

[187:21] So I'm in. I'm I'm I'm largely not all right. I guess I'm inclined to not be supportive of the right of way vacation. a few other things, I think, overall. The height modification is appropriate. I think that the applicant does a good job of stepping the height down onto Arapaho and also really providing a lot of openness on the Arapahoe side. There's a significant amount of space there between Lincoln School and the new buildings on the east and the West, and so I think it would. It would continue to feel quite

[188:06] open, and it it seems like it gives Lincoln school the the space that it needs to given. You know the importance of that as as a really a really wonderful historic building. Also where my mother was librarian. And let's see. finally, I think my only other one is as I want to concur with the comments of historic boulder that I would love to see a greater tribute paid in the design to Lincoln School. I mean again, that is a wonderful iconic school. It has a really distinctive design. It is something that everybody knows, and

[189:01] if there are ways to to pay compliments to that building in the design more than is being done. I think that that would be great. There was some remark in the application that the gabled roof forms were sort of a tribute to Lincoln School, and I appreciate the gable reforms, but that really felt like a stretch. They were not the same pitch. They just didn't to me seem to address that at all. And so I think that if you can make a greater effort to really call out some elements and and complement some elements of Lincoln School. That that would be great, that's all I have. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Kurt George. I looked online, and George had his hand. Oh, yeah, thank you. And you know

[190:05] I'll try to make my comments pretty brief. As it relates to number one in general, I would be supportive of the the rezoning of the site. I think it. I think it matches the Bbcp goals similar, Laura. I'm not sure that Rh. 5 is necessarily appropriate. I could see returning back to Rh. One. I could see an argument for Rh. 5, but it would have to be a very strong one, and so I would encourage the developer to think through that I get the desire to multiply the far by 2.5 of what was there prior to me, turning public. I do want to make the distinction a few distinctions. One.

[191:00] This is not cu buying land. It's a private for-profit luxury, student housing developer. These are not dorms, they do not have the same, they do not carry the same benefit, and also the motivation of the people behind it is is corporate profit motive. not directly tied to the same kind of motivation that the school would be having in building dorms. This is only one of about 30 different hub projects across the country that this developer has along with a whole. You know they already have 46,000 bedrooms under management, as they phrase it. And so I just want us to be cognizant that this is not necessarily the same type of thing that we would see that we're. You know, the buildings near here are being built as Cu dorms. I'm also concerned that we are overweighting what Cu is doing where we have no control

[192:12] over what they're building. The current building under construction would not have been approved through our processes, and to link that to provide approval for additional height. Here, I think, is a mistake. I don't think we're weighing the Goss Grove neighborhood enough, or at least I haven't heard from. I haven't even heard from the developer that they're really considering that. so I would. I would I would ask for that to be more strongly considered when they come back. That being said, I do appreciate the the building stepped down on Arapahoe. I think it could be. I think it could be taken further in order, it would need to be taken further, at least from from my perspective to honor the neighborhood that it's in, and also our planning processes versus cu planning processes. I think that

[193:08] well, it to Kurt's point, and I agree with Kurt and Laura there that I thought the space afforded to the school. I thought that the saving of the champion trees and and and how it's sited is actually really elegantly done. That being said, the one thing I would say is that the height of the Lincoln Building seems almost swallowed by the height of the surrounding buildings, and so, when it came back, I would look for the Lincoln Building to play more prominence, as it relates to height. I understand the far concerns of the developer. but but also I think that would be appropriate. So that would be some conceptual site plan feedback that may be different than others. and those are in general in general. I'm supportive of of student housing here. I just think it needs to be thought through a little differently based on my comments. And and that's it. Thank you.

[194:13] Mason. Thanks, George Great. So going in order, I'm inclined to support the map. Change with Naropa selling the property. The public use that just that was justified at the public land use. Destination is going away. The site was previously designated high density, residential, residential, and is next to similar areas in the North and West. So this change would really be returning it to that earlier designation. I'm a little less certain about the zoning at this point. I agree with many of the points raised tonight, and we'll be looking to revisit these questions more closely at Site review. as you know, and as George just mentioned. We can't consider potential future projects. So I'm not factoring in the Cu master plan. I am, however, looking at what's been built, or is actively moving forward in the area.

[195:04] On question 2 so overall the project seems to align with the BBC policies that support infill near near institutional anchors and promote a more sustainable, compact, urban form. The proposed far open space and conceptual design touch on several key BBC goals, including policy, 2, 10 around built environment and urban design, as well as broader policies related to livability and form. As staff noted, the approach is generally consistent with the city's direction on growth, especially when it comes to placing, housing and density in areas with existing infrastructure and services on Number 3. I really appreciate the site layout and how Lincoln hall is framed. I think it's well done. and I also appreciate the open space and wound Style Street, that which I believe are strong elements of the project. My main concerns are with the experience along Arapahoe, much like George. I'd like to see the building stepped down a little more in height, there to create a better transition to the neighborhood, and to add more visual interest at the street level.

[196:07] Also have questions about the reduced, your rear yard setback and the implications of the proposed street vacation, which still seem unresolved overall. I think there's room for further design work to improve how the site functions for pedestrians and internal circulation. and then on the last bit I touched on this a little bit. But the Marine Street vacation doesn't seem straightforward to me, and I think Kurt outlined the concern, the concerns well, looking forward to hearing more from Staff and the applicant on this during Site review. It's important. The circulation, whether pedestrian bike or vehicle and emergency access are clearly addressed and resolved before we get to that stage. Thank you, Mason. I'm going to go to Ml. And then to Claudia. thank you. So let me see.

[197:01] Issue number one. I don't have any concerns with the land. Use map change. I'm in agreement with Laura and George around zoning. I think justification for going to Rh. 5 needs to be made to convince us that we need that it needs to be that, and any consideration for the zoning change, I think, needs to take into account the Goss Grove neighborhood. Let me see. Number 2 consistent with the Bvcp goals and policies. Well, one of the curious things about the Bvcp language is this on balance thing. So I took Staff's lead and focused on the built environment section. and identified which are which are the relevant policies. And I've I'm going to point out 9 that both Staff and I have identified as requiring attention.

[198:09] So these would be Bcv. The Vcp policy to point O. 1 2.1 0 2.1 4 2.3 3 2.3 5 2.3 6 2.3 7 2.3 8 and 2.4 1 BG. And I. Those are a significant number of the relevant Bvc policies in the built environment. So I would pay attention to those under key issue number 2, number 3. My concerns about the site. I'm just curious about the trees. I did an overlay the existing site versus the proposed site, and I think it would be interesting to acknowledge or recognize how much pervious land is currently there.

[199:07] and how much pervious pervious land there would be with the redevelopment, because ground groundwater recharge is important to trees of that of that scale. So what is happening to the groundwater based on the less pervious site that is being proposed? and again as you look at the not just the Bvcp policies that were that I identified. But looking at the building itself, I think my colleagues have have talked about specifics. But I think the Goss Grove neighborhood needs to be taken into consideration a little more precisely. And I I'm not going to second guess another architectural firms process. But it seems like right now it isn't in the process. So I would encourage that with regards to the site, plan, and building design.

[200:05] And I will cite the Site Review criteria, which is what we'll be dealing with when it comes back for Site Review. That to me are important for you to look at as you move the project forward. so they would be one a 1 d. One GI, 2, BII. 3, a. V, 3, a, VI and 4 b, ibv, 3. These all have to do with, you know, livability of the site and the contextual relationship? So that's number number 3 and number 4. What I am going to bring forward as I as another other issues that I think you should consider as you move forward has been public input I think the Nalanda Bodhi

[201:05] comment about acknowledging the spirit of the neighborhood. What was done on this site. I think that would be an appropriate exploration, and hopefully would land you some of the concerns that people have stated. About. What role does the historic building play in informing the rest of the site, and I would take that. To what role do these champion trees play in informing the rest of the site rather than kind of not really having the the influence that they might. The second public input was that we just need some beauty here. You know, we don't often talk about beauty, because it's not in our policy. But I would encourage you. This site has not just been a building. It's been a place, and I think the

[202:03] The intent of the Buddhist community in in Boulder has been much more than just the physical presence. So those are my comments. Thank you very much. Thank you. Ml, okay. Claudia. Alright. I will take these questions more or less in order. I think that the proposed land use map change does meet the Bvcp criteria for making that change, and continues the Bvcp's vision of this Cu campus area as being both a center for educational uses and high intensity student housing. So I do support that request. I think, for the subsequent rezoning request. I think the relevant criteria here is 9, 2, 19 e. 5, which is the criteria that says that talks about the land or its surrounding environments having changed to such a degree that we need that change in the land use map.

[203:08] We have, I think, credible plans from cu to redevelop and further build out a student housing campus in the area adjacent to and surrounding this Neuropa campus. I think that's going to be a significant intensification of use in the area cus housing portfolio. There currently is very outdated, and I think the plans are a question of when and not if, and they suggest densities closer to Rh. 5 and Rh. One, based on what we are seeing. So far, so I think the responsible thing to do. especially given our broader housing needs in the city is to acknowledge and respond to that reality of cus housing plans there, and I think that Rh. 5, along with the additional height that's being requested. So long as the developer meets the relevant criteria for that height.

[204:02] is the way to do that. So I would lean towards Rh. 5, supporting that request. At site review. We're going to be asked to evaluate compatibility with neighborhood context, and I think some of my colleagues have touched on this. This site exists on a very sharp boundary between new high density student housing and the remnants of a historic neighborhood of small homes and infill apartments, and I think the applicant could reasonably demonstrate compatibility with either of these development patterns and satisfy the code. But because we are doing a somewhat discretionary review on that, and given some of the concerns that you've heard tonight, I would suggest. You give special attention to how the Site plan and building design manages that transition across Arapahoe. I think the drop down to 3 stories that you're showing in these plans along with a significant setback along Arapahoe is very helpful here. If there are other design elements that you can incorporate, I think that both the neighbors and my colleagues would look favorably on that

[205:14] other things related to site, plan, and building design. I agree with Staff's analysis with regard to some of the facade lengths, the permeability of the site and design and the responsiveness to the surrounding environment. I would hope at site review to see some improvements around view corridors or movement corridors across the site from north to south. breaking up some of that mass a bit and potentially other design elements that might connect, strengthen the connection again, both visually and in terms of movement, to the Cu campus and to the Boulder Creek, which is also part of the context of this site.

[206:01] and in the same vein, I think because of the surroundings, including the pedestrian and bike paths, and given what I think is an opportunity that you have here by having minimal parking on the site, to continue to be thinking about how to make this a 4 sided design, right? So we really have aspects of the public realm arguably on all sides of this site. And we will be thinking about that at site review. And then a final design element that I want to call out again. Is that that loop drive that's currently proposed on Arapahoe? I do appreciate the the thought given to having a kind of pick up and drop off zone, especially given the minimal parking that you're proposing here. But I think, as Kurt has pointed out, and his staff is pointing out. There's significant you know, hazards to pedestrians, bikes, and others doing that. Many curb cuts They're on Arapahoe.

[207:01] I would note that right now. you know, given the sidewalk conditions there, the bike share station, the bus stop. You know that Arapahoe Street interface is currently kind of a front door to the Naropa campus without having car access and if there are ways that we can preserve, that, I think that would be helpful. And I think it would also improve the interface with the Goss Grove neighborhood across the street by calming some of the activity on that side of the property. It sounds based on the discussion that that might be dependent on getting emergency access on that portion of 20 Second Street. and so I hope you will continue to explore that. And hopefully we can get rid of that loop, drive and relocate some of that functionality and access. I think that's it for me. Okay, thank you. Claudia. Okay, I'm going to have a few comments. First.st I think I I really

[208:06] commend the Board for their analysis, and I generally concur with everything I've heard here tonight. in regard to item one, the land use map and rezoning. I'm inclined to be supportive of the the the map change, and, like Claudia in support of Rh. 5. And I think that the context that we have again I visited the site today and looked at. What is there, what is going to be there? And I think that, especially with what is in the works with Cu. And I think we. While I understand George's point, I think we live in the world that we have, and we live in the world that Cu chooses to build. And so we we do have to respond to that, and I think Rh. 5 would be would likely be an appropriate choice.

[209:13] I concur with Staff in regard to the the mistake of fact attempt at at rezoning or and and changing land use. We shouldn't be afraid of change, but we need to advocate for change that is based on merit rather than a than a mistake. And so, I think, coming back with the project looking for a change of code based on merit is preferable. I generally confer, concur with a lot of staff's comments in the apple in the in the packet, and you know the applicant would do well to pay them attention. I think in some cases they don't go far enough. And I think in particular.

[210:01] I'm going to talk about roof forms which I seem to do lately in the Site Review, criteria and and Subjectivity Site Review criteria, which will be coming up against when you come back to us. 9, 2, 14 h. 3 exteriors are designed with long, lasting appearance, appearance, and high quality materials. and then, farther down, in 3 B. A little Roman numeral. 6. The building's design is compatible with the character, or improves upon that character. So, in my view, vertical cement siding, going up to a roof form that has 0 overhang on a pitched roof does not honor the the site, its history, and more specifically. the building, the the building that would remain the the Lincoln Hall, and I think the townhouses on the north

[211:08] is a critical example. It is neither similar enough or historical enough, and it's not different enough. It's it's kind of this in between. And I think, you know, I can point to the current buildings going up at diagonal plaza that are almost done, that this kind of vertical siding 0 overhang roof. I think it's I think it's it's a building typology. That is a trend. It's a. It's a current vernacular, and it and I don't think it's use at this site. This does does well for the site or the building design, or the need for beauty. but I can also point to another really similar site in some ways, and that's the Washington School site at Broadway and cedar

[212:08] an old school that was redeveloped into a mix of cohousing and townhouses and and saving of other historic buildings. And I know that Washington School, that site is very is very different. But at the same time there's some real similarities there. And I think that's a very successful site. And I think it can be an example of of what could be done with historic buildings speaking to new buildings, and bringing a a more cohesive design to the whole to the whole project. And I point to the BBC policy 2.4 1 b, which begins with the context period, projects should become a coherent part of the neighborhood in which they are placed.

[213:01] special attention will be given to protecting, enhancing the quality of established residential areas that are adjacent to business areas. What I want to get to here is the and malice talked about, you know, working with the neighbors in Goss Grove. I want to talk to about the best buildings in Goss Grove, or some of the older cottage forms, and some of the there are some outside of the seventies apartment buildings that were built. There are some really great. There is really some great homes in Goss Grove, and I think that again, whatever language vocabulary you want to use in your design. I'm not tell you how to. I'm not here to tell you how to design it. but it needs to speak both to the Lincoln Hall and to the Gosgrove neighborhood. So every and my colleagues have touched on all the other access issues. So I won't go back into that. And that's that's concludes my comments.

[214:03] So I think we are done with our concept review. Thank you to the applicant, do you? Okay, if there's any response to anything you can make a quick comment. I'll just touch on a couple of points. Oh, go ahead and turn on your there you go. Thank you. I'll just touch on a couple of points. Firstly, I really appreciate you bringing up Washington School as the architect on that project. and having gone through 4 years of review in this room to get it approved in front of this board and city council. Believe me, it wasn't easy, and so I hear you about compatibility, and it's a mix how much we're we're trying to be like the school, and how much we're trying to be different from the school, and everybody will be looking for it to be both. I know that. Secondly, I'd like to touch on the land, use map change, which you seem to all be in support of. And that's that's fundamental to what we're trying to accomplish. And I thank you for that on behalf of everyone here.

[215:10] Thirdly, the increase from Rh. One to Rh. 5 being from 0 point 6 7 to 1.5 far as 2 and a half times the allowable far one might look at it a different way, which is that today the public zoning has no limit on far. and so to down zone from public to Rh. One is a very substantial drop. Rh. One, at a point 6 7 far is much closer to a single family, residential far, which is a point 5. So there's really no comparison, and it I won't say the impact it would have on this project, because I think you can calculate that pretty quickly. And and thirdly. in terms of the drop off in front of in front of the Lincoln School. We don't have any problem letting that go, but it is important, very important that we be able to have a drop off somewhere.

[216:06] And right now the only other access that we have for drop-off is in the garage off of Marine Street, so to not allow for the possibility of Doordash and others secondary vehicle entry to that principal structure. We can't do it on Arapaho. We know that. And we're not looking for a lot of traffic here. We think it's probably going to be pretty minimal, because all the cars that are coming to this site, for the residents are in the garage, and they're coming via the Southern access. At least, that's the intention that we're going to pursue. And lastly, in terms of permeability. I was really struck by something in the Staff Memo on page 13 which addresses the permeability requirements in the Boulder Valley Comp plan, and I'm just going to read it to you, because it's very different from what I was expecting. It says create permeability in centers with a mix of semi-public and public spaces that are connected visually

[217:01] for intuitive navigation include civic and cultural uses as well as outdoor seating shade trees and green spaces in the public spaces to create a unique identity and sense of place projects should provide multiple opportunities to walk from the street into projects. thus presenting a street face that is permeable where appropriate, they should provide opportunities for visual permeability into a site to create pedestrian interest. Nowhere does it say that we need to be able to walk through it to the next site. And I think in the Site Review criteria, I would love to get the city attorney's input on this as we get to Site Review because the Site Review criteria does not follow that guideline. Thank you. Okay, thank you. All right, we're going to close this item and appreciation to staff and applicants and public participants. Okay, we move on to Item 5,

[218:06] which is matters from the planning board, planning director and city attorney. The 1st item there. I think we'll do. 5 a. First, st and then go back to the other items. Item 5. A is board liaison appointments which Thomas, you sent us in an email, and I need at at. We can go ahead and pull it up and and screen share it. If that's helpful as well, what's what's that? I can pull up that list of our 2024 liaisons and just screen share that so we can all have it for reference. Okay? So I guess.

[219:02] okay, yeah, this is from 2024. And some of these working groups are no longer active. But we do have all the liaisons are okay. So still relevant. The landmarks, the ex officio membership is gone on landmarks. The do. Has someone been going to hab you, ML. And and are you continuing to go to? Hab? Yes, I have been going to have, and unless somebody else wants to be that liaison. I can continue to go because it's a fine board. Okay? Well, let's we're just going to determine what we're what we're actually working on tonight before we okay, we have hab, we have dab, which is a liaison. Okay? And we have the Greenways Committee

[220:03] Yeah, I've been on. I've been on Dab. I've been shocked at how many dab meetings have been canceled. I don't think they've really met much this year. Well, I don't, have we? We haven't referred them anything. And I I keep seeing nothing on the calendar. Yeah. Gab but that doesn't mean we don't need a liaison. Yeah, possibly. Hab dab Greenways, which also hasn't met for 2 years. The use table liaisons is gone, gone, the airport working group is gone. and bjp, 2 multi board group, Kurt, you were. How'd you do on that? I did? Great. I went to 2 meetings, but I think that that is over. Okay. so we have 3 Hab, Dab and Greenways. We also have the opportunity to add a border boards.

[221:05] A. What? Well, from my standpoint we have the opportunity. Well, I have campaigned for a long time that I think that it would be really useful to have some sort of a representation to tab when we, especially when Tab is considering concept reviews. I know that there are sticky issues about. You know the the people, how quasi-judicial procedure would work, and so on. but I would love to have that remain as an open possibility. So tonight, Staff are, do we have the let's say we followed up with Kurt's suggestion, and we said, Oh, we want a liaison to tab, and we're going to appoint one tonight. Is that is that within? Or is this? I mean, we're. This is we're getting into a funny policy issue here. Yeah, the

[222:07] there are code requirements for an ex officio board member at Hap. There used to be one for the Networks board, but there is, for example, none for the Design Advisory Board that's just existed for many years, because sometimes there's overlap and project review. And I'm sorry, does Dab is not. It's not required under the code that you have a liaison for dap. It's just been practiced for a long time, so there could be a similar liaison to tab, and there was one for a period of time at the time. There were never in many concept plans that were referred to. Tab and the board quickly gave up on that and you would have to be mindful you don't have an official position, the person there would be more like a member of the of the public available to respond to questions. If

[223:01] if the Board had any, you wouldn't have any right to speak, because you're not actually a board member and would have to be conscious of the limitations of tabs purview. They can't get involved in any title. Ix Review, unless City Council requests that from tap. So I'm unless someone is proposing or moving that we begin the process, or would you be doing that for Tab? Otherwise I'm going to propose that we agree on the ex officio or liaisons for housing Dab and Greenways? And and if we want to discuss at future meetings the creation of a liaison to tab. I think that's a fine idea. I don't. I kind of get the vibe that it's not something that we would

[224:03] create tonight without a little more discussion. Yeah, it seems like it needs some discussion, including potentially with tab. But I I think that it could be very beneficial, just based on what I've seen about, of of the discussions of Tab when they're handling concept Review. I think that it could be really useful to have the insight of a planning board member and the the understanding about how the processes work and what is possible and what is not possible, and so on. And I think Staff is very helpful in when when these projects come to to tab, to in to help them with that a little bit. But I think that there could be significant benefit just in terms of them, understanding what they're potential role is, and and what they can and can't do to have someone who is an actual planning board member sitting there.

[225:08] May. Maybe. Maybe Staff can just take it to tab and see if they want to talk about it. And if they want they're interested in something like that. as a matters item for them. Next time they meet. And Brad, did I see a thumbs up over there? Okay, all right. Okay. So then we'll we'll take it as A and Kurt, if you kind of want to drive this and maybe meet outside of here and discuss this, I think that would be great if you want to pick someone from the board. We can talk about that. But let's let's I think we it would be good if we could just quickly. go on to. Let's just take it. One board at a time. The Housing Advisory board and ex officio member.

[226:01] So, yeah, this is okay. Oh, it's funny. And actually. okay, my list is okay. It's really so old. Okay, all right. So Ml's been doing it. Does. Does anyone have an interest in doing this? And I. And if I miss you online, you're gonna have to shout out. does do I have agreement to let Ml. Carry on for a while as our hab ex officio member. Okay? And then, would someone like to be Ml's backup? I can. I can be Ml's backup unless somebody else wants it. I was the liaison the year before. Ml. Took it and really enjoyed. Those folks had a great time, and I always learn from those meetings, but if someone else wants it. Jump right in.

[227:06] Okay, I'm seeing a lot of shaking heads here. At least, Claudia's saying, No, okay, well, actually, I've never been well, a representative to have. So I would do you well, do you have a desire to actually be the representative? Did you? Just no be back up. Okay, be back up. Okay, yeah. I think Ml, is doing an outstanding job. Okay, as the main representative. And I would not want to take that away. Everyone needs good backup. Okay? All right. You got Ml's back all right. The Design Advisory Board is a liaison position. I held that for a year, and Mel's done it. It's me this year, I'm telling you we haven't. I can't remember the last time that Dad met. Okay. Still need does George, do you.

[228:00] I guess my my point is is that whoever takes on is not. Gonna this is this is, gonna be a few board meetings in the year. If that so take a look at it as sort of the level of responsibility that you'd be carrying, because I know there are a lot of. There's some reluctancy of just committing more time, so I don't want to do it again, but but I just want to kind of waste that that I don't think it's as it's not as big commitment as as one would might think. Anybody anybody. I found it to be a learning experience when we met, you get to really get into the design. And so, as a planning board representative. You bring a more of a I don't know ground level view of it, and the design side rises. It's fun to have the design side be the be the focus versus some criteria side. What day of the week do they meet?

[229:04] Yeah. After it's my night with kids. Okay? K. Have you? Have you? I have not been the liaison to Dab. I think I was George's backup this year, but was never called upon. I'm the liaison to the Bvcp. Process Subcommittee, and I've got other things on my plate. But if no one else is stepping forward I will step forward for Dab, because I'm sure they are also fine folks. I have not done it, so I would be happy to be the main person not attending committee meetings. Can I get a unanimous thumbs up for Kurt to be. Yes. Deb represented. Okay? And I can be Kurt's backup. Okay, if that's good with everyone. Kurt is our Dab liaison and Laura's backup. Okay. The Cherry Greenways Committee. Okay, I'm just going to put it out there. I want to do it

[230:07] because okay, because I've done it in the past. I'm disappointed that we haven't met for 2 years. And I want to make that happen because it's incredibly important. So if can I be that? Okay? So I just want to say that I think there's a really strong linkage with the Bvcp update, because there's a lot of talk about, you know, pollinator corridors and trying to integrate Greenways through the city and the importance of that. And I think that this could be your moment, mark to revitalize Greenways. Be the change. I'm looking for. Okay, all right. But I need a backup for the one meeting or 2 or or I. Now, okay, I Claudia hasn't, hasn't. I was just gonna you're you're already a Claudia. You want to be my backup.

[231:02] How many meetings are you planning to convene of this mark? Well, it's so, not even yours. I just I can't. Cannot commit additional week weekday evenings. I just I can't. Okay, yeah. Well, it's so far again. They haven't met for 2 years. So. All right. You can put me down as a backup. Okay? All right. That sounds good. Okay, and then the I don't think there's any other appointments to be made again. Tab is a possibility. Kurt's going to work on that with others. And okay, we're on to, unless anyone has any more comments here, we're on to matters from staff. Well, good evening. Planning board. 1st of all, thank you again, as I always try to make a point to say, for your service and time, we appreciate what you do, and the time that you put in for preparing for this.

[232:03] we appreciate the relationship with you as staff, and and I wanted to have a little bit of a frank conversation with you tonight. I had met this last week with both Charles and and Christopher about the next 6 months, and the scheduling that we have. We have a lot on on the in the pipeline right now between the deadline that we're working towards for the comprehensive plan update. which is a very reasonable one, I'll mention. We've scheduled 24 months for it. A lot of jurisdictions do it in 18. So it's not a matter of rushing to do it, but we do have a prescribed time. and then also the wrap up of various legislative items. It is a very, very tight schedule for the rest of the rest of the year, and and into the beginning of the year. Really happy that we were able to get through the 2 agenda items this evening. My plea to you all is to see if we could continue to to get 2 agenda items completed on a pretty regular basis. Now, we're accounting for the fact that there's some full meeting needs for Comp plan items same for one or 2 of the land use items that are coming forward that are just especially big.

[233:25] So we're trying to be very sensitive to right sizing those. But I'm really asking for your help to to keep us on track. We'll do our part to keep the staff reports real tight, and or the staff presentations rather real tight, for you want to double down on the fact that the staff are always available to answer clarifying questions, you know, in advance of the hearing. So please feel free to reach out to the staff planner in particular. But staff engineer as well to get clarification if something's not clear, or

[234:00] or did this get talked about? Kind of questions, you know. Usually we'll know that, and we're happy to provide that in advance. But just want to give a realistic assessment of the next 6 months ahead of you, and and ask for your your partnership and help in in doing that. I hope you know me to be an honest person, and I just want to be frank about that situation that we're facing in the spirit of frankness. Is there a message that we can work on tightening up our meetings and moving along quicker. Well, and I encouraging you, know, any feedback from the other folks here. But I think again any advanced questions, clarifying questions that you can ask in advance are helpful. I have observed you all kind of checking each other on well, is that a curiosity question, or one that's tied to criteria, so that that always makes a difference as well. One of the things that I've said

[235:01] to to many, many people is, I do appreciate that both you and Council and Landmarks bird for that fact are are very diligent about reading and and preparing in advance, so can't say that's always been true in my career, so that part is super helpful already, and if you know, we continue to do that, of course that's a good thing as well. I think we all naturally, as human beings like to make our point, even if it's been made before. So I've also heard you, not you specifically as chair, but all of you sometimes remark on it. No, I think that point's been made, so can we move on and just encourage some self-awareness around that as well, and I don't know if there's other suggestions from anybody else here, but those would be a few things off the top of my head. and mostly just appreciate your your willingness, Mark, and others, to to receive the feedback in that regard, too.

[236:00] Yeah, sure. Thank you for that, Brad. I have a question. Do you have any guidance? I mean, you sort of gave guidance on what should be a question in advance versus a question in the meeting. but I guess my inclination in the past has been to try to save questions for the meeting, because they may be part that way. They're part of the public record. And so any any help? Yeah, I guess I've got a couple thoughts on that. Questions to the applicant are going to be questions to the applicant. Those you can't really anticipate in advance, and they're usually going to be things that are. Did you think about this? Or why did you do what you did. I think clarifying questions, though, can go to staff in advance, and and those can be everything like, you know. Can you explain how this configuration is done, or was there any discussion about that? I appreciate the desire to have all things on the public record? But I guess my personal opinion is, those kind of clarifying questions are not critical. Typically.

[237:10] if they are, they might be not a question, but a leading question. So maybe maybe more appropriate for comment, you know, at that point, and if there's again a clarifying question that we can provide in advance of the meeting. then you can come and say, well, I understood such and such was done. I think that's inappropriate, or whatever you know, during the comment period. but just encouraging you to, you know, try to be aware of us as a resource, and use us as much as possible so to clarify in a quasi-judicial item. This should be an advanced question, yeah, in a quasi. My very 1st meeting was a site Review, where I was actually starting to ask questions of Staff, and I was told. No, don't do that.

[238:02] You've got to take it to the meeting. And because I was, you know. Anyway, I was asking questions in advance and trying to understand things, and I was told to bring it to the meeting because it's a quasi-judicial site Review. So I so so what meeting was that? Where you were told that, or what? What was the context for that it was. It was not the specifics necessarily, but it was. It was a it was about Tdm. And I was asking questions about it was my 1st discovery of the the old Tdm. Toolkit and I was asking, it's like, Well, wait. Where is this? Why, why can't I find this in in the code, etc. And it's like. you gotta be careful here talking. You can't really talk to staff outside of the meeting. For a quasi-judicial site review. Use review

[239:02] sort of thing. So maybe hell is going to save me here. Yeah, I think I think you can ask questions. We just have to disclose all of those, and also the answers that are being provided. But we've definitely done that in the past, where questions are asked of staff and then similar to you know, input that comes in from the public. The questions and the responses are all posted on on the website along with the items, so that everybody knows what information went out and has an opportunity to speak to that at the public hearing. So I think maybe the distinction is that you know, you shouldn't be introducing evidence into that conversation for clarification, but just seeking clarification about it just for context. Council members do that somewhat regularly. And in fact, the the memos all say, if you have any questions, give the planner a call. Right? Yeah. So we should do that via email to the planning board. Well, okay, so if if you have an individual question, you can just call the planner

[240:09] or email them. Okay, clarifying questions. Yeah. Yeah. However, I call the planner. And I get my question answered. And I. But it's kind of unclear in the packet. Wouldn't it be superior to go ahead and just email them the question and then have it answered in the email stream to the board, so that all of us benefit a judgment thing. Yeah, I mean, sometimes it might be a question that other people would naturally have other times. Maybe not so. I would ask people to use discretion in that regard. I think there's a difference between. If you ask a question specifically about a project where that should be disclosed versus you might have a question where you're just trying to understand how a code section is interpreted or applied independent of the particular project.

[241:02] That's kind of a broader question versus having an ex parte communication, because communication between staff and board members is an ex parte communication and a quasi-judicial hearing. So if you email the question in and staff then responds by email, and that gets posted, that's fine. Or sometimes Staff might choose to respond to the question during the hearing, but it can still be very helpful to have the question in advance to be able to prepare. Okay, yeah. And we'll talk through that and try to clarify that a little more in general. I just wanted to make the point that there's a very full pipeline and and give you heads up and ask for your help in that regard. Okay, and that's all I've got. Well, maybe one more thing, just in the spirit of the comprehensive plan. Other events throughout the summer are taking place. So things are remaining active in that regard.

[242:00] Okay. thanks. Great. Thank you. Okay. Matters from board, Laura. I actually just wanted to ask a couple questions of Brad while you're up there. Although I missed the opportunity, you sat down. Thank you, Brad, and thank you for the heads up. I wanted to point out that with regard to the minutes I have been guilty of being a last minute minute reviewer and sending changes to Thomas on a Monday morning for incorporation for that Tuesday, and I'm going to make every effort to move that back. But is this, I think, Thomas, you've been now sending us out minutes the last couple of batches several weeks in advance of the meeting, where you actually want them approved like a couple weeks in advance, saying, We want to approve this at 2 meetings from now. Can you please send us your changes within a week, so they can be included in the packet upload. Is that is that going to be our process going forward? Because if we are doing that, I will make a note to get it done to give you that week to get it into the packet in advance.

[243:10] That is our general process. We'd we'd like to get back to a point where we're just approving one set of minutes at each meeting and having that on a regular rolling schedule for review. Okay? And okay. So I just want to make a note that I missed it, that we were being asked to review earlier. I always knew I was a little bit last minute. But I didn't realize how last minute I was being so. Okay, thank you for that clarification. And then, Brad, this one really is for you in terms of what's going to be in the minutes. We had a discussion earlier about the difference between action minutes and having a little bit more detail. We had requested a little bit more detail and the timestamping. And for these last sets of minutes that we approved today, I actually asked, can we just make sure that we explain the rationale and the counter arguments for the motions that we make is that acceptable going forward? Or are we still thinking through what goes in action. It's still an unresolved issue. You know, we're we're trying to be responsive to kind of this gray area that we're in right now. But but really the direction and policy of the city is strict action items I am following up still with the city manager's office, including a follow up conversation today. So I'd say.

[244:24] you know, put a PIN in that. Recognize that we're just trying to be responsive. But it's it's not definitive yet that I can say, X or Y, okay, I just, I just want to again make a plea that my my general concern is that we, as a board, need to be able to explain our rationale to council without, and not just council, but applicants, members of the public, and ourselves. When we go back and read what happened at the meeting. We need something that is helpful to us. That is a tool to understand what we decided and why and what the arguments were, that is not having to go back and watch the video. Yeah, so whatever that is, yeah, I recognize and

[245:05] have represented that position. So all right? Okay. Other matters from the board. I had a I had a quick question. It's a very random question for Brad, but while you're there it's something that came up this week I'm abroad, so I have not seen this firsthand. But before I left I've watched Alpine balsam, the office buildings for the city being sort of de skinned right? And the concrete structure being there and and then I've recently seen pictures of actually the concrete structure coming down has something I have not seen any updates on that. But that was not. My understanding was that that building was going to be taken down more for the the actual core of that building, and you may not have any answer to that right now. I'm just curious if something has happened during the deconstruction process, where perhaps, the structure is, is starting to be removed for for some reason that has become known only while it's being deconstructed.

[246:12] I certainly haven't heard anything of that. The last time I was by there, which admittedly was several weeks ago, was the skeleton that you kind of described. Now there is going to be a 4th story added, so there may be some structural things that are done in response to that. But I'll ask around. I don't know unless anybody else knows. Okay. I. Yeah, thank, you. I go by there frequently, of course, since I live just a couple blocks away. And yeah, I had the same question, George, because that was certainly contrary to my understanding of the whole point of retaining the building was, we were retaining a significant amount of embodied energy carbon there, and yet it seems like there's less and less remaining. My guess is that there are certain portions, but it looks to me like there are certain portions that they're taking away and not going to take away the whole thing.

[247:09] And Ml. Maybe has a perspective, too. But yeah, it was definitely a surprise and a little bit, and I'm happy to follow up. I just don't know. Yeah, that would be good, because it's interesting, you know. They took off the elevator shaft, which makes sense. But then they're taking off the structural floors. They've removed the floor, and it's odd, because it appeared that it was being stabilized to be retained. So there, I agree with you, George. You want more pictures. I can send you more. It's getting removed, and it's kind of surprising so a little you should put signs up on the site. Yeah, a little clarity would be would be helpful if if we can provide some in the next meeting or 2. Thanks. Okay, anything from the city attorney?

[248:00] Nothing for me. Thank you. Okay. Anything anything else from the board. I did send out the the article and again read the article. But if anyone has questions about middle income housing Summit or the middle housing summit, I'm happy to comment on that at any time. But it's late, and some people look really sleepy. So and I'm referring to Claudia. Not George. George. You look wide awake. Okay, I just want to point out for anyone who's not aware. Claudia is in Vienna, and it is like 6 in the morning or 5 in the morning where she is. She's been up with us all night. So thank you, Claudia, big round of applause for Claudia. Hey, Claudia, it's 6, 10 where I am, too. So. Where are you, George? Where are you, George Sweden? Sweden? Oh, my gosh, you both have been up all night. Thank you so much. Okay, all right, I'm going to conclude the meeting. We are adjourned.

[249:00] Thank you. Okay.