August 26, 2025 — Planning Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

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

[0:00] Good evening, all. I will call the August 26, 2025 City of Boulder Planning Board meeting to order. And, we have a… kind of light agenda tonight, and our first agenda item, as usual, is our, is our second agenda, excuse me, is public participation. And, Vivian, will you, … Give us the primer on public participation decorum, please. My pleasure, and Thomas will pull up the slides. Good evening, everybody. My name is Vivian Castro-Woldridge, and I help facilitate public participation in planning board meetings, so I'll just go through these rules of decorum. First of all, we want to share that the City has engaged in the past with community members to co-create a vision for productive, meaningful, and inclusive civic conversations. And this vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members, staff, and board members, as well as democracy for people of all ages, identities, lived experiences, and political perspectives. And we have more information about this vision and the city's engagement processes on our website.

[1:16] Next slide, please. And I'll just read some fall… some examples of rules of decorum that are found in the Boulder Revised Code and other guidelines that support the productive atmosphere's vision, and all of these will be upheld during this meeting tonight. 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 we ask that all participants who will be speaking during open comment tonight identify themselves by their first and last name. We will take some comments from anyone who is there in the room, perhaps, although I'm not sure anybody's there, and also from participants online. And if you're joining us online.

[2:10] You can raise your virtual hand by finding it on the menu bar, or also by clicking the reactions button, which is also on the menu bar, and then finding the raised hand icon from there. So, if you would like to speak during open comment, please go ahead and raise your virtual hand for those of you online. Thomas, is anyone in the room who wishes to speak? No, we just have staff in the room, thank you. Alright, thanks for confirming. I'll just give folks a few more seconds, but it looks like mostly we have staff with us tonight, perhaps. If you are, joining us through your phone, you can dial star 9, and that will raise your virtual hand as well.

[3:03] Okay, looks like we don't have anyone for open comment, and as you mentioned, there's no public hearing tonight as well. So back over to you, Chair. Okay, thank you, Vivian. Okay, we have, … No minutes to approve, and no call-up items, and no public hearing items, so we are… the model of efficiency so far, moving through 5 agenda items, like lightning. So, agenda item number 6, under matters, matters from the Planning Board, Planning Director, and City Attorney is 6A. the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan Conceptual Future Land Use Framework, and Preliminary policy choices. And Brad has approached the podium, so… I have. Good evening, Planning Board members. Brad Mueller, Director of Planning and Development Services. So, board members, as you know, but staff does not necessarily, I've been, kind of advancing and advocating this moment tonight for a number of months.

[4:07] … Preparing you for the… the start of a season of comprehensive planning discussions and recognizing that we're going to be accelerating the frequency in which we interact with you around the comprehensive plan. There might have been some small comments there, too, about staying on track with our other agenda items, so that we didn't get stacked up on this, and here we are this evening. So, thank you for bringing us to this moment. And it's not very often that we, as an organization, get to step back, or as planners or community members, really are charged with the idea of looking at the big, big picture, and so it's a really… it's a wonderful evening, in my estimation, to be able to do something like the exercise of updating a comprehensive plan. I consider it really one of the, key elements of planning, implementation is certainly really very critical as well, and that's what you see on a more regular basis. But stepping back and being able to ask, what does the future hold, and what could it hold is… is an exciting moment. I would…

[5:16] submit to you that as we move from some of the macro into the more medium, as we will start to do this evening, that we are headed even further towards decision-making in the future months with specific policies, and that's where Things will continue to get more and more interesting, and where you will get an opportunity with your colleagues, both at the County Commission. And County Planning Commission, and of course, City Council. to come to consensus around a set of policies that represent things for the next 5… well, for the next 20 years, and not to be looked at again. So, Council has…

[6:00] Challenged us, you have challenged us, the community has challenged us to think big. And so, this is one of the big ideas, that is coming forward. There are other ones as well, as well as a lot of, refinement of other pro- other… Priorities and, and, policies in the future that will continue to move us forward, so I won't say any more, and pass it on to KJ, who's going to give an introduction. Thank you, Brad. Good evening, Planning Board members. Christopher Johnson, Comprehensive Planning Manager. Next slide, please. Okay, so quick, just real brief overview of the evening. We have about a 20-minute presentation, and then we'll, we've reserved about 20-30 minutes for clarifying questions, and then move into planning board discussion. We recognize this is going to be a lot of information and a lot of really interesting conversations. To pack within 90 minutes, and so we are, recognized and prepared that we may go a little bit over, especially since this is the only agenda item for this evening.

[7:07] Next slide. So, since May, since the last time we spoke with you at the joint meeting in May with City Council, we've been busy responding to your feedback and moving forward on the project. We have updated and documented our shared vision statement. We continue to engage with the community in a variety of ways, in particular around the areas of focus that have been identified in earlier parts of the project. And then we are continuing to move forward and explore several ideas that came out of that conversation in May. If you remember, we sort of floated 7 or so kind of big, big ideas for exploration, and there's 3 or 4 that have really, crystallized for the group, and we've received that direction from you that we're moving forward, and most notably for the discussion tonight, of course, is going to be, our work on the Potential land use map revisions, which we will share shortly.

[8:01] Next slide. It is kind of hard to believe. It's almost been an entire year so far since we started the project. We started, October 19th of last year with a kickoff event at the Dairy Arts Center. So far, we have received over 5,000 individual community member responses through a variety of different techniques. These have been in-person workshops, online questionnaires, some interactive theater, and a number of other ways that we are trying to reach out and connect with our community members. This will continue in an ongoing process. We have a lot of engagement coming up over the next, sort of, 4-8 week time period, and then we'll continue on through the rest of the next 9 months as we develop and ultimately build out a draft plan. It is our goal for this to be the most inclusive comprehensive plan update to date, and so far, we are seeing a lot of the fruits of our labor, and reaching new people that we have not heard from before, and doing things in a different way.

[9:03] Next slide. Just as a quick reminder, where we are kind of in the overall arc of the project, we are now solidly within Phase 3, or what we're calling a bolder direction. And really, this is kind of the heart and soul of the effort, where we are identifying and discussing and evaluating Different policy choices for us to, potentially consider as we move forward. Ultimately, we will be making decisions through staff recommendations and direction from all of you. And then that will move us, into the final step of the process, which is really just the documentation and adoption. So, Phase 3, really kind of began, earlier, you know, this year in the spring, April-May time frame. It's anticipated to go through the end of the year, but will all, in all likelihood, sort of eke over into the earliest parts of 2026 before we can really, truly land on our draft plan, which is anticipated to be released March 2nd.

[10:05] Gonna put that date out there. Next slide. So, tonight's working session is really intended to be that, a bit of an open conversation. We're engaging you very early in this process. The conceptual land use framework that we're going to discuss potentially has some impacts on the way we would write policies, and vice versa, so the policy direction And conversations that we will continue to have over the next couple months will also inform the way that the land use map ultimately, comes together. The two are really interconnected. Also want to just ensure that all the members, the planning board members, and anyone listening this evening, which I think is mostly staff, is that this is all very much work in progress. I can… I can say with confidence that some of the names and the terminology and the descriptions that you're gonna hear about tonight will evolve and change over the next couple of months. But we are really confident about this overall construct and the philosophy and the framework that we're going to present, and so we are excited to share that with you this evening.

[11:11] And my final slide is really just to, again, kind of reinforce this difference between land use and zoning, because they are very often and very easily confused, and by community members, and by our policymakers, and certainly by staffs even sometimes. So, just to confirm, land use is really intended to be aspirational, right, and describes the vision for an area over a 20-year time horizon. It may or may not be what exists on the ground today, and really, it informs the future decisions that you all will make and that staff will make. Related to zoning and development decisions. On the other hand, zoning is regulatory, it is a legal property right. It establishes very specific dimensional requirements and use-related standards that really must be followed.

[12:02] It definitively regulates how the property is used and what the allowed uses are, the building form, and ultimately the intensity of the development on that particular property. And with that, I am going to pass it on to our city planner on the team, Tess Shorn, who is going to begin the overview of our land use framework. Hello, members of Planning Board, my name is Tess Shorn, and today I will be giving you a background of land use in the Boulder Valley, presenting some challenges that we face, goals we have, and case study research that has helped inform our new approach. While this group is very familiar and a frequent user of the land use map, we want to start with a reminder about what the intention of the Comprehensive Plan land use map is. It is meant to describe a desired future for the community, it guides future rezoning decisions, it also guides initial zoning for land annexed into the city, and is used as a reference for any development projects that go through site review process. These projects must be consistent with both the land use map and with the policies in the comprehensive plan.

[13:17] As part of our work to rethink the current vision of land use map, we looked back at previous iterations, beginning with this map from 1970. This map describes the vision for what Boulder would look like in the 1990s, and offers a set of 11 designations, many fewer than our land use map today. Another note about this map is that in the 1970s, separating uses across a city was common nationally. Particularly for things like separating business and residential uses. Despite this, we do see a mix of high and medium density residential with business uses in the downtown areas, and also along major corridors in this plan.

[14:03] Now, here's the current land use map. Firstly, you can see that the reach of the comprehensive planning area has extended significantly as the city and county continue to work together to manage open spaces and neighborhoods surrounding the city in unincorporated Boulder County. You will also notice a lot more colors on this map. Over time, the list of simple designations has evolved, and we now manage 26 different designations. This map is also much more detailed. There are instances of multiple land uses within a single block. For example, there are 8 in Alpine Balsam. And in other places in the city, there are even multiple designations within a single parcel. Land use maps… this land use map looks more and more like a zoning map, and it's making it very complicated.

[15:00] So, as we work with community members, policy makers, and other city staff, particularly our colleagues who work on development review cases, we've identified a number of challenges with this current approach to the land use map and its designations. The map has a lot… has lost its purpose as describing a vision for the future, leading to confusion about whether the map represents existing conditions or desired future conditions. The fine-grained application of different designations within a place creates confusion about the future of the neighborhood and limits desirable outcomes. The land use definitions, which are within Chapter 10 of the Comprehensive Plan, overlap, and they are structurally inconsistent. The definitions are also pretty dated. For instance, density limits on residential land categories have not been updated since 1977.

[16:00] So, we've identified some goals for the approach to the land use map as we work through potential revisions. First, reset expectations that the map describes the future of Boulder Valley. Community members, including Council, have described a desire to build greater flexibility into the designations that would allow for more desirable outcomes. We are striving to create an approach that delivers equitable opportunities for property owners and outcomes for community members. We are also reexamining how the plan can integrate important climate strategies and strengthen relationships between land use and mobility planning. To help inform this work, we looked at a number of case studies from across the country. I'm going to share a few to help inform your conversation tonight. First is Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is a pure city that we often look to for comparison. This is a draft of Ann Arbor's land use map, as they are currently undergoing the same process of a comprehensive plan update.

[17:07] You'll notice they've really stripped back the designations to only 7 categories. This approach recognizes that today, within neighborhoods, or communities are finding that mixing multiple different uses within neighborhoods helps create and maintain community vibrancy, and the need for separating individual uses is no longer desired within the community. Along with describing the intent of each district type on the map, the draft definitions for these designations include descriptions of primary and secondary uses and building types, and offers helpful illustrations on some of the supported building types in that designation. Springfield, Missouri shows a great example of applying the place type approach, where each designation can accommodate varying levels of different uses. This is an example that we're looking at to better tie our land use expectations to the city's use table.

[18:13] There are a couple more case studies noted in your memo, but the last one we're going to talk about together is Plano, Texas. This plan creates successful classes for its future land use categories, such as neighborhoods and networks, to help better define the future intended structure of the city. As you can see, these classes are mapped across the City of Plano, and they create a clear, easy-to-understand future direction. I will now pass it off to my colleague, Kathleen, to talk to you about all of our new proposed options for land use categories. Thank you, Tess. Kathleen King, Principal City Planner in Comprehensive Planning. Really excited to be with this group tonight to work with you all on these designations and thinking about how we can map land use across the Boulder Valley for the future.

[19:07] As Christopher mentioned, wanna remind everyone that this is all draft material. We're working with you tonight on this concept. With the limited time, I'm gonna try to get through all of my slides, and then we'll have time for any clarifying questions before the board goes into discussion. Okay, so first… why are we doing this? I'll share that, when I started with the city, which was in 2018, there was a saying on the comp planning team that none of this happened by accident, don't screw it up. So that's really burned into my brain, and our team does broach the idea of changing how we plan land use across the city very carefully, and with great intention. But after almost 50 years of planning land use with mostly single-use designations, and managing the land use plan on a really fine-grained scale.

[20:08] There are a couple of significant considerations that informed our path to rethink the land use system. So, the first is that the changing climate calls for a land use plan that can adapt and offer the community a path to resilience. As a community continues to be impacted by the effects of climate change, such as extreme precipitation, drought, and wildfire, we have to plan for a community where local infrastructure and networks can respond, and crises can be managed and mitigated. In Boulder, part of this thinking is about where we might allow concentrations of new development. And how we provide easy access to goods and services for the people who live within the community. The second thing that we're really building into the land use strategy is a recognition that the population is changing. So, those who are over age 60 will continue to outnumber people under the age of 18 for the next 20 years.

[21:10] Boulder is recognized as a lifelong Colorado community, which means that we're taking steps to ensure that the community is age-inclusive. And in 2024, the city completed a statistically valid community assessment of older adults. And some of the results related to that are, we found that most older adults in the community desire to age in place. So. Continuing to work towards building a community that supports older adults as active community participants has implications on, our housing stock, our transportation and recreation systems, and the opportunities built into the community for social connection. … You know, additionally, we know that land use and policy choices of the past have impacted who could live and thrive in Boulder. So, working to make land use choices that offer an equitable future is a really important, component to our approach that we're going to review tonight.

[22:13] And then, finally, local industries and the traditional workplace have changed dramatically in the last 5 years, and our current land use structure doesn't support the live-work lifestyle that will continue to be common across the community, so… To build vibrancy into our community neighborhoods, we have to create multiple options of housing types and commercial spaces throughout the city. A lot of this change has already happened, and we felt the challenges of working within the confines of our current land use structure to respond to that change. What we're looking at tonight is a concept that could help us meet the future with resilience. Okay, so, here we go, … From the case studies that Tess reviewed and informed by the input we've collected from the community so far, we've put together a couple of techniques that we think will offer a good approach for planning Boulder's land use moving forward.

[23:09] So, first, we're scaling back the parcel-by-parcel approach to defining land use and creating designations that can apply at a neighborhood scale. Second, we're working towards unique definitions that attempt to remove a lot of the ambiguity between the current designations and allow for different mixes of land use. Those designations would offer a more flexible environment for zoning choices, and give a wider variety of redevelopment options for property owners. Finally, the link between land use and zoning will be more transparent moving forward, so that there's a clear understanding by community members and policy makers how the land use map will guide rezonings. So we're proposing a draft structure for land use designations that has four classes. Neighborhoods, hubs, networks, and institutions.

[24:04] Within each of those classes is a unique designation that can be applied at a neighborhood scale and help guide redevelopment within the community moving forward. So I'm gonna, spend a little time walking through each of these. First we'll look at the neighborhood class. So, Neighborhood 1 is a designation that offers a couple of different housing types, such as single-family units, ADUs, multiplex units, and cottage courts, and includes some small-scale commercial opportunities. This is the, neighborhood designation that would also apply to our, manufactured housing communities. Land with a Neighborhood 2 designation is probably, still a… mainly a residential neighborhood, but allows for more multi-unit housing forms and more shared spaces. Neighborhood 3 would likely apply mostly to established rural neighborhoods in unincorporated Boulder County.

[25:04] One thing to notice here is the names of the designations are agnostic of any adjectives that describe density or a housing type, and this was intentional. Within these neighborhood designations are some policy implications. It'd be, really helpful to hear Planning Board's thoughts on these in your discussion. So, in both, the Neighborhood 1 and Neighborhood 2 definitions, it describes allowances for a wider variety of housing types in more neighborhoods than is currently allowed by the current designations and map. And it also describes allowing for small-scale commercial opportunities in these neighborhoods as well. The draft definitions offer a path to helping address, some of the housing challenges, creating more walkable neighborhoods, and addressing the community's interest in a more inclusive economy. So while you think about those questions, I'm gonna move to hubs.

[26:00] The current comp plan includes a diagram describing different, kinds of centers. This is the neighborhood… or the community structure diagram. This hub concept advances that idea and actually creates a land use designation that would solidify how these places can evolve moving forward. So, local hubs are of a smaller scale, and are intended to reach a neighborhood, with local uses, neighborhood type of services. The Lucky's Market area is an example of the scale and offerings of what a local hub could be. A community hub is a little bit larger scale, and might include a broader mix of commercial and residential uses. It would have a larger reach for who might want to access this place on a more regular basis. And then the regional hub is really, you know, like a regional destination, drawing from communities beyond Boulder. So today, those might be downtown, the University, and 29th Street Mall area.

[27:05] There's also a hub type that perhaps was not considered in the last update to the Comprehensive plan, but comes more out of conversations about the evolution of East Boulder, and this is the Innovation and Production Hub. So these are meant to be neighborhoods with a mix of light industrial, office, and residential uses, and those, kind of live-work neighborhoods that we talked about wanting to see happen in areas like East Boulder. The next class is Networks. The Parks and Greenways designation is maybe somewhat self-explanatory, but would apply to our park system and greenways network to identify places for active and passive recreation. The open space designation, would consider the three previous open space designations and, collapse those into a single category, identifying land

[28:01] To be used for open space purposes in the future, and those are… those open space purposes are defined in the city charter. And then, finally, the Rural Lands Network is made up of a lot of land in unincorporated Boulder County that's outside the open space network, but is important to maintain as land for agriculture and other uses, like public utilities or infrastructure. Okay, so the final class, Institutions. Within institutions, we have a civic institution designation, and that would define areas for government facilities or things like healthcare campuses. There's a new university designation that would identify land that will be used for university purposes into the future. So this would include, student and faculty housing, along with academic campus and research facilities. We found that a number of university towns have created a designation specifically for state university land, and we believe this makes sense for Boulder as well.

[29:08] The final category is industrial, and this would be applied to land that the community wants to preserve for light industrial manufacturing and service uses into the future. Okay, so that's all of the, draft designations. There's 13 in total, so that's… Half of the previous 26. And here's, just kind of a quick conceptual example of how this might play out in a neighborhood. So, a community hub would serve multiple neighborhoods by being a central place or central destination. Multifamily development may surround this hub, creating walkable options for work, shopping, or socializing. And then some, Neighborhood 1 designations, kind of lower density neighborhoods would surround this, with a network of parks and open spaces within close distances.

[30:01] There's a local hub, along an arterial, again, with a neighborhood 2 surrounding it. So this is an example of how this, you know, might play out on the map. Okay, so… as we worked through the concept, we did a couple of test areas around the city to see if actually applying these designations work, so I wanted to share some of these with you, and would love to, you know, hear reactions and feedback during the conversation. So, the first is East Boulder. Many of you have ridden alongside our team as we've worked on this area of town for the past 6 years now. But for those unfamiliar, this is a recently planned sub-community generally east of Foothills and north of Arapahoe. Through the East Boulder sub-community planning process, we worked really hard with the community to define how this area should evolve into the future, so we want to make sure that under the new designations, we're still able to deliver that vision that's encapsulated in that plan.

[31:09] So, under this draft structure, the land around 55th and Arapaho, previously designated as mixed-use TOD, is redefined as a community hub. So, that would allow for that important mix of residential and commercial that supports transit-oriented development. Areas of the sub-community previously designated under that mixed-use industrial category. are now… Classified as the innovation and Production designation, so recognizing light industrial uses and allowing for, residential development in these areas. Other areas of the subcommunity where communities… community members wanted to preserve space for important industrial uses are designated industrial. And the hospital and future Eastern Campus have a, that civic

[32:05] designation. So, we think that this does offer a vision for the future that is consistent with the sub-community plan, but there's still some issues to work out in the definitions here. So, we, last week just shared some of this work with the development review team, and they cautioned us about For instance, a parks and greenways designation in this area that could qualify some properties in the, industrial use category to, in the future, qualify for that residential and industrial, criteria. And so, there's a lot of details and back and forth that we still have to work out and iterate on to make sure that we can really deliver on that vision for the subcommunity. … So this next example, the Lucky's Market area, is more about creating designations that meet community expectations for certain areas of town. So this is the intersection of Quince and Broadway, that's, like I mentioned, where Lucky's Market is located.

[33:08] But it has a low-density residential designation today, meaning that if this activity center were to redevelop, it would have to jump through some hoops to replace something like the neighborhood asset that's there today. Under the new structure, this area would be redefined as a local hub, offering a better match for what those community expectations for the future of the area would be. So the final example is of a recent and ongoing development project. This is the land use map, today for the Alpine balsam area. There's 8 designations, and for those who have followed along in the process, aligning… the land use map and zoning created a lot of hurdles to deliver on this project. Under the new structure, the area would qualify as a community hub, surrounded by Neighborhood 2 and Neighborhood 1 designations, offering, you know, a somewhat quicker and more direct path through the site review process.

[34:09] So that's, what we have for the draft structure. Excited to talk about it. Excited to work together on it. Just want to highlight a couple, next steps before we jump into questions. We have a community workshop coming up September 9th at Casey Middle School, where we will actually be working with community members on applying some of these designations and trying to co-create that recommended map. There's a statistically valid survey scheduled for September 15, an online companion survey that anyone in the community can take, that will be available September 22nd. Excuse me. We are, … visiting multiple boards, all the boards, over the next month, to get input on different policy issues, on this land use structure. So we'll be collecting input and using all of that to continue to iterate this, over the next couple of months.

[35:11] … You will get information about the survey results, those, summaries of board meetings and engagement outcomes, via a information packet in November. And then, we'll be back with this group, scheduled December 11th. To review some of our major recommendations for policy changes, and then re-look at this land use structure. And that's a joint meeting with City Council. Okay. That's all I have. I've got the questions here. If you want me to keep those up, we can. … But I'll turn it back over to the chair. Great, thank you very much, staff. That was excellent and exciting, and, I'm sure we're going to be jumping back and forth to maps and so forth from the presentation, but, that was great. So, clarifying questions, for staff.

[36:12] Who's, who's got some? I see George… George, our online participants, which I forgot to say, we have a full contingent tonight. All members are present, with the exception of Mason. So, George, I'm gonna have you go first. Great, thank you, and thanks for the great presentation. I'll just jump right into it, as the last thing you left off on, was Alpine balsam, defining that as a community hub. So, do you have for us… Because, obviously, the city spent… I think millions of dollars getting community engagement and a huge process that involved the community for what felt like years, in the area plan. So, how does this…

[37:05] Fit with the area plan that was approved and opined on so much by the community. Sure, I think, You know, the area plan was created under the structure that we have now. So, with that structure, it was, or, you know, still is, I suppose, common to… examine and apply one of those 26 designations at a parcel-by-parcel basis, so they were working under that structure. But, you know, I think… In this draft test, we believe that as we continue to work on the definitions for this, that this would deliver and be consistent with the area plan and what the vision is, … As described in that area plan.

[38:01] what is… what does that mean in the draft? So, do you have a comparison of how the area plan versus what a community hub would look like, and what the modifications of it would be? With the modifications to the area plan. Yeah, the area plan. So this is the land use map that came out of that area planning exercise, and so it includes, …. I'll be more… I'll be more clear, maybe just give me a, you know, some yes or no answers so we can get some clarity quickly. Okay. … Does it change the density? So, these designations, as they're drafted right now, don't include a density range or a density limit. So, the density or intensity would still be guided by the zoning. And where… so, does… does the area plan still exist in this… concept? Do you want to address, like, how we would evaluate past area plans under the new structure? Yeah, it's a great… it's a great question, and …

[39:07] It, I will say, George, that this is, this is something that we, you know, are still continuing to work through. So, the… fundamentally, the area plan would not disappear. It would still… it would still continue to exist, because there are… Descriptions of policies and other goals within the plan that are, you know, move beyond just the land use map itself. And we would want to carry those forward. We… we would need to develop a structure and, you know, essentially a protocol for projects, that come forward that may be within an area of an area plan, and there is, you know, again, an older version of The land use approach that's described within those area plans, and in order to, you know, evaluate consistency with an area plan and consistency with a comprehensive plan.

[40:01] If there's a different land use structure, we'll need to figure out, sort of, how those two translate between one another, but, you know, essentially, the area plan would continue to live on And inform how we draw the new land use map under this… under this proposed conceptual framework? So, so, so… So nothing changes from the area plan. We're just relabeling it and doing something different, but essentially the area plan that was… that we spent Tons of community time on. Years on, still exists, and that's still what ends up getting built here. That is correct. So, so, so why… Brad's gonna add something to that? Why, if that's correct. Then why not just go with all the work that we did as a community for years, and spent millions of dollars on?

[41:01] George, I'm gonna… I was gonna follow up anyway. Did you want to answer that additional question, or could I… I can follow up, if you want. Okay. So, George, this is Brad now. I think there's two answers to both your question, or a couple aspects to both your questions. One, there's a little bit of chicken and egg here, right, is part of it. But fundamentally, the land use guidance map is the biggest vision for the community, and then there still is very much the intention that there would be sub-community plans, quarter plans, sub-area plans. for designated parts of, the city, geographic parts of the city, which I think we're even going to define, we don't… haven't gotten quite that far, but would define, preferred areas in the comp plan update as well. And so the vision is to take this larger guidance map and then in select areas at select times, go ahead and further refine it through sub-community planning, and that… that might include the introduction of density, spaces, and those types of things. So, to KJ's earlier point, that doesn't render this, meaningless.

[42:15] But it also means that for us to just take something that is fine-grain and has a whole bunch of other context. And drop that into the land use guidance map would belie the really larger intent of the land use guidance Map, which is, again, a 20-year plan. that could contemplate even further changes to the sub-community plan that might, account for areas, geographies that aren't specifically part of the sub-community plan, that type of thing, too. So you can consider it this kind of funneling of the biggest, vision Possible, which gets back to the rationale for stepping back from a fine-grain approach. To the more fine-grain with the sub-community plan that then gets implemented through zoning and, and kind of, you know, created as, as,

[43:05] A property right through zoning. Okay. I… I… it… I… I'm… I'm genuinely… confused. Because there was so much community input through that process. It's a brand new plan as of… what, 6, 7 years ago? Nothing's really been implemented with it yet. and now we're… and now we're adding, or we're overlaying? I… I just don't understand, because my… my understanding when that plan… planning process went through, that was to plan for multiple decades. And it will, you know, absent some policy decision to do otherwise. But again, it's the… it's the big quilt with the large quilt squares. As opposed to coming in and putting needlepoint on an individual square, if that analogy makes sense.

[44:06] Yeah, it doesn't to me, because, what I'm concerned of…. say that we're in clarifying questions. Yeah, I'm trying to get clear, Mark, and so I'm almost done, but I'm trying to get clear, because I'm seeing a test case being put up. of an area plan area that was just completed by the city a few years ago, and I'm trying to understand the differences, and I hear a lot of stuff. But it hasn't clarified anything for me, and maybe what needs to happen is maybe a takeaway from staff, which is explain to us, use this as a test case, and explain to us what's different and what's not, considering that the community put so much effort into this, recently. So, I think that would be helpful for me. I don't know that what you're saying clarifies much to me, because it's pretty abstract. But I appreciate the try.

[45:02] Yeah, and thanks for the question, and I think we can use that as feedback, so…. Okay. Can I colloquy on this area plan topic? So, like George, I was involved in an area planning process with Kathleen for East Boulder. Can we pull up the East Boulder map real quick? And the proposed new land use framework. So the thing that stands out to me is I'm looking at Valmont Park, and the bookends on that were, in the sub-community plan. Parkside Residential, which was a very specific place type. And it is now currently the same color, the same legends, innovation, and production as Flatirons Business Park. And those were meant to be two very different kinds of pieces of the community. So can you help me understand how they now have… would have the same color on the land use map, but would they be intended to evolve differently in accordance with that Parkside residential and the destination workplace?

[46:07] place types that those two… those parcels were. Yeah, and this… this might be a better example of the kind of tiers of planning that Brad and KJ were describing. So, … This is the adopted land use map for East Boulder, and that's in the subcommunity plan. The subcommunity plan also provides a finer grain. Of direction, and that's a place type map. And so, that… I don't have a slide on that, but that's that sort of interim level of, okay, the vision for the area is that this will be mixed-use industrial. So that's now encapsulated in the comprehensive plan feature land use map. In that sub-community plan. there's a finer grain of information that says area along the park should be redeveloped in this, vision for a parkside residential place type, and a parkside residential place type

[47:09] should look like this. The building should be, you know, between 3 stories and 4 stories. I'm hesitant to say stories and talk about building hikes, I don't remember exactly, what they are for that place type, but… That sub-community plan will continue to guide that, and it was used, to inform and help create the form-based code for this area, so it served that purpose as an interim between The land use map, and the zoning code, and that form-based code. So I… I think what Brad is describing is we would continue to use that approach. We would continue to use area planning and sub-community planning, and perhaps That level of detail, that place type diagram that describes, more specifically what those areas should evolve to in the future, might be a tool that we continue moving forward.

[48:13] Okay, okay, I think I understand. And this is very helpful, because this… you're pointing out that the land use designation is the same for those parcels, even though the place type was different. That's right. So that's helpful to see. And I think, you know, I'm with George in trying to understand how does the fine-grained detail in the sub-community plan relate to the fact that you're trying to make more flexible land use categories underlying it, and then those flexible land use categories could be used for rezonings. Does the rezoning still have to be consistent with a subcommunity or area plan? Yeah, so rezoning would still have to be consistent with the, sub-community or area plan. And I… I think the other thing to consider is …

[49:00] we have pretty limited geographies where we've done that level of planning. And in recent years, it's really just been East Boulder, Boulder Junction Phase 2, and the Alpine Balsam area. So there's… you know, a lot of the city that hasn't received that level of attention yet, but, you know, I think the… … Some of the work of implementing a land use map like we're describing would be to go through that community effort to really examine a couple of priority areas and define what those place types and what the look and feel of those different neighborhoods should evolve to. My last question, though, is related to this topic. I have other questions, but I'm gonna limit myself to this area plan thing. In our site review criteria, we have site review criteria that are tied to I'm gonna get the word wrong here, so apologies to Hela, but, like, consistency with the area plan, or, … Is there any anticipation of changing that site review criteria based on this BBCP update and the land use designation update?

[50:06] We haven't talked about that yet, but I'll look to KJ if there's… Yeah, we, the question was around site review criteria, right? And… Yes. Potentially rezoning criteria. So, yeah, we… we have not, you know, ventured that deep, yet, because we want to gather input from yourselves and City Council, really on the concept before we invest the time and energy into actually creating the map. And then. Recognizing what some of those trickle-down effects would be, but certainly that would be one of the initial implementation projects as part of this. Like, if this concept and if a new land use map is adopted as part of the comprehensive plan. We would need to, evaluate the rezoning criteria and the site review criteria to understand if any of those need to be reframed in order to, allow the types of flexibility that we're trying to embed within, you know, within this concept.

[51:01] That's helpful, thank you. Okay, ML, I believe you're next. Thank you, Mark. And thank you, for the presentation. It's, it's very exciting to see, this rethinking of how the land use map might be, might be implemented. Just following up on the questions that were being asked, it sounds like… the intent is that area plans will take a more significant role as we move forward, that some of that burden of, specificity will land on them rather than on the land use, is that correct? I will look to Brad to answer that, or KJ. Hi, ML, this is Christopher. I think broadly speaking, you're correct. I think that we also believe that

[52:03] this, land use concept can allow for, flexibility in a lot of different development outcomes that would still be consistent with the vision that's described within the new land use designations and the policies of the comprehensive plan, so that You wouldn't necessarily be required to have additional area planning and sub-community plan, because a lot of different things would be… would be supported. But certainly there would be four larger sites or other neighborhoods, and really, you know, a long-term goal for the program, of course, is to develop sub-community plans for the entire city. Ultimately, those things would continue to occur and would help to provide some additional detail. Detail. Okay, well, the reason I'm asking is, area plans have been challenged as, as valid guiding tools in some of our review projects, so… I'm, hopeful that as the land use, becomes more broadly … capable that the area plans

[53:17] carry more weight in actually directing what happens in those, in those areas. It seems that it would be important to make sure that the area plans carry… are part of the conversation as they… as they have been here. But that… Their role becomes better defined so that we don't find that, … they become an option and not a requirement, or that they become, well, it's a good thought, but we really want to do something totally different. I think it becomes important Adding flexibility, but knowing where to anchor ourselves in the specific.

[54:06] This is Brad now. KJ and I are, I guess, doing tag team today. I was going to elaborate on his comments, but appreciate your further ones. And I think, two things. One, it's helpful to step back and ask ourselves, or remind ourselves, rather, philosophically, of why there are things like area plans, or… Corridor plans or sub-community plans. That's because there's a… there is… there are instances where it becomes apparent or desirable to do a finer level of planning in a particular area. Maybe because of the density vision, maybe because of the characteristics of the area. But I would never advocate that that has to exist in all parts of the city, and even though we may have language that aspires to that for many, maybe even eventually all parts of the city, but at different scope and scale, that shouldn't hinder the process of planning, and I think

[55:06] you know, we need to recognize that when it is done, it is done for a purpose, and that purpose is because there's a need to think about more specificity. The inverse of that is true, which gets to your first question again, ML, which is, well, what does the land use guidance map Do, and why is this being identified? … I would… Go back to the point that was made in the presentation. that right now, the zoning map and the land use guidance map are almost identical for practical purposes. You know, if you line them up, they are at the same granularity. if you change one, you have to change the other. And so, at some point, the… utility of the land use guidance map as providing a vision for the future. Gets lost as a practical matter, because it is simply reflecting either what currently is, or what somebody would need to change to have the zoning map changed.

[56:05] And hearkening back to my, you know, training in planning, that was certainly one of the observations made with. comprehensive planning versus zoning, is that if they are one-to-one ratio, you've kind of lost the purpose of the vision document, the one that says this set of uses is appropriate for the area, as opposed to this specific use. And as we all know, zoning is site-specific allowances for a particular property. Defined at a pretty precise level, because it's only these uses allowed, these design standards, these bulk standards, as opposed to, the reality of an organic city. I think we're observing, which has a body of uses that might make sense, and then individual decisions in the future on that property is where the rezoning comes in. Good evening. Is that rezoning consistent with this umbrella idea, this umbrella color on the land use guidance map?

[57:07] Yes or no. But beyond that, is it also meeting other zoning criteria that says the particular use that's being proposed by this zoning, rezoning, is also appropriate for that particular property in the context of a larger set of uses? I'm a fan of the direction that this is taking, insofar as the land use. I'm just, wanting to… to… Point out that area plans have been, I think, as George mentioned, and as Laura also brought up, a huge investment in community time and staff and, April. consultants, et cetera, et cetera. And just to remind us that somehow, somewhere in this process. To maintain, the validity and the strength of area plans, because they have been, …

[58:08] questioned significantly in… in recent site reviews, and, you know, it'd be nice to know where… what… where does the buck stop as far as… as guidance? And I know it doesn't… the land use map is the big picture. I'd like… I've got two very specific little questions beyond this area plan business. You… under the institutions, you talked about university land… university category, and I'm curious, is that category, university under institutions, limited to land owned by the university? ML, this is Tess here. Yes, it would be state-owned land… university state-owned land. Okay. Perfect. And, I think this came up a little in this conversation we just had. So the land use map

[59:03] … Intends to be aspirational. Yet the site review asks for a project to be consistent. with that. So, I'm hoping that there will be, better articulation of what that means to guide, again, I think, I think we had, references to, in site review. these use of land use and zoning and area plans, the relationship between them becomes really important. And I think… what does it mean to be consistent with… it would be nice if articulation came out of this, understanding on how to use the land use map. Is there a, … is that in your thinking, that you want to get… Help us use the land use map as a… as a, … As an actual… Reference tool, rather than just it's there and, you know, we define it as we would.

[60:05] Yes, this is, Kathleen again. So, … We have kind of a… … running list of all of the references to the comprehensive plan that are currently in the code. So I think once we, land on some of these major concepts and think through more, you know, what do future processes look like? We'll have some recommendations about, code language updates and being able to better define those things. Thank you. Those are my questions? Okay, thank you, ML. … So, I'm looking for clarifying questions. And we are going to have lots of time for discussion and positional discussion. I'm looking for clarifying questions for staff at the moment to help us formulate … informed discussion. So, who, who has clarifying questions?

[61:04] Claudia. Okay, I have a couple here. … How did you arrive at 2 as the ideal number of residential neighborhood types? What models is that referring to? Like, how have you decided, like, to get that whole diversity of residential neighborhoods down to two categories? As far as in the city, you're right, there is also a third one that tends to be more in our rural area, but yes. Understood, yeah, talking about the two within city limits. Yeah, so part of that was our case study research. The City of Charlotte has a Neighborhood 1 and Neighborhood 2 designation that run along similar kind of definitions. Of course, we've changed it to be more consistent with Boulder, but, I think that, like, two is when you're looking on the ground and what we would like to see, we want greater flexibility overall in a lot of the neighborhoods, and we don't need to

[62:02] Or we don't feel that we need to be as, like, fine-grained in defining lots of different types if we allow multiple types of building and residential types within each neighborhood. I think I'd also add on that, the way the hub descriptions are written, particularly the community hub and the regional hub, those also include a residential component, and so, Those, hub areas, might align with some of our higher density residential land use categories today. Okay, thanks. My second question is actually about the hubs as well, so I'm glad you went there. Does staff have data or some idea about the Population or activity thresholds that make certain levels of hubs viable. So we are working with, Community Vitality, and they are embarking on a commercial areas blueprint, and bringing on a consultant to help us answer some of those questions, particularly related to retail, and,

[63:15] What the, market is for retail under existing conditions, and then under some projected, conditions. So, we hope to answer that question in the coming months. Okay, yeah, so I guess what I'm… what I'm looking for is something beyond current conditions. Like, I can see you putting that remapping on some existing places, but… Is there information beyond current conditions that would inform How frequently these different types of hubs should actually be appearing on our land use map. Sure, so, for the regional hub, there are three, described and identified in the Comprehensive plan today. I think we have a question about whether Boulder Junction over the next 20 years, would have the viability and, kind of

[64:06] future capacity to qualify as that regional destination, regional hub, as, Phase 2 of that area builds out over the next 20 years. But as far as the community hub levels. we don't have, like, a market analysis that describes… you can really only support 5 community hubs. I think, … We hope to, through the community assembly work and their conversation about 15-minute neighborhoods, understand more about what do people really think are essential components of something like a community hub, and How far are people willing to walk to that place? How far are they willing to bike to that kind of a place? … So, I think there's gonna be multiple inputs, as we move forward on really defining which are the most important, kind of, community hub designation.

[65:08] Moving forward, and what of our commercial areas might, evolve to be more of that local hub designation in the future. I'm very glad you mentioned the 15-minute communities, because that's… I was going to ask what the intersection there is, and I guess my last question on this… It's then getting down to that smallest, … smallest level of hub, the local hub, and is there any potential with this concept to be identifying areas of the city that perhaps need such a hub, but don't have it currently? Like, is there the capacity to point out things like that in the map? For sure, yes. We would like to see, you know, from a lot of community engagement, especially on the 9th, we're gonna be taking, kind of, these concepts out to the community and seeing where they want to draw on the map, and where they want to…

[66:01] Add potential future designations of that local hub. And… You know, so, yes. Kurt. Thank you, and thank you to staff. First of all, I just want to say that I think that this is great, what you've done so far, definitely moving in the right direction, so far as I'm concerned, and it's very exciting to see. I will, I guess, follow up, first of all, since we're… Claudia was talking about the hubs. It wasn't totally clear to me why we need the distinction between the local hub and the community hub, because the… in the photos, in the memo that you had for Local Hub, you were showing Lucky's, and at least one of the photos for Community Hub was shown as the ideal shopping center. And to me, those seem really quite interchangeable in a lot of ways. They both have small grocery stores, they both have restaurants, they both have service, they both have retail, …

[67:13] … Ideal currently doesn't have any kind of residential. I think maybe… There's some residential above at Lucky's, I'm not sure. But the question is, why do we need that level of granularity? Why can't those be combined? I see that… Regional Hub is definitely a different thing. But it seems like at the other… at the low… smaller level, it's just sort of different sizes of small hubs. I think part of it is scale, and we did try to find pictures of local places that people could recognize and say, okay, I understand this is what that would look like or what that would be. We were challenged with finding great examples of what a local hub would or could be.

[68:10] So, you know, I think… some of the major differences between a local hub and community hub, as we're thinking about it right now, is, that, level of intensity and the draw. So. A local hub might have a small, like, Lolitas type of grocery, whereas a community hub might have something more substantial, like King Soopers. A local hub might be… designed in the future to be walkable and bikeable for a neighborhood or a couple of neighborhoods, a community hub might need parking. So I think some of those are the differences, and we still have some things to work out in that. …

[69:01] The other thing that we're trying to think about and work with our colleagues in transportation on is, what sort of level of service and what mobility choices might serve these different, types of hubs. So, like I said, local hub. Might just be walkable, bikeable to people within a certain distance, whereas a community hub might need to be located at, like, a more regional transit stop, or, like I said, have some kind of parking that could facilitate a wider draw. So, bringing in a mobility consideration as part of it as well. Okay, thank you. And then I want to… I've got other questions, but I'll ask one more sort of main one, which is about some of these designations of what effectively is publicly owned land. So, ML, I think, asked about university…

[70:02] the university designation, and Tess, you said that, well, that's land that the university owns. Well, that is not, to me, that's not forward-looking, which is what the idea was, right? So why do we… need that. The university doesn't care what the designation is, right? We all know that very well. They don't care at all. They don't care what the zoning is, right? But it seems like it could make a difference if… so if the university is acquiring land, then doesn't matter what the designation is. If they're disposing of land. And it's been designated university. now what happens to it, right? Somebody wants to buy it, wants to do something, the only thing that can go there is a university. Well, you know… Jane developer is not gonna create a new university. So, I'm not quite clear what the point of that is.

[71:02] Yeah, I'll say that, as we were coming up with the concept and defining these different designations, we… worked, you know, on really trying to be agnostic of ownership, because that is something that is confusing in the current land use map. A lot of our designations describe A type of ownership. And don't necessarily describe a future land use. So, I think that would be a great conversation for the board to have and provide feedback and direction on. Because it's something we struggle with, that difference in ownership versus really what do we want this to be used for in the future. Okay, thanks. Looks like KJ has… Yeah, do you mind if I chime in on that one just a little bit? … The other… the other characteristics that we're thinking about as far as that university designation is that the use characteristics of the university are wide-ranging and very different.

[72:09] Then, what we might see in other parts of the city that are regulated more formally by our land use code. The service demands that are placed on those university lands, the types of things that can be… that can be constructed, the range of things that can be constructed, from housing to labs to… athletic facilities, all of those kinds of things. So, it's really an opportunity we see as an, through the land use map to identify these are things where, you know, a whole range of different activities could occur, and we want to make sure that that is recognized within the land use map itself. But we also don't want to take the step of projecting where the university might expand in the future, and those kinds of things, and so it is going to be a bit more reflective of the current state of things within the future land use map, but, we also feel like it's an important way to identify the use

[73:08] That could occur in that area over the… over the next 20 years? Okay. Thank you. That, yeah, that's helpful. Although, yeah, maybe something for discussion. The other one is Civic. Which, again… to me… That is really… it feels like it's associating land use with the ownership more than the use. Like, at Alpine Balsam, the, … pavilion building, right? That's gonna be an office building. It's gonna be filled with… City staff, like you guys, maybe, right? And does it really matter if the employer in that… of those people is the city versus the employer is

[74:04] you know, some tech company or somebody else. I don't… I'm not seeing why that needs to be a separate designation. And, … And of course, a lot of the property is owned by the city anyhow, and so it's under the city's control, it's not like… Somebody's gonna come in and… change, you know, do something different. So, any thoughts on that as well? Yes, so the, city facilities would fall into that category. The other thing, where there's some significant, to your point, ownership is, federal land, and, so that falls in there, and then also healthcare facilities and healthcare campuses. So again, I think another, useful topic of conversation for the group and, and,

[75:01] But yes, you're right. Right now, the way that that's structured and how we've shown it in the test cases is it does describe, ownership and use for civic purposes in the, in the future. Okay, I will stop there. We'll come back around to me, I think. Laura? So, I apologize in advance, I have a lot of questions, so feel free to cut me off and go to somebody else. … So, following up on what Kurt was just talking about. So for these civic, institutions, Or the university institution. If a piece of property is purchased, then does that require a land use map change? Because the land use map can only get opened up once every 5 years. I think that's maybe a process question I'll look to KJ4. Boy, that's a good one. You may have stumped us. Well, a couple things to clarify. So, the land use map can be updated through a few other processes, through rezonings and annexations, that kind of thing. We also have the ability to do what's called a map-only update, so if there happened to be a significant change where we needed to update the map, we could do that, sort of out of cycle, out of the 5-year cycle.

[76:22] … But you do raise a great question, just in terms of, sort of, how… how we would, you know, potentially manage changes in ownership on, and I would say 90% of the cases is probably not going to be an issue, because they'll have a land use designation of something that is less tied to the ownership and use structure as civic or university, so that is something we would have to, explore, I think, a little bit further as to how we manage that going forward, and what procedures do we need to put in place into the procedure section of the comprehensive plan to allow for changes more easily, if we're able to do that.

[77:00] I will have a comment about that, but, … wish I need to make a note to myself to write that comment down, since I can't make it now. For civic institutions, does that include things like museums or performing arts spaces, or is it limited to… well, libraries, and I forget what the other examples were. government and, healthcare functions? Yeah, I think we debated that, as a team, and, … part of the challenge with, something like museums, churches, schools, is that a lot of them that exist today are embedded in neighborhoods. And so. does that type of use fall into a neighborhood designation, or does it fall into this civic designation? I think under, … the draft, it might fall in both places right now. It might be, like, a supported use in both places. But another… another thing that'd be helpful to have some conversation around, because we, definitely struggled with that.

[78:11] Thank you. Can you explain more about industrial institutions? This is a… concept I'm not familiar with, and I don't know that I've quite wrapped my brain around what is an industrial institution, and how is that different from an innovation and production hub, other than The possibility of having residential in it. Yeah, I think some of that, came out of the East Boulder Subcommunity Plan, and there's a section of that plan that describes you know, there are areas of this community that are designated industrial, and we want to preserve that space for industrial and service uses into the future. And so, it's… it's almost, a preservation designation, And there's, you know, current policy in the comprehensive plan that speaks to finding ways to preserve industrial space, and so that's, part of the concept behind that designation. The terminology of industrial and institution, I think.

[79:15] is, as of today, draft and flexible. But, how it fell into that classification is, thinking about you know, some of the industries that are local to Boulder as being institutional to the community and an important part of the economy. Okay, okay, I think that would be a good topic of conversation. … question about Neighborhood 1 and Neighborhood 2. They have the same description of commercial activity. It says it's limited commercial activity at key locations and home-based businesses. Can you say more about this? Like, do you anticipate that the kinds of commercial activity in Neighborhood 1 and Neighborhood 2, is that similar? I was surprised to see that it's described exactly the same way, because I would think that Neighborhood 2 would have much more commercial use than Neighborhood 1.

[80:06] Yeah, the description and the draft is similar, and I think, the intention is to be, pretty flexible around that as we learn more about desire within the community for something like home-based businesses. Particularly in those residential neighborhoods. We did a recent analysis of… our land use designations and how structures are used within different designations today. So, in the low density, residential areas within the city, actually 9% of structures in those areas are used, for commercial uses. And so, this would be, I think, pretty consistent, or similar at least, to some of the existing conditions in the community.

[81:02] But, you know, if there's feedback tonight that we need to better define what's a real difference between commercial uses in those two different types of neighborhoods, that would be… Helpful. I also just want to add that maybe some of that will be picked up by a community hub that has more of that, like, high commercial and high residential use, versus a neighborhood too. Okay, thank you. Helpful, both of you, thank you. … Back to Neighborhood 1. In the written description, it only mentions duplexes and cottage courts as examples, and not other kinds of plexes, but in the presentation, my ears perked up when I heard multiplexes. Is that the… you know, in the past, the city has discussed this kind of missing middle concept of allowing multiple units inside the same footprint that would be allowable for a single unit home in some of these zones.

[82:03] does the current language foresee this, or allow this, or have more flexibility than just duplexes? Yes, I think that was a, a recent update to the presentation, and… Would be in the next iteration of the draft of these land use designations, that it would allow that multiplex. And I… I think my current understanding of most of our lower density residential zones is that they already allow duplexes, that it is, that, you know, part of the reason that we maybe don't see more of them is that it's… it's limited by the, … … footprint of the parcel, the size of the parcel, and… The allowances for duplexes related to size. Thank you. … So, may I keep going? Yeah. Okay. So the memo, this is kind of a big picture question. It talks about the benefits of flexibility in rezoning and development choices within the same land use category.

[83:07] I'm trying to kind of parse out what does that mean? Does that mean that… you have… you have the land use category. We approve… let's say we approve the map, and it has these 11, different designations in 4 buckets, 4 categories. Does that mean that whatever is allowable in that land use category will be approved? Like, if somebody comes in for a rezoning and they say, well, this is consistent with our land use category. Are we then bound to approve it? Right? Does that… does that give the property owner The option to rezone to anything that is consistent with their land use map. that we are then bound to approve. Yeah, under the current rezoning standards for individual rezonings that come in, you have to meet… generally, they have to be consistent with the goals and policies of the BBCP, but also you have to meet one of six criteria, and they're very limited in scope right now, and include

[84:05] things like there was a mistake of fact, or the area surrounding has changed so much that there should be a rezoning. The one that's used most often is that it's necessary to bring the zoning in compliance with the land use map designation, and… some… oftentimes there is already consistency. That doesn't necessarily mean that there's not another designation. that would also be consistent, but if it's already consistent, then it's not necessary to do the rezoning to come into consistency, and it's not been approved in the past based on that. Okay, thank you for that reminder of how we do rezonings and what the criteria are. … The memo also talks about how the Racial Equity Index was used during the, or was applied during the existing conditions analysis. And it revealed opportunities for improvement under the SER framework.

[85:03] And that… This analysis informed the draft future land use strategy. Can you describe how that work on the racial equity index informed specifically the land use strategy? Because I saw later in the memo, you talked about how you would be applying, like, 6 different questions to the policy, questions about, like, who benefits, who gets burdened, does this increase equity, but can you explain more about how you applied the Racial Equity Index to the land, this concept of we want more flexible land use. Yeah, so we looked at, … a couple, I think, I think we called them, like, quality of life indicators during the existing conditions analysis. a lot of questions about. Access to, choices for mobility, access to, arts and cultural institutions,

[86:00] Things like instances of crime and calls to police. I can't remember everything. I don't know, Tessa, if you remember other indicators. … So, that was a geographic analysis, but some of the kind of major takeaways of that were that were that, people who lived in, some of the denser areas of town actually have better access to mobility, better access to cultural institutions, that's, not maybe surprising. But some of the other components, about things like, economic opportunity, I think, was an important one, where we found, access to, jobs or workplaces was, limited, in certain areas of town that rated higher on the index. So I'd have to look back at that analysis to give you more, specific examples, and

[87:09] the report on that was included in the May 22nd packet, so if you wanted to look back at it, or I could send it around. But yeah, so some of that was used to inform what is a appropriate mix of uses that we could envision, being a little more widespread throughout the community, and, how could that impact quality of life? So, when we have, when we're closer to a recommended land use map. We'll look back and test some of the proposed conditions under that same … Sort of rubric, and hopefully identify that we've made a future difference. Thank you. And then my last question has to do with the public outreach.

[88:03] And I'm gonna take the liberty of making a really brief comment here. I'm delighted to see that you're doing both a statistically representative survey and the online component that anybody can take. Take that same survey and let anybody take it, because I think that would be very enlightening to see the differences between an open access survey and a statistically valid one. But my question is, for the open access survey, is it gonna be, like. the Be Heard Boulder has been in the past, where anybody from around the world can take it, and maybe people are taking it multiple times, or there'll be a way to limit it so that, like, each resident of Boulder can only take it once. I know there's been discussion about trying to update the tool so that it's a little bit more, rigorous. I'm gonna look to either… well, Sarah's sitting far back, so, maybe KJ. That's a great question. I don't… we… I don't believe we have had any conversations with our survey consultant about limiting the access to the… to the open online, companion questionnaire. There will be, …

[89:04] you know, there'll be different QR codes for people to use in order to access that, or to link to that, but as far as I'm aware, it would be open to any and all. But it's certainly something we can explore, if there's a way to try to constrain that or limit that to avoid any, you know, undue influence. I do think there's a draft question. That says, like, what is your interest in the comprehensive plan? And the responses might be, I live in the city of Boulder, I live in unincorporated Boulder County, I work in Boulder. I neither work nor live in… the Boulder Valley, something like that. Okay. But, you know, it's dependent on people answering honestly. Yes, thank you. Okay, I will limit myself to not discussing at this time. That's all my questions, thank you. Okay, I'm going to call on myself, and I just have a few. …

[90:06] In this attempt to create more flexibility and simplicity. Are the lines on the map fuzzy at all. Or, even though we now have fewer areas. Are those boundaries still a sharp, fine-edged boundary? We've looked at some other comprehensive plans and, and some other, recent land use plans from other communities where they have. This concept of a transition zone, kind of baked into the understanding of that land use map, where there is a hard edge on the map. But we might want to see similar type of development on both sides of the street. So, … Yes, I think the concept of a fuzzy line is being workshopped within the team.

[91:03] Okay. … And I, in a similar fashion, or in a similar question. You group together activities in this logic… in seemingly logical way, like, … G… I am… hiking in the mountains versus I am playing in a park. Right? So, I forget… which, which slide it was, or maybe it was just in the packet, but you… you kind of group activities, and in a way… Sure, that makes sense. My question is, when the activity grouping … creates cross-departmental responsibilities. So, I think it was, like, recreation. So, there was recreation, like, I'm swinging on a swing in the park, and I'm running on a trail in the mountains, and so those are two very different departments.

[92:10] Did you consider A more departmental-focused … Separation of activities. to create… I think this was in relation to creating the zone, the greenway zone, the… I forget the park and recreation zones, but you have two or three, right? So there's a parks and greenways, and then an open space. Right, so you have two, okay. But some of those activities under parks and greenways. fall under, let's say, OSMP, and some of the things that you might do on an OSMP property, actually. So, anyway, I'm just want… you know, you guys grouped them by activities, but, I'm asking, did you look at a more departmental

[93:00] Line versus activity. I will say we've talked about a departmental line and the direction that we're proposing tonight is intended to be really focused on future use. And so, I think the section of the definitions that you're talking about is that, what to expect, and… I would say, you know, Tess and others on the team did a… I thought a nice job of setting up the structure of the definitions to speak More directly to community members, and so there's, maybe some color, like recreational activities in that what to expect description, that is intended for community members and maybe less… … or not a determinant of future use. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. But I…

[94:02] I suspect I understand what you're referring to, particularly in the realm of greenways and the variety of Ownership and operational, activities that go on in those spaces. Okay. would, … My final one is, Would this simplification Of the map and, condensing of of… Types of land designations. Is this… would this ultimately flow down into our use tables? And a… and a simplification. Would it flow into use tables and, and, … Help. create some more simplicity there. So that would be a next step. That would be, implementation process step. I would maybe invite KJ or Brad to speak to implementation.

[95:04] Yeah, I think it's a great question. I mean, the answer is we don't know exactly, but, you know, if the plan is adopted next summer and includes a land use framework that looks something similar to this. There will be a whole host of conversations internally, and particularly with Hela and the City Attorney's office, and Charles and Development Review of what potential code updates, Will be necessary in order for our implementation of development review and other things into the future. ultimately, they then are supportive of the new policy and the new land use direction that's established through the comprehensive plan, so that will, you know, that will take time, right, to implement those things over time after the adoption of the plan, but… The, plan itself would establish that vision, that direction, and then we would implement code updates and other program updates and other kinds of things over the coming years in order to implement those policies as we go forward.

[96:08] I'm just gonna be the add-on tonight. And I think useful context for all implementation is we often talk about implementation comes in the form of not additional… only additional planning and implementation of code, but also the capital improvement program and the budget. I mean, these are all ways in which we implement And I will add, in an ever more real and tactical way, so when we go through our work planning, now as a city. we are expected to roll that up to the comprehensive Plan and the SARE framework, and that's relatively new, that rigor, I would say, of the last 2 to 3 years, so… Rest assured, it is often… In the forefront of decision-making and implementation. Great, thank you. Okay, I… that… that concludes my questions. Does anyone else have additional clarifying questions, and then we'll move to discussion? Kurt, you have additional questions?

[97:08] He just went on and on. Thanks, yeah, just a couple of others. You… I… there was just a conversation about, or mention of transportation, and you had some… Mention of, like, … walkability and stuff in some of these land use designations. Did you consider being even more specific, for instance, about street typologies? Because to me, that affects very much the feel of a particular area, right? Whether it's a you know, a small, quiet area versus a more intense area. Partly that's the buildings and the uses there, but partly it's also the streets. Did you talk about

[98:03] incorporating that more? Yeah, I think we're, just getting started on tying some of these designations to, street typologies, to, Transit stops to, … multi-use pass, bike pass, things like that. So we're just kind of starting on that work, and like I mentioned earlier, the place we've started is, looking at how to define hubs and locating them, in relation to particular types of mobility facilities. But there's more than just… the hub, right? There's, like… the street right in front of everybody's building. Yeah, I think… I think we're gonna continue to work on that, and we'll expand, how, now that we have, sort of basic understanding and… and at least a draft of, this concept, the next step is how do we tie this closer to our mobility planning and

[99:11] What their future is for, the network of mobility in the city for the next 20 years. Great. Cool. Next question is a follow-up on Mark's about the distinction between open space and park. I guess my question… Sort of related to that conversation is. and maybe you answered this and I didn't hear, but why are those distinct anyhow? Yeah, so, … Open space purposes are defined in the charter, and so land that is used now, or will be used in the future for those specific open space purposes, will be classified or designated as open space. Things that are, more within our recreational parks, urban parks network would fall into that designation of parks and greenways.

[100:11] Well, I understand what the distinction is, but the question is really why. Is it… are you saying it's because open space is called out in the charter, and so there's specific restrictions there that… we don't want to apply on parks? Yes, and, I think how our open space, Park… Open Space and Mountain Parks Department uses the land use map, what Open Space Board of Trustees' role is in managing, land that falls into that open space category moving forward, it's important to have that distinction between those more, … urban parks versus what's, you know, really considered by the community as the open space network. And then we have a similar structure for, Parks and Recreation Advisory Board related to those urban parks, and that department, and how they, use the land use map as well.

[101:18] All right, one more question. And that's a specific one about the industrial. I think Laura was asking about industrial. So currently, I think the areas that are what would be considered industrial, many of them allow office uses. Of some sort or another, would that… would your… under your vision, would that continue? I think the way that we've drafted that designation, it would include office, but that's another, great. Conversation point for the board to provide feedback on. Great. Thanks.

[102:03] Okay, last call for questions. Hearing none… Oh, okay, got a question for… I don't actually have a question, but I've been… I have been thinking about George's question from the get-go here, and I want to make an attempt. to see if I can explain this a little bit, if you can imagine 3 levels of… specificity, right? The first is… the broad brush, general, application of a vision for the future. This is… this is the land use map, conceptually. The second is something that's more like the place type map within the East Boulder Subcommunity Plan, or the really fine, detailed area planning, from Alpine Balsam. And then the third layer is zoning. So right now, the current land use map that is within the comprehensive plan sort of combines levels 1 and 2.

[103:00] And what we are talking about, and what we're trying to propose, is we want that map to represent only Level 1, Level 2 gets handled through other mechanisms when necessary, like when the scale of the project or the nature of the area is large enough that it demands a sub-community plan or an area plan that gets into that level of detail. And then third, again, zoning still remains at that third most detailed level. So, really, what we're trying to do is raise the altitude a little bit of the land use map. But still not lose the ability for our existing area plans to provide additional guidance for things that are specific to those particular areas. I don't know if that's helpful or not, but that's the best that I can do so far. Great, thank you, KJ. Okay. So… Now, we have the questions for discussion, and I just wanna… Clarify that, Under question number 1, do we support the preliminary concept?

[104:03] for revisions. So, you want feedback from us, what we think about this, simplification, etc, so we'll try not to be shy about that. Yes, and I think a lot of the topics that you raised in the clarifying questions about, differences between parks and open space, or, what should be included as allowed uses in industrial, that's all really helpful feedback for us to iterate on the next version of this. Okay. So, feel free to… Right. Get into the weeds. Okay. We usually do feel free. So… … My question is… so, on the second question. What community feedback does Planning Board need to inform future decisions about substantial changes to the policy and future land use? So, you're looking for us to give you feedback Like, we think you need to go out to the development community. We think you need to go out to…

[105:06] I'm… you know, … parks and rec people, etc. Is that the kind of feedback you're looking for? I'm a little confused by that question. Sure. Maybe it's only me. Yeah, I would say, most of our, engagement efforts between now and December are pretty well defined, and it's a pretty packed schedule. So, it's more about the types of questions that you would like us to ask the community. So, through that statistically valid survey, through future, community workshops or public meetings, What do you feel is the level of support for a certain concept baked into this, land use strategy, or… Other, you know, policy choices, that were highlighted earlier in the presentation, that, you know, what level of understanding of community support do you need for those types of things to feel confident in making a recommendation?

[106:07] Great, that's… that's helpful to me, at least. Okay, so I propose that, whoever is ready begins, and, and we go around and we answer both questions, inter… as, As that individual, you answer 1 and 2, at the… at the same pass, and, and provide, your feedback. I would love to take a 5-minute break, and I know we're already running over, but if we take a 5-minute break, we'll, I promise we'll be back here. So, … 755, please. Okay?

[114:15] I'm gonna… Let our online folks… Come back into the room. And, … 7.55, we're gonna call this meeting. Back to order, and … We are, gonna have our planning board discussion regarding what's been presented tonight, and, … I'm ready to… See a raised hand, and who's ready to go? Okay, Laura. So I'll start here. This is gonna be hard for me. I have a lot of thoughts, and they're not as well organized as I would like them to be, so please bear with me. So overall, I think this framework can be a move in the right direction. I absolutely agree that we have kind of inherited or evolved

[115:08] a land use map that is too complicated, it's too fine-grained. We've inherited this concept of separation of uses that has not served us well in the past, and we're trying to move towards more resilience and more flexibility and more integration of mixed use. And I think that's a wonderful goal. I'm a little worried about unintended consequences, in that, you know, this concept of flexibility I understand from a planning perspective of why we might want that, because of resilience concerns, and climate change, and the changing job market, and changing needs of the population, and all of that. My concern is, how is that actually going to translate practically And it's gonna translate to developer flexibility, right? That developers will have a lot of choices, and this is not a knock on developers, but they are bound by the rules of capital, right? That they… they tend to develop the thing that makes the most profit, not necessarily the thing that the community wants.

[116:03] And so, how do we make sure that flexibility in development options doesn't lead to fewer of the outcomes that the city wants? You know, like, you have a buffet, and it's one-price buffet, and you can choose the lobster, or you can choose the garden salad. And the community needs both. How do you make sure everybody doesn't choose the lobster because they can, right? … So how are we protecting the things that the Racial Equity Index and our sustainability SRE framework say that the community wants and needs? when those might not be the most profitable option for developers, and developers have a lot of flexibility. So that's… that's my concern, especially when I hear that, you know, changing the land use map can trickle down into things like zoning and our site review criteria that then need to be made consistent with what we say our vision is in the land use map. And because that process is a little opaque to me, and I'm not sure exactly how that's gonna work, I just want to put my concern out there. So I'm not saying we shouldn't head in this direction, but I do think that, you know.

[117:04] we need to provide the right structure so that the market will deliver what we want, right? The basic principle is that government regulations need to make it easier to provide the types of neighborhoods and social goods that we want, and make it harder or less attractive to have the kind of monocultures or, you know, non-15-minute walkable neighborhoods that we don't want. When developers can basically choose from a huge menu and do whatever makes them You know, make sense to their investors, and to their bank, and whomever else they're responsible to. … So, I think that's a huge challenge for staff, and I know that we have the right people to help figure that out, so I just want to put that concern out there. Because I think we can all… we can all think of some pretty spectacular examples where deregulating, which is another way to say providing industry flexibility, has not delivered sustainability, equity, and inclusion. The energy sector, the banking sector, the healthcare sector, right? So I think… I just think we need to tread cautiously.

[118:02] So one thing that I would suggest on a practical level is to take a look at this question of providing developer flexibility and run it through that same lens of, you know, who benefits, who's burdened, who's missing excluded, what unintended consequences might occur, and how can equity be improved. When there's a lot of flexibility in the system. And think about how we really structure those rules and incentives so that we're not just hoping that the mix of uses we want gets delivered, but we have some tools to get us going in the right direction. And I think you are hearing caution from at least me and George and ML and maybe some others that We want to make sure that the land use map concept will not erode the existing sub-community plans through rezoning or changing the site review criteria and that sort of thing. So, okay, so that's… that topic is beat to death. My second big suggestion is something I mentioned in the Q&A, which is, you know, we were told, previously that

[119:00] the current constraints on the land use map and density kinds of things in the BBCP would make it impossible to talk about this concept of allowing single-unit buildings to be carved up into as many units makes sense, right? That because we have these low density zones, we couldn't look at that. And I would like to see staff take a look at that concept in this land use map provision. I think that's the type of flexibility that's really going to deliver some outcomes that we know we need. Which is, you know, smaller, more affordable units, which… duplexes are not going to get us there. So, really leaning into that multiplex concept in the footprint that is available to a single-unit home. I do want to say I especially appreciate the integration of commercial activity and home-based businesses into Neighborhood 1, and my earlier question was not to say that we need to dial that back. But that I think we might want to describe the scale of that as being a little bit different in neighborhood, too. So kind of lean more into that for Neighborhood 2.

[120:00] And again, I want to say I really love that we're going to have the statistically valid survey, the online questionnaire that's open to everybody, and I think leaving it open to everybody without a lot of controls on it is fine. Because that'll give us a lot of good data to compare what do we get from a survey like that versus a statistically valid survey, versus community events, and that sort of thing. A couple of very fine-grained suggestions. I did notice in going through the memo that only Neighborhood 2 is described as having access to transit and bikeped amenities in the short description, but if you go into the more detailed description, it does talk about how Neighborhood 1, for example, would have connection to transit. And, direct connections to bicycle networks and walkable amenities. I think that talking about those connections in Neighborhood 1 should not be left out of the short description. I think that's kind of essential to how people understand what a Neighborhood 1 is, so that they don't think that it's car-dependent. Right. … I do think, also in the memo, it talked about how one of the mobility goals

[121:07] was supporting local agriculture to reduce the travel distance for food availability. That seemed kind of clunky to me as a mobility goal. Like, I can understand you want to have more local ag proximate to people, so they don't have to travel as far, but it's kind of weird to call that a mobility goal. So, just… and likewise… For me, this idea of, an industrial institution. it doesn't feel like we've got the categories quite right. Like, I agree with the idea that we want to preserve industrial land, but calling that an industrial institution doesn't seem like the same type of animal as a university, as an institution, or a government facility as an institution, or a hospital as an institution. Because you could look at a lot of different kinds of businesses and say, well, these are bolder institutions, they've been here for 100 years, and we want them to last, you know? People said that about the dark horse, right? So, that category just doesn't hit for me.

[122:02] … And I will stop there. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Laura. I see ML's hand up. And I hope you are ahead of George. I don't… I can only see part of you, so… anyway…. And they'll take it away. Thank you, Mark, and I was ahead of George. Great. Thank you, Laura. I appreciate your, your comments, and, I will kind of follow the same process and, give my, thoughts and… suggestions and support around the things that I'm going to bring up. I think we will see this from most of us, because we deal with this on Planning Board, but, the city's goal that, we tie this map to the city's use table. I think it's important that, the…

[123:07] trickle down, actually happens, and I'm gonna talk specifically about the hubs. and the local and community hubs. So this is where I see that, the pattern that we've been seeing, which is pushback, from development to mixed housing with commercial, because of the economic outcomes. I think we need to have some means, and maybe it's in the use tables, maybe… I don't know where it would be, but we need to impress upon the folks developing in Boulder That their projects, must… they must respond to the city goals and planning. Oftentimes, it appears that, you know, the projects only think about what they're doing on their land. They don't want to have an area planning form, they don't want to have land… they don't…

[124:02] Somehow, we… In the trickle-down process, we need to, … … there needs to be a way to measure, yes, these things need to be accounted for. You're not… each parcel is not in a silo. And… and I think, to me, that's… One of the more, kind of, dangerous ways that we don't get the outcomes we want, because, Because of that pattern of disconnect. So that's one, one comment. … And I would just… I'm gonna offer a suggestion under the neighborhoods You've got priority action number 10A, expand the efforts to eliminate carbon, and I'm going to suggest, and you may already have read Paul Hawkins' carbon, he takes the… Idea of carbon out of the pigeonhole.

[125:00] That it's about emissions, solely. And he, he, … he gives it a more real rendition that talks about the, maybe truer and, bigger impacts of carbon, both positive and negative. So that might be a resource to look at when you're looking at that, so that we kind of get out of The conventional and perhaps limited way of looking at how… how does carbon play into our conversation. … I am a very big fan of the neighborhoods having commercial activities. I see that in December, with the joint session with the Council, we're going to talk about the 15-minute neighborhoods. I think that, … the effect of 50-minute neighborhoods is a goal. It should impact zoning and use at a micro scale.

[126:03] For example, new opportunities, new typologies in neighborhoods, such as instead of an ADU at a corner house, maybe that… what would have been an ADU could be a cafe or a bookstore. So just to take a look at how we can, in fact, … persuade. these things to happen, rather than thinking, okay, we have the ability to add a second, you know, unit on our property, but it's got to be a dwelling, and maybe when you have more street front, i.e. a corner lot. So, a suggestion about how to, I think the 15-minute, neighborhood is… is… In fact, I, you know, I live in Newlands, and it feels like a 50… and it's fabulous. Not everybody gets that, but I think that to have that as a goal, I think we need to pierce down and make sure that we create

[127:00] the mechanisms for these things to actually happen, because I think this is a place where you know, people want 50-minute neighborhoods, but then again, maybe I don't want this next to my house, so it's… it could be a very dynamic conversation at the public scale, but I'm very, very supportive of finding a way to actually To actually get there. … Nextly, you talked about the, you know, the challenges and the benefits of making this big change. And, in… in the challenge, you know, change happens, and I think that this map is catching us up, so I wouldn't see that as a challenge. It's… it's time. I think it's very timely. But I think that the predictability conundrum, could be addressed by having specificity about the connections and the flows. For example.

[128:06] If a specific parcel, Doesn't see itself as part of a bigger, … The bigger intent for the, land use there. what I'm… wondering about is could there be something… some kind of a metric that we designate? We're removing density, but maybe we provide a percent of the various uses. So that if we see that in an area we want to see in, you know, you've provided some initial lists of what could happen in an area, in a land use area, maybe that's anchored by saying. percentages, so that we don't get everybody saying, yeah, well, uses of, residential is allowed, so we're going to just do nothing but residential. We're going to end up, as Laura pointed out, a mono… a mono culture there.

[129:02] I've tried to think about that when I'm doing site reviews, is you know, do we already have a bunch already around, and where is, you know, the bigger, desired outcome for this area? That… I think that becomes the problem, and we've seen that. That, you know, the same thing happens because it's profitable. And, you know, the regulations are applied in a linear way, rather than distributed, right? Distributed across an area, so that we do, in fact, get the kind of livability, I think is the word that you put out there at some point. that we want. I mean, livability implies diversity, and we've got that lens that we're trying to put things through. So, I'm… It would be interesting to see if you could… if you could come up with a metric to, sort of spread out the use so that we, in fact, get the uses that we're looking for in any… in any given designation.

[130:02] … let me see… so… Referring back to the climate resilience and sustainability considerations, … it's good to see that these impacts will continue to be evaluated. I've been especially concerned about water resource. And, we're experiencing this huge push to get student housing. … Student housing is coming to us with the burden of one bed… one bathroom per bedroom in units that have up to 6 bedrooms. So, it comes through, and it's like, oh, there's only 50… Units, but there is, you know, 6 times that number of actual, bedrooms and bathrooms and individual tenants, if you will. It is… in my mind, it's a disturbing trend as far as water use goes, and I hope that the city puts something into this climate resonance and sustainability considerations

[131:12] That speaks to… The way we measure water use relative to the use type. Right? A unit. A unit used to look like maybe 1 or 2 bedrooms, now it's looking like 6 bedrooms. … And I did, I think I reached out to Kelly, because I couldn't find, policy options, but the idea of home-based business. That was identified, and it had a number 48 in front of it. I'm not sure… I'm in full support of that, because I think we've all seen with post-COVID, people realize that they want to have more control over where and how they work, and you know. I think to put some attention to how that happens, would be a good and useful and very real, thing.

[132:04] … I will answer question number two. I think one of the things that you should ask people is, which city do they think of when considering livability, 15-minute neighborhoods, and affordability? Because the cities you put up there, if somebody were to ask me, I would not have identified those cities. So it'd be… it'd be good to know what… what people think when we use these terms. It's like, where have you been that has that quality? So that we can begin to connect the dot between, you know, people aren't going to tell us it's got a certain density or a certain distance, they're going to say, no, I really like that city. Give you another way to go and, look for… look for precedents, that are experiential. And… Those are my comments. Thank you. I appreciate the project, and I love the direction.

[133:02] Great, thank you, ML. We're gonna go to George now. Great, I'll try to make mine short. Since a lot of the things that I would have said have already been said. Just to echo, and get right into it, I… I, … like Laura, I am… Appreciative of the general direction. I'm concerned about the unintended consequences of providing a level of flexibility, where it may not get to the community outcomes that we would hope for. And so, and I think… Going back to my questions around the area plans. we've had a community, especially lately, with the East Boulder Subcommunity Plan and Alpine Balsam Subcommunity Plan, or area plan, we've invested a tremendous amount of

[134:01] time and effort on behalf of the city, consultants, and, the residents of Boulder to come up with these plans. And yet. we haven't given them time to actually, move forward with what's been put in place. And what I've seen a lot from the city, and I don't know how it evolves or getting pushed, it feels like we are… Being on Planning Board over the past almost 5 years, it feels like we're constantly changing things, and not allowing things to settle, and how we change them. And this feels like that again. To a certain extent. I understand it's sort of a high-level vision, to set sort of a cadence, but, you know, I go back to the area plans. The area plans were pitched as these, you know, relatively

[135:02] medium-level visions for these areas to carry them for the next few decades, and I just want to make sure that we're not putting something in that could erode what we spend so much time and effort on as a community doing in those processes. Otherwise, it would feel really disingenuous to the people that participated in those processes and spent a lot of their time and sweat Both on the city side and residents, et cetera, not to mention all the money that was spent doing those things. It doesn't sound like that's the intention, but again, it's, … I'm concerned about the actual implementation of this and how it relates to those plans. … that's my general overarching questions. I don't feel like we're at a really granular level to give granular feedback, because I've got some big questions around those things.

[136:03] And I'd like to button up the unintended consequences early, sooner rather than later, so that we make sure we get what we want out of this as a community. As it relates to questions and feedback from the community, number two, I think we should… I don't even think we should do a non-statistically significant survey. I think it's a waste of everyone's time. I saw one come through not that long ago that we looked at, and it was dismissed by a number of members of council and a number of members of this board because it wasn't statistically significant. I'd go back, I forget… I forget the… I forget the project that that was involved in, but I remember that specifically. And so, again, asking people to participate in something that is so easily dismissed by saying it's not statistically significant, we don't know who answered this. I just think it's a waste of… I think it's a waste of everybody's time. And it's not gonna give us… if it's not statistically significant, then it's not data we can rely upon. And if we're gonna be a data-driven process.

[137:11] Why are we even doing something like that? … that goes into my second thing. I think my biggest feedback I can provide as it relates to questions to the community. Number one, I like what ML said around, sort of. you know, relating it to other cities. But beyond that, … I've seen many surveys come out, and this is not an indictment on anyone putting these surveys together, but a lot of times, the questions feel very leading to the community about what the outcome that the survey makers want. And, I've known many people, that are neighbors and friends that feel completely disengaged with the city and these surveys and these processes because they think the outcome is already, prescribed.

[138:08] And so, I would challenge us, all as these surveys and feedback sessions are put together to look through the lens of how do we make this… how do we create the least bias, how do we get information from people about what their opinions truly are, and not just what we want to hear to make this process go smoothly, through the city. And so those are my, That's my feedback. Thank you. Great, thank you, George. Who's ready between… Kurt, okay. Thank you. I have a number of comments. Everyone will be shocked. … Again, I just want to reiterate that I really appreciate the general direction and all the work that's gone into this, and I'm super excited, as ML said. I want to react, just quickly to the issue of…

[139:14] flexibility, and there were some… both… both Laura and George talked about the… concern about unintended consequences, which I think is valid. On the other hand, I would say that there have been enormous and really quite devastating consequences, whether they're intended or not, is a question of the way we've been going so far. You know, we all know about the housing costs and the lack of housing availability. And, and other, you know, in-commuting and all these problems that have been caused by our current land use system, zoning system, and so on. And so, I… I think that we, …

[140:01] there always are consequences, and there always are unintended consequences, but I think that it is time to try a different paradigm. And I, I, I feel like… That's the way most of the world is going, and I think that it's working better than this highly prescriptive paradigm that we've had in the past. Going along with that… There was some discussion by other board members about the connection with the land use, or sorry, with the use tables, and I think it is important that some of this devolve down into the use tables. But I would like us, in an ideal world, I would love to see less… Of the uses, descriptive, prescriptive, explanation of the uses in these

[141:02] Different land use types, and more about feel, which is really more sort of a form-based code approach, form-based land use. So, about The height, the mass, the scale, the footprint, the… whether it's a bustling area or a quieter area, whether there's big streets or small streets, which gets back to my thing about the street typologies. That sort of… that, to me, is what really defines a different kind of an area, not whether a particular building is One dwelling unit, or three dwelling units, or whether part of it is, you know, a bookstore in the back, or whatever. So, a little more focus… less focus on the specific uses, and more on the form-bulk character feel of the area.

[142:06] As I implied in my questions, I have… It's not clear to me whether this… this… the civic land use… Is really necessary or appropriate. And similarly with university, I think KJ had a good explanation that we want a way to give people the expectation that if they're next to the university. all bets are off about what might happen, basically, right? Or next to the federal labs, for example. But… that's still not… it's still not that helpful, because at any time, they could purchase the lot next to me, right? And all of a sudden, that's university property, or it's federal property, or whatever, and boom, whatever happens, right? So…

[143:01] it feels to me a little bit futile, and as I expressed in, sort of, in my question, I'm concerned about… more about the opposite direction when that land gets, sold off by the university or federal government or whoever. Now, we're stuck with a land use that doesn't really work for them. So, thinking about that. Let's see… Oh, also, well… Yeah, when I was reading this, I had some question about the difference between local hub and community hub. I think your explanations were helpful. I guess I… To me, it would, just in terms of the presentation. I don't… I don't think that, if I'm understanding it right, I don't think ideal market really fits as a community hub? Because you were talking more like. King Soopers, or the Safeway Shopping Center, or something. So, to me, that feels more like a local hub. If that now is really considered a local hub, then it's… the distinctions are starting to make more sense to me.

[144:13] But I could still imagine that maybe those two would be grouped, and of course, there can be distinctions, zoning distinctions underlying that, but to say, no, this absolutely has to be a local hub and can never become a community hub, and vice versa, I'm not sure why we're being that restrictive. … I appreciated Mark's questions about the designation borders, and I love this idea of the flexible borders, so I think definitely go with that. … Okay, getting to some details in the descriptions, you talk about in some of the neighborhood uses… oh, and I should get to that,

[145:09] You talk about community uses like schools, libraries, and places of worship. … I guess… maybe my objection primarily is just about the use of the term community, because those are community uses, absolutely, but so is a local coffee shop, so is, you know, a bookstore, so is the insurance agent around the corner, right? So… Yeah, maybe think about the terminology, or maybe think about whether we need to be that descriptive, prescriptive at all. One more terminology thing, you said… and shoot, I didn't write down which ones, but there were a couple of the designations that

[146:05] were, were said… oh, I think it was the hubs. It said, these areas will be highly walkable. Well, that's great, but… I think every single place in the city should be highly walkable. There is no place, there is no area, there is no street that should be allowed to not be highly walkable. So, that felt a little bit exclusive, and I just… Want to raise concerns about that? … Sorry, still going. There was the question about… This site review criterion about consistency with the land use map, I've felt for a while, like, the solution to that conundrum is to get rid of that criterion. I think that the solution should be… our zoning should be consistent with the land use map. That's how we should enforce the consistency.

[147:07] And we shouldn't be looking on a project-by-project basis at the consistency with the land use map. It's our responsibility as a city to make the zoning consistent with the land use map. And then, we just need to require consistency with the zoning. Maybe that's, you know, over… Over-idealistic, but… I would love to see that be the situation, and then we can get rid of that criterion. I raised the question about office uses in industrial areas. primarily because, as I said, I think… I think currently we're getting a lot of office uses in industrial areas, and you talked about it as really industrial, as you were thinking of it as really a preservation tool. Well. A lot of that space, then, is no longer available for hardcore industrial, so…

[148:05] We just need to think about whether that is actually… if that really is our goal, like, we want… Brickyards, you know, or… Nuclear reactors, or whatever. Then… then we shouldn't be taking up space for… For office? … Oh, and the very last one, promises the last one, … Is about the terminology neighborhood? For a… for a land use designation? I feel like every single area in the city is a neighborhood, and in fact, I noticed you used the term neighborhood in other designations. And I've found that the term neighborhood can get a little bit weaponized. Like, it has a certain connotation of.

[149:02] You know, white picket fences, and… Large houses, and… people without a lot of melanin and that sort of thing, you know? And, so, even though we're trying to… so… this is not a very helpful critique if I can't give you an alternative suggestion, right? And so, I mean, obviously the problem with something like residential or housing is we're trying not to be that restrictive, but… I'd like to think about whether that might be more appropriate. Okay. That was all. And finally, in terms of the input, yeah, I share, George's concern about the non… the non-statistically valid survey. I think the concept is to give people an opportunity to give input, even if they weren't selected, right? But…

[150:07] If it's not gonna be used, and it's kind of going to be dismissed, then I understand the concerns about that. So I don't have a real answer, but I… I certainly… I share the trepidation there. Okay, I'm done. Great, thanks, Kurt and Claudia. It's your turn. Thank you. I'll start by saying I agree with what Kurt just said about the language of neighborhoods. I'm going to use the term neighborhood as you've used it in my comments, because that's how I've written them, but I appreciate his analysis of that term, and also have some discomfort with it. So my comments here are that I, first of all, I really strongly support evolving the land use map and its designations towards what… what I'm kind of seeing here in your… in your memo and your presentation as place types.

[151:01] That's what I'm seeing in your descriptive language, in your example photos. And I like that evolution, because I think that's how many people actually experience their surroundings. Kurt also talked about this, talking about going to a more form-based definition. I was nodding along vigorously, and I think he might have captured that sentiment better than I can. So I will agree with him there. I also support the move to radically fewer categories than we now have on the map. I think going in that direction evolves the BBCP to be more of a high-level planning document, less of an inventory of the status quo. I appreciate a point that staff made in the memo, that These new categories acknowledge that a rich mixture of complementary uses can result in a more livable city. I agree with that. I also appreciate that fewer categories can allow for multiple outcomes at individual parcels, and I think that's important because as much as we would like to, we don't ultimately control the geography or the timeline of redevelopment on individual parcels.

[152:10] So I think those are both really important steps towards making the BBC more relevant and helpful to managing change as it might actually happen in the city. Within that, I strongly support the move to collapse and redefine those residential or neighborhood categories. I think on this planning board, we've seen time and again how often Density-based definitions of neighborhoods, where density refers to housing units per acre. Have really locked us into large lot, single unit housing in big areas of the city. And how that has worked over time against our affordability and mobility goals. I think the concept of Neighborhood 1 and Neighborhood 2, as you've started to draft them. capture in broad strokes what people feel living in and visiting different residential sites, and I'd encourage you to continue thinking about it that way, like how buildings and people interact with the public realm in each of these different kinds of places, from the street to even the sky. What do you see when you look around?

[153:18] I think Neighborhood 1 offers a path to open up and modernize older neighborhoods while preserving some of their essential feel that people value. That's something we've been struggling with a lot as a community. And I would say also following Laura, I hope that we won't put an artificial cap on the number of units in a Plex that might otherwise be compatible in those areas. I also appreciate that Neighborhood 2 has the potential to take some of the stigma off of high-density housing that we feel a lot of in our public discussions. And I think there's real potential there to recognize that residential areas that have a more urban feel Can and should be complete, livable neighborhoods and quality places in our community.

[154:05] I also support the evolution towards hubs as a concept there, in place of mixed or commercial land use designations. Again, I think this approach is coming more into line with how people actually experience places as they move around cities. Based on the level of activity, based on how frequently they visit, and things like that. I also think that hub concept is a really useful one for thinking about and planning for flows of people, and activity in the city. And these are things you can't really see in that existing land use map, right? Where you just have blocks of color. So, talking about hubs looks at more like a gravity model of where do people congregate, where does activity intensify? And I hope that eventually, like, using that kind of concept, we can also then better integrate, things like transportation and mobility into the BVCP, because you can start then taking deliberate steps to connect hubs in a network.

[155:01] That people can more easily navigate. And then my last comment is on this concept of fuzzy boundaries that Mark brought up. I think that's an important one. Especially if we're talking at the level of kind of an aspirational or advisory document, rather than legally binding things like zoning. I think fuzzy boundaries are important because sometimes there might be opportunities for appropriate overlap, right? Like, depending on, … when things come up for redevelopment, etc. You know, maybe you want something across the street, maybe that's an opportunity you don't already have. There's maybe appropriate opportunities for overlap between different place types. But also, if we can't have that kind of ambiguity in something like the land use map. That maybe to think going forward about, like, where you draw the lines, maybe that shouldn't be down the middle of streets, maybe it is… Including facing block faces in the same zone and putting those lines, kind of where we would expect to see, like, an alley or an access, the backs of the buildings, right? So that you keep those street faces together as you start to define the place types.

[156:09] I think that's it. Oh, sorry, there was the thing about community feedback. Sorry. Second question here. I'll admit I don't know what kind of community feedback would be useful to inform decisions about this kind of conceptual shift. I think it's really hard for people to engage at a conceptual level if they're not already thinking that way as part of their work or their activism, so these are hard questions to ask the general public. I do think that feedback at the scale of individual parcels, like, this block needs to stay Neighborhood 1, this corner should be a local hub. is not particularly helpful, but I think that we're likely to get a lot of that feedback from the community, no matter how you seek feedback. Because that's how people think, right? They think first about the places that they know, and how those places might change. I also think that George's comments about having an open survey really ring true for me. …

[157:05] that if you do use that as a tool, I think it's incredibly important that you set appropriate expectations for participants in that kind of survey instrument, but also for, yourselves as staff, and for the boards that are gonna get that feedback, like. what that actually is, where it comes from. I think that kind of feedback is likely to be very hot, it's likely to be very raw. And again, it's really hard to get that kind of feedback to address high-level concepts, because it hits emotionally. So, just those cautions. And I know that you understand that about those survey instruments, but… We still have to deal with whatever they produce, right? And we're responsible then for that feedback from the community. Great, thank you, Claudia. … I'll try to hit areas that haven't Been covered as much.

[158:01] … And… because I concur a great deal with both Claudia and Kurt. And, not to disagree with anyone, I just… my sentiment goes there. So, … You know, in my, … so far, for some years on… Planning Board. it has taken me a long time to understand the relationship between zoning and the BBCP land use map. I mean, it's like… I'm probably a slow learner, but gee whiz. And so, when we… I'm gonna kind of jump back and forth between answering question two and question one. When we talk about going out to the community. This is a topic that is you know, it's difficult for people. And so, you know, gee, I want to go out to the community and… and engage them on, you know. do we, you know, how do we do this, and do we do it, and under which circumstances, do we have fuzzy lines, do we have hard lines? You know, the average community member wants

[159:11] people like us to take care of this stuff. And so, I… and I concur in regard to surveys. Even statistically valid ones, generating, kind of, hot feedback that, … you know. people don't have time to understand a lot of the nuance. And so, anyway, it's a problem, I don't have a great solution for you. I can say that as someone that's involved in, … elections right now, and what is going on in election cycles, and what topics community members and, and candidates and stuff want to talk about. They do want to talk about code simplification. And they do want to talk about,

[160:01] you know, Title IX can be used as this kind of, yeah, the city, it's… it's… You want housing? Well, it's too hard to put housing… create housing. The city makes it difficult. So, I am… I would advocate for, And I am appreciative of the effort to simplify the map, and to simplify the code, and I do hope that, ultimately, we, We get there, and it does flow down into our use tables, which are… there's so much. The longer I'm here, the more appreciative I am of the recent efforts to simplify a number of things, and it's also the more I see just how exactly fine-grained so many aspects of our code are. And so. any effort, you know, a continuous simplification, a continuous improvement effort, yes. And, and I hope it…

[161:01] continuously flows down into, more comprehensible, more understandable, to average community members, and to council members who have to deal with so many other things other than land use that, you know, the complexities of our code, who they're ultimately responsible for. It's, it's, it's challenging for them while dealing with a million other things. Okay. … I am also, on a different topic, I am really appreci… I was… I was confused when I started equating, that you had conflated or cross-departmentalized, open space and parks. I went back and re-read what I was reading. I just had it wrong. So, anyway, but I do really appreciate You… the, … the incorporation of greenways into this, because,

[162:03] It's another thing I've learned about over time, and… These people have heard me say it before. Our greenways are the, you know, red-headed stepchild of our city, and they… but they're the heart of it. And so, I, I hope that by designating greenways, that, again, that, that a, … an accountability and a responsibility is generated from that, because right now, our greenways, they're plowed by transportation, sometimes they traverse OSMP property, sometimes it's parks property, sometimes it's just city property, sometimes it's… anyway, it's a mishmash. And, you know, I would love it if someone could say who the department head is in charge of our greenways, because, and it's also our, … water and sewer. And so, it's like, gee, is it Joe Tadayucci? Is it, you know, Allie Rose? Who looks after our greenways? So, I'm hoping that this map simplification and their emphasis on the map

[163:12] Would eventually lead to a, I think they're in pretty good shape, amazingly enough, without someone, without a cheerleader, without an advocate for them. … so, okay, that's Greenways. The final thing I'll say is, … I also appreciate the simplification of the map, because some of… and I've used this example on other occasions, some of our best and most lively and desirable areas are areas that, if you tried to put… strict zoning… I'll just say West Pearl, west of 9th to, like, 5th. we have… and then, two blocks, north, up towards Mapleton, and 2 blocks south to Canyon, you have 5-story apartment buildings, you have 3-story office buildings, you have condos, you have mansions. It's… it's totally mixed up, but wow, it's totally desirable.

[164:16] And I think, … and I think that's an example of some chaos that comes out great, and sometimes our incredibly fine point in our code. Doesn't yield, that kind of wonderful result. … Finally, you know, words matter, and in the descriptors, and I've seen us debate, and then correctly debate. Things like, well, it says duplexes, triplexes, but doesn't say fourplexes, or it says this number of bedrooms, but it doesn't say, you know, it doesn't address 5 bedrooms. And so, either make your descriptors

[165:01] broad enough that… that… or, say, not limited to, or the, you know, the kind of legal terminology, but if you're… if you're going to, say, 1, 2, and 3 bedroom, or, you know, duplexes and triplexes. do you mean to exclude fourplexes? Do you mean to exclude 5 units? Just be really careful with what you put in, because we tend to read stuff really carefully, and sometimes we get lost in interpreting those things. So… Anyway, but I think it's an excellent project, and I, commend everybody for, putting it forth. Okay. Any other final comments that anyone… one more bite at the apple here? Kurt? I meant to raise up ML's point about, in terms of question number two, asking about other places that people like as a model, or potentially other places that they want to make sure that Boulder doesn't become, right?

[166:05] So I think that that was a brilliant idea, and I think it relates a little bit to Mark's point, that it's really hard for people to engage about this on the abstract, but if they can point to this. This is what I want. That's great. My only concern about that is there is a certain exclusionary aspect to that, which is that it requires people to have traveled to various places, you know, and so not everyone will have had those kinds of experiences, so… just keep that in mind, I don't know how to solve that problem, but just keep it in mind. It's a gold band. Yo. Right. Okay, … Unless there's anything else, I'm gonna close item 6A, and, well, okay, any other, matters other than item A, under 6. Brad, do you have anything, or hello, any…?

[167:04] Anything from… Either of you? Nothing from me, thank you. Nothing for… for me, other than be ready for more to come. Okay. And, you've been warning us about two big agenda items, and so far we keep having one big agenda item, so I'm… I'm… I'm stealing… I'm practicing. There you go. Okay. Alright, … And, any matters from board members. K. The calendar is online, any debrief. If nothing, then we will adjourn at, 8.48. Longer than was planned, but still pretty good. Okay. Thank you all. Thank you. Good night.