March 24, 2026 — Planning Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

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

[0:04] Okay, good evening, all. And welcome to the March 24th, 2026 City of Boulder Planning Board meeting. I'm going to call the meeting to order, just a little bit late here, sorry about that. And, I'm going to try to remember to do a roll call, so I'd appreciate it if each board member… we're going to start with George, Just state your name and that you're present, and we'll go around the room. George Boone, last meeting, present. Kurt? Kurt Nordbach present. M.L. Roblesse present. Claudia Hansen theme, present. Laura Kaplan, present. Mason Roberts present. And Mark McIntyre present. Okay, we have a full group here tonight. Our second item is public participation, and, this is a chance for anyone from the public, either online or in the room.

[1:11] To make any comment about any matter other than are two… public hearing items, agenda items 5A and 5B, your com… you should hold your comments for those items until, until we hold our public hearing on those, but anything else is fair game, and Vivian is here to help us, with the, Rules of Decorum for, speaking at a public meeting. Vivian? Great, thank you. Thanks, Thomas, for pulling these up. Good evening, everyone. My name is Vivian Castro-Woldridge, and I'll just run through a couple slides. So first of all, I want to just share that the city has engaged with community members in the past to co-create this vision for productive, meaningful, and inclusive civic conversations that guide our public meetings. And this vision supports physical and emotional safety for

[2:02] Community members, staff, and board members, as well as democracy for people of all ages, identities, lived experiences, and political perspectives. And we have a lot more information about that process online. Next slide, please. And I'll just share a few examples of rules of decorum found in the Boulder Revised Code and other guidelines that support this vision, and all of these will be upheld during this meeting. All remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city business. No participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person. Obscenity, racial epithets, and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability to conduct the meeting are prohibited. And we ask that all participants in open comment or later public hearings introduce themselves using their first and last name. Next slide. And, if you are joining us online, I see somebody's already raised their hand, which is great. You can use the raise hand icon at the bottom of your screen. If you're joining us by phone, you can dial star 9, and it'll do the same function. And you can also get to the raised hand through

[3:13] Next slide. You can find it by hitting the reactions button, and then looking for the… for the raised hand. So this next part of the meeting is open comment. It's meant to address items that are not public hearing items later on the agenda. We have two, tonight, and each person would have 3 minutes to address the planning board. Maybe we can start in person? Is there anybody in person, Thomas? Thank you, Vivian. We do not have anybody signed up for open comment here in person, so we can go ahead and move to online. Okay, and so I mentioned we would appreciate if people introduced themselves by their first and last name. I can't… see your full name, so I'm just going to call on you, ME, first, and then the next person will be J. Zomatic, so please introduce yourself by your first and last name, and again, you have 3 minutes,

[4:09] Please go ahead. Hi, my name is Emmy Rao. I live directly behind 2717 Glenwood, which is, call-up item A. And so, I just wanted to get on here to… Speak up that we think this is a bad project. And… Don't really want this to move forward as planned. The existing building with 37 units is in, you know. old shape, and the proposal is to basically plop a new building directly in front of that building and directly behind my house. It would… be a couple of stories, I think three stories, that essentially looks into our house and obstructs all of the other existing apartments on that site.

[5:04] I think… It's… it's gonna go into what is the existing very full parking lot for that apartment complex, which would cause, you know, a number of parking issues on the street. The street that is directly adjacent is Glenwood Avenue, and that's already often very full from people who are at, the Rayback and Safeway and other places, and This particular complex did about, I don't know, several days of tree work, where none of the tenants there could park in the parking lot. And the overflow was insane, and that was with just the existing building there. It took up all of Glenwood parking, all of the adjacent streets, and so that's kind of my primary concern. And my secondary concern is that this would affect the value of my property, and in a negative way, so that's kind of my comment here on that item.

[6:15] Thank you. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for, being here tonight. Next, we have, Jay Zemetics, but please introduce yourself using your first and last name. Please go ahead. Sure. My name is Joe Zanadix. I'm also a resident near the 2717 Project that is on the… the docket for tonight. I mainly want to express my disappointment in the planning board, reading through the document. It's clear that there's no plan for parking or mass transit. Because I understand that the planning board is trying to make Boulder a more, public transit based community.

[7:04] But there are several problems with this in the area that's being development behind my house. One. There is one bus stop near this. Apartment complex, and it's not served very frequently. If anyone wanted to travel to Denver, South Boulder, or even downtown, they're going to have to take a transfer. Any thinking that people are going to not bring cars to these new units. is clearly not going to happen. They're going to park on the streets surrounding this property. I didn't see in their amended proposal any plan about asking residents not to bring cars. If anything, I think the Planning Council is putting the cart before the horse. It's up to RTD to increase public transit in Boulder and in this area. That's beyond the control of the city. And right now, there's not enough public transit to have people carless in this area of the city.

[8:05] To echo what ME said, Yes, this dilapidated building is just going to have a new building plopped in front of it. It's going to be an eyesore. It's going to be 3 stories high instead of 2. This area was not zoned for something like that originally. They are going to have a vantage point into people's houses behind them who bought this property before this prop… before the new development was proposed. I understand that City Council wants to make Boulder a denser, more public transited place, but currently it seems like their vision doesn't extend beyond the borders of 2717 Glenwood. So that's my public comment on this. Frankly, terrible plan. Thank you, Joe. Anyone else joining us online who wishes to speak?

[9:04] For this open hearing, which, again, is, not for topics related to the two public hearings later on. Okay. Buck, over to you, Chair. Great, thank you, Vivian. I'm going to extend our public comment, tonight to, staff and the board in, recognition of the last meeting of our senior planning board member, George Boone. And, I'll just begin by saying I've been thinking A lot about this, and, you know, there is… this saying about strength through diversity, and I think George has, served our community and served our board and planning and development services

[10:00] By being that, different voice, and bringing a perspective That is… is not always present. In, in other years and other planning boards, and so George has, I think, done us all a, a great service with his hard work, but especially with his perspective. And, I was reminded of this in a very recent meeting, where again, I won't go into which project or whatever, but because it's a site review, but I was, really struck and pleasantly, made aware of just how different this perspective is. When I had reviewed something and saw one thing, and George's comments were so sharp and right on, I just was like. Wow, I'm, you know, so glad he's here with us, and appreciative of his comments. So, anyway, George, we appreciate your service.

[11:03] And, wish you really good Tuesday nights, from here on out, as you, as you, take care of your family and travel and everything else. Anyway, the best to you, and if anyone else wants to say anything, now's the, now's the time to do it. Thank you. Kurt? Yeah, well, Mark just said pretty much what I would have said, but I just really appreciate. towards your thoughtfulness, and as Mark said, the differing perspective that you bring, and the insight, particularly on commercial finance and real estate and so on, which is something that most of us don't have. And so it's been really helpful to the board, it's been really helpful to the city, and so I'm very appreciative of your service here, and but yeah. I wish you… More, more free time.

[12:00] Ml? Hey, George. Oh, it's been such a pleasure to, to serve with you on Planning Board. board? Wow, there's 4 of you up here. Which one should I look at? I agree with what the comments made. Your deep knowledge on development and financials will be sorely missed, because we, relied, I think I definitely relied on your knowledge, and background, and clarity. You know, you would just say it. There wasn't any beating around the bush, and I really appreciate that. So, thank you. for your dedication and your service these 5 years, and I will see you around the hood. Pardon? So I expect that most people who follow this board and the issues that we work on would. always place George and I on the far opposite ends of almost any spectrum of positions that we take. And I think that we've probably both leaned into that at times pretty hard during the two years that we've been together on the board.

[13:05] For all those moments of disagreement, I want to say game recognizes game. George, you have been an effective advocate for your positions. I've also been surprised to align on some important and divided votes a number of times, and I've shared a lot of those moments with both Council and with members of the community, because I think they remind people that in the end, we are all neighbors in this place. And we really have to keep re-knitting the fabric of this community. as others have said, one thing I think I'm going to particularly miss Is George's expertise on the subject of commercial property markets. As someone who fundamentally wants to understand how absolutely everything works, I really appreciate you sharing that perspective that I don't otherwise have good access to. Especially when that perspective is cynical.

[14:00] As decision makers and humans, I think we are at our absolute best when we are deeply curious, and you have definitely challenged me, and hopefully all of us, in that direction. Thanks for being with us. Not a whole lot to add here, that hasn't already been said. The only thing I think I can… can add is just that I just really appreciate how much I've learned from you personally, myself. Mainly through all the things that have been mentioned, your experience, and your perspectives are… are… Not where I would, default from, but you've definitely pulled me towards by being, just very thoughtful and a good communicator. So, thank you, and I hope that… hope that you show up to a couple meetings before you ever see us go in the wrong direction. Oh, yeah. Laura? So I get to go last year and just put a big fat exclamation point on everything that everybody said.

[15:02] George, I think you're hearing that you have been very much appreciated, even and especially when people have differed with you. I will admit that in my first year or two of planning board. There was probably some friction between some of the newer members and some of the more longer-serving members, and I had some assumptions about differences in philosophy or differences in goals that I came to see were unfounded. And I think, I think we all do deeply love the city of Boulder, and maybe might have some different perspectives on the best way to care for her, but that love is real, and the difference of perspectives that we represent on the board, I think it reflects the community's diversity. As Mark said, the diversity is our strength. And so, George, you will be sorely missed, and I'm just going to pull out one example, one concrete example that came to mind. It was just a couple meetings ago, and maybe this is what you were referring to, Mark, when, George, you were the only person on the board who had in mind that there may be a gap in our code related to the provision of accessible parking. due to the changes in our parking code, where we no longer have parking minimums. And I think that recognition is just one example of the ways in which you have daylighted issues, made us think about things that other people just don't see.

[16:11] And so, George, it's been a true pleasure serving with you, and seeing how you approach the matters that this board is entrusted with, and you… the… you will be missed, and the board will be impoverished for your absence. Great, thank you. And Brad? Yeah, Brad Mueller, Planning and Development Services Director, and I certainly invite other team members to speak as well, but… just want to say on behalf of the city that, I only learned tonight that George was one of the longer-standing members, so that's good news to know. Actually, George was one of the first, planning board members I met with after I started, so… It was insightful, George. I don't know if you remember that. Right. But, he gave me some great insights into,

[17:02] Not only the planning board, but really the community more at large, and some of the history, Which was something, frankly, I've been trying to gather ever since I started, was different people's perspectives of the history and… and… various values throughout that, and it was really valuable to do that, and get that from George's perspective, and I've valued that ever since. I think speaking for the city as a whole, and staff, we've appreciated many of the things you all mentioned, which is the diversity of thought, the diversity of expertise that each of you brings, and George, you will be missed. So, thanks for your service as well. We, we always recognize, that you all are not getting paid for this. We are, but, But we know that you spend a lot of hours doing this work, so thank you very much. Well, thanks everyone, and I know the feeling from staff as well, so I…

[18:02] I appreciate everyone's comments. I feel the same. I've learned a ton and enjoyed all the differing perspectives on the board, and truly looking forward to seeing everyone around the hood. Thank you. Great, thanks, George. And, congratulations on your graduation. Okay, Thomas. Is that going to be an in-person? Is it, Are you willing to speak to one of the

[19:08] Just talking about… So… so now would be the time to do that. We're… we're… I have not closed the public participation portion yet, and so if you'll give that to Thomas, and then you can make your way… excuse me, sir. Yeah, if you can make your way over to the, the podium… And, Brad will… and then, Just, state your name, and you'll have up to 3 minutes. Okay, before I… . start, and I'd like to let you know I've got a speech deficit from. rumor. So, if I… if you can't stand… understand me, Please, say so. You know, in the movie field of dreams.

[20:05] Kevin Costner famously said that if it… if you build it, They will come. And that's true for a lot of things. And… About… 2010… I'm thinking a lot of Boulder residents have been… Thinking that… the essence… A boulder? It's going downhill, and it's being replaced by whatever it is, and it's… I think it's mainly population growth, and tempting to… Account for that? That's well and good, but… It shouldn't be at the cost of the people who've been there for a long time.

[21:01] One thing that I'm really mad about is these micro, or mixed-use, Buildings and real ta… real… Tail ispicious, especially. When you had… have so many… Open retail spaces. Why bother to… Build even more. When you can't fill the ones that you already have. I… I mean, it's not exactly your, dominion, but… I think that anything that's mixed retail or fully real estate, Should be, moratorium.

[22:00] And… on the… Point 2. Wait, it can't. Can I… Can I have a second? We'll be glad to take your time, and we'll be glad to give you a few extra seconds. Okay. Point 2… I may have mixed them… all together. Yeah, so… They shouldn't be… Getting rid of the good things. And at this point, I think… In this relentless bill, or… Relentless, search for…

[23:14] new housing. It is finally affected. Perfect thing. the… Residents have been here. for decades, Maybe it's centuries. Maybe not. Oh, yes. Some of us are, yes. Yeah. So… Oh. I went to the… Presentation on… The 10th, I think it was. And… I… It's, time… climate change, that's the other one. And I appreciate the thoughtfulness.

[24:04] at a… put through on… The hubs, or the duplexes and triplexes. And… it's… Kind of… distressing for me, because… Boulder used to be a small… urban area. Not Denver. I'm gonna. we've gone over, but I'm gonna give you one minute now, start it now, and if you could wrap it up, that would be great, okay? But we appreciate you coming tonight, but go ahead and get… give you a minute. What was I talking about? Your, your participation in the, event recently? I appreciate that stuff, but I think it's… too late for that kind of thing. We're just run out of… space right now. And,

[25:07] Climate change is another way… reason why we don't need to be Expanding or increasing our population, because As our, snowpack gets less and less, you know, you're… you know. Two years, and then one year, and a drought is coming. I don't see any point in running the risk of having a system or city that can't supply all the water. Great. I think that's… that was just perfect. Thank you very much. But could you tell us your name, please? James Pollack. There we go. Okay, I'm James Palmer. Pollack? Pollack, okay, great. Thank you, James. We appreciate your attendance tonight.

[26:01] Okay, I am, unless there's anyone else that's arrived, I am going to close our agenda item to public participation. And we are going to move on to, our agenda Item 3, approval of minutes. And we begin with, Agenda Item 3A, the February 3rd, 2026 Planning Board meeting minutes are scheduled for approval. Can, First, Brad, would you mind turning that microphone off? Just in case it's causing an echo? Thank you. Thomas, can we just confirm that all of the edits that were submitted by board members have been incorporated in all of the sets of minutes that are in the packet? Yes, they are. Okay, thank you. Okay. Then I would be happy to move the approval of the February 3rd, 2026 Planning board meeting minutes.

[27:03] Second. Okay. Any, any, I should have called for any other comments, but we've done that, so we'll just, actually, hold on. Is it… do we do… Since we have so many tonight, if we don't have any… if the board doesn't have any, changes to any of them. Can we do them en masse, or do we need to do it I think you can approve them en masse. Okay. Okay. So, given that, does anyone… so we… we had online discussion and edits, and again, Laura is to be commended for, her… diligent work, and Thomas, too, putting them together, Laura for editing, and we all get the benefit of reading their, edits. So, anyway, does anyone have any

[28:03] Issues, concerns, comments, or questions regarding, items 3A through F. Okay, then I would entertain a motion to approve them all. I would like to move to approve the February 3rd, 2026, May 27th, 2025, November 18, 2025, December 2nd, 2025, December 16th, 2025, and March 3rd, 2026, Planning Board Meeting Minutes. Second. Okay, I'll… I'll take a vote, and, I'll ask if you were not present, for any of those meetings. You just note your lack of presence for those that, that, any particular meeting. Okay, we're gonna start with Kurt. We're voting, or we're saying whether we were present? We're voting, but if you… you're voting to approve, but just… and if you were not present at any of those meetings, you're voting to approve all except for the one that you were absent from.

[29:10] So, my vote is yes, and I believe I was present for all of these. Great, thank you. ML? My vote is yes, and I believe I was absent for one of them. Okay. But you don't know which one? Okay, alright. Well, we'll note that you were… you might have been absent for when, Claudia? Yes. And I was here for all of them. Okay, Laura? Yes, and I was present for all of them. Mason? Yes, and I beside all of them. Okay, and George? Yes, and I was also at all of them. And I'm a yes, but I believe I was absent from the December 16th meeting. So, anyway, we have approved All of those minutes. Okay, we move on to item 4. Item 4A is a call-up item. Call-up is a site review, for the partial redevelopment of the 1.8-acre property at 2717 Glenwood Drive.

[30:10] The existing 37-unit, L-shaped residential building would remain And a new 22-unit residential building would be added on a portion of the existing parking lot with new associated multimodal infrastructure, gathering spaces, landscaping, and other site improvements. This application is subject to a potential call-up on or before March 31st. 2026. So now is the time for any board member to ask staff, questions, about this project, and, and or ask questions that might lead to a call-up. ML? Yes, thank you. So I… excuse me, I have two questions. Do we know what the code requirement might be for energy update, on the building that will be remaining?

[31:14] Hi, Shannon Moeller with the City of Boulder. Yeah, I'm not sure what type of energy code update would be involved with that building. So we might have a brand new building on the site, and we might have a building that is significantly older and less… oh, I see Charles. Charles? Yeah, Charles Farrell, Planning and Development Services. I think it depends on how much the. existing building is, disturbed, or how many, how much, the valuation of improvements that go into the building, I think, will determine the amount of compliance that we'll have to demonstrate, so I think that's to be determined. Okay. And my second question is, do we know how many healthy, mature trees are being removed by this plan?

[32:01] Out of the 54 total trees, it looks like 18 will be removed and 36 will be preserved. Thank you so much. Claudia. two questions, hopefully quick. Could you remind us, does the proposal use some principles for parking management? Yes, the, applicants noted some principles in their TDM plan. Okay, thanks. I wanted to confirm that based on some of the public comment. And then the second question is, we have an information item about this bike and pedestrian easement, on the north side of the site at the end of our packet today. And it looks like that, at least at one point, would have facilitated a connection to grapewood, and I'm curious what the, what the history of that easement is, and why vacating it is necessary to this project as submitted. So that's something we could answer now, even though that's a information item later?

[33:10] I think I can speak to that. There's a detention or stormwater improvements that are planned for that area of the property, so that's why that easement would need to be vacated. There's no… there's no planned connection through, like, the TMP that would necessitate or require any type of bike path connection in that area of the site, so that was identified as, something that could… could be vacated, And I believe the easement dates back to the early 70s, when this area was originally platted. Okay, so the stormwater detention that's planned is actually part of the site review that we're looking at?

[34:01] Yeah, that would be planned, as part of this site review. Thank you. So, just to… just to be clear, I'll colloquy on this. this… Easement. doesn't show up as a connection, not only in the TMP, but any of the connections plans, or anything that doesn't… This is… okay. Alright? Any other… Laura? I have a few. Thank you, Shannon. My first question is, why is this coming to us as a call-up and not a site review? Why isn't it a hearing before the board? We did see it as a concept plan, so I'm just confused about what the fork in the pathway is here. Yeah, so for site reviews, it's only going to be a public hearing if they are requesting certain things that come before the board. So at this point, that's mostly to do with height modifications. In the past, it also included projects that included a parking reduction, but now.

[35:02] Parking requirements are no longer… A thing, so it wouldn't include those anymore. Okay, so that's why we saw it as a concept review, because there used to be the parking reduction requirement. And so, if this were a brand new project going through concept review, it wouldn't come to planning board. So our… sorry, just to clarify, so our code, just based on the size of the property, requires certain projects to come as a concept plan. And as a site review. So this is one where just the size of the property meets that. If it wasn't for that threshold, they're not requesting any modifications or anything of that nature, so if that was not a threshold, it wouldn't need any type of site review. Okay, I guess I'm just still confused of why did we see it as a concept review, but we're not seeing a site review hearing, we're just getting it as a call-up. So the code requires, based on the size of the property, that it come as a concept plan, and then it's coming as a site review, and it's a staff-level review that can be called up, but it doesn't require a public hearing because there's no height modification request.

[36:09] Okay, alright, I think I understand now, thank you. colloquy on that. Just to clarify, Shannon, it seems to me the difference is that there's no such thing as staff-level concept review. Is that correct? Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, go before the board. Yeah, okay, thanks. Thank you. I did have a question about the Paseo, and how that relates to the building entrances. Can you pull up a diagram showing the Paseo and help us understand how people where are people coming from when they get into that Paseo? Because it… I wasn't sure where the building… how the building entrances relate. I can try to do that. We do have our applicant team here on the line, if that would be a question that would be better, that they could walk you through a little bit, if you would like.

[37:03] Well, I'll defer to you on that. Sounds like… sounds like Mark might enjoy that. And who should we, promote, Shannon? It looks like Molly is ready to share. Great. Hi, everyone, can you hear me? We can, thank you. Okay, so I'm Molly Beatien, I work with Rubicon Development. You know, our architects, Bob might, and our, my other development team, Michael. might be able to help me with this, but I can pull up the architectural plans, and we can kind of walk you through how that Paseo has been reworked, and just how… how you can walk through it.

[38:03] Yeah, I think that'd be really, really helpful. And to address one of the earlier questions as well. As part of this, you know, we're trying to accomplish a lot of different things, you know, we… listen to… The comments at our concept plan review about… and we're also trying to meet the goals of you know, what we think Boulder is after in preservation of existing housing. Doc, we will be… Yes, we appreciate that, but if you could just stick to the question, we're trying to keep it a little bit brief. I'm sorry, I don't… Okay, yeah, I don't mean to be… Long. But I… there was a question about the energy efficiency. We do plan on some energy efficiency updates on the existing building. So is… has Bob been promoted? Do we know? Yes. on the Caddis Collaborative. Regarding the Paseo, you know, I think that the main intent behind that component of the site plan was really to

[39:10] establish a more clearly defined circulation path through the site. Right now, that particular area of the site is essentially head-in parking adjacent to a walk that fronts the. I'm sorry, could we see a diagram? A lot of us are very visual. Could we pull up a diagram of the Paseo, and then just help us understand how people are going to use it? Sorry, was that something that is available on your end, or is that something you need me to pull up? Rob, you'll have to pull it up. I think you just do share screen at the bottom. Apologies, I… Molly, if there's any chance you have that, I wasn't prepared to…

[40:01] to pull something up, I don't have it on my screen, and I've got to remote into my… Or, Shannon, if you. can share. I just requested it, so… And then, just as a heads up, I'm also going to have questions about the, gathering space along the Elmer's Two Mile Creek area, the new area there, and roofline variation, just so that maybe someone can prepare to pull those images up as well. Yep. Okay, Bob, what page do you want me to go to? I'll keep going back to the site plan. There you go. You can zoom, zoom in a little bit there. So, the light gray area is the, the existing building, as you know, and the Paseo is going… is going to be hardscaped with an 8-foot-wide walkway, that bisects the existing and the new building. There'll be new landscaping on both sides of that walkway, really to… to establish a more articulated and pleasant

[41:11] circulation spine between… between the two buildings. One that I… I think we… we all feel is much improved from what… what exists currently. Some of the, some of the concepts… From concept review, that's increased significantly to… I think we're at almost 30 feet, maybe, in some areas. 25? Could you please help us understand the relationships, the building, entrances and exits? How are people going to get in and out of that Paseo? Well, so the existing building, there would be a series of of connection points to… to the attached, walkway of the existing building, and then everything on the, on the west side of the Paseo, or of the walkway.

[42:01] adjacent to the new building will all be, landscaped. There won't be direct access from the Paseo to those units, really for security purposes. But, or privacy purposes, maybe, is a better way to think about it. So the access to the… the new building from the Paseo will be, either out at the main walk, there's stair access down at the south. Stair 1, and then there's also a covered walkway, to the north of the new building, just adjacent to the new parking. So I don't… can we… can we look at the rendering pages? That might… that's probably a better illustration of… of how the… that space is intended to feel, and I might be able to answer your questions about access a little bit more, more clearly. The, yeah, the perspective renderings, I think, yeah, keep going, it might be at the very end, Molly.

[43:04] Yeah, keep, keep, keep going. Those are… yeah, here we go. So, that middle image is maybe… is one of the better, I guess, illustrations of what that pose was intended to feel like. you know, there will be, you know, bollard lights, and you can see the landscaping in the relationship of the two-story to three-story. You know, that's… you know, some of the earlier iterations of this design, when we were really trying to maximize parking, had that lower level of the new building as a sort of an opaque wall with some, perforations as, as, when that was parking, on that level. And by putting units down on, on that level, it, it. It really does help, I think, give that a more human scale, and in a more inviting… inviting circulation path. Thank you, so if I'm understanding correctly, it sounds like the Paseo will be primarily used by folks in the old building.

[44:06] Or potentially. I would, I, yeah, I think that's, I think that's accurate, yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, but it also connects to the courtyard, so… right? True. It does have, you know, this leads to the courtyard. Which isn't exactly shown here, but it does connect to the entire site. Yeah, that's right. In a very organic way. Yeah, that… that top… that top middle image that you're… that you're pointing to, Molly, yeah, that's… that's a good illustration. That… that's… that's the continuation of the Paseo on the left… Lower left side, portion of that image. And you can see that it connects to the parking lot, it connects to the… to the, to the green space, to… on the right-hand side of that image. I don't know if we have an image of that. to figure out how people in the new building will use the Paseo, because they're not… when they come out of their units to get to the parking lot, they don't walk on it. And when they want to go out of the building to get to Glenwood.

[45:06] I'm not sure they would walk on it either, but that's not necessarily a deal-breaker, I'm just trying to understand it. Thank you very much. I did want to ask also, just quickly, if you would, about the open space by Elmer's Two Mile Creek. I didn't… I didn't notice a rendering of that in the packet. Was there a rendering? I'm not sure if we have a rendering. You know, there might be something in the landscape package, I apologize if that's… that might not be in here, but yeah, that… so everything on the… on the lower right. They're, you know, right now, that space is not being utilized at all, so the… the idea here was to… to provide a… a crushed refined connection, that comes around the south side of the existing building and connects to a detention and a lawn area for, for recreation and some new landscaping. So. Thank you, and does that connect to the Elmer's Two Mile Creek path?

[46:01] It does not, not directly. No, not directly. You would come out to the main… Through the city sidewalk, yeah. Through the city sidewalk. Yeah, so you can see this is the Paseo here. So then we have this path that goes over to that kind of new games lawn, and then this is the city sidewalk where you would connect to. That path is over here. Okay, and is the… this area, is it public access, or is it a residential amenity? This new area that you're adding. The new landscaped area is… Obviously, on private land, but the… obviously, the connection with the new city-improved sidewalk that's being proposed is… Obviously, gonna be city right-of-way. Okay, thank you. And then, just a quick question about the roofline variation. In the packet, it says, the proposed building design provides variety in roof forms and heights, including multiple projections and recessions of the roof form on each facade, multiple roof heights, and areas of both sloped and flat roofs.

[47:13] And could you just show us some images of that? I wasn't really understanding what you meant by that, because it looks to me like the building's at a pretty consistent 3-story height. Yeah, I think it was… it was a little challenging to have too much variation in height between… between elements, but… but each of the massing elements on the building do vary, you know, between 6 inches to a foot. The patio, you know, if you look at that front elevation, for example, the The stone accent around the main entry and the stair tower are at the highest elevation, and then the next material would step down. another 8 to 12 inches, and then the roof lines above the porches or the balconies on the units, are… are more of a shed roof feature that drop down another foot.

[48:08] So, yeah, the differentiation in heights isn't dramatic, but it's… it's been carefully considered and deliberate based on the material of each individual plane. And is that… is that mostly a variation in the facade heights, or is that the actual roof is different? The actual roof is different as well, yeah. Okay. Alright. Thank you. Those are my questions. Okay, any other questions, or… Items that… does anyone want to call this up, or have any more questions? Okay. Looking around. George, I can't see you, but you would let us know if you… We're interested in calling this up. Okay, that… concludes… Oops.

[49:02] I believe… Go back to my agenda here. that, closes item 4A, the item was not called up. Okay, we're now moving on to, our public hearing items. We begin with public hearing item 5A. which is a public hearing and recommendation to City Council Regarding proposed Ordinance 8745, Amending Title IX, Land Use Code, and Title X structures, Boulder Revised Code, 1981, to fix errors, clarify existing code, and amend certain height use, certain height, use, form, and general land use code standards. and setting forth related detail. So, we have a staff presentation that, 10 or 15 minutes tonight? Okay. And, we'll ask clarifying questions from the board. We will then have a public hearing.

[50:06] And, then the board will deliberate on its recommendations. But, we're ready to begin. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Chair. Good evening. My name is Lisa Hood, I'm a principal planner. With planning and development. development services, I am looking forward to going over this omnibus Code Amendment. with you tonight. As the chair mentioned, this is a brief presentation, but happy to answer any questions at the end of the presentation. The purpose of this item being on your agenda tonight is for you to make a recommendation to City Council on Ordinance 8745, The reason we are calling it the omnibus, omnibus means the, something of many parts, and so, as you can tell in the ordinance, it's many different topics that we've covered and addressed, but they can all kind of be summed up in four different categories. They are corrections. clarifications… either issues with consistency with state or other requirements, or some of our existing city practices, and then also lessons learned. So, looking back at previous ordinances that we've adopted, addressing some issues that have emerged through the implementation of those as we've applied those to actual projects and proposals.

[51:19] You all will remember, George in particular, since he was here for all of these, for… in the last 5 years, City Council has adopted 25 different ordinances that have modified the Land Use Code. So, inevitably, there will be cleanups and things to fix as we, amend it, and so there's, a number of cleanup clarifications, corrections, things like that, as well as some more discrete, substantive issues. Another way, and the way that I kind of grouped them in the memo, and I'll talk about them tonight, is, the topics relate to several of our, kind of, larger ordinance projects that we've worked on, so I'm gonna go through them in kind of that thematic

[52:06] manner tonight. The first is related to the use table and standards, project. Some of you may have been on the board when we passed, three different modules of use table and standards updates. We have some corrections, clarifications, and issues that are addressed related to the use table and standards. Throughout the presentation, the little triangle thing is identifying just kind of the more substantive or substantial changes. The ones without the triangle next to them are kind of more clarification, correction types. So, I will go briefly over each one of these so that you're, just familiar with each one that's in the ordinance, but I'm happy to go into more detail or answer questions at the end on any of these. So first is related to removing our combined floor area limits for office uses. This was actually something that was, adopted by Council in 2019 with, due to a concern of office uses taking up too much

[53:04] room in the, business districts. Obviously, there's been a really significant change in office market and commercial leasing after 2019. After COVID. This combined floor area limit is… has, after 7 years, proven to be an extremely difficult standard to administer. It essentially, While it has had good intentions, what the outcome is that a lot of small businesses, small offices. Come in to try to get their business license, and we have to figure out what the combined amount of office uses in an entire shopping center or office building are, and that's put on the applicant. So, it's definitely challenging administratively for both staff and the applicant, and the outcome is really just putting, making it more difficult to get business licenses for those small businesses. So that's what we've seen over the last 7 years. It's not exactly working as intended. It's a really challenging standard to administer. So we've recommended removing that combined floor area limit for the office uses.

[54:10] Second one related to use table and standards is just to clarify a requirement for accessory dwelling unit utilities, or ADU utilities. Since the early 80s, we… Boulder has required that ADUs share utilities with the principal dwelling unit. In a major ADU update in 2018, we removed that explicit standard from this part of the code, because it was duplicative of what's in our design and construction standards, which is the engineering document. However, that has caused some confusion that it's now not in the land use code. So this just puts it back in, and so… and refers to the design and construction standards. So, that's not a substantive change, but it does put that back in land use code. So, another one of those lesson learned examples. Some of the smaller ones related to use table and standards, just relocating a standard that currently lives in the definition for vehicle services… uses, into the use standards where it should be.

[55:06] Our mobile feed vehicle or food truck standards are very complex. They were adopted in 2011. There may be future work to simplify those, but for now, we just wanted to reorganize the standards because they're really challenging to read. And so this is just a reorganization and some clarification about how food trucks… Can be used in parks, and then a slight tweak to the licensing term. Finally, related to Use Table, this is related to small cell wireless communications facilities. There was a major update, you'll remember last year, where we focused on that, but it was kind of happening simultaneously to a state bill. And so this just, does a few small tweaks to, align… make sure that the code is aligned with the… how that state bill ultimately was adopted. That's a use table.

[56:00] Another major ordinance that was adopted in the last 5 years was the site review criteria. These changes… The first, is related to the height modification request, so it provides… right now, we have 9 different scenarios, essentially, that… where projects can request a height modification through site review. This adds a tenth option, so it's for 3-story buildings for certain uses. It's our community uses, and arts uses, things like that, to request the height modification. They're still subject to all the same standards, and site review criteria and things like that. It really just opens the opportunity to request that height modification. Secondly, these are more just cleanup items, but clarifying a concept plan exception in some of the recent updates to the site review threshold table. We made more projects accepted from site review, so this just clarifies that those projects that don't have to do site review also don't have to do concept review.

[57:00] Our concept plan review. Then finally, when we reorganized the site review threshold table, we made it a lot easier to read, but we put something in a footnote that, could just go in a cell. And so that's just changing it, from a footnote to a cell, another one of those just cleanup items. More recent ordinance, the access management and parking strategy, specifically the parking ordinance. An issue has popped up as we've started to apply that project, where, the… that we were trying to address through this ordinance, which is to allow parking to, take place in existing driveways after a garage is converted. So, if you look at the little image, if… this is kind of a common scenario where there's a small single-car garage that's converted into living space. The issue is whether the driveway can remain and whether cars can still park in that driveway, even though they're not ultimately ending up in a garage. The way that we drafted it in the AMPS ordinance last year.

[58:04] In order to park in the garage and keep that driveway, you would have to have parking that's out of the landscape setback. And so it was, as some folks were converting some of their parking spaces to living uses, they would then have to remove their driveway. And so this fixes that issue and allows the parking to remain on those existing driveways where they have probably been doing that for decades. It's just really… The difference between where Where the driveway leads to. And then there's another just correcting a reference in the parking section. There's also a number… so those are kind of the thematically, arranged ones, but there's also a number of clarifications and just miscellaneous items. The first being removing one of our side yard, setback standards. It's something that, applies only to non-residential uses, but essentially in districts where they would have a either 0 or 12-foot setback at the ground floor, there's a really

[59:07] confusing standard about how… what the upper story setbacks… setbacks need to be. In a couple of code changes, we've tried to clarify that section. And I think we're at the point now where, we looked into the history of it, we realized that it had a lot to do with what the building code was when that code was first adopted in 1999 and 2000, and, The building code has changed since then. You can build fire-rated walls all the way up to zero feet, and so the, reason for having this standard is not really relevant 26 years later, and is just causing confusion, so we're recommending Removing that. Finally, or not finally, next, there's still more. The next is, we had, in the process simplification ordinance two years ago that was adopted, we,

[60:01] created this new minor use review process. It's been working really well. There's a number of site changes that projects can complete and still go through the minor use review project, process, so things like landscaping or installing bike parking, things like that, you could still do a minor use review. We've had a few examples come through that just want to propose fencing. But that wasn't in the list of, kind of exempted site changes, and so, staff recommends adding fencing as one of those things that folks can still get a minor use review and not have to go through the full use review if that change is proposed. The next one is related to the recent water-wise landscaping, bill, or ordinance. There was also a state bill. This just updates the scope of that, what that ordinance applies to, to make sure that we're aligning correctly with the state requirements. The next is just a reorganization related to our subdivision standards and utilities, just for clarity of reading.

[61:06] We're updating some enforcement fees to align with similar case types. And clarifying some definitions and updating definitions of accessory structure, especially since COVID, accessory structures have been used for many more things, like gyms and offices and things like that, and so we were operating under decades-old definition of accessory structure that we thought could use some tweaking. And then, also, the building coverage definition has been aligned to, or has been changed to align with what our threshold is for when a building permit is required, which is 120 square feet. And then, throughout, there's just a number of cleanups and cross-reference errors that, when you're doing 25 different ordinances in the manner of a year, or a few years. just happen. So those are all the changes. There were a couple, that just as staff has been discussing this in the last week since your packet was, published. There's one graphic that our staff thought it would be helpful to have this little tag. It's an existing graphic, but it just explains where height is measured up to.

[62:14] And then we're also working with, a, expert in small cell wireless, just to make sure that our definitions, they're currently in Title VII of the code, but, we may mirror those and put those in the land use code. So, not substantive, but something else that might be in the City Council version of the ordinance. That's the, that's it for the omnibus amendment. Again, I'm happy to add more detail, I just wanted to make sure I'd hit all the points at least a little bit, and we have a suggestion motion, but I'm happy to take any questions. Great, thank you, Lisa and staff. That was a great presentation, and well organized. I appreciate the, kind of, putting things together in a way that

[63:00] It doesn't seem just endlessly random, so thank you very much for that. Okay, now it's time for questions for staff, especially clarifying questions that, would educate us all. Anybody have questions that want to lead us off? Mason? Yeah, just a few. On the height modification pathway, Why 3 stories? 3 stories is the limit in many of our districts, and so it just, ensures that we're encapsulating the majority of what those maximum height limits in terms of stories are. So why isn't it based on the district? Well, it includes many different districts. Oh, I guess if. I guess if… if one of these uses was to be in a district that doesn't have the three-story minimum Yeah. Or maximum, I mean, sorry. Then, yeah.

[64:02] Then… sorry, I'm… am I missing… I'm just wondering if they can still request, given that 3 stories is in… in here. Like, if they were… if they were in a district that allowed 4, and they wanted to do 4, could they still… It's up to… so the way that we've drafted it is only if the building is up to three stories. Up to… okay, so this is just… Yeah, so a four-story could not request. Reading comprehension. Got it. Right. I'll just add that… Part of the reason for this is that prior to the, update to our site review criteria that added community benefit, I think it was… 2017. that we did this. You could ask for a two-story, 3-story, 4-story, or 5-story building above the height limit, but the direction we got at that time was to allow height modifications for only four- or five-story buildings, so that you can have a bonus floor area that, determines the number of bonus units or in-loo fees. And it made it more difficult to do a three-story building, as part of that process, and that was intentional at that time.

[65:07] But we've found some circumstances where there might be some added flexibility by allowing 3 stories for certain types of uses. My confusion came in with the… the up 2. I would… I would… Like, the way my brain's working is that it would be at least… but up to 5, like, for some reason, but I see what you're saying. So as long as that's clear to everyone else, then I'm good. And then one other question on office use, the floor area limits, the complete wipe of that. I appreciate your explanation, it actually answered many of my questions here. The one question that I have is, is there an allowed use in these zones already for office, and that now that these are wiped away, they just buy right, essentially? Correct, yeah. So there were, that was the use standard, and it would establish the, the review process. So if it was under the certain limit, then it would be an allowed use. If it was over, it would be a conditional use, and then use review if it was beyond that. So then, in this case, any office use would just be allowed.

[66:11] And I saw that the… the max, like, the combined floor were… were in there, but there were also a series of others that you didn't mention. Were those removed just… I didn't see that pointed out in your discussion. Which one? Let me scroll… One second. So… like… So, A is the 40,000 square foot, B is another condition that could be met… I could read it. Dwelling units are constructed on the same lot or parcel within the area of the same approved site review, planned unit development, or form-based code review. At least 13% of those dwelling units meet the requirement for permanently affordable units set forth in Chapter

[67:06] I believe that's 9, I can't read the number because of the line through it. Yeah. So why did we wipe these other ones, too? Those… that's what I was saying, that, that this is all establishing a different review process based on how much office use was on the property, and so these were the conditions if you were at a certain amount. In the last 7 years, it's… nothing has ever tripped a conditional use or a use review. So, that's what I was saying, that it really just has been falling into the allowed use category anyway, and creating a lot of work for, like, an 800-square-foot office trying to go into a space. And when I hear that, the reason that nothing's came up that's triggered, that raises a red flag to me, because, you know, the absence of evidence isn't always evidence of absence. So, do you think that these standards being in here have stopped? Any folks from coming forward to start with?

[68:01] No, I would say, I mean. conjecture, but I would say it's COVID and the la- the… there's not been a lot of large office proposals. Since COVID. Got it. That's all my questions. Thanks, Mason. Laura? Thank you, Lisa, for the presentation, and Lisa and Carl for your work on this. I do have just a few questions. So the… using the minor use review process for fencing. I'm wondering how the… does this apply, or how does it relate to if somebody has an approved site review, and they want to put in new fencing? If they have an approved site review, it depends whether they would be subject to a use review as the use, so those would be separate items. So if it is subject to a use review and they need to add fencing, then they could do a minor use review in order to add that fencing. If it's not subject to use review, then the site review would probably just be a minor

[69:09] I… Well, let me introduce myself, because I didn't before. Carl Geiler, playing in Development Services. Typically fencing kind of depends on the site review or the PUD that was approved, like, if they had specifications. A lot of times, if they're just adding fencing, they don't… it might just be a permit, you know, they may not have to do anything. At most, it might be a minor modification, which is a staff-level approval to allow the fencing. The reason why I'm asking is because we've had a couple of site review cases where fencing was proposed, and this board said, no, it's inappropriate. And usually it was being proposed to block public access to something that we didn't want public access blocked to. And so I guess my question is, does this code change Allow someone with an approved site review to come in later and get that done without any eyes on it from Planning Board. This change wouldn't affect that circumstance. This is really for,

[70:04] uses that might have to add fencing, like a daycare or something, they're required by licensing to add fencing for a play area, and so this gives them the pathway to do a minor use review instead of a use review. Okay, I just… I just was concerned. about those cases where in a site review, we specifically said we don't want something fenced or gated. Could this be used to get… to achieve that? And it sounds like the answer is no. Right. Okay, thank you. And I apologize for not understanding all the intricacies of how the different review processes work. In terms of the ADUs sharing utilities, I get that you're trying to avoid confusion with what's in the DCS. Is there any thought to potentially changing that in both places to allow for separately metered utilities with ADUs? And the reason why I'm asking that is because, we are trying to encourage the use of ADUs as rentals to add to the city's housing stock. And having combined utilities can encourage people to be less careful with how much gas they use, or how much electricity they use. I've personally lived in shared housing that did not, at that time, have separately metered gas, and people would

[71:10] have these outdoor patio heaters like you see in restaurants with gas flames and gas fireplaces, and just use them wantonly because they weren't being billed. So that's a personal example, but I do think that some landlords might appreciate the ability to separately bill their tenants if they're renting out their ADU. Looks like Brad. I am so passionate about this that I came up to the podium. Do you mind? Yeah, go ahead. Okay, so Brad Mueller, Planning Director. There are many, many, many reasons why it's important that they not be separately metered. And it's one of those onions that the more you peel back, the more complicated it gets. It starts with the fact that Accessory dwelling units, by definition, are an accessory. They're not, they are not a dwelling unit. They are not a housing unit, and it's important that we

[72:01] Qualify them and quantify that in… for a whole variety of ways, having to do with Everything from how units get counted for official documents to how water court determinations were made years and years ago. To the fact that, addressing needs to be done consistently to et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It is very easy to do a submeter so that, an owner and a tenant can know what their different amounts are. In fact, it's cheaper. When you have to do it separately, it means you have to dig up a line from the road, you have to… Plow through landscaping, things like that. Added to the fact that this has been the interpretation for decades, it seems like an important point, and we're just trying to clean up the code in that regard. Okay, that's helpful, especially the idea of sub-meter, which I was not aware of. Okay, thank you. Brad, I have a follow-up question on that.

[73:01] So, by… Not allowing separate utility to the ADU. Is that setting up to preclude future… any future potential for condoization of ADUs? Not con… . Hmm, that's a good question. I might have to turn to Hela for that. I thought you were going to say subdivision. And if you were to subdivide the lot, then there would need to be separate, you know, meters established and connections and such. Condominiums… I'm not quite as sure. I think sub… sub-metering's common in both apartments and condominium structures, are they not? I do not know the answer to this. off the top of my head, and I think it would probably come… Not from condominium regulations, but from our building code. Requirements? We also do have a standard that says no independent conveyance, and so we have a standard right now… Oh, right. …that says that you can't convey… I understand that.

[74:03] Yeah, so it wouldn't be as we put more housing in the city, and as we kind of are… where can people buy in? And condoization is not an unusual thing for ADUs around the nation, you know, so I'm thinking, if we're looking ahead, I'm just curious as to whether or not allowing them to have separate utilities is going to create issues down the road when we're trying to create more housing with our ADUs. The key is what Lisa said. Right now, they have to be owned under the same ownership. If we ever move into a policy place where they could be condominiumized. I think we'd have to work through the whole utility question, because I think the default at this point would be it would have to get a separate utility, because it'd be a separate unit. It'd be a duplex at that point. Right. Yeah, I think it's a… it would be a complex policy decision to make, because there are also benefits when we compare to other cities, because we share utilities. We don't have water and wastewater fees, which can sometimes be tens of thousands of dollars in other cities to build an ADU, and that can be

[75:08] the deal killer to build any ADUs in those other communities, and so it's also a positive here. So, yeah, we'd have to weigh, the pros and cons. Okay, I'm just thinking ahead. Thanks. Thank you, ML, I appreciate that. I do have just two more questions. Tagging on to what Mason was talking about with the height modifications, I am in favor of allowing these height modifications for buildings that are less than 4 stories, because some buildings need really tall ceilings, I get that, but have we considered a way to still get community benefit? Because that's… I think it's not just for residential structures with additional height, it's the additional height itself we want to get community benefit, is my understanding. So, are these new… these structures that would be newly eligible for height modifications, is there still some mechanism for them to pay community benefit, even though we don't have that fourth or fifth floor to calculate?

[76:01] look at Carl as the expert, more expert on community benefit. We thought about this. Similar to the hospital, I think we kind of looked at it like these types of uses are relatively rare, and are… there… a lot of communities you see… tend to see, like, museums that have a unique design that are, like, civic-type. uses that we would look at as community benefit in and of themselves, so this would allow a pathway for that innovative design. So we didn't think of attaching any kind of affordable housing community benefit to these, just distinguishing them as a use. I think I… I'd like to flag that, not necessarily for tonight, but for a future code update, to maybe think some more about that, because I could see this provision being used to do a climbing gym, or a sports arena, or, you know, any number of… taller buildings that I'm not sure we want to say that all of those are, in and of themselves, enough community benefit that

[77:00] any more so than housing, that they shouldn't have to pay into our community benefit provisions, so I just would like to put a pin in that, maybe for later. I don't know if other people on the board want to weigh in on that, but that's kind of my sense, is why should we be exempting a climbing gym from paying community benefit? Even though I love climbing gyms, that's… that's my people. My last question, again, in terms of flagging for potentially a future substantive code update, is, looking at the accessibility requirements for parking. This is something that George helped us recognize a couple meetings ago, that We might be requiring new commercial spaces that are going to have no ADA-accessible spaces, because the building itself isn't providing any parking, and the ADA requirements are tied to provision of parking on-site. Is that something that staff kind of has on your list for a potential future code update? You know, I don't think it's on our list, but we can add it to it. I know it came up when we adopted the parking ordinance, and similar to the EV requirements, it is based on the provision.

[78:05] So yeah, it's something that we, as we implement, as you've seen, we do lessons learned and, we'll think through, and if it comes up as issues, then we will add it to the docket. Great, thank you. Kurt? Great, thank you. First of all, I want to follow up on Laura's questions and just concur, that I have concerns about both things that she brought up. One is the ADU, the, utility metering. Yes, we… it's important that ADUs be accessory, but we enforce the fact that they're accessory through Foreman Bulk standards, really. The way the utilities go doesn't really make anything accessory one way or another, it seems to me. I mean, the meter could actually be on the ADU, and then

[79:05] the line go to the main dwelling unit, right? So, I don't find that that's a compelling argument, and I think sub-metering, yes, is possible, but it's kind of a pain in the butt. Because then you've always got to be, you know, one person has to be notifying the other one, as opposed to directly getting a bill from Excel or whatever. So, I would love to see that, looked at again, and… also the height exemption thing, I think clearly anything should be… that's… that's exceeding that height limit should be providing community benefit, regardless of the use. I think that that's an important thing to… To flag for the future. In terms of the specific code changes that we have now, I wanted to ask questions about the food truck food vehicle regulations in 965. Okay. So… I'm a little confused.

[80:04] The… it says mobile food vehicles within the public right-of-way are allowed in R1, RR2, RE, RL1, and then some other zones. But then, in… down below, there are distancing requirements. That require that they be 150 feet from any residential zoning district, unless allowed By exemptions 4 or 5 above, which are about an organized event. And a public zoning district at the airport. So… there's… there's confusion there, right? Because we're saying we're allowed… they're allowed in the… residential districts, but they have to be 150 feet from a residential district. So, there's something to fix there. I also… it seems to me that the exemption If we're… if we're including that 150-foot exemption, it should also, The exemption should exempt…

[81:09] the item number 3 above City Park, because many of the city parks are directly surrounded by zone… by residential, right? So, like, at North Boulder Park, where I live, if you're 150 feet from any residential, then you're smack dab in the middle of the park where you can't drive, right? So, you understand. Okay, The other question, and I… I don't remember if this was a new change or not. But it just prompted a question. It says that it… it prohibits sales in transit. And that sounds to me like it would prohibit, like, an ice cream truck? Right? Because isn't that sale in transit?

[82:01] As opposed to parking and setting up at an established place where you have the license and so on. I don't think so, I think that's literally if you were selling while the truck was moving. Okay. Because the ice cream truck stops, and then the kid runs up to it. Okay. Right? And there's also separate regulations for the right-of-way that apply to things like ice cream trucks. It's actually really unusual for these types of requirements to be in our land use code, so when we refer to future updates to this, we're actually thinking of shifting all of this into licensing, because it's really… Not as much land use, and they've even acknowledged, licensing has acknowledged, that this is the only thing that's not in their code that should be. So, we're looking at a future update to clarify that as well. Okay, great. And at that point, I think it would be great to loosen some of these restrictions, and allow, for example.

[83:01] when I lived in Portland for several years, there's the food cart pods there, right? Which is more than 4 vehicles per… per parcel, which is the limit that's allowed here, and they're just fabulous. They're… they create this amazingly vibrant food scene there. So, just something to think about. Okay, great. Thank you. Also, so, sorry, separately, talking about the parking… In the case where you get rid of your garage. We talk about the landscape setback. I don't know what the difference is between a setback, which is defined, and a landscape setback, and it's not in the definitions. Can you explain? There's not really a difference, it's just the term that's used, right? Yeah, there is a definition for a landscape setback, and it infers a front setback that's supposed to be landscaped, and you're supposed to have that all be landscaping, and then have the parking

[84:06] pushed away from the street so it's not as visible. But then there's exemptions in the code for detached dwelling units that typically have driveways that go through that area where you can park. So… When we got rid of the… parking requirements on detached dwelling unit properties, people were then compelled to get rid of their garage space, but because the driveway has to lead to a parking space out of the setback, that's where we ran into the complication of the driveways having to be removed. So this just removes that requirement. with this update. Okay, if that definition is there, then I missed it, I'm sorry. Okay, so it… but it basically means the setback. Right. Okay. That we would like to be landscaped. That's it. Okay, yeah, yeah. And just, again, for the record. I'm not clear why we prohibit parking in the setback at all. We allow parking on the street where cars are visible.

[85:07] Right? So, why can't we allow parking? 8 feet further onto the property, you know, it… to me, it doesn't actually make sense, so… Okay. Those are my only questions, I think. Thank you. ML? Thank you for your presentation. I totally appreciated you putting them into categories. It made life so simple. And I would like to follow up on what Kurt was talking about in regards to the residential driveways. 995c8 talks about, the change is any newly established driveways or access for a property with the residential use, blah blah.

[86:00] So my question is. Why would it be only any newly established driveway? Are we not basically clearing driveways to be parked in regardless? No, so it is… the way that it's drafted is intended to just, just provide that exemption for existing driveways, so if there's a new… new construction or a new driveway, this exemption would not apply. No, I don't understand what you're saying. So, in the case that I showed of the existing building, existing driveway, where they convert space, that's what we're… that's the issue that we're trying to tackle with this, not a new house with a new driveway. There… there are a lot of engineering standards to try to limit the number of curb cuts and things like that that would not want another new driveway. Now, why… wouldn't that be a positive thing for your EV charging? To be able to have a driveway associated with your house, and not necessarily a garage that seems kind of

[87:06] Counterproductive to our… city goals of EVs. Yeah, I think that's… that's a good point, and, that's… the way that it's drafted here is really just trying to attack, attack the existing driveway issue, but doesn't… doesn't, go as far as new driveways. So… you've added the words newly established. If you just took away that… if you just took that new words out, it would mean any driveway. And the problem would be basically solved. Well, that first… it's actually… the first sentence is what would require the driveway to be removed if you were to convert, or if it's not leading to a garage. If it is leading to a garage, then they would still… they… yes, they would be allowed to have the driveway. Because how would you get to the garage? Okay. So, this is precluding people who are building a new structure from having a driveway that does not lead to a garage. Exactly. And being able to.

[88:04] parking it. Yes. Which seems kind of counterproductive. Can you put that on a flag to deal with? Because I think… You talked about… In the, sort of. prelude to all of this, that this is about supporting the BVCP and our policies, and it seems like, you know, the policy to sort of start changing behavior about cars and how we think about cars, how we house cars, and switch over maybe to EVs and other things. I think that this is creating an issue for that. So anyway, I'd like to see that on our radar. The second… Again, I think… this was… this was… well, no, not really. I'm looking at table 2-2. site review threshold table? Yeah. And it's talking about RL1.

[89:01] So minimum size for site review? So, projects with non-residential uses in an RL1, there is no… so, if you're ever doing a non-residential use in an RL1, you would have To have. So, what might be the implications for the 15-minute neighborhood? With the idea of being able to have, other use On the site, sort of supporting the vision. Of… we want vibrancy in our neighborhoods, and we want That kind of a thing. going on. Is this gonna preclude that, and something's gonna have to come back and get changed out, or… I'll… I mean, Carl's the expert in this table, but… I don't know that there's any implications now. I mean, we're basically trying to uphold, like, how we've been implementing this in the RL zones, for a while now. You… if it's a… if there's a use that is allowed through, say, use or view. they could, if they're over 3 acres, go through site reviews to get a more innovative design. That's the way it is today, that's what's reflected in this change.

[90:07] If we go down the road of, like, what… how to do 15-minute neighborhoods. I think there probably will be updates to the code to implement the comp plan related to 15-minute neighborhoods. That may require us to look at this again, but I think we're just trying to make this more clear. Okay. And, and I would… I would… I'm highlighting Table 22 and 916.1, which talks about, that the only person can… that can, occupy the accessory building or structure is a resident, whereas again, when we're trying to create the 15-minute neighborhoods, I think we're going to have to be looking closer at some of these limitations. You know, we've got sort of historical precedent, but I think times are changing. And just, just… Make sure that we are noting where we're gonna have to come back in.

[91:02] Sort of tweak things. And my last comment would be back to regards to the, utilities and ADUs. I don't know if it's possible, but I don't see why it wouldn't be, to just make it a choice. let the people choose. If they want to incur the cost to provide a separate utility, why aren't they… why couldn't they? Rather than just say, no, you can't. Again, I think down the road, It… it does have some… Limit… it does limit what you can do with that building in the future, so maybe it's just a choice, rather than a… Hard. Directive. And those are my comments. Thank you very much. I love seeing it when you guys are taking notes. George, I see your hand up. Yeah, 3 quick comments. One, I concur with a few board members that mentioned this, community benefit to somehow figure out a way to calculate that above 3 stories, even within a three-story building.

[92:09] I think that's the reason why it wasn't included, was it… this was a hard topic, right? Because how do you… how do you calculate when you have no floor? But the reality of it was the community benefit is set up because of… because of height, right? And volume on the interior of the building. So, a comment, not for necessarily this, but something to think about. Someone brought up the ADA parking when no parking is provided. We're seeing that show up in projects. I would, I would encourage you guys to put that on the next list, to, to try to tackle. This is especially happening when you're seeing mixed-use projects where parking is being, provided for, residential tenants, but if there's a commercial or mixed-use component, they're being excluded from that parking area, which is then creating an issue, for accessibility.

[93:08] And then, on the issue of, ADUs. I agree with ML and some of the others that said, why not make it a choice? And I'll give you a concrete example, because I experienced this myself firsthand. Which is, we looked at doing an ADU in the back of our house. And we have the land area, we have… we have… we meet basically every single requirement. However, in the case of our home, we have mature trees on our lot. And we've got to bring, the tap into the sewer. Across our home to connect it, and it would have been a pretty heavy construction project. we happened to have a tap that was literally… we could have tapped into the sewer on our alley, and so there's this alley situation where you've got, I'm talking specifically about plumbing now, that you've got,

[94:08] You've got a lot of homes in boulders that have alleys behind them. And their utilities go both ways to either the alley or to the front street. And in the case of what we were looking at. We could not come up with a cost-effective solution that wouldn't have required a lot of demolition and lift stations because of the way we're situated, to send sewage to the front street. But we literally had a sewer that was 3 feet away, and what precluded us from doing the ADU was this rule about not being able to double-tap a property. So that's a specific example where we would have created an ADU. It had less to do with to utilities, as it sort of had to do with the physical site constraints of our particular site. I believe that's not unique to our site. I believe that exists in a lot of different areas, especially in the neighborhoods that are kind of climbing

[95:11] the hills. So, something to think about, on that as well. Thank you. Thank you, George. Claudina, do you have questions? Okay. I do, I do, and only because of, ML's questions about driveways and so forth. I think this is an interesting, point of discussion. So, if I want… if I have a project, and I complete it, and it doesn't have a driveway. is, and I want to… Add it. I've completed, I got my, certificate of occupancy, I'm done. And I want to add a driveway, and I'm going to… Add some hardscaping.

[96:00] is… is hardscaping. once a project is completed and there's a CO, is that a permitted activity. Meaning, do I have to get a permit to do hardscaping? On my property. Not necessarily. However, if you wanted to have a driveway that had a curb cut, you would need a permit to get that curb cut, the entry into the driveway. Okay. There are some folks that do creative, patios that are not supposed to be driveways. Or parking areas. Am I… Yeah, that's correct. Okay. is, in the defin… in our… How do we define a driveway? And more specifically. Is… is it, is it inclusive of Crush or fine? Is it inclusive of concrete block? Brick pavers, various materials that

[97:06] sometimes are driveways, sometimes not. Sometimes they're just hard surfaces that People put down. Yeah, off the top of my head, the… I believe we say that the surfacing… there are… so, well, first to the first part of your question, we don't define driveway necessarily, but we do have driveway standards minimum and maximum width, so it has to be at least 9 feet wide and not more than 2… or 20 feet wide. So we have that kind of… It's not a definition, but a description of what a driveway is. And then there's some language about surfacing requirements that it has to be able to hold, you know, be appropriate for the use, especially for detached dwelling units, but it's not specific, like, crusher fines or things like that. So you could do different types of, surfacing for your driveway on residential. is… is parking… on… A landscape surface prohibited.

[98:05] Yes. Like, can I park in my yard? No. Can I put… mark my truck in my yard? No, and that's. That's why there's… that's why, we do have… there's an exception that allows two parking spaces in the front yard landscape setback, or two cars to be parked there, and that's been in the code for decades. But there are instances where we see, like, seven cars in a front yard, and those are regularly enforced. But that is not… Yeah, this whole driveway issue is, It is, you know, it ties into… Both consistent… consistency with our goals. And consistency, or, or… our continued inconsistency with our thoughts about parking. And it's just another example of of how we, kind of have assumptions about, it's free on the street, it's great, you know, do what you want, and then, you know, gee, if I want to take my vehicle off the street and charge it, but not have a garage. Anyway, I think this…

[99:17] Is a, is an example of additional, thought that needs to be applied to parking and to car storage, in particular, and how we treat car storage as this entirely different beast from every other activity, that we… that we deal with. So, on a future code cleanup, and it looks like Kurt has… wants to add on to some comments here. I just wanted to say, I feel like there's also potentially an equity problem here, and there's an inequity in how this gets applied and enforced. Yes. Oh. Yeah. I'm sorry, can I just colloquy to ask Kurt?

[100:01] What inequity are you talking about? Are you talking about, like, potentially people with small units that don't want to devote space to a garage? being hurt by this. I think that they're… Just to remind you that we're still in the question period, and still have to hold a public hearing. Yeah. Thank you, Ella. Thank you, Helc. But yeah, I, well… I won't go into all the details, but I think that there can potentially be a number of inequities here, and I think that, to some extent. This may have originated out of certain forms of biases. Okay. Any additional questions? Thank you, Hela, for that reminder. Any additional questions? Okay, seeing none, we're going to open our public hearing. So, this is the time where anyone in the room or online can, sign up to speak. Hold on just one second, or you can head up there, but,

[101:02] We have, we're gonna go in the room first. And is… has anyone signed up and… It's just… Anyone other than… I believe it's James, is that right? Yeah. Okay, hold on just a second, James. We didn't have any other sign-ups in the room for this particular item. Okay. Alright, then… Can we, james, can you come on up, and we'll give you, three… 3 minutes, is that, this… this one. I have noticed that a lot of new, developments have been short on parking. Compared to the… the residents that live there. You know, when my building was built in 71, they addressed the parking issue very well. But, as, they… buildings have… developed.

[102:03] we're seeing… buildings with almost no parking, and they're right about the parking on the street, and parking in other people's neighborhoods, and all that stuff. And I think that needs to be addressed in any new development or space that you want to build. Does that make sense? Because it doesn't seem like it's going that way, it's going the other way. Thank you, that's a… parking is a very big topic, and it's very complex, and so thank you for your comments. Okay, and then… With no other participants signed up in the room, we're going to move to folks online, so if you're joining us online. And would like to speak to public hearing item. 5A, this is your opportunity to do so. Please go ahead and raise your hand.

[103:02] And… seeing no hands raised online, I'm going to pass it back to you, Chair. Great, thank you. Lisa, I know you had some time constraints, but I don't remember exactly what time 8.30. 8.30, okay. Alright, so just, as a, comment to the board. Lisa has some time limits, and so, we now move into our deliberations, motion-making, etc, and so if we can… make sure that we try to have this concluded by then. I'd love to see it done earlier than that, but we do have a bit of a time limit here. So, okay, is, I'll, open it up for a quick round of comments, and then, it seems like we might be ready to go to motion-making relatively quickly, but if people have comments prior to motion-making, now would be the time to make them.

[104:07] Claudia. Since I sat out the earlier questions and comments. I'll be brief, though. I will be supporting recommending this to Council pending any amendments I hear from my colleagues. I just wanted to call out a couple of things that I think are particularly significant. First is the office use standards. I appreciate staff suggesting those to be a… to be simplified, eliminated, especially as our local economy is fighting to keep any form of commercial activity right now, whether office or retail, rather than discouraging it. I think philosophically, also, much of our code has been moving towards a finer grain of mixed use, and this fits in with that pattern. On the driveway parking allowances that we've just spent so much time on, I'm in support of… I'm in support of that change, I think, in addition to facilitating garage conversions, which we may potentially want for their housing potential.

[105:03] that also creates more incremental pathways for our movement away from parking minimums, right? So, it would allow properties to shed parking one space at a time rather than all at once, and I think we've heard from a lot of members of the community that they Would not like an abrupt end to our off-street parking situation. And then finally, the height modification for three-story buildings, allowing those buildings to ask for that modification. I think that's an incredibly important thing to allow in the code. I think it's also in line with our general move towards regulating the form of buildings rather than their use, right? So, height is height. Rather than counting by stories. And I think it's a change that could facilitate the approval of more flexible and or iconic buildings. Maybe also climbing gyms, which I love. And also, I'm not particularly anxious to preemptively add special community benefit requirements for those kinds of structures. For a lot of cultural, educational, and recreational uses, which is what this amendment is targeting.

[106:08] high ceilings are normal and necessary to that use, right? And it feels like the intent of this update is to put those uses on a more level playing field with other uses, which in this case means making them possible at all. So beyond those three things, I just… I want to appreciate that this pathway to code updates exists. And I want to support staff who are handling real-world applications. seeing where our rules break down, and bringing forward these kinds of surgical fixes. I did not notice these kinds of code update efforts in the many years that I was observing this board before being appointed to it. And I may not track them particularly closely when I'm not sitting up here, but I think it's really important that we can learn from what you are seeing in the field and adapt quickly. So thank you. Thanks, Claudia.

[107:00] Comments? Kurt? Sure, yeah, I just have a few additional comments. First of all, with regards to Table 2.2, the site and, and, concept review thresholds. First, just a formatting issue, or suggestion, I should say. the… The third column is the minimum for when… the minimum size for allowing site review, right? So the third column numbers are always going to be less than or equal to the second column numbers. To me, that has always made the table confusing, and it seems like those tables should be switched just from a readability standpoint. Just… just a formatting suggestion. But more substantively. I would actually support getting rid of the minimums. altogether, there's already an impediment to going through site review, which is the cost.

[108:04] When I've asked about this before, I think that the response has been, well, we don't want people coming with site review with a really small project. And… because it would provide… create too much of a burden on staff. But presumably, the site review fees, they should be paying for the staff work that's required, right? And so I don't see why we would we would penalize small projects, prevent them, basically, from being creative. So… If I ran the circus, I would get rid of that… The, the minimums altogether. So, basically, the existing column 3 is what I'm talking about. Then, I've… moving on, Table 9-3 is the geometric standards for parking, with the small car versus regular car size.

[109:10] requirements. I've… pointed out before that, to me, without parking mandates, those geometric standards just don't make any sense, because… you could say, oh, I'm not providing any parking, I just have this, you know, large asphalt area with a bunch of white lines on it, but it's not parking, right? And that would be legal, I mean, sort of. And so people really, it seems like, they can get around it anyhow, and the fact that we require larger… spaces, a certain number of larger spaces, is… it provides a… An incentive, or a subsidy, basically, to larger vehicles, which is not really the direction we want to be going. And then… last, 916.1 is something that ML brought up.

[110:01] So, currently, I could add a… For instance, a bedroom and a full bathroom to my house. Right? And that… I would get a building permit, and that would be fine, as long as it was attached. if I had it. the exact same configuration, but 5 feet away, or whatever the minimum separation is, all of a sudden, that full bathroom would not be allowed, right, by this. Which doesn't make… sense to me. Like, there might be good reason why you want to have… you've got a teenage kid And you want them farther away, but really, as… it's part of the house, it's part of the primary… dwelling. it's just not attached. So, if we could find ways to allow for that sort of flexibility, I think that that would be an improvement.

[111:05] Great, thanks, Kirk. Laura? So again, thank you to staff for all your great work. I am supportive of the, motion, and I point out that the motion is just a recommendation to City Council. It doesn't require our approval or anything like that. I will be proposing an amendment related to the community benefit for three-story buildings, and I do appreciate that Claudia offered a counter viewpoint. I think it would be good to know If Planning Board as a whole supports a community benefit provision for these other buildings, regardless of use, that the height should trigger a community benefit. I feel like that's a long-standing principle in our community, is that The height limit approved by the voters is 55 feet. But the only way to get that height limit is to go through site review and provide additional community benefit. We do that for residential, and I'm not sure what the logic would be for not doing that for other uses.

[112:02] I do think we have at least two projects that have gone through concept review that are probably going to want to take advantage of that, so I think we should go ahead and try to build that in now, rather than creating a situation where the early adopters don't have to pay the community benefit. Because it isn't in the code yet. So I would like to make the recommendation that that be added at this stage. That when we adopt the ability to go up to 3… 55 feet at less than 4 stories. We also have a way for those buildings to pay an equivalent community benefit. So I'm going to be proposing that as an amendment. Okay, Laura, thank you. Anyone else? ML? Thanks, Scott. Yeah, I… I support this ordinance, Primarily, mostly. And I… I do like the idea of making, an amendment around the utility so that that is a choice and not a, goes just one way, i.e, attached to the main house.

[113:04] the applicant can choose which way they want to go with that. I think that that… There's no reason to put more hardships on these little ADUs than, than is necessary. So, I will be, looking to put a modification for that. I don't see any other, hand raised or indications, so we now come to, Motion making? And, is there anyone who would like to lead us off with a main motion, and then we can, work on amendments to that, or secondary motions? We could have the language, I would be happy to make the main motion.

[114:03] I'm gonna share Mark's screen and start reading this. So I move that Planning Board recommends that City Council adopt Ordinance 8745, amending Title IX Land Use Code, and Title X structures. To fix errors, clarify existing code, and amend certain height, use, form, and general land use code standards, and setting forth related details. I'll second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Claudia, you made the motion. Is there anything you'd like to say about your motion? I have said my piece, and I look forward to hearing from others. Okay, great. As second, I'll simply say, I also, applaud the ongoing and ongoing effort of, this, planning department, and the leadership for clarifying, fixing, like, let's, let's keep going on this, and…

[115:04] taking it on, and, I think that is a great community benefit. So, okay. This would be the time. That if someone wanted to propose an amendment to the main motion, now would be the time, or if someone wants to do a motion separate from the main motion, that is also entirely acceptable in this case. I'm happy to propose an amendment. Okay. And I have sent the language to Thomas, and to everyone on the Zoom that is a panelist. Thomas, are you able to pull that language up? So… I move to amend as follows. Planning Board recommends that the proposed code update to allow a height modification for buildings with up to 3 storeys in certain use categories should include a requirement and a mechanism for paying an equivalent community benefit as currently exists in the code for projects seeking height modifications.

[116:22] I'll second. Okay, okay. We have a motion to amend and a second. And, laura, yeah, if you want to elaborate on this, now's your time. I think I've I think I've spoken to it, unless people have questions about the logic or what this means. So… You're… I do, okay, I want to clarify what you're getting at, in the sense that the way

[117:01] The code is written currently. Allows for a building To be built above 35 feet. With, obviously below 55, but in that 35 to 55, Without paying community benefit, Should it fall into One of the specific use categories and… not… and contain 3 or fewer floors. Is that… No, what I'm proposing is that currently, when people get a height modification above whatever the height limit is in their zone. There is a community benefit provision that is calculated based on the fourth floor or fifth floor area, floor area, right? And so for these buildings, we can't use that precise mechanism. Staff would have to come up with something new that they propose that is roughly equivalent, whereby a building that has fewer than 4 stories.

[118:06] but is still seeking a height modification, can pay some kind of equivalent community benefit. And I… that would require staff to figure out what that is. I don't think that's up for us to write here tonight. I'm just including a recommendation that that work be done, because we are… this is one of those substantive changes that staff is proposing for this update package. And I feel like I support this change, but I think it needs to come with a community benefit provision that staff have not yet written. So that's what this is… a recommendation, is for staff to write that community benefit provision and link it up in this code update. Is that… is that clear? Does that make sense? Is that doable? I think it's doable. I think one of the reasons we've hesitated from From doing that is because the original logic behind the community benefit was based on a market analysis. That got us to the calculations for 4th and 5th stories. It gets a little bit more complex when we're talking about a three-story building, so ideally, we would have some sort of market analysis that would speak to what that calculation should be. And that's something that will take some time, and…

[119:17] that's our hesitation. Courtney. But I do think… I understand that reasoning, and thank you for clarifying where that calculation came from. It does seem sort of intuitively obvious to me that allowing a performing arts center, or a museum, or a recreational facility to have additional height confers a benefit upon that property, right? So that seems like that should be a calculation that could be… could be figured out. Claudia, you… made the case. Earlier, I believe, for… Opposite condition, that… This, the way staff

[120:02] Has it worded, actually allows for… potentially iconic buildings, museums, etc. I don't know about… climbing gyms as being iconic buildings. But, I generally find them kind of ugly. But, anyway, the… could you elaborate? in… Why you might be opposed to this amendment. For my edification. Yeah, thanks for that opportunity, Mark, and I'll try to clarify. what I'm thinking about this. when I… when I think about this amendment and the types of buildings, the types of projects that might be asking for this kind of a height modification, so they're called out in this amendment as cultural, educational, and recreational. So to just think of some examples in that space, one being, like, a stage in a performing arts center, I think the issue that's being addressed in this amendment is that we don't have a pathway at the moment for larger structures of that kind to exist at all.

[121:10] Right? If your facility needs more than that 35 feet to exist as a functional facility, you do not have a pathway to ask for it. And so, this question of whether you want to then attach additional community benefit requirements to that, it's putting a burden on that kind of use that doesn't exist If, say, you just wanted to build a 4-story residential building, right? You can build a residential building at 3 stories, you can build it at 35 feet. If you want to build it taller, then yes, you're asking for some sorts of exceptions. What I would like to create space for, or recognize may exist, is that there are types of uses where you really can't do it at all, potentially, without asking for some of these height modifications, and then we are inherently throwing those kinds of uses into a required additional community benefit scenario.

[122:06] AI. Sure. Yeah, I guess I don't really understand what kind of a use could not be built at 35 or 40 feet. You can have a museum that's under 35 feet. You can have a recreational facility that's under 45 feet. You can have a performing arts space that's under 45 feet. These… so, I'm in agreement we should be allowing these taller, more iconic structures, and I think that what staff has proposed absolutely does that, and I support that. I'm just saying that giving them the additional height confers a benefit. They will be… more outstanding on the landscape. They will be more of a landmark in Boulder. They will be more of a draw for the community. And I don't see why they should be exempted from paying the community benefit that we ask for an office building, or a residential use, right? I do think that those uses are desirable, and that we should allow for them. I don't know why we should be exempting them from paying the same community benefit that other tall buildings pay. So that's the logic there.

[123:04] Brad? Yeah, not to, really weigh on either side of the subject, but just to give examples of how they are sometimes unique. So… performing arts buildings, for example, can't fly scenery without being higher. So that's one example we've been presented with. Certain art installations also you know, tend to be tall, and so there's an argument around that. Maybe those are very unique cases, but those are some of the things that we've, you know, heard are… Integral to these kind of unusual uses, so… I'll just point out that the climbing gym that I go to dug down to be able to achieve the height that they want, right? So it is possible to get taller ceilings without going above the city's height limit. also add a little more of the rationale, because we did discuss this. So… it's kind of whether you think of the floor area from the inside out or the outside in. They aren't… the way that an apartment building gets a fourth and fifth story, obviously can… gives a great benefit to that apartment building, because now they have four and five stories more to rent.

[124:12] Having a higher floor-to-ceiling ratio doesn't necessarily create more floor… Space… in these kinds of uses, and so I think that's also part of what we were thinking. You know, we have an existing exemption for industrial uses that need that higher floor-to-ceiling ratio just to make their manufacturing work, and so I think that our rationale was that that's similar to This issue, where the, the case of the use, or the design of the use just needs more space in the middle of the sandwich, if that makes sense. But it's not necessarily conferring a benefit of additional, like, you're not getting a, necessarily more… art studio space or something, it's just that it's larger. So that was part of it. If some of the issue is the indoor recreation, you could recommend that we don't include that use, and instead use, you know, I think I've heard, like.

[125:08] The museum space or something like that. You know, we could limit the uses that this actually applies to. Oops. Yeah, of course. I'm not sure if you can see my hand. Yeah, I can, and let's give some folks some room here. Okay, George, go ahead. Yeah, I think, I think what you just said actually, could make some sense, because I'm… I'm of the mind… I remember when this community benefit was passed, and while I appreciate what Carl said around the analysis, there was a clear reason why this was set up the way it was, which was that you've got a long-standing history in Boulder where you've got the height threshold of 35 feet, and above that, you know, you're…

[126:00] You're doing other things around us that may or may not… people may or may not be opposed to around view corridors, etc. Around how the tree canopy interfaces with buildings. There are lots of reasons why there's that 35-foot, and then there's the 55-foot, and the idea was Create some kind of mechanism, where community benefit could be conferred, and it removes this negotiation process, and because of that. one of the reasons why this three-story building was not permitted is just because they couldn't figure it out in that context of that study. In the case of the hospital that we saw, my strong belief would have been the hospital would have… would have built that hype with a community benefit component as well, because they're a money-making institution. You know, if this was just… if this was just put, you know, for educational and theater and arts, you know, perhaps I could get behind it. But when you start talking recreation, a climbing gym is a perfect example of, you know, why would we confer some kind of benefit? And then it's a question of, I think what

[127:16] I think what Claudia said and Laura said was both very interesting. These are both paths to allowing organizations to get the height they need, right? So, Laura's amendment is not is not opposed to it. And I think the formula could be quite different than the way it's calculated for an apartment building. But we should concede that with height, there is a benefit that is, that is laid upon this developer or this owner of this land, and, there's… there's not a… I don't see a reason why there shouldn't be some kind of community benefit for it. So that… that's my general thought process. Thank you, George.

[128:00] Other comments, and Laura will come back to you in just a second. Any… Yeah, okay. ML, you were the second, thank you. We've kind of skipped over that particular portion, but go ahead. That's okay. I will just, remind that, making buildings is a creative act, and when you want to get a particular or a need to or want to have a particular, volume expressed, as somebody already stated, you can go up and you can go down. So, it's a… it's a… there are solutions to the basic problem. And the question is, once the city and, you know, the residents get impacted by an extra height. what role does that… what role does the city play in… in gaining some benefit from that? So, I… I don't think this is going to preclude, people, create a hardship for people to do three-story buildings, and still get their volume.

[129:09] And I think that the impacts to our city, deserve to be accommodated, so… That's… that's my position, and the reason I'm supporting it is, you know, there's some value, and there should be some benefit associated to that value. I've got a comment, and I'll come back to you, Laura, okay? You can kind of wrap it up. This whole proposition Counts height. As a… as a… as this… Incredible negative. And… and then it says, so… We have this negative between 35 and 55 feet. It's an impact, and it's this terrible thing, even though big, mature trees are 55 feet or taller. So… but… so let's just say, well, we're not going to solve the question of

[130:08] Does a building be over 35 feet, below 55 feet, have greater community… negative community impact? We're not gonna solve that tonight. But what I will say is that if that is the presumption, and that we need to have community benefit. Then why are we During an incredible housing shortage. Why do we penalize And this, this, I tried to make this point, and I was very inarticulate during our, Seminar on, all things affordable housing. that we say, oh, you want to build taller, you want to add some more housing units, you want to house more Boulderites. we're going to charge you more to do that. So, I think that when we start saying, when we start saying, exempting things, recreation, I'm all for the arts, I'm all for beautiful museums and building forms.

[131:13] But when you start saying, well, the hospital, the art museum, educational facilities, or a climbing gym somehow Don't have to absorb what we as a community have decided is a wild negative impact for a 45-foot building rather than a 35-foot building. it's a very slippery slope of, well, what is not community benefit? If a climbing gym qualifies as community benefit. over housing. Well, I'm… I think it's a… it's a wild inconsistency, so I will be supporting this amendment. Kurt. I just wanted to say I was just gonna make Mark's exact point, so I won't repeat it, but I appreciate what he said.

[132:01] Okay, Laura. not to complicate things further, but I will point out that in the code, we also have the ability to suggest that you are providing an alternative community benefit and not pay the fee, right? And I have said in the past, if someone wants to provide community, real community non-profit art space for a reduced price in perpetuity, or they want to provide, an educational facility for, a minority startup incubator, or something that we can see as a real community benefit, we might say, okay, you don't have to pay that fee, you can do that other thing instead. And I think that would still apply to these buildings. They would still have all the same provisions for alternative community benefit. They would just also have the easy pay-the-cash benefit as well. So, if somebody wants to make the argument that just because I am a for-profit performing arts space, that's community benefit, they can still make that argument. But I think that they should have to make that argument to us of what is the community benefit that they are providing that is the equivalent of the cash payment. And my bet is that most people are going to still pay the cash payment.

[133:09] Okay, I'm going to urge us to, call the question here, of, of the amendment. And we're at 8.15. So, unless there's an objection, I'm gonna… let's close the debate on the amendment and, and take a vote, okay? Yes, please. You can, you can read your… Motion. I will reread. A motion to amend as follows. Planning Board recommends that the proposed code update to allow a height modification for buildings with up to 3 stories in certain use categories should include a requirement and mechanism for paying an equivalent community benefit as currently exists in the code for projects seeking height modifications. K.

[134:00] Mason. Yes. Laura. Yes. Claudia? No. ML? Yes. Kurt. Yes? George. Yes. And I'm a yes. Okay, we now have an amended main motion. Oh, boy. Oh, okay. Okay, we now have an amended main motion. Are there any other, amendments to be made? Okay, ML. So I am going to check in with staff. Which would be the best way To make the, utilities for ADUs be a choice, whether they're separate or not? Would the best way to be to just remove that, That article… that… Policy, code number and definition.

[135:02] From the code, or… Hi. Brad. I'm ready to answer. So that's my question, is… should we just take it out and not have it just not even be there, or amend it by bed? Brad, before you speak, I'm just going to say that I think this puts staff in an awkward position. Staff has come to us, with… an amended With a, with a ordinance. We are recommending to Council whether or not to adopt that ordinance or amend what staff has proposed, and to… Rather than to make a motion. To ask staff how to make a motion that is different than what they're recommending. I think is a… is not actually the role of the board. People can counter this, but I believe that it is incumbent upon us

[136:07] To make our motion and take our positions. Brad, do you want to address ML a little bit? Yeah, so I appreciate the question, but just to build on that and a little bit more. It's already law in the design… DCS, Design Construction Standards Manual, as well as law in the building code that they be separate. This was really intended to simply clean that up. If we were to look at the question of opening it up as a policy. we would ask you to either just not vote on it or defer it, as a future work plan item. We have not had a lot of interest in that. I can tell you, again, that, both the building division and planning division, and… and utilities, and addressing, and the clerks, and Excel, and… the water resources people feel strongly about them being separate, so we would want to bring you a full analysis of that.

[137:08] So, my understanding is their ADUs already have separate addresses from the main house. They're issued addresses at the time of application. I don't know if that's changed, but that's the way… I may have misspoke, I thought it was an A and B situation, but… Yeah, it's a Unit A and Unit B. Yeah, it's an A and B situation. So, anyway, I'm hearing you say that it's a bigger issue than just an amendment. It is a significantly bigger. then can we just get that on our radar? Especially having heard George's hard, hard luck story? I mean, it's really sad that, you know, these… again, ADUs are tiny little… And to be clear, we always hear the discussion, and we always pick up on points that are made, and we recognize that that's an interesting scenario, and we'll, you know, we're going to commit to looking at a scenario of sewers in the back and the front, that may be very, very unique, or it may not, and there may be other ways to address that. Right. So don't think that we don't absorb all those things. We do, and we'll work on that, but I'm not sure that…

[138:12] The metering policy as well would be the right way to approach it. I understand that. So, if I can just, you know, reiterate the point that it should be the choice of the… You have. …of the owner. That would be great. And I will not be making a… an amendment then. Thank you very much. Any other, thoughts, amendments? Not thoughts. Any other… any other motions to amend? K. Hearing none, than, Claudia, we have the main motion before us as amended. So, Thomas, or I can, I can just do this again.

[139:00] coins, indeed. going to be theater. I will need the text, though, of Laura's amendment that we accepted. Right, so we can get Laura's… Amendment up, back up on the screen, as adopted. Sure, yeah. I don't know if it needs to be re-read, though, if you can just say as amended below. Okay. Okay. Yeah, we… as in… okay. Okay, so… So, the motion is that Planning Board recommends that City Council Adopt Ordinance 8745, amending Title IX, Land Use Code, and Title X structures to fix errors, clarify existing code, and amend certain height, use, form, and general land use code standards, and setting forth related details, and as amended. by the planning board. March. On March. 2024, 2021. 26. 24th, 2026. Okay. We've read that, and now we're going to vote, and I'm gonna go in the same order as before. Mason.

[140:02] Yes. Laura. Yes. Claudia. ML? Yes. Kirk? Yes. George? Yes. And I'm a yes. Okay. during our, agenda meeting, I thought, there's no way this is gonna take till 8.30, and here we are, 8… almost 8.30, so, okay. Can I… can I get us to 8.30? Since we're… Please don't, but okay. Since we're expressing our wish list here, and talking about the height exemption and community benefit, in my ideal world, that would not require a site review, that it would just be A… something by-right that you get if you meet the… the, community benefit requirement. So, just an idea. Okay, I'm going to call a break. It is,

[141:02] 8.23, we'll be back at, 8.34.

[154:07] Which is, consideration of emotion. to rescind or amend the motion previously adopted by the Planning Board January 20th, 2026. Relating to a finding of whether the identified Community needs are a sufficient priority per the criteria described in the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan. to warrant. further consideration of a service area expansion plan for the Area 3 Planning Reserve, and potential consideration of new of new or different… of a new or different action on the matter. So, like most things, we're going to have, staff presentation. We'll have clarifying questions, public hearing, and then board deliberation and motion-making. And I'm anxious for staff to, help us

[155:07] think about, decide, and walk us through what is a complex issue. So, you guys take it away, and you have a challenge ahead of you. Oh my goodness, okay, well, we'll see if we rise to the challenge. Hello, Planning Board members. I'm Sarah Horne, Senior Planner on the Comprehensive Planning Team, and I'm joined by Brad Mueller, who's been here for a while now, the Director of Planning and Development Services, and Christopher Johnson, the Comprehensive Planning Manager. And we're here, as you mentioned, Chair McIntyre, to discuss the service area, expansion process, which could open the door to potential expansion into the Area 3 Planning Reserve, which, as you know, is a specific portion of Area 3. It's not the entire Area 3, it's an approximately 500-acre Parcel, or area, 500-acre area of land north of the current city boundary.

[156:00] Which has been identified as an area for potential urban expansion since the 1990s. Last time we were in front of you with this item, which you mentioned on January 20th of this year, you determined there were not community needs of sufficient priority to close out Step 2 of the process and further consider moving to Step 3. Council's requested that Planning Board reconsider your previous determination. To guide that reconsideration, here's how we've structured this item. Well, first, which you also mentioned, share an overview. We'll share a presentation with an overview of the service area and decision-making processes to date. We'll provide an opportunity for you to ask any clarifying questions, then there'll be a public hearing, as you mentioned, and then we'll move to your discussion and deliberation. Okay, starting with the service area expansion process, I just want to remind everyone where we are, and how the steps work. You can see them on this slide. Step 1, the Urban Services Study, helped us answer the question, could we expand into the reserve? Step 2, the Community Needs Assessment, the middle image you see on the slide, is helping us answer the question, should we expand into the reserve?

[157:07] And tonight, you are being asked to consider whether the needs identified in Step 2 are of sufficient priority to close that step and maintain the option to move to Step 3. And that would be the point where we determine how we expand into the reserve. The timing of initiating that third step If staff is asked to do so by you and Council, would be determined through additional conversations with both bodies. Okay. Now to a quick summary of the decision-making process to date. In January, you voted 4-3 that the needs are not of sufficient priority to continue exploring service area expansion at this time. And just a quick reminder, your discussion that evening focused on concerns about the planning effort required to prepare an expansion plan and possible competing priorities, interest in seeing how recent code changes and policy updates perform within the existing service area.

[158:02] And questions about how specific outcomes could be ensured if expansion were to move forward. There were other things you discussed, those were just some key points. After we met with you, we went to City Council on February 12th. They voted 7-2 that community needs are of sufficient priority to continue consideration of service area expansion at this time. Some of the key items they discussed, included the fact that the types of housing we desire are not likely to be delivered by the market in the existing service area in the amount of or in the timeframe that we might desire them. Opening the planning reserve provides an opportunity to test new ideas and explore new ways to use city-owned lands, and the idea that it's important to keep the process open for discussion moving forward and not wait to talk about it until the next midterm or major comprehensive plan update, which would be 5 to 10 years. At the end of their meeting, Council asked staff to prepare a resolution establishing broad guidelines and desired outcomes for a potential future expansion plan.

[159:06] So, we prepared that resolution, based on their discussion and follow-up hotline emails. We brought it back to them at their March 5th meeting on consent… on consent. In the resolution, you have a copy in your packet, and it sets clear expectations for what expansion in the reserve should do. So, some of the things it focuses on are delivering housing that's difficult to achieve within the existing service area. So they don't want it to be business as usual. They want to fill key gaps. The resolution emphasizes the importance of innovation, encouraging new approaches to housing and neighborhood design, with a focus on integrating nature, reducing car dependency, and advancing renewable, climate-responsive techniques in design. Oops, sorry. And finally, it calls for a phased approach to development, allowing us to monitor progress and adjust as needed over time. At the meeting, it was on consent, but at the meeting, Council pulled the item for a bit more discussion, and asked staff to make some minor edits to the resolution, mainly to broaden the language regarding potential housing opportunities.

[160:08] and more clearly reflect their intent. So, we'll be sharing a revised resolution with them on April 2nd. If that resolution passes, staff would refer to it as part of the scoping, and pre-planning discussions if we do move forward with Step 3. Okay, so that's it for the process to date, and the decision-making process, and I know for this board, there were questions last time we met about how Step 3 would work if we move forward with the process. At multiple stages, as you can see on the slide, there's a lot of information there, but I'll talk through some of it. At multiple stages, there are opportunities to make decisions, adjust direction, or pause the process entirely. And, you can see the key steps, the key decision-making points and pause points, on the slide. And they include, at setting priorities and exploring feasibility, deciding whether to initiate a service area expansion plan.

[161:00] Defining the scope in collaboration with staff, ongoing check-ins during plan preparation, plan adoption, and implementation. So at each of those points, there are places where decisions are made and pauses or off-ramps could be used. And it's important to note that the early steps that you see on the screen are flexible and don't have to follow a strict sequence. For example, you could initiate an expansion plan first, then define a scope with priority setting happening as the initial step of that scoping process. Or they could be specific steps in and of themselves. So, building on that, it's also helpful to clarify roles in the decision-making process related to Step 3. For the early steps, decisions would rest with city policy makers, and those steps include determining the finding of need, which is what we're talking about tonight, initiating the expansion plan, and defining the scope and delivery of that plan. And that part would be in partnership with county staff. We would work with them.

[162:01] From there, both city and county policy makers, and that includes you, City Council, County Planning Commission, and the Board of County Commissioners, you would all play a key role in joint decisions, including approval of the expansion plan. And any change from Area 3 Planning Reserve to Area 2, which would allow for potential annexation. And then, finally, like, once the land is moved into Area 2, individual annexations, are handled by the City, and they follow standard procedures, with Planning Board making a recommendation, and Council making the final decision on any of those. Okay, and that was short and sweet, but that's the end of the presentation. I'll turn it over to you, Chair McIntyre, for questions, and I do have a proposed motion options on a slide for you, if you'd like me to pull them up at any time. Okay, great. Thank you for the concise presentation.

[163:00] While being concise, there was a lot there. and as Hela reminded us earlier, now's the time for clarifying questions, and in this case, I know it's going to be hard for us possibly to not drift into, positional conversation, but we'll all do our best to ask these clarifying questions. Who has some and is ready to go? Oh, Claudia, I'm sorry, then Kurt. Thank you, Sarah. Could you go back one slide? I think that's as far as I… nope, two slides. Yes, thank you, that one. Where are we now in the process on this slide? Are we before Step 1? Are we after Step 1? And I'm a little confused here, because there was an earlier slide that also had 3 steps on it, and I want to know if these are the same sets of steps that are on these slides.

[164:01] is actually, if we move to step three, these are the points of Step 3. So, and the slide before were the three steps of the expansion process. could be considered, like, 3A, 3B, 3C, etc. That's okay, thank you, that's helpful. And then… I am curious about… If City Council approves this resolution that you've been working on for them. like, what would the status of that framework be if it's approved? Like, where would that live in, kind of, the body of documents, code, etc? Yeah, I'm happy to touch on that. Christopher Johnson. Comprehensive Planning Manager, thanks for the, thanks for the question. Really, essentially, the resolution is. is being used by Council as a way to document their desires, their interests in, you know, a future process. The resolution is part of the public record, it goes into central records, so it lives on, I guess, in that format.

[165:04] Other than that, though, it does not hold any, you know, legal weight or anything like that. It is purely a mechanism to inform staff At some point in the future, if an expansion plan process is initiated, that is… that is, their… their interest, and they want to make sure that that's available in perpetuity. So the accountability aspect of it is simply that it exists and somebody could refer to it, but it's not… That's correct. …being embedded in the comp plan or in the code? That is correct, yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay, Kurt. Thanks, and I had a similar question about this slide, but it… then, can you go back to the previous slide? the three steps. Oh, sure. And then, I'm sorry, I skipped this slide in the presentation, but these were the needs, just to remind you, the needs that were identified, so we can refer to that if you need to.

[166:08] There you go. So… Okay, I'm trying to figure out where… really, step two is when… in reading the comp plan amendment process. So, it goes from the baseline urban services study. Which has been accepted, right? And then it goes to the service area expansion process. And so… I'm… I'm trying to understand where this number 2. comes from… These three steps, and jump in, KJ or Brad, these three steps are the service area expansion process. The urban services study is the first step of the urban… of the service area expansion process, and it was meant just to make sure that there is

[167:09] a possibility at all that this could occur, potentially. So it's a very… that's the first step. The second step, the community needs assessment, is what we're asking you to reconsider tonight. And then the third step would be the actual plan. So the process includes those three steps. Does that make sense? Maybe if I can elaborate, just a different way to think about it. So, I think of… Phase 3 as, essentially, or step 3, rather, as, a sub-community plan. So… You know, you can think it, too, where we are right now is, well, do we need a sub-community plan? In the future. In this case, it's for an area that's undeveloped right now. So that's another way to look at it.

[168:00] I'm really trying to relate this slide to what is in the comp plan amendment process. If I may, I can point you to the page where it says these words. Yeah, this is directly out of the comprehensive plan. Under the service area expansion process. Which comes after the Urban Services Study. So, Kurt… So it's not part of… The urban services study is not technically part of the service area expansion process, according to the amendment. But then, it talks about the criteria for initiating a service area expansion plan. And that's where there's the community need assessment. I'm just… I'm trying to make sure that we're getting The steps of the process right. And… and it matters… Also, when we get into that other slide.

[169:03] And what… what is, like, a real… something where… that is specified in the comp plan, where we can say either yes or no, and if we say no, then it's another 5 years. But if we… with other things, if we say… that aren't specified directly in the comp plan amendment process. If we say no, we could reconsider that later. So, which is, like, what we're doing right now, right? So… I, I, I, I… I mean, part of the problem is the comp plan amendment process is not… It's not laid out this exact same way, but I'm just… I'm trying to relate these two things, what I'm seeing here, and what's actually in the text of the comp plan. Yeah, and if it would be useful, I would be happy to pull up the amendment procedures, and just to be clear, the…

[170:03] the process related to service area expansion is actually not part of the comprehensive plan. It is… it is in the intergovernmental agreement between the city and county, so it's… it is attached as an appendix to the comp plan. But just for clarity's sake, those amendment procedures are an exhibit of the IGA. And again, if useful, I'm happy to pull that up on the screen and sort of walk through where the language is. I'll just piggyback. I think it would be useful, because this is the essence of what we're talking about, and it is implementation of the comp plan, so the IGA, you know, is contemplated in the comprehensive plan, and then that is an implementation. The only thing that's different about this is they aren't called Step 1, 2, and 3. I mean, I think we all wish it was, for ease of reference, but it's not. But there's 3 paragraphs, or 3 sections, that are exactly aligned with these 3 things, and we can pull that up for you.

[171:02] Yeah, so, gives me just a moment, it should pop up on screen shortly. Okay… So I'll try to… try to zoom that in as best as I can. So this is, This is under the amendment procedures, and under this, this section II, Service Area Expansions, Planning Reserve, Area 3 Planning Reserve to Area 2. So, this initial sort of overview, you know, provides some context and description of, of the Planning Reserve itself. The first step, and this is why we've referred to the baseline Urban Services as step one of this overall process, is that it outlines that this step and the development or the creation of this Urban Services study is required before you can move on to any additional future steps. I won't obviously read all of this, but, you know, it explains what the Urban Services Study is, and then you move on.

[172:00] Forgive some of my highlights, but this might actually be beneficial for further conversation. This is then where it moves into the expansion process and describes the steps for identifying community need, and then, ultimately, the creation of the expansion plan. So, this is the language as well here, where it says, the second sentence says, service area expansion may occur at a midterm or major update to the BBCP, and then this highlighted portion At the beginning of each BVCP update, the Planning Board and City Council will hold a public hearing to determine if there is interest in considering a service area expansion plan, or sorry, a service area expansion as part of that update. So that's the language that really links this notion of, considering service area expansion and use of the planning reserve with the comprehensive plan. This is the connection.

[173:00] It goes on to say that if, you know, if it is interest, then a planning effort will, be started to solicit and identify priority community needs. There will be hearings to decide whether the identified needs are of sufficient priority based on the eligibility criteria below to warrant preparation of a service area expansion plan, so that is… the decision that you all made back in January, the decision that Council made in February, and now, the decision that Council is asking you to reconsider, is that determination of, are the needs of sufficient priority to warrant preparation of that expansion plan? Sure, and then, these are the three factors for you to consider when making that determination of need, so community value, capacity, and benefit, and we outlined this back in January when, when we had the discussion before. And then the third and final step is the service area expansion plan, and the amendment procedures, go on to provide some

[174:06] what is really useful for us, some parameters around, you know, what does that look like? It mentions that it would be similar in scope to an area plan. provides, you know, general sort of description of the types of things that you would anticipate being within that expansion plan. So, the location and amount of land, conceptual land use and infrastructure plans, etc, etc. And then, provides some additional information on then the approval of that expansion plan, and goes into some greater detail about, sort of minimum expectations of what the plan needs to include, at that approval stage. And then, just the final thing that I'll mention. Here is… this is where it then outlines the decision-making process, that it is a city-only decision to initiate the creation of the expansion plan, but the approval of that expansion plan is ultimately a city and county decision, and that includes the change from Planning Reserve to Area 2.

[175:08] As part of that expansion plan process. So, hopefully that's helpful. Great, thank you, I appreciate that. Can you then go back to that multi-step… Yeah, the other one that has all the steps… For… for the third… four, yes. Yeah, yes. Right. The expansion, yes, the expansion plan itself. And I'm sorry, I'll just… I'll just add that the reason that it's tied with the comp plan, like KJ mentioned, is just because we're considering needs throughout the city as part of the comp plan update. It's a great time to talk about the expansion as well, because we're considering them at large. So that's part of… that's the link.

[176:06] Okay, so, and again, I'm trying to understand the… these off-ramps. So, step one, you say… Is set priorities and explore feasibility. So, we could… for instance… If we were to approve this tonight… You're saying that before we actually make the decision, yes or no, to do the expansion plan. There would be another decision point. That's the step one up there? There could. be. I think it's… right now, it's flexible. There could be some work that staff could do in terms of pre-planning and consensus building, you know, priority setting, that type of thing, before

[177:03] The decision is made to initiate the expansion plan, or… The decision to initiate could happen… whenever Planning Board and Council are interested in doing that, and then some of that feasibility analysis and consensus building could happen as part of, again, sort of pre-planning. At this point, it's… it's… it's a bit… Unknown, because we haven't really scoped out exactly what that expansion plan process would look like, because we haven't reached the point at which we even have the opportunity to do so. And so, again, if Planning Board were to reconsider your decision and find that there is community need, that opens the door then for staff to dive in further to actually build out in more detail what this process looks like, what is the scope of that process. And we've anticipated that we would return to Planning Board and Council at some time later in the year after the Comp Plan is adopted.

[178:00] And we have a little bit more bandwidth to think about it and have that conversation around, are the bodies ready to initiate the plan, or do we want to do some additional work before that happens? And so, who decides whether there's that off-ramp available in Step 1, for example? Is that something we could decide? Is that something that Council would decide for us? It would be a joint decision between the two of you, and based… and again, sort of based on the staff scoping and work plan of, you know, what this looks like. I mean, staff would propose an option, I think. That's probably how we would do it, is we would prepare and propose a process we would have the conversations with both you and Council to determine if you're comfortable with that process, and then, of course, there can be discussion around that, around that scope and process, and that could change, based on your direction. Okay, and… Planning Board and Council would both need to approve that.

[179:00] Yes, because both Planning Board and Council need to initiate the plan, and so… We're talking about the step before initiation, right? But Planning Board would have the opportunity, if you so desired, that some of that work was, you know, really required for you to feel comfortable to actually then vote to initiate the plan. That would be your discretion. Okay, thank you for bearing with me through all that. Sure. Can I colloquy? so most of my questions revolve around this slide as well, and I'm going to try to not delve too much into commentary, but I do think this sequence is incredibly important because of this idea of off-ramps. So I just want to clarify So, the decision to initiate the expansion plan, what I'm hearing is that requires a yes from Planning Board, a majority yes, and a yes from City Council, the decision to initiate. Yes, that is correct. Okay. To colloquy, that would be number 2. There, on the slide. Yes, that is correct. Okay.

[180:01] So we know we have that off-ramp, that at that point, planning board could say no. And then we know we have an off-ramp at the adoption phase that's a four-body adoption, where planning board, city council. and the two county bodies, the county board of commissioners and Planning Commissioners, any one of them can say no, and the plan is not adopted in that form, and it goes back for more negotiation. So there's an off-ramp there. Are there any other off-ramps built into the process where if at some point, let's say that we… We don't study feasibility before we initiate. And we vote to initiate. And then we study feasibility, and we're like, oh, no, we cannot actually do what we wanted to do. How would we stop the process? Before we actually get to a plan that we're voting on. Yeah, I'll provide a brief answer, and it looks like Brad Mueller might have some comments on this, but, you know, from my perspective, the decision to initiate the expansion plan…

[181:00] does not mean that it is a foregone conclusion that that plan will be complete in a 12-month, you know, time period, and there's no bones about it. My sense is that if there was a vote to initiate an expansion plan, and then there was additional research or analysis done that gave both Planning Board and Council Pause about that. There's no… there's no rule that says staff has to keep going. There can be direction from both bodies to say, we want you to put that on the shelf for a bit, we need to wait for economic conditions to change, or, you know, whatever the factors might be. to… to scope and provide greater clarity about the outcomes of the plan. That could be shelved at any moment, and then… and then it could be picked up again at… at some point in the future. Yeah, and I'll just add, too, that at the very end is the annexations, and one thing that I've… Not sure that we've really articulated is there are 40 property owners out there.

[182:03] So, first of all, every annexation is discretionary, right? Like, unlike other land use, where if it meets criteria, you know, it needs to be approved. Annexations are… Are completely discretionary by a city. You can… Council, and you can say, well, we just don't think it's… Needed, or appropriate, or whatever. And with 40 property owners, it could take years for them to… coalesce around… land assembly and such like that, so it could be 15, 20, 30 years, really, for that to be realized. So that's just something to keep in mind. Thank you. So, Christopher, I'm gonna push staff to really think about this. What would happen if we're somewhere in the middle between initiation and adoption. And one of the bodies has pause, and the other body does not. Could Council say, keep going, and planning board say, stop?

[183:03] Whose decision rules? Because there's not a clear process step that says we have to have a double yes to keep going. Yeah, you're correct. You know, if that were a situation or a scenario that occurred, obviously, I think there would be an opportunity and a desire and a goal of trying to reconcile that difference, right? And so, you know, there would need… there would obviously need to be some… Some threshold issue, right, where one body feels… feels that, you know, it's not comfortable moving forward, the other body feels okay moving forward. there would have to be some debate and constructive, you know, discussion around, can that threshold be overcome, right? And I would say, ultimately, if it could not be. There would then need to be discussions, obviously, with the city manager, and operationally, is staff going to continue working on something if we recognize there may not be?

[184:05] the support at the end of the day to actually get it adopted. So again, then I think it gets into an operational question about staff resources and what's the best use of our time, and ultimately, there would be some priority setting and some trade-offs there. But again, you know, we want to make sure that the plan that is developed ultimately has the support of both bodies and can be adopted at the end of the day. another option that… or another situation that could occur if that scenario happened is that the scope of the expansion plan could be modified, right? So again, if there was a threshold issue or concern. the scope could be modified in terms of geographic area, or the type of land uses that are being proposed. Like, there could be changes midway to, again, try to reconcile and move past whatever that… whatever that concern and that conflict is. Okay, thank… thank you. That is helpful to hear that.

[185:01] Having eyes on the prize of adoption at the end of the day. Will be your, sort of, guiding principle in thinking about any difference of opinion between the adopting bodies. Okay, thank you. I do have a couple other questions, if I may. Please. Just about the process. Okay, so, so there's no formal way to stop the process before the final vote, but if there were significant concerns, either body could raise them along the way and suggest stopping the process. Okay. And then, in terms of some of the specifics here, like the scope. Let's say that one of the bodies wants the scope to be limited to just a couple of parcels out of those 40, and the other one wants to plan the whole thing and do it in phases. what would be the guiding principle there? Would it be only those things which are mutually agreed upon move forward, or is there some other way to reconcile? Yeah, that's a good question. I think, you know, similar, similar approach would be taken, you know, are there ways that we can modify that scope so that we can reach agreement and reach support between the two bodies? That is a,

[186:10] the approach you mentioned in terms of where there is agreement, those things move forward, and where there's disagreement, those move off. That is something we do typically do in relation to our sub-community plans. The comprehensive plan will be another example of that, so it's logical that a similar approach, you know, could be applied there as well. Okay, thank you. And I think I have just one more question, which is… The parks parcel, and the potential to dispose of part of that parks parcel, which is a formal process, so that it could be repurposed for housing. How and when do you see that fitting into this process? And who's the decision maker there? Well, off the cuff, which is always dangerous for me, you know, I think that at least during that first step in terms of exploring some of the feasibility and working through the scoping of the plan, we would… we would… we would get more clarity on the process of disposal.

[187:12] and exactly, sort of, what is involved, you know, in that type of thing. So we would… Not necessarily pursue that disposal process, but we would at least, you know, very, very clearly understand what that process looks like, the timing that it might take, and who those decision makers are. From my understanding of the disposal process, the Parks and Rec Advisory Board, needs to review and ultimately makes a recommendation to Council Council, I believe, is the deciding body on those disposal actions. You know, there's also additional nuance to this one in terms of the funding mechanisms and how the city might pay itself back for money that was expended out of a certain fund that has restricted uses, things like that. So there's, you know, there's some challenges we would obviously lean very, heavily on Hela and our city attorney's office to give us good guidance on that. But ultimately, yes, I think we would evaluate the process and make sure that we understand that at the early stages, but then if

[188:12] Expansion plan process ultimately led to recommendations and policy choices that that was a pathway that wanted to be pursued, and that was agreed upon and approved by both Planning Board and Council, then that step would likely happen, actually, after the adoption of the expansion plan. Like, essentially, that would be a policy choice that's in the expansion plan. Land uses would be identified, etc, and then that disposal process would happen after that policy has been formally adopted. Okay, just to note that I… I think that does need to be clarified about whether the Parks and Rec Board is advisory or is a decision maker of equal stature to Council in that decision. Yeah, and I just looked that up, and the charter provides that… There has to be a four-vote support by the…

[189:02] the Parks Board, and then also approval by City Council, and there's, recommendation made by the planning board that's not binding, but both other bodies have to approve the disposal. Okay, so the Parks Board would either approve or disapprove of the disposal? Yes. Okay, thank you. Thank you. other questions? Mason? Yeah, really just one. All my questions have been asked, in greater detail than I had planned. The… I thought the first… and I'm sorry if I missed this, but I thought number 1 was also an off-ramp. Both. So it was also an off-ramp, is that what you said? Yeah, we described. number 2 and number 5 is being offerings, but I thought number 1 was also an offering. Well, yeah, I think 2 and 5 are sort of the… if you were to consider them the formal off-ramps, those are points… decision points at which both Planning Board and City Council actually vote to take an action, right? Step 1 is probably more of a, you know.

[190:14] Gravel road off the side of the highway, kind of a thing, where, you know, the… the conversation around priorities and potential feasibility and things, I think, would influence that choice on whether or not to initiate, so it's perhaps maybe a softer off-ramp, not maybe as formal of one, but it would influence those future steps. Yeah, and my only remaining question, I know that we don't have the same mechanisms to… cord… in record our preferences as City Council, but do we have different ones? Because I know our… like, I was reading through… what you provided, from City Council, and I've noticed some pretty distinct differences, and I was wondering if we had a similar mechanism.

[191:01] Yeah, the board could adopt a motion that adopts a statement of what your direction would be for the steps forward, and it would be similarly considered as the process moves forward if this step today is approved. Okay, great, thank you. Okay, I'm… I'm gonna call on myself. And I'm gonna be redundant. Because it's, it's, it's just, where we are now. It's this weird little spot that is off of this screen to the left. But when we go back to that other slide, it's… It's… we've moved… The vote tonight… Gets us to step one here on this slide. Right? If… I would say… It gives you the choice to move to that first step on the slide. Right. Right. It leaves the door open to consider moving to that first step.

[192:05] It's funny, just in our semantics, in the way we use words, Tonight, our voting. is not to initiate a service area expansion plan, even though that's kind of the language that we're using. It is not. It's to… it's to get to step one, where we set goals, build consensus, explore feasibility before initiating, and it's also a pause point as well. And when you say pause, it might be pause and adjust, it might be pause and throw the whole thing out and… Start over, or… or… Wait 5 years, and… see if something changes. I just want to make sure I'm… I'm correct in that. Yes. Okay. That… that's correct. Okay. But no, I'm confused. Can I call up you on that? Please? Because I think that what you just said is different than what I heard in the presentation, which is that

[193:03] it is not necessarily the case that we will do this, what is currently described as Set 1, Set Priorities, and explore feasibility, before we are asked whether we are ready to initiate expansion. I think what I heard is that, and this is what was described in the memo. If we vote to proceed tonight. The next thing that you folks will do after the comp plan is wrapped up is come back to us with some initial thoughts about what this planning process could look like. And that could include moving that Stage 1 inside of the rest of the stages, like reordering things, so that the very next thing we do is vote on whether to initiate. That's possible. We haven't thought that far ahead as to whether or not we would actually recommend that, but that would be part of that discussion around, are the bodies ready to initiate? And as part of that discussion, we would, again, propose a recommended process, and we would evaluate, you know, does it make sense to do some of that work ahead of initiation? Do we think it should actually be part of

[194:08] the planning process itself, and it's essentially task number one. I think those are all very outstanding questions in our mind, quite honestly, and we haven't really thought through exactly how we would do that, and I think it's also going to be dependent upon your feedback, either tonight or when we come back. You know, at those, at those meetings to really essentially begin a discussion around what does an expansion plan process look like? We need your help to help us refine that. We could push back. Like, if you said, we recommend that you initiate now, and then we do the feasibility later, we could say, no, we're not ready to initiate until you do feasibility. Yes, absolutely. And you could not proceed without our yes vote, so… To initiate, correct? To initiate. That is correct. That was helpful, and I was… I was gonna get there, definitely. Okay, okay.

[195:02] Yeah, I don't have any, more questions. Anyone else? Okay? Great, that was very clarifying, and good questions, and actually not too long. So we're going to open our public hearing. And, we'll have our public hearing, and then we're gonna get into deliberation. So, Thomas, we're gonna begin with folks in the room. Thank you, Mark. Yes, we do have two folks, signed up to speak in the room. First up, we have Aaron Weiss. And you could approach the podium, and you'll have 3 minutes to speak. And just, turn on the mic with that button on the bottom. Yep, there you go. Hello, I'm Aaron Weiss. I am not much of a public speaker, but I felt compelled to come out tonight. It's been,

[196:00] Really fun to watch this process over the past, several months, you all, and Council, and tons of great work from staff. I'm sorry, could you speak more into the mic, just so we make sure we get you on the tape? Yeah, raise it if you like. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Lots of great work from staff, and tonight's been no exception. Lots of really great questions, and Anyway, I think… I guess the biggest point I'd like to make is that it's a… it's a… I hear, like, lots of talk of off-ramps, lots of… Certainly lots of off-ramps, like, in the future, but what a cool opportunity we have. Lots of details to be worked out, for sure. But… you know, other geographically constrained communities would probably give anything to have the opportunity that we have today, thanks to the folks that set that in place 50 years ago. So, I can't really say it any better than so many other folks have, but I think,

[197:01] The City Council meeting really did an artful job of focusing on The opportunities and the details, and really sort of narrowing down the vision for what outcomes they desired, and I think, Planning Board has an opportunity to kind of do the same here. And, So I just, I just compel you to keep the conversation open, keep the door open, and see what sort of opportunities, we can really key in on. Details can be worked out, and with the assurance of knowing that we have got lots of off-ramps, as this process continues over an extended period of time. And to that note, If there is… if… if Planning Board… feels like… process isn't clear, like, I heard some discussion of process tonight. I would… I feel like the comp plan's a great time to maybe create some clarity around that. We've got time yet to create clarity, so the next time we're, given this opportunity, we've got that in place and, clearer path. Anyway, that's all. Thank you.

[198:07] Thank you. Thank you, Aaron. And next up, we have James Pollock. I think that's all been short. This is a slippery slope. to an… Irreverent. To the goals set. in 1977. And paid for… By the city and its residents at the time. I would just… I would suggest this pro… Because… Process ends now. Thank you. And thank you, James. That does it for our in-person participants, so I'm gonna go ahead and

[199:00] call for folks online. If anybody's joining us online and would like to speak to the public hearing for item 5B, this is your opportunity to do so. And we just ask that you go ahead and raise your hand on Zoom. And we have one raised hand, we have Lynn Siegel. Lynn, you'll have 3 minutes. And you can go ahead and begin. Yeah, the planning reserve was meant for emergencies, for solar, for ag. We aren't going to be able to have any ag because Erie shut off their irrigating system with junior water rights. Stop already. Like the last guy said. Stop. We have an inelastic market. There's no benefit. And creating more housing, comparing it to a gym, because there's no comparison. We have more and more expensive stuff. I was just reading on Boulder Junction, how…

[200:08] no one lives there. No one wants to live there. The commercial's messed up. You know, all this growth is not doing anything for us. The train can't come in. We don't have the money for this. We don't have the money for that. We have, an Economic crisis with our city budget. And… We need to stop, and we need a process where people are actually interacting with each other, not just an echo chamber. Of, you know, people like me telling you what to do, or what I think you should do. But… This was never set up. To be housing for the sector of housing that we happen to be lacking, the missing middle. No, we can't have just specific kinds of housing in specific parts of town.

[201:06] And we need to have impact fees with the Boulder Valley Comp Plan that are comprehensive and include all the services that each human being added to this city. takes up. And that means those 6-bedroom apartments, you know, that are high density, more people living here. I like, personally, MARPA houses and communal houses, but that can be conversion more, and not so much of an increased density. with these multi… bedroom apartments rented out by the bedroom at the Millennium. It's ridiculous what's going on here, what's in the pipeline. I've watched it because I've seen Papelio's, Glenwood, Dark Horse. It's not National Geographic, but that one out a little east. Like, all of these projects are not yet here, many of them. But Area 3 is the last thing we need.

[202:12] just hands-off Area 3. Step back, and think… about what is happening to this town. It's not a town that's gonna run from Kansas to the other end of the place, on the front range, because that's where everyone wants to live, is up against the mountains, and it just strokes. That concludes your time. raised hand online, we have Jonathan Singer. Jonathan, you'll have 3 minutes. Please go ahead and begin. Good evening, Planning Board. I'm Jonathan Singer, the Senior Director of Policy Programs with the Boulder Chamber of Commerce, and before I begin, I also want to just express my thanks for George Boone's service, and I know it's hard work, I know it's unpaid work, and it's valuable work, so thank you for your time and consideration.

[203:12] Especially tonight. Along those lines. You know, we live in a time where politics is oftentimes, shooting from the hip. We almost, too many times, shooting first and asking questions later. What this motion here represents is an opportunity to not just measure twice and cut once, but go through a multi-gated process of examination to balance the costs and benefits Rather than foregoing and foreclosing on an opportunity that we may not be able to see for another 5 years, when we know the demands from our community are so great right now. So instead of measure twice, cut once, this is more like measure 3 or 4 times and build once, or twice, or not at all.

[204:05] But let's not foreclose on that opportunity tonight. Let's move forward. And let's move forward carefully, and listen to what you have to say, listen to what our City Council has to say. And engage the community, and do it now, not 5 years from now, not 10 years from now. And then we can decide whether or not this is the right time and right place. With that, I'll yield the rest of my time back. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you, Jonathan, and I'm not seeing any other raised hands at the moment, but if anybody else online would like to speak, this is your opportunity to do so. And seeing none others coming up, I'm gonna pass it back to you, Chair. Okay. Thank you to the members of the public for your contribution and staying with us, late tonight.

[205:01] Alright, it is now time for the board to discuss and deliberate. And, I think this might be a challenging moment, and so, again, I'm going to suggest a round of initial comments. But if people are prepared with motions, I… I am. And, then I want us to move… Towards motion-making and debating motions in specific language soon. But I'm gonna suggest a round of commentary, and then we can, move on from there. So, who has commentary that they would like to… Make at the moment in advance of motions. Kirk? Sure, I'll start. I will, first of all, say that I am,

[206:02] by no means dead set against expansion into the planning reserve. I think that that is… it is something that we may need to do in the future. And we are not currently at the point of deciding whether to initiate a service area expansion plan, but the IGA gives us specific criteria about Doing the initiation. And so, to me, it makes sense to consider those criteria in making our decision tonight. Those are community value, capacity, and benefit. Community value is whether there's a long-term community value. We've identified, I think, we're largely in agreement that housing, especially middle-income housing, is a community, a long-term community value.

[207:00] So that part is clear. The third one is benefit, and it's the question of whether the expansion will benefit the existing residents in the Boulder Valley, and will have a lasting benefit for future generations. And the second one is capacity. Capacity is the need for a service area expansion cannot be met within the existing service area because there is not a suitable existing or potential land slash service capacity. This is the one that I've just been thinking about, and particularly in the context of this timing, we are just In the middle of a comp plan update, which… Probably will significantly affect what Our land use, our entire land use regime looks like, the land use designations, the land use map, the zoning eventually, some of the other regulations and policies that, that, deal with development.

[208:08] And… So… I find it, at this point, very difficult to… to be able to determine that The need for the service area expansion cannot be met currently. Within the existing service area, given that What is allowed may significantly change over the next few years. As the comp plan gets adopted, the changes in land use designations go into effect. The zoning potentially changes to reflect that, and so on. So, as I've been thinking about this, It has… Struck me that, really, the time, the best time to be thinking about this in detail is, in fact, 5 years from now.

[209:05] When we will be able to have a much better view of what that comp plan update has done, what it allows, what it doesn't allow, what is possible, what is not possible, and whether, at that point. We feel that the need for, especially missing middle housing, still cannot be met within the existing service area. And so… My inclination at this point is to say. Now is the time to pause, but in 5 years will be a much more appropriate time to consider this when we can see what all these changes have done, and have a much better perspective on this question of capacity. Thanks, Kurt.

[210:02] I'm looking. I'm looking for someone to catch my eye, raise their hand. Wow. Okay. Okay. I'm… oh, Claudia, go… no. I don't want to cut you off, Mark. No, go, I'm… I'm… Alright, I'm gonna be brief. To start, I will say that I was comfortable enough with the community need and the process outlined to be a yes vote at that January 20th meeting. And I have not seen anything since then that makes me question that vote for myself. What I'm seeing, especially after staff clarifications tonight, is that there are strong conditions around things like feasibility of meeting priority needs in the BPCP amendment procedures and in the IGA. That would need to be met if we actually went forward with trying to approve a service area expansion plan.

[211:03] And I'm glad to see that. I do understand some of my colleagues' discomfort at our meeting in January about the level of uncertainty in this process. And the desire to be putting up guardrails or specified direction in advance. And if there are steps that we can take tonight. To make sure that there is a robust additional process, to make sure that there are off-ramps, to get us to a place where folks are more comfortable. I am interested in supporting things, that would get us there. But the bottom line for me right now is I would like to see a proposal for a service area expansion plan. I would like to see a good faith and somewhat all-in effort at real planning here for this area, based on the housing need that we keep circling around in our community discussions. I think we as decision makers need that to make an informed decision about how to proceed, and I think the community actually deserves, that, given how Area 3 has really come into stand for so many dreams in our community, and on the flip side, a lot of people's nightmares, right?

[212:11] It has taken on a meaning of its own. So, when speaking about George's service to this board at the start of the meeting, I referenced curiosity as a kind of driving value for me, and I think in this particular context, it means keeping the door open, it means having a look at what that service plan could be. I am flexible in how we get there. I understand, like I said. the desire for some guardrails or some guidance on that. And so… I'm available for those kinds of motions. Okay. my commentary is… One of… I've looked back at our January 20th meeting. I've looked back at… my actions, what I said, failures thereof, and what happened subsequently at Council.

[213:03] And… I see this as… Council… I'm gonna make a comment, and it's not a criticism of staff directly, but it… At our January 20th meeting, I felt uncertain About what the question was. the timing, the off-ramps, all of these things, and, I was not articulate in asking these hard questions that, possibly would have clarified things for people. I think our vote, potentially reflects uncertainty for many of us. It certainly reflected uncertainty for me, even though I was clear that I was voting for moving forward. I think there was still… for me, there was still some unclarity, and I think that Council watched that vote.

[214:01] And they said, We need to be clearer. And by doing so, by their 7-2 vote, But subsequent hotline posts clarification and request for a resolution, they get to read things 3 times, right? They get 3 bites at the apple, so they have a whole different process than we do. So… By doing that, they have served the community by clarifying for us, for staff, for the community, What? if… if… we move forward to Step 1 of Step 3, what that means, and what the goals are. And I think that is such an essential step. And so I have read their resolution over and over, and I'll refer to it in my motion, but I think, tonight, we've received a much greater amount of clarity from staff, and I'm very appreciative of that, and I'm hoping

[215:06] That, we can… be more aligned with Council, because I think that this… this… I'm involved in multiple organizations, and I've been involved in multiple processes, the West Trail Study Area, which was a 100% consensus process. My experience with that is that there can be a tyranny of the minority. And in this case, a, a, a 4 no vote from this board to proceed Combined with 2 note votes on a council, that's 6. Versus 7, And 3, that's 10. So, if you look at a vote count of the two bodies. A far… a big majority has voted to proceed. And I understand that that is… it's our roles as individuals to use our best judgment, and I'm not suggesting anyone cave to pressure or anything, but it is… it is an interesting process we've built for ourselves

[216:14] in, in the, in the BBCP about how to, how to go about this, and it requires, it requires a higher level of consensus, than what is normal. And I'm hoping that when I make my motion. we can elevate and edit and create a path forward that actually gives us a way to join Council in a meaningful way while still, creating, While still honoring our voice as Planning Board. So that's my comment, and anyone else want to comment on that? That's great. Otherwise, I'm ready to make my motion.

[217:00] Mason. Just a really quick comment, I agree with pretty much practically everything that's been said by my colleagues here. The only… thing that I'll add is, you know, and speaking directly to your concerns, Kurt, I'm also hopeful that our BBCP updates will allow for the 15-minute neighborhood, vibrant neighborhood vision that we in Council, and I think many of our community members have for our city. I'm hopeful, but I'm not… I'm not certain. And… when I think about how long the type of Development that… that our city… Needs to address the immediate needs of our community and our surrounding communities in relation to housing. I think there's a level of urgency that, can only really be met by further exploration of Area 3. So… as much as I would like to wait, there are people that…

[218:04] you know, are struggling, and even if we do move forward with Area 3, it's still gonna be a long road. So, I… I'm hesitant to wait, given the low risks that this process provides in terms of all the off-ramps. That's my only addition. Laura. Thank you. So I do have some comments. First, I want to say, Mark, I'm really sorry to hear that you experienced a consensus-building process that was held captive by a tyranny of the minority. There are tools to get around that, and I'm sorry that that didn't happen for you. Speaking as a consensus-building facilitator. So back to the topic at hand. First, I want to acknowledge that the process that we are in to consider a service air expansion has not been done before, and so we are building the plane while we are flying it, to use one of the metaphors we like to use. So there are steps that are laid out contractually in the IGA, the Intergovernmental agreement between the City and the county that can't be easily changed, but there are a heck of a lot of details that have needed to be filled in. And I want to acknowledge that that is really hard work, and that staff is creating something really brand new, and that we're doing it in real time together. And I can truly see that staff has been listening.

[219:13] to Planning Board and to Council, and that you have been… as we are sort of feeling our way through, you are capturing our input, you are making refinements, and what we saw here tonight, I think, is an evolution that reflects what we have talked about and what Council has talked about. And so I want to really deeply appreciate that. And so I am changing my remarks and potentially changing my vote based on the information presented here tonight. You know, I noticed… I… I voted no in January, knowing that this could get kicked back to us and allow for this kind of conversation to happen, so I'm very grateful to see staff has really stepped up, and Council has really stepped up, and I think this board is really stepping up to meet this challenge. Second, I want to say that it has been suggested that anyone who votes no tonight is not a true champion of housing. And I would like to proactively and thoroughly debunk that specious line of argument. I know that everyone here who might vote no tonight is taking a thoughtfully considered stance about whether

[220:11] This process is a sensible use of time, attention, and resources for the whole community at this particular junction in our… our city's development, in world economics, all the things going around us. So, anybody who says that is dead wrong in my book. So I will say that this has been one of the most difficult decisions from my time on Planning Board. You know, it's very clear, we all know that there are crucial housing needs that we are having a very hard time fulfilling within the city footprint. And we think that Area 3 could offer us, a way to meet those needs, but we have not done the feasibility assessment yet, and so we do not actually know if it is viable, if it is practical, if it is practical, if it is achievable. to get those results. And I am extremely interested in seeing that get studied. I think that studying those questions of what actually is our vision for a 15-minute neighborhood that incorporates some of these housing products that are so very well enumerated in Council's memo, right? Not just the middle-income housing.

[221:13] but also housing for seniors, and housing with supportive services, and I would add the 0-40%, affordability rentals that are the greatest need that were identified for our city in the Dr. Cogg report that we're not getting enough of. How do we see all those things fitting together in a neighborhood, and can we actually get something like that built, either on city-owned property, or working with our partners who are private developers? I think that having that conversation will be so enlightening for us, whether or not it leads to initiation of a service plan. A service expansion plan. And so, given what staff has described tonight as a process that does have a lot of off-ramps, and where Planning Board will retain a lot of authority to back out and say no if we see we're not going to get what we want.

[222:00] I think that I am interested in seeing that process move forward. I do… I will have some suggestions of language to add in addition to what's in City Council's extremely well-written Excuse me, resolution. And I will also have a recommendation that we strongly recommend that some consensus building and some feasibility assessment happen before we vote to initiate, because I do think that once we vote to initiate, it will be more complicated, more messy, and frankly, more political to stop the process, because once these things start, they have a lot of momentum. So I think that we should… we should have that feasibility stage before we vote to initiate. I do want to talk really briefly about some of the things that I think that we should… we would like to see in a feasibility study, or at least I would, knowing that I might be off the board by the time this thing comes back to us. So, in terms of 15-minute neighborhoods, there are some essential components that are identified in the BBCP draft. Currently, community centers, groceries and food, parks and green space and mobility hubs. Some of those things, like grocery stores, do require a certain amount of density.

[223:08] Which is why I think that a 15-minute neighborhood marries up very well with the, Dr. Cogg call for, a certain density of 0-40% affordability rentals, in addition to the for-sale middle housing types that are affordable to middle income. And I want to point out that it's not just an opinion. The analysis that has been done by staff in terms of what is affordable to a middle-income family for the AMI in our area is around a $700,000 to $800,000 price point for a house that can accommodate a family of 3 or 4. And that is a very hard product to get in Boulder. So, getting some, looking at how that… some of that product could fit into, a 50-minute neighborhood would be good. I don't think that we can expect realistically, that all the housing will be of that type, or nor would we want it. We don't really want row cropping of houses without, the 15-minute neighborhood amenities.

[224:08] And then also the other housing types, like senior affordable housing and housing supportive services, we want that. And there probably will need to be, realistically, some market rate development. And can we direct that towards the smaller market rate units that for example, Tina Marquis was talking about, that are flexes and townhomes that might be market rate, but still attract families to help fill our schools. We need to build consensus around that, because I think some of those elements might be controversial to some people, and they might be essential to other people. And we need to give staff direction on what exactly are we trying to get in this middle-income, or this mixed-income, mixed-use, 15-minute neighborhood. So that they can evaluate the feasibility of achieving that. And I think that the feasibility goes beyond just economic feasibility, but that is a central component for example, To get that $700,000 to $800,000 unit.

[225:00] that is, affordable for middle-income families, will the city be required to subsidize it? And if so, in what manner? Would we subsidize it? And how much of that can we actually afford? And if a subsidy is needed, how does that compare to the cost of scatter site acquisition, which is our other tool for, having middle-income affordability in housing? It's been pointed out we need to know what's the market appetite for a deed-restricted middle-income product. We don't have a lot of that stock. How much of that can the market actually absorb? And then, like, what is the percentage of market rate to affordable that we could expect in this kind of development? And then I do also think that looking at the, parks… the feasibility of using all or part of the parks parcel for neighborhoods should be included in a feasibility assessment. Before we vote to initiate. So… so again, I'm supportive of Council's resolution, I'll be suggesting a few additions, and I will also strongly… I have language to strongly recommend starting with that feasibility study before initiation. Thank you, Laura. George.

[226:01] Yeah, thanks. So, I… I… I… What resonated with me were a few things. One… The first person that spoke publicly Talked about how thankful he was that this opportunity existed. And that it's been there for 50 years. And then I also thought about what Kurt said. in that… the changes that we're doing to the BVCP Are pretty, significant, along with… What was displayed to us tonight, which were about 24 different code changes that have happened over the past 5 years, and we've yet to see a lot of this stuff Work through our system. And so, I don't think… well, I'm not opposed to opening up Area 3. I don't think the time is now. I, I think… We have a lot of work to do as a city before we get there.

[227:05] I think before we consider annexation. There's some more important old foundational work that's unfinished in our existing service area. A lot of the city has Lacks adopted area plans, because staff has said they can't prioritize them and can't get to them. Which is critical to ensuring that the growth aligns in our current service area, in our infrastructure, in our neighborhoods. have a shared long-term vision that is not yet completed. It's not even close to. We don't even have area plans for these areas. We haven't demonstrated anything as it relates to our middle-income housing policies that are producing any results at scale in the city. Yet we're changing… we've changed a lot of land uses. We're about to do that in the BBCP. And we constantly hear that staff capacity is constrained. Constrained to the point where they can't even fix, within a year's timeframe.

[228:08] The form-based code that all of us thought was not what the outcome which we worked so hard as government bodies and the community to get to. So to think that we're gonna get to a place Where… where we're gonna get the outcome that we want here. It's almost like we're giving up on the first service area. Like we… like, we're relinquishing that we're not gonna achieve the goals within the city. And I'm very concerned about that. you know, We're also hearing… About budget constraints. We know this is an additional project, not only financially for consultants, I think staff had mentioned a half a million, a million. I would love some transparency on Alpine balsam.

[229:03] Because we are hundreds of millions of dollars into that project. That's… the city has managed that project, and it is, from my perspective, a debacle. We are in one of the worst office markets. In the history that I've certainly experienced, we're at 35% vacancy, and yet we're continuing to build a $1,000 plus a square foot office building. While we're… while we're in a financial crisis in the city. So, I don't think this is the time that we should be spending more staff time On side projects, when we have so much more work to do in the city. I don't think this is the time. that we should be spending more taxpayer money when we should be looking at focusing on Area 1, and our needs as a community as they exist now.

[230:00] Thanks. Okay, thank you, George. more commentary. Any more? Okay, I have a motion, but this is… this is complex tonight. It's not a straight-up thing. Because… I want to make two points. As I understand it from our city attorney's office, that… The motion before us, one that… That, in the packet, there are 3 motions, possible motions. Those are not really amendable editable, like, A site review motion, or… Other things, like what we did earlier tonight. Because of the requirement, that our vote… match city councils or not. Those are not amendable. motions. And that's the reason behind Council producing a resolution to inform their vote.

[231:07] Rather than just… Adding a bunch of stuff into their finding of need. So, so, to that end, we, we, Planning Board, does not have a formal Resolution is a tool, but we can make a statement. And so, my motion… While being essentially the same as what's in the packet is tied to a statement. And so I have a draft of the motion and the statement. And Thomas, if you have those available. to put up. I sent them to you earlier. Sure, give me just one second to close this over. Okay. So the motion… and I'm hoping what we can do is review this before I formally make the motion, because once the motion is made, we get a second, then we get into this

[232:06] whole process where it's difficult to edit or change, so I'm… one to open that process up before the motion is made, and Laura, it sounds like, You have thoughts. About this. So, anyway, The motion is in the packet, which is the motion to rescind the board's January 20th, 2026, motion that found et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and so he'll put that up. But the motion is the motion to rescind, which is followed by, and Motion to find that the identified community needs So, everything in the first two paragraphs Is exactly as in in the packet. Staff's recommended motion language, should we want to rescind?

[233:01] Okay? followed by an additional AND, Note that the Planning Board's motion is informed by the Planning Board's statement of March 24, 2026, which is attached. So… It's not… it's not part of the motion, but it is… it is a statement, just like Council's resolution. And so this is where the meat of what I've tried to do, and I've tried to keep this simple. We can… we can… this could be really big, and I've tried to keep it relatively small and simple. And I'll… I'll read this, and then we can discuss whether or not, People want to edit or move forward, or it's dead. The Planning Board supports City Council's Draft Resolution 1374, which establishes a framework to guide planning for a future service area expansion plan.

[234:00] Our support of draft resolution 1374 includes all 17 of the guiding principles enumerated in the resolution. This statement also explicitly acknowledges that our motion is in support of further study, data collection, and analysis of feasibility of the guiding principles outlined in Resolution 1374. Finally, this statement also acknowledges that the two city bodies, City Council and Planning Board, will have the opportunity to vote on the initiation of a service area expansion plan after the completion of additional study and analysis. So, while staff talked earlier about this flexibility. of, of, of those 7 steps of Step 3, I am saying step one and step two happen in the order that they are presented on that slide, and that this statement acknowledges

[235:05] The additional study and work prior to a vote to actually initiate a service area expansion plan. So… That's my work. Laura. So I like this a lot. I do want to ask a couple of questions. I wanted to ask Hela whether a structure like this is legally okay. And even though they're on the same piece of paper, the statement would be the same piece of email. The statement would be a separate document from our motion. Would they be adopted at the same time, like, hooked together, or would we adopt the motion and then adopt the statement separately? the latter. Is my thinking. I think it would be okay to draft it this way. It sounds like what you want to say is we want to see some analysis before the initiation, and I think that can be part of the…

[236:07] The guardrails that… That you express in a statement. Okay, so those were my questions, and then, if this moves forward, I might propose a few edits. Just… I have some language written that I might want to merge with it, but I think it's very much in the same spirit. Okay? Kurt. I have a question about the last… sentence, which says that the two city bodies, City Council and Planning Board, will have the opportunity to vote on the initiation of a service area expansion plan after the completion of additional study and analysis, but that does… it seems to me to rule out the possibility of an actual off-ramp at that point. In other words, the off-ramp that was shown in Step one of the… 7-step process, whatever. It sounds like this is ruling that out. Like, we'll get the study and analysis, but then the next step is to vote on initiation of a service area expansion plan or not, which is actually step

[237:14] 2… As I recall. Step 2 of Step 3, right. So, I would… while I think that's an interesting point. I would point out that, one, this is a statement. It is not a motion, and it isn't a… a ruling isn't anything other than a statement, just like Council's resolution is nothing more than their resolution. Hence… If staff, after going through step one, said, you know what? This whole Area 3 thing, it's just… it's just infeasible, and it's not going to happen. And, you know, it's… it's truly unfeasible, Then either we would… both bodies would vote and say, well, staff's telling us it's infeasible, or…

[238:01] just the fact that they're stating infeasibility would… could kill the process. But I don't find anything wrong with a vote Informed by staff saying, this is… this is completely… it won't work, and, we suggest you vote no. Okay. Then, you know, that would inform our vote. If I may, I do think that a slight wording tweak could answer Kurt's concern, and just say something like. City Council and Planning Board. will consider Additional staff study and analysis. Before they are asked to vote on the initiation of a service area expansion plan, so that we can consider that before a service area expansion plan initiation vote even comes forward. I think if we just change the order of that, it doesn't guarantee that we will have a vote. I think… I think I can wordsmith this to take care of your concern, Kurt, and still honor the spirit of what Mark is saying.

[239:04] I did want to ask staff. I wanted to ask Christopher and Sarah in particular. this… this says we support all 17 of the guiding principles, and if I am reading this correctly, it sounds like this would require an analysis of feasibility of all of those guiding principles. Does that give you any hope? Is that what you meant, Mark? No. Okay. Well, and it doesn't… I don't think it says that at all. It says, our support of the draft resolution includes all 17 of the guiding principles enumerated in the resolution, period. End of sentence, new paragraph. it says, it acknowledges that our motion is in support of further study, data collection, and analysis of feasibility of the guiding principles outlined in Resolution 137.4. So that would be a study of the feasibility of the 17 guiding principles, if I'm reading that correctly. Well, that's true. But we wouldn't… if… in honoring councils, resolution.

[240:06] What… are we saying we don't want additional analysis of… of… of some of those? Principles? I might just make it a little vaguer and use the language that staff used on their slide that said. That it would be… Building consensus on priority goals and a vision for… I added that, actually, but building consensus on priority goals and assessing feasibility for achieving the goals. And that if the desired outcomes are not realistic or priorities are unclear, the process can be paused. So I probably would just steal some of the language from their slide, if that would be acceptable. Rather than referring back to the guiding principles again. I'll just remind that that is a draft. So, Council, it may not look… They may not have 17 or 16 or however many. It may not be that. That you're speaking to now, when it's all agreed to by the council.

[241:04] I understand that that is possible, and that is why I actually wanted to move this meeting after Council's adoption of the draft resolution, but we chose not to. We chose to have that meeting now, and we chose not to change our schedule. I, and so… so, I also understand that Council is… there's a… it may go on to their consent agenda. They're not going… they likely will not debate this again. It will just be adopted On their consent agenda. I think that they didn't adopt it the night that it came up was because they didn't want to wordsmith it in live action, so who knows how it will or won't evolve between today. Anyway, I just wanted to point out… Point taken, point taken, but our statement, my statement here refers to it as a draft… as the draft resolution of this date. Yeah.

[242:15] Quick… Quick question. Oh, Mason, I'm sorry. So I also read and re-read the resolution, and… I mean, I know their guiding principles, but they felt awfully… vague, for my liking. I wasn't super… impressed is the wrong word. That feels mean. It just wasn't aligned with what I was hoping for when I read that. I was hoping for something a little bit more. So, I'm having… so I just wanted to know what was your reason for… Well, I tried to be as specific as I could, In a brief statement. acknowledging to try to get us to…

[243:05] The step that we all seem to want, which is… Additional data and analysis about the principles that Council outlined. And I thought staff has done a very deft job at taking a bunch of hotline posts and commentary from some very disparate views at Council and incorporating them Into a document that I don't even find it that vague, but I find it to be a a great example of how to take a bunch of very different thoughts and bring different council members together, and so… I can't guarantee, I can't predict the future, but I have high expectations that they will adopt it as drafted, as what we received as planning board members on Friday.

[244:06] Mark? Yep. when I… Reading the resolution, I did see a couple places that I really wanted some additional detail and clarification, and I would like to propose those. Added into this statement of, you know, that we… We support the resolution and would suggest a few additions coming from Planning Board, right? Not for Council, but for us, right? And that those would be, number one… So here's what I would propose. That you, Read… Can you select them, send them, and we paste them in, and we do a quick show of hands, rather than… just do a quick nod of… nod of 4 here, to see if, in fact. your additions fly or not, and… but we just do this kind of rapid fire so we actually get somewhere. How do you feel about that?

[245:04] That's fine. Do you want me to verbally say them, or you want me to just send them to Thomas? them to Thomas, and then once they're up on the screen, you can say them, and then we can have a quick show of hands on each one. Would you be open to take… because I do have some language that I wanted to propose that I think could merge well with your statement. Yep. Would you be open to taking a quick 5-minute break, letting me do a draft that merges yours and mine, and then we give it to Thomas? Just to do it all in one package, rather than looking at it piece by piece? 5 minutes sounds okay to me. Any objection? Okay, this is an important night tonight, let's… let's… let's get her done. Okay. Somebody please send me Mark's statement? I'll… I'll do it right now. Thank you.

[254:13] language to both Thomas and the board. Okay, so, 10-16, we're gonna call the meeting back to order. Board Member Kaplan has, proposed some changes in language, and so we all have them, if you have the ability to see them, but Thomas will get it up there when he can.

[255:03] Okay, Laura, walk us through these, and And… just… Why don't you… Don't sell too hard, just clarify what it is you're trying to achieve. I'm a natural-born salesperson. I'll try, I'll try. I'm asking you, due to the hour and everything else… I will try. debrief. Okay. let me ask you this. How about you, Tell us about your edit. And at the point that you think we're at a decision point, let's say item number 1, We do a quick show of hands. About item number 1, and then we can either strike it or leave it. Okay. I will do that. Thank you. And Thomas, I see that there's a typo. You can… you can delete, the bolded as of March 24th, 2026. You can delete that.

[256:01] Okay, and also, it looks like the strikeout isn't showing, so I'll have to tell you where the strikeout is. Okay, so… Did you also mean for this number 7 to say number 2? I'm sorry, say that again, Thomas. 7 here, or number 2? That's a 7. Okay. Yeah. It's referring back to the principal number in the council resolution. Okay, so the first change is just to propose the following additions, right? So it says, we support Council's resolution. We would also propose the following additions. And this is an edit to principle number one, maybe that needs to be clarified, but for principle number one. clarify that the desired housing types that are already included in Council's memo include permanently affordable middle-income ownership units of middle housing types, such as plexes or row homes. comma, smaller-sized market rate ownership units of middle housing types, comma, and low-income rentals for 0-40% AMI.

[257:06] I think it's important to be very specific about the types of housing that are missing. It's not all middle housing, and it's not all middle-income ownership housing. It is specifically… Permanently affordable middle-income ownership units of middle housing types, such as plexes or row homes. Because we get condos that are affordable, but we don't get the plexes and row homes that are affordable. The smaller-sized market rate ownership units of middle housing types, like the plexes and row homes, and the low-income rentals for 0-40% AMI. I know that's confusing to read, but I think that specificity is important, and it's lacking in Council's memo. So that's the first proposed change. Okay, I'm gonna stop you there. Okay? I would like to see, and again, this is whether you support inclusion in this in our statement. You can still vote no on the motion or the statement, but if this statement goes forward, do you support the inclusion of this in the statement?

[258:11] Yep. You had a statement up as well? Are we only considering… my statement, Laura has expanded it greatly. Right, okay. Got it. And thanks to her for having this at her fingertips, and… So, I'll simply say, I support, but I'd like to see a show of hands if you support this as an addition To this draft statement. Raise your hand if you support. Okay, I see, 6-1, okay? That stays in. Okay. Carry on. Next. This is their guiding principle number 7. the initial part here comes from City Council, clarified that exploration of how city-owned land

[259:04] Can support addressing community needs. So that's what City Council said to do, explore how city-owned land can support addressing community needs, which I think is too vague. So I'm saying clarify that doing that exploration will specifically include investigation of the desirability and feasibility of repurposing all or part of the undeveloped city-owned park parcel for housing. And let me just explain, I think that that statement Explore how city-owned land can support addressing community needs. That could include addressing community needs for a park. That could include addressing community needs for recreation. It doesn't necessarily say that we will explore how city-owned land will be used to address housing. I support… And, let's have a show of hand. If you have questions, you can ask them now. I think that's pretty clear.

[260:00] Just a quick question. Why did you say feasibility? Isn't the feasibility pretty obvious? No, I think the feasibility goes to, can we actually do a disposal? Will the City Council and Parks Department agree to a disposal? And if we do try to do a disposal, what kind of payment would be required? And could that be a land swap? What would be… if it's money, what is the money? Where does it come from? Like, those are questions that we need to answer before we can say, yes, we should build housing here. Sure. Okay. There might be a better word, but okay. We also support the word repurposing, because We have this giant block of land in one section of Area 3 that's owned by the parks, which doesn't coincide with any sort of good parks planning of distributed parks, 15-minute neighborhoods, and it's like, you know… Anyway, I think there's… lots and lots of possibility and feasibility to be studied in regard to the parcel owned by the city-slash-Parks and Rec Department.

[261:10] So, raise your hand if you support this as an addition to the statement. Okay, and George, if you're… I'm assuming you don't have your hand raised. I don't have my hand raised. Okay, thank you. Okay, so if… I'm just gonna assume I'm gonna see your hand high up if… if you support any of these things. Okay. Okay, that was a 5-2, so it stays in. Carry on. Okay, and then this last one, I think, is really just a rewriting of what you had written in your last paragraph, which I had meant to strike out, but the strikeout isn't showing. So, your second paragraph that's at the very bottom there, that starts with this statement, also explicitly acknowledges, I'm saying strike that and replace it with this paragraph that says, this statement also explicitly acknowledges Planning Board's strong recommendation that the City undergo a pre-planning process prior to

[262:12] formal vote regarding initiation of a service area expansion plan. In the pre-planning stage, staff should work with City Council and Planning Board to build consensus on priority goals and a vision for Area 3, Built upon the principles in Resolution 1374, and assess feasibility for achieving the goals and vision. The pre-planning should help ensure that the service area expansion would meet the BBCP requirement that the proposed change, quote, must provide for a priority need that cannot be met within the existing service area. End quote. If desired outcomes for a service area expansion are not realistic or priorities are unclear, the process can be paused rather than initiating a service area expansion. And most of this language comes from the slide that Christopher and Sarah presented tonight.

[263:00] Questions about this? Kurt? So, the must provide for a priority need that cannot be met within the existing service area, that's only one of the three criteria, right? So… Yes, but I think that's the one that's most in question, is can we actually achieve these things in Area 3? Well, I think that the benefit one is a real question, too, especially given a billion dollars being spent. Right, so… Would you be open to including that as well? Yeah, yeah. I think we could just say meets the criteria for a surface air expansion. to me, that's superior, rather than selecting one of the three, just restate what's already stated in the BBCP, and… Say, Yeah. Okay. We could just change it to…

[264:02] would meet the… and Thomas, if you could… I'm not sure where you're at here. Okay, so in that last bolded paragraph, Key in on the BBCP? Okay, so… would meet the BVCP, and then add, add, criteria for service area expansion, and then delete the rest of that sentence. And delete the rest of the… the paragraph. No, just the sentence. Just that one sentence. Yeah. Yep, and then leave in if the desired outcomes for service air expansion are not realistic or priorities are unclear, the process can be paused rather than initiating a service area expansion. That's much better for me. Thank you for that change, Kurt. Okay. I support.

[265:00] Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, can I just make one very minor but important clarification, where it states that, Priority goals and vision for… where it says Priority Goals and a Vision for Area 3, I would just clarify that that's, say, Area 3, Planning Reserve. Thank you, very important. Thomas, if you, in that last paragraph, about midway, where it says Area 3, Just please add the words Area 3, Planning Reserve. Thank you, Christopher. Okay, I support… Show of hands, please, for if you support inclusion of Laura's second paragraph there. Okay, oh, and there we go, George. I see your hand, thank you. Okay, that's a 6-1 vote, and that stays in. Okay, wow, that's some… that's some of the best, quickest editing I've ever partaken in by a group. That's amazing.

[266:05] Alright, okay. I wanna high-five you. Oh, well, oh, okay, alright. Okay, and really, this, I mean, doing that in a 6-minute time period was pretty amazing. Okay, so, I am now going to… Oh, I'm sorry, Kurt. I have… two other suggested edits… Oh, okay. …that I sent to Thomas. Would you be able to bring those up? Yeah. Or just bring up the email. Do you… I don't know where you want to have those. Do you want them after number 7 here? So, if you want to put them in the same document, sure, that would be fine, just stick them at the end for now. I'll put them down here. Yo. So, the first one is suggesting a change to Council's

[267:02] Item number 16 in the resolution. Currently, and I'm sorry, I didn't get the full language in there. Currently, Council's item number 16 says, evaluate comparable investment in the existing service area as an alternative to expansion to meet community needs. So it's talking about comparable investment only, and I'm suggesting adding the words… Evaluate land use regulation changes, and… Comparable investment in the existing service area as an alternative to expansion to meet community needs. I think that may… from… I'm gonna open, And we all had the resolution sent to us, but if… So… We're saying 16. 16. Oh yeah, it's just one sentence, so it would read, with your… with your addition, it would say.

[268:06] Yeah, evaluate land use regulation changes and comparable investment in the existing service area as an alternative to expansion to meet community needs. Correct. Yeah. So… Let's… put that… we'll just say that that is… that goes up in, the document. I can wordsmith and put it in the same format, like, clarify number 16 and then send that to Thomas. Great. Okay? Okay. I think you… you do that. Let's… let's have a quick show of hands on… on that one. Okay, those in favor? of inclusion, Okay, that is 6-1. That goes in, and Laura will wordsmith that. while you, explain number 18. I assume that's an addition.

[269:04] So, right, I'm proposing this as an addition, which is do not continue with the process unless high-frequency transit service and safe pedestrian and bicycle-friendly connections can be provided to the planning reserve. That one I struggle with. Not because I don't want that, But… because I don't want… again, the tyranny of the minority being RTD and their financial troubles, or whatever else, to… Keep us from a vision we're… I don't want the service area Expansion plan to be held hostage to trying to get an answer from RTD, Of, will they expand service in this area 20 years from now, or 30 years from now? That… I mean, I… I… the goal is admirable, but, .

[270:07] Can I just respond? Yeah, yeah, please. I feel like if there's not high-frequency transit service here, it's gonna be a failure. we should not be doing it. How can we… how can we justify doing something if there's not good transit service there? Like, the transit should be the fundamental backbone of what we're doing. And if we're saying, meh. Maybe, you know, but we hope that it'll have transit service. I don't think that that's good enough, so that's my perspective here. I would ask… for those of us that were here when holiday was a drive-in, right? The holiday drive-in, and it was not a housing development. It… it… it wasn't home to a lot of people, and different communities, and so forth, and parks. And if we had said, That we're not doing this.

[271:05] Unless… RTD serves us with high-frequency transit. It wouldn't, it wouldn't have happened. And, even today. You know, we have the skip. Which serves Holiday, and what, the 204? But… Holiday… I don't consider Holiday a failure, because RTD doesn't have high enough frequency service in that area. I don't think the service is high enough frequency, for the whole… for the whole holiday neighborhood, but I consider it a great success. Okay, and just to clarify, this doesn't say RTD. Right, it says high-frequency transit service. Currently, the skiffs, I believe, is subsidized by the city. Our ability to cleave ourselves from RTD actually becomes more and more difficult by the day as we participate in… anyway, I do not support this addition.

[272:04] May I? Yep. I likewise really appreciate where this is coming from, and I don't see how it's practical, because high-frequency transit is really not economically viable unless you have the population to support it. And development of the planning reserve is not going to just happen overnight, it's going to be… You know, so the development has to come first before the transit arrives. Nobody's going to put in transit for a population that's not there yet. I just don't see how it works on a practical basis. Maybe you can tell me about it, Kurt. Well, and I'm not saying that it needs to happen before the first shovel goes in the ground. But there needs to be some sort of evaluation that, yes, this is… the… We're not going to leave this as a transit desert, the transit desert that it currently is. That's what I'm trying to get at. Claudia?

[273:01] I just want to point out that the Council draft resolution is not completely silent on this issue. It doesn't get as specific as Kurt is asking, but their point number 6 does talk about prioritizing land use, transportation, and design decisions that support living without a personal vehicle, and I think it gets at some of this. I agree, that just felt so weak to me. I fully support what it says, but it's very weak sauce to me, so I was trying to firm that up. Did you make a proposed change, or just… I did not. I wanted to add that context to this discussion about whether we should add this .18. Okay. Alright, I think we need to… do a show of hands on this, so if you would like to have Kurt's suggested number 18 included, raise your hand. Okay, I see 2. Alright, it fails. Okay.

[274:01] Any… anything… well, Laura, have you done your… Just sent. Okay. I just sent it to Thomas. Okay, so could you put that up? It's perfect. Could you put that up into… Yeah, there we go. Okay? Alright, we already voted on that number 16, correct? Even… yeah, okay. All right. Okay. I think we have a draft. Now, what I'm going to propose is that we Move to adopt this statement.

[275:01] First, And then, and then we have a motion, the motion to rescind. Because the motion to rescind refers to our statement. So, I feel like the order, the correct order, is to… Have clarity and adoption of our statement, and then go to the motion. So, I'm going to move… to adopt the, Planning Board statement regarding the consideration of the Area 3 Service Area Expansion Plan. as drafted on the screens, and I am not going to read the whole thing. And, do I have a second? Second. Okay, I'm going to vote, and we're going to start with Mason. Yes. Yes. Claudia? Yes.

[276:01] ML. Yes. Kurt? No. and George. Nope. Okay. Oh, and me. Yes. So that, that is adopted 5 to 2. the statement. Okay. I now am going… to… Go back to my… Give me one second here… My God. I move… To rescind the Board's January 20, 2026 motion that found the identified community needs are not of sufficient priority per the criteria described in the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan to warrant further consideration of a service area expansion plan at this time.

[277:15] and… motion, I move to find that the identified community needs are sufficient are of sufficient priority per the factors described in the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan to warrant further consideration of a service area expansion plan. and… to note. that the Planning Board's motion is informed by the Planning Board's statement of March 24th, 2026, which is attached here. Hela, what do you think? Yeah, the way we had set it up in the memo was that you first do a motion to rescind so that the previous action is canceled out that the board took in January, and then you would reconsider a motion to make findings whether there's sufficient community need.

[278:15] Okay, so you're… The first motion. We're actually not… Shouldn't have been there. Do we need two motions, is what you're saying? Yes. Okay. So, let's go back. I move to rescind the Board's January 20, 2026 motion that found the identified community needs are not of sufficient priority per the criteria described in the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan to warrant further consideration of a service area expansion plan at this time. Second. Okay. I… we've had plenty of discussion. I… Okay. No, please. Okay, so,

[279:01] So we're on the home stretch of the BVCP update, and the outcomes of the significant shift of these updates have not yet been realized. I believe that they hold tremendous promise to meet the currently unmet community values, so I will not be supporting the motion. Okay, thank you, ML. Any other comments before we vote? Okay, in order. Mason. Yes. Laura. Yes. Claudia? Yes. ML? No. Kurt? No. And George? No. Okay. Oh, and me. Thank you, alright, okay. I, I also vote yes to rescind. Okay, so that is a 4-3 decision. Which brings us to the next motion. I move to find that the identified community needs

[280:01] are of sufficient priority per the factors described in the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan to warrant further consideration of a service area expansion plan And Hela, I would like to include the AND and the note. In this… in this motion, To find need. Or are you… are you saying that that would be problematic? I think it's unnecessary. You already adopted that motion. The statement. The statement. Okay. Alright, fine. I'll end my motion. After the service area expansion plan. I will second. Okay. Any comment? Okay. We a voting. Mason? Yes. Laura?

[281:00] Yes. Claudia. Yes. ML? No. Kurt? No. And George? No. And I'm a yes. Okay. we have adopted the, the motion. to move forward. And, I believe that concludes, unless people have other comments, that concludes this particular agenda item, but we're not done yet. Okay? Yes. Okay, Christopher, staff, Everyone, sorry to keep you so late, but thank you. Okay, you go. Okay, Thank you very much. Thank you to the public for their comments. Thomas, for your editing work. Anyway, I'm very appreciative of the thought that everyone has put into this. I'm going, I believe…

[282:02] We are, at matters now. Oh geez, okay. Okay, any matters from the board? On any topic, okay. Any matters from the planning director? Just a reminder that we've got the two-body meeting on Thursday, so we'll see you again this week, and we are getting a few hotlines, and we're making a point in responding to those to copy you all as well. Great. Thank you. City Attorney, anything from you? Nothing for me, although ML asked about election of a new chair. And maybe you want to talk about it, but one of the things you… Might want to consider tonight is if you want to vote for a new chair at your next meeting.

[283:01] I… I would… My personal thought is yes, and that what I thought would be easiest would be for me to open the meeting, and then go through the nomination and voting process for the chair and vice chair. At… just right at the very beginning of the next meeting. Yeah, that would be fine, and I just wanted to bring it up. You don't have to consider it next week, but if you do, then everybody might want to be prepared. Okay? Item 6A was an information item, and that was already kind of dispensed with, unless anyone has questions or anything about item 6A? Okay, we just did our calendar check, and I'm… Glad I didn't put anything on my calendar for Thursday night. Well, not…

[284:00] remembering about this meeting we had until… until Friday of last week. Okay, anything else about the calendar for anyone? Okay? And, again, this is, this is, This is See You Later to George. in the hood, it is not goodbye, but we'll see you around, and maybe you'll come share your thoughts with us at 10.30 on a Tuesday night at a future meeting. Most definitely, most definitely. But we'll see you on Thursday, no? I will not be attending… I won't be attending Thursday. Okay. Oh, okay. Okay. All right. Well, again, George, thank you for everything, and okay, we are adjourned. You're down the street. Good night, everyone. Thank you. Okay.