September 3, 2026: Boulder City Council hears from families about the closures

Special meeting: call to order and roll call

0:03:48Aaron Brockett go ahead um and call us to order for the Thursday, September 3rd, 2026 special meeting of the Boulder City Council. Can we have a roll call, please, Emily?

0:03:58Emily (clerk) Yes. And I guess it's still afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Um we'll start tonight's roll call as usual with Council Member Adams,

0:04:08Roll call present. Benjamin present. Mayor Brockett present. Kaplan present. Present. Marquis present. Schuchard Speer and Mayor Pro Tem Winer present.

0:04:26Emily (clerk) Mayor we have our quorum.

0:04:28Aaron Brockett Thanks so much. So if we can go to our one item agenda item for the special meeting please.

Executive session on uses of city open space (2A); special meeting adjourned

0:04:35Emily (clerk) Yes absolutely. Um this is going to be for item 2A and this is uh for consideration of a motion to call an executive session of the city council pursuant to 24-6-424A of the Colorado Colorado revised statute and city of Boulder charter section 21A2 to receive confidential legal advice regarding authorized uses of the city open space.

0:05:05Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video So moved.

0:05:08Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Second.

0:05:09Aaron Brockett We have a motion and a second. Can we have a roll call, please, Emily?

0:05:12Emily (clerk) Absolutely. We'll start the roll call with you, Mayor Brockett.

0:05:16Roll call Yes. Council member Kaplan, yes. Marquis, yes. Mayor Pro Tem Winer, yes. Adams, yes. And Council Member Benjamin, yes.

0:05:28Emily (clerk) The motion to convene into an executive session is hereby approved unanimously.

0:05:34Aaron Brockett Very good. So, I have a few words to say before we get started on that. The council calls a special meeting so it may meet in executive session of the city council on Thursday, September 3rd, 2026 at 4:30 p.m. as authorized by section 246424A. And I'll announce the actual time a little later. and CRS and City of Boulder Charter Section 21A2. So the council may receive confidential legal advice regarding authorized uses of city open space. The following provisions of the Colorado Open Meetings Act to authorize an executive session to discuss this matter and that is conferences with an attorney for the city to receive legal advice on specific legal questions CRS 246424B.

0:06:14Aaron Brockett The topic announcement provides as much detail as possible without compromising the purpose for which the executive session is authorized. I will now entertain a motion, an additional motion to convene an executive session pursuant to CRS section 246424 for a conference with the city manager and attorney for the city for the purpose previously stated.

0:06:34Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Second.

0:06:35Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Wait.

0:06:37Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Oh, so moved. Sorry.

0:06:39Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Second.

0:06:40Aaron Brockett Very good. Emily, should we do a roll call for this as well or a show of hands?

0:06:44Emily (clerk) A show of hands is appropriate.

0:06:46Aaron Brockett All in favor, please raise your hand. Okay, that passes 6. Um, a motion for executive session must pass by two-thirds of the quorum present, but that was unanimous. Um, so the motion has passed. The council will now recess and reconvene immediately in executive session to discuss the matter previously stated for the purposely purposes previously stated at 4:33 p.m. Rivera Vandermyde, Ryan Schuchard, Terresa Taylor Tate, and Tara Winer.

0:50:40Aaron Brockett For the record, if any person who participated in the executive session believes that any substantial discussion of any matters not included in the motion to go into executive session occurred during the executive session or that any improper action occurred during the executive session in violation of the open meetings law, I ask that you state your concerns for the record. Seeing none, the town the time is now 5:17 p.m. and we conclude this executive session and to return to the public city council meeting and looks like okay and we're almost done here. We're now back into our regular special meeting. The time is now 5:18 p.m. and the executive session has been concluded.

0:51:24Aaron Brockett The participants in the executive session were Taiisha Adams, Matt Benjamin, Aaron Brockett, Dan Burke, Rob Kaplan, Tina Marquis, Chris Meschuk, Janet Michaels, Nur Rivera Vandermyde, Ryan Schuchard, Teresa Taylor Tate, and Ter Winer. For the record, ask again if any person who participated in the executive session believes that any substantial discussion of any matters not included in the motion to go into executive session occurred during the executive session or that any improper action occurred during the executive session violation of the open meetings law. I ask that you state your concerns for the record. Seeing none, I now um conclude the Septer September 3rd, 2026 special meeting. We'll come back at 5:30 for open comment. Emily, do we have channel 8 ready to go?

Regular meeting: call to order, roll call and participation rules

1:03:32Emily (clerk) Yes, channel 8 is ready to go.

1:03:35Aaron Brockett All right. Well, welcome everyone to the Thursday, September 3rd, 2026 regular meeting of the Boulder City Council. I'm going to go ahead and call us to order. And Emily, can you do a roll call, please?

1:03:48Emily (clerk) Absolutely, Mayor. We'll start tonight's roll call as usual with Council Member Adams,

1:03:54Roll call present. Benjamin, present. Mayor Brockett, present. Marquis here. Schuchard here. Speer.

1:04:10Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Who? Does not look like

1:04:13Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Nicole's not here yet.

1:04:14Roll call Oh. Um and uh mayor prom present.

1:04:19Emily (clerk) Great. Mayor, we have our quorum.

1:04:21Aaron Brockett Thanks so much. Emily, can you go over the public participation guidelines, please?

1:04:26Emily (clerk) Absolutely.

1:04:30Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Just for the record, Rob Kaplan is here, too.

1:04:33Emily (clerk) Oh, okay. Did I not get you?

1:04:36Rob Kaplan I'm here.

1:04:36Emily (clerk) I'm sorry about that. Thank you. Okay. Um All right. Well, thank you everyone for joining us tonight for tonight's city council meeting um and your participation. We ask that you abide by the rules of decorum found in the Boulder Revised Code, including participants are required to sign up to speak using the name they are commonly known by. Individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online. Only auto testimony is permitted during open comment. No attendee shall disrupt, disturb, or otherwise impede the orderly conduct of any council meeting in a manner that obstructs the business of the meeting. This also includes failing to obey any lawful order of the presiding officer to leave the meeting room or refrain from addressing the council.

1:05:29Emily (clerk) 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. And lastly, obscenity, other appetites based on race, gender, or religion, and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the meeting will not be tolerated. Thank you so much.

Open comment: BVSD school closures (University Hill resident)

1:05:54Aaron Brockett Thanks, Emily. All right, we have 19 people signed up to speak because one person withdrew. Every person will have two minutes to speak, and I will be strict with those time limits in the interest of fairness. The first three speakers are Sheree Sigman, Harry Pullman, and Carolyn Martin. So Sheree, come on up. Press the button.

1:06:18Sheree Sigman (University Hill resident) Test. Test. Okay. Good evening, mayor and members of city council. My name is Sheree Sigman. I live on University Hill, one of the many neighborhoods that will be affected by the potential closure of neighborhood schools. While I understand that BVSD controls our education system, the consequence the consequences of closing neighborhood schools extends far beyond education policy. It affects housing, transportation, traffic, climate, neighborhood vitality, and whether or not Boulder remains a place that families can realistically live. That is why this is a city issue. Boulder comprehensive plan has been anticipating the future population growth and housing while BVSD is considering permanently eliminating neighborhood school capacity. Our own planning vision calls for walkable connected 15-minute neighborhoods.

1:07:13Sheree Sigman (University Hill resident) Removing neighborhood schools works directly against this school, sending more families across town and putting more cars on our roads. There's also a serious question of proportionality. Is there enough benefits in their proposal to justify permanently dismantling established school communities and disrupting roughly 1,800 students? I am asking this council to formally request BVSD to delay their September 22nd vote for just one year. Use that time to reconcile enrollment projections with Boulder's growth plans, evaluate traffic and climate impacts, and determine what happens to the closed school properties. These are just a couple of the unconsidered aspects of their proposal. I know that all of you value thought, well-thought and comprehensive plans. This is not one of them.

1:08:05Sheree Sigman (University Hill resident) Boulder cannot have one public body planning where future families will live, while another permanently removes the neighborhood infrastructure those families will need without evaluating those plans together. Please give Boulder the chance to make the right plan. Thank you.

1:08:24Aaron Brockett Thank you. All right. Now, let's go to Harry Pullman, Carolyn Martin, and Elaine Wynens.

Open comment: Frasier Meadows expansion, Spruce Pool and other topics

1:08:34Harry Pullman (Frasier Meadows neighbor) Excuse the speed with which I'm going to read this. My name is Harry Pullman. I'm a retired physicist who came to Boulder in 1965 to work at Boulder Space and I've lived in the Kuwaitian and Frasier Meadows subdivisions ever since. I've lived at 225 Leanway. Frasier does a wonderful job with independent and assisted living and over many years my wife and I have had many good friends and neighbors living and working there and my wife and I have been on their waiting list for years. However, I strongly oppose Fraser's latest proposal as it presently stands for several reasons, including the fact that it works away from council's stated goal of increasing affordable housing in Boulder.

1:09:12Harry Pullman (Frasier Meadows neighbor) I therefore request that you call up LUR 20256 and the proposed ordinance 8756 to give PPA place to them. In that callup, please show the specific benefit that this huge facility and its attendant vacation of pocket place provides to the public. Right now, I only see a benefit to Frasier at the sacrifice of modest homeowners and neighbors, the people your desires of helping in Boulder. In that call out, please also review the project's weakening of the city's own codes regarding height, setbacks, harmonious transition between zones, etc.

1:09:50Harry Pullman (Frasier Meadows neighbor) Presently at 55 ft, these structures will be higher than the Great Wall of China as they loom over modest neighbor neighborhood homes for all the years of inevitable noise, dust, disruption, and congestion of pedestrian and automobile traffic during construction followed by a degradation of the overall neighborhood because of more huge facilities. At least those facilities should have to meet the city's height, setback, and zoning transition requirements. Finally, I appreciate all the time and effort you spend, and I hate to lay one more thing on you, but I urge you to personally look at the overall neighborhood and the specific areas being impacted by this proposed drawings alone cannot adequately display all that is so disturbing about it. Thank you for your time.

1:10:36Aaron Brockett Thank you. Now, we'll go to and if we can have quiet in the audience, you can wave your hands like this if you support something that's said. Uh, we've got Carolyn Martin and then Elaine Wynens and then Margaret Lumpt.

1:10:49Carolyn Martin (Frasier Meadows neighbor) Hello, I'm Carolyn Martin and I live at 4965 Ricar Drive. And I just wanted to say thank you so much all of you for your service to the city of Boulder. I'm asking that you please vote for a public hearing to reconsider or call up land use review 202500 56 involving the high-rise Frasier Meadows Retirement Center proposal. And I'm also um opposed to the proposed ordinance number 8756 which would give away Panka Place to Frasier Meadows free of charge. While I absolutely agree with you that we need affordable housing in Boulder, the proposed expansure expansion of Frasier Meadows does not accomplish that goal. This project provides for luxury retirement housing for wealthy individuals. This is not affordable housing.

1:11:36Carolyn Martin (Frasier Meadows neighbor) In doing so, it sacrifices lower-priced single family homes in my neighborhood. We desperately need to maintain reasonably priced single family homes in Boulder. This proposal is causing neighbors to consider selling their homes, displacing them from where they have lived for decades. And there are troubling inequities in resources and rights between developers and community members. Numerous engineering firms and consultants have been paid by Frasier Meadows. Their drawings presented at the planning board hearing inaccurately represented the homes across the street on Sue Drive. The Fraser Meadows proposal requested numerous building exemptions. The most egregious in my mind being the height modification from the standard 35 to 55 ft. There is no buffer zone at all in this proposal. Single family homes are directly across the street.

1:12:27Carolyn Martin (Frasier Meadows neighbor) I am perfectly fine with a retirement expansion that respects the normal 35- f foot building height, but I'm not okay with the rules being disregarded and a height modification being purchased. Allowing this project to proceed will also set a precedent and other builders with multi-million dollar projects will request similar exemptions in the future. Lastly, Panka Pra place should not be vacated.

1:12:51Aaron Brockett Thank you. Right now, we'll go to Elaine Weinman's, Margaret Lact, and Barbara Steinmets.

1:13:00Elaine Weinens (Frasier Meadows neighbor) My name is Elaine Weinens. I live on Sue Drive.

1:13:03Aaron Brockett Can you speak right into the mic, please?

1:13:05Elaine Weinens (Frasier Meadows neighbor) Okay. I respectfully request a public hearing on the proposed Frasier Meadows expansion and the vacation of Panka Place. Vacating a public street to accommodate a 55 foot high, approximately 750 foot long senior living building is a significant change to South Boulder and should not be treated as simply one component of a private development. There may be alternatives that deserve serious consideration. A smaller senior living development could potentially be built on the adjacent Mountain View Methodist property being acquired by Frasier Meadows without vacating Panka Place before giving up a public rideway. Shouldn't the city fully evaluate whether a smaller project could meet the need while preserving this important connection?

1:13:57Elaine Weinens (Frasier Meadows neighbor) I especially ask council to consider Panka Place as an open thoroughfare, not simply a pedestrian pathway for residents along the long stretch of Sue Drive. Sue Drive is like an artery and Panka Place is the connecting vein to Pawnie Drive and ultimately Baseline Road. Thunderbird and Mohawk drives can always and already become heavily congested. Panka Place provides an important alternate route when those roads are backed, blocked up, or compromised. It's also an important connection for emergency vehicles. Closing Panka Place is like cutting off a vein from an artery. It reduces our options precisely when we may need them most. The 2013 flood demonstrated how quickly access in South Boulder, South Boulder, can be disrupted.

1:14:50Elaine Weinens (Frasier Meadows neighbor) With increased density, we need reliable emergency access and multiple routes, not fewer. This is about more than one development. Thank you.

1:15:02Aaron Brockett Your your time is up, but thank you. Now, we have um Margaret Lac and then Barbara Steinmets and Davis Hart.

1:15:11Margaret Lact (Frasier Meadows neighbor)speaker unconfirmed · check the video Good evening. I live right across the street from the Frasier Meadows retirement community. I'm speaking to request that tonight city council call up the um the uh land use review 2025 of 00000056 regarding the luxury high-rise apartment proposal submitted by Frasier Meadows Manor the applicant and include in that the proposed ordinance to give Panka Place to the applicant in the callup. We Frasier Meadows neighborhoods neighbors respectfully request the city to vote for a public hearing on this entire project. We feel a public hearing is needed so city council can seriously consider the planning board's recommendation to go forward. We hold the project absolutely provides no benefit to the surrounding community or the city of Boulder overall. It meets none of the city's stated objectives.

1:16:02Margaret Lact (Frasier Meadows neighbor)speaker unconfirmed · check the video It violates nearly all limits on building construction. and in the in the Boulder Municipal Code and Boulder does not need more million-doll luxury apartments. Further, planning board's decisionmaking has been remarkably datafree, justified mostly by planning board's decisionmaking or assertions that are unsupported by any evidence whatsoever. We neighbors hold that most of the assertions are insupportable. Moreover, this project has been planned without transparency are listening to all at all to the neighborhood. Both our concerns and our reasonable requests for modification have been ignored and once again we simply have not been heard. We also oppose giving Panka Place to Frasier Meadow for free in the middle of a budget crisis. get plan.

1:16:51Margaret Lact (Frasier Meadows neighbor)speaker unconfirmed · check the video Despite planning boards saying that it isn't, Panka Place is a muchused public roadway for local residents, employees, visitors, parents, and kids. It's also critical for evacuation in case of wildfires, floods, and emergencies. Blocking it off forever with steel ballards is incomprehensible. Thank you.

1:17:14Aaron Brockett Thank you. Now we'll go to Barbara Steinmets, Davis Hart, and Robert Keterhagen.

1:17:20Barbara Steinmetz (Spruce Pool swimmer) Hi, I'm Barbara Stein Mitts. The spruce pool we're trying to save is the asset to our city, much like open spaces, more than financially valuable, valuable as the heart of the summer gathering place for lucky hundreds of boat rides. It is now also known nationally. I mentioned Spruce Pool on the American Cancer Society annual swim fundraiser website as the safe simple symbol valued in my town where I was able to as an almost 90year-old swim 21.6 miles safely comfortably under the watchful eyes of the devoted lifeguards. The name of Spruce Pool, Boulder, Colorado is seen nationwide as this is a national event where I personally thanked Spruce Pool for being the place I could safely accomplish my mission.

1:18:22Barbara Steinmetz (Spruce Pool swimmer) The picture of our beautiful pool has now been spread across our country. Things I want you to consider carefully when you debate the efficacy of keeping this boat or landmark open. Safety. Safety. lifeinfusing safety for those who are aging with disabilities. They come here because it is safe for a woman with long CO in on oxygen that she can put her oxygen can on the side of the pool not worrying that somebody's going to kick it over. With her long tube, she keeps her body functioning by water walking up and down the 25 yard length for two years. And now with a postsurgical leg, she's again using the spool, the the pool. This is a real person.

1:19:14Barbara Steinmetz (Spruce Pool swimmer) Peter, an 81year-old lifelong Boulder resident with a back that may prevent him from continuing his life.

1:19:23Aaron Brockett Ma'am, your time is up, but thank you so much for your testimony.

1:19:26Barbara Steinmetz (Spruce Pool swimmer) Thank you.

1:19:27Aaron Brockett Now, we'll go to Davis Hart, then Robert Keterhagen, and Darla Hench.

1:19:33Davis Hart (Grant Place resident) Hi, I'm a resident of the 1000 block of Grant Place just west of 9inth Street. Our street is the image of smalltown living. Families with kids of varying ages, young professionals, retirees. We held our 50th annual block party last year, and we socialize regularly. Earlier this year, a developer purchased a single family home on our block and applied to build a 12-bedroom duplex as a student rental. I'm speaking tonight on one question. Do we want this development to become the poster child of what densification means in Boulder? This isn't a privileged nimi street. By all accounts, we support diversific densification in service of affordability.

1:20:07Davis Hart (Grant Place resident) Most of us are fortunate at all to be able to afford to live where we do and can't simply upgrade to get away from the noise. However, we're seeing the result of a well-intentioned policy going wrong. The zoning for affordable housing ordinance aims to promote densification by allowing duplexes on small lots near transit corridors. Makes total sense generally, but how it plays out is very neighborhood specific. On Grand Place, we live in both the WOOI, the Wildland urban interface, and the Sooie, the student urban interface. If you don't know what that means, come on up on a Friday night. In our case, densification is bringing along with it disorder and unaffordability. Students bring disorder because our policies tolerate it.

1:20:42Davis Hart (Grant Place resident) Just a few nights ago, students up the street decided that a bonfire would be a great idea. Police were called and the students were given merely a warning in a property that receives hundreds of calls for trash and noise violations every year. Student development also brings unaffordability. This development will gross the owner $250,000 a year while taking a property off the market that could have gone to long-term residents. So, I ask you, is this the image of densification that we want? My neighbors are saying no. And they're saying no by grasping at any tactic, no matter how blunt, including a historic neighborhood designation that no one was talking about 5 months ago, because these are the tools that are available to us.

1:21:20Davis Hart (Grant Place resident) Signs are in the yards. Local reporters are covering this and it's coming down to city council. Policy change is hard and messy, but I don't believe the answer is to avoid the change. The answer is to be ready to iterate when it's not working. Thank you.

1:21:32Aaron Brockett Thank you. Now, we'll go to Robert Keterhagen, Darla Jench, and Ed Simmons.

1:21:38Robert Keterhagen (public commenter) Hi, Robert Keterhagen here. And I would like to first um say that I appreciate uh Taiisha Adams stance on devestment. her courage is is incredible. Um uh the rest of this uh council um in in their infinite wisdom continue to invest in Caterpillar, uh Microsoft, the US Treasury, and this is nothing short of aiding in abetting genocide in Gaza. And please don't conflate this with anti-semitism. I love many Jewish friends, many of many of whom feel the same way. Uh, Judaism, absolutely. This Zion Nazi regime of Benjamin Netanyah Netanyahu, absolutely not. This council has become comfortably numb. Comfortably numb to the steady drip of death of innocent Palestinians. Comfortably numb to the flattened landscape of Gaza with many thousands buried beneath the rubble.

1:22:49Robert Keterhagen (public commenter) Comfortably numb to the systemic rape and torture of Palestinians in Israeli detention. Comfortably numb to the systemic killing of 260 journalists to date in Gaza alone. This is the issue of our time. This is morally reprehensible. This should be at the top of your agenda. We should be investing in our community or green eco-friendly companies more in line with the values of our community. You all need to get out of your heads and back into your hearts, back into your humanity. Furthermore, this witch hunt against Laaua Gonzalez is a waste of resources. She is simply speaking truth to power. Thank you.

1:23:39Aaron Brockett Thank you. Oh, quiet in the audience, please. No, quiet in the audience. Um, okay. Now we'll go to Darla Jen, Ed Simmons, and Dian Bohan.

1:23:52John Morse Uh, good evening, council. This is John Morse. Uh, Darla is online. Please press star six to unmute your phone.

1:24:15Darla Jench (public commenter, online) Good evening. My name is Darla Jench and I'm here tonight to expose a severe systematic loophole in our justice system that has left myself and my three children in an ongoing danger for three years. This isn't the first time I've had to fight for justice or watch critical evidence be ignored. When I was 12 years old, my best friend went missing. She was finally found 33 years later. And to this day, I firmly know and believe the evidence I provided to authorities then was highly significant to solving her crime. I learned at a young age that evidence matters and ignoring it has devastating consequences. Yet here I am facing the exact same dismissal from our system.

1:24:52Darla Jench (public commenter, online) For three years, my family and I have been subjected to severe identity theft, severe financial fraud, and stalking that directly targets our housing stability and safety. As a mother, I have done everything I know from filing police reports, sending spending thousands of dollars on private investigator and cyber reports up and as long as my son, my 10-year-old son, and I both having to continue to get witness statements. The concrete evidence to solve my crime and protect my children and I have been in the hands of officials for years. But instead of being forwarded to DAs, there are some laws I would like to look into. I would like to propose a direct to DA evidence mandate.

1:25:29Darla Jench (public commenter, online) a law requiring that if a local police department refuses to review certified expert backed evidence packets within 14 days, the cit citizen has a direct legal mandatory right to submit the evidence to the district attorney's office. Two, mandatory verification receipts. I'd like legislation to enforce a strict evidence intake registry requiring law enforcement to issue a formal written receipt detailing every piece of evidence from being ignored and why. and three, emergency evidence-based orders. A legal framework allowing citizens such as self holding verified forensic proof of property or vehicle or tampering to instantly secure a court enforced restraining order against unknown John or Jane Doe.

1:26:07Darla Jench (public commenter, online) I'm calling on all the members of the council, city, lawmakers listening in and the media to help me find and start to produce new laws to protect not only mine but all Colorado families. Thank you for your time and consider.

1:26:21Aaron Brockett Thank you for your testimony. Right now, we're gonna go to Ed Simmons, then Diane Bohan and Annabelle.

1:26:30Ed Simmons (Frasier Meadows neighbor) Yes. Hi, my name is Ed Simmons. I'm a 20-year resident of Frasier Meadows. Uh I live on Mohawk Drive. Um in an attempt to further minimize impacts uh and a long-term maximize values envisioned by everybody here who's been involved in the Panka Place project, there are some additional opportunities that should be considered. uh landscapes, trees, maintenance should be echoed and implemented on the adjacent properties to best fulfill the intent of a zoning transition that's been much debated in many of these topics. Examples of what's happened to or what's evolving in Boulder neighborhoods where there are 55- foot tall, 300 foot long structures that coexist in neighborhood with 60-year-old family homes, a church, a school, apartments, etc.

1:27:14Ed Simmons (Frasier Meadows neighbor) all constrained with the interconnects and infrastructure that should be provided. It hasn't been provided to date. Um temporary access roads from and to Foothills Parkway for the construction phase followed by a long-term access road for first responders and emergencies are a must uh given the volume of traffic and the constraints on and at baseline in Mohawk. uh access roads will minimize the multitude of concerns associated with the vehicles entering and exiting the site during the construction phases. It'll service the pedestrians and the vehicle safety concerns. It'll mitigate property, street damage, insurance claims, costs, you name it, with all these trucks driving up and down the roads for two days with thousands of people that go around there. Um, and it'll enhance obviously first first responder response.

1:28:07Ed Simmons (Frasier Meadows neighbor) Um, in conjunction with what all my neighbors have said to date, I hope you seriously consider what you're trying to push forward with regards to Punka Place. Thank you.

1:28:17Aaron Brockett Thank you. Now we'll go to Diane Bohan, Annabelle, and Nathan Rattled.

1:28:24Diane Bohan (Frasier Meadows neighbor) I'm Diane Bohan. I

1:28:25Aaron Brockett If you can speak into the mic, please.

1:28:27Diane Bohan (Frasier Meadows neighbor) I'm sorry. I'm Diane Bohan. I also live in Frasier Meadow community have for number of years. Um I am happy for Mountain View. I'm happy for Frasier Meadows. I think that they do provide I'm glad that the church will be sustainable. I'm glad that the community can meet some of their needs. However, I think it's a big mistake to have these allowances. If it was reasonable in size for this community, if we had the infrastructure to support this would be fine. But raising it to 55 uh feet, allowing a whole another story on all of those buildings, resulting in 96 homes like that adds an immense amount of traffic. And we're already very congested in our neighborhood.

1:29:26Diane Bohan (Frasier Meadows neighbor) We have a school right in our neighborhood, right across from this facility with drop off and pickup. These kids are crossing the roads. We just had a bottleneck created in the front of our community with uh new bike lanes. So, one of our right turn lanes was omitted. We have a concrete structure that causes a incredibly difficult turn into our uh neighborhood. Now I sit through two lights to get in and out of my neighborhood, add 96 more houses with visitors and and take away a road that was a throughway to the athletic club and that was a throughway to the library. and you're you're taking away alternatives. You're adding a lot of stress to a neighborhood and I think it's it's making us less safe.

1:30:26Aaron Brockett Thank you. All right. Now, we're going to go to Annabelle, Nathan Ratlledge, and Joel Rosen Bloom.

1:30:35Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Stand up.

Open comment: BVSD school closures (Flatirons student and parent)

1:30:42Annabelle (Flatirons second grader) Flatirons Elementary has helped teach me to do hard things like talking in front of a big group of adults like you. Hello, my name is Annabelle and I'm a second grader at Flatirons Elementary. Last week I learned terrible news. My school is going to close along with five five other schools in Boulder. This is not good for our neighborhood. BVSD on its website states that walking to school is a brain boost, but you're going to send me to a school where I can't walk. Why are they taking this away from me and adding all the cars on the road? This is not good for the environ environment. This is not a good plan.

1:31:29Annabelle (Flatirons second grader) Will you also be closing my new school in just a few years? So, we will have to go through this mess all over again. What I don't understand is why you're closing such a high achieving school. At Flatirons, we work so hard. I know all my classmates try really hard. Did you know Flatirons is in the top 10% of all Colorado schools? I know I'm not alone. My teachers, friends, and flats community are all sad and disappointed. My parents tell me to be kind and respectful to others, especially to other grown-ups. But in a survey, um, BVSD put out, 64% of respondents said they didn't want kids to be separated and split up into different schools. But that's what the plan does.

1:32:19Annabelle (Flatirons second grader) Why aren't the grown-ups in charge of listening to us? They're not being kind or respectful. Please don't close Flatirons. It's the place where joy, community, and learning meet. Nose to school closures. Thank you.

1:32:37Aaron Brockett Well, Annabelle, that that was amazing. Thank you so much for coming and testifying to us. Uh I don't know how many second graders we've had here at council, but um I'm glad that you could come join us. But now we'll go back to being quiet in in chambers after that delightful testimony. Okay. Um now we'll go to Nathan Ratlledge, Joel Rosen Bloom, and Mark Johnson.

1:32:59Nathan Ratledge (BVSD parent, University Hill) Uh thank you Annabelle especially for being so polite. I'm Nathan Rattledge. Um I'm a father of three BBSC children, homeowner on University Hill and the CEO of a growing Boulder based company. I'm going to very briskly discuss two critical issues and how the city can immediately respond. First, as you heard, the Hill and Shitakqua neighborhood is being overrun by adult party houses. This is not the same problem as 5 years ago. Since Governor Polus eliminated occupancy limits, landlords have aggressively increased home conversion and the city has done nothing. To illustrate the problem, as another gentleman did, a house on our street had probably 15 noise complaints last year. Your data says zero. Zero represents how misinformed the city's perspective is.

1:33:38Nathan Ratledge (BVSD parent, University Hill) Further, this huge party house pays lower property taxes than us and is expanding. We are literally subsidizing the degradation of our community. We're living through a community's death by a thousand cuts and this has enabled the second problem. The second problem, last week, BVSD announced they were closing Flatirons, the neighborhood school. The process across BVSD, so affecting all schools, not just us, has been extremely rushed and risked decadesl long negative community impact. But why should the city care about this issue in Flatirons? Flatirons is the bedrock of this community. It's why people move there, right? It represents nearly every priority in the city's master plan. And allowing it to close for some rush purpose puts a literal hole in a family-friendly walkable community.

1:34:19Nathan Ratledge (BVSD parent, University Hill) It's a death now. Right? The combined situation is at a breaking point. Full stop. And it's time to prioritize the families and homeowners that are your tax base. Here's what you can do today. Immediately direct staff to compile recommendations to address stealth dorm expansion, including impact fees on landlord owned properties. Two, contact the BVSD directors and attend the September 8th meeting to express your concern about their rushed process. This is an easy ask. All we're saying is ask them to defer their whole proposal by just one year in order to account for the city of Boulder's comprehensive plan. These are simple but effective actions to promote the priorities of the city. So, thank you very much.

Open comment: Frasier Meadows, Spruce Pool and bears

1:35:01Aaron Brockett Thank you. Now, we'll go to Joel Rosen Bloom, Mark Johnson, and Julie Schaefer.

1:35:09Joel Rosenbloom (Frasier Meadows neighbor) Hi, thank you for hearing me. Uh, my name is Joel Rosenlum and um I've lived at um 230 Leanne Way in Frasier Meadow subdivision for over 33 years in a modest trile house. Um, our neighborhood does need more affordable housing uh from middle and lower income people. I think that that's a great objective for city council. However, building 96 luxury units with no affordable housing doesn't help anyone uh achieve our goals, our mutual goals. Uh especially for lower and middle inome seniors. Um we live in uh Frasier Meadows. Um oh, excuse me. Um the height modification uh given obstensively for offering affordable housing. It's not actually offering affordable housing at all. It was bought on a $9.2 million cash and loo contract.

1:36:02Joel Rosenbloom (Frasier Meadows neighbor) Uh doesn't help anyone in the Frasier Frasier Meadows neighborhood and doesn't provide any affordable housing. Uh it doesn't provide any benefit to the community at large only to the developer and the corporation managing Frasier Meadows Manor. Um the traffic stop study paid for by the developer was was inadequate. Doesn't account for having Horizons K through eight across the street from the proposed expansion. Horizons is a a magnet school and kids are dropped off and picked up on Panei on Sue and Mohawk. Mohawk is really the only access route that construction trucks are going to be able to get out of our subdivision uh adequately and um during pickup and drop off Mohawk is a disaster.

1:36:58Joel Rosenbloom (Frasier Meadows neighbor) Uh given the modifications that were made uh to baseline a Mohawk to that intersection, it's going to be extremely difficult for trucks to get in and out. Thank you.

1:37:12Aaron Brockett Thank you. Now we'll go to Mark Johnson, Julie Schaefer, and Jason Strauss.

1:37:20Mark Johnson (Frasier Meadows neighbor) Good evening, council members. My name is Mark Johnson, and I live on Sue Drive, directly across from the proposed Frasier Meadows expansion. I'm asking you to do two things tonight. First, please call up the planning board's decision on the Frasier Meadows expansion, the 350 Panka Place site review, and give this project a full city council public hearing. Second, please do not give away Panka Place without greater scrutiny of what the public is losing and what it receives in return. Boulder's site review criteria require an appropriate transition when a project is adjacent to properties of substantially lower intensity, mass, and scale. Yet, serious questions remain about whether the transition between the 55- ft four-story development and the single family homes directly across Sue Drive was adequately addressed.

1:38:19Mark Johnson (Frasier Meadows neighbor) Two planning board members supported meaningful changes to height and setbacks. This tells us the issue isn't settled and Panka Place deserves a closer look. The city's own agenda describes what replaces this public right ofway as a new private drive and vacating Panka Place helps make this development possible. Once a public asset becomes private, we can't pretend that nothing has changed. I support Frasier Meadows and senior housing, but this project asked too much of the surrounding neighborhood. These are significant questions and I respectfully ask you to allow them to be addressed at a public hearing. Please call up the planning board decision and do not give up Panka Place until these issues have been fully examined. Thank you very much.

1:39:13Aaron Brockett Thank you. Now, let's go to Julie Schaefer, Jason Strauss, and Scott Alman.

1:39:19Julie Schaefer (Spruce Pool swimmer) Hi. As I listen to the issues being raised by my fellow community members surrounding the closure of BVSD schools, party houses, high-end development, affordable housing. I would add to that list the proposed closure of Spruce Pool. Spruce Pool has always represented the values of the community I love. A town focused on the health and wellness of its citizens. It feels like Boulder has lost its way. We need Spruce Pool because it's the best demonstration of a walkable 15-minute city. One of the goals the city says it holds. a pool in the urban core accessible by bike, foot, and bus. In fact, I was swimming last summer when the governor and his kids walked over to use Spruce Pool. Imagine.

1:40:22Julie Schaefer (Spruce Pool swimmer) We need Spruce Pool to attract and maintain a high quality of life for families seeking a swim experience rather than a water park. We need Spruce Pool because it serves the social, emotional, and physical needs of our aging population. Spruce Pool is a remedy for our loneliness epidemic, a place that legions frequent to experience community, health, and connection. Why is parks and wrecks forced to reckon with a revenue-based budget of scarcity when other city services seem to operate from a position of abundance? Since Spruce Pool is over 100 years old with an interesting and important history, we must consider its historic value. How is it that at a time

1:41:21Aaron Brockett your time is up, but thank you for your testimony. All right. Now, we'll go to Jason Strauss, Scott Alman, and Deborah Frier.

1:41:32Jason Strauss (Frasier Meadows neighbor) Waits for me. Okay. Hi, city council. My name is Jason.

1:41:35Aaron Brockett And can you get right into the mic, please?

1:41:38Jason Strauss (Frasier Meadows neighbor) Hi, my name is Jason Strauss. I live on Sue Drive in Kiwi and Meadows or Frasier Meadows. and I'm here tonight to ask city council to consider a hearing, a public hearing on the expansion of Frasier Meadows in the vacation of Panka Place. Um, I bought my first home a few years ago on Sue Drive with my wife and sixmonth-old and Labrador. Now we're two little boys and an older Labrador. This is the neighborhood we used to walk to the library, walk to school, walk to Big Daddy Bagels, walk to Safeway. Um, and the site review actually leaves and city code and planning board leave a lot after interpretation.

1:42:10Jason Strauss (Frasier Meadows neighbor) things like the transition, things like massing, things like the grounds in which they're allowed to exceed the height. Uh, and when you consider uh that transition, I live closer than almost everyone in this room, less than 100 ft from this 55 foot development is going to be built. I don't understand how that transition is reasonable. That's about what this scale is. When you consider massing from this uh enormous building, it's almost a fifth of a mile long. When that was brought up, they added some extra windows. This is not a reasonable aotment. Similarly, digging down two stories, like I said, a stones throw away from my front door isn't viable.

1:42:51Jason Strauss (Frasier Meadows neighbor) The house that I bought has now had foundation work done because of the damage done just 15 years ago in the flooding. So, again, I'm seriously encouraging a strong review of that uh development and the vacation of Panka Place, which we used to to walk a lot. And I have some more time, so I'll just I think I heard a comment earlier about maybe using your brain less in your heart more and maybe we should consider using some more of our brains as well. Thank you.

1:43:17Aaron Brockett Quiet. Quiet in the audience, please. Right. Uh Scott Alman and then Deborah Frier is our last speaker.

1:43:26Scott Alman (downtown Boulder resident) Hi, my name is Scott Alman. I have lived at 1720 Bluff in downtown Boulder for 48 years. I'm here tonight urging the council to adopt a new policy about bears in downtown Boulder. The problem began last year when our trees hosted a mother and her three cubs from early August through late September. They made a lot of poop to scoop. This year, for the last two weeks, a large black male spends the night in our Douglas fur city, private, state, and other resources are no assistance. We became so familiar with the folks at the Colorado Division of Wildlife that we sent him a Christmas card.

1:44:14Scott Alman (downtown Boulder resident) Lately, when I called 911 for help, the response was, "The city of Boulder policy is that bears are allowed to rem roam freely through the city." Boulder is not the only Colorado town with bears. I urge city staff to learn from Durango or Aspen. They have bear hotlines. Police investigate calls. Most importantly, they have set up and they enforce policies so that thoughtless citizens don't attract hungry bears in the first place. So tonight after this meeting, I'm going to walk a few blocks to 17th Street, turn north, cross over Pearl Street, and stop at the gate to my backyard. I'll stop because then I'll peer in the backyard to see if there are any bears.

1:45:22Scott Alman (downtown Boulder resident) If I see a bear, I'll walk around the block and go into my house from the front door. Thank you.

1:45:29Aaron Brockett Thank you. All right, our last speaker is Deborah Frier.

1:45:38Deborah Frier (Spruce Pool swimmer) Good evening, mayor, city manager, and members of Boulder City Council. My name is Deborah Frier. I live in Northeast Boulder, and I'm here to talk about spruce pool funding, and I would like to invite my fellow swimmers to stand just so you know how much we care about aquatics in Boulder. We just learned last Friday about the proposed cuts in funding to Spruce and Scott for 2027 and that no funding is indicated in the budget for Spruce in 2028. [gasps] Why we need Spruce Pool. Number one, safety.

1:46:13Deborah Frier (Spruce Pool swimmer) As has been mentioned before, today I swam with someone who has long COVID, a broken leg, someone who has cancer, someone who has spinal fusions, someone with a double hip replacement, someone with MS, and the list is on and on. And I've been swimming every day at Spruce Pool with my fellow community, many of whom choose to swim at Spruce because it feels safe for us. It's important for our physical health. We don't worry about being swam over by a more competitive or faster swimmer. And honestly, the people at Scott don't want us to be slow there. The second reason that Spruce is important is because it's an overflow pool.

1:46:47Deborah Frier (Spruce Pool swimmer) Today, Elevations was there doing their swim practice, and they told me they would rent the pool if it were available, but they called Spruce and said it wasn't available. So, there's an income stream there from people wanting to rent the pool. Yesterday, Scott had boiler and electrical issues, so Scott came over to swim. Um, somebody reached out to me today from Meadows saying if Spruce closes, it's going to put the squeeze on the entire aquatics community. So, there is with increasing development in Boulder, an increasing need for open, accessible public pools. And with climate change, it's all the more important. The third thing about Spruce Pool is that it is historic. It has been there have been swimmers there for over a century.

1:47:31Deborah Frier (Spruce Pool swimmer) We can't let this go the way of development and dollars. It's really important that we keep this walkable, safe, and accessible for our community. Thank you.

1:47:39Aaron Brockett Thank you. All right. Well, thanks everyone for joining us this evening and coming out and speaking to us. I'll turn to city staff to see if there are any responses.

City manager responds to open comment

1:47:49Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde Thanks so much, mayor. And first of all, let me commend Annabelle for coming and speaking so beautifully to city council. Makes me think that our city, our country is in very good hands with this next generation. Um certainly uh a couple things I won't comment on um an item that you are considering for call up. So I'll leave that there. A couple of things that I heard to follow up on uh to Miss uh JENET. I don't know if you are still listening to us, but um I have heard from our police department that they will be reaching out uh to follow up. We believe we have a case from 2014, but want to make sure that we understand all the issues.

1:48:27Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde So we'll be following up there. Uh to Mr. uh Ratledge, thank you so much for your um comments. We know that we passed a nuisance ordinance in the last few years. I'll be following up with staff just to see where are what we know with our data know what that looks like and if there's anything that we can do or if there's anything to be brought forward to council, we will do so. But wanted to thank you for that. Um lastly, I wanna I'll certainly be following up uh Mr. Almond for um to see what um calls we have received in animal protection. So appreciate your comments uh as we bring that forward.

1:49:06Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde Um and perhaps last but certainly uh never least I want to address the comments about Spruce Pool. It is so amazing that so many people love this pool. I want to share what I said just recently. It's it's not that we have made a decision when parks and wrecks bring forward or any department for that matter bring forward any reductions in services. They do so thoughtfully. They um do so with frankly a heavy heart for services that are there. But I know that parks and recrecks are trying to meet with supporters of the pool. I believe that's next week or the week afterwards. We do have a challenge with ongoing funding and we would not be remiss if we did not share that forward.

1:49:46Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde So, we are funding for one year. We are continuing to look and maybe work with some of you about this challenge we have with ongoing funding, but we hear it. We know that this is a facility that is used. But I will say that there are lots of facilities as we have heard from our um folks at different rec centers. We we go into this thoughtfully. We want to hear more from you and at the end of the day, we will see what 2028 brings. But we want to we wanted to start the conversation cuz if not um it would not allow us space and time to converse with you about the future. So thank you for coming and sharing with us.

1:50:25Aaron Brockett Thanks Naria Teresa.

1:50:28Teresa Taylor Tate Nothing from me mayor. Thank you.

Council questions: city engagement with BVSD on school capacity

1:50:30Aaron Brockett Any questions for city staff? Tara?

1:50:32Tara Winer No comments.

1:50:34Aaron Brockett Okay. Um Tina.

1:50:37Tina Marquis Yeah. Could you um just describe whether there was engagement with the school district when you were thinking about planning and particularly around capacity de uh related to our development?

1:50:48Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde Um council member in in terms generally of um we do have meetings with um BVSD. Did you say no? We do have meetings with BVSD periodically. Um they for example let us know um that they were engaging they were about to embark on a community engagement process. Um we have heard from them what similar other communities and and other their engagement about the reasons for which they are moving forward. As we continue to think about um ways in which um either they are expanding or retracting um we think about ways in which we can partner. We meet with them quarterly, but certainly more frequently to address other issues.

1:51:31Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde Perhaps less focused on development if I'm honest, but more focused on security or areas in which we overlap. But we have a very open door um to them and and always happy to discuss.

Council questions: a 13-bedroom duplex, rental oversight, bear trash

1:51:44Aaron Brockett Ta then Ryan.

1:51:47Taishya Adams Thank you. Um and thank you for everyone who's come out. I just have a few questions. The first was a followup. I did speak with you, Nuria, about the 13bedroom duplex and just wanted to I think you said you were going to follow up on that. Was just curious to hear if you had some more additional information on that.

1:52:04Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde It is I believe uh unless staff tells me otherwise that it is under review still. Um it is uh and I see our director of planning and development service coming down. So maybe I will not misspeak and allow you to speak truth.

1:52:20Brad Mueller Good evening, council, and thanks for the question. Uh, I'm Brad Mueller. I'm the director of planning and development services. Uh, the property in question is lo located in a zone district that allows duplexes. So, what's proposed is a a duplex to replace the existing building with a new structure and a duplex. And the duplex has uh currently proposed five one of the units five bed bathrooms and the other one or bedrooms, excuse me, and eight in the other. The building code um determines how how large individual rooms and such can be. And our initial review shows that it's legal under the building code, but we're not complete yet.

1:53:02Taishya Adams And will that have an opportunity to go through pan board and then have a potential for a callup?

1:53:07Brad Mueller It it does not. It's a it's a

1:53:11Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video by ride activity. It's a it's an existing property, right?

1:53:14Brad Mueller Because it meets the zoning and it meets the building code like frankly the you know hundreds of permits that we get.

1:53:21Taishya Adams I'm sorry. I guess I'm just having a problem with six bedroom six bathrooms being a duplex. I don't think that certainly wasn't anything that I was considering as appropriate for when we had made that decision. So I'm just concern um given the it is by right is there any pathway again we set rules I think this is a new one we were excited about this but this is certainly not the direction at least for the intention um you know when when I voted on that I didn't know that this scale would have would have been possible

1:53:54Brad Mueller um we we can certainly circle back around with the city attorney's office but it's a straight pretty straightforward uh building permit as part of building codes, uh you can't have just unlimited types of um rooms. So for bedrooms, for example, there has to be living space and kitchen space as well. So it will have to meet that and there's a de facto limitation based on that. Um but but that's what we're working with right now.

1:54:22Taishya Adams Okay. So when foreignbased code doesn't meet the expectations, I look forward to hearing from our city attorney what the pathways can be to mitigate that before this becomes a a larger issue. I think this is one of the first in underneath that that code or

1:54:36Brad Mueller just it's it's not the form based code but rather the friendly that made changes to some of the uh zone district allowances.

1:54:46Aaron Brockett Maybe we maybe we can take this exchange offline because we're coming to the end of our open comment time.

1:54:50Taishya Adams Sure. So, as I said, I look forward to hearing more about the legalities and pathways forward when uh when it becomes available. I have other questions and although I appreciate our time limit, this is the time to be able to respond to public comment. Um the next question I had was on um rental property oversight and reporting. Is there any kind of mechanism? This is in relation to the noise ordinances. Is there any kind of reporting that we receive or any transparency around these kinds of complaints and um you know any threshold as far as you know or rather I would look forward to receiving more information around um compliance reporting and um any kind of corrections that go along with that. Hey,

1:55:33Nuria Rivera-Vandermydespeaker unconfirmed · check the video thanks so much. Uh, council member, uh, Jen, do you want to talk about the reporting or the collection of data?

1:55:40Jen Ross Yeah. Is my mic on? Yes, it is. Hi, I'm Jen Ross with the city of Boulder, obviously, and I'm the code compliance manager for planning and de development services. And yes, uh we have so many mechanisms in place for um noise violations and we do collect that data and when we start to get close to where we would be hitting our nuisance ordinance, we do reach out to the property operators for those rental properties and start the discussion of like we're starting to get close to this threshold and we need some compliance help with you. So we do actively, weekly, daily have those conversations and there is a threshold that by which if they pass they lose their rental license.

1:56:24Jen Ross uh not necessarily that they lose their rental license, but there is some kind of an abatement action and plan that we come up with, whether that be um uh eviction of tenants that are presently there like the secession of their lease or other sanctions for that property, reduced term, rental licenses. Uh there are civil penalties that are escalating, summons to go to court, those types of things, criminal penalties. So yes.

1:56:55Taishya Adams And do any of these reports ever come back to us at the council, you know, when it meets a certain threshold?

1:57:02Jen Ross No, we wouldn't elevate it to you. We would keep it in house and we would just monitor those properties and it's done on a yearly basis those thresholds are met and it depends on the size of the structure how many violations they get and it has to be a a actual violation not a warning or a call for service.

1:57:18Taishya Adams Awesome. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Last question is around the trash and bears. So we know that this is the warmest and dry one of the warmest and dest years on record and I've seen an increase in bears. I've noticed trash um even in my own community and just was curious if Western Disposal or um trash companies alerts the cities when they see that kind of egregious um non-compliance that allows bears to come.

1:57:47Jen Rossspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Yeah. Yes. There's a bear trash ordinance in our code and those are enforced. Um, I don't know if the trash companies are are necessarily reporting. I'm afraid I I don't know how those are coming in. But, um, what I can tell you is that we do quite a number of prosecutions of bare trash.

1:58:09Taishya Adams I would look forward to hearing if the trash companies because they would be on the front line, if you will. Um, and as I said, I've seen an escalation of trash um, throughout the community. Thank you.

Council questions: family displacement and BVSD's enrollment decline

1:58:20Aaron Brockett Great. I got Ryan lined up and let's try to be quick.

1:58:24Ryan Schuchard Question for staff on the um the matter of potential displacement of families with kids and any kind of analysis or evidence that we that we go to collect methodically heard stories about Hill with Stealth. Then there's of course the aggregate citywide situation that is um leading to the BVSD decline in enrollment. Do I'm just do we track or analyze that or is that a

1:58:52Nuria Rivera-Vandermydespeaker unconfirmed · check the video I'm happy to get back to you council member. I don't believe that we do. We know that BVSD collects their own data. Um but we do not uh ordinarily um inquire what kind of family living or um whether there are children in each individual household but happy to follow up.

Council questions: noise data, code enforcement, a bonfire warning

1:59:10Aaron Brockett Thanks Tina.

1:59:13Tina Marquisspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Yeah, I just had a quick followup on why there might be a discrepancy with what a um a resident in the Hill area is. They're making complaints about a noise, but what we're seeing is actually officially tracked if there's a why there would be a discrepancy there.

1:59:33Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde Um, I I think the without speaking to the um specific complaints, I think it it might depend and that's where looking back at the data and as opposed to just sort of on the cuff speculation might be helpful. But it could be that um when a call comes in that by the time uh police go and um ascertain the source of the call that that is no longer happening or it doesn't reach the decibb or the party has since vacated in the case of party houses. Um it could be that people's expectations and communities expectations of what rises to a complaint versus an actional item is kind of different. But there's a variety of reasons for which this can happen.

2:00:14Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde Um, and so I'll be looking at the data and letting you know if if that if there is a particular situation we need to address. I know that we have in the past few years received far fewer um noise complaints and party calls, but that doesn't mean that the ones that exist are not as bothersome uh to community and to residents that live by. Whether there's a lot or a little, we know that they can interfere with um enjoyment of your home.

2:00:39Tina Marquisspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Okay. And and there's no relationship. I was at the CU meeting on Tuesday with some of the student life people and there there wasn't any shift from ticketing to warnings that was systemic. It wasn't

2:00:51Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde I do believe we do uh we provide and we try to do this with a variety of things that we um enforce is to provide a warning um first. We've done that with a variety of things whether it's parking and noise complaints and whatnot because we want to give our community the ability to correct action. Um, but I would have to check on that and see if that if we have seen if there was a policy implementation that happened if that caused a a different reaction, but I'd rather um let you know and follow up with actual data.

2:01:23Tina Marquisspeaker unconfirmed · check the video That'd be great. Thank you.

2:01:24Aaron Brockett All right, Tara,

2:01:25Tara Winer I'll just do a question and then comment because we're running out of time. So my first question, my only question to staff is do you remember years ago when we talked about changing the um changing the occupying limit even though that's you know neither here nor there at this point with Governor Polus's change. Did we ever increase the amount of um the amount of code enforcers or are we still low?

2:01:56Nuria Rivera-Vandermydespeaker unconfirmed · check the video I do recall the conversation. Um we have done a variety of things. Uh I believe since that conversation there uh is likely been an increase. Um but we have also just recently last year um shifted and colllocated uh code enforcement into entirely new code compliance section in our planning and development services. Um that includes traffic but it also includes what used to be enforced in PD. Um, we believe as as some of that moves forward and frankly we have been in such a constrained environment, it is hard to um determine how much we can do, but

2:02:36Tara Winer I'll talk to you about it. All right, sounds good. All right, so I'm going to do my quick comment since we're running out of time. Spruce pool people, I promise you that I'm going to work on this and I'm sure I'm not the only council member that's going to work with me on this. So, we're going to try to find some solutions. Next, the stealth dorm people. Well, I will call you the Grant Avenue people. Likewise, I'm not the only council member, but I know that I'm going to try to work on some out ofthe-box solutions because you heard from Brad that it's allowed. So, we have to think of out of the box solutions, and I'm going to work on it.

2:03:14Tara Winer And I know that I'm not the only council member that's going to work with me.

2:03:19Aaron Brockett Okay, Matt, real quick.

2:03:19Matt Benjamin Uh, Nia, you mentioned that um individuals who had created a bonfire were given a warning. Is that what I had heard correctly? Was that you or was that not stated by staff? That was what was maybe just reported out there.

2:03:31Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde I think that was something somebody may have said, but I wouldn't know of those particular circumstance.

2:03:36Matt Benjamin Okay. Could we could we just verify what what occurred there? Because it seems like in this community setting any fire warning is we skip the warning and we go straight to more direct punishment and ticket or or late large fines. So that's not something you kind of correct because that's an unringing of the bell when you start a fire. So I just want to make sure we know what our process is and what role we have to maybe correct that.

2:03:57Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde Absolutely. I can't imagine with something as a fire safety um that we wouldn't be taking that super seriously. But I will certainly follow up.

2:04:04Aaron Brockett Okay. Our time for open comment has come to an end. So we need to wrap up here. Anyway, thanks again everyone for coming out here. And just to to let you know, we did hear loud and clear about how important Spruce Pool and Flatirons Elementary are to the community. So thanks for your testimony. And with that, we are going to roll straight into the next section of the meeting. So, if I can ask uh folks as you're leaving, if you can just head out and then if you have any conversations to do those in the hallway. Hey, Nicole. I'll just pause for a moment to give people a chance to leave. Go ahead.

Declaration honoring former council member Mark Wallach (3A)

2:04:55Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video All right. While people are shuffling out, we got a declaration on pollinators, so we're going to do some uh funny bee jokes. What does the bee say? When does the bee say zub zub zub when it's flying backwards? Yeah, that's a good one. It took a second.

2:05:20Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video What is a softspoken bee called? A mumblebee.

2:05:27Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Oh, mumble.

2:05:28Aaron Brockett Okay, thank thanks for those delightful jokes. All right, so that's we're now going to go into it. We're now going to go into the declarations section. So, Declaration 3A is a declaration honoring Mark Wallak's service to the community to be read by Council Member Nicole Speer.

2:05:59Nicole Speer All right. Thank you, Mark, for coming back and joining us here tonight. Um, since I'm reading the declaration, I am going to take the liberty of uh just taking a few minutes to reflect on your tenure, Mark. Um, personally, and why I will continue to miss your absence from the dis every night that I'm up here for the next couple years. One of the things that I appreciated so much about you as a colleague was that you always said and did what you believed to be right. I'm not sure that you have a political bone in your body unless they snuck one in with with your new hip. You didn't promote misinformation or abide by it.

2:06:35Nicole Speer You respected staff and people as experts even when you disagreed. And you read every packet, every attachment, and every table. We could probably still give you a quiz and you would know most of them. On a personal level, you made me braver as a council member by modeling for me how to speak my truth, even knowing it would upset people. As a colleague, you were a mentor, a friend, and someone who could talk me off a ledge when I was upset. Knowing what concerns and questions I could anticipate from you made me a better thinker and a better council member, and that will stay with me for the next couple years.

2:07:16Nicole Speer We didn't always agree on policy, but we agreed on the importance of honesty, transparency, and facts. And in 2026, that values alignment felt much more important than policy alignment. I'm grateful for the years that we shared on this disring and analysis in your new position as a daily camera opinion columnist. anyone ever doubts your commitment to this community that that should erase them all. Thank you, Mark, for your years of service as a Boulder City Council member. Thank you um for being uh such a wonderful colleague and mentor. I really really appreciate it. Um I'm going to switch in now to reading our our joint declaration from everyone. Declaration honoring Mark Wallik and his service on the Boulder City Council dated September 3rd, 2026.

2:08:10Nicole Speer Mark Wallik was elected to the Boulder City Council in 2019. During his seven years on council, Mark has been a thoughtful leader and passionate advocate for citywide issues, including public safety, affordable housing, and open space. Mark spent years as a real estate developer in New York City, promoting adaptive reuse projects. He worked on voter registration, opposition to the Vietnam War, and supported Charles Evers, brother of Megar Evers, in his campaign to be the first African-American man since reconstruction to run for a statewide office in Mississippi. Mark fell in love with Boulder while searching for great rock climbing. This drew him to advocacy for open space and his entry into Boulder politics. On council, Mark championed climate resilience, housing affordability, and the city's financial health.

2:09:01Nicole Speer In addition to his work on the council body, Mark was mayor prom represented Boulder and uh represented Boulder at the National League of Cities and served on local nonprofit boards. We his city council colleagues appreciate how Mark treated process as moral duty, his mastery of the unglamorous work of thoroughly reading packets and picking up on procedural nuance, and his mentorship on principled governance. We, the city council of the city of Boulder, Colorado, recognize, honor, and appreciate the contributions to the city by former city council member Mark Wallik, signed Aaron Brockett, mayor.

2:10:01Mark Wallach Um, I am a bit overwhelmed. Uh, I do want to note as I came in, uh, I was called a Nazi, which leads me to believe that, uh, even being a private citizen can be a bit overrated. Thank you. That was so gracious and so kind. Um, I want to apologize for any distress that was caused by my resignation. It was not my intent. Uh, but I'm very comfortable and confident that whoever sits in that chair in November or December will do a fabulous job and council will go on. I said before and I say it again, it was a great honor to serve with you. Um, I appreciated uh different perspectives. I became friends with many of you.

2:11:01Mark Wallach Um we went through some difficult moments together and uh it was the experience of a lifetime. I I did try to conduct myself in a certain manner and I I hope I succeeded. Um I think my only regret is that I came to council very late in life. Um, and my parents never got to see it. Uh, I think they would have been proud of me and I appreciate that. And lastly, I just want to make mention of the fact that nothing that I have done on council or frankly anywhere else could have been done without the support and love of my wife Joan. So, thank you. Thank you for 40 years and it's been wonderful.

2:12:06Mark Wallach I could hope for another 40, but uh I I try to be a realist but but again to all of you this was wonderful. I appreciate all of you and um carry on. Oh, and I do suggest that you all be very nice to me since I now have a journalist position. Don't get on my bad side. Anyway, thank you so much.

2:12:53Aaron Brockett Ah, that was amazing, Mark. I I laughed, I cried. Um, you are deeply missed up here, but uh we're very happy for you in your next act and look forward to read reading your incisive uh and cutting words on the daily cameraman. We'll know we'll expect some good laughs from those as well. Thanks again for everything you've done and continue to do. All right, we're going to go to um item 3B, which is the Pollinator Appreciation Month declaration to be read by Council Member Schuchard.

Pollinator Appreciation Month and bee biomonitoring (3B)

2:13:26Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video You're lucky.

2:13:27Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video They took mine. Sorry.

2:14:54City staff (unidentified) So, council, thanks so much. For 10 years, you've been reaffirming our recognition, appreciation, and commitment to the presence, and critical services provided by pollinators for our community. We are excited to share with you a glimpse of the next stage in our community engagement with pollinators, from appreciation to active partnership. As you will hear, pollinators are tireless collectors of both pollen and information about the environmental health of our community. Both the diversity and abundance of different plant species and what types of toxic substances and residues are present, things like pesticides and herbicides and even microplastics.

2:15:31City staff (unidentified) Working both within our organization and across the community with a host of organizations and individuals, we will be establishing one of the first citywide B-based biom monitoring systems in the United States. We believe this approach can provide us with information critical to protecting the health of our local environments and serve as a model for other communities interested in doing so. And with that, I turn it over.

2:15:54Brett KenCairn Good evening, council. My name is Brett Karen. I'm with the climate initiatives department and naturebased solutions.

2:16:00Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Can we get you a mic so you're on being recorded?

2:16:02Brett KenCairn and we have a very set special set of guests tonight to introduce the 11th annual reading of our pollinator appreciation month declaration. But this year, we're going beyond simply working to appreciate the pollinators, but to instead work with them. So tonight, rather than just tell you about this program, we wanted to actually have some of our community members, some very small and very important community members, actually help demonstrate what this program looks like. So without further ado, I have actually both native bees and honeybees who have their honeybee home and their native home. And we have a very special guest tonight, Dr. an imminent enmologist, Dr. Buzz, who will help also explain some of what's taking place. So without further ado, ready?

2:16:50Brett KenCairn Oh, do we have our flowers out? Okay, our flowers are out. Okay, good. Everybody got ready, set, go. Normally, if we wanted to understand what's happening across our environment, people would have to go out into the field to collect samples. But bees are already doing incredible work, something incredible. They visit flowers. They travel about 20 blocks around their neighborhoods. They interact with plants, air, and water. And while the bees are doing what they do, they also collect information about the environment around them. Now, here's where it gets really interesting. As the bees forage, they collect pollen and sip nectar. That pollen contains information about the plants they're visiting.

2:17:40Brett KenCairn It can tell us what the plants are blooming across our community and give us a picture of plant biodiversity. Bees can also pick up environmental contaminants as they move through the landscape. What contaminants are present and what the bees are being exposed to is something we can learn. And the really powerful part, the bees don't just collect this information, they bring it home. So, Dr. Buzz, what's this?

2:18:11Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video They also can get the environmental contaminants. So when all of this information comes back to the hive, we can gather the pollen, we can gather the bee bread, we can gather the honey, and we can actually put sensitivity strips in the hives themselves. And from that information, we can tell within the radius of travel of these hives what these bees are encountering, both in terms of the biodiversity of our community, but also the kinds of environmental contaminants that they might be encountering. So, let's give a big round of applause to our bees and all the hard work that they're doing for us.

2:18:52Brett KenCairnspeaker unconfirmed · check the video So, to close up tonight, I just want to show this to you in terms of what this actually looks like in the community. So, next slide. So, we have now seven different hives in the community. I want to call out to our partners at the Jewish Community Center and the Boulder Housing Partners who are both hosting hives for us and also Boulder Valley Honey who actually are placing or have five hives around the community as well as well as native bee homes. So, we're gathering information from both honeybees and native bees. Now, on the left you'll see a onem radius of travel from those existing hives and actually bees often will travel as much as two miles.

2:19:28Brett KenCairnspeaker unconfirmed · check the video So, as you can see, with a relatively small number of hives, we can actually cover the entire community gathering this information about both the health of our community and some of the contaminants that we're going to encounter. So, what we're really excited about is that we believe this is a lowcost replicable manner. Bees actually one hive will make 50,000 trips a day. That's 50,000 times that it's gathering information about our community. And with that information, we believe we can much more effectively deploy the resources we have to protect our community.

2:20:01Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video And Boulder is leading the way in making that information possible.

2:20:07Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Thank you very much. All right. So, with that, we'll turn it over to uh Councilman Sushard to read the declaration.

2:20:20Ryan Schuchard Okay. Good evening, Boulder pollinators, friends of pollinators, and future friends of Boulder pollinators. Pollinators weave together the rich fabric of life that shapes the health and beauty of Boulder's natural landscapes. They are essential to our ecological and community resilience, supporting the plants, habitats, clean water, nutritious food, and healthy ecosystems upon which people and other species depend. The health of people and pollinators are deeply interconnected. Bees rely on diverse pesticidefree flowers for the nectar and pollen that sustain their colonies. The pollen, honey, and air surrounding bee colonies can also provide a window into the diversity and health of the landscapes we share. The city of Boulder is partnering with our local pollinators through the new Boulder bee biom monitoring initiative.

2:21:09Ryan Schuchard By analyzing honey, pollen, and air from the honeybee hives and native bee hotels, the city will learn about the environmental conditions we all share. This information can help us create healthier, more biodiverse, and more beautiful places for people, both people and pollinators. As our community celebrates the abundance of the autumn harvest and the remarkable ecosystems that sustain us, the city council of the city of and of the city of Boulder, Colorado, hereby declare September 2026 pollinator appreciation month. We hereby commit to our continuing to our continuing our stewardship of pollinators and the habitats upon which they depend, strengthening the health and resilience of our larger living community and for current and future generations. Okay, thank you pollinators.

2:22:06Aaron Brockett Well, that was super fun. Thanks to the the bees and Dr. Buzz for coming out and we look forward to celebrating our pollinators this month. Um,

2:22:16Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video quick question, Mayor.

2:22:17Aaron Brockett Yes,

2:22:18Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video for uh Brett if possible. Um, I just wanted to make sure the map included gun barrel. I mean, I thought you said that all of our communities. So, I didn't see anything up in the gun barrel, but was the upper northern section inclusive of gun barrel? Just wanted to double check. Sometimes they they I want to make sure that no one's left behind in our community.

2:22:37Brett KenCairn Not yet, but we will be expanding this program next year. We're really learning this year about how to actually gather and analyze the data. We want to expand it quite significantly.

2:22:46Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Awesome. Thank you.

Consent agenda and council employee evaluations (4E)

2:22:49Aaron Brockett All right. Um Emily, can we go to the consent agenda, please?

2:22:53Emily (clerk) Absolutely. Next on tonight's agenda, we have item number four for our consent agenda. We have consent agenda items A through I.

2:23:04Aaron Brockett Great. Did we have any questions or comments on the consent agenda?

2:23:10Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video I got I saw Nicole and then Ta.

2:23:14Aaron Brockettspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Oh, okay. Ta. We'll get after we hear from them if you don't mind. dust that pollen off your wings and move on to the next thing. Okay. So, we're we're on the the um employee evaluations item, right? Sorry, I'm just coming off the beehive pollination. Um so, yeah, we're just doing the the um the what what number is that? So this is item 4E, consideration of a motion to approve the 202526 performance evaluations and salary adjustments for the city manager, city attorney, and municipal court judge.

2:23:57Ryan Schuchard Thank you, mayor. Okay, so I'm a member of the um employee evaluation committee with with Nicole and just wanted to say a few words. Um first, just to remind folks how this works. So we do an annual performance evaluation using a similar framework um as all of the staff in the city and this is for the the city council employees. So that's the city manager, the city attorney, and um the city judge. And so um we work with the HR director, David Bell, to assist us to essentially provide a standardized process that the rest of the municipality uses. It's a 360 degree review that includes peers, subordinates, council members, um and external people. And each of our employees this year had between 15 and 20 reviews.

2:24:41Ryan Schuchard Um and the way the process works is it's like it is really in most organizations um we collect the data from the the reviewers again all those reviewers um we um bring it together analyze it um and then produce a summary of that. Um that's that's the process. Um so this year our three council excuse me our three council employees um scored all in the highest tier. They had overall great reviews and um I just wanted to thank them all for their really hard work. Um every year is challenging. This year was especially challenging with a compressed council schedule for with with one-year work plans um that have really pushed the limits um in a lot of ways.

2:25:24Ryan Schuchard And I'm so grateful for their work um and look forward to our work ahead.

2:25:40Nicole Speer Um, I just had some kind of more personal comments for staff, too. Um, and and just really want to lift up, um, something that Ryan already noted from the evaluation results. Um, that our three employees received the highest possible rating. Um, evaluation respondents included council members, direct reports, peers, staff across the organization, and even partners outside the city. Um when you look at the averages across these groups, it's clear that people in every category, the people who are working directly with our employees as well as people who work only tangentially with them, um consistently see them as exceptional leaders who strengthen Boulder's capacity to serve the public.

2:26:18Nicole Speer Um so basically at every level of this organization and even outside of it, the people who see our employees work understand the caliber of leadership we have. And I emphasize this point uh because in recent months a very vocal minority in the community has made it a habit to attack our employees professional competence, leadership and integrity. These evaluations show that those attacks could not be further from the truth. The evaluation data reflects competence, professionalism, and a firm commitment to this community. And I want to remind everybody in our community that our staff could be working in many places. It's really incumbent upon all of us on council and in the community to treat them with the respect and dignity that all workers and humans deserve.

2:27:04Nicole Speer Our staff is critical infrastructure, too. And just as I would caution against residents taking up a jackhammer and drilling holes in our roads, I strongly caution against personal attacks on the people who maintain the systems that keep the city functioning. We are shooting ourselves in the foot if Boulder becomes a place where public infrastructure is treated like a nuisance and public workers are treated like servants. If we lose the exceptional people who make this city run, we will not have a functioning city. So to those in the community who think the challenges we face now are difficult, I encourage you to consider what this city would look like facing those challenges without worldclass professional staff. Skilled public workers have options.

2:27:48Nicole Speer They will not stay in an organization where their expertise is dismissed and their dignity as human beings is routinely challenged. Every single one of us has areas to improve and good leaders like our staff are always open to receiving constructive feedback. But if a minority in this community creates an environment where we cannot retain and recruit staff of this caliber, we all lose. So I close as I began just expressing my gratitude and my respect for our employees. Your leadership is both strong and essential to addressing every challenge we're facing and these evaluation results make it unmistakably clear that I am not the only one who sees that. Thank you.

2:28:31Aaron Brockett Very well, very well said, Nicole Taishya.

2:28:36Taishya Adams Thank you. Um I concur with the level of professionalism and leadership for um the staff. I did however want to lift up a couple of issues um that unfortunately does um compromise the integrity of the process. The first is the public are not in uh engaged in this process and if it's 360 then I believe that they should be engaged in some meaningful way. I also had concerns about the company that we used given that last year um both thank god Ryan and um um Nicole, thank you. Um had their eyes as as as strong as u Mark Wallace um and caught a math problem that would have compromised the outcomes.

2:29:23Taishya Adams And when I asked if we were going to get a new company because I didn't feel comfortable staying with a company that was did not catch something that was so critical um I was informed that we would be looking but then when the time came we were saddled with the same company. So again, um just having some in integrity issues and it makes it difficult for us to stand strongly um um against the comments of our public and our community when the process that we're using falls short. There are a couple of areas that I've raised with our uh and and I raised uh last year um but the numbers still continue to be high.

2:30:04Taishya Adams this year I needed asked for an extension because there was additional data that I was trying to get in order to fill out the form and I was denied that. So, um I did want to just lift up the the requests that the council has made around uh revisiting the budget process and and having an a more iterative process and we are still using the same process that we're using for the Boulder Police Oversight Panel. There have been numerous complaints about the process as well as the independent monitor and there has been limited changes to that.

2:30:36Taishya Adams The investment portfolio has received comments um and reports from community members about investments in fossil fuels and private prisons which goes against our current process and that has been sitting for four or five months. Again, I understand the um staffing problems with our um uh sorry, the staffing issues with our budget team. However, we hire an independent consultant group to manage that portfolio and it and I believe it is their responsibility to um ensure that they are abiding by the rules and not our responsibility to create another investigation and use our staff time when we pay people to do that. And then lastly, the evaluation and research which continues to be inconsistent across uh departments which makes it difficult for us to make decisions.

2:31:26Taishya Adams I also just implore us to think differently about our performance evaluation as given one year once a year just doesn't seem adequate for the level of responsibility in oversight. Even in the staff memo, there's nothing meaningful beyond the uh the rating itself. And um although I appreciate 20 to 15 to 20 people weighed in, um our staff is responsible for hundreds of people. Um and that doesn't seem to be um a very strong uh response rate given um the capacity and the oversight management that they have. I don't anticipate that if they did do the level that there would be all these egregious components but I do think that it does compromise the integrity of the process.

2:32:13Taishya Adams Um even in the uh the reporting um again I just feel strongly like even internally um getting access to a full report with this identified strengths with the identified growth areas. what is the process when challenges have been identified for us to be able to um you know have mitigation plans to address the the issues that have been identified. This is my third time going through this and there's nothing um that we have been able to do or read or process to ensure that any challenges have been met. So I will be um saying no to this and I encourage us to continue to do better and I don't believe this is a staff issue.

2:32:53Taishya Adams I do believe it is our responsibility as council to make sure that we have a strong oversight and evaluation process. Thank you.

2:33:01Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Yeah. And I'll note, Tesa, that a number of those issues that you spoke to are the responsibilities of the city council, right, rather than city staff.

2:33:10Aaron Brockett Okay. I I'll uh call on myself and just say I will be voting for this enthusiastically. Um so I'm very appreciative of the work that you all do. Uh I uh rely on you on a nearly a daily basis. I had long conversations with both of you today and both of them the strength of our partnership really shone through and the um faith and trust that I have uh based on real world experience in the magnificent jobs and the way that you lead your department your departments and the the city through the many challenges that we face. It's an incredibly complex city and incredibly complex organization and you do a phenomenal job with it.

2:33:44Aaron Brockett So grateful to you every day and um proud to be working alongside you. And a shout out to Judge Khan as well, who I don't work with on a day-to-day basis, but who I also know does phenomenal work um over at the at the municipal court. So, thanks for the work that you do, Judge, and looking forward to voting on uh your piece as well. Any other thoughts before we go to a vote? Seeing none, um Emily, can we do a roll call, please?

2:34:12Emily (clerk) Absolutely. We'll start the roll call.

2:34:14Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video What? What's that? Oh, yeah. We have to have a motion. I got confab.

2:34:17Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video I move the consent agenda.

2:34:20Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Second.

2:34:21Aaron Brockett We have a motion in a second now. Can you do a roll call, please?

2:34:24Emily (clerk) Yes, of course. Um, we'll start the roll call on tonight's consent agenda with council member Kaplan.

2:34:31Roll call Yes. Marquis, yes. Shoeard, yes. Speer, yes. Winer. Emphatic. Yes. Adams, yes. except for E. Okay, that is noted. Thank you. Benjamin, yes. And Mayor Brockett, yes.

2:34:53Emily (clerk) The consent agenda is hereby approve approved with a vote of 8 to zero with the noted nay on 4E.

Call-up check-in: Frasier Meadows / Mountain View Methodist site review (5A)

2:35:02Aaron Brockett Very good. Let's go to our first callup check-in, please.

2:35:08Emily (clerk) Next on tonight's agenda, we have callup check-in. Um and that is 5A. It is for a consideration of a site review amendment to allow for redevelopment of the Frasier and Mountain View United Methodist properties at 350 and 355 Panka Place to establish a joint campus. The project proposes a new 55- foot tall fourstory independent living building with 96 apartment units and a belowgrade parking structure. a new private drive generally in the location of the existing Panka Place rightway and demolition of a portion of the MVUMC building. A new addition to the MVUMC building is proposed following construction of the independent living building and this is reviewed under case number LUR2025-000056.

2:36:05Aaron Brockett Thanks very much. Any questions, comments or desire to call this one up? I got a couple. Tina, then Rum.

2:36:11Tina Marquis Yeah, I just have a question. I know that the Panka place vacation is separate into two items and this refers to a private drive, but in the planning board discussion, it was given public access. Is the public access just pedestrian and not vehicular? Is that the different differentiation?

2:36:31Nuria Rivera-Vandermydespeaker unconfirmed · check the video Thank you, council member, for the question. I know that we have um uh Chandler online to answer that question. and Chandler, if you can introduce yourself and chime in, that'd be great.

2:36:42Chandler Van Schaack Sure thing. Hi, this is Chandler Vancock with Planning and Development Services. Um, so the conditions of approval require that a public access easement be dedicated over the entire portion of the private drive. Um, so that does not exclude any form of travel. That's pedestrians, bicycles, and vehicles. um for the entire width, including the detached sidewalks. Um and the primary drive would be open to the public at all times. Um with the exception of if they got a special event permit or something and wanted to close the street down for an event, which they did discuss at planning board. Um but that would have to go through a permitting process.

2:37:17Tina Marquis Okay. So, the word private is really more that it's maintained by Frasier Meadows, but the access people can drive through it as they do today.

2:37:26Chandler Van Schaack Correct.

2:37:26Tina Marquis Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to ask about the flood mitigation. It was impacted in 2013 and there are a couple underground levels of parking and obviously some impervious surface area. Have you done the studies and what were the outcomes for that for uh the development and the neighboring um for the neighborhood?

2:37:56Chandler Van Schaack Um yes. So Mark Garcia is here and I'll probably defer to him um shortly. All I will say is that this the addition is not actually located in the flood plane. Um but we did do engineering review of the parking structure and I'll let Mark um comment on that further.

2:38:13Mark Garcia Yeah, thanks Chandler. Uh good evening council. Mark Garcia, civil engineering senior man manager with planning and development services. As uh as Chandler noted, uh the proposed building is not within the flood plane. Therefore, we cannot require uh you know any of our regulations when it comes to buildings as part of it. Um it's a separate building served by separate utilities. Uh it's not connected other than the uh proposed bridge crossing which will be in itself its own separate structure but uh done through a revocable lease, long-term lease. Uh yeah, there's there's nothing the city can do as far as uh you know flood related uh regulations because there's nothing to u uh to review against. It is outside of the flood plane.

2:39:01Aaron Brockett Thanks for that answer. Tara,

2:39:05Tara Winer hi. A community member mentioned that um that the developer wasn't paying anything. You remember that? Do you guys remember that? Well, they're saying for Punka Place.

2:39:17Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video For Panka Place, which I think is a true statement.

2:39:20Tara Winer Okay. Um I did want to I was wondering I also heard that that Frasier Meadows was paying $8 million into the inclusionary as inclusionary housing. And so I just wanted that confirmed that we were giving they were giving $8 million towards um affordable housing.

2:39:41Chandler Van Schaack Um I believe we have Sloan Walbert on the call. She might be able to give an estimate of what the inclusionary housing fee is for the bonus units. I know it's somewhere in that range, but I don't know the exact number.

2:39:58Aaron Brockett Sloan, you're muted. Um perhaps maybe write into the chat and I can read what you write and do a workound. The choice of remote meetings. Uh she says I don't have an exact amount in front of me. Those fees are calculated further in the development process. But if we can just ask a follow-up. they they will be required to pay the full amount of inclusionary housing fees including for the uh bonus floor area units is correct and yeah thumbs up that is correct so don't have the numbers but they will be paying uh Taishya

2:41:09Taishya Adams um I was curious I noticed there the only water considerations were for landscaping that was reported in their plan I was curious um for water use um which of the um city's water supply scenarios were used.

2:41:28Chandler Van Schaack Um, we don't really analyze water use for residential uses as part of the site review process.

2:41:38Taishya Adams And was there any um information on energy use?

2:41:43Chandler Van Schaack Uh, there's information they're required as a condition of approval to um have a a net energy index, I believe is the term. um 10% below the requirement of the um Boulder Energy Conservation Code. So that's the that's true for all um buildings that are classified as commercial buildings, which this is um that are over 30,000 square feet in area. We we require an additional 10% energy efficiency and they're hoping to meet or exceed that, but they're required to be at least 10% um better than the minimum requirement.

2:42:17Taishya Adams And is there any site level solar or storage

2:42:22Chandler Van Schaack Uh they do have solar and they do have geothermal. Um I'm I'm not 100% sure about uh storage or batteries. Um I might defer to the applicant on that.

2:42:33Taishya Adams Okay. Thank you.

2:42:35Aaron Brockett Okay. Any other questions or comments on this? All right. So I'm not seeing any desire to call this one up.

2:42:44Taishya Adams Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know that that was you were asking for com call um comments. I am interested in a call up. Okay. Like to make a motion. I don't know where the motion language is. My apologies.

2:42:56Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video You could just say that you move that we call up the project in question.

2:43:00Taishya Adams I do. Um and

2:43:02Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video but if you don't mind saying the words just

2:43:04Taishya Adams Oh, uh sorry. What were the words?

2:43:06Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video I move that we call up the project in question.

2:43:09Taishya Adams I I move that we call up the project in question. Do I then speak on why?

2:43:14Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Please.

2:43:14Taishya Adams Um so again I think uh um something of this size something I learned from Mark was we should always take a look when something big comes and I think this is something big based on just the few comments that we received from community particularly on the the size the setback um I continue to be concerned about water use and water demands although again I understand that that's not what is required in our code at this time um given the escalating uh climate circumstance ances that we find ourselves in even just over the last year. Um I think it is in our best interest to take a a closer look especially um since this was not a unanimous uh vote from our planning board. Thank you.

2:43:59Aaron Brockett Thanks. Do we have a second for that motion? All right. So seeing no second, then we won't have a vote on it. Um, I'll just mention that, um, this does provide much neededed senior housing in the community and will provide a substantial affordable housing benefit through their cash and loo fees. Um, so that's why I'm not calling it up. If there are no other hands raised, we'll move on to our next callup check-in.

Call-up check-in: Xcel Energy service center concept plan (5B)

2:44:24Emily (clerk) Next we have callup item 5B for a concept plan review and comment for a proposal to expand the existing Excel Energy Service and operations facility at 2655 North 63rd Street concept plan reviewed under case number LUR 2026-000026.

2:44:47Aaron Brockett Any questions, comments, or desire to call this one up? Yes, Ryan,

2:44:50Ryan Schuchard I have a question for staff. Um, this Excel project is in the vicinity of the collash work, potential media remediation project. Can staff comment on whether this project has anything to do with the coash work?

2:45:11Alex Paz Yeah. Hi, my name my name is Alex Paz. I'm a senior city planner and for this project it's just focusing on the existing um operational use for the operations facility that's out there. The existing uses they're looking to build new buildings and maintain the existing operations for daily maintenance, fleet vehicle service, indoor and outdoor storage of equipment and materials used for infrastructure but nothing to do with the power plant. Thank you much.

2:45:45Aaron Brockett All right. Any interest in calling this one up? Not seeing any. So, we won't do call this one up. I will mention uh Sloan has gotten back to us on um the Frasier Meadows project that the total estimated cash in L would be $9.4 million. So, that was the answer to that question. Thanks, Sloan. All right, let's go to our public hearing, please.

Public hearing: pedal cab licensing, ordinance 8757 (6A)

2:46:07Emily (clerk) Okay, next we have our public hearing item 6A and that is for a second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt ordinance 8757 amending title 4 licenses and permits BRC1981 allowing for pedal cab agency and driver licenses and setting forth related details.

2:46:31Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde Thanks so much uh council and I see we are close to ready but this is an item that um I think we have been looking at certainly uh in regard to perhaps uh future events um as we look forward to perhaps a January event uh coming soon but it is an item that's been on our mind for a while we see some of these pettic cabs at some of the football games and um have been able to think about what does that look like for us in our community and with that I will pass it on to the team.

2:47:02Alisa Darrow Thank you, Nuria. Um, Alisa Darrow. I'm your regulatory licensing manager here at the city of Boulder. Here to talk to you tonight about pedal cab licensing. So, we are talking about two licenses. One is for the pedal cab agency and one is for the operator, which we are referring to as the pedal cab driver. This was a partnership with licensing, transportation, code compliance, Boulder PD, and strategic partnerships. The existing activity, these pedal caps are already coming to Boulder. They're here for CU football games and other events such as concerts. And there is no current framework describing how, when, and where they can operate or requirements for liability insurance.

2:47:48Aaron Brockett Alisa, can you get a little bit more into the mic, please?

2:47:50Alisa Darrow Yes, absolutely. Is that better?

2:47:52Aaron Brockett It is. Thank you.

2:47:52Alisa Darrow Okay. Do you want me to start that one over again? Okay. Um, so this ordinance creates a framework to verify basic qualifications and insurance requirements and supports useful transportation option while protecting public safety in the transportation realm. around community equity and economic impacts. The impacts of this license are found in protecting public safety, keeping fees low to allow equitable access for those providing the service and maintaining economic opportunity for the lency. So what ordinance 8757 would establish is the two new license requirements for the pedal cab agency and the pedal cab driver's license that I mentioned. application and licensing fees designed to recover the city's cost of application review, license issuance, and some regulatory oversight.

2:48:48Alisa Darrow Minimum operating requirements addressing driver qualifications, insurance, agency driver relationships, and applicable bicycle traffic regulations. enforcement authority for the city manager to dis deny, suspend, or revoke licenses for violations, misrepresentations, or other non-compliance. And a prohibition on offering, selling, serving, delivering, or providing products, including food, beverages, and alcohol while conducting pedal cab activities. So to qualify for the license, the driver will provide a valid driver's license and their driving record to ensure that the license is valid and will be background checked through CBI. Agencies will be required to provide liability insurance. Operators will need to comply with bicycle traffic operations and agencies will report and license the drivers that work for them. So there is one licensing process overall that they go through.

2:49:46Alisa Darrow This will create standards for passengers, drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists so this activity becomes more predictable overall in our community. The goal of this is that this change will create one clear pathway for agencies and operators that does not currently exist. Um, the pedal cab agency is the one that will obtain the city license and they will be the ones that submit their driver information to us that are then listed on that license. They're the ones that need to meet the uh application and operating requirements, maintain their insurance, report their drivers, pay their fees for the agency license, and ensure that they have a city business license for sales tax.

2:50:27Alisa Darrow The driver is the one that will obtain the um the operator side of it where they meet age and driver's license requirements. They complete background checks and a driving record review. They follow the applicable laws and regulations around this and they operate within the ordinanc's requirements around our strategic priorities. The goal here is this framework integrates with uh safety being accessible and connected responsibly governed and economically vital. Fiscal administrative and sustainability considerations. The fees are meant only to cover staff time to process and administer the licenses and allow for this mode of transportation that is a fun way for people to make a short trip without a vehicle in Boulder.

2:51:18Alisa Darrow Implementation of this license includes adoption of this framework by council and next steps would be that staff would work to build the process, communicate that process to existing agencies and then monitor and adjust as necessary for efficiency. We are not anticipating that we need additional staff for this licensing program and that we can add it to what we currently do at this time. So the council action requested is that you approve them this ordinance as it is drafted. And with that I am happy to answer any questions that you might have.

2:51:55Aaron Brockett Thanks so much Lisa. Any questions for staff? Tina?

2:52:00Tina Marquis Yeah I just have a couple questions. Um the first is do we address just motorization or electrification of them or speed limits?

2:52:11Alisa Darrow We do not. This um ordinance is strictly for the licensing side of it. So if we want to further um we did talk about this a bit with the city attorney while we were drafting this. So further regulations such as when where those things further regulations on the types of bicycles that could be done in a future ordinance. It can also be done through city manager rule.

2:52:36Tina Marquis Okay. And because I and I have interacted with a pedic at CU campus that almost basically killed me. So, um I really am concerned about a very clear way of reporting um speed uh issues or people who are driving kind of recklessly because they're heavy vehicles and if you're a pedestrian, I think it's there's could be some friction there. Um and to that, will there be a clear way to report any kind of pedicap violations for a community member? And will they have a license that's visible sort of like a taxi cab? If you don't like my driving, call XYZ.

2:53:11Alisa Darrow That's a great question and yes, they do need to have their license on them while operating in the city of Boulder and citizens. This framework allows for so code enforcement actually is the side that enforces whether or not they have a license. But because we're now building in the rules of the road for them that they must follow bicycle law, now the police have an enforcement mechanism to be able to deal with that.

2:53:35Tina Marquis Okay.

2:53:35Nuria Rivera-Vandermydespeaker unconfirmed · check the video Um and council member, just following up to ask a clarifying question. I believe the regulation requires them to be humanped.

2:53:42Alisa Darrow That is correct. Yes.

2:53:42Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde Okay. And we will be following up um as Alyssa mentioned with um PD and with the PNDS team about um tracking some of that. I believe that we would if there were an accident or something to occur, PD routinely um keeps track of some of that data and I'll likely be speaking to them about this.

2:54:03Tina Marquis Okay. And then my last question is um do they follow the same guidelines as a food truck if they're an agency in terms of paying minimum wage because our minimum wage is different than that of some surrounding communities. So is it the same? I believe it's four hours in town they have to pay minimum wage but if they're less they can pay the wage of where they're registered.

2:54:27Alisa Darrowspeaker unconfirmed · check the video I believe that the same rules would apply to any business. And so if they are providing a business here in the city, the minimum wage rules would apply to them and we would um make sure that they would be enforced appropriately.

2:54:37Tina Marquis And and we communicate that to all the operators that aren't licensed in Boulder or that that operate in Boulder but may operate in other places. How do we do that?

2:54:46Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Do we communicate license them for licensing?

2:54:49Alisa Darrowspeaker unconfirmed · check the video I I I'm unsure of how we communicate it, but we'll take that back.

2:54:54Tina Marquis Okay. Thank you. That's all I have.

2:54:56Alisa Darrow Thank you.

2:54:56Aaron Brockett Thanks, Matt.

2:54:58Matt Benjamin Right. I see in here that the uh estimated fee revenues are $3,300 um at the sort of in the packet. Do we have a sense of how many operators currently exist in the city?

2:55:09Alisa Darrow We do not. Um there are no pedal cab agencies that are currently located within the city of Boulder. Um and so they're coming from outside of Boulder and it's really dependent on the size of the event. um without any kind of licensing framework, we don't know if it's the same people every time or if it's different every time. Um so I think that as we put this in place and we are able to start seeing who is getting licensed and we work to help bring those into compliance who are not that we'll get a better idea for that.

2:55:44Matt Benjamin So is the 3,300 just a wild guess?

2:55:47Alisa Darrow It is an educated guess.

2:55:48Matt Benjamin Okay. Uh we have no idea how many operators

2:55:52Alisa Darrow about we're we were get we took an educated guess at 30 you know total between agencies and drivers

2:56:00Matt Benjamin and does the city of Denver have a license like this?

2:56:03Alisa Darrow They do in fact um

2:56:05Matt Benjamin can you describe that?

2:56:06Alisa Darrow It is very much like exact like what we are proposing. Um, we took the city of Denver and we looked at them and we looked at Colorado Springs and we took the best practices that we thought would work best for the city of Boulder. Um, and there is guidance in Denver that the traffic engineer gives as well that um, addresses the types of bicycles, the hours and locations. Um, I am very lucky to have a new staff member who came to us from the city and county of Denver who was a of great help during this process.

2:56:40Matt Benjamin And the the last one here is just a question about these are folks that are coming to make money. Obviously, they're going to um pay a sales they're going to contribute via sales tax to the city's coffers. Do we have any forecast of what that is? And I say that in the context of if they're generating revenue for the city, and I've made this point before, why do we justify charging fees and making it harder for them to make money doing a business when we generate money on the side of the sales tax? And so, do we have a revenue forecast for how much the city generates aside from fees for the service being provided in our city?

2:57:18Alisa Darrow I appreciate that question. I am not a sales tax expert. Um, but I do believe that services might be handled differently in the realm of sales tax.

2:57:29Matt Benjamin Okay. I think it would be helpful for us to know maybe where Denver is so we have a sense to maybe calibrate or make some guesstimate of how much money we expect to make from this service in the community and whether the fee is an appropriate amount or stifles business in our community.

2:57:42Matt Benjaminspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Appreciate it. Thanks,

2:57:44Aaron Brockett Ryan.

2:57:45Ryan Schuchard Thanks. Just a couple questions. Um, I'm thinking about just big picture the the um the purpose like where it comes from and why now. Can you say more about like is is this Sundance related? Is it something else? Like like why are we why are we doing this now?

2:58:04Alisa Darrow This was not brought to me as an issue with uh that's related to Sundance. It really was. Um I was contacted by the transportation department and code enforcement and the police department to discuss the issues that were happening in our community without having a license. Um we do not know if if they are insured if someone were to get hurt. So there's, you know, we don't know if they could ex deal with the liability issue if something were to happen. This license allows for that. And Jen Ross, our code compliance manager, is here. And I know that she could speak to this probably better than I can.

2:58:47Jen Ross Hi again. Jen Ross, the code compliance manager. Um, we saw an increase in traffic related incidents regarding pettic cabs and then also an increase of them being at our larger events. um we see that they're operating in public rightways in a manner that could be uh dangerous to pedestrians and so we need a way to kind of track who's legally operating within the city of Boulder and um a way to have a better enforcement tool to uh bad party actors that are operating uh at excessive speeds on public uh walkways rather than in the public right away where they should be and or congregating on sidewalks where they're uh blocking pedestrian traffic.

2:59:39Ryan Schuchard Okay. Thank you.

2:59:41Aaron Brockett Any other questions? Tina, get another question.

2:59:48Tina Marquis I can't I Oh, I know. So, when when they're on CU campus, who regulates the pettic cab? Because that's where I've seen them.

2:59:57Jen Ross uh CU police would be in charge of the public walk uh of the walkways and the uh access that the pettic cabs have on pedal caps have on uh CU's campus are our um jurisdiction ends at the the line basically.

3:00:16Tina Marquis Okay. And then and will they adopt a similar code that we are?

3:00:22Jen Ross They are already enforcing um their rules for bike traffic,

3:00:28Tina Marquis okay,

3:00:29Jen Ross on campus. It's just it's a very large campus and so it's hard to have an officer on every walkway. But I do know from interactions with them that they are um enforcing their own speed rules and their own bicycle rules and they consider these bicycles on campus.

3:00:47Tina Marquis Okay. And I just want to say I really appreciate you doing this. I think it's great to get ahead of this and just being so responsive given my own experience. It's not I'm not against them, but the idea that we can make sure that they don't um hurt anyone is just it's great. So, thank you so much for thinking ahead.

3:01:02Aaron Brockett Matt, you got a followup?

3:01:03Matt Benjamin Yeah, I just had a little followup on what Tino was asking. If how do we do sales tax if the effective point of sale occurs on campus? Because I think of the spill out of a concert or a football game. So, how do we how do we how do we do that?

3:01:17Alisa Darrowspeaker unconfirmed · check the video So it's a service and so they don't actually pay sales tax.

3:01:23Matt Benjamin So how do we how is there any remittance of any revenue?

3:01:27Alisa Darrowspeaker unconfirmed · check the video We're not asking for sales tax revenue from a service. We are just asking for them to follow rules for the rules of road and licensing requirements.

3:01:37Matt Benjamin Said another petty cab agency would be had a contribution to sales tax.

3:01:43Alisa Darrow It did not I'm sorry if that was unclear. Um, it does not say that they make a contribution to sales tax, but they are still required to have a business license for sales tax in Boulder, just like any other business.

3:01:55Matt Benjamin So, that transaction is taxfree from the city's perspective.

3:02:00Alisa Darrowspeaker unconfirmed · check the video License,

3:02:01Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video except for the license fee.

3:02:03Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Except for the license fee.

3:02:04Matt Benjamin Each trip, we don't make a scent on what is paid for that service. Correct.

3:02:10Alisa Darrow I don't believe so.

3:02:12Alisa Darrowspeaker unconfirmed · check the video We don't. I can honestly say that that is correct. We do not because a business license and a sales tax license in the city of Boulder is a synonymous license. And so it doesn't necessarily imply that they're paying sales tax. It's implying that is a business doing business in the city limits of Boulder. We issue a business license to a church as well.

3:02:33Aaron Brockett Yeah. I I had a sales tax license for almost 20 years for my small business and every year filed a return with nothing owed because we didn't collect sales tax on our services. All right. Uh, is not seeing any other hands raised, then let's go to the public hearing. We have two people signed up to speak, so they'll each have three minutes. They are Lara Gonzalez and Lynn Seel, both virtually.

3:02:56John Morse Uh, good evening again, city council. We do not have any members of the public uh in the queue virtually.

3:03:02Aaron Brockett Okay. So, um, I will bring the public hearing to a close and look to councel for question for comments or perhaps a motion. Yeah, Tina.

3:03:18Tina Marquis Well, can I do the motion, please? Okay. But I don't have it in front of me.

3:03:30Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video I don't think there's motion language. It is in the memo.

3:03:35Tina Marquis Okay. Well, uh I move to adopt ordinance 8757 amending title 4 licenses and permits BRC 1981 1981 allowing for pedicap agency and driver licenses and setting forth related details.

3:03:50Aaron Brockett Brilliant. Do we have a second?

3:03:53Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Second.

3:03:54Aaron Brockett Do you want to speak to your motion?

3:03:56Tina Marquis I already did, but I'm just really happy we're doing this. I think it's a great idea. Thank you,

3:04:01Aaron Brockett Nicole.

3:04:02Nicole Speer Just thank you, Tina, for your comments. Um, I agree. Thanks for getting us ahead of this.

3:04:07Aaron Brockett Very good. Let's have a roll call, please.

3:04:10Emily (clerk) All right. We'll start the uh roll call tonight for public hearing item 6A with um Council Member Marquis.

3:04:19Roll call Yes. Schuchard, yes. Speer, yes. Mayor Pro Tem Winer,

3:04:26Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video she's not feeling well and stepped away.

3:04:28Roll call Okay. Um, Adams, yes. Council member Benjamin, yes. Mayor Brockett, yes. And Council Member Kaplan, yes.

3:04:38Emily (clerk) Ordinance 8757 is hereby approved with a vote of 7 to zero.

3:04:45Aaron Brockett All right. Well, Alisa, thanks so much to you and your team for your work on this. It's a It's going to be a substantial improvement for the way these things operate in town.

3:04:53Alisa Darrow You're very welcome, and thank you, Mayor and Council. Have a good evening.

3:04:56Aaron Brockett Right. All right, let's go to our matter from the city manager. Now,

State housing laws: Prop 123, transit-oriented communities, HOME Act (7A)

3:05:08Emily (clerk) next we have item 7A under matters from the city manager and that is an update to city council on recent state legislation and state funding land use code changes. The following will be discussed. Proposition 123, housing in transit oriented communities and housing developments on qualifying properties. Um the aka the home act.

3:05:36Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde Thanks so much uh mayor uh and I'm sorry. Thanks so much Emily. Sorry I've just promoted you. Um, for the next item, we will be uh turning to the team uh to talk about um some of those uh updates and Carl, I know you are getting the presentation up and running. Appreciate that, but send it to you.

3:05:58Karl Guiler Okay. Thank you, Neria. Good evening, council members. I'm Carl Ger with Planning and Development Services. I'm joined by Lisa Hood, who you know is in the audience. She'll be presenting from the podium. But I also wanted to introduce Eliza Blood who's joined our team to help with code amendments. So tonight we're going to talk about state legislation and state funding code changes. Um I also wanted to point out that Sloan Walbart, I believe, is online uh from the housing department to help with any questions. So as a matters item, this is anformational item for council. Um, we're really focusing on three pieces of state legislation that we've not talked to you about.

3:06:40Karl Guiler Uh, I know we've brought forward a number of ordinances over the last few years in reaction to state laws that have passed. Uh, there's three more that we wanted to talk to you about. So, there's no action tonight, but it is an opportunity for us to talk to you about these um pieces of state legislation uh and an opportunity for you to ask questions uh about those bills and uh provide some feedback on the approaches that we're um proposing. So, really quick, I'm not going to go into all these bills. You'll recognize a lot of these from the last few years.

3:07:15Karl Guiler We've passed a number of ordinances uh from the busy legislature particularly related to housing items but uh we've passed an ordinance on the residential growth management system accessory dwelling units occupancy uh the wild and urban interface uh minimum parking requirements natural medicine and small cell updates over a number of ordinances uh over the last few years. We do have a summary provided in attachment B. What we're going to focus on tonight is the state affordable housing fund or what's also known as Proposition 123. Um the housing and transit oriented communities bill uh that was passed and then the the more recently passed uh housing opportunities made easier um act or the home act uh as we call it.

3:08:02Karl Guiler So we're still uh learning a lot about that bill. So, some of the prior bills that came before council had more technical um content to them that related to zoning. So, specific things like you can't have occupancy limits on um related to familial status or um ADUs have to be allowed um in every zoning district or wherever you allow detached dwelling units. A lot of technical things were in those prior bills. I would say these current three um pieces of state legislation really get more at process and procedure to um expedite basically the the provision or creation of housing in communities. So it's a slightly different approach. So when you look through our presentation tonight you'll see these icons about these common themes.

3:08:57Karl Guiler So um take a look at those. So basically, if we're allowing more residential projects through an administrative review review rather than discretionary, uh meaning there's no callup or public hearing requirements, you'll see that um that icon. Um there's requirements in some of the bills that talk about replacing subjective standards with more objective standards, more black and white prescriptive type standards to increase um discret the remove or reduce the level of discretion and add to predictability. you'll see that um circle and then also just quicker review timelines as a theme. So you'll see these icons jumping up from slide to slide. Um so I'm going to pass it over firstly to Lisa Hood who's going to talk about Proposition 123.

3:09:46Lisa Houde All right. Good evening council. Um so Proposition 123 you might remember was passed by Colorado voters in 2022. It established the state affordable housing fund. Um, and that provides funding for not just local governments, but developers, nonprofit agencies, and community land trusts. Um, there's a variety of different housing initiatives that can be supported by this affordable housing fund. Um, and it's been in place for three years so far. One of the requirements for getting the funding is that um, it has the project has to be located in a jurisdiction that's completed an affordable housing commitment. What that is is a commitment to a certain number of units of affordable housing being developed in that community.

3:10:32Lisa Houde Um, and what's new for the next three-year cycle of this funding is that the communities that are getting the funding have to have a 90-day fasttrack review process for affordable housing and it has to be in place by the end of the year. So, not only would the city of Boulder ourselves um lose the eligibility for that funding, but any projects that are taking place within the city of Boulder would lose funding um or the eligibility for that funding if we don't have a fasttrack review process in place by the end of the year.

3:11:03Lisa Houde Um just to give you an idea for the first three-year cycle um directly into the city uh we got over $10 million of um funding as well as additional money that was more regional or statewide that also came into Boulder. So it's not an insignificant amount of funding. Um it's meant to incentivize and support affordable housing. Um, every three years we must demonstrate that we've met the uh affordable housing count that we committed to. Uh, um, but the the change that's coming that will come before you in the next couple of months is related to the fasttrack review process. So, I'll go into a little more detail on the fasttrack review.

3:11:45Lisa Houde the um specific projects or how the state has defined what an affordable housing project is um are projects with housing where at least half of the units are affordable. They have a fairly general definition of affordable. So it means that the housing can't cost more than 30% of the monthly income for um households earning for rental either under 60% of the area median income or for sale under 120%. Um so we looked back over the last few years at recently approved or developed projects. Um and in the last five years five projects would have met that threshold of affordable housing in the amount on the project.

3:12:29Lisa Houde So if we stay at the same rate we would expect to see about one or maybe two project of these types of projects per year. So it's not a huge number of projects that would um fall into that fasttrack review. Um but we are the intent of the um funding is to incentivize affordable housing. So certainly that those numbers might go up over time. Um you might be wondering since there's a 90-day limit, what is our current um review timelines? It varies pretty significantly across the different applications that it could apply to. Um so things from landmark alteration certificates, the typical time is 9 days. Uh variance is 34 days. building permits for new construction 63 days.

3:13:16Lisa Houde When you get into our land use reviews, um it starts to get a little higher. Uh so our use review typical um is around 200 days, site review 277 days. So clearly we have some work to do on the review timelines to get them down to 90 days. Um so that's where the code changes come in. Carl, if you want to go to the next one. Um staff has spent a lot of time in lots of different um recent projects. um analyzing where we could streamline processes, simplify processes, but specifically for these affordable housing projects. Um the two main opportunities for time savings that we can see are um removing planning board call-ups and removing automatic planning board hearings.

3:14:01Lisa Houde The most common um situation for that is when we have site review applications with a height modification. The code says that that automatically goes to planning board for a public hearing. So, it's not even brought as a potential call up. It just goes straight to public hearings. So, we think that by making those two changes, um that will uh be a significant time savings in the approval processes for these affordable housing projects. But it would not just be those changes. We'd also need to make administrative changes um just in how we're tracking these projects.

3:14:34Lisa Houde to make sure we're um keeping track of those timelines and then how we're taking in applications um and making sure that the applications are up to um uh high enough quality that our reviewers can review them in a timely manner, things like that. And then also the state um legislation provides for some extensions um just for the realistic nature of development review um in case we needed to extend that timeline by um some additional time. So luckily we made process simplifications in uh changes in the last couple of years that were very similar to this. So we have the opportunity to look at a uh analog and see how it worked.

3:15:15Lisa Houde If you'll remember in 2024, you adopted an ordinance um where we established the minor use review process. Really trying to get at that timeline of 200 days for use reviews and and the changes that we made there were eliminating the planning board call up and eliminating automatic planning board hearings. So very similar to what we're proposing here. I'm not going to go through each step of this flowchart, don't worry. Um Carl, if you want to go to the next one. So, this is what we did with those process simplification changes by skipping the callup um and the automatic hearings. And what's nice about this is we can look and see how that's affected the review timelines in the last two years.

3:15:54Lisa Houde So, Carl, if you want to go to the next one and we've had a lot of great success with that minor use process that skips both both the callup or call-ups or automatic hearings. In just the first year, we saw a 64% reduction in um total use approval times. And then if you actually dig in and look at the time that the city has the application in their hands, um it was reduced by 85%. So those two changes, the call up and the automatic planning board hearing um with this ordinance had a really significant impact.

3:16:26Lisa Houde So that's why we think that these are the um most significant opportunities to get us to that 90day review timeline and make sure that the city of Boulder uh remains eligible for that important state affordable housing funding.

3:16:42Karl Guiler Thank you, Lisa. Um, council will be seeing more about Prop 123 um as we have a ordinance scheduled to come before you in first reading in October and then the public hearing would be in November. So, we're going to switch gears now to the housing and transit oriented communities uh bill that passed uh what we call the TOC bill. Um, this one's a bit complicated, so I'm going to try to describe it the best I can. Um it really links housing and transit. Um so obviously concentrating housing along transit corridors so that you have density in those areas um to encourage transit use but also provide housing for um affordability purposes, increasing the housing stock uh really throughout uh the state.

3:17:28Karl Guiler Um it it the scope of the bill was for municipalities that are more than 4,000 residents and have more than 75 acres of transit areas. It was adopted in 2024. Uh as I noted to increase the number of housing units along these corridors to optimize transit use. So obviously Colorado has been you know was developed a lot of it after World War II where is more autooriented. Um so not always conducive to transit. So, it's really trying to get at a lot of things, housing affordability and transit use. The map that we have up there was provided by the state in 2024 to really map out the bus routes that would be uh eligible for for these uh increase areas.

3:18:11Karl Guiler And you can see Boulder is impacted more than a lot of neighboring communities. Really Denver and Boulder because we had certain frequencies um it it highlighted a lot of areas of town. So for instance, it's based on the RTD optimization plan uh which was adopted in like 2019. So it doesn't really reflect reality, but it shows a system of services where bus lines run every 15 minutes during peak periods on these lines. And that's the snapshot that the state used for this bill. So this is what it looks like when you get more fine grained when we look at those bus routes. The area within the blue is what we call our transit area.

3:18:54Karl Guiler Um, I want to make it really clear that the area within that blue, we're not looking at zoning changes in that whole area. It's it's really just the areas that you have to look at based on where the bus routes are. Um, and basically it's a quarter mile from each bus route. Uh, and then you tally up the acreage of that whole area within the blue. Um, and that acreage you times by 40 dwelling units per acre. And that the the result of that is the housing opportunity goal which I'll talk about. So it's this aspirational number of housing units that should be met uh for that community.

3:19:32Karl Guiler And then what I have is step three is you have to basically designate transit centers which are areas of the city that meet certain qualifications. And in those areas you can count the units towards this housing opportunity goal. So, I have another slide that'll show the difference between the transit area uh and transit centers. Ultimately, we have to submit a report to the Department of Local Affairs or DOA with the with the state of Colorado uh showing whether we're what our level of compliance looks like and whether we need to make any changes. So, that's something I'll talk about too. So, this has a little bit more detail on it.

3:20:11Karl Guiler So again, the transit area is just that holistic area um that that you determine the housing opportunity goal. Um and then it's an average of 40 dwelling units per acre. And I talked about the the quarter mile from the transit corridors. The areas that are in color are like zoning districts that we've identified that could be a transit center. So per the bill, it says you can't count any areas within the transit area that are less than 15 dwelling units per acre. So that rules out a huge part of the city. Like a lot of the low and medium density residential areas cannot be counted and will likely not. We wouldn't have to make changes in those areas um to meet this bill.

3:20:53Karl Guiler What it does say too is that you can you can add an extra quarter mile beyond that blue line to count units in that area if the area qualifies as a transit center. Um you can also use the average unit size in the American housing survey. So basically to determine density they dictate what you divide by to get the number of units. So people aren't saying we're providing 200 square foot units to get a higher number. they they they lock it in. Um the other thing they say is for the transit areas um the areas that you use for the dwelling units can't have discretionary review if below five acres in size uh over five acres in size, you can count those units.

3:21:40Karl Guiler So it gets very complicated when we're working with our information resources folks um on on the data um on how we qualify. So, we're still doing that. When we run the numbers, the housing opportunity goal for the city of Boulder, according to our analysis, um, and and the state has also, um, looked at our numbers, is 123,000 units. So, just to put that in perspective, Boulder only has 48,000 housing units right now. So, I I don't want people to to panic. Um, what this really means is, again, it's an aspirational number. There's nothing in the bill that says you have to construct this number of units.

3:22:23Karl Guiler It basically says that you have to have areas within that transit area that don't stand in the in the way of theoretically meeting that number. Um so it's a very fine grained analysis that we're doing. Um one thing I'll say is that um what we're seeing right now is we're quite close to meeting that number just based on our current zoning. the changes that have been made in the last few years like the zoning for affordable housing um really help to bump up the numbers to get us closer, but our current estimates are we're we're somewhere between 110 120 uh dwelling units. So, it looks like we might have to make some additional changes to just get us over that line.

3:23:08Karl Guiler But, we are doing courtesy reviews with Dola and we've been meeting with them over the past two years to go over the numbers. It's been a lot of detailed work. So, we plan on meeting with them in in coming weeks. So, if it is confirmed by Doula that we're not quite there, we we have looked at some options. This is what we're putting as like kind of the lowest hanging fruit options to get us over the line. It doesn't mean we're going to do all of these and we might even like be able to work with the data to get over that line. We have some ideas for that, too.

3:23:40Karl Guiler But what we're seeing here is um removing the callup for formbbased code reviews is kind of our top choice at this point. Uh because originally when we brought formbbased code review 10 years ago, we um had proposed to not have a callup or public hearing process with that because that was like a best practice for formbbased code because it's objective standards. It's really, you know, very definitive requirements and not discretionary. So like most formbbased codes don't have a call-up or public hearing process. So if our findings are that if we remove that call-up process from formbbased code, it would get us over that finish line.

3:24:18Karl Guiler Um in case that doesn't work, we are looking at other contingencies like we could remove the site and use review requirement for residential and industrial areas. We'd have to analyze that more. Um, there's also restrictions on groundf flooror residential in the business zones that the state brought up. As this lowers your number, this might be something you want want to think about removing to to get to the the number. Um, overall, like we could just find places that could be transit centers that um are less than 5 acres or less and make them by right.

3:24:51Karl Guiler And the other thing is if we're getting more buildings along these transit corridors that may not be going through discussionary review, it also raises the question of whether we might need to create some borite site and building design standards just to get a baseline of of quality terms of like windows and materiality and buildings facing the street and putting parking behind things like that. We're exploring that as well. Um, so we we do have to submit a report to to Dola by the end of this year to to tell them where we are and what we think we need to do. Um, and then we have all of next year to basically do any ordinance uh to bring us into compliance with this bill.

3:25:33Karl Guiler So that uh concludes the TOC part. I'm going to turn it over to Eliza who's going to tell you about the Home Act. Again, this was passed in May of this year, so it's something we're still trying to get a handle on, but she'll go over the details with you.

HOME Act: qualifying properties include school-district land

3:25:48Eliza Blood All right. Good evening, everyone. Um, I'm here to speak with you about the Housing Opportunities Made Easier Act, the Home Act, which was passed in March of 2026. This bill was formerly known as the Yiggby Act that some of you may be familiar with. And the purpose of the home act is to increase affordable housing on underutilized land by providing greater zoning flexibility and streamlining approvals for qualifying developments. In this case, we are defining the term underutilized land as land that has historically not been used for residential purposes. and subject jurisdictions must begin fulfilling the expectations of this bill by December 31st with the goal of reaching full compliance of the bill by June 30th, 2028.

3:26:34Eliza Blood These deadlines provide time to plan and implement the code amendments needed to comply with the act. The Home Act defines land that is subject to these standards as qualifying properties. Qualifying properties cannot be larger than 5 acres and are owned by one of the following entities listed on the screen here. This includes schools and school districts, state colleges and universities, boards of cooperative services, housing authorities, local or regional transportation authorities, or housing nonprofits and h and nonprofits with housing affiliation. In addition to the qualifying property criteria, the home act identifies several exemptions that determine where these development provisions do not apply. One example of an exemption is for properties that have largescale industrial operations present in Boulder.

3:27:27Eliza Blood This includes properties located in the industrial manufacturing and general industrial zoning districts. The rest of these exemptions can be found in attachment A of your packets. and the bill's eligibility requirements and exemptions define where housing stock can be built, limiting the bill's application to only some parts of the city. Another important aspect of this bill is that it advocates for quicker development timelines by subjecting qualifying housing projects to administrative approval or administrative review. Administrative review requires staff to make decisions based solely on objective criteria rather than undergoing a site review process which requires planning board or city city council callup or public hearing. By subjecting projects to administrative review, these projects become less expensive and do not take as long to reach final approval.

3:28:25Eliza Blood The Home Act establishes standards for building height maximums, density, and site design standards for future housing projects on qualifying properties. In terms of regulating building height, local governments cannot deny a housing project based on building height if the development does not exceed three stories, 38 ft in height, or the height of similar neighboring residential developments, whichever allows the greatest building height. Additionally, density or the number of dwelling units in a development can't be restricted in these new housing projects. And lastly, the site design standards referred to as form and bulk standards in Boulder should match that of other neighboring multi-unit developments in the jurisdiction.

3:29:10Eliza Blood The key takeaway from this information is that the home act requires qualifying developments to be reviewed under standards that are comparable to other multi-unit residential projects located in the subject jurisdiction. Qualifying properties are also meant to support child care and recreational, social, or educational services. If zoning allows or conditionally allows on-site child care and recreational, social, or educational service uses, those same uses must also be allowed as part of residential development on a qualifying property. We are interpreting the recreational, social, or educational service concept to include the following use types listed on the screen here. These currently exist in Title 9 and they range from community services to instructional facilities to community gardens.

3:30:04Eliza Blood While the bill expands opportunities for community serving uses on qualifying properties, further analysis is needed to determine which existing use classifications and permissions align with the bill's intent. Lastly, I'll briefly walk through the where the home act may apply in Boulder and I'll cover the updates we anticipate making to Title 9. So, this map shown here on this slide illustrates where we expect some of the qualifying properties to exist in Boulder. As you can see, the home act is only relevant for certain areas of the city. And I'll add that this map is still under development. We are undergoing further analyses to make this as complete of a story as possible for you.

3:30:48Eliza Blood Additionally, we highlighted the sections of the land use code that we anticipate needing an update to implement the home act at the bottom of this slide. These updates include revisions to procedures, use permissions, heighten intensity standards, and key definitions. Because the bill has a longer implementation timeline, these code revisions do not need to be finalized at this time, allowing time for continued analysis and refinement. I'll now turn it back to Carl to share the planning board feedback we received on these three bills. Thank you.

3:31:23Karl Guiler Thanks, Eliza. So, we'll come in for the conclusion. Uh we did go to planning board um with this similar presentation on August 4th uh to make them aware of these pieces of state legislation. Um we wanted to convey that to the council. So overall I think the planning board understood um the concepts behind the bills and the the voter initiative. Um they did express some concern about um loss of discretion in some cases or um having less transparency for members of the community um uh on on these particular reviews. Uh but they largely supported the changes uh that were proposed uh particularly with uh Proposition 123.

3:32:06Karl Guiler they supported uh the recommended um path of count of staff moving forward uh with an ordinance and we actually brought um those code changes to planning board on Tuesday where they recommended approval um to council on that. So that's that's why I said uh you'll be seeing that in your packet in October and November. Um, relative to the TOC bill, I think the board supported uh, moving forward with working on the data and and showed a preference towards maybe trying to make those numbers work without code changes, but if code changes were necessary uh, to meet the TOC, they did support removing the call up and public hearing requirement uh, in the the formbbased code.

3:32:49Karl Guiler Similarly, with the home act, the board accepted that they would have less discretion over based on the parameters of that bill um when we bring that ordinance forward uh later on. So, just as far as next steps, as I noted, planning board looked at the Prop 123 ordinance on September 1st. It will be coming before city council on November 19th. Um the TOC changes, we'll be meeting with Dola over the next few weeks about the data. we have to prepare a report that we submit to them before the end of the year and then we'd be working on an ordinance in 2027. We'd have to bring that um according to the bill uh before the end of 2027.

3:33:33Karl Guiler Um as Eliza noted, the home act gives us gives us a little more time. It basically says that you have to be actively working on changes um at the beginning of 2027 um and you have to have those changes adopted by June of 2028. So that uh concludes our presentation. These are the questions we thought could help the lead the discussion and we're happy to answer any questions.

3:33:59Aaron Brockett Thanks Carl. And when we get to questions, I mean you did have some specific items that you were considering. Did you want us to give feedback on the specific items?

3:34:07Karl Guiler Uh, we could go to that slide if you wanted to go through those, but I mean again, our preference on those was to move forward with the formbbased code, but if there's ones that you think we should be looking at also, we're we're open to that.

Council questions on the state housing laws

3:34:19Aaron Brockett Okay, great. Questions for city staff? I'm going to start come down this way. Tina?

3:34:24Tina Marquis Yeah, thanks for the update. Um, so one of my questions is just already CU doesn't really go through our permitting process in the same way and can get a lot of changes. So when we're thinking about the home act and we call out the state university, is that CU or are we also looking at Nuropa or

3:34:44Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video it would be CU?

3:34:46Tina Marquis Okay. And does this really change anything for them?

3:34:49Karl Guiler Do you want to take that or do you want me to take Yeah. Um we we looked at this and um it would largely apply to CU um and they largely don't have to go through our review um for certain projects. But in the case where CU might own a property but not develop the property with housing for its students or for academic purposes, that's where the home act would come in. So there could be some, you know, scenario where they decide to develop, you know, a project that's not for students or or teachers or things like that. That's not an academic role where the home act would apply.

3:35:26Matt Benjaminspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Can I call a queue on that?

3:35:28Tina Marquisspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Well, I was going to ask about the limelight because that's not for students and they they were able to exceed the height. So they didn't

3:35:36Karl Guiler Well, I mean that that's a commercial project. It's not a a housing unit project. So it wouldn't have applied to that site.

3:35:43Matt Benjaminspeaker unconfirmed · check the video But Carl, my understanding is that we don't have regulation over CU at all as a state agency. And it doesn't matter what type of building that they're building.

3:35:50Karl Guiler Yeah. We don't have any reach when it comes to something that's fulfilling the purpose and role of of the of the university. So if it's for an academic purpose, we don't have a role in that. It's where they might own property and do something different.

3:36:09Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Do you want to speak to that?

3:36:09Brad Mueller I'll colloquy on that. So Brad Mueller Planning and Development Services. In that case, we still would not be able to do the permitting process. So CU is considered a subdivision of the state subject to state regulations. The way we the reason we sometimes qualify as um aren't involved generally in the permitting is we still do get involved in things like providing utilities. So for example, on sites that are being proposed uh for housing, uh those are city utilities. So, we have regulatory oversight and that was the case with Limelight as well, access and um connections to utilities.

3:36:47Aaron Brockett And Matt's got an additional question.

3:36:49Matt Benjamin Would that also be regarding the proposed 5 acres at CU South that is set aside for housing that is not student nor faculty? That was part of the annexation. Was that set aside to five acres? Is that that is that the kind of thing you're talking about?

3:37:03Karl Guilerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video I think for the home act. Yes.

3:37:04Matt Benjamin Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I just want to get

3:37:05Karl Guilerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video that's a that's a good example.

3:37:08Aaron Brockett Okay. Timmy, we'll come come back to you for maybe a couple more questions and then we'll head on to the next person.

3:37:12Tina Marquis So then at that CU South property though, are they limited to three stories or can they go to any height they want?

3:37:19Karl Guiler Um I mean according if they want to have the advantages of the Home Act, it would be three stories.

3:37:27Aaron Brockettspeaker unconfirmed · check the video I thought they were exempted in the home act. I thought they actually carved out something that wouldn't limit them to three stories, but I'm not sure. I while that's being thought about, I will mention that the annexation agreement does limit the height. So there's a different Yeah.

3:37:45Tina Marquis Okay. Um All right. And then my other question is when we looked at the TOC, does it include the student housing capacity at CU?

3:37:58Karl Guiler I don't believe we I don't believe that's included in the data um that we've run.

3:38:05Tina Marquis I think we should include it, but that's just a thought. But I mean, they that's part of our city and it creates a huge amount of residential capacity and they have a huge amount of capacity, especially when we think about the Colorado Avenue project.

3:38:22Karl Guiler I'd have to go back to the bill, but I it does have a a large list of exemptions and I think the university might be exempted out of the transit area. I think that's why we didn't include it. Um,

3:38:32Tina Marquis okay. And then, uh, I Oh, and I did want to ask one question. When we thought about the 123,000, um, opportunity zone, how did we compare that to what our water and energy capacity is? because when we looked at area three, we saw and that's in a green field area, not in the TOC area, but we, you know, we realized that about 9,000 units, we were hitting our water capacity um additional to what's on today. So, how how did the TOC contemplate our water use issues?

3:39:12Karl Guiler I don't know that the TOC contemplates us specifically. It does have an a it does have a methodology for um exempting out of it for water reasons. Like if you can demonstrate that there's not enough water to serve the units, you can get a special exemption from the state. Um, what I'll just say is that, you know, we look at water provision through the BBCP process and like I said, our current snapshot of our compliance with the TOC bill is that we're largely very close and it might just take a couple tweaks to get us there. So, I don't know that there's like a a water capacity issue based on the the data that we have right now. But,

3:39:56Brad Mueller and I'll piggyback on that. Uh, it's it's a great question, council member. uh what Carl just described would or described is really a systemswide answer to that that question. Um there's also the the micro uh aspect of it and something we don't necessarily go into a lot of detail with individual site plans and use review but which is a requirement of the code is that there have to be adequate services before that can be approved. And a lot of times that in means um a very specific technical kind of thing. Is the sewer pipe big enough? And if it's not big enough, you got to you got to uh enlarge it.

3:40:32Brad Mueller Uh if it's not uh located next to the property, you're going to have to extend it to the next sewer main, for example. Uh that's actually true for all all the services. The other thing that um that we don't spend a lot of time emphasizing but is really really critical is all development is required to offset the new demand that it's created with new supply to the system. And so you all talked a little I guess it was you who inquired about the housing uh fee in relationship to a project.

3:41:05Brad Mueller Well, in addition to that are seven other development impact fees that have to get paid for every development that's bringing new demand into the system that offsets uh per modeling a per person per capita modeled um new demand from that service. So, for example, if 200 units are brought in, they have to pay development impact fees that provide for 200 people worth of new uh water sewer treatment plant capacity, new uh distribution capacity, new road and trail capacity, new uh police station capacity. So, that's how uh capacity and services are kept in lock step with individual development projects that come forward. And then those impact fees over time get aggregated to increase the capital structure of say a wastewater plant.

3:42:01Tina Marquis Okay. And so overall we're not sending a false message in that if we say that we can have a capacity that goes up to 123 units which is you know 80,000 more units than we have today. Are we saying that we think we have the water available to make that happen? because we got a little bit of a different perspective on the area 3 water analysis

3:42:22Brad Mueller and that's the distinction between looking at it as a system and a bulk thing versus the reality that it comes in incrementally. That's what the um the planning of individual systems. So the wastewater um uh blueprint, the um uh transportation blueprint, these are the plans that anticipate future demand build into that demand over time. And of course there are policy decisions if we push up against a threshold where that's not possible anymore because roads can only get so big and we may find a time uh in the longistance future about sewer capacity for example.

3:43:01Tina Marquis Thanks

3:43:03Aaron Brockett Rob. Rob and then chair.

3:43:05Rob Kaplan I think you answered my question Brad. I was just looking at the TOC bill and I didn't see anything for road capacity or wildfire risk or evacuation capacity. Um, I did see the carveout for water, but it it sounds like that comes to uh to us to create that and make sure that we have all that capacity.

3:43:28Karl Guiler Yeah. If we if we found that we needed to make zoning changes to meet the TOC, we would obviously confer with our, you know, folks in utilities on this is what we're up against. Is this something that can can work, you know, to make the zoning work? And if it didn't, we would have to rely on that, you know, that carve out.

3:43:47Rob Kaplan And then specifically in places like I was just looking at the map in North Boulder near Wonderland Lake and as you go out towards Lions and then Shanahan Ridge, that looks like it could be in that quarter mile density um area.

3:44:00Karl Guiler I mean, it's unlikely that that area would be included in the transit centers per the bill just based on it wouldn't meet that 15 dwelling units per acre minimum to even count the units.

3:44:12Rob Kaplan Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

3:44:14Aaron Brockett Terra then Taishya then Matt.

3:44:16Tara Winer Okay. I have a few questions. My first is I remember when we had our um council retreat that I talked about us getting rid of groundf flooror retail since it was such a burden and empty. A lot of it was empty. So this seems to be our lucky day. Um, why wasn't it at the top of your list of things to do since it seems like we need it to do that anyway?

3:44:44Karl Guiler I would say it wasn't at the top of the list just since um, as I noted with the formbbased code, the removing of callup was something that we were talking about 10 years ago. So, that kind of floated to the top. But relative to the the retail piece, it was kind of a critical issue when we worked on that, you know, back in 2018 to try to preserve areas for retail and we didn't want residential to, you know, take out a lot of neighborhood serving uses for neighborhoods. So, we we didn't we put it on the list as as a

3:45:19Tara Winer Can I suggest something that we actually put it I'm going to ask that we put it at the top because

3:45:24Aaron Brockett we'll we'll get to comments in in a minute here.

3:45:26Tara Winer Okay. Well, that's the first thing you I'll say that later. The second question is when it comes to all the new legislation and we heard about the hill people talking about the uh the problems with density and the amount of cars as well that are like on a single block now because of the um buying up of the properties and increasing the bedrooms. Are any of these um going to have a negative effect on those areas on the hill?

3:45:55Karl Guiler I mean, based on our analysis, we're not looking at any of those areas um as as areas that we need to change in order to meet the TOC. So, I would say no.

3:46:07Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video And did you want to add something?

3:46:14Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Well, and just to to confirm that the this wouldn't apply to those lower density neighborhoods at all.

3:46:17Karl Guiler No, it wouldn't.

3:46:20Tara Winer But isn't one of the hill neighborhoods not low density? I'm or they all are

3:46:25Karl Guiler well I mean there are some parts of of the hill that are over 15 dwelling units per acre. What I'm trying to say is that in the option the menu of options that we're looking at of how we could comply with the TOC it's not affecting those areas.

3:46:41Tara Winer Okay. And the last Okay.

3:46:43Aaron Brockett Wait a sec. Hela did you have did you want to chime in? We can't hear you. Okay, it looks like we got audio problems. So maybe if you have something that you want to put in the chat, we can read it into the into the record and we'll come back to you. Terry, you had it.

3:47:16Tara Winer Yeah. Last thing. Um, so on page six of the present, I don't know if it was the presentation, but it was our packet. What did planning board mean when they said lightening up some um formbbased code design standards? Do you know?

3:47:32Karl Guiler There were a number of uh design standards that were of concern to the planning board. Um, I think it might have been last year relative to a a project that that they reviewed that they had requested uh staff to consider changing and I think that was also I believe in their letter to council for something that could be on the work program. So, um, we're aware of that and we in the memo just brought up that, um, we could do those in tandem with any changes to update the form-based code to meet the TOC.

3:48:07Tara Winer Can Where can I find um, does anyone know where I can find that letter? Just so I can remind myself what they said.

3:48:16Brad Mueller Yeah, we can certainly send that to you. Again, I will say that um we recognize that that was um not fully vetted by planning board. So, I can't represent that that was a consensus of that. Uh we also had staff opinion about that that we've not had a conversation about. That's not been prioritized. But to Carl's point, um, we want to be transparent about the different pieces that that, uh, come together and and, uh, the formbbased code piece and making it, uh, fully administrative was one of those.

3:48:51Aaron Brockett Okay, Taishya,

3:48:54Taishya Adams my questions were covered. Um, they were on the water and then the WOOI map. Although I was speaking specifically for the WOOI map and the House the Home Act in particular, that map looked like there were some options that were right on that line, but it sounds like that's something that we can address. So, thank you.

3:49:13Aaron Brockett Okay, Matt.

3:49:15Matt Benjamin Uh, yes. I want a good conversation so far. I wanted to So, I'll just sort of go in order of uh the bills. So with prop 123 the fasttrack was estimating maybe one to two projects per year kind of based on we had seen five projects since 2021. Is is that one to two project forecast perhaps anticipating more wanting to embark on this process because this might be a faster more streamlined or how are we forecasting new and and do we have a sense of where that growth may come from or is this just a historical average we're pushing forward

3:49:51Lisa Houde it yeah it's just the average of what we've seen over the last 5 years we can't really anticipate and there's so many different aspects to funding especially for affordable housing projects so we do hope that it would incentivize that number to go up. But if we stayed at the same rate as we have the last 5 years, it'd be about one to two projects per year.

3:50:09Matt Benjamin Okay. So that's really then just a pure baseline with an anticipation for it to be higher. Okay, great.

3:50:14Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Can I follow on that quickly? Is there a a staffing cost associated with that increase?

3:50:20Lisa Houdespeaker unconfirmed · check the video Um I mean

3:50:23Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video if we did more Yeah, if we had more project and we had to move them more quickly.

3:50:27Lisa Houde Um not necessarily. I mean, these process changes um just make the process go quicker with the same staff. Um certainly if we went from like one to two to 100 projects, maybe that's a different question, but um I think this is all something we can or we are anticipating to do with current staff.

3:50:45Aaron Brockett Brad,

3:50:46Brad Mueller yeah, I I I do want to clarify though that um you know, the the fasttracking of it doesn't come out of nowhere. So, it does mean that there's trade-offs to the other projects that aren't this. And with any project, if we get a whole bunch of something, of course, that influences our over work uh overall workload. Um the I think the point you're making, Lisa, is that if we get instead of two, we get four. That's not incrementally different than uh the the overall number of cases we get. really anything uh whether it's commercial or industrial, those all take roughly about the same amount of staff time.

3:51:29Aaron Brockett Okay, thanks for that. Hela, do you want to take another try? I see you have some headphones on.

3:51:37Hella Pannewigspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Can you hear me now?

3:51:38Aaron Brockett Yes.

3:51:39Hella Pannewigspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Oh, I can hear me myself. Um I just I just turned my camera on to be available for questions, but I didn't have anything to add in particular to what was already said.

3:51:48Matt Benjaminspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Okay. Thank you. Um I did I did have a question.

3:51:53Aaron Brockettspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Oh, you go for it. Yeah.

3:51:55Matt Benjamin Yeah. So, there's one more regarding the Home Act. Um in there talking about sort of, you know, a string of Title 9 updates that are recommended, but we have a little bit of runway for those. Um you know, we've been talking a lot about, and I see you're smiling. You know where I'm going with this, a Title 9 rewrite or reconfiguration. So I'm wondering like if if we think of these sort of edits and we maybe embark on a bigger process is has there has there been a conversation if there's an ultimate deadline of June 2028 to going to I don't the approving group was Dola or not for this one but to say hey we're doing the whole enchilada you know can we get an extension or something like that because we're embedding them versus doing your patchwork to delay the bigger thing that we're going to be trying to do.

3:52:41Matt Benjamin So, I'm just wondering if there's have been a conversation about if that's an opportunity for us.

3:52:46Karl Guiler We couldn't possibly meet that deadline if we were doing a Title N restructure or rewrite.

3:52:52Matt Benjamin So, that's why I was asking, would they give us one if they saw us doing or committing to the bigger Title N rewrite? It's worth wondering if it's worth asking them, hey, if they're if the goal of the home act is what the goal is, seeing us redo the whole thing would be like, oh yeah, like go for the go for it. So I'm just wondering if that's a question we would ask if they would be interested in how to

3:53:11Karl Guiler I mean we could talk to them but I mean honestly like it's there's no mechanism in the bill that talks about extending so I don't know that they would do that.

3:53:18Matt Benjamin Didn't know the answer to that. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Straw polls on the Prop 123, TOC and HOME Act options

3:53:20Aaron Brockett Great. I've got one question for you. So on the Proposition 123 compliance we're talking about an expedited review process for projects with 50% affordable housing.

3:53:29Lisa Houde Correct.

3:53:31Aaron Brockett Then you mentioned in the memo the possibility of maybe extending that. Like could we say actually let's do that for projects that have at least 25% affordable housing.

3:53:39Lisa Houde Yes, we could do that. Um we can't make it more restrictive but we can make it more open to um you know projects like you said in that 25.

3:53:50Aaron Brockett All right. Well, that's our question. So let's go uh item by item. Carl, can we go back to the slides? So if we can go to the one start with the one, two, three slide. I'm dizzy. Okay. Wh I think Okay. So, the proposal is to remove the planning board call up and remove the automatic planning board hearing for site reviews with height modifications for projects with 50% or more affordable housing.

3:54:24Lisa Houdespeaker unconfirmed · check the video Correct.

3:54:27Aaron Brockett Okay. Great. So, um, I I would like to get on out on the table the possibility of doing this for 25% affordable as well. So, or taking it down to 25% affordable, um, rather than 50%, but I'd be interested in some quick opinions from from folks on you're comfortable with this going a little lower.

3:54:47Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Can I ask like how many projects because we we're we we thought that 50 would be one to two per year. If we knocked it down to 25, what because there was a question about scaling up. Does that mean that's 10 projects a year? I'm just wondering where's our threshold? Do you have a sense?

3:55:00Lisa Houde Yeah. Um Sloan Walbert did the calculations for this, so she might uh correct me, but I know that I forget what number it was at, but if we just included I think projects that had any amount of affordable housing, it would have been two per year.

3:55:14Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Yeah. So, so pretty minor.

3:55:17Aaron Brockett Um I can just strapple this if folks are interested. Um, so I'll um, sorry, a non-binding not a five for Yeah, Tina.

3:55:29Tina Marquis Um, is there a way that if we lower it, we can also add a condition that the affordable units be largely similar to the affordable to the nonaffordable?

3:55:37Aaron Brockettspeaker unconfirmed · check the video I think that's already the case, isn't it?

3:55:41Lisa Houde It is, but um, one thing about the state legislation is that we can't um, require permanent affordability. So like I said that it can't be more restrictive than their definition. It has to be the the affordable housing definition that the state had. So we can't require like a restriction or the way that we do our typical permanent affordability.

3:56:02Tina Marquis But if we were less restrictive then we could have our additional requirements on that couldn't we?

3:56:09Lisa Houde Yes. I think well that I'd have to talk to Hela in more detail about that but I think maybe

3:56:15Tina Marquisspeaker unconfirmed · check the video so wait so right now what the projects that are the non-affordable and the affordable units have to be the same

3:56:23Lisa Houde for our inclusionary housing program. Yes.

3:56:26Tina Marquisspeaker unconfirmed · check the video No for for this program.

3:56:28Lisa Houde Um well this this has a different definition because it's a state definition of affordable housing. So they don't have a requirement that they would have to be the same. I don't know if Sloan if you're on she explained this well at planning board that um the projects that will include affordable housing will also be meeting our inclusionary housing requirements through that

3:56:51Sloan Walbert sure can can you guys hear me? Okay.

3:56:55Aaron Brockett Yes.

3:56:56Sloan Walbert Okay. It's the headset. Um so I'm Sloan Walber. I'm the inclusionary housing program manager. So, because these going through the development review process would almost always be new build, they would be affordable housing units to meet inclusionary housing, in which case they would need to meet all of our other inclusionary housing standards, which, you know, they'd have to be of the same um type and size as the as the market rate units um in order for them to provide what they're calling affordable units that don't meet inclusionary housing. They'd have to somehow demonstrate that they meet the state's requirements of income or rent. And I think that'd be really hard for someone to do.

3:57:45Tina Marquis And and then my other question is, do they have to be attached in the same or could you separate the affordable and the non-affordable on the same lot in two buildings?

3:57:55Sloan Walbertspeaker unconfirmed · check the video There's no restrictions about that

3:57:57Tina Marquis and I might be interested in that. And and this would be a proposal that you all would come back to us on, right? Like there would be opportunities to shape the final details.

3:58:08Lisa Houdespeaker unconfirmed · check the video Yeah, we'd probably have to come back with a separate ordinance after we pass the first one just to meet the timeline.

3:58:15Aaron Brockett Okay, Nicole.

3:58:17Nicole Speer Um yeah, and I apologize if I missed this in the packet, but um did planning board talk about this idea as well?

3:58:23Lisa Houde Yes, they reviewed it actually on Tuesday. Um they unanimously recommended um the change. They did talk about reducing the amount from 50% to a lower. Um but I think we discussed just with the um the number of procedural changes we wanted to our staff was explaining that internally we were more comfortable with testing it out on a few projects first and make sure we iron out the details. Um so planning board seemed to agree with that and then just thought staying at what the state um definition was um would be good just in the short term. And then we talked about like constantly iterating and um evaluating how it was going.

3:59:05Nicole Speer Yeah. Um I think my my preference would be um just to move forward with with this here, right? We're not talking about that many units. At the same time, I feel like this is a uh in the minds of our community, it is sometimes a bigger thing. Um and I think because we usually do come back to things or at least we're getting in a habit of doing that, right? coming back to um to things I think there would be time to look for that later.

3:59:29Nicole Speer Um but given that you know planning board has looked at this and and really we're talking about adjusting um how how they're dealing with it um that it's not really that many more uh I think I would be more comfortable with leaving it as is just moving it forward um with some expediency and then you know coming back as needed in the future

3:59:45Aaron Brockett Matt.

3:59:48Matt Benjamin So I I'd be comfortable just sort of going with where we're at. The main reason is we're going to likely be coming back to inclusionary housing here in the near future and having a really big discussion about it. And so I think that's probably the best opportunity. We want to make tweaks to it in that bigger context is probably when we would do that. Um so so I think maybe reserving that and not sort of parsing it out and then dripping it into that larger conversation which I'm excited for and I think there's going to be a lot to discuss when that comes.

4:00:12Aaron Brockett Okay. So you you feel like 50% is right. All right. Well, that seems to be the will of council. So I'll I'll withdraw my 25% proposal. Um, so I'll just say to council, um, with a non-binding, uh, not a five, are we comfortable with moving forward with what's proposed by city staff? I'll raise your hand. All right. So that's a yes. So let's go to the next one for the TOC. Okay. So the primary proposal from staff is to remove call up for formbased code reviews because that would get us to the housing opportunity goal by itself.

4:00:47Aaron Brockett Um, I'll what I'll start is seeing if we're comfortable with that and then, you know, I think Tara talked about maybe an additional option as well, but would we are would we like to follow staff's recommendation of removing call for forbased code reviews is the question and I can just do a straw poll. That's right.

4:01:04Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video But yeah,

4:01:06Tara Winerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video and can we So they we also talked about tight tightening up the formbbased code regulations. Can we do that simultaneously or that come significantly after?

4:01:16Karl Guiler It would be done simultaneously.

4:01:16Tara Winerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Okay, great. Thanks.

4:01:20Aaron Brockett Did you have something else?

4:01:22Tara Winerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video So, by just to be clear, by tightening up formbbased code, we're being looking at that and making sure that we're happy with.

4:01:30Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video How would you define tightening up?

4:01:32Karl Guiler Well, again, the some planning board members had brought up some areas that they viewed as weak points that needed clarification and needed tightening up. We would start exploring those and working through it to see if it would make it better. And if we agreed, we'd bring it forward.

4:01:48Tara Winerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Yeah. Because that I agree with them on that. The weak points.

4:01:52Aaron Brockett Yeah. So I'll ask for the non-binding not five for who's comfortable with that staff recommendation of removing call for forbased code reviews. All right. That's unanimous. And then Terry, did you want to speak to your other idea?

4:02:04Tara Winer Yeah, I wouldn't mind simultaneously working on the ground floor residential retail.

4:02:11Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video It's retail, not res. Yeah, ground floor.

4:02:14Tara Winer Ground floor. It's what's remove ground floor. Okay, you know what I'm saying? I can't even talk anymore because of my head. But I wouldn't mind doing that simultaneously because I feel like it's a real need to be honest. Really big need for us to remove that strangulating situation, strangling situation.

4:02:35Karl Guilerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video And just for clarification, focused on like the business regional zones or more pervasively I mean maybe take a comprehensive look at it and look for

4:02:49Tara Winer we have so many vacancies in ground floor retail right now so why not do it

4:02:54Karl Guilerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video we could

4:02:55Tara Winer no a lot of vacancies that's costing the developers a lot of money

4:03:02Aaron Brockett Tina

4:03:03Tina Marquis yeah I would go with um reduce rather than remove and try to establish some criteria when we look at the surrounding area there enough uh business uses to support the community that's there and if there are then we can remove that requirement for new construction.

4:03:22Aaron Brockett Nicole,

4:03:24Nicole Speer sorry I'm I think I'm a little bit confused. So you're talking about adding on something else that's not listed here item on the list. Oh, got it. Okay, but for ground floor. Okay, the residential and business zones. Okay, got it. Thank you.

4:03:39Aaron Brockett Yes, it would be removing or reducing restrictions on ground flooror residential and business zones. So, um I I'll ask for the non-binding notify for how many people would be interested in pursuing this option? And that's unanimous. Great. Did anybody else want to propose something else here or we good? Seems like we're good. Let's go to our last one. Oh, so maybe you can explain what you're proposing to do here.

4:04:18Karl Guiler Well, I mean, since it's not written up there. Yeah, basically it's this slide kind of shows the what the biggest changes would be. So, it' be like changing the building height to three stories or 38 feet. um putting site design standards like setbacks and things of that nature that are used in other multi-unit developments on these particular projects and then within that box that they get to build not restricting the the number of units that would comply with the home act. So making those changes to our code to be compliant with the home act in those very particular parcels that meet the criteria.

4:04:53Aaron Brockett Does anybody want to speak to this or I could just do a nod of five? Tina?

4:05:00Tina Marquis Yeah, I'm a little concerned about um kind of what we are seeing on the hill with some of the conversions and I know that this probably wouldn't be a conversion piece because it that would be unlikely that a nonprofit owns a single family home. So, I don't know what the concern is, but just as we kind of flesh this out in terms of our communications to the community to understand where the impacts are and where they're not. so that it's it's crystal clear that we're not sort of accelerating the, you know, stealth dorms on the hill and stuff like that. Something to think about as you move forward.

4:05:36Aaron Brockett All right. Um, all in favor of taking the staff recommendation on this one. Non-binding, not a five. We got six. It looks like all not interested.

4:05:47Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Well, we got to see.

4:05:50Aaron Brockett All right. So, we have a majority of council interest in moving forward with this and then we'll we'll need to see the details. Does that give you what you need?

4:06:00Karl Guiler It does. Thank you.

4:06:02Aaron Brockett Thanks so much, Carl. Thanks, Eliza.

4:06:04Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Thanks very much.

4:06:06Aaron Brockett Everybody else who participated, appreciate all your work. All right. Well, that brings us to matters from the mayor and members of council. We've got two items on this. Emily, can we go to the next one, please? First one.

Proposed restaurant and worker working group (9A)

4:06:20Emily (clerk) Yes. Next, we are on item number 9A and that is for a discussion on whether council would like to form a restaurant or small business task force.

4:06:33Aaron Brockett Maybe I'll turn to the council members who are working on this who might want to speak to it.

4:06:39Nicole Speerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Um yeah. So Matt and I put something together. Uh we included this came out of our conversations um after uh some of the the minimum wage conversations um basically is it possible to uh bring some folks from various um groups within this debate together for thinking about problem solving um in this space to help out restaurants as well as workers. Um so that's kind of what what we're um proposing here. It's not sort of an official task force or working group. Um we really just want to start a conversation. Um Matt and I spent about three weeks um creating just that kind of outline, I think, going back and forth and and talking through um what we both hope to see um from those conversations.

4:07:20Nicole Speerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video So, we've done a lot of that initial work. Um and and really it would just be for for relationship building. Um happy to kind of report back on on what it is, but um it's less uh you know, will will counsel form one and more just can we please have your blessing in starting to have some of these conversations. um because we're not looking for it to be anything that takes uh staff time, not a priority or anything like this. It's really just starting to build some relationships so that we can have some problem-solving conversations between um workers and some of our small business owners specifically in the context of restaurants.

4:07:54Matt Benjamin You know, I'll just add, you know, to give ourselves a little bit of a backs stop. I think one thing we're looking at is we know that this if if if this can work um in a timely manner, it would provide us maybe an opportunity to hopefully bring some frameworks of some uh mutually beneficial org agreed upon recommendations in time for the next council retreat. So at least that that's something that this council or the next council could consider if there's some bonafide proposals in there um that may work.

4:08:21Matt Benjamin But but yes, it's to try to build those relationships because if it's successful in this small sense of restaurants and workers, there's no reason why this type of effort couldn't scale up for a larger conversation across business communities as a whole um around Boulder to sort of solve some of those other bigger issues that maybe aren't restaurant related specifically. So, it's a test bed for some of the bigger stuff, but hopefully it leads to actually some maybe policies or recommendations that we can provide some relief for both restaurants and workers.

4:08:48Aaron Brockett Fantastic. Well, I really appreciate you all doing the work to bring this forward to us. So, thanks so much for doing the thoughtful work there. Um, does anybody want to weigh in on this? It sounds like I'll just say it sounds like a great idea to me. But

4:08:59Tara Winerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video just a quick question. I thought that I read and you might have said this, Madam Half listening, as you know. Um, did you say that this would be for the 2027 retreat? Um, I saw the words 2027 retreat. Was I the only one?

4:09:14Nicole Speerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video That was right. So, we um we aren't going to make any guarantees because um you know, we we don't know what's going to come out of it. Um but we can definitely uh report back um maybe in a couple months and and and let folks know if we've had one or two conversations um how that's gone. Uh and if there is something that comes forward, some idea that's generated, that's wonderful. U but obviously we can't commit the next council. Um so we wouldn't be asking for that. Um but but if there are any ideas that come forward then you know Matt and I can certainly um bring them out. We'll both still be here next year barring any uh anything unexpected.

4:09:54Nicole Speerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video So um we can we can bring those up and if the next council would like to take something on if there's an idea that resonates then we could certainly look at that. Um but we didn't want to set the expectation that that's what we were trying to do. Um not yeah just just not not knowing where this is going to go. Go ahead.

4:10:15Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video I think it's a fantastic idea. Have you and I saw that you're starting out really small, which I think is great. Have you gotten to the point where you have any metrics on how you're going to choose individual businesses or rep labor representatives?

4:10:29Matt Benjamin I mean, I think we have some starting places based on those that have been pretty active in the space already. Um, certainly those that are, you know, probably already affiliated with the Boulder Restaurant Alliance. That's probably a start. um who who is in that space will be sort of maybe you know up for them to decide who they want to sort of be in that who knows that not just one restaurant but know sort of that larger ecosystem from small independent restaurant positions and I think we also have folks in the labor space who again aren't just a single worker per se but represent broad voices then we um get see if if they're like agreeing hey we like what we're talking about we build

4:11:00Matt Benjamin and expand we diversify the voices a little bit as we sort of build the concentric circles around that

4:11:05Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video and I'm guessing that would include like the chamber and some of the other organizations or don't even know yet.

4:11:11Nicole Speerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Part of it is that we really want this to be led by the group um that comes together just to keep building that trust and those relationships. So once you know we we pull in somebody um who um from the beginning then it would really be a group conversation to talk through you know who else do we need at this table and and it may be we've talked about too um there are folks who just come in for a conversation or two because they have some relevant information but don't necessarily need to be part of of the group. Um, so it it really is we're hoping that it will just grow um with some intention once the group starts having these conversations.

4:11:46Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Feel like it feels like it's got a lot of potential, right?

4:11:49Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Right. Just wanted to offer my endorsement. Really appreciate your leadership on this. This is a very important issue. It's also pretty ambitious. Uh there are groups of different groups that feel a lot of pressure and I'm really grateful for both of you to work on this and um if anybody can do it, it's two of you. Thank you.

4:12:05Aaron Brockett Very good. So, I'll uh look Yeah, Tina, go ahead.

4:12:10Tina Marquis Thanks so much for taking this on. I really appreciate it. And I love that you're creating space for new people to come in in a temporary way. Uh which we don't always do in our different boards, commissions, and task forces. That's really cool.

4:12:23Aaron Brockett Ditto. All right. I'll ask for a non-toive for this to proceed. Who would be interested in seeing this move forward?

4:12:29Nicole Speerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video We don't really need um Maybe could could you just ask for a blessing?

4:12:34Aaron Brockett Let's call it direction of council rather than an out of five. Is it the direction of council to pursue this fantastic idea? Let's raise our hands. Okay, that that's unanimous interest from council. So, thanks. We look forward to the results of what comes from this. All right, go to our last item, please.

Boulder County ballot measure: three to five commissioners (9B)

4:12:53Emily (clerk) All right, our last item on tonight's agenda is item 9B, and that is a discussion to consider supporting the Boulder County ballot measure to change from three to five commissioners.

4:13:05Aaron Brockett Okay, very good. This this was my uh request, I think as we're all aware, there is an item on the ballot for the county this fall to um move from three county commissioners to five county commissioners. Uh, this was something that I was interested in seeing if council might take a support position of. Um, this is something I'm personally supportive of and was interested in having us take a position as a body on this one. Um, I know there's been some concern about potentially talking to the county about um, their own structure. I will say that the county government uh, very much affects us here in the city of Boulder, both both as a city organization and for our residents.

4:13:42Aaron Brockett So it seems to me reasonable for us to have an opinion as a body on um this question. So I'm interested in supporting it but interested also in hearing other people's thoughts.

4:13:54Unidentified speakerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video Questions?

4:13:55Aaron Brockett Questions? Yeah, go ahead.

4:13:57Ryan Schuchard I had a question or two I think for Heather. Um first question is does our policy statement give us any guidance on this question?

4:14:12Heather Staer Thank you, Council Member Schuchard. Heather Staer, intergovernmental affairs officer for the city. Um, our policy statement um does not have uh language that would inform a position on this ballot item.

4:14:25Ryan Schuchard Okay. Thanks. And one one other question, have we sought or gotten any feedback from the county on this?

4:14:33Heather Staer I have not had conversations with the county commissioners or staff on this. Uh, yeah.

4:14:39Ryan Schuchard Thank you.

4:14:42Aaron Brockett All right. Anybody want to offer an opinion on this? And we can go to a a straw poll before too long. Matt,

4:14:49Matt Benjamin I'll tee it off. Um, so so I'm I'm I'm hesitant to have council take an official position only because I started thinking about putting the shoe on the other foot. I don't recall the commissioners weighing in when we did the our mayor our choice ballot measure. Individual um members made their own personal decisions to endorse or not endorse that. So they stayed out of our governance affairs and I think same was true when we decided to move to even years. So there is a place of reciprocity. Um I will just say that I mean uh uh the county commissioners are at peak dysfunction. Let's just I'm going to call it out.

4:15:24Matt Benjamin And so I wholly support this measure, but I don't know if it's appropriate for us as a governing body to weigh in on another another sovereign governing governing body and how they how that how how that's structured. I will be supporting this measure and hopefully it getting across the across the finish line. Uh but I don't know if it's appropriate for us since they had the respect not to weigh into our government space.

4:15:46Aaron Brockett Nicole,

4:15:48Nicole Speer yeah, I also feel like this really isn't an appropriate place for the city um to step in. Uh, I think that if the county commissioners, you know, were unanimous, had put this on the ballot, um, and, uh, they were asking us to support, um, I might feel a little bit differently. There's probably something in our policy statement that says, you know, we'll support each other as we can or something like that.

4:16:09Nicole Speer Um, but to me this is kind of a governance structure issue and we can all certainly take positions on this as individuals, but um I don't feel like it would be the right uh um policy choice to weigh in on it as an organization um just be because I mean as Matt said that's spot on, right? They didn't weigh in on on some of our um changes to how we vote or uh how we elect our mayor, things like that. Um it just doesn't feel completely appropriate in in this context, especially with the majority of the commissioners not in favor of of doing this.

4:16:42Aaron Brockett Thanks, Ryan. And then Ta.

4:16:43Ryan Schuchard Yeah, I'm with them. I It's a really consequential debate. I understand being drawn to it. Um but I don't think it's appropriate for us. County is a critical partner. They provide significant funding. They're partner for transportation, housing, homelessness, health. Our first job is to maintain a really effective working relationship with them. and whatever is on the table, we we've got to keep our relationship with their leadership strong and just tread carefully about upsetting that. So, um this is a really really big idea and I um I just I I think we should be we should tread carefully here. So, we haven't sought or gotten their input. It's not indicated in our policy statement.

4:17:19Ryan Schuchard Um I don't think we have an underlying other plan that leads us to this. So, my thought would be we um we we steer clear of it.

4:17:27Aaron Brockett Thanks again, Ty. chair.

4:17:30Taishya Adams Um I actually would be fine if they had weighed in on the mayoral or any other thing because they are a team member and I do care to know what they think. Um I I am in general supportive of anything that allows and strengthens more representative government. Um and I think that we should weigh if that was the will of council. Thank you,

4:17:52Aaron Brockett Tara.

4:17:54Tara Winer I think we should weigh in on it. It affects us greatly. I feel like they're not gonna get hurt. They're very strong.

4:18:04Aaron Brockett Any other thoughts before I go to uh Yes, Nicole?

4:18:08Nicole Speer Um um so I I personally am not supporting this. Um and uh the reason being that um the League of Women Voters did some work 5 years ago, six years ago or so, uh to map out how these districts would land. And with the districts, uh, there is no way that you get districts given our population distribution, um, with five commissioners without having Boulder and Longmont running through four of the five districts. And so what I expect this is going to do is not actually increase representation for some of the places that are feeling like they don't have it right now.

4:18:43Nicole Speer Um, I think what it's going to do is move Boulder and Longmont's influence from being uh, twothirds of the county commission to four-fifths of the county commission. very in favor of the idea of five eventually um when we can do it with proportional representation which would actually make sure that we are increasing representation. Um this method is likely uh to make the current representation challenges that people in the county are feeling um worse.

4:19:11Nicole Speerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video In the meantime, we can actually increase representation by choosing uh who we vote for.

4:19:17Aaron Brockett I'll just note that there there would be two possible ways of of doing five commissioners. one of which would be the five districts, the other of which as you know would be three districts and two at large. Just to be clear to the public that

4:19:28Nicole Speerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video and and with that as well, I have a similar concern in that um if you're looking at districtwide races with the amount of money that can be spent on county commissioner seats um those are likely to come for Boulder people um given how money is spent. So, I I just my my prediction is that this uh if this change goes through um it will result in uh Boulder and Longmont having an even more uh disproportionate um impact on uh county politics for the folks who are currently um concerned about that, particularly mountain communities. Um and and I would only look at uh some of the House seats that run through the mountain communities.

4:20:04Nicole Speerspeaker unconfirmed · check the video um it is pretty much always somebody from Boulder who represents uh those communities even though um they they make up uh quite quite a bit more in terms of land area.

4:20:15Aaron Brockett Ta want to weigh in.

4:20:17Taishya Adams Um I just wanted to remind folks as well that Lions did uh weigh in on this and I believe they were supportive. So

4:20:25Aaron Brockettspeaker unconfirmed · check the video they were one more thing and then let's see if we can move to a vote

4:20:30Taishya Adamsspeaker unconfirmed · check the video is if you could imagine if we were just three people what that would look like. It is very difficult for a government body of three people to not to be functional to not be dysfunctional. So I that is one of the biggest reasons why I think we should wait.

4:20:46Aaron Brockett Okay. Um so I'll go ahead and ask for uh us to give direction by raise your hand if you are in favor of us taking a support position on this ballot measure. We got five. And if you're opposed we got three. So, uh, Heather, looks like we have council direction to take a support position. Thanks for sticking with us till the end. All right, Emily, that brings us to the end, I believe. So, unless there are any last minute thoughts, I will go ahead and gavl is closed here at 8:48 p.m. Thanks, everybody.