City Council - Special Meeting

Good evening. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Thursday, June 25th, 2026 special meeting of the Boulder City Council. I will go ahead and call us to order and ask for Alicia to do a roll call.

Yes, sir. Thank you. And good evening, everyone. We'll start tonight's roll call, as usual, with Council Member Adams.

I think she'll be joining us soon.

Benjamin.

Present.

Mayor Brockett. Present. Councilmember Caplan.

Present.

Marquis. Here. Shuhart. Here. Speer. Present. Wallach.

Happy to be here.

And Mayor Pro Tem Wyner. Present. Mayor, we have our quorum.

Thank you so much, Alicia. All right, can we go to our consent agenda, please?

Yes, sir. Our consent agenda is item two on tonight's agenda, and it consists of items two A through two H. Very good.

Any questions or comments on the consent agenda?

Or perhaps a motion?

Make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

Got a motion and a second. Alicia, roll call, please.

Yes, sir. We'll start the roll call for the consent agenda items 2A through 2H with Mayor Pro Tem Weiner. Yes. Councilmember Benjamin?

Yes.

Mayor Brunkett?

Yes.

Councilmember Kaplan?

Yes.

Marquis? Yes. Shewhart? Yes. Speer?

And yes on A through D and no on H. Thank you, ma'am.

Wallach? I'm going to abstain as I did not have an opportunity to study the consent agenda.

Right. Thank you, sir. And I see Councilmember Adams is here. She just raised her hand. Is she in?

Yes. Hello, everybody. Sorry, I had technical difficulties.

Yes, ma'am. We are at the phase of voting on the consent agenda. If you'd like to record your vote. Yes. All right, thank you. The consent agenda items to a through two to eight are hereby approved with the noted nays and abstentions.

Thanks very much. Can we go to our public hearing our continued public hearing please?

Yes, sir. Our public hearings are item number three on tonight's agenda. Three A is the City Council public hearing continue public hearing and consideration of a motion to approve the major update to the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan. We want to know for the public, this is deliberations only and no public testimony will be heard.

Thanks so much, E, and apologies to council and to community for my voice. I'm going to save you and spare you from it and send it right over to our Director of Planning and Development Services, Brad Mueller.

Brad Mueller, Thank you, Mary hope you're feeling better soon brand Miller and the planning and the director of planning and development services, and we are happy to be here again with you this evening Council members, this is as alicia just mentioned deliberation only on. a continued hearing of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan. And as you know, from all of the outreach and the study sessions leading up to this, as well as the hearing that you held, it really represents a complex interplay of a lot of ideas and compromise interplay between the four approving bodies. We are coming to you tonight fresh off of the county commissioners deliberation on this and then earlier the planning boards. here at the city. So we will itemize the results of all that discussion and look forward to the conversations this evening and how we can continue to start it for us started for us.

Thanks, Brad. Good evening, council members. Can you see the screen? Your focus tonight? Have you

We can see it.

Okay. I'm Sarah horn as Brad mentioned senior city planner on the comprehensive planning team. And he, I, Christopher Johnson, Kathleen King, and other members of our team are happy to be here tonight. We were with the board of county commissioners earlier today. The 3rd approval body we've met with, and you are the final body we are meeting with in this initial round of deliberation. I must say the last couple of weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind, but we're going to keep going. So your focus this evening will be to vote on approving the plan as it's written and to consider conditions of approval and recommended amendments made by Planning Board, the County Planning Commission, and the Board of County Commissioners. You'll also have the opportunities to suggest council conditions of approval and or recommended amendments. And just a reminder, all four bodies must ultimately adopt the same version of the plan. So, to help organize your consideration of the plan tonight, staff suggests a series of four motions to track the various approval actions. We can go over each in more detail if needed during your deliberation, but just to give you an overview, they're on the screen. We offer that you can move to approve the major update to the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan as currently written. You can approve, deny, or modify Planning Board and Board of County Commissioners' conditions of approval to the major update. You can approve, deny, or modify Planning Board, Planning Commission, and Board of County Commissioners recommended amendments. And finally, if necessary, you can move to approve the major update with Council conditions of approval and or recommended amendments. So for our agenda will review the remaining steps in the approval process and walk through the conditions and proposed amendments from the other three bodies approval bodies. will then pause for any clarifying questions from you and then we'll move to your deliberation and consideration of motions and, as I mentioned, there are several potential motions, you could make this evening and we recommend that you might work through them in stages. So, in terms of process, looking ahead, due to the number and nature of proposed amendments that we've gotten so far, staff will be returning for a second round of consideration with at least some of the approval bodies before final adoption. And as you can see on the screen, the schedule will generally work as follows. Any amendments affecting Area 3 or county-related policies would need to return to the County Planning Commission on July 15th. Any amendments affecting area two or three or county-related policies would need to be considered by the Board of County Commissioners on July 21st. We're already planning to return to Planning Board on that same day for consideration of the three recommended amendments proposed by Planning Commission, assuming the Board of, oh, sorry, we talked to the Board of County Commissioners early. So the three recommended amendments proposed by Planning Commission, the amendments proposed by the Board of County Commissioners, and any that you might share. And if they're not approved by all three bodies, they wouldn't move forward. And then if language approved by council tonight is also approved by the other three bodies, we might not need to return to you. However, we have tentatively reserved July 23rd in case we have to come back to you. And lastly, if there are still unresolved items after the second round of consideration, staff will need to look to August to continue the adoption process. Okay, I know it was a little confusing, but now that we've covered it, the ping pong process will go over the planning board planning commissions and board of county commissioners proposed amendments to help you decide which motions you'll make this evening. First up are the conditions of approval. Planning Board last week conditioned their approval of the plan on two amendments, which we'll get into in a minute. The Board of County Commissioners also conditioned their approval on six amendments. These are binding the conditional approval and mean that those bodies will only approve the plan if it includes their conditions. And the County Planning Commission didn't have any conditions of approval. So if Council agrees with Planning Board and or the Board of County Commissioners conditions of approval, they'll be included in the approved plan. If you don't agree to the conditions as written, Planning Board and the Board of County Commissioners must reconsider their approval of the plan in July, as I mentioned, along with any other amendments they haven't yet considered. So on your screen you can see this table. It has the conditions of approval and on the right you see the check marks and the Xs and the gray boxes. The check marks mean those bodies have approved those changes. The X means the body didn't accept it and the gray means it's not applicable to that body. For Planning Board, their first condition of approval relates to Housing Diversity and Supply Policy 82. And their proposed amendment is intended to limit the city's promotion of housing types to those that are more affordable. And staff finds that this changes the intent of a policy, which is to support a diversity of housing types. It's also inconsistent with community and policymaker feedback, calling for a broader range of housing outcomes that are possible in Boulder. Encouraging a full spectrum of housing types is considered a cornerstone of a more inclusive approach to housing in Boulder overall, and our Housing and Human Services Department really support that full spectrum of housing. The second conditional amendment concerns the municipal airport, which is policy 79. The proposed changes there include a revised list of airport activity examples, the addition of an example related to noise management, and language describing ongoing coordination with Boulder County. And there's a lot of text here. You have it in your packet. I mean, I think Christopher sent it in a hotline, so you should have this table to refer to in your paperwork in case you want to look closer. Overall, for the municipal airport, staff finds these proposed edits are generally consistent with the policy's original intent. While the planning board language is more operational and specific than staff believes is necessary, the city attorney's office believes it retains enough flexibility and wouldn't constrain future actions, the budget, or methods of ongoing support for the airport and surrounding communities. So I'm going to turn it over to Christopher Johnson to talk about the Board of County Commissioners conditions of approval now.

thank you sarah good evening council council members my name is christopher johnson i'm the comprehensive planning manager we just wrapped up the meeting with the border county commissioners a few hours ago so i will do my best to try to summarize that discussion and provide you with some background on their conditions of approval So the first one concerns the policy that is referring to consultation with federally recognized American Indian tribal nations. This is policy 102. The Board of County Commissioners proposed to strike American Indian from the title itself. So it would just read federally recognized tribal nations. and then actually adding the county to this policy, to the policy language. Currently, it only refers to the city as an action or that the policy applies to. Overall, the change appears to be consistent with the original intent. Initial staff evaluation doesn't flag any concerns, but I will just note we have not had time to review this in depth with our other city staff that oversee our tribal relations and consultation. So I think that would be valuable for us to do before we land on a final staff evaluation for this. The second change concerns policy 103, which is engagement with local indigenous peoples. The proposal from the Board of County Commissioners is fairly straightforward, and that is just to remove the reference to the county from this policy. And again, that appears to be consistent with original intent. Staff would have no issue removing the county from involvement in that policy specifically. The third condition of approval is to completely remove the 50 years of planning, looking back and moving forward information that is found on pages 14 through 17. So four pages of background information. The Board of County Commissioners felt that it offered an incomplete and perhaps misleading history of planning in the Boulder Valley. And overall, staff would not support this condition. The section is really intended to provide general context and describe how the comprehensive plan and other city planning decisions over the years has contributed to the community's history. It is not intended to be an all-encompassing overview of the Boulder Valley history. It's really just intended to set a foundation for understanding for a reader that may not have the background and understanding of planning and really how the update is attempting to address some of the past unintended consequences of decisions and to enhance the decisions going forward and offer some new ideas. So if the bodies ultimately can't reach agreement on this particular condition, staff are prepared to remove this language and we could place it on a website elsewhere in association with the comprehensive plan, but not as part of the approved document. Next slide. So the, let's see, the next condition. So this is the fourth condition. This concerns an edit to the future of open space spread. The Board of County Commissioners wanted to add the word federally before recognized tribes in that language. Again, this seems fairly straightforward. It appears to be consistent with the original intent. But as I mentioned earlier, we have not reviewed this with other city staff that have that more direct oversight of our tribal relations to confirm that. The fifth condition is related to the future land use map and designations. So the Board of County Commissioners condition their approval on changing all of the land within Area 2 that currently has a designation of Neighborhood 1 to change that to the rural designation. they are want to try to ensure as much as they can that there would be no change to those properties or how the land is used in those areas until annexation at some point in the future so staff on this one staff would not recommend or support this um this change it really presupposes that the land use map would then be changed upon annexation of those properties but it does not provide any guidance or assurance on what that land use should be in the future so it's it's difficult for city staff honestly it's difficult for the county to have a clear understanding of what could happen upon annexation really the purpose of planning for the future land use in area 2 which is those areas that are eligible for annexation And doing that in concert between city and county is to agree to a future desired land use pattern. The rural definition today does not really currently represent what an agreed upon future could be. But if this condition is ultimately approved, staff would need to make some strategic edits to that rural definition to ensure that there's consistency with existing conditions that are on the ground today, but also that those rural areas that are designated and are in Area 2 remain eligible for annexation. The language is currently only reflective of the rural designation being applied out in Area 3, so we'd have to make a few edits there. The final condition, the sixth one is related to policy 82, which is housing diversity and supply. That may sound familiar because planning board also suggested a condition of approval for this policy. The commissioners wanted to, first of all, add the county to this policy. Currently, it only refers to the city. And then similar to planning board, they would like to change the reference to a full spectrum of housing types to more affordable housing types. But then they also wanted to change the word including with prioritizing. So that would be prioritizing middle housing and middle income opportunities is how that would read according to their change. Staff's position related to this and related to the planning board's condition of approval also applies here. We believe that this proposed edit really changes the original intent of the policy and overall staff would not recommend a change and would support keeping the language as it is currently written. I'll pass it back to Sarah.

Okay, thank you kj and I, as you've you probably noticed i'll just go back the red are the additions and the strikethroughs are the things that these bodies might want to delete so I just didn't explain that earlier. So that's it for conditions of approval now we're going to move to the 14 recommended amendments 11 proposed by planning board three by county planning Commission and one from the board of county Commissioners. Council may choose to approve some all or none of these amendments alternatively you may modify any of them and any amendments that you don't approve will just fall off the list and won't move forward in the process, since they're just recommendations. OK, so on the slide you see the first four recommended amendments from planning board and the green. And as I mentioned, the green check marks again are the bodies that have that are OK with these changes. So amendments one to three and four make suggested edits to introductory language and background information. They modify some contextual information in the plan, but don't affect plan policies or the future land use strategy. Amendment two. is more substantial. It proposes revising the industrial future land use designation definition to allow residential uses as a supporting use, which is a significant change. Staff finds this change is inconsistent with community and policymaker feedback collected over several recent planning efforts, including the East Boulder sub-community plan, Boulder Junction Phase 2, and this comprehensive plan update. It's also inconsistent with Policy 86, which emphasizes the value of industrial land. Staff believe accepting this change would establish high level land use policy that all light industrial manufacturing and innovation lands within the city are available for residential development. Staff believe the additional residential capacity across more areas of the city envisioned by our proposed future land use strategy, which as a reminder is estimated at a more than 40% increase of capacity, makes this change in policy direction really unnecessary. The next four amendments are also proposed by planning board. Staff finds amendment number five at the top of the page to be consistent with the original intent of the future land use strategy objectives and could support its inclusion. It just adds streets to what we consider accessible in these areas. Amendment number six proposes additional language related to the 15 minute neighborhood policy, which is policy 29. staff considers this change more of an operational commitment than policy direction, which is something we've attempted to avoid in the policy language, and therefore we believe that the edit is unnecessary it describes monitoring progress. amendment number seven proposes a revision to the neighborhood one future land use definition. Staff finds this edit inconsistent with the original intent of the designation, which is to consider factors such as massing and setbacks when development and redevelopment occur in these areas. Community feedback indicated that maintaining compatible scale and character will be essential to the success of allowing different types of housing and additional uses to occur in neighborhood one. And the planning board recommended deleting the clause in the sentence about massing and setbacks being harmonious with the neighborhood and we believe as I just mentioned that in some of those low like the lower density neighborhoods maintaining that is important in order to get the housing options and more of the kinds of things we want to see throughout the city and then finally amendment number eight proposes revisions to the parks future land use definition and the Additions are that parking and transit stops where they're provided. They want to add that clause in the first sentence, and then you can see an additional sentence that motor vehicle parking makes efficient use of land and minimizes the amount of pavement. So that is something that they wanted to add, and we find this edit to be consistent with the original 10 of the definition and could support its inclusion. Okay, and so for Planning Board, the next three recommended amendments propose changes to the future land use map. The first that you see on the screen recommends changing the northern half of a parcel located at the southwest corner of Valmont and Folsom from Neighborhood 1 to Neighborhood 2. This is the current site of the Unity Church. Along with that, they request a similar change to the Goose Creek Plaza commercial area across the street on the southeast corner of the same intersection, and you can see those two parcels highlighted in red on that sort of blurry image on the right. And staff find this proposed map revision inconsistent with the plan's approach of applying future land use designations more broadly and in a manner that is consistent with surrounding context. The Neighborhood 1 designation does allow for a range of housing types, including attached housing units and smaller multi-unit formats in appropriate locations. So in staff's view, this change would support future redevelopment at a larger scale than the surrounding area. The change also hasn't been reviewed by the community, and we don't believe it's necessary to realize the vision for this particular area. The remaining proposed land use changes from Planning Board, and these are recommendations again, are located in the East Boulder sub-community plan area. You can see the image, the top image is the first recommendation and the bottom image is the second, so the first at the top. would redesignate 18 properties west of valmont city park and on these maps north is up so north is at the top just to orient you. 18 properties west of valmont city park from innovation and production hub future land use to industrial. This recommendation is conditional on acceptance of the board's proposal to allow residential uses within the industrial designation, which I talked about just a little bit earlier. So if that doesn't go, this might not go. So staff find that this proposed amendment is also inconsistent with the adopted vision for the area in the East Boulder Subcommunity Plan. And again, that three-year planning process resulted in clear community direction that this area be designated as mixed-use industrial, and that has been translated to the Innovation and Production Hub designation that we're suggesting for the future land use map. The established vision is for mixed-use neighborhood to evolve at this location based on its proximity to Valmont Park, which is just to the east, existing transit service, and lack of floodplain restrictions, and a desire for residential activity to support existing businesses and services in the area. The proposed planning board change conflicts with that adopted vision and has not been reviewed by the community. And again, staff does not support this change. The final map amendment, which is on the bottom of the screen would redesignate 10 properties east of foothills parkway between boulder creek and the railroad from industrial to innovation and production hub. staff also finds this proposed revision inconsistent with the east boulder sub Community plan. The plan documented clear direction that this area remain light industrial which in this location has been translated to the new industrial designation. And feedback during that process supported retaining light industrial uses in this area, due to several site constraints, including limited vehicular access, significant floodplain restrictions and lack of transit service. And just to note, if future changes are desired, we do have existing city processes like rezoning applications, which can be submitted at any time or future comprehensive plan midterm or major updates. And both of these processes provide opportunities to reconsider and potentially change land use designations in appropriate locations. So as with the previous amendment, this proposal hasn't been reviewed by the community and staff doesn't at this point support it. Okay, we're now gonna move to the amendments proposed by the County Planning Commission. As I mentioned earlier, they didn't have any conditions of approval, but they did offer three recommended amendments. Two are policy additions. The first, which you see at the top, would add language to the integrated land use and transportation policy, which is policy number 27. And it includes language related to the city and county collaborating on investments and improvements so local and regional transit systems are sufficiently resourced and can support growth in the valley. So that last clause is the addition. The second would revise the local renewable energy generation policy, the local energy generation policy, policy number 53, to add renewable to the title and also renewable in the policy language. So they wanted to specifically reference renewable energy generation rather than the broader term energy generation. They think it's very important for the community to focus on renewable energy. And the third proposed amendment would add language to the rural land use goals in the class, the goals in the description of the class, recognizing natural resource management and land stewardship as foundations of economic livelihood, and the idea that rural lands are often working lands. So these recommendations, staff at this time, we would support those changes and feel they're consistent with the intent of the plan and add a little depth to the plan. That's for those and that concludes the overview of the proposed amendments and related to these and plan approval. Oh, no, that doesn't conclude. We have one more. I'm sorry, KJ. We have one more that I'm gonna throw to KJ.

Thank you, thank you, Sarah. Yes, one more, one more. This was just the single recommended amendment from the Board of County Commissioners, and it concerns policy 16, which is out of city utility service. They were hoping to add a sentence to the end of this policy that essentially states that the city can provide limited utility services when there are health and safety issues. It's a relatively benign addition. It is a city-only policy, and so that's why this is just a recommended amendment. The Board of County Commissioners don't really have the oversight to weigh in on this policy, but we wanted to bring it forward to the group. And I'll just note that the Limited supply of services for an emergency health and safety issue is already permitted by law, and we don't believe a policy is necessary, but it also would not be a problematic addition to this policy if the council and the other bodies agree. so this concludes the overview of the proposed amendments um we have prepared suggested motion language and the city clerk has offered to add them to the chat when necessary so we're happy to pull up these slides at any time we recognize there's a ton of information a lot to work through so we're happy again to pull up the slides and work through them individually as needed thank you okay yeah so

With that, we will turn it back over to you, Mayor Brockett, and counsel for your deliberation, your questions first and then deliberation.

Thanks so much for that comprehensive overview, Sarah. You made a lot of information, seemed very digestible, and KJ for your help as well. So let's do clarifying questions. And my request to council members, we've got a lot to talk about here. So if we can confine our clarifying questions to things that we absolutely need answered in order to figure out the path forward tonight. With that in mind, Tina.

Yeah, I so my first question is process related and so it's going to be like 2 questions. Do we have a sense of which of these items that staff doesn't recommend are. not negotiable with the other entities. So what I'm trying to get, and then I want to understand how long will we go back and forth negotiating or will there be an opportunity at some point so that we're in the same room at the same time instead of doing sequential meetings and trying to find that common ground.

Yeah, I will attempt to answer your question, Council Member Marquis. So it's difficult for staff to have an understanding of what the other bodies are thinking. So it's hard for us to weigh in on exactly which of their conditions of approval would be absolute deal breakers if they were not accepted. I will say that the... discussion around some of the land use changes in area 2. that is something that the Board of County Commissioners was very emphatic about um and and very clear that that is a change that they are interested in making um Otherwise, in terms of how many times we are going back and forth between the bodies, we have attempted to try to contain this and streamline it to the best of our ability. We have dates that are held in July. We also have dates that are penciled in for August. So we are already at least anticipating two cycles into the month of August. We hope it does not extend beyond that, but certainly if it does, that is something we're prepared to facilitate and support.

Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. And then I have two questions related to two of the policies. The first is the one where the county and planning board are looking to put a focus on affordable housing, including the middle income types, and in the case of the county, adding the word prioritizing. I personally appreciate that language. And I'm wondering, and that's been something we've talked about as a council so much. And I thought I did hear with community feedback that they were looking for more of the housing that wasn't student housing or small rentals or luxury homes. Do you feel that that thought is captured elsewhere in the plan? Because I couldn't find it, which is why I'm leaning toward supporting that language.

Yeah, it's a great question. We do reference and speak directly to middle-income housing options under Policy 84, which is the affordable housing policy. It's also mentioned a bit more indirectly, but in the future of housing topic spread, which is up, I believe, page 40. I'm doing this by memory, 45 and six. It's around there. But that also references the integration of middle housing types like duplexes, triplexes, townhomes into our neighborhood one areas. So we do feel like it is captured. We also actually added that specific reference to middle housing types and middle income to policy 82 after the original draft in March. So again, we feel like staff has been responsive to that. We feel like it is addressed. And I think there potentially is some concern that if the term prioritizing is specifically introduced into that policy language, There's some question around, does that mean that middle housing and middle income types are prioritized over affordable housing? When the Dr. Cogg study clearly shows that that zero to 50% AMI range is really the most critical need. So I think just a note of caution to the council to consider that as they think about that at it.

Okay. Thank you. And then the last piece is just around the airport language, which I'm sure we'll have more discussion about. One of my questions, though, is in the context of this policy, how does it – and you gave great feedback that it's a fairly benign change to add that language – Is it okay if, and there's some discussion around what are the uses happening at the airport? And I sent out a hotline earlier just to make sure there was some accuracy around disaster response and medical response. Does that really matter if it accurately reflects every activity or do we want to put it et cetera or something like that in case there's confusion about what is happening regardless of sort of where you are on the airport discussion?

Yeah, I will let our city manager weigh in on this just specifically, but broadly speaking, the lists that are included in the comprehensive plan broadly are just intended to be examples and are not exclusive to other activities, unless it's really specifically referenced within the plan. So at least from staff's perspective, we don't necessarily think that that list needs to be all encompassing. But certainly, if there are activities that you all feel like either are existing or could be in the future are really important to emphasize, then potentially those may want to be added.

Thanks, KJ. I will say this, and legal can jump in if I'm saying anything correct. We take some of the listing of services or activities such as not limiting dust to whatever, what other things we can do. We have more concerns if there were language that mandated activities that we could not do because they are not allowable as a mandatory requirement. Think noise abatement, for example, is a voluntary program that we have and we cannot mandate that. So language to that end, we would have more concerns about language about activities that may highlight some over others, we would take as a such-as clause and not prescriptive in that manner.

Okay, so that won't really carry any weight in terms of how the airport is or isn't implemented, what we've listed today.

Operationally, if we are able to legally have activities at the airport, then we would move in that direction and do so. There are also, I would say, some obligations we have from the FAA to not limit or to have activities that benefit a variety of uses. And so, no, it would not limit. We would move forward. The concern would be something that would be counter to our FAA requirements. All right. Thanks.

Thanks. We got Tara, then Mark, then Ryan, and I got one or two.

My first question is about middle-income housing, the continued discussion on that. Does the plan, or KJ, maybe you can answer this, consider multi-unit buildings, middle-income housing? Because I know quite a few people, I'm not saying everybody, that do want middle-income housing, but don't necessarily want that form of it.

Yeah, it's a great question. I would say that multi-unit buildings are not solely middle income. They certainly can be more luxurious than that. And certainly not all multi-unit buildings are going to fall into that middle income space. Middle incomes typically, I think, between 80 and 120% of AMI.

Okay. The second question might be more for Aaron. So if We are, and it's a process question. So if we're, we have all these different items, 15 or whatever it was, but some of us on council rewrote some of the rewrites. Like for instance, I think Rob added, and then I did, and then Matt did. I'm not sure if anybody else did. How does that work for us voting on those particular pieces?

So what I'm going to do is go through the other bodies' proposed changes. Um, first and one of those, the airport also has suggested language for Matt. We'll consider that at that time, once we get through all of the other boards, um, suggested changes, then I'll ask us to consider council new council recommended changes.

So if we approve, let's just take mine for a second, just so I understand this. So if we, let's say approve planning boards, but then mine changes it again. We just don't worry about it until we talk about it after the fact.

So your proposed language change was not to planning board's policy, though, wasn't it? No, it was not.

It was just that very exact sentence, though.

Well, if you want to suggest alterations to planning board's language, you can do that when we talk about planning board's language change. Good enough? Okay, Mark and then Ryan.

Yeah, just one question. I want to follow up on some of the previous comments. Is there anything in the plan to date that, if not prioritizing middle income housing, suggests that we should emphasize middle income housing? It seems that we are avoiding the topic of our greatest need in Boulder, and being a little too reticent about it. I don't think we have to mandate that every home that is built is a middle income home, but I think as a policy statement from up on high, we ought to at least be acknowledging, or shouldn't we have something in the plan that suggests that middle income housing is a high priority of the four bodies who approve this. And if there's some other place in which we do that, can you point that out to me?

Yes, if you refer to policy 84, which is the permanently affordable housing goal, it speaks to the city's commitment first to expanding permanently affordable housing for households below 50% AMI. And it goes on to say also increasing housing options for middle-income households. So it is intended to place a specific focus on that type within that policy. So in the other housing policies, we don't reference housing other specific housing types or income levels as specifically as we do for middle housing types and income in those couple housing policies. So we feel like we've captured that.

Okay, I'll have more to say when we can actually comment as opposed to ask. So that'll do for me.

That's smart.

Brian?

Thank you. I have two questions. The first question is a It's a process question about one of the items. So it's item number seven, and it's on page 89. So it's the residential and commercial buildings in these neighborhoods are typically modern scale, and so on. And then this came from the planning board, and it had a cross out, a strike out, the last part of the last sentence, or the last words of the sentence. And planning board brought this forward, County commissioners rejected it. And so I'm just thinking about this. In this case, can staff imagine a way to, I guess, sort of articulate this as council looks at it, such that it would be a, that the planning board recommendation would only apply to the city? Because presumably the county commissioner's objection is relevant from the standpoint of being outside of the city. But if it's an inside the city consideration, presumably we don't need the county commissioner's approval to make that. So if that's not too convoluted, I'm wondering if there's any way on the fly you can suggest... we could look at the question of voting on seven in a way that would narrow that just to the city. Maybe that's too much.

Yeah, no, I understand the question, and the answer is going to be nuanced. And so right now, neighborhood one does apply both within the city and outside in the county. It is applied to area two. And so that is why the county would have some review authority as to what that language says. At the same time, the Board of County Commissioners rejected that planning board change. So technically, that just as a recommended amendment is not a condition of approval. So now that that has been rejected by at least one of the bodies, that falls off the list. Now, council could reintroduce that if you so wished. I see. And the nuance here is that as the commissioners have proposed to remove Neighborhood 1 from all county lands and to apply rural, if that change were to happen, then technically Neighborhood 1 would only apply to the city and the commissioners would not have review authority over that statement.

Okay. I think I got it. Thank you. And then I just have one more question. There might be a follow-up, but we'll see. So And this is all coming in, just seeing this for the first time within the last hour, so forgive me. I think what I'm getting is there's a condition of approval for the commissioners to delete the entire history section. And I think you said that something about that it was deemed misleading. Can you say more about what's going on there? And were there any questions of fact that came up or? Any more guidance about something that might make it palatable or more factual or something like that?

Yes, I'm happy to comment on that. So you're correct. Their condition of approval is to delete that section. So delete those four pages. They attempted to kind of go through and perhaps do some more strategic editing and found that to be difficult. And so one of the commissioners' initial recommendation was just to remove that section. You know, broadly speaking, their concerns with that with that language was that they felt that there were some statements that were made that, in their opinion, did not have did not have sort of factual backing and were concerned about essentially some of the linkages that were the direct linkages that were made between certain planning decisions and some of the unintended consequences that may have had on the community in terms of affordability and exclusion of certain community members.

Okay. They just, my only follow-up on this is does it feel like there's a basis for council, this council seeking to re-engage, like engage with those, with edits, you know, I'm not sure what the process would be, but it's a pretty big step to remove this history section entirely. Sorry, I know we're not on comments, but I'm just thinking this through. Can you imagine some principles maybe at work that we, in principle, would be able to go back to and take another look at it?

It certainly is within the authority and the will of council to revisit that and to propose some edits to that section or to propose a way of modifying that. I think that probably the biggest question is just going to be timing and how that gets done. Mike Noce, Mgmt. edited and resolved between all four of the approving bodies because that's a SEC that's a section of the of the comprehensive plan that all four would have to review and approve so that potentially is a large undertaking and if. If removal ultimately is the choice that is made, as I mentioned before, staff would be willing to put that information into another location on a website so we don't lose that information and we still provide that context to the reader, but it ultimately would not be part of the approved plan.

Okay, thank you. All right, I got Nicole from Mathentation.

Thank you so much for consolidating these many, many, many proposed changes. First of all, I just have a few questions. One is, is it possible that some of the affordability language could be used to argue against mixed income or middle income housing types that aren't explicitly more affordable?

You mean some of the requested edits that speak to just more affordable? That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, admittedly, it's difficult to anticipate some of the potential consequences of that change. Again, I think part of staff's original policy language and support and advice from our Housing and Human Services Commission colleagues to really respond to and reflect the full spectrum of housing as the right approach, as opposed to being very specific about a particular type. That is, you know, that is the reason that we made that recommendation. And there is, you know, potentially there is some concern that if the policy is too specific that it um ultimately would limit um council and others through the implementation of the policies in the future um which again the the language can always be revisited at a midterm or major update in a in a couple of years if we find it to be problematic okay and i just want to clarify something that that you said um

Am I understanding correctly that you said the staff who work on creating affordable housing and affordable housing programs in our city felt like this might constrain our ability to create affordable housing?

I will also defer to my good friend, Kurt Fernhopper, to answer that. But I will say overall, the Housing and Human Services staff and leadership wrote the original policy language. Okay, cool.

I could just add one comment to that, if I may. So Kurt Fernhaber, Director of Housing and Human Services. So we also know, and we've seen this over the last 10 years, that both the priorities and the needs within the community for particular affordable housing types change. And we assume they'll change over the next 10 years as well. And so the intent was to capture that in policy 84 and provide sort of a broad approach while still I think we are emphasizing middle income housing more than we have previously. And so the intent was also to capture those current concerns that we heard from the community. And that's sort of spreading that into policy in two, which is more aligned with a diversity of housing types.

Great. Thank you. Appreciate that. Then my other, my second question is regarding some of the changes to the airport language. Could the added language on noise, emissions, and equity impacts be cited as justification to oppose new housing that might be near the airport? Because I remember when we were doing the East Boulder subcommittee plan, there were some things around there. Could it be used by people who basically said you can't have this home or something is under a potential flight path, we can't have housing there?

Again, I think it's a little difficult to really project in the future. I'm referring and reading or looking at the language here on my left. It does say that the planning board's edits say that the city strives to minimize and mitigate noise and other impacts of airport operations. So it does not preclude activities within those areas, I think, as long as the mitigation is appropriate. So I don't believe it would be entirely limiting to housing or other types of uses in those areas.

OK, thank you. And then my last question. and this is just for people who've done this more times than I have. We had about two dozen changes, some of which were pretty darn significant coming in at the 11th hour and the 59th minute. Since this is my first comp plan major update, is this level of last minute change typical of the major updates?

I will have to defer to others that have been around longer than I am.

Thank you for the question, Council Member Speer. Yes, I'll defer to others. I can share that certainly we've heard a history of back and forth, but I couldn't quantify the number of changes. It sounds like, Mayor, maybe you were going to offer some thoughts having been involved.

I'm the only one on this call that was around for the last major update. My memory is that there certainly were some Matt Perault, later changes and some back and forth, but that was limited, and I would say the number of changes, this time around, are much larger than the last couple of ones 1015 years ago.

Tess Ahlborn, Thank you that's all my questions.

Matt Perault, Thanks matt mentation.

Thanks Aaron. So I wanted to circle back on, sorry for being kind of quiet. I don't want to wake the sleeping people around me. This centers on some housing conversations. You know, when I look at the comp plan, I noticed that the word attainable housing is not mentioned once. And so I'm kind of wondering if we're getting caught a little bit on the pure affordability aspect and how that's defined by the city in terms of subsidized housing and attached to AMI. And I'm wondering, as we're talking about different housing types, if it's important to also be inclusive of the attainability factor of that. And so I just noticed that that's not mentioned, but it seems to be such a high value that we aim for with the next round of the built environment. And that was something that was so missing in the previous comp plan was not just the housing type, but who could attach to that housing, not just those that had applied for subsidized housing. We talk about our teachers and our firefighters and such. they probably make too much to be subsidized, but make too little for market rates. So the attainable is such a key factor. So I'm just sort of wondering why we didn't have attainable housing as any sort of goal or mentioned, at least as far as I could scrub the comp plan in there. I'm just curious why that was the case.

Yeah, thanks for the question. That really was based on guidance from Housing and Human Services that the term attainable is difficult to define and means different things for different people. So, you know, a home that is attainable at one income level is a very different story for a family or individual at a different income level. And Kurt, I don't know if you want to chime in on that.

Yeah, thanks for that question, Matt. It's a great question. I think part of it is in the policy which talks about the diversity of housing versus the affordability. We know that through that diversity of different housing types, that's where for certain households it does become attainable. So two things. We do know that the more attached the housing is, the more affordable it is and attainable it is from a market perspective. We've also changed over the last few years our affordable housing ownership to go up to about 150% of AMI as an income level. So trying to get closer to Mark Warren, The attainable which, which is not subsidized so kind of reducing that gap. Mark Warren, Between sort of programs and can understand what's attainable market, but I think that's only accomplish or that's partly accomplished. Mark Warren, Through heavy through having the diversity of housing types.

And I think you're right. The follow up to that is why not mention that tension and that gap in that way? It seems like this is a document that sort of locks a thought in time. And eight years from now, people will look back and be like, yeah, that was the tension being experienced in the 2020s. And that was a community concern. And so I'm wondering why we because I hear that KJ says it's hard to define it. I think the difficulty in defining it is indeed the challenge of our time with housing. And that is why there is an aspiration to try to figure that out and to sort that out. And then this council finds the value in trying to bridge that gap. in our housing type. So sometimes I see that these aspirational documents should lean into that tension and recognize it so that we are always measuring ourselves as trying to unravel that tension or reconcile it in the work that we're doing, maybe not through perfectly prescriptive nature. So I'm kind of curious why we wouldn't lean into that in that manner with a document that sort of sets that vision for the next 10 years of housing.

Yes, I'll just make one more comment to that. Thanks for that additional information, Matt. So we don't through the development process, we don't have influence on the pricing of market housing. We only have sort of influence through this document in the type of housing. With that said, though, if the council feels that that is a wording that needs to go into that document, we would support you know, that direction as well.

All right. Thanks. Okay, Tysha, and then I got one.

Thank you. I just had a question about the Policy 102 and striking the American Indian section of that. Although, I will say my preference is also to refer to tribes as federally recognized from my communications with tribal leaders and indigenous community members. Also referenced in the Tribal Restoration Education Commission reports. The term American Indian is often used in U.S. constitutional and statutory history. Federal law and other related documents also use this term. So I just wanted to understand that aspect and if that was a consideration during the strikeout. And how do we legally reconcile with not making the reference? I mean, it's a term that I prefer, but it's not necessarily a term that's used in some of the legal documents that we refer to for our travel consultations and also when talking with our Indigenous community members.

Yeah, thank you for that question. I am not aware or at least just unsure if the commissioners fully sort of understood what the removal of that term might mean. Certainly staff included that term originally, and so we would recommend and support leaving it in. particularly if there is some sort of legal ramification or ensuring that we are making reference in the appropriate way. So I believe that the commissioner's decision to strike that term was really, they felt like it may be redundant and unnecessary, but I'll be quite honest with you. I'm not sure if I have the expertise to make that call.

OK, I would just like to put a pin on that. It's more so the legal aspects of it. Again, I appreciate the more modern phrasing. And but as I said, when I've met and consulted with tribal entities, even though they don't care for that term either, they recognize that the term is used in legal documents. So we'd love to get legal clarification on that as far as if that's limiting or not. And then similarly, I love that the county wanted to be included in city and county and Was curious, though, why they struck out the coordination with indigenous groups. Can you speak a little bit more about why that was?

Yeah, they felt like there was some, I guess, some confusion around if indigenous groups really specifically was referring to, again, Native American community members that are not part or do not participate in the, you know, formal process. federally recognized tribal consultation and confusion between, is that referring to those community members or indigenous peoples broadly speaking? So that could be indigenous people from other countries, South America, Nepal, et cetera. So I think just broadly, quite honestly, I think they were just maybe concerned about implicating the county or committing to some things that they just didn't have a lot of clarity around. And so the easiest way to was to remove them from the policy. Okay, thank you.

While I'm here, sorry, I don't want to lose while I'm here. Can you point to the areas that talk about climate benefit and environmental benefit? I just, you know, I was looking through again, because Apparently, I too will have comment on this process and how unhappy I am about it. But since we're allowed to just ask for new things now, I'm going to go in and ask about where and how environmental benefits and not just preservation and protection is identified. That was something that came out in the feedback from the 500-year plan. It's also referenced in the climate action plan that was just released, but I'm not seeing it. I see some things around investments, which are lovely, but I'm not seeing the... how we make things better, how the environment, how the policies that we're setting makes the climate better, not just mitigates and adapts to the climate crisis.

Sure, yeah, there are a number of sort of environment and climate related policies that begin around policy 39 and sort of carry through policy 54 that speak to a number of different things around electrification, water quality protection and improvement, local energy generation,

Are there places where those considerations, sorry to interrupt, but just want to clarify and narrow the scope of the question. Are there places where we're actually prioritizing climate benefit over other considerations?

Meaning, just so I can clarify, just make sure I understand, in terms of potentially weighing or advocating for climate benefit over another policy or desire policy?

you know, economic impact. Again, I've already heard some, and we've had conversations here where, well, it costs too much to be environmentally right. And so just, I'm just curious, where does it stand? Similarly, I see similar language with wildfire mitigation. It really feels like there's a priority. Unfortunately, that in and of itself will not be sufficient to address the poly crisis environmentally and ecologically that we're experiencing. And so I'm just not seeing that sense of urgency for other aspects. And more importantly, as I said, prioritization. As you mentioned, it's like in the middle of 80 or 100 policies.

Sure. Yeah. So there is a specific policy around climate action on policy number 34. But also, I would just broadly say that the policies themselves are intended to, you know, stand alone and be in tension with one another. And really, it's the weighing of those policies and determining which one or which ones are the most important at any given decision that council would have at some point in the future. So they're not intended to be prioritized in the document itself. But we're not prioritizing water, for example? Excuse me?

We're not prioritizing water, for example. It seems like that would be a priority.

Yeah, it is. And it's identified as a policy, water quality protection and water resources efficiency as well. But ultimately, all the policies have sort of equal weight and they're weighed through those future decisions going forward. So they're not prioritized within the document itself, I should say.

Is that something that could potentially be discussed and revisited when we get to the strategic plan update and the integrated water plan?

Well, certainly those, you know, through the strategic plan update, that is when council would have the opportunity to weigh in on what those priorities should be. So at that point, there would be the opportunity to identify which policies might take more precedence over the next four years for work planning items. Um, and then certainly through the integrated water supply plan, um, you know, they would be, uh, our utilities colleagues would be working with us and, and council and others to develop that plan going forward. And that would obviously have a very high priority around water resources. Okay. So that'll be the face. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. That's all.

Thanks. I'll go ahead and go before we wrap up our questions. So my first one is about the commissioner's change of the area two lands to rural that they're proposing. And I had heard previously that there were some concerns about gun barrel with relationship to the neighborhood one designation. But I guess this was the first I'd heard about other parts of the Boulder Valley getting that change made. Could you shed some light on what their discussion was around every area to getting that designation versus perhaps just gun barrel?

Sure, yeah. It seemed to come to light with the commissioners when we reviewed there are two planning areas map changes, which means there are two small areas that are being changed from area three to area two as part of this update. One is a site that's just over five acres out on the east side of Arapahoe, and then the other are a couple of properties. along Highway 93 as you exit the city on the south side. Essentially, that change from Area 3 to Area 2 would make those properties eligible for annexation. As part of that change, staff was proposing that those then also have a land use designation of Neighborhood 1. The commissioners raised some concerns around that. From their perspective, they felt like those areas and the neighboring properties around them would be really concerned about having a neighborhood one designation. My assumption, they did not get into details on that, but I think their concern is that neighborhood one describes uses other than single family detached homes, essentially. And so they, through their deliberation, through their discussion, they ultimately then decided that their preference was to change all of neighborhood one to rural in those area two locations. And then ultimately, the land use would be changed at some future point if a property was annexed into the city.

Thanks for that additional information. And then my other question is about there's the planning board recommended change about residential and industrial. This is their reference number two in the recommended amendments. And they had requested adding a row to the table in the supporting area that reads different kinds of residential, and then adding a bullet under the urban design heading. And I know staff is not supporting that change. Do you think those two changes that they're proposing, like one could move forward instead of another, would that change your recommendation? Like if the supporting, if the residential items weren't added to the supporting section, but the text was still added that said residential uses may be allowed where appropriate. Would that change staff's recommendation, or do you feel like that wouldn't make a difference?

It's a great question. I feel like those two elements really kind of go together, and that the additional description in the urban design section as proposed that speaks to residential being a allowed in appropriate locations, it would need to have that corresponding allowance up in the uses that are described as to what you can expect. Overall staff's concern about that change is that It would indicate that all industrial areas, both industrial and the innovation and production hub, allow for residential. So essentially all industrial and innovation and entrepreneurial areas of the city would allow residential. under certain conditions under certain situations and the zoning would have to allow it um but essentially an applicant could make the argument of course that um any property in either industrial or innovation and production hub should allow residential based on that policy um and and there's also you know as we've stated in our comments you know there's we've heard over several years now in several different planning processes that there is a real concern around losing industrial and entrepreneurial lands within the city.

Understood. I just wanted to see if the separating list made any difference.

It sounds like the answer is no, so I appreciate that.

Great. Okay. Thanks for all those answers to all those questions. So now let's dive into talking over what we want to move forward. So what I would like to do is start with the conditions of approval that different bodies have sent over to us. to look at those for consideration. So if I could ask for the slides to be put up so that the language is fresh in front of us, please. And if we can go, I think it's page eight in the presentation. Go back a bit further for the conditional. There we go. There we go. Okay, so the first one is reference number A from the planning board where they sent these requested changes on the housing diversity and supply. I won't read them again because we've seen them already, but if we can then flip to the county commissioners requested or conditions. The next page. So they also weighed in on this with their Item H, where they changed further from planning board's recommendation to include the county in this and to change including middle housing to prioritizing middle housing. So I would like to hear from council about whether you would support either version of these for moving forward in our adoption. And we don't all need to say anything. I just would like to hear at least a couple of opinions and we can also, we can then straw poll it. But if people want to offer a couple of opinions and then we can get to the will of counsel.

Mark.

Thank you. Let me go to the last one first. As a policy document. No. as a practice, we have failed to produce any substantial amount of middle income housing, at least on the purchase side. And since this is a policy document, I don't have a problem stating as a goal that we want to do better, that we want to do more. And so whether prioritizing is the right word or emphasizing is a better word, I think the reference to middle income housing is not at the expense of affordable housing. but it's basically stating our goal, our vision. We may not have the exact mechanics at the moment to achieve it, but I think we ought to at least be expressing that this is an important objective for us. So I would be happy with the county's language, maybe tempering or tinkering with the word prioritizing.

Very good. Thanks for that mark any other thoughts on this, and I can. straw poll soon as well. All right, Nicole.

yeah i'm sorry I was just trying to figure out a when when I wanted to say something because I have the same thing to say about all of them and mayor, is it Okay, if I have a couple of extra minutes just I, this is my my time that I will speak.

You can go for it talk about it all at once.

Thank you.

And actually, before you start, if I could just request we take the presentation down so that we can look at each other a little better.

Thank you. Appreciate this, being able to consolidate my comments. I'm going to be a no on each one of the proposed amendments that we're considering tonight, and I just want to take some time to briefly explain why. Over the last two years, our community has invested so much time and energy into this plan. Community members showed up early and consistently, and they helped us create a thoughtful, balanced vision for the Boulder Valley. This isn't the plan that any of us would have done on our own, but we didn't do it on our own. We did it together. And when we collaborate, we don't all get everything that we want. Some of the ideas in these amendments were raised earlier in the process, and they didn't earn enough support through the process we all agreed to follow. Some ideas were raised less than 24 hours ago and haven't had the opportunity to be vetted through the full process. Seeing major changes come forward at the last possible minute makes it hard to evaluate these proposals in the context of the full plan. But more importantly, it leaves me very concerned about the message that it sends to the community. especially when we've had such an inclusive process. And that's a source of great frustration for me tonight, how the inclusive process that we committed to is at risk of being overridden. What does it say to the people who gave their time and energy to this update, including staff, that years of inclusive community input can be overridden at the last minute? That isn't the standard that we promised this community when we set out to do this two years ago and the precedent it sets for allowing Late-stage pressure to reshape a years-long process deeply concerns me. To support changes of the scale, I need a process that's fair, predictable, and transparent. I need to know that we'll uphold the hard work of compromise that our community, our boards, staff, and the county put in over the last two years. And I need to know that our decisions, not just the words in this document, reflect the values we said would guide this update, including equity and transparent and consistent governance. Because those needs aren't met with these modifications, I can't support any of the proposed amendments by Planning Board or the County Commission. In a decision with this much community engagement, what's most important to me at this stage of approval is that we're protecting the integrity of the process, which respects the community's participation and staff's work, respects each other's contributions and hard work, and reflects the work of the full process more than the pressure of this last hour. When this is over, I'd really like to clarify the role of boards and the county in future updates. But tonight, my decision to say no to these last minute changes is based on my feeling of responsibility to the inclusive process we promised the community and to the trust they placed in us. Thank you for this time. This update is good. It's inclusive. And there will be an opportunity for a minor update in just a few years. So I'm going to be saying no to all of these amendments. Thank you.

Thanks for that, Nicole. I appreciate your overarching summary of how you're going to approach this tonight. Okay, very good. So not seeing other hands raised, what I'm going to do is I'll straw poll either the original language, planning board's requested language, or the county's requested language. And if none of those get a majority, we'll drop the lowest vote getting item off and redo it. And we'll do this with a show of physical hands and make sure I get everybody up on. Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and move forward with who would like to keep the original language in the draft plan. Raise your hand. I got three. Who would like planning board? Oh, Tysha.

What are we on right now? Because I'm confused.

So we're doing a straw poll for how we want to approach this item. Do we want to keep the original language?

When you say this item, can you just remind me of that?

One was just, it was just on screen. Let me look it up again. So this is policy number 82 about housing diversity and supply. It starts, the city supports increasing the housing supply by promoting.

And there were- Just note it's reference A in the slide deck as well.

Thank you. Oh, okay. We're at the top now. All right. Thank you.

Okay, so all in favor of keeping the original language unchanged, raise your hand. Three, four, five for that. Okay, I'll just finish it out. Who would like to have planning board's language?

Mayor, would you like us to bring the presentation down just quickly for the vote?

I'm managing so far. Okay, so Planning Board's language. Who wants that one? I got one. And who would like?

Question. I don't have in front of me Planning Board's language to compare to the Commissioner's language, to compare to our language. So I'm kind of operating a little bit in the dark.

Sure. We were looking at them a minute ago, but let's get them back up.

Thanks, team.

If we can get that presentation back up, please.

And point of clarification on that, is the red the planning board or the commissioners and the black the planning board?

It is not. So what's up on the screen right now on item A is, and I'm just going to read it out loud to make sure that we don't have any confusion here. So I'm going to read all three because I don't want us to have any confusion. So the original language was housing, diversity, and supply. The city supports increasing the housing supply by promoting a full spectrum of housing types and price points, including middle housing and middle income opportunities throughout the city that enable people to remain and enjoy the community as their needs, incomes, and household compositions change over time. In the planning board's version, the first half of that changed to the city supports increasing the housing supply by promoting more affordable housing types and price points as well as middle housing and middle income opportunities. If we can go to the county commissioner's language, please. The county commissioner's language in the first half says the city and county supports increasing the housing supply by promoting more affordable housing types and price points, prioritizing middle housing and middle income opportunities. So, I'm gonna go ahead and start us over again on the straw poll. All those in favor of keeping the original language unchanged, please raise your hand. Raise it high and unambiguously, please. All right, now we got two. Looks like two. Ryan, you look a little uncertain. We're at 82, is that right? We're at 82. Policy 82.

Okay. Yeah, I think I voted my hand to keep it the same earlier. I should keep that. I got a little confused, but yeah, I'll hold my hand up for this.

Okay. So all those in favor of keeping it the same, raise your hand where we can see it. Right. Okay. One, two, three, four. We got four. Okay. Those in favor of using planning boards revisions, which are now up on the screen, please raise your hand. Mark Warren, I got 123. Mark Warren, And those who are in favor of using kind of commissioners language, please raise your hands. Mark Warren, I got to. Mark Warren, Okay, so that means we're going to drop off the county commissioners language because it got the fewest votes but mark, do you have a question before we proceed. Mark Warren, you're muted.

I was wondering if there's any way to say that I am indifferent to whether it's the planning board language or the county commissioner's language. I find them both to be superior to the original language.

Point of clarification.

Yes, Tysha.

I don't know exactly what the point is, but. To me, the differentiator is having county as a partner in that language. And that's the part I like about the last one. And if anything, I would be fine with just adding and county to the option that got the most popular votes. But I do like that since the county does have land that people can be housed in, although I can argue about the area, the rural designation. But I just wanted to lift that up. Sorry. So it's kind of like a colloquy almost.

Okay. Fair. Totally fair. I will just respond to that, if you don't mind, that with the county's proposal to change all of Area 2 to rural, they would essentially not be encouraging any housing in the area under their jurisdiction at all. So it seems like with their proposal to make everything rural, that they would be stepping out of supporting housing in the areas under their control, which is why I'm not supportive of adding the county language.

Got it. Thank you for that clarification, Mayor.

Rob Leibowitz, Absolutely. Rob Leibowitz, Okay, so rob did you ever kind of.

Rob Leibowitz, um no you clarified it for me, I didn't realize that that was the case, but that that's definitely helpful and I was just concerned about adding the word county in there. Rob Leibowitz, And you just like.

Rob Leibowitz, And that'll be that'll be another discussion about the rural stuff later but. All right, so we already we already dropped off the county commissioners version so i'm going to do it again between the keeping the language as it was originally or using the planning boards language all those in favor of using the original language, please raise your hand. I got 12345. Okay, so I think that's five and. So that that carries, so I think our decision, then, is to move forward with the language, as it was originally written for policy at two. Thanks for working through that. we've got some background noise from somebody. Right, I think that stuff. Okay, so next one, if we can put the presentation back up.

yeah we're dealing with the.

Most complicated ones first, I'll just say. All right, so this is now policy 79 around the municipal airport. And I would rather not read all the language because it's really long. But if we can take a look at what's on the screen, the original language was without the red text that you see up on the screen and included the strikethroughs. If you look at that, take away the red and include the strikethroughs, that was the original language. Planning board has proposed this revision and the county commissioners agreed with that revision. We also had a proposal sent in by Matt with some different language. Matt, did you want to speak to that proposal?

You're muted. Yes, I am. I appreciate that, Aaron. Just to preface on condition, my preference is to not accept Planning Board's recommended language and stick with the original. But my proposal was in the instance that Council is interested or Feels that council wants to be in the driver's seat if it rejects that language and knows there's going to be a back and forth to at least have some language that maybe perhaps council is more comfortable with. That maybe is somewhat of a blend of planning boards feedback while staying true to most of the original intent from staff. So my preference is to reject if the will of council is to. either say a combination or maybe a middle ground. I wanted to offer some proposed language given the breadth of these changes. I wanted to resubmit so we're not wordsmithing this document live on the fly and to make sure Aaron keeps his sanity.

too late for that, but I appreciate the thought. No, so, okay, very good. So in other words, Matt, your preference is the original language. If anyone on council wanted to not take planning board up on it, but do something in between, you had an idea for something in between, but your preference is actually the original language.

Correct.

Okay. So then I would ask, do any council, I can straw poll just the original language versus the planning board's proposal, or if someone wants to speak up, we could try to find some middle way, potentially including Matt's. So raise your hand, raise your virtual hand rather than your physical hand if you want to speak up for some middle path. Tara.

I actually like Matt's the best. So what do you think I should do then?

Good to know. I'll just struggle all three options.

Does that mess you up, Matt, because we're voting? Can we vote twice or we can't?

You can't vote twice. Only one at a time, Tara. I appreciate the vote of confidence. Thank you, Tara.

Doesn't mess me up at all, whatever the will is. Tina?

Hi, and again, without showing any judgment, but the last two sentences that talk about coordinating, understanding, and addressing inequitable impacts, and the second providing education and outreach to residents most impacted, is that a directive that carries a fiscal note, or is this still just aspirational that we may or may not do those things? I can't, I'm trying to understand that piece.

Mary or someone else you want to speak to that?

Yeah, I'm happy to give it a shot. None of these plans really carry a fiscal note per se. I will say that we... We take the language, particularly with education and outreach to residents most impacted to be something that we do normally with outreach to those that live in the geographic area. It would be hard for us otherwise to know that there are particular populations that have different types of impacts. So we would think about it geographically to those living closest and residing closest to the airport. That is something that our team does already. I guess some of it would depend on how one interprets it, but certainly we think that some of the outreach is already anticipated, we do already, and we would generally be within that same vein. If staff disagrees with me, please let me know.

Yeah, can I just, and what I'm trying to understand is if we're directing you to pursue a tactic, that you may not have, I mean, I guess if you're just saying you're already doing it, so it doesn't really make a difference.

I think the distinction might be some of the language about understanding and addressing inequitable impacts slightly takes us beyond what we would normally do, other than knowing that there are noise impacts, for example, that impact anybody who lives at an airport. Anything deeper, further, specifically with scientific data may be more than we are considering at the moment.

I just, it feels to me like statements like that belong in the strategic plan, not in the policy statement, but, or is that not accurate?

I think, and KJ correct me, but I think certainly these are more, perhaps they straddle a little bit. Some of the items could be aspirational, but some of them could fall within the land of implementation.

Thanks.

Can I call on you as well? I just wanted to crosswalk with, I'm still working through the final climate action plan, but I do recall specific reference to environmental impacts for disproportionate communities that would be operationalized during the strategic planning component. This does read to be more operational.

I agree with that statement as well. All right, I got Ryan, and then we'll move to a straw poll.

Thanks, Aaron. I'm just thinking about getting us, ideally, to something that we can be acceptable to all parties. And I think I'm in favor of Matt's Ryan Harrison, Proposal but with one slight amendment just there's a few words, I think that would do would be meaningful so should I say that now, or should we vote on the mat one or whatever vote on our that works and then propose, you know see if there's interest in looking at this edit after that.

David Ensign, So how about this run. give us a quick description of what your proposal is I will then struggle the three options okay if the same planning board in Matt's version and if Matt's version is selected we will then check with you and include your edit okay so towards towards the end it's the second to the last sentence it states the city will continue to build relationships that allow the airport to be a valuable resource

for a wider range of people and so on. I would suggest to change from allow the airport to be a valuable resource for a wider range of people to instead say, equitably serve a wide range of people. I think it's more neutral and I could expect maybe more acceptable to the parties.

All right. If we go down the road of match revised language, we will consider that amendment. All right, so I'm going to, Terry, your hand is up. Did you have anything else? OK. So I'm going to pull the three options of keep it the same, take plain words language, or use Matt's language with possibly an edit. So number one, who wants to keep it the same, the text the same? Raise your hand, please. Let's go ahead. I got five for that. OK, so that'll win out in just for, oh, Tysha, is that you as well? Okay, so six. And I think we can end it there then. So there's a clear majority to keep the existing language. All right, if we can go back to the presentation and go on to the Board of County Commissioner conditions of approval. Right, so this first one is about policy 102 on page 75 and it includes three changes. It changes consultation with federally recognized American Indian tribal nations to just remove the words American Indian and the two places where it says the city, it adds and county. I'm going to go and so I'll see if anybody has any comments on this and I'll just don't mind i'm going to call on myself to start and say that i certainly welcome the county's participation um in working with the the tribes and so i have no objections to their proposed change but taisha would you like to offer a comment as well

I concur with the collaboration and that was actually one of the comments that the tribal representatives mentioned around the need for better coordination between the city and county. So I do appreciate that aspect. Again, my only thing is conditional upon clarification of the legal ramifications of not including the word American Indian somewhere in here, which connects to the legal documents that we referenced. This is sovereign government to government. This isn't just something that we would do so um i just want to have that condition in there for instance that wasn't something that was clarified during the conversation with the commissioners just want to make sure that we're i mean if there's any kind of legal things and if this isn't a legally binding document then okay theresa do you want to speak to that yes i'm happy to um council member adams is correct that um

American Indian is used in a number of federal descriptions and monikers. I don't know the BVCP's interaction with the federal government regulations or probably more importantly, Applications for grant opportunities and the like. But it. It probably behooves the city to leave American Indian in. Perhaps you could say. One thing to consider is consultation with federally recognized tribal nations. Uh. Also known as American Indians.

Teresa, I appreciate the input. I'm wary of editing on the fly based on uncertainty, legal situations. What I might suggest is to consider the county commissioner's proposal, but we know we're going to have back and forth in the future. If we do accept their proposal to ask that city staff investigate whether we would need to change this going forward to deal with those legal issues.

I would feel comfortable with that, Mayor.

Great. I got a thumbs up. Thanks, Teresa. All right. If we can pull this down, please, so we can do a vote. I'm going to pull two options, the original language or the County Commissioner's change. So all those in favor of the original language, please raise your hand. I got one. All those in favor of the County Commissioner's language, please raise your hand. I got eight. so that one passes thank you can we bring the presentation back up please all right the next one is policy 103 page 75 the engagement with local indigenous peoples In this case, the county has requested that they be written out, so the two places that say the city and the county be changed to just say the city. I'll look to see if anybody has any opinions, but if you don't mind, I'll call on myself to start and say that I would defer to the county commissioners, and if they don't want to be included in this policy, then that's okay with me. But any other thoughts on this before we start, Paul? seeing none can we go ahead and take this down for a show of hands all those in favor of the original language please raise your hand we got one all those in favor of the county commissioner's language raise your hand and i got eight so we agree to that one um All right, we don't need to bring the presentation up for this one because it's easier to describe than it is to look at. So this is the one about deleting pages 14 through 17 of the plan, which is the 50 years of planning, looking back and moving forward. I'm guessing there may be a couple of opinions on this one. Does anybody want to speak to this? Tina and then Ryan.

Yeah, I was able to listen to part of the discussion this morning when the commissioners were deliberating. And this was kind of interesting. They pointed out several instances in the three pages of history that they felt didn't reflect some of the important history. And I thought that they made a lot of good points, but they also recognized they couldn't wordsmith three pages of history in their single meeting. So, you know, I think I'm going to support the original language, but really appreciated some of the points they brought up and understood why. So it sounds a little drastic, but I thought it came from a very good place rooted in capturing more people's experiences and also being, the one thing that was really interesting is just that I also appreciated is that the blue line wasn't, The only thing that created our lack of diversity in our city and the housing prices, they brought up several other examples that were similar in the state of Colorado. And so they'd look to specifically expand that concept. And I did appreciate that comment as well. So just that's my two cents.

Thanks. Ryan and then Tasha.

Thanks. And Tina, thanks for that. And that's kind of about what I expected, that there's a practical explanation. So, um, but yeah, I would just like to say, I'm, you know, I was very glad and proud to see the, um, this further developed history that's, that's gone back, um, to talk about real diversity and disenfranchisement in our history. And it feels like this is very important, especially at this time in our country and, and, and local community. Devin Glennie, And so I would you know I would just hope that we could go back, you know, there will be time to go back to the Commissioners and ask you know if we can address their concerns and you know, make this be is. Devin Glennie, You know, as accurate as works for them, and I would just hope we could get to a place that um you know just this material can be brought brought back into it.

Devin Glennie, And station and mark the chair.

I would agree with my council member, Ryan Shewhart, regarding a desire to continue to work with the county commissioners to address some of those concerns. I will say that this language has been present during was present during our conversation at the East Rec Center. And none of these concerns were raised at that point, which would have been the point that would have been a better point or opportunity to raise them so that we had more time to work together. So I'm going to stay with the original language, but I want to... open the door and hopefully invite so that we can get it right because it does provide incredible and necessary context for people especially since there's many over the last five to ten years who have not or who have moved into the city and don't aren't aware it's important that we have common facts and so we want to make sure that those facts are right thank you thanks mark mentor

I have a slightly different perspective, which is we want to get to yes on this document. And as staff has indicated that this is not problematic for them and that this information can be posted elsewhere and without difficulty, I'm inclined to go with theirs. As I said, I want us to get to yes, and the more we have to wordsmith this document, the longer it's going to take for us to actually achieve that ultimate goal. I am happy with our language, but I'm prepared to support the county's language just to put another issue behind us, since it doesn't cause us any problem. Thank you.

Ditto to Mark, so I don't need to talk.

Very good. Nicole?

Not a comment. Clarifying question. I didn't listen to the commissioner's hearing. Was this unanimous among the commissioners, this recommendation that we take this part out?

I think it was a two one, but I don't remember because there was a little vote change in the middle of the discussion as they were trying to wordsmith it. And then the sort of the reality hit.

So I don't staff, I believe you were there too. I just wonder if anybody could clarify that.

I'm pretty sure this is Sarah Warren, senior planner. It was a two to one decision.

Yes.

I actually think it was three zero.

at the end of the at the end of the day it was three zero uh good well i'm gonna i'll call myself and say it i i think there's a lot of valuable language in that history and so i'll i'll be voting to keep it as is but if the commissioners have two or three things that they think are particularly concerning then certainly entertain those at a future meeting all right so i'll go ahead and straw poll um all those who want to keep the original language uh please raise your hand I got three, four, five, six, seven on that. So we will keep the language in in our version. All right. So if we can get the presentation back up, please, for the next one. Is the presentation handy?

We're working on it.

It takes a minute.

Sarah, are you able to pull up the presentation?

Back a couple.

There we go, okay, so this is a small change. This is item F, as part of the how the city and county address today's challenges. They propose adding in the world word federally before recognized tribes, so that the last bit of it would say that we are supporting access and connection to ancestral homelands for local indigenous communities, members, and federally recognized tribes. You can bring that down, please, and I will say, I'll see if anybody has any opinions. I would say I'll just pop in and say I don't have an objection to this one. Seems pretty straightforward. All right, not seeing any other hands raised. All in favor of the original language, please raise your hand. Got one, two. All in favor of the revised language, raise your hand. Seven. All right, so we'll go with the revised language there. I don't think we need the presentation up for the next one either, so this is on the future land use map change all area to land with neighborhood one designations to rural designation. I have some thoughts on this, I can let other people go first or I can just get started. Mark and then Tina.

This is obviously a pretty draconian change. And I'm wondering if there's anything that staff would contemplate as a more middle ground to bridge that gap between us. Or we're just going to arm wrestle. Who wants to answer that question? Anybody? Anybody?

I see KJ popping up.

Apologies. I stepped away for just two seconds. Councilmember, can you repeat the question?

The question is, does staff have any proposed middle ground that we can approve tonight to avoid the struggle with a fairly draconian policy that I think has some pretty severe consequences. And if there's a place we could get to that you are thinking about, I'd like to hear about it.

Specifically with changing the neighborhood one to rural.

To rural?

Yes, exactly.

Yeah, great question. And Brad, would you like to begin?

Yeah, why don't I just speak? generally, and then maybe you can speak to the specifics. So again, Brad Mueller, Director of Planning and Development Services. Draconian's a big word, but I think we recognize as staff that there was a lot of input in the gun barrel area and significant interest from those residents and significant interest in the county in being responsive to that. Mark Warren, One of the things that I will say i'm a little worried would get lost with that change is the certainty that comes with. Mark Warren, A vision of a neighborhood scale for those areas, should they be proposed for annexation in the future, which seems to be consistent with what. Mark Warren, The gun barrel residents are wanting to maintain or at least generally maintain maybe not quite in the way of neighborhood one expresses. but that without that and just making it rural, that really presents a scenario where an annexation is proposed, there's no guidance towards it because it clearly wouldn't be rural at that point. And now industrial, commercial, et cetera, would be on the board. So it's a little confusing to us how that change actually works in the county's favor. But to be fair, I think KJ, maybe you can characterize what the county's thought process was in that regard.

Yeah, the county did also offer an option to create a new designation. And ultimately, we just advised them that that would take a considerable amount of time because we would need to actually write and create a new designation that would be applied out there. I think overall, the uh proposal to change to rural is essentially the path of least resistance if i might put it that way i mean it's it certainly is not a it's not a preferable outcome from staff's perspective um but it would still allow for the plan to be moved forward and approved hopefully and then those land use map changes would occur upon any future annexation um The only other thing I will mention is that currently the commissioners requested that Neighborhood 1 to rural change to apply to all of Area 2, and we do have some concerns, particularly around enclaves that are fully surrounded by and within the city that are Area 2, that those would have the rural designation. potentially some of these other areas including the the planning areas map changes that are being discussed um so if if that change from neighborhood one to rural was limited only to gun barrel that would also be a preferable outcome to rather than the entire thing being changed and i do want to elaborate on just one one other thing uh kj christopher said just uh earlier in his comments

there was that earlier contemplation or it was put out i should say by uh some in the county to create another designation that was not at the hearing just for clarification was it was weeks ago that would be like a hypothetical neighborhood three and as as kj alluded to we expressed concern that that had never been part of the outreach process it hadn't been vetted It seemed very problematic to try to introduce a new designation at what was then you know 1214 months into the process.

Okay, thanks i'm going to go to Tina and then Robin and I got an opinion. No okay Robin.

yeah thanks, how would that land designation change affect something that's already in an election, a potential election process like spring valley.

So since the Spring Valley annexation is already underway, that particular process would not be impacted or affected. That'll be, you know, governed by the regulations and the plans that are in place once that application was started. In the future, you could imagine an annexation that there would just be an additional step of needing to identify the future land use as well as a future zone district for a property that is proposed for annexation. Currently, usually there is already a land use designation that's applied and so it's really only the zone district that needs to be considered.

And what kind of time frame are you estimating and cost involved in that?

I'm not sure on cost. I don't know if a land use map change has an associated fee like a rezoning does, but I believe all of that is captured through fees associated with the annexation itself. And the process essentially to change the land use map and the zone district would happen concurrently with the annexation. So it wouldn't add any additional time other than just additional time for staff analysis to determine what is the most appropriate land use to apply to that location. Thank you.

Thanks. I'll call on myself and say I do think that the scope of this change is really overly broad that they're proposing. And I call out KJ's mention of enclaves in particular has been really problematic. I think we do want to signal that the areas close to the city and within the city should be neighborhoods as if. and when they annex. So I'm not supportive of the whole thing, but I'm just going to put out on the table that an item in the straw poll that I'd like to include, which is to in gun barrel only to change the designation of the area to use to to rural to be responsive to the county commissioners, because I understand this is very important to them and some of the residents up there. So I'm going to put that out on the table as a as a third option. Um, so that's what I'm advocating for and I'm happy to go ahead and straw poll. So I'm going to struggle three options. One is to keep things the same. One is to take the County commissioners, um, request to change every area to item, uh, area to rural. And the third is to only change gun barrel area, two items to rural and use designation. Okay. So all in favor of keeping all the land use designations the same, please raise your hand. One, two. All in favor of taking the County Commissioner proposal to change every area to rural. I got zero. And all in favor of changing only gun barrel area to rural, raise your hand. We got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So we'll move forward with that approach. Thanks very much. And the last one that was a conditions of theirs was the one we've already talked about policy 82 on housing diversity and supply. So we are done with the conditional changes. So that brings us to recommended changes. I'm hoping these are, most of them are pretty small in scope. And so I'm hoping that we can move through these pretty quickly. And what I'm going to do is for each one, I'm going to ask if anybody wants to advocate for it. And if nobody advocates for it, we just won't even consider it. If somebody does advocate for it, we'll go ahead and straw poll them. And we can have additional comments on something, on an item if somebody does advocate for it. So does that make sense to people? So let's start with a threshold question of does anybody want to advocate for moving this change forward. All right, so we'll go to the first one, which is page 48, the future of transportation, what's next, which is to remove the words and the airport from this. So instead of saying that the city streets, transit service and stops, paths, sidewalks, bike lanes, shared micro mobility options like scooters and bikes, traffic signals in the airport or the backbone of the city's transportation system, it would remove the words and the airport. Does anyone want to advocate for this? I got zero hands, so we will not move this one forward. The next one is a bigger deal. This one is under the future land use definition, the industrial designation. It's to add a row to the table in the supporting area that reads residential attached unit, multi-unit, and group living, and under the heading of urban design, add a bullet that reads residential uses may be allowed where appropriate. Housing infill should play a subordinate role and not displace established businesses or the opportunity for industrial businesses. Does anyone want to advocate for this one? Raise your hand. I got a couple people, so let's talk about it. Raise your virtual hand if you'd like to speak to this item. Tara, I see your physical hand, so I'll go to you first.

Well, I have a question real quick before we abdicate, and that is, didn't we used to have this KJ and the new, before the amendment, the new, help me here, I can't even think of words.

In the existing comprehensive plan.

Thank you. Look at him. He knows me already. The existing comprehensive plan, didn't we already have this and then you took it away? What? Similar language, I think. Similar? is what I'm saying. I'm not blaming anybody.

Sure, sure. Yeah. And I would say not exactly. So right now, today, the light industrial land use designation in the current plan does reference and allow for residential to be in conjunction with industrial areas. But there are two other industrial designations. And if you give me two seconds, I'll pull them up. But there are two other industrial designations today that do not reference residential uses, and those two and then portions of light industrial have been combined into that industrial section. There was also a few other business-related designations that also did not reference residential. So it's kind of a long answer.

General and community are the other two.

Thank you. Yeah, community business and general business. Industrial. Thank you. Community industrial and general industrial. Those are the two. That was what I was going for. Okay.

So this made it broader, this new amendment? Is that what you're saying?

The industrial designation in the plan today is, yes, it does have a slightly broader application than the current plan. But overall... Overall, the area of that allows for residential, about half of that light industrial area, a little bit more than half has been pulled into what's called the innovation and production hub and continues to allow for residential. Okay.

So I am going to, why I like this is because I think that since the pandemic, we've seen big changes in certain areas, especially office. And I would like more flexibility since the word subordinate role is in there. I think that that is good. So for that reason, because I'm thinking about certain areas of the city that are just, I would say almost blighted, if not blighted, uh, I feel like this would be one way to, um, make it easier. I'm not saying there's no other ways to do it, but they're hard to do. So that's why.

Thanks, Tara. I got Rob and Mark and I have a quick thought on that.

Thanks. I think the idea of it is innovative and thinking out of the box for this and for the suggestion of an innovation hub over by Walnut and 47th. The only reason why I can't vote for it is because there hasn't been community review on it, unless somebody tells me otherwise.

not to this language specifically. Okay. There has not. Okay.

Thank you. Mark. We speak often about protecting small businesses, and you can't do that unless you actually protect small businesses. And so I find that language to be useful. It's not prescriptive and it's not an ordinance, but it's a gives a policy indication of what we want to do and what we want to achieve. And I think it's interesting language. I would support it. Thanks, Tina.

Caroline Miller, yeah and um I feel that this hasn't been through a review and also in speaking with kj and brad and unless I have this wrong, that there is a process for a property owner to get their land. Caroline Miller, To do residential. Caroline Miller, Through and that that process is not limited to just every five years just making sure I have that correct. That's. Caroline Miller, Thank you, that is good.

Good. I'll call on myself and say I am supportive of this because of the language in here that speaks to the housing infill should play a subordinate role and not displace established business or the opportunity for industrial businesses. So given that we did have an existing language in the previous comp plan, albeit one that didn't apply to as many places about allowing residential, I'm comfortable moving this forward because I think there are enough guardrails to prevent industrial displacement and small business displacement. So that's why I'll be supporting it. All right, I don't see any other hands raised. Rob, did you wanna throw in another thought?

I did. I just wanna ask a question to staff. If this is moved forward, could there be pushback of the property owners?

Brad Mueller with Planning and Development Services. I welcome comments from others too, but I wouldn't wanna generalize for all property owners. Just as a caveat, but certainly some of the letters and comments that you've seen and received tend towards that support. KJ, can you offer more?

Yeah, I think the email feedback we've gotten has been supportive of this change.

Yeah, I would say the email feedback received from property owners that have an interest in developing residential would be supportive of this change.

but it's residential is still subordinate to the industrial and the business.

Well, as proposed as the language is, I think it is, it will be up to future implementation to determine whether that subordinate role of residential is on a parcel by parcel basis or across the entire industrial designation. And I think that is partly a challenge to work through. Okay, thanks.

Matt, you have one more thought on this? Or you haven't spoken on this yet, actually? I don't know. I appreciate that.

So I just want to clarify, we already have existing zoning in this area that sort of focuses on that one-sixth continuity so that we are not inadvertently flag-polling residential and industrial. I would assume that, barring a Title IX rewrite, you know, you got to get that plug in while I can, right? You got to get a smile on Brad and KJ's face a little bit.

that that would still hold correct even if we had the subordinate role that zoning still holds true and the way we would manage that would be through the zoning is that still correct that is correct uh council member um kind of the two factors to weigh is um make it you know make the supportive language the vision language of the uh comprehensive plan more favorable towards moving towards housing in those circumstances where determinations are made or more favorable towards retaining industrial in both cases there is always going to be the opportunity to follow a process need to conform with zoning so it's a matter of emphasis Okay.

To some extent, this is really just an argument of semantics because the underlying zoning that currently exists is really what's going to drive where housing is going to be applied in this area, less so of what's subordinate or what's not in the overall land use. Is that correct?

Yes, to some degree. I think the zoning certainly would allow for residential, and in particular on smaller properties through the use review process, which has less reference to the comprehensive plan, but a larger project, a more complex project that exceeds certain thresholds would have to go through the site review process, which then consistency with the comp plan is also required so that's where the tension comes into play between the plan and the zoning on the ground appreciate you clarifying that difference there thanks katie jerry get something i'd like to move this along well i'm just i mean the property owners were saying that it was all but impossible to do residential um in this current language so

I'm just bringing that up. I'm not saying, I guess it's the way you look at it, but I'm just bringing that up.

Very good. All right. Let's go ahead and do our straw poll here. So all in favor of keeping the language the way it is currently, please raise your hand. I got one. All in favor of taking up playing words per recommended change, please raise your hand. I got seven. So that's a clear majority. So we'll move that one forward. If we can get the presentation back up, please. All right. The next one is in the welcome to the plan section. And it says what currently it says it connects shared values to choices about where homes and jobs are located, how people move around, how we collectively care for the environment and support a sustainable, equitable and resilient community. And it changes the words move around to access destinations and opportunities. Would anyone like to advocate for this one? All right, go ahead.

Thanks. This is the first of four in this section that have planning board support, commissioner support, and staff support. So just to say this, I think this set of them, there's a set. This one in particular modernizes the way that we talk about this issue and it brings us in alignment with change to city code that this council passed, I think it was an ordinance for this last year. So it seems like a pretty straightforward, one to support. And before I end, I'll just say also a slight preamble for the rest. My lens going from here forward is I'm looking for things that seem like they're pretty obviously adding to internal coherence and not creating huge new ideas that don't have vetting. I know there's a few more coming up that I think arguably will look good if they had the process, but I'm a little bit concerned about unintended consequences with a few going forward. Anyway, I'm just telling you my instructions as I go forward from this item. But definitely supporting this one. Thanks.

And I hear that there are three others that you're going to want to advocate for. So noted. Mark.

Ditto. I agree with Ryan's comments. I'm prepared to support the change.

Great. All right. I'll just go to a straw poll here. All in favor of keeping the language the way it is currently. Please raise your hand. I got one. All those in favor of adopting the recommended language, please raise your hand. I've got eight. So this one will move forward. We can have the presentation up, please. All right, the next one is about the future of housing. So we say infill and change in neighborhoods can sensitively introduce opportunities for various housing forms such as duplexes, triplexes, row homes, cottage courts, backyard, cottages, ADUs, multi-unit buildings in areas like neighborhood one. And planning board would like to add small houses on small lots as one of those. Ryan said he wants this considered. Would anyone like to speak to this in favor or against? I got Tara.

Sorry, of course, I had to unmute. I like to text in their small houses on small lots. And I would also like to suggest from my hotline where I changed. Can you put that up for a second?

I don't know if anybody has that handy. Tara, do you have it handy?

No, but from memory, I can do mine instead of and multi, multi.

I got the language. I can just read it.

Thank you.

So currently it says backyard cottages, ADUs in areas like neighborhood one, and you'd want to insert the language as well as multi-unit buildings near transit in areas like neighborhood.

And my reason is, is because KJ, do you mind describing, I think the problem with multi-unit homes, et cetera, whatever that phrase was. I can't get it in my head. It's not in front of me. It's very broad and just a little bit too broad. Is that right, KJ? It's pretty broad?

Well, the term multi-unit home could reference a structure that includes three or four units or something that's 16 units. It's a format of a building as opposed to a number of units.

Didn't you tell me 192 units earlier today?

Well, in a certain part of town, there could be a project that would have that many units, and that would be considered a multi-unit building. But again, it's not based on the number of units. It's based on the way it's organized.

So just because I'm trying to keep us in the spirit of Neighborhood 1, I would like us to just add to that near transit so it's clear. that this is, to me, this is keeping more in line with neighborhood one, and it's flexible enough so that people should be okay with it, in my opinion. That's it.

Got it. So I'll add your suggestion to what we're strawpolling on. And I'll just call on myself and say, I think planning board suggestion is a good one. And personally, I think multi-unit buildings closer to transit is a great place for them. So I think that's a reasonable suggestion. All right, not seeing any other hands raised, I'm going to be pulling three options, keeping the text the same, using planning board's language, or using planning board's language in combination with Tara's about multi-unit buildings under transit. So all those in favor of keeping the language the way it is currently, please raise your hand. I got one. All those in favor of using planning board's language, please raise your hand. I got one. All those in favor of using playing board's language plus Terra's edition, please raise your hand. Yeah, one, two, three, four, five, six. So that is the one that carries the day, the playing board plus Terra's amendment. All right, moving on to the next one, if we can get that one up. So this is a very small change in the phrase In Objectives of the Future Land Use Strategy, Enhance Public Spaces and Connectivity, and where it says provide accessible parks, trails, recreation areas, and gathering places that connect neighborhoods, et cetera, it adds the word streets before parks. And Ryan, I think you already said you wanted to consider this one. Does anyone want to speak to this? Or we could just drop off.

Sorry, I want to speak to just, I'm curious why it says streets and is that inclusive of sidewalks? I just, you know, it's interesting that we use the term accessible and prioritize streets over sidewalks, which we know from our community members that use wheelchairs that the sidewalks at the aggregate are not as accessible as they need to be. I'm just kind of curious. Was that a conversation? Did sidewalks come up at all?

I can't represent whether that was part of the discussion or not, but we do talk about complete streets as being a standard and that speaks to sidewalks and tree. So that includes areas and such in our general.

So then just point of clarification, when it says accessible streets, streets include sidewalks?

Conceptually, yes.

Okay, thank you.

clarification. I'm not seeing any other hands raised. Let's go ahead and start all this. Who'd like to keep the existing language unchanged? Please raise your hand. We have one. All those in favor of the plain word recommendation, raise your hand. Eight. So that one will move forward. If we can get it back up again. So this is about the policy 29, 15 minute neighborhoods. There's a whole paragraph about 15 minute neighborhoods. And it adds in the language, the city monitors progress toward 15-minute neighborhood goals and communicates findings to the community. Does anyone want to advocate for this one? Matt.

I'm still trying to, I just have a question, sorry. What goals? I don't think we've defined goals, have we, for 15-minute neighborhoods or what defines a 15-minute neighborhood? I know we talked about aspirationally getting there, but I have a hard time pointing to something we've yet to set as a metric. And if indeed we don't have one.

Yeah. Thank you, council member. Yes, I think you're right. There are future steps that need to be taken to fully implement the new 50-minute neighborhood policy, and those have not been fully defined. I would just mention that this edit certainly leans further into the operational nature of how we will do things, and that's something we're trying to avoid in the policies.

So could I just offer that this is probably something maybe better suited in our strategic plan process? go through the community exercise to define 15 minute neighborhoods and then how we measure success around what does make a complete neighborhood. And then once we have that, maybe at the mid comp plan check-in, we reinsert language net once we have those metrics in place to then measure our success long-term. So I like where they're going. I just think we've got the order a little reversed. So I'm wondering if there's a way to, if we do reject this, say, hey, thank you, but there's a place we can still implement that down the road.

Thanks for that. And before I start calling on all the hands, or any of these hands, people that want us to adopt this, because if we don't have a threshold of at least one person, I think Ryan is nodding his head. So it looks like we do have someone. So I should, I am going to call on Ryan out of sequence, just because I'm trying to get to see if there's somebody who wants to promote. So Ryan, did you want to speak in favor of this real quick, and then we'll go to the other hands.

Thanks, Aaron. I do. And I know it's a little bit unusual and seeming operational. But I would just suggest that what we're talking about here, 15-Minute Neighborhoods, is moving to an entirely new way of measurement, which is about time. It's literally about how much time does it take people to get to places. And what I like about this is it's creating a prompt to say, we're going to have to do this. And so... I can see that it's a little bit out of order, not out of order, but out of sync with some of our levels of detail. But it's also a completely new project that we've got the whole community assembly or the workshop about. And it's really a big part of the whole BBC piece. So anyway, that's my case.

Thanks for that. Maybe real quick thoughts from Taisha, Tina and Tara.

My concern is the precedence. This is a specific call out to one. And if we call it out to one, then we should call it out to all. This is also operational and evaluatory in nature. Thank you.

Thanks, Tina. Taisha said it exactly what I was going to say. Thanks. Ditto to Taisha.

Very good. All right. In that case, I'll say who wants to keep the language the same? Please raise your hand. So no change. I got, I think, eight here. Okay, so we're not moving that one forward. The next one, if we can bring the presentation up, the next one got vetoed by the county commissioner, so I don't think we need to talk it over because it does require their approval as well. So let's move on. Yeah, Brian.

Sorry, Aaron. This is the one I had asked the question about before and was trying to imagine if there might be an interest in council moving forward the planning board version of this for the city. But I guess I kind of got a little lost in what we would do if there's interest. I think maybe it was move on from this, but then it would require a new motion. But how would we think about that procedurally? Yeah.

I mean, we could, I guess we could ask the commissioners to reconsider potentially, but they, this is a recommendation rather than a requirement and they did already say no to it. Okay. I don't know that there's really a function in talking it over internally and.

Okay, fine. I'll, I'll come off it. Thanks.

Thanks. All right. So back up with the presentation, this is about future land use definition for parks and mobility. And, um, It's adding some language, says parking and transit stops. It adds the words where provided are near entrances and amenities, providing accessibility and opportunities for visitors to move through green spaces. And it also adds motor vehicle parking makes efficient use of land and minimizes the amount of pavement. Ryan already indicated an interest in this. Does anyone want to speak to this before we take a straw poll? Tina.

Yeah, I have a word smithing issue with this one because it refers to the parking as motor vehicle parking in the second instance, but not in the first instance. And I don't think we refer to motor vehicle parking. If that's the term we're going to use, I would just suggest we use it at the first time it's described, not the second. I hate to say things like that, but it bothers me.

Does staff want to weigh in on whether they feel we're better off adding it back in the beginning or removing motor vehicle from the second or

Yeah, a quick bit of context there is that the policy as written that refers to parking and transit stops being located near entrances, that encompasses not only vehicle parking, but also things like bike parking and other areas. So we would want to make sure that that did not only refer to vehicle parking. And then the planning board's recommended changes was that when vehicle parking is provided, their interest is to make sure that that is using a very efficient use of land and minimizing the amount of additional pavement that's being provided. So that that's why there's a difference there.

Okay, well, then for what it's worth, I didn't catch that. So I don't know if it's worth clarifying or I don't know, but I don't care either way.

Given that explanation, maybe I'll just pull the no change or the language as proposed. Not seeing any other hands raised, so I'll go ahead and move to straw poll. Who wants to leave the language unchanged? Raise your hand. I got three, four, five. So the language is staying unchanged. All right. Now, if we can bring the presentation back up, and we're now looking at the planning board recommended land use amendments. So the first one of these is, looking at the parcels on the southwest and southeast corners of Belmont and Folsom and changing both of them from neighborhood one to neighborhood two. And just before I call on anybody else, I'm going to do something a little similar to Nicole's. I have a general thought on all three of their proposed land use changes. I really appreciate the urban planning creativity that the planning board was working on with these, and I think they're really intriguing concepts. But I do feel that given the sort of last-minute nature of the proposals and the fact that we have not consulted with any of the owners or users of these areas, that it's probably too last-minute to adopt them from my perspective. So I won't be supporting these, but it's not because I don't think planning board had some good ideas. With that, does anybody want to speak to this before we go to a straw poll? Tara?

Thanks for letting me speak. I also want to reiterate that I thought it was actually really creative on the part of the people who are trying to solve problems in a new and innovative way. So thank you to planning board. I feel it's the last minute and we haven't had enough community engagement for the people that are affected, but may I suggest that you start early and we have the five-year coming up before you know it.

Thanks, Rob.

Hal Hallstein, Real briefly, I wanted to know that because I think it is really creative, but it is without the Community and put a little bit last minute, but I love the creativity.

Hal Hallstein, Very good alright. Hal Hallstein, So all those who would like to keep the land use designation, as it is currently as it is currently in the plan, please raise your hand. Hal Hallstein, I got eight so we'll leave that the same. And then for the next one, let's go to that one. And actually, this one, I'm going to ask again if there's anybody who wants to advocate for it, like there was for the other ones. So this next one is in the areas bounded by west of Fullmont Park and bounded by Foothills, Valmont, Pearl, to change it from innovation and production hub to industrial construction. conditional on text attitude, which we did actually adopt. So does anyone want to advocate for moving this forward? I'm not seeing any hands raised, so we will not move this one forward. And the final one is about changing the parcels south of Walnut, extending to Boulder Creek to the south, foothills to the west, including eastern parking lot, extends to the railroad tracks, from industrial to innovation and production hub. Does anyone want to speak up for this one? No takers. So we won't move this one forward, but one more thank you to Planning Board for their creative ideas. All right. We now have one thing to consider from the County Planning Commission. We can bring those up. So two of them were vetoed by the County Commissioner, so I don't think we should look at them. But item policy number 53 currently reads local energy generation, city and county support programs and opportunities for individuals, businesses, and organizations to develop, use, and share local energy generation. I'll note a typo that it says NRE instead of energy. And the proposal is to add the word renewable before the word energy in the two places it occurs. Anyone want to speak to this before? Well, I guess I'll do the same. Does anyone want to advocate for this one? I'll go ahead. Brian, go ahead. I think it's great. Good enough. Any other quick thoughts before we go to Straphole? Aisha, then Mark.

Just from an ecological perspective, I think we need to be as specific as possible. And since this is aspiration and visionary, I think we should be pushing towards the cleanest energy and we know that to be renewable. We also know that all electric does not mean that they're using renewables and natural gas can still be used to which we also know is one of the contributors to the climate crisis. although not as bad as coal. So I would be a proponent of this level of specificity and this aspiration. Thank you.

Thanks. Mark, a quick comment? Yeah, I'm with Ryan on this one. It's terrific. I'm with Ryan and Taisha and Mark on this one.

He's with Ryan and Taisha. Thank you.

I did not want to slight you. Ryan and Taisha.

There you go. Okay, great. All in favor of keeping this language the way it was previously, raise your hand. I got one. All in favor of adopting the recommended language, raise your hand. I got eight. We got one more recommended change. So that is from the county commissioners. You can get to the next page, please.

Almost there. Next page.

There we go. Out of city utility service, the policy number 16, the county commissioners proposed adding the language. In any case, the city may provide limited utility services where there are health and safety issues. Does anyone want to advocate for this one? I'll go ahead and raise my hand. And I heard from CitySAP this wasn't necessarily strictly necessary, but I would like to work with the county commissioners where the opportunity exists. So I would adopt this change, but I don't feel strongly about it.

Mark? I'm not sure I see a downside to adopting this language and cooperating with the county commissioners.

Very good. Not seeing any other hands raised. I'll go ahead. And we can take the presentation down. And who would like to keep the language as it is currently? Please raise your hand. I got it. One. All in favor of taking, two, got two. Three. Three. No, no, two. Two, I got two. All in favor of adopting the recommended language from the county commissioners, please raise your hand. I got seven. All right, so we'll move that one forward. All right, y'all, we're getting close. What is left is the new items proposed by council members. And if I'm tracking, there were a couple of proposed amendments that have already been discussed because they were to other policies that we've already been talking about. So I believe that we may only be left with Rob's suggestion that was sent, I think, yesterday and then amended today. So, Rob, do you have that handy and can you speak to that?

I do have that handy and I would be happy to speak to it. It's on policy number 89 under fire adapted communities. and it is um a single sentence and at the end of it the sentence says the city considers an integrated approach to wildfire risk including emergency management planning and egress capacity when evaluating development that affects residential density within the mapped wildfire ignition zones And I think this is important because this is different than what I put in my first hotline. This is a different location. I did consult staff with some of the wording on this so that it wasn't too prescriptive or heavy handed and still open for them interpretation. But I think it's important to have it in there because as we, you know, we have these aspirations for multiplexes and density. And I just think it's very, very important. This is a life safety. I'm focusing on life safety here. And as we build within these mapped wildfire ignition zones, I think that it needs to be one of the topics that is in the forefront for evacuation specifically. And it's also an equity piece as well, because as I said in the hotline, When a community is taken out by natural disaster, it's often the residents that live there that can't afford to build again. And they're replaced by investors or just a wealthier demographic for various reasons. It could be in a lapse of insurance. It could be because they're on a fixed income and the price of rebuilding is just too high for them. So I just want to hit this from the life safety standpoint, as well as the equity standpoint. And it does tie together some of the other sections within the Boulder Valley comp plan. And I don't think it's creating any tensions or conflict. And yeah, if you have any other questions, but I would love to hear thoughts.

Thanks, Rob. Anybody else want to opine on Rob's suggestion? I got Mark and then Ryan.

I'd like to start with a question for staff. Are you comfortable with this language? My instinct is to be very supportive of it. I think it's an important topic and we need to have some consideration of the issues that surround wildfire resilience. And I think this is addressing it. So in your conversations with Rob, how did staff approach this? And how did they respond to it?

Um, thank you council member for that question. Um, this has come up today, so we have not been able to vet that with the emergency response. I will say, um, from, uh, just initial reactions, it, it does seem, um, benign. I think, you know, one of the things you all will want to decide is whether that is necessary or more operational, but we certainly respect council's will on that. Uh, just to, a mechanical question of whether this is being proposed as a condition of approval or amendment, if that can be clarified at some point.

The only thing I might add really quickly is that in our conversations and kind of thinking about the most appropriate location, staff believes that actually this might be better located as an example up on page 46, which is the topic spread around resilience to natural hazards rather than being added to the policy itself. But ultimately it's up to council to make that decision.

All right, then my comment would be that I am supportive of this because I think it's a very important policy in an environment where wildfire risk is ever present all day, every day. So thank you. Thanks, Mark. Ryan?

Yeah, so I sort of have one foot with Rob, and Rob, I really appreciate your work on this, and then my other foot with Nicole on being a little bit concerned about taking big ideas on at this hour. So I guess I also have a question for staff. Actually, it's two. My first question is, this is like a PD&S question. Is there a... Is there a way that one would look at this and it would it would become a like a lever to say, you know, we're not going to do how middle and affordable housing in a way that we otherwise would have, because there's now this sort of cloud over it with this. Like, does this meaningfully change the, I guess another way to say it is, will this meaningfully change what otherwise would be the type and form and number of housing we'd see?

Thank you for that question, council member. I think putting it in a policy clearly brings it to the forefront of any deliberations on specific land use cases in the future where the comprehensive plan applies. As with all policies, there will be a weighing of which of those apply to which. I believe from some of the discussion, I've heard that there is a consciousness of evaluating the amount of housing relative to fire risk. So hard question to answer definitively, but certainly would weigh in on the discussions in the future as implementation is done, not only for land use, but for budgeting and the other things that the comprehensive plan informs.

Okay, thanks. And then my other question is, you know, we haven't, as far as I know, we haven't really had a, analytical presentation or discussion to talk about the risk factors for for life safety and egress and you know the relationship between population transportation strategies and all that and so. i'm i'm trying to look at it and think it's general enough that it means not just this is not just about housing. But the word development also is considered a transportation strategies and taking care of people who don't have a car. and so on and so forth. So can you look at this and see that with me, that this means not just the built environment, but also our transportation strategies, and that that's what it's referring to? Or rather, does this really narrowly read as if it's about buildings?

councilmember uh Brad Mueller again I I'm not sure I can specifically answer that I would speculate that the word development would often um be understood in the future to to speak about new development but I think a case can be made that that does speak to all forms of development

OK, thanks. Then, Aaron, just before I come off it, if there's a way to add an adjective or a language or a qualifier in here to make sure that this is thoughtful and a holistic way about, you know, transportation and just the issues that we haven't really had a chance to analyze and consider. That would make me feel more comfortable. That might be hard to do on the fly, but. Yeah, leave it at that. Thanks.

And I'll say to council members that these are the kinds of things too, as we think about how we do the work where that fits in the strategic plan is the right place for some of that as we develop some of this and broaden it a little bit more. So. This is not the only time we're thinking about this topic. And as I saw from Council Member Kaplan's initial hotline, there is a particular focus on within mapped wildfire ignition zones. So there is perhaps less other types of developments there.

And again, Matt, I have a quick comment and hopefully we can fix trouble. Thanks, Aaron.

Rob, thank you for bringing this up. Our next topic of discussion, we'll talk about polling results. And I think it's been mentioned, we are learning rapidly from the community just how important wildfire response is and wildfire preparedness and mitigation. 75% of respondents said they want us to invest more in wildfire response. 73% say wildfire preparedness and mitigation. I think it would be highly responsible from our body and from staff's perspective to adjust to that clarity. This isn't bold or new or out of left field. This has very clearly been a leading indicator from the community for a couple of years now. I just hope that we can respond rapidly to what the community is telling us. So putting this in the document where Rob proposes, I think makes a lot of sense because it shows how quickly we can adapt given that they've given us effectively a green light to pull resources and get new resources to do this work expeditiously. So I appreciate Rob working on the fly to adapt to the community's prioritization that they've so clearly given us.

Thanks, man. And I'll echo that, Rob. I think this is a good idea and it's focusing in on something that we know is very important to the community. So thanks for bringing this forward. Before I straw poll it, may I ask, Rob, is it possible for us to do this as a recommendation rather than a condition, so as to sort of keep the process moving forward more smoothly?

Sure. We'd be open to that.

Very good. Thanks for that flexibility. All right. So like the others, I'm going to start our straw poll with who would like to leave the current language unchanged. I got one. And who would like to add Rob's language as a recommendation for the other approval bodies? We've got eight. So that will move forward. Thanks for that. Nope. Not yet. Eight. Definitely eight with Tara in there. Okay. I think that's it for the things that we need to talk about before we move on to motions. Staff, am I missing anything?

Nope. I don't think so.

Okay. Fantastic. So we have different motions. And one thing that I want clarification on is as we make motions, can we refer to the results of the straw poll that have already taken place? Or do we need to itemize in the motion exactly the actions that we want taken? And I'm hoping the former because that'll be easier. But Teresa, keep us honest here.

I am not totally prepared for that question. So you would make motions and include language like as indicated in the straw poll?

As indicated in the straw polls that took place during the meeting, yes.

I would ask our city clerk whether we have recorded the results of the straw polling.

I have not recorded the results of the straw poll, but I can go back and watch the meeting and document them in the actual minutes.

Okay. That would be sufficient. Staff separately has been recording it.

Okay. Great.

That would be sufficient. Thank you.

Great. Well, then let's move into motion time. And if people would indulge me, I would love to start our motions off, if you don't mind. So motion number one that they're recommending. So I move that we approve the major update to the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan as documented in attachment eight of the June 25th, 2026 stat memorandum. Second. I was a little nervous there. Okay, great. We have a motion in a second. Elisha, can we do a roll call on this, please?

Yes, sir. We'll start the roll call for the motion to approve with, as noted in the strong poll, with Mayor Probst in mind. Yes. Councilmember Adams?

Yes.

Benjamin?

Yes.

Mayor Brunkett?

Yes.

Councilmember Caplan?

Yes.

Barnquist? Yes. Schuhar? Yes. Speer? Yes. Ann Waller? Yes. The motion to approve is hereby approved unanimously.

Erin, can I say a quick word of thanks to you?

Short term, I can live with that.

Thank you so much. This was, I cannot believe how well you did this. It was really hard. I couldn't visualize this ending at 844, but good for you. Great job. Great job, Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I appreciate that very much.

I just wanted to add a thanks to staff because there were so many changes flying around and you really put it together in a way that we could actually have some hope of processing it tonight. So I just wanted to acknowledge, I can't even imagine how much work this has been and just want to thank you for getting it in a way we could make some decisions on it tonight.

100%, although we're not done with the motions to be clear. I very much agree. If nobody else wants to do the next one, I can keep it going. So our motion number two is that I move to approve the Board of County Commissioner conditions of approval as indicated by the straw polls earlier in the meeting for the major update to the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan.

Second.

Motion to second. Roll call, please, Alicia.

Yes, sir. We'll start the roll call for the second motion the table with council member adams yes benjamin yes mayor brockett yes council member kaplan yes marquis yes shoehart yes spear yes wallach yes and weiner yes our second motion on the table is hereby approved unanimously.

Fantastic. I will go ahead and keep us moving. I move that we approve with the identified modifications, recommended amendments to the major update to the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan as indicated by the straw polls earlier in the meeting.

Second.

Motion to second. Roll call, please, Alicia.

Yes. We'll start the roll call for motion number three with Councilmember Benjamin.

Yes.

Mayor Brockett? Yes. Councilmember Kaplan?

Yes.

Marquis? Yes. Shewhart? Yes. Speer? Yes. Wallach?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Weiner? Yes. And Councilmember Adams?

Yes.

The third motion is approved unanimously. Very good. We've got one more, which is I move to approve the major update to the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan with the City Council condition as indicated by the straw poll earlier. Second. Got a motion and a second. One last roll call, please, Alicia.

Yes, sir. The roll call for the fourth motion on the table regarding the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan. We'll start with Mayor Bracken?

Yes.

Councilmember Caplan? Yes. Marquis? Yes. Shuhard?

Yes.

Speer? Yes. Wallach?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Weiner? Yes. Councilmember Adams? Yes. And Benjamin? Yes. Our fourth motion is hereby approved unanimously.

Fantastic. Well, thanks so much, council members, for getting us through this. And city staff, you've done just such a remarkably incredible job with corralling all this information, working with the public, dealing with all the different approval bodies. I know the process isn't done, but this is a huge milestone, and I'm just so deeply appreciative of the incredible quality of your work.

Mayor, thanks for the acknowledgement from you and other council members too. And I, and I just have to thank the team for the quick work they did today and getting this in an organized fashion for you. So thank you team.

100%. I know you all have had a very long day starting, uh, this morning with the board of county commissioner. Okay. Well, that, um, brings us to the end of that item. I'm going to call for a break, but before we do.

Oh, I just wanted to, again, just add on to say thank you. But also, as the staff is considering future scheduling, I'm hopeful that we can coordinate so that the conversation around the airport decision occurs prior to us making some of these decisions, as there is one section that I do think would have significant clarification um following that vote um it's just as far as a process uh situation and in addition the code of contact conduct uh complaint i'm hopeful that that investigation if i'm completed uh again prior to um when we make these final decisions. I do believe that those two items do impact the credibility of the decisions that we're making. And so I'm hopeful that those things are in consideration for the timeline and process. Thank you.

Looks like that's noted by city staff. All right, let's go for... let's do like a seven minute break. So come back at 8.57 so we can refresh a little bit before our important ballot measure discussion. So I'll see you all here at 8.57. And thanks again for getting through that, everybody. Alicia, if we can go to our last agenda item, please.

Yes, sir. Our next agenda, and of course, our last agenda on tonight's, the last matter on tonight's agenda is the item number four, matters from the city manager. It is item 4A, the long-term financial strategy update related to 2026 potential ballot item poll results and fund our future engagement results.

Thanks so much, Mayor, and to save time, I'm going to go straight to our CFO, Krista Morrison, and want to just thank our pollster who has been in the wings waiting for us as we patiently as we dealt with the previous item. Thank you, Adam.

All right, well, good evening, Mayor Brockett and members of City Council. Krista Morrison, Chief Financial Officer. Dating back to the Blue Ribbon Commission reports of 2008 and 2010, a structural imbalance was identified driven by a number of factors. Factors that are still salient and relevant today. Most notably, an over-reliance on sales tax, which is a very volatile revenue source to the state of the economy. Highly dedicated revenue, limiting the city's flexibility to address organizational and emerging needs, and cost inflation outpacing the rate of revenue growth. With support from the Financial Strategy Committee and City Council, the long-term financial strategy was prioritized as a top priority in 2024. supporting staff with a two-year initiative, looking holistically at addressing financial sustainability for the city. The long-term financial strategy focuses on diversifying and providing more flexibility in Boulder's revenue sources, inventorying existing service levels and criticality of services, understanding community priorities and expectations of city services, and developing a comprehensive understanding of underfunded and unfunded needs and services. This work will be rounded out with the development of a long-term comprehensive financial plan forthcoming in November of 2026 that builds upon each of these areas of focus. The long-term financial plan strategy combined with the city's efforts to focus on cost efficiencies as part of budgeting for resilience and equity looks holistically at balancing both revenue opportunities and cost containment measures to ensure fiscal health of the city over long term. Tonight, staff and partners will provide updates on two long term financial strategy areas of focus. The first is 2026 ballot measure polling results, where we will be looking for feedback from council on which ballot measures you would like staff to proceed in development of ballot language for the November 2026 ballot. This will be followed by results of fund our future community engagement. So with that introduction, I'll turn this over to Adam Probolsky with Probolsky Research to talk about the 2026 ballot measure polling results.

Thank you, Krista. It's been a great opportunity to work with staff for I think the third year now. We really appreciate the opportunity. I'll put some context around this. You are not alone and you did nothing wrong to the fact that you need resources. And it's not my job to validate you all, but it's just the reality that we're seeing in communities all over the country. So the work we're talking about tonight is happening in hundreds of other places right now to figure out if they can correct an imbalance. And if you remember, we've done this a couple of times before in 2023 and 2025. help you identify opportunities at the ballot and understand what your voters are thinking. So I'll share the presentation and this is an executive version of that. Still 20 some months slides, but I'll move quickly and certainly interrupt or I'll be available for questions after. Very typical poll of voters and, in fact, likely voters. So there's a test we put on it. People who we expect to turn out. It's the work that pollsters do to kind of estimate who we think is going to show up. And that's who this poll was taken from among. English and Spanish, you had 1% of your respondents choose Spanish, but still give us more accurate because that small percentage had the chance to respond in the way they wanted to. Multi-mode, people talk to us on the telephone, online, really came on board in the way that they typically communicate. And so... giving you some first numbers. We asked them what types of infrastructure would you like the city to increase funding for? And we gave them a prescribed list, let them choose up to three. And you can see rec centers does come to the top, doesn't quite meet a majority, but it's pretty significantly stands out. And all the other items on there obviously have some, voters have some connection to each of those other items, but certainly rec centers come to the top. We give them the opportunity to, you know, reduce funds for something. And, you know, in this case, again, a prescribed list, but we took away the anything they chose in the in the first one. And you can see most or the plurality choose say nothing. I don't want to reduce funding for anything. But there's a couple of things that pop there at the top and but not of any substance percentage wise of of your of your voters. We. We put a question in front of them that we see as important and is something we typically see results like this. We give them the idea that if we delay funding now, we're just going to see higher costs later. And this is something we fundamentally know, but we'd like to validate that the voters understand this. And they do. They're all their own little mini economists. They get the answers here of the fact that if we spend money today, it's a better value. We also ask them, do you think the city needs more resources? And in this case, we start to get a little more closer to home, right? They start thinking, okay, wait a second, what are you going to ask me for, I think. So yes, you have a plurality say they agree, but you still have a significant group of people who say they disagree, you know, because they don't know what's coming next. And we then ask them a couple different ballot questions. This is a split sample, so half your voters in the survey got this question. There's a B side. This one is a $200 million maximum scenario of increase in debt. It's a bond, and it has obviously a lot of details in there. This is what it looks like on the ballot. Unfortunately, it's a lot of words. And you can see there is not support for this construct of a bond measure. When we look at it with $400 million and we have a different construct, there's more specific items laid out here, easier to see, you do have a plurality say they're voting yes in this B scenario. Now, keep in mind that the $200 million Million people didn't see the 400 and vice versa. So, um, but it, these numbers we would expect to play out broadly. So you do have greater support for 400Million than 200Million. Maybe counterintuitive, but it's because largely, I think, because we give a much more prescribed and, uh, understanding of what we would put those resources towards. Um, but still not a majority. Uh, we then give some messages because we want to understand, like, uh, what part of this is important to people and what would, uh, what would, you know, what information you might want to share with them, uh, along the way. Uh, one message, uh, is that, uh, um, uh, The bond could increase property taxes by 3.352 mils. We give them some details on what that would look like for their property. Now, you have 28% that say they're more likely to vote yes. You have about 40% say they're more likely to vote no. This does not mean, right, we don't get a majority saying, you know, no, it's not a big, big number, but it's still a net negative among the people who are voting on this or how they respond to this message. We also talked to them about the bond could fund recreation centers, give residents of all ages the opportunity to exercise, meaningful social interactions, what you could give them with improved recreation centers. And you see that 47% are more likely to vote yes based upon this, but again, it doesn't rise to majority, it doesn't rise to big, big numbers. And you can see among the people who said, no, I'm not supportive, you get about 15% more likely to vote yes. And you have about on the unsure, you do get most of them to come on board when you start to give more detail here. So it is a net positive message that you might want to talk about. Aging population and the fact that West Coast, I'm sorry, West Age Well Senior Center, we get specifics here. North Boulder Recreation Center, here's where we're going to put some resources. Net positive, but again, it's not that big of a motivation for people to be voting yes. You could replace and renovate fire stations and help sustain fire emergency services and wildfires. This gets us to a majority. When you talk about this, the funding these things, a majority of people say, yes, I'm more likely to vote yes on this bond based upon this allocation or potential allocation. And you can see among the unsure, really a massive number come on board. Similarly, you're going to take care of essential services. If you don't have these resources, we may not be able to really go into all these different things and be successful at rec centers and fire stations and civil buildings, if we don't have these resources. So that really does motivate people to be a little bit more supportive, a majority. And here, you can see the laid out messages. This is your kind of your cheat sheet. So, um. We kind of share the, the, what what someone might say in the public, or what you might say somewhere and what the response might be from your public. So some, some messages that are majority. Yes. And some that are not so moving to people. We then retest after we talk through those different things, and you can see that numbers are pretty similar. They're still in the – in this case, it kind of gets to a little bit bigger of a no vote on the 200 million vote. On the former million, the numbers move a little bit and we're still in the plurality. Yes, but not really in any significant way. So, not a lot of movement here. We then go to another possibility and that is a permanent park and recreation tax increase. And this would yield $7.5 million annually. And we give some details about what that would look like. And we have a plurality voting no on this. Even with all these details, it's just not what they're looking for. So I'll move to the next one where we talk about a message that this could, you know, on a one million dollar uh property and they're actually not terribly moved uh off of from it they've kind of actually almost surprised i think by the fact that it's not that much money so they're you know plurality more supportive but it doesn't really move people significantly We then go to our most popular effort here, and that is a vacancy tax. And you would yield about $6 million off of that. And we give them some explanation of it. And this, again, is kind of... You know, proxy ballot language, but but really just kind of explains the concept of what this would do. It's on unoccupied homes and 2nd homes and things like that. And you have pretty strong majority support for this kind of a tax. Of course, no. Most people in town will not be paying the sacks, or almost no one will, so it's an easy one for them to be supportive of. Still 30% voting no, but big majority voting yes. We tell them specifically here that this is really just on those second, third homeowners, people who have a place to come land for a couple weeks a year. That really is a motivational factor. Now they really understand what we're talking about, and 70% are more likely to vote yes knowing that. It's a strong factor for them. We test another opportunity for new revenue, and this is general fund debt. So really not a new tax, but just the opportunity for you to go into greater debt from the city hall and find those resources internally to pay that back. Plurality voting, yes. I think this is a hard one to really explain and understand because you know, it doesn't really kind of be it's not so easy to understand where the revenues are coming from, but you have plurality support for it. And so this would be a possibility because you're more differential, 33% no, 44% yes. We then kind of presented with some scenarios, right? What if we just had the record safety bond and the general fund debt, where would you support it? And you can see more support for the bond, but really nothing that gets you to a majority if you had all those opportunities to choose. We then give them kind of everything lined up and say, you know, what would you support? And we still, even with all those possibilities, you know, pulling at different emotions, 55% say they are going to support the vacancy tax. So this is a pretty solid number. I think you have a very good chance if that was on the ballot, if that was a policy decision, you would likely have success there as long as you did the outreach to explain what was possible. going to happen and really communicated with your voters. And we wanted to kind of, uh, kind of gut check the concept of what, what, uh, Krista was saying. And just in general, um, the, the idea of, of, um, you know, regardless of whether you support or oppose renewing, you know, increasing taxes, do you believe that this there's this gap, like this is happening and there's this, this differential and, and yes, they absolutely understand that you have a situation that you have fewer, fewer revenues than you need to fulfill the services you, you, uh, You need to, and they recognize that. So you're in a strong footing there. It's not something you have to really explain terribly to the voters. Just quickly, again, likely voters, not your residents, not even the voters. It's a tighter, much different group of people. So not as diverse as your community overall, because these are the people we expect to show up. A LOT OF WORDS THERE, SORRY, SO I'LL STOP AND CERTAINLY GIVE IT BACK TO STAFF AND BE AVAILABLE.

DEAN, QUICK QUESTION, WOULD YOU LIKE, AND MAYBE MAYOR, WOULD YOU LIKE QUESTIONS TOO ABOUT THE POLL CURRENTLY BEFORE WE GO INTO THE REST OR DO WE WANT THE WHOLE PRESENTATION?

We might as well ask Adam questions about the poll now, since you just gave that presentation. Adam, thanks for that. Counselors, any questions about the poll for Adam? Mark and then Tina.

Adam, obviously the poll numbers for some of these opportunities or possibilities are not what we would have hoped. But my question for you is, in a couple of cases, we are at a plurality, but not quite a majority. Do you think it is possible for any of these possibilities to be brought over the finish line if we work to do so?

So our standard perspective is that we would allocate unsures in the same proportions as the numbers in the yes and no. So viscerally, yes, I think there's a chance, but there's a couple of factors that come into play. One is a robust outreach effort. You None of you well, maybe individually, but none of you at City Hall are going to be out there saying vote yes on something because that's not what your, your ability is to do. But you could certainly talk about the dynamics of what you could accomplish with the resources and what happens if you don't have those resources. So, I think there's a possibility. I also, and you've probably heard me say this before. We are in a moment of national narrative that says things are bad economically, and we're not supposed to trust government, and that is not going to change. And so while you have an electorate that I think has confidence in you as a council, as a city, it still weighs on the possibility of something having success at the ballot box. And To further that is I don't like to see my clients go out and have a failure at the ballot box unless there's a desperate need for that, unless you have to prove that we needed the resources and we can survive without it. And I know there's a curve that that might happen at this point, but it's not a good idea to go out at a moment and ask for resources and fail is my concern over that.

Well, that was the genesis of my question. We don't want to fail. On the other hand, we have a demonstrated need for these resources. And there are not too many projects that we are going to be able to accommodate if we don't. And so if you said to me, this is a dead letter matter, go home, enjoy yourself. We don't want to put anything on the ballot. I would take that seriously. But if there's a possibility of convincing the electorate, 51% of them, that we can do this, that would be a really different situation to me because the need is clear. And everybody wants the rec centers. People want what they want, and we can't give them what they want and will not be able to give them what they want under current circumstances. Thank you.

You've got Tina and Tara and then Tayshia and Ryan.

Yeah, I just had a quick question in your experience. There are other taxing measures that might come on the ballot, including an early childhood, early childcare tax, and then also maybe a graduated income tax. If those are also added to the ballot, how would you think that might impact our success with specifically I'm interested in the $400 million bond and the second home tax?

I think your second home tax is relatively safe if that's a policy decision by council. Again, with outreach explaining what that means to the community. Beyond that, I think having other taxes on the ballot complicates some of those other opportunities you have because they're very thinly possible today. And I think it could reduce the chances of that. An early childhood funding is something I would expect probably has greater support than an income tax. My fear is if the default mode is no on something that shows up on the ballot, unless somebody tells me I'm supposed to vote yes on it or give me a compelling reason. So if I, let's say, show up and I look at the graduated income tax or something else that I don't appreciate, and I'm going to vote no on that, the likelihood of me voting no on something else is greater. So it does complicate things for sure, and it's definitely something you want to factor in. Sarah?

It seems counterintuitive that people would pick $400 million over $200 million, right? Yes. Do you think it's because you detailed the 400 million or do you have no idea or do you have another idea?

I think it is because we gave them bullet-pointed details on what we were going to fund. And it wasn't like there was no explanation of what $200 million was going to go towards, but we gave them hard things that they can grab onto at the $400 million mark. And that, I believe, is why we got greater participation, greater support for that.

that's it all right um i got taisha ryan nicole

These questions are related to the demographic analysis. And I've gone through this for the two and a half years that I've been on council related to these response rates and what more can be done. I have significant concerns around only four African-Americans are black identifying residents responding to this. One indigenous, eight Asian. So I was just curious, again, one of the equitable research practices when you see these kinds of low responses by category is to either do a focus group where the community connectors engage are involved. Basically, I'm just curious, what was the level of outreach when you saw these numbers? And not only from the race and ethnicity category, but also I noticed that 75% of respondents were homeowners, but we know that 54 or 53% of residents are renters. And again, I think it does matter. And having the more information about the renters. So I was just curious what additional outreach was done, given that, you know, again, just because something is statistically valid doesn't necessarily mean that it is void of bias and thus challenging the validity and reliability of the data being provided.

Sure, Council Member, thank you. So if I have the opportunity to do your community survey, I will be fully inclusive of everyone who lives in the city, and we do this in other places, and it is fully reflective of every demographic based on census. And if we can't get a certain percentage of the population because they're small, we would do community-based organization partnerships to get people to be supported on board, right? Exactly. In the case of this survey, you could almost suggest that I was biased because I had to be biased. I am looking at likely voters. I'm not looking at residents. I'm not looking at even among all your voters. I'm really tightening up that group. Among people who are going to turn out in the election. So as much as you know, in general, you want to have a broad perspective of what your community thinks. That's not what this project was about. It was about what's going to happen on election day. And that's why I have to talk to a very finite group of people, which I which I said is much less diverse than and very you know different than your actual community because that's who actually votes and and that's a topic of discussion you may want to increase voting uh propensity among all those different communities and and we can have that but that's not that's not what we're pursuing okay it's my understanding though that and again it's been a while since i've i've been on that app that shows how many black voters there are but i'm going to go with at least 400 and there's only four that doesn't that still doesn't seem like statistically valid but

The other thing is I was curious if you were using even-year elections or if you were using a composite, because this is going to be an even-year election, so I would be more interested in were you only using data from the even-year elections or was it a composite of both even and odd years?

So great, great question. We constructed the likely voter turnout scenario that got us to those demographics to show that they voted two out of the last four elections or they registered after 622 and they voted twice. That's how we arrived at the turnout model that we chose.

So unfortunately, just point of clarification, then that is not the case. there were elections included in that analysis, thus, right? There's more, we do know that there are more, there's stronger turnout, both race and ethnicity and renter on even your election. And so again, I just bring this up because this is a pattern that I've recognized, not just on this survey, but almost every survey that this council has been presented. And so when we're doing these type of analysis and conversations, we just have to have that caveat. So I just really appreciate your honesty and also the willingness when you're doing the community survey to make sure that we are hitting those numbers. Thank you.

I'm not your community survey guy. I'd love to be, but we don't do that.

Got it.

All right.

Again, you know, we just had a whole conversation about the comprehensive plan. We talk about equity. But this is where the rubber hits the road, right? Whose voices are counting when we are presented with information to make decisions? And again, I'm noticing a pattern where we are not being consistent in this area. Thank you.

All right, let's go to Ryan and then Nicole and then Rob.

Thanks, Adam. Just another question about ballot initiatives interacting. So if you imagine the $400 million item, and then the vacancy tax item together. Are you worried that the vacancy tax item could pull voters away from the $400 million item? Let's say I'm most concerned about the $400 million item. Does it fare better on its own or does it matter if it has the vacancy tax with it?

No, I think... In my mind, I would tend to go for the sure bet. So you probably put the vacancy tax and you live to fight another day. I don't think the vacancy tax brings down necessarily your – larger efforts. I just do worry about the larger effort potentially bringing down a little bit your vacancy tax. And so I think you could potentially be in a scenario where vacancy tax still passes and you're not successful with $400 million or one of the other scenarios you can pursue. I don't think vacancy tax has a negative impact on the other, but I just worry about the very tight differential with all the other options you have.

Aaron, can I colloquy? Sure. I would be curious if the $400 million tax could perhaps put the... the graduated income tax at risk? Would those be more comparable, or is it also considered pretty separate from each other, like there are three individual taxes?

I think one of the big factors is, and forgive me, I'm a little disadvantaged. I don't know what those other taxes will look like from a campaign perspective and an outreach perspective. And if we could get a better sense of what that will look like, and maybe we don't know yet, right? But if we get a better sense of what that looks like, I think I can offer a better assessment. And we're on team here for the duration. So We get to work with staff for the next several months to kind of interpret those things, and we can certainly give advice on that. But really, I think it's a matter of how those things are actually presented to the public and how robust those outreaches are. Ryan, did you have more?

I think I was just closing, but Adam, just to be clear. So I think I heard you kind of saying you like the vacancy tax better than the $400 million item because it's got a better shot. I like the $400 million item better because it's $400 million and not $1 to $2 million before costs. But I think you were concluding just to say the vacancy tax, you wouldn't expect it to have a deleterious effect on the $400 million item. You're not worried about that.

Yeah.

Okay, thanks. Nicole Monroe.

Thank you, I just have a couple of questions and thanks so much for the presentation based on what you observed in the poll results. Did it seem like a majority of voters seemed informed about the city's facility conditions and funding backlog before the polling process provided kind of a very minimal amount of very basic information.

So, I mean, we have some data on that. In the very early part of the poll, we asked them if they believe you have a need and, you know, a plurality says yes, 41% says no. So, yes, there's, I think, a significant recognition that you have a broad need. And, you know, if you look at some of those non-ballot measure questions. So first, there's a plurality that says you have a need. And then there's a big group who say that, you know, it's smart to spend money today rather than the future. And there's another big group of people who logically, after we've talked about all these things, understand that there is a differential. You're at a deficit when it comes to what you really need to accomplish. So if you put those numbers together, I think there really is a recognition among your voters that, yeah, There's a there's a need here and something you can they can help fulfill if they voted yes on on more taxes or a higher tax or debt or whatever it might be. So, yes, but it's it's a it's a story that was told. And and, you know, we'd like to look at a poll like this as a I hesitate to say, but like a campaign in a vacuum, like a messaging campaign in a vacuum, not political, but just telling that story over the course of, you know, 15 minutes. If you were to be able to talk through that with every one of your voters, yeah, I think you'd get to a place where they would all recognize the need. I think the, and if you were in a room with 100 of your voters, about half of them would organically recognize the need right off the bat. But it's not 80%.

Okay, thank you. And then kind of a related question. If the city eventually has to begin closing or reduce the services, especially at these places that voters say they really care about, like recreation centers, is there any risk that a majority of those voters may feel like they weren't informed?

I mean, certainly. I mean, I don't know exactly what the calendar of events is, but... That is a strategy that is done by some agencies when they learn that they don't have the support of the public. And I don't mean a nefarious strategy, but they don't have the resources. They go ahead and execute on closing things, reducing services. you know, and communicating why. And then at another future election, having the chance to give the voters the opportunity to reverse those changes. That is something that happens, you know, pretty regularly. So if that's what you're asking, I think there would be an arc there. And I think obviously you'd want to communicate very aggressively and why this is about to happen. And then, you know, all throughout how we can fix it potentially if we had more revenues.

Okay, thank you. Thanks, Rob. Thanks and thanks Adam for that presentation. We don't have any control over what else besides what we put on the ballot. So we're gonna have some competition with that and we have an idea of what it might be. That being said, we know what it's gonna take to fund the city and per your presentation, it seemed like you got more buy-in the more educated the voters were. So how do we do that? And you're the expert in this, and maybe this is even a staff question, and just because I haven't been through any of these cycles before, but is that the most effective way to pass a ballot measure? Or are there other ways? Or is there something that I'm not even thinking about that might be out of the box where you put something else on that drives a vote one way or another just by compare and contrast?

So a few things there. One is, is there a strategy to put something else on the ballot that would drive turnout, drive more engagement? You know, greater turnout is typically a driver for more success with taxes. And the logic there is the more voters, the more likelihood it is people who would be voting who wouldn't be personally impacted, right? If I'm and I don't pay property taxes, like fine, I'm voting yes, because I get something out of it, even though my parents do, but that's them, right? So a greater turnout is better. So if there's something you can contemplate to, and obviously more engagement is better, right? So something you put on the ballot to bring more people out, thumbs up, yes. And so that's one scenario. But and robust outreach education of your of your voters about what consequences either way is a very significant factor. There's limitations on that. And I would defer to the city attorney on any of those those limitations. But you definitely need to do that in a significant way to make sure they understand what the implications are and There is oftentimes something that happens outside of City Hall called a political campaign. There are people in the community, maybe even some people on the call, who would actively engage in a campaign, possibly yes, possibly no, because there's freedom of speech here. So that can be a definite factor. And if that happens, let's say on the yes side, that would be a significant factor because then they can actually talk differently than Citi could, right? They would be talking a very different language. And so those three things, I think, are all factors that you'd have to weigh as we get closer to the go, no-go moment. Okay. Yeah.

Thank you. Great. All right. Adam, thanks for answering all of those questions. I think we are ready to give direction to city staff. And Chris, correct me if I'm wrong about how to proceed now. So the questions are in the chat. I'll go ahead and read our first question or next question to deal with. which is, do council members wish to proceed with a tax increase ballot measure to support city infrastructure and operations with a focus on city facilities? And this could be so that's a threshold question. And then we'll get to if yes, do council members agree with staff recommendation to consider one of the two ballot measures, recreation safety bond at 400 million or the permanent parks fund expansion? So our threshold question is, do council members wish to proceed with a tax increase ballot measure? And I welcome a couple of thoughts on this, but I would also welcome not a lot of long speeches, because it's almost getting on towards 10 o'clock. And I'd like to move to non-binding nods of five on this.

So Mark, and then Matt. Yeah, I'm not going to repeat everything I said in my hotline. I think this is a critical moment for Boulder. I'm a little bit encouraged. by what I've heard from our pollster. I think there's a possibility of getting the 400 million over the finish line with respect to the other, the vacancy tax, since it will not be apparently a detriment one way or the other. And I know council, not me, but I know council has a soft spot for this initiative. I'm indifferent to whether we put it on or not, but I do think we need to swing for the fences a little bit because it's the only way we're going to fund the things we need to fund. And I'm prepared to take that chance. And, you know, let's go out and fight for the money that we have to have. Thanks. Thanks, Mark.

Matt? Sorry. um yes i think we should but we should do so with the caveat and with the clarity for community that austerity is not a synonym for sound financial planning planning and that's something that we've got to do a much better job of i think the big reason those aren't pulling very well is we're not showing we're balancing our expenses as well as we should given how everyone else is having to tighten their belts so even when times are good, not just when we need to cut 5% or 4% because revenues are down, our projections are down. So I think we owe it to community to prove the expense side of this before we're asking for 400 million. So I'm going to say yes, but we've got to make some clear overtures to community that we're really serious about focusing on funding our needs versus wants.

Very good. Tara and then Ryan.

You're muted.

I have a quick question for staff. So the 400 million versus the 200 million, do we pay more? We have to, this is a, we're borrowing money. How do we pay it back? Property taxes, right? Just asking for a friend.

Council member Weiner, Charlotte Husky, budget officer for the city. That's correct. Both of them would be an increase in property taxes.

So which would have the higher property tax, the 200 million or the 400 million? The 400 million, right? The 400 million bond would have a higher property tax. So why are we all decided already, council, that we're doing 400 million when we actually got polls that said people aren't interested? Wouldn't we rather go for 200 million and try to win? It's like we're saying, oh, it didn't poll well. Well, let's go for the highest number anyway. I'm asking us to reconsider 400 million and at least just do 200 million. That's what I have to say. Words, it's not a world where I think that I can vote for 400 million. I just can't.

Okay. Brian and then Rob.

Thanks. So it looks like you're going straight to the voting. I just was remembering I had a hotline which posed the question to staff, which was on Matt's point of that we do have work underway to improve efficiency and effectiveness. And I wanted to see if staff had an interest to respond to that. I know it's late, so you don't have to. But just if you prepared for that, please take a moment.

Thanks for the question, Councilmember. So the city has focused on cost efficiencies over the past four years in our budgeting process. We have implemented as part of the Blue Ribbon Commission reports, a key recommendation that came forward was focusing on outcome-based budgeting, looking at cost efficiencies. And so we started that in 2022. with a three-year implementation process and completed that with a 2025 budget. That is key to looking at our performance measures, key to looking at data-driven decision-making. We implemented that fully in 2025 and with the 2026 budget, really focused on bringing that forward and budget decision-making in the reductions that we performed in the 7.5 million balancing that we had to do last year and shared that forward with city council. And we do have several programs as examples where we brought forward examples of performance measures of programs and operations that were not performing as efficiently or effectively as they could. And so that led to some decisions for reductions. That work that we've been doing and that budgeting framework and approach we have shared, we are continuing to iterate and improve upon this year after year. And it is part of the work as well that we're doing with the long-term financial strategy and will continue to develop upon that year after year and will also help to inform the 2027 budget as well.

Thank you. Okay, Rob, and then hopefully we can move to getting a little council.

Okay, I kind of want to tie in what Matt said and what Tara said. You know, Matt's focus was on we need to really be accountable and we need to explain what these funds are going to to the public. To Tara's point, higher taxes, people... are a little reticent for that, however, I feel like the balance and it doesn't matter what I feel like this is up to the public, obviously, to ask them, but if we're if we're not putting out a measure that is going to solve our biggest problems and it's it's piecemeal. i'm afraid that it may come back and haunt us in a way where there's a grab for this money and where it should be allocated. I would just like to hear staff's thoughts on that.

I'm happy to just jump in and start here. I think there were some moments in talking to Adam that were a little enlightening. First off, I want to really appreciate the piecemeal approach, right? from our facilities group, we have a need on 15 priority facilities. Those are just 15 of our portfolio of buildings. That's really what's comprising the $400 million. I do think that is something to consider. We brought forth starting back in March, a basket full of tax measures and opportunities. we are just addressing unfunded needs in that 400 million of those 15 priority facilities. So I do think this conversation continues beyond this year and at both expenditure and revenue opportunities. So I do appreciate that approach. I also picked up in a conversation with Adam The 400 million, so the 200 million allows us to do a smaller number of facilities right now. And the 400 pulled a little bit higher. And I think part of that is because it's covering more buildings. It's recreation and public safety. So I do think both of those items combined from a financial perspective support our recommendation moving forward with the 400 million. And-

Was that about $400 a year per $1 million of assessed value? Council Member, that's correct.

Okay, thank you.

Mary, did you want to chime in?

Yeah, just a quick one that combines a little bit this question and a bit of the question that Councilmember Benjamin posed. And certainly, Charlotte gave a great explanation of some of the great work that this builds on, particularly as it goes to our finances. I also want to say that we've been working on a variety of operational and organizational efficiency efforts that go from looking at our internal services and doing some centralization in that aspect, thinking about where consolidation can be done. We have our internal audit program was reestablished last year to provide better objective value-based advisory consultation opportunities. on some of these programmatic efficiencies. And then there's also the customer service sprint and transformation that has just been launched off. That effort includes significant analysis into city business process, information, software, to continue to create efficiency. So I just want to say, we hear you. We know we have to continue to share that story out as we think about not just asking community, but also saying, where do we need to be tightening up our belt even more?

Very good. All right, so let's go ahead and take this non-binding nod of five, and I'm calling it that because we will not be making final decisions on what matters to put on the ballot until a public hearing later, but we're currently giving direction to staff on what items to prepare for a public hearing. So the threshold question is if we wish to proceed with some kind of tax ballot measure to support city infrastructure and operations and focus on city facilities. All in favor, please raise your physical hand. One, two, three, four, five. I got eight. It looks like nine. Got nine. All right. So we're moving forward with that. The next question, and I'm going to have to ask staff help with parsing this. It says, do council members agree with staff recommendation to consider one of the two ballot measures, recreation safety fund 400 mil or permanent parks fund expansion? So you've got do we agree and you also have an or in there. So can you give a little more clarification on what you're looking for?

Sure, Mayor. I'm happy to jump in here. So staff is recommending, in part due to the polling results, moving forward with one increase in property taxes. So it is either we're recommending either the $400 million or the permanent parks tax fund expansion and putting our energy into one of those items one of the two um in the memo we thought the immediate um need and support would be for the 400 million and then with the goal to do more education in 2027 on the permanent parks and fund expansion very good so I think maybe the question is which ballot measure would we like to move forward because I haven't heard from anyone that they want to move

forward and if somebody wants to disagree about that you can speak up so I'm going to uh pulse um do the non-binding not a five for which ballot measure we would like to move forward I did hear from Tara that was she was interested in maybe the 200 million so I'm going to put out three items there the 200 million bond the 400 million bond or the permanent parks fund expansion for the non-binding 905. And people are welcome to speak their mind on the specifics of those three choices. But hopefully quickly, because it is getting quite late. Nicole.

I prefer the $400 million, and I do want to take just a minute or two because I think this is honestly one of the biggest decisions we're going to make this year. I worry that if we don't put the measure on the ballot that keeps us from having to close critical buildings when they fail to the point where we're not able to keep services and programs running in them, when those buildings close or services shrink, voters are going to feel blindsided. We saw in the poll that Boulder's voters that value these facilities they understand the maintenance challenges and and the way that costs increase when we're not addressing maintenance and they shift towards support when educated so to me all that says that putting a measure on the ballot gives the public a voice before we have to start closing places that they value and the 400 million one makes sense to me because that is that is what it what it takes to keep everything as it is right now to keep all those services and programs in place. I don't like the idea that we would put something on the ballot after, for example, a pool fails and we can't reopen it. We lose a lot of capacity if that happens because we can't easily restart things when they go away. Even if this is a tough measure, it gives voters the opportunity to choose whether they want to invest in these facilities, the ones they rely on and care about, And then if we can't move forward, if the voters say no, the community understands the consequences and owns that decision. For me, this is just about giving people a choice. And I think it's important that they have the opportunity to do that so that whoever's on council in two or three or four years when these hard things start happening, at least they have something to point to that this was not a priority for the voters. Thanks.

Thanks, Matt. And then Taisha.

Oh, just, I guess, real quick i'm gonna whether it's here to here now sit i'm gonna support putting 2 things on the ballot. It have the community tell you quite clearly that they can see is like a massive priority, and then to choose not to put it on the ballot.

I'm just going to say i'm going to choose to let you know that yes, so The vacancy tax is actually we're going to consider separately.

I thought you were talking about whether or not we were going to put 2 taxes to taxes on the ballot. So you said, would you express that preference? So I thought that's what I was going to try to answer.

Yeah, so I apologize. The city staff was recommending that we put 1. City facility oriented tax measure on the balance. So, whether that be a quarter million or the market fund expansion, and then we'll get to vacancy tax next.

In fact, they're treated separate anyway. Great. So I'm going to go for the 400Million. Their main reason is. The reason we're in this problem is because past councils failed to take care of our maintenance. So if we don't get caught up with our maintenance, we're just repeating history. And then what do we say for it? So it's really important we go for it and get the 400. And if community rejects it, then they have to own the consequences of that. And that's a fair thing for everybody to recognize. But if we shield the community from their own responsibility in this, then we've done nobody any favors. So I think we go to the 400 and pay it forward and try to clean the slate so future councils don't live with having to make up for lost time like we have.

Thanks, Tara. And then Ryan.

Obviously, I don't want to do, you can take 200 million off because it's not going to I'll be the only one, but I will say that blaming the community if they don't vote for the $400 million, it gets me upset. Are we now blaming the community that we're in this position? And if they say no, it's because they don't trust us. I had a guy just say to me today, I'm not giving you any money, more money, because nobody answers the phone at the planning booth. At the planning department. I mean, that's how people think. They're like, you're not giving us the services that we need. Why should we give you any more money? So I'm frustrated because I don't feel like we can blame the community and hold them accountable when it wasn't their fault that we're in this position. It's basically government's fault, all of our faults or whosever fault it is. Actually, I don't even know whose fault it is. I would love to know whose fault it is, to be honest, and where it all started. And another thing is, is I'm sorry to like pontificate like this, but somebody said to me recently, we want to know, the community wants to know how we got here in the first place and when it started. So being more honest and saying how it started, when it started, when it crept up like this versus just saying all cities are like this, I think will be beneficial. I don't know if we want to go there, but in general, I am going to vote no, just because I'm just frustrated and I don't even want to vote.

May I colloquy with you on one?

You can.

I don't think we're blaming the community. We're giving the community a choice.

And there are implications from- Two people said that if we, if the community says no, well, that's their fault or something like that. No, that's what I heard. That's what I heard. I'm not okay with being characterized like that, really. All right. Okay. So then explain it because I'm emotional about blaming the community on this.

We're getting a lot of cross talk. Hold on. Hold on. We're getting a lot of cross talk here. All right. If I can call on people one at a time, can you raise your hands, please? So, Mark, you have the floor.

I just want to finish. It is not blaming the community, but there are choices to be made. This is a time when we have to make them. And it's not blaming the community. They are prepared to live with the reduced resources that we will have. And the consequences of those reduced resources, that's their choice. And they can make that choice. but it's a fantasy to say we can do the things they actually want us to do without the resources to do it. So this is not blaming. It's simply laying out to the community. Here's where we are. Here's what we need. Here's what you want us to do. And this is the only way we can do it. And you can come with us or not. We will live with whatever your decision is, but it's a choice. It's a decision we have to make. And we're just, you know, We're kidding ourselves if we think a half measure is going to deal with this. So I'm not blaming anybody. I'm offering them a choice. It's a difficult choice, but it's a choice nevertheless. Thank you. All right, Tara, did you have anything else before we move on?

There.

Nicole, I know Nicole wants to speak. I'm not blaming anybody. I'm just frustrated. You know, I would never blame anybody. I'm just aggravated. Blame me.

So I'm going to call it here, Aaron.

Go ahead, Nicole.

I just I want to make sure that like Mark were characterized accurately. Right. And I don't even know how I would vote on this. So I want to be clear about that. This is real consequences for a lot of people right now who are struggling in our community for small businesses. I get that. And so. it's not a, it's not about blaming anybody, but we as a community have to make some decisions. Are we going to do more and continue maintaining what we, what we have now or not that that's it. I have no judgment for anybody. I get that people will have differing opinions on this. Um, and that, that for me is what makes it so critical that we're asking community because it has to be a decision that we're making. Um, together and not just five of us here very good all right ryan you're uh

Thank you. Yeah, I'd also like to go forward with the $400 million item. And I think Nicole, Mark, and Matt have all said some intelligent things about it. There was a community member who asked me earlier this year, when we were talking about finance, he said, well, what's the next shoe to drop, Ryan? What is it? And this represented the feedback I've heard from a lot of people over the last year or so, which is, Just give it to us. Give it to us so we can see it, get our arms around it. And I think that's what we're doing here. And I think my understanding is from staff that this is it. This is a pretty good characterization of what we have for the deferred maintenance. And it's not just that, but this is the best way to address this increasingly expensive decay of deferred maintenance by taking care of it now. So I think there's a case that even if this looks like it's going to be a close call, if the community is going to want to do it, the responsible thing to do is to give the community the choice, see if they're interested. And I'm kind of with Nicole on this. I'm not sure whether or not I'll endorse voting for it, but it does seem right to give this choice to the community.

I agree with the colleagues that are advocating for the 400 million. I just wanted to add something that hasn't been discussed today. When the projections for those building costs were created, that was prior to what has been happening over even just the last three to six months. And I would argue that we can anticipate more costs in building maintenance than even previously. So just again, and just another reason why I think it's important that we're realistic about the costs that have been identified. And we know that we can anticipate larger costs given some of the increased economic instability, as well as the ecological instability. Thank you.

I'll go ahead and call on myself and say I really appreciate staff's work on this. I will also be supporting the $400 million bond because it is the amount that is necessary to take care of the facilities that are so important to the services that the city provides to the community. And I'll also note that it holds better than the $200 million bond. So I look forward to having that conversation with the community. With that, I will go ahead and pull the three options, the $200 million, $400 million, and the Permanent Parks Fund expansion.

No, Erin, you could take the $200 million off, really.

Okay. Well, we'll just start with the $400 million. How many people are in favor of the $400 million? Raise your physical hand. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight. All right. So that is going to move forward. So that was our non-binding number five to move the $400 million bond forward for consideration of the public hearing later on this year. All right, we got one more of these to talk about, and then we do also have to hear about engagement, which is also very important. So we're not quite to the end yet. So our final question of the moment is, do council members wish to proceed with the vacancy excise tax ballot measure? I would welcome short statements on the question before we do another non-binding notifying. Or maybe even just one, Matt.

Since no one else is going to speak up, I mean, one, this poll did really well. We know it's going to be successful. I think it's really critical that we show that this is really just a repatriation of sales tax revenues the city would otherwise gain if these homes were occupied. That's really all this is. And if behavior changes as a result, great. But emptiness and vacancy is not helping our community at all. In fact, one could argue it's blight if it persists for too long. So I think it's straightforward. The community says, yes, we should give them what they're asking for.

Very good. Seeing no other hands raised, I'll just say I agree with what Matt said. And then just I want to make sure that we do work on the details as we move forward. So, for example, we don't want to be taxing homes that are vacant when the landlords are trying to rent them. You know, it's really for about second and third homes that are designed to be left empty more than half a year. So I look forward to having a discussion about those details as we move forward, if that is the will of council. Take care.

Briefly, just wanted to also chime in from a Sundance and Visit Boulder perspective. Really grateful to see that we're already at the 80% threshold for the short-term rentals. I know that was a concern, and I've heard from many, many community members about their concern around second homes, particularly related and specifically related to Sundance. So I just would appreciate, in addition to just the economics of it, the signal of we really want people to live and stay and work and play and go to school here and not have second and third homes. Thank you.

Thanks. Not seeing other hand raised. A non-binding nod of five. How many people would like to move the vacancy excise tax bill measure forward? Raise your fiscal hand. I got eight, seven, seven. I got seven. All right. So we'll move that one forward for further considerations. Thanks, everybody, for the polling and the staff work and the discussion on that. And let's now move to the last section of this item. Krista, are you going to take us forward?

I'll just give a very brief introduction. We have Micah Intermill with us this evening. Micah is partnering with us on some of the long-term financial strategy work to include the analysis and setup for Fund Our Future. So he is going to be with us through the development of the Long-Term Comprehensive Plan. So excited to introduce Micah to this group. And he and Stacy Polakova with the Budget Office will be presenting on the Fund Our Future results.

Excellent. Thank you, Krista, and good evening, Council. My name is Micah Interim with Gov Strategist. I'm a boutique management consulting firm that works with local governments around the country. I spent about 20 years in government myself prior to doing this work, most of it in finance, including four years from 2017 through 2020 as the budget director for the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, which is home. What draws me to this work is finding the governments that recognize that the steps that brought them here were valid and important at the time, but won't get them where they want to go next. So in short, I aim to help local governments solve for tomorrow's future. And I see that Boulder is indeed one of those front foot governments. And I think that's demonstrated by your long term financial strategy. And I'm really glad to be a part of it. tonight is a report out on what we heard through the fund our future conversations this spring to be clear what we're asking is not for you to adopt any rankings set any budget numbers or commit to any ballot measures we're asking you to take in what residents told us hold it as one input among several that are feeding the 2027 budget as well as your 2026 ballot conversation and what you'll see eventually in the the November long-term plan So here's a road map for the remaining conversation. We'll talk about what we did, what we heard, and how it gets used. The bulk of our time, though, is that portion you see in the middle. So in any set of data, there is signal, there is noise, and our job tonight is to cut through the loudest signals, cut through the noise, excuse me, to the loudest signals from the community. With that, I'll turn it to Stacy.

Good evening, Council. Stacey Polykova, budget analyst here. The intended outcome of the engagement was twofold. Educate residents on budget constraints and receive input on where they would increase, maintain, or reduce investments across the city. A separate question asked whether residents would accept new revenue to ease the constraints. The core component of the engagement was an exercise. The budgeting exercise asked participants to allocate 100 dots across 25 services with four dots signaling keep the service as is and more or less signaling trade-offs. Every added dot forces a cut somewhere else. The engagement efforts were implemented through two channels, community conversations where we had 63 participants and one online feedback channel where we had 536 responses. The combined channels resulted in effort to target the overall community. Our reach was 599 residents weighed in across eight community conversations and the online survey. This is real reach, but is self selected, which shapes how much weight each finding can carry and how we interpret the analysis. Who responded? The response leans towards homeowners, older and higher income individuals. Renters are about half of Boulder and represent a small share of those who responded. Aggregating this data provides a lens for the usage of this engagement data. That gap matters when it comes to service delivery, most notably on housing, which we'll come to. We'll start with the common ground. Wildfire is the strongest signal in the survey, ranking top five for both renters and homeowners, with about three quarters wanting more investment in services, and it's reinforced in the written comments we received as well. After Wildfire, both groups support an operational core, so services such as facility maintenance, pavement, and snow and ice, all ranking top 10 out of the 25 services for renters and homeowners alike. This is the foundation everyone agrees on, where they part ways is housing. And that's the next slide, which I'll pass back over to Micah.

Great. Thank you, Stacey. So I think this is the most important interpretive point in the deck. So we're going to slow down just a little bit. So on housing, the two groups don't just differ. There's sort of a hard split. So renters rank affordable housing investments number one, even above wildfire, above maintenance. Homeowners rank it near the bottom around 20th. So due to the sampling proportionality that Stacey just spoke to, the overall survey shows a signal to reduce housing investment. But when you look at what's underneath, that reduced signal is really a homeowner signal. So it shows up because homeowners were most of who answered, not because this city as a whole wants less housing. So renters being close to half of Boulder's households with this survey reaching fewer of them, we just want to make sure that you're not reading this as ranked citywide direction and you really do pay attention to the teasing apart of the two groups. If you were to reduce housing services on the basis of the survey, It would be a fair critique to that you'd be acting on the views of one portion of the community over the other. So just wanted to flag that out and out and clearly. Next slide, Stacy. So in addition to that split, we also heard two competing budget philosophies, really. So one puts investment into infrastructure and enforcement, things like maintenance, pavement, police patrol, the managed public spaces program, and would offer cuts in housing and shelter in order to balance those increases. The other puts dollars into housing and housing and human services, affordable housing, rental assistance, sheltering with cuts and enforcement. So obviously no single budget would be able to satisfy both. But I think what is interesting and important to note is that there is a shared diagnosis underneath, which won't surprise anyone here, particularly given the conversation on the comp plan updates earlier, Boulder has a housing problem. So as you work towards the resolution and add housing supply, you're going to be easing the demand for enforcement and human services alike. So the real question is, what do you fund right now? And while that supply catches up, while also working methodically on the larger solve. And that really previews the long term comprehensive financial plan as well. Another signal that gets to some of the education conversation you all just had is that based on these conversations, revenue appetite is real but it's conditional so some comments support raising revenue others pointed to cutting spending first just as we were talking about but in most cases the the revenue raising signal came as we are willing to pay more if and the clearest if was wildfire which is to say read it as There is willingness or high willingness on wildfire and core protection, but it's not a call for a new dedicated tax. It's really a flag that as the city works through how it raises and allocates revenue in that long-term plan, as discussed earlier, wildfire linked investment would likely carry community support paired with that credible continued spending discipline story that you all were just calling for. So the last signal, and I would say it's really about the environment and not the data, a number of comments question whether the input would actually be used. And I read that not as a knock on Boulder, but just as Mr. Grabowski was saying, the broader climate that we're all working in is challenging. It's real, you're not unique in it. How I would suggest you respond to it is that when you as Boulder, whether that's staff, whether that's elected officials, make any decision that runs counter to what residents have weighed in with, you explain why. And that transparency builds trust and you won't rebuild it overnight, but every step really is the next step. Decisions are yours to make. The risk isn't disagreeing with the input. I think it's appearing to set aside input without saying why.

So the findings we presented on will be used as one component in three areas. The 2027 recommended budget, wildfire response and prevention is the high confidence, the green light and ongoing maintenance. Maintenance is similar, similarly supported. And affordable housing is strongly supported by renters in the feedback. The ballot strategy decisions. Wildfire linked revenue holds the strongest support with ongoing maintenance. Second, as Micah said and we've discussed, when it comes to revenue, there are benefits from a spending discipline story and a long-term financial plan. The findings feed the November plan where priorities, revenue, and policy get sequenced together.

So we've mentioned the long term plan a few times, so now you get the why. So about 68%, as you know, of the city's revenue is dedicated to specific purposes. And over time, the city has built really strong programs with those dollars, and that's great. The challenge, as you know, is that it crowds out the room to fund the basics. So core services are competing for what's left. As you know, maintenance has given first and residents have flagged an understanding of needing to be able to support that the annual budget can't resolve this in in one swing it's built to set this year's service levels not long horizon questions and that really is the plan's job so sequencing renewals sunsets new revenues so that they reinforce each other instead of colliding sort of one ballot at a time So tonight's a readout. I and staff will develop the structure and the contents, and certainly staff will keep you updated along the way. so um what that looks like is we're starting tonight with a report out over the summer these findings will feed you know your continued budget cal your continued ballot conversation excuse me i'm tongue-tied at this hour of night as well as budget development um through the fall we will build out that comprehensive financial plan and it comes back to the city in november The thing to hold on to is again that long term plan is a sequencing strategy. It's a guiding force, not a deciding force. Those decisions will come along the way as the plan unfolds as plans do. But without it, without that plan, you're moving from fire to fire instead of moving with intention, which is what I hear you all clamoring for. So the city should be commended for that engagement. I think it was a good first effort and really important for where you're headed with the broader plan. With that, the team and I would be more than happy to stand for questions.

All right, thanks so much for all of that fascinating information. Do we have any questions for Mike or Stacey? Tina?

Yeah, thank you for joining us and nice to meet you. I just had a couple questions about some of the population. When we think about, in this case, when we have the 50% of renters, do we know which percentage were students at CU? And the reason I ask that is because students aren't generally eligible for our structured affordable housing program. So I was just curious if you had sort of a... a breakdown of students versus non-student renters?

So it's a good question. I'm looking to Stacey. I don't believe we asked a student versus non-student demographic question in the survey. We may be able to look back and see sort of cross-reference age with renter as a proxy, and we can certainly follow up with that.

Okay, and the reason I sometimes bring up students, we don't talk about it a lot, is that they're about 73% of our renters. And it's just because we're a university town, so we have some interesting dynamics going on here.

I might add just briefly on that one. We did have targeted outreach that we focused on for youth. And so while they were not CU students yet necessarily, they were part of the Youth Opportunities Advisory Board. And then we also worked with community connectors and residents, but there was not a targeted student population that we worked with.

Okay. And so then for the Yoab piece, for those students that were less than 18 years old, that was sort of the K through 12 population that we were connecting with? That's correct. Okay. And do we know which percentage they represented in these meetings?

We have that breakdown, uh, that we could, uh, but we do have the breakdown of the in-person versus the, uh, online, uh,

totals okay thanks and then my other question is when we frame the word affordable did we get a sense that people were looking for subsidized government housing or looking for housing they could afford but with an ownership or a non-subsidized opportunity did we get a sense of that

Micah, feel free to chime in on that.

So each of the different services that we had folks weigh in on had a definition with it. So affordable housing investments contained a specific definition of what the city of Boulder is doing in that area. So yes, sort of different from the conversation around affordability and attainability that you were having earlier with the comp plan, but it was defined as part of the instrument.

Okay, so it was focused more on subsidized housing that was government, like it wasn't just attainable, it was more affordable.

Yes, I don't have the, I don't have the definitions right in front of me, so I don't want to give you a specific answer that's wrong. I don't know if anybody.

Yeah, I think Stacey's looking at it right now, but I can share from some of the conversations that we had with community members. They were focused less, at least in some of the conversations that we had that were in person, they were focused less on direct subsidized housing and more so of more of housing stock availability. Stacey, I don't know if that gave you enough time to.

Yeah, I'll add that the conversations we heard were around housing stock and availability, but with the budgeting exercise, we presented two services. One was rental assistance, which was helping tenants address housing challenges and eviction prevention. And then the other was affordable housing investments, which is more of that second category we just mentioned. So it was twofold.

Okay. And was there a preference in that or? And you can send it to us later. It doesn't need to be. It's super late. So I've already had like at least one too many questions.

So thank you. One of the things that I'll note to council members, we did publish recently this week the results of the fund our future engagement. And so that's also available publicly on our long-term financial strategy website as well.

Okay, we've got Taishan Lintera.

Yes, I was wondering when or how other strategies outside of sales and property tax are being considered for this long-term strategic financial plan, and specifically around enterprises like the city owning a solar company? I've asked about this several times. So sorry, Micah, welcome to the team. I've asked about this. I'm not on the committee. So I keep asking and I've been told we're just going to wait and we're doing this first. But I'm just really curious. I just got back from I serve on the state land board working group. And there was a couple examples that we gave of different cities and towns that have been able to lease land. um land state land and actually generate renewable energy on it one town in particular is going to be covering 50 percent um of of their residents needs it's a small town but still it was certainly very inspiring so just was curious if if and when that's coming down the pike thank you for that question council member and and micah feel free to chime in uh after uh um

We are, as part of the work with the long-term financial strategy, as you're aware, and as we've shared with council over the past couple of years, one of the main work streams and focus areas within the long-term financial strategy is looking at alternative revenue sources. And so not just looking at property and sales taxes, but looking at other types of revenue streams that include looking at other types of taxes and fees and types of mechanisms like you're mentioning. It is something that we could look further into with our partners at Climate Initiatives and sort of add to the mix of alternative revenues that we're exploring. But I, you know, as Michael was mentioning in the presentation, it is much of a sequencing event and thinking about the multi-year horizon. And so that's something that we'll need to consider as we look into future years.

Okay, thank you. And again, I just ask, I know that the Climate Initiative team is already looking into this. So, and given the increased climate inconsistencies and PCPC or whatever that acronym is, we know we have energy instability, so which will exacerbate our costs in a variety of different areas if it's not addressed. So, Again, just eager to get to a place or, you know, please let us know when we're able to prioritize it, especially for those of us who are not on the committee. Thank you.

All right, Tara, bring us home.

I'm going to bring you home like this. I want to thank the people. What are your names? Stacey and help me. Micah. Micah. I loved your presentation. I thought it was really interesting analysis. I assume it's in our inbox. Is it included in the slides that we got earlier today? If it's not, I'd love to have it so I can study it further. That's it. How's that for bringing us home?

Beautifully done. All right. So thanks for answering all those questions. Anything else that you need from us before we wrap this evening?

I don't think we do. I will say that this is an ongoing conversation. We know there's more information to put out there, not just from this, but from the perspective of storytelling on where we are and how we got here and what we're going to do about it. And I'll say that this long-term financial strategy work is something that really has not just gone over council's priority. This is something we have been working on for quite a few years. It will continue to be something that we work on. So while we get out of the hole that we are in under deferred maintenance, good governance and good fiscal stewardship continues into the future. So you will be hearing more about this as we go forward.

Very good.

Maybe a better voice, Mayor.

There's nothing wrong with the voice at all. Okay. So thanks so much. So we're done with our agenda for the evening. So it is a little on the late side, but we did an enormous amount of important work between staff and council. So thanks, everybody, for hanging in there with us and getting it all done. With that, I'll gavel us closed at 1025 p.m. Good night, everybody.