Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Welcome, everybody. Okay. Okay. All right. We have a small legal consultation going on prior to open comment. But I want to say welcome to everybody and welcome to this June 16th meeting of the Planning Board. I'm Chair Kaplan, and I'm going to call the meeting to order. We'll do a brief roll call. So here, we don't have our little placards up that we normally have. So I'm going to introduce all of the board members. So all the way to the left from the viewpoint of the audience is board member Mark McIntyre, board member ML Robles, board member Kurt Nordback, vice chair Claudia Hanson-Thieme. I'm Laura Kaplan. And then to the right here, we have board member Mason Roberts and board member Max Lord. So we have a full compliment of planning board members tonight, and we have just one agenda item, which is the continued planning board, public hearing and consideration of a motion to approve the major update to the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan. And this item was continued from June 4th, 2026. But first the first item on our agenda tonight is public participation. and waiting for word from our legal counsel the public hearing on this item is officially closed we closed the public hearing on june 4th at that joint meeting we had with city council and so i'm waiting to hear whether we need to ask people tonight to limit their comments to all matters other than the bvcp

So the board's rules state all meetings shall include an opportunity for public comment on any matter relevant to the board's responsibilities. Matters of the public members of the public may address any matter not scheduled for a public hearing on the agenda for that meeting. So this is a continued public hearing, so I think members of the public are not supposed to speak on the item that's on the agenda today.

Okay, thank you for that, Hella. So that's the final word from our legal counsel. So we welcome comments on any matter related to planning board business except for our public hearing item tonight, which is the adoption of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan. So I'm going to turn the meeting over to staff to run the public participation portion. And will that be you tonight, Thomas, or do we have Vivian online?

Thank you, Laura. That will be me tonight. And I'll go ahead and do we want to share the advisory board protocol slides that we normally do?

Yes, please.

Okay. Okay. First of all, I'll just go over some basic rules that we have for public participation at city meetings. First of all, we want you to know that the city is engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive, meaningful, and inclusive civic conversations. And that this vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members, staff, and board and commission members, as well as democracy for people of all ages, identities, lived experiences, and political perspectives. For more information about this vision and the community engagement process, you can visit our website at the link below. And the following are examples of rules of decorum found in the Boulder revised code and other guidelines that support this vision. These will be upheld during this meeting. All remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city business. No participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person. Obscenity, racial epithets, and other speech and behavior that disrupt or otherwise impede the ability to conduct the meeting are prohibited. And participants are required to identify themselves using the name they are commonly known by. When we call for speakers, which will be just after I finish this slideshow, if you'd like to speak, you can indicate that by clicking the raise hand icon at the bottom of the screen by hovering your mouse or your finger, if you're on your phone, over the bottom of your screen. Or if you're calling in, you can press star nine. If you don't see that raise hand icon, you might see this reactions icon, which you can click to expand, and then you'll see the raise hand icon there. And with that, we're going to go ahead and open up the open comment portion of the meeting. So if you would like to address any matters that are not on tonight's agenda, please go ahead and raise your hand and I'll call on you. You have three minutes to speak. So far, we have one raised hand. First up, we have Lynn Siegel. Lynn, you'll have three minutes. Please begin.

I couldn't hear what was on the agenda tonight, so I want to be sure not to address it. Could you say?

The adoption of the BVCP, Lynn, and welcome.

Oh, so I can't talk about the BVCP?

We ask that you not talk about a public hearing item, which is the BVCP.

I already testified on that public hearing previously, and this is a continuation, right?

Yes, and the public hearing on that item is closed. So any other item?

Okay, well, that's pretty hard to do because the BBCP is everything to do with this town. It's the master plan. So I guess I don't quite see how I can testify then because anything I say, which I'll tell you, the economics of, for example, water and our drought situation And what we do with densification, with population in Boulder, that's very relative to the BBC plea. So how can I speak about anything at all? Can I?

Absolutely, Lynn. You can speak about any topic as long as it's not specifically about the adoption of what is in the draft BBC plea.

Okay. Okay. Thanks. That's reassuring. What we need in Boulder is... is a quantification of the use of all the infrastructure of each person in Boulder. And we won't use the BVCP word, but that needs to be done. That quantification needs to be made so that we can't overpopulate the place and then be regretting it when we haven't When we can't take a drink of water. No, seriously. And when we can't have enough police. And when we can't have enough libraries. And when we can't reconstruct the rec centers and all of the infrastructure that runs in this town. When... CU is overwhelming. I don't know what the population is. I'm sorry, it's 107,000, but I don't know if that's CU included at 35,000 or not. And I've lived here since 1987, and it's still unclear to me. I think everyone in town should know those figures. What's CU? What's the population of Boulder? And what's the distinction? Is 35,000 included in the 107 or not? I doubt any of you know that. I just bet you don't because I sure can't find it out. And CU is huge on our impact on this town. And not doing anything about CU turns it into a ridiculous discussion because CU is the elephant in the living room. So how we deal with that is critical as to each person's contribution and CU's is high up there. So please do something. Stop already. Too much of a good thing with CU and with densification in Boulder. Thank you.

Thanks so much for joining us, Lynn. And if we have any other members joining us tonight that would like to speak during the open comment period, this is your opportunity to go ahead and raise your hand. Otherwise, I'm going to pass it back to the board chair in just a moment. And I'm not seeing any others coming up, so I'll pass it back to you, Laura.

Thank you, Thomas.

Thank you.

So I'd like to begin by welcoming up our Director of Planning, Brad Mueller, to say a few words to open the evening.

Brad Mueller, Opening the evening. It sounds like the show is about to start. So thank you. I am Brad Mueller, Director of Planning and Development Services. I want to, first of all, congratulate you all for getting to this point. I think I overheard a little discussion, side discussion happening before the meeting. That this has been 18 months since you all engaged in this opportunity with us and with the Community or 20 months depending on how far back you want to count that very first open house. But it's an exciting moment for us, and we hope exciting for you, too, as we draw into the closure on that. I do want to remind you all of something you know real well, that there were many opportunities along the way to give feedback, both as maybe witnesses to some of the public participation elements, but participants as well, the various work sessions that we had, and, of course, ultimately the hearing that happened I know you appreciate this, but I just want to emphasize it and also really thank the staff and acknowledge all the work that goes into not only doing the doing, but the really tough intellectual exercise of trying to reconcile a lot of competing ideas, a lot of feedback from the community, from you and the other three bodies that decide on this. recognizing that they have done really the academic effort of trying to pull together those in a way that we think are honest to your intent and still balancing the fact that we got a lot of different opinions that we need to reconcile. You've heard from us the themes that came out early in the engagement, how that got winnowed down to other themes and ultimately to the draft and And just the iterating on that and trying to be real respectful of getting your voice captured, getting others' voices for a consistent document that you have in front of you. And that's why we've asked in the study session, the joint study session with council, some of the sessions leading up that to envision a day when we're not doing too much wordsmithing, not doing too much changes. I do want to acknowledge that even as we've said that, I think in messages Christopher sent out about the potential of not having changes or not having many changes, there was some criticism from the public who maybe read into that as staff trying to say, oh, you can't make changes. We're past that time. We're pencils down. I do want to be here to be emphatically clear that no This is still a hearing. No, it is still your document to share with the other three bodies. And we recognize that there's potential for change and the possibility of it, and we've accounted for that in scheduling and things like that. But I do want to be honest in the fact that we do have three other bodies to balance that against. And again, I know you know that, so I'm not trying to overemphasize that point, but just speak to some of the mechanics of that. We are suggesting tonight, and I think that this kind of was laid out earlier, that you consider adopting the plan as is and then potentially adding amendments to that. And that would be consistent with how you've approached other land use cases, for example, where you've adopted the motion and then made amendments. Of course, ultimately, that's your decision about how to handle that. But just as we've kind of thought through that, mechanically as staff, that seemed like a good approach. You'll all decide whether that makes sense or not. And then I think hella early on, and maybe we've reinforced that an option that you would have is the amendments could be ideally suggestions. in the form of things that aren't necessarily binding to the other three bodies, that is, things that they might consider, but if they didn't agree with you on that, you would be okay with the document as it moves forward. That's one approach, so those kind of non-binding amendments. And then, of course, it remains your purview to make those that you say these must be adopted for the approval to be acceptable to you. And I think you know, but I just want to lay it out for the public. And as a reminder, in that scenario, then we would be circling back to planning commission at the county, county commissioners, and city council a second time with those changes if they were to not adopt them and move forward. You're in the enviable position, I will note. being the first one, so that does mean that the cascade goes through them first in that situation. We hope that you engage us as staff. I know that the public hearing, of course, is closed, but we're here and certainly want to be a resource to you through the evening and answer questions, starting with if you have any procedural questions. But thank you again, and thanks for the opportunity, Madam Chair, to make a few comments.

Thank you so much, Brad. I'll go ahead and ask for any questions at this time. And then I'm going to talk through a little bit about how I plan to facilitate the meeting tonight to get us through the changes that have been proposed in advance. I also want to offer people a chance to offer any remarks. I'm going to offer some brief remarks of thank you and praise for staff, but other folks should have that opportunity as well. So, but first questions, Mark.

I am of the variety of a comment and praise rather than a question. Go right ahead. Is this the appropriate time?

Please go right ahead.

I want to say that in the time between our last meeting, our joint meeting with council, and today, this particular meeting, the gravity of it has weighed on me. I have... thought about it a lot and I want to emphasize that for me I don't want any I have a change that I will be proposing but that change and my advocacy for that change should not be interpreted as any diminished diminishment of staff's excellent work of the commitment that is shown and what in in an overall condition is an excellent draft plan. So anyway, I just want to make sure that that's clear. But on the other hand, I view this as a 10-year plan with a five-year midterm update. And the weight of this is significant on us as voting board members. And it's significant on us individually to get it right if we feel deeply that in fact a change needs to be made. And so again, the weight and the opportunity are greatly appreciated and I don't want any advocacy to be construed as anything other than a difference of thought between board members and staff.

Thank you, Mark. Beautifully said, and I couldn't agree more. Other board members want to offer comments or have questions? Okay, well, I would just like to say, This journey has been amazing. Doing a comprehensive plan update is one of the biggest undertakings that a planning department could have. And it has been an absolute honor and a privilege to be on this ride with my fellow board members and the ones who have rolled off but were with us for the earlier years and with staff. And I just want to personally thank and acknowledge the long-range planning team in particular. Also, but not at KJ, Kathleen, Sarah, all of your colleagues, Brad as the director, Hela as the lead attorney, and others who are not here with us tonight, Mark Wolf, who's here representing the CAO. It has just been such an amazing team effort. And I agree with Mark 100%. You as staff have had to try to read our minds and try to take all of this input and weave it together in the best way that you could. And I'm honestly not sure how you could have done a better job. And not just our input, but also the community's input. And not just the folks that we hear from regularly who are very involved in city processes, but also trying to make this the most inclusive BVCP update ever. And I think you did just an amazing job at bringing community together. And there will always be criticisms. And, you know, if we are honest with ourselves, there are things that perhaps we would do different in hindsight. But you have done just a laudatory job. I can't praise it high enough. And I agree with Mark. It is now our job as the deliberating bodies, the approving bodies, and here tonight planning board, but the other three bodies as well, to play the role that we are designated in the city to play, which is a bit of transparency and a bit of oversight and a bit of back check, and also to argue with each other and to negotiate with each other and not always agree and try to get us to the best place we possibly can. And that work shouldn't all fall to you. It falls to us. So that's what we're here tonight to do, is to make the the best job that we can at making excuse me, whatever changes we think are necessary or advisable to the plan and then seeing how the other bodies feel about it. And that is just a normal, natural, and I think very productive part of the process, even if it takes a little bit longer. Okay. So I don't want to prolong too long. I'm going to move into how I'm going to facilitate tonight. This is my proposal, and if anybody has a strong negative reaction of please don't do it that way, let's talk about it, okay? Because this is our board, and we're all here together to work together. So our goals tonight are to be smooth and efficient, but also thorough. I don't want anybody to feel like they can't do the work that they're here to do because we're pressed for time. I also don't want to draw this out. So we'll be balancing those competing needs. I want to thank Brad for going through the recommendations that staff has made for how we can try to do this adoption process efficiently. I want to note that the two options that we have been given are very similar to what we do in site review, as Brad said. We approve a plan, ideally, and we can either make changes that are conditions to that plan, right, that the approval is contingent upon those conditions, or we can adopt the plan and then make suggestions or recommendations that are non-binding afterwards. It is the right of every planning board member who suggests a change to decide do they want to propose this as binding or non-binding. condition or a recommendation so I'm gonna use that language are you proposing a condition or are you proposing a recommendation for a later motion so is that clear does anybody have questions about that terminology I'm gonna use yes ML should something go forward as a recommendation would staff be able to take any action on that before it goes to City Council before it continues on its journey

Can you explain what you mean by could staff take action on it?

Yeah, would staff be able to make that word change or that, you know, I don't know.

If by action you mean like carry it forward, we would note that that's what planning board's recommendation is, approval with this binding recommendation, so they would have it. If they don't accept that or if they accept a variant on it or if they add their own recommendations,

we're going to be back with you with that okay so it will show up as a list of recommendations yeah and while we call it recommendations to distinguish the two types you would be proposing it as a change And if all the applicable approval bodies also approve that change, then it would be adopted. But if they don't, then it would default back to the plan that was adopted or the language for that particular section that was adopted by the board in the plan recommended by staff. Great. Thank you.

Yeah. So I do think that's an important distinction is that staff aren't going to be doing any additional staff work. We can't send them off to analyze something between now and then. So we have to, whatever changes we are proposing, we have to know what they are tonight and be specific about them. And ML, I noticed that you had some questions and they all seem to be things that would lead to a specific change. So I'm not worried about that. I think that if we want to make those changes, we can. And then I also just do want to note and put an emphasis on what Hela said, which is if we make it a condition and the other bodies don't agree, then there would be another round of trying to reconcile and negotiate. If we make it a recommendation that is non-binding and the other bodies don't agree, it stops there. It gets discarded. There's no additional work, no additional negotiation, no more hearings. Okay? Okay. So we understand the two pathways and that each person who's proposing a change can propose which pathway they want to follow. So on the table, we have to consider, and first of all, I want to thank all the board members for your judicious review of the plan. I know everybody looked at it very carefully, whether you're proposing changes or not. We have from Kurt, 10 proposed text changes and nine map changes. From ML, potentially three text changes and three map changes, but perhaps some Q&A leading up to that. Mark has one significant change he wants to propose. And I have two text changes. Marks is also a text change. Because some are text and some are map, I'm going to propose we go through all of the text changes first and then circle back and do the map changes so that we don't have to be switching back and forth between text and map. And that is a total of 28 items. And I don't know, some folks have suggested they may have a last minute thought to throw in and that is fair to the same way that we have at any hearing. If you want to propose something new, you can. Okay. But we have 28 known items. I think some of these will go faster than others, but we potentially have a long night ahead. And so I'm going to walk us through what I propose is that rather than trying to do each one motion, second vote in that like all kind of walking through it fresh, I propose we talk through the items first and take straw polls so that we then at the end of the meeting can make a clean motion for adoption with whatever amendments we have straw polled and know that they're likely to be successful. as one bundle and then we make or we can approve each one each amendment separately if we want to have a separate vote tally on each one maybe that's a better idea but save the actual voting for the end of the meeting and then separately if there are ones that are recommendations we can do that as a separate motion after we do the plan adoption so is that clear i'm proposing we talk through them and do straw polls so that we can set up a clean set of motions at the end Does that make sense? I'm seeing some nodding heads, but maybe also some furrowed brows.

So given that structure, I have prepared remarks. So I would make my motion, or I would state my motion. I would not begin with, I move. I would say, my motion will be.

You're getting a little bit ahead of where I was, but yes, I'm going to give each person a chance to state what your proposed change is. Give us your rationale. People can ask you questions. We can have conversation about it before we go to a straw poll. And I will ask you before we straw poll, are you proposing to make this a condition? And if so, we'll go ahead and straw poll it as a condition. And then even if the board decides we're not willing to do it as a condition, if you want to, as the motion maker or as the change proposer, if you want to propose it as just a recommendation, maybe the board's willing to approve that, you have an option, a second bite at the apple as a recommendation, even if it didn't make it as a condition. Does that make sense?

Yes. Thank you.

Okay. Okay. Sorry, Mark. You got there faster than I would have. Okay. Any other questions about the process? Okay. All right. So then, oh, and I forgot to mention, I will also, for each one, I will want to ask staff, is there any unintended consequence we're not seeing here? Do you have advice for us if you think this might be not a good idea for any reason? I will ask you that as well, because I think staff should weigh in on that. Yes, Brad.

I think that's all great. Just a clarification. Were you going to potentially vote on the plan as a whole before getting into the straw polling and all?

I think that, I mean, it's going to end up the same. Like when we end up doing a motion, we're going to move to adopt the plan. And then before we vote on that, append any conditions to it as individual amendments, which is the same thing that we do for a site review. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I'm not seeing a furrowed brow from the attorneys. So I think, I think we're in the clear. Okay. All right. Thank you. Hello. Okay, so with that in mind, do I have a volunteer who would like to start us off? I was actually going to suggest, Kurt, we might want to start with some of your changes since they're pretty small and discreet and they might give us some easy quick wins. So is that okay with you, Kurt?

That was an optimistic term to use. Yes.

More so than starting with Mark or me or Emil.

Okay, sure. Sounds good.

Okay, so Thomas, could we pull up the list of Kurt's changes? Do you have those?

Yeah, I have some. Well, I could also certainly just pull up that PDF, but I have some of this copied over into this Word document here. I was also going to put the motion language once we make it into...

Yeah, I think the motion language we can save till the end of the meeting. And we're just going to go through the straw poll on each of the proposed changes. We'll talk through each one. So, and Thomas, are you able to keep track in this document of our straw polls? Is this a PDF or can you type into it?

I can type into this.

Okay. All right. I can also help keep track. Although, does anybody have paper I can use? I didn't bring any paper tonight. A piece of paper? That'd be great.

Thank you.

All right. So, Kurt, do you want to start us off with your first change? Tell us what is the language that you're proposing to change and why, please?

Sure. My first proposed change is from page 7, which talks about the very basic initial philosophy, really, of the plan. And I will be fully transparent. This is not a change that I really came up with. It is from a council member who talk to me about it, really for the purposes of expediting the process so that it could come to us first. And if we pass it and they pass it and everybody passes it, then it'll save the round trip. So the current, the proposed terminology says this plan is driven by our community. 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. The idea is that Historically, well, originally in terms of transportation, people talked about moving cars. We have gone beyond that, to our great credit, and we talk about moving people, which is a huge improvement. But really, the modern terminology is more around access, how to access people. Dave Kuntz, destinations and opportunities, as is written here, so I am proposing this as a recommendation, not as a condition. Dave Kuntz, In support of Council and the idea is just to bring this terminology to a more modern usage and concept of transportation and the role of transportation.

Okay, so this is being proposed as a recommendation, not a condition. Does staff have any reaction? Is this a bad idea? Would this do something that we don't want it to do?

Hi, Kathleen King, city planner. I can't remember the rules of when I have to announce myself or not. No, this change could be supported by staff. I think the thing that maybe it doesn't achieve that the recommended language achieves is shooting for that eighth grade reading level. So that's the only concern we had.

Okay, I'm going to ask for a straw poll on this as a recommendation, but does anybody have any questions or discussion before we do that?

Yeah, I've got a question.

Yeah, and how, if we did, since, yeah, this is the beginning and we're just moving through this process, if this becomes a recommendation, how would the other bodies interact with it as a recommendation?

Yeah, I'm happy to try to speak to that. So Christopher Johnson-Cumry, it's a planning manager. So if this is being proposed as a recommendation, not a condition of approval, so essentially you approve the plan and would like to make this change, but if it doesn't happen, you're okay, you can live with it. um we will be documenting all of these items that ultimately make it into your motion language and we will be communicating that to the other the other three bodies so we would be notifying planning commission tomorrow before their meeting that this change was suggested and recommended by planning board and then the same with the board of county commissioners and city council

they would then have the opportunity to accept that change deny that change or modify that change and that's up that's up to them individually ml has a question um if the uh recommendation or condition has is not um part of boulder county then It would just go to City Council, is that correct? And the loop would be smaller?

Yes, that's correct. So if you suggest changes to, say, a policy that only references the city, it would only be up to Planning Board and City Council to make that change. The county would not weigh in on that. So is this through all the bodies? No. I would actually say this is probably only city council and planning board. The IGA is pretty specific about the county weighing in on policies that reference the county, but they would not necessarily be consulted on just the introductory language of the plan.

Thank you. Max, did you have a follow up?

Yeah, so I just want to be abundantly clear on this before we turn this into a snarled mess. If we did not do this now, if we did not adopt this language and the council did want to, would it wind up getting kicked back to us? And that's the sake of efficiency that we're discussing.

Yes, that is correct. So if... If council or any of the other bodies suggest changes that you all have not discussed that are new, we will still have to come back to you for your approval of those changes.

And I cannot speak for those other bodies. So everybody can weigh the likelihood that this is going to go through four bodies and nobody's going to suggest any changes after us. You can assess that probability for yourselves. I personally think it's probably going to come back to us no matter what, that one of the other bodies will suggest something that's going to have to come back to us. So, but that's my speculation. I do not know. Okay. Any other discussions or questions before we start? Claudia.

So since we're just starting off, I wanted to say a few words generally that I think will explain many of my votes and hopefully save some words for later. So looking at each of these proposals that board members have brought forward, whether they're doing that as a condition or recommendation, I've been asking two questions of each of them. And I want you all to know that my bar for saying yes is quite high for both of these questions. And the first question is, Does the proposed amendment correct a substantive shortcoming of the plan? So basically, will the proposed change make a material difference in how we apply this plan to policy and development proposals going forward? And is that then worth the extra effort potentially of negotiating with the other bodies or jeopardizing other areas of agreement that we have? So that's question one. Question two actually is a little bit of political calculus, and that is, is the proposal likely to be supported by members of the other approving bodies? And I know not everybody has that answer, but it's definitely something on my mind. And I'm not suggesting that an issue isn't valid if there's not that majority support out there, but rather I'm going into this with a real awareness of the political realities of getting consensus. on a wide-ranging document. And I don't think any of our goals are well served by getting into what I would see as a doom loop of conditions and negotiations. So these are the two bars that it's got to meet for me. So in the case of this particular language change, I really do appreciate the detailed suggestions. I appreciate the work that advocates, mobility advocates, have done to change our language around mobility. I think that globally, the words that we use do make a difference in how we think and who and what we see when we talk about transportation. However, having seen how we apply the BVCP, I don't think these recommended changes will make a significant difference in policy or development decisions going forward. It is easy for an aligned decision-making body to read them into the current language. It's as easy to do that as it would be for a future unaligned body to ignore this proposed language. So as much as I personally like these edits, I don't think they reach that bar for wordsmithing for me.

Thank you, Claudia. Okay, any other discussion?

Could I jump in quickly, actually, with a quick question, just procedurally? Understanding we're not at motion making yet and just at the straw polls, but realizing that these changes, when they come about as motions, will need to be in the form of motions. I don't know, perhaps, whether Hala or the board members who are proposing them could try to structure this ahead of time into motions. written motions before we get to that stage.

I would be happy to take a crack at that. We can take a short break before we get to the actual motion making and then just try to frame it as motion motion to make the following recommendations.

Sounds good. Yeah. I was just concerned about these strikeouts and how that's going to be represented in a written motion language.

I understood. Thank you, Thomas. That's a good catch. Thank you. I think I saw another hand. Did I? More discussion before we take a straw poll.

Yeah, I guess I'll, I know that once again, we're got a long way, but I think that Claudia actually was quite exemplary in trying to structure her way of viewing this. And I'll kind of echo that sentiment that I too believe that taking this back and forth is only going to defeat this for all of us. And, um, small semantic distinguish like separations is going to make it more complicated. And even if that is in the effort to try to save council time, et cetera, to Laura's point, if it comes back, I think that we should just let them do that on their own because they're still going to have to vote on the exact language either way. So I think that for me personally, what I would be interested in seeing along with Claudia is primarily, you know, recommendations over conditions at all quite frankly and them to be substantive enough that we as a unified body can stand behind it and know that we've made a meaningful impact not so much that we're doing this for to save somebody else time not so much because in that effort i think that we may actually tangle the the yarn even further if a counselor wants to have this very specific language in it we can vote yes when they send it back

Well, I'll just say for myself, for me, this is an easy yes. I think it is unobjectionable language. I can't imagine I could be wrong. But some of the other bodies might be like, no, we absolutely cannot accept this change that planning board has recommended. And therefore, they're going to, because it is a recommendation, if they say that, then it just ends there. There is no kicking it back if it's just a recommendation. So I just want to make that clear. Recommendations never get kicked back. It's either all four bodies or all two bodies, depending upon who needs to accept it, accept it, and then it's included, or it is dismissed. So with a recommendation, I don't think we need to worry about tangling anything up. The one thing that is, I think, a potential concern is It does take time for them to go through each one and say yes or no, unless they decide to group them together and just say, we are going to approve the entire slate of planning board recommendations unless somebody wants to pull something off, right? They could do it that way too. So I think Aaron has tools and staff can help Aaron with those tools if he wants help or needs help. Aaron is a good facilitator. He's a great facilitator, so I'm not worried about it. There are tools to try to make this more efficient. So for my two cents, and I'm not trying to say that the way Claudia is approaching it is wrong or max your comments. I'm just saying the way that I'm going to approach this is if I think it's a positive change and unobjectionable, I'm probably going to say yes because it's important to somebody enough to raise it tonight. And I think it's a good idea. So I'm probably going to say yes to a lot of these. But everybody can approach it their own way. Okay, with that in mind, shall we take a straw poll? Folks who would like to say yes to including this as a recommendation, please raise your hand. Five, I see five. Okay, so this one, straw polls as a yes for a recommendation. That was five to two. Okay, thank you. So that was, we worked through a lot of the process things. Kurt, moving on to your second change.

Yeah, the second one is from the future of housing section, which outlines a variety of possible infill forms. It includes duplexes, triplexes, row homes, cottage courts, backyard cottages, ADUs, and multi-unit buildings. I am suggesting that we add small houses on small lots because it's not clear to me from the way this is stated without that, that that really should be included. And so I want to make that explicit.

Thank you, Kurt. Questions or discussion?

Was this a recommendation or a condition?

Sorry. I am proposing this as a condition.

Thank you.

And Kurt, do you want to say why you're proposing it as a condition? Because I think it's really important. I think that we have not done a good job of creating small houses on small lots in this city. In fact, we've done really kind of a miserable job. And but I think that they're a great housing form that allow people to have few fee simple ownership of their properties that are much more affordable, much more sustainable, much more equitable. And so I think that it's it's important that we make explicit that these are a goal of the city.

Thank you. Any questions or discussion? Oh, yeah, ML. And then I want to ask staff what you think. Is there any unintended consequence? Would this be hard to do? What advice do you have for us? Yeah, ML.

In looking at that, my question is, wouldn't that be a zoning? That's where it's allowed as in zoning? Yeah.

But that's true of all of these. I mean, duplexes, triplexes, row houses, those are all determined. Whether they're allowed or not is determined in the zoning, right? But in this future of housing section is where we talk more generally about the kinds of things we're trying to achieve. So yes, this will hopefully inform the zoning. But that's sort of the, as I see it, the point of a lot of this future of housing section is to inform the zoning, other parts of the land use code as it goes forward and other policies.

So that's kind of implying that we create more small lots. Because if somebody has a lot they're going to build, they're going to have a house on if it's residential, right? they're going to have a house on it. And what you're saying is that we want to encourage small lots. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, small houses on small lots.

Well, you can't get a big house on a small lot just by zoning code as it stands. But that's the implication is you're really wanting to propose making smaller parcels.

Yeah, that's part of it, certainly. Because, yeah, part of the goal would be achieved having small houses on large lots, but that's not a very efficient use of land. We need to use land more efficiently in this city. And so small houses on small lots makes more sense to me.

Okay, thank you. I do want to go to staff for reactions to this proposed change.

Yes. The list of those housing types is not intended to be exclusive. We use the terminology such as to provide just examples. So we don't think the edit is necessary, but we also don't have a conflict with it if it is added.

Mark? I'll just simply say that I understand that. I also know that when we are in the depths of a complex site review and we are parsing the intent of the BVCP, and not that this would apply to a large site review, but what I'm getting to is we parse the words in the BVCP very carefully. And when something is missing, even though it is prefaced with a such as, I have heard us say, it doesn't say that specifically, or it says that specifically, but it doesn't say this other thing. So to me, this inclusion is to generate intent and to inform future Title IX changes. And so I'm all for it.

Max.

Yeah, I love small houses. I'm building a thousand square foot house. I live in a 700 square foot apartment. I'm really hesitant to endorse anything that's a condition. Just moving forward, it's like a recommendation still has full likelihood to make it through. But if it's a condition and it does cause qualms moving forward, we wind up in the aforementioned doom spiral. So I'm very, once again, like love small houses, love the recommendation, but I'm very hesitant to add conditions about things that are this, what I perceive to be pedantic.

So, and I'll speak next. I'll say I appreciate that concern. I don't see this as being a controversial change. I see it as being very much in line with the list that's up there of trying to encourage smaller housing types. I don't know that there's a movement against having small houses on small lots, if that's what the property owner wants to do. I do think this could come in handy, for example, in an annexation where, you know, we've had examples of annexations where the property owner was proposing doing a lot of subdividing or having lots of small units and some of the neighborhood was against it. And we thought it was a good idea. So this, I think this language could be very supportive of that kind of a proposal, especially in an annexation where you're taking a large lot and trying to, carve it up to some extent. So I'm supportive of including it. I think making it a condition shows that we do think it's a substantive change and that we're serious about it. And so I would be supportive personally. But if it doesn't get four votes as a condition, we can also just try it as a recommendation.

Okay.

Are we ready to straw poll? Okay, we are going to straw poll this one. So if you are in favor of including this change, small houses on small lots, as a condition, please raise your hand. I see three. Okay, so that one fails as a condition. Kurt, did you want to try it as a recommendation?

Yeah, let's try it as a recommendation.

Okay, let's poll it. As a recommendation, who's in favor?

i see six six to one okay it is included as a recommendation all right two for two go ahead kurt thanks uh the next one is from policy 82 which is about housing diversity and supply which currently reads as proposed uh sorry as the the draft reads 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. My concern about talking about promoting a full spectrum of housing types is somewhat similar to what I was getting at in the previous one. If we're promoting a full spectrum of housing types, that includes everything from very small houses, which is great, to gigantic houses, you know, 6,000 square feet or whatever. That, to me, is the full spectrum. And we're saying we're promoting that. I don't have any problem with people living in a 6,000 square foot house or whatever. but I don't think that it's appropriate for the city to be promoting that. That's not an efficient use of resources. It's not an efficient use of land. It goes contrary to our affordability goals and so on. And so I'm suggesting replacing that, a full spectrum of terminology with affordable and attainable to imply that we're focusing, what we're promoting is affordable, The lower and middle range of the price spectrum and not the full spectrum.

Thank you, Kurt. I want to go first to staff and see if you have reactions on this one.

Yes, this particular policy was primarily written by our Housing and Human Services colleagues. So our planning staff, you know, aided with some copy editing and things like that. But really, this is from our Housing and Human Services department. I would be cautious about changing this and you know from our perspective really i think the the approach here is to speak to the supply question we have never addressed supply in the comprehensive plan before directly um and we want to make sure that we allow ourselves the flexibility in the future that we are promoting the full spectrum and the full range of outcomes housing outcomes to provide opportunities for the full range of community members and i see brad has stepped up to the podium

Yeah, Brad's going to step away because he realized his point was not accurate.

Okay. All right, Brad. Thank you. Brad, do you want to turn that mic off there? I'll just say, I just want to put out a question, which is, I wonder if by saying they're promoting a full spectrum of housing types and price points, that's an acknowledgement that we have some in abundance and some that are missing and that they're trying to fill in the missing parts of the spectrum. I wonder if it's not just a semantics issue rather than saying, I can't imagine that our housing and human services folks want us to promote 10,000 square foot houses. But yeah, go ahead, Mark, and then Emil.

I'll just simply say we have a really large industry that employs a lot of people that promotes large houses and single family, large family lots. We have magazines dedicated to it. We have large businesses dedicated to that. It needs no help, no assistance, no unintended assistance from the city. It is a very, very healthy industry and it's growing. So I am all for this particular change in wording.

Thank you, Mark. ML.

I will just add that I was at the HAB meeting when that conversation about influence, what influence can HAB have on the BBCP. And I think the intent is more aligned with what you're proposing. Because The language might have been. The full spectrum, but they were talking about. That the full spectrum is we've already got this stuff so let's pull the spectrum bigger so that we can capture the stuff that's missing was how the conversation was going, so I think that the. Unintended consequence was that the full spectrum includes something that's already plentiful. So I would be supportive of your change in light of the conversation I witnessed at at have and the intent of We need to Open the spectrum to include these things that are missing. So I will be supporting. Are you making it a recommendation or a

I am proposing this as a condition.

Okay.

Other comments?

Brad?

I beg for a do-over. I did remember.

No need to beg. Your wish is granted.

This is not really advocating one way or another, but I would point out that if the language affordable and attainable gets added, somebody down the road might say, well, including middle housing, not all middle housing is affordable. affordable or attainable. So now you're going to get into this kind of circular logic debate potentially. And I note that they have, and again, HHS plus other vetting, middle housing and middle income. So those are two different things that are sometimes related but not the same. And again, just pointing out that that may get people tangled if it were changed.

Thank you for that point, Brad. That is important that not all middle housing is affordable or attainable. I I'm not sure the city should be promoting $1.2 million townhomes, but as, as Mark pointed out, there are whole industries that are devoted to that. They don't need the city's help. Um, Okay. So Kurt, with that in mind, do you want to make any proposed edits or do you want to go ahead and straw poll as it is? And I, I assume that that a full spectrum is being struck out or are you keeping a full spectrum?

No, a full spectrum is being struck out. Oh, I guess the strikeout is not there, but yeah, the intent was to strike that out and replace it with affordable, entertainable. And I'm certainly open to other wording if people have suggestions. So,

Okay, I'm going to suggest this, which is I feel like my brain is not working as fast as I'd like it to. I might be able to suggest a wording change that would address Brad's point about the middle housing issue. But can we straw poll on the intent here of we're trying to fill in the spectrum for the housing types that are not being addressed, the affordable and attainable price points in particular. And then when we come back to approve the actual language, I might have a change to suggest. And then I also want to suggest, even if we approve this as a condition, I would suggest perhaps that staff circle back with Kurt Fernhaber and the other HHS people and see, is what we did consistent with their intent, or did we somehow screw something up? And then we could consider that if it comes back to us, if the other bodies don't agree. Right, just you don't have to make any changes or do staff work just figure out if, if what we did is consistent because I think it might just be a misreading issue, like it might just be a, the wording doesn't convey the intent issue. Okay, I know that was complicated, but let's go ahead and poll on the language that we have here that Kurt is proposing as a condition. Yes, Max.

You're going to poll on it as a condition?

As a condition.

Just real quick, once again, I totally agree with Mark. I totally agree that large houses need no help whatsoever. There is a lot of language in the BVCP to support equity and affordability, and I'm hesitant to put a condition on anything.

Thank you, Max. Okay. We're straw polling on this as the condition. So if you support this as a condition, please go ahead and raise your hand. We have five to two. Okay. So that one would pass as a condition. Okay. So Kurt, why don't we have you do one more and then we'll rotate around to another voice and just break it up a little bit.

Yep, OK, sounds good. The last one for now is in this Objectives of the Future Land Use Strategy section, which talks about enhancing public spaces and connectivity. And as the draft reads, it says, provide accessible parks, trails, recreation areas, and gathering places that connect neighborhoods, offer social opportunity, and support healthy lifestyles. And I'm suggesting adding the word streets in there as really our largest public spaces measured by by land area our street system is our largest public space and they certainly provide connectivity and so to not include them in here seems like an odd uh gap uh and so i just wanted to make clear that streets are public spaces first of all they provide connectivity and they should connect neighborhoods offer social opportunity and support healthy lifestyles thank you kurt i'm going to go first to staff for reactions sorry and i'm supporting i'm proposing this as a what was the term condition I'm proposing this as a recommendation.

That change is supported by staff. No unintended consequences. Thank you.

Any discussion? Let's draw a poll as a recommendation to add the word streets into this list of things that enhance public spaces and connectivity. Straw polling, I see six, six to one. So that one survives as a recommendation. Thank you, Kurt. All right. Let me ask Mark. Mark, do you feel ready to do yours? All right, let's go to Mark's suggestion, which is a significant one.

Okay, so... What I would be proposing and Thomas, so you all received the email from staff, which had the single page of the PDF of the industrial section with two areas of change on that page.

Yes, and let me just ask, Thomas, do you have that available to pull up so that the folks at home can follow along? This is the change that was suggested by Mark. It's the revised page.

I have the motion language that was sent to me by Mark. And that can work.

The motion language. Okay, let's go to that then.

I can also, I mean, this is the full PDF document that was sent out by KJ. So if I scroll up, Mark's email is also in here.

Oh, there you go.

There you go.

Well, you had it there. Industrial class markup PDF. There you go.

There we go. And can you shrink that to fit on the screen somehow? There we go.

So my motion language is actually relatively short and simple. It is to, in the supporting portion of the table, to add the word residential in the first column And then attach and then in the second column attached unit multi unit group living. Then under urban design where we bullet. Essentially description and an explanation of the primary and supporting uses in the table above. I took language from the current. Section 2.21 of our current and operable BVCP, which says 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. So And I spent the day, I spent a lot of last week and I spent the day preparing some remarks. And so I'm going to go through my remarks now. And while they may be lengthy, I hope that it's in fact the most efficient way to do this and answer people's questions and concerns. So bear with me here and I'm going to, and I don't normally just read my remarks, but in this case, I worked on them and so I'm going to read them. So in deciding to bring this change forward, I reviewed the current plan, the draft plan, comments from staff, and comments from the community. Based on these discussions and analyses, this is a necessary change that should be incorporated. I base this recommendation primarily on the current plan and draft plan. In fact, all language used in the proposed change comes from the current or draft plans. In considering this change, let's begin at the beginning. As the draft plan says, quote, the plan provides a framework for careful analysis and consideration of trade-offs. to be used as a high level guide when community members city and county staff and policy makers consider future decisions and quote this is a framework for us to use with our judgment and our discretion it is not zoning it is not a set of rules and numerical standards it is intended to be used as a high level guide. By omitting any consideration of residential use in the industrial designation, the draft plan is no longer a guide. It becomes a standard by which residential uses in industrial zones are prohibited, keeping us and council from using appropriate judgment and discretion because our code requires that, quote, development applications meet general consistency with the plan. If residential use, end quote, if residential uses are completely disallowed in the industrial designation, then we cannot find, quote, general consistency with the plan, end quote, for residential in an industrial designation, regardless of circumstance. The only path forward for an applicant is to seek a BBCP map change. These map change opportunities are every five or 10 years, with few exceptions. Let's go back to the stated goals and community values of the draft plan. The draft champions livability, economic vitality, environmental sustainability, and a healthy and socially thriving community. All of these values support the flexibility required by a changing world to house and locate our community members within our city limits and take space and buildings that are defunct, underutilized, or outdated and either repurpose or redevelop them. The other thing the draft plan heralds are 15-minute neighborhoods. We have a few currently, but the plan and the community would like more. You do not create a new 15-minute neighborhood without change. 15-minute neighborhoods require the addition of commercial uses to existing residential areas and, obviously, the addition of residential uses in existing and new commercial areas. We will never achieve the 15-minute neighborhood goal without the use of discretion and judgment. The current draft plan regarding industrial areas takes us away from our 15-minute goal. The draft plan also points out that, quote, more jobs in Boulder are held by non-resident employees than by resident employees, and non-resident employees travel over 18 miles on average to reach jobs in Boulder. The policy as drafted only exacerbates this. It does not help it. Then there are the supporting policies. The draft supports this change in the following BBCP policies. Number 55. The city encourages redevelopment activity that advances community goals for housing, economic vitality, historic preservation, social connection, environmental sustainability, and equitable access to services. Number 82, 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 with emphasis on throughout the city. Policy 86, the areas identified for a mix of residential and industrial uses are encouraged to accommodate residential infill and redevelopment while still supporting innovation, creative and manufacturing activities. I could go on about how the various policies that we will adopt in the plan are better served by the flexibility I am advocating, but rather than do that, I want to address the main concern of those who might oppose this change, loss of small community-serving industrial spaces providing for auto repair, welding, wood, metal crafting, HVAC servicing, fabrication services, etc. All those things that we would like to access within our city boundaries. I understand and support this goal. However, the plan as drafted does not protect those spaces and businesses. In fact, just the opposite. Here is how I came to realize this. We were all copied on an email exchange between staff and Mr. Andrew Gadimi. Mr. Gadimi is one of the largest holders of spaces rented to the exact type of businesses we want to retain in Boulder. In that exchange, staff assures Mr. Gadimi that his properties are not affected by the residential ban as all his properties fall in the Innovation and Production Hub designation. In that designation, residential uses are listed as a primary use. Furthermore, staff continues with this paragraph, and this brings it all to light. Quote, to clarify, there is indeed a pathway to residential in properties in the industrial land use designation. especially those smaller properties you reference. Residential and IG or IM zone districts on properties that qualify, i.e., contiguity or guidance from an area subcommittee plan, is allowed through use review, which does not have the same requirements for consistency with the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan that the site review does. Only larger projects on sites greater than five acres and over 100,000 square feet in floor area where site review is required would be evaluated against the future land use map and on balance the policies of the comprehensive plan. So the properties we want to protect small businesses And small businesses are not covered by this prohibition, but large properties that could significantly redevelop into residential and mixed use properties, bringing new housing and new shops and small industrial spaces are restricted by this policy. I conclude with the words I propose adding to the industrial land use designation. And what I just read, the residential uses may be allowed where appropriate. Housing infill should play a subordinate role and not displace established businesses. So staff has done great work on the simplification of the BVCP land use map. This is one of the best aspects of the draft plan. Making this one change will help us and the community realize our common goals. So that's my thought.

Thank you, Mark, for that well thought out argument. I would like to ask staff for your thoughts.

Thank you, and thank you, Mark, for your comments. And certainly they're reflective of a lot of the community feedback that we've received, particularly from property owners of some industrial properties. So staff's recommendation is the plan as written, and we were very intentional in not including residential in the industrial designation, the definition for the industrial designation. This was really in response to feedback we received through this process, but also through the East Boulder Sub-Community Plan, the Boulder Junction Phase 2 Amendment, and other planning processes where we've heard about the overall broad concern of the city losing its opportunities for light industrial, for manufacturing, for these service types of businesses, and also the creative spaces as well. So as in response and also in response to the changes that we made to all the other designations to make residential opportunities more available in more areas of the city and actually increasing the overall housing capacity roughly 40% across the city, we felt like we could make a stand and make a strong change to argue that this industrial designation should not include residential. As was described in some of those email correspondences, there are still pathways for residential to occur in industrial designated properties on both ranges of scale. So at the small scale through use review or through a larger scale site review and rezoning process, the land use map change is available and is an opportunity. Staff would recommend that if the board is really interested in considering this change in terms of the potential consequences, staff would really encourage you to think about potentially making or suggesting land use map changes to the innovation and production hub for areas that you are interested in providing greater flexibility for residential. rather than a change to the entire industrial definition, because ultimately that will then apply to every property that is designated currently as industrial. And if there are more site-specific locations, that is something staff would be willing to consider.

Thank you, KJ. Okay. Okay, I have a couple of questions. So this language that Mark has added at the end there, 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. That is language in the existing BPCP. How do you see it being protective or not protective of industrial uses currently?

Well, we've seen certainly through a number of projects that have come through recently that it is not terribly protective. There is a good example that I can think of that has existing commercial space on the property that is proposed for demolition and replacement by 100% residential project with a very, very small mixed-use component of a couple thousand square feet. So we... as part of the decision to not include residential in this designation. We don't feel like that language is all that protective currently for industrial businesses.

Thank you. And could you please, could we pull up the map? I know it's quite complicated, but the new land use map, I was taking a look at it and all of the purple industrial zones that are bordered extensively either by residential or by parkland. I think it was useful for me to take a look at that. So I'd love to pull it up and maybe think about that a little bit because that is where the contiguity requirement comes in. I did also want to ask Mark, I love that you actually marked up the page from the proposed new BBCP. Did you do that yourself? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Amazing. Amazing. Kudos to you.

I love my PDF editing tool.

I love it. So I've pulled up the map here. Folks will want to look at the map on the right. This is the recommended land use map. And if anyone watching wanted to find this, we are looking at upboulderfuture.org. This is on the main page.

Wonderful. Thank you. And could you just zoom in a little bit and zoom around on some of those purple areas? Sure. So I'm just looking at all of these purple areas that are bordered by yellow, which is neighborhood one, orange, which is neighborhood two, green, which is parkland. And I see very few, maybe no industrial neighborhoods that aren't substantially bordered by either residential or parkland areas. And so I'll just say for me, I do think that protection of industrial is something that we heard very strongly in these boulders sub community plan and that we hear very strongly that people want to live in a town where you can find an auto body shop or the small music venues or the breweries or the, you know, Rock and Resoul is one of my favorite out there on the frontage road. And those things, they do not economically outweigh residential. And so I do think for me personally, I'm in favor of some additional protections for industrial. I think staff make a great point that If we want more land to be able to be mixed use, then what we should be looking at is map use changes to make more of it the innovation and production hub rather than industrial preservation. I think it is useful to have an industrial preservation category or else it will all slowly cascade over time into residential is pretty foreseeable. And we'd have to call a halt to it at some point. Yeah, Mark.

So. I appreciate that as a possible solution. I want to emphasize, though, that on the Innovation and Production Hub page, in that designation, residential is noted as a primary use without reservation. So if you say, well, oh, gee, we want to protect these industrial spaces, Moving them to innovation, in fact, releases them by putting residential as a primary use without reservation. It does nothing to, there are no guardrails. The guardrails that exist today, which are use review and site review and a review by planning board and council, for these are the guardrails, our judgment, our discretion about what is appropriate residential in an industrial zone. I want to also, I avoided using the Tierra site at 48th and Walnut. as an example, because I am not interested in properties, I'm interested in policy that's effective. However, that property is an excellent example. So I use this as an example. I want to say first, I don't know those people. They're not friends of mine. I've never talked to them other than on Thursday night here, I talked to Mark, whatever his name is, of that property, and got a few more pieces of information. I have nothing to do with them, and I'm not their advocate or anything else. We have, they have multiple hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space on a lot that exceeds five acres. And the fact that it's smaller parcels, according to my information, is irrelevant. That is in the industrial zone. It is also adjacent to the creek path. It is a stone's throw away from the back door to Boulder community health. And it is 96% vacant. There is nothing enlivening. There is nothing supporting our community goals in that area at all. It is a is about to become a blighted area. They have security there all the time trying to keep the property in decent shape because it is a target for people to camp there, live there, graffiti, etc. It is acres of surface parking, empty, vacant surface parking. So if that, if you if by adding residential as a secondary use, they could go through site review, not a map change, but site review, and take a portion of that and repurpose it as housing, mixed use industrial, great. If you convert that, if you move that over to innovation hub, I don't think that is a greater set of guardrails. I think that is a diminished set of guardrails. So again, this is an example of the world changing. And the BBCP is supposed to be responsive to changes. The world changed in 2020 with COVID-19 coming in. Office uses changed. We have an abundance of empty office space. If this property goes back to the bank or whatever, This is not a community asset. This doesn't help us reach any of our goals. So the idea here is that not this property, but properties in general retain flexibility with guardrails. And I think that's what I proposed.

I just want to respond quickly, and you guys knew I would because I always do when Mark and I get into it, and then I want to give other people a chance to comment. So number one, you are right. Innovation and production hub is not a good guardrail, and it is not protective of industrial. So for those particular sites, yes, they probably would become mostly residential, which is what I think you want, but it would still protect all the remaining.

Don't say that's what I want.

Well, I'm just saying I think that you're advocating for residential to be possible there, right?

Yes, but I'm not saying residential is what I want. I want flexibility.

Okay, I apologize. And your mic wasn't on, so I don't know if that made it into the record. But Mark is saying he wants flexibility, and I apologize for that. saying he wants residential, he wants flexibility. So yes, for those particular sites that become innovation and production hub, there is not as much chance that they will contain a good amount of industrial. But all of the other industrial sites would be preserved in a way that would not be if this change is made wholesale to all of industrial, in my judgment. What we see as planning board members is that when people come in for site review, when property owners come in for site review, if the code makes something possible, it is often treated as an entitlement that we cannot legally say no to. And on the very rare occasion when we have said no to a concept review that was residential and industrial, it was because it did not meet the strict definition of contiguity, or there was something that we could stand on where this does not meet code. I do not think, and I want to ask Helen this, we talk about site review being discretionary, but we do not have the discretion to say, yes, you meet all the code requirements for residential, but we're not going to let you. Is that right? We cannot just discretionarily say we just don't like your project or we don't want, there's too much residential.

Yeah, discretionary review means you have to make a decision based on the criteria, but there is some discretion in the criteria. But if you find that the criteria are met, then you have to approve.

Yeah, so my experience in site review is that it's actually very difficult to say no to a proposal. And so the more that we make the code bend in the direction of residential and industrial, the harder it's going to be to say no to that. We don't really have discretion. We have to be true to what the code allows and doesn't. And then the last point that I want to make is that you're right. A lot of these properties were built as large office buildings that are currently not rentable. and they need to be redeveloped. And they're not going to be able to be repurposed as residential very easily. That's quite expensive, and almost nobody does it. And almost nobody who does it does it successfully and profitably. So those buildings are going to need to be torn down, and something else is going to be built in their place. And so by keeping industrial preservation, what's possible there is an industrial use rather than a highly profitable residential use that almost always Unless the property owner has some natural connection to or affinity for industrial, residential is almost always the thing that's going to make the most money. So I personally, I would like to be able to support your change, but I can't. ML had a thought.

I do have a thought, and I wrote mine down as well, so I'm going to read. So, Boulder's current zoning codes do not have language to assure a complete city outcome. We've seen the zoning code provides ample opportunity for almost anything to be developed anywhere. This points the BVCP land use map to doing the job of holding a vision for a complete city. If we allow one use to infiltrate most land use, and that use just happens to be one with the highest profit margin, guaranteed we will get more monoculture development. We already see this, and the argument at OLLIV where the developer did not activate the street is required, They built in mixed use, but did not deliver the mix. This does not make a vibrant, walkable, livable city. Boulder's vision for complete neighborhoods that this BVCP is championing is a step toward the city we the people have asked for. Having a land use map that supports all the services that sustain a high functioning city is not negotiable. And the operable word here is sustain. Because given a choice development will not choose the low profit realm of industry and a functioning city needs industry, so I do not support this this change, I think it will devastate the industry and the potential for industry to flourish in our city.

Other folks want to comment comment on this one or have questions mason.

So, Helen, just trying to understand your answer and thinking about back to some of the projects that come before us. You know, when I look at the language that say residential uses may be allowed where appropriate, that sounds very subjective.

Yeah, there's discretion in that.

So if I, as a planning board member, says, no, not appropriate, like, is that defensible from the city's point of view?

Yeah, I think so. I'm assuming you would kind of look at the comprehensive plan comprehensively and associated policies. And yes, I would find that defensible.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mason. Claudia. I have two questions for Mark first. And the first is, are you proposing this as a condition or a recommendation?

Condition.

Condition. Thank you. And then what do you anticipate as a response from city council? I know that they have been very swayed recently by this argument for preserving dedicated industrial zoning.

I don't, I'm not a great prognosticator of what council will do. I hope that with education and explanation of what this would actually mean and what an expansion and how the innovation hub designation actually provides fewer protections for small businesses, which is where most small businesses are located now, is in areas that we've designated as Innovation Hub. Those are the areas that are going to go first. Andrew Gadimi, the housing project that we had to do a use review for up in North Boulder, we didn't get to do a site review. That was an area that that is now mapped as an innovation hub, right? So the idea that somehow the industrial designation is protecting the small businesses and small sites is fallacious, it's wrong. So I think that with education and an understanding, this is where planning board needs to weigh in because council has to deal with 10 times, 100 times different issues than we deal with. We are the land use experts. We are the zoning experts. We are the Title IX experts. They rely on us. And I think it is incumbent upon us to make this a condition and then advocate for it in the name of flexibility, in the name of actually creating new opportunities for workspaces, and correcting our jobs, population imbalance, and enlivening spaces that are dead currently, I hope that they would adopt it.

May I comment in addition? So I've already outlined my philosophy on conditions versus recommendations tonight. And I want to say I do support this change as a recommendation. It is the first one tonight that I will be supporting. I think it is consequential. I think it is concise. I know that there is public concern about industry displacement, but I agree with you. Significant portions of what we are calling industrial in this plan are not the industry's that the public is envisioning when we have this discussion. They are empty office parks and they have limited realistic pathways to reuse. I think one of the strengths of this BVCP revision is a move towards flexibility more generally. And we talk about that in terms of mixed uses, but I'm thinking beyond just mixing uses. I think part of the flexibility is a recognition that the kind of rigid planning that we've done in the past gives an illusion of control but it can't guarantee the particular outcomes that we're looking for and especially over a longer planning horizon we need the ability to respond to exogenous changes like this pandemic era change in office demand so i am in favor of restoring this flexibility I think Mark's proposed amendment, the way that he has written it up, does that in a clear and limited way. It does not mandate housing. It does not reordain housing as an outcome. And it does not remove the many zoning and code requirements that we currently have to meet to add housing to industrial areas. I think it leaves a door open that is already open today. And I support that. But as a recommendation.

Kurt. Thank you, Claudia, for that. I really appreciate that. I have a couple of points. One is that, well, first of all, I'll be supporting this either as a condition or recommendation. I think it's appropriate to make it as a condition, but obviously, I'll certainly also be supporting it as a recommendation. i feel like to the extent that we're not getting uh a mix of residential and industrial in these areas it's the problem is actually with our zoning and our the the land use regulations and that we should be allowing for that in the land use map the the yeah language map and land use descriptions And then we should be aligning our zoning such that that happens. My understanding is in the past, we had split FARs. So there was an FAR for residential and there was an FAR for industrial. And they were completely independent. And you could get the full FAR if you built the full complement of both. and that changed and i think that that's unfortunate and that sort of a structure not saying that's perfect but that sort of a structure would provide the economic incentive to provide both residential and industrial in a particular area without the loss uh displacing opportunity for industrial businesses as is described here so I hope that we will adopt this, and I hope that if we do, we will also change our land use code to make sure that we really implement that. The other thing I will say, just in response to Steph, Steph pointed out that the theoretical increase in housing capacity with the land use map as in the draft is an increase of about 40%. But I think in reality, what we see is a lot of that ends up being in what are currently the low density residential zones. And those turn over extremely slowly. They change, yes, but they change very slowly. And really we have nothing to demonstrate at this point that any of that change will actually happen right we already allow for duplexes and triplexes near transit um routes high frequency transit routes and we've gotten zero of those right and so hopefully what going forward we'll start to get some of those you know, attached unit types, those missing metal types. But it's still, you know, if somebody's living in their house, there's not much incentive for them to tear it down and turn it into a duplex or whatever. Whereas if you have an empty office building, there's significant incentive incentive to tear part of it down, for example, and put in residential. So in reality, in the relatively near future, I think we would get significantly more housing, which we desperately need. if it's allowed in some of these higher intensity areas where, frankly, larger operators can come in and do it than with the changes in the low density areas, much as I support those.

Thank you, Kurt. Any other comments before we go to a straw poll? Max.

Oh, gosh.

Yeah. Yeah, here we go. I think that the need to preserve industrial space has been well stated, but let's just be redundant. The warehouse spaces need to be delineated from empty office parks. They're a separate problem, right? And I think that part of the muddling of this is that we have vibrant warehouse districts that are thriving. They're filled with artists. They're filled with breweries. They're filled with rock shoe re-solers, et cetera, et cetera. And then we have... office parks that are in absurdly high levels of vacancy. The only place that that vacancy is outpaced is on ground floor commercial and new development. So I think it's worth noting that we are not allowing small businesses to thrive in new development, period, anywhere. virtually anywhere in town. In fact, it's the opposite. It's true. And it's making the new buildings even seem blighted because the ground floors are so empty that it's uncanny. And when you compare that in contrast to the warehouse districts where you see people dancing on first Friday, et cetera, et cetera, it is stark. So yeah, I'm really cautious about this one because we want the ability to be able to modify office parks to greater meet our community. But I'm also deeply concerned about the risk of an auto repair shop being completely removed from the city or a carpenter not being able to find a warehouse spot because we're starting to find that affordability is not really changing with increased supply. Some level it is mostly due to Denver. But affordability in Boulder right now is old buildings. So somewhere we need to have a place where a business can live, survive, and know that it's going to be able to stay there for years. So I'm hesitant to pull back any protections on industrial when we have a track record of allowing residential to succeed there through zoning.

Last call before we straw poll.

Okay, Mark. I just want to reiterate, I support rock and resole. I support the small breweries, the dancing on First Friday, the artisan spaces in North Bowler. I love that stuff. That stuff is not protected by this page in the industrial zone. It's already in the innovation hub. It's already able to be redeveloped. What we are discussing here actually has almost nothing to do with those spaces because they're in the innovation hub space where residential use is primary. I love your support for those things. That's not what we're talking about.

Okay. Thank you, Mark. Last response from staff. You good? Okay. Any last comments? All right. We're going to straw poll. Mark, you are proposing this change as a condition. Okay. All in favor of this change as a condition, please raise your hand. I see two. Mark, do you want to poll it as a recommendation?

Yes, I propose a change as a recommendation.

As a recommendation, please raise your hand. I see five. So it passes as a recommendation. OK, great. Thank you. All right. Do we need a break or should we keep pushing? A break. OK, folks need a break. So let's take a 10-minute break. We will reconvene at 7.51. 7.51. Good.

No tuberculosis.

We're going to have to have more conversation about that.

Okay. Are we ready to come back? Thomas, are we back online? Excellent. All right. It is 6, oh, sorry, 7.52 p.m. We have a lot more changes to get through. The fun never stops. All right. So let's get another. So, Mark, thank you for your very substantive discussion. We are going to try to go a little faster with our remaining approximately 22 items. ML, you had some policy questions. suggested changes for us. And so I'd like to turn it over to you to walk us through efficiently.

Thank you. So I have been, well, I was thinking that they weren't precise enough, but maybe they can be precise enough. So Looking at the housing, it's under 50 years of planning, looking back and moving forward on page 20 housing, local housing. So the data there talks about the fourth bullet shows 47% of the homes in the city are owner occupied and 53% are renter occupied. So the thing that I think is a big influencer and isn't here is do we know how many houses are vacant? So they're like second or third houses. They're investment properties. They're not generally rented or populated. Do we have that information?

Brad Mueller with staff. The short answer is kind of. and I don't know that we have it at our fingertips. The question of second homes, third homes has come up in various contexts. One way to get a proxy of that is to do utility bill checks. If there's zero or little activity, that's a way to do. But that's only so accurate, so we don't tend to rely on that as credible data. Since people aren't required to register or declare how often they're in their home or not, that's elusive.

So I'm hearing you say, no, it's not easily available data.

It's not.

Okay. Because I think that that is a number, and maybe just for somewhere down the road, that influences housing. I know in my neighborhood, a significant amount of houses are empty. And a significant amount of new builds, the townhouses and condos and stuff are bought as investments and nobody lives in them. So I think it would influence and form what happens in our housing. But if the data is not easily available, to include, then I'm not going to push that one. So that's what I'm hearing.

I do want to assure you that it's on staff and council's radar too as a policy point. But yes, I'm just correct on the data being insecure.

Right. Can I just say something?

Yes, I was going to say something.

I guess the concept of there are a significant number of homes that are vacant or there are a not insignificant number of homes that are second homes and are vacant,

there a statement that could be made about that that would be useful to have in this spread i guess is the question for me my personal reaction is that the 47 owner occupied and 53 renter occupied is trying to make a discrete point of the renter owner balance the vacancy strikes me as kind of a different point that leads to a whole different set of kind of conversations around affordability which I guess, again, my personal reaction to that is that gets more into implementation than something that would necessarily need to be articulated in a policy document like this.

It would fall under the idea of how we move forward. If we know that we have a city that has X number of vacant houses, it might give us cause for considering how we manage that information as a housing impact, because it is a housing impact.

I agree with you. It strikes me that we've had some other kind of statistical questions come up in the development of the plan where we didn't feel we could confidently say you know make a conclusion on that and so i think we've avoided putting that in i don't want to discount the point um i guess my thought or reaction would be um luckily that's covered by other various policies and um That point can be implemented, and it frankly is being thought about already.

Vacancies, vacant houses is in another policy? What policy would that be?

Not in policy. In as much as vacancy leads to the question of affordability and things like that, those policies are in is what I meant, policies around affordability and creating housing access for all.

Okay, so just in the name of facilitation here, if there's not something intelligible that can be said about vacancies that would add to this spread, then I would suggest that we move on. I do think it's an important point, and I wish that something could be said, but if we can't quantify it and we can't think of how to frame it, then I would suggest that we move on.

Moving on. Do we have any data on pedestrian movement? That's under transportation. Again, under 50 years of planning, looking back and moving forward. We're aiming ourselves to the 50 minute neighborhoods. And I think how people move by foot is important. And I don't, do you have any data that we could include in here along with all this other data?

Yes, the transportation department tracks a lot of transportation data and they do a report on progress of the, implementing the transportation master plan every two years, I think they produce that report, and so we do have some data on that one of the data points in that report is about 15 minute neighborhoods so they describe. what proportion of the population lives in a 15-minute neighborhood. But they're using a different definition than what the community assembly proposed and what's included in this comprehensive plan. So that would be something we want to study and update as we implement the comp plan.

So there's some discernible discrepancies between the databases we have right now. Yes. Moving on. Oh, wait a minute. Hey, Kurt.

Go ahead, Kurt. I just wanted to add to the conversation that I'm aware that there's pretty extensive pedestrian data for the downtown area because the Downtown Boulder Partnership does actual counts. I think that there probably aren't very extensive counts of pedestrians outside the downtown area. I happen to be married to someone whose expertise is in counting pedestrians and bicyclists. And counting pedestrians in particular is difficult, is just something I've heard from overhearing many conversations, even though I am certainly not an expert. But there are new tools involving, especially using cell phone data. And there's a company called Street Light, I think, that collects data based on a variety of not physical counts, but sort of aggregating data sources to figure out number of pedestrians walking in particular areas.

Kurt, I'm sorry to cut you off, but are you suggesting a change based on your comments?

No, I was trying to respond to the question about whether we have pedestrian data. But I will finish. Sorry.

Thank you. It's a fascinating conversation. I wish we had more time.

Future. Let's put walking on the map. And then the third policy question I have was on page 48, the future of transportation, what's next? It states the city streets, transit service and stops, paths, sidewalks, bike lanes, shared micro mobility options like scooters and e-bikes, traffic signals and the airport. Are the backbone of cities transport of the city's transportation system, so I am curious as to is in fact the airport a backbone of the city's transportation system.

Thank you for the comment or the question. Yes, ultimately this language was vetted and evaluated by our Transportation and Mobility Department. We do believe that the airport is a component of our overall transportation system and it is overseen directly by our Transportation and Mobility Department. So while it's not used to move people, it is an important consideration for hazard response training and other uses. So that is why we included it in that

sentence so looking at the city's transportation system it's not necessarily about hauling people as a airport you know as a transit system correct that's right okay that makes some sense um laura you had a

I would probably dispute that characterization. The airport has not been substantially, from my conversations with the PIO that works with our fire response in particular, The airport has not been used substantially for fire response since the Four Mile Canyon fire in 2010. There were the flood operations in what year was that? 2013. So that's about 13 years since there's been any substantial emergency response out of the airport. And there are other dedicated facilities region-wide that have been improved since that point in time, like Rocky Mountain Metro that has dedicated contracted firefighting airplanes and helicopters that are stationed there. They have a fuel retardant station. We have drone teams that are based. We just have a new public safety center at the police department where the drone team is based that does aerial surveillance. There's a training center that's the county training center that is a separate facility. It's not based at the airports. So I'm not actually aware of the airport serving significant disaster response, although of course it could play that role if necessary. So I personally don't think that the airport is a part of the backbone of the city's transportation system. I'm not sure that this is a point that I wanna necessarily kick around with council, because I do think it would be controversial. So I couldn't let that go by without commenting on it. But is there anybody here who feels strongly that we should delete that word airport out of this statement about the backbone of the city's transportation system? It certainly doesn't serve much of an actual transportation purpose. Most of the flights that take off from that airport return to that airport without stopping anywhere else. Yeah, Mark.

I would, I understand that the transportation department manages the airport. And so, hence, they include it. So if you straw pulled me about whether or not to put it in or not on a recommendation, I would say pull it. I do have, since we're editing this, since we're discussing this paragraph, I do have a question. And that is, when you say transit service stops, comma, paths, are you referring to And should we change the word to our greenways, which is a designation and a page in our, I keep getting designations and hubs and, anyway, what are greenways? Should that be greenways instead of paths?

I would say paths are inclusive of things that are not greenways, greenways, as defined in the comp plan have a very important utility function. So they are different.

OK. So but how are they? So if it's inclusive of greenways and it's also inclusive of bike lanes and sidewalk, I mean, I'm like, well, OK. I'm not going to hold this up. But it seems like when we paths are referring to something other than bike lanes, But they're inclusive greenways, but something in addition to greenways. What that is, I don't understand.

I would say some greenways have a multi-use path and some do not.

Okay. All right. Okay. I think specifically bike lanes is referring to bike lanes within the right-of-way, whereas multi-use paths are typically separated from the street.

Gotcha. Great. Thank you.

Those were all my policy concerns. Thank you. Thank you, ML. Kurt?

So just to get back to your question, if someone were to propose as a recommendation eliminating the war term airport as a backbone of the city's transportation system, I would be supportive, but I won't be proposing it.

Let's go ahead and straw poll it. How many people would be supportive as a recommendation, not a condition, of eliminating that word airport and the airport out of that sentence? Looks like that's unanimous. So unanimous. We'll go ahead and call that a recommendation. Thank you, Amal. All right. Excellent. Okay. So we got another one down. And so I think that's all of ML's policy recommendations. She does have three land use that we'll come back to. Mason, you haven't spoken yet. You had two new potential. Mason has decided to use tonight as an opportunity to put forward two potential small changes. And I think you sent those to Thomas. So let's review those now.

And just for clarification, these are both our recommendations. Let's see here. I don't think these are them.

Sure.

So I'll go ahead and speak to the first one as he's pulling up. This is around policy 29, the 15-minute neighborhood. The thing that struck me about... The plan is that the 15-minute neighborhood is central to it. I think that's a fair thing to say. It's something that the, oh my goodness, I'm spacing on what their title was, but the community groups really spoke to and emphasized. And I thought that the language here could be strengthened by adding something with a little more teeth, but still being substantially vague that it could be enacted. which is this last sentence down here at the bottom that you see the city monitors progress towards 15 minute neighborhoods goals and communicates findings to the community. So if nothing else changes, just adding a sentence there at the end as a recommendation that we will indeed commit to monitoring the progress and reporting back to the community.

Thank you, Mason. Is staff ready to respond to that? And then I'll go to board member comments or questions.

So I did mention that the Transportation Master Plan report on progress does track that 15-minute neighborhood goal and how that's achieved according to their current definition. We likely will need to update the way that they measure, map that, and track it. But it is something that's already happening. So I see no... unintended consequence of adding it?

I would agree there likely is not an unintended consequence but it does begin to lean a little bit into the operational side of things that we are trying to manage in the policies um and i'll just reference policy 104 which is transparent governance speaks directly to the city and county support strategic decision making informed by timely reliable and accurate data and analysis to the extent practical, balanced with community input and feedback on lived experience. So I think the city is already making a commitment to monitor and communicate progress on these goals overall. So I would suggest it's not necessarily critical to be added to this particular policy.

I appreciate that. Just a quick response. I did notice that there are other policies that have similar language policy 57 so this is not out of norm what's the subject of policy 57 uh the approach to economic resilience um i would have to go and find it oh that's enough for me yeah thank you just curious yep i don't have them all memorized yet okay any 57 i believe five seven yep

Okay, any comments or questions about this from board members? Claudia.

So I am not comfortable singling this particular policy out for specific or special accountability language. I think, appreciate KJ for finding the reference. We have policies in the BVCP that speak to responsive and responsible governance, accountability, communication, et cetera. And I would hope that if there are issues, we can apply those policies, bring those policies to leverage. on any issue that we feel is not being adequately monitored.

I see ML and then Kurt.

I do appreciate that sentence. And I think one of the things that I notice in our use of the BVCP on planning board is that if any particular policy has a means to nudge. I think that that becomes a good thing because one of the things that has in my experience using the BVCP in reviewing applications and in specifics is that it It can go any number of ways, and I think that the 15-minute neighborhood is something that could get, you know, fall off the radar, and we don't have any specific thing to point to to say, but hey, we're... we're continuing to look at it and to provide feedback back to the community. This came from a big community process. And I think to include that makes a lot of sense. So I'll be supporting this as a recommendation. Is that what you're proposing? Yes. Thank you.

Thank you, Kurt.

Thanks. Yeah, I've had some concern about this policy for a while, primarily because of the first sentence, which says the city encourages the evolution of 15-minute neighborhoods, which to me is very vague. I mean, evolution can go lots of different ways. I think that the intent is that the... We're encouraging 30-minute neighborhoods to become 15-minute neighborhoods, but we could also be encouraging 15-minute neighborhoods to become 30-minute neighborhoods by this reading or by the actual wording there. And so if this were not successful, I will be supporting this because I think it clarifies what the real meaning of this is. If it were not successful, another approach potentially could be to change the wording of that first sentence.

Thank you other comments questions i'll just say that I will also be supporting this you know you. You manage what you measure, and so, if you are required to measure it you're going to take more steps than if you're not required to measure it and that's just human nature, so I do think this was a huge focus of this. boulder valley comprehensive plan update, I think that the Community assembly was a tremendous amount of work, and it was also a tremendous. accomplishment and a tremendous promise to the community that their work is not going to get put on a shelf and forgotten. And I think that the team that worked on the 15 minute neighborhood concept with the community assembly was very careful to try to make sure that that is actually what's going to happen, right? That we didn't make a false promise. And so I think that this strengthens that commitment and I'm supportive. Last comments before we poll all in favor of adding this as a recommendation, I see six. So it goes in as a recommendation. All right, Mason, back to you.

My second and last one is around a policy we've already discussed, policy 82. This, I want to give a shout out to Max for reminding me about Hebb's letter that they sent us. And I was reading through that again. And, you know, they were very clear in their short and thoughtful letter that it was important to directly connect. I actually have written comments throughout this, so I should probably read those so I don't mess this up. But they formally recommended that the plan explicitly acknowledge increasing overall housing supply as a necessary strategy for improving affordability reducing displacement and i thought for this policy to truly capture that needed a sentence at the at the end and you can you can scroll in thomas so folks can see but the reason why there's three paragraphs was i included kurt's proposed revisions i wasn't really sure where that was going to go but It's just adding a sentence at the end that says explicitly, expanding the total number of homes is a necessary component of improving affordability and reducing displacement pressures citywide.

Thank you, Mason. Staff reaction?

I think there could be quite a bit of disagreement around the addition of higher density housing related to displacement in particular. I think that is problematic personally.

Do you want to say more about that, Christopher? Why is that?

Yeah, we've seen in many communities in Boulder as well that smaller affordable properties are purchased and then redeveloped and displacing those residents from those locations into higher value housing. Unfortunately, Denver has seen a lot of this in particular and some of the neighborhoods as those have gentrified over time. And I think there's a very strong concern within Boulder, as we've actually even touched on tonight, about affordability and the potential for losing either local small businesses or other smaller, more affordable home types in response to market rate development. So that's my concern on that one.

Thank you. And Brad?

Yeah, if I can add a couple more thoughts to that. I would just point out that introducing a sentence that makes reference to expanding the number of homes without it explicitly saying affordable homes might lead to a debate about whether it is just affordable. That could be a language tweak. The other thing I would say just for context as you debate this is we have a not insignificant part of the community who regularly asserts, rightly or wrongly, I'm not going to try to debate that, but asserts that Boulder is an inelastic market and therefore it doesn't matter how many new homes you add, it's not going to change the affordability. Again, I'm not bringing that up to debate it other than just the question of Adding more supply is a bit of a flashpoint in the community. Good, bad, or otherwise. So maybe that's an argument for it, but just bringing that to light.

Thank you, Brad. Other comments, Kurt?

Well, I'll just point out that the policy as drafted already says the city supports increasing the housing supply.

I guess the question is, do you need to say it twice?

Other comments or thoughts? Yeah, Claudia.

So I appreciate what you're trying to do here, Mason. But I think that overall the housing language that we have in the plan really represents great progress around housing supply. And I think it's very carefully crafted to thread these two very distinct and often competing housing ideologies that we have in the city around supply and demand. And I really do not want to jeopardize that work by inserting language that highlights that ongoing disagreement. So I am happy that we have gotten as far as we have with this policy. And I would not like this to become a point of contention that really gets us into a back and forth.

Other thoughts? Mason, did you want to respond?

Yeah. So I appreciate all the comments and points of view that were shared. If I were to try to channel HAB on this, yes, I know that there was actually changes to this language post the recommendations, which did lead to that increasing of the housing supply. What the changes did not include was that explicit connection between increasing the housing supply and improving affordability and reducing displacement. I do understand that it can be a flashpoint in our community that people don't agree that this is, you know, a connection that exists. However, I am proposing this as a recommendation, and I think it's worth having that debate publicly.

I'll say that for me, I feel like this is a point that I've heard, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think this is the idea of filtration, right? That even when you build new, expensive market rate housing, that then people move out of older products or less desirable from a market perspective products, and then that opens the supply up for other folks in a more affordable price point. And so I understand that concept. I personally am not an expert on like, where has that worked or not worked? And what's the data? I feel like this is something that I would like to support, but I feel like it would need more explanation and I would need to feel more confident in the data to support it. And I regret that I did not attend that HAB meeting. So I'm not exactly sure if that's the point they're making.

Curt sorry if I can make just one other quick point in response to staff point I think you made a good point that redevelopment can cause displacement but in my view that's redevelopment that is not increasing the number of homes And so if you're talking about redeveloping a currently affordable apartment building, for example, it's better in terms of net displacement in the city to redevelop it with an increased number of units than, for instance, to redevelop it with the same number of units. So I make a distinction there.

Any other discussion, deliberation before we straw poll?

Is it appropriate to ask if folks would change the vote if it said affordable homes instead of just homes? Is there a desire for that from the board?

No?

I think that the policy already talks about promoting affordable homes. So I'm not sure it would be necessary. It would seem duplicative to me. Max?

I think that having explicit language saying that their import that city supports increasing the housing supplies, the victory that HAP was looking for.

Mason, would you like us to straw poll on this as a recommendation?

But of course.

Let us straw poll. Who is in favor of adding this sentence as written as a recommendation? I see two. But thank you, Mason, for that conversation.

Yep.

Any others from you, Mason? Was that it? Okay. Since we're on this one, I think staff actually had some additional thoughts that they wanted to propose a small change here. And I might have a wording changes. I thought I might later, but I might have it now.

Yeah. Thanks. I wanted to provide some additional feedback on the term attainable. We have talked with staff and housing and human services a lot about that. term, it can be interpreted in different ways in that what might be attainable for someone at a certain income level is different than what's attainable for someone at a different income level. So it's hard to implement consistently. And, you know, I think that we understand the current concept of attainable, that it's cheaper than market rate, but maybe not in the affordable housing program, but that may change over time. And so thinking about kind of the long-term use of this plan, it's just a very challenging work to implement.

So I actually have a proposed change based on that, but Mark, go ahead.

Point taken on the word obtainable, but doesn't exactly what you said apply to the word affordable?

When we think about affordable in a lot of our work, we mean it's in the affordable housing program. It's deed restricted, permanently affordable.

And I think affordability is also defined as AMI percentage. So there might be some market rate housing that meets affordability goals, like some of our rental housing is affordable at 30% of your income, regardless of being in the permanently affordable housing program. So I think it is defined according to AMI, whereas attainable is not.

Well, so are we saying then that the word affordable as used 20 some, 30 some times in the BVCP is in this case always referring to housing stock that is in the affordable housing program that is permanently affordable and deed restricted?

Does staff want to answer that?

I'm not trying to be sticky on this, but I think the words attainable and affordable, yes, they are indistinct. They are variable meanings, but I think they both have variable meanings unless super carefully used.

I would agree with you, which is partly why they're not referenced specifically in the original language of that policy. And when we do reference, there are a couple of additional references. So in policy 84, we do speak directly to the permanently affordable policy. housing program so that is very clear that that's what we're talking about in other locations we have attempted to speak more broadly to affordability or instead of or specifically to housing that is more affordable so again it is nuanced and it is we have attempted our to do our very best to be very specific about what we're referring to in that language

So I would argue that affordability has that 30% of your income spent on housing according to your AMI definition. And so I think when we say affordable, we're saying that whether it's permanently affordable or not, it's that 30% of your income definition. That's how I would interpret it from where I sit, but maybe not everybody does. So my suggestion would be, Because attainable does seem to not really have any kind of clear definition, and staff are very uncomfortable with it, that we go ahead and, Kurt, this is your wording, so I'm looking to you to say whether this works for you. We're already striking a full spectrum that should be crossed out. And it would just say affordable housing types and price points, as well as middle housing and middle income opportunities. That's how I would rephrase it to take care of the concern that Brad raised that not all middle housing is affordable. So I would change that word including to as well as, and I would strike and attainable. Kurt, what do you think about that?

Yeah, I would support that. And maybe playing off of that one thing I was thinking of since KJ was just talking about, well, they do use the term more affordable. We could change it to the city supports increasing the housing supply by promoting a full spectrum of more affordable housing types and price points, as well as middle housing and middle income opportunities. Again, my primary goal is to get away from this full spectrum terminology, which to me includes the giant McMansions. And I just strongly feel that we should not be promoting that as a housing type.

Does staff have any concerns with more affordable housing?

No, I think that would actually be a helpful clarification if the change carries forward.

Okay, so let's just draw a poll this quickly. We already had, this is a winner as a, did we say this was a recommendation or it was a condition? We had a 5-2 agreement as a condition. So we're going back to this language. It's going to say, Thomas, can you go ahead and make the change here? It would read.

Are you referring to this one?

We're referring to, I can't see your cursor. Yes, so it's that one.

We had a 2-5 vote on the straw poll and it was as a recommendation. Okay.

Yeah. You're on Mason's version. I'm sorry. I'm scrolling back up to Kurt's version. He had the same policy and it was as a condition. Yeah. So it's the second one here on the page in the middle.

Okay. Should I just go back to Kurt's? Go to Kurt's. Yeah. Yeah. Please. I have to like reconcile all this into motion.

Yes. I'm sorry about the confusion. So you would delete the words a full spectrum of in the first line. The city supports increasing housing supply by promoting.

And I've already noted that as it's a strike in here, which we're going to have to note in the motion language. So I think we should keep striking that language.

Okay. So that will be struck. Go ahead and delete the and attainable. That's in bold there. So it just says affordable. And instead of affordable, it will say more affordable. So add the word more in front of affordable. And in that same line, instead of including, it would say as well as. I don't know if you're able to make those changes on the screen for us or if you're just noting them to yourself.

Yeah, I was wondering, is that a refresh as the reason we're not seeing it on the screen? I see. OK, thanks.

I see. Okay, I think, I mean, I have it noted. Does everybody understand what we're polling on? Okay, let's go ahead and straw poll that again. So this was as a condition with the changes we just discussed. Who supports this as a condition with the changes we just discussed to say more affordable, doesn't say attainable, and it says as well as middle housing and middle income opportunities. Okay, so if you support that as a condition, please go ahead and raise your hand. Okay, we're still at five to two. Okay, great. All right, and thank you, staff, for that catch. Appreciate that.

We made it better.

We made it better together. Yay! All right, so I think, Mason, that was all of your proposed changes. Let's go back to Kurt for the rest of your policy changes, and then I'll bring up the rear as is fitting for the chair.

Great. Kurt, who has an inexhaustible supply of small changes. Emphasis on the small, as you'll notice.

I'm sorry. Can you clarify that was a condition?

That was a condition.

Thank you.

So we're down to page 88 with where there's a description of neighborhood one areas and it says neighborhood one areas are primarily residential featuring detached single family single unit homes I screwed up single unit homes and small scale attached unit housing types, and I want to keep in mind that this is prescriptive right, this is not. descriptive of what is currently there. It is intended, these are the future land uses, it is intended to be prescriptive of what is, should be allowed in the future, including if we go on further, small scale businesses and other community uses, serving local community members and so on. And so in terms of prescribing what the emphasis should be on going forward, Curt Brown, Again, following along the lines of my other recommendations i'm suggesting adding the word small in front of detached single unit homes in order to emphasize that that should be the predominant form of detached single unit homes.

Karen Hollweg, Thank you Kurt staff reaction.

Overall, I believe that that would be too limiting in terms of what the overall vision is for neighborhood one, in our opinion.

Thank you, KJ. And Brad, did you want to add in from staff's perspective?

Yeah, just personally, I'm not quite sure I understand the distinction between small and small scale. Small scale and single unit homes often are attached. So just food for thought.

Kurt, I want to understand, were you intending that the word, the descriptor of small would be applied to detached single family homes?

Correct.

And then small scale is applied to the attached unit housing types. Correct. Okay, meaning a fourplex, whatever, but yeah. So in this case, though, what it is, and I'm sorry, Chair, if I jumped in here.

You're good.

Okay. What it is also describes the current condition. It's not solely a prescription condition. Is it? I'll ask that.

Would you like to see the size of some of the homes in some of our neighborhoods? They are not small.

Is this describing the world as we know it and what we want, or is this just describing what we want?

Excellent question. It is based on current conditions. So yes, it is an amalgamation of what is on the ground today and what we would envision for the future.

Thank you, Mark. Max. Max passes. Other comments, questions? Claudia.

I will say again, I think a lot of the housing language in the plan has been extremely carefully crafted to generate community consensus. And I think it does enough. I'm not comfortable with putting in changes like this to open it back up.

I second what Claudia said. Yeah, Emil.

um basically you're just adding small houses on small lots to the to the description there is that correct what's in yellow is that the new no no no down below uh the plan page 88 that section where where thomas's cursor is got it so not on this okay so just adding the word small in front of detached single unit homes again i feel like in my observations of what's going on in terms of development in the low density areas of the city. And this is partly colored by the fact that I live in Newlands, which doesn't help. But what I'm seeing is almost exclusively very large houses being built. And that, as I said before, that is contrary to our affordability goals. It's contrary to our equity goals. It's contrary to our sustainability goals. And I want... to put as much in this comp plan as possible to try to shift the balance away from that and towards smaller scale residential development. So that's my motivation here.

I'll just comment that I absolutely agree with your motivation. And I don't see the large number of very large homes ever being demolished and turned into small detached single unit homes. So I just don't think that we can achieve a neighborhood one that is primarily featuring small detached single unit homes. I think we should do whatever we can to encourage that redevelopment looks like that, but I don't think it's attainable vision. All right, and other comments before we struggle, Max.

It's worth noting that the county planning has already listed extreme concerns with Neighborhood 1 as it stands.

Let's draw a poll on this. Kurt, are you proposing this as a condition or a recommendation? Recommendation. As a recommendation, who is supportive of adding this word small? That is a two to five straw poll. Okay, Kurt, what's up next?

Okay, the next one is on page 89, the urban design section. This again is for neighborhood one. It currently reads residential and commercial buildings in these neighborhoods are typically moderate in scale, maintaining a residential form and rhythm along a block, generally one to three stories. with massing and setbacks that are harmonious with the surrounding neighborhood. And I have two concerns about this wording. One is I feel like we have currently, it's specifically related to the term setbacks. I don't think that it's appropriate to sort of be locking in terminology or values around setbacks in particular. At this level, it feels too specific. And in particular, at a time when We're under increasing water stresses and setbacks end up being, you know, landscaped, water-dependent landscaping. And so I think that we should maintain the flexibility to change our setbacks. More broadly, so one possibility that I would be happy with would be to just get rid of the terms and setbacks there. But I also have some concern about the term harmonious with the surrounding neighborhood, which to me is a little bit evocative of the problematic neighborhood character sort of terminology that we've run into in the past. and so i my proposal is to strike that entire clause if people want to keep the massing terminology then i would also propose alternatively propose striking the and setbacks part thank you kurt i'm going to go first to staff for a response and then i think mason you're up next

yeah so the intent behind uh including that language was to uh be responsive to some of the community concerns we've heard of course about um potential changes within neighborhood one um the the goal here is to really emphasize the fact that even though the housing types may evolve and change or the addition of some community serving commercial uses may be incorporated in the future that the overall scale and character and sort of site design and organization of those uses would be consistent with what is there today. So what we're trying to make sure that we're clear about in terms of describing this is that a five story apartment building or a five story mixed use building is not appropriate. And we do that even if it was three stories, it should still be responsive to the general sort of character that we're talking about here. So another good example is, you know, if there is a street that has all single family detached homes today with a 20 foot setback from the street, we would be very cautious, I think, about looking at and approving a commercial building that is directly right up and adjacent to the sidewalk. in that particular case. So that's what we're trying to make sure that we are providing some guidance to future policymakers that if zoning changes are to be done in the future, these are the things that we need to be considering as those changes come forward.

Thank you, KJ. Mason?

Yeah, question, KJ. My understanding is the things that you talked about are enshrined in zoning rules regulations already, correct?

Yes, they are correct.

So what I'm under and I'm about to put words in your mouth. So tell me if I'm doing it wrong. So what I'm hearing from you is you're throwing a bone to folks that were worried who might not have otherwise seen that those rules already exist in the zone.

I think it's more about maybe throwing a bone to all of you and future staff and future policymakers that if you're going to consider changes to the zoning, you have some indication on where the public and where the community has been through this process that they are open to change within their neighborhoods, but they want to make sure that the overall scale and character of that neighborhood is not radically changed over time. Thank you.

Other discussion, Mark, got your mic on.

What I I generally support this removal of language that Kurt is proposing. And again, we do not get 15 minute neighborhoods without some changes, you just don't get it doesn't happen. And so if you are enforcing the same setbacks or providing guidance for future zoning changes, that enforce the same setbacks and harmony, you know, harmony is in the eye of the beholder with the current neighborhoods, then it's, we're just not gonna get there, we're not gonna make progress. I also, there are two zero, almost zero setback buildings that have been converted to residential, used to be storefronts at about, Sixth. and maybe North Street or so, there's a storefront building in that neighborhood that is a zero setback. It's right up to the sidewalk. It's a really cool building. And there's another one at 21st and Pine. It is a storefront building. And those are actually really cool parts of those neighborhoods. And I think that the kind of provincial thinking that says, in my neighborhood, everything has to look alike, breeds boring and unworthy design elements. So anyway, I'll be supporting this.

I will just say that I have recently learned that if you enforce the same building envelopes, massing, setback, FAR on multi-unit development that you have for single unit development, it just doesn't pencil. And that other communities, as far as I am currently learning, to have success at developing multi-unit buildings in former single unit neighborhoods, they do have to make some changes to things like massing and setbacks. But I also appreciate the logic that Claudia has emphasized again and again, that we are making some changes and a lot of people are very uncomfortable with the amount of changes and the pace of change. And so perhaps in this version of the plan, we should be quite cautious about removing the reassurances to folks that the pace and scale of change is not going to be super dramatic all at once. So I'm, I'm quite torn on this one. I do think that the language already says residential and commercial buildings are typically moderate in scale, maintaining a residential form and rhythm along a block and generally one to three stories, which takes care of, I think, you know, 90% of what you're trying to get at here. So I am, I am genuinely torn about this. Mark.

Not only does the wording moderate in scale is something much more specific than harmonious, maintaining a residential form and rhythm along a block, generally one to three stories. Those are actually thoughtful, actionable, applicable standards. If as soon as you say harmonious with the surrounding neighborhood, you give you give fuel to the fire of of not in my backyard, not in my front yard and not on my street. So I like this.

Any other comments before we go ahead and pull ml and then Claudia?

I will just say that the idea of there being harmonious neighborhood that ships sailed. Newlands is a classic example. You've got these giant houses and maybe an occasional smaller house. And do you want to build anything new in the image of the big houses that have taken over so many of these original neighborhoods? So I think the intent makes sense, but I, I think this is not current thinking anymore. I think what we have now, I would not want my neighborhood to be held to what's been built in the last decade or two. So anyway, just I'll be supporting this change. Thank you.

Thank you, Amal. Claudia.

I wish with all my heart that this language was not in the draft, but it is. And I think if we request it to be taken out at this time, we are drawing attention to it and we are opening up literally a shitstorm of feedback that will come with it. And I do not think it is worth sacrificing what we are achieving in this plan to do that.

Sounds very inconsiderate on building maintenance staff. Other comments or questions? OK, shall we go ahead and poll? Is this a recommendation or a condition? This is a condition. As a condition, who supports this strikeout? Three, as a condition. Kurt, would you like to propose it as a recommendation?

As a recommendation.

That gets five. So as a recommendation, it goes in. On to your next one, Kurt.

Do you have more? I always have more. Very reliable. Thank you. This is still on the description of N1. Neighborhood one. Currently, the draft says individual private green spaces such as yards and gardens provide residential opportunities to connect to nature, while shared outdoor spaces foster social interaction, blah, blah, blah. To me, this reads that there are invariably individual private green spaces, and there may be shared outdoor spaces. I find this inappropriate. Though, as you may recall, one of the key guiding principles of the Boulder Valley comp plan was connection. So I think that we should be promoting connection and individual private green spaces do not create, they do not promote connection. Shared spaces do promote connection. they promote community, they promote interaction, and so on. And so I am suggesting adding the word may. So individual private green spaces such as yards and gardens may provide residential opportunities to connect to nature, which would mean that, I mean, I'm not suggesting changing the amount of green space that's required. But to me, this terminology, adding the may says, In some cases, there may be private green spaces. That's great. In some cases, there may not. And instead, all the open space requirement would be met by public green spaces. And that, to me, would be a positive outcome. And so it's just adding flexibility to say that the private green spaces are not, individual private green spaces are not necessarily required. Thank you, Kurt. Staff reactions?

I will just apologize. I do not read that as a requirement for individual private green spaces. We're just trying to make a statement that existing or possibly future individual green spaces can provide opportunities to connect to nature. And there are other shared spaces that can provide other types of connection as well. It's not intended to say anything about everybody needs a private green space.

So question, does that mean you object to the change or do you find the change unobjectionable?

I just find it unnecessary.

Unnecessary but unobjectionable. That's a question.

To me, I think it introduces some ambiguity in terms of that. So you could have an individual private green space that may not provide a connection to nature. It might be a

concrete patio i mean like i don't know it it is confusing okay i think thank you i'll just say i don't love the word may because it can imply permission or it can imply like probability so other questions or comments and i did read it the same way that kj did is not obligatory but just describing what these spaces do where they exist Other folks, comments, questions? Kurt, do you want to respond? No, I will just say that I'll propose this as a recommendation. As a recommendation, let us straw poll who would like to add this word may. We have one. Can't win them all, Kurt. Shall we move on?

Yes. So still staying on the definition of neighborhood one there's a section on mobility and I apologize in this last section I added in an extra return that messed up the the bulleting but um. The bullet number two says, paths and street trees create pleasant routes to nearby parks, schools, and small businesses, encouraging short trips without a car. I am suggesting adding terminology about school streets here. School streets are streets that have limited public motor vehicle access. Well, I should say private motor vehicle access. in order to improve safety for everybody going to and from schools. Paris has used these extensively. Montreal has introduced them, and they've been very successful. Portland has tried them. So I'm trying to introduce this notion into the neighborhood one um areas neighborhood one land use areas uh so i'm suggesting adding school streets that limit motor vehicle access for student safety may be considered near educational uses

Thank you, Kurt. I want to ask for staff reaction. And I just want to say something about the way that the screen is being managed is quite jumpy. I don't know if that's avoidable. It might be an artifact of the technology.

I'm trying to work on the past motions.

Oh, so it's kind of jumping back and forth.

I was doing that intentionally, yeah. But I can leave it paused on this while you guys look at this. Yeah, that would be good. I was trying to add in the straw poll count. And since I'm editing in Acrobat, it's kind of a nightmare, so...

Gotcha. Well, I'm also tracking, and so I do think that the jumping is, let's try to avoid that if we can. But thank you so much for your efforts. Okay, so staff reaction to this one about school streets.

So that term school streets is not a term that is used in our, it's not a category of streets that we have. So we would need probably a companion definition in the glossary. So that would be something to think about. In the realm of unintended consequences, I think it's important to consider that BVSD has school choice. So you can go to the school that you think best matches your students' needs, and that may be in your neighborhood, and you might be able to walk to it, and it might not be. So that would be something to discuss or consider. And then I saw, I think, KJ, you had another comment.

Uh, no, I think that's actually, that's a great explanation. I was, I was gonna, um, just refer to that first point that school streets is, is not something that I'm aware of in terms of what our transportation and mobility staff, um, are considering. We would certainly want them to weigh in on any change specific to this because this is a fairly specific operational, uh, direction that, um, I think needs further vetting by the department.

May I ask a question real quick? I am not as familiar with the design and construction standards as Kurt, but would this have implications for the design and construction standards?

I believe the answer is probably yes. In terms of functionally how that vehicle access is limited, is it permanently limited? Is it only limited during certain times of the day? Is it, you know, is it that done through signage or bollards or what is the treatment of that? How is it maintained? That type of thing. So I think there's, again, I think there's a lot of operational elements, you know, associated with this direction that I am not educated enough to be able to weigh in on tonight. And certainly we would need transportation staff to weigh in.

Thank you. Questions, comments? Mark.

I super love this idea, but I will not be supporting it. And Kurt and I had talked about introducing school streets. I first heard about it from Kurt a couple days ago and was like, what's that? Sounds great. But without having gone through any process or anything else introducing in the plan itself, I'll channel Claudia and say, yeah, not not this time around. But I'd love to meet with BVSD and tab and everyone and get going on it. But not in this not in this draft of the BBCP.

Thank you, Mark. I have Mason and then Claudia.

A similar comment. I'm not really sure it makes sense in neighborhood one, given that schools aren't all in neighborhood one as someone who lives in neighborhood two across from Fairview. And I know that there's been a discussion of doing something like Fairview, which I would love, which is like parking, having parking elsewhere and then having that front area be low. So I'm with Mark on this. I would show up to that meeting and love to see it happen. but probably not here.

Thank you, Mason. Claudia? I just wanted to say I am on team School Streets, but not in the BVCP. They are, in fact, amazing, and I hope to see them sometime. I'm in the same boat.

Okay, well, I think that there's clearly not support for this, so why don't we move on? I will withdraw this suggestion.

Withdrawn. On to the next one.

Okay. And then finally on the mobility section, the section on curbside space I think is missing some important usage. So it says, again, this is for neighborhood one, curbside space is typically used for parking and deliveries and may be managed depending on demand with occasional bicycle facilities, multi-use paths, or micromobility parking integrated into the neighborhood fabric. So there's a section on natural infrastructure. In fact, we have a section on a whole spread on the future of natural infrastructure. And we don't mention here the possibility of of using curb space for natural infrastructure. So the wording does say typically used for blah, blah, blah, but this feels fairly restrictive in the way it's currently framed. And so I'm suggesting adding curb spaces may also be used for natural infrastructure or traffic calming features. And again, this references back to the future of natural infrastructure section, which is at the beginning. Thank you, Kurt.

And thank you for saving me the embarrassment of asking what is natural infrastructure. I didn't make that connection. Thank you. Staff Reaction.

Yeah, we had some conversations with transportation staff around some similar elements that were suggested in an earlier draft of the comprehensive plan. Overall, their consideration, and it does refer back to some of our street standards, the DCS standards and street design that Natural infrastructure is challenging to do within the right-of-way in many locations. Traffic calming features certainly are of interest and applicability, but again, I think there's an interest in being able to look at things more context-specific as opposed to having broad policy language that would introduce these types of elements. And again, I think the list that is included is not intended to be absolutely exclusive. You know, the comprehensive plan is guiding. It's not regulatory. So there certainly could be opportunities for natural infrastructure and traffic calming. Again, looking at a specific site and part of a design, but rather than including it, we've kept that list fairly short and concise.

Thank you, KJ. Questions, comments, responses, Kurt?

So something's funny with my computer, and I can't get to it, but I believe that the natural infrastructure section already talks about that they can be used in parking areas, and I believe it says also streets. So I think that there's also already reference to that.

Yeah, I will double check that as we're looking at it. Certainly a parking area is a different situation as a privately owned property. And there's certainly a lot more opportunities for that. But within public right-of-way, natural infrastructure can be difficult.

Okay. Questions? Commentary? Do we want to go right to a straw poll? Kurt, are you proposing this as a recommendation or a condition? I'm proposing this as a condition. Straw polling this as a condition. Who supports making a condition with this sentence curbspaces may also be used for natural infrastructure or traffic calming features? We have one.

Kurt, would you like to propose it as a recommendation?

I would. Let's poll it as a recommendation. We have two. All right, Kurt, you have one more.

I do indeed. This last one relates to mobility in the context of parks. So the draft plan, as stated, says parking and transit stops are near entrances and amenities, providing accessibility and opportunities for visitors to move through green spaces. My concern about this is it seems to imply that every park facility uh including both parks and rec centers and everything have parking near the entrances and amenities so that includes like central park right which there's no parking at some of the entrances. And so to me, it just seems unduly restrictive and not practical. And so I'm proposing changing it to say transit stops are near entrances and amenities, providing accessibility and opportunities for visitors to move through green spaces. And then motor vehicle parking, if provided, makes efficient use of land and minimizes the amount of pavement. And that terminology makes efficient use of land and minimizes the amount of pavement. That comes directly from the site review criteria 9214H.

Thank you, Kurt. Staff reaction.

Yeah, a couple of thoughts on this one. So I don't believe that staff would agree with or recommend the removal of the reference to parking being near entrances and amenities. You know, parking is a critical component of our park system and providing that necessary accessibility to those amenities and ball fields and all the other amenities. uh elements of the of the park system that are that are provided um the second sentence uh references and certainly a value that we all share in terms of efficient use of land and minimizing the amount of payment there is already existing language that's in the land use chapter on page 81 that specifically states that in the design of future areas, it should be minimized physical and visual impacts of excessive parking. So we do already reference the desire and the need for parking to be minimized to the extent practicable. I don't know if it necessarily needs to be called out specifically here related to parks.

Questions, comments, reaction?

Well, I guess my reaction is if every park needs to have a bunch of parking, then if that's what we're saying, then I feel like we're... not doing what we need to do as a city to meet our sustainability goals, our transportation goals, and so on. So I fundamentally disagree. I think we certainly need to have handicapped access to parks. I think that that is fundamental. But to say that every park needs to have parking, I just fundamentally disagree. i mean we've we've removed parking as a requirement from all land uses except we're saying that parks need to have them i don't find that consistent is that the city policy that all city parks have um ample parking

I would have to double check the Parks and Recreation Master Plan to see what their specific policies around parking are. But again, I think this statement here is not saying that parking is required at all parks. It's just saying that when it's there, parking and transit stops are located near entrances and amenities. I do think that we need to broadly recognize there are many community members that may not be able to access a park Other than through a car, you know, many of our users are going to be young children or elderly, and they're going to need to be able to access that park through, potentially through a vehicle, so we do need to accommodate that.

accessibility is a is a great concern. In my neighborhood, we are blessed with three parks within the confines at least of our designation melody catalpa. We have three great parks. None of them have anything other than on street parking, and zero designated accessible parking. And so while And we have people in the neighborhood that have great accessibility limitations. So I don't think it seems like and we've eliminated parking minimums everywhere else. So I don't see this as being counter to any parks and rec policy that is currently being enforced. It's just kind of stating, stating, restating in terms of Kurt's addition, and then striking the word parking. And again, if parking in that case is referring to on street parking in the right of way that is common to the street, whether a park is there or not, that seems weirdly redundant as well. Anyway, I'll be supporting this.

Kurt, can I make a friendly amendment that might take care of some of this? Maybe not. Maybe I'm not thinking about it right. But what if it said parking and transit stops, comma, where provided, comma, are near entrances and amenities providing accessibility and opportunities, et cetera. And that way it doesn't remove the parking from the need to be near entrances and amenities. And then you could also include motor vehicle parking makes efficient use of land and minimizes the amount of pavement. as long as that is not contrary to Park's policy, but I can't imagine that it would be.

Well, first of all, I would accept that. I think that that's great. But I also want to refer to or respond to this point about parks policy. If we go to the beginning of the Boulder Valley Comp Plan and we look at the order of the way things work are supposed to work in the city, the Boulder Valley Comp Plan takes precedence over park policy. Parks policy is supposed to derive from the Boulder Valley Comp Plan. So we should not be saying, oh, but parks doesn't want this, or parks does this. Parks should be taking their plan from the direction of the boulder valley complex unless we're going to turn that whole diagram on its head which I hope we're not then we shouldn't be worrying about. what policies parks currently happen to have. I feel that the parks, I'll say it, the Parks and Rec Department has not fully gotten the memo about sustainability in this city. And I feel that that's quite problematic. So I'm, I guess, a little sensitive about that. But to get back to the point, yes, I would support Laura's friendly amendment. I think that that's great. Mark?

Could you restate your friendly amendment, please?

So Thomas, can I get you to do this with me in real time? So instead of striking out parking and transit stops, reinstate that language, parking and transit stops. Oh, okay. Just, yeah. Parking and transit stops. And then comma, where provided. So parking and transit stops, comma, where provided, comma. Are near entrances and amenities. And then in the yellow highlighted, just go ahead and delete the comma, if provided, comma. Curt, does that match what you would accept as a friendly amendment?

That matches what I would accept.

Staff reaction, does that help fix the potential issues here?

Yeah, yes, I think that's fine. I will just restate that I think the second sentence is unnecessary because it's already stated elsewhere in the plan and applies to all parking, but I'll leave it at that. It's your decision.

Kurt, is that satisfactory to you? Do you want to remove that or leave it in since it applies to all parking?

No, I want to maintain that. Okay, I think that it's important that it be clarified here for parks, specifically.

Okay, any further discussion questions before we struggle? Let us straw poll Curtis is a recommendation or condition.

This is a recommendation.

Straw polling as a recommendation hands up, please. I think we have six, six to one. All right. Thank you, Kurt. And I deeply apologize, but I think I need to take a quick break. Can we take five? Okay. Coming back in five. So at 920, we will resume. Well, I guess we could but then the other bodies wouldn't get the benefit of our sage advice Okay, everybody back All right, Thomas, could you go ahead and pull up my two recommended text changes? These are our last two recommended text changes. And then I think we have like 11.

Are those in the PDF distributed by KJ? It was in an email.

It was an email from me today.

It was an email from me today.

1234, Thomas? 1234 p.m.? Yeah, I've got it.

Okay. Yep. So I just copy the whole text from this email?

Just copy the text from the email.

Yep, please. There's like a hundred bullet points.

There's what?

There's like a hundred bullet points.

Oh, there's a bunch of bullet points, yeah.

Okay, it's going to copy.

We'll give it a shot. And Hela, I have a legal question. Yeah. I am suggesting one of my changes is to pull forward existing text into a two-page spread, and it's fairly extensive. Would I need to read it all into the record at this time? I probably would need to read it into the record for the actual motion.

I think Thomas could put it on the screen at some point. It would probably be good to read it into the record so that it's clear for everybody what's proposed.

Okay. All right. Thomas, if you could scroll down to keep going, keep going. So this is all from an email that I sent earlier. We don't need all the intro text. Keep going. Okay. So we'll start at the top of this page here that says proposed text to be carried forward from the existing 2020 plan.

So hopefully it's all, it's all incorporated.

So yeah, you can go ahead and scroll down to the next page. Yep. Okay. So the first change that I'm proposing, and I did send this via an email to my fellow board members earlier is that, well, let me back up and give context. So this current version of the draft plan does not have a lot of text about sub-community or area planning. It is mentioned I think in a short paragraph and it's mentioned the name checked a couple of times that there will be sub-community planning, but there's nothing very descriptive about sub-community or area planning. Whereas in the 2020 plan, there was an entire chapter devoted to sub-community and area planning, and it was a major focus area of the update that happened just five years ago. And so my thought was that we should be carrying forward some of that old text, and it's only five years old from the previous BVCP, about what is sub-community and area planning, what are the characteristics of that, and what are the selection criteria and who makes the decision of how a sub-community plan or an area plan is commissioned, basically. And so all of the text that I'm suggesting here is simply reserved from the plan rather than being cut out of the old plan. And I'm proposing to carry it forward into this version. And I'm proposing to do that as one of our two-page spreads. We have two-page spreads on natural infrastructure, on future of housing, future of transportation. So I am proposing a two page spread that is called the future of sub community and area planning. And it preserves the text from the previous draft. Do you folks want me to read all of the texts that I'm proposing to preserve?

Is that helpful?

Okay. Okay. Thomas, perhaps you can just scroll through it quickly. Not super quickly, but all of these bullet points and all of this text, you can keep going. And the format would need to be cleaned up, obviously, because it's transferred over a bit weird. But be formatted nicely. We would carry over this text. You can keep going. Keep going. And just keep going until you get to the figure. There's also one figure that I am proposing to carry over about sub-community and area plans. But again, these bullet points just describe what is a sub-community plan? What does it do? What are the characteristics of it? What is an area plan? What does it do? What are the characteristics of it? And how is it different from a sub-community plan? The criteria for selecting which areas will become new sub-community and area plans. You can keep going. And it says that city council is the decision maker of deciding which sub community or area plans get done. And then there's a figure that shows where we already have the 10 sub communities and existing sub community or area plans. The amount of text here and the figure is roughly equivalent to what is in other two page spreads. Only thing that I added that was new was in this sentence that's at the top of the page. I added the two words and areas. The selection and prioritization of sub communities and areas for planning will be at the direction of city council. Those are the only two words I added. Everything else is just preserving. And I know staff have said that this information about sub community and area plans can be just linked to the plan or provided separately on some other webpage. I personally think that there's value in keeping it in the BVCP, especially for folks who are worried about the pace and scale of change to be reassured that sub community and area planning, which are a major tool that we use to guide the evolution of specific areas will continue to be a valued and utilized tool in the city. So I'm going to make this a recommendation, not a condition. I think it's a good idea. I want to ask staff for reactions. Is there any reason why we shouldn't include this information? Does this have unintended consequences?

Yeah, I think just to reiterate, staff considers this section to be very operational. And as we've redesigned the plan and the structure and the components of the plan, a lot of those operational direction have been removed and a big component of that is to allow for future creativity and how things are implemented over time. So the operational component and removing this operational component was intentional. And yes, as you described, we've considered kind of the network of websites that are associated with the comprehensive plan and with long range planning in general. there would still be a sub-community and area planning page, and a lot of this content would be on that page.

Thank you. Questions, comments? I saw Claudia first, and then Mark. Oh, and I see Brad has stepped up.

Yeah, if I could just jump in and maybe add to some of Kathleen's points. While I would certainly say that it's critical and important that we keep sub-community plans as a tool in the toolbox to the point that Kathleen is making of it being operational, I would say, too, there are emerging trends and tools in the planning field that may make our conceit of what is a sub-community or sub-plan in this context not as relevant. And I would just hate for us to feel constrained by that. Again, we can bring that forward. In fact, every sub-community is a sub-element of the plan, of the comprehensive plan. So there's that reinforcement that would be part of that as well. So I think that's part of staff's thinking as well as we make that point.

Thank you. I saw Claudia and then Mark.

Thanks for that, Brad. That actually heads off one of my questions that I had for staff, and that was to what extent sub-community planning is considered appropriate for our planning context. That is the status of those kinds of things in the department's future plans. I did not get a chance to review the draft plan after receiving Laura's recommendation, so I just wanted to check in, like, what is the status currently of sub-community plans?

in the draft bvcp are they mentioned where are they mentioned yeah great question uh i can tell you they uh yes they are mentioned on Page 11 specifically they're referenced as part of the overall framework diagram sub community and area plans is where it explains what they are and and how they sort of fit within the overall context of the of the plan itself. They also show up earlier on page eight. They are referenced again as being a sub element of the overall comprehensive plan. Let's see, referenced an additional time on page 78, as we speak about implementation. And then also in the how to use the future land use designations and map section sub community and area plans are also referenced on how those plans can provide additional guidance to the land use map.

Okay, and then second question probably has a fuzzier answer but. In terms of professional practice our sub Community plans appropriate tools for addressing concerns about the pace of change like that has been mentioned. as part of the rationale for making this change, carrying forward this language. And I definitely recognize that anxiety in the community. Is sub-community planning a way to address that, or do we have other tools that are better to address that?

Yeah, I think the beauty and the benefit of the sub-community plan is it puts heavy weight on the participatory planning process. So people who live in or around the area are able to voice concerns about what's changing, how things are changing, how they might want it to change differently, and then we can make recommendations to address those. So I do still think it's a good tool to address kind of that interest and the way that we evaluate where change is happening or what that pace of change is could be different. you know, over time as, as we get more data and more tools and things like that.

I just, I just want to point out some of the language that would be preserved, which is not in the current draft says the sub community planning. Well, it gives an overview that the sub community planning process is a collaborative effort amongst members of the public and the city to develop recommendations for achieving local citywide and regional goals. And it specifically says in those long bullet points that it will, um, establish a forum for sub-community residents to share ideas and concerns about the future of their area, provide residents with opportunities to play a role in the planning, design, and implementation of future preservation and change in their neighborhood, define desired characteristics of a sub-community that should be preserved or enhanced, identify gaps and opportunities in city services and resources, identify gaps and opportunities in the private market for features like housing and retail, prioritize projects for preservation and or change in the sub community. So it is very heavily on residents being involved in what is preserved and what has changed. It's similarly for area plans. It talks about these are developed for areas or corridors with special problems or opportunities that are not adequately addressed by comprehensive planning, sub community planning or existing land use regulations. They are initiated as issues or opportunities arise. Area plans are generally of a scale that allow for developing a common understanding of the expected changes, defining desired characteristics that should be preserved or enhanced, and identifying achievable implementation methods.

So it just goes into a lot more detail about those community concerns.

Mason, did you have a comment? Oh, Mark. Sorry, Mark.

No, it's okay. And then Mason. based on Kurt's final item and his reference to page 10 and 11, which do address all sorts of different plans and their relationship to the BVCP. So when I think about the importance of area plans, I think, sure, they're important. I also think the CIP is important. We're dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars. I think the budget is important with half a billion dollars. I think the development and zoning standards are critical to the work we do. And they get a paragraph here. What my point is, is that while we're trying sub-community and area plans are important parts of what we deal with as a planning board. We deal with all of the things on this page in our work week in and week out and I think that the reference that staff has developed to the various plans and the visual instructing us on how those plans relate to each other with the BVCP next to the top, below the sustainability equity resilience framework is all appropriate. And I think all that's needed now at this point.

Thank you, Mark. Mason.

So I think I mentioned this a couple of times that as As much as preserving community character is offensive to me, that community plans is the healthy version of the same coin. And I did feel that the removal of this section from the VVCP seemed to deprioritize it. And I'm hearing a little bit that... I'm reading between the lines, so let me know if I'm interpreting it incorrectly. But I'm hearing a little bit of deprioritization, kind of... creating an option for doing it differently. And although I like flexibility, we've talked about flexibility a lot tonight, I think that if we were moving to something different than the current process of subcommittee plans, I would like to see what that is prior to removing this. I agree a little bit with Mark that what is currently in there gives us some flexibility direction on how to use subcommittee plans, but I feel like adding this back in would make that even more clear and have a little more teeth.

ML.

I am going to concur with the direction you are proposing, Laura, and in large part because we have bumped up against the lack of um um lack of ability to uh hold projects accountable to their area plan and i think we're moving it out of the bvcp uh take some of the legs out of it that you know it's barely got any legs and um they are such a powerful tool because of the process they went through. These are about the people and how they want their neighborhood or area to think about the way it is and the way it's moving forward. And we, I think, too easily begin to dismiss the hard work that goes in by the neighbors and the community the hired consultants and all the boards that weigh in, I think that the tools that result from those processes have eroded themselves out of use. And I think when I saw that this was out of the BVCP, I didn't raise an issue because I kind of saw the new map and thought, well, maybe it's part of this new diagram and that makes sense. But thank you for bringing it up, Laura, because I do think that they are a powerful tool. And if we can bring them back to have some substantive role When we review projects, I think that will be good for the city that it causes us to look at the city as or the area as a whole, rather than just the parcel that often happens when things come to planning board.

Other comments or questions. Kurt.

One of my main concerns about sub community and area plans is that we don't have a mechanism for updating them. The comp plan is great because we have a regular cadence of required updates every 10 years, right? Minor updates every five years. And so it forces us to go in and look at stuff, do exactly what we're doing tonight and have been doing for the past 20 months or whatever it is. And I think that that's great. And we have seen the problems that are caused by not having that for sub-community and area plans. We see that in North Boulder, where the sub-community plan is pretty clearly out of date. We saw that with the project on 30th Street, where the area plan was such a contentious point. That was the area plan for the PVRC, I think. And it had not been updated. There's no mechanism for updating these. We don't have the staff, the resources to update these. And so I am very open to what Brad was saying about the possibility of new tools that would do some of this, but not be sub community and area plans, the way they've. historically been done. And if that can be more responsive and allow for change, then I would rather not try to encode the notion of subcommunity and area plans anymore in the comp plan.

So, I mean, I'll just respond and say, absolutely, our process for creating and updating subcommittee and area plans has not kept pace with our ambitions. And that's an issue. And I think the city needs to address it. But I think that deep and if and if the answer is that we need a whole new mechanism or a different kind of process, then I'm supportive of that. But for right now, this is what we've got. And I don't think that deprioritizing it. will effectively move us to change it, right? I think we'd be more incentivized to replace it if we are seeing we have things we can't use and that we don't actually live up to our ambitions even more than we do now. I also just feel like the community is nervous enough about what's happening with this BVCP. And I think that removing the language about area plans and sub-community plans is not a reassuring signal, right? This is one of the key tools that we have for people at a neighborhood scale or several neighborhood scale to weigh in on what's happening in their neighborhood. And I am very reluctant to just see this moved off to a different website. I think it should stay in the comp plan And like Mason said, if we're going to replace it, let's replace it. The comp plan gets updated every five years. So it's a priority to have a new mechanism besides sub-community and area planning. We can tackle that, right? But I don't like to throw out something that is our best mechanism that we have now. Not that it would be completely thrown out. That's overstating it. And that's not fair. I shouldn't have said that. But I don't like to see it be deprioritized to this extent and kind of out of sight, out of mind to some extent. That's the last thing I'll say. Any other comments before we straw poll? So I'm suggesting it as a recommendation. Let's go ahead and straw poll.

Laura, would you mind if I just chimed in really quickly? Yes, please. And I can certainly appreciate the sentiment that it feels like it's deprioritized, but I would like to just really reinforce that sub-community planning, once we get beyond the update to the comprehensive plan, that is essentially the key component of our work group, sub-community and area planning, and then assisting with code changes and other things like that. So it is certainly not deprioritized within our work planning. And I would also just, you know, references to, you know, if we want to change how we do sub-community planning, we can do that at the next comp plan update. We anticipate doing a couple of these before the next comp plan update. And so if we want to change how those work or what that ultimate deliverable looks like, we may need an interim change to the comp plan, which is easier said than done. I'll just make that note.

Well, let me ask, is there anything in the specific language that I proposed carrying forward for the two page spread? that would prevent you from making the kinds of changes that you're anticipating you may wanna make with the next couple of sub-community plans? Because I certainly would not want to prevent that evolution.

It's a little difficult to respond on the fly, I'll be honest. I would hope that we could work within those constraints if this ultimately carries forward and is adopted by all the bodies.

Okay, thank you. Was there another comment? Okay, this would be a recommendation to make a two page spread out of the existing language that describes sub community plans, area plans, how they get prioritized, and who does that prioritization. All in favor of making this a recommendation, please raise your hand. I see three, so that one fails. Okay, thank you, folks. And then I have just one more, which is the airport policy. And Thomas, it's probably on the same document if you just scroll down. Okay. So I am, oh gosh, it looks like the strikeout did not carry through. All right. So Thomas, this has mashed a couple of things together and the strikeout has not carried through. So I'm going to need to send you something else. Can we pull it up on a display, like from an email? That would be fantastic. Thank you. So while we're trying to pull up the specific language, so my intent with this was looking at the proposed language for the airport policy in the new draft. I think I and several other people had the reaction that it felt very unbalanced. We are going to have an airport, and we are going to need to safely maintain that airport and have a vision for that airport for the duration of this comprehensive plan, or at the very least through the next couple of updates. And so it seems valuable to have a policy about the airport the plan even though we also have an ordinance about operating the airport and I take to heart staff's comments about not wanting to be too operational so I tried to do a little bit I did find the policy as written to be pretty operational so I tried to pull it back to be less operational more aspirational and more balanced in terms of acknowledging the positive things that the airport contributes to the community and also mitigating the negative impacts which are pretty undeniable. The airport is a source of joy and recreation for a lot of folks. It houses about 13 businesses at last count that may have gone up or down by a couple. It has played some disaster management role in the past and could in the future There are promising new technologies that a lot of people are excited about. So there are good things about the airport, electrified aircraft, for example. And then there are also things that are serious impacts on the community. It is one of our top contributors of greenhouse gases, like any activity that relies on burning fossil fuels. It is their number one source of noise complaints in the city. It is a unique source of of airborne lead pollution that we can do nothing about. And so I think acknowledging those things, all those things, the good and the bad, providing a balanced policy is important. So these are, and our aspiration about what are we going to do? How are we going to take care of our community? How are we going to encourage the positive and mitigate the negative? So these are the strikeout and additions that I have proposed in order to achieve those goals. So I did try to tighten up the language in the first couple sentences, again, to not be so operational, so that it reads, the city maintains the Boulder Airport as a safe environment for aviation, aviation-related businesses and special events. and medical and disaster related support for the city and county. So condensing some of that long list of specific uses. And then instead of saying that the city will help manage and mitigate noise, it says the city will strive to minimize and mitigate noise and other impacts of airport operations. via methods such as noise abatement agreements. Noise abatement agreements was notably missing from the previous language and I'm not sure why since we already have those. I changed the wording from land use controls to land use tools. The reason why I did that was because when I hear land use controls, I think that the average person would view that as controlling what gets built around the airport. And that is certainly one tool that is available to the city, but we have not really gone in that direction of trying to limit residential around the airport, for example, even though some folks would like us to. Land use tools can include things like the airport influence zone, which we already have. something called avigation easements, which we already have, which are property right restrictions about the airspace over your home and ability to sue for noise impacts. Avigation easements are already part of the city's package of what we do around the airport. So that's encompassed by land use tools. And I'm not sure that the term land use controls really gets at that. And then I also, I did not like the sentence, the city is also forward-looking as aircraft electrification becomes a reality. That sentence doesn't feel very meaningful to me, so I changed it to the city promotes the adoption of electric aircraft technology, which to me is quite similar to how we promote the adoption of EV cars. and could encompass that we provide, for example, charging stations at the airport, right? Because we're promoting the adoption of electric aircraft technology. Let's see. I struck a sentence, the city will continue to build relationships that allow the airport to be a valuable resource for a wider range of people in the Boulder community, because that felt very, on the one hand, nonspecific and also somewhat operational. And I changed that to the idea of special events that was noted above, because I think that's what we're talking about is holding events at the airport. I'm sorry, this is going on for a long time, but I added the sentence, the city and counties pay special attention to inequitable impacts of airport operations on the population that lives, works, plays, and goes to school in proximity to the facility. I want to talk about this for a second. This is a plan that our number one policy, the very first thing out of the gate that we say is that we consider the equity impacts of all decisions and presumably all activities that the city is sponsoring. This facility that is a city-run and city-owned facility has incredibly inequitable impacts on the people who live closest to the airport. They are inequitably impacted by lead pollution. They are inequitably impacted by noise pollution. Everything about that airport that is a negative impact falls most heavily on the people who live closest to it. And those folks are, if you look at the city's racial equity map, they are a category five, which is the highest category of concern for racial equity, racial and ethnic equity. So I think we should not run away from that fact and name it and acknowledge it and say that we are going to pay attention to that. And therefore, continuing on, the city will coordinate with the county to provide consistent regulations addressing noise and other airport influences and to provide education and assistance to the residents most impacted by aviation-led where possible. And I will note that that is already happening. The city has already done some education efforts. The county has already done some education efforts. And I believe they have resources available. So none of this is describing stuff that's not already happening. It's just describing it in a more balanced way and really calling attention to the fact that we care about equity in particular with relation to this particular facility that has such inequitable impacts.

So where we can do something about that, we should be doing something about that.

So that was my philosophy in making these edits. And I am not wedded to them in particular. I'm open to folks if there's something in particular that staff says would be a very bad idea or if folks here really object to an edit or want to add an edit, let's talk about it. So first I want to turn to staff and say, is there anything here that is a bad idea, would have unintended impacts? What is your thought?

Yeah, thank you. A couple quick things. The sentence that you added that references the city and county pay special attention to, et cetera, currently this policy is a city-only policy, and by introducing the county into that language, that would then imply that the county is also agreeing to this policy and we would need their approval. for it so currently this is just a two-body approval and any changes um so maybe consider how we phrase that and maybe remove the reference to the county specifically the last sentence um uh we've been able to navigate that by saying that the city will coordinate with the county Et cetera, et cetera. So there might be a way to use that similar kind of language. I do feel like the reference specifically to the noise abatement agreements is a bit specific and maybe gets into, you know, some... more specific of the how we implement this policy. So I might suggest some changes around that to be not as specific with that. I do think the change to land use tools is a good one. It broadens some of the application there. I think the changes at the beginning in terms of removing sort of some of the long list of things and trying to shorten that up, I think that's commendable. I might suggest some of the research or educational components, maybe consider adding those back in. I think those are valuable. The last one I will just mention was that there was a little bit of advice from legal that the last portion that speaks to that the city provides education and assistance to residents most impacted, that assistance could imply financial assistance conceivably. And so I think that's also some language we should be really careful about.

Okay, thank you. I have some comments in response, but I want to open it up to other board members if you want to ask questions or make comments before I do that.

Mark. So, knowing your, I'll just address it, knowing your relationship to the airport and your thoughts about the future of the airport, I find that your edits are well restrained and appreciated. In regard to the city and county pay special attention to inequitable impacts. Bringing the county into this, which I'm generally not in favor of, in this case, in reference to the inequities, is not the, I'm sorry, I forget the name of the mobile home park, manufactured housing park. San Lazaro.

Yeah.

San Lazaro. Uh, that's in the County. Yeah. So, well, again, I don't typically want to drag the County into our business. This is, this is clearly, if you're going to, uh, address equity concerns, well, then, then the County's the County's got to be there. So anyway, that's my thought. Um, and, uh, uh, unless there's some other edits, I would actually be in support of what you've produced.

Thank you.

Kurt? Yeah, I'll start off by saying that the vast majority of the policies in the ComPlan, I think, are incredibly well written and really balanced and really, you know, are not... they're they're representing the full spectrum of the city and i really commend staff for the way that they've been presented when i read this one i did not get that it felt very boosterish um and and therefore not really representative of the full the the the full debate that's going on in the city about the the uh airport and so i appreciate the changes that Laura has been making. And I think by far the most important one in my mind is the one about equity. I think that, yeah, the fact that we are not referencing equity in here in the draft plan is a big shortcoming. And so I appreciate that she has added that in since it is such a focus of the comp plan.

Thank you, Kurt. Other thoughts? Max?

Yeah, so I understand Mark's point about bringing the county in for that specific part, and I like the kind of general edits about the airport, but I would definitely be in support of maybe monitoring the assistance part at the end so that when it goes to the county, you know, that you're less likely to get that pushback.

I will say that i'm aware of at least one county supervisor supervisor Commissioner sorry i'm back in California suddenly it's late at night one county Commissioner, who is very concerned about all of these things in much the same way that I am. So the the airport like many airports across the country. is located right on the border of jurisdictions. And a lot of the impacts of that airport fly out over the county, not just San Lazaro, but county residents. And so the county board of commissioners gets just as many, if not more, complaints about that airport as our city council does. So I do think it is appropriate that the county be included in this policy, that the county have some say in this policy. I do not know how that will play out, but I think it's appropriate because they have a role. They also, it's the county health department that is sending out messages about lead and the impacts of lead on children and how to mitigate those impacts. So I will say I would not be supportive of removing the county from this. I think that that's pretty essential. And I'm glad to hear that there's some support here on the board for that. With regard to the word assistance, if we change that to support, would that take away the concern that it could be viewed as financial? Or is there another word that we could use? Saying that we will just provide education feels like it's falling a little bit short. But I agree that we shouldn't be raising expectations that there's money that we don't have. So if we said provide education and support to residents, provide education and I don't know what the right word is.

I would have the same concerns with the word support.

With support. Okay. That's useful. thoughts and prayers let me do a quick thesaurus check maybe but sometimes they have slightly different things let's try could we say services Maybe that's too specific. It's true. Provide education and resources when available to residents most impacted by aviation lead. Yes, Brad.

This is Brad. You might be touching on one thing that I do want to circle back as a concern about provide education and assistance and that you just now said where possible or something. A general concern would be that that's pretty operational and it seems to imply we're going to possibly set up programs that do education and we already addressed the financial assistance part of it, but That that whole last clause feels a little. challenging. Just from from the standpoint of being operational. And maybe there's a different way to reference the lead. Some thoughts thanks.

I mean, I do know that educational efforts have happened. Some have happened as part of the airport community conversation. And there's a flyer, I think, that either has recently gone out or is going out soon from the county health department to specifically the residents within a certain radius of the airport, specifically about that issue. So I don't think that we're talking about things that aren't already happening. And it does say where possible.

Laura, what about engage? Educate and engage. This is because it is actually a function of the government to continue to, and they might become part of the city someday, county residents, but we're not shying away from engaging with them.

I like that, if other folks like that. So we would edit it. Thomas, could you please edit that sentence that says to provide education and assistance? You would delete provide education and assistance and change it to and educate and engage residents most impacted by aviation-led where possible. Does that raise the same concerns with staff?

Yeah, the only thing I'll mention is that the first part of that sentence is really referring to regulations and coordination amongst the city and the county to, where possible, align things like airport influence zones and things like that. This feels like a little bit of an add-on to that, and it's really addressing a very different and separate issue. topic in terms of aviation led specifically and how we're engaging with people potentially impacted by that so i think it would probably be better as a separate statement as opposed to trying to tag that on to the first bit would it be possible to i'm gonna say the opposite thing but lump

education in with regulations. So the city will coordinate with the county to provide consistent regulations and education in order to address the noise and other airport influences such as aviation lead. So you've moved education back up towards with regulation and engagement, and then you've grouped noise and lead as things to be addressed by the prior.

Max, my brain is operating slowly. Can you repeat that? Are you able to repeat that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm good at this. The city will coordinate with the county to provide consistent regulations and education in order to address impacts from the airport, such as aviation-led or noise.

Yeah, I just don't know that they coordinate on education about noise is the only thing. I do know that they do education about lead.

Well, consistent regulations in education for airport influences such as noise, lead, et cetera, it's not.

Yeah, we could rewrite that, I think. Okay. Let me work on that real quick and send it to Thomas. Or is it Kathleen that's showing the screen right now? It's Thomas, okay.

Yeah, it's Thomas. The one last thing I would ask the board to consider is the new sentence that was added that says the city and county pay special attention, et cetera. If that were to be worded as the city will coordinate with the county to pay special attention, et cetera, that would maintain this policy as a city-only policy. I will just note that during the public hearing, With the county, last week there were some comments from the policymakers about why the county is implicated in this policy at all, because it is a city facility. So I think it's just a consideration that they will scrutinize that language very closely if they are directly implicated.

Mm-hmm.

Which does kind of go back to my original point was that if you want to have the county earlier on maybe scrapping the end altogether puts them a little bit less on the hook for something that the city planning board is recommending.

Well, I mean, they would have to agree to it for it to take effect. And I am going to be proposing this as a condition, and I'll talk about why. I hope that doesn't scare anybody. And if it doesn't pass as a condition, we can talk about it as a recommendation, but I think it should be a condition. Okay, so let me work on those last couple sentences. Give me a minute or two. But I did want to address some of the other things that Christopher raised about research and educational uses of the airport. I don't have an objection to adding those back in. And then the thing about the noise abatement agreements, I just want to, well, I want to wait until Christopher's listening because I want to make sure that I either do or don't answer his concern. So it just seems very strange to me to say that the city is going to minimize and mitigate noise and other impacts of airport operations and not mention the primary tool that we have to do that, which is noise abatement agreements. They are voluntary, but that is the thing that everybody looks at for how do we encourage the pilots to be less noisy over the areas and at the times of day that make the most difference to the community. So I just don't see how you talk about mitigating noise and other impacts without mentioning the noise abatement agreements that we already have and that are in fact required by the FAA.

Yeah, I mean, I'll just- I think that's true. I'll just reinforce that I certainly am not educated enough to know what a noise abatement agreement really is or how they are used, but there are many, many situations in the comprehensive plan and in the way we have written all the policies to speak to what the policy is and why that is valuable and important, but we have not gotten into the specifics of the tools that we use specifically. you know, to implement those policies in the future. So I would just encourage us to consider that same logic here.

And this is Brad. I'll just add that in the universe of noise abatement tools, we include and have much more direct influence over building code and having sound attenuation requirements in the building and notification to would-be buyers. So there is a larger universe of addressing noise.

I mean, there certainly is, but the sentence says and originally gave examples of how you are minimizing and mitigating noise and other impacts of airport operations through, it originally said, land use controls and partnership with the state and fuel providers to offer unleaded fuel, which is pretty operational. So again, we have, it's called the VNAP, the Voluntary Noise Abatement Protocol or Procedure. And that is what our airport manager works with the tenants on, monitors, collects statistics about, like that is a tool that we use. It is a primary tool. So I would be, I think it's silly to strike it because it is the primary thing that the airport manager uses for that purpose. Okay, let me work on that last sentence and also inserting this idea of scientific and educational uses as one of the beneficial uses of the airport and then come back to this group with a proposed language. That's our last text change and then we will get on to the mapping changes.

Yeah, well, we got a second here and we're about to move into the land use changes. This actually might be an appropriate time to ask this. Earlier when me and Mark were talking, we were all talking about the industrial policy. Something you said was that we're not talking properties, we're talking policy, but now we are talking land. properties and I'm just curious because KJ you've mentioned that one of the ways to move through this in the future would be changing the designations for some of these and I'm wondering I did double check and Mark was correct unsurprisingly but is there a particular reason why the industrial park commonly known as Foothills Industrial Park between Valmont and Pearl bound by Valmont Pearl Foothills

is in hub and if we wanted it to be an industrial would we be able to agree upon that at this meeting yeah i might be able to shed some light on that so um that area is covered in the east boulder sub community plan and so the land use designation that was included for that area in that plan is mixed use and mixed use industrial and that um is consistent with the innovation and production hub designation. So for most of that area north of Arapahoe, east of Foothills, we tried to match the designations to be as consistent as we could with the East Boulder Sub-Community Plan.

Yeah, so I'm unsurprised to hear that there's a valid reason behind that decision. But if we wanted to make a recommendation for it to be changed, would we still be able to do that at this time?

Yes, if the body, if the board wanted to suggest a change and you agreed, then yes, you could put forward a land use map change. Of course, it would have to go on and be approved by the other bodies as well.

And then similarly, if the property on 47th and Walnut, which is a mostly vacant office park, we felt was more in line with an innovation hub, we would be able to suggest that change right now as well.

Yes, you could. and arrest them. So you were talking about I think there were, well, I perceived a little mix up in terms of which two properties we were talking.

I was talking about warehouse districts in general across the entire city, which might have been my fault for being misleading. I was just saying that I find them to be very special places and want to look towards ways to preserve them. And I wasn't saying I had a hard and fast way of doing it, but it sounds like we might actually have one right now that we all care about and want to stay industrial. And we have the tools. to make that recommendation. Yes, I wanted to cover this during this moment, because we're about to go into the map, and I think that that's a...

Right, there's a bunch of map use changes that we will consider shortly, and... There is no limitation on those map changes other than the late hour at the moment. That is like the limitation. But no, I get you. And so if there is an area that you want to take from innovation to industrial and another area you want to take from industrial to innovation, That is within our purview to discuss and promote or vote.

All right, folks, buckle up.

Let's get this airport thing going.

Yes, okay. So I have sent that language to Thomas, and I'll walk through the changes that I made. And while he's doing that, for the sake of efficiency, I'll talk about why I'm going to propose this as a condition. I do think... Email? Email. Yes, email Thomas, sorry. Not through the chat feature. So why am I proposing this as a condition rather than a recommendation? It is solely for the reason that I expect that city council may have some parts of this that they accept and some parts of it that they would like to negotiate with us on. And so making it a condition makes that much more likely than that it will just get very political and we'll get killed. So I think it is worth it. And I think that this is one that we really wanna get right considering that this is such an impactful facility and that so many people have such strong and diverse feelings about it. I would like to see this one be not just, well, if you would like to consider it, we would appreciate that. I think that for me, this is one that we should negotiate on if they have changes they want to propose. And to be clear, I would be perfectly willing to have that conversation. I do expect that they may want to approve a slightly different version and that would have to come back to us and then we would approve it and it would be done, right? and hopefully those changes would be acceptable to all parties. I think I kept that in mind when I wrote this. I think they would keep that in mind in making any changes. So that's why I'm proposing it as a condition, even though I am very sensitive to the fact that we don't want to get into a battle royale with city council. That is not what I'm proposing. I just don't want it to get dismissed out of hand. Okay, so here are the changes that I have proposed on Christopher's excellent suggestion. I have added back in... aviation, it's not in red, sorry about that. But in the second line, it talks about a safe environment for aviation, aviation related businesses and special events, aviation related research and education, and medical and disaster related support for the city and county. So I did add back in aviation related research and education, which should be in red, we'll fix that for when we do the motion making. And then the last line per Max's excellent suggestion, I hope I did you justice here. It now reads, the city will coordinate with the county to provide education and outreach to residents most impacted by aviation-led and to provide consistent regulations addressing noise and other airport influences where possible. Max, do you have any suggested tweaks, friendly amendments?

No, that was very close to what my suggestion was.

All right, teamwork. Okay, any other questions or discussion about this language? I am proposing it as a condition.

Laura, just one really quick specific language consideration that as you reference noise abatement agreements, the term agreements sort of implies contractual obligations that we had a suggestion if that were to be changed to noise abatement agreements, program, that would be better preferred.

You know what? We can change that to procedures because that is the term, the VNAP, the voluntary noise abatement procedures.

That'd be great.

So can we change noise abatement agreements? That's about halfway down the paragraph, Thomas. It's on the right-hand side. It says methods such as noise abatement agreements, change the word agreements to procedures. Does that answer there? Okay, all right, thank you. Mark.

Since this is a very distinct and thoroughly discussed set of changes, can we just go ahead and vote on it and make it rather than a straw vote and come back and vote later, just vote, vote, vote, real vote.

I think we should stick with the straw polling because we're going to group all of the suggested conditions together. We already have one condition that passed.

Okay.

And we're going to group all of the suggested recommendations together. Okay. And so I think it's just cleaner if we do that at the end. Okay. But thank you for the suggestion. All right. So straw polling this as a condition. Please raise your hand. I got five. Five to two. So that passes as a condition. All right. We're going to move on to the land use map changes. All right. Buckle up, everybody. So shall we start with ML? ML, you had three potential land use map changes.

Before you get into that, may I?

Oh, yes.

Hello.

I wanted to point out that any land use designations you propose right now that are not on the map that was in the staff memo were not something that was possible to provide input on during the public hearings for members of the public. For change requests and changes the IGA procedures for amendments anticipate for example, general public notice in the paper that indicates where the proposed changes are located and a description of each change at least 10 days prior to the first public hearing to consider the proposed changes. I think throughout the process, everybody has recognized that this is a little bit of a different process than we typically have because it's a comprehensive revision of the map and new designations are being created. That said, For most, for land use map changes in the normal process, there has always been notice and the opportunity to provide input based on that notice. So that's something to consider here. These notice statements and the procedures do not create rights For notice on any third party, it's a contractual clause in the IGA between the county and the city. So I think land use map changes that were not described in the publication could still be approved if acceptable to the two parties of the IGA, but I did want to point that out.

Okay, so Hela, let me try to... repeat back the gist of what I think I understood, which is that for us to try to do land use changes tonight would be unorthodox. It is not following the normal procedure for a land use map change. However, the things that are governing that are in the IGA, which is contractual. And so the city could waive and the county could waive those procedures if we want to. But I think we probably could anticipate there might be some objection to that from the public.

Yes.

Okay. So with that in mind, I want to open it up to the board for discussion. Do we want to still consider land use map changes, which will take some time, and which many members of the board have thought were quite important, or they wouldn't have suggested it, but there may be a procedural and public perception and public input reaction to that. So thoughts from my fellow board members. M.L. ?

So our option is to proceed and potentially have it mean nothing because nobody would consider it because we didn't follow the protocol or to do nothing. Is that, is it correct? Those two options?

Yeah, you certainly have the option to do nothing. And if you do want to propose changes, yeah, there might be opposition to that. The county might say no public notice is required and opportunity to participate in a public hearing. which could potentially still be accommodated. Or if all the parties, the four bodies are comfortable with this approach and the other bodies might have changes too, considering how this process has worked. And we're also potentially still working on what a designation means and defining it and so forth as part of this process. I wouldn't be surprised if all bodies would be comfortable with this. Generally, in the past, there has been notice to property owners before a change has been made.

So would you be suggesting that perhaps we postpone any map changes to a future date when all of the I's are dotted and T's are crossed?

Or notice given.

I don't, we can't give notice unless we know which changes we're talking about. Right. So we would have to discuss which changes we even want to propose for them to be able to notice people. Right. So like Kurt has suggested Goss Grove, they're not going to notice Goss Grove if there's no support from this board for doing what Kurt is suggesting. So yeah. Brad.

Yeah. Just to reemphasize this one, it's unorthodox because the basic paradigm of the IGA and past practice doesn't contemplate exactly the reconstitution of the map, it's risky because people haven't been talking about specific properties, politically, public perception, but not explicitly disallowed. Is that a fair interpretation? Okay.

Mark.

I was intrigued and, you know, sparks going off in my brain as Max discussed, well, let's just take a couple areas and do some map changes. I thought, yeah, great. And then I thought, okay, well... here we are at this late hour literally and late hour figuratively in the process of approving the BBCP and those I don't know who owns all the warehouses you're referring to, maybe different property owners, et cetera. But they've been going along thinking they had an innovation hub designation under what staff has proposed. And here we are at 11 o'clock saying, well, we're going to change you back to industrial without necessarily the adoption of changes that make residential uses allowable. So- going back to the map changes, or rather to policy changes, this idea, and this doesn't address the neighborhood one, neighborhood two that Kurt is proposing, but in the industrial areas, I would say we could eliminate map changes to the industrial areas, add the words that I used under urban design in my proposed change to the industrial area, add it to the innovation hub, which was residential shall, residential will not displace existing small businesses. It will be in appropriate places, et cetera, whatever the words were. And add that to the innovation hub, making it more on par, still distinct from, but more on par with industrial, which my goal is not to limit housing. My goal is to save the small businesses and still offer flexibility for housing. Anyway, but we will eliminate a lot of map changes that might be advantageous or disadvantageous to various property owners. And suddenly it adds flexibility and concern for our goals in both designations.

Max would like to respond.

Yeah, so just real quick, I think one of the most important lines from that previous industrial designation that you put over was will not displace where industry could exist. So I think that that's one of the sharpest points of it that you could not put into the hub designation without completely imploding the idea of it. So we wouldn't really be able to do that. As far as the map, I think... To Brad's point, this is a time where we're also redefining what it means to be industrial, which means it's inseparable from also investigating the map as we do this. We cannot change what industrial means without looking at the map that it's applying to. So if we've already gone through the lengths of changing what industrial even means, have we not already changed kind of under the floor what people would be experiencing in their land use designation?

I would disagree with that in the sense that a liberalization and greater flexibility is distinct from a restriction. So liberalization of the industrial area by saying as a secondary use residential multi-unit would be allowed with the following thought, that's different than you can't do this thing and imposing a new restriction at this point.

ML. Yeah, I think the question there, Hella, is does changing the definition of a land use designation require those land owners to get notification and that whole public process that you were pointing out to changing the map itself or changing the definitions, how does that work?

yeah I think that's not directly addressed in the plan, I would say that in the past, there hasn't been notification if there's been a change to the land use designation.

So if the language is changed in the physical map is not changed, even though either way the land owners are impacted. yeah that's what I would say interesting.

All right, I apologize that I had a lapse of attention for just about 30 seconds and I got totally lost. So Mark, are you proposing a change?

No, I'm not proposing any change, but I do think that changes to the land use map brings up a question of notification. And so if, and so some, let's just take Kurt's changes. He's got a bunch N1 to N2, wants to change N1 to N2. But it brings up this question of, well, okay, is in some cases, that might be a city-owned parking lot. And so, gee, us changing that from N1 to N2, okay, fine. But if that happens to be a person's residence adjacent to a fourplex that, Kurt, you want to honor the N2 designation, but that single family homeowner, uh, you're changing their, them from N1 to N2. Is, is that a, is that a map change that warrants, um, notification and debate? And so like our, is, is our whole map change, uh, subject. I'm glad we got the text done first because we, let's go home.

So I just want to speak from a facilitation perspective that this has been our first opportunity to directly say as a board, we want this change. We've given individual input and staff has done their best to honor that. But this is the first time that we have been able to do this. And If we need to, and this is all brand new, right? Like this is a very, we're pioneering something, a total overhaul of the BBCP in a way that hasn't been done in the memory of anybody in this room, right? So if that means we need to rejigger our process a little bit because we realize that, okay, in order to give the board the opportunity to weigh in on the land use map, that means we might have to go back out and do some notification or decide that we're going to waive that. That's a choice we can make, right? decide that we're okay. And I think Hella is indicating the four bodies might be okay with that. But then we might also get a wave of people being very dissatisfied that we want to honor that neighborhood input, slow down a little bit and do the notification before we do final adoption. I think that's okay. I personally would not like to see us just say, oh, well, we can't have any direct changes to the land use map because of this procedural issue. So, Kurt, did you want to respond?

Yeah, I just had a question. If on the assumption that we are going to have to go through maybe an iteration where this comes back to us and so on, would that give us time if we considered some changes tonight and then did notice based on that? of potential changes, I guess. Would that give us adequate time then in the schedule and with the notification requirements and stuff to notice according to what the IGA says we should?

I'm not sure what you mean, if we make a recommendation today and then notice. I think you would be scheduling new public hearings, which haven't been scheduled at this point in time. So anything could be scheduled to meet the typical notice requirements in the future.

Right, but we've had a little bit of discussion tonight to the extent, to the effect that, oh, we think this will probably be coming back to us anyhow. And so if we predicate on that's going to be the schedule, I'm not saying that should be the schedule, but if we assume that that is probably going to happen anyhow, if we were to consider some things tonight notice as soon as possible based on that that these are potential changes then you know it comes back to us would that give us time to meet the notification requirements Well, just generally, would it give us, would that, given that there's extra time in the schedule, would be extra time in the schedule anyhow, because it would need to come back and go through iterations, would there be adequate time to do the proper notification? I'm just wondering how much, whether potentially this question is moot, because we could do the notification based on any decision we made tonight. Anyhow.

Well, I think I'm hearing Hella say that not only would we need to notify, but the meetings that are currently planned as a continuation of this hearing would need to be new public hearings. We could not go ahead and adopt, even if all four bodies agreed, if we would need to notice new public hearings before we finally adopt. Is that what I'm hearing you say, Hella?

I do think that the city and county could City Council Chambers, Good way of following the notice requirement or find that it doesn't apply in this case. City Council Chambers, They are the two contracting parties in the IGA. City Council Chambers, But, but generally, I think it would make sense to see if if there's interest in the other approving bodies to make changes at this point in time before any new public hearings are noticed.

City Council Chambers, And if I can just piggyback on that I encourage avoiding kind of making reference to. the presumption of required noticing or legal noticing, because we don't know that, to Hela's point, like that may not be a relevant point for this discussion. Courtesy noticing or, you know, the practical reality of property owners not knowing, that's good discussion, but let's not put out their predetermination on the requirement of it.

That's a great point, Brad. So I want to do two things. One, Thomas, could I ask you to please take down the screen share so that folks can see the room? Yeah, thank you. And then I should have done that earlier. I apologize for not noticing. Noticing. Didn't give required notice. Me. Me. It's too late. I'm punchy. Second thing I want to suggest just to move us forward. I think we do want to talk about these proposed land use changes and not just say we're not going to weigh in. I think we want to talk about them, decide whether they are a recommendation or a condition of approval for us, and then pass that information along to city council. I personally, as planning board, would be okay deferring to city council about whether they want to do the noticing and a new public hearing, or if they are comfortable, if they are comfortable and if the county is comfortable proceeding without new noticing and new public hearing, a courtesy as Brad said, because it does not appear to be required by the IGA. It just may be a community preference or expectation that is not actually legally required.

Mark. So I'm uncomfortable Now, the more I think about it, the less comfortable I am with finalizing map changes as conditions and saying, well, if council and the county agree. So about a map change that hasn't been noticed and hasn't been discussed other than an email from Friday afternoon. And now here it is Tuesday night late. without notice to property owners, etc. So it's one thing to change a policy, it's another thing to change a map overlaid onto someone's property. So the question is, would it be helpful if we very rapid fire went through the proposed map changes straw-polled, and then we could say, okay, based on this, there's a whole bunch of private property that we're proposing map changes be overlaid onto, and we need to have a hearing. We need to have a public hearing that we don't feel comfortable going forward without it, or Huh, all of these map changes, most of them got voted down, and the two that didn't are actually public property, city property, so we're not concerned about it. But if we do a rapid-fire straw polling of the map changes and kind of take a pulse, see where we are, not a lot of debate, just fast, that might be a way.

So I think we all agree that we don't want to prolong this. I personally am not going to try to make it more rapid than it needs to be because I think we are making some very important decisions and we need to be able to have the conversation that we need to have. Brad.

Maybe just for clarification, Mark, when you're saying that, are you saying recommendations in the casual sense, like these would be recommendations, not conditions? And I ask for that clarification because... recommendations would not require a public hearing, right? They could be considered and either adopted or not adopted by the bodies. I would point out we get into some pretty major scheduling issues if we presume public hearings and I could see map things going into like September and October and we would personally like to avoid that.

I would just like to exercise the chair's privilege here to say that I think we need to do justice to the map changes that have been suggested. We need to consider them. And I still think that it is the prerogative of the person making the suggestion to say, is this a recommendation or is this a condition? And it's the prerogative of every board member here to say, I'm comfortable with it being a condition or a recommendation for any reason, right? So I think we stick with our same procedure and we just proceed because I'm willing to keep working. If there are three other people willing to keep working, then we have a quorum, so.

Yeah. I mean, we had the meeting with city council the other day, and maybe this is our penance for leaving early because I wasn't able to, we weren't able to have a big open discussion about industrial. So to Laura's point, this is the first chance that we've actually gotten to do it. And unsurprisingly, there's some kinks that weren't worked out. So if we need to make some tough decisions, we have conflicting values that people want addressed. And this is an immense amount of community has reached out about this exact issue. So I think it's worth us exploring.

I'm going to say, I think we should just, we should just move forward. I don't think that any more discussion is going to shortcut it or make it easier. So with that in mind, I'm going to suggest that we start with ML's three changes and then go to Kurt and then Max, if you have additional ones.

Okay.

All right.

So should we maybe bring up the map on the screen so we can see it all together?

Well, I'm a text person rather than a map person. Maybe we start with a text and then switch to the map. Okay. So the text, and ML, if you would like me to facilitate through it to try to be efficient, I'm happy to do that or you can take the lead. Okay, so I'm going to just, I'm going to read out ML's first proposed change and some of these might have questions attached to them. So the first is Arapahoe and 9th, the site of the Age Well Center and ML makes some very considered points about why that Age Well Center is very functional and useful for the neighborhood. And she's concerned about changing the land use to residential because that would trigger a desire for redevelopment. And I know that the city, I believe the city has already put this on the list for redevelopment and maybe even made it available for sale.