Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Well, good evening, everybody, and thanks for joining us tonight for this August 18th, 2026 meeting of the City of Boulder Planning Board. We are now called to order. I'm your chair tonight, Laura Kaplan, and just a quick roll call. Seated to my right, viewers left, are Kurt Nordback and Claudia Hanson-Thiem. To viewers right, Mason Roberts and Max Lord. So there are... And Mark McIntyre will be joining us shortly. He'll be at the end here. I do believe that board member ML Robles may be absent tonight. We haven't heard from her tonight, although she might have informed us that this was going to happen, and I just forgot. So six of us tonight. We will begin our meeting as always with the public participation segment of the meeting. This is a time for folks to speak to the board about anything that is not otherwise on our agenda tonight, that is not a public hearing item. So if you are here for 969 10th Street, That is the one topic that we will be asking you to speak about later in the meeting. Anything else is fair game for this opening section. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Vivian Castro-Woldrich, who will read the rules of participation and guide us through that portion of the meeting.

Thank you, Vivian. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, members of the public, for joining us tonight. I'll just read out these rules that help with the entire meeting, so both the open comment and the public hearing later on in the agenda. So first I'll just start out by sharing that the city has engaged with community members in the past to co-create this vision that I'm sharing with you tonight for productive, meaningful, and inclusive civic conversations. And this vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members, staff, board members, as well as democracy for people of all ages, identities, lived experiences, and political perspectives. And we have a lot more information about how that vision was created on the website. I'll share some examples of rules of decorum found in the Boulder revised code and other guidelines that support this vision, and all of these will be upheld during this meeting. All remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city business. No participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person. Obscenity, racial epithets and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability to conduct the meeting are prohibited. And we ask please that if you are participating in open comment or public hearing that you introduce yourself using your first and last name. And to let us know that you would like to speak, you can click on the raise hand icon. If you're joining by phone, you can raise your hand by dialing star nine. And the next slide just shows another way to get to that raise hand icon through the reactions button. So as the chair mentioned, we can open the floor for open comment, again, not related to the public hearing item for the property on 10th Street. And maybe I will start by asking Thomas if there's anyone in the room who has signed up to speak.

Thank you, Vivian. Is there anybody in the room with us here tonight that would like to speak during the open comment period for any items that are not on tonight's agenda? I don't believe we have anyone here in the room, so we can move to online participants.

Great. And so far, I don't see any hands raised. But I'll give folks just a few seconds to raise their virtual hand. Let us know if they'd like to participate in this open comment section of the meeting. Looks like we don't have anybody. So I will pass it back over to you, Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Vivian and Thomas. So that closes agenda item two, public participation. We move on to agenda item three, approval of minutes. We did have one set of minutes scheduled for tonight. That was the July 28th, 2026 draft planning board meeting minutes. And I'm gonna suggest that we hold these. I had asked Thomas to expedite these minutes because city council was scheduled to hear this item this coming Thursday. The item for City Council has now been deferred until October, October 1st, I think. And so we have a little bit more time if folks want to look at these minutes. I did send some of my own edits to Thomas. I don't think he has distributed them to the board yet. And I told him there was no hurry. So if folks are amenable, I would love to have a motion to move these minutes to our next agenda next week.

I move to... review the minutes at our next meeting, next week. Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion?

I have a question.

Yes, Mark.

So, and this is a question primarily for Thomas, I think, and that is, we have had a wide variety of minutes recently, and this particular set is very different than some prior minutes in terms of the amount of information presented and board member comments. So is that a result of your request to expedite or has something changed?

A bit of both and we can discuss that some more offline. Okay. That's there. Yeah. There is some conflicting direction on those, but we will get that all sorted out.

Okay. Is it possible, since we have an October date, then the next question is, will next week make any difference in the style of meeting minutes that we would be evaluating and approving?

they would have the editing that were presented by laura which include a bit more detail so i'll just verbally describe the edits that i included were all of the proposals that we straw polled and what the proposal was what the arguments were for and against and the result of the straw poll and that's only like three items but okay all right well motion stands so

That's my comment. Thank you.

Does anybody want more time or is a week enough? Week's good. Okay. Let's go ahead and vote on this. So starting with Mark.

Yes.

Kurt. Yes. Claudia. Yes. Mason. Yes. Max. Yes. And I'm a yes. So unanimously that set of minutes will get moved to next week. Item four on the agenda is call-up items, of which we have none this week, which brings us to item five, our public hearing item. We have just one. This is item 5A. It is a public hearing and consideration of a nonconforming use review for the property located at 969 10th Street. The application proposes an expansion of the duplex by converting interior attic space to a habitable floor area and the addition of one new bedroom each to each of the two units through interior renovations. No exterior expansion or addition to the building is proposed. This is reviewed under case number LUR 2025-00091. And for folks who may be new to a planning board meeting, I'll just explain the process here. First, we will have a short presentation from staff about the project, followed by an opportunity for board members to ask questions of staff. Then the applicant will have a chance to present the project. They'll have about 10 or 15 minutes to do that, followed by board member question and answer. Then we have a public hearing, which is members of the public have the opportunity to speak to the board for three minutes each, unless we have more than 15 people, and in which case it'll be two minutes each. But I think we'll be under 15 people tonight, based on what I'm seeing in the audience and online. So three minutes. Then after the public hearing, the board will deliberate and make a decision on this use review. Okay, so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Alex, a staff member who's here tonight, to guide us through the staff presentation. Thank you, Alex. Thank you.

So good evening. My name is Alex Pichaz. I'm a senior city planner here to present the application for nonconforming use review at 969 10th Street. And again, so this is a public hearing in consideration of a non-conforming use review for the property located at 969 10th. This item was referred to the planning board for a public hearing based on neighborhood concerns. The property contains a duplex that is non-conforming because it exceeds the density requirement of one dwelling unit per 7,000 square feet of lot area. The property is 6,250 square feet and the duplex was legally established at a time when it was allowed by the zoning code. The applicant proposes to expand the duplex by converting interior attic space into habitable floor area and add one new bedroom to each unit through interior renovations. No exterior expansion or addition to the building is proposed. And again, this hearing starts with a presentation by staff and the applicant, followed by questions from the planning board. There will be a public comment period to receive testimony from members of the public. And after that, planning board will deliberate and take action on the proposed non-conforming use review. So public notification was mailed to property owners within 600 feet of the subject site and the applicant posted a sign on the property. The public comments received from neighbors are included as an attachment in the medium packet and will be discussed later in this presentation. 969 10th Street is located in the University Hill neighborhood between Euclid and Aurora Avenues. The neighborhood contains a mix of housing types and densities, and the neighborhood is within walking distance of the University of Colorado, the Hill Business District, Pearl Street Mall, and Chautauqua Park. The neighborhood is built out in a historic urban pattern with streets and detached sidewalks. The subject property is a 10-minute walk from the CU campus. Lincoln Avenue is a north-south designated bike route, and College and Euclid Avenues are designated east-west bike routes that connect to an existing multi-use path on the east side of Broadway. Euclid and Lincoln are also proposed neighborhood green streets as identified in the Transportation Master Plan. The nearest bus stop to the property is at 11th and College Avenue, served by the Hop Route, and there's a bus stop at Euclid and Broadway that's served by several local and regional routes, including the 205, AB1, FF1, and more. The comprehensive plan designation is low density residential. The land use designation in the forthcoming comp plan update will be changed to neighborhood one, which is described as areas that are primarily residential featuring detached single unit homes and some small scale attached unit housing types. The neighborhood one designation also includes opportunities for small scale businesses and other community uses serving the local community. The site is currently zoned RL1. The minimum lot size in the RL1 district is 7,000 square feet. The density requirements allow for one dwelling unit per 7,000 square feet of lot area. In response to Colorado state laws that were passed in 2024, the city eliminated minimum parking requirements and occupancy limitations through an ordinance in 2025. Additionally, the Family Friendly Vibrant Neighborhoods project was also passed by an ordinance in 2025, which encourages housing affordability by providing missing middle housing such as duplexes and triplexes. Through that ordinance, the density requirements for properties in the RL1 zone within 350 feet of high-frequency transit corridors were reduced to allow duplexes or two detached dwelling units on lots as small as 3,500 square feet. 969 10th Street is 750 feet from College Avenue, so if it were located one block to the north, this proposal would be allowed by right through a building permit process. Here's a street view of the subject property for reference. The existing building was constructed in 1917 and has operated as a duplex since at least 1953, as indicated by a utility inspection note on a 1971 zoning inspection record for the property. Additional building permit records show the detached garage in the rear yard of the property was converted to an office space in 1993 through a building permit process. There's no land use review associated with that conversion. There are no other significant building permits such as additions or expansions to the principal building or accessory structure. The other building permits associated with the property include permits for typical maintenance and repairs such as mechanical, electrical, and roofing permits, as well as the installation of a new bathroom window in the main level. Around 2018, a small accessory shed and an elevated deck were added by the previous owner without building permits. The proposed project will remove the small shed and reduce the size of the deck through a required building permit process. There are 50 lots within 300 feet of the subject site, with most buildings constructed in the early 1900s. Out of the 50 surrounding lots, only eight lots meet or exceed the required 7,000 square foot minimum lot size of the RL1 zone. The majority of properties have rental licenses for at least one unit, and 20 properties have residential densities exceeding one dwelling unit per lot. On the east side of the street across from 969 10th, 8 out of 11 properties contain two dwelling units in both attached and detached configurations. So as mentioned previously, the proposed expansion of the duplex will occur through internal renovations and the exterior conditions of the duplex will not be modified. As such, there are no historic landmark or preservation concerns because all the work is internal to the building. The floor area will be expanded by creating a new staircase on the main level that provides access to a new living room in what is currently the attic space accessed through a drop-down panel. You can see the main level before and after floor plans on the left and the before and after conditions of the attic space on the right. The floor area that's being added in the attic space is only 95 square feet based on our calculations of floor area in the zoning code. The layout of the main level will be renovated to convert the existing living room into a new bedroom and a new bathroom off the kitchen dining room area. The lower level renovations will create a new bedroom by reducing the size of the utility room and reconfiguring an existing storage area and closet. The exterior changes proposed include the removal of the small shed and reducing a portion of the deck that's elevated above 30 inches. These changes will bring the property into compliance with building coverage requirements of the zone. Other proposed changes include new front yard landscaping, as well as maintenance and repairs to the fence along the alley and stairs and railing of the front porch. Staff received several comments from neighbors reflecting their lived experiences in the neighborhood, and staff appreciates the community's engagement and investment in the University Hill neighborhood, which helps to inform broader discussions about how the Hill is evolving. Many of these concerns were related to existing nuisance issues and neighborhood safety, the potential for over-occupancy and future code violations, The trend of investor-owned properties used for student housing and broader policy questions for the city regarding the balance of increased housing within the existing neighborhood. These concerns matter and were taken into consideration during the review. The use review process relies on objective land use criteria and staff is required to evaluate the proposed expansion through the lens of the zoning code. The land use process does not regulate tenant behavior. Instead, the city relies on the code enforcement and police departments to deal with nuisance concerns relating to issues such as parking, zoning code, and noise violations. The process can only require mitigation directly tied to land use, and through the proposed conditions of approval, which will require a declaration of use for the new upstairs living space, code enforcement has clear guidelines to enforce upon potential future violations. The key issues for discussion are whether the proposal meets the applicable use review criteria and the additional criteria for an expansion of a nonconforming use. The full staff criteria analysis is included in the meeting packet. I've separated the criteria into two parts and we'll go through the applicable criteria on the following slides. Before I get into that, I would like to point out that these criteria are broadly written with the intent to apply to any land use in any zoning district, and they aren't tailored specifically to residential uses. The same review criteria are used to review the impacts and proposed mitigation for industrial or commercial uses, and can apply to a wide array of possible uses like a drive-through, hotel, mortuary, general manufacturing, or residential uses in industrial zones. As described in the purpose statement of the use review criteria, a nonconforming use may be upgraded or expanded if the change would not adversely affect the traffic and the environment of the surrounding area, or if the change would reduce the degree of nonconformity or improve the appearance of the structure or site without increasing the degree of nonconformity. So for discussion of key issue number one, I'll elaborate further on criteria two and four on another slide. Briefly running through the other criteria, that application meets criterion one since the duplex is an existing legal non-conforming use. Criterion three is met because there's no new utility infrastructure needs associated with the project. And criterion five is not applicable since the proposal does not include the conversion of dwelling units to non-residential uses. Likewise, for key issue two, I'll focus on criteria one, two, and four in more detail. For criterion three, the proposal was reviewed for compliance with Title IX to ensure consistency with the applicable form and bulk and intensity standards and the development standards of the zoning code. And the application meets criterion five because the proposed floor area is an increase of 95 square feet, which is 3.6% of the total floor area. There's no zoning variances requested through this application, so criterion six is not applicable. So getting back to key issue one, the user review criteria, For criterion two, compatibility, staff finds that the existing duplex will remain reasonably compatible with nearby properties. The nonconformity is due to the number of dwelling units rather than the occupancy or the number of bedrooms. Legally, staff cannot make findings based on the occupancy or the character of potential tenants other than what's regulated through the building code to ensure fire and life safety regulations are met. The key issue in this criterion is that the operating characteristics of the use will have minimal negative impact on the use of nearby properties. In this case, the addition of one bedroom to each unit does not automatically imply a direct negative impact to surrounding properties, and it's consistent with other duplexes and residential units with multiple bedrooms in the neighborhood. For criterion four, the predominant character of the area consists primarily of individually owned properties and rental properties with a mix of detached style dwelling units operating in single unit, duplex, triplex, and quadplex configurations. The proposed project will maintain the existing duplex and the interior renovations of each unit will not change the predominant character of the surrounding area. For KSU2, the additional criteria for nonconforming uses, criterion one, reasonable measures required. The additional floor area and interior renovations within the duplex will not create any additional effects upon the surrounding properties since there are no exterior improvements proposed to the duplex. The structure will maintain its existing appearance and not create any new objectionable conditions or adverse visual impacts. Vehicle trip generation and traffic impacts for residential land uses are based on the number of dwelling units. Since the proposal will maintain the two existing dwelling units, a traffic study and trip generation analysis is not required by the city's design and construction standards, as it would be if the use were being expanded or changed to something different that would significantly increase the volume of vehicular traffic. On-street parking along 10th Street is within the University Hill parking district and managed through the neighborhood parking permit program. Any resident with a driver's license living in the parking district is eligible for a residential neighborhood parking permit and can park anywhere throughout the district. The proposal will include long-term bike parking in the detached garage that otherwise doesn't exist, which encourages the use of alternative modes of transportation to help alleviate potential traffic impacts. For criterion two, reduction in nonconformity or improvement of appearance, the key issue is the degree of nonconformity. In this case, the site is only nonconforming due to the number of dwelling units on the property and the proposal is not considered nonconforming due to the occupancy or the proposed number of bedrooms. In order to reduce the degree of nonconformity, an existing dwelling unit would need to be removed. The lower level unit is too large to qualify as an accessory dwelling unit, and it's not reasonable to reduce the degree of nonconformity of illegal nonconforming use. To meet the requirement to improve the physical appearance of the structure or the site, the applicant proposes to install new landscaping in the front yard, repair the front stairs and railing, and repair the fence along the alleyway. Given the existing conditions of the brick and wood structure, staff finds these measures reasonable to meet this criterion. For criterion four, the property is only non-conforming to the density requirement of chapter eight of the zoning code because it contains two dwelling units where only one is allowed under the current zoning standards. A duplex isn't allowed to use in the RL1 zone if it meets the minimum lot size requirement of 7,000 square feet per dwelling unit. As mentioned previously, the duplex cannot be made to conform to the requirements of the code without eliminating a dwelling unit. As such, the legal non-conforming use cannot reasonably be made conforming since it would be unreasonable to require that a dwelling unit is removed that has existed since at least 1953. So as staff finds this proposal meets the applicable criteria for a non-conforming use review, here's a suggested motion of approval. And that concludes the presentation. I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you so much, Alex. So we will go to questions from the board. Who would like to start? Claudia.

Thanks, Laura, and thanks, Alex. This is a small case, I think, but I think it's an important one because it's one of the first of its kind coming to us after the city eliminated occupancy limits and parking minimums from the land use code. So I have some clarifying questions about what we are actually discussing tonight and kind of what the scope of our review is in that kind of new regime in the code. And so the first was just to really clarify here, what is the non-conforming use here? It's because it's a duplex, correct?

Correct, yeah.

Okay. So a duplex, two units on one lot in RL1, and it's not in that 350-degree buffer zone around transit lines, correct?

Correct.

Okay. And what we're being asked to review is the expansion of the use as a duplex. That also...

Yeah. Yeah. It's a residential use. Duplex is allowed.

I guess what I'm trying to get at here is according to the code, what does it mean to expand a duplex use?

Sure. So because the duplex, well, it's located on a lot that's less than 7,000 square feet. it is required to, well, if you were to build one today, it would require 14,000 square feet, basically. So because it was legally approved as a duplex on a property less than 7,000, it's nonconforming. Our definition of expansion of a nonconforming use includes floor area expansions. In this case, they're expanding into the attic area and adding bedrooms is also included in the definition.

Okay, so adding bedrooms actually qualifies as a as a change of use for the definition?

Yes.

How does that intersect with what the city has done to remove occupancy from a from the land use code?

I'm sorry, can I just clarify, you use the term change of use, but I heard Alex say expansion of use. So we're being in for size. I apologize. Yeah, just wanted to clarify. Okay, sorry.

So what was what was your question again, Claudia?

The question is, if a changing room configuration, so adding bedrooms in this case, qualifies as an expansion of use, how does that intersect with the changes recently in the land use code around occupancy limits, number of bedrooms and number of tenants?

Yeah, so I guess previously we did have parking requirements based on the number of bedrooms and units in certain zones. And we also had occupancy limits. So only a certain amount of people could live in a dwelling unit. But now those requirements are no longer in the code and occupancy is based on the international property maintenance code. So as long as you're meeting building code criteria, you can have however many occupants would be able to fit within the space.

And I think I would add, we don't have a ton of existing non-conforming residential structures. So we don't see a lot of expansions. Oftentimes, people can add bedrooms by right, and it's not typically an issue. In this particular case, it's been a duplex, like Alex said, since the 50s on a very undersized lot. So that's kind of how it's getting caught in the process. But I think from a policy perspective, we thought about that when we were making the occupancy code changes just recognizing that not a tremendous amount of these things would be caught up in a use review process just because we don't have a lot of existing non-conforming uses.

Okay. So I'm a little confused about the status of bedrooms and nonconforming uses, but I have a couple other questions, and maybe we can circle back to that.

If I may add one thing to that, the term expansion of nonconforming use, it's actually a defined term in the code, and it is what we look at to determine whether or not a nonconforming use review is required. Okay. So if one of those things... is proposed, that's in the definition, that's described in the definition, then a project has to go through the non-conforming use review process and meet those standards to be able to be approved.

And if I may, Hela, could you introduce yourself for folks who don't know you?

Yes, of course. Hela Pennewick with the City Attorney's Office.

Thank you.

Okay. So the other questions that I had, and I... Yeah, please do, Mark.

So just to be super clear, we are doing a use review because the applicant has requested an expansion of use per the definition in the code. Okay, I just wanted to be super clear on that.

Okay, so my other question actually arises from some of the public comments that we've received on this proposal. And a lot of the comments included in our memo are arguing that bedroom counts and occupancy directly produce impacts in the surrounding area, right? And are we as a reviewing body, allowed to use that reasoning, given that occupancy, parking, and things like that have been taken out of the code?

So in the staff analysis, we did not rely on that. For example, if this were one dwelling unit, it could have nine bedrooms legally through a building permit process. So because it has two dwelling units on the property, That's why it's nonconforming. So when it gets into looking at the expansion of nonconformity, if they're adding another dwelling unit, then that would be creating additional impacts that are directly related to the code. But in this case, since we don't have occupancy requirements or bedroom limitations, it's not something that we could be making findings on.

Okay, so the the measure in the code is somehow about the the expansion of the multi unit nature of the use. Okay. I'm gonna leave it there.

Thank you, Claudia. Other questions for staff from the board? Max.

at the risk of being redundant um but i just want to make this crystal clear i think we all do but the non-conformity is exclusively because it is a duplex and what we are being asked today is should it still allowed be allowed to be a duplex as they modify their structure But that is ignorant of the amount of bedrooms that they have, as they would be able to have nine bedrooms by right if they were a single unit. And they would be able to have these bedrooms by right if they were about a football field farther north.

Correct.

Yeah, and I would add also that this would still remain a duplex as is. So if this application doesn't get approved, then you still have a duplex on the property. It's not determining whether the duplex is allowed to exist.

It's whether or not you can put additional bedrooms into the existing duplex.

And expand the floor area. Okay.

So by... And once again, I realize that we're being a little bit redundant here, but it seems that we all have basically the same question. By adding a bedroom, they have triggered this use review. But that use has been in place for 70-some years, and that use wouldn't change if they didn't add the bedroom.

Correct. Yeah, they're adding bedroom and expanding floor area.

And similarly... When we are weighing this out, does the board have any purview over the type of people who live in these units or the way that those people behave? Is there any tools that we can use to change that? We are exclusively being asked if they have met the criteria for the use review.

Maybe I'll defer to Hela to talk with you about the Fair Housing Act.

Generally, I would advise you to, in your discussion after the public hearing and applicant presentation, that you go through the review criteria and base your analysis on that. In zoning... regulation is generally about regulation of uses and not identity of people. And I think courts look with suspicion upon using the identity of a person. But there are some situations where courts have upheld zoning regulations that are related to the identity of people. For example, single family neighborhood regulations like like occupancy standards based on family status, have been upheld by courts. So that is an identifier. There have been a few cases based on other identifying qualifiers, such as whether or not somebody is a student. And I know that some courts have struck those down as violating equal protection measures. We don't have a case directly on point in Colorado, so there's some legal uncertainty around that.

Thank you very much, but as per usual, we are being asked to review the criteria in front of us, and that criteria is ignorant of the type of people who may or may not ever live there.

Well, the criteria don't talk about identity, I guess.

That is very clarifying. Thank you.

Thank you, Max. Do you mind, Claudia, if we go to other folks, then we'll return to you for round two? Okay, Mark.

I'm going to begin with a very high-level one, and thanks to Hella for years of instructing and coaching us. My first question is, Alex, you referred to 9-2-15a, which begins with the purpose of And this is probably a question for Hella. My understanding, after making the mistake of tripping into purpose and intent in the code, that that section, while descriptive, is not a criterion by which we can judge. And so it may inform us, but 9-2-15A is not a criterion. Is that correct?

Yeah, that's correct.

Okay. Great. Um, on a more mundane one, I, with some, I keep looking at the plans is the bedroom count currently seven and is the planned bedroom, the applied for bedroom count nine.

Yes.

Between both units. Okay. Um, it seems as though, uh, Well, currently, the house has a rental license, correct?

Correct.

Okay. And does our rental licensing or other code require handrails, stairs, decks, et cetera, to be in some sort of serviceable condition?

Yeah, all the applicable building code criteria apply.

Okay. So, and in fact, That work, I went by there on Saturday, that work is carrying on currently. Why would we count maintenance and repair to bring a property up to code or up to its required rental license to count as a mitigating benefit for the use?

So I guess that's part of the code criteria. I'm just trying to read it here on my slide if this is the correct one. It's either reduce the degree of nonconformity or improve the physical appearance of the structure or the site without increasing the degree of nonconformity. In this case, the brick and wood building is in decent condition from staff opinion. When it comes to what type of physical improvements could be done to the structure or the site, I guess we're relying a lot on the landscaping as well as what the applicant identified as things that would be repaired.

And I think also bringing the property back into conformance from the work that was done from the previous owner that didn't get permits helps to reduce the degree of nonconformity. Okay, great. Thank you.

And Charles, there you're talking about the deck, reducing the size of the deck?

The deck size as well as the shed that was put out there.

Thank you. And so the NPP, the Neighborhood Parking Permit Program up there, There is no limit of NPP permits associated with any household. It's just if you reside in the area, you may apply for an NPP permit.

Yes, I believe that's what they changed it to recently. If you live there and you have a driver's license, you're eligible for a permit.

And are the permits unlimited?

When I asked transportation and mobility about this, they said anybody living there would be eligible for a permit, and they could park anywhere in the district.

Okay.

And would there be anything to stop, say, one person in a one-bedroom from having 10 cars based on that?

They would only get one permit.

There would only be one per person?

my i'm sorry i shouldn't have answered that yeah i mean there's obviously no limits on the number of vehicles someone owns and they can park them on their property legally but um it's for the parking permit program it's based on um residency and driver's license and you get a permit and i think like a few guest passes or something like that i don't know the specific details on it okay final question um

You the staff has requested that or conditioned that the applicant would have to file a form with the county stating that that attic space would never be used as a bedroom and that would that would go with the property and be recorded as a as part of their deed or whatever. Anyway, that would be a recorded document with the county. So how would the city know if a non compliance had occurred? And what would be the code enforcement mechanism there?

Well, we wouldn't be proactively, you know, out looking to count bedrooms. But if we got a complaint and enforcement is complaint based, for the most part, we would send an inspector out to verify it. Then if it's not brought back into compliance with the approval that's granted, then the approval can be removed. And then they'd have to bring the property into compliance or fines would accrue. There's also enforcement actions that go along with that, depending on how long it drags on.

Okay. And I said last question, I was wrong. That proposed upstairs living room,

is legal per fire code for a living room but that would be illegal as a bedroom correct uh i believe so i'd have to look at what the building code says about egress but yeah that's i think one of the reasons why we're putting a declaration of use on it is not just in case it becomes another bedroom but for life safety okay great thank you thank you mark kurt

Thank you. All that discussion was very interesting and helpful. I have a couple of other questions. One is a follow-up about the proposed upstairs living room. Is a living room required? It is.

It is. There's a certain amount of space in the International Property Maintenance Code that's based on the number of occupants in the building that determines how much living room and dining room space is required.

Okay, so it's living room plus dining room combined and they have a dining room, but it presumably doesn't meet the requirement. Yeah. Hello. Okay. That's helpful. Um, the other another question is about the shed. So. It sounded there were some indications in what I read that the shed. is or has been used as a residential as a bedroom basically um and they're proposing to put bike racks in there is so staff is confident that that would effectively prohibit it from being used as a bedroom like there just wouldn't be space or functionality for that

yeah and it's also not approved as a bedroom in any of the approvals and so code enforcement would apply in that situation but i assume that it's not currently is it currently allowed to be used as a bedroom no no right okay not from a land user zoning perspective but also from a building and life safety perspective yeah in 1993 it was approved as an office based on the permit which is could be viewed as like extended living space

I see. Okay, great. That's helpful. And then I had one other question. So I missed what Mark was saying about the declaration of use that it's actually filed with the county.

Correct. It's recorded against the property. So it pops up in subsequent title searches and runs with the property until it's dissolved.

Okay. And so if there were other requirements that we wanted to try to impose conditions, basically, like about the trash, for example, would that be recorded as a declaration of use? Or are there other mechanisms that we could use for that?

If the board were to impose additional conditions for the application to meet the review criteria, they would become part of your approval and would be incorporated into the development agreement that's required to be executed. And the development agreement also gets recorded.

Okay. Okay. So it's sort of effectively the same. Great. Thank you. That's helpful.

Thank you, Kurt. Mason.

Um, so I was hoping you can clarify about the height requirements in the living room space. Um, I'm seeing that it looks like part of the space is shorter than seven feet. Is that the required height?

Um, there's the floor area calculation is based on the height of the building, I think, or the room ceiling height. Yeah.

So anything less than, um, Anything six feet and over counts as floor area. Anything less than six feet doesn't. So that's why that's been broken out.

Okay. Yeah. That's helpful. Thank you. And then one question on the criteria, 9215F says cumulative 10%. Does the permitting history show any prior floor area expansion?

No. It's all just kind of standard maintenance stuff, like re-roofing, mechanical permits, stuff like that.

Okay. And this one's I'm pretty sure this doesn't matter, but just out of my curiosity is the best property right still being requested.

No they're not requesting invested right okay great Thank you.

Thank you mason Claudia you had an additional question.

yeah my question was does the city code make any connection between development applications and historic or active code violations or calls for service associated with an address.

I mean, I guess code enforcement code violations are something that are dealt with bringing the property into compliance. It's kind of a separate situation than an application for a new development review.

So, no, it's not something that's typically factored into our decision making under the criteria.

Thank you. Thank you, Claudia. Any last questions for staff before we go to the applicant presentation? Seeing none, is the applicant with us tonight? Thank you. Wonderful.

So if you could please come to the podium.

And there's a button on the microphone to turn it on, and you'll see it turn red. And you have up to 15 minutes to talk to us. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone, and thank you for being here, public and the planning board. My name is Caroline Sparks, and I'm the project manager for Four Star Property Management and Realty. I'll be representing both Four Star and the property owner, Mike Costello. I'd like to thank Alex for his continued work with KWorks and myself through this whole land use review process. He's been diligent in listening to the concerns of the public, communicating their feedback, and helping us address each item. The design carefully considers these concerns, and Four Star has implemented two specific actions going forward at this property. One, we have contracted a clean that will occur twice a week, front and back alley. Front yard for after parties, Thursday mornings and Monday mornings. In the alley, the same times. If the timing of trash pickup changes, that will be adjusted as well. Additionally, on how to use the bear cans, which has been a comment from the public, we have signs posted describing how to use those properly, how to open and close, and what to do with any overflow trash as well. That's posted inside the house and also at the alley as well. We appreciate your time and your willingness to be part of this meeting. And I'm here to listen, address your questions, and move forward in a thoughtful and productive way. Thank you.

Thank you so much. And if you could please stay, we may have some questions for you. So it's Caroline? Yes. Caroline or Carolyn? Caroline Sparks. Caroline. Thanks for being with us. Questions for Caroline on behalf of the applicant. Mark.

Is your lease structure currently by the room?

At this property, I do not believe so. My role as project manager does not.

Okay. But you're not for sure on that?

The leases are structured dependent on the year and this year currently it is not structured per bedroom.

Okay.

Um, do you, four star and you're, I understand your role as project manager and not project, not property manager, but I'm going to ask my question anyway and you can just say, I'm not, I'm unsure. Um, do you, uh, How many parking spaces are off street at this property?

Currently the driveway allows for two vehicles off street.

And do you charge separately for those or those first come first serve? How do you manage those two spots?

We leave that up to the tenants and no, they're not charged for separately from the lease.

Okay. Okay, that's it. Thanks.

Thank you. And you can just leave the mic on for when you're answering questions. You got it. Other questions for Caroline? Claudia?

The cleanup and trash management plan that you just referred to, is that being documented in the development agreement?

I don't believe it's documented to date, but we can certainly add that in there.

No, that wasn't included in the written statement.

Okay, thank you.

Who else has questions? Mason.

Let's have a question more of a curiosity. My understanding is that this was chosen to be referred to the planning board. Might I ask why?

The volume of neighborhood concerns. We wanted to get ahead of it and address those and also be transparent about the plan and be available for any comments and concerns that we can address to help it be a better property.

Thank you. Mark, going back to a question for staff. I just heard that this was chosen for a use review. But in fact, doesn't it the fact that it is south of this boundary next, in regard to a transportation corridor, it would have come to us this, it would have come to you as a call up. Okay, it would have come to us as a call. Great.

Okay, so just based on the amount of neighborhood participation, the applicant

opted to just you figured we would probably have the public hearing yeah well or you know two of the neighbors could have just easily held up as well so thank you that clarifies that for me and i i learned just recently that having it be a call-up actually takes more time usually than simply just putting it on the schedule so anticipatory put it on the schedule okay anybody else claudia

So one more, your proposal includes long-term bicycle parking in the garage, office, studio, whatever you want to call that structure right now. Will there be any remaining habitable space in that structure?

At this time, there will be parking for bicycles and then additional garage space around that, but not anything that will allow for bedroom sizing.

The office and studio configuration that it's currently permitted for, is that going to remain in there?

It's all one open space.

Okay.

I have one question, and that is if neighbors have a concern, is there somebody in property management they can speak to, or do they just go directly to the city? How is that handled currently? Okay.

I think that depends on the concern. There's code enforcement, there's Boulder Police if it's a noise violation at midnight, and then there's Four Star also as well. So depending on where your complaint lands, we're available and those other resources are as well.

And how do the neighbors know how to contact Four Star?

We have a website you guys can use to find our emails or phone numbers on there as well.

phone numbers on the website or is there something on the property where a neighbor who doesn't know that it's four star, how would they know to contact four star?

That's a good question. I don't know the answer if it says specifically four star on the property.

Okay.

I would imagine it does not.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Kurt. Just one quick question you asked, or you mentioned about the trash training sort of and policy. Currently, you have one set of bins there. Is that correct?

I believe there's a set for the upstairs for each part of the duplex. There should be a set of bins for each.

Okay.

Thank you. Last call for questions for the applicant. Caroline, thank you so much. If you could turn your mic off before you go. Thank you, guys. Thank you. All right. So we are going to move on to the next part of our hearing here, which is opportunity for public comment. So, Thomas, are you managing our public comment here in the room?

Yes, we'll start with participants here in the room. And it looks like we have... Seven individuals signed up in the room. And if you all are joining online and would like to speak, if you could please go ahead and raise your hands to let us know that you would like to speak online. First up in the room, we have Tracy Jennings. And Tracy, you can approach the podium and turn the microphone on. You'll have three minutes to speak.

And so for everyone who's coming up to the podium, the microphone has a silver base. And on that silver base is a button. When you turn the button, when you press the button, a red light will light up. Then you know your microphone is on. please do speak directly into the mic so that folks can hear you and you'll be on the recording. So you'll need to press that button again. Thank you.

Okay.

You could please start with your name and then let us know any connection that you have to the property, especially if you have some kind of financial connection to the property or to the applicant.

My name is Tracy Jennings. I have no financial connection to the property. I'm going to begin with a quote from the planning and development staff report that illustrates an important issue in the way 969 10th was evaluated. Okay, so right now I'm quoting directly from the staff report. from page 32 if you want to look at it. So quote, traffic impacts for residential uses are typically based on the number of dwelling units. Since the number of dwelling units remains the same, it's not anticipated that a significant traffic increase will be generated by the proposal, unquote. Now, this is me because I've noticed that it's kind of hard to understand the terminology and the codes and all that. A dwelling unit is like a house. And then a duplex is sort of like two houses. Given that, staff approved the proposal to a large degree because the dwelling units remained the same. There were no big differences. You've still got a duplex here. They do not consider changes in the number of bedrooms or occupants in each dwelling unit. Can we ignore increases in bedrooms and still assess the environmental impacts accurately? I think not. For example, does a dwelling unit of 10 people create the same environmental impact, noise, trash, et cetera, as a dwelling unit with three people? The problem we have is that we're ignoring the real neighborhood environmental impacts as bedrooms and occupancy increases. 969 has had and will continue to have real environmental impacts. The solution is to stop using dwelling units to measure environmental impacts and use a better measure such as bedrooms or whatever comes up. I suggest a collaboration between staff and the neighborhood for this project. Point two, section four, also on your surrounding property slides, section four of the report grossly misrepresents the composition of our neighborhood. The report characterizes the neighborhood as primarily rentals, when you look at that graph that was presented, and ignores the fact that many of the rentals are owner-occupied duplexes. To compare them to 969 10th Street is patently false. The problem is that staff reports suggest that 969, the graph suggests that 969 will kind of fit in with the regular folks on the street. And the fact is that this neighborhood is not a neighborhood of rentals. For example, Lincoln is almost entirely families. The solution is to come up with a better way to evaluate the true composition of this neighborhood. Again, this would be a collaboration between the neighbors and the staff to act more accurately, figure out who's there and what fits in. In summary, the neighbors' letters point out so many ways that 969 negatively impacts our environment. Please deny this proposal and work with neighbors to fix the system.

Thank you. And to be fair to everyone, we do strictly monitor the time. So thank you so much.

Next up, we have Valerie Stoeva. And Valerie, you'll have three minutes to speak.

So I press that thing?

It's already on.

It's already on. If you see the red light, it's already on.

OK, hooray. So my name is Valerie Stoeva, and I do live at a tenant for Lincoln Place. I just wanted to make a remark about forest horror. I'm just so sorry. My next door neighbor had his property managed by four star. He was elderly and he lived there and the students to whom he was renting, um, I felt abused him when he was disabled. And I communicated that to four star and they didn't do anything to resolve the situation. And I'm still upset about it. Um, okay. Uh, Family friendly, family friendly, vibrant neighborhoods, question mark. The purpose of boulders new density laws is to create affordable housing a consequence for the university hill neighborhood. is to accelerate the conversion of single family homes into student housing generating investment opportunities for faceless and hard to contact entities. Delighted to see you. But four star was pretty hard to contact. I write to ask you to deny 960 10th Street. I support my neighbors who cite concerns over damage to neighborhood safety and quality of life. The 960 10th Street project constitutes an immediate crisis. For those of us who live nearby, it inevitably means with added bedrooms, more noise, trash, reckless, unsafe driving and boorish behaviors. It means more interrupted sleep, which can lead to heart issues, diabetes, brain fog and chronic ill health. So check out the Harvard Health Medical Newsletter. on that subject. In the event of a fire, it means more cars, people and pets to evacuate. It means more humans interacting with bears and wildlife. And it means Nothing holds back big money. I mean, truly. This morning, I walked past my first home in the neighborhood on Lincoln Place. It has a wrought iron balcony and elegant brick facade. My parents, young professionals connected with CU, thought the neighborhood was affordable and suitable for children. The house has been chalked with the words, the dive. It is a student rental. I don't think young professionals could buy it today unless they had already made a few million. It would be nice if 960 10th could be dedicated to seniors, CU faculty.

Thank you.

Thank you, Valerie. Next up, we have Catherine. Catherine, if you could begin by stating your full name, since we only have your first name here on the signup sheet.

Hey, Thomas, can you go ahead and give the next speaker and so they can queue up and we can have them ready to go?

Sure. Yeah. After that, we have, I believe it's Tamar Larson.

Hi, my name is Catherine Ratledge. Um, I live on the block that this house resides on. I am a CU employee. I'm a mother. I'm also the spouse of a business owner here in Boulder. Um, so I wanted to start off with just saying, actually, thank you to you all, um, for what you do for Boulder. I'm well aware that, uh, being in the public service is not the easiest thing. And certainly decisions like this are not easy. I think the presentation by the staff suggested that this is a pretty cut and dry type situation that this is just sure no expansion of anything. Let's just do it. But I think it deserves a little bit more focus. And that is because of two things that I think you all have done really well as a council, which is trying to uphold the character of Boulder and also trying to demonstrate that we have climate resiliency and that we are willing to continue to survive in the future. I wrote you a very pointed letter. It says many other things about things that other people are talking about, but I want to talk about two things. The first is that I think Like one of my counterparts mentioned, the map suggests that the neighborhood is different than it is. People think of University Hill as a bunch of frat parties and beer cans and kids driving fast. That is not what it is. There's a neighborhood book club. There's parties. There's kids. There's the Flatiron School. There's a coffee shop. It is one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in Boulder, as you all know. It is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Boulder. It has some of the oldest trees. Certainly, a reason to save a neighborhood is not because it is so beautiful, but it is certainly a reason to stand up for it. And throwing out occupancy levels and allowing it to go over to investors that, again, as a CU employee, I can tell you, they are charging $800 to $2,000 a room. There is nothing affordable about this. Nothing. My street is filled with California license plates, Oregon license plates, Texas license plates. This is not affordable housing. So do not presume that it is. This is a climate issue. This is one of the most walkable neighborhoods in Boulder. You have the university there that employs thousands of people and you are denying them the ability to walk, to work. You are allowing students to set off nightly fireworks and no one enforces that. Do you know how many times my neighbors and I call at 2 a.m. in the morning? Because we are worried our house is going to catch on fire. There is a wildlife management issue here. We have bears crawling through our alleys, jumping on our trash cans, breaking things that have very been clearly locked because the college students do nothing about it. This is a trend. If you continue to support youth violations like this and let the whole neighborhood go to pot, shame on you.

Thank you. Next up, we have Tamar Larson. And after that, we'll have Trip. I believe it's Trip Hyde.

Hi everyone. My name's Tamar Larson and I live at 920 10th Street and I am now the only homeowner left on our block except for one other couple. Since I bought my home on 10th Street, six houses have turned over into student rentals. That completely changes the tenor, the character of everything, including all the things we've already talked about. The noise, the fireworks are dreadful because the police can't get there in time unless we run out at two in the morning in our pajamas to see who it is. And yeah, so there's just so many problems. And I understand from what I'm hearing tonight that occupancy has been thrown out in Boulder. I wasn't aware of that. I was aware it had increased. But I'm here tonight to say do not allow any more bedrooms to be built in this house or any other house in my neighborhood. It is directly contributing to the destruction of quality of life in our neighborhood. And it's contributing to families being steered away from settling in this neighborhood. I've talked to several real estate agents about this. And that's sad. I can't change what my street has become, but I can stand up here today and say, please don't allow more bedrooms when special exception is needed to do that, because every time that happens, it affects people. everybody left on the street in all the ways that we already know. So I wanted to show up here in solidarity for my neighbors and to let you all know who might not live in my neighborhood, certainly not on my street since I'm the only grown-up left on my particular street along with one other couple, that this is such a problem. And It's actually making me think that I need to leave my street too. And that makes me so sad because we've really created a neighborhood that's so vibrant. You heard about the book club, the 10th Street Ladies Book Club. There's other things we haven't mentioned. And that's from people that are leaving. But we met through that, through raising kids on this street. Families aren't moving anymore to our street because of the increase in bedrooms and and the problems that come with that from student behavior. I understand it's a bigger issue than what we're here to tackle tonight. It's an issue the university needs to be a part of with increasing student body. So it's a large issue. But in terms of tonight, I'm here to say, please do not increase the allowable bedrooms in this house or any other house on my street. Thank you.

Thank you. And next up, we have trip. And after that, we have David Bartlett.

Good evening. Thanks for having me. And thanks, Alex, for putting all the stuff together and dealing with all our emails. My name is Trip Hyde. I'm a homeowner resident 960 Lincoln Place, which is one property, one parcel across the alley and parcel and a half to the south. I'm also a licensed professional engineer in the state of Colorado, but I am not an architect. I outlined in my email the specific reasons with lots of details about why I think this application should be rejected. Just wanted to summarize those quickly here. The first one is that the floor area ratio calculations appeared to be incorrect. And even if they weren't, the results seem to be incorrectly applied on the cover sheet. would think that that should be revised and resubmitted also the floor area history as we know the 10% allowance is cumulative and and Alex discussed this but there was no list of potential expansions from past building permits I saw in a 1987 called a remodel I didn't say into any indication of the floor area that that could have expanded Finally, I don't believe that reasonable measures to alleviate the effects of nonconformity have been demonstrated. There's no analysis on the impacts of to traffic emissions, noise pollution, refuse parking or emergency evacuation in the case of a wildfire, which we know is an ongoing and increasing danger here. And also wanted to point out that landlord maintenance, as was discussed, is not a mitigating item with regards to these reasonable measures. I did have one request, the declaration of conformity to include also the garage studio to help try and alleviate any situation where there would be additional bedrooms made in there. But I would be, we talked about this, or I heard a little bit about it, but would be more curious about how the enforcement there works, seeing as we as neighbors can't look inside these different homes. I think finally, most importantly, what you've also heard from my neighbors here, as stewards of the University Hill neighborhood, we want to maintain the diverse and unique nature of the people and the homes in the neighborhood. I would say, though, that this particular property is not at all characteristic of the neighborhood. I looked at 50 of the homes surrounding the property. And yeah, two thirds of those have leases or rental licenses, but only nine of them had five bedrooms or more. And if this were approved, this would make 969 the third most dense housing unit on the property or in the neighborhood. So again, you know, And certainly an outlier and not at all characteristic of the nature of the homes in the in the neighborhood. So these out of state investor own high density dormitory dormitory style buildings have an outside effect on the nature of the neighborhood and i'm asking for a more thorough analysis on the impacts. The impacts of and the measures to alleviate the effects of nonconformity from the board, seeing as I think that this is a special case worth additional consideration. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Next up, we have David Bartlett, followed by Allison Smith. And it says on here, Allison Smith and Caroline, I wanted to let you both know, one of you may speak on behalf of the other, but you need at least three individuals to pool time, so you won't receive extra time.

Oh, maybe it's. It's perhaps on. I venture to say that I'm perhaps the oldest person in the audience, and I would like to give a compliment to the City of Boulder and its staff for making life much more livable on the hill than it was in 1971 when we moved to Lincoln Place, very close to the house that you are talking about. The situation is, as our neighbors have described it, I think, very well. There is considerable family presence on the Hill, and particularly on Lincoln Place and on 10th Street. At least there was until recently. And the students do... tend to bring the problems that you mentioned. The one that affects us a lot as dog owners is the firecracker situation, which I think there's been steps taken to improve. One thing that I think you should definitely insist upon, assuming you go ahead with this project, is that Four Star identifies on the property who one should get in touch with if there are complaints. I don't see any sign anywhere on the property to indicate such a presence. Thank you.

Thank you, David. And next up we have Allison Smith.

Hello, I'm Allison Smythe. I live at 935 10th Street. We own our home. We've been there for seven years. I will tell you it's one of our biggest investments in our portfolio. It's important to us because we value the value of our home. We moved here from Evanston, Illinois. We lived close to Northwestern. We love the vibrancy of the college kids. We like the neighborhood. We love our neighbors. They have families. They have graduated kids. We have such a lovely range of people. So I don't really want to diss the college kids, but I can tell you, I have two boys, one of them is in college and the other one is in high school, we have a lot of cars ourselves and we have a. place to park them in our garage and then we park on the street. But the addition of nine cars, I guess two more than seven, which would be nine on our street, is pretty crazy. I would ask you to just consider that from a safety perspective and just a hassle perspective because where can we park our cars? I remember two years ago, I got into somewhat of a driving frenzy with a cute little girl driving a Mercedes from California because we were both looking for a parking spot because I think it was probably during a CU game. And it was vicious trying to parallel our car, park our cars on our street. I know that sounds really dumb, but it's kind of important because we live there, we own the home. We would really like to be able to park there. I would also like to tell you that Currently, the bears are ridiculous. I'm sure you're all being exposed to them wherever you live too. I work at Flatirons Elementary and there's a bear that lives in the culvert right across the street. So every day we're on a alert. But if you could just look in our alley, the ones that I share with Lincoln Place, every day there is trash all over the place. from trash cans just getting down by bears. My husband has probably gone through five rounds of man versus bear trying to keep the trash can attached so the bears can't get it down. But these college kids do not give a shit, excuse my language, and we're running over glass, and we're running over nails, and we're running over food, and it's just gross. And that happens from now until, I don't know, it gets cold or the snow happens. I, too, would request having Four Star's information posted somewhere on the home so we could get access to them. And then finally, I would really just ask you guys to please deny this request from Four Star. Thank you.

Thank you. And I'm not sure if Carolyn also wanted to speak or? Okay. Thank you. Next up we'll have Kaleo Akana.

And Thomas, could you let us know when it's our last in-person speaker so that that person can turn the mic off?

This is our last registered in-person speaker.

Thank you.

Hi, thank you. My name is Kaleo Akana. I do live on Lincoln Place and just down from the property across the alley. In listening to everything tonight, I just wanted to bring up a couple of points that I think just need to be emphasized. You know, you have a lot of neighbors behind me, my neighbors, that we've all, you know, they've voiced their concerns via email. And coming to you, asking you to deny this because we live there. This is where we live. This is what we're experiencing. We know exactly what this experience is. And it doesn't matter that there's two units. It matters that there's 10 humans or nine humans. You know, it's the, the amount of humans living in a house, it's taking living space and turning it into bedrooms, and only having a dining room for them to have one area to, you know, come together in because you have so many bedrooms now. And it's the parking, like Alison just mentioned. I mean, when you've got nine people for one house, that house is maybe two cars wide. And now you want seven more car spaces on that street. We just don't have the capacity. And I feel like you should be listening to your community, your neighbors, us, our council, And please do what's best for your community and the neighborhood, not an investment company that just wants to make more money because it's, like she said, it's not going to be affordable. We're not talking about affordable housing. We're talking about two more bedrooms that they're going to make $1,800 to $2,000 more per room because of the location of this house. It's not going to... improve the quality of life for the students in this house by any means, and certainly not for the neighbors in the neighborhood. So I'm just asking you to please keep in mind that I'm hoping you folks are here to support us as your community, you're our city council, and to continue to make good improvements and listen to the community that's begging you to deny a house to go from seven rooms that's already too big for such a small lot anyway to go to nine. Thank you.

Thank you for joining us. And that will conclude our in-person portion of the public hearing. And so I'm going to pass it over to Vivian to help us out with those that are joining online.

And if I could just jump in here before we go to you, Vivian, to administer the online portion of the public hearing. I just want to clarify, because this has come up a couple times, usually we reserve our comments until the end, and we will have more comments after the public hearing. I don't want to prejudice that at all. But I just wanted to say that, to clarify, we are the planning board. So we are not the city council. City council members are elected. There are nine city council members. We are here in council chambers tonight, but the six folks you see in front of you tonight are appointed members of the city planning board. We are residents of Boulder, just like you. We are appointed to this board to help administer the land use code and the city code, municipal code.

And we're volunteers.

We are volunteers. We are unpaid. We are your neighbors. And we are here to listen and also to make the best judgments we can about administering the city code. Okay, I will turn it over to Vivian for the online portion of the public hearing.

Great, thank you. So far, we just have one person with their hand raised. I'd just like to ask everybody who is joining us online, if you wish to share your comments, please go ahead and raise your virtual hand. But for now, we'll start with Lucy Goldstein. And just a reminder to introduce yourself. And also, if you have some kind of conflict of interest or relationship to the project, please also share that. Go ahead, you have three minutes.

Hopefully everybody can hear me. Can I be heard? Yes, loud and clear. I'm Lucy Goldstein. I'm at 956 Grant Place, which is essentially this exact same location, but two blocks over. I have no financial interest in this property whatsoever. I'm actually came here as a long time Uni Hill resident. I have a nine year old, and I would like to ask for this to be rejected, this plan, and more broadly to address a pattern of investor driven conversion that is steadily changing the character and viability of our neighborhood. And I want to be very clear about what concerns me. This is not an argument against students or renters. Students have always been a part of Uni Hill. They're an important part of this community. But what concerns many of us is something quite different. This is a systematic, and it's coming rather rapidly at us, of purchases and reconversions of residential homes, many of them quite small, that historically have supported families and long-term residents into increasingly intensive high bedroom, high count rental properties designed primarily to maximize investment return. There is an important distinction between creating housing and extracting the maximum number of rentable bedrooms from an existing residential property. So when an ordinary house or a duplex is turned into a nine, 10, 12 bedroom dormitory, The city should not evaluate that conversion as though it exists in isolation. The cumulative effect matters. Every such conversion removes another property from the realistic pool of homes available to families and long-term residents. And as those properties disappear, the remaining families become increasingly surrounded by short-term and highly transient occupancy. So what used to be children living near other children, adults who know one another over many years, informal oversight of street and alleys, shared investment in homes and gardens, and the simple expectation that the people living next door will still be there a few years from now. Now I'm running out of time. I'm just gonna read a couple more highlights. A neighborhood is more than a collection of individually profitable parcels. And that is why I believe this pattern has become increasingly extractive and predatory in its effect on our neighborhood. So while I have a lot of recommendations, I sent an email on what I recommend those recommendations should be. And I understand that neighborhoods change, but change and displacement are not the same thing. So there must remain room in Boulder for neighborhoods in which people put down roots, raise children, know their neighbors, care for one another, and can stay for the decades to come. But this is becoming a neighborhood in which we are all wondering if we have to move.

Thank you, Lucy, for being here with us. Next, we have Alicia, who's joining us from her phone. So please start by introducing yourself with your full name and also confirming whether or not you have a financial interest in the project. Thank you. Over to you. and you may have to unmute from your end. Is that correct?

Yeah, we can hear you.

It's a little bit broken up, but let's try.

Go ahead. Okay, let me try again. My name is Alicia Brabazon-Curtin. I live on Grant Place on University Hill. I am a fire adapted Colorado wildfire ambassador. I am a widow. I live with four children and two dogs in my home that I moved here with all of my things as my husband was dying from glioblastoma because he wanted to be as close to Chautauqua Park as possible, and that was his dying wish. So we moved from upstate New York to Boulder, and the ticket to entry to Boulder is outrageous. i bought a fixer upper for one point five six million dollars the house next door to me two years ago, was on the market for many months. It was a lovely four-bedroom home. It was occupied by a couple from Summit County who only used it as their second home. So they didn't really, I guess, care who bought it. Who bought it was an investor. Two days after the sale went through, the drywallers showed up. And I said, what are you doing? They said, we're chopping it up in homes. I live with my four school-age children next door to now a nine-bedroom student rental. This afternoon on the dead grass lawn out front, the girls in their thongs were sunbathing. These nine students have seven cars. Grant Place is a one-way street. I am extraordinarily concerned about wildfire evacuation and the density, the unintended consequences of density on the hill. I cannot believe that cramming more people onto property. We are in a known high-risk fire area is a good idea. Once this house next door went to a rental, I doubt it will ever come back from being a rental. And now I struggle to unload groceries for a family of five into my house that I paid a ridiculous amount of money for. This is outrageous. And while next door he can get $16,000 in rent because of all these... These girls are paying between $1,400 and $2,000. It is a pattern of... ownership changing hands on the Hill. And I just want to know, like, what is the future of the Hill? Who is living here? Is it all out of state investors? And are you interested in enriching the families, the schools, the infrastructure, the people who work and live in Boulder or investors pocket books? Thank you.

Alicia, can you please just repeat your last name for the record? We didn't catch it.

Brabazon Curtin. Thank you.

OK, moving on to Philip Pontbriand. And please introduce yourself with the right pronunciation. And you have three minutes. Oh, there you go. Sorry, keep on coming off and on my screen. Let's see if you come back. You lowered your hand, but if you wish to speak, please raise it again. In the meantime, OK, there we go. Please go ahead, Philip. Start with an introduction, please.

Can you all hear me? Yes.

OK. My name is Philippe Pommelier.

I live on 965 10th Street. I have no financial interest in the property that we're talking about. I am the neighbor of the 969 10th Street. I think my main concern is not about the renters or rental housing. My concern is whether increasing the intensity of residential use on a non-conforming property is appropriate, particularly in this case. The main reason is without adequate mechanism to ensure that the resulting impact on the surrounding neighborhood are effectively managed. You all understand that with Colorado's elimination of unrelated person occupancy limit, the city can no longer rely on former occupancy framework as a tool to control intensity. The city itself recognized that health and safety occupancy standards now govern instead, but that's what needs to be applied in this case. Before approving an expansion of residential unit or intensity of non-conforming lot, I believe that the board should determine whether the applicant has demonstrated adequate management measures addressing noise, trash, parking, tenant turnover, or other impacts on neighborhood properties. I can share my experience. It's not about, again, the investment. I can tell that the company that currently is looking at expanding has not met those minimum standard. There has been constant trash noise and I had to personally intervene in conflicts and noise at multiple occasions. I have two daughters that perturb their sleep that has an effect on my health and health and safety of my girls. So I'm reasonable. I'm thinking that investments are adequate and they should be considered for Boulder. It's something that I personally use as well. But in this case, I don't think that the measures have been put in place to ensure that the peacefulness, the health and safety of the neighborhood has been properly addressed. So I would respectfully ask to reject and ensure that these measures are put in place and that the investors in this case, and those are proposing the change, actually demonstrate that they'll be responsible.

Thank you, Philippe. If you are with us and you would still like to speak, please go ahead and raise your virtual hand on the platform and we're happy to call on you. I'll give folks a few moments before we move on. And it looks like nobody else is raising their hands. So I will turn it back over to chair.

OK, thank you, Vivian, and thank you to everyone who spoke in our public hearing. The public hearing portion is now closed. The next step in our hearing is to invite the applicant. If you would like to respond to anything that you heard in public comment, you can come up to the mic and respond. OK, the applicant is passing. All right, that takes us to board deliberation and decision. Before we get to that, would anybody like to take a break, or do you want to push through? Anybody need a break? Nope. Nope. OK. We'll keep going then. All right. So this is the part of the meeting where we actually talk about what we've heard, all the evidence presented at the hearing, and make a decision according to the code criteria. So Alex, I would like to take Hella's good suggestion and put the criteria back up to help us focus our discussion when we get to that part of the meeting. Let's perhaps start with a round of general comments. And any remaining questions that board members may have for staff? Does anybody want to make a general comment before we start to walk through the criteria?

Yeah, Max.

I have a question.

Question from Max. We do love clarity here. How, again, is the amount of bedrooms calculated? The permissible bedrooms and...

Based on the building code?

It's based on the building code, correct?

It's the international property maintenance code. There's a minimum square footage per bedroom and then per occupant.

So the amount of bedrooms is based on the code, not the use.

Correct.

So when we are weighing out the effects of the non-conforming use, that is ignorant of the amount of bedrooms, about the amount of type of people who live there, about the people who own the building, etc.

Brad Mueller planning. I just want to make sure we're saying the same thing. So there's no requirement for bedrooms. Are you asking for... I'm just clarifying that the effects... What the size is, that kind of thing.

The effects of the non-conforming use is not an amount of bedrooms. It is simply the way that the bedrooms are divided into a duplex versus a single home.

Correct. The non-conformity is that there's two dwelling units on the property where the density requirements allow for only one. There's not a limitation on the number of bedrooms.

And I found a 6,250 square foot lot, whereas today you'd need a 14,000 square foot lot to do a duplex.

I think we're on the same page about this. I just want to get this one part completely clear and said directly that the effects of the non-conforming use are not the amount of bedrooms. The amount of bedrooms are not affected by the non-conforming use and thus are not relevant to the quasi-judicial question that we are being asked to administer this code.

Yes, there's no zoning code that limits the amount of bedrooms.

So I think this is helpful. I want to say a few things for my position as chair before we get into applying the criteria. First of all, this is a quasi-judicial hearing for the planning board. And what that means is that our decision has to be based on applying the code, the municipal code, and the criteria that were presented by staff. We absolutely care about quality of life. We absolutely care about resident experience. And that is not part of the code that we are here to administer tonight. That is a separate part of how the city runs, how the city functions. And what I'm hearing from a lot of the neighbors is you do not feel that this part of our city is functioning well. You're not getting the code enforcement that you would like to see. I would say every single one of us up here is probably very personally sympathetic to that, and that is not something that we can consider in administering the municipal code in this quasi-judicial hearing in which we are acting as judges. And as judges, we are bound by the code. So I wanna get that out there. I do wanna say the way that the city measures traffic impacts by unit rather than by bedroom, that's because in every unit in the city, You could have one person living, you could have a couple, you could have a family with five children. The city does not count occupants when looking at traffic impacts. Now maybe that's something that you'd like to see the city change, but that is currently the way that is regulated and the way that that is measured. Similarly, if this were a single family home, as other folks have pointed out, my understanding is that whether it's a duplex or just a single unit, the number of bedrooms that it could have does not differ, right? Except that perhaps the fact that it is a duplex means it can have fewer bedrooms because it has to have two kitchens, two dining rooms, and two living areas instead of just one. I'm not 100% sure about that because I think there's some kind of floor area calculation of how big those areas have to be based on the bedrooms so maybe it's the equivalent but they're certainly not getting more bedrooms because they're a duplex if this were one unit it would be conforming and it could have nine bedrooms and there would be no hearing because that would just be by right if i'm understanding correctly do i understand that correctly yes Okay, so I think that's what, Max, you're trying to get at, is that the number of bedrooms is not something that we have the right by code to limit in this hearing. That is regulated by the International Building Code, as staff have said. For folks who are watching on video, we had a member of the audience who's not on mic ask, well, why are we even here if we can't talk about the number of bedrooms? I can tell you my personal opinion is it feels like the code has not caught up to some of the recent changes in state legislation. So it is state legislation that tells us we cannot regulate occupancy. That was not just a decision by the city of Boulder. That is statewide. It's not allowed. And I do want to thank folks who are here tonight.

Some folks are leaving because of, I would encourage you not, I would encourage you to say, I, I think, um, Laura, madam chair, um, And yeah, we were, so how this works is many times we have just a brief little bit of discussion and then we get on to motion making. And motion making consists of someone making a motion to approve, maybe to deny. And then we base our discussions and deliberations based initially on the motion maker getting a second and then making a case for that motion. So this is not a foregone conclusion. What Laura is doing is emphasizing our role in interpreting the code. And this code is partially subjective and is subject to interpretation by the members of the planning board. So you may leave if you want. You may not. But this is not, I think you are misinterpreting, at least from my perspective, Laura's comments in regard to what our role is.

Thank you, Mark. I don't know what the result of the motion making and decision making will be. And there could be some conditions also placed upon the property if they are in conformance with what we are allowed to do based on the criteria. So we'll see what happens. But again, we do appreciate you being here tonight. And I do appreciate the frustrations of the limitations of the code. Okay. So with that said, would anybody like to make any initial comments before we start looking at the criteria?

Well, I just wanted to respond to what you said and maybe help to clarify, because we're here because it's an expansion of a nonconforming use. And there are two facets of the expansion, is my understanding. There's the floor area increase, and there is the number of bedrooms. So we are considering that. That's why we're here in the first place. On the other hand, the number of bedrooms Yeah, could be exactly the same if it were a single unit. And so the I just I just wanted to clarify that the the the it's not that we can't consider the number of bedrooms. But it it's a very nuanced situation where the number of bedrooms per se is not something that is regulated. Does that help?

I think it'll be more clear when we look at the actual code and criteria. Any other initial comments? Okay. All right. Let's get to the criteria. I think this will be helpful in clarifying for all of us up here. So Alex, could you please put the use review criteria up on the screen for us?

Yeah, sure. And so for the presentation, I kind of... left out a few of the ones that weren't controversial. So I can get to those and refresh everybody here. So for the use review criteria, the rationale is met because it's a duplex and it's a legal non-conforming use. Criterion three talks about impacts to infrastructure. There's no utility infrastructures associated with this or impacts to existing utility infrastructure. So that one's not listed here. And then five talks about conversion of non-residential uses. And then again, for the additional criteria for expansions of nonconforming uses, I focused on one, two, and four, and I have slides on those. So again, for... Criterion three, it was reviewed against Title IX development code and meets those standards. Criterion five, the floor area increase is less than 10%, and then there's no zoning variances requested, so it meets six. So getting into the key issues for one.

Maybe, Alex, if you could go back to the slide we were just on. So these are the six criteria that the project has to be consistent with. for expansion of a nonconforming use. Is that correct?

Yes, in addition to these other five for use reviews as well.

OK.

So there's more language in the code for each one, obviously. But if you want me to leave this, I can. Or I can pull up Muni code also.

Well, let me poll the board members here. I think my first question would be, do any board members have concerns with how the project is meeting any of these criteria for the nonconforming use? And maybe we can focus on where board members might or might not have concerns. Mark.

Yes, I have deep concerns. And in fact, I'm This is one of these things where I'll just come out with it. I'm going to move to deny this application. And I'm going to do it based on specific subjective portions of the code, not having to do with bedrooms. And I know that when we, in the past, when we have had... a denial finding. We usually continue the meeting and staff drafts denial findings. So the timing on this for me is important. I'm ready to make my motion, see if I get a second, make a case and we can discuss this, but I'm ready to do that.

So I would just suggest, and I respect your right as a board member to put a motion on the floor whenever you'd like, I would suggest that we see if anybody else has concerns that would lead them to deny or condition the project, that they think it may not be compatible with some of the criteria. Just see if anybody else has something they want to talk about before we get to motion making. Did anybody else have concerns that would lead them to want to deny or condition the project? So Mark, why don't you tell us what your concern is? And if you want to get right to the motion, that is your right.

Yeah, no, I'm going to make a motion. I move to deny the use review application number LUR 2025-00091 for failure to meet 9-2-15E1A and failure to meet 9-2-15F1 and 2. And I'm happy to speak to that if I get a second.

I think it would be useful for you to explain what your thinking is before asking for a second.

I'll carry on.

So is that OK if we table the motion for now and have Mark describe before we ask for a second?

If the other board members are OK with that, other board members could make a second right now. I'll second.

So fine, I have some comments prepared. Just beginning on the personal side, I have spent considerable hours volunteering, writing, and in community action about my support for the removal of occupancy limits, and occupancy only being based on the health and safety, not familiar relationship. I am in support of renters, students, affordabilities, renters' rights, and property owners' rights. I have been a student and lived on the Hill, and I have owned rental student properties. While I sympathize with many of the speakers tonight, our job as judges is to do our best to apply the code. I find this code section to be convoluted and difficult to parse. It's a mix of shall and all and either and or. So I'm going to keep this simple. I will focus exclusively on the code. I find, in contrast to staff, I find this section to be quite subjective. I find that the application does not fulfill the following areas of the code, 9-2-15E. which says, no, use-free view application will be approved unless the approving agency finds all of the following. And my emphasis here is on 1 , which provides direct service or convenience or reduces adverse impacts to the surrounding uses or neighborhood. That is, it's very clear. Now, it's not clear subjective as to what reduces adverse impacts to the surrounding uses or neighborhood, but I can say that I am confident that this application does not do that. I also find that under 9-2-15F.

Mark, before we move on, just a clarification of what that code section requires. My reading of that code section 9-2-15E1 is that it has to meet either A, B, C, or D. It does not have to meet every one of those. It does not have to meet A if it meets B or C or D. So,

Okay, I am carrying on. F, under F, no application for an expansion of nonconforming use shall be granted unless all of the following criteria are met in addition to the criteria set forth above. One, not adversely affect the surrounding area. And two, reduction in nonconformity The proposed expansion will either reduce the degree of nonconformity or improve the physical appearance of the property without increasing the degree of nonconformity. So again, leaving aside bedrooms, occupancy, status of the occupants, the neighborhood parking permit program, which has myriad shortcomings. And this is a great example of that. But leaving aside all of that, focusing on the code, this is a non-conforming use. It is an expansion. They are requesting an expansion of the non-conforming use. And in my judgment, they have not fulfilled the requirements in the code subjectively for that expansion of non-conforming use.

May I ask a question? Sure. What effect of non-conforming use, if not bedrooms, would you be specifically thinking of?

Again, the proposed expansion will reduce the degree of non-conformity. or change the appearance. So this is not reducing the degree of nonconformity. The nonconformity is that it's a duplex. They're asking for an expansion of the nonconformity by adding bedrooms. I'm not judging on bedrooms, good or bad. They're asking for an expansion of the nonconformity. The code requires mitigation or improvement to the nonconformity. And this application has not fulfilled that.

And I guess, how would one mitigate being a duplex, which we've discussed would be an unreasonable request?

It's mitigation of the nonconformity, of expansion of the nonconformity, right? So I'm not saying the expansion of the nonconformity is why we're here tonight, right? We're an expansion of a nonconforming use. The expansion is the addition of bedrooms, right? They have not mitigated or improved on the nonconformity in their expansion of the use.

But it says, or improved the physical appearance of the structure of the site without increasing the degree of nonconformity.

Right. And I do not give basic maintenance and landscape maintenance... the pass, that that is what is reducing the nonconformity. Putting up a railing or replacing a decrepit front step or deck is not mitigation of the expansion of use being requested.

Mark, did you consider that they are reducing the size of the deck that was unpermitted to make it now the deck will conform, the back deck?

No. That combined with the repairs in the front, simply doing the right thing to bring your property into code or to make it habitable is not mitigation required by the expansion.

Well, it also talks about improving the physical appearance of the structure or the site. So you don't think that the improved landscaping that they're not required to do is improving the appearance of the site?

So what I don't want to do is to give a landlord the incentive to do unpermitted work, deteriorate their property so that if they come before an expansion of use, they then get to say, oh, I'm fixing this. this issue, whether it was a prior owner who created it or the current owner, makes no difference. Fixing problems of code compliance is not mitigation of the expansion of use. Mason keeps waving to me there.

Sorry, Mason, I didn't look in your direction. Go ahead.

So, Mark, I appreciate your point of view on this. And I had a similar, although I wasn't thinking about denying, I was thinking about conditioning.

So I had two ideas for conditions, and I didn't know if you had ideas of what that improvement would look like that could be conditioned for the approval.

And here's why I don't. I don't. And I thought a lot about that. Is that the code... leaves it to the applicant. The code doesn't say, you may pick and choose from this menu of improvements. You may do this. You may do a TDM plan. The code leaves it to the applicant to fulfill the code and make a case. And in this case, I think the applicant has done a pretty bad job of making their case. The owner's not here. The project, the property manager is not here. We have a project manager, gave us a nice brief presentation, but they haven't made much of a case and they haven't, they didn't make much of a case in their application and they don't make much here. And the code is subjective. The code simply says, you need to fulfill this requirement. It doesn't say exactly how, and it's not my job to say exactly how.

Question for staff, should we deny, can they come back and under what timelines?

I think they would need a substantially different application if they wanted to come back in less than a year, but I'll need to double check that.

I'd like to ask a question of the applicant or staff as appropriate. We did not talk much about the improved landscaping. Can we describe what that improved landscaping would be?

Yeah, let me flip to the plans here. So it was reviewed by our landscape architect on staff and found to meet current requirements. And yeah, this is certainly a tricky code criterion that staff struggles with as well. So here's their landscaping plan. There's new plants and Sorry, I'm not as familiar with this as I am with other parts of the application. But again, it did get the review and blessing from our staff landscape architect.

Okay, so if I'm understanding correctly, on the left is current conditions. And on the right is the new landscaping plan, which looks like, I don't know, four or five times the number of trees or plantings.

Yeah, correct.

And they're all low water and native, I think I heard staff say.

Yeah, so it says new front yard landscaping in compliance with section 9912 BRC 1981, low water planting bed with all native shrubs and perennial grasses such as serviceberry, rabbit bush, blue gamma, and penstemon sea landscape plan. So they have another page too.

We do have a raised hand online from Katharina with the applicant team. Yeah, the applicant.

OK, let's go to the applicant answering the question as well to help staff. Thank you.

Thanks. Catherine, I just unmuted you if you would like to speak. I can also promote you back to panelists if you'd like to join on video.

Great. Thank you. No, this is okay.

I'm sorry, it's a little hard to hear. Can we turn up the volume?

She's rejoining as a panelist now.

Great. Can you hear me now?

Yeah, you're a little hard to hear if you can get real close.

Can you hear me better now?

Thomas, is it possible to amplify at all?

We're at max volume.

Okay.

All right. If you could speak up and speak into the mic, that'd be great. Thank you.

Thank you very much, first of all, for all the fantastic comments and the time from everyone. So my name is Katerina Horath and I'm part of KWork Studio, which is the architect and design team. And yeah, I just want to emphasize we have We have responded to some of the comments that we have received from Alex and his team, and we have gone through multiple reviewing sessions to really make sure that we are addressing all the points in the code. We have had a landscape consultant to make sure that the front yard and the plants that we have selected and everything really is increasing the appearance of the property and making sure that we comply with the code. So you can see on this plan that Alex has on screen now, the visuals on the bottom left are kind of references of the plants that we have selected with our landscape consultant and making sure that we increase the appearance of the property. We have also noted in our drawings that the landscaping in the back Um, should be maintained and obviously increase. This is only obviously wouldn't be able to be seen for the neighbors. But, um, we also want to make sure that it is within the property that it is being maintained. And then the other note that we have in order to increase. The appearance is obviously the front porch, which is really we don't want to change anything because we don't want to change the overall appearance and do any work on the exterior. But we want to make sure that it is being repaired and repainted just the front of the house to make sure that the appearance is improved.

Thank you. And two questions, if I may. I assume that the new landscaping meets the city's new code, both for water usage and for wildfire? Yes. Okay. And then in the back, Katerina, are you familiar with what's happening with the deck in the back? Could you describe that for us if you're familiar?

Yes, so the previous owner has built a shed and the deck which was not in conforming. So we have been brought on to the project to make sure that everything is being brought up to code and making sure it complies with the city and building regulations. So you can see on the top left, the deck that is outlined in red is what is being proposed to be removed. And then there's also stepping stones, which you can actually see on the right and that aerial view that we are proposing to to repair essentially and make this area a green grass area. So the area where the old deck was that was supposed, that is going to be more of the backyard, the grass backyard. So that area is supposed to be removed of the deck and then there's really just the door from the kitchen area that goes out into that area and onto the lower deck and then onto the grass.

Thank you. And I see on the diagram on the left, there's something marked shed that is kind of looks like south of that lower deck and that sheds being removed.

Yes. So that was, it's actually just a plastic shed that was, it's really ugly. It's plastic, PVC. They had just items in storage there that, I don't know, the students used to play or not quite sure. It was trash. It looked really ugly. And we have proposed to remove this, which also helped, of course, with the FAR regulations, because it was non-confirming. It was built not with any permits from the previous owner. So this is proposed to be removed.

Thank you so much.

A question. I don't see anything in here indicating that there's any irrigation. Is that also being proposed? Or is there existing irrigation?

Yes, there is existing irrigation in the front yard. Not in, I believe, not in the back. In the front yard, there is existing irrigation, which is proposed to be obviously maintained and making sure that it works and making sure that the plants... We'll receive enough water.

Okay. And there's none in the back.

Maybe Caroline can speak to that. I don't believe there's any irrigation in the back.

Could you come up and speak to the mic, please? Yeah, we can hear you, but it won't be on the recording unless you speak to the mic.

I believe we do have irrigation in the back with green grass being maintained and grape vines all along the back of the fence with a couple trees back there. Catalpa, I believe, is one of them. And they're maintained through irrigation as well.

Okay. Same. Thank you. Okay, Carolyn.

Max.

I don't know. I just want to bring this back a little bit because this is important. And really, Mark, I admire your desire to work with this. And truly, I think that we all sympathize with the many people who have come here tonight. And I admire your creativity. But every argument that I've heard tonight does not pertain to me to the effect of nonconformity. And I asked you this, but I'm not sure I got a clear answer. So I've just been kind of waiting to ask again, what do you believe is an effect of nonconformity? Because what is nonconforming in this case is that it is a duplex instead of a single unit. That is just an arrangement of the house. So most of these issues are not effects of the fact that it's a duplex. So in One, that you are citing, the applicant has undertaken all reasonable measures to reduce or alleviate the effects of nonconformity. So once again, what is the effect of nonconformity that you are seeking to reduce?

I'm not seeking to reduce the effects of nonconformity. My case is that the applicant... has not done enough to reduce the effects of nonconformity. So the applicant has not addressed the impact or the effect of nonconformity and the expansion of use. So it's a nonconforming use, right? It's an expansion of that. Adding the bedrooms is an expansion of the nonconforming use. That's why we're here.

So I'm just going to give my opinion again, which is that this is an area of the code that doesn't make any sense to me. And I don't think it has caught up with our occupancy limits because if this were a single unit and not a duplex, they could add those two bedrooms. So that is not, in my opinion, an effect of the nonconformity. That is something that can happen within that building, whether it's a single unit or a duplex.

And we live with the code as it stands, as it is here tonight.

But Mark, I really just want to... And for what it's worth, I am also unimpressed with the applicant and the way that they've addressed this. But even with that, I still haven't gotten a firm answer from you because it doesn't read, taken all reasonable measures to reduce or alleviate the effects of the expansion. It says... just the nonconformity.

Okay, let's just take reduces adverse impacts to the surrounding use or neighborhood or the proposed expansion. The expansion of the use will reduce the degree of nonconformity. So it's an excellent point, but the effect of the nonconformity of adding rooms is an impact, would reasonable people say that the code, the intent of the code, the purpose of the code is to have expansion of uses that are non-conforming either improve the condition or mitigate the condition to a degree that the surrounding area is helped, improved, whatever. I'll even go one step further. The code doesn't deal with, the code strictly deals, this is not providing a benefit. As far as I can tell, this is not providing a benefit to anyone. It's not to the residents, not to the neighbors, not to the community. There is no reduction in nonconformity. There is no reduction in effect. to anyone involved in this.

And I guess this is what I was trying to ask the staff, and maybe you can elucidate this for me. Are we able to make this call on the effects of the expansion of nonconformity, the expansion being the additional bedrooms, or are we being asked to make this call based on the effect of nonconformity itself with the effect of nonconformity being the fact that it is a duplex? It's what we've been asking all night.

Well, I think it's about the expansion. So we've established that it's a nonconforming use because it's a duplex and a single family zone on an undersized lot. So I think what you're being asked to weigh tonight is really the effect of the addition of 95 square feet, 3.6% addition or internal conversion with two additional bedrooms. You know, that's really the impact that you're measuring tonight.

All right, then. Sure, Mark. I get where you're coming from.

Can I add to that? It sounds like we're kind of blending the two criteria as well. So number F1 talks about the applicant has undertaken all reasonable measures to reduce or alleviate the effects of the nonconformity upon the surrounding area. And then the other one that we're talking about is... four, or what? Sorry, two. Yeah. So that says the proposed expansion will either reduce the degree of nonconformity of the use or improve the physical appearance of the structure or site without increasing the degree of nonconformity.

So we're kind of completing both of those together, it could be argued on F one, and or to a denial could be argued by that the application, one, does not adversely affect the surrounding area. I think, in fact, it does adversely affect the surrounding area. And two, the proposed expansion will either reduce the degree of nonconformity of the use or improve the physical appearance of the structure. I don't find maintenance to be a big factor in this and worthy of the expansion of the nonconforming use.

So, Caroline, I do see your hand up. We normally, it's only if we ask you a question that we invite you back up to the microphone. Hello. Hello.

I wanted to chime in. Thank you, Alex, for making sure we are reviewing the criteria correctly. Looking at the second one, or actually the first one, It does say to reduce or alleviate the effects of the nonconformity. So it is not limited to the effect of the proposed expansion. I think that the criterion goes further. You can look at it further than just what's proposed in terms of expansion of the use.

Thank you.

Okay, Kurt. Can I also ask Hella more about two? I really don't understand if two, because it says, okay, we're discussing expansion of a nonconforming use. So it says the proposed expansion will either reduce the degree of nonconformity. Well, we're already talking about an expansion of nonconforming use, so I don't understand how that could possibly apply. Or Improve the physical appearance of the structure or the site without increasing the degree of nonconformity. Again, by definition, we're increasing the degree of nonconformity.

I don't think so, because nonconformity is that duplex. You're not making it more of a duplex. You're not making it a triplex.

You're not making it a quadplex.

Yeah, so the nonconformity isn't changing in my mind.

Okay, so you're distinguishing degree of nonconformity from expansion of the nonconforming use.

And I think that's what we're trying to figure out is where that line.

Okay, I have a quick suggestion. Forget about F2. Simply read F. F says, no application for an expansion of a non-conforming use shall be granted. No shall be granted unless all of the following criteria are met in addition to the criteria set forth above. F1, not adversely affect the surrounding area. Stop there. Period. Put a period there. That's one of the clearer sentences in the code. Not adversely affect the surrounding area.

Okay. Mark, where are you reading that?

I'm reading.

I see F1. It says reasonable measures required. The applicant has undertaken all reasonable measures to reduce or alleviate the effects of nonconformity.

Where are you seeing? Well, that's, wait. Are you looking at it? I'm looking at my notes versus the code. Pardon me.

So I read F1. I'm just going to give my comment while you're looking at that. It says, reasonable measures required. The applicant has undertaken all reasonable measures to reduce or alleviate the effects of the nonconformity upon the surrounding area. It doesn't say there's no effect of the nonconformity. It says you're taking reasonable measures to reduce impacts.

I'm sorry. I was wrong on that one. I was cutting and pasting, and I put that. I was actually cutting from E1. And I apologize for that.

Pardon me, Ella. I think I actually was more confused after your last comment. So I'm going to try once again, trying to put this in simple terms as possible. So F1, right? The applicant has undertaken all reasonable measures to reduce or alleviate the effects of nonconformity. When that says the effects of nonconformity, does it mean the expansion of nonconformity, of a nonconforming use, or is it just the nonconformity itself, which is the fact that the building is a duplex?

Can I just comment here for a second? This criteria was made to apply to a large range of situations, ranging from an industrial use like a factory or a restaurant in a neighborhood, and to say, okay, we have a nonconforming use here. Are they making reasonable attempts to reduce the impacts that that nonconformity has on the neighborhood? This is a residential area, right? And so I don't see that adding two additional bodies to a structure, you could do that as a nuclear family. You could do that as roommates in a single unit. You could do that with an ADU. It does not seem to me to be reasonable for this board to make a finding that adding two bodies... to an existing structure is an unacceptable impact on a neighborhood. What if it was a blended family and the two people got married and they brought two teenagers into the house? Is that an unacceptable impact on a neighborhood? That does not seem to be a reasonable thing for this board to find. And to say it has no benefit to the neighborhood to provide additional housing That is one of the main things that we are trying to do in this city is accommodate more housing, right? So would we prefer that somebody knock this house down and build a multi-unit apartment building to provide more housing? I think that we would not. So if we can accommodate more people within an existing structure without changing the appearance of the neighborhood, with upgrading the buildings so that have better landscaping, with reducing the degree of nonconformity with the structures that were put there by a previous owner, in my opinion, this does meet the criteria. So I'm not going to be supporting your proposal, Mark.

I really would appreciate if the attorney could have answered my question before that.

Go ahead, Max and Hela. I'm sorry that I interrupted your dialogue with the attorney.

Yeah, it asks you whether all reasonable measures to reduce or alleviate the effects of the nonconformity have been taken. And I think you get to determine what the effects of the nonconformity are. If because there's a duplex there instead of a single family dwelling unit, there are impacts on... the surrounding properties because maybe a duplex operates different than a single family dwelling unit and that might have impacts. It might be most likely operated differently than a single unit. So there might be impacts from those types of things.

That is marvelously helpful, and I really appreciate that. So actually, I'm kind of in line with Mark, and I don't think that the point here is to prohibit the addition of the bedroom. But I think that we can ask that the owner make greater attempts to help their neighbors, even if that was what many of them asked, simply making it easier to contact them. So if we can use this as a tool to make these better neighbors and get the housing, I think that that's actually really worthwhile looking into. We've heard from quite a few upset people about the effects of this nonconforming use.

So I want to get other people's voices in here, but I just want to say I would absolutely support adding additional conditions that might help alleviate the impacts of the nonconformity on the neighborhood. I see, I saw Kurt, I think, trying to get in here. Okay, and Mason? No? No? Anybody? Okay, well then we have a motion on the floor, which is to deny the proposal outright. And it has a second. Any further comment before we vote on that proposal? And an additional motion. I will say that if that proposal fails, I would be supportive of a motion to approve the proposal with additional conditions. So any additional comment before we vote on denying the application?

I have a comment. Yes, Helen. Just with regard to the particular motion that Mark made and the reference to 9215E1A, one has within it four alternatives, and only one of them has to be met. I'm going to scroll there on my own screen. So one has an A through D, and for one itself, only one of those four has to be met. But within E, there is a one through five, and all those have to be met. But one itself can be met by one.

So I've gotten myself in a bit of a pickle here because I appreciate that comment. And if I could, I would strike that first section and simply rely on the section that says the application fails to fulfill F1 and 2. And that's clear, simple, or cleaner. However, I'm not one for... for casual or friendly amendments. So well, I could withdraw the motion and remake it, or I can move to amend my motion. I move to amend my motion by striking nine failure to meet nine days two days 15 one a and have it read for failure to meet nine days two days 15 F one and two.

Second on the motion to amend. Does anybody want to do that? So yeah, this is sure.

Okay, so so now we're now we need to vote on that.

Okay, so now we are voting on Mark's motion, which if I may restate it, is to deny the application.

No, we're voting on the motion to amend the original motion.

You are right. Okay, so we're voting on the motion to amend the original motion to remove 9-2-15E1A from the reason for the denial.

Yes.

Okay. All in favor, we're going to start with Mark. Yes. Kurt. Yes. Claudia. Yes. I'm a yes. Mason. Yes. Max. Yes. Okay. So that is removed from the rationale for the denial. Now we can vote on the motion to deny based on the argument that it does not meet nine dash two dash 15 F one and two. Yes. Any discussion before we vote on denying the project? And just to clarify with staff, if we did issue a denial, this could be called up by city council, correct?

Okay.

All right. So starting with Mark.

Yes.

Kurt. No. Claudia. No. Mason.

No.

Max.

Yes.

And I'm a no. So the motion to deny fails. Would the board like to make another motion?

I'll put a motion on the table. I move that we approve use review application LUR 2025-00091, adopting the staff memorandum as findings of fact, including the attached analysis of review criteria and subject to the recommended conditions of approval.

Do we have a second?

I'll second.

Okay, and Alice, could you put that motion language up? I believe that Claudia read the staff suggested motion language. Okay, so the motion has been moved and seconded, and we just had a board member step out, but would anybody like to make a motion to amend, perhaps to add a condition?

Yes. We can go down the line.

Curt. Okay, yeah, I don't have anything written up, unfortunately. But I would move to add a condition of approval to require that the the property maintain two sets of trash cans. And to post signage, listing, contact information, the manager's name and contact information.

When you say the manager, Kurt, do you mean the property management company? The property manager.

Property manager.

Can we workshop this a bit before it goes to a second?

Absolutely.

I was going to suggest that we add a condition requiring the applicant to document a trash management plan as part of their development agreement. So I'm looking for ways to put this in language that would be enforceable. So I was thinking that language about putting it in the development agreement.

Well, I think if it's a condition, it is enforceable.

Is it? Okay.

But sure, the better we can document it, the better.

Does staff have any suggestions about how to best do this?

Yes, there is the question to just require two sets. So four cans versus a whole trash management plan.

The question, I think, was about how to make sure that this is actually somehow enforceable. Does it need to be part of a development agreement?

Yeah, either way, if it's drafted as a condition of approval or, you know, again, if we want to have them add a supplemental management plan that's, you know, submitted before they move forward to council call up, then, you know, either way. But a condition, that's fine.

And just for general consideration, you might just speak to it as a trash management plan, like two sets of

cans is that you know yeah a set has one can or 12 cans or so we don't want to get into that debate administrating in the future i'm actually taking that suggested language kurt from discussion of housing cooperatives years ago yeah that's a good idea um so if it if we frame it as a trash management plan that is something that staff would hammer out Great. Okay. I fully support that language instead of mine.

I mean, we could say something like, and I was typing as you guys talked, add a condition of approval to require that the applicant document a trash management plan, including separate trash cans for each unit as part of a development agreement and post signage listing the property manager's name and contact information on the property.

Do you want something like as acceptable to staff?

I like that. Okay, I can send that language to Thomas.

Okay, thank you. I believe the motion maker should read out the full motion before we take a second.

Okay, I'm going to send this to you, Thomas, so you can put it on the screen. Okay, I sent it to Thomas as well as to host and all panelists. So Kurt, you can also read it in the chat if you would like. And Hela, do we need to document what criteria we are saying this would help it to meet?

For the record, I think it would be great if you could state that and I'd like to take a look at the condition too to make sure we have good enforceable language in there. So I appreciate that it's up on the screen.

Okay. Kurt, is it correct that you are requiring this or you are adding this condition of approval to help the applicant meet 9-2-15 F1, which is F1 and 2. F1 and 2.

I have a few post changes to make it read move to add a condition of approval to require that the applicant submit a trash management plan including trash cans for each unit Um, let's do that next comma subject to city manager approval and ensure that the development is in compliance with the approved trash management plan. And is it? Do you have a suggestion for the number of trash cans? Isn't a set of trash recycling composed for each unit?

Yeah, that's what I had been proposing. But if it's going to be subject to staff approval, I think that I would leave it up to the discretion of staff.

And bear proof trash cans are required in that part of the hill so we can make sure that that's all documented.

And for the next part, maybe you want to make that a second condition, but one of the things to consider is how it's posted and whether it's going to be visible for neighbors, maybe from the street readable.

And that people don't have to trespass to get the phone number and contact info.

So, so can we well we can make that a separate condition potentially

In the same in the same motion, I guess.

Oh, but in the same. Yeah. In say, a condition of approval that the owner post prominent signage visible from the from the public way um listing the prominent the property manager's name and contact information on the property how does that sound atella yep that would work okay did you were you able to get that no i would like the full thing read i've got it sorry i'll send it okay so i don't know if this helps but the way i've seen this done at least how it was done in louisville kentucky is the

The property manager has assigned a logo. It's clear who it is. Four Star, I'm sure, has a logo. But there's no, like, here's the number you call, that sort of thing on the sign. And they put that near the front door so folks can tell who's owned and operated by. So I don't know if that works with the manager's name and contact information. But I think if people know, even just that it's Four Star, that's enough to point them in the right direction, personally.

And obviously personnel changes. So I think it's probably staff's preference just to have the name of the management company and the contact info, not a specific name.

Okay. Yeah. And by property manager, I meant the company. We could say property management company's name and contact information.

Or property management's.

We would have to invite you to speak. Sorry, Hela, go ahead.

If you refer to the listing the property management's name, then it would refer to either person or company, whichever it is.

I can send some language here, but I have additionally the owner will be required to post on the property prominent signage visible from the public way listing the property manager or management company and contact information. Does that work? That's fine by me. I will send that to Thomas. So we do typically ask the applicant, if you have any comments or concerns about what we are proposing, it can be helpful for us to hear that. Okay. It sounds like the applicant has no comments or concerns. Okay. So this is a no ma'am. The public hearing is ended. Thank you. Okay, so we have a motion to amend the main motion to add these conditions of approval. Gert, as the motion maker, do you want to read them and ask for a second?

Sure. I move to add a condition of approval to require that the applicant submit a trash management plan, including separate trash cans for each unit, subject to city manager approval, and ensure that the development is in compliance with the approved trash management plan. Additionally, the owner will be required to post on the property prominent signage visible from the public way, listing the property manager or management company and contact information.

Second. Any further discussion before we vote on this motion to amend the main motion? Hearing none, let's vote on the motion to amend. We'll start with Max this time.

Yes. Mason. Yes.

Claudia. Yes. Yes. Kurt. Yes. Mark. Yes. And I'm a yes. That is unanimously added to the main motion. Any other proposed amendments to the main motion? Claudia.

So I've sent some language to Thomas, and I will read it out while he brings that up, hopefully. I move that we add a condition to require that the accessory office studio space have a dedicated use as bike parking and storage, and that this be recorded with the county similar to what is being required for the attic space to meet the criteria in 9-2-15-F1 requiring reasonable measures to reduce or alleviate the effects. of the nonconformity.

I'll second.

If I may just explain something, if the bike parking is shown on the plans within the shed, so that is the required use of the shed, that does not require recording of a separate declaration of use, but it would be part of what's recorded as the conditions of approval state that you have to make sure the development is in compliance with the approved plans and the approved plans show bike parking. So there is already a requirement that is recorded in essence.

My concern here is that it was not clear if that entire structure was going to be dedicated to that use. And we did hear in some of the public comment that there were concerns that that space was being used for living space and additional bedrooms. So I'm looking for a condition that ensures that it will be used not as additional living space, but for bike parking.

Yeah. And it's also referred to as a garage on the plan set. So if there was ever a question of interpretation to come in the future, it'd be clearly a storage use. So I think from a staff perspective, we wouldn't struggle with that. But as far as enforceability goes.

So am I hearing staff say that this motion to amend is not necessary because the current plans already serve this function? Or, Claudia, do you still have concerns that the current plans do not serve this function?

If staff is confident that the current plans would ensure this, then I would be happy to withdraw the motion.

Yeah, I think we're, as far as the way that the plans are drafted, I think we'd be okay with that.

Yeah, it was previously permitted as an office, which isn't really defined in the code. But now the new plans that supersede that are calling it a garage and showing the bike parking. So we have a definition for garage that aligns with storage and vehicle parking.

Mark, you have a comment or question? Yeah.

Um, why does staff have a concern that rises to the level of requiring a county recording regarding the upstairs living space, which to date, probably hasn't been used as living space, and the garage. And bike storage, which has been used as a living space, does not rise to the level of a county recording.

I think it's a lot easier to convert existing interior space to bedroom space. The garage is going to be unfurnished. It won't be insulated. There won't be utilities in it the way that it appears on the planets. It's just a garage with bike parking in it.

Claudia, as the motion maker, I do want to acknowledge that, I mean, asking for this to be recorded with the county, does that pose any additional burdens, or is that a relatively simple thing to do?

I think it's relatively simple. We would make it part of the other declaration of use that's required. So I'll leave it up to you, Claudia, if you want. Oh, I'm sorry, Helen. It could be incorporated into one declaration of use that addresses both issues.

I'll leave it up to you, Claudia. Do you want to keep this one?

I would like to keep it, and part of that is based on looking at the plans submitted. We're actually in the current conditions. We are labeling this structure as an existing garage. That labeling is not changing, but clearly it has been used for other purposes. It has been outfitted for habitable space. Okay.

All right. So we have a motion to amend, and it has been seconded. Any more discussion before we vote? We'll vote. Mark?

Yes.

Kurt? Yes. Claudia? Yes. Mason?

Yeah.

Max? Yes. And I'm a yes. That is unanimously appended to the main motion. Any other conditions that people want to propose to help alleviate impacts on the neighborhood? All right. So we are on to voting on the main motion. Can we scroll back up to the main motion? And I will reread it. It has already been moved and seconded.

I don't have that on this document. Maybe Alex can pull that back up.

Gotcha. It's in the packet, I think.

Sorry, yeah, the main motion again?

The main motion, please.

Let me get that back up. Sorry, we're getting there. There you go.

So we have a motion to approve use review application LUR 2025-00091 adopting the staff memorandum as findings of fact, including the attached analysis of review criteria and subject to the recommended conditions of approval recommended in the staff memorandum and as amended by the planning board tonight. That is the motion has been moved and seconded. Any last discussion before we go to a vote?

Going to a vote, Max.

Yes. Mason. Yes. Claudia. Yes. Kurt. Yes. Mark.

No.

And I'm a yes. So that passes five to one. Okay. So at this point, we ask the applicant, is there anything else that you would like to ask us or tell us? Okay, that's a no from the applicant. Congratulations on your approval tonight. And I just want to thank again all of the neighbors who came out tonight and bear with us through our wading through the criteria and the code. It is sometimes a messy process, but we try to do our best to faithfully apply the code and meet any needs that we can within the bounds of the code. Thank you so much. Okay. So that public hearing has concluded and we will move on on our agenda to matters from the planning board, planning director, and city attorney. I'd like to ask the planning board, excuse me, the planning director first, any matters?

I respond to many names. You're good. Some more polite than others. Yes, for sure. All in one day, it turns out. Well, thank you for your time this evening, as always. Quick update on the comp plan update. If you haven't been following that, the last, we think, last visit to the four bodies will take place tomorrow with the Board of, the Planning Commission, County Board, good grief, County Planning Commission, who has got two items to consider. So we anticipate that it's likely to get approved. Then we will move on from that project, so thank you again for all your work on that as we've gotten to this space, there will be more to come in the future, but that obviously is a major milestone. I also secondly wanted to thank you in advance for what is a very full September that we've got you lined up for. Hopefully it did not go unnoticed to you that you've got four hearings in September with the fact that there's a fifth Tuesday and you've agreed to do that. So thank you in advance for that.

You do have a hearing next week as well.

Yep. And next week.

A quick question. Um, I was appreciative of I watched council in their regard in regard to their approval or adoption of the BBC p that diversion that came before them last time. When you go when going to the planning commission is the history or background that the initial pages?

Yeah.

Is that one of the things they're deciding on?

50 years of history? Yes. It is. So at this point, the three bodies have all conceded to take that out at the request of the first body. The planning... The county commissioners. So that is one of the items, yeah. Okay. Thanks. Now, I should add The council did request, they haven't formally done it yet, but there's a CAC that's under consideration. They will likely formally request a resolution asking that the 50 years of history be acknowledged and made available in general to the public as an informational item. So a bit of a compromise there.

Thank you, Brad. Any other matters from the planning director?

None for me. Thanks.

Okay. Any matters from staff or the city attorney's office? Nothing from me. Thank you. Thank you. Thomas, do we need to do a calendar check?

I thank Brad for going over our calendar checkouts.

Okay, done with that. Any other matters for the board? I do have one, but anybody else? Claudia?

I actually had one, which was a follow-up on tonight's public hearing. I know that a lot of the public comment that we received was kind of outside the purview of planning board, land use code, etc., But I think it would be really useful for us as a board to understand what tools we have available for code enforcement when folks bring those kinds of concerns and what the community can actually expect from that process. Like what capacity does the city have and what tools does the city have to respond to some of these concerns that we've heard?

Yeah, I can certainly speak to that. I don't know that we would typically put that in a memo because that, kind of is in the universe of lots of things that get brought up. But code of compliance is one of the divisions within planning and development services. We have three work groups, parking enforcement, building and zoning enforcement, which is walls in, use, licensing, that kind of thing, building code. And then the walls out is the property compliance group. And that represents a reorganization, the parking and property, which used to be in PD or in police, now are in planning and development services. You know, like any enforcement, you could imagine an infinite amount of resources to try to do proactive code compliance. We do mostly complaint-based. Officers do do inspections or make citations when they're out in the field and see something, especially in the context of other kind of violations in the area. It is a common complaint everywhere I've worked, including here, that code compliance is not active enough. Another common complaint is that the onus is being put on the property owners. And, you know, like many complicated things, there's a grain of truth in that. It is designed to make sure that we are being responsive to the public, just like the police and fire are responsive to inquiries and complaints that come in and we do try to maintain minimum standards throughout the city when we find egregious things. There is a tool in place that I think is real relevant to this evening's discussion about properties that are habitually non-compliant. There's a relatively new section of the code or newly enhanced one over the last three years called chronic nuisance. And we have not only enhanced code, but also operational tools that have been developed at some great length over the last couple of years so that we can track instances of cited violations of various types. So not only property nuisance, but noise, which is managed generally out of police, even things like stormwater, et cetera. And if a person, not a person, if a property gets a certain number of known citations, verified citations within a year, then the types of consequences that can be levied against them increases. In truth, it doesn't get used very often because it's really more effective as a deterrent, but it is a tool in our tool belt that is also relatively new. So we've got both the capacity and the tools in place to enforce on kind of the chronic nuisance. And this goes back to a council priority maybe five years ago already when complaints on the Hill were increasing and really some of the more egregious things that happen on the Hill at that time. I mean, if you go back far enough in time, there was an officer killed in the late 90s by, not killed, who was disabled and then the thought is died prematurely years later because of a concrete block being dropped on her head. And there've been the burning couch issues since the seventies and things like that. So there is a history on the Hill that council and we are very sensitive to, and there've been some real strong actions taken over the last five years. We have a monthly meeting that includes neighborhood representatives that helps us get a pulse of how things are there. I would say, much like the elderly gentleman that spoke, the general consensus among residents is that it has improved. Obviously not everybody agrees. There is concern about the parking changing with the occupancy, removal of occupancy laws and the parking requirements. We've not experienced significant evidence of that yet, but we also know that that's likely. We have that monthly meeting. We've got a monthly coordination with CU on a variety of operational items, including code elements in the area, fraternities, informal fraternities, residents, etc., And we do have a dedicated police team that mostly focuses on the hill, this neighborhood impact team, NIT. So there are a lot of resources that go to the hill. There are obviously arguments on both sides about whether it could be or should be more or less. But the general evidence is that there's been steady improvement in that regard. That was maybe longer than you wanted.

Sorry. Also, the University Hill Neighborhood Association has a fantastic website that lines out all of the city and county resources, all the city CU Boulder contacts. They have a direct link to download tips for welcoming new students as neighbors. They have the Inquire Boulder app you can download, and then they have every single possible way that you can report an issue regarding nuisance parties, quality of life issues, graffiti, snow removal. So it's a pretty well resourced and well maintained website where there's a lot of contact information for folks.

Thanks, I appreciate that. I absolutely recognize it is important for the public to have outlets like the hearing that we had tonight to express some of this frustration. I want to make sure that when we respond to that, if we can't give them satisfaction through the land use code, that we are actually able to communicate with the public about what alternatives there are available to them.

Yeah, and just know we are always happy to answer questions PB, John Gerstle:" operational kind of questions in the course of a land use hearing, even if you are acknowledging that that's not part of the criteria, but you're hearing it. PB, John Gerstle:" You know traffic often is, for example, but sometimes folks will bring up traffic that's. A matter of geometry or it's way away from the site where there's no nexus, you know, we can still address those kind of things and and be clear about that's not part of the scope of your discussion because we we do understand and we live this every day we Be happy to show you the email list of how much you know we get in that regard as well so

Thank you, Claudia and Brad for that discussion. I want to acknowledge my failing as chair, I should have invited you to come up and talk about code enforcement during the hearing and I did not. So I apologize to all of us. and to any neighbors who may be watching this video about that. I do want to say as a follow up to the hearing also, it does seem to me that the code has not caught up to the changes that we have made in occupancy and in parking. If we are saying that adding bedrooms and we are talking about parking impacts in a hearing like this, I think that needs to be clarified in the code. I think the code needs to be updated in that section. because I don't think that we can do anything about adding bedrooms or adding additional cars to the street. And it doesn't make sense to me the way that the nonconforming use criteria are written. We just spent two and a half hours on a hearing for something that we didn't have a lot of power to do anything about. So that's that. I did also want to bring up, anything else on this before we move on? Yeah, OK. Mark. Mark, go ahead.

I want to point out that our NPP, which has undergone revision and revision, we fail to price parking at where it needs to be priced. We have a district with unlimited NPP permits that cost $100. right? Student, homeowner, whatever. It shouldn't be priced differently for whether you're a student or a renter or a homeowner. But the point is that that student who might live across the street in CU-owned student housing or over in Williams Village is charged 5, 6, 10 times that amount of money for half the length of time. CU charges for parking, and they charge mightily for it, and they do a great job at it. And the city across the street undercharges for parking and creates a problem by taking a public good, the public right of way, and mismanaging it and underpricing it, while our land use code encourages unbundled parking and pricing for parking and all these things for private developers, the city does not manage parking. And the neighbor's frustration, while they might be frustrated if they had to pay $500 a year for their MPP permit, but it might alleviate, it might make a decision in a student's mind, do I come with my car or do I not come with my car? And, you know, we've approved projects where the leases have to, the leases state that they have to have a designated paid parking spot or pay for a spot on site. Pay for it one way or the other. This is a case where the city's tools are inadequate to fulfill the situation that we were just discussing.

Thank you, Mark. Kurt? Yeah, thanks. I was also going to say, well, first of all, thanks, Mark. I totally agree with that. And it felt like a lot of the issues that were being brought up really were much larger policy issues, right? They weren't directly, they were manifesting in this particular area. application, but really they're symptoms of much larger policy questions. And one of the things that I've felt for a long time is that we don't provide in our zoning and in our land use map, we don't provide enough areas close to campus where there can be a lot of student-oriented housing that is you know far and farther from the lower density areas where that are the kinds of places that these kinds of a lot of the people who spoke today want to live and um there's been evidence in various um universities, cities around the world that if they provide student-oriented dense, student-oriented housing close to the university that draws the students out of the lower density areas, and reduces the impact on those. So I hope that as we're implementing our zoning under the comp plan, that we can think about that and provide for additional higher intensity student areas close to campus. And I know that some are already being built. Obviously, the standard, the former Millennium Harvest House, that's hopefully going to draw a lot of demand. And there's a new... Well, there's the Code Talker Hall that's being built and the new one on Colorado. But I think that there could be even more.

Yeah, and I just wanted to make sure you were aware of those. Not defending the question of whether there should or shouldn't be more. I think we've got plenty of people in the community that would say even more of that. But yeah, you hit them all.

Thank you, Kurt. Any more follow-up from the hearing? And then I have one matters item. Okay, I just wanted to, I talked about this with staff in the agenda setting meeting, but there has been some discussion going around in the community about BHP and about the Inclusionary Housing Program and the partnership at Alpine Balsam and how the Inclusionary Housing Program has devoted a lot of its current funding to the housing at Alpine Balsam and may not have a lot of resources for additional projects at this time. I think one of our candidates for mayor made a post about this that a lot of people are talking about. I asked Kurt Fernhaber for, well, I asked staff, can we get an update on what's going on with the inclusionary housing program and their funding availability? And staff were able to connect with Kurt Fernhaber. I think I pronounced his name wrong. Fernhaber. He emailed me and I asked him to send that email to everybody. So we should, as a board, be getting that email that Kurt actually wrote initially for the, oh gosh, what's that other group called that deals with the TRG? Yes. And Kurt has assured me that that email can be shared. There's nothing in there that's confidential. It can be public if you want to share it with anybody. Okay. Okay, just wanted to let folks know about that. Anything further? Okay, we are adjourned at 8.57 p.m. Thank you, everybody.