Planning Board - Regular Meeting

We are recording. We'll get started. We are recording. Excellent. Okay. Well, welcome, everybody. I'm going to call to order this Tuesday, September 15th meeting of the City of Boulder Planning Board. The time is 4pm. So it's an early start for us. We do have a quorum tonight. I'm the chair, Laura Kaplan. To my right is Claudia Hanson-Thiem, the vice chair. And online, we have two planning board members currently, ML Robles and Mason Roberts. And we'll see if any more planning board members are able to join us as we go. So on our agenda tonight, we will start with public participation as always. And then we will have two public hearing items on the agenda. One is for our 2027 to 2032 capital improvement program. And the other is a site review application. And I believe a rezoning for the properties on the Naropa campus on Arapahoe. But we'll get to that soon. Welcome to planning board member Mark McIntyre. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to staff who will facilitate the public participation portion of the meeting. And Thomas, will that be you or is Vivian with us tonight?

Vivian will be joining us a little bit later on. Thank you, Chair Kaplan. And I'm just going to share with you all some basic rules that govern our public participation at city meetings and meetings. Let me just get my slideshow pulled up. First of all, we want you to know that the city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive, meaningful, and inclusive civic conversations, and that this vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members, staff, and board and commission members, as well as democracy for people of all ages, identities, lived experiences, and political perspectives. You can find more information about this vision and the community engagement process on our website at the link below. And the following are examples of rules of decorum found in the Boulder Revised Code and other guidelines that support this vision. These will all be upheld during this meeting. All remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city business. No participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person. Obscenity, racial epithets, and other speech and behavior that disrupt or otherwise impede the ability to conduct the meeting are prohibited. And participants are required to identify themselves using the name they are commonly known by. and must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online. When we make it to the public participation portion, you can let us know that you would like to speak by clicking, if you're attending remotely, you can click the raise hand icon at the bottom of your screen on Zoom. Or if you don't see that, you can click the reactions button here. and expand it and then you'll see another button that says raise hand. If you're joining us in the room, there are sheets on the left side of the room on the table that you can use to sign up for speaking in person. And that is all for me with that. We will open up the open comment portion of the meeting where you can address any matters that are not on this evening's agenda. So if there's anyone that would like to speak for open comment, this is your opportunity to do so. And seeing no raised hands, I will pass it back to you, Chair.

Thank you, Thomas. All righty then, we will move on on our agenda. Item three, approval of minutes. We have no minutes tonight. Item four, we have no call-up items tonight. So we move on to our public hearing items, item five. 5A is a public hearing and consideration of a recommendation to the city manager and city council on the recommended 2027 to 2032 capital improvement program, or CIP. So I will go ahead and turn it over to our planning director, Brad Mueller. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am Brad Mueller, Director of Planning and Development Services. And I wanted to just share a few introductory comments before Chris kind of guides us into this. And one thing I wanted to say is we're just always very happy. And I'm happy that it's city policy that we bring forward the CIP to the planning board for its review and check. I will say that the whole budget process of which the CIP is a part of is a very carefully choreographed process that we started already back in, I'm going to say February, I'm sure our friends in budget would say even earlier than that. And work through departments and then to an executive budget team and then ultimately to a study session that took place recently with Council and then their final adoption in October. So we're always challenged to kind of get this slotted in at just the right time, but we appreciate your patience and understanding as we do that. And as you know from previous years, the role of planning board in this is really as your role of stewards of the comprehensive plan. Now, we all as a city and frankly as a community are stewards of the comprehensive plan, but you've got a very direct and intimate relationship in that regard. I've always been really happy that Boulder is one of those communities that does take its CIP as being one of the key implementation tools of a comprehensive plan. Seriously, a lot of jurisdictions don't go through that effort. And again, making sure that we are aligned as a city organization to the North Star that is the vision document of the comprehensive plan is very important. And you can appreciate going into this process the hours and hours of thought that have gone into it by individual departments that put together their capital improvement programs, the thoughtful balancing of pros and cons and conflicting, or not conflicting, competing priorities. I'm very excited about, in my relatively short tenure, seeing in just that amount of time the amount of rigor that's being brought to that even more so in the last few years. through some very deliberate work planning processes that we do as staff and departments. And then more recently, a strategic, a citywide strategic plan, which is in the works right now. So again, as a reminder, the comprehensive plan implemented by many different things among those now comprehensive or a citywide strategic plan and then the CIP and others. And I think Chris probably has a graphic on this too, but just I want to share with you the amount of deliberateness that really has been built up over the last couple of years to make sure that all of our efforts as staff are bringing forward to council and by extension you all things that directly lead up to the comprehensive plan. So hopefully we've given you better framework over the years for feeling comfort that as stewards of the comprehensive plan that that's being rigorously incorporated in our daily operational thinking on this. So with that, Chris Ringlos is our point person on this and done a great job in getting things together. So I'll turn it over to him.

Thanks, Brad. Good afternoon. which feels good to say to the planning board, afternoon or evening, I'm not quite sure what it is. And thank you, Brad, for the intro. I do also want to just point out that we have a plethora of other city staff in the audience tonight. I believe every planning board member has been through the CIP at least once now. So you kind of know and understand what the run of show looks like. And just want to thank, again, all of the city staff who have spent their evening, afternoon with us to help answer any questions about specific department priorities or specific projects that you all may have. Um, a quick rundown of the agenda. We'll give a staff presentation. I'm hoping to keep to about 20 minutes. Um, we'll take any clarifying questions from the board. We'll host the public hearing and then planning board will ultimately deliberate and make a recommendation. So we'll start with some background and context. These are the four issues or the purview of which the planning board has over the capital improvement program. So the first is really to evaluate, as Brad had mentioned, the capital improvement program for consistency and advancement of the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan. The planning board also has the ability to recommend changes to the scope, priorities, and timing of capital improvement projects as appropriate, identify policy issues associated with the proposed capital improvement projects for city manager and city council consideration, and then finally determine which capital improvement projects should undergo a community environmental assessment process. So before we dive too deep, I do just wanna start by briefly acknowledging and celebrating a little bit the recent approval of the major update to the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan. As one of the adopting bodies, you all are very well aware by now of the amount of work, the community engagement, the policy development, That went into the major update so for time's sake I won't go into the details about the update But I do think it's important to point out that now that this plan has been approved It is now the policy framework that we're all working from It's the plan that planning board should be looking to if you consider land use and planning decisions Including your recommendation this evening on the capital improvement program I will also mention that in your packet the boulder valley comprehensive plan was linked as a word document that will not be the final deliverable for the comprehensive plan. Staff is currently working through the updated web page version of the plan, and we do anticipate having that complete and available online within the coming week, maybe two weeks or so, but we're getting really close to having that published. And I do want to draw your attention to the diagram on the right. As you can see, the CIP is developed within a much broader framework of adopted plans and policies that guide the city's long-term vision, investment priorities, and service delivery. Together, the sustainability, equity, and resilience framework, the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan, our citywide strategic plan, all of our sub-community and area plans, our department plans, these all establish the policy direction, the community priorities, and the implementation strategies that ultimately inform our capital investment decisions. So we'll talk a little bit about the CIP and we'll start pretty high level by really starting to ask the question, what is the six year CIP? The six year CIP, so for this year, 2027 to 2032 is really the city's long range plan for how we invest in major infrastructure and facilities. As you all know, every year we update this plan, we look out six years into the future. The first year of the plan, so 2027 in this case, is part of or will become part of the city's official adopted budget later here in about a month or so. And I will just point out that the remaining five years serve a really useful purpose. They serve as a forecast, a roadmap that helps us prepare for upcoming needs, coordinate across all of our city departments and manage funds responsibly. But it also stays flexible when we revisit this plan on an annual basis. Projects can be added, they can be adjusted or delayed depending on community priorities, funding availability, and changing conditions. But what this six-year CIP really ultimately does is it gives us a structured and adaptable framework to plan ahead, make strategic investments, and ensure that our infrastructure is keeping pace with our community's evolving needs. So I won't spend too much time on this slide, but I do want to point out that we do break down our capital projects into five different categories, capital enhancement and capital maintenance. Those are the two biggest project types that we find in the CIP, new capital projects, capital planning studies, as well as land acquisitions. So before we go too deep into the key issues analysis, I do want to share a bit of a financial overview for this year's recommended CIP. The 2027 to 2032 capital improvement program identifies $135 million in new appropriation for 2027 to support 131 capital projects. And for the six-year CIP, $827 million over the six-year period, supporting a total of 228 capital projects. And as reflected in this chart here, the majority of plan spending is to support utilities, transportation and mobility and facilities and fleet capital projects. These three departments represent 89% of all spending across the CIP. And some of these major projects, for instance, for utilities, Include the South Boulder Creek flood mitigation, the sanitary sewer rehab project, our treated water transmission. From facilities, East Boulder Community Center renovations, from Parks and Recreation, our Boulder Creek Park Phase 2, which was formerly the Civic Area Phase 2 project. The title has changed. And then certainly our fire station replacements in number two and number four. And I mentioned earlier that we break all of our capital projects down into five project types, right? And so capital maintenance and enhancement, these typically comprise most of the investments within the CIP. And for this year, it represents 86% of our capital projects. This is a strong indicator of the city taking care of its existing assets. And I'll point out this is achieving BVCP policy 20 directly, which is maintaining our existing assets. Okay, we'll jump into the key issues analysis. And the first key issue that the planning board should be considering is really in the review of the CIP to consider if the recommended program is consistent with and advances the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan. So to evaluate the CIP against the newly approved BVCP, staff used really two levels of analysis. First, we looked at the CIP through the lens of the seven established community values that were identified in the most recent update to the Boulder Valley Comp Plan. And these values really provide the foundation for the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan, the policies that are within it, and serve as a framework for evaluating future decisions, investments, and implementation actions across the entire city organization. So we then took that analysis a step further and we evaluated the CIP as a portfolio and specific projects against the policies of the comprehensive plan. So we'll start with accessible and connected and we'll kind of just run through these seven community values that were expressed during the Boulder Valley Comp Plan update. For accessible and connected, this community value really recognizes that transportation infrastructure and public spaces influence how people move throughout Boulder and access employment, schools, parks, services, recreation, and civic destinations. Investments in streets, sidewalks, trails, bridges, transit facilities, and other multimodal infrastructure improve mobility while strengthening connections between neighborhoods and the places that support daily life. And the CIP advances this value through multiple investments supporting transportation infrastructure, multimodal improvements, several bridges, trails, and other mobility projects. These investments improve accessibility, they enhance safety for all travel modes, address aging transportation infrastructure, and expand opportunities for residents and visitors to travel safely and efficiently throughout the community. Collectively, they do support the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan's vision of a transportation system that is connected, sustainable and accessible to people of all ages and abilities. For economically vital, a strong local economy really does depend on reliable public infrastructure and well-maintained civic assets and community investments that support businesses, employees, residents and visitors alike. Public infrastructure helps create the conditions for economic activity by providing safe transportation networks, reliable utilities, attractive public spaces and community facilities. And the CIP advances this value through multiple investments that support several of our downtown parking garages and public spaces that contribute to Boulder's long-term economic activity. These investments strengthen the physical infrastructure that local businesses, improves the visitor experience and reinforces Boulder as an attractive place to live, work and invest. Moving on to environmentally sustainable, environmental stewardship, as you all know, has long been a defining characteristic of Boulder and of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan. This value really recognizes that protecting our natural systems and investing in resilient infrastructure are complementary strategies that help address climate change, conserves our resources, improves our ecosystem health, and reduces environmental impacts over time. The CIP advances this value through multiple investments that support water infrastructure, local food production, flood mitigation, renewable energy, ecosystem restoration, wildfire resilience, and natural resource conservation. Together, these investments help preserve the environmental systems that sustain the community while preparing Boulder to respond to changing environmental conditions and future climate change challenges. We'll move on to healthy and socially thriving. The Boulder Valley comprehensive plan also recognizes that community wellbeing is supported by more than public services just alone. Parks or recreation facilities, our cultural amenities, gathering places, safe public spaces, these things all contribute to the physical health, the social connection and the lifelong learning and opportunities to participate in community life. Capital investments in these facilities help create places where residents of all ages and backgrounds can connect, recreate, and thrive. And CIP advances its value through multiple investments, supporting parks or recreation facilities, community centers, cultural amenities, and public gathering spaces. Several transportation improvements that also expand access to our community resources. These investments as a whole enhance our quality of life while strengthening the places that bring people together and foster an active, healthy, and socially connected community. For livable, maintaining Boulder's quality of life really does require continued investment in our public infrastructure and facilities that our residents rely on every day. Our roads, our utilities, our public buildings, parks, and community facilities all do require ongoing maintenance, rehab, and replacement to remain safe, reliable, and responsive to community needs. Investing in these existing assets also helps reduce long-term costs while preserving the level of service that our residents expect. The CIP advances this value through multiple investments focused on maintaining and modernizing our existing public infrastructure, facilities, and civic spaces. By extending the useful life of these assets and addressing infrastructure needs before they become more significant, these investments help ensure Boulder remains a safe, functional, and desirable place to live, work, and play. The comprehensive plan also does recognize that effective stewardship of public resources is essential to implementing the community's long-term vision. Policies supporting the community value emphasize asset management and maintaining the public infrastructure and facilities that support our city operations. The CIP advances this value through multiple investments supporting the maintenance, rehab, and replacement and modernization of public infrastructure. Together, these investments preserve existing public investments, improve operational efficiency, strengthen service delivery, and promote responsible long-term stewardship of our community resources. Okay, last but certainly not least on our values is the safe value. The comprehensive plan also recognizes that protecting public health and safety is fundamental to maintaining a resilient and a livable community. There are policies supporting this community value and promote investments that reduce risk from natural hazards, strengthen our emergency response capabilities, improve our infrastructure reliability, and protect residents, businesses, and our critical community assets. The CIP advances this value through multiple investments supporting fire and emergency response facilities, flood mitigation, wildfire resilience, dam safety, transportation safety, and other critical public safety infrastructure. And taken together, these investments reduce our community risk. They improve our emergency preparedness and strengthen essential public services and help to ensure the long-term safety and resilience of Boulder. So I want to pause here, and if we take a look back and sort of pull all of this together across the CIP, across all seven of our community values, you can see in this graph here that the largest share of investment is associated with the safe, the responsibly governed, and the environmentally sustainable values. Now I do briefly just wanna explain how we arrived at this graph here. And as part of the analysis that staff did, we reviewed every proposed project in the CIP, and I ultimately identified the top two community values that the project most directly supports. So with that being said, this isn't an exact science. We recognize that many of these projects advance more than just two of these community values. But this approach does give us a bit of a consistent way to look across the entire CIP and get a sense of where the city's planned capital investments are supporting our community values established in the comprehensive plan. And we'll take that analysis one step further and look at the individual BVCP policies. So what you see here are the top 10 policies within the updated comprehensive plan that the proposed CIP most directly supports. So similar to the community values analysis, staff reviewed each project and ultimately identified the two comprehensive plan policies that we felt it most directly supported or advanced. And again, this gives us a more specific look at how the city's capital investments are helping to implement the policies within the newly approved plan. And again, there is some subjectivity to this analysis since many projects support multiple policies across the plan and some policies naturally apply to a broader range of capital projects than others. But overall, this provides another way for us to see the connection between the CIP and the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan and where we're seeing the strongest investment from a policy perspective. So we'll move on to the next key issue, and this is the list of community environmental assessment projects. You may be asking yourself, it's been a year since we've talked about SEEP projects, but a SEEP is really essentially an alternatives analysis to help assess the potential impacts and the selection of a preferred alternative. And I'll also note, as we'll go through here briefly, there's really three processes that a capital project may go through, and SEEP being one of those, but is by far the least common process that a capital project will go through. So those processes that capital projects do go through include concept plan and site review, a project-specific community process, and then the SEEP. So for concept plan and site review, these are going to be projects that are prompted by the criteria that's established in the Boulder revised code. These projects would go to planning board for your input. Fire station number three is a previous example that the planning board has provided input on. For a project specific community process, these are projects that have or are planned to have a very specific and in-depth community process where impact studies and alternatives analysis will ultimately be performed. And for these types of projects, the requirements of a SEEP really have largely been satisfied and would be considered a duplicative effort. So a couple of examples would be the Boulder Creek Park phase two project. There are alternatives that exist. But the Parks and Recreation team has been actively engaging our community in multiple ways to understand what the ultimate alternatives are and what the preferred alternative is. Primos Park is another example of a lot of community engagement and process and alternatives have gone into that process. So a seat really would have been duplicated for those two. Now, where a SEEP does make sense is for projects where alternatives exist that will require community input and for projects that could have a significant impact on our environmental, social, or cultural resources. And if the project is anticipated to generate enough community controversy for a public hearing, And then finally highlighted in red, and these are really the two most important things I think the board should consider when selecting projects for CEAPS, is that the three bullets above are met, but it's not a project that's gonna be triggered by concept plan and site review, or the project meets the above criteria and does not have that project specific community process already identified. So with that context, there are just two projects that we are recommending to undergo a SEEP, that is the Barker Dam Stability Project and the Violet Avenue Bridge Replacement. For both of these projects, alternatives do exist that could have environmental impacts. Neither project is triggered by the concept plan and site review criteria, and neither have a project specific community process already identified. Now, I will also note here that these two projects were recommended by the planning board last year as part of the recommendation of city council on the CIP, and nothing within the scope of these two projects has changed, and no additional capital projects were identified beyond these two for a SEEP. So I just want to close with some closing thoughts and just take a step back and really emphasize and celebrate a bit that this is the first time, the first CIP, really the first agenda item that we've evaluated against the newly approved Boulder Valley comprehensive plan. And overall, we found strong alignment between the city's planned capital investments and the vision, the values, and the policies of the newly adopted comprehensive plan. The CIP reflects continued investment in our existing infrastructure, our community assets, and while also supporting things like safety, sustainability, resilience, connectivity, and a vibrant and livable community. We look forward to your feedback this evening and to your recommendation on the proposed CIP. With that, I will jump in briefly and just touch on the next steps and provide the staff recommendation. So next steps, there's really two kind of remaining steps for the capital improvement program. On October 1st, city council will have their first reading on the 2027, that should say, 27 recommended budget. And then again, on October 15th, they will have the second reading on the recommended budget as well. So with that, the staff recommendation is that the planning board recommends to the city manager and city council the 2027 to 2032 capital improvement program, including the list of projects to undergo a community environmental assessment process as identified in the staff memorandum. With that, I will throw it back to the chair. We're happy to take any clarifying questions. And when the time comes, I can pull this slide back up so we can go through each one of the key issues.

Thank you, Chris. And before we jump into questions, I should have asked this question before we started. Do any planning board members have any disclosure of potential conflict of interest that you would like to disclose? I'll just say for myself, I do plan to ask some questions about one of the airport items in the CIP. And since this drew some community attention in the past, including a code of conduct complaint that was dismissed, I will just, for the absolute abundance of caution, state for the record that I have no financial interest in the outcome of anything related to the airport. And I believe everyone is aware of my role with the Airport Neighborhood Campaign. which is not a conflict of interest. Simply having policy positions and acting upon them is not considered to be a conflict of interest under the city's code. But if anybody has questions for me, happy to answer them. If not, we'll move on to questions for Chris. Okay, questions from the board for Chris or other staff members about the CIP. Who would like to go first? Mark.

Good evening. Thank you, Chris. Good afternoon, I guess. So I had sent an email earlier today, and so I'll try to, I won't just read those, I'll try to shorten them. My first question was, how do we differentiate between capital improvements, routine maintenance, or maintenance that is substantial enough and improved enough that it falls into the CIP, and is there unity amongst departments, et cetera, in terms of how we clarify what is My example was replacing a furnace filter versus replacing a furnace versus replacing a furnace with a heat pump.

I'm going to have Charlotte Husky. She's our central budget officer. She's going to come up. She'll introduce herself. And then, Mark, she may address a couple of your questions that you had sent prior to the meeting.

Good afternoon, board members. Good to see you here for the review of the CIP. Appreciate the question on the distinction between what falls in the operating budget and the capital budget. We do have in our budget policy manual shared with the organization set guidelines of definitions of what falls within a capital project. That includes capital projects and capital maintenance programs. We have them reflected annually in the capital budget as well in the six-year CIP. They're generally defined, capital projects are generally defined as physical assets with a useful life of 15 years and greater than $50,000 in total costs. They're discrete one-time expenditures and support the purchase, design, construction, replacement of physical assets. So again, within our CIP and annual capital budget, we do have capital projects. As Chris shared, the five capital projects that we have across the CIP for capital maintenance as well as capital enhancement projects that make up the bulk of our spending as well as our total project amount on an annual basis.

Great. Thank you. I'll just go ahead and ask my other couple here. in the current CIP that are addressed in the bond package that will be on the pallet in November. How do we, what effect will the passage or failure have on the planned CI? So let's take South Boulder Rec. I don't have the numbers right here in front of me, but there's some number out a year or two from now in the several hundred thousand dollar range. So what happens if the bond measure passes and what happens if it fails to that number out that's planned out? in the future.

Yeah, thank you for the question. One of the items that is our standard budgeting practice is that we budget on an annual basis, assuming that status quo, so assuming that there is no passage of any upcoming bond measures, tax measures that voters are considering. And so what is reflected in the CIP is status quo, the assumption that we need to address our aging facilities and infrastructure for city buildings across the city's portfolio. That's inclusive, as you note, our South Boulder Recreation Center, our North Boulder Recreation Center. We have investments included in the 2027 budget to support public safety building maintenance. If the bond were to pass, one of the first things that we would perform as city staff is take a look at our planned CIP and our planned investments across the six-year horizon and get a sense of the prioritization that we're looking at for the planned uh, issuances that we would perform to support the infrastructure projects across the 15, uh, priority buildings that are included in the bond package.

Okay. And my final one from the email was, um, uh, what public processes are used? And I understand that various boards and commissions, I used to be on tab. And so we would look at the transportation CIP. But are there other working groups, et cetera, some sort of mechanism that reviews the CIP over a longer period or for a longer time or more in-depth than various boards, Parks and Rec, Planning, TAB, et cetera, who, you know, we got this Wednesday or Thursday last week. And, you know, not that I don't have access to the website, but, you know, we have a relatively short time that we are focused on this. What other citizen involvement happens, citizen or elected official, over a longer time frame?

Yeah, thank you for the question on the capital improvement program planning and the involvement. We do have a council committee called the Financial Strategy Committee and meet with them on a regular basis to review our budgetary items, our capital investments that we're making, upcoming fiscal impact items that might be on the horizon. So that is a standing council committee comprised of three council members, was comprised of three council members. that we bring forward and review our budgetary items and long-term planning. That group was created in 2019 really with the focus of looking at the long-term horizon. So they have been helping In addition, with the support from city council on the work and top council priority on the long-term financial strategy. Additional current groups, as you mentioned, that review the capital improvement program include board and commission members, the transportation board, PRAB. uh the open space board of trustees certainly review the cip from a department specific uh basis planning board reviewing the cip on an annual basis one of the items that we are looking at particularly in light of the bond being up for consideration is interest in a potential capital committee that would be more forward-facing and have subject matter experts join us at the table for some of the capital planning that we're looking at on a longer-term horizon. So that is an idea that we are looking at into the fall and in the future for support with longer-term capital planning horizon and outlook.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mark. ML.

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation, Chris. I have kind of similar over broad questions. I've got some specific questions, but I'll ask the broad questions. On that same vein of maintenance versus, say, new construction or designers or any of the other of things that happen under the facilities budget. If maintenance is a part of this, then one would assume that every single facility would be on the list because every single facility needs maintenance. But I think I heard you say that if they maybe just explained how the ongoing maintenance for projects are, looked at relative to the overall.

Thanks for the question, Abel. I have Michelle Crane coming to the podium.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Planning Board. Thank you for having me. Michelle Crane, Deputy Director of Facilities and Fleet. And I appreciate the question. I want to make sure I understand exactly what you're asking, I think, about the broad nature of what facilities are or are not on the CIP.

If this process includes maintenance and the other facility uh requirements that require a big budget why isn't why wouldn't every single building everything buildings need maintenance so just help me differentiate between what's on the list versus what is on some other list because it didn't it isn't a high enough uh cost or I think that's what I heard.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Thank you for the clarity. I think it goes very much to the nature of the first question about the difference between a furnace filter replacement and a furnace. And so we have roughly 75 buildings in the city's portfolio. And And we have an operating budget, so outside of the capital improvement program, that has an ongoing maintenance budget for our facilities. And so there is a large amount of routine maintenance that happens every year across our buildings, including a lot of preventative maintenance, so a lot of proactive care of a lot of the equipment in there. And so that is happening concurrent with the larger capital projects. The buildings that we're bringing forward in the capital improvement program this year and in other years include those that have been the subject of the bond conversation. But there are others on that list as well that are not that subject to that, that are just part of some of our smaller buildings, like some of our maintenance facilities and just other buildings that are on that list. that require a level of investment over this capital improvement program that rise to that level of a capital project. So that's either that criteria that they're over $50,000 or just the combination of things that are required really define a project. So we are working on all of our buildings all the time. Some of them really do require more investment and more maintenance than others, but there are really two budgets that handle that. Does that help answer the question?

That does, because just in light of this bond we're being asked to consider, it's like, how did we get into the state where we have so much backlog of maintenance that suddenly has landed? So I'm just trying to understand how. I understand that the bond is asking for some financing for new projects or significant projects. I think that whole business of having all these properties and the upkeep. And of course, costs are not fixed or as fixed as they historically have been. So I appreciate your answer. Thank you very much. I have some general questions. Should I ask them now or do we want to go around with some?

I would say go ahead and ask questions. Okay. And if you go really long, then we'll pass the baton and come back to you.

Perfect. So in looking at some of these specifics, like the Boulder Junction capital, so for facilities and fleets, the Boulder Junction capital improvements, is that for phase two? Or what is that?

Yeah, Mel, that's a good question. The Boulder Junction Capital Improvements is not for Phase 2. The funding for this is $100,000 ongoing, and this really supports the Boulder Junction General Improvement District, or BJAD. for capital enhancement and capital maintenance types of activities within the district. So no, it is not directly influencing phase two. There are no phase two Boulder Junction capital improvements planned at this time. Just to elaborate a little bit on that, certainly with phase one in Boulder Junction, there was a significant more amount of capital investment from the city in phase one. this is largely due to the fact that the city owned quite a bit of land in phase one of boulder junction we certainly don't own nearly as much land at all as we do in phase two there will be some capital investment in the phase two area to help support some of the private development that occurs in phase two but it is going to be moving at a slower pace including the identification and ultimate development of capital projects within that area okay so it's kind of it's basically you know finishing up the build out of phase one is that It's supporting the Boulder Junction access district, so the parking district. They have multiple capital activities. Really, it's more maintenance of the assets within the district that that funding helps to achieve.

Got it. Okay, second question, still in facilities and fleets. The Iris Center demolition scheduled for 2028. Is this the building that's just north of the North Boulder Rec Center?

Yes, it is.

And is that part of what I've seen in some language? I don't know that I've seen it on any of the budget schedule, but is this part of the North Boulder Rec Center expansion that at some point will include the West Agewell?

I may have Michelle Crane come up and speak to this a little bit more accurately than I can, but I do believe that there are...

program needs that that iris center may ultimately help achieve with north boulder rec center the site because you're deconstructing the existing building is that correct correct the site yes that that is correct is so um deconstruction of that building allows well it is related to parks and rec administration that currently is in that building will be able to move to the alpine balsam site and so that building um that's had a lot of heavy investment needs will actually be able to come down and make way for the improvements that we're looking at for the North Boulder Recreation Center, which include potential expansion of that building, but also accommodating a large parking need that we've had at that facility for a long time.

Oh, interesting. Because people tend to park over there already, but you're saying the site where the building itself is could potentially be parking?

Yeah, and allow for expansion of the rec center to help accommodate some age well services or other kind of program services. So yeah, it helps with kind of the reconstructing of that entire site and being able to accommodate all the parking needs. So if we do increase the amount of services over there, particularly bringing age well services, we will need to increase parking available too. So that's what that whole piece is about.

So on the subject of the West Age Well, I don't see it on the map of buildings for sale. And although I did hear a reference to it on the request for proposals on the east bookend of the civic area downtown, that it might include that site as well. So my question is, on this budget process, I'm assuming that the West Age Well Center won't be sold until its services have been relocated? It kind of shows up in little bits and pieces. There's not a line item dedicated to the West H-1.

Well, very consistent. It's a good question, and I realize how this can all be a little hard to follow all the pieces. But consistent with what Charlotte reflected around how we prepare this budget, we have prepared a budget assuming that there's not a bond measure that moves forward and some not so significant current dollars to totally – replace the current age well building. But we are working on alternatives analysis if there's ways to find interim locations for that. So it has not been presented in this budget request to actually relocate the age well services right now. We don't have the funding to do that kind of major investment without a bond measure. We will have to really understand what we can work with in the constrained environment we're in to either address the building as it currently is, which is a challenge, and find smaller interim solutions. It is not on the list that I think you're referring to around cell buildings because it is not going up to the Alpine Balsam site. So the list that we have published is for buildings that are part of that consolidation. The age well services are not moving up to Alpine Balsam, so they're not part of that. However, you know, the sale of that property would help support Age Well Services, somewhere else. So we're looking at different opportunities, but no clear defined project at this time has been able to be presented.

Okay. Thank you for that. And in looking at the Breton building maintenance, so that building just recently got renovated as part of the Alpine Balsam or earlier Alpine Balsam.

So that budget there is for It is specifically for the elevator, which was the one thing that we did not replace when we renovated. So we completely, like you said, renovated that building. We took it back to the concrete shell, again, to stay kind of within some budget at the time. We chose to continue to operate the elevator that was from the 1960s. And that needs to be replaced now. So that line item is to replace that elevator.

Got it. I appreciate that. Last question under facilities and fleets. The Park Central and New Britain buildings are looking to be deconstructed once the staff moves over to Alpine Balsam. I'm thinking, if I remember correctly, this land is non-buildable. Is that correct? Because it's in the floodplain?

That's correct. It is in the high hazard floodplain, which is why these two buildings have been identified for, I think, more than a decade to be deconstructed for safety.

And will this become a park or, I mean, it can't be sold or can it be sold? What, what is the thought for that?

Yes, it is. It is being identified for, for parks and for, um, yeah. Okay.

Okay. Um, Laura, should I keep going or does somebody else want to jump in?

Let's pass the baton and then we can come back to you.

Perfect. Thank you.

So Mason or Claudia, we'll go to Claudia.

Okay, I'm going to start with one specific item, and then I have a couple of general questions. I'd like to know where I can find the North 30th Street design and construction in the CIP. It seems to be referenced in the kind of narrative around transportation and mobility, but then I'm not finding it in the kind of main table that shows all of the departments.

You need to press the button.

Okay, good afternoon, my name is Garrett slater i'm the capital projects manager for transportation and mobility. And there are a series of projects that are included in the safe streets for boulder project, one of which is the. North 30th Street project. So also included in that is the East Arapahoe construction, as well as pedestrian crossing treatments and right turn bypass treatments locations around the city.

Okay, fabulous. Thank you for that. I was looking for a counterpart to the South 30th Street, which was there. And I was also wondering why there was so much money in the safe streets. And I assume it's North 30th.

Yes. Originally, we were hoping to be able to manage, because this is made possible by a large federal grant, we were hoping to be able to manage all the projects under one project name and number. We have since learned the limits of what our financial system is capable of, so you will actually see it separated in next year's CIP into a standalone project, because we're not able to do all the grant management in the way we'd like.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, go ahead.

Just ask a North 30th Street question in relation to the CIP. Okay, so that project is part of the Safe Streets line item in the budget, in the CIP. Yes. Okay. And you just mentioned the large federal grant. So is the large federal grant, so we are looking at a CIP, which is a series of expenditures, right? It isn't a series of income items as well. Is the expenditure on North 30th shown in our expenditures, including the income from the federal government, or is it net of the income from the federal government?

The total budget that's shown is inclusive of the grant revenue from the federal government. And so that that it's, we're going to spend everything that's in there, because it is comprised of both the local match as well as the grant. Right.

So as a citizen, just like glancing through that one could say, Oh, North 30th Street is X number of millions. And, but actual citizen, actual city of Boulder tax revenue that is contributing to that might be 20% of that or something down in that range, while federal, Dr. Cogg, other sorts of matches make up that total expenditure, but it Anyway, it looks like, and Chris, maybe this is for you, it looks like we're just spending a boatload of money when in fact we have these other revenue sources that aren't particularly shown and isn't broken out.

Mark, could I roll that into a more general question for either Chris or maybe Charlotte? And this question was, does the CIP track funding sources, whether confirmed or anticipated for individual projects? And is that something that we in the future could see or that the community could see?

Mayor Mrakas, While Charlotte makes her way up here to respond or Chris responds, I will say that last night we presented the the recommended tip at tab and if you're interested in all the materials at the tab include the breakouts with city funding and other external funding sources.

Thank you for the question on the funding sources, so we do have on our budget side included in our annual budget book a page that's called the transparency portal that portal contains reports. including all of our revenues, all of our planned expenses across the six-year horizon, as well as our 2027 revenues and expenses. And so included in there are all of the funding sources listed. We do not have... specificity to the type of grant award that we've received that are reflected in those public facing reports. But we do have line item categories that indicate whether or not it's an intergovernmental revenue, grant revenue, or city funds.

Is that something that could potentially be included in the CIP in the future? Just a glance at, say, we have a large infrastructure project on 30th Street. How much of that is coming from grant funding? How much is coming from, say, general fund?

That is something that we currently track as part of our CIP and can certainly consider including that in future packets. Okay, thank you.

Two more questions.

These are general questions. Maybe Chris can field these or farm them out. Aside from the bond measure, like let's set that aside for a moment. Are there particular projects in the CIP that are being fast-tracked because of kind of acute failing infrastructure or maintenance cliffs?

I think the most obvious one is probably the East Boulder Community Center. Maybe not. Michelle's shaking her head. I'll let her come up and speak to the question.

Yeah, thank you for the question. So yes, I mean, the projects that we've already identified, such as the two fire station replacements in the East Boulder Community Center were certainly identified in part because they're in need of investment due to some failing infrastructure. They also need to be upgraded to better support the services that they deliver, whether that's to support the modern firefighting services for the fire stations or what we're trying to provide for the community in the East Boulder Community Center. I think the largest and fast tracking, I don't know if that's the word, but what has been done in this CIP is there's been a large amount of funding from the CCRS fund to directly support a much larger investment than we've had in past years in facility capital maintenance in buildings that are really in kind of critical conditions. So that includes like the public safety building. We have not seen in past years a lot of investment in infrastructure there. And so the CIP this year reflects, I don't have all the numbers in my head, but more than $2 million, I believe, in investment in that building to repair an electrical distribution system that's original to the building from the 1960s. some other kind of rooftop units. Likewise, in some other facilities, our municipal service center also has a lot of necessary repairs. We have a major roof replacement. The building is leaking now. So you're seeing those kinds of investments. We have not seen those in the past. So

Okay, so it'd be fair to say that the CIP reflects some triaging of some of these.

It absolutely does.

Okay. And then last question, if I could. There's another question about fast tracking or faster tracking, as I have it in my notes. Are there particular projects that are being faster tracked due to Sundance?

Yeah. That is another good question. Charlotte, maybe best to come up and respond to that. I'm not sure if there are any specific. There are projects within the CIP that indirectly will ultimately support Sundance. But I'll turn it over to Charlotte. I do think that we have to realize that Sundance will be here in a year and implementing, designing, and constructing capital projects can take some time. So I think over the years, we'll start to see capital investment to help support Sundance infrastructure. But for the foreseeable future, Charlotte, I'll let you speak.

Thanks for the question. So in terms of Sundance improvements that were included in the budget, we actually included some for current fiscal year. So last year when we brought forward the budget to city council, it included some appropriation that would help to support advanced citywide infrastructure needs across the city to help bolster up for the Sundance Film Festival coming in January of next year. So that's already included in the budget that was approved last year.

Is there anything specific you could point to in the current CIP?

I may be able to. Downtown garage improvements, I think, is one. There's funding allocated for St. Julian and Pearl. So, you know, investing in those types of infrastructure ultimately helps support Sundance. The other one that I think is really important, too, is the Boulder Creek Park. There's a lot of investment in reimagination, how that space ultimately gets used. And I think that space will be obviously used quite a bit during the Sundance Film Festival.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Mason, did you have any questions?

Yeah, pretty much all of them have been asked. I only have one question left, and I think I can answer it. Maybe you can just tell me if I'm right or wrong. So I was a little confused as to why the fire station two and four were categorized under good governance, I think it was. I'm kind of going by memory now. And I heard you say earlier, it's because these projects fall under multiple criteria. So you kind of got to choose one, because I would have assumed it had been under safety. And my guess is it was under government responsibly because of the nature of the building state.

Is that correct? Yeah, that's a good, I think you are correct. I think there's multiple ways. That's one of those projects that quite honestly, I think could have all of our community values associated with it. I can look, but I think when we tagged that project, it was first responsibly governed and then second was safe. So we certainly do see that as a safe outcome for the community as well.

Great. I have no other questions.

Okay, I'll go ahead and ask my questions, then we'll do a second round. So I have one general question, which is, how has the city's CIP planning changed to avoid deferred maintenance costs in the future?

I'll have Charlotte come up. Thanks.

Laura, I wanted to make sure I heard your question. Could you repeat it?

Yeah, how has the city's process for the CIP changed in order to avoid large bills for deferred maintenance in the future?

Thank you for the question, Chair. We have been informed in recent years by the approval of the 2021 Facilities Strategic Plan that outlined a investment strategy for the city to ensure that we're investing in our building portfolio across the city. And so since the 2021 time period, the city has invested where possible and increased investments in facilities, capital maintenance, setting aside for 2% current replacement value. And we've been increasing that year over year. Michelle mentioned earlier the ability for us to increase investments in our facilities capital maintenance using our CCRS or Community Cultural Resilience and Safety Tax Fund. Last year, voters approved the permanent extension of our CCRS tax that was initially sunsetting after 15 years. We received permanent approval for this. And with that ability, we were able to take a look at our funding and financing plan across the six-year horizon and fund our three major capital projects within CCRS, including East Boulder Community community center fire station and then the boulder creek park phase two using debt issuance in addition to looking at increasing our facility capital maintenance funding and so with that In the 2027 budget, there is a significant increase in investment that we've been able to perform to help chip away at this backlog. The total amount that we've set aside for facility renovation and replacement as well as facility capital maintenance in the 2027 budget is $5.3 million, including the additional amount that we've been able to increase using CCRS revenues. That amount has increased over time. It's been informed by the work done by staff in 2021 for the facility strategic plan.

Thank you. And I think I saw in the memo, and I may not have understood it correctly, that that 2% that you set aside for each facility for future maintenance, that starts once the facility has been significantly renovated or replaced. And if it's an old aging facility that hasn't had that treatment yet, you're not setting aside the 2%. Can you help me understand that?

That's correct. And I might defer to our deputy director, director of facilities and fleet if if there's any uh miscorrection or or um uh helpful ads for context there's specific criteria associated with the two percent crv and so that set aside is specific to uh buildings that have met uh specific criteria including uh significant renovations such as the brenton building for example Once that renovation was completed, we set aside a 2% CRV as similar to other buildings. And I might invite you up.

Thank you for the question. I think just to help, I think, clarify, and it's, again, can be confusing. So A lot of our buildings that are currently in some poor condition, their backlog is significant. So the kind of investment that's really necessary to repair deficiencies in the buildings far exceeds 2% CRV. So 2% CRV is a standard once you have a building in good condition. So the way the policy was written is once we do invest in a building in a way that we bring it up to a good condition, then we want to continue to invest in that building in to preserve that good condition. But that's really where we're at, is that we've got a bunch of buildings that need to be brought up to that level first. So that's really what's reflected in the policy. So whether that's a major renovation that repairs a lot of the aging infrastructure and brings that up to date in the systems, or a brand new building would fall into that category, let's keep that maintained well. But some of these existing buildings need a lot more investment just to get them to that good condition.

I absolutely understand that. And I also, it seems to me when you have a building that does need a lot more work, you would want to be saving for that until the time that you can afford it. So the city must be thinking about that differently than like a homeowner would. So can you help me understand why you wouldn't want to be putting away some percentage for those buildings that you know are going to need a big investment, even if it can't cover it completely?

Yeah, that's a good question. I think, you know, as we look, across the total CIP and the entire city budget, I think finding dollars to just go put away is a challenge. And so, um, It's a lot of what we have been working to present is particular to our city facilities starting in 21, a really comprehensive view of what our city portfolio looks like in the state it's in. And then earlier this year in April, we kind of brought a little bit more detailed analysis, looking at buildings and categories and approach. to help bring our buildings up to a better condition. It's really where these 15 buildings surfaced. Because across the 75, there's a number of categories of buildings that we do have a sustainable approach. We have a lot of small maintenance buildings that are important to support the city, different departments delivering services. And if we were not heavily subsidizing large investments in buildings because we're chasing emergency repairs, which are three to five times as expensive as just regular maintenance, we would actually probably be able to take care of those buildings better. So that was really where the strategy of, like, let's lean into some of our most critical facilities that are also the most expensive. Taking care of those buildings will actually become a sustainable approach for the other buildings that are smaller but also need repair and investment. So I think just finding kind of future dollars, by the time you can cobble enough money together, you're also building more and more need, if that makes sense. So every year our deferred maintenance backlog builds. And so just putting little bits away helps. you're building more than you're putting away. So that was more of the shift was saying, like, how do we break this down? And well, this 15 buildings are actually kind of a significant drain on the sort of total portfolio. Does that help? It does. Thank you so much.

Appreciate that, Michelle. Okay. And I'll just ask some questions about the airport, hopefully somewhat briefly. So, and I just want to contextualize this by saying thank you to Chris for helping us understand that part of what we're being asked about the BVCP is, is it aligned, or sorry, about the CIP, is it aligned with BVCP values? And are there any projects that should be deferred or expanded or contracted based on that analysis? And also, are there any policy issues being raised by these projects that we want to elevate to city council? So that's why I'm asking these questions about the airport that may seem somewhat operational about the glider runway. So I want to thank airport manager Eric Bences for answering a couple questions offline for me, confirming the list of projects related to the airport and that there's 139,000 in year 2030, specifically for renovating or rehabilitating the glider runway, which is one of two runways at the airport. But those two runways are required to be operated as one runway because they do not meet safety separation, if I have that correct. So I want to stop there and say, is there anybody in the room who knows whether I have that correct? Maybe that's Garrett, if you're familiar, or someone else. Oh, hey, Blythe, I didn't see you over there.

Blythe Bailey, Director of Transportation and Mobility, and I'll do the best I can. Eric Vences, impersonation. I just arrived, so I did literally just walk in the door. I have heard... I have read you say that, but I have not confirmed with Eric that technical question about whether or not they are too close together to operate as separate runways. So in that sense, I can't answer that technical question right now.

Okay. I do actually have that in the email from Eric that they are required to be operated as one runway. Simultaneous operations are forbidden. Excuse me. Yes.

Are you saying that you have an email in addition to what the board has received from Eric Answering some of your questions.

I do have some previous email from Eric that answers some of these questions that I wanted to get into the record So but I understand that the staff are in the room tonight cannot answer some of those questions I Just want it noted that I found the reply from him today to your questions To be entirely insufficient.

I just I'm just I want to note that it was it was a dismissive and by just saying operational does not take it out of the capital improvements program. So that's my comment. Sorry.

I appreciate that observation, Mark. Okay, so I'll just run through some of my questions that Eric did not answer today. And Blythe, if you're able to answer them, that would be great. So to your knowledge, does the city track and maintain data on simultaneous operation incidents at the airport? Simultaneous operations being planes either landing or taking off on one runway while they are landing or taking off on the other?

Sorry, I do not know the answer to that question.

Okay. To my knowledge, we're not tracking that, but I would love to hear about it if we are. Do we have any records of any pilot ever being sanctioned or banned from BDU due to violating the simultaneous operations prohibition?

I don't know the answer to that question either, Laura. I'm sorry.

Okay. Thank you. I'm not aware of it happening, but I would love to hear about it if it is. Has the city done any kind of cost benefit analysis or had any conversation internally or with the community on the option of decommissioning the glider runway? And I'll note that Eric did answer that during the CWG, there was an action item to either modernize or decommission the glider runway option. I was part of the CWG, and I don't remember any conversation about that. I think it was noted as something that the city could look at. So my question is, has the city done any kind of cost-benefit analysis or further conversations internally or with the community on that point?

I'm sorry, 0 for 3. I don't know the answer to that either, but just to note, these are questions that I did see that you asked today, and I had an appointment until 5, so I've not had much of a chance to

I understand time constraints. That's the reason why I couldn't ask them earlier. I was in a four day all day training.

Sorry, I'm not, I'm not the airport expert, but I'll be able to answer at least one of your questions, Laura. Understood. Okay. Keep going.

Um, can glider craft at BDU use either of the two runways, either the dedicated glider runway or the main runway?

My understanding is that they can.

That's my understanding too. Um, The FAA has said that it could support decommissioning the non-compliant glider runway. Is that true?

That I do not know.

It's true to my knowledge, but again, it would be good to confirm. And the glider runway is ineligible for state or federal grant funding. Is that true?

I have also understood that to be the case.

Okay. Well, I thank you so much. I really appreciate you standing in for Eric tonight. Sure. Those were my questions about the glider runway, and we'll get back to that during discussion. Okay, I want to welcome board member Max Lord. Thank you for joining us. Max, we are discussing the CIP. So if you have queued up any questions for staff about the CIP. Okay, none at this time. So I think that brings us back to ML. ML, did you have further questions?

I have one. One more question. And this is under transportation. So walking is my alternative mode of transportation. And under the streetlight capital maintenance, what I'm wondering, is this project goal to get all of the streetlights alongside walks working? Because there's a lot of blocks where there aren't any streetlights. And when I walk back from planning board meetings late at night, I walk in the dark. So this obviously relates to safety as well as just being able to put the enjoyable transportation. So I'm just curious, how comprehensive is the streetlight capital maintenance in looking at where are there no streetlights?

Again, Garrett Slater capital projects manager for surface transportation from the transportation mobility department. And so this streetlight capital maintenance line item is to address deficient streetlights around the system and as a refresher to planning board. the city purchased the entirety of the streetlights from Xcel Energy in the last couple of years.

Correct.

And we have learned since acquiring the system that the condition of the streetlights was not where we thought it was. And so... There is a significant deficiency of the assets that we need to make investments in. And it's not an item that we can defer because we are under a time and schedule deadline to convert and bring all the streetlights up to the LED standard. I think we have till 2032 to convert. be totally detached from the Excel system. That means as we go and upgrade and separate that we have to take care of the deficient streetlights as we go. So historically we had this line item in the CIP because as Excel would randomly go around and take care of streetlight poles and they would do that very infrequently, we needed to have the budget in place for when they would send us a bill. Now we need to be much more proactive about addressing the deficiencies of the streetlights And so this is entirely a capital maintenance item. It is not enhancement. So we are not going around installing new streetlights with this budget. This is to take care of what we have acquired from Excel.

Is there an online map somewhere that shows which streetlights have been upgraded? Because you can tell the old streetlights from the new streetlights, the light quality. Is there anything that a person could go look at to know where they can expect updated lights versus perhaps not high functioning lights?

So I know we have a map. What I do not know is if that is an externally facing map or only internal for staff. So I will follow up and we can, if that's something that we're sharing externally, we can make that available to you all.

Thank you. And that was my only question. Thank you, Laura, for giving me the floor.

Thank you, Hamel. Thank you, Garrett. I see Brad is approaching the podium.

Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. If I can just interject, I wanted to circle back real quickly on the questions that were raised about the airport and further follow up on that. The various questions that we had responded as operational, we We will and intended to respond as we would get questions from anybody in the public. We weren't clear on that point, so I just wanted to be clear about that. And Mark, to your question, we'll double check if some of those are maybe more indirectly related to CIP considerations and to the degree that they are, we'll copy the whole planning board.

Thank you, Brad. I would argue that they are relevant to tonight as we are instructed to evaluate the projects in the CIP against the BBCP policies. And one of the questions is, are there any policy issues to raise to city council? And I'm going to make that argument later in deliberation. So you'll see where I'm headed.

But I understand the logic. Just wanted to just reinforce that we will commit to doing that. And of course, we've already talked about the Timing challenges of being able to respond in real time on some of those detailed questions.

Understood. Yes. And I regret that I was, we received the CIP on Wednesday and then Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I was in a training class all day, every day. So I apologize. I was not able to pay attention to this.

We are often chasing our tail as well. So busy times. Thanks.

Okay. So any other questions from planning board members for staff at this time, before we go to our public hearings?

seeing none i would like to open the public hearing and turn this back over to staff to manage that hearing and thomas is that you or do we have vivian with us yes this is me i don't believe we had anybody sign up in person for the public hearing but i just want to open up that opportunity if there's anyone in the room that is here i believe this is all staff and applicants And seeing no interest in the room, we'll move to online. If you were joining us online and would like to speak to the public hearing for the CIP item, this is your opportunity to do so. And please go ahead and raise your hand if you'd like to speak. And seeing none online either, I'll pass it back to you, Chair.

Thank you, Thomas. OK, now is time for board deliberation and recommendation. Could staff please pull up the recommended motion language or the key issues? We could start with key issues. Do folks want to go right to the recommended motion and potential amendments to that motion, or do they want to spend some time here on the key issues? I'll just say I found the key issues really helpful. So thank you to staff for this. The board has in the past struggled with what is our role in looking at the CIP because it is large, it is overwhelming, it's been in process for many years, it's a continuation of things in years past. So what value can we add? And so Chris, I really thank you for this because I think it helps us answer that question of what can we talk about or recommend that is helpful? And so for me, the things that really struck home for the issue that I brought up tonight is, is the project consistent with and advance the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan? And I know the question is broader than that. Does the CIP in general advance the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan? I don't think there's any argument that anybody could make that it doesn't. Clearly, staff has put a lot of time and thought into a package of projects that advance the BVCP. But if there are individual projects that we have recommendations on the scope, priorities, or timing of, that we think there is a policy issue associated with that project that the city manager and city council could consider we could make a recommendation about that and then also of course do we have any recommendations on which projects should undergo a seat so any and any of these could become recommendations that we attach to or make separate from our main motion and i'm going to recommend that we pass a clean motion about the advancement of the CIP and then make any recommendations potentially separately as a board. If somebody wants to make a different motion, of course, that is the right of that board member. I am all about supporting the prerogative of board members. So does anybody have any thoughts that they want to share right now about potential recommendations that you might make related to these key issues that are separate from passing the main motion? I see ML has a hand up.

I can't tell if my hand is up or not. Sorry. I do have, I have some comments and concerns and questions about North Boulder Park. And I am not sure whether I will put that forth for a seat or not, but it's a conversation that has been generated over the last year um, regards to, to the project that's, that's proposed there. So, um, I will be bringing that and its issues forward for our conversation.

Well, I do think that now's the time to potentially have that conversation. Let's not break it up too much. So ML, do you want to discuss what your concerns are and what your recommendation might be? It sounds like you might be heading towards recommending it for a SEEP. And I would want to get staff to react to that. But if you want to make a context you want to give.

I thought you were looking for a motion here first. I don't want to interrupt your anticipated process. So North Boulder Park. I don't remember when this was. proposed design for the update of the park began, but there was a meeting that happened sometime in the winter where a lot of people got together with the Parks and Rec staff at the North Boulder Rec Center, and there was a lot of surprise at some of the things that were on the quote finalized or becoming finalized site plan. So I wanted to bring that forward today. It's a little over a million dollar project that I'm not convinced that the users of that park and the people who live adjacent to that park are in support of. So I, shall I go through the specifics? Laura, is this the?

Well, I think I gather that you feel there's community input that doesn't support or maybe has some concerns about the current design and you might be making a recommendation to city council to reconsider some of that. Is that where you're?

Yeah, or to bring it back to a public process because that was my recommendation back in the winter when parks and rec staff met with the public the neighbors was to we need we need to start sort of the public input process again because clearly people were not in support and they didn't realize that quote they had approved it because you know it was there was a lot of confusion and frustration at the proposal and given where we're at with With money and all, it's like we don't even need some of these things. Why are we even doing them? So I need to put that out there for us to consider whether should this go back into a public process because I think it's deficient in understanding how the park functions and how the neighbors did or didn't weigh in on it.

Okay, thank you for that clarification. Mark had a reaction to that, and then I want to ask staff for a reaction.

So I have a couple questions. Is North Boulder Park renovation in this CIP that we're considering?

Oh, but it is.

Okay, I'm asking staff. Thank you. Oh, sorry. Okay. Is... Okay. Allie, come on. Is it... from a timing standpoint available for a seat?

If it's within the CIP currently, yes, you could identify a seat for that. But I really do want to give Allie Rhodes the opportunity to talk a little bit more about the process that's gone into the North Boulder Park project.

Yeah, thanks for that, Chris. Hi, folks. Allie Rhodes, Director of Parks and Recreation. And I'll just answer a few questions about process and status of the North Boulder Park project. So your 2027 CIP sees a million dollars for North Boulder Park. This is the final portion. There is already approved funding for the park project. ML is accurate. We had a final open house for the park in the winter before we had a final concept plan. And there were concerns. There had been a lot of community engagement and posting of flyers with information about the project that we were able to address and clarify at that open house. Following that open house, our team took a lot of the feedback They revised the concept plan that was brought forth to PRAB. The project webpage has a lot of information about concerns that were heard, how they were addressed, and there were other opportunities for engagement. Our team has specifically had many one-on-one conversations with some folks. There is a group right adjacent to the park that does not love all of the changes. Generally, by and large, from the community, the revised concept plan was met with support. We did not hear any further disagreement, and the PRAB has approved the concept plan.

Thank you. So, we've already spent some money there from in 2026. Yes.

Correct. We began engagement actually in 2025. We are currently in design and moving into technical documents and actually we'll begin some of the construction with further renovations to the pavilion that is not currently meeting a lot of needs.

Great, thank you. My only concern is, do we have wording, a motion, would you, you've mentioned that you wanted a clean CIP motion, followed by any additional amendments or suggestions or whatever. My question is, is that would this be a great time for ML to be drafting specific wording, etc, while we carry on discussing general general CIP issues?

We could do it that way. We've also discussed using straw polls to do a quick assessment on whether a concept has legs rather than investing in creating specific motion language. So at this time, do board members feel they have enough information about this concept to say, straw poll, do you want to go further with this?

When you say this concept, what do you mean?

ML's concept that perhaps this North Boulder Park needs more community engagement and potential redesign.

I have more specificity that I can add to support that and the BBCP policies that are attached to that. I think that there probably is not enough information out there for people to know what might not be in alignment with what a public process that was different could have flushed out.

I do not have, to answer your question, I do not have enough information to weigh in on straw poll.

Yeah.

Okay.

I have specifics if you want me to go through them, but I can do that when the time is right.

Strong preference from Mark. If we're going to weigh the question, I would like to see the specifics as a motion.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

I was just trying to be efficient to see if this has enough legs to go through that process. But it sounds like I'm seeing people would like to see a motion and then have official debate on it. So ML, if you would like to work on potential motion language while we go to other board members to see if there are other potential recommendations people might like to make. So we'll table this for now, and then we'll come back to it as a potential specific motion. as a recommendation from planning board to city council that you would author?

Does that work for you, Emma? I have a question. Recommending it for a seat process in and of itself is straightforward. It's a recommendation for a seat process. All of the substantiating reasoning why one should consider that. It's kind of long and it's not really motion conducive.

Yeah, you would not author that into the motion. That would be part of the debate on the motion. So after the motion is made and seconded, then you would have the opportunity to argue in favor of your motion and provide supporting information.

Okay. So again, I'll go back to what Mark said. I think it would be hard for anybody to support a motion if they don't know why, what, What is amiss with the project as it stands right now? I mean, I don't think you have the information.

If the motion gets a second, then you would have the opportunity to present those arguments and that information before people vote.

I understand. OK, so hopefully I'll get a second and this will get an opportunity to. To be heard. Thank you.

Okay. All right. I'm going to keep us moving here. I think we might go a little bit longer than we intended, but go ahead, Chris, if you wanted to.

I'm just going to jump in really quick and provide a little bit of context around the CEAP and really the purpose for a CEAP. A CEAP is really appropriate for a project where a previous public process has simply not occurred. I know Allie and her Parks and Rec team have been out engaging the community a lot around this project. There's been over four open houses associated with the project. There's been two teen specific events, four reviews of the project by the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. seven updates to the project website. And so there has been a pretty extensive public process around this project. PRAB has weighed in and given their opinion on the project, which I understand was an approval of the project. So I just want to throw that out there that I'm not sure a SEEP really would provide any additional differences between the public process that has already occurred. It would really be a duplicative effort at this point and likely extend the time at which any of that work could potentially move forward.

I understand. I think that the concerns need to be heard. And whether we do something about it or not, I think is up to the board. But there's enough kind of separation between what has been quote approved versus what a lot of the residents and actual users of, you know, significant users of the park experience. So there's a disconnect and it seems to be, it seems to be getting more significant, the more refined the plan gets.

So I just want to put it out there.

Yeah. I understand what you're saying, Chris. Thank you.

I'm going to jump in and say it's up to you what your motion is. I hear staff saying that they would not recommend a CEEP. So if you put that forward, staff is probably going to give city council reasons why they don't think that's appropriate. You could make a different motion about what community outreach or additional community consideration you think is needed. I'm going to leave that in your hands for the motion making portion of the meeting. You could also recommend a CEEP and see if the board supports that. It's really up to you. You can make whatever motion you want. All right, I'm going to stop there on this one and welcome board member Kurt Nordback. We now have a full house. Kurt, we're in the middle of talking about potential additional recommendations we might want to make after approving the main motion on the SEEP, which I assume that we are going to do, but you never know. Okay. Anybody else have a potential additional recommendation that they want to give the board a heads up about or talk about the key issues? See none from Mason. Claudia. Thanks, Laura.

I had some general comments I wanted to get in, I think, before motion making primarily. And if other folks are finished up, I'd be happy to move on to the motion after this. I just want to say, because this is a really tightly woven document, my comments mostly focus on how to make it and the process continue to be accountable and useful to the community. So just I want to touch on a couple of things here. As I suggested in the questions, I think it would be really helpful for the community to see funding sources attached to projects in the future if we could have that. For example, when there are outside funds or dedicated funding sources for a project. I think it's also important to help decision makers like us and the public understand how this CIP reflects and responds to the deferred maintenance problem that so many folks are talking about right now. I was actually really surprised and impressed by the percentage of the CIP spending that is proposed to go to maintenance and enhancement that figure in the high 80%. And that definitely is not the public narrative right now. So if there are ways to bring that forward, I think that would be helpful. Since ML did bring up SEAP processes and maybe proposing an addition there, I do want to throw in one thing that I think I also said last year. I am not convinced that the Violet Ridge project project is a good candidate for a SEEP. The scope and scale of that seems fairly straightforward. The community in North Boulder has already had heavy engagement around Primos Park in the area. So I may, if ML brings her motion, also make a motion that we remove Violet Bridge from the SEEP recommendation. And then just a couple of thoughts on the CIP in general. I am gonna be supporting it, recommending it, and that's why I'm happy to make the motion. I just wanna say two things are really key to me when I'm looking at this big hairy document. First, I think even in this era of constrained budgets, it's really important that we be honoring investments In community planning processes. Right. So I am really glad to see continuing support for projects where investments have already been made. It is really good to see a CIP that shows significant continuity with last year, keeping us moving incrementally down the timeline. So I appreciate that. Second, I am always looking to see if proposed investments support geographic equity in the city. That is, are they focused on areas of historic underinvestment and are they otherwise dispersed across our neighborhoods and planning areas? I think on the whole this plan does do that, as last year's did as well. I want to recognize to staff that that can be a very politically difficult thing to do. We have neighborhoods and constituencies who are overrepresented in shaping a narrative about needs and priorities, and I want to recognize the big swaths of this CIP that address less shiny things from forgotten places in the city to hidden infrastructure that we don't really like to think about. So thank you for that. Without discounting potential motions from my colleagues, I would be comfortable recommending a clean motion at this point.

Thank you. I do want to continue with if anyone wants to give the group a heads up about potential additional recommendations before we move to motion making or any discussion of these key issues. Anyone else? We'll get back to you in just a second there, ML. Mark.

I don't have any motions or amendments. Just follow, would now be the appropriate time, or do you want to do it after adoption with additional comments? But following on to Claudia's general CIP comments.

Generally, we do those before we pass the motion. So would you like to make some general comments, Mark? Please do.

Okay. You know, Brad gave us a great introduction to this. And I think the intent was to honor all the work that goes into this and all the staff members sitting before us tonight. And I think... The work is real. The expertise is real. The engineering, the design. This is real stuff. And the city will ultimately benefit from that. The frustrating portion for this board is that we are You know, we are given six days to review and ask key questions. And it's a big task. And so there is some frustration for me, speaking for anyone else, in regard to how planning board would give its seal of approval and recommendation to adopt it a six-year, $827 million compilation of an incredible amount of work and say, yeah, we think this is super or I have problems with it, but I'm sure it's 10 times more frustrating to have been actually producing the work and then hear us opine about said work with sometimes, you know, with varying levels of knowledge and expertise in this. And this is real engineering. So I don't expect any of us to have the kind of expertise, but we do try to be good stewards of our role as planning boards. So all I'm saying is, gee, I'm sure it's frustrating for you. It's a little frustrating for me, and I wish I could actually delve into it in a more meaningful way with more time. And I realize also our agenda and schedule is very busy. So it's a general comment, and I don't have answers. I don't have specifics. I just want to voice that. But again, the main thing I want to voice is it represents an incredible amount of work.

Thank you, Mark. I will second those comments. Well said. And also Claudia's very well said. Okay. Other general comments or yes, Kurt.

First of all, I apologize for missing the first part of this meeting. I appreciate what Mark said. Yeah, part of the frustration for me is that there's not really a venue in which the design and the budgeting really fit. They come together. Because if we're considering, for instance, a city project under site review, we're not considering the budget. That's not a site review criterion. Whereas when we're considering the cip the design and potential, you know, design changes that could affect the budget, reduce cost or whatever. Aren't there's not a mechanism for doing that. So, um, the the. Charter Section 38 or whatever it is. It is what it is, but it feels like there needs to be some mechanism, whether it's for planning board or for someone, to have that kind of a view where the budget and the design meet. In terms of the details, was there any discussion that I missed about the Barker Dam Stability Project?

There was not.

Okay, I would have questions whether that is appropriate for a seat. That feels like a very technical kind of project and not the best candidate for a seat. So I would consider potentially changing that, although maybe there's some input on that.

I think this is a great time to ask staff if you have an opinion about why the Barker Dam is recommended for a seat.

Good evening, Planning Board. Chris Douglas, Senior Engineering Manager in the Utilities Department. The reason why the Barker Dam Stability Project, it is a highly technical project, but given the magnitude of the project, it right now does not have a public process step. So that's why we considered it for a SEEP in that realm of that we wanted to make sure we brought the public along with that decision-making process. And we're still in early stages on that technical review, but it's bringing, because of the magnitude of potentially of that project, we wanted to have that as a public process.

And by magnitude, you just mean in terms of budgetary magnitude?

Budgetary magnitude and scope of the project and impact to the community and particularly a large part of that community that is outside the city. So it's being able to bring that outside community and the city community along in that conversation.

Okay.

Thank you. That's helpful. Uh, and I do also, uh, have some concerns about the, um, uh, fire station number two design and whether that might be appropriate for a seat. So I may be bringing that forward as a possible amendment.

Real quick. Can I step in, um, fire station two would come forward to the planning board as part of a concept plan and site review. So that's the opportunity during which this board would be able to provide input on the design of that facility.

But a SEEP would be even more extensive than that, would it not, in many ways?

I don't know that it would be more extensive. There still would be a public process associated with that concept plan and site review, including the planning board weighing in on that design.

Yeah. Well, one of the problems is that, as I just mentioned, under site review, budgetary considerations aren't one of our criteria, right? So if there's potential cost savings to be found there, That's not, it's not something that we really consider as part of site review, whereas the public may be able to consider that as part of SEEP.

Yeah, I mean, what I'll suggest too is that I don't know that within the criteria of the key issues that we're seeing here, that it's really within the purview of the planning board to be considering those budgetary fluctuations associated with a project. It really is, again, does the project align with the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan? Are there policy considerations associated with that project that would further implement the vision that's established in the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan? um so i know i'm not directly answering your question i don't know exactly how to um but i do feel comfortable in saying that i do think the planning board will have an opportunity to provide their input on the design um and really the function of that building when that project were to come forward and that really is more in in my opinion at least the the role of the planning board to be reviewing and weighing in on less so about the actual budgetary items within projects okay thank you

Anything from you, Max? Okay. So I just want to speak briefly and then we'll get back to you. Unless you have something different than the issue you've already raised.

I have something different.

Okay, let me do mine and then we'll give you a second bite at the apple. So the one project that I might be making a recommendation about is that rehabilitation of the glider runway. There are 10 or 12 projects related to the airport, buying equipment, renovating the manager's office, doing a lot of pavement rehabilitation in various parts of the airport. This is the only one that I have concerns about in terms of its alignment with the BVCP and potential policy issues. And I'll just say briefly, The Community that I am involved in so folks who live near the airport or think about the airport have researched the airport. has serious concerns about simultaneous operations on this glider runway. And the fact that we have the glider runway it's structurally creates that problem if we only had one runway, we would not have that opportunity for simultaneous operations right. And it feels like it is counter to many city policies that we are intentionally maintaining and continue to maintain a facility that is A, non-essential, because the gliders can use both runways, and B, creates a unique safety problem that would go away if we didn't have it. And I think it is a basic principle of engineering that you make the system safe. You don't rely upon individual behavior to not use something When you could just make the system safer by design and we do that in vision zero We do that all over the city. They do that all over the world It seems very counterintuitive to many city policies such as policy 46 consideration of hazards policy 65 city resource management management which directs the city to responsibly manage limited financial and staffing resources to prioritize the sustainability equity and resilience that depend upon that rely upon safety and Policy 74, transportation safety. Policy 79, municipal airport in the very first line talks about maintaining the the airport as a safe environment for aviation. Policy 87, community safety, about managing risk and strategies that address the root cause of harm. And Policy 104, transparent governance, which talks about gathering and sharing transparent information about city business, which is not happening with this glider runway. To my knowledge, we are not tracking these simultaneous operation events. We are not responding to community who is tracking it and reporting it and then hearing nothing back when they do report it. I'm not aware of any sanctions that have ever happened at the airport for violation of this policy. The only response that I have gotten, which I will paraphrase, so I hope I will do it justice, is that it is the FAA's responsibility to police the skies, not the Boulder airports. But how is the FAA even going to know it's happening if we're not tracking it and reporting it? So is the airport just relying upon individual community members to be that reporting mechanism? I don't know. I haven't gotten an answer yet, even though I asked the question at least a month ago. So, I'm going to be making a motion that we recommend that city council ask staff to seriously study the safety issues with the glider runway and consider the options for making it safer, which could be operational or it could be decommissioning the runway. So, I'm just asking that we make a recommendation that this gets some serious attention because I've raised this two or three years in a row. I've asked numerous questions about it, not just me, but other community members. And nothing is being done about it. So I'm hoping we can raise this, elevate the profile as a planning board to say this should at least get looked at as part of the CIP before we go ahead and say it's great that we're dedicating money to redoing, re-upping, renewing this glider runway by repaving it because that is in the budget for 2030. So we have time. We have time to look at it and think about whether that is the right course of action. So I'll stop there. Okay, back to UML.

Thank you. I wanted to follow up on Claudia's bringing up the idea of what, can somebody on staff explain what an assessment of the Violet Avenue Bridge under a seat, what would it give us? What would we gain by going through that process with the Violet Avenue Bridge?

Sure. I'm going to have Garrett Slater come up. He's the capital project manager associated with the Violet Avenue Bridge. So I'll let him chime in a little bit about what the plan is for that project and whether he thinks it's appropriate for a SEPA.

Thank you.

Yeah, so the Violet Avenue Bridge sort of was implicit to a lot of the Primos Park community engagement activities. And so I would say the staff position with respect to the need for a seat on violet bridge is that we probably do not need one, given the amount of effort that's already gone into it. So I think we're comfortable with it not being on the seat list.

Oh, has staff already taken it off of in? Well, no, it was still in there. So it would be up to planning board to remove it or how does that work? If we approve The motion as proposed, it says it would include the proposals that staff has in the packet. So how does that get changed?

That's a really good question. I don't know that I have the answer to that. Tashauna, I might look to our legal expertise on this one.

Thank you. It is my understanding the board would like to pass one clean motion and then maybe make subsequent motions for recommendations to address the Violet Avenue Bridge change of gear in the course of this meeting. We could simply amend the proposed motion language of the main motion after the, in the staff memorandum, perhaps a comma saying excluding the Violet Avenue Bridge seat recommendation, just to acknowledge that. That would probably be the simplest lift here.

Okay, thank you, thank you for that and I appreciate clarification.

Okay, thank you so much, any other discussion before we go to motion making. I heard Claudia say that she would like to make the main motion.

Now I'm wondering if we'd want to reword it to reflect Violet Bridge or Madam Chair, would you recommend we still make subsidiary motions or amendments?

I mean, I think it's good to pass a clean main motion and then pass each amendment separately so that city council can see a vote count on each of those amendments. It complicates things when you package things together sometimes, which is not to say we would never do that, but I would want to have a really good reason for doing that.

All right, I'm agreeable. So I move that planning board recommends to the city manager and city council the 2027 to 2032 capital improvement program, including the list of projects to undergo a community and environmental assessment process as identified by staff in the memorandum.

I'll second.

Any discussion? Seeing none, let's go ahead and vote on the main motion. I will start with Kurt. Yes. Mark.

Yes.

Claudia. Yes. Max. Yes. ML.

Yes.

Mason.

Yes.

And I'm a yes. Motion passes unanimously. OK. Who's got a potential amendment that they would like to make as a motion? I see Claudia is ready.

I am ready to make a motion on the Violet Bridge situation. So I move that planning board recommends to the city manager and city council that the violet bridge replacement project be removed from the list of recommended SEEP projects.

I'll second that.

I think Kurt beat you to it. So we have a motion by Claudia. Seconded by Kurt. He just snuck it in right before you. Any discussion? Okay. I'll start with online this time. Mason.

Yes.

ML. Yes. Max. If you abstain, it is a no.

Yes.

Claudia. Yes. Mark.

Yes.

Kurt. Yes. And I'm a yes, but actually let me just check to Shauna. Did I, I think I might've messed that up. If Max abstains, is that a yes or a no?

I was going to chime in. It is a yes.

It is a yes. It's affirmative.

Yeah.

Okay. All right, so you would have been a yes either way, I guess. Okay, so that is a unanimous addition. And Claudia, did you send that motion language to Thomas so he has it for the record?

I can send it, but that was on the fly because we changed course on this pretty quickly.

Okay. Do you feel like you can type that up or do you want to ask Thomas to just look at the video?

I have a template I will send exactly. It's in the same format as the main motion.

Okay, great. Thank you. Who else has a potential amendment?

I sent one to Thomas.

Wonderful. Thomas, if you could put ML's potential amendment up on the screen. And ML, while he's doing that, if you want to start talking about it.

I would love to start talking about it. So North Boulder Park, I believe that the public input did not properly capture the true concerns of the people who use the park regularly. and who live in proximity. So there's numerous examples on how the plan didn't quite align with how the park is actually used. For example, the proposed plan shows a drainage path of river rock that cuts right through the children's playground, young kids, or any people who do not easily negotiate through large river rocks. This will not only divide the play area and north lawn, but likely will become a hazard. Two, the pavilion is proposed to be redesigned to be enclosed and available by permit and maybe even a fee. So people use that shelter casually all the time. To enclose it and require renting it would be gravely inequitable to those who use it for shade and rest and just don't have the facility or property desire to go through a process to use the pavilion as an open publicly, easily publicly available space. Three, the proposed event lawn. So this park is packed full of folks enjoying the various areas. We don't need a special place that will attract more people for an event. People live within the stone's throw of this park. And a venue for events that will draw from beyond the neighborhood is really the last thing that we need insofar as congestion of both cars and people at this very neighborhood park. Number four, they're proposing a teen zone. So this teen zone is located right across the alley. It's 15 feet away from people's private backyards. And it's not a very big zone. These teens have been, I have been caught up in the middle of their goings-on in the park. They gather in big mobs. They are not contained to a small little piece of the park. They race their e-bikes around. And, you know, it can be disruptive to the peace of the evenings. So to designate a small little teen area for, Right adjacent to people's backyards, because that's an alley right there. It's not a street with a big distance. It's about 15 feet. I think that this is not the right solution for the teens. We've had that surveillance pole cameras dispatched to that park. numerous times for lengths of times because of the behavior.

I'll just jump in here and say, you know, we don't have a second yet. So if you could briefly summarize your points and then we'll see if we can get a second.

To left, perfectly fine ball fields to move them over a few dozen feet. I think everybody questions that expense. And lastly, That park is used in the winter when we get our snow as a ski area. And we have Nordic people that put the paths in and they ski around the whole park. Well, it has now been that Nordic ski area has been designated to one little corner because we've got this drainage rock canal that bisects the park and makes the north lawn unusable. So I cite a number of BDCP policies. 20, maintaining existing assets. 24, community character and evolution. 37, design excellence for all projects. 65, city resources management. 68, social infrastructure. 92, parks and rec facilities and programs. 93, nature everywhere. And super important, BBC policy 101, community engagement and 104, transparent governance. I don't think that this park has benefited from the public input that my motion specifically points to. And at one point, a little over $1 million, I think that our monies can be reconsidered for what actually needs to be done to that park, which is fix the play area.

Thank you, ML. Before I ask for a second, I just want to invite staff to comment on whether the concerns that ML has raised were heard and considered in the previous community process.

Thank you, Madam Chair. If the board does want to further engage on the motion, we would welcome the opportunity to make sure that the elements that have been described are accurate and invite parks to go through that list of things, just to make sure you're working off that common understanding before using that as a basis for your decision. Okay.

I think that's perfectly appropriate and I would welcome that. So let's see, is there a second for the motion?

I don't think I've made the motion.

Oh, I'm sorry. It's on the screen. Would you like to go ahead and read it?

I move that the North Boulder Park Improvement Plan engage further community input, especially to include parents, Nordic ski groups, neighbors along the alley and within blocks of the park, and sports that seasonally or regularly use the park lawns and fields.

Thank you, Amal. Is there a second for the motion? I will second. Thank you, Kurt. So at this time, I'd like to invite staff to come up and respond to the question that I asked of whether the points that ML raised were heard and considered previously, and also the point that Brad raised of, is there anything that you would like to correct or elaborate upon?

Yeah, thank you all for the opportunity. Again, Allie Rhodes, Director of Parks and Recreation. And I was listening carefully as ML spoke, and we were able to speak at the December open house. A lot of the concerns I just shared mirror those that we heard in December. Some of them are accurate of previous concept plans. Some of them align with rumors and concerns that had been circulated by NEBRS and were not fact. We have never proposed, for example, completely enclosing the shelter and removing it from general public use. The uses will continue as they are today. Most of the time will be available for passive use. And Memorial Day to Labor Day, it will be available for all the incredible gatherings and graduation parties that happen today. Its use will be enhanced through the renovation that opens it up. So there's actually some sunlight inside of the facility. It's a little dark. I've been to great events there, and the improvements will make it better. As it relates to the lawn, there originally were concerns about how adjustments to address drainage in the site would impact the Nordic. skiing. We heard from the Nordic Group, we have an ongoing agreement with them that allows them to groom at the park, to store their grooming equipment during the winter. We've worked closely with them. They're thrilled with the concept plan. They're happy with how it moves forward. If you look online, there's a common, I think the page is called Common Questions and Facts, and it outlines the recreational uses, including the Nordic ski paths. I'd encourage you to check it out if you have questions. We love the Great Open Lawn and it's maintained. The other thing I heard is about the need or not of moving the ball fields. That has been a question. So I have personal experience with this as a formal volunteer coach for North Boulder Little League, North Boulder Little Park sits on the site of the headwaters of Goose Creek and has significant drainage issues. If you ever drive by and are using the park during or after a rain event, you'll notice that the pea gravel that is the play area surfacing has washed into the park because of the water that channels off of Delwood to the north. You'll notice the drainage issues at 9th and Balsam, and you'll notice deep marshy areas throughout the park. The renovation, in partnership with utilities and stormwater efforts happening with Goose Creek and the Alpine Balsam Project, will enhance North Boulder's park ability to retain stormwater for the entire neighborhood. We are seeing an increase in pervious surfaces throughout the site, and North Boulder Park will be able to help with that. And we'll be able to increase playability. North Boulder Park fields are the first to be canceled when there's a rain event because of the marshy conditions. Moving the field south will address that while keeping the open long. I think I had all of them. I might have missed some. I might have needed to take better notes. So if you had specific questions, please.

So I got all my information online at the site. I have the plan in front of me. I am very impressed that the Nordic folks agreed to having the Nordic trails only be in that one area of the park, kind of the would be southeast-ish. That's like a third of the trails that they have today. That's very surprising to hear that they are backing that reduction. What have people said about the channel, the River Rock channel that basically bisects the north lawn and the play area.

I think it's important to make sure we're all looking at the current versions. There is not a reduction in the Nordic Crest course. There is still a significant large outer loop and a smaller inner loop. So we might need to connect and make sure you're looking at the current versions.

I was looking at everything online and I'm looking at a plan that says final plan March 2026. And then on separate items on that same website, it had the new Nordic track, which was limited to that open area to the, I guess it would be the southeast of the ball fields. So that is online at the website, at the project's website. And there were also pictures of the pavilion fully enclosed or renderings. So it sounds like that is not going to be enclosed and only available through rent. Is that correct?

What is accurate is that the renovation, similar to the original shelter, will have movable walls. So it could be enclosed seasonally and with supervision and rental. Most of the time, it will be open and available for passive use as it is today.

Mm-hmm. Okay, that wasn't clear. So what are the thoughts about that drainage that basically bisects the play area and the north lawn?

We have heard lovely feedback from families about the improvements to the play area. As we've noted, that play area is over 25 years old. Parts have been removed due to vandalism and they're not able to be replaced. It will be replaced with natural features and others that really encourage all children. types of development for young people, including fine motor and gross motor skills. Exposing the drainage that goes from Delwood and through to the Midwestern portion of the park also is a play feature and will help with drainage, and we've heard positive feedback about it.

It basically does, though, break the play area I know that everybody wants a new play area because that equipment has been, a lot of it has been broken and unusable for, for years, if not decades. But, um, so I can see that that's a big positive. I, I have never heard anybody liking the idea that we're breaking our park into, uh, we're basically making that North lawn, um, two separate areas because of this, uh, I think it's River Rock. Is that not correct? River Rock Channel?

I'd have to follow up with you on the materiality. I want to clarify two things. One is that the water there is very ephemeral. And most of the time, this will just be nature play for young people and not bisect the area. It will make it, it's just part of the park. And so I don't think I'm catching your concern.

Well, by bisect, I say, you know, this is where the little football leagues do their training and people do summer camps and they use that north lawn and having that path go right through the middle of it, that water path, is basically breaking that lawn into two separate areas because it's a, you know, a rock-based channel.

I think we've heard the point. Correct. Max wants to respond, and then I want to give Allie another chance.

I move to call the question.

So when you call the question, we take a vote on calling the question.

An immediate vote on calling the question. Right. I have a second. Okay.

Max, you have the right to do that under Robert's rules.

We have a second, so.

So we vote. We're voting to vote. Are people ready to vote? If you are ready to vote, vote. When you call the question and you get a second, then we say, does the group want to move to voting, right? Correct. So the question right now is, are you ready to move to voting? Have you heard enough or do you want to continue the conversation? If you have heard enough, you are going to vote yes to calling the question. Kurt? Yes. Mark?

Yes.

Claudia? Yes. Max? Yes. Mason? Yes. ML? Yes. And I'm a yes. Okay, so we're going to go ahead and vote on this one. We'll start this time with Max.

No.

So now we're voting on this amendment to the motion. Claudia?

No.

Mark?

No.

Kurt? No. Mason?

No.

ML? Yes. And I'm a no. So that proposed amendment fails 6-1. Okay. Thank you. Moving on. Do we have any other proposed amendments to the main motion? So additional recommendations? Yes, Kurt.

I move that planning board recommend that the fire station number two project be added to the CIP list.

And Kurt, have you sent that language to Thomas? I have not. If you could do that, please. Is there a second?

Can you repeat what it is you're looking for?

I'll second.

We do have a second. ML, were you asking him to repeat the motion or repeat why he's making the motion?

No, I was asking him to repeat the motion so that I could second it, but I wasn't sure I heard it correctly. That's okay. We got a second.

So the motion is to add fire station number two to the SEEP list. And Kurt, do you want to, we have a second with Mason. Do you want to speak to your motion?

Sorry, I do. I think that this is a complicated enough issue that it would be appropriate for a SEEP. And again, a SEEP is the place where the public can engage both on the design and the budgetary implications simultaneously, which is not really possible in other places. other venues. And my primary concern about the design of fire station number two is the purchase and destruction of the apartment building to the west, in my understanding, solely in order to allow for a design that provides a turnaround for the fire station, for the fire trucks. uh we've had fire trucks backing into fire station number two for 60 some years um with no safety problems that i've experienced i've i've heard about uh and i think that the additional cost and um and loss of housing that would be entailed, that the current proposed design would entail, is something that the public really should have an opportunity to engage deeply on. I'm not sure that that's where we want to go. I'm not sure that the public, the city, really wants to destroy, I believe, the relatively affordable apartments in order to have more pavement on a fire station. I'm 100% supportive of fire safety and the safety of our amazing firefighters. I don't want to compromise them, but I'm not convinced that the turnaround is necessary. I've been told that it is standard practice. But standard practice, you know, in suburban, I don't know, Aurora or wherever, is not necessarily appropriate for Boulder. So I think it would be appropriate to have that conversation.

Okay, thank you. And Mason, did you want to speak as the second?

Nailed it.

Any additional conversation on this? Brad?

uh thank you chair i normally wouldn't kind of interject when you're already uh kind of in motion and discussing but i do want to make sure that the board has full understanding of the process that's been undertaken so far um the uh the nature of the zoning and the zoning requirements for that did not require a site plan but the use review was needed my understanding is that You all approved that previously in February by not calling it up. And Charles Farrell is on the line to be able to correct me on that. We are in like the fifth round right now of tech doc and design on that. And I believe that the housing, maybe Michelle can come up and back me up on this, the housing that's neighboring has already been bought and even vacated. I know I've seen what I think are holes in the roof. So maybe we can just make sure that you have a full understanding of the progression that's already taking place.

Yes, thank you for the opportunity to kind of just share a little bit more. And I hear some of your questions around the turnaround. What it really is is a drive-through. So I'm just going to maybe address a little bit of the, I think, the nature of some of your questions around the new design. which has become a standard in the fire stations that we're moving forward with. And I think that's been identified in our fire master plan in other places, but it is a pull through station design. And actually we have encountered and had challenges across all of our fire stations for many years with fire trucks backing into the doors. We replace the doors all the time because of the backing in and out of the fire stations, and it does actually create a safety hazard. The other thing that the pull-through design allows for in all of our fire stations and especially the new ones being built is it allows us to stack more units in the bays and be able to get them out and maneuver them as opposed to then blocking in. So we can accommodate future needs around like ALS. So we can double stack vehicles in those bays, which again allows a vehicle that's stacked in back to be accessed. So it expands the use of our fire station, it really future proofs those fire stations. So that is a number of the reasons why that pull through design is being put into practice and why we are updating our fire stations to have that pull through is to accommodate safety needs, but also the ability to put more units actually in the bays to accommodate the future. But I do want to then say Brad's where we are in the process is accurate. So we're nearing the fifth round of tech docs to come back and add a seep process would cause a major delay in the project and we would see cost if nothing else, I think. lot of what we have designed actually given the site constraints as well it's a very challenging site with the grades we need a lot of that room for maneuverability anyhow so I'm not really sure even if we eliminated the drive-through station that we would be able to accommodate the truck turning radiuses that we need on a new station so it would be a pretty major setback to that project Oh yeah, and the housing yet the housing has been vacated actually police and fire have been using it for training, so that is actually common when we're about to deconstruct. A building we make them available to our police and fire so they've actually already started some destruction of that, but, but the housing has been vacated has been purchased and it has been already vacated.

Thank you for that any more discussion Kurt did you want to respond.

Yeah, I'll just say that I think that there are enough concerns in the community about this, that the CEAP would be appropriate. I mean, I accept everything that you said, but I think it would be great to bring the community along on that in a way that I think that hasn't been done yet. And the CEAP would be a mechanism that would allow for that to happen.

Any other discussions? I'll just say for my part that my fear with doing a CEAP would be that people would feel like this is too far along, it's a fait accompli, and why are we asking them to participate on something that they can't really change? So I will be voting no, although I do wish that perhaps this had been more thoroughly examined earlier in the process. Any other thoughts? Okay, let's go ahead and vote, and we'll start online again with M.L.,

I'm looking for my button.

We can hear you.

I'll vote yes.

Mason?

I'm going to vote no.

Max?

No.

Claudia? No. Mark?

No.

Kurt? Yes. And I'm a no. So I believe that, was that five to two? Or two to five? Two to five. So the motion fails two to five. Although, Kurt, I really do appreciate you raising that question. Okay. Any other potential motions? I think it's just me then. So I did send some language to Thomas. Thomas, if you could pull that up on the screen. And I've already gone through some discussion of this pretty extensively. My motion is, in order to better comply with BVCP policies 46, consideration of hazards, 65, city resources management, 74, transportation safety, 79, municipal airport, 87, community safety, and 104, transparent governance, I move that the planning board recommend to city council to initiate a thoughtful analysis of potential safety issues with operations of the glider runway and potential solutions, including decommissioning the glider runway prior to the planned 2030 CIP glider runway rehabilitation project. The analysis should include safety concerns and data about simultaneous operations, FAA guidance, cost to the city versus benefits of maintaining the noncompliant runway, and community data and input. Do I have a second?

I'll second that.

Thank you. I will say briefly, I'll speak to my motion that in addition to what I've already said, my goal here was to be very fair, very balanced, and just say this question needs a serious look that, to my knowledge, it has not gotten. And I do believe that if it had gotten that serious look, I would know about it. I'll also just point out the reason why I made a big deal out of the fact that this glider runway is not eligible for FAA funding or CDOT funding, is that this cost does fall entirely on the city. So that's $139,000 in 2030. That's just for crack sealing and seal coating. That is sort of short-term maintenance. Like all pavement, it will require full rehabilitation or reconstruction. Sorry, I'm using the words wrong. It will require full reconstruction, probably at a cost of several times this. I can't make a full estimate, but much more money than just the crack sealing and seal coating. And that cost will fall entirely on the city. And so we're maintaining this facility for the benefit of not very many Boulder residents, the folks who own a glider business, fly glider planes, some of whom are, you know, paying for one ride, right? Just one special occasion ride. But it's not a lot of people. We're paying an awful lot of money to maintain this facility that causes some unique safety concerns. So I really want this to get a thorough look. Before you go, Kurt, I want to say, Mark, do you want to speak to anything as the second?

I'll say two things. One, this is the benefit of a well-thought-out, put-together motion that this was not on my radar. I was not thinking about this at 3.30 today or even a half an hour ago. So Yay for that. The second thing is, is that using the fire station as an example of a missed opportunity to have additional thought and input prior to a an expenditure that is a full city expenditure and generally in support of So having not having little knowledge, I seconded this, while acknowledging not a great deal of knowledge about this. Conversely, I trust my fellow board members, I am always impressed with their study and thought. So this is a case where I'm I'm interested in learning more, and I think this general recommendation to council would be fine.

Thank you, Mark. Kurt? I just had a question for you, Laura. Well, two questions. One is, is this one specific line item in the CIP? Okay. Okay. Sounds great. And the second question is, would this be appropriate for a SEEP? Because you don't call that out per se.

I mean, my understanding of a CEAP is it's basically like what in California would be an EIS, like an environmental impact. It's very extensive looking at environmental impacts and alternatives, and there's a lot of community input. I'm not opposed to this being a CEAP, but I don't know that it needs to rise to that level.

I'm just trying to understand. I mean, I guess we're just making a recommendation to council so we can recommend whatever we want. It's not, I guess I was thinking doing it as a SEEP would be more within the sort of bounds of the

of the cip program and charter provision number 78 but um yeah okay i understand thank you i view this as in line with the guidance that we received to talk about raising policy issues to city council and raising any issues with like the timing and the scope of projects and that's what i view this as other commentary max i haven't looked your direction in a while i apologize Okay, Claudia.

So I will support this. I appreciate that this is framed, I think, in terms of accountability to the BVCP, which is one of the things we've been asked to weigh in on here with the CIP. And I also appreciate that this particular recommendation is proposed on a timeline where it could actually have some impacts, right? So Laura has identified here a planned expenditure three to four years down the road where there is still some potential to have impact on whether or not that goes forward and how. And I think that actually has been an issue with some of the other recommendations floated tonight. Thank you, Claudia.

Any of our online folks want to comment? I don't see any hands up. Any last discussion before we vote? Let's go to a vote. I'm going to start to my right with Kurt. Yes. Mark.

Yes.

Claudia. Yes. Max.

Yes.

Mason.

Yes.

ML. Yes. And I'm a yes. So that's a unanimous recommendation. All right, folks. Is that it? Are we done or anything else on the CIP? Congratulations to staff. You have a unanimous recommendation to pass the CIP with some potential amendments. So thank you so much for all your hard work. Thank you to all the staff who were here tonight to support this conversation. I apologize that we ran a little over. It is now 6.30. We have an applicant who is waiting, who is expecting to present around this time, but we do also have dinner waiting for us. So I'm going to suggest that we take a 20-minute break to eat dinner and then resume at 6.50 if that is amenable to folks. Okay. All right. We're going to take a 20-minute break. We'll resume at 6.52. And Thomas, I think I've been kicked out of the online meeting. If I could be added back. Oh, I might need to sign back in. Okay, I will sign back in. Do we have our board members online, ML and Mason? Can somebody who is online check for me? Well, I believe we do have a quorum. It is 653. So I'm going to call the meeting back to order. And we are going to move on on our agenda. So the next item on our agenda is item five, public hearing B. This is a long one. And I think I have to read it, I think. Do I, Deshauna, need to read it at this point?

Yes, you do for open public hearing.

Public hearing in consideration of the following. Number one, recommendation to city council regarding a request to rezone approximately 3.72 acres of land located at 2106 and 2130 Arapahoe Avenue and adjacent 0.03 acre portion of Marine Street and a portion of adjacent Arapahoe Avenue right away from the public to the residential high five, which is RH5 zoning district. and a portion of adjacent Arapahoe Avenue right-of-way from the Residential High 2, RH2, to the Residential High 5, RH5 zoning district, and a portion of adjacent Arapahoe Avenue right-of-way from the Residential Mix 1, RMX 1, to the Residential High 5, RH5 zoning district, as described in Chapter 9-5, Modular Zone Systems, BRC 1981, reviewed under Application LUR 2025-00034. And number two, decision on a site review application for a proposal to redevelop the Naropa campus at 610, excuse me, 2106 and 2130 Arapahoe Avenue with approximately 135 residential units in a variety of two to six bedroom layouts located within two new buildings and the historic Lincoln Hall building. The site review proposal includes a request for a height modification to allow for buildings to reach four stories and 55 feet in height reviewed under application LUR 2026-00003. So that's what we're here to do in this portion of the agenda. I'm going to turn it, I'm just going to go ahead and turn it over to Chandler because I know that you will walk us through all the stages of the process.

All right. Thank you, Laura. And good evening, planning board members. My name is Chandler Ranscock, principal planner with Planning and Development Services. And tonight we will be going over 2106 and 2130 Arapaho Ave rezoning and site review proposals. You just read them, so I'll just read the shortened versions. The first is a recommendation to council on a request to rezone the site from P to RH5. And the second is a decision on a site review application to redevelop the campus with 135 residential units, two to six bedroom layouts with two new buildings, within two new buildings in the historic Lincoln Hall building. It also includes a request for a height modification. So the objectives for tonight's hearing- Chancellor, may I interrupt?

I apologize, but it seems to me perhaps the chair needs to inquire with the other board members about a conflict or potential conflict.

Thank you, Deshauna. I always do this too late in the meeting. I would now like to inquire whether any board members have any conflict of interest or ex parte communications that they would like to disclose. And if you're online, I might not be able to see you. So please speak up. OK. Seeing none, and we probably need to check in with Mark, who has briefly stepped out of the room. I'll check in with him when he is back. Oh, Mark, we are now at the portion of the meeting where I'm asking about conflicts of interest and ex parte communications. Anything to disclose?

I have none.

Thank you. Okay, back to you, Chandler, and thank you, Deshauna.

All right, so the objectives for tonight's meeting. First, planning board will hear the applicant and staff presentations and may ask questions. There will then be a public hearing. There will then be an opportunity for the applicant to respond to public hearing comments. The planning board will then make a recommendation on the proposed rezoning and the planning board will then take action to approve, approve with conditions or deny the site review. In terms of public notification, a written notice was sent to property owners within 600 feet of the site. Notice was also posted on the property. Staff has received written comments and questions from neighbors. Primary concerns expressed by neighbors include preservation of the sycamore trees on the site. There were also some comments pertaining to traffic and parking impacts, noise, and building scale and potential impacts to infrastructure. The property is currently one of the two campus locations of Naropa University, which is a private nonprofit liberal arts institution. The approximately 3.7 acre site is located at the intersection of Arapahoe and 21st Street and is adjacent to the northern edge of the University of Colorado campus. The current campus contains 16 buildings, totaling approximately 72,000 square feet, organized around the landmark Lincoln Hall building, which is at the center of the site.

Sorry to cut you off, Chandler. We seem to have an echo in the room. If anybody's tuning in with their laptop and has their audio on, please mute your laptop.

I don't think it's my computer. Oh, yeah. How's this? Better? So the current campus contains 16 buildings.

Laura, you don't look muted on the online version of yourself here. Oh.

All right.

I apologize. My computer was muted, but my Zoom was not.

So the current campus contains 16 buildings totaling approximately 72,000 square feet, organized around the landmark Lincoln Hall building, which is at the center of the site. Both the Chestnut House and Arapahoe House are pending individual landmark designation and were approved for relocation and rehabilitation by the Landmarks Board in April 2016, or I'm sorry, 2026. The buildings are interspersed by green spaces, and as previously mentioned, there are three so-called champion sycamore trees that are located on the site. There's also a private drive that runs north-south from just east of 21st Street, which is highlighted in green there. Currently, there's an internal private drive that provides vehicular access from Arapahoe south to the intersection of Marine Street and Grandview Avenue and to the parking lots on the south side of the property. The Marine Street right-of-way terminates at the south end of the Naropa property, and the Grandview Avenue right-of-way terminates immediately to the west. to the south on the CU campus. 20th Street also provides access to the short section of Marine Street that accesses the property. The entire site is located within the 100-year floodplain, which requires the finished floor elevations of any new structures to be raised at least two feet above the base flood elevation. The site is currently well served by bus, bike, and pedestrian routes. There's a bus stop located on the north side of the site on Arapahoe Avenue, and there are several other bus stops in close proximity. with multiple routes serving both Arapahoe and Folsom streets. There is an existing multi-use path southeast of the site that connects the Boulder Creek multi-use path to Arapahoe Avenue at 22nd Street. A mix of attached and detached sidewalks are located on the surrounding streets, and both 19th and 22nd Streets are designated bike routes, allowing for safe bicycle travel to the north and south. So as you can see here, the 2025 Boulder Valley Comp Plan land use designation for the site is Neighborhood 2. Neighborhood 2 is described as primarily residential neighborhoods that feature a mix of denser housing types and larger buildings. Thoughtfully integrated commercial and other non-residential uses are generally concentrated in your transit services. This land use is supposed to provide opportunities for more people to live close to jobs, schools, parks, shops, and mobility options. The additional density in these neighborhoods supports vibrant businesses and community spaces, supports the development of a robust transit network, and fosters walkable urban neighborhoods. Primary uses include residential, attached, multi-unit, and group living. Buildings are generally medium or high intensity in scale. Building forms accommodate up to five stories and create a high quality urban street frontage. And overall site design emphasizes efficient land use while maintaining a comfortable pedestrian scale through thoughtful building design, gathering spaces, natural infrastructure, and streetscape amenities. Structures may occupy larger portions of their lots with limited setbacks and shared open spaces. Sidewalks, bicycle facilities, and transit supportive infrastructure are integral to the street network. The network is supposed to prioritize safe multimodal access to homes, jobs, and other local destinations. Curbsides may be actively managed to support higher density and mixed use. And shared, unbundled, and managed parking is preferred. Oh, why is that? Sorry, I apologize. That's not the way that looks on my presentation. Uh, the existing zoning for the site is P or public, which is defined as public areas in which public and semi-public facilities and uses are located, including without limitation, governmental and educational uses. The existing zoning was put in place during the 25, uh, 2015 Boulder Valley comp plan update at the request of Naropa. The benefits in Naropa and receiving the public land use and zoning designations at that time was that it removed any limitations on floor area for any improvements that Naropa might choose to make as an educational institution. Eropa is now looking to vacate and sell the 2130 Arapahoe Avenue campus and it's seeking to change the zoning to residential high five or RH five. Which is defined as high density residential areas primarily used for a variety of types of attached residential units, including without limitation apartment buildings and or complimentary uses may be allowed. So the proposed project would redevelop the site with two new residential buildings, both at four stories and close to 55 feet in height. It would include 135 apartment and townhome units. Preservation of the existing sycamore trees is part of the proposed plan. You can see on the site plan the three large green trees there are the sycamores. Relocation of Arapaho and Chestnut houses to the northwest corner of the site. Lincoln Hall, which is landmarked, would remain in its current state and would be renovated on the interior to provide dwelling units. It also includes a rezoning to RH5 and a vacation of a portion of Marine Street, which is shown on the south portion of the site there in the crosshatched area. So the buildings are arranged in a U-shaped configuration around the Lincoln Hall building. The project includes a large central courtyard with an elevated amenity deck on the north side of the main building. Site access would be via Marine Street, as well as a new shared private drive with a new pedestrian-activated crossing at 21st Street, which you can see there with the small red arrow. A new detached sidewalk and landscape strip is proposed along Arapaho. There would be a B-cycle station and a bus shelter, both included there. In terms of building design, the buildings include brick cladding on the lower levels and cementitious siding on the upper floors. They include a variety of flat and gabled roof forms, consistent vertical window groupings, recessed entries with protruding porch elements, and three-story elements along Arapahoe Avenue, which borders the Gosgrove neighborhood to the north. As you can see on the bottom image here, Um, the Lincoln hall building would remain the tallest point on the site, I think by a few inches. Um, so these are just some elevation shots of the proposed building design. Um, you can see here some of the moves that they've taken to try to, um, kind of reflect and honor the existing landmark Lincoln hall building on the north. Um, the South side there on the bottom is the side facing the CU campus. We have the east side, which is bordered by the multi use path which runs down to the CU campus and eventually the Boulder Creek path and on the west side which borders the proposed private drive and which would provide access to the site. These are some renderings that the applicant has provided this is looking at the main building from across Arapahoe looking south. This is looking from the CU campus north at the south side of the building. This is the proposed private drive looking at the primary entry to the main building. So looking east. And then this is looking east along Arapahoe from the corner of the site at the townhome buildings as they front Arapahoe. In terms of access, circulation, and parking, the project includes two access points, the 20th and Marine Street access, and then the private drive. The private drive would include enhanced paving, bike parking, a lime grove for lime scooters, bump outs for pickup and drop off, and landscape rain gardens. The project includes 78 car parking spaces and an at-grade garage. And includes 210 long term and 84 short term bike parking spaces, which is overall about 20 more than the required amount. And then multiple bicycle and pedestrian friendly access points as shown on this map, both from the private drive from the multi use path and from Arapahoe. The applicant has provided a TDM plan. with the application, and this includes several different parking and TDM strategies, including shared unbundled and managed parking of the 78 spaces. 84 short term bike parking spaces, as I mentioned, where 69 are required and 210 long term spaces where 206 are required. And the applicant would also participate in the neighborhood Ecopass program for the residents for a minimum of three years. There are also micro mobility options proposed, including the B cycle station in the lime grove, which I mentioned. enhanced pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure being the pathways, the private drive being designed as kind of a Woonerf style drive, and then a new sidewalk with detached landscape strip on Arapahoe. The applicants also included an alternative transportation fund of $150 a year for residents who can show that they are not using cars and do not need a parking space, and it includes monitoring and evaluation program as well. So in terms of process, you all may remember the concept review. It was submitted for the project in May of 2025 and was heard by the planning board on July 15th, 2025. Planning board had a number of comments at that time. The applicant has addressed most of those in their written response, but some of the comments that the planning board made at that time were a desire for additional input from landmarks board and historic preservation staff, A desire to see fewer access points off Arapahoe Avenue and additional restrictions on the use of the proposed private drive. So as you can see, there was a drop off driveway essentially off of Arapahoe originally proposed that has been removed. Desire for additional neighborhood outreach and public input prior to site review. Potential changes to site design and architecture to more clearly pay homage to the landmark Lincoln Hall building. and a desire for more careful consideration of how to create a transition to the Goss Grove neighborhood and ensure an architectural compatibility. So key issues for discussion are whether the site review proposal is consistent with the site review criteria of section 9214H, including the additional criteria for buildings requiring height modification, and then whether the requested rezoning is consistent with the criteria for rezoning found in section 9219E of the Boulder revised code. With regards to key issue number one, so the site review criteria require that it's generally consistent with the site review criteria, particularly those policies, or I'm sorry, with the BVCP, particularly those policies that address the built environment and are intended to apply to individual development projects. This is my first time using the new comp plan to meet this criterion. So these are what I believe and have confirmed with long range planning to be the new policies that address the built environment and may be intended to apply to individual development projects. So design of the built environment on page 80 of the comp plan includes definitions for compact and connected, complete and functional, human scaled and climate responsive, and distinct and inclusive. which we have found that this project meets there's also the neighborhood 2 land use description which includes under the what to expect category uses urban design and mobility staff has found that the project is consistent with all these boulder valley compound policies and definitions So we found that it's consistent with the BVCP land use map and on balance with the goals and policies of the BVCP. It's also consistent with the several other BVCP policies, including community character and evolution, continued use and adaptive reuse, compact urban form, integrated land use and transportation, 15-minute neighborhoods, historic archaeological and cultural resource preservation, and design excellence for all projects. There's further analysis provided in the analysis of review criteria and attachment D. Staff also finds that the project improves safety and connectivity, incorporates site design techniques, infrastructure, and TDM strategies that support and encourage alternatives to single occupant vehicles. It provides private and common open space areas with a mixture of sun and shade, hardscape areas, green spaces. Landscaping includes a variety of plants, colors, and contrasts. Building and setting design are compatible with and improve upon the character of the surrounding area. And the project successfully creates visual interest in a vibrant pedestrian experience with simple human scaled and high quality architecture. In terms of the additional criteria for height modifications, the building's form and massing are compatible with the character of the area, consistent with the intent of paragraph three. The buildings are designed to a human scale and create visual permeability into and through the site. The buildings do not exceed 200 feet in length along any public right of way, but are designed using distinct breaks in the building's form and materials to visually resemble separate structures anyways. The site is in an area anticipated for higher density development. The proposal includes a large amenity deck on the fourth floor, as well as fourth floor townhouse decks, which are accessible to tenants and designed to take advantage of mountain views.

I'm sorry to interrupt, but I need to bring to the board's attention that we have reached the 15-minute threshold of the presentation. Unless the chair would like to provide more time, it would be...

Important to note that for clarity and consistency. Thank you for noting that, Tashana. Because this is a complex project, I'm fine with Chandler proceeding. You have maybe five minutes or less?

Got about two more minutes.

Do it.

Okay. The horizontal dimensions of the landscape courtyard are between 90 and 150 feet, which is substantially greater than the proposed building height of 55 feet. The landscape courtyard will receive shade in winter, but full sun in spring and summer. South-facing decks are also provided, and both the private drive and multi-use path would receive year-round sun. Numerous amenities are provided throughout the site. In terms of key issue number two, which is the rezoning, Section 9219E reads that the City Council shall grant a rezoning application only if the proposed rezoning is consistent with the policies and goals of the Boulder Valley Comp Plan and for an application not incidental to a general revision of the zoning map meets one of the following criteria. In this case, the applicant is meeting the first criterion, which states that the applicant demonstrates by clear and convincing evidence that the proposed rezoning is necessary to come into compliance with the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan map. The proposed rezoning would bring the project site into compliance with the underlying BBCP land use designation, which is neighborhood two. The P zoning district is no longer compatible with the new underlying neighborhood two land use designation as the use and intensity standards for the zone do not support residential or mixed use buildings that are generally medium or high intensity in intensity and scale as envisioned for neighborhood two. the rh5 zone district would allow for redevelopment of the site in a manner consistent with the neighborhood 2 land use designation as a primarily residential neighborhood that features a mix of denser housing types and larger buildings with the additional density supporting vibrant businesses and community spaces the development of a robust transit network and walkable urban neighborhoods i have recommended motion language for both the rezoning i will not read these and the site review and i'm happy to answer any questions

Thank you, Chandler. Excellent and thorough presentation as always. Questions from the board? Who's ready? I see Mason and then we'll go to Mark.

Thank you for your phenomenal presentation as always. Let's see, I just have two particularly quick ones. When I was reading through the packet and the site review criteria, I didn't see criteria six mentioned. Is it applicable here? That's the land use intensity and height modifications criteria.

No, it's not applicable here. That's just for projects that are requesting a floor area ratio bonus.

Okay.

Yeah, this is just height.

Thank you. And then on the transportation fund being $120 per year, has it been tested or are there benchmarks as to what that level should be to actually impact change?

I'm not aware of any tests on that number. Yeah, if someone from transportation staff were here, they might be able to speak more to it.

Yeah, I'm just looking for some kind of criteria and understanding whether or not that's generous or what?

I mean, we've seen that exact number before in TDM plans, but I don't know how that stands in terms of market average or best practices or anything.

Great. That's all my questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mason. Mark?

Um, the private drive on the west side of the property is shown as I look, there's lots and lots of great drawings. But the way I understand it is it is one way going south, you enter on that private drive, and you go south, and then you would turn east and then into the park into the garage. And that's one way. Is that correct?

I don't believe so. The it's a right in right out onto Arapahoe.

Okay.

Yeah, I might defer to the applicant. Okay. I'm gonna talk about that more.

Yeah. Okay. All right. Um, and yeah, I'll hold I'll ask that again. Um, the was there ever a version of this plan that didn't incorporate the champion trees? No. Okay. That's my only question.

Thank you, Mark. Kurt's ready.

Yeah, just one quick question. Did staff have any input on the location of the B-Cycle station, or did you get any input from B-Cycle on that location?

Yes. Well, I believe the applicant worked with B-Cycle to determine the location, then we reviewed it. But there is, I think in the written statement, no, maybe it's in the TDM plan. At the end of the TDM plan, they provided a bunch of copies of their emails, of their correspondence back and forth with B-Cycle. But yeah, it was the applicant proposed it and our transportation staff reviewed it and accepted it, yeah.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. ML.

Thank you. Thank you, Chandler, for your presentation. I've got just a couple of questions. On the zoning, so you cite that RH5 is logical because it is compatible with the land use, Land Use Neighborhood 2. So right now that site is surrounded by RH1, RH2, and RMX1. Are those other zonings not compatible with Neighborhood 2 land use?

Not necessarily. I mean, the area south of Arapahoe and west of the project site was just recently changed to Neighborhood 2. So prior to the 2025 comp plan update, the underlying land uses were different for this neighborhood. So I think, you know, immediately to the north across Arapahoe, which is mostly RH1, I think that's all now neighborhood one. Right.

I'm talking about the zoning, the adjacent zoning, not the land use. And the, I guess, logic for RH5 was that it was compatible with neighborhood two. And I'm curious, were RH1, RH2, and RMX1, which are the adjacent zoning, so we don't have these little islands of different zoning, are they not compatible with Neighborhood 2?

You know, we didn't really analyze that as part of this project just because these guys are asking for the change from public to RH5. So public is very clearly not compatible with Neighborhood 2. Whether RH2 or RH1 would be considered compatible, I think we would have to really look at that through a rezoning application. I think it would be probably a bit of a harder argument since those, those zone districts do, you know, theoretically allow for residential uses at a medium to higher intensity and scale. Right. But in this case for this site, I think it's, you know, we found that P is definitely not consistent, but we did not. No, no.

Yeah. I'm not questioning that. I'm just, I'm just looking at the, the, logic that was applied to justify RH5. And that was that it was compatible with Neighborhood 2. And I was curious as to whether the other adjacent zoning were not compatible with Neighborhood 2. Why weren't they an option? But it sounds like it wasn't looked at. Is that correct? RH5 was the only one that was considered?

Yeah, we didn't look at all those other zone districts because that's not what the applicant was asking for. So we just reviewed what they were proposing.

Okay. Are there any setback exceptions being requested?

Yes, but very minor. I might defer to the applicant for the exact ones. I think they're very minor. I think it's maybe a rear yard setback, a slight reduction.

Okay, I will follow up. And what is the height of the buildings that are facing Arapahoe? Are those three-story or are those four-story?

The elevations weren't very clear. The portions of the building that are right on Arapahoe are dropped down to three stories. But the overall building height for both buildings is just under 55 feet. I think it's 54 foot 10 inches.

As they move south, they're taller. Correct, yep. And let me see. So that 55 or close to 55 foot, I was looking at the elevations and they go from topographical, which noted the lowest point 25 feet away, right? It was USGS. And then everything else was in... 100 it was in feet so without the reconciliation um are those roof peaks beyond the 55 foot height uh no okay no there are some appurtenances on top of the building that are over 55 feet but those are allowed by code right they're not roof peaks are all yeah just under 55 feet okay perfect those are my questions thank you very much thank you ml

Other questions for staff?

Claudia. Okay, first one. Is the south facade of the large building in this proposal considered to be adjacent to a public right of way? There's a multimodal path.

On the CU property?

On the CU property.

No, it's not a public right of way.

Okay. Okay, wanted to be clear on that. I sent ahead some questions about trees and I want to repeat those here to get the answers in the record. Do we know what the rooting zone and sunlight needs of mature sycamore trees are?

The rooting zone was not analyzed on any sort of diagram that I have seen, but the City Forester worked really closely with their arborist throughout the process to identify what we think is the rooting zone, essentially, or the damageable rooting zone.

And then one of the requirements of the site review is that they provide a detailed landscape plan at the time of tech doc so we'll get heavily into the details on the tree protection through construction and then post construction.

Okay, thanks for that. Because I did have another question about like, what is in our construction standards for tree protection, tree protection zones?

Yeah, there's fencing requirements, there's distance from shoring from the root line.

So there's some pretty detailed Okay, and are those do those reference the specific trees in question, like what a smaller tree have a smaller required protection zone? Yes, what a larger tree have a larger one? Okay. And that's in construction codes that they will have to meet?

In our DCS, yeah.

Okay.

And again, they'll work directly with our forester and our staff landscape architect to make sure that we have a plan that we feel good about.

Okay. And then I have some questions about the private drive. I might have missed this, but is there a public access easement along that west side private drive?

No, I do not believe we're requiring a public access easement.

Okay, because the applicant was representing it, I think, as a bicycle connection. Pedestrian and bicycle connections through that block to Arapahoe.

Let me double check.

Yeah, I think. Did we require public access easement?

I'm checking right now.

Yeah.

I'm almost there.

Yeah. I'm fairly certain we didn't because there's an existing private drive there now that does not have one, and it's not a connection that's called for, and they're not vacating right away in that area to create it. So I think the way we saw it is it was them. They already had a private drive, and they just relocated it slightly, and they allowed it to remain private.

Okay, I appreciate that clarity. And then is the private drive being counted as usable open space?

Portions of it.

And okay, because that yeah, I do see that in the in the plan set. I am wondering how much of the open space requirement is being met with that private drive.

I'd have to look at the plans and kind of do some math to

Okay, I'm going to flag that for the applicant, if you can get that answer. And I guess another question for staff. Do we have any guidance on what would be considered open space with regard to also having vehicle access in that space?

Yeah, I mean the open space standards allow you to include different types of paved like if it's porous or scored or colored pavement. Okay. But it is supposed to be separate from vehicular access by at least a curb.

Okay.

So.

All right, so I'm going to come back to the applicant for some measurements on that. Thanks.

Other questions for staff. I have a few. So I want to follow up Chandler on some things that were in the staff comments where there's, you know, there's a process of back and forth between staff and the applicant that's very iterative. And I just want to follow up and see where some of the staff concerns answered to your satisfaction. So the first is about defining the building entrances. Do you feel that all the building entrances are sufficiently defined?

Yes.

Okay. There were some concerns about permeability through the site, particularly through the south facade. Can you talk a little bit about what happened there and whether that's satisfactory to you?

Yeah. That was a lot of discussion with the applicant and then with our urban designer just about the feasibility of actually breaking the building in the middle on the south side. We determined that wasn't really feasible and the applicant did provide access through there. So it's It's not necessarily visually transparent, but there is now a way that someone can go from the multi-use path behind the building straight through the garage into the main courtyard, which there wasn't initially. So we felt like they made appropriate moves to try to increase permeability.

And it wasn't able to be broken apart because of the parking garage?

Yeah, the parking garage and just other building management factors, like essentially you have to make it two buildings instead of one, which I think they... yeah two elevators to everything so I think in terms of a project viability standpoint they they felt strongly that they wanted to keep it as one main building and we felt okay with what they did okay there was some concern about the balconies we have a standard that the balconies need to be at least partially enclosed by the building do you feel that all the balconies are sufficiently enclosed yes

Okay. And there were also some staff concerns about drainage and rain gardens.

Made by engineering?

I believe so, yeah.

Yep. I'm just going to trust that they worked those out to engineering satisfaction.

Okay. Well, and again, we get into the really detailed end of the drainage and civil plans through TechDoc, so preliminarily everything works.

Okay. And then I wanted to follow up on some of the public comment by Community Cycles that was in our packet real quick. They had a concern about only 11 charging spots for e-bikes, but I think I saw that that was altered up to 14. Yes, 14.

Is it 14 or 16?

I think it's 14. I think it's 16 where 14 are required.

but I could double check that.

All right, so I just want, okay, so 16. I think it's, do you guys know?

Okay, 16 or 14 are required.

Okay, 16 e-bike spots required. They had a recommendation to move the signalized crossing to 22nd Street instead of being mid-block between 21st and 22nd. Was that discussed or considered?

Which it is. Yeah. I mean, the existing mid-block crossing is going away. Now there's one on 22nd and one on 21st.

Okay. All right. So that was done. And then they also had a suggestion about adding a multi-use path on Arapahoe between 21st and Folsom. To keep people off the sidewalk.

That's off-site improvement that's not in the TMP.

Okay. All right. Thank you so much. Those were my questions. Any further questions from the board for Steph? All right. I'm just going to check online. Mason has a hand up.

Yeah. Sorry for being dense. I was reading back through site review criteria. I looked at my documents. I went to MuniCode. And I'm reading... This number six, and it says, I'll just read it out. Land use intensity and height modifications, modifications to minimum open space on lots, floor area ratio, maximum height, comma, and number of dwelling units per acre requirements will be approved pursuant to the standards of this subparagraph. So I would think modifications to maximum height, or at least not just floor area ratio, would trigger number six.

No, it's just if they're asking for a modification to intensity standards. So that's the open space and floor area ratio. If they're just asking for the height modification, then it's the next section or section H4. Sorry, I'm going to escape out of my presentation here for a sec.

Yeah, and I can always take this to matters too. I don't need to take up a bunch of your time and

No, it's okay. But we are confident that we did not miss a section of review criteria.

I'm confident you didn't too, but I just want to better understand it. So maybe we can talk a bit more later about it.

Okay. We can come back to that under matters item rather than doing it during this site review application. All right. Anything else for staff? We're going to move on to the applicant presentation. And Chandler, how much time does the applicant have?

15 minutes.

15 minutes. So Thomas, if you could please set a clock for us. We want to welcome the applicant team. Thank you for being here with us tonight. Sure. And we look forward to your presentation. Sorry. And I just want to say to the applicant team, and I call this the Mark McIntyre Amendment Amendment, Please go ahead and go through your presentation. You've heard us ask some questions. Don't take your time to answer our questions. We'll ask them again if they haven't been answered. And you will also get a chance to respond to public comment if you hear anything there.

Thank you. I need to get the applicant team promoted. What's the name I'm looking for for the presentation? Are you logged in on your Zoom? Oh, sorry, we discussed this before the meeting. I sent you the link. If you could please turn off the speaker on your laptop. Yes. And now that I made you co-host, you should have screen sharing ability. And then just a reminder to turn your microphone on before you begin speaking.

Thank you board. I think I'm ready.

So let's go right ahead.

Adrian so for so for sparring architects 2505 walnut Naropa has to move. That's not in question. They cannot stay here for the reasons which Neuropa's president and former president are here and they can speak to separately. But in order to do that, since today it is, let's see, it is zoned public. it has to change so that more dwelling units are possible on this site. Public allows unlimited FAR, which is great if you're a public institution or a private institution, but not if you're trying to do housing, which is really what the city needs on this site to support student housing adjacent to the campus of the University of Colorado. So rezoning to RH5 is essential to this project moving forward. It was discussed earlier that they might be able to do our h1 and we'll come to that in a moment, but I wanted to just note a couple of other projects done by core spaces. Who are the applicants here tonight, the the hub on 28th street and the oldest project on the former site of liquor mart. Today, as you know, Naropa is. bordered on the north by the gospel of neighborhood. on the northeast by the BVRC, to the south by the University of Colorado and east of that are high density residential zones. To the campus west is what I'm referring to as a transitional zone and I'll get to that in a moment. But it's everything to do with how you modify the Boulder Valley comp plan in this area. Today, surrounding the campus, there's a variety of high density zones everywhere except to the north. So if you look to the east, you look to the south, and even to a certain degree further afield, The limitations on floor area are significantly higher because student housing is compatible with the borders of the campus. The one area where that's not the case and the area that has a significant conflict is both University Hill and Goss Grove, where students rent otherwise single-family houses and have multiple people living in them. When you modified the comp plan to allow for a neighborhood designation, which you defined as areas that are primarily residential that feature a mix of denser housing types and larger buildings. You also included this nice little graphic. And it clearly identifies something with a higher density than what is today allowable in the RH1, which is a 0.67 FAR. 0.67 FAR is just slightly higher than what's allowed in RL1, which is low density residential. To the north of Arapaho, you created a new land use category called Neighborhood 1, which has in it RMX1 and RH2. RMX1 allows an FAR of 0.74, and RH2 actually allows a FAR of 0.67, neither of which are what you might consider high-density residential zones. Even RH2, with site review, allows a 1.07 FAR, greater than RH1, which is south of Arapaho. So I refer to RH1 west of this site as transitional because it's not unreasonable to expect that when the city gets into it and looks at how these zoning districts might modify in relation to the changes in the comp plan, that they will consider that the RH1 is not compatible with neighborhood two. And so our only application is for RH5. Just to look briefly at the campus adjacent to us, They have a certain amount of property, in fact, a significant amount of property that is today zoned RH1, which, as you know, doesn't really impact what they do with that land. Residence one is partially in RH1, and it's seven stories high. So the university can do whatever they want, whether you call it RH1 or you call it anything else. They are their own animal. RH5 is actually less than some of the, anticipated building scales that are going to go in the university in the future as part of their master plan. So I'm going to stop talking about rezoning. If you want, we can talk about it later. But I'm going to go on to what we're proposing on the site. The existing Lincoln Hall is already landmarked. It has a landmark boundary to the north, which is the light blue area shown there. There are significant trees on the campus. And it is tremendous. is a tremendously compelling aspect of the campus character today. The larger trees with a little bit of red on them are untouched and untouchable as far as we were instructed by the Naropa leadership and that we had to protect those trees and they are the sycamores that have been in question or have been raised as What are we doing? And so just to show you, we have designed everything that we're doing around it. We are taking out significant structures that are not critical to the future of this site, in our opinion, as well as parking lots. We are maintaining a certain amount of existing access, both in terms of pedestrian and vehicular access. We are requesting modifications to the lighting and the crossings at Arapaho. And we are also showing that certain buildings be relocated, notably the two which we'll talk about in a minute. And that created for us a maximum building envelope that respected all of the things that have been identified as critical, namely the trees, the landmark building, and the two additional buildings that have been identified as movable buildings. and to a new location. We're also creating a link at 21st Street where one does not exist today. And we're going actually a great lengths to make something that is really appropriate to entry into the campus and provide safe crossing at 21st and 22nd and maintaining some degree of vehicular access, which I think our civil engineer can speak to what we're doing it the way we're doing it. And at the same time, we have to lift all structures, including the relocated smaller structures, to two feet above the base flood elevation. On the northwest corner of the site, that adds three and a half feet. And on the southeast corner of the site, that adds seven and a half feet. So any building that touches that seven and a half feet zone has to raise up to seven and a half feet above the base flood, above the existing grade. John Gerstle, And it doesn't matter if it's in the northeast corner of the site or not, it has to still be above the the to move buildings do not have that limitation they're going to be raised up to the three and a half feet that we talked about. John Gerstle, This is the the plan of the site at concept review and as as staff has. gone into detail noted the comments from the board. I'm going to just go through them individually. A desire for input from the landmarks board on the existing structures that were considered to be salvageable and possibly relocated. And we have, in fact, worked with landmarks to create a plan for saving those, moving them, lifting them out of the floodplain, and making them meet current code standards. And this is show what we have agreed to with Landmarks Board and it's dependent upon the approval of site review. It does not go forward unless this is approved. In terms of the next comment from the board was to create fewer access points off of Arapahoe. I've identified and read here what we showed at concept plan as a drop off. We've taken that out and we're showing changes along Arapahoe with that deleted drop off of moving that emergency access to support that northeast townhouse building to have ambulances and emergency vehicles enter into the bike path for the first 30 feet of the bike path, which fire marshal is fine with. He says he does it all the time. So we took away the need for that previous drop off in front of the old school building. At the same time, we created the capability for no left turn off of Arapaho into the Wunnerf, and it is intended to be one way going south so that you can then go into the garage by turning east, or you can go out if you're dropping somebody off and turn west on Marine also. Other comments that came from the board to more clearly pay homage to the landmark building. We talked earlier about how we were trying to create an embracing site around that central building and the forms that we created that you saw at concept review, we're attempting to do that. We have continued to develop them and simplify those forms somewhat, reduce the scale of the forward elements along the townhouse building so that the masonry elements were smaller and the cementitious paneling behind it was lighter in color and this shows the scale of what we have again with the change to the comp plan this is again the neighborhood character presumed with neighborhood two areas showing up to five story buildings here we have four story But we are also trying to, in so doing, address the scale of the adjacent context of Goss Grove. And the comp plan does talk about how you create transitions to lower scale, which interestingly considers a parking lot as a transition, which we are not doing here. But you can see directly across the street a variety of one, two, and three story elements. Two and a half, not really three. in the housing stock directly across Arapahoe. And we feel we've done a creditable job in the context of the Neighborhood 2 land use in the RH5 zone of addressing compatibility across the street, setting back forms from Arapahoe in stages to make that more compatible. Another comment was made about additional permeability. and connectivity into and through the site. We have, of course, done a major link on the west side connecting 21st Street to the north to the campus. We've added some additional entry points to the building. And as I've quoted staff here at length, functional permeability to the site is from all public rights aware being provided in the following manners at Arapahoe Avenue, the east multi-use path, the south edge of the site and of course the western edge which we are creating that is not a public right of way. Just to note also the connections through the Goss Grove neighborhood that the 21st Street link that we are enhancing by connecting to the campus directly on 21st as a safe bike route to the campus that links north of Canyon at the activated signal. Right now, 22nd Street does not do that at Canyon, and we feel like that might be something the city might consider adding. This is overlaid on the campus master plan showing the links that we are proposing, but also it notes that to the south, CU actually is not quite sure what they're trying to do. They've They were showing previously a parking structure to the east of the Naropa campus, which in the conversation with them they realized that is not the best place to bring cars onto Arapahoe to take them into a parking structure. They've since thought maybe better to do that at the corner of Arapahoe and Folsom. Likewise, you can see the configuration of Residence 1, which was shown as next to a parking structure. is not what's there today. The links that they have, they expect to change. They didn't really want to negotiate any change to the potential path on the extension of Marine, which is fine. I mean, they're going through their own process. But we did feel that the right-of-way vacation made sense because to take Marine Street today, which ends about 50 feet or so EAST OF GRAND VIEW DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE BECAUSE THERE'S NO WAY THERE IS NO WAY FOR THE PUBLIC TO GO ONCE THEY'VE GONE 50 FEET INTO OUR PROPERTY THEY'RE GOING TO HAVE TO TURN AROUND SO WE'RE ASKING FOR THE VACATION SIMPLY TO MAKE IT CLEAR THAT WE CAN CHANGE THE PAVING PATTERN IN THAT ZONE AND AND MAKE THAT CLEAR TO THE PUBLIC THAT THIS IS NO PLACE FOR YOU TO GO UNLESS YOU'RE GOING TO THIS PROPERTY WE CAN TALK ABOUT THAT FURTHER AS YOU WISH. This is showing the the South elevation and the modifications we've made to it, which are minor, but it also shows you the scale of the elements and they're the gaps between the. The masses that pardon me, this is not this is on the wonder if this is on the West side. That that we have set back significantly from the property line, as well as from the front face of the building, this is the South side. and it's showing again the masses that we had at concept review and how they have changed and lightened up. We have also shown the setbacks from the property line on the building faces here at the top of that screen. And similarly, the changes from concept review on the east side of the site, which is 22nd Street, lightening up the elements that are taller and making the, consistent height of the central two-story masses. Again, setting those back from the property line and the distances as shown. Design intent and the development along Arapaho, we previously at concept review, this is the rendering we had before, we were always trying to do something with the way the building meets the sky. I'm sorry we don't have canals. And also, these are not small separate buildings. But the intent of this image is to identify the importance of building shape against the sky, which we always felt was, if you're going to be at 55 feet, you should at least try to do something with that height. You can't always do it with flat roof building. It's very difficult. But we did lighten up the scale of the masses. We retained, as stated earlier, the champion trees and we've simplified the root forms. So there's a greater focus on the Lincoln School along the south. Let me see, perspective looking southwest at Arapaho. The modifications are minor, but again, we've simplified the form somewhat so they aren't as potentially competing with the Lincoln School structure.

That is 15 minutes. So if you could just wrap it up real quick. And if we have more questions, we will ask them.

Okay. These are just more along the south. So in the changes and along the one earth, the entry being highlighted a little bit more. I think these are little vignettes that you saw in your packet. We have no suspended balconies anymore since you asked. And I'm sorry to bring it up, but I did. And I think that's it.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

And before we move to questions, I wanted to respond to a few things that were put to staff. There are a few setback modifications. Sorry, it took me a minute to look them all up because the packet's so big, but There's a two-inch modification to the front where 25 feet is required. It's 2410. Rear would be a 15-foot modification. 25 feet are required where 10 are proposed. And then interior side is a five-foot modification on the west. where five feet are being provided. And there is not a public access easement proposed on the west side on the private driveway, although there is one on the multi-use path on the east side that hugs the bottom of the property. And then, Chandler.

In terms of Mason's question about the site review criteria, section 9214 H6. So parts A and B of that are zone district specific. So they only apply to DT, BMS, BR2, and MU3 for A, and then BMS, BR1, IMS. 16082389231 and me to for be the project is subject to subsection C, which is the additional criteria for height bonus. 16082389231 and land use intensity modifications and that's just the section that basically says that they have to pay the additional inclusionary housing fee for any floor area on a fourth or fifth story. 16082389231 So it's not a it's not a subjective criteria that they have to respond to its.

Thank you. And just following up on that, could you speak to why there's no public access easement being provided on the, what was it, the west side? Is that the Wooner?

Yeah. So it's not a required connection in the TMP. And there's a multi-use path on the east side that provides connectivity to the paths to the north and through campus to the south and the South Boulder Creek path. So I don't think it was a consideration through the conversation of site review, just by virtue of the fact that there is a public connection that already exists and has an easement on it.

Okay, thank you. We are now at questions for the applicant. Who's got some?

Mark.

So just further clarification. I'm on Arapahoe and I'm going east. And I make a right turn into the Wooneriff. So the Wooneriff is right in right. Okay, it's right in only. It's right in only. I can't make a left. Right in only. Okay. Okay. Now I'm headed south on that drive. And I get to the end of it. I can go. It's one way going south. Okay, if I want to go into the garage, I go left, left, and down into the garage. If I'm coming out of the garage, come up the ramp, I turn right, I can't go back on the wounder, so I go west to 19th.

I think that's right. It's exactly what they do today at Naropa.

What's that?

It's exactly what they do today at Naropa.

Okay. So it's funny when you look at, and I visited the site, but back at concept review, but when it's confusing, when you look at the aerial view and Google maps, it doesn't really show a Marine connecting up to 19th there anyway, but you will make a connection or there is a connection to 19th.

Well, I believe 19th is, I'm sure that Naropa people here can, Their memory of this is better than mine because they're there every day. But Daddy Bruce's, I think, is 19th.

Yeah.

And that is.

Then you're going to come out there. Okay. All right.

Great. Thank you. 20th. 20th. Excuse me. It's the first street after 21st.

Okay. So is the Wooner 20th or 21st? 21st. 21st. Okay.

And the existing bike path on the east side is 22nd.

Thank you. That clears things up for me. Okay. I think that's it for me for now. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Kurt.

Thank you. Let's see. I have a few questions. The first is about the B-cycle location. So I saw that you did include your correspondence with B-cycle, but I didn't see any discussion specifically there about whether that's the appropriate location. Really, my question is, it seems like if people are using the B-cycle, they're more than likely going to be going to campus. And so a B-cycle station on the south side seems like it might be more appropriate. So I'm just wondering if any of that came up in your discussions with B-cycle.

Do I need to say my name? Yes, please. I'm Kate Adams with Silver Spartan Architects, part of the applicant team. There you go.

You can bend that.

I can bend it down. So there is an existing B-cycle station out front. So we are just relocating it slightly and adding, I believe... two additional spaces which was discussed with b-cycle two spaces two modules actually so it's more than two it's five spaces five spaces yeah so we're not relocating it because there's already the existing infrastructure there and we're just adding on to provide more b-cycles at that station okay but you didn't have the conversation we did not discuss we're okay yeah fine

The second one is about the Westside private drive. Would you be opposed to a public access easement on that?

Hi, I'm Colin Dinsmore with Martin Martin. I'm the civil engineer for the project. So it was discussed initially, but the issue was that a public access easement in the city precludes the ability to put structures in the easement. And the city considers utility manholes as structures. So a lot of our utilities go through that private drive. And so if it was a public access easement, we wouldn't be able to have utilities in there.

So you can have utilities, obviously, in a public street, but you can't have them in a private street with public access easement?

Correct.

Wow.

So we tried to put a manhole in the public access easement on the east side where the multi-use path is, and that was rejected by the city. It wasn't allowed.

Okay. Interesting. Okay. Thank you. One more question for about transportation. Will your project then be constructing the crossing at 21st Street? Or is that a city project?

I believe anything that we do is going to have to be paid for by us. And I'm sure we'll have to meet the design and construction standards of the city and we'll do what they want.

Okay. Okay. And final question is more architectural. Looking at this view here, did you consider instead of on the townhouse building, instead of a gable reform, did you consider a hip more sort of analogous to what the Lincoln School currently has?

I think it might depend on who answers the question. I can say I never did, because that's Lincoln School. And we're not trying to repeat what they did at Lincoln School, but work in tandem with it. It was felt that that's too historicist, and so we didn't touch it.

OK. Thank you. That's all. I think I just learned a new word, historicist. Other questions for the applicant team? ML has a hand up.

I do have a hand up. Thank you. I have a question. So this perspective that we're currently looking at is quite awesome, except what happened to Goss Grove? I mean, it's like it's a field. So do you have a perspective? or a streetscape that shows that neighborhood. I'm looking for a scalar relationship between what's proposed and what's existing. I don't think I have an issue with it, but I don't see it.

Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, I tried to crop that out consistently because it implied somehow there's a big field there, and we know there's not. But I missed cropping that one. I apologize. The only thing I have, because you can't really do a good... A streetscape going down Arapaho showing both sides of the street? You can do that, but I'm not sure it's going to get you what you're after. We never drew it. I'm sorry. I just lost my sharing. Hang on. I'll get it back. I tried to show that in elevation form, relatively speaking. in this drawing. And I tried to scale these comparably. And of course, you can say, oh, it's not, but that's the best I could do.

So there's no direct relationship between the scale of the proposed, the street.

Of course, the elevation is accurate in terms of its scale. It's a dead-on elevation. The elevations of the buildings across the street, you can see.

Right.

At least I attempted to line them up. The sidewalks are approximately in the same location. But of course, it's perspective.

Right, right. Is that little house there?

The little one next to that dam barrel?

No, I'm looking at the existing historic buildings on the property itself, right?

Oh, that's the relocated...

Correct. Are they about the scale of the neighborhood or are they small, smaller?

I think they're small. They're one story with a small section that are two story in the roof. So it's more comparable to that smaller one, the third from the right.

Right. Right. Okay. And along Arapahoe, from that perspective you were showing before with Gosgrove being the field, we lose our view of the Flatirons. Is there a place inside the project that retains a view for the users of the site?

Yes, it's at the amenity deck on the top floor on the northwest corner of the building. that's all open to the Flatirons view. I will say that today, there's not much of a Flatirons view with those champion trees sitting in front of it.

Well, you had that great picture at the beginning, which is kind of in the middle cropped up, that did show the, right, there you go.

And that you can see has no leaves on the tree.

Oh, up front.

Yeah.

Yeah, because there's trees way back there. But in any case. I have to say that I am quite pleasantly surprised at all of the shifting you did.

We're in questions. We'll get to comments. Do you have a question?

No, I don't have a question. I'm thanking the applicant for their work to get us to this point. Thank you.

Thank you, Emil. I'm sure many of us will have many things to say in comments. Okay, any other questions? We got Max, and then we got Claudia.

Yeah, I guess, and this is kind of broad, but I was wondering if you could address what Steph had mentioned about the desire to maintain one building instead of having a break in form.

Yeah, I think the applicant also, we have a representative from Core Spaces here, but I'll do my best to speak for them broadly. It's very hard to, in a multi- family, particularly a multi-student building, to break it up into multiple pieces, multiple entries, multiple additional stairs, additional elevators, additional staffing. And it's just not practical for them. There's one other thing, which is you don't see one car on this site. The only reason we get that is the cars are in the middle of that first floor. And the other part of it is if you break it into two buildings, you have to break it all the way through or it doesn't work. You can't do it. You've got to actually separate. You can't just do it on the ground floor. You can't just do a keyhole through the building. And then say it's a public way through the building because that won't fly from the access perspective or from various perspectives. So it just functionally doesn't work.

I don't know if you want to add anything, Alyssa.

Yeah.

Hi, everyone. Alyssa Galena with the applicant team from Core Spaces. You know, I echo a lot of what Adrienne has said about the challenges. I mean, I would also add that, you know, we are trying to manage a lot of elements on the site, such as working around the trees and also a fairly complex stormwater design, which Colin could also speak to. But I think, you know, with trying to fit all of those pieces, as well as contain the parking, and maintain the feasibility of the project. It just came down to there was only so many ways we could lay things out. And it was more efficient with one building. So thank you.

I think we're at Claudia. Thank you, Max.

All right, I want to start with the trees. Aside from keeping the building footprint away, how is your proposed site and landscape design, how is it designed to support the continued health of those trees? So I'm specifically interested in, like, what kinds of surfaces and programming are you planning for under those big canopies?

I'm just going to pass it as you do.

Good evening, members of the board. Bill Vitek, part of the applicant team, registered landscape architect here in the state of Colorado, license number 737, as well as a fellow in the American Society of Landscape Architects. I've been practicing in Colorado, the Denver-Boulder area, for over 42 years, and so we've worked on some very impactful projects relative to trees and saving trees and preserving trees and adding new trees. And so we know a lot about trees in urban settings. So in answer to your question, the way the site plan is laying out now, in particular with the Champion Tree to the west, the buildings are actually going to be further back from the existing buildings today. So we're actually providing more ground space around the trunk and the root zone of those trees and the same holds true for the the red oak which is also a champion tree on the east side of the project in fact that building notch was created in order to give more room around that championship oak or champion tree and so The surface underneath that will be, as it is today, grass, so irrigated grass. So we're not changing the regime of water that's going to those trees. And in fact, in some areas, we'll actually be enhancing that and improving it. Does that help answer the question?

Yeah, just to clarify, there's not like extensive pavers or concrete or anything like that in those courtyards?

No, and in fact, again, if we looked at a diagram that, Overlaid the hardscape paving area with now what we're proposing in terms of of soft scape around those trees would actually be increasing that amount of of soft permeable area which allows obviously for greater air water to permeate the roots on okay great Thank you so much.

If I might just add one of those trees, the one to the to the west of the Lincoln school actually has a building sitting over much of its root system. which we're taking out and creating more space around that canopy. So we'll see how that works in terms of it being a change. But if you look at it today, it's sitting right on top of the root system.

Adrienne, if you want to stay up there, I have a couple of questions about the private drive too that you might have anticipated. So how much, if any, of the private drive are you using to meet open space requirements for the RH5 zone?

So I just looked at the numbers. So we had about 5,700 square feet counted of the private drive. We're actually only, so we total, we have 46,113,000 square feet of open space. We're only required to have 32,000 square feet. So even if we don't count the private drive at all, we still fall under the requirements.

Okay, great. And two more questions. One about the private drive. I was wondering what informed the choice of direction for one-way vehicle traffic? Why north to south rather than south to north?

Well, coming to the building, you're more likely to think about it being on Arapahoe than you are on Marine. So that struck at least me that the entry is off of Arapahoe. In fact, city said, well, city staff encouraged us to put an entry on Arapahoe and we added an entry on that northwestern corner to recognize that this is an Arapahoe facing building, but We can't park on Arapahoe. We can't drop off on Arapahoe. And we had to create a system whereby people could come in and do that, including DoorDash and whomever feels that they got to have somebody getting to a front door. More likely off of Arapahoe than off of Marine.

Okay. So it's legibility for casual visitors.

It has to make sense at some level. So I guess legibility is a good word.

Okay. And then last question. I didn't see this anywhere in the renderings. Could you show us any more details, like dimensions, renderings, et cetera, of that north-south pass-through of the garage that you've created between concept review and site review?

North-south pass-through. Oh.

I think it's just pedestrian access, but we asked for that for permeability, and I've