Planning Board - Regular Meeting

So welcome everybody to this meeting May 19 of the boulder planning board, this is our annual retreat. And so, our agenda has a bunch of lovely topics that I will read, but first let's go ahead and do public participation for this meeting. Who is managing our public participation tonight Thomas.

And that will be me. Do you want us to go ahead and read those slides that we typically read?

Yeah. I think that's probably a good protocol.

Okay. Let me pull those up. All right, before we get started, we just want you to know that the city has engaged with Community members to co create a vision. For productive meaningful and inclusive civic conversations. 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 processes on our website. And the following are examples of rules of decorum found in the boulder revised code and other guidelines that support this vision, these will be upheld during this meeting. All remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city business no participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person. obscenity racial epithets and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability to conduct the meeting are prohibited. And participants are required to identify themselves using the name they are commonly known by, and individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online. During the open common opportunity, which will immediately follow this slideshow, if you would like to speak, you can find the raise hand icon at the bottom of your screen and click on that. And that way we'll note a call on you. And if you don't see that raise hand icon you can click the reactions button to expand it and then you'll see the raise hand icon there. And we have no members of the public signed up to speak here in the room so we'll go ahead and go to our online participants, if you'd like to speak, please go ahead and raise your hand. And we have one raised hand we have Lynn Siegel then you'll have three minutes, please go ahead and begin.

Yeah, so I was looking at your agenda, and one of my main concerns is on there, the four bungalows, which Michael Rapp, is that his last name, Rapp? I know a Michael Rapp. Anyway, he's on the board. He voted to preserve 990 where my friend Bob lives. Carmichael used to live before he took up the... What's the name of the house on 11th and near to Broadway in Newlands? Lived in that house. and worked heavily on municipalization. And those four houses should have stayed together. They should not have been split up. Absolutely. If I was on the board, I would never have broken up that family of houses. That was beyond a sin. And now there is no recognition of of what Boulder ever was in the most prominent part of town right in front of the library there's going to be a big looming affordable housing project three stories plus right next to the illegal Now, 1971, the Hyde Amendment went through, and that was built in 63. It should be taken down. There'd be a beautiful view of the Flatirons there if they got rid of Presbyterian Manor. And those four houses should never have been split up. And it's unconscionable that that could ever possibly happen in this community. That's just, I'm fuming with rage about that. Now, the other thing I wanted to bring up was my retrofit, my energy retrofit that the city of Boulder administered to me has cost me my dreams of having geothermal. I waited 25 years to save up for geothermal. It's $90,000. It's not cheap. Plus, I have to have the expense of ducting to the part of the house that I need. And I have to pop up my attic so that I can get a solar roof so that I can get solar on it. I've needed a roof for 15 years. Now I'll have to wait another 15 years. And leaks are going to come in. I'm going to be eaten alive in my house. because of what the city of Boulder did for me. They put in an energy retrofit that's a complete disaster that I won't use one aspect of it. It just elevates the money to Xcel Energy and I won't use it. And it's over-engineered, it's screwed up, it's so unconscionable. You need to do something about that to happening to the people, your constituents in the planning board.

Thank you for joining us tonight, Lynn. And we're seeing no other raised hands or attendees in the audience list. So I'm going to pass it back to you chair.

Thank you, Thomas. Thank you, Lynn. I see Brad has approached the podium. Yes.

I just wanted to welcome everybody and say that, um, we really appreciate a staff, these opportunities for retreat. Uh, we think you do too. And so, uh, excited to have that this evening. We're a little more formal tonight, just both with the setup and the way the agenda got, um, set up it is admittedly going to be a little bit more of a sit and get where we're giving information but these are things that we've heard from you over the year of things that you have a interest in and a deeper dive and of course we coordinated this with the subcommittee that was put together to do this but just always appreciate these opportunities so happy evening

Thank you so much, Brad, and thank you to staff for all their hard work in putting tonight together. So as mentioned, tonight is the annual retreat of the planning board, and we have five items on the agenda tonight. We'll have a discussion about historic preservation and its relationship to site review. We'll have a preview of next steps after the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan is hopefully adopted here pretty soon. Presentation on understanding water resources and impacts. feedback on future code changes that the planning department has planned for us, and then a discussion of how our meeting materials are serving us and if they could be improved. So lots of short topics. We do have some room for discussion in here, and I'm looking forward to each and everything on this agenda. So with that, I will hand it over to staff to start with our first topic, historic preservation and its relationship to the site review. I'm sorry, we should have done attendance. So all seven members of the planning board are present tonight. And I am the chair, Laura Kaplan. Okay, back over to you, KJ.

Great. All right. Thank you for that introduction. Good evening, everybody. Christopher Johnson, Comprehensive Planning Manager. You're going to get a little bit of the KJ show for the first half of this. So I'll be really kind of leading and participating in these first three items. Give me just a moment and I will pull up this presentation. I do have some slides prepared for you tonight. Okay. All right. Is that working? Okay. Great. So tonight we are going to touch just a little bit on the historic preservation program and then more specifically how it relates to the site review process, how that is incorporated into site review, and then also discussions around the demolition review component of historic preservation in particular and some ideas around that. quick little agenda. I will provide you with a little bit of a brief program overview. Many of you actually on the board have served either as a planning board liaison to the Landmarks Board or just may not have as much experience with historic preservation with the Landmarks Board. So try to give a little bit of an overview of the program itself. The value of evaluating historic preservation insight review as a component of the community values that are part of that site review process, and then the timing and relationship. I think that's the crux of some of the discussion tonight is how that timing works and what that demolition process looks like. Again, speak to at least some initial ideas for improvement and certainly interested in receiving feedback from you all on that. So the historic preservation program was established all the way back in 1974. So this predates the comprehensive plan. And the program advances community goals by protecting significant sites, shaping how historic places change over time and telling a complete community history. together with applicants and the community members staff and the landmarks board create meaningful connections to boulder's past so that is the mission of the program itself um the to the program today oversees roughly 1400 designated properties so that includes both individual landmarks and then contributing properties that are within historic districts It sounds like a big number, 1,400 properties, but it's actually only about 3% of the total number of structures and properties within the city of Boulder. They receive and process roughly 350 to 400 applications per year. They do that with a very lean team of two and a half full-time employees. So there's a principal planner, a city planner, and then actually part of Thomas's team on the board and program support and services, a program coordinator that commits half of her time to the management of the Landmarks Board and to the program itself. The other half is then for broader sort of department support. There are five Landmarks Board members, and it's different than Planning Board. They meet only once a month, but they also have something called the Landmark Design Review Committee, which is a committee that meets every week and is composed of one staff member and two board members. And so In total, they commit about 45 to 55 volunteer hours to those two components, to the Landmarks Board and to the LDRC. So that's total time per board member through 2025. There are three key program areas that are identified in the historic preservation plan. So this is a program specific plan that was adopted in 2013 and last updated in 2018. The program areas are historic resource protection, community engagement and collaboration, and then program operations. So tonight, I do have some slides or information on the first two. If you are interested, I'm happy to go through those. But just in the interest of time, I was going to focus more on just the program operations component. They, as of last year, so this is last year, 2025 program highlights, they received 220 landmark alteration certificates. So those are applications for any changes to the exterior of a building that is either an individual landmark or is within a historic district. That was actually a bit of a spike, about a 36% increase from 2024, from the previous year. But it is about average in terms of overall sort of number of LACs, as they're called, that come into the program. There were 144 demolition applications last year, actually the same number as the previous year. And then there were three landmark designations that were initiated by the owners. As I mentioned, this team is very, very efficient and they run a very tight ship. The average initial review time of all those applications was eight days. So that's the time in which they receive the application, it's deemed complete, and then they provide an initial response back to the applicant. And then 83% of all applications, both LACs and demolition applications were approved within three weeks, which is the code requirement for that, 21 days. 68% of the LACs, so about two thirds of the LACs, and then almost eight out of 10 or 82% of the demolition applications are reviewed at the staff level or were reviewed at the staff level last year. um in particular the lacs i'm going to draw your attention to this graph that you see the pie chart that shows that 68 being reviewed at the staff level if you had looked at that same chart in 2024 it would be inverted where 68 or roughly two-thirds of those cases would have gone to the ldrc committee and only about a third of those would have been reviewed at the staff level Last year, we made a change to adjust the types of cases that could be reviewed administratively, and that has significantly shifted the review time away from the LDRC and the Landmarks Board and into staff review. So it's much more efficient. They're able to manage a lot of those simple cases at the staff level, provide good customer service and an answer to applicants really quickly. The other thing that they did last year is go through a whole process. And this was actually department wide to move all of our applications to be online. So trying to improve that intake process, create better customer service and also help with digital accessibility. So site review, as you all well know, that it considers a number of different community values. So certainly consistency with our existing plans, including the comprehensive plan or any sub-community and area plans. But then there's also criteria and descriptions in the site review code language about looking for projects that reduce greenhouse gases. You're examining the site and the building design, the diversity of housing types that are provided, et cetera. And historic preservation is just one component of that sort of broader context of all the community values that you as planning board need to consider through that site review process. The way that historic preservation and site review sort of come together is currently in the comprehensive plan there is policy 2.27. That specifically mentions that the city and county will seek protection of significant historic and cultural resources through local designation. When a proposal by the private sector is subject to discretionary development review so that language was added that specific language about. tying to discretionary review was added in 2002. The policy around historic preservation was included in the comp plan all the way back to the original one in 1977. And then, as I mentioned, that sort of linkage to discretionary review was added 25 years ago now in 2002. Just as far as like a quick look back in the last five years, there's been about 60 site review applications. And nearly all of those had an existing building that had to go through that demolition process. But only five of them ultimately included a designation as a condition of approval. So it's a very small process. portion, you know, less than 10% of the site review cases that you see are going to include some aspect of historic preservation. A couple of great examples that I'm sure many of you are aware of, you've either seen them or maybe even were part of the approvals process on the armory. But these two examples are good examples of Projects that included that were site review projects and included initially a proposal to demolish and remove these buildings and then they were saved and and included and incorporated into those projects and actually ultimately became really the branding feature of those projects that you can see so the first one is the First Christian Church. It's on 28th Street right as you come into town and on Highway 36. And then the armory is out in North Boulder. And the armory building itself was then preserved in and both of these examples were sort of built these, these buildings were built as included as really community facilities and sort of central community centers as part of a larger redevelopment of those of those areas, and really carries that, you know, carries that history into the future. Another one that's actually in process that I think you probably are all aware of, and this is the former Naropa campus on Arapaho. It's about three and a half acres. Student housing is being proposed there in that location. There is one existing landmark on the property itself, and then there were two eligible buildings, and then 17 other buildings as part of that process were ultimately approved for demolition as part of this redevelopment. But there were two, as I mentioned, two eligible buildings called the Chestnut House and the Arapaho House that were really, I think, forward-thinking designers and developers that preserved these two buildings and are actually relocating them on site to then be reused and repurposed as, I believe, administrative offices and other facilities associated with that project. And so for the most part, Those buildings will remain very, very similar in terms of their visual character, but they are being relocated on site and actually being raised to comply with floodplain regulations as well. So I've been mentioning demolition review, and that's I think partly where, at least more recently, there's been a lot of conversations and questions around sort of sequencing and the way that these two things interact, the demolition review and site review. So just for everybody's information and awareness, the demolition review is required for all buildings that are older than 50 years old. So anything that was built in 1940 or later, So up until 50 years ago, which would be 1976. Any of those buildings and all accessory structures are reviewed at the staff level. And then anything that was built prior to 1940 goes to the DRC for that review. As part of that review, historic eligibility is determined. So staff does research on the properties themselves, understands is the property, is there probable cause to believe that the property could be eligible? And then if it moves forward, then they do additional research to really determine, does it meet the eligibility criteria? An applicant can withdraw. through that demolition review process, if eligibility is determined and they may wanna withdraw at that point, they're able to do that, but it's not required. And actually, when there is a subsequent or a concept plan and a site review that is running concurrently with this, staff actually encourage the applicant to withdraw at that point, because then it allows for planning board to understand that a property does have eligibility, but for you all to consider that as part of your deliberations and your discussion around site review and to weigh the historic preservation aspects alongside those other community values. I think the really kind of key point here is that the Landmarks Board, it really has limited purview. They are only able to review and make decisions on elements of historic preservation, but they are not able to consider the full range of community interests when they're making a determination on, are we going to approve a demolition? Are we going to place a stay of demolition? Or are we going to actually recommend a designation of a property? They have to focus on just the historic preservation elements and can't consider all those other factors. As I just mentioned, a demolition review, if it proceeds, there's basically three outcomes. The demolition can be approved, or there can be what's called a stay of demolition, which allows for 180 days or six months to basically have a conversation with historic preservation staff and the applicant to determine, is there an alternative outcome? Is there an option where the property could be saved or moved? Or the third option is that there's consideration of a landmark designation on that property. If that is not brought forward by the owner, then that would be over the owner's objection. And that happens very, very rarely. I believe there's only three cases in the 50-year history of the program. So again, designation over the owner's objection is very rare. So this is the current process where in terms of site review and really the development review process, there is a pre-application meeting, historic preservation, engineering, transportation, everybody is involved in that discussion. And then it moves to planning board concept review. And if there is a historic preservation element, then the Landmarks Board or Historic Preservation staff can consider should that be considered for demolition or does it need to be incorporated into the process or into the project and at that point there would be a design review aspect to that this is where we've found ourselves in the last year or two maybe kind of getting into this doom loop of the demolition review happening prior to or in sequence with or really concurrent with that concept plan and so it creates some tension and some challenges around understanding the eligibility, is Landmarks Board really interested in or considering designation over the owner's objection and then how that then plays into your discussions around the concept review. So one of the ideas for improvement, and this is something we have recognized as a team and as staff over the last couple of years, really, is that there is a need for this determination of eligibility that is independent and separate from the demolition review process. Because what that can do is that decision on eligibility, is a property eligible or not, does it have historic value or not, would inform your concept plan review and discussion, and you would have a better understanding of whether historic preservation really should be considered, or is it even a consideration? Do you even need to think about it? With that determination of eligibility, we could adjust the period of approval to be more aligned with the typical development schedule. So right now, the historic preservation demolition approval only lasts one year. and you have to apply for your deconstruction permit within that one year, a determination of eligibility could extend that, right? Could have a different timeline, and we could establish that as part of that process. Really, the ultimate goal is to try to create a much more clear and predictable process for staff, for applicants, and for all of you as board members, both planning board and landmarks board. So conceivably, this is kind of what that process might ultimately then look like is there would be this insertion of a need for a determination of eligibility that could be identified during the pre-app process, be applied for and be determined prior to your concept review. And then again, you all would have the information to be able to determine should historic preservation be a consideration as part of a concept plan. And if it is, then it can go on to the Landmarks Board and continue to have those conversations in more detail. So that is kind of everything in a nutshell. And I am here and able to answer additional questions, which I assume there probably are some, but also really looking for your feedback and input kind of on the process in general, but also if you have additional ideas on improvements that we can consider, we're all ears. So thank you.

Thank you so much, Christopher, and to, I assume, the two and a half people in the Landmarks staff who helped put that together. Let's separate the questions from the comments for improvement. So first of all, do folks have questions for Christopher about the process or about the suggested change to the process with the determination of eligibility? I see Kirk has a hand up and then ML.

yeah um thanks for that presentation that was great i am not totally clear on how the determination determination of eligibility would work um so if you can go through that more slowly for those of us yeah who think more slowly that would be great uh and it's presumably it's determination of eligibility of for designation right is what that means okay so yeah so there's

Let me turn the mic back on. So there, through that entire demolition review process, there are three, I want to make sure I get this right. There are three fundamental steps or milestones along that process. The first one is the, either the staff or the LDRC review that determines, is there probable cause to think that this building may be eligible? So that's a kind of, windshield survey, so to speak, of a property that determines, you know, does it have architectural character? Is it, you know, what's the context? We do some initial research on the occupants of that structure, etc. So the first step is, could it be eligible? The second step that then goes to the landmarks board is a determination of eligibility where they do decide, yes, the property is eligible based on the criteria, right? So usually it's at that point, at that hearing, that determination of eligibility, when the Landmarks Board makes the decision on whether or not to place a stay of demolition, right? And because basically at that point, they have a decision to make. They can either approve the demolition a place to stay or initiate designation proceedings. So that's the second step is, first step is, could it be eligible? Second step is, is it eligible? An actual determination of that. And then the third step is when they would actually, if taken to its logical conclusion is when they would actually initiate designation on a property So that stay of demolition period, what typically happens is, again, it's 180 days. It doesn't need to take 180 days. The board can act at any moment within that six-month window. But they have six months to essentially evaluate, are there alternative options to demolition? Can the building be saved? Can it be moved? Can it be incorporated into a project, et cetera? And then at the end of that stay of demolition, They they have to make a decision on do we approve the demolition do we just let the stay expire, which means that the demolition is approved by default, or do they actually initiate designation proceedings so does that help.

Yeah, that does clarify the overall process.

Oh, yes. Great. And I didn't actually talk about what this new process or modification might include. Yeah. Okay. So... As I've explained, there's the three steps along the way and they're all tied to the demolition review and there's no off ramps, right? Unless the applicant decides to withdraw. So the staff and landmarks board have to continue through that process unless the applicant withdraws. What we are proposing is that there could be either a modification to the current process or there could be a new process established that essentially would determine, get to the second step of determining eligibility, but then it stops. So it would give the applicant clarity on, is the property historically eligible or not? It would give all of you some clarity on, again, is it eligible or not? Do we need to think about this as part of a concept or site review? Is this a component that we should weigh against the other community values? But what it doesn't do is it doesn't sort of force the hand of staff in the Landmarks Board to go through that entire demolition review process. when again, they don't have the ability to consider other factors. And so what has happened or what can happen is that the Landmarks Board is put into a position of either approving a demolition or initiating designation hearings, when really the important factor would have been, we just need to know is this property eligible and should it be part of a larger conversation around a redevelopment? as opposed to them actually having to go through that entire process. Does that make, does that make sense? Does that help?

Yeah, yeah, it helps. Let me think about that.

Okay. And I will, I will say this is like the initial sort of kernels of idea that we and staff are starting to work through. So you know, as far as the sequencing, the exact timing, how it would actually operate. We haven't figured any of that out yet. So this is, you know, just, I think an idea for consideration and discussion.

I really want to jump to the discussion, but I'm going to hold. Yes. We have other questions. So I see ML's hand and then Mark. ML and then Mark.

So the thing that I'm wondering about regards to landmarks and application review is so how do we know how many projects planning board has actually had an impact on the landmark outcome I mean do we really have any impact on

Yes, I would say so for sure. Because part of, I mentioned that in the last five years, there's been five or so site reviews that included a historic preservation component. And there was a designation that was part of the approval, a condition of approval. So usually the way that that has happened is that the Landmarks Board has determined that there is value to a certain property. So they've determined it is eligible for, And then it is folded into that concept plan discussion. And I know there are cases where a planning board has decided, actually as a good example, I think the Armory and the First Christian Church in that Those were not designated over the owner's objection through the Landmarks Board process. They were included as a condition of approval for the site review by Planning Board. So Planning Board ultimately made the decision to say those properties should be incorporated into this redevelopment. And then through the concept plan review and ultimately revisions and site review, that occurred. And then the landmarks board is brought in to ultimately once those projects are complete, then they come forward for the actual landmark designation and that happens after occupancy.

So of the. You gave us all those statistics at the beginning, insofar as how many applications. for demolition come through, how many of those are just approved out of hand? We know the ratio between things that are required versus are we actually... And I'm asking all of these. It seems that we are removing a lot of the original fabric in the city. And I'm just wondering where is the kind of guardrails for that... where has it become kind of porous or something? So we know, it seems like most everything that wants to get demolished does. Is that a fiction?

Well, yeah, I think that's maybe a perception more than reality. But it is true that unless there is a very, very strong case to designate a property, at least from the landmarks board, perspective their their sort of level of authority is somewhat limited because even even if it goes all the way to where they would initiate landmark designation over an owner's objection city council ultimately makes that decision the landmarks board makes a recommendation to council and it It takes a very strong will of counsel to say, yes, we're going to designate this property, even though the owner doesn't want us to. And so, yeah, I would say that demolitions do tend to happen, partly because of that, because the political will needs to be very, very strong for that not to happen. I would say overall... uh and i can go back and look at the statistics again but i think about 80 or so of demolitions um are reviewed at the staff level um and then um so assuming most of those are going to be approved Usually they're accessory structures or they're, you know, not non-eligible buildings that are, you know, from the 1980s or something like that. But the LDRC and ultimately the Landmarks Board reviews, I would, the LDRC probably reviews in the neighborhood of 10 or 15 of those demolitions. And then either staff or the LDRC can call it up to Landmarks Board. And Landmarks Board only sees probably 5%. I mean, they only see, five to 10 demolitions a year. So it, again, it takes a lot to make its way all the way up to the landmarks board. And then it takes a lot, you know, to, to actually preserve those buildings.

Right. Okay. Well, that clarifies the process. So many of them being retained. You mentioned the Naropa campus. Is that right now going through the landmarking process or the process?

We, yes, that I believe was the April meeting. We provided an update and actually went through and did the, essentially the landmark review of the proposed changes. So the LACs for those properties, which were approved. And then once that project is complete, then those properties will be brought back in for the actual designation.

Right. So yeah, that already came through the concept review here. Okay. Thank you.

Yep. Thank you, ML. Mark, and I want to note that we are going over time here, and I think that's totally appropriate and fine. If there are any items on our agenda that we do not get to tonight, staff has said we can bring them back as matters items in the future. So I want to make sure that we have the conversations that we need to have tonight. So don't worry too much about time, but let's keep it moving.

Okay, Mark. Okay, it should be quick. The percent, this, in regard to the proposed new process, uh a rough based on past experience can you say at the determination of eligibility point how many applications would be determined to be eligible it's difficult for me to

It's probably, you know, it'll be difficult for me to estimate, but if I were to use the number of stay of demolitions as a kind of a proxy, I would say there are three to five a year, something like that.

Okay.

Yeah. Okay. So not a huge amount, but enough that it might be a meaningful process improvement.

And the timeframe required from... determination of probable cause to determination of eligibility, about how long would you plan for that taking?

Yeah. Right now that I believe that from the moment that it is called up to the landmarks board, because there is probable cause to think that it is eligible. I believe it is a 60 day window that they have to then hold the hearing. So that usually happens pretty quickly. So we would, I would, you know, we would want to be able to at least meet that same timeframe and ideally improve on that. Brad.

Yeah. I want to add in, correct me if I'm wrong about this, but I think we started thinking about this and I think the team did some research on other communities because this question has come up in other communities, chicken and egg. And we came across this determination of eligibility where folks can, you know, get that determination before actually doing the demolition. And we've actually had that question come up on some city buildings like, all right, do we apply for a demolition so that we could figure out whether it's historic, even though we don't plan to demo it for two years or three years? But we want to know if it can't be demoed because that obviously changes the plan. So I think that was some of the evolution, if I remember correctly.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, just Denver has a very similar process where they provide a certificate of eligibility that lasts five years.

Mark, were you done? Yeah. Okay. All right. I do have a question. Do you mind if I go next, Kurt, and then you can have another bite at the apple? Okay. Christopher, can you show us what are the criteria that the Landmarks Board uses to determine eligibility versus what are the criteria that the Landmarks Board uses to determine whether to designate over a property owner's objection?

Yes, that is a great question. It may take me a minute to find the code reference, but I will find it. And if I can't find it, I will happily follow up either later in the meeting or...

I think it's 91123F.

Kurt, was this part of your question? Did you want to go ahead and...

Yeah, well, just my question was very closely related, which is that the eligibility for designation is only one of four, I think, criteria that the Landmarks Board applies when they're determining whether to issue a demolition permit. So there's eligibility for designation, but then there's also a relationship of the building to the character of the neighborhood. the reasonable condition of the building and the reasonable, reasonable protected cost of restoration or repair. And so really, my question is, do when you talk about eligibility for designation, do you? Are you really wrapping all four of those in? Or are you just talking about eligibility for designation?

Well, I don't think we know yet, actually, because, yeah, that's a great point. So there is the eligibility criteria to determine whether a property has historic merit, but then you raise a great point that in terms of determining whether or not to approve a demolition, there are these other factors that you mentioned, you know, in terms of the cost of rehabilitating the structure, the structural, you know, integrity of the structure, you know, that kind of thing. So we... would want to just thinking off the top of my head, I don't think we would want to end at just eligibility because that's, there's more to the conversation because if we just determine eligibility and we tell you as planning board, Hey, this property is eligible. That doesn't give you all the necessary understanding of, well, it's eligible, but it's falling apart and we can't save it. So we shouldn't consider it as part of a concept plan. So my sense is, is that determination of eligibility, would would be beyond just the eligibility from a historic perspective, but also yes taken to some considerations around demolition. Thanks for the question.

Thank you. And then the landmarking over the property owner's objection goes a step farther, and there are additional criteria that they have to consider, right? Such as, is there community support for retaining the structure? And does the historic value outweigh the private property rights of the owner? That's correct. Are there others that I'm not remembering?

There certainly may be others that you're not remembering because I'm not remembering them, but yes, I will continue to dig in the code to find those criteria and give you the reference.

Okay, thank you. Other questions? None from my left. Other questions on this side? Okay, then are we ready to go to comments or suggestions for improvement? Thoughts from the board? Kurt?

sorry I do have one other question so the originally my understanding was that the plan was that the historic preservation plan would be updated as part of the Boulder Valley comp plan update and that clearly is not happening do you know the the the schedule for that or any

any notions about the general scope because it seems like that would interact with this quite lightly yes and that that's actually a really a really great process question so we we did previously have conversations a year or two ago um around work planning and and the conversation around updating the historic preservation plan. We ultimately did decide to put that on hold partly just because of staff resources and we had some turnover and things like that. But also we were concerned about, you know, community fatigue of engaging in multiple processes at the same time related to different plans and different topics. So We maintain the focus on the comprehensive plan. What I can tell you is that the program and myself and others in the department, we are essentially doing what we're calling an evaluation of the existing historic preservation plan over the next several months, kind of through the fall, to help us scope what, A, update might look like because part of the part of the evaluation part of the feedback from from staff is that yes there are there is a need for us to revisit this plan there is a lot of new and emerging you know research and other things within the historic preservation field that we want to be responsive to. There's equity considerations, et cetera. So there's a really strong interest in looking closely at the plan, but there's also a recognition that there's a lot of really great information in there and we're probably not going to need to overhaul it completely. So we're going through that evaluation period with hopes that we'll have then a clearer and better sense of what an update really looks like going into 2027.

And I'll add, there was one other reason we put it on hold. And I'm not even sure putting it on hold is the right characterization. So part of the vision for looking at the plan three years ago, two years ago, envisioned process as part of that. We subsequently ended up doing process review and improvements, as you see by the switch from 24 to 25. So what was envisioned, you know, pretty good chunk of what was envisioned as updating the plan essentially got addressed independent of that effort. We're not using the word audit. What did we decide? Evaluation. Evaluation, thank you, of the plan may indicate that there isn't a whole lot to bring forward. There are some new ideas in the field and such. So fundamentally, we just re-looked at the intent and scope.

That answer your question Kurt okay ideas or suggestions for staff about the historic preservation processes relationship to site review, especially. I have some thoughts. So that I will share so I Christopher, thank you for reminding us how. the historic preservation ties into our criteria for site review. We don't really have a lot of criteria in site review. Just this one, I mean, there's the piece in the BBCP, but as we all know, it's very hard to make a decision based on things in the BBCP because we are not required to implement everything in the BBCP through site review. But we do have a criteria that says that if present, the project protects significant historic and cultural resources. And where I have gotten hung up on is how do we know if those historic and cultural resources are significant and present, right? And the Landmarks Board is the right authority to make that determination. That's their sole charge, right? And I appreciate the thought of there would be some step independent of demolition review in which the landmarks board would weigh in and provide information to planning board so that we could consider whether those historic resources are significant and present. My thinking is having a property owner incorporate a historic structure through site review is very similar, if not the same, as designating over the property owner's objection. They come to us They don't want to do it, but they will do it if we make them, basically, if we say that is a requirement for getting your site review approved. So I think we should take that very seriously, and we should have the level of information that Landmarks Board has about the criteria that they use and their determination of whether this project meets those criteria. And that includes the criteria for eligibility, the criteria for demolition, and in my view, ideally, and I think it should, include all the criteria that are used for designating over the property owner's objection. And I would love to see a vote tally. Does it meet this criteria? Three of five said yes. Does it meet this next criteria? Two of five said yes. And then we just see the full picture of that. It's not like it's a checklist that every single one has to have a majority, but we can then use that information to say, do we feel that these historic values are you know, are balanced properly against the other things that we consider in site review. That for me would answer my objection to doing historic preservation through site review, because I don't feel like we have the qualifications, the knowledge, and frankly, the thorough evaluation that Landmarks Board does of does this project meet these criteria for designation over the property owner's objection. So that's my suggestion is that in that initial step, Landmarks Board should go through those criteria and give us a vote tally for each one. But I recognize that that could take some time. And I know that sequencing and not inconveniencing property owners by making them wait a long time is also a consideration. So if there's a way to do that efficiently, quickly, and separate it from the demolition review, I really think it should be unhooked completely from the demolition review. It shouldn't be just trying to hurry through those stages because those stages take time. But some sort of fair initial evaluation would be amazing. Those are my thoughts. I don't know if other people want to weigh in on that or other thoughts that you have. I don't speak for the whole board. So, Kurt.

Well, one of my concerns with the demolition ordinance as it currently stands, and this is something that I dealt with when I was on the Landmarks Board and then also here on Planning Board, is that The criteria for demolition, demolition approval, don't consider the breadth of values in the Boulder Valley comp plan, right? This is something Christopher talked about at the beginning. All they consider is the historic value, sort of, and weighed against the cost of restoration and so on. But not, for instance... what alternative uses might be there, the various, all the other values that are in the comp plan. And so I would, my preference, I don't know whether this would actually work, but my preference would be a solution that broadened that review to include a full evaluation of the trade-offs of historic designation versus the other values in the comp plan. I mean, it's not always a trade-off. Sometimes there are benefits, certainly, to historic preservation in terms of the values of the comp plan. But considering all of those values, and then that, if that were the the basis for the consideration for we'll call it eligibility for demolition, then that it feels like would be much more consistent with what we do in site review, the evaluation that we make, where we are considering on balance the values, everything that's in the comp plan. And so that would be a significant change, right? But this is something that It has bothered me for a long time. And interestingly, Historic Boulder has also mentioned this recently and said, hey, why are we not taking a broad view of the comp plan values when we're making these determinations? I don't know. Curt Brown, Exactly what they're thinking is on that, but I was surprised to see that they were on seem to be on board with that so it's just something to keep in mind as we think further about the historic preservation program overall.

Thank you Kurt ml.

What it is a thought.

So just kind of following up on what you're saying there or conversation you're starting there, Kurt. I think one of the things on the recent project that we saw that had those, I think, four houses that had been considered and one of them was maybe going to move forward in the consideration process. I think the thing that I know that I reflected on was the fabric of the community that they create and i don't know that they're but that i know that was that one sentence um in the review process for the i think landmarks but when we consider context um I don't know that there are, um, special, a special lens that we can apply to what is the value of this sort of historic fabric. Maybe the buildings themselves have whatever issues they might have not be, uh, worthy or too expensive to maintain or whatever, but they created something that, um, gave a quality to the context. I don't know that we, it would seem that if we could translate some of that, then it becomes very relevant to the site review and the task that we end up with, which is how does it fit its context? It's usually like, well, the buildings are the same height or the buildings aren't the same height. And it kind of stops at that. Whereas I think if it, you know, we just had that example. Yes. There is something it would be, I think it would behoove the community at large to not just be removing swaths of history because the buildings themselves weren't eligible or, you know, we're too far gone to maintain, et cetera, et cetera. So it just, I think that there's another, it's a planning scale that is missing that might want to enter into the conversation and maybe inform both the review at that specific landmarks process and at the site review.

in the spirit of a retreat conversation rather than board projecting out. I'm going to ask ML, what I heard there sounds as though even in the context of those four buildings, those four buildings were determined to be ineligible for landmarking, but are you trying to create or suggesting that we create a second level of criteria about fabric that would actually be able to landmark buildings that were ineligible themselves for landmark. I don't understand what it is you're suggesting actually.

i don't know that i'm suggesting something i'm just bringing up the gap and of those four buildings one of them had been uh identified as moving forward and you know i wasn't weighing in on well these are valuable buildings let's hang on to them and just create all the all the chaos that they're going to create as much as there's something of value here and if it's not the buildings then it's about the context that they created. And that is a criteria in planning board that we don't really have a lot of, there isn't a lot of weight in our conversation about context. To me, I think a building fitting into its context is pretty huge, but that gets railroaded over because we don't have, and I think landmarking or the characteristics that landmark or historic or even just old things bring to a neighborhood If there, I think that those are qualities that might be able to be captured somewhere. And the conversation isn't about saving old buildings that shouldn't be saved as much as it is, there was some value here and let's try to identify what that value was. So no, I'm not looking at having people landmark things that weren't, but I think it happens when, you know, people have it's got a lot of different names out there in the world right where you just swipe the swipe it clean and it's nothing had ever been there before um and i don't know that we want to have you know boulder um be only about that you know what's new it's like we've been around for a while and there's some value in what's here i think that to me has been the disconnect between uh landmarks and site review is that it's a scale thing it isn't just about the buildings It's about the planning and the neighborhood, et cetera. So that's kind of what I'm seeing as a missing piece.

Thank you, Amal. Other thoughts on this topic?

Sure.

Max?

Yeah, I think I get where ML is coming from because this did come up the other day and I did agree with the point. And if I may just try to echo it for clarity, I think the idea is that the landmark process is always going to be inextricably tied to the building itself, right? And I think if I may, what you're getting at is that some, is there a way, and I think this would be very nuanced and difficult, but to tie the value that the building provides other than the literal building. So, for instance, like visual breaks, you know, different heights in a neighborhood or, you know, different architectural styles within the same 400 meters. So if we take four separate buildings that each have subtly different architectural forms and we replace them with one building that's essentially a monolithic slab, even if those four buildings that we lost, we didn't feel deserved damage. landmarks designation, we also lost a variety of character on that architectural character on that particular block. And I think, is that what you're getting at? That we've lost something different than the literal buildings?

Do you mind if I jump in? Yeah. So I know that in some of our site reviews, we've had conversations around, well, maybe the building can't be saved, but could the project echo it in some way or pay homage to that building that is lost in its design character? I don't know that that's something that we can require as a planning board, but we certainly have suggested that to project proponents. And sometimes they take it up and sometimes they don't. Back to you, Amal.

I've said everything needs to be said. The project that comes to mind is the one that happened at Pearl and Folsom that met your building, make a building that it came to us and they were going to save a roof and put it in their lobby. And I'm just like, no, I don't think so. And I don't know how the rest, I don't remember how the rest of the board, but that particular applicant, I don't think that they were required. Matter of fact, they made a big strong case that it hadn't met any requirements to be saved. However, they came back and, And they had, you know, done a pretty cool thing, not only saved a building, but saved a small business because they sold it, you know, to the person and now they have a site and they can continue forward as a small local business in there. So I think that there are various ways to think about what is being preserved and how it's being preserved. And I guess my point is sometimes it's not just the building. And somebody asked me recently, so when is Mustard's going to be gone? Speaking about what we preserve about when things are gone. I know this isn't under the umbrella of necessarily landmarks, but it would be interesting to see if in our affordable commercial process, we could create a pathway for things that have been in the community, icons that have been in the community for a long time, for them to find a home in the redevelopment process of the city so that they don't just vanish into thin air. I mean, people have talked about the dark horse, right? Where is it going to go? And apparently it is going to go somewhere, not in Boulder, I don't think. But just the idea to start creating a pathway for some of our historic fabric not to just vanish.

Thank you, ML. Any last thoughts? Kurt?

Thanks. This discussion, I guess, to me relates a little bit back to what Christopher mentioned earlier on about sort of new thinking in the historic preservation field. I read this book. I think it was called Second Order Historic Preservation or something like that. It was very dense and dry. It was great for falling asleep at night. I would get like two paragraphs in. But one of the things that she criticizes kind of in the traditional thinking in the historic preservation field is I don't think she had a different term, but basically landmark as object, she would talk about. And which means like, okay, here's this museum piece building that's sitting here. And we're going to say, we're going to preserve, you know, focus so heavily on what the siding planks are and completely ignore the entire context. And, you know, what's happening on the streetscape and, you know, the planes flying overhead and, you know, all the other things that are changing around it and, and thinking more broadly, I think is really what she was, she was talking about. So I, I think that there is some of that thinking based on the one book that I read, there is some of that thinking in the field, how that actually relates, how you manifest that into code is a harder question, but you know, that's why we have smart people. So. Just wanted to relate that.

Any last thoughts, especially on how landmarking can be better brought into site review and meet our needs as a board for when we are faced with these decisions of do we ask the applicant to submit to landmarking voluntarily, you know, voluntarily as a condition of site review? What information we need and are we getting it? That for me is the crux, right, in terms of thinking about site review and our job as a planning board. Any other thoughts on that? Any other thoughts that are not directed by me but are directed by you? Okay. All right. Christopher, did you get what you need?

Yes, I did. Thank you for that. And there's another term called the culture of preciousness that we're trying to unwind a little bit related to historic preservation. So I think that's that same idea of focusing on these museum pieces. So thank you for the discussion. Yeah, it was great.

Okay, so I think we're ready to move on to our next agenda item, B2, preview of next steps after the BVCP. Over to you, Brad Mueller.

Well, actually, I'm just standing up because we're going to tag team on this one, and I don't think we have a presentation per se. It's a little bit more about... We can speak a little bit about what implementation looks like, maybe just as a starting point, but really wanting to just field any questions that you have with the upfront disclaimer that... In many cases, we don't know yet. We haven't scoped that out. In many cases, it needs to fold into priorities that are identified through other city processes, not the least of which is council priorities, but certainly not the only one. And if you remember some of the charts, the relationship of the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan to other things that lead to implementation, those include, just very briefly, I guess I'll do this, the citywide strategic plan, which is taking on kind of a new form and just a quick history on that. So two years ago, Nury and others in city manager's office identified what they've perceived as a gap between the very comprehensive nature of the comprehensive plan, of course, and the individual implementation that was happening at the work plan level and said, well, how do we, for our own organizing as an organization, identify the things that we're going to most focus on, not exclusively, but cross-departmental, maybe bigger. So the first ever citywide strategic plan was baked. It was really envisioned as more of a staff operational type of thing, but council, of course, learned of it and was interested in it and approved of it and wanted to be more involved with the second iteration. So We anticipate that being done by the end of this year and there will be some role for council. It'll be a little bit expanded too, but it essentially is going to pull items out of, not all items, select items that would be strategically the next set of things to focus on for the next four years out of the comprehensive plan and identify those, call it 30 to 50 items. And then that will be the citywide strategic plan that helps implement some elements of the comprehensive plan. Again, not intending to encompass the entire breadth of all the things that the city does, not the least of which is 80 or 90% is daily operations, but those things that have an initiative to them that'll have a start and a stop that seem to be most timely in terms of needs and priorities. That citywide strategic plan then feeds into or at least is complemented by the budget as we've represented to you, the capital improvements plan, which is a six-year plan in the city of Boulder, the individual sub-community plans, and then what have historically been known as master plans. We're trying to find a new term for that. and also have those be not always identified with just a department like the transportation master plan or the stormwater transportation plan. There still will be those, but more overarching ones like the wildfire plan, for example, would be a more modern equivalent of that historic master plans. And then I feel like I'm missing one, but, and then, kind of below that are the individual work plan items by department and ultimately to individuals. So every individual in the city has goals that are set as part of their performance review. And so that identifies a work plan as well. So that's kind of the up and down of the relationship of some of the components for implementation of the comprehensive plan structurally. And then I would add informally, is the interactions with the community and it is the community's plan so for example there are policies around health and education and these types of things that the city is not necessarily the lead but certainly a partner in many cases towards implementing a vision and and policies and we encourage other entities throughout the community To do that, whether it's arts organization or downtown Boulder partnership or the chamber or the university or the school district. So I would say that's kind of a broad overview of implementation. What did I miss?

That all sounds good. Sounds good.

So I think we just wanted, in suggesting this as one of the agenda items that the subcommittee agreed to, just wanted to open the floor for questions about what that might look like in the next couple of years, any suggestions that you'd want to make. It might trickle into what do we see looking around the corner as work plan items for the department next year. Even if those are things that aren't very directly applicable to the work that you do, we're happy to speak about all those.

Questions from board members? Claudia, did you? Why don't you go ahead, Claudia, because you haven't spoken yet, and then back to Emma. Sure.

So the part of the comp plan that I've spent the most time thinking about and working on in this process is that land use map. And I know we're proposing some substantive changes there. Do you anticipate creating new zoning districts? And if so, on what timeline and via what process would that be? So to harmonize zoning with the new land use map?

Can I give a first shot at that? Sure.

And then I'll toss it to Charles. No, that's good. Sounds good.

So I have asked Charles in particular and others who've been through iterations of this before, what is this? I keep hearing about like, Oh, we've then subsequently gone back and rezoned properties, imposing zoning or a rezoning specifically on properties is, at least in my experience and in the industry is not popular, right? People don't like having things done to them and rezonings are often initiated, almost exclusively initiated by folks. And it really came back to the fact that the land use map and the zoning map had a very close one-to-one relationship. And so if the issues got worked out through changing the land use map in the past and that was kind of a signal towards rezoning it, and it kind of followed in force. And Charles, you're gonna keep me honest on this. I don't wanna mischaracterize it. But with these being now re-imagined as larger umbrellas of potential suitable uses that will be determined through rezonings that really think about site-specific needs in that point in history, in that geography, according to specific criteria, as there are criteria today. Some of that going and prescribing that on to people is not something I envision, and I want the three of you to feel free to disagree with me because we've only kind of scratched the surface on how this might look. So I think some of the expectation of the past of, oh, then we're going to sweep in and do all these kind of de facto rezonings is not what I've envisioned, but rather would be more organic over time. I think a few council members have signaled an interest in, well, but maybe implementations means we look at changing what the zoning district X allows, not unlike the family friendly, vibrant neighborhoods. That's kind of a different scenario in my mind that you're talking about kind of the base of what the zone district allows. But I don't, you know, I don't see that. And again, I don't want to contradict some of the thinking we haven't talked through. So Hela or Charles, if you feel free, like I'm off on a limb here. Full freedom to disagree.

Well, I think that's mostly right. You know, following many of our comp plan updates, there has been what's been referred to as a comprehensive rezoning. And to Brad's point, oftentimes people don't love the idea of their property being rezoned. So I think what we've done in the past is we've offered it as an option to people. If you'd like to be part of the comprehensive rezoning, your land use has changed recently. Here would be the benefit or what this would really mean on the ground for your property. And folks could either opt in or opt out. If they opted out, they could come in at a later time to Brad's point more organically. That involves a lot more process than when the city initiates it. It's also a lot more expensive to have an initial or individual property rather rezoned. The other thing that I would say is that it's pretty rare that we craft new zoning to support these kinds of implementations to the comp plan unless there's specific policy objectives that we're trying to achieve. Out of one of the updates, I have lost track to which one along the 28th Street frontage we decided we need a lot more student housing. This is a great opportunity here since we've built these underpasses right across from the university to load up the density for students. So we wrote new zoning to help effectuate that. Similarly, our business main street zoning was an outgrowth of a comp plan update. So areas like Uni Hill were rezoned. So we were getting more neo-traditional development. So pretty rare that we had craft new zoning unless we're really trying to implement a specific policy objective that had grown out of the plan.

Okay, and that is kind of what I was asking about is do you anticipate not imposing new zones necessarily, but would there be new zones that would be created to be available, right? Based on some of the direction in the comp plan. That's one pathway, so. And then again, what that process would be, right? Like, is that something that staff is gonna be looking for? Is that something that needs to come from council as a work plan item? How would that unfold?

Thank you, Claudia. ML is next, and then Kurt. Were you colloquing?

Okay, perfect. So speaking to what you're saying there that zoning updates would happen potentially based on comp plan goal. And I'm thinking about the 15 minute neighborhood. Right now we don't have zoning wouldn't allow some of the things that are envisioned with that. So To that specifically, can you talk about timing and how that might unfold as when can people anticipate that they might be able to take action on that gold?

Yeah, Charles was just alluding to something maybe I'll elaborate on that we're talking about the refresh of Title IX. You know, my personal answer to that is a combination of the organic. So could people come do something tomorrow, for example, after the comp plan is updated? Yeah. Here's a rezoning if it's compatible with the vision of 15 minutes and your current zoning doesn't do it, that's a good reason to do it. Will we prospectively go out and even suggest that? Certainly not initially. It's not a work plan item. We haven't determined the priorities of implementation. There may not. There may be many ways to approach that too that are a combination of capital improvements. Encouraging rezoning to the property owners maybe even a sub community plan or an area plan I guess in that case. So there's lots of different answers to that. What Charles was alluding to with the Title IX is that we do envision both as something that we've been contemplating for a couple of years now, acknowledging that zoning codes, development codes, have this kind of organic nature to them by definition. You make changes kind of year by year, and after a time, they become a little bit Frankensteined, not through poor implementation or poor intent or anything, but when you're doing this piece and then this piece and this piece, you get a collective. And so it's not a bad idea to refresh it every 20 years. And so we've contemplated that now for a couple years, and council's kind of picked up on that too and is encouraging that. We will likely have that as a work plan item next year, although it's heavily dependent on whether we can get the budget resources to do that. And we are going into a restrained budget year. So we're going to have to see if that happens. I have argued vigorously that it has to be done with outside consultants, both because of workload, but honestly less about that and more the objectivity that we would gain from having an outside consultant. We're all too close to it. I would argue you all are too close to it. So having somebody who can do that and say, hey, have you ever realized that this part and this part actually could probably be combined and put over here? And so very preliminary, but kind of three thoughts about that refresh would be, one, the mechanics of internal consistency. Hela, the rest of the, Carl, everybody who works on new code changes is real careful about making sure the mechanics are consistent. But by design, we don't go and look at potential policy implications beyond kind of the immediate mechanics of putting the new code. code implementation in. So that would be internal consistency. One is organization and legibility, making it more user-friendly, so to speak. And then the third would be looking at a few of the process elements of it and cracking open questions about use relative to site review relative to the land use charts and things like this. What that doesn't leave is a whole lot of room for lots of new stuff to be implemented in it but maybe you know maybe aspects of the 15-minute neighborhood are parts of this and this and i anticipate some vigorous uh discussions with council in particular about what that trade-off is because it's probably the difference between a two-year project and a five-year project so i'm going to be arguing the point that bringing those kind of individual implementation items that are on the scale of family friendly or occupancy or something like that really does need its own due in time.

Because it just seems that, you know, we've put a lot of energy and attention both to to the process and from the public to the process on this 15 minute neighborhood concept. And if we come at the end and then it's just like, well, we can't do anything about it because you still can't have a little business in your neighborhood and we still can't do the things. The question is, well, to what end have we gone through the effort of reimagining this fluidity that we don't have right now?

Yeah, and I would argue in most of those cases, the person can do the thing. They'll need to come in with the rezoning or they'll need to partner with us on a vision for capital improvements in that area and things like that. You're going to hear, council's going to hear me say a lot that it is a 20-year plan. It's not a implement in one year plan. And I don't mean that to be cheeky. I mean that to be realistic about the fact that cities are organic. They build, they take time. You know, Rome wasn't middle of the day kind of thing. And if we try to do all things all at once, we will do them poorly, just to be blunt about it from a policy standpoint. So there's a lot to be said about working on the foundation of Title IX for the reasons I mentioned. And I'm gonna ask you, I'm gonna ask council, to be very mindful of how big a bite we try to take in doing that. You know, to use another metaphor, if we try to boil the ocean.

Thank you. Thank you for your thoughtfulness.

Plus, Steph doesn't want to do 20 years worth of work in one year. I'm pretty sure. I mean, they haven't. Oh, come on. You could. They haven't explicitly said that. They've already done that. So, yeah. Yeah.

Kurt.

Kurt. Well, I guess I have a comment. Is that okay?

Let's get wild. Go for it.

Okay. This is going to be so wild. It seems like, well, I really appreciated Claudia's question about the land use map and the relationship to the zoning. It seems like really there are these three options, right? Either we keep the existing zoning or we completely replace it with new zoning or we do some hybrid where we're slowly transitioning, right? And so in the first case, if we keep the existing zoning, it seems like it's going to be hard to really achieve the goals of the COMP plan, right? Because we've got so much inertia, you know, around the existing zoning and stuff. It seems like it's going to be really hard to change that in a way that embraces fully the values, the goals of what we're trying to achieve. And in the third option, the third option, we're, yeah.

You left that middle option there. Yeah.

I was careful, trying to be careful with my fingers. It just, wow, that seems like a really ugly mess to have this hybrid where you've got this old zoning regime and then a new zoning regime and you're using both of them at the same time and That sounds awful to me. And so in my view, I understand the concerns about people getting rezoned. But to me, it feels like that is the way that we meet the goals of the Bulda Valley comp plan, the new Bulda Valley comp plan, and also keep things from just being this ugly, you know, kind of mixed, weird, mixed regime that it would be, to me, really hard to deal with.

Well, if you don't mind indulging me, I'd like to kind of speak to all three of those points a little bit. And I certainly freely welcome folks to disagree on either verbally or to themselves about my comments on that. And let me make sure I have the three. So leave the zoning as it is, go in and rezone two folks and then kind of let it happen organically over time. So the first thing I would say for all three of those is to not think of zoning as this binary, well, let me back up even more from that. As much as we like to think that zoning will save the world, The reality is it is not the only thing out there in the big wide world that influences cities. And while it's important, it is not the only thing that kind of leads to the organic nature of, of cities. We use zoning as a blunt tool to try to guide towards a common vision, but it is a blunt tool at the end of the day, because it's meant it, it, it is binary. You're in this district, you're in that district. So I would encourage the, idea around leaving things the way they are as not being a binary thing, where the opposite of that is changing everything. It already is an agglomeration of things that have evolved over time. So, for example, the rezoning district didn't change, but the allowances under single-family detached or family-friendly vibrant zoning was to allow duplexes, fourplexes, you know, in that zone district, those have not popped up overnight, right? That's going to be a multi-generational change. So even though that ground rules have changed, same with ADUs, the rules to ADUs changed, I don't know, 20 years ago at one point, and then 2018, and then more recently, of course, and these things happen organically. So it's not... In practice, it doesn't immediately go into effect anyway in there. So the current regulations. And I would also encourage you that for some people, they very much hold on to the reality that the current zoning that they have is a property right, as defined by the courts. And so in changing that property right, especially to scenario two of like, hey, you've got industrial now and you're going to be residential tomorrow because we're rezoning to you, that's very, very unpopular from a property rights standpoint. Now, in practice, usually there would be more of an upzoning. Oh, you had residential that allowed one, and now you have four, and people are generally like, well, that's good. I get to do more than I used to be able to do. But it is still being done to people kind of in that scenario. And then the third one of having it happen over time, which I would argue is kind of the fundamental intent of a process that allows people to come to the vision of a comprehensive plan, to a vision of policymakers such as yourself and council, and do it in a way that makes sense from a timing standpoint and what fits in the neighborhood and saying, hey, this change actually aligns with where things have been going the last five years, and we want to do that. East Boulder sub-community plan. The Flatirons Industrial Park, built as a traditional industrial park in the 70s. Lots of green space around it. Organic changes. The city is densifying. There's transportation more accessible. There's a vision of more of it moving towards that to allow things like a mixture of uses, etc. So, So I would just encourage some of you know some thoughts around those three different scenarios.

Thank you, I think mason did you have something mason hasn't gone yet and then back to mark.

Brad largely covered it, it was just a recognition that there's a fourth way, which is really just taking the current and adding additional opportunities to that and I didn't know if that was. maybe what you all are currently thinking of doing and to, as Kurt put it.

Yeah, I think it could be characterized for that. I mean, you, The two of you were in the room as you kind of debated those things.

Yeah, and I mean, we certainly haven't landed on, you know, an approach. And I think it will also very much be determined through the council priority setting process and other things because they're off the top of my head. I can think of five, six, seven, eight significant zoning changes, but that are completely different topics. One's around housing and density in different locations. One is around allowing commercial uses in a residential neighborhood. One is, et cetera, et cetera. So my sense is that each one of those changes is significant enough in and of itself that we won't be able to do all of them at once. Or will potentially run the risk of, you know, pitchforks and torches outside of council chambers. But, you know, but doing each one of those individually, we're going to have to have a trade-off conversation around which one of these things is the most... important and valuable at this given moment. And so I think that's where we're sort of in this, you know, in this situation now where there's a lot of really great things we can do. And ultimately, we're going to need time to sort that out and understand and understand where the community is, where you all are, where council is. as to what those priorities are so that then as individual annual work plans come along, we can actually do the things. But we're still sort of swimming in the fog a little bit right now. We don't exactly know what's going to be the priority.

Thank you. Mark?

So all these different paths forward, and I think maybe, well, I understand that, and after going through the BVCP process, how the, I have a better understanding of how the land use map, the proposed land use map is less fine grained, is more broad brush. And I have a great appreciation for that. I also have great appreciation for how fine grained our zoning is currently. So, And I understand people's property rights and their desire to, hey, I'm making, this is mine and I'm making plans for it 50 years down the road and that sort of thing. And I don't, I'm not interested in having you change that unless maybe it's to liberalize it. But, and so those property owners who do want to make a change to their zoning, What I would be concerned about is that we add additional zones and I would certainly discourage us from adding even more grains of sand to our current zoning. But if we took the land use map and said, okay, if we had a clean slate to lay zoning underneath the land use map, so that when an applicant came and said, I wanna change my zoning, we could say, well, you can keep your zoning or you can change your zoning, but if you're gonna change your zoning, it is to this new designation that is more aligned with the overlying land use map. And that we have a set of zones that is simpler, more comprehensive, less fine grained, more aligned with the land use map but is implemented upon request of property owners should they want to change. I don't know, is that? Anyway, I wouldn't want to see us add a bunch of zones and I don't want to see us take away a bunch of property rights, but it does seem like ultimately the goal would be to have zoning more aligned and a little less fine grained than the land use map.

Yeah, I think we understand that concept, and I would expect we'll have discussions around that. Great, thank you.

Can I colloquy on that? So one thing that's a little confusing to me in terms of rezoning is that with making the land use designations broader, such that many different zonings might be appropriate under that land use designation, are we looking at having more sort of patchwork zonings where your zoning isn't necessarily the same as your neighbor's? Because currently when we do rezonings, we usually, we look at the context and what's around it. And usually you're really only eligible for a rezoning to something that is adjacent to you, right? Like maybe you're on the border between a higher density and a lower density and you can upzone to it. But now if we have three or four different designations that might be appropriate based on the land use map, how is that going to relate to the neighbors? Like, could you have more of a patchwork so that they're not necessarily consistent?

Laura, you've forced me to go on my rant of spot zoning and, And poor staff has heard this too many times, so they can be excused for a moment if they want. I feel as an industry, quote unquote, of land use regulation, we have vilified spot zoning. Certainly zoning, when you go back to its origins 100 and odd change years ago, was to very much separate incompatible uses, a factory with a resident, right? over time, and especially in the last 50 years, we've recognized that through design standards and nuances in the use tables and things like that, there's a whole lot that we can mitigate between uses. So up to the point that I would argue if you had the right factory next to the right residential, maybe even it would work. That's maybe a bit extreme still. But that is the origins of zoning. And so You know, somewhere along the way, somebody said, well, gosh, if you put this zone district that's different than the ones around it, that's spot zoning and that's evil and we shouldn't allow that. But I would also point out, like, there's always an edge, right? Something always eventually changes to some other districts around it. And so I personally don't feel like that, you know, evil of spot zoning is... what it historically has been made out to be. And again, maybe Hela will disagree. I mean, everybody will disagree with me on that. But I think that speaks to that a little bit. Go for it, Hela. Please disagree.

Yeah, I would maybe just use terminology a little bit differently. Spot zoning is usually referred to when you rezone a property to a zone PB, Lupita D Montoya, Despite of what the comprehensive plan says, and it's not consistent with it. PB, Lupita D Montoya, I don't think that's what Brad is referring to. I think he was referring to the me just be more situations that are consistent.

Yeah. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, That's true. I'm talking about something different.

PB, Lupita D Montoya, So you do potentially foresee that property owners could come in and request a zoning change that is not something that they're adjacent to, but is consistent with their underlying land use. And it could be more of a patchwork zoning rather than you've got chunks.

I think I'm seeing nodding heads over at the staff table.

I think I'm seeing some nods over there, so I don't feel like I'm... Yeah, we started this conversation today. We were literally talking about this today. Oh, I'm so excited. Probably. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. But I think it's reasonable to assume, or to your point, that I think there's going to be... more zone districts now that are supported by the kind of wider breadth of the way that the land uses are drafted so i think we could potentially see something more than rl1 in these neighborhoods that are consistent with the new land use designations okay i'm seeing a lot of hands shooting up did you want to colloquy mason

Yeah, on that line, the live work buildings have been somewhat of a challenge is my understanding in the past. Will we end up, and this may be a little bit of a crystal ball question, with a zoning that allows residential and commercial so you can adjust what the building is used for depending on what the needs are? There were times where a building, I can think of one in Louisville where it had a commercial upfront, but then the commercial was turned in residential because, you know, they didn't want to use it for that anymore. And then, you know, 10 years later, they just changed it back to commercial and they didn't have to go back for approval of that sort of thing. Are we going to end with that level of flexibility?

The eyebrows have been very fascinating on that question, Mason.

Yeah, I think my sense is that the level of flexibility to be able to shift between residential and commercial uses sort of on the fly is, is probably not envisioned and in particular depending on what that commercial use is there's going to be other permit requirements in terms of accessibility there could be health code you know kinds of things again depending on what that use is so my sense is that change of use would still require a level of review and permitting um but I think there are certainly there is policy direction that encourages the opportunity for commercial activity to occur within what are typically residential areas and so the zone districts would would need to be able to allow both of those uses to happen. Like if it was within a single zone district or like we were just discussing, you could have an area that has a primarily residential zone district applied to it, but a single property on a corner that happens to get a lot of traffic and foot traffic and et cetera, they may say, hey, you know what? I could actually open a commercial business and I think it's gonna be viable. They could conceivably rezone to a district that would allow that commercial activity. Yeah.

And I guess that's what I'm asking permitting mixed soil sense to me, which you're saying the ask, asking for zoning change again is what the point I'm getting at, like what they need to, will we end up with a flexible zone where permitting is all they need to do?

Yeah. I mean, part of what you just described is vertical mixed use, right. And there are zone districts that support that. And so today in those zone districts where properties are there, they theoretically could do that. I, part of my eyebrows was that switching from commercial then to residential is a big commitment because of the building code. Um, not that it can't be done, but you've put a lot of money in at that point to change it. Then to change it back seems like even more money unless I guess just works in your favor to keep those. But, um, But yeah, I think the vertical mixed use, or for that matter, you were kind of describing horizontal mixed use where you've got a single use surrounded by other types of use. I would say the code today already supports that. And so maybe it's a matter of implementation or maybe the scale. Maybe that's what you're speaking to as well.

Quick, quick colloquy, if I might, how does that relate to home-based occupations? Because when I heard Mason's question, I heard like, well, what if somebody decides they have a house that's on a corner by a trailhead and they want to, in the summer, sell ice cream out of their house and not out of a food truck, but out of their actual house?

I feel like the teams and the community kind of thought about that.

Yeah. I mean that from a policy perspective, that type of activity is envisioned and supported by the comp plan. I don't know if we have the rules in place yet to be able to do that sort of thing. Cause I believe home-based businesses are pretty limited. Yeah.

They're pretty rigid still. And it's kind of limited to like the neighborhood piano teacher or just your home-based business where you're not serving clients on the site or selling anything actively out of your home.

So that's a great example of what does implementation look like. You're hearing from us, and honest, we don't know in many cases. Hopefully you're hearing from me and honest like it's going to take time. And so I feel like when the community was having those questions and the teams were having the discussion about, oh, this could maybe be something more, like it's now in the comp plan. And it will take a while to really figure out exactly what that is. Is that one of the things we try to pile among all the other ornaments onto the Title IX refresh? I would probably argue not.

I do think that's an exciting idea for neighborhood vibrancy and economic opportunity. So I would put in a plug for that one.

But I don't know what else is on your plate.

Other thoughts, questions on this item? We do have a whole lot else on our agenda, but this deserves some depth. So I think I saw a hand from Kurt. Kurt.

So if we do keep the existing zoning zone districts, even just for a while, as soon as the comp plan goes into effect, it seems like we're going to have to define how the zone districts apply to the different districts. land uses right and that's going to take seems to me some thought because the very next day we could have somebody coming in asking for rezoning right and we can say well i don't know if you know bc1 is compatible with your new land use or not so do you see that as a an obvious um process or something that's going to be i don't and i don't know how much the two of you have

talked about this, but basically what you're describing is will we, should we, could we, must we have a crosswalk? Which basically says in this designation, in the comp plan, these four zone districts are supported. In this designation, these eight ones are.

Which we currently have.

No? No. No, we don't. Not under the current comp plan or the draft one. Yeah, we don't, I'm getting a yes, no, we don't. Okay, so maybe that's what you're thinking of, yeah. So let's put a pin in that for a minute. So that is one approach. The other is that each application has to be considered on its own merits. And I would argue that the construct of the comp plan and the designations Again, they don't speak to density anymore. They speak to type and uses. And again, at the end of the day, it's an applicant's job to make the case that they are conforming with code, that they're conforming with the conference plan. So if they're able to say, hey, these things are all being, are all satisfying that vision, then I think they should be able to make their case.

Yeah.

I would expect certain zone districts would be more obviously in line with that than others. But I don't know that I personally feel prepared to say thou must only be restricted to these four zone districts because I think there's some intentional nuance there that folks should be able to make their argument on. But people can disagree with me, and maybe we do find ourselves there again.

Well, and the only thing I would add is that there's... Each of the land uses is distinct and written in a way to be sort of distinct and identifiable from the other districts. But there's along the margins, there is overlap, you know, community hub and neighborhood too, as a good example, are both relatively high intensity, allow mixed use. One might be slightly, you know, leaning towards residential the other one might be slightly leaning towards commercial but there there are definitely zone districts out there that could apply in both of those very easily and so again i think there's like brad was saying there's a little bit of overlap between the designations to where an applicant could potentially make an argument to say in this context in this geography in this location x zone district is actually appropriate right

Charles, would it be putting you on the spot to say when there was a crosswalk and why there was a decision to not have that?

Can't remember.

Looking right now.

Fair enough.

It was a while ago. And my guess is that precisely that it became handcuffs to good decision making.

I think it was looked at like it was

if memory serves me i think it was looked at it like it was a limitation and i think that's why it disappeared but i'd have to look through the last round of changes okay thanks that's helpful yeah i can i can see arguments on both sides because certainly it's a limitation on the other hand i do have some qualms about the equity implications of requiring individuals to come in uh and make their case because that inherently benefits greater people with greater privilege and means, you know, who, who can hire a lawyer to come in, sit, stand in front of us or whatever. So there are concerns there.

Real aspirational. I hope for the day that not every land use case requires bringing a lawyer with you. No, no disrespect intended. Hello.

Claudia had something.

Okay, so maybe a question that draws this particular discussion to a conclusion. We're definitely going to see some of these requests for rezonings until the zoning question gets worked out in the future, however long that takes. Can you remind us Do all rezoning requests require planning board and or city council approval? Can some of that be done administratively? Like how much of this are we going to see?

No, they're all legislative. So planning board has to make a recommendation to city council and then city council has to adopt an ordinance.

So every rezoning request, no matter the size of the parcel, goes through legislative process. Incentive to get it figured out, maybe.

I will say, though, I have worked in similarly sized cities where a regular cadence of rezonings was not unusual and was manageable.

Okay. Let's get ready.

Other questions or thoughts on this item? Brad and Christopher, thank you so much. Quick check. Do folks need a quick break? Yes. Let's take a five-minute break and come back at 7.56. Right, I want to recognize that it is just about 8 o'clock and we set on our agenda that we would end by 8.30. So my proposal is, you know, in order to keep our promise to staff and the public that we end by 8.30-ish, that we go ahead and do our next item, which is understanding water resources and impacts, which I expect will take the whole half an hour. and that we prepare to bump the last two items, feedback on future code changes and meeting materials, to future matters items, if that works for staff. I am seeing nodding heads. Okay, let's plan to do that. So we've got 30 minutes to talk about understanding water resources and impacts. I will turn it back over to staff.

Great, thank you. And I am going to put on my water resources hat for this next one. And I do have a few slides prepared that I cannot take credit for so credit goes to our utilities team for putting this together, but. I will keep this presentation brief so that we have plenty of time for conversation in the next 30 minutes so boulder water supply planning. Oh hang on just two seconds. I actually do have notes for this one. So Boulder has three sources of water for the city. That's the North Boulder Creek Watershed, the Middle Boulder Creek Watershed. And I don't think you can see in my cursor up there, but The three sources of water are the North Boulder Creek Watershed, the Middle Boulder Creek Watershed, and the Colorado River. So about two-thirds of the city's water supply comes from the North and Middle Boulder Creek Watershed. So that's the blue area on the south of the graphic there. And about one-third comes from the Colorado River. side through the. The windy gap diversion, which is the sort of yellow orangey area up on the north side of their the city's diverse water supplies improves the resiliency against weather natural disasters and system maintenance needs. So we do live in a semi-arid region, although it hasn't felt like it the last two days, but that we experience natural variability in water supply from year to year. You can see here on the graph how varied that is on a year-over-year basis. The long-term water supply planning that our utility staff does, and then we have started to engage with them from the planning side, they already anticipate and consider the risk of these low water years and the sort of the unreliability of a consistent water supply each year. So they're already anticipating and considering that and building that into their planning for the overall water supply system that Boulder has built to reflect this. So planning for the future requires managing a variety of uncertainties. The experience that we have really is referenced in terms of adapting to these naturally variable water supplies. It positions us well to meet these emerging challenges and uncertainties. such as climate change, population growth, and then also changes in water administration or regulations at the state or federal level. So again, the utilities team is really managing all of the supply side things, but also anticipating and trying to plan for those changes in demand as well. And because the future is uncertain, they don't just run one simple math equation to determine, you know, how much water does the city need or do we have enough? They run a multitude. I believe the number, if I'm not mistaken, misremembering this is upwards of two or 300 different climate models. They end up focusing in on five, I think, but they run hundreds of different models to try to anticipate these different plausible range of water futures to consider all those uncertainties. They develop a series of scenarios and then they tailor those down to understand what's a realistic prediction for the future. so there's four four scenarios that um they use to help us collectively um you know as a as a utilities department but also as planners to help assess what our future water supply availability and the water demands will be these four scenarios really represent the range of plausible scenarios so they they range from optimistic, which is essentially little to no change in terms of climate through continued trends to stressed and then ultimately severe, which is the most sort of extreme climate adaptation. Each of these scenarios captures a wide range of uncertainty and multiple factors, including climate change that I just mentioned, but also water demands. So the amount of population growth or the demand that the city is placing on our water supply And then also Colorado river conditions is that is the most variable of those three sources. Climate change is the largest driver of risk because it has such an extreme range of different futures and those conditions are so broad and the more extreme ones do have a very negative impact to both supply and demand. If it's a hotter, drier climate, not only are you reducing less water for your water supply, but you're also increasing the need to water lawns, to water agriculture, to other municipal demands. And so the demand side also increases. So they analyzed these four different scenarios in the long-range water supply planning model as part of our comp plan update. This includes the growth projections that are anticipated and are based on current trends really through 2050. Under two of the four scenarios, you can see on the left-hand side, the water supply, there is enough water supply to meet the demand without taking any additional action. So you can see the little water droplet is well above the current population, which is in gray, and then the gold area, which is anticipated growth over the next 25 years. The other two scenarios, there are still several levers that could be pulled or adjusted related to both supply and demand to address any shortfalls. So following the comprehensive plan update, The water resources team is planning to lead and prepare something that's called an integrated water supply plan. So we already have a water resources supply plan that was adopted back in 2009. But this new integrated water supply plan begins to actually incorporate more directly some of the direction that's set by the comprehensive plan and some of our land use choices and the growth projections from the state and also from the land use map. So ultimately that integrated water supply plan will provide a much more detailed strategy as we move forward to reliably provide the community with water. So as far as planning board considerations, and I couldn't help but not put in a little plug for the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan, this is a major opportunity for you to weigh in on the way that the map is organized, the policies that we have in place related to growth and change and water conservation. that's really you know from the policy perspective an area where you can you can leverage some some input um and influence into this conversation um as you get into individual site reviews you can think about the site design uh you know is it a project that includes a huge area of turf that's um you know not usable and would you need a tremendous amount of water also different types of development are more water resource efficient so multi-unit buildings tend to be tend to use less water on a per unit or a per capita basis than a single family detached home does so that's another area that you can be thinking about um Also, the location of growth and change over time. And so this is just something to think about and that we are continuously coordinating with our utilities staff as well, is that the location is important, right? If we're thinking about the planning reserve as a good example, that is going to take the expansion of entirely new infrastructure, whereas development or growth or change is within the city. could likely either be accommodated under existing infrastructure or there may need to be upgrades. And that's not to say that new infrastructure is more expensive or more costly than upgrades to existing infrastructure. It's just a consideration because there are situations where upgrades to existing infrastructure can actually be more impactful and more costly than extending new infrastructure. So again, it's just something to be aware of and thinking about as you're making decisions. But as far as any individual development choices and approvals it's it say it's very unlikely that any individual project is going to have an impact on the overall water supply and overall water resources so really I think it's on it's really unnecessary for you to. be thinking about water availability on a per project, you know, individual site by site basis. Because based on the work that we've done with the utilities team, the projections, that 20 year time horizon of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan and anticipated population growth and the water efficiency of the land use map that has all been accommodated for. And there is, you know, there is no concern about any limitations on water within that time horizon. So I believe that is it.

Happy to answer questions. Thank you, Christopher. Questions? Yeah, Mark.

Thank you, Christopher. So I actually meant to send some questions in advance of this, but I'll ask them now. It's common for people to think, oh, Boulder's exploding and our population is actually declining. Right. So my and it's also in these drought years and in these kind of conditions, it is, I think, a common thought that we are under a stressed or kind of severe condition. My question is, has our total as I was looking at the chart, we're running along at just a little less than 20,000 acre feet of consumption per year. Um, has that, if we projected backwards from 2000 or so, has that gone up, been declining? Has it been flat? What do you know about that?

Uh, that is a good question. I do know that the city, um, the city currently uses about 30% less water than it did about 20 years ago. And that is really due to just. changing behaviors quite honestly of the community members and you know we have not implemented specific water conservation restrictions or limitations but it's been through behavioral changes improvements to you know fixtures and other things within new construction improvements to the system to try to minimize leakage and other things like that but I do know that statistic okay

and then um so our water bill uh breaks out into a budget based on winter usage i.e in residential internal household usage versus uh spring summer fall where you're irrigating your landscaping um what is the In the 20,000 acre feet of water we consume, do you know the ratio of landscaping water to internal residential water use?

That is a great question, and I do not know the answer to that, but I can follow up and ask.

Okay. I would suspect it's a great deal towards landscaping. And again, which speaks to... And I'll stop now. I'll make a comment. It speaks to the availability of water for a student apartment project that has 100 units and has a ton of fixtures since everyone gets their own bath now. But the amount of landscaping is actually relatively small in relation to the number of residents. That was it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark. Who's up Mason.

So, um, under the, the topic of water conservation supply, et cetera, you know, this year we saw, um, something come to us that banned gray water use. What is the major hurdle in our city for allowing for gray water systems?

Charles, you may have any, I don't have the answer to that.

I think the reason the that wasn't adopted, even though it was supported by the legislature was that we didn't have the infrastructure to support it. And the kind of the overall payoff wasn't significant enough to support it.

Yeah, that's correct. Like, what was largely underappreciated is like, you can do all the things and it makes almost no dent in the amount of water savings. And the other thing that Rob, Adrian's chief building official knew from both experience and talking with peers is that one of the main ways to do that is with your washing machine. And the way to do that is you have to retrofit it and have some sort of lever that says, well, now I'm doing water that is okay to be gray water that goes to the garden, but some of the wash doesn't. So you have to know to do that back and forth and people routinely didn't correctly do that. And it wasn't a priority. I mean, we're, we're concentrating on many, many other things that have vastly higher potential for water savings than that item. And it would have taken a lot of legislative effort and implementation and probably standing up a program that costs money and review and all those things that, so frankly, you know, there was a resource trade-off discussion too.

ML.

I'd like to speak about gray water as well. So it sounded like the percentage of potable water used in residential areas is smaller for the inside of the building and for the exterior of the building. Is that correct?

Dramatically so.

So the exterior uses the most amount?

Dramatically so. I don't know the number, but it's something like 70 or 80% exterior.

So if that is true, then what percent of that dramatic exterior water use would be reduced due to gray water? Do we know that?

I'm going to make up a number, but 0.3%, 0.2%, negligible. Now, we can get the real numbers, and we'll be happy to get you the real numbers, but it's something like that.

And I don't remember seeing in the water calculations, but it seems like there's a significant amount of water that is... either used or projected for like fires, wildfires, fires. Is that true? Is that part of our potable water? Does it come from something else?

Water volume is not a main factor in wildfire. Water pressure and water availability and distribution centers systems are. And so it has been noted several times, and this is a scary fact, statistic or fact that if we have something like six structural fires happening at once, we max out our capacity for firefighting. Okay.

So that's a big problem. That has more to do with the infrastructure than the actual availability of water.

Yeah. Yeah. The infrastructure, how much water can go through a pipe through the distribution system, how much is in reserve, you know, in.

Right.

in the reservoir, in the water treatment plant, et cetera.

Okay. So that's good to know.

Yeah.

Because I'd heard that there was a relationship between available water and wildfires. And not about the physical resource itself, but as a means for it to get where it needs to go.

Have they seen Spring Valley yet? Because I don't want to speak quasi-judicially. Yes.

Just the... Not the annexation. No, not at this point, no.

There's a hypothetical subdivision in the city that would be at the urban interface where there was discussion.

They have made a recommendation on Spring Valley.

Oh, they have? It was the resolution. We have. Okay, okay. But, and Hella, keep me honest on this, but I think there was...

It's a legislative item. Oh, there we go.

Even better. But there was discussion or... requests from the residents of or let me say it differently a assertion that wouldn't it be great if the city had the water provided the water to there because that's a benefit in being able to fight wildfires and in fact shouldn't we maybe put like water cannons in that area to do that the fire experts said that does nothing that that that provides no benefit essentially mm-hmm

Okay. So... Yeah.

And I don't say that dismissively. I'm cutting to the chase.

Right.

Obviously, water matters. Obviously, having that. But it's much more about containment before it gets to the city. It's about containment when it gets to the city. It's about evacuation. It's about saving lives. It's about preparing for it, which is why we've got about 120 work plan items focused on wildfire right now citywide.

Mm-hmm.

And the policies for wildfire hardening and the landscaping code were just pieces of a much bigger puzzle to systemically address the risk of wildfire. But I don't want to be misleading about how water solves that problem.

Right. One thing that I learned by looking at the post-fire stuff in L.A. was gray water actually keeps... the ground moist and it deters fires so which is you know a case for gray water serves some significant um yeah uh thing but so and i do want to fact check those things so i don't know if you're taking notes on this kj but we can we can follow a couple of those things yeah keeps the that's what they found it um i've been attending a lot of seminars my graduate school was there They got very involved. But another question I have, Christopher, in those scenarios that you showed, it was all 2050. Where are we today? What scenario are we in today? It had ranged from, you know, happy, comfort, little flower.

Optimistic through severe. We would be probably within that continued trends line. Yeah. Which was the second one. Second line. Mm hmm.

Okay, those are my questions. It's good to know. I wasn't aware of all the water sources, so that was a great little map. And we don't know what's going to happen with the Colorado River. What percentage did you say of our water is from there?

From the Colorado River is about a third.

And those scenarios that are looked at, you say those hundreds of scenarios, they talk about what happens if you get no water from the copper. Yes, yes.

They evaluate all the potential scenarios of that.

It's a pretty rigorous process. I appreciate your sharing that.

Yeah, sure.

Very helpful. Thank you.

Thank you, Amal. We have about 10 minutes left. So comments, questions about water and how it relates to our planning. Yes, Kurt.

Thanks. Yeah, this is interesting. In one of your slides, you had the sort of range of ways in which the planning, land use planning relates to water. And I think it went all the way from the comp plan level down to individual site review approvals and so on, right? But I didn't really see anything in there about how about how certain land use policies might relate to water usage. So one that I'm thinking about is we have these setback requirements in almost every zone, right, including significant, in many cases, significant front setbacks which result in landscaping, often lawns, not always, but landscaping that needs to be watered in most cases. um and is not arguably terribly functional you know people usually aren't sitting out in their front yard having a barbecue if they're doing that it's in the backyard if kids are playing it's not generally in the front yard it's in the backyard and so on so i would just urge us to think about how those kinds of regulations land use uh rules can indirectly affect

the the amount of water that we're using particularly for for the exterior for landscaping that's my only comment thanks i have a question um so in other communities that i've worked in they have restrictions or rules that are designed to conserve water you know for example restrictions on watering. They have variable pricing that really penalizes heavy-duty landscaping watering. They might have xeriscaping requirements. That's one way to deal with water conservation in a water-constrained environment. We also hear community members sometimes say we shouldn't be doing additional development because where are we going to get all the water for all the people? Do you have a sense of... what pathway, if we were to compare sort of the water conservation pathway versus the limiting development pathway, actually saves the city more water or how those things relate?

Yeah, that's a good question. I won't have a clear comparison to provide to the board, but what I can say is that the... what are called the reliability criteria, which are essentially the drought thresholds that the city, when we reach those, we impose actual watering restrictions and things. And again, they range at three or four levels. Those were last updated in 1988. And that part of the conversation around the integrated water supply plan is that the analysis from that and the outcomes of that will likely inform how we might change those reliability criteria so our drought thresholds may change. And of course, the world has changed since 1988 in terms of climate and water supply and everything like that. I think part of the challenge or the reasoning behind imposing water conservation measures more rigorously, there's a lot of room That could that we could that we could apply in that area because again those those sort of thresholds haven't really been touched for almost 40 years now so there's a lot of there's a lot of free board in in forgive the pun, but there's a lot of freeboard in that water supply in terms of how we manage water use at the, particularly the outdoor landscaping level in the indoor, indoor municipal level, the, the change in growth and the change in population that we are anticipating and the state demographer is anticipating for Boulder over the next 20 years is marginal. It's like 10% or something like that. And so, It's essentially a half to 1% growth per year. So just anecdotally, my sense is that the additional demands on municipal water supply from a population growth perspective are much less than what could be achieved through other mechanisms that we have at our disposal as part of these future conversations around the water supply plan.

Thank you. Oh, and one that I forgot to mention is banning people using hoses to clean things without shut off valves. Max, did you have something?

Yeah, I guess I had a question and a comment. I guess I'll start with the comment, but just kind of food for thought. But when we were going through that annexation and discussing the pump station, that was kind of seen as the big community benefit. And we kind of noodled back and forth. about the relevance of triggering some level of fire hardening within the annexation and part of that conversation involves saying like hey there's a pump station and we don't want to disregard this community benefit but we're hearing now correct me if i'm wrong that that actually isn't serving as much of a community benefit as maybe i was led to believe so maybe that's just worth noting in the future um but And then the question, though, would be if we are below water budget. I don't know. I'm not entirely familiar with the Byzantine water laws of the state. But a common criticism that I hear is that, well, we may have enough water within the city for our own residents. When we're overusing compared to our neighbors, we're limiting the ability for the Boulder Valley to grow food, etc. So even if we have the resources as a city, how much of that overflow actually does affect our goodwill with the neighbors, etc., both statewide and countywide?

Yeah, do you mind if I just pop in quickly? Yeah, so part of the water supply equation is not only the municipal use, but also we commit water to in-stream flows on Boulder Creek for habitat and environmental reasons. Also, water supply that is leased to agricultural purposes. So there's really a whole range of things that are part of that total water budget. That we utilize or that our water resources team and utilities, you know, distributes and utilizes across the Boulder Valley because we agree that we We have an obligation to support those other activities in the Boulder Valley, and Brad will probably touch on this in terms of Colorado water law and highest and best use of that water and beneficial use of the water rights that you have. And so, yes, the city maintains a lot of other aspects in terms of our water budget in addition to just our municipal water supply.

I can talk to those things, but I was actually going to add something different. And I don't think you had a slide on this. If you did, I apologize. I missed it. But a big part of the water story is how dramatically the per capita consumption has gone down over the last 20 or 30 years. It's actually quite significant and dramatic. And Boulder's not completely unique in that regard. In fact, it's not unique whatsoever. communities throughout the state, and for that matter, the American West have made incredible improvements on that, which has been incremental improvements from in situ lining of distribution lines to water conservation measures to better use of reservoirs, many, many, many things. But that's a huge part of the story. And unlike earlier this evening, I'm not going to speculate on numbers on that one, but it is dramatic. And Boulder actually has done better than some communities in the Front Range too, and many actually. So we have done well historically in that regard. But that's a huge part of the story as well.

And just in response to something else that you said, Max, could I ask staff to comment on that? the project that we did see where putting the outlying community on city water was seen as a benefit for fire. My understanding is that that's about preventing those particular structures from catching on fire because there is city water available. Not that you would have water cans pointing out into the wilderness.

It is. I can't remember the applicant testimony enough to swear that they didn't kind of make this claim that it was having a community benefit because I'm Hella can attest to the fact that we've heard that argument many times in many meetings with them. Yes, it's about their structures not getting on fire and there being adequate fire response and pressure. Water pressure was a big part of it because their current system has pretty inadequate water pressure for even individual homes for regular use, but certainly for fire flows.

So my understanding of that argument was, you know, that the sparks spread from a fire and if the sparks caught those structures on fire and they were not able to put it out, then that could spread into the city. And so having the water available to douse those flying sparks and having the water pressure is a benefit as I see it. And maybe I've been convinced by an argument that might or might not have as much scientific merit. I don't know, but that makes sense to me. Other thoughts, comments? About water, Claudia, and I think this will probably be our last because we are right up on 830.

Great. Then I have another meta question. So, I mean, in my mind, one of the problems with water here in the planning context beyond these basic questions of projecting supply and demand is that if you listen around the community, it's really clear that we're not operating on shared facts in any way, right? And things like, you know, what is the marginal use per person? What is outdoor usage for various land uses? And there's some of that in the presentation. I appreciate that. But does staff have any sense of how we can start to move the community towards shared facts around water? Like what information does the city share? What information can the city share? I recognize some of that is probably confidential or strategic, you know, for planning purposes, but what sources can we be sharing to kind of ground this conversation that keeps bubbling up in the community?

Yeah. Some is sensitive just because of, um, or cases on beneficial use and the water decrees on that, but most is not. And I would say the utilities department and the city as a whole is trying to create a shared conversation around that. I'm sure we collectively aspire to doing more. There are a lot of emotions tied up in water in the West, just like there are a lot of emotions tied into land use and you all, you know, see that in the in the in the processes you all all work through um so there do tend to be a lot of different narratives out there some which really exaggerate one point or another um one of the common ones is we are running out of water that is generally speaking and i'm talking about the whole west not true but obviously it's also true that huge concessions and changes are needing to be made because of climate change and the amount of water in the colorado river and so a lot of times both are true but it kind of depends on the context and the scale that you're talking about um i don't know my personal feeling is like utilities is trying to do more and more, but I don't know.

Yeah, and I wonder, some, many of those slides that I presented this evening, water resources staff gave a, there was a study session with city council, it's probably been six months ago now, maybe, last year or sometime, but I could, we could dig up the date of that. And I think that memo and maybe watching that study session would be a good starting point because I know there would be a lot of more additional information that I didn't share tonight that would have more detail and might get into, you know, answer some of the questions that were asked tonight that I wasn't able to answer on the fly.

And you'd be able to say, that's not what Brad told me. That number is wildly wrong.

Mark.

I know we need to go on, but I appreciate so much this idea of shared facts, because as informed community members, and we differ about many things, but as informed community members, we We see things, we hear things that they're just clearly not true. And I sympathize with this desire for shared facts. And when I was on TAB, one of the metrics that was used to evaluate the city's transportation system was level of service and the time it takes to traverse town in a car. And there was a move to get rid of that metric because that didn't really align with the transportation master plan's goal of reducing single occupancy vehicle. It's like, why are we measuring this and having this as a goal? And I pushed for us to keep that as a metric to counter the argument that, oh, It's, you know, traffic is so much worse now than it was then. And in fact, the level of service in 1997, we are at the same or slightly better level of service than we were in 1997. And so anyway, tracking these metrics. And so the water department has this problem of encouraging conservation. But if you, without a message of abundance, You're discouraging your message of conservation. And the two can coexist if you're an informed person. But it is a tough message to encourage people to conserve while saying, OK, we are not in a crisis. We haven't run out of water, et cetera. That's it.

I do have a comment about this. I don't know if staff is familiar with the idea of joint fact finding, but the idea of joint fact finding is when you have a highly contentious or controversial issue and that there is basically dueling facts or dueling perceptions of the world, you bring both sides together to see what they can agree upon. and where their areas of disagreement are. And you invite both sides to present their experts, present their facts, justify their opinions to the best of their ability, right? And you see where can you come together on this is reality about the world. And then where you have disagreements, you document both sides' arguments and the facts that they bring to it. And you create a shared resource that the whole community can go to and find in one place What are the things that are agreed upon and what are the things that remain contentious and what are the best facts presented by both sides? And that process can really build community trust and it can really create an information repository that people can point to and say, this is the best we can do to arrive at a shared perception of the world. And Boulder has done some very pioneering things in terms of community engagement, like our community assembly. I would really encourage Boulder to explore joint fact finding for some of these issues where There are strongly held arguments and dueling facts out there in the community. So water may be one of the places where that can really, really serve a purpose for the city. And I know that we are in a constrained budget environment, and there are a lot of places where you could use that kind of process, but I just want to put it out there into the world, and I can share some resources with staff if that is of interest. Okay, last thoughts. Shall we close this topic? Thank you so much to Brad and Christopher and Charles and Hela for being our staff guides and experts tonight. We got through three extremely important topics in this retreat. I think folks are probably ready to call it, but any other matters from staff or matters from the board before we go home?

Nothing from staff. We'll look for some times under matter to get those other two remaining items scheduled.

Thank you so much, Charles. Matters from the board? Any objection to adjourning the meeting?

Quick calendar check.

Oh, calendar check, promise.

We have no items proceeding to the June 2nd meeting, so we've canceled that meeting.

Oh, June 2nd as well as end of March.

As well as end of May, correct. Sorry. So there's a two-week break.

Wow.

There's still a, yeah, the joint meeting with council on the 4th.

Joint meeting with council on the 4th. And we will have a summer break coming up as well.

Yes, at the end of June. Well, we canceled the first meeting in July to align with the council's recess.

Okay, so the first meeting in July is canceled as well. Wow, luxury of time.

We're going to get really busy after the recess, so I hope you enjoy the break.

Okay, all right. All right, with that, let's adjourn the meeting tonight at 8.39. Thanks, everybody.