[BoulderCouncilHotline] Work Plan for 2018

[Yates, Bob]

Council Colleagues:


In preparation for our Council retreat next month, this email sets forth my priorities for the coming year, incremental to those already proposed in the city staff's draft 2018 work plan. Unless otherwise indicated, I generally support the city staff plan. My incremental recommendations are as follows, in no particular order:


  *   Broadband: We will be having a staff check-in with Council on broadband at our meeting on January 9, followed by a comprehensive broadband discussion on March 6. While we have several options to consider, most of them will likely require some sort of voter approval next November. Because we must start forming our views on ballot measures by early summer, I would urge us to work diligently on broadband during the first two quarters, so that we do not lose another year without a definitive proposal to present to the community on the fall ballot.
  *   Middle-Income Housing: Sam and I have been working together to develop a middle-income shared equity program, whereby the city could participate with qualified home buyers to assist them with their initial purchase financing, in exchange for permanent affordability deed restrictions. This model has the advantage of assisting a cohort that we have been challenged to support in the past, while maintaining affordability of existing homes and aiding us in our previously-established 2030 goal of 1,000 permanently-affordable, deed-restricted middle-income units. Sam and I have begun working with city staff on modeling and I would urge council to find time in its 2018 work plan to authorize staff to conduct more extensive analyses, so that a pilot can be launched before the end of next year. Since beginning this program is less time-sensitive than our broadband initiative and other staff priorities (a pilot likely won't require voter approval), we can probably defer significant staff time on this until the middle of the year.
  *   Area Plans for Under-used Properties: Long-term area planning has led us to success at formerly under-used spaces, like the Holiday neighborhood, Boulder Junction, and the Pollard Motors site, and we are undertaking similar planing for the former Boulder Community Hospital location at Alpine-Balsam. During 2018, I would like us to undertake similar visioning and area planning for other under-used spaces, such as the Diagonal Plaza area and in certain industrial sites in East Boulder, some of which may be suitable for affordable workforce housing and affordable small commercial space for local businesses. As with the middle-income shared equity housing program, staff work on area plans for under-used locations can be relatively light in the first half of the year, accelerating in the third and fourth quarters and into 2019.
  *   Broadway Corridor Transportation: Our most congested traffic corridor is along Broadway, between the former hospital site and the university. Absent creative planning, that corridor will become even more congested with the construction of the CU conference center on the Hill, at Broadway and Grandview.  As soon as the university identifies its development and operating partner for the conference center early next year, the city and the university, together with our downtown business partners, should undertake a transportation study to determine the best ways to move between the Hill and downtown the hundreds of daily visitors to the conference center. And, yes, that could include a gondola.


For the reasons stated above, I don't believe that any of these initiatives should displace work plan items that city staff has proposed for the first half of the year. But if time needs to be made available in the first two quarters, either because of what I have suggested or as a result of requests by other Council members, I believe that we could slow down proposed first-half work on (in no particular order): ADUs, Alpine-Balsam development, short-term rental adjustments, or parking strategy.

I look forward to reading your respective lists of 2018 priorities.

Best,

Bob
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.ci.boulder.co.us/pipermail/bouldercouncilhotline/attachments/20171219/7a032d29/attachment.html