[BoulderCouncilHotline] Suzanne's Input on Tonights Council Meeting

[Jones, Suzanne]

Dear All—
 I will miss Tuesday’s Council meeting as I will be overseas representing the City of Boulder at an international EcoMobility conference (in my last trip as Boulder’s mayor [Crying face with solid fill]  ).
I wanted to weigh in on a few key items that Council will be considering on Tuesday. My understanding is, as was discussed at CAC, that if my vote is critical to the outcome of one of these issues, that it will be held over to the following meeting. But I am hoping instead that Council will be able to craft a consensus path forward.

1) 2020 Budget
I commend City Manager Jane Brautigam and city staff for putting together (another) thoughtful and strategic budget that is responsive to Council and does a good job in balancing community priorities while being fiscally responsible. Per the few items that Council raised during our first reading discussion of the budget, here are my thoughts:

•       Municipal Building Doors:  I am a big fan of our beautiful Sister City Plaza (and thank Lisa Morzel for her advocacy on its behalf over the years). However, given limited additional resources, I think that the $703,000 allocated to reinstall front doors on the Municipal Building, after they were previously removed years ago, is better spent elsewhere (discussed below), but I support the staff’s compromise of spending $90,000 to more modestly upgrade the plaza area. I also thank the staff for the beautiful job they are doing renovating the downstairs of the Muni Building with a wall and display cases dedicated to highlighting our many Sister City relationships.

•       Vision Zero:  I appreciate the work of the Transportation Advisory Board and city staff to significantly increase our focus in the last two years on reducing and eventually eliminating serious injuries and fatalities from traffic collisions. I would support spending some of the funding from the Muni Door project to move forward on planning another traffic corridor or further implementing our Vision Zero and other transportation goals—and would look to TAB and staff to recommend how that spending be prioritized.

•       Budget Reserves: I appreciate the City Manager’s discipline in recommending budgets over the past handful of years that have enabled us to increase our reserves up to 20%, thereby increasing our fiscal resiliency in the face of uncertain future factors such as climate change. While I think this represents sound fiscal policy, I am not against Council choosing to spend up to 1% of those reserves on urgent expenditures related to public safety and/or time-sensitive opportunities if the funding freed up from the Municipal Doors Project is not sufficient—and a specific case is made.

•       Library Funding: While I think that a Library District should be considered in a robust public dialogue next year as we promised the Library Commission that we would do, I would also support increasing funding from our General Fund in 2020 to cover priority Library budget items that are currently underfunded. I think we could use some of the Municipal Door project funding or reserves for this purpose as well, but will leave it to Council to decide specific amounts.

•       Airport: Given our obligation to the FAA to manage the airport as such, I think we should continue to do so rather than repay the millions of dollars in grant money that we would need to give back if we chose to manage the airport for another use.

2) Purchase of Hogan-Pancost
I think we should proceed with the purchase of Hogan-Pancost as Council has previously directed. I do hope, however, that in addition to future flood mitigation, the City can identify an appropriate and useful public purpose relatively soon for the non-open space acres that doesn’t negatively affect the area’s complex hydrology. Ideas might include community gardens, pollinator habitat, and/or restoring the area with compost and other regenerative soil health techniques to use as a carbon farming demonstration area, or some lower-impact recreation (e.g., frisbee golf).

3) Community Benefit
I strongly support Council adoption of an ordinance amending the Land Use Code to establish a new community benefits program specific to permanently affordable housing, which I think most residents would agree is a top priority for our city. New criteria could be created for other community benefits in the Phase 2 of the project next year with the new Council.

University Hill Commercial District: One issue that I would like to call out for attention in Phase 2 is the University Hill commercial district. Council and the community have been discussing a catalyst project for the Hill for several years that would provide year-round economic activity to enhance the fiscal sustainability and viability of the district. I think a University Hill catalyst project constitutes a public benefit that should be incentivized, or at the very least not be furthered challenged by, our new public benefit framework—and I hope that the new Council will make this a near-term priority so that this project can finally proceed.

Nursing Homes and Assisted Living facilities: I think most would agree that providing service-oriented housing for seniors is a public benefit – especially if it is affordable and accessible to low- and middle-income populations. I would therefore support exploring whether treatment of nursing homes and assisted living facilities could be addressed in Phase 2 to better incentivize such housing provided by non-profit organizations or to ensure a specific level of affordability. As long as we can address this issue soon in the new Council, I am agnostic on whether we need to remove the fee exception for these uses at this time.

Modifications to Appendix J map: I agree with staff that we should leave Appendix J in place until at least the end of Phase 2 of the project but think we should move expeditiously to finish Phase 2 as Council has extended the deadline more than once. That said, I could support amending Appendix J in the following ways in the interim:
•       Add appropriate sites from the Alpine Balsam Area Plan; and
•       Remove the Armory site as construction is already underway and without need for
a height modification.
If Council concurs, I could also support amending Appendix J to expand the Boulder Valley Regional Center beyond just Twenty Ninth Street. Specifically, I could support Option C to add portions of BR-1 and the RH-3 zone where higher intensity development is expected and anticipated and where compatibility concerns related to surrounding context are not as prevalent. The BVCP specifically speaks to increasing housing capacity in the BVRC, which is mostly zoned BR-1 (e.g., areas east of 28th Street and north of Arapahoe Ave.). Further, RH-3 is appropriate because it was specifically created as a tool to offset the jobs: housing imbalance, already includes four and five-story buildings and does not immediately abut lower density zoning districts. However, if Council and staff feels strongly that it would be better to wait until after Phase 2 to add these areas, then I can live with that.

4) Use Tables & Opportunity Zones
A huge thanks to staff for their diligent work going through detailed changes to the Use Tables with a special focus on the Opportunity Zone designation.  I support the adoption of the proposed Use Tables ordinance that will bring the city’s existing zoning regulations into greater alignment with the goals and policies of the BVCP with a key focus on improving the job:housing imbalance, retaining affordability for both housing and small businesses, and increasing housing capacity in appropriate locations with an emphasis on permanently and other affordable housing.
More specifically, I support the following provisions:
Use Review thresholds for Efficiency Living Units (ELUs): I am fine with the staff recommendation contained in Alternative Option 1-B to raise the Use Review threshold for projects up from the existing 20 percent ELUs to at least 40 percent. This change would lessen the current disincentive (a Use Review) for smaller sized units that may be more affordable due to their smaller size, while retaining all existing Site Review requirements to assess compatibility.

Limitations on office floor area square footage in the Business Main Street (BMS), Business Regional (BR), and Business Transitional (BT) zoning districts:  I can agree with staff recommendation contained in Alternative Option 2-D to modify the new Limited Use (L17) category such that office uses and other like uses would be by-right up to 20,000 square feet per lot or parcel, with the option of going up to 40,000 square feet if on-site permanently affordable housing is provided through a Conditional Use application. Above the 40,000 square foot threshold (or above 20,000 square feet if permanently affordable is not provided through a conditional use application), a discretionary Use Review would then be necessary and potential call-up to council. I am generally convinced by staff’s rationale that 20,000 square feet is a good threshold as it minimizes the number of existing offices uses that would become nonconforming to approximately 13% of existing parcels containing office uses.

Options for existing office uses in residential zones. In the interest of furthering 15-minute neighborhoods, mixed use goals, and allowing for smaller scale offices in residential zones as approved through the Use Review process—which are generally more suitable for local, small business and employees that live locally—I am fine making no change to these codes and leaving the Use Review requirement in place in R2, R3, R4, R5, R6, and R7 use modules as proposed by staff in Alternative Option 3-D.

Demolition Prohibition Overlay Zone: Very importantly, I wholeheartedly support staff’s proposed Ordinance 8358 that would create a new overlay district prohibiting the demolition of existing attached dwelling units (consisting of at least three attached units or more) within Census Tract 122.03, for the duration of the federal Opportunity Zone program. I think this is essential to avoid any displacement of existing tenants by investors who want to demolish market-rate affordable housing to replace it with high-end housing.

Finally, I am disappointed that we cannot find a simple mechanism to ensure that our community benefits more from projects within the Opportunity Zone that take advantage of the Opportunity Zone tax benefits—such as increasing inclusionary housing commercial linkage fees for such projects or achieving and preserving more affordable commercial spaces. I will leave it to the next Council to decide whether they want to pursue the necessary economic analyses to put such a mechanism in place. But I am pleased that with these changes we are adopting to the Use Tables we are at least assured that if development occurs within the Opportunity Zone that it will at least result in outcomes that are consistent with our recently completed Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan. If the next Council could prioritize completing an area plan to appropriately redevelop Diagonal Plaza, that would also be a good outcome.
Au revoir,
Zan
Suzanne Jones
Mayor, City of Boulder
joness at bouldercolorado.gov<mailto:joness at bouldercolorado.gov>
(720) 633-7388

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