[BoulderCouncilHotline] Thoughts on Nov. 10th Council Study Session

[Benjamin, Matt]

Dear Community members, Staff and Colleagues,


I will be out of town for the upcoming Nov. 10rd Study Session and wanted to offer my thoughts on some of the issues on our agenda.


CAN (Core Arterial Network) update:

I want to compliment staff and TAB for their continued work on this critically important shift in our transportation and mobility work to focus on harm reduction and vehicle/pedestrian conflict zones. That fact that all but one of the key priorities are on track as scheduled is great news and I hope we keep that pace going. Below are a few thoughts/questions and my responses to Staff’s questions:


  *   Question: Given the long run up for transportation projects and the current timelines for the CAN projects either being funded or completed by the end of 2024, Is staff working on initial planning for what “CAN 2.0” would look like? We probably want to start some of that scoping in 2023?
  *   Question: Do we define “protected bike lane” in the TMP or any other guiding documents? I ask because I would like us to if we don’t already discontinue the use of paint as a means of achieving “protected bike lanes”. I think being clear on this definition is good for what we engineer as well as proper expectation for our community as to what we are getting from various projects. I would love to see us exclusively build physically separated bikes lanes now and into the future.
  *   Question: All of the transportation infrastructure projects are designed to reduce conflicts and thus serious accidents/deaths (Vision Zero). As such these treatments are specific to a road and or intersection. Through this CAN work, is their intention to derive policy recommendations that may help guide future work to better meet our vision zero goals? Including, but not limited too…No right turns on red lights, protected left turns, etc…?

Staff Questions:

1. Does council have any additional questions about the CAN initiative and Priority Corridor progress made in 2022?



  *   I think staff is doing a great job and I look forward to breaking ground on some of these projects next year.



2. Does council have feedback on the updated work plan and funding strategy?



  *   Are there any potential issues on the horizon that might impact our funding strategy? How and when does the federal infrastructure bill impact out strategy and overall project planning?



3. Does council have feedback on the question of advancing the initiation of work on the Downtown Mobility Study component of the CAN initiative from Q3 2024 to Q4 2023 (contingent on successful funding of the Folsom Street CAN Priority Corridor pre-design application under Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) Call 4)?



  *   I think this is a good idea as this study will help inform and shape the downtown vision plan process as well as our larger desires to invest in greater pedestrianization of streets downtown. Ultimately, I am eager to see this mobility study inform us of places we can bring about greater balance in our car to pedestrian rights of way. Simply put, we need more streets to evolve to a point where people/bikes are the core user and cars are the guests.





Planning & Development Services Prioritization and Work Planning





I want to first start off by expressing some frustration that we are even having this conversation about priorities from our retreat 9-10 months ago. I fully understand staffing shortages in PD&S and hiring a new director for the department play a role that has led us to where we are. With that said, I feel like we lost a year of progress on what I feel were rather well defined and straight forward project priorities. Some of this may also rest on Council’s lap as we should have insisted on prioritizing the array of projects we approved at the retreat earlier this year. Doing so would have allowed clear progress to begin on some of the “low hanging fruit” (example, ADU reform and occupancy). Looking forward I feel that PD&S is heading in the right direction and that our new director Brad Mueller is in his short time with the city is setting us up for success.





Below are my answers to staff questions:



  1.  Does City Council approve of staff’s proposed scope and engagement level for the updates to the accessory dwelling unit (ADU) project, or have any questions related to the evaluation?



  *   I like that ADUs are the first out of the gate. I would focus on HAB’s recommendations as I think they are well thought out and this is a great opportunity for council to lean into HAB’s work on this issue. I would like us to shorten the engagement as many of these recommendations are largely just tweaks to existing rules and really straight forward (eliminating saturation limits, eliminating parking requirements & eliminating minimum lot sizes). I will though request that we not consider separate ADU ownership. I think this issue open pandoras box and would quickly muddy the water on the other clean and straight forward recommendations for ADU reform. I would like to see us pass an updated ordinance on ADU’s in the early part Q2 2023.



2.    Does City Council have any further comments on the proposed scope of work, public engagement plan, and schedule for the Boulder Junction Phase 2 project?



  *   I am curious as to why Boulder Junction 2 is the second priority rather than occupancy.  Is that a staff constraint? Are the staff working on ADU reform that same staff that would take up occupancy?
     *   If it is not the same staff, then I would like to see occupancy elevated to the 2nd priority and be worked concurrently with ADU’s.
  *   My main question centers around the project length. One of the main property owners has offered to pay for consultants to help expedite the work given some of our staff constraints. Could this help shorten the project length?



3.    Does Council agree with staff’s recommendation regarding the prioritization of the work planning items, or does it prefer a different sequence of projects?



  *   I think we can do occupancy reform in a much shorter time frame than the 6-8 months. With just a handful of guardrails we can reform occupancy and satisfy many of the concerns from some residents. Given how much community debate has occurred in the past few years related to occupancy reform, I think we can streamline our engagement efforts to get this done in 4-6 months and get an ordinance passed at for before the end of Q2 2023.
  *   Overall, this sequence works for me. With the big caveats being that we can shorten the project timelines for both ADU and Occupancy Reform. One way being that we don’t need as much time as forecasted to scope these and secondly, we don’t need as much engagement as both of these issues have been heavily debated in our community.



I trust that my council colleagues share my desire to pick up the pace and move through some of the priorities expeditiously.



I greatly appreciate all the work that both the Transportation and the Planning and Development Services Departments have put in and their commitment to pivot to this council and our community’s evolving needs.





With gratitude,



Matt
************

Matt Benjamin
Boulder City Council Member
(303) 453-9896
Pronouns: he/him/his





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