Thread by @shayshinecastle

One more to go: Use tables and the opportunity zone. Staff presentation: www-static.bouldercolorado.gov/docs/5D_CC_10.…

Again, no public comment bc that already happened.

I'm really too tired to summarize where we left this. But the biggest change from last time is that council might put an overlay zone on the opportunity zone to prevent demolition of existing apartments.

Broadly, changes are to allow (slightly) more housing, including more efficiency living units (micro apartments) and much less office space.

We're going over some key changes. Living Units (ELUs): Can currently be only 20% of a residential building. The rest must be other types of dwellings. (ELUs are under 475 sq ft.)

Doing more than that requires a Use Review, which makes the project subject to Planning Board and/or City Council approval

Council can either leave this as-is or increase the threshold to 40%

Carlisle not a fan; never has been. It's going to be a way of not providing affordability but providing more density at the same cost.

Staff has some data on cost: Condo ownership units that are ELUs on price-per-square foot were more expensive, but they were the most affordable units on the for-sale market.

Brockett: ELUs were 1/3 cheaper than the next-highest cost type of dwelling, which were not necessarily twice as big.

Weaver: Are ELUs usually condos or rentals?
Staff wasn't able to get rental numbers in time for the packet

Yates: If they're 1/3 cheaper in price to buy, they'll be 1/3 cheaper in rent.

Straw poll: Council OK with staff recommendation for allowing more ELUs.

Next: office space in a bunch of biz zones

Office space is currently allowed in all these biz zones, by-right. This change would limit a building to 25% office space by making office space a Limited use.

Council was concerned about the 25%; wanted more outreach.

Chamber not OK with it either; would prefer a square footage cap instead of % and allowing more office space through use review

Current conditions: Median % of office space per building in these areas: 93%

So if the change was pursued, 96% of buildings would become non-conforming

There are some really good tables here showing how many buildings are in these biz zones and how many would become non-conforming under various proposals to limit office space.

Staff is instead recommending doing a 20,000 sq ft threshold for office space, rather than 25% of the buildings total sq ft. Anything above that would have to go through use review.

Not an exact definition, but use review = a longer and more expensive regulatory process that makes the project subject to staff, planning board and/or city council approval.

Also, why non-conforming matters: Bc it limits what changes can be made to buildings, again without a lengthy and expensive process. (Or, sometimes, can't be changed at all)

So basically, say you're a company and have an office building in these areas. You want to add on a little bit more space when you grow. Under these rules, you wouldn't be allowed to without going through use review.

ugh my eyes are glazing over. I'm sorry, Boulder. This is really important but I'm failing you. It's a quarter after 11. Ugh.

Carlisle: What's the issue with a nonconforming use?
Guiller: When they expand, they have to go through a discretionary process.

Yates: What outreach has there been to the parcels that may be made non-conforming?
Guiller: We haven't done direct mailings; just routine engagement.

Yates: So if this happens now, they'd wake up and wouldn't know? Don't we usually notify ppl?
Guiller: It depends on the scope of the project.

Brockett: This is a reasonable compromise from the first draft, which would have made every office building non-conforming and disallowed new office buildings of any size.

Weaver: My prob with the first draft is how many non-conforming buildings it created. It's a huge pain for property owners, staff, etc. Most of these office buildings are small.

"This is an elegant solution by staff."

There's a mechanism added in there to allow offices to grow IF they add on-site affordable housing, which promotes the goal of mixed-use development.

offices bigger than 20K sq ft would have to go through a staff-level use review.
Weaver: Why did you pick that kind of use review?
Guiller: To incentivize affordable housing. They could just do that through a staff-level process, which is easier.

I have been able to squeak by without reading the packets the last few weeks to work on election stuff. But tonight it's biting me (and you) in the ass bc I can't help explain this stuff.

I'm sorry guys. I'll go back to reading those for next week's meeting.

OK, now office space in residential neighborhoods. Currently, office space can be approved through Use Review in most residential zones except for RR and RE (two very low-density, single-family only zones.

Change “would limit the amount of office and like uses to a cumulative of no more than 25 percent of the floor area permitted on a lot in these areas.” Existing offices would be non-conforming and could only expand with a new use review process for non-conforming.

Chamber was not in favor of this, bc most offices in residential neighborhoods are very small businesses.

Staff is now recommending not changing the code at all.

Limiting the offices won't help mitigate the jobs/housing imbalance and in fact work against the 15-min neighborhoods goals of the Boulder Valley Comp Plan.

Yates: To the extent we have offices in residential neighborhoods, this is what we want: Small ones that ppl can walk to from their homes.

Supports not making changes, per staff's recommendation.

Weaver: What would staff's view be if somebody is doing a new office building in a residential neighborhood? (It would still have to go through use review)

Guiler: It would have to be a case-by-case basis.

Like it is now.

Weaver: The one challenge would be if there was a lot of this going on and we were losing houses and getting jobs.

No matter what, any offices in residential areas HAS to go to planning board, which means council could call it up.

Council OK leaving that one alone.

Now we're talking opportunity zone and how to prevent demolition of apartments there.

Council may do this via an overlay zone: Prohibits the demolition of attached dwelling units within the O.Z.
(approx. 3,400 units) for the duration of federal O.Z. program: 10 years

or it could leave the moratorium in place for the specific zones where apartments are in the area

Morzel: Would these options cover gutting and remodeling of buildings?

Is there any way we could craft this ordinance to address that specific issue? Is there another word for demolition?

Young asks the same question, phrased differently.

Carr is arguing this covers that scenario. But not remodeling: just "gutting" where rooms were changed, removed.

"This language is pretty broad to (capture) some of the issues."

Yates: 10 years is a long time. There's over 3,000 units. Some of them are going to reach the end of their life. "It seems like we're kind of ghettoizing this tract."

"For the next 10 years, property owners don't invest in your properties."

There are 3,400 units in this area, but I don't see a breakout of condos vs. rentals.

I live here; mine is a condo. Most of the surrounding units are condos. Less risk of demolition of those.

Weaver wants to adopt an overlay zone, pass use tables and lift the moratorium at a future date, while the city researches whatever extra benefits it can get if someone is using opportunity zone funding.

So far, there isn't a good answer. And the Camera had a story that real estate experts thinks the city won't be able to find one. dailycamera.com/2019/10/07/exp…

Opportunity zone moratorium expires in June 2020

Brockett: When we embarked on this, it was the understanding that we were doing it to revise the use tables so we don't get what we don't want there.

We've done the use tables to get what we want; the time to lift the moratorium is now.

"I worry that this will become yet another rolling, indefinite moratorium."

Wants to keep the demolition piece, but "we should just let the moratorium go" once we pass the use tables.

Morzel: I would be reluctant to let go of the moratorium until we figure more out. Leave it in place until 2020.

Carlisle agrees.

Meschuk: If there are tax benefits, it may accelerate development. The goal of the moratorium was to make sure we get the outcomes we want.
If the concern is extra profits for the developer and we want to extract additional benefit, that gives me pause.

"There are very strong legal boundaries there we need to make sure we don't cross."

We can keep moratorium in place and do economic analysis, he says.

Yates: I'm going to vote against this. The deal was, once we got use table changes we want, we lift the moratorium. It feels like it's shifting.

Even if we can get around the legal issue of charging more depending on what the funding it, it's not practical. Property changes hands during the course of development; how would you know?

Young is talking about Appendix J for some reason but I'm confused.

Yates: Then we can fix that and put the whole opportunity zone in Appendix J.
Brockett: The vast majority of this area can't go above 35 ft bc it's not in there, and you can't demolish existing apartments, I'll vote for that.

We've finished this project. Now we're saying keep it in place and there are any number of ppl who can't do what they want with their properties. "We're kind of mistreating ppl who are caught up in this through not fault of their own."

Weaver withdraws his motion.

Agrees with legal concerns.

Supports lifting the moratorium as long as demolitions of apartments can't occur.

SOMEBODY ASK HOW MANY OF THE 3,400 UNITS ARE RENTALS VS OWNERSHIP.

I wish I could participate sometimes.

Young is talking about Appendix J again. And I'm confused. Again.

Carlisle: "I think it's a mistake to lift the moratorium at this point without at least doing more analysis."

Carlisle: The Chamber lobbied for this before council even knew about it. It is the most inopportune opportunity zone. The reason the incomes look so low there is they count our students, who don't have any money.

Brockett: The tax program is a terrible idea. But there are hundreds and hundreds of property owners who had no idea about this.

Carlisle: I'm sure that's probably true.

Morzel talking about a postcard she got about opportunity zone investments, from a realtor. She's reading it. "It's interesting the chamber knew about it before the council knew about it."

Carlisle and Weaver also got those handouts.

Weaver: I think the legal concerns are pretty great here.

We've done two pretty good things, he says: Changing use tables and protecting housing.

"I don't see a path to doing what we want to do."

Motion on the table: Updating use tables and putting an overlay district on the Opportunity Zone to prevent demolition of attached units in the OZ.

The overlay zone will be for the life of the OZ: 10 years.

Yates seconded. Now we're just waiting for a vote.

Carlisle: I like the overlay zone. But just as a protest vote, I'm not going to support this. I'm really unhappy about the way it all came about.

Everyone but Carlisle votes for it. Moratorium lifted.

@threadreaderapp please unroll. Thank you.