Thread by @shayshinecastle

OK, we tore through that historic preservation presentation in about half the time we thought it would take. Next up: CU South process check.

Again, no info to share on this bc none was included in the 600-page council packet.

Well, actually first, council is considering an amicus brief to oppose a law criminalizing those who help immigrants enter the country illegally. There's a case making its way through courts; San Francisco is filing a brief and wants Boulder to support it.

Council agrees. NOW CU South.

Weaver: This is a process check-in, looking at next steps, other agencies, etc.

Jan. 21 is another update, on the report on tradeoffs expected end-of-year, then a February one to do a deeper dive.

It's been awhile since we've visited this. July is my last story on this: boulderbeat.news/2019/07/18/bou…

Sorry for the double this in the last tweet. I'm tired.

Some background: Used to be a gravel mine. CU bought in 1996. No formal open space there, but ppl use it as informal open space.

Phil Kleiser going over what CU wants to do there: student housing, classes, recreational fields

Anything they would build is years away. A decade or more, likely. They want to build out the east campus first. Planning for CU South won't even be undertaken until 2021-2023

This is all background we're going over, for the new members.

2015: city council accepted South Boulder Creek flood mitigation plan
2016: Started engaging CU around annexation

That's when "we did something I don't think we've ever done in the planning realm," Kleiser says, and adopt CU South guiding principles.

That's around the time the current land use map was drawn. A certain portion was set aside for development, for open space, for flood mitigation.

That's one of the sticking points now, is that flood mitigation is going to flood land that CU wants to build on.

So one of the options to get CU on board is to redraw that map. The other option is to change the mitigation design.

Joe Taddeucci, from city utilities, is going to take us into that discussion.

Kleiser was from planning. I forgot to say.

Now we're getting into the designs. Variant 1 is what the city is currently going with, to protect from a 500-year storm.

That 500-year detention area could be shrunk a bit to reduce the inundation on CU's buildable land.

It's all CU's land right now, which is the issue: If they don't agree to what we do there, they won't annex.

On the other hand, they want/need to annex to access city services (water, sewer).

And that, in a nutshell, is where we are.

Anticipated timeline moving forward: Design, permitting and approvals 2020-2023. Construction starting then, through 2025.

Taddeucci: The most easily comparable project took 4 years from the time of approval to complete.

According to this powerpoint slide (again, where are the link to these??) we are in the gap between project study and alternatives analysis and approval/design

Many agencies will need to permit and approve this: FEMA, CDOT, BoCo, City of Boulder, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, federal highway/transportation authority, Colorado's water resources dept, Colorado's dept. of public health and environment, the EPA

And, for some reason, and according to this slide, History Colorado

There are a couple others I missed. But you get the point: it's a lot.

Just focusing on the local timeline: analysis of alternatives done by end-of-year. Back to council in January, February. Then to public and boards March to April. Back to council in May for decision.

If we hit that May deadline, it will have been 1 year and 9 months since the design was picked by council to find a workable alternative to that design.

Wallach: In the absence of having an understanding with CU, how can we keep moving concept analysis along and go into public engagement?

I *think* the whole point of all of this was to find an alternative that CU *would* accept.

Taddeucci: We meet with CU monthly. The design we're working on "is not CU's preferred option, but they've indicated to us there's a version" of it they can live with.

Wallach q 2: They responded to the annexation proposal and then you responded. Have they responded to you yet?
No, Kleisler says.

(I think I need to correct the spelling of his name in previous tweets. I always forget that second L)

Friend: Our decision in May, is that where we were in August 2018? Picking a design?
Taddeucci: I'm not sure.
Friend: Are we two years delayed, approximately?

Taddeucci: One of the reasons we haven't been able to move forward with CU is we're stuck looking at alternatives. But we've been working to develop one that will move us forward. I don't think it's constructive to go over what's happened.

Friend: "Those of us who live in harm's way look at those two years very seriously." Wants to find ways to "condense" timeline.

Yates jumping in (he's on the process subcommittee): There are six major issues, effectively, in the annexation agreement CU has. They are working through some of the issues. The big one is how much buildable land.

That's what all this is about. The current flood mitigation design provides 99 acres of buildable land. CU wants 129 acres. We're trying to close that gap by tweaking the design.

"We may not be able to get entirely there." But we're going to get as close as we can.

Weaver: It seems to me that's what staff is going to bring us. One of the differences between 2 yrs ago and now, it's not Variant 1 vs Variant 2. It's about how much detention we might get, how much land they might get. We both might have to give a little bit.

That's what we're talking about here, is what the parameters of those tradeoffs are. (To Friend) I think it's farther along than you think it is. Maybe not as far along as you like. But we're asking different qs from 2 yrs ago.

(That was Weaver, btw.)

There's an interesting graphic up here showing the city's CU South team. Taddeucci is now serving as kind of the overall coordinator and spokesperson. I guess I didn't realize exactly when Molly Scarbrough stopped being in that role, but it's been awhile.

She was still leading things in February of this year. Her LinkedIn says she's still with the city.

Brockett: My one piece of feedback is let's stay on this timeline or accelerate it. I feel like this project is the highest priority for this council.

Friend coming up with some info I've never heard... something about CU not wanting to do student housing if they don't get enough land or something...? No idea where that's coming from.

That's been a really big thing across this whole project (for me) is people pulling information from idk where, but certainly not any public process.

Friend wants to know if we're doing a disposal of open space land.

This is an issue we've been over and over. Carr says (again) that's a council decision to make: Whether or not flood mitigation is a proper open space use. (Therefore not requiring a disposal)

Clarification from Weaver: We are looking at a range of detention volumes, but staying away from calling it 200-year or 400-year, bc there's no definition for anything other than 100-yr or 500-yr.

This process is just about giving us and CU the information we need to have a discussion.

(Weaver says)

Yates: Another factor with wiggle room is the land use changes. Maybe we can "move that line" of what is defined as open space, parks, public, etc.

OK, that's it on CU South. Not really anything new. I didn't expect much if anything; seems more of an update for new members.

Anyway, @threadreaderapp please unroll. Thank you!

@threadreaderapp I'mma call it a night. Happy to be back in action! But we have a break for Thanksgiving, so I'll see you in two weeks, #Boulder.