Thread by @shayshinecastle

Last item: Occupancy limits. www-static.bouldercolorado.gov/docs/Code_Chan…

A lot of this will be stuff we went over recently, when council declined to suspend evictions due to occupancy during COVID. boulderbeat.news/2020/09/19/bou…

Staff is trying to understand what council might want to change so they can craft a work plan. They likely won't start this year, as they are still wrestling with Community Benefit and Use Tables.

This is basically a "sorry we screwed you on the petition stuff and didn't put you on the ballot" bone council is throwing to Bedrooms Are For People.

Though, officially, it's being billed as a "this is an issue many residents clearly care about" thing.

Reminder: Boulder's occupancy limits dictate how many unrelated adults can live tighter. It's 3 ppl in much of the city (68.4%) ; 4 in some higher-density areas (30.6%)

What is the city's definition of family? “[T]he heads of household plus the following persons who are related to the heads of the household: parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces, first cousins....

... , the children of first cousins, great-grandchildren, great- grandparents, great-great-grandchildren, great-great-grandparents, grandnieces, grandnephews, great-aunts and great-uncles. These relationships may be of the whole or half blood, by adoption, guardianship ...

... , including foster children, or through a marriage or a domestic partnership meeting the requirements of Chapter 12-4, "Domestic Partners," B.R.C. 1981, to a person with such a relationship with the heads of household.”

What's the city's definition of Domestic Partners? (which you have to register and pay for to be considered, though I think the city suspended that fee during COVID)

"Any 2 unrelated adults in a committed relationship who meet the domestic partnership criteria to register with the city and to obtain a certificate attesting to their status or to receive a certificate documenting their status ...

... but not be formally registered in the city's domestic partnership registry”

What's the city rule on rebounding from a domestic partnership? “No person shall enter into a domestic partnership after termination until at least ninety days after the termination of any such prior domestic partnership.”

(I bet you didn't know the city even had a rebounding rule for domestic partnerships, but of course it does.)

Further definition of Domestic Partnership (I was going to shorten to DP but you can understand why I didn't)

Domestic partners are two people who have signed an affidavit swearing that they are:
Are in a relationship of mutual support, caring, and commitment and intend ...

... to remain in such a relationship
Are each other's sole domestic partner
Are both at least 18 years of age and competent to contract
Share a life and home together
Are not related by kinship closer than would bar marriage in the State of Colorado
Are not married

Anyway, back to staff's workload. They're also trying to work on parking codes. If they push that, occupancy work could become more of a priority.

Community Benefit is supposed to wrap in Q1 of next year. Use Tables could be later. It was slowed a bit due to COVID.

Staff looking at breaking it into three different ordinances to be considered next year, Karl Guiler says. Much of the work requires a lot of public engagement.

Those three parts would be:
1. more technical changes, straightforward stuff (including changes to shopping centers council already tackled) boulderbeat.news/2019/01/16/wit…

2. 15-min neighborhoods (which will be the most controversial, since it entails allowing housing and biz to intermingle, plus putting more housing in low-density areas, maybe)

3. Changes in industrial areas, which includes some of the East Boulder subcommunity plan work

I missed a couple council qs/ comments. So much to tweet, so little time!

Friend: Why is this a planning thing? A lot of the occupancy issues are noise, trash, parking. Something other than the number of bodies in a home. Are we looking at this holistically?

And can we do work before we take this to planning? she asks

Charles Ferro: This would have to be an internal team from across departments.

Yates: "I think we just need to recognize the fact that to the extent council" takes a look at occupancy rules "those changes may be different in different parts of town."

Places close to the University are most likely to be impacted by higher occupancy, he says.

Occupancy limits are typical of college towns and pretty rare outside of them, from what I have found in researching this

This all, of course, applies to restricting occupancy above and beyond health and safety rules, which are dictated by international building code

Yates: Let's get people involved who are interested in this. Martin Acres HOA, other folks who are working on this. Let's get that started now so we can come forward with recommendations next year.

Nagle: How do we compare to similar cities with occupancy limits? Are we on par? More strict? More lenient?
Carr: We are probably near the low end of occupancy, "but we have so many exemptions" due to grandfathering, triplexes, duplexes, etc.

"Looking at this in a holistic approach" is much more than looking at the number of 3-4 unrelated adults, he says.

Let's talk about how we got here, shall we?

Non-conforming occupancy: (Grandfathered in) 1,253 potential legal non-conforming properties = 5,307 dwelling units + 1,107 rooming units (?)

85% (1,066) due to down-zoning (so the city used to allow more people but then stopped)
15% (187) for other reasons, likely rooming units

Many of these places on the Hill. “The hill’s medium-density residential area has been gradually reduced over the years, giving way to lower-density residential zoning west of 9th and south of College”

Two big down-zonings: 1974 and 1997

Current occupancy established in 1998; planning board recommended a sunset date but city attorney argued against; council did not add one in.

Back to council discussion.

Wallach: I would prioritize this issue so we address it earlier than the middle of next year, as Yates suggested.

Wallach: "I think it's probably time to have the conversation."

"Getting started on this late May or June is probably late in the day."

Brockett agrees on timing but likes' Yates suggestion to start community outreach soon. We want to hear what specific concerns are. And we need to take a "multi-disciplinary approach" that maybe includes updating our nuisance ordinances, etc.

Weaver: As soon as we start engaging with four neighborhoods that are closer to the university, the better. They have strong neighborhood groups already.

Goss Grove, Aurora, Uni Hill and... what was the last one?

Weaver would move two other big projects — fracking and parking — and keep Community Benefit and Use Tables on schedule.

Brockett concurs.

Martin Acres was the fourth neighborhood. Can't believe I forgot the one I already tweeted about. D'oh!

Joseph: Bedrooms Are For People has pledged to return with a petition next year. We need to make headway so maybe they'll "let" the city be part of the solution.

Rather than tackling this with a ballot initiative.

Joseph asks for enforcement data broken down by geography.

Did I ever share the staff presentation? www-static.bouldercolorado.gov/docs/Code_Chan…

Brockett answering a Joseph q about why specific neighborhoods are being called out.
Those are the areas that would likely have more conflicts, he says.

Joseph: I support moving forward as quickly as possible. Reminds council of all the emails complaining about unhoused persons. We need more housing, she says.

Nagle supports Weaver's suggested schedule for work.

"I've seen this request for increased occupancy" every year I've been on council. "This is nothing new. It's the same discussion we've had over and over again."

"The level of community engagement we're going to need for a well-rounded discussion is going to be massive. This is one of our most controversial topics."

We received so much pushback from the ADU discussion, and this is similar when it comes to low-density areas, she said. This is a pretty big item.

Young also on board with delaying fracking — by extending Boulder's moratorium, in place since 2013 — and the redo of parking codes.

We don't know what the fallout from COVID will be on parking demand, she says. Let's wait and see.

Young: Can we add occupancy outreach to our Use Tables outreach?

Reminder: Use Tables dictate what goes where in a city's built environment (housing, office, retail, industrial, etc.)

Specifically, I think Young suggesting incorporating occupancy into the 15-min neighborhood piece of that project.

Guiler: That's the most "transformative" and the piece with the biggest potential impact.

Plan to bring some ideas for community engagement in Q1 of 2021

Young: We should do this sooner or later, bc if folks come back with a petition, it will be Q2? "We'll need to be prepared, sooner than later."

Idk what would happen if we have a petition that's on the ballot, what that would do to the work the city is doing, Young says.

Guiler: Our team, at this point, until those two code changes are finished (Community Benefit, Use Tables) don't have much capacity.

Swetlik: Yes, I think this needs to be addressed as I've stated well before I was on council and many times afterward.

Why don't we put this to HAB? Let them do some work for us?

"This does come with a deadline," he says. If we don't do it, the community will do it for us.

Reminder: Swetlik was on HAB when it suggested looking at occupancy limits and the previous council smacked them the hell down. (Middle of this story) boulderbeat.news/2019/01/09/dev…

Yates: We need to think about what problem we're trying to solve. I think it's access and affordability.

"Our supply and demand is so far out of whack it's not possible for us to add enough bedrooms" to address the situation.

Yates: Anything we do needs to address access to housing and affordability. Which means a 'regulatory overlay" such as an affordability requirement in exchange for relaxed occupancy.

Swetlik: We can't forgot the discriminatory aspect. What a family is may be different from what a family unit was when these were put in place.

Brockett: I don't think we should get into the substance tonight.

Friend echoes.

Weaver: If we focus these changes in particular areas, "we can make staff's life easer and our timetable faster."

So I think suggesting not changing them citywide...?

I forgot to type this, but here are the qs council is answering tonight:
Look at changes in the whole city or in specific areas?
What aspects do you want to look at?
How much public engagement do you want?
Do you want to make this a 2021 council priority?

Also on the screen right now as part of the staff presentation.

Weaver: Is it helpful to limit this to certain zone districts?
Ferro: Yes. The more specific we can get, the better

Weaver: Not tonight, but your advice on which zone districts would be helpful?

Brockett: I'm not sure about limiting it to certain zoning districts.

Friend: When we're talking about targeting outreach to neighborhood organizations, that's only one half of the equation.

Young: If we send it to HAB, we need to provide clear expectations of what we want to accomplish rather than say, 'here you go.'

"That lack of direction has been problematic for the housing advisory board."

Brautigam RE: parking: We've been wanting to work on parking for a long time, but it's important for "council to address the issues that are most salient in the community right now and certainly that is this issue."

So to more fully answer some of these questions (what will HAB do, exactly, etc.) something (vague) will be drafted and brought back.

That's a wrap on this one. @threadreaderapp please unroll. Thank you!