Thread by @shayshinecastle

Ok, last thing, and it should be quick: A special ordinance to reduce the amount of open space required at Diagonal Plaza, to allow more housing there.

Presentation: documents.bouldercolorado.gov/WebLink/DocVie…

Or, easier to understand, is this story from when council discussed this in July. boulderbeat.news/2021/06/24/dia…

Nothing much has changed since then. Planning Board OK'd this unanimously.

Under the change, 15% open space required on the site. — will be satisfied with a park, community garden

When we talk about open space for the purpose of development, it's not traditional open space. It's literally... space. Like balconies, or a plaza, or an embankment, or like a retention pond.

A park is rare, but it's also the best kind of open space. Bc it's supposed to be space that residents can use to be outside.

Anyway, not gonna tweet much since we've covered this. Council already said in July they support this.

Weaver: How could a future council fix this problem so we don't have to keep doing one-off fixes? "This has been something that has needed fixed for a long time."

Planning director Jacob Lindsey: We can flag it as a workplan. It's a regulation related to intensity (density), not part of the use tables work we've already started.

One note is that this reduction in open space is tied to on-site affordable units. They plan that anyway: BHP is adding to its existing community. But this makes it binding.

Wallach: Do we have any criteria for whether or not we use special rules for specific projects?

There was a list in the packet. More than a dozen examples of doing these one-off rule changes.

Karl Guiller: Typically it's if we get on-site affordable housing.

Weaver: These open space rules create perverse incentives to make bigger units. (and therefore fewer units)

technical difficulties. back in a bit.

Gonna finish this thread from last night.

In the public hearing, Evan Freirich (pooling with 2 others) said that developers should be building *more* affordable housing since they were getting a special break on the rules.

Similar to what the new Community Benefit program does. More height (up to the 55 ft limit) = more affordable housing.

This isn't community benefit, but the developer is getting to build more housing with the reduced open space.

The developer, of course, argued that housing is itself a community benefit worthy of this rule change, as is the revitalization of Diagonal Plaza. Council agreed.

This site was considered for blight status in 2010, but that council declined. Nothing has happened there since.

Wallach Sigh-O-Meter: 1

Wallach: Why are we only getting 25% affordable housing here? Was there room, financially, to do more?

Bill Holicky, from the development team: "I would just remind us all that this property has sat fallow for decades. It has not been financially viable up until this point. This density allowance is the absolute minimum needed to make this happen."

Wallach pushing for cost specifics for the project (how much the land cost); development team declining due to disclosure rules.

Jarvie Worcester, developing the market-rate housing (again, BHP doing affordable): "I'm surprised to get a q as to the cost of land as to how the city processes or doesn't process a requested ordinance."

What he's getting at is that the city can't approve or not approve a project based on how much the developer paid for the land.

It's more than $40K per unit, Worcester says.

"It's clearly a state secret," Wallach replies, but moves on.

Laura Sheinbaum, from BHP: "25% perhaps is the minimum as required by code, but it's getting this perfectly sized and efficient space for BHP within an existing community. That, for us, there's tremendous value in there.'

Swetlik throwing some shade about not hearing specific numbers from the developers.

"All sites are not the same," Holicky says RE: development costs. This site needs to be reclaimed, and reclamation is expensive.

Weaver: "This site needs a lot of love, and I think this is a great way to bring love to the site." Mixing affordable and market-rate housing on-site is a city goal; we're getting that here.

Unanimous vote.

@threadreaderapp please unroll. Thank you!