Thread by @shayshinecastle

It is I, your humble city council reporter, #Boulder, about to bring you another live meeting thread.

Though I am but a lowly woman who cannot be trusted to make decisions about my own body, I'll do my best to tweet this meeting for you.

Tonight we've got a joint public hearing with Planning Board to consider the East Boulder Subcommunity Plan (which I've actually read)*

*Am currently reading. I've been moving for the past 3 days.

And then a couple quick discussions on
- Allowing video testimony from the public
- Council appointments to a couple groups

Council and the planning board aren't deliberating or voting on the East Boulder plan tonight. PB is on May 5; council is May 10. Just staff presentation, questions and public hearing tonight.

Wallach is out tonight, so unless another member takes over, no sigh-o-meter tonight.

Totally forgot there is a quick update on the UN Climate Summit, which is happening at CU this fall. I'll tweet anything interesting. colorado.edu/today/2021/11/…

NVM, it wasn't. I mean, it's cool, but nothing news-y to tweet.

We're already on to the East Boulder Subcommunity Plan. Planning Board joining us virtually.

Here is the staff presentation. Lots of good graphics in there: documents.bouldercolorado.gov/WebLink/DocVie…

Where/what exactly is East Boulder?
It's 1,600 acres (10% of city’s total land area!) generally east of Foothills Parkway and north of Arapahoe Ave

Total population: 18,136
- 17,666 jobs
- 466 residents

San Lazaro Mobile Home Park is only residential area included in East Boulder. There are other homes nearby, but they're lumped into other neighborhoods.

Bc of this, east Boulder is the city's least populated subcommunity

BUT it has Boulder's largest urban Park - Valmont City Park

Now that we've defined East Boulder, what is a subcommunity plan?

“A tool for residents, landowners, biz owners, city officials, city staff that communicates expectations about the future of a subcommunity and guides decision-making about ... evolution into the future.”

There's gonna be a lot of jargon and acronyms in tonight's presentation. You may see the East Boulder Subcommunity Plan abbreviated as EBSP or simply referred to as the new plan.

Let's do some comparisons, shall we?
Plan allows for (over 20 years)
- 5,000 new houses
- 3,000 new jobs

If we don’t change anything, CURRENT zoning/land use allows for 19,909 total population over that same time
- 1,300 residents
- 18,600 jobs

New plan: 32,860 total pop (again, over 20 years)
- 12,500 residents
- 20,400 jobs

Climate impacts
Current conditions: 67,108 metric tons of CO2 - 3.7 per capita
Status quo (in 20 years): 73,666 - 3.67 per capita
New plan: 87,240 - 2.65 per person

That's a 28.3% reduction from current and 28% from trend, according to staff

We'll get back to the plan itself in a minute, but just because I *know* someone is going to bring it up, let's look at the public engagement for this plan over the past 3 years.

24 engagement opportunities (3 Spanish-language sessions)
Connected with over 1,600 participants.
30 meetings of East Boulder Working Group, a 21-person group
22 meetings with city boards
9 events with advocacy groups
8 city council sessions

OK, back to the plan. Let's talk land use.

The EBSP has what's called "place types" — kinda hard to define, but basically they're like land use, but more up-to-date.

Each "place type" DOES have allowed uses on the ground floor and upper floor, plus guidelines for access/mobility, parking, some open space requirements and floor area ratio requirements, plus guidelines for street-level activation and entrances.

They basically define the look and feel of each place type, plus what can go there.

I could (and have) type it all out, but honestly nothing is as good as this graphic (from which I took my notes)

It's also on slide 42 of your presentation

I do have more detailed notes; might share them later. Let's stay high level for now, with more comparisons to current conditions.

Industrial areas
Current: 800 acres
New: 550 acres

Residential + Mixed Use areas
Current: ~40 acres
New: 310 acres

Business areas
Current: ~20 acres
New: ~10 acres

Parks + Open Space
Current: ~380 acres
New: ~370 acres

Public areas: 190 acres (staying the same)

So as you'll see, less industrial land, which was shifted to mixed-use (many ways to preserve industrial uses through the place types), MUCH more space for housing, and slightly less area for biz uses.

That is evident in the population numbers we shared earlier. LOTS more housing will be allowed in East Boulder over the next 20 years under this plan.

I've got specific numbers of housing by neighborhood in East Boulder, if you're interested.

Here are those neighborhoods
- 55th + Arapahoe Station Area
- Valmont Park West
- Valmont Park East
- Flatiron Business Park
- San Lazaro Mobile Home Park

San Lazaro isn't proposed to change, but it IS recommended that it be annexed into the city. It's currently just outside city limits, and like many mobile home communities, it needs new infrastructure.

213 homes in San Lazaro

55th + Arapahoe: 2,050 homes (
- 100 townhome/attached
- 1,950 multifamily)

Also:
616K sq ft of office
136K sq ft of retail
138K sq ft of entertainment space
390K sq ft of light industrial / maker space
156,705 sq ft of light industrial / production space
645K sq ft of parking

Valmont Park West: 1,310 homes
- 20 townhome/attached
- 20 live/work large units
- 40 large apartment; 630 mid-size apartment
- 600 small apartments

Also:
103,300 sq ft of retail space
320,900 sq ft of industrial space
52,850 sq ft of entertainment space

Valmont Park East: 575 homes
- 55 live/work large units
- 360 mid-size apartments
- 160 small apartments

Also:
53,800 sq ft of industrial space
Paseo connecting 55th Street to neighborhood

Lastly,
Flatiron Biz Park: 1,170 total homes
- 40 townhome/attached
- 130 large apartment
- 900 mid-size apartment
- 100 small apartment)

Also:
3,864,600 sf of commercial space

One other cool thing proposed for Flatiron Biz Park: East Side Easts — an outdoor dining plaza.

Again, just want to say this is what *could* be built over 20 years. Except for areas the city owns, this is all dependent on private property owners redeveloping as they want.

These are rules for what/where they can build — not what they *will* build.

East Boulder is only the second subcommunity plan to be created. The first and only: North Boulder, in the 1990s.

That's all my notes. I only made it to the transportation portion of the plan (40 pages in), so I'mma listen to staff now and tweet what they say.

Adoption of the plan is just the first step. Next comes:
- Changing land use designation in the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan (by this summer)
- Updates to the Transportation Master Plan
- Code updates, zoning recommendations, form-based code work (later this year)

Well, it will start later this year. Will prob take a bit to complete.

Reminder: Adoption of the plan not happening tonight. Planning Board voting May 5; council May 10

And, again, the plan itself will unfold over about the next 20 years or so. These are long-range visions.

Joseph: How many homes could we expect in the next 5 years?
It's really hard to know, staff says, bc we don't know which properties might redevelop. That's why estimates are over the life of the plan.

Joseph: What if the next council doesn't agree with this plan?
City Attorney Teresa Tate: It really is the will of council, but these tend to be guiding documents, and so subsequent councils defer to it.

Planning Board member Sarah Silver: Estimates on number of jobs was based on a certain square footage per employee, but they're so different for industrial than office. Can you explain your projections a bit more?

Staff (I'm sorry, I don't know who anyone is when they're in chambers!): We actually did a pretty fine grain analysis. We looked at total office, industrial space, etc. and then used those sq-ft-per-employee figures for each to get the totals.

Planning Board asked us to calculate the maximum possible buildout, staff says. And we used Flatiron Park's current square foot/job calculation today, even tho there are a mix of spaces in there.

Silver: So you're calculating jobs numbers as if everything is going to be light industrial, except we know that's not the case. Can you do a couple scenarios with more office space? (which would up the number of jobs)

Councilwoman Speer: It looks like total GHG is going up. Per capita is going down. Doesn't that take us away from our city goals?

Jean Sanson (I think): There will be more activity in East Boulder. Most of the GHG is coming from transportation. But there will be more activity in East Boulder in the future regardless. There's actually *less* under this plan than there would be without it.

BC East Boulder can/will continue to add jobs (and possibly housing) under current rules anyway, over time. The plan tries to de-emphasize driving as much as possible, which is why this will save emissions over time.

Winer: This plan includes a lot of transit (including a mobility hub at 55th/Arapahoe) but RTD's service has only decreased. What's the backup plan?
Jean Sanson: We know we may not be able to depend on RTD. "There are options, and we're getting more and more focused."

They could do competitive bids, gov't contracts, etc. Sanson says. Many convos happening with partners.

"We could see service as soon as the next 2-5 years. That is hopeful thinking. I wouldn't say it's wishful."

Planning Board member Lisa Smith: How are you planning for funding for increased transit? And when?

Sanson: In thinking about localized transit, we do continue to rely on RTD, supplemented by partnerships with CU. There are grants, and we're thinking about micro-transit.

"We continue to advocate v strongly to restore the fixed-route services RTD provided in East Boulder," Sanson says.

Totally forgot to say this plan calls for expansion of the HOP bus route into East Boulder. Expanded bus service has long been a plan for the Arapahoe corridor (though with RTD the way it is now, who knows). boulderbeat.news/2022/03/19/bus…

Planning Board member Mark McIntyre: We have these plans and visions, but when it comes time to actually approve projects, we tend to default to codes. How close are we to actually updating those?

Charles Ferro: We have a code update planned in June, so it's not that far away.

Ferro: One of the criteria for approving projects is consistency with subcommunity or other area plans. So that is considered.

This plan is also using form-based code, which focuses more on look/feel rather than specific uses or density or other rules Boulder has relied on in the past. It generally helps things go more quickly through review process, bc look and feel is so important.

Planning Board member Laura Kaplan: Would you say staff has maximized the amount of housing we can get in East Boulder?

Kathleen King: "I think the plan balances the community's desire to incorporate housing with the community's desire to preserve space for biz and industrial uses. I would not characterize it as maximizing the amount of housing."

Kaplan asked about building heights, and the gist was: We're not gonna limit it any more than current zoning/code already does. Max height citywide is 55 ft; it won't go above that, obviously.

Having more flexibility with height limits helps us get varied rooflines — a goal of the plan. (Again, nothing over 55 ft, which is the citywide, voter-approved limit.)

Jorge Boone taking 5 min to ask a question: How is this plan actually going to preserve the light industrial uses that are out there today? The banjo maker, the RV outfitter.

King: That's the intent of the Hands-On Industrial Place type we've included. This area is not necessarily cheaper than other areas of town (as staff has shared already). Costs continue to go up.

Boone: I have concerns.

There may be some additional work on providing affordable (subsidized) space for biz, staff says. Council largely abandoned that as part of its Community Benefit work, bc it .... wasn't working. But staff looking at alternative.

Councilwoman Folkerts: Are we thinking of new zones for East Boulder, or are we looking to use current zoning here?

King: Both. We're looking at new zoning, possibly, and also looking at what zoning may work with the plan.

Folkerts: Are you considering any controls to keep industrial? If office space is more valuable, it seems like all these zones allow either residential or office, so I could see the industrial space being redeveloped over time.

Kinda what Boone was getting at, but much more efficiently and concisely.

You may want to prohibit certain uses in certain zones, King says.

Benjamin: "It is an exercise of hubris for us to assume we know the outcomes 30 years from now. How do we cook in" adaptability to the market, community needs, etc.? How do we make adjustments?

King: There is an amendment process. And we could talk about building in regular check-ins during the implementation process.

Oh, Lord, we've got an opportunity zone reference. That takes me back. boulderbeat.news/2019/01/16/bou…

Some of that zone overlaps with East Boulder, bc it follows the census tract. That's a federal thing, tho, not a city one. It was pursued bc of Diagonal Plaza. boulderbeat.news/2021/06/24/dia…

Gerstle: Folks who fly glider planes typically fly over this area bc there's not a lot of housing. Are we thinking of how this will impact them? They are concerned.

King: We've chatted with them. We've planned for a noise study.

Gliders, of course, are silent, but they are towed up by a plane... which presumably make noise. I live(d) right in the flight path for descending planes, and I never hear a thing. Maybe the two highways and train drown them out.

During the public hearing, Kurt Nordback calling for more focus on arts and culture.

A member of BBOP recently did the same... boulderbeat.news/2022/04/23/bbo…

The plan does call for
- Expansion of Creative Neighborhood Murals program
- More public art, particularly at public facilities and gateways
- Privately owned public space program “to provide social gathering, event, market and performance space as neighborhoods redevelop”

OK, we're done with this for today.

Again, Planning Board will deliberate and vote/make recommendations May 5. Council will do the same May 10 (next week).

@threadreaderapp please unroll. Thanks!