Thread by @shayshinecastle

First up: The city's noise/nuisance crackdown on Uni Hill.

documents.bouldercolorado.gov/WebLink/DocVie…

BRL did a great story on what the city is planning/doing up here, which includes giving cops more discretion to ticket for noise, including during the day, and removing plea deals for some of nuisance charges. boulderreportinglab.org/2022/07/06/a-y…

Uni Hill is a hot spot for noise/nuisance complaints, as one might expect. These issues are not new, of course, but a couple things put this back on the map: The March 2021 riot, and a letter from the Uni Hill Neighborhood Association.

The letter preceded the riot, which is prob the biggest driver of this topic. But the Uni Hill neighborhood group has some heavy-hitters, politically, including former members of Planning Board and city council, so the letter prob carried a lot of weight as well.

Anyway, after the riot, there was a 90-day data collection on nuisances on the Hill. It found that Uni Hill had:
- 86.1% of city’s trash complaints (99 of 115)
- 63.2% of city’s noise complaints (478 of 756)
- 83.3% of city’s firework complaints (20 of 24)

Also 100% of complaints about liquor law violations (3), outdoor furniture (13) and parties (7)

396 total unique addresses generated 650 nuisance violations. Majority (89%) are noise and trash (74% and 15%, respectively).
- 245 noise
- 81 trash
- 19 fireworks
- 13 outdoor furniture
- 5 party

This data indicates there are not a few bad properties — issues are widespread. That's clear in the presentation, bc the city references the Top 100 properties. 100(!)

Complaints are concentrated on those 100 properties, though, which are 2% of properties but generate 23% of complaints.

NRV: "The vast majority of our landlords and property managers are doing phenomenal work. But there are some for whom we need to think about ... how do we hold them accountable."

To this end, the city will be considering new laws in the later summer/fall. Possibly related to sanctions or punishments for problem properties with recurring issues.

It's challenging, though, bc housing is often owned by LLCs, so it's hard to track the same owners across multiple properties.

Should note that the earlier tweet about 100 properties accounting for 23% of complaints is NOT from the 90-day data collection; that's a longer period, from June 2020-May 2022.

All data in this presentation is that longer timeframe. documents.bouldercolorado.gov/WebLink/DocVie…

Which matters bc more data = better.
However, it still shows Uni Hill as a hotspot.

5% of total landmass, but 31% of all nuisance incidents

Zooming in a bit more into various nuisances, the Hill has about
- 44% of noise issues citywide
- 58% of property maintenance complaints

20% of properties on the Hill account for 61% of incidents. So, again, a disproportionate number, but not just a few properties... it's a lot. Many have multiple incidents a month, says Tony Spencer, a city data analyst.

Devin Cramer from CU is here. Lots of concern in the neighborhood group that the university hasn't done enough to address these challenges.

"We've really pushed to a more balanced approach of education and accountability," Cramer says. "We've really looked to the effectiveness of students and their standing in the institution and whether they lose that standing ... and balancing that with restorative justice."

0%, 2.5% and 0% recidivism rates, Cramer says. The year that was 2.5% was 3 students.

"We see a huge amount of change in that student's behavior" once we engage them, Cramer says.

More than 30K undergrads at CU, just an FYI

Cramer: We've seen that there are properties that get "passed down" within "friend groups," and they tend to be problematic.

I also think students struggle with social media and hosting an event where unwanted people can show up, Cramer says.

From Boulder PD's workload analysis, 19% of all incidents to which police responded in 2020 were for nuisances.

That's a bit higher than the 2013-2020 average of 13.8%

NRV: Boulder Area Rental Housing Association (the landlord group) is working on curriculum to train property owners on dealing with nuisances at their rentals.

The city had great success with its bear-proof trash can ordinance, NRV says. Maybe that's a model we can use here, with civil penalties (rather than criminal).

"I'd hate to think of things like revocation of licenses" — that is, taking away the renal license from a problem property — NRV says. "We'd like to think of that as a tool of last resort."

NRV: "Certainly we have to think about additional administrative ways to take on those with recurring code violations." We could amend the code so that you have to comply with "everything the city is asking you to do" in order to get a rental license.

We could also reduce rental license terms, NRV says. We could require annual renewals for property problems.

NRV: We need to improve how we notify landlords, too. "They cannot fix what they do not know."

Finishing this Uni Hill update with some followup on July 4. I wasn't in town, but apparently it was bad.

Over 200 calls to the police from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m.

The burglary you see in red on that above timeline is from a party with ~150 people on the Hill. Folks showed up from out of town and broke into a house, says officer Stephen Redfearn.

26 officers also responded to a report of a person with a rifle shortly thereafter. Then there was a fire in North Boulder. Then 200 people in North Boulder park setting off fireworks.

"It was an extremely busy night," Redfearn says. "Many of us were called in from home."

No damage or serious injuries occurred, Redfearn says.

Friend: When you say things are coming to council in Q4 and then April-May of next year, do you mean votes on ordinances? (and associated public hearings)

Yes, NRV says.

Friend: Do we have an update on fireworks and what we're trying to tamp those down? "Fireworks seems like arson in 2022."

Amanda Nagi: We met with our city lobbyist to see if there's anything we can do under state law, to close loopholes.

"It looks like maybe a best path for that group is to work at a regional level," Nagi says. "Even if Boulder were able to do more, and Boulder already has a strong firework ban in place ... they would still come back into the community."

Correction on her name: I think it's Nagl and not Nagi. Hard to see the small text in the Zoom.

"It doesn't appear this is something education alone is going to fix," Nagl says. "They do it in spite of knowing they shouldn't be doing it."

A working group has talked about banning more types of fireworks, like sparklers. Everything that "goes off from the ground" is already banned.

The reason it's so hard to crackdown on fireworks is that by the time they're reported... they're gone. Very hard to catch.

I'm not sure we need to ban sparklers, Friend says. I don't think they're causing fires.

Benjamin: Maybe our incoming sheriff can work on this through fire bans, which would limit the sale of fireworks during those times.

CU's Devin Cramer: We take fireworks reports v seriously, particularly when fire ban is in place. "We've significantly adjusted our stance on that" bc of the very serious risk of damage.

Benjamin: I know revoking rental licenses is a last resort, but can we start communicating that it's a possibility to landlords? Are we starting that this semester, or later?

NRV: "We don't want to create an environment where our landlords are thinking we've got this threat over them all the time. But we want to be honest about what tools we have. That threat, that reality, is already here today." What we're looking at is adding more teeth.

We're waiting to message until we've clearly worked all that out, NRV says. "What we don't want to do is vilify property managers and landlords. ... We'll be thoughtful about that language."

In personal property manager news, I just moved out of my South Boulder rental after 3 months. Property manager never processed my application after I told her she legally had to disclose what she was using my application fee for. Just... never did it.

Sometimes if you ignore a problem, it really does go away!

Winer: "We have this noise ordinance now, not that it's doing much."

"Do we feel that our updated ordinance is going to make a big-enough difference?" Winer asks.

NRV: "By the time we're catching it, the party is already going. So if we can get to that a little earlier, perhaps we can diffuse that party situation before it becomes a nuisance."

The noise ordinance will allow police to intervene without a complaint, NRV says, which is required now for police to made contact.

"We will track it. We hope it will help."

There's not one single solution, NRV says, but we're bringing forth a comprehensive package that together we hope will have an impact.

Winer: BARHA's landlord training is voluntary. What will make the 20% of problem properties participate? Why isn't it mandatory?

Meghan Pfanstiel of BARHA: "I agree, your problem guys/women are not going to be running to fix the issue."

We've also talked about providing incentives, like access to data for landlords who do this training. The process is "still evolving." This is Phase 1.

NRV: We could develop a property improvement plan in which this training is mandatory for problem landlords.

Folkerts: I like thinking of this as, like, the point system on your license. Keep messing up and eventually you can lose your license.

That's all for this one.

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