Loading...
Item 5C Draft 2020 Letter to CouncilDecember ??, 2020 Mayor Sam Weaver Members of the Boulder City Council P.O. Box 791 Boulder, CO 80306 Re: Planning Board’s Annual Letter to City Council – 2021 Dear Mayor Weaver and City Council Members, The Planning Board appreciates the opportunity to provide input into the annual work plan process at the end of this uniquely challenging year. The three questions you put forward for us to address provided a useful framework for us to formulate our ideas. We took the liberty of tailoring the framework questions somewhat to focus on Planning Board’s role in serving the City of Boulder, while hopefully preserving the spirit of the questions you asked us. For each of the questions, we found that, with one exception, that our thoughts fit generally into the categories of Equity and Innovation. Question 1: What recent decision, change to Code, or planning trend do you see as particularly positive and would like to build upon? Equity: • Planning Board is pleased to see the city, council and boards and commissions acknowledging and challenging social, racial and gender discrimination and economic inequity. Too often racism and other wrongs are literally codified at the local level, and we all need to do the hard work to confront and dismantle this. • At the request of Planning Board, Boulder has begun to recognize the Capital Improvement Program as a tool to advance equity and resilience. The new staff position related to equity is also a step in the right direction. • Affordable housing projects have been moving forward, with both 100% affordable projects and projects with a percentage of on-site permanent affordability coming to our board. • The annexation and redevelopment of the Ponderosa neighborhood could be a model for increasing home ownership among some of the most underserved communities in our city. The board is eager to see how this model can be used in the future. Innovation: • The work of the Use Table Review subcommittee was a collaboration of board members, staff, and the community to examine how Boulder’s land-use code could be improved to match the aspirations of the latest revision of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan. This work resulted in productive discussion and creative ideas for expanded housing opportunities, protection of the city's industrial zones, 15-minute neighborhoods and productive/human-scaled revitalization of the city's dated neighborhood centers (typified by BC1/BC2 zoning). • The East Boulder Area Planning Working Group has been a positive example of how subcommunity planning can reveal ways that our city can achieve better outcomes. Planning Board is very interested in what land-use proposals will come from this effort. Question 2: What recent decision, change to Code, or planning trend do you see as particularly negative and why? Equity: • Planning Board members share frustration on the slow progress on the city’s housing affordability goals and recognize the need for additional tools to make significant progress. Too many proposals result in expensive outcomes when the City struggles to meet the challenges of affordable middle-income housing and commercial space. The city is not doing enough to encourage developers and partners to create and preserve the missing middle. • In conjunction with affordability, Planning Board shares concern over a lack of diversity of housing types being developed under our current market and regulatory conditions. Smaller and medium-sized single-family homes, small cottages for seniors or singles or couples, attached homes in the form of townhouses or duplexes, sites developed to allow multi- generational living with a degree of privacy for older parents, adult children, etc. are all sorely lacking. • Planning Board is disappointed that the city’s tools for the community to discuss opportunities for incremental change that would advance environmental, climate action, and equity goals have not been more productive. While the challenges are integrally related to land use and zoning from a Planning Board perspective, they also rely on cross-departmental issues such as Transportation, Open Space, etc. Thus, a more holistic approach should be considered. Innovation: • Progress toward updating Boulders land-use code toward better outcomes has been slower than hoped. We would like to see progress on ordinances that expand housing type options, encourage walkable (15 minute) neighborhoods, incentivize community benefits and steer our neighborhood centers to be more vibrant and exciting. City Planning Staff Morale/Support: • In the past year, the city has experienced turnover in planning staff. We have long enjoyed the benefits of extremely capable and productive staff members, and it’s important for us to examine how to assure that morale is maintained so that we don’t unnecessarily lose people. Providing staff with support to effectively cope with times of heavy turnover is a priority. Question 3: What should the City of Boulder’s planning priorities be in 2021? Equity: • Expand Community Engagement: Planning Board has long recommended that notification requirements for development projects include all residents – owners, renters and business owners – within 600 feet of proposed project. An ordinance to make this change to our land use code should not be a heavy lift and should be prioritized. • Direct CIP dollars towards procurement from and contracting with local businesses, minority owned businesses, women owned businesses and disadvantaged business enterprises. • Continue the discussion around legally sound and equitable means available to the city to moderate the current trend toward upscale housing and to encourage development of more for-sale housing to help low-income and moderate-income residents build equity and intergenerational wealth. • Pursue means – through Use Table and Code Update, legally sound and equitable means, and other tools – to encourage development of affordable, diverse housing types to meet the needs of the “missing middle”. • Maintain our industrial zoning and encourage businesses “that make things” to locate in Boulder. • Continue the discussion of Community Benefits as it relates to affordable commercial space. Innovation: • Consider creative ways to evolve our Land-Use code to create better and more diverse housing opportunities, achieve affordable housing goals, and encourage street-activated walkable neighborhoods. • Complete Use Table and Code Updates to advance creative changes intended to expand diverse housing opportunities, preserve and optimize use of the city’s industrial zones, encourage walkable neighborhoods and productive human-scaled revitalization of the city’s neighborhood centers (typically zoned BC1 and BC2). • Prioritize in the 2021 work-plan a Neighborhood Infill Pilot Project as outlined in the 2015 Major Update to the BVCP. • Continue to utilize Subcommunity Planning, where appropriate and implementable, to ensure meaningful and effective community engagement, coherent area planning, and o Continue the East Boulder Subcommunity Planning Process o Prioritize a Gunbarrel Subcommunity Planning Process and a Diagonal Plaza Subcommunity Planning Process, when economically feasible o Consider other subcommunity planning processes, particularly when centered on potential opportunities within the Use Table/Code Updates to create human-scaled, walkable neighborhood-centers typified by BC1/BC2 zones.