2 - Draft Minutes - Planning Board - May 14, 2009
CITY OF BOULDER
PLANNING BOARD ACTION MINUTES
May 14, 2009
1777 Broadway, Council Chambers
't'hese minutes and streaming audio of the entire meeting are available on the web at:
http://www.bouldereolorado.gov/ Additionally, a permanent set of these minutes and a tape
recording will be retained in Central Records (telephone: 303-441-3043) for a period of seven
years.
PLANNING BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT:
KC Becker
Bill Holicky
Elise Jones
Willa Johnson, Chair
Andrew Shoemaker
Mary Young
PLANNING BOARD MEMBERS ABSENT:
Adrian Sopher
STAFF PRESENT:
Julie Johnston, Senior Planner
Chris Meschuk, Planner I
Susan Richstone, Long Range Planning Manager
Chris Toebe, Project Specialist
Brian Ilolznes, Planner II (Zoning Administrator)
Megan Lawson, Assistant Zoning Administrator
Paula Weber, Administrative Specialist III
1. CALL TO ORDER
Chair, W. Johnson, declared a quorum at 6:03 p.m. and the following business was
conducted.
2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
No minutes were scheduled for approval-
3. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
4. DISCUSSION OF DISPOSITIONS, PLANNING BOARD CALL.-UPS
No items were scheduled for discussion.
5. STUDY SESSION DISCUSSION
Julie Johnston presented Study Session information to the board. This included the
analysis completed by staff and outcomes of the "Technical Advisory Group since direction
received from council in March- Current recommendations for how to measure and define floor
area ratio, building coverage and wall articulation standards were presented, as well as the
regulatory tools of virtual floor, 2"{ story building coverage, 2lid story setbacks, measurement of
partially exposed lower levels, and the development of bulk plane standards.
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K. Beeker commended staff's work and stated that going through this exercise helped her
understand the unintended consequences of each way of regulating. All of this was a very
necessary exercise. In the future she would like to see the actual projected costs and would like
to see the Winter and Company goals that were in the memo, because it is important to refer
back to what we are trying to do. Her overall feeling is that now we are getting too restrictive in
size, design and creativity, and substantially increasing cost and complexity. She thinks there are
lots of great homes that break each one of these criteria but they are still great homes and we
may end up regulating these zones because of the worst of Boulder. Because there are some
homes that understandably offend neighbors, now everyone has to meet this standard that is
incredibly complex and regulatory and is very expensive and limited in design. She would like to
have something that people will want to comply with and that they believe in and understand and
that they don't feel is overly regulatory on what is their primary investment, nest egg, and means
of self expression. All of this work, including the thousands of hours staff has worked, is
informative and incredibly well done. It leads her to the conclusion that maybe if we take a
couple of things out, maybe it can get less regulatory and less complex. She does not like the
direction this is headed but she could not say that until it was done. She said if you look at this in
a similar way as you would the First Amendment, she would rather regulate so that some bad
things go through but so that the overall ability of people to adapt for their families, self
expression and primary investment. She would rather take the approach of less regulation, with
some bad stuff getting through, to protect the broader more important goal of creativity and
investment-
M. Young said she went to a presentation by Henri Beer where he talked about how a creative
architect would view constraints and limitations. Constraints are imposed on you but limitations
are self imposed. Someone who is creative can look at things as constraints as opposed to
limitations. She thinks you can still be creative within these constraints. She does not feel that
this cuts off creativity. This is very necessary because as you are in an urban setting and we get
denser and denser with the inf ill that we are talking about doing, she thinks the individual actions
affect neighbors in a manner that becomes necessary to regulate. The representative from Texas
said neighbors used to be able to shame neighbors into doing the right things and as people don't
talk to each other or its not the neighbors doing the work on the properties it becomes more
important to have these types of regulations. Another important thing from those presentations
was that they were asked if the changes had any affect on economics. All of them said no that
there was no affect on their investment after the regulation. She does think what is done here will
accomplish what Winter and Company set out to do which was to decrease the impact of
development on neighbors and maintain the character of the community. She thanked staff for
the great job.
- Jones said she appreciates the work staff has put into this and said it feels like we are getting
to a compromise on the bulk plane that might be workable. The rear yard setback is more
workable than trying to limit the percentage on the second floor. She still needs to be convinced
that we have solved the problem that we don't need a setback. A virtual floor is an idea that is
difficult to get our heads around. As you walk around town and react to different buildings that
impact you as being too much, that unusable extra space has a huge impact on how a building
presents itself to its neighbors and the street. Providing some limits on that will be important if
we are going to limit impacts and make development accountable- If we are really going to
tackle the issue she wouldn't mind bringing down 35 feet to 30. That could be a simple way to
cut to the chase on some of the worst offenders.
B. IIolicky said he would echo what F. Jones said and add that on these models the amount of
floor area is pretty much what the new building envelope allows, as defined by the new bulk
plane, which might take some of the pressure off of the second story impact discussion. He is
concerned about limiting the ability for people to pop their drywall inside their house. At this
point we need to know exactly how it works. As an architect that works for clients he is
concerned about the complexity that we are introducing. As staff goes forward it would be nice
to take out some of the complexity. Ile wonders if because the situation in RI-1 is so different
than RR or RL-2 whether we are making people in all the other zones jump through all these
]loops for all this money and we really don't impact things there because there wasn't a problem
there in the first place. It would be easy for council in a year to add zones to it because we
already have regulations done. Ile is not sure if we should start with assuming the worst. I le
really likes the changes that have been made over the last three months because the original
intent was to affect the impact to the neighbors and the street. It feels like with this bulk plane we
are doing a much better job from the Winter proposal of minimizing those looming impacts, the
second stories, the massive street faces and still preserving property rights. It is a very
appropriate balance for our community. Overall we have made sorne progress.
A. Shoemaker said this whole process was driven by the public reaction over neighborhood
character and obviously there is an increased cost associated with the outcome. Property values
are an important issue to consider as well. The impact of the cost of someone redeveloping their
home will probably be recouped because every house in Boulder will cost a certain amount of
money. What is being attempted here is to protect the property values that might be ruined by
someone who does build the monstrosity next door. There is a balancing situation here but he
does not see cost exceed the benefits that arc being sought- He is interested in seeing the public
reaction to this because that is what has driven this process to some extent. He is sensitive to the
issue B. 11olieky raised about the $10,000 home remodel project. His big concern was FAR and
staff has done a great job with all of the consultants in terms of trying to tailor the approach to
address the problem of neighborhood character in a very thoughtful way and he thinks it will
make the community better in the long run. He likes the direction this is going and will be
interested in hearing what the public reaction is to this.
W. Johnson said she is concerned about the complexity, and the tools as they have been tweaked
are starting to look good. She does shy away from the second story coverage vs. setbacks
although she could be convinced on that. She is intrigued about the 35' height idea, she was
reluctant to pursue it. If it was in the mix of things to be part of the recommendation, she is open
to that. She is not sure where we are at now with accessory dwellings and she is comfortable that
they only need to be smaller than the primary structure. We did have some discussion about
having a greater distance as a backyard protection provision. She thinks that could come back on
the table potentially.
Hoard feedback on Compatible Development tools.
W. Johnson said it is helpfiil to see the models. She said 11 the bulk plane and setbacks and wall
articulation cover and make the form workable then let's not require FAR calculations.
B. Holicky said the original idea of Planning Board was to be more restrictive than the original
proposal on the more impactful stuff on the upper levels and less restrictive on the lower part.
Ilaving seen this all modeled is bearing out. We are significantly less on upper floors than what
the Winter proposal was allowing. We are getting pretty restrictive on the upper floors now in
terns of what you can do and in terms of making it smaller, a reasonable response to that is to
make it less restrictive on the first floors. The original idea that Planning Board had asked staff to
explore, to allow a higher FAR but be more restrictive on the overall square footage, is working.
M. Young said she liked the sliding scale and the way staff has worked that through. She also
thinks starting out at 30% is where Winter and Company started out and that seemed to be where
the sweet spot was as far as the public reaction. Starting there and using the sliding scale works
really well and she agrees with W. Johnson and B. Holicky regarding the bulk planes and how
the upper floor is starting to get restricted and also she would like to sec some sort of rear yard
setback as opposed to the 20%. Having the rear setback and having the vertical plane be
proportional to the depth of the lot instead of just saying 20% might make more sense.
E. Jones said she agrees with what M. Young said. She said she would like to think things
through. It does feel like we are going in the right direction.
S. Rachstone said on June 18 Planning Board will be getting a proposed ordinance with staff
recommendation and the way she is seeing it is with a set of tabs or alternatives so if you don't
agree with the recommended ordinance the hope is there will be alternatives that you could
substitute.
J. Johnston said there will be models of the recommendations that are put forward. If there are
models that the board would like to see they should let staff know so they can provide those
models.
S. Richstone said those models should help the board to know if they are comfortable with the
recommendation or not. Staff will try to keep it simple, as simple as it can be. She said if we go
toward this bulk plane, the newer one that is shown, it is likely that we may not recommend
some of the other articulation standards. Don't expect that you will necessarily see the whole
pallet up there.
A. Shoemaker said he, like E. Jones, needs more time to digest the information and he would
like to see more but his initial gut reaction is consistent with W. Johnson and B. Holieky's
comments.
IC. Becker said she is saying that she prefers what is more simple and what they can achieve
with fewer tools.
W. Johnson summarized the themes brought forward during the discussion: understanding
increased cost and impact as this comes forward; figuring out the virtual floor and how to avoid
penalizing good space inside; shared feeling that the second floors are the most impaetful;bulk
plane seems to be getting there, and bulk plane number- three seems to have consensus support, a
mix and match on electronic submittals would be great but having the flexibility and keeping in
mind small additions, do it yourself folks and their costs; technical impacts and the general
theme of complexity and the ability to regulate this efficiently, the idea that some of the things
around porches, accessory buildings, height, etc. might come as future issues.
W. Johnson said her notes on models showed that they would look at maximizing second floors
if we are trying to understand their impacts and potentially adding a sloped lot, a large lot and a
small lot in the mix.
E. Jones said it would be nice to see what the minimum would look like on a smaller lot.
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6. MATTERS FROM TIIE PLANNING BOARD, PLANNING DIRECTOR,
AND CITY ATTORNEY
7. DEBRIEF/AGENDA CHECK
8. ADJOURNMENT
The Planning Board adjourned the meeting at 9:08 p.m.
APPROVED BY
Board Chair
DATE
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