Boulder City Council agrees to tweaks to Zoning for Affordable Housing ordinance

Sep. 26—Boulder City Council agreed last week on several changes to a Zoning for Affordable Housing ordinance that, if passed, will loosen zoning regulations that city staff suggested may be restricting the city's housing supply.

The council has had several discussions about the Zoning for Affordable Housing project this year and asked city staff to draft an ordinance that would modify pieces of the city's Land Use Code, including the site review process, intensity standards, form and bulk use and parking standards. The goal of the ordinance is to remove barriers to building more affordable and modest-sized housing in Boulder.

Brad Mueller, Boulder's director of Planning and Development Services, said at Thursday's meeting that staff's proposed changes to the Land Use Code did not represent a "seismic shift" in existing city policy but could still have a "meaningful" impact.

"(We) had understood this to be a fairly nuanced and surgical effort at what will no doubt be a continued effort for many years to attack the challenge of affordable housing," said Mueller. "We know there's more work to be done. That will come with additional projects."

Senior policy adviser Karl Guiler gave a detailed presentation outlining city staff's recommended changes. Some of those recommendations include changing form and bulk standards to allow townhouses by-right, exempting projects building 100% as middle housing from the site review process, allowing duplexes and triplexes by-right in some zones, and changing density calculation requirements to allow more housing and take away incentives for building larger housing units. There were also suggestions to loosen parking and subdivision standards.

In August, Boulder's Planning Board had voted 5-0 to recommend that the council approve the Zoning for Affordable Housing ordinance with a few changes to city staff's recommendations. City staff incorporated those suggestions into the recommendations they presented Thursday night.

Prior to Thursday's discussion, Councilmember Lauren Folkerts had also presented a number of possible changes for consideration via a Hotline email. Some of her suggestions included exempting 100% permanently affordable housing projects from site review (either in addition to or instead of exempting 100% middle housing projects), adding bike parking to the types of parking areas that aren't counted as part of a structure's floor area ratio in some zones, and adding additional density in some zones by changing the Intensity Standards.

The list of potential changes to the city code was lengthy. The council discussed these proposed changes, held straw polls to gauge councilmember support for each and finally voted to amend the ordinance in the ways that a majority of councilmembers supported.

Ultimately, the council voted unanimously (8-0) to approve a motion to exempt bike parking from counting toward floor area ratios in zones where parking areas are not counted toward those ratios; allow increased floor area ratios in some zones (although some of these areas would require prior approval through site review); strike the staff-recommended site review exemption for 100% middle housing projects (with the caveat that councilmembers may revisit this idea at a later time); and remove some city staff-proposed changes to Intensity Standards so that certain floor area ratio limitations will only apply to single-family homes on lots larger than 8,000 square feet

Several of Councilmember Folkerts' suggestions were among those implemented. After the vote, Councilmember Matthew Benjamin said, "Just a credit to Lauren. Bravo. Thank you. Really, really well done."

Councilmember Nicole Speer added, "I just really want to recognize staff. ... We started really behind. We loaded a department that was short-staffed with most of our workflow priorities. I think you know, some of us were nervous when it took awhile to get started with all of this, and you gave us a plan and you stuck to it. We've been following that timeline and it's just really impressive." She also thanked Folkerts for her leadership in coming up with some additional changes to the policy.

Mayor Pro Tem Mark Wallach was not present for Thursday's meeting.

Councilmembers agreed that some of the proposed changes not approved on Thursday may be worth revisiting in 2024 or at a later phase of the Zoning for Affordable Housing project.

According to Deputy City Clerk Emily Richardson, because the council voted to amend the ordinance, the ordinance has to go to a third reading before it can be officially adopted. At the third reading, councilmembers will decide whether to approve the ordinance in its amended form.

Richardson said the third reading will likely appear on the consent agenda during a regular meeting in October.