Clerk Between please get a roll call.

Mayor Tapia Vega?

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Barnes.

Good evening.

Counselor Bolier.

Here.

Councilor Friedland.

Councilor Gallegos.

Good evening.

Councillor Gianola.

Here.

And Councilor Jensen.

Here.

Mayor, we have a call.

Thank you.

Mayor, I move to excuse Councilor Friedman.

We have a motion to excuse Councillor Fridland.

Second.

Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed say no?

None opposed.

That passes unanimously.

Great.

Thank you all for joining us tonight for being here.

In a typical city council meeting, this is the time when we typically go to public input and we give you the chance to speak to us.

We will get right to that, I promise, but we're changing things tonight just ever so slightly.

As a council, we believe that there was something we need to address up front and just make sure everyone gets a chance to hear it.

So there's only one quick agenda item before we move on to public input, and that is agenda item A under council appointments, which is the confirmation of the cemetery subcommittee.

Uh and I don't know what that decision will look like.

And I don't know when that decision will come.

But I think everyone agrees that at some point in the future, whether that's the near future or decades from now, there will have to be a decision made about our cemetery.

Um there was a lot of work already done on this, and I do want to uh shout out our staff um because there has been years of work going into this, and there has been plenty of consultants and analysis and studies done around the cemetery and recommendations brought forth uh and even a recommendation that came before this very council uh about a month back.

But the one thing that was made clear was from our community, from you all, that that was not the answer at that time.

And being that we are representatives of this city and being that we are people who want to do the best for our city and want to stand by our residents.

At the time, we heard you and we continue to hear you, and we appreciate you coming to us and letting us know.

And the most beautiful thing to me is the fact that that is still the form of government we have.

It's a form of government where people get to speak and their voices are heard, and our representatives, being us in this case, get to act upon the wishes of our people.

So thank you for making your voice heard.

The conversations continued as weeks went on, and of course, uh hearing you all come to our city council meetings made an impact, a great impact upon every single one of us.

And in having those conversations and speaking to residents, I know most of members of this council, including myself, walk the cemetery with Mr.

Archaletta.

We want to understand exactly what it is that's going on in our cemetery.

We want to have a good sense of understanding before any decisions are made.

And in doing so, our city manager had an what I think is an incredible idea, which is a subcommittee.

Uh a subcommittee is a small committee of a couple counselors, in this case it will be two counselors, who are tasked with simply understanding the issue, and ultimately at some point when we feel like we have what we need and we feel we've engaged enough and we've heard enough and we've learned enough, we will come with a recommendation to the rest of council.

Uh we do this a lot.

Currently there is a vacancy on our planning commission, and there's three counselors that will take on a subcommittee to interview the applicants and then bring a recommendation towards city council.

So it's it's a pretty regular thing, but in this case we wanted it to be specific about the cemetery.

So that is what we will do.

I will say at our last workshop, the recommendation that brought was brought forward, I think it was by our mayor pro temp, was that the two members of the subcommittee should be Councillor Boyer and myself.

And not only am I honored to be recommended, I'm happy to do the work.

Um that is where we are.

We will tonight be formalizing a subcommittee to try to understand and to hopefully find the best path forward for the cemetery.

That means so much to every single one of us.

Um again, I I I know I'm speaking on, but I just have to say a few more things before I let the rest of my council speak, and of course, uh my partner in our subcommittee.

This is a difficult issue.

This is not an issue that is going to have easy solutions, and it certainly is not an issue that we can fix overnight.

This is going to take some work, it's going to take a lot of engagement.

It's going to take us speaking to you, hearing from you, understanding from you.

But there's been a few things said here and there that I just want to kind of level set and make things clear.

There's been comments made about how staff and council are divided, and there's recommendations being brought forth.

I just want to make it clear once and for all, staff, council, and everyone who works for the city of Lafayette in any way, we are united in this issue.

And we want the same thing, which is the best thing for our city.

We want to make sure that whatever step we take next, whatever that may be, is what our city deserves and what our residents need.

That is what we're here for, and that is what we promise we will do.

Uh the last thing I will say is that when I ran for city council, and then ultimately for mayor, I I didn't I said one thing to to many of you, and and it's something that reigns true and rings true today, which is that I will never lie to you.

I'm not a politician, at least not a good one.

Um I am just a kid from Lafayette who is grew up to just live the honor of his life, which is representing you and being the mayor of the city that I love.

So I will never lie to you.

And with that I will say I cannot promise the world.

I cannot promise that this solution will be something that will serve absolutely everybody because I don't know what the solution is.

And more importantly, I will say the most honest thing is that there will be some uncomfortable realities that we may have to grapple with as a city.

Not just this subcommittee, not just this council, but the city as a whole.

But it may be difficult, and at times there may be hard decisions ahead.

So I just want to thank you again for your engagement with us.

Thank you for making your voice heard.

And we're looking forward to to getting to work and ideally finding the right solution for our city.

And with that, I do want to turn it over to Councilor Golier, who is again my partner on this subcommittee.

Thank you so much, Mayor.

It is an honor to serve on this subcommittee.

Um echo and agree with everything the mayor put on the table.

A couple additional thoughts.

Uh first and foremost, um, we recognize many of the faces in this room because we've heard from you over the past month, and it's been a privilege to hear from you.

And as the mayor noted, the pain and anger and frustration that you shared with us are legitimate and we empathize.

This is part of the reason for standing up the subcommittee is in order to have a dedicated, focused effort, since we have, as you'll see on the agenda, a wide variety of city business to run.

But this issue is so important and so impactful and so meaningful that it requires a relentless dedicated effort, separate from normal council meetings.

And that tees up the June 10th community dialogue from 6 30 to 8 p.m.

on June 10th at the Lafayette Public Library.

We invite everyone in this room, everyone you know, everyone you can find to come for a community dialogue.

We have hired professional facilitators and mediators to facilitate this discussion.

This will not be a meeting where you are informed what's what and sent on your merry way.

It will be a discussion and a dialogue where we hear from you, where we will learn from you, you learn from each other, and we can potentially explore some solutions or paths forward.

As the mayor said, there's no easy answers to this.

And so something that we've said in the previous meetings is decisions were taken in the 1980s and 1990s regarding the cemetery that we are currently dealing with.

And so while none of us here made those decisions, we are taking ownership for addressing the issue with the utmost urgency, transparency, and compassion.

As the mayor said, that doesn't mean we're going to solve it 100% or get exactly what we want.

But we are going to be as forthright with you as we possibly can as we navigate this difficult issue.

And we're going to do that through the subcommittee and through a series of dialogues this June 10th meeting, again, June 10th, the Lafayette Public Library, 6 30 to 8 p.m.

That will be the first in a series of dialogues with you because this issue is so important.

You know, I was talking with my mother earlier today, and it struck me, she said something to the effect of there is nothing that that articulates a community's character more than how they take care of their elders.

And so we want to do right by you, right?

We want to do right by our elders.

You know, when the state archaeologist uh made her recommendation and made that office's recommendation, which came from a good place, whether we agree or not that it came from a good place, there was no associated playbook.

There was not a recipe for us to follow in order to resolve the remaining uh cemetery plots.

And so what we're going to do through this subcommittee through this council as a community is we're going to write that playbook together.

And so that June 10th community dialogue, we will ask for your help, your assistance, your guidance as we write that playbook together.

There's a wide variety of materials that we have made publicly available.

There's some more that will be forthcoming in order to illustrate the depth of the problem, the challenge.

But we really want to be as urgent and transparent and compassionate with y'all as possible, which brings me to the last point.

I think it's very important to own up when when you make a mistake.

And so while there is tremendous work and character and effort uh on behalf of fellow counselors and city staff, uh my personal perspective is we could have handled the past month better.

And I'm sorry for that.

I'm truly sorry for that.

But going forward, let's look at the subcommittee and the June 10th dialogue as a reset where we try to recalibrate and reframe this relationship and this challenge and navigate this together with you.

So thank you so much for coming out tonight.

We look forward to hearing your public input.

I'm going to turn back to the mayor and fellow counselors, but it's a privilege to navigate this issue, even while it is very challenging.

And we thank you for for your patience and your understanding.

Thank you.

Uh I want to open the floor up just to other members of council they want to speak on this particular issue.

Councilor Gianello.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um I I'll also echo everything that that the mayor and councilbrillier said.

And I agree with you all wholeheartedly, this is a difficult issue.

I'm glad we're dealing with it.

Mistakes have been made in the past, and we're we're here to do our best.

Um I I think it's useful to you know quelch a couple of things that have been I've seen uh spoken in the community, I've heard spoken in the community that just aren't true.

At this at this council meeting, we are not uh it's not up for discussion whether we are closing the cemetery.

That is not on the agenda for today.

That is not on the agenda for any future council meeting, as far as I'm aware.

There I saw something in the community that said the count the council is going to close the cemetery on June 30th.

That that is a uh nonsense topic.

That that is just not up for uh for a vote.

It's not on our agenda.

It's just it's a rumor that's out there that is untrue.

Um and so I thought it was is useful for the community to know the current status is we have this June 10th meeting, and that's the next step.

We don't have any other steps beyond that right now.

The mayor and council are going to discuss this among themselves as a committee.

I believe, are you going to engage and be at the that June 10th meeting?

Absolutely.

As the council representatives, yeah.

Um but beyond that, nothing is is firm or you know even up for discussion at this time.

Um but we we do value all your comments.

You know, I've talked with a number of of community members about this topic, and I I recognize the passion and the issues and the questions and the confusions and the concerns.

And I do want to you know admit that problems were made in the past.

You know, we this was you know not created by us, but was created by the city, and we're here to try to do our best to to address it and fix it.

Thank you.

Thank you, counselor.

Any other members of council.

Okay.

Um, just to make sure we formalize, I will we will want to take formal action tonight.

So if we could please have a motion.

I moved to form a subcommittee to address the cemetery issues and to appoint Mayor Tapia Vega and Councilmember Boulier to that committee.

Second.

We have a motion.

We have a second.

Any discussion on this issue?

Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed say no?

None opposed.

That passes unanimously.

Thank you so much.

With that, we will now move on to public input.

Thank you so much for allowing us just to get that out of the way.

Um, but we believe it is very important.

So, as with typical public input, um, if you would like to speak, please fill out one of the speaker forms there in the back through those class stores.

When you do come up, please just for the record, state your name and address before you begin speaking, and then you will have five minutes to speak while you have five minutes to speak.

Just remember there's a little clock in front of you.

So uh, in the interest of just fairness and making sure everybody gets the exact same amount of time in interests of equity, uh, I will be asking you to stop at five minutes, but again, you don't have to try to guess how long five minutes are.

The clock is right in front of you.

Uh, and with that, we will begin tonight.

Actually, one more thing.

If you are not here but wish to uh address council, you can also do so online.

That phone number is posted on our website.

With that now, uh, we'll begin tonight with Denise Walker.

That's what I get for coming in late.

Um, I'm just here to put in a brief plug for the world elder abuse proclamation that you're going to be presenting later on, and just add to that the fact that a lot of people aren't aware that in Boulder County adult protection services is akin to child protection services, and that that is available.

So if anyone is aware of a friend, neighbor, person, anyone who's actually 18 or older, that can't make their own, you know, can't make meaningful decisions on their own behalf, but particularly older adults, if you have any concerns at all for them.

Um, there's a uh phone number for reporting.

There's someone who can screen and take your information and um process that 24-7, and that number's 303-441-1309.

Um, and I again I just want to add that bit of awareness to the community understanding that elder abuse is a real thing.

It happens, and if you if anybody's aware of uh or even concerned that something like that might be happening, make the call and then let the you know the folks who know this best help you out.

And that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Next, we'll hear from Frank Archuletta.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor, Council members.

Justice, fairness, reality, the truth, and evidence.

Right now, for the record here, this letter right here was from the Human Right Commission, basically to Monty Stevenson's and also to council here to shut down Potterfield in the cemetery.

They were digging up babies there, and what happened here throughout the years, they buried other people there.

Okay, and you all have the letter right here.

Council, you must pass not pass resolution 2613.

It passed, it would be a crime against humanity.

As a public servant, you must be on the right side of history for the 270 plot owners if they want to have a casket burial.

As I have stated before, the Lafayette Town clerks in the past did not record the burials in the West Potter field and the 100 heading plots in the East Potter field.

Democracy, social justice, under constitutional rights and law.

Town clerks were required to record all burials.

Call off state law enacted in 1912.

Burial laws enacted in 1907, 446.

Saxons endorse permits to keep all burial records.

Also, persons in charge of any premise shall return all permits, the endorsed to the local registrar, which is a town clerk, and they failed to keep individual burial records as required by state law in 1907.

They did not record the East Potter's field and also the West Park's field.

Call our state statute 1921, 446.

Section in 1941, Section 114, the local registrar or the clerk shall be in charge with the duty to find all permits and return him to endorse by the Saxon and return to the board, county clerks.

Death registrations and death certificates were required in Colorado around 1906.

Council and town and city made a big mistake in the past by not recording the West and East Partersville area.

Do not make another mistake by not allowing the 270 plot owners if they want to have a casket burial.

Respect justice must prevail for the senior citizens of Lafayette Europe.

The community members and families who own these burial plots are veterans, commanders of X VFW, ex-mayors, council members, Lafayette Town clerks, fire members, government members, union members, city employees, businessmen, church families, Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Cold World Patriots, ex-newspaper families, construction workers, Rocky Flush, AEC, Atomic Energy Commission workers, Gold Star Mothers, and many more families that deserve this.

There's also miners and also farmers' families here.

Staff and council.

What about humanity, dignity, the value of respect and loyalty and dedication to the citizens who own the 270 plots?

The effect on health.

The families of the owners of the plaza are also suffering tremendously emotionally with pain and misery and hardship because of this cemetery issue.

Council, you must not pass resolution 2613.

Now, according to the city map, there are over 300 availabilities in the city.

Still, the 270, and there could be up to 48 city plot owners.

I know it's a hard issue and all that, but yet justice must be served for all these people here.

It's not only affecting these people here.

It could be 2,000 people.

Every family has at least 10 family members.

The whole city is outraged right now.

What's transpired here?

If only the clerks would have took the records years ago, and because of the clock's plan, they didn't want to do it.

And I gave you two scenarios.

The clerk's office was at the 200 block of Simpson Street.

Hennings was down about the 600 block.

All they had to do is go down there and get the records through all those years.

Or Henney did not give them to him.

One of the two, and we don't know that, but still, it was a state law, basically.

Now, as far as uh the state archaeologists, he was only in that cemetery for three days.

Down in the Potter Seal area down there.

Sure, I'm gonna hit something.

They didn't have the records.

That should not demoralize all these families right here as far as not to have the opportunity if they want to have a casket burial here.

This has affects so many people, council, so many people.

I have been getting phone calls day and night on this issue since the beginning.

My research is deep, very deep on all this here.

I'm perhaps maybe the last person alive that knows more about that cemetery than anybody else billing.

I have researched that thoroughly over and over and over again.

Thank you very much, and I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Next we'll hear from Gertrude Garcia.

Just no microphone to speak back here.

No, you can speak.

You can begin.

Okay, you got very well.

Whenever you're ready, you can go ahead, Mom.

You can speak now.

My name is Gertrude Garcia.

I live at Westminster, Colorado.

You can begin speaking, ma'am.

Excuse me?

You can begin speaking.

I can't hear you.

What's that?

Oh you want me to say what I came here to say?

Okay.

When I first heard what's going on between the city of Lafayette and the Lafayette Cemetery, I could not believe it.

I could not believe it.

I have lived in Lafayette almost all my life.

My husband has lived in Lafayette.

We were married in Lafayette.

We went went to school in Lafayette.

My four children were born in Lafayette.

Lafayette is our hometown.

And to have somebody tell me you cannot be buried in your coffin where my husband is buried in his coffin, and I want to be buried next to him.

I was married to him for 65 years.

Now don't you think I have a right to be buried next to my husband?

Come on.

Don't you think I have a right to be buried next to my husband?

I just don't know.

I don't know how to explain the way I feel right now.

This is just an awe for me.

I just can't believe what certain people are trying to do to us to say you have to be cremated.

Or you have to go to another cemetery.

We don't want you here.

Go to another cemetery.

Now come on.

What kind of people are you to think like that?

I hate to raise my voice, but I am definitely disgusted, and I want to be buried next to my husband.

We went to City Hall 55 years ago and bought our plots.

And our plots are right off a baseline.

You go into the main gate, the first two plots on the right-hand side are our plots.

Now tell me, who could be buried there without people not knowing?

This just doesn't sound right to me.

I do not believe in cremation.

My family does not believe in cremation.

None of my family has ever been cremated.

And I don't want to be buried in a God only knows where.

You know, that's just not right.

That's just not right.

I know Lafayette is having a problem with our cemetery on the northeast side.

Does that cover the whole cemetery?

Does that mean everybody at the cemetery has to do what the a few people want them to do?

Get cremated or get out of here.

Go to another cemetery.

No, that is completely wrong.

That is against my religion, against my family religion.

My mother, my father, my grandparents, everybody, all my relatives are buried in Lafayette.

Nobody is cremated.

When we made that purchase at the city hall to buy our plots, we paid for them.

That is our plot.

That does not belong to the city.

That is our land.

That is our plots.

Somebody comes on and say, oh no, you have to be cremated.

You have to be get out of here.

Go to another cemetery.

You can't be buried next to your husband that you're married to for 65 years.

Now let me ask you a question.

If your loved one passed away, and you had a plot right next to him, would you want to be buried next to them for the rest of eternity?

You know, this is very, very stressful.

I have never been so under so much stress.

I am 91 years old.

I don't have that much time on this earth.

I'm 91 years old, and I don't want people making a decision that I'm going to be buried.

When I have my own plot, I paid for it, it is mine.

That's all I got to say.

That's it.

Thank you.

Huh?

Next we'll hear from Ernest Garcia.

You know, growing up in Lafayette, when it was a small town, it was so peaceful.

Everybody got along at my time growing up there.

There's no real bad racism at the time.

It's fading away.

Everything was really good.

I know the past, what's happened in Lafayette.

Back in the early part of the century.

And it was bad.

It was bad.

But at my age, growing up, it seemed like everything cooled down.

Everything was nice.

And everything about Lafayette was really nice growing up.

All the younger kids, my age then were in sports, Little League, everything.

The city did good to make baseball fields, everything.

Everything is great, you know.

And I knew growing up, one of the most sacred parts of the city was our cemetery.

It really was.

Because we've had a lot of relatives, a lot of friends.

Everybody else was that we knew was been buried there that have died.

Now to have some remains found at one time down in like the Potter Field area to close the whole cemetery down where we've never had trouble anywhere with any of my relatives or friends, family with ever being buried, finding remains until recently.

This has been going on.

And to stop the whole procedure is wrong.

And growing up in Lafayette, it just seemed like one of the best things was the most sacred thing was in this town is the cemetery besides our churches.

There's something wrong.

There's something wrong with all of us, you know, to not understand our own souls where we want to be buried, or your souls where you would we like to be buried.

Maybe you want to be buried next to your families.

Maybe not, you know.

Some people, they're their kin are buried across the country.

But that's their individual choice, you know.

Here in Lafayette, like I said, growing up, it was a close-knit community.

So something has to be done with this and not wait and go through this and that and this and that.

Make a decision, you know.

If if it doesn't pass, we'll go from there, you know.

But to keep the peace and the and the soul of the people in cemetery, pass it.

You know, if they find somebody remains or something, there's always options.

Other cemeteries do it, they'll just move them over or find out the GPR first before they somebody's died, and they're gonna uh dig the plot up.

You can find it.

You know, you don't have to go to every one and you know, find out what areas are open and which aren't.

Just the plots that are owned.

If somebody dies and they want to get buried, their family wants them to bury, you can do it then.

It's that's simple, you know.

Instead of all these companies coming in and giving their opinion, negative.

Some say, well, it's okay, you know, just be careful.

When you bear, you know, when you get you know, dig the plot up.

Come on, you guys have the power to make the decision.

And it's a few, it seems like a few people here, but everybody in town knows about this.

And it's up to you guys, you know.

And I hope you make the right decision.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next, we'll hear from Derek Garcia.

Mayor, council.

Thank you for this time.

Um, first and foremost, I'm not from Lafayette.

Um, I was not born and raised here.

However, my family was.

Um, so I don't have any uh direct skin in the game in terms of the future of the cemetery.

However, I do have many family members who are buried there, and um a handful who are gonna be buried there, hopefully.

Um so I think the one thing that we all have in common, regardless of whether or not we're from Lafayette or whether or not we're gonna be buried in the Lafayette Cemetery, is the value of human dignity.

And this is a tough topic.

Um, and this is coming from somebody looking at it from the outside, right?

Um, it's a tough topic.

It has uh a direct link to human dignity, it has a direct link to um history, to tradition.

Um, and I say all these things because um whatever the right answer is, I hope that you all get there through deep consideration, through factoring, including the human factor as you decide and determine whatever it is you're gonna move forward with and how you're gonna move forward with it, um, and not take the easy way out.

And that's not an accusation to any of you in particular, that's human nature.

We all, whether we realize it or not, look for the easy solution.

I hear it every day at work, I hear it every day from people.

Keep things simple, keep things easy.

Well, sometimes things aren't simple, sometimes they're not easy, and this is one of those times.

So don't look for the easy way out.

Look for the right way out.

That's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we'll hear from Chris Stondelinger.

Hi there.

Um, I'm here to talk about the resolution 2026, 13, the moratorium of the cemetery.

Um I just want to say thank you.

I added this little part.

Thank you for subbing or forming that subcommittee.

I sincerely appreciate those of you that are willing to represent our position and try to help with solutions along with understand a deeper, deeper emotional stress that goes along with it with many people.

Thank you for hearing and representing all of us that voted and trusted you up there.

Um thank you to the council member.

Thank you so much for attending the more memorial days service.

We really appreciated that.

A lot of us stayed after and talked about how much we appreciated that you spent extra time talking to everybody and your willingness to listen to everybody, and I really appreciated the empathy that you had for people.

Thank you very much.

Um we're trying to help with solutions.

So I keep hearing about this 270 number.

And so since the last meeting, my dad has been on the phone contacting people he might know or um they might know people like that, um, trying to get them to find out if they even received letters.

Many of them did not receive letters, others said they were going to sell their plots back.

One said she had just sold it back the week before.

She um told my dad on the phone, um, and several are planning to use them for cremation, and some hadn't decided yet.

Um he then started getting calls from people who they had told.

So these people started calling him and telling him about all those people.

One of them sent a council letter to you guys tonight that you probably read because she now lives out of state and she's planning to use hers to be cremated.

Everyone he spoke to, he made sure to give them that phone number that you ask us to do so that they would call and give them all that information.

We thought if we could get accurate information on the 270, it would bring everyone to realize how many were really dealing with of these casket burials that we're talking about.

Um I volunteered to help because the city said it was hard to get a hold of people, but they said they didn't want any help.

I'm sure if we knew the names of people, my dad might be able to, with his friends, be able to contact those people, but they just said they weren't able to do that.

So we're just reaching out to anybody that we can.

Um reading the summary more of the executive um cemetery that the state recommended.

I noticed that the ex it said that any excavation be undertaken with extreme care.

So that was the exact words that were written in there.

So maybe all that means is hiring a contractor that'll actually dig by hand like they used to all those years, versus you know, all the other materials they use.

But in ending, I just beg you to continue to exhaust any and all options before you approve that resolution of no casket burials.

The state experts even said this is only one of the methods that there are.

And I have to say, Kathy Erickson said it well the other day on nine news if you missed it.

She said, she said it really well.

She said, prove to me that there's somebody buried in my spot right here.

And that's all we're asking about.

Um please remember this may just be a yes or no to you, but it's a lifetime and forever eternal decision to many of us and our families for generations.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Up next, we'll hear from Ashley Garcia.

Hi, I'm Ashley Garcia.

Uh I've been living in Lafayette for 32 years.

I'm actually speaking on behalf of my uncle, my aunt, and my mother.

Um my uncle bought the plots in 1999, which was 27 years ago.

And literally bought his, my mom, and my aunt's plots simply because they couldn't really afford it.

Now you guys are saying they can't be buried there or they have to be cremated.

They are devout Catholics.

Cremation is not an option.

They don't have the money for to be moved.

And not only that, but their entire family is buried in Lafayette.

Um I plan to be cremated and buried with my uncle, because that's probably the only way I'll get the visit from my son.

But um, because he'll go visit grandma.

Um, I just think you guys really need to think about this more because I mean, if they're devout Catholics, they're not going to get cremated.

You can't ask them to go against a religion.

That's not real.

I mean, it's ridiculous.

Um hopefully you guys make a better decision.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we'll hear from Christian van Vowdenberg.

Good evening, Council.

My name is Christian van Wittenberg.

I live in Erie, where since 2014, I've been directly impacted by oil and gas development.

As a former Erie Council member, I work to strengthen our local regulations under SB 19181.

I'm here today as a data analyst and community organizer, and on behalf of students at Peak to Peak Charter School and the Lafayette community at large.

In May, I spent several days with ninth grade students at Peak to Peak discussing the problem of marginal oil and gas wells.

I explained that Colorado has 45,000 active oil and gas wells, nearly 11,000 of them classified as marginal, producing fewer than two barrels of oil per day on average.

Almost 450 of these are within one mile of Colorado schools, and 42 are within 2,000 feet, a distance within which studies show children face elevated risk for respiratory neurological and gastrointestinal harm.

The students were shocked to learn that one of these wells sits in a farmer's field just 1,300 feet north of their school.

We talked about what they could do and who they could ask for help.

The safest outcome for this well that sits just north of Peak to Peak Charter School is for extraction oil and gas to properly plug and abandon that well.

It's the Simpson MD 2-7 well.

I have here 40 letters written by these Peak to Peak Charter students to the mayor, asking for your cooperation and your help, and urging the council to act to protect the health and safety of these students at P2P Charter School.

Together with these students, I'm asking the council to open a conversation with extraction oil and gas, a subsidiary of SM Energy to encourage them as strongly as possible to plug and abandon not only the well next to Peak2P Charter School, but all eight of the low producing slash marginal wells that sit within the municipal boundaries of Lafayette city limits.

Lafayette has an opportunity to join Lewisville and Superior in saying we have eliminated all active oil and gas wells within our boundaries because we care about our residents.

I welcome the opportunity to present our full data set and analysis to the council and staff.

I know this work won't be easy.

That seems to be the theme in today's meeting.

Getting these wells plugged in abandoned will take persistence, coordination, and political will.

But I believe that working together, we can make Lafayette a place where every resident is protected from the risks of nearby oil and gas activity.

Thank you and happy pride.

I've got some information for you here about our work with marginal wells.

And I'll leave with the clerk these amazing, amazing letters that these ninth graders wrote.

I'm so proud of them, and I'm so encouraged for the future of our youth.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we'll hear from Rhea Trivetti.

Hi, my name is Ray Travetti.

I'm 15 years old, and I attend Peak2P Charter School in Lafayette, Colorado.

I go on track in cross-country.

So I train on our school track for two hours every day after school, almost every day of the year.

You'd think that means that I breathe in the fresh Colorado air, but that's not true.

My teammates and I live in methane.

Peak to peak track is 1,324 feet from a low-producing marginal oil well owned by SM Energy.

They also operate another well, 1,500 feet from Red Hawk Elementary.

These wells are aging, but they produce almost no oil and bring very little revenue for the operator.

But small output does not mean small risk.

Marginal wells are more prone to equipment failures, fugitive emissions, and methane leaks.

They also release volatile organic compounds that worsen air quality.

For students like us who spend hours outside playing, practicing our sports, long-term exposure raises the risk of headaches, nausea, asthma, coughing, and even cancer.

This is not a hypothetical concern.

This is the reality we are living every single day.

Colorado law now requires new oil and gas wells to be at least 2,000 feet from school facilities.

But the well near Peak to Peak isn't.

Because it was built after these new regulations, and right now students are the ones living with the consequences.

I don't believe we should have to.

That's why I'm asking the Lafayette City Council to help protect the 1,450 K through 12 kids at my school by one advocating for faster state plugging programs.

Two, urging the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission to prioritize wells in your schools.

Three, supporting stronger methane and air quality monitoring, and four, encouraging operators like SM Energy to plug and abandon marginal wells near schools.

The 1,450 students at Peak2P, from kindergarteners to seniors, deserve to play sports, go to recess and attend schools without risking their health.

You, as a city council, have the power to help us.

The question is, how are you going to use it?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, uh, we will hear from Rylan Newman.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members.

I'm Ryland Newman.

I'm speaking on behalf of Classrooms for Climate Action.

I am here to urge you to tell Extraction Oil and Gas to plug and abandon the low-producing oil wells near Peak to Peak Charter School.

There have been five reported spills in the last 10 years from wells within a mile of peak to peak.

Faulty, leaky wells can spew cancer and climate change-causing chemicals like methane and volatile organic compounds.

These chemicals have the potential to harm children now and in the future.

Seven of the wells that are within a mile of the school are low-producing.

As they become less profitable, operators invest in them less.

Research has shown that these marginal wells dispropor this are disproportionately prone to leaks and emissions.

So these wells are more likely to cause harm to young people around them.

As a young person who graduated from a Boulder Valley School District school like Pete Peak a year ago, I urge you to tell extraction oil and gas to plug these wells, especially the one that is within 2,000 feet of P2P.

It is important that my generation and the people who come after us can attend school in a safe environment.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much.

Up next, we will hear from Mike Baronick.

Born and raised.

Five of those still remain unfilled.

My brother and his wife, my wife and I, and a cousin.

With what was said prior to opening this for discussion, thank you very much for having the subcommittee to look at this because otherwise I'm afraid what I might have said.

So thank you very much for doing that.

I spent considerable amount of money putting two large headstones in my brother in my plot.

And given my current uh religious beliefs, I want to be buried next to my grandparents and parents.

I want my body there.

I can't speak for the rest of these folks, but I know we have a lot in common.

The only question I have is why were we, the owners of those plots, not notified as to what was going on, what had been done, and to receive the letters of the moratorium.

I can't tell you how I felt other than I feel a little bit better about it now.

Um I die before this moratorium has another another answer.

I would like there to be an exception to the rule and allow me to be buried next to my parents.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we'll hear from Susan Hudson.

I'm Susan Hudson, and after the last council meeting, I came to the city camp at the city the next day, and I live out in Alpha Tower Road in 104th.

And I live out in Alpha Tower Road in 104th.

But I grew up in Colorado.

I grew up in Lafayette.

And I went to school here.

So I may want to make sure we have my brother and I have plots at my father bought years ago.

And I wanted to come to make sure that my brother had that you guys had his address and his email and my email and my name.

And we have yet to receive any letters at all.

My brother wrote the city council a letter, the city manager letter, and his name was Jim Wood, and asked specifically to see what if anybody was married buried in these plots.

He has not had an answer yet.

And I'm glad that you're having this meeting next week.

But we have to be fair to us that grew up here in Lafayette and realize that a lot of people want to have burial.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we'll hear from Kathy Erickson.

Thank you.

I'm Kathy Erickson.

And I live at 860 West Baseline Road, apartment 132 here in Lafayette, and that's a 55 plus community that I highly recommend.

If anybody wants to go, you need a 55 plus community, please come to Affinity.

That's great.

I want to thank each and every one of you for what you're doing for us, because I know that it is a lot different today than it was in May when we came.

One is I don't understand why if the city knows which graves could possibly have something in it.

Why can't they mark that grave with a stick?

So that it's not too expensive, but the person that owns that grave would know, okay, they they think something somebody's living in there, living in there, somebody is buried in there.

And um I think that's only one thing to me, and and I do feel this way because somebody said, Yeah, well, there's somebody in your in your grave.

I want to know from all of the scans, all the studies they've done, why can't they mark the graves so that we could know my grave is one of those graves?

And the other thing that I wanted to bring up to the council is um I've heard this from two people that well, we don't even know for sure if one of them told me directly.

I don't even know for sure if your husband's in his grave because the the dirt moves, and he might be in he might be moved into your grave by now, or he might be moved to another place.

Well, this is really odd for me to think that the people we've buried in our cemetery are moving around because the dirt moves at that level.

I just think that that's kind of a crazy idea, and I do not accept it.

And I don't I don't believe that people that have been in their positions for less than a year can make decisions for us that have lived in this town our entire lives.

They don't know what's best for us, and I thank you guys for bringing that accepting the challenges that you're going to have.

Come forward.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next we'll hear from Sharon Stetson.

Good evening.

My name is Sharon Stetson.

I live at 626 Glenwood Drive, and it's me again.

Okay.

Um I came tonight because uh I was told that I would get the information about our plots uh that my husband and I own, and I gather that that's not going to happen.

I would like to thank you for getting this subcommittee going.

But I also want to ask you a question.

I mean, right now 270 people are still alive.

Okay.

We are not in our graves.

But what happens?

You have a contingent contingency plan.

For what?

What happens if one of us passes away before you make your big decision about the cemetery?

If it was if it happened to me, I know my family would want me to be buried in a casket, and I'd like to make that right now in front of everybody and on council minutes.

But I'm sure the other people do too.

So I would like for you to consider that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we'll hear from Alan Garcia.

Good evening.

I'd also like to thank for the subcommittee.

But I have a question, and maybe the city attorney might be able to answer it.

In the subcommittee, there should also be at least one or two members that involves in this discussion.

Another question for the city attorney is when you pick an arbitrator or a mediator for the city from the city.

We all know how that works.

I have plenty experiences with mediation arbitrators.

It has to be two sides, not one.

And when the city of Lafayette, I think it's a great idea.

But somebody in this group in this room needs to be a part of choosing a mediator or an arbitrator.

And uh earlier it was we are under a lot of stress.

Some of us are getting sick, we're getting ill, we're going to the doctor.

You know, this isn't easy.

And not to have complete or even what I feel a part of what we've been discussing for this last month, but not receiving any information.

You can go online or whatever, what have you, and you don't see anything about discussions from the city council concerning the cemetery.

Why?

You guys have mentioned that you've had these meetings, city manager, you know, part of them, city attorney part of them.

She's advising everybody.

Why are we kept out of the loop?

On the uh tenth.

Are we going to get any information?

Are we going to receive information that we could read and come to a conclusion or maybe a resolute or resolution?

What's going to happen at that meeting?

Are we going to be talking?

And there's not going to be no answers.

And I'm like that.

I'm addressing that to the two Lafayette Council people.

Because we're smarter.

We know.

We've dealt with city issues.

We've been here long enough.

We knew city council people.

We knew people who donated land to the city.

We still know them.

We know that they have tombstones at the lobbyist cemetery.

Their kids are still alive.

Went to school with their kids.

But on the 10th, I hope there are answers.

And thank you.

And you thank you for the subcommittee.

But there's more to a subcommittee than just two representatives.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we'll hear from James Ortega.

Thank you, Mayor, Council, and City Staff.

My name's James Ortega.

I live at 1250 Scorpus Circle Lafayette, Colorado.

I've been up here before to talk to you.

This is my third meeting with you.

You call it a public hearing, but most of all I see is a monologue from the citizen who was speaking to the council and no questions getting answered.

That really concerns me because that's not what a hearing is.

A hearing is a dialogue between the people.

Well, we have a lot of questions, they haven't been answered, and they continue not to be answered.

So I don't know why we're paying staff money to have not answer our questions and reverse off to a uh consultant.

That's really disturbing to me.

So today I guess we're still going to have a monologue here and not a dialogue, because I had some questions I wanted to ask.

Is this going to be a monologue or dialogue?

So this is your opportunity to address the council.

Yeah.

And the question I have for you then is that uh why can't you provide us site specific information on the ground printing penetrating radar so I can determine if a soul is rushing in my site.

If somebody is on my property, then I can make a decision of what options I have, whether I want to be buried, cremated, whatever.

I don't know why you can't furnish that site specific information.

You don't have to do it publicly, everybody, but to those 270 owners who should provide that information to us so we know that somebody's trespassing on our property.

I don't agree with those people.

The ground pinning radar was provided by paid for by city funds.

So it's public property for us, so that information should be available to us, and we should not be being gaslighted by the staff that it's not available, we can't furnish it.

Uh that's unreasonable.

We've all been told that they're telling the press that they've notified everybody, but I still have family members that own pots up there that haven't been notified of this process, and that's that's disturbing.

So I ask you to consider will you start getting some answers from the staff to the people that would ask these questions.

I'm asking you, Mayor.

Again, this is your opportunity to address council.

Yeah, I'm asking you, Mayor.

Unfortunately, we're not in a position where we answer questions.

This is public input.

This is only public input, so this is not a back and forth.

You have you have two more minutes left of time.

One other thing I would ask you to do is turn up the volume on your mics because you're really hard to hear, and I don't know if I'm just old, but uh that's really hard to hear the dialogue is taking place.

Okay, I thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Up next we'll hear from Beverly Smith.

Hi, my name is Beverly Smith.

I live at 12 uh 80th uh Scorpio Circle, and of course I've been a resident of Lafayette since March of 1942.

So I've been here a long time, and I also worked for the city of Lafayette 30 some years ago.

Anyhow, if I remember I also had to take care of cemetery bees, calling the John Bickles, the grave digger when uh when he had to take a grave.

I um, you know, just did a variety of things.

I worked there for 20 some years.

So anyhow, from what I remember about the cemetery, the northeast section was always a problem.

Um most of the uh plots belonged to Hanningtown Mortuary, which you know, people would go in for service, and he had bought blocks of cemetery lots, and I'm sure he would sell them on so they wouldn't have to come to the city, but they didn't keep records.

We tried to get records and never get them, so that was always a problem.

But in the 80s, they did a uh some kind of probing.

I don't know.

I just you know I worked with it and I just did the paperwork and stuff, but I know they did probes, and they probed a lot of cemetery plots, and they told us where they didn't find anything, and they wanted them vacated because maybe somebody bought them in early 1940s or something.

And they told us where they didn't find anything, and they wanted them vacated because maybe somebody bought them in early 1940s or something.

So, anyhow, some of them they vacated at that time.

In fact, I bought a couple of them.

My sister Carol, who's here at Saddler, she bought some, and so did my brother.

I know my uncle bought several because when my father died in 71, he sold them two of them that he bought.

So I don't understand if the issue is with the northeast section of the cemetery, and I can understand you don't want casket burials here.

But why ban them from the rest of the cemetery?

A lot of those, I mean, they were already probed in the 80s.

I was told they were probed and they were vacated.

As far as I know, nobody's been, well, maybe some have been buried in, you know, some they bought at that time.

But it's just seems like it's really sad for these people who already have a spouse buried, and they can't be buried the way they want to be next to their spouse.

That just seems horrible in my, you know.

My husband and I are still uh up around for how much longer we don't know.

And my sister and her husband.

But I just really wish council would look at it and look at, you know, I'm sure the records are there about the probing in the 80s.

They at least they should have them.

And you know, but there's always been a problem for the henning out mortuary spaces, because I used to sell them blocks at a time.

I mean, you know, 10, 20, maybe even 40 spaces.

I just remember that whole section had Henningham ortuary.

So please take that all into consideration.

The rest of the cemetery should be good.

According to the in the 80s, it was good.

Of course, I quit in early 1990s, so I don't know what's happened since.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next we'll hear from Jill Ortega.

Okay.

Well, good evening.

I am uh Jill Ortega.

I live at 603 East Baseline Road in Lafayette.

I am uh sorry for the humans that came to the memorial on uh memorial day.

My daughter ran the Boulder Boulder, but you did encounter my sister and my mother.

And it was a great honor that they honored my father, and he's gonna be put on the wall.

So I want to thank those that were there that you know got to meet the people, fill the community.

Because it is all about vibration.

It is.

We are all an energy current to each other.

You get my energy, I get your energy, and that's what makes the world go around in our big world.

So the only thing I gotta say that I'm disappointed in is that A, my mother has lived here forever and a day.

My cousin has.

A lot of these humans have.

And I don't understand why we have not gotten any documentation.

Nothing has been sent to us.

Um it's disturbing because I used to be a postmaster, and I know the post office.

If it says return to center, then it has to go back, and if it is an important document.

Now, the question is, how are you going to have a fruitful meeting with all of us?

So we get a solution, so we're not coming back.

Here's A, here's B.

Give us um, you know, a synopsis.

What are what are we trying to achieve?

If we have 270 humans that bought plots, those are their deeds, those are their plots.

Uh, the Boulder Accessory uh office, my sister worked there.

She said when people had uh to pay their property taxes, and say you sent out the bill and then it came back.

It was up to the humans, the staff to contact them and pick up a phone, do research, and God knows you have the ability now to find anybody on the internet.

Yes, no, we do know that.

And I know you cannot respond back to me, but there are solutions so we can move on.

These poor people that are in their 80s.

My mom's in her 80s, 70s, and God knows.

We don't know when anybody's gonna die.

That's up to God.

That isn't up to any of us.

And so the thing of it is, these people do not need the stress, and that is a big stress mentally, emotionally, and then that one gal that was here, and and you guys had to tell her, No, hey, pal, you gotta bury your dad in Luceville and your mom's here, or vice versa.

That is stressful.

I lost my dad in September.

We buried him on the 19th.

So how then were we able to do that?

And we were okay to do that.

That doesn't I'm sorry, I'm not comprehending that.

And then my mom is stressing out because gee, she can't be by her dad.

Mr.

Posey is stressing out because his wife, and God bless Miss Linda's soul, I don't know how long it's been, but it's been a hot minute, and this poor man is stressing out because he can't be with his wife.

We have to come to a solution.

And I do appreciate that you guys did come up with the committee, but how so we can have a fruitful meeting.

How then are we going to attack this?

How are we gonna so we're not saying the same thing?

We should be able to know what the hell those people found.

And I agree with Mr.

Posey.

I agree that he says each case has to be done special.

I mean, uh are there zombies coming out, and we know that these bones are there.

Not to be disrespectful, but come on now.

I mean, these were sold to the people with good faith.

They have good faith.

In the 50s, a handshake was a true thing.

If someone's bullshitting you, what?

That's not who we are as a community.

We're not.

So we I believe we should come up and protect our human rights.

We should have an outline.

What are we gonna do?

How are we gonna get a solution instead of beating a dead horse?

What is the solution?

All is that what this meeting's going to be.

How are we gonna work together as a team?

Not an I, but a team to get a solution so people aren't stressing out.

You all know stress causes, heart attack, cancer, all kinds of things.

We don't need to do that.

We don't need to kill people.

We need to come up with something nice and that works for both sides.

Okay.

So I know my time is up, but I thank you.

And please inform us and communicate.

And I think the communication will help the people and make people at ease and not stress.

All right?

Thank you.

Okay.

Up next we'll hear from Tony Munoz.

Hello, members.

I'm Tony Munoz, and my property address, I live at 214 North Michigan Avenue in Lafayette, also known as 500 East Baseline.

Um I've been here a few times also.

Um I'm here uh as both I mean a very strong um resident of Lafayette.

I I tried to live in Erin.

It didn't work.

I and I I even taught Andrew Moore's child religion class.

I mean, um very connected with with the Catholic church, which is around here.

All of them, the VFW, and all of our community.

That a lot of people aren't here because they're so confused, guys.

I'm going off script already, sorry.

They um a lot of the people aren't here because they thought it was said and done.

I've had people calling me crying, saying, My mom can't go to the cemetery.

And I was like, we can go there and visit.

And like, why would you word it that way?

Well, that's what she's saying.

I'm like, oh my gosh, we're stressing our friends out, you guys.

We gotta, we I'm so thankful about again.

I'm going off my script.

I'm really thankful about the committee, and so I want to uh three things I want to say.

Please um let's have three to five people, something like that, uh, representing the group of folks that still have plots or you know that are that want to be involved in and can at this point um know your audience.

The majority of these plots are not your age guys.

It's really sad.

The old mayor of Lafayette, um, Mr.

Romero, his wife is one of those people.

I I attend mass daily mass with her every morning.

She does the readings.

And so, you know, that's always been her plan is to be right next to him, along with a number of these ladies and men.

And men.

We've got a, you know, Mr.

Montez, Sandy, Sandy Montez's husband, he's my age.

Um, and then, of course, uh Mrs.

Montez, Isabel Montes, and she's got to be in her 80s.

And so they're all so confused.

They're texting me, they're calling me.

I see different things on Facebook, and I don't even know what to do.

I I really don't.

So the committee, I think is a fabulous idea.

And and first start with communication.

We've got to get the word out there and present ourselves knowledgeable and compassionate and be one with the with everybody.

And it's not the city against the people, it's everybody working together.

We I'm I know I'm repeating a lot of what everybody said.

And about it not being easy, but being what's right.

My father is buried in Erie in a mass grave.

It's hard to say, guys.

It breaks my heart, and I it really wants it makes me emotional.

And we've gone there and we've tried to find it.

They don't know where it's at, they tell us.

We looked at flat maps.

Our plots are so much better.

Oh my gosh.

They don't know where it's at.

If somebody could tell me where Tony Munoz is buried, I'm named after my father and my grandfather and my great grandfather.

You know, that would be wonderful, but then they're not thinking about shutting down or anything.

They're they're doing kind of what's hard.

And so far, I haven't heard anything about having problems, so I'm not real certain where they're at with all of this.

Um, but but I think sometimes doing what's right is better than doing what's easy.

And then uh, yeah, that so those were the three things.

The subcommittee communicating, it's really forced, so to speak, um, you know, making certain, oh, about Erie, and then uh making certain that residents are part of the subcommittee, and last but not least.

For people that still have plots there, and they don't want to use them, or they want to go somewhere else.

Please think of a research and come up with a more accommodating um value.

This is a deed.

I'm in real estate.

I've been in sales and engineering and contractual sales my entire life, whether it was in the tech industry or real estate.

A deed means something.

And we are all here as a very high representatives.

You guys aren't just city members, you're you're council members.

You're a step up.

I appreciate the hierarchy, and so please really think about maybe a little better uh accommodation for some people that you know, maybe the husband and wife are still together, not one of them's not buried yet, and they're like, you know what, let's not fight it.

Let's let's go to Erie.

We've got grandma and grandpa there, we've got our T O and Tios there, we've got you know, my grandma Jones there, or my grandma Jones is in Lafayette.

But anyway, I just was lost for words.

So thank you, thank you so much.

And uh let's come up with a strong committee.

Let's uh come up with some great dialogue.

Let's figure out how to communicate with our generation, and uh that's the tough part.

Good luck.

We can do it.

Thank you.

Next we'll hear from Ron Spalding.

Good evening, Ma'am City Council, Ron Spawning, 1326 over all the way Lafayette, Colorado.

Different subject.

I want to speak about the Kensington Illustrator Plan, which was submitted on May 1st for the intent to develop the range at Lafayette.

I know you can't take this under consideration.

That's okay.

Hopefully, this will go after people in the city Lafayette.

Give a little bit more understanding of this.

The latest proposal ruler doesn't change anything for me.

The trader chose and talked are nice, but I don't think it will change many minds on the overall same cookie cutter type of development is seen everywhere else.

Now is the time to develop the city's ultimate design for future development that was coming in from scratch, according to the legacy Lafayette comprehensive plan.

The current plan is not visionary.

This is Mr.

Tebow's opportunity to really make a statement for the next generation of community living.

Still too dense for the three units, still too tall, even with building height reductions, three-story condos blocking the western views of the Rocky Mountains, multifamily four-story out of character with existing adjacent neighborhoods, and three-story questionable.

The only housing types are condominiums, multifamily, a minimum mix of housing types.

Why exclude other types such as pair of homes, patio homes, cottages?

The land uses are still pretty much segregated.

That is the vast majority of residentials in the northern half.

Major commercial retail is in the southern half of development.

Still a lot of blacktop in the development.

Concern of an evacuation wrap from the development in case of a calamity.

Even with the proposed reconfiguration of public open space, it's still not very convenient to access from the residences.

Need for pocket parks is something more adjacent to the residents' buildings.

I'm not certain that the linear park, adjacent to Range Drive, the major access street and development is the best way to have public land because the traffic exhaust, safety of young children, and balls accidentally going into the drive, et cetera.

In my opinion, the developer has tried to address the Planning Commission, City Council, and public comments, but in a minor way.

That still supports the original concept plan as stated on page one, paragraph one of the May 1st, 2026 letter to Stephen Williams.

Quote While the overall project remains consistent with what was submitted during the sketch plan phase.

The plan has been adjusted to better align the feedback provided during the sketch plan process by city staff, the planning commission, city counseling, and the community while maintaining project feasibility.

To me, it signals that the developer cannot make significant changes that will impact the financial feasibility of the development.

I certainly understand that.

So maybe the developer should move on to another more friendly locale.

Mr.

Tebow and Kensington Development Partners, Negro Crockett are business people and are good people.

I wish Mr.

Tebow, and this is a reach out to him if Mr.

Steven Bow is listening or his uh consultants are listening.

I wish Mr.

Tebow would have called in local boat local boulder builders and tried to develop a feasible local local development to meet the new comrades of plan.

I think that opportunity is passed.

Mr.

Tebow has done a lot for the Boulder community, which is fantastic.

Great philanthropist.

He's also a tough businessman.

But I wish he'd listened to the real concerns of the residents in Lafayette, what they have about the design of the range development.

Mr.

Tebow has a golden opportunity to make a legacy development that could be duplicated by other builders in the future.

He could set the standard.

He has a great reputation.

If he took a little bit of time, he could really make this something.

You know, might make national headlines.

Thank you.

I know you can't consider it.

I'll be back in commission city council.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Next we'll hear from Karen Rayforth.

It's been a while since I've talked to City Council, so I'm back.

I'm Dr.

Karen Ray Forth.

I'm a retired psychologist.

I've been a resident here for well over 20 years.

I was on the Lafayette Cultural Arts Commission for over 11 years and communities that care for over eight years.

I do a lot of things in the community.

And luckily, since I'm retired, I have time to do it.

I come to ask you for your continued support of the proclamation to celebrate and support the LGBTQ communities, which involve our residents, our business owners, and visitors to Lafayette.

It is even more important now with civil rights under attack in the United States.

So I welcome that proclamation and hope there's no problem of passing it this evening.

But just wanted to add my support because after all these years, I have never come on the exact night that it's been done, and it's been done for a number of years, and I continue that tradition with joy as a lesbian and long-time resident.

I just wanted to also note that transgender adults and children are under attack across this country as scapegoats.

Even in Colorado, families with trans kids are moving here because they're persecuted in their state.

And indeed, they're much safer here so far.

And that will change in the fall when there will be a lot of painful mud slinging by some folks trying to take control of trans kids and adults over the objections of parents, health care providers, good research, and other experts.

There are some initiatives on our ballot coming our way.

And I wanted to warn you that our LGBTQ residents will be harmed by these initiatives.

Trans or not, no matter the outcome.

I'm happy to talk to you about the research about that on these topics because we have uh great research that started way back in the 90s when we had some serious mudslinging around amendment two, where um it was going to be legal to take away any civil rights in this state for LGBTQ residents.

That would include not being able to get a library card if you're a lesbian, if someone at the desk didn't like it.

Fortunately, that got fought all the way to the Supreme Court and uh was uh struck down by the Supreme Court.

I also appreciate the other proclamations on the agenda tonight for gun violence awareness, which we so much need, and elder abuse.

Many of my older friends and colleagues feel that they need to hide their identity if they plan to go into senior living housing.

We need more education in our senior housing, and I just note these as some of the issues that my community in Lafayette is grappling with and across the state.

I want to say a quick thank you to Councillor Jensen for showing up to key LGBTQ events around the county, because visibility matters as we all know, and we all know that she's representing uh Lafayette when she shows up and raises her hand and I'm here.

It's really great to see.

I'm always like, yes, Lafayette's represented.

And thanks to Melissa Heisel for continuing to defend freedom to learn in our library.

Well, many libraries are under attack in Colorado and across the state.

And finally, I thank all of you for your service to community.

I assume that you're all making about three cents an hour for what you're getting paid.

So I'm sorry for that, and um appreciate everything you do, even if I don't agree with what you do sometimes.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we'll hear from Vicky Euland.

Hi, I'm Vicky Elen 303 West Simpson Street, and I have not talked to you guys very much about the cemetery because it's not my area of expertise, and I'm not as personally affected as many people are.

Um, culminating in the May 19th letter or announcement that went out about the informational meeting.

I felt like the tone of that was we're gonna have this meeting to present these options to you that you've already heard and said that you don't want.

And um, you know, I haven't seen, I've also seen the media interviews in which you know, we've been asked if it's the city's fault, and the answer was like, well, you know, this happens in a lot of cities.

So I really appreciate Kyle, you taking um speaking up and taking responsibility for the city's errors with this.

I appreciate an apology from the city about what has happened with this.

I really appreciate the subcommittee and they the leadership that council is showing on this.

I feel like you know, this has the possibility to be a PR nightmare, but it also has the possibility to be another Rose Lauerus moment for us in which the city took something that was a really horrible thing that happened and that the city did, and um acknowledged it and made it into a teaching moment.

I mean, we have an exhibition that travels around Boulder County about our swimming pool, and I think that we can really be a leader in what to do with a cemetery that's old and has these issues.

So I really I have really high hopes for what you guys are gonna accomplish on this.

Um I have a couple suggestions based on um what I heard tonight.

Um first of all, I'm I'm really looking forward to what our new communications director has to say about this, um, especially when with her background in public outreach.

Um I um, you know, the idea about adding people to the subcommittee.

I'm wondering about a working group having served on some city working groups myself.

Um maybe that is an approach to take to make sure that um people are, you know, people who are personally affected are involved in this and also can communicate, you know, out to the public.

And um I think that's it.

Of course, I came up here with no notes, so you know, it's not as polished as usual.

But um, I I just want to say thank you very much for taking leadership in this, and I look forward to what you guys are gonna accomplish.

Oh, I remember my other thing.

Relying on the the people that mentioned that they have been calling up people that they know, relying on more on people to get the word out that are personally affected by this, that know people that are personally affected by this, and that know better than you know, the city staff about this.

I think that this is a really good opportunity to engage the public in what can be an actual actual excellent PR moment for us and hopefully solve problems.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh seeing no more speaker request forms.

I will just ask is there anyone who hasn't spoken yet who wishes to speak.

If you would come on up, just state your name and address for the record before you speak, and you'll have five minutes.

Thank you.

Um, Danelle Donlinger and Gary Posey's granddaughter.

Um, I just had a few things and I wasn't planning on speaking today.

My mom was going to represent my grandpa today.

Um, but I just I don't know if this is a possibility, but I know several people have brought it up.

I wanted to ask if there's a possibility to make a motion that Adam could be on the subcommittee as well, just because I think of people's comfortability.

Um, everybody saw him there at the Memorial Day service, and my family didn't have anybody buried there, but shoot, I've been going down there since I was two.

We walk there from my grandparents' house to the cemetery every day.

Um, and I really did hear a bunch of the community.

You could hear people whispering because I was in the back with my dog.

People were whispering, like he came, like they care, like somebody cares about us.

And so I don't know if that's a possibility because I know you guys do that.

I just thought I'd throw that out there just for people's comfortability and feeling heard.

I think that was really meaningful to a lot of people, and just having him in the mix to have his ear, I think would give people a little bit of a like piece of happiness.

Um, and then I was wondering if before the meeting, the committee could potentially meet with my grandpa and mom to get an idea of the actual number.

They're being really humble.

Um, my grandpa's the most humble man I know.

And they probably made around 40 to 60 phone calls, and they have a lot more numbers than I mean, they're even that my mom has an expel Excel spreadsheet, and they're willing to help.

They want to help.

That's all my grandpa and my mom have done their whole lives, and my grandma when she was here.

Um so I don't know if they could help be a part of the community.

Sorry.

Um, but just getting an idea on the true number, because I can't tell you how many people have been sitting there on the phone and they're like, well, Gary, we're not even gonna use our plotter.

Well, Gary, we sold ours back last year.

And he's like, well, you need to call somebody and tell them that.

And so I think just getting logistical numbers would be really helpful.

And I know that they could help do that.

Um sorry, I'm a PE teacher.

Cortisol is a real thing and stress is real thing, and shoot, I'm not even gonna be buried there.

Um, but my resting heart rate has gone up since we got the moratorium from a solid 62 to an 84, and just sitting here tonight, it was at a 112.

Um, just because of the thought of my grandpa not being able to be next to my grandmother.

So I think it's hard.

I can't even imagine how hard it is for them.

Um, but I guess the last few things is very recommended to do the best thing for our city.

And I see all the time, like we're protecting these buildings and we're protecting all these really great things about the city of Lafayette.

We all love Lafayette.

I think the best thing we could do could do is to protect the history of Lafayette.

And some of these people in here are staples of Lafayette and have been here since generations.

And I've heard, I think it was nine families.

I've been writing down on my phone notes, nine families have said my grandfather's name because he truly is a staple of Lafayette.

He's never gonna tell you that.

He's gonna sit there and smile and love the city and love you guys with all his heart because that's who he is.

But I am gonna advocate for him.

And I mean, he is Lafayette history.

If and if any of you guys want to just have lunch with him, and he does amazing things still, and we both went to Centaurus, and I know we have like our every year time year reunion.

I'm reminded how old I am.

But um, I mean, they have Bobcat lunches where my grandpa still meets with the guys from his class, and they all talk about they all wear their bobcat their Lafayette Bobcat hats and they wear the maroon and they go to lunch and they go to breakfast and they talk about their football games and their coaches and how they built these buildings in Lafayette and how those dang fields they had to change the light bulbs.

They had a guy crazy enough to climb those poles every day and check on the light bulbs at their football field.

And I was like, that's terrifying.

But it's long story short, it's all these really cool stories.

And God, I wish I could sit at one of those lunges and just hear all those guys talk because I love Lafayette with my whole heart.

And I mean, I know all you guys do too, but the best thing we could do is protect our Lafayette history, and that includes my grandpa, and that includes these wonderful people who have spent their whole lives dedicating their whole work to the city of Lafayette.

And I know you guys are on the right track, but if there's any way we can maybe make a motion to add Adam and then if anybody wants to meet with my grandpa and my mom, I mean they have the Excel spreadsheet, they've talked to countless people on that list.

Some have moved out of state and don't even want to use their plots and forgot they even had them, and then they called my grandpa back and said, Oh, we actually do have these.

And so I think just getting the logistical number before that meeting could really help a lot of your progress.

And I'm just really, really grateful that you guys are listening, and I can tell just wholeheartedly, and again, I'm emotional and I'm a teacher and I love my kids and I love my community, but I really appreciate the love that you guys are choosing to pour into this versus just passing it on.

So thank you for your time.

Thank you so much.

Is there anyone else who hasn't had the chance to speak that would like to speak tonight?

Not seeing anyone else in person.

Have you had the chance to speak, sir?

I have one more comment, please.

Unfortunately, we only have the five minutes per person.

I I appreciate you, but just in the interest of fairness, uh, we want to make sure everybody gets the exact amount of time.

Seeing no one else in person, I will turn to our city clerk to see if we have any calls.

We do have one person on the phone there.

So caller with the phone number ending in 848.

Talking is now available.

Phone number ending in 848.

Phone number ending in 848, you should be unmuted.

Caller, please unmute your meeting.

With that, we will close public input for tonight and move on to tonight's consent agenda where we have a few items, uh including item B, May 5th, 2026, City Council meeting minutes.

Item C, the second reading for ordinance number 11 series 2026 authoring the supplemental budget appropriation to reflect forgiveness of a debt for the fiscal year 2025 budget.

Item D, a motion approving an intergovernmental agreement between Boulder County and the City of Lafayette regarding 2026 youth core program services.

Item E, a motion approving an intergovernmental agreement between the City of Lafayette, Colorado, and Lewisville Fire Protection District for the sharing of fire service equipment and resources.

Item F, a motion.

Approving intergovernmental agreement between Boulder County and the City of Lafayette for regional collaboration for proposition 123 compliance and item G, a contract with Davis Partnership Associates for the Bob Burger Recreation Center Design Services.

Are there any items council would like to pull?

Seeing none, I will take a motion.

I move to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Any discussion?

Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed say no?

None opposed, and that passes unanimously.

Counselor Johnson.

I was wondering if it's possible to uh change the agenda slightly because our next item is regular business, which will go on quite a long time.

To uh do the proclamations in case there are people here who are here for the proclamations who don't want to uh wait until the next item, which will be quite lengthy.

So for this, we need a majority vote.

Actually, so you you're more than a question.

I would like to make that motion.

You're more than making a motion.

Yes.

Second.

Is there any discussion on this?

Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed saying no?

Unopposed.

Okay, we'll move on to proclamations.

And we'll begin with item J, Counselor Jackson.

So I have the honor of uh doing the Pride Month proclamation, and I'm just gonna read it.

Whereas Pride Month is recognized each June to honor the history, resilience, and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other LGBTQIA plus individuals and communities.

Whereas Pride Month is recognized each June to honor the history, resilience, and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other LGBTQIA plus individuals and communities, and whereas Pride Month commemorates the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, a pivotal moment in the movement towards greater equality, visibility, and civil rights for LGBTQIA plus individuals in the United States, and whereas, despite progress toward equality and inclusion, many LGBTQIA plus individuals continue to experience discrimination, harassment, violence, and barriers to safety, acceptance and opportunity, and whereas the 2026 Pride Month theme for all of us, inspired by the words of Stonewall veteran Marcia P.

Johnson, there is no pride for some of us without liberation for all of us, honors the legacy of early LGBTQIA plus advocates, and recognizes the ongoing importance of inclusion, visibility, safe spaces, and equal opportunity for all members of the LGBTQIA plus community, particularly those who continue to face discrimination, marginalization, and barriers to belonging.

And whereas the City of Lafayette signed resolution number 2016-96 on December 6, 2016, reaffirming the city's commitment to building a diverse, inclusive and just community, ensuring equal protection and services for all residents, and whereas the City of Lafayette has a diverse LGBTQ plus community that has made and continues to make great and lasting contributions to strengthen the fabric of our community, and whereas the City of Lafayette honors its commitment to the promotion and protection of the human rights of LGBTQ plus residents and employees.

Now, therefore, the mayor and city council of the City of Lafayette, Colorado, do hereby proclaim June of 2026 to be Pride Month and urge all residents to honor our diverse community and continue to build a culture of inclusiveness and acceptance.

Furthermore, the City Council encourages the community to attend any of the numerous events hosted throughout this month to celebrate the LGBTQIA plus community.

So moved.

We have a motion, we have a second.

Any discussion on this proclamation?

Councilor Jensen.

I just uh want to make the public aware that there will be two anti-trans ballot measures on the ballot this year.

We're gonna talk about them at length at another time.

And I have not made an amendment to include them here because I think it warrants another full resolution on the part of council when we consider ballot measures.

Uh but as a person with many loved ones in this community, I I know some of them are experiencing an increase in discrimination right now and an increase in uh hate.

And so I think this proclamation is really important, and I hope all of the council will join me in supporting it.

Thank you.

Any other members of council wish to discuss?

Councillor Gianola.

Yeah, just quickly uh thank you, Councilor Jensen for presenting this proclamation.

I know we have a large uh LGBTQ plus community in Lafayette.

I've had many of them reach out to me uh during the campaign and since, um and I'm just happy to you know that they're part of our community and that we're here to represent them.

Councilor Bullier.

Happy Pride.

Any further discussion?

Mayor Protem.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just like to say that this is uh I was here for that 2021 vote.

And I just like to say that the we've we fly the pride flag in Lafayette, and I'm proud of the fact that we do that, and that is not something council votes on every uh year to decide.

That's that's city policy.

So it's not just us, it's our city.

And uh I'm proud of that.

So happy pride, everyone, and I'm glad that we are able to pass this proclamation.

Hopefully.

Seeing no further discussion.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed say no?

None opposed, that passes unanimously.

Moving on to the next proclamation, item K, Councillor Gianola.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh I am presenting today the proclamation uh for National Gun Violence Awareness Day on June 5th, 2026.

Whereas every day Americans are killed, shot, or wounded by gun violence, and whereas Americans are 26 times more likely to be killed with guns than people in other developed countries, and whereas protecting public safety in the communities they serve is a mayor's highest responsibility, and whereas mayors and law enforcement officers know their communities best, are the most familiar with local criminal activity and how to address it, and are best positioned to understand how to keep their residents safe.

And whereas June 2nd, 2026 would have been the 29th birthday of Hadiah Pendleton, a teenager who was tragically killed at the age of 15, and whereas to help honor Hadia and other Americans whose lives are cut short due to gun violence, a national coalition of organizations has designated the first Friday of June as National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

And whereas the organizers asked that people across the United States wear orange on June 5th, because hunters wear orange to announce themselves to other hunters in the wilderness, and orange is a color that symbolizes the value of human life.

And whereas anyone can join this campaign campaign by pledging to wear orange on June 5th to raise awareness about gun violence and honor the lives of gun violence victims and survivors.

And whereas we renew our commitment to reduce gun violence and pledge to do all we can to keep firearms out of the wrong hands and encourage responsible ownership to help keep our community safe.

Now, therefore, the mayor and city council of the city of Lafayette, Colorado, do hereby declare June 5th, 2026 as National Gun Violence Awareness Day, and encourage all residents to support community efforts to prevent the tragic events of gun violence and to honor and value all human lives.

So moved.

We have a motion, we have a second for National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

Any discussion on this proclamation.

Councilor Bullier.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

March 5th, 2008 was a significant day for me because that was the day that a friend of mine from college was murdered by guns.

And it was one of the most shocking things that I and my community in Chapel Hill, North Carolina ever experienced.

And there was before and there was after.

And then in the uh ensuing decades, I've known quite a few other people who've who've been shot, uh, a handful who've been maimed, a couple murdered.

And the degree to which that is now normal in our culture is appalling.

And so I I appreciate the proclamation.

Uh I appreciate the efforts that our police department, our community, our city do to uh mitigate gun violence.

But I I think about what it's like, and we heard some brilliant uh young people this evening.

I think about what it must be like for them to only have grown up in the way that for me I had a before March 5th, 2008, and and they didn't.

It's that's been their entire experience.

So I'm really grateful for the proclamation.

Um I'm just thinking of Eve.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you.

Any other counselors?

Right.

Uh we have a motion, we have a second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed say no?

None opposed.

That passes unanimously.

Once our final proclamation of the night, I will turn it over to our mayor for Tem.

Thank you, Mayor.

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, June 15th, 2026.

Whereas in 2006, the International 2006, the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse in support of the United Nations International Plan of Action proclaimed a day to recognize the significance of elder abuse as a public health and human rights issue.

And whereas 2026 marks the 20th annual World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, this recognition will promote a better understanding of abuse and neglect of older adults.

And whereas the National Center on Elder Abuse, NCEA, and the City of Lafayette recognize the importance of taking action to raise awareness of, prevent, and address elder abuse.

And whereas our population lives longer, we are presented with an opportunity to think about our collective needs and future as a nation.

And whereas ageism and social isolation are major causes of elder abuse in the United States, and whereas we recognize that it is up to all of us to ensure that proper social structures exist so people can retain community and societal connections, which reduces the likelihood of abuse.

And whereas preventing abuse of older adults through maintaining and improving social supports like senior centers, human services, and transportation will allow everyone to continue to live as an as independently as possible and contribute to the life and vibrancy of our communities.

And whereas when there is justice, there can there is justice, there can be no abuse.

Therefore, NCEA urges all people to restore justice by honoring older adults.

And whereas we encourage the community to report suspected mistreatment of an at-risk adult by calling adult protection services at 303-441-1390.

Now, therefore, the mayor and the city council of the City of Lafayette Airboy proclaim June 15, 2026, as World Elder Abuse Awareness Day in Lafayette, Colorado, and encourage all of our communities to recognize and celebrate older adults and their ongoing contributions to the success and vitality of our country.

So moved.

Second.

We have a motion.

We have a second for World Elder Abuse Awareness Day.

Is there any discussion on this proclamation?

Mayor Protem.

I would just like to thank you, Mayor.

I'd just like to say, as the former council liaison to the older uh adults committee.

Um board, sorry.

Uh I would just like to say that I'm really proud that we are able to continue to raise awareness and I'm thankful for the support of Boulder County Protective Services.

And uh that number again is 303 441309.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, we have a motion, we have a second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed say no.

None opposed, that passes unanimously, and we will finish that for proclamations for tonight.

Moving back into regular business, beginning with item H, which is the public hearing for the sketch plan review and comment for the Willoughby Corner PUD amendment.

I will introduce us here.

The next item on the agenda is a public hearing and a sketch plan review and comment for a PUD amendment to the Willoughby Corner final PUD located at the southwest corner of Emma Street and North 120th Street.

The public hearing was noticed in the daily camera on May 22, 2026, and notice was mailed to property owners and posted on the property in accordance with the Lafayette Code.

The public hearing is now in order at 7.21 p.m.

Tonight, the City Council will hold a public hearing on a sketch plan application for a PUD amendment and provide review and provide review and comments to the applicant.

The council will consider the application, planning staff's analysis and recommendations, the review and comments of the planning commission, and any public testimony received tonight during the hearing.

The council will evaluate the proposal based solely upon the record and the applicable criteria established in the Lafayette Code of Ordinances, which are highlighted in the staff report.

Before we get into the presentations from staff and the applicant, we have a few preliminary matters to address.

First, because this is quasi-judicial matter, the city council is bound to constitutional due process principles to provide a fair hearing to remain impartial and to review the application based on the city's code and the evidence presented in tonight's hearing.

It is important that each council member remain objective and capable of fairly and impartially considering only the information offered into the record and evaluate, review, and provide comments on the application consistent with due process requirements.

Does any council member believe they are not able to fairly and impartially consider the applications based solely on tonight's record and consistent with due process requirements?

I do want to declare that I was on the advisory committee for that recommended and approved the first round of PUD that we're now talking about changing.

But I believe I can be fair and impartial in spite of that.

So I just wanted to declare that for the council.

Thank you, Councillor Jensen.

And the second question: does any council member have a conflict of interest or any other matter he or she would like to disclose prior to proceeding on this item?

Hearing none, we'll get started with the hearing.

Uh before we hear the city planning staff and the applicant, I will enter the following materials into the record, all of which are included in the city council meeting packet for tonight's meeting.

The agenda memo regarding the application and the attachments to the agenda memo, staff analysis report from city planning staff regarding the PUD criteria for this application, project narrative, the proposed PUD sketch plan, the approved Willoughby Corner final planned unit development amendment number one, final plan approved August 2023, a site plan sheet from the construction drawings for the approved PUD final plan, written public testimony submitted to the city before 1 p.m.

today and added to the packet this afternoon, and presentation slides added to the packet this afternoon.

Are there any objections from council to entering these items into the record?

Hearing none, those items are entered into the record.

The city council will now hear from the city planning staff and the applicant.

Thank you.

Mayor, counselors.

Good to be here tonight to present on the Willoughby PUD amendment.

Really, tonight's objective is just to get council feedback on the uh sketch plan.

This uh agenda will be a little bit different since there's no formal decision being made.

Typically, staff introduces it, uh, introduces the project, the applicant gives a presentation, then staff kind of comes back up for an analysis.

We'll skip that step tonight and move directly to questions from council, and then on to public testimony and then uh discussion and feedback.

So we have I know that council's familiar with sketch plan.

You've had a few over the last six months or so, but I just want to remind uh council and and the public that a sketch plan is a non-binding decision.

It's simply done to solicit feedback.

I always like to point out the two phrases identify major problems.

So it's identifying problems, we're not resolving them at this point.

That's for the preliminary plan.

And then we're assessing the overall feasibility of the request.

So uh down below on the slide, these are the six prompts we provided to planning commission at their May uh 13th meeting.

And uh, of course, we'll take any feedback outside these prompts.

This is just our way to kind of try to direct uh attention to some of the areas that we wanted feedback on.

Uh so those prompts include the change in housing types and unit mixes, a reduction in front setbacks in two areas of the project, a reduction of outlaw A, a reduction in minimum lot size from 2,000 to 1900, additional multifamily buildings within this phase, and corresponding height increases, and then the orientation of those multifamily buildings.

And we'll have a slide or two on each of these topics.

So first, I think we all know where Willoughby Corner is, but just to orient ourselves.

We're at the southwest corner of Emma, North 120th Street.

Uh, in the aerial image here, you can see kind of what's been built underneath the purple hatching, which is the existing uh multifamily uh affordable multifamily units, the community clubhouse, and then this is just the corresponding areas from the plan over here on the right.

So a little background the current PUD was approved in 2022.

Then there was amendment in 2023 that really just fixed technical corrections that were found during construction.

And then phase one of the project has been constructed, which we just talked about, and that's 192 affordable units, and again is found in the area in pink, along with the community center and the detention fund on the east side of the site.

They currently have a land use approval, I just want to stress the land use approval component to construct 30 duplexes, 128 town homes, uh, and 37 six multifamily units within the area outlined in red on this slide.

And then there's an additional 14 units that were called out in planning area C here that they are also requesting to kind of move to this area.

So that's a total of 400 units that again from a land use perspective, they have approval for.

Now, where it gets a little different is the area in red does not have approved civil construction drawings.

Uh during the f during the initial phase, we broke that out as two different phases because it was clear that the phase that we're talking about tonight was going to be much more difficult to design and construct.

And in order to try to get some uh affordable project online quicker and to get approvals done, that was split off.

And then it was during subsequent review of the area outlined in red that it was determined that as design that layout wasn't gonna be feasible from really a utility constraints perspective.

Uh, and we can go into more detail on that if we need to, but that's why that's and I don't want to say that's why we're back here tonight.

That's one of the reasons.

The applicant probably has other reasons for you, but that's why that exactly what was approved in the original PUD is not what can be approved today from a constructability standpoint.

And that's I want to also stress planning commission seem to be a little surprised by that, but that's not completely out of the norm.

A lot of larger developments phase developments, and you will come into problems in later phases and see redesigns.

It's not it's not unusual.

And kind of piggybacking on this, in my experience, the most difficult product to deliver is dense town homes on fee simple lots.

And that's because each when it's on a fee simple lot, each unit has to have its own water line, each unit has to have its own sanitary line, rather than if it's all in one building under common ownership, you can have one of each of those, and that presents a lot of problems, and that's been my experience in other jurisdictions too, and that's kind of the problem we ran up against with this project.

And we can discuss that again in more detail if council would like to.

So uh moving on to housing types and unit mix.

This was by far planning commission's largest concern, uh, specifically the complete elimination of all town homes and duplex in favor of the additional multifamily.

So we can go into that specifically.

On the left, we have the approved PUD, and we have 128 town homes in those eight orange buildings kind of in the center.

We have 36 multifamily in this little yellow area, I believe, and four buildings.

Then we have the 30 duplexes around the outside, 30 total units and 15 duplexes.

So the proposed plan, as I stated, got rid of all the duplex and multi-sorry townhomes.

And in favor, they went with 140 multifamily units in these two yellow buildings here.

73 single family detached and the purple units kind of in the center and around the north and east side of the project.

And then 32 neuroinclusive units in this blue block that'll serve neurodivergent and IDD populations.

So one of the things that that planning commission, like I said, was really focused on was that housing diversity perspective.

And staff felt a little differently.

We feel that the housing diversity kind of commitment to housing diversity in the comp plan is really meant to be a tool to limit like the proliferation of market rate single family developments.

And a way to ensure that when we do have single family developers, which we get a lot of, and most communities do, that they are required to build some alternative housing types and sizes, so that we have housing that is more fits the needs of a greater portion of our population, and that is hopefully more attainable, because it's not just larger single family detached.

And when you look at the comp plan language around housing diversity, it of course talks about affordability.

That's a major component of it, and that's kind of in some ways moot because both these projects are affordable.

But it also talks about the full spectrum of users, the need for older adults, first-time buyers, all income levels, including entry to mid-level employees, the evolving needs of all residents, and uh tree in the creative class.

And when we look at this, it was the planning staff, I want to explicitly say, in many ways, we think this new plan actually kind of meets more of those goals and objectives than the old one.

And I'll get into that a little bit.

Uh main reason we have rather than 128 two-story townhomes that really don't allow you to age in place very well.

We have 104 multifamily units that are served by an elevator.

So you can age in place, it's good for people, uh mobility issues, physical uh disabilities, things like that.

They're also a mix of one-bedroom to three bedroom units, so they can really meet a wide need, popular community need, anything from like single occupancy residence, which is a growing demographic trend in the last number of years, to you know, the three-bedroom units for larger families or people that want to live multi-generationally.

And similarly, we have single family that range from single story, again, aging in place, mobility issues, those types of things, going up to two stories and multiple bedrooms.

But then the biggest kind of change is this neuroinclusive housing, which serves a completely different population type than was than what was kind of contemplated with the previous one.

So we also feel that really strongly aligns with some of those comp plan goals.

Uh, and then even if you look at it from like housing diversity just across the board, we feel it's still the same diversity.

Different unit mix completely.

You have a lot more multifamily, less single family attached, but you eliminate two unit types, town homes and duplex, and then you include two new ones, single family detached and neuroinclusive housing.

And to us, the planning staff, we feel that that neuroinclusive is a unique housing type, and not just another multifamily housing type.

So from our perspective, we feel that this housing diversity was still being adhered to all like all the admittedly we were changing the housing mix up completely, but the diversity we feel is still being complied with.

Again, planning commission didn't see it that way.

We also didn't really present it in this context to them, so maybe if it was presented differently, they'd have some different thoughts on it, but they felt pretty strongly that uh they weren't satisfied with the change in diversity.

So we're gonna go into setback reductions.

I'm gonna move on to this slide because I think it makes more fur sense, and then we'll go back to that one.

So one of the things they're asking for is a setback reduction on East Emma Street.

The current PUD uh proves it for 15 feet there, and then they're proposing eight eight-foot setback.

Uh so significant reduction from what was approved.

Uh and while I'll admit this is gonna feel a lot different than a lot of old town from the pedestrian experience uh in this area here.

Well, let's talk about old town.

You typically have four to five foot wide sidewalks that are attached with typically on-street parking adjacent to them, and then you have the yard from the back of the sidewalk to the living portion of the home.

Uh in this specific situation, you have an eight-foot tree lawn, you have an eight-foot wide multi-mide multimodal path, and then you have the five-foot wide outlaw.

Then you have the property line, and then the proposed eight-foot setback to the living space, the porch is allowed to encroach.

However, when you look at like what's the actual functional setback of the living space from the street, it's around 29 feet.

That's not out of character in terms of horizontal alignment with what you find in old town.

And then this one also has the bike lane rather than kind of the on-street parking.

So there's a little difference in like the travel lane distance.

But generally that we don't find this to be so out of character with the old town that it that it couldn't be supported.

This is really important for the applicant to get feedback on.

And planning commission had some concerns over noise, uh proximity of the travel lane to the living space, and maybe a lack of ability to get substantial landscaping in the front yard.

Uh but they didn't give real strong direction.

And given the products that the applicant would like to use and the construction types, which they'll discuss in more detail.

If this isn't granted, it could have some serious cascading effect throughout the rest of the site.

So they would like some some strong feedback here.

Now moving back, well, let's talk about our thing about this five foot outlaw here.

Just keep that in mind.

Moving back a slide.

We have that in yellow almost all the way across Emma, except for these last two units where it tapers off to nothing.

So these ones are essentially you know up to five feet closer to the street.

So it changes that kind of context I was just talking about.

Uh so you know, kind of level of concern here is also something we'd like some feedback on.

Then the other setback reduction was along the pond here.

The approved plan is 172 feet from 120th, proposes 163.

Planning commission had no concern here, so I wasn't going to spend a lot of time on it, but we can come back to it if there's any concern from council.

Uh another another thing we wanted feedback on was this outlaw A was reduced in size.

And in the presentation to Planning Commission, we really just focus on the size and we didn't focus on the kind of land that was gained on the on the south side, so we wanted to present it in a little different context.

So while the building gets shifted north, it does free up some land here.

This is adjacent to the existing amenity area that has community garden, half-court basketball court, tot lot.

So it allows for the kind of the continuation of that.

Uh Planning Commission didn't have strong concerns over this.

One thought it was just kind of going to be a landscape area.

Somebody, another uh commissioner expressed concern that there was really no amenity space on the northern side of the property for the northern for the people that live on the north side of it.

And then uh another commissioner said, Well, how great is this area given its proximity to the roundabout and Emma for an amenity space.

So there's kind of mixed feelings on this one from planning commission.

This reduction in lot size uh for the single family detached.

It was 2,000 for the duplex, I believe is how it went.

They were asking for a reduction to 1900 for the single family.

This was really a non-issue also at planning commission.

So I was gonna kind of move through that one relatively fast unless council wants to discuss it in more detail.

So getting into building heights here.

Um on the left, we have the approved plan with the town homes, which were two stores approved at two stories and 35 feet in height.

The applicant is asking for three stories and 45 feet in height.

That was a uh a bit of an issue, but it was planning commission kept on wanting to go back to the housing diversity discussion, and and and so we didn't.

I don't know that we got as much feedback as we'd like in this area, but the applicant is proposing two stories and 35 feet along Canterbury, and then three stories kind of to the east once you move it in turn or interior to the site at 45.

There was some concern over those heights uh just generally, so they have looked at their architecture a little bit more, and they're able to present kind of more realistic heights.

A lot of time at sketch plan, people are always gonna add a few square feet, you know, a few, sorry, linear feet because they don't know exactly, they don't have their final design.

So they want that flexibility.

So they've gone back, they've looked at it a little closer, and they're gonna present uh some heights that they think are more accurate to what will actually be proposed with the preliminary plan.

So, yeah, again, planning commission didn't had some concerns about height, but didn't really address it because there was other concerns about diversity and even a little bit about orientation.

Uh so the next question for them was the multifamily orientation.

You know, one of the things that came up with both staff and planning commission is kind of the proximity of these two buildings.

We didn't present it with all the site constraints to them, it was more on a blank canvas, so we wanted to present some of the existing site constraints that are directing how this is being proposed.

Because one of the things staff, first thing staff wondered, and planning commission also brought it up is well, why not just kind of flip this and mirror it and have the have the multifamily and the taller buildings over on the east side of the project?

Well, you have the sanitary sewer that's serving the existing development, and you have the existing stormwater drainage that's going to be conveyed from Canterbury all the way across to the detention bond that's been built.

So, you know, obviously they won't be able to build over this, and then they're limited here on their buildability from the detention bond to the easement for the uh sanitary sewer line.

And then you also have some looped water lines that were put in place for this area here.

So those are those are some of the constraints they were dealing with and kind of how they settled on this layout.

And uh Planning Commission seemed to be more receptive to this after they learned about the constraints, but they were still they were verbally explained to them, they didn't get to see the exhibit, and I think they were still had some reservations about this, and again, it also went back to that housing diversity component.

So it's hard for them to kind of address the multifamily because for they were coming from a point of view that really we should go be going back to something much similar to what was approved from housing diversity standpoint.

So not super strong feedback there.

Uh lastly, we have the summary of comments that really talked about each topic and then kind of planning commission uh feedback.

I've I think I've done a pretty good done a pretty good job of going over all that, so I don't want to just repeat myself.

We can come back to this slide during the discussion if you'd like.

Uh or I can go over it if you if you guys think it would be helpful.

But if not, I'm gonna turn it over to the applicant for their presentation, and we'll be happy to answer any questions.

Sorry, that's okay.

Good evening, council.

Thanks for having us today.

Can I continue on that?

All right, so we're all go ahead and get started.

We have a pretty um detailed presentation.

So let's jump in.

I have not been back to council since 2024 when we did some amendments.

So thanks for having us back.

And next slide, I thought I'd start by just kind of giving some quick updates.

Really exciting news, we have finally fully converted the property as of yesterday.

So we are fully converted out of construction loan and into permanent uh permanent loan now.

So we're really excited about that.

Um we also received a big chaff award, which you'll hear about in in a little bit.

Um, so I just wanted to quickly do an update on the Boulder County Housing Authority and just some of uh the things that are kind of going on in our world.

Uh so we've increased our asset base to 400 million dollars now, and so that has been uh by acquiring some properties we have purchased outright and are the new and full owners, if you will, of Josephine Commons and Aspenwall, both here in Lafayette.

Um, and then also, of course, the development of Willoughby Corner and our ownership rights there.

Uh the other great thing about the housing authority is we've really had a targeted capital investment plan.

And so in just the last few years, we've invested over nine and a half million dollars in revitalization.

And I just want to point that out because a lot of times I've heard nightmare stories about developers who once they meet their compliance period, kind of leave, and the properties um maybe are not as well cared for.

And so we are we are um making sure that that is not the case at BCHA, and we are leaning in uh throughout Boulder County.

Um, we do have some development momentum because of the affordable and attainable housing tax passed here in Boulder County in 2023.

Uh so where we've seen that funding over the last two years really go is to capital development.

So over $9 million a year goes to um Boulder County, City of Boulder, and City of Longmont.

And what we've seen so far is uh many of the projects are going to public housing authorities.

And so that's why we're able to start reinvesting those funds into the community immediately and making sure that our properties are well maintained.

Um, let's see, enhanced leasing.

So we've uh recently at BCHA um been working with a lot of federal partners, making sure that we're able to lease up as quickly as possible, trying to alleviate some of that compliance that comes with federal dollars, and we have been successful in that.

So we've had some big success at Casa de la Esperanza and Longmont, where we were we had, I think 15 vacant units for years.

And so, because of some compliance release from the federal government, we've been able to stay fully leased, and that's really helped our portfolio numbers.

But in addition to that, we had a really strong leasing here at Willoughby Cornet.

And so we were able to uh lease up the property fully.

That's 192 units in less than one year.

And so, as you know, those buildings came online at different times, and so that was a huge, huge win for our team.

So we really do think we have a strong leasing practice in place.

And so we uh look forward to continuing that into our next phases.

Uh and then finally, I just want to point out and just really recognize our team that we really do have a strong service delivery, and the quality of work that we do at Boulder County Housing Authority is incredibly important to our staff.

I say this all the time, but I do believe I have the most passionate staff, and they really do go above and beyond for all of our residents.

Next slide.

Oh, I do want to point out I did include a link for our annual report so you can review it.

Many of you were featured in it because we had our Willoughby Corner ground, our grand opening.

So it was a nice event.

And I want to shift gears now into more of this project.

Previous slide.

Um, I want to introduce the team.

So we have a whole new team, except for one vendor from phase one to phase two and three.

That was really exciting for us.

Uh, we had been under contract with our previous vendors for five years, and so Boulder County policy is that we do have to take that out to an open RFP, and so we did that, and we uh awarded a whole new group.

And so I do believe we have the strongest group out there right now, and I'm really proud of them and the work that we've accomplished.

We set some ambitious goals and we're doing it.

So I want to recognize our BCHA team, those names listed are our development team.

So myself, um, I sit on that team, Michelle Alexander, our deputy director, Tanya Jimenez, who's our senior developer, and Heather Denner, who does all of our revitalization projects.

Some of our other partners that are here today, and you will hear from today is Tyler, and he's with Brickwell, Walker with Vertical, Connor with Crafts Civil.

Um, Adam wasn't able to be here, but he did uh send staff from Kepphart, and that's David, and then our new GC, who is um working with us closely is Icoda, and then also Norris Design, which is the only vendor we retained, and we're really um proud of the work that we did in Willoughby One.

Okay.

Next slide.

All right, so getting into Willoughby Corner, um, why we're here today to talk about some of these PUD amendments.

Uh, so the amendments are necessary for us to move the project forward.

Um, just like staff said, we unfortunately can't build what was designed.

So when we sat down at the table, we wanted to think through all of the possibilities.

We spent quite some time doing that.

Um, we read a lot of old notes back from 2017 through 2022.

There was extensive community engagement that happened with the ELAC.

Um, so we were able to revisit all of those things.

And so there were a couple things that we knew were going to be very important.

So we really did our best to maintain the integrity of the community engagement that we heard back in uh 2017.

Some of the other things that are kind of weighing into the design is that we have some agreements.

So, for example, our subdivision development agreement says we have to deliver 400 units of affordable housing.

So, one of the things we heard from Climate Planning Commission was like, oh, just reduce your units so that you can fit all those time homes again.

We actually really can't unless it's it's the wish of the council.

Um, and then our water agreement, too.

We have some important dates where we need to pay back the city for water.

So we are on pace to do that right now.

Um, but we have to maintain base.

And let's see, let's I think this is just another graph.

We may have seen that one on the left quite a bit during the 2023 approval process.

So we just kind of wanted to share that side by side of what our current sketch plan looks like.

Um, and then the last thing I'll say is our next steps, the real critical next step for us is a need for a zoning letter, which is due August 1st.

And we're working really closely with staff, and um, I think we can maintain pace for that as well.

And it is my pleasure to hand it over to our deputy director, Michelle, who's gonna dive in to some more details of the project.

After near council, thank you for having us.

I would just like to point out on this slide the differences in color or for zoning and not for housing type on the left.

Today I'll be covering um BCHA's vision, values, goals, and a bit of history about Willoughby Corner.

Housing is navigating one of the most rapidly changing periods in modern affordable housing.

We've got shifting markets, evolving financing conditions and changing needs of both our renters and our home buyers.

In the midst of all this, we are still delivering one of the most complex phase properties that we have in Boulder County.

This community will include senior housing, multifamily housing, IDD housing, and new opportunities for affordable home ownership.

And our mission at VCHA is simple and steady to sustainably maximize access to a quality affordable housing for Boulder County communities.

Housing isn't just a shelter, it's a foundation for opportunity for health and for belonging.

We operate more than 60 communities across Boulder County, 712 square miles.

But none of them have shown the spirit of Willoughby Corner.

Every community developed its own identity, and some of my favorite parts of Willoughby Corner always come from Lisa.

When we least up Willoughby Corner, it was in the middle of winter.

The playground equipment was installed, but there was no subsurface there.

Our first buildings to go up were nineplexes, which are build it biggest multifamily units, meaning lots of kids.

The kids were really invested when the subsurface was going into this playground, and every day we heard from the community, the children, the staff when it was going to be installed.

When the surface finally went in, the tiny supervisors were fully invested and waiting for us to leave.

And while they believed that all was perfect and were convinced that all inspections were completed, they took down the tape.

No harm, no foul, all permits were approved.

But what it did show, it was a perfect early sign that this community was going to be independent, connected, and determined to build the neighborhood that they wanted.

Since this neighborhood has begun, we've had coffee clubs, book clubs, robotics groups, gardening groups, language clubs, and neighbors who truly look out for one another.

We now have more than 192 households with over 300 members, and we are excited to hear what their feedback is going to be.

Together we prioritize traffic and safety and respectful transitions to Old Town, transit expansion, and mixed developments.

Before we had any residents moved in, we had a huge civil lift.

We did new roads, reconstruction of MN 120th, two roundabouts, signalized intersections, expanded sewer and water systems, stormwater infrastructure, sidewalks, and lighting.

There were real challenges.

We had weather delays, road impacts, coordination schedules, conflicts with adjacent road work, and stormwater issues and connections.

They weren't minor issues, but we've learned a lot from them, and we are moving forward with them into the next phase.

Phase 2A includes 32 intentionally designed units shaped in partnership with self-advocates, caregivers, service providers, IDD design experts, and the county's IDD advisory council, which contributed more than $2 million for phasing 2A.

We are on to the next slide.

So let's the funding awards.

We are really excited to share that the next three phases of Willoughby Corner are fully supported by a strong and diverse funding package.

One that keeps homes affordable and financially stable for these programs.

Phase 2B received highly competitive 9% LITEC Award, providing 20 million in funding to the project.

Sorry, 2A.

Only 10 of 29 applicants were funded in this round.

We also secured 2 million in grants from IDDAC, the Intellectual Development Disabilities Advisory Council.

And we are proposing 16 project-based vouchers with roughly 2.8 million towards the project to ensure deeply affordable units in the next phasing.

CHAPTER'S Drive at Home Program, we obtained 311.4 million to offer home buyers below market 4% mortgage rates.

We received $2.52 million from DOLA, and we are grateful for the City of Lafayette for the AHD funds that go towards Willoughby Corner, demonstrating a strong regional partnership and nearly 2.5.

We have Willowworthy Cause in $750, and a $1.2 million in ARPA funding.

This funding helps us remain affordable, and together, these resources will keep Willoughby Corner delivering high quality, deeply affordable homes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the council.

Thank you for your Tuesday evening and your insight tonight.

Just to step back a couple of slides to orient you.

Within the site plan, I'm Tyler Allerc with Rickwell.

We're focused on phase 2A and 2B.

Go ahead.

Walker Thrash with vertical.

We're focused on phase three, the homeownership.

So we look forward to telling you more.

And we're really excited about these phases as they represent the completion of a vision started back in 2017.

And the evolution and response to really current market conditions, current community needs, and are looking forward to discussing a development that will serve the community that's both physically and economically viable, given the awards and support that Michelle just highlighted.

So diving into phase 2A, what you're looking at here is 32 units of neuroinclusive housing.

And this was really formed with the collective vision of a variety of stakeholders and refined over time and iteration.

Ultimately, what you see before you is a split between one and two bedroom units, one bed, one bath, and two bed, two bath units.

Event 16 serving income levels from 30% to 60% area median income.

So with deep affordability, averaging 48% area median income.

The target in the original PUD was 60% area median income, just to put it in contrast.

What we're envisioning here is also response to phase one, which is 104 units.

But what's not typical in multifamily development is this count of two and three bedroom units.

So the demand, the leasing, and the need that was seen in phase one.

You'll see in 2B is a response to that, with 73% of the units being two or three bedroom units.

As well as the total 104, we have a varying in height from the three stories kind of central to the site, and we'll get into this in the next slide.

But then you know, really stepping down in those adjacencies out of respect for the original PUD and the height considered.

So really looking at it in contrasts.

With the on the left-hand side with the light and dark blue.

It's pretty small text, so I'll read it.

Um 28 feet, uh so well below the 35 feet on the western edge.

Um the majority of the three-story is 38 feet, uh, which sits below kind of the 43 feet on phase one, and then there's small kind of elevator core overruns that will sit at 42 feet.

All right, homeownership.

Um switching gears into phase three, which is really that northeast quarter.

Um stare this way.

So one thing on the plat map site plan that you looked at, you know, there's this very homogenous group of single family detached homes.

A big goal for us was diversity of housing type within the single family detached.

So there's five very different unit types ranging, well, I'll just say 900 square feet, 1,024 square feet, 1,216 square feet, 1,344, and then 1,512.

The reason to kind of drill into that is that's the diversity of housing type we were shooting for, really talking about affordability pricing levels, and there's always a conversation within a development about kind of the stepping stone effect of you know at what point do you get to enter the market that can purchase power?

Well, within the affordable project, we have a span of 115,000 between highest priced unit and lowest price unit.

If you think about 900 square feet to 1,500 square feet, two bedroom to three bedroom units.

Um it was very important for us to create desirable product, and we really believe in the single family detached.

There's a couple of images of side yards there, these are actually from deed restricted projects, and it doesn't seem like much to have a side yard gated, but when you deal with children, animals, any junk you got, right?

Side yard really comes in handy for being able to live as an additional living room outside the space, especially when you're talking about smaller square footages.

Um to that end, there's affordability.

So currently under the PUD, the cap is 120% area median income.

With the funding sources we have, because of how competitive these rounds are getting, we've really done the funding for the first 40 out of 73 homes already through DOH and CHAFA.

We have agreed to keep that at below 100% AMI, and we're really serving 60 to 100% AMI on homeownership, which is a really is a tough target market to hit and provide that kind of price point.

And were it not for, especially right now, everybody's talking about mortgage rates and what's about to happen, who knows.

Having the drive at home program, there were only seven awards in the state.

So will o be phase three was one of those awards.

It does create a fixed low mortgage for the buyer.

So those first 40 homes right now, it'll that rate should average around 4%, which is critical for price point and qualifying buyers to buy this product.

Um to that end, sustainability is also a big note.

You know, it like I said, tough to create home ownership in deed restricted affordable housing.

You can't solve it in just design, you can't solve it in just using grants.

It takes several different things.

One of them we we deployed here in design, and we worked with two different architecture firms to really try to create desirable housing, but also some diversity among the product type that we're offering.

Um, but modular construction is a piece of it as well.

And in times past, there wasn't such a bias to modular construction in these competitive rounds, but Prop 123 has really kind of turned an eye toward innovative construction methodology.

And so right now we've designed this to be 100% modular, which obviously on sustainability, we could probably switch to the next slide.

Um in sustainability, speaking of phase three and home ownership, modular cuts down on waste, it obvious, especially site waste, right?

Um, but we're also complying with, and part of part of um going after the the Department of Housing Funds, we said that we would comply with Department of Energy's and change the name of the program.

We believe the homeownership program will qualify under that as well.

Uh and part of the part of the reason we can get to that step in the next gen and the energy efficiency in the homes is because we're building the modular, because we're doing a lot of testing in the factory.

It's not a far leap to actually achieve the next gen under Energy Star.

Um, so we're able to use that a little bit as our financing mechanism, and we're working on that currently.

And I'll let you speak to phase two.

Yeah, and really continuing the momentum.

Um the vision and the goals of phase one, you know, phase two is incorporating modern uh sustainable technologies, uh, be it ground source heat pumps, uh, as well as solar photovoltaic to also hit um actually new green building standard silver certification, um, the new term for zero energy ready homes that's just changed.

Um, but really, you know, knowing that sustainability is just such a core you know, value and function of this community as a whole, um, we wanted to uphold and maintain that as well.

So, you know, kind of summing it up, um what we're looking to deliver in this redesign, you know, first and foremost is 401 units of affordable.

So maintaining that unit count and actually increasing it, I guess one unit uh if we're being very specific, but also in doing so deepening affordability.

So like I spoke before, averaging 48% area median income serving the broad spectrum from 30 to 60 percent uh in phase two A, and they're neuroinclusive housing, and then averaging 55% area median income versus the 60, and that will range within that same spectrum, but actually 30 to 70 percent area median income.

So we actually see that kind of overlap of incomes as it relates to you know, that renter being able to look across the street and say someday I'm gonna buy that home across the street because I know my neighbor.

Um so we're really excited about that as far as accomplishing affordability when it comes to diverse broad spectrum housing.

I think I just stole next diversity.

Sorry.

Uh so uh you know, in the housing types, staff covered it, right?

You have five different types of um homeownership product that we're offering.

You have the IDD or newer inclusive, and then deeply affordable in the rental.

Um pretty broad spectrum of housing.

Um we touched on sustainable sustainability uh as you go to contextual, and one thing I skipped in the slide.

I think this might be at least worth looking at.

So Tyler talked about scaling down the multifamily as you hit the western edge of the project, and that's in two story.

Well, also it was important to create that kind of low density front door to the project, so that's single family detached really is your kind of full um call it front porch to the development as you're coming in from the major thoroughfares, and the height of the s actual single family structures is roughly 25 feet at the max.

Um so they're really gonna bring the scale down at the edges.

Yeah, and I think livability was the next one.

And um it's really we can even go back to the site plan.

It's what I love about my job, which is envisioning that future resident.

I think the benefit we have is phase one has come to life.

Um there are lessons learned and there's a vibrant community that exists.

As we approach phase two and phase three, we thought, how do we drive community and continue to connect these residents and provide the best lifestyle we can for them?

So a lot of the moves you see here is changing a lot of building form in really driveways.

Um one, the functional components of infrastructure, spacing, taps, uh a little more boring talking point, but certainly necessary when it comes to water, sewer, etc.

Um, and all the modern conveniences it brings, but also you know opening up space and adjacencies for the entire community, um, creating centralized amenity in in that second clubhouse actually in red that's now a standalone without units above it, and creating kind of walkable trails, paths where you could loop a quarter of the community, half of it, the entire thing, um, and really driving that sense of neighborhood that I think was intended or we've observed was intended um from the outset in 2017.

And and really that to me, that resident experience and that livability, um makes me excited about this community and and to do my job.

Right.

If liveability makes you excited, viability makes me excited.

Um end of the day, there's been I think six or seven different entities that have underwritten weighed in on this project that have offered either program or grant um obviously for the various different housing types.

But I think what's important today, and some of you know, this plan is iterated a little bit based on the financing in those different programs to try to fit you know as perfectly as we could into the different boxes uh to make it a viable project.

But important to talk about today's if this and should this go forward, phase two and phase three really are in a position that capital is in place, the financing is in place to actually go out and break ground, start to take care of the water liability, and really most importantly, deliver a lot of housing units at a pretty short window of time, all within the affordable range, um, which we're really excited about.

So I think that's enough presenting for now and open to union all questions.

Thank you so much.

Now it is our turn for council to ask any questions of the applicants core of staff.

Um any counselors want to start counselor Jensen.

Yeah, I'm looking through this uh presentation and I'm trying to figure out what was the total number of units in per sale housing previously.

I don't know if you know the answer to that.

Within the agreement, it was 70 to 80.

So we're at 73.

I think as you looked at the initial plan, it shows 80.

In the number.

Yeah.

It it shows 80 in the original job, but we're at 73.

And now we have 30?

Is that right?

73.

73.

So we've lost eight, but not a okay.

Well, that's uh better than I thought.

So uh thank you.

Um I don't know if you're the right person to answer on my questions.

So um I think some of them are designed.

Sorry.

I appreciate it.

Okay.

So um the outlaw A revisions.

Um I do think um that was uh that outlaw did provide previously the sort of northern section of the property with some place to do amenities, and I hear you now saying that we've got a little extra space down just south of that.

Uh if I recall the amenities were a community garden and maybe another playground-ish area, right?

Uh in Outlaw A.

Will we retain those amenities through these now what are two outlaws and one smaller one than we had before?

How how are we gonna uh what are we gonna do there?

Yeah, I'm happy to speak to that.

I think the site plans may be the best visual to look at.

Um, you know, the the reduction in outlaw A actually created a net additional 4,000 square feet of open space on the south side adjacent to those existing amenities where the community garden is, uh the original clubhouse, pickleball, basketball court.

Here we go.

There's the slide.

You have a better one?

Yeah, I say it is.

Yeah, so there's a microphone with you.

The green light.

Yeah.

The green light.

Yeah, you're good.

All right.

I'm not great at these.

Um so you know, originally what was in outlaw A was actually this was all parking adjacent to it.

Um, this was a a bit of an exposed kind of northwestern frontage.

Um this reduction freed up what would be a net 4,000 square feet on the south.

But actually, what it also enabled us to do is you know, provide open green space between the buildings here and um adjacent uh on the east side of both multifamily buildings as well.

So we saw you know the opportunity here where if you're parking and walking in the entry points to have you know pocket parks and additional space for residents to enjoy, as well as really create a meaningful moment here that's not only for phase two, but also the existing phase one and really bringing people together where they should, not should, but where they have the opportunity to congregate.

So that was the overall design intent.

Um as we iterated as a team.

So my other question is really in the big picture one of this whole re uh PUD amendment was generated by utilities issues, and I don't really understand that.

Could you I know you mentioned that at the beginning, if we had questions, could you explain what happened?

I let me just back up and say I think there has been some feedback from the people who were involved in ELAC that um we thought we had a good plan, and now you're changing it, you know.

And so it'd be really good for the community to understand what sort of precipitated the need for this change.

It could be different financing, it could be the need for the neurodivergent wing.

I mean, there are lots of things that could be the answer, but I think we need for the community, especially the people who were engaged in that process to understand clearly how we got here.

Yeah, that's a really great question.

Thank you, Counselor Jensen.

So one of the main pieces you said is the IDD community.

And so I have said this before, but I've heard from a lot of families with uh children of IDD, both in Boulder County hearing rooms and as well as this hearing room, uh, where they don't know where their kids are gonna live safely after they move on from here.

So that really resonated with me.

So three years ago, our staff really started diving in and researching what would it look like to bring an IDD housing to Boulder County.

So we've attended conferences, we've done research and met with the IDD council is um I previously before taking on the role of executive director of the housing authority.

I was the deputy director of housing and human services, where the IDD advisory council lives, the mill levy funding lives.

So it was something that I was hearing about pretty frequently, and so it became really important for us to start seeing if this was a possibility, and as time went on, it became more and more of a possibility.

So I am thrilled to be able to bring that um that diversity of housing type to this project.

However, that does mean that we had to change the project a little bit.

And so when you choose, you have chosen, is what my mom always told me.

And so that was one of those things.

And so that IDD housing, those 32 units is a bigger footprint than we had initially anticipated.

It's the same amount of units, but it's a different development type.

Initially, it was gonna be similar to what is there now in those nineplexes.

This community, though, the TUA is a really beautiful community.

So we really did a ton of engagement work with this population, and we have built what I kind of refer to, and probably because it's top of mind for me, is like kind of like a dorm room.

And so there's a lot of safety features when you walk into the building.

There's a lot of room for programming so people can engage on the property.

They don't ever have to leave the property for anything if they don't want to.

We also know that people with IDD on average have over 26 providers in their life, and so having meeting space and services offered on site is very, very important.

And so we designed the building that way, and then there's even this beautiful courtyard.

Um there's a walking path all within the building.

So it's a bigger footprint than we had initially maybe imagined, and we also didn't want it to feel like a facility or a hospital.

That's not what this is.

And so we really were thoughtful in that, but when we made those choices, that undoubtedly impacted the rest of the project.

So we couldn't, we can't build 128 townhomes.

Um, it's just not feasible.

I think the other thing that's really important to name in terms of why BCHA is is really moving this forward in terms of changes, is the sustainability issue.

So, as you know, we built all those geothermal uh so that we can service the whole community.

We cannot provide geothermal in townhomes.

I don't know why that was some type of oversight in 2022, but it is not um feasible.

So, in order for us to use all the geothermal that is there on the property, and we want to because it is the right thing to do and it meets our environmental goals, we really did need a bigger building.

Um, so I think that utility piece comes into play there.

But I have everything that Jacob talked about on the utility side is you know accurate.

I don't know what happened back in 2017 or 20 when the design happened or in 2022, so I can't speak to that.

I was not on staff then, but those are some of the other things that are happening for context.

Counselor Buller.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, thank you all, all of you, for the presentation.

Uh, there's a lot of really exciting stuff in here.

I I really love the neurodivergent IDD uh idea and what's on the table.

I love a lot of the sustainability elements that you've shared.

Um we have heard a lot from the community, and I do want to push back on the notion that these are small changes.

Sure.

This is a pretty radical shift in terms of the type of housing, the locations.

Um, particularly for some folks who are currently living in Willoughby Corner, who've written to us and noted like I moved in with the expectation of X, and now Y is on the docket.

So I I do kind of want y'all's sense in terms of that piece of this is actually a pretty substantial change on offer.

I I like a lot of it, but I think this is a substantial change.

And then additionally, I I'm very impressed by the presentation.

I'm excited for new leadership.

I really appreciate your candor.

Sometimes we get things wrong, and recognizing that moving forward is important, but I think for us up here, what and then the folks in the community, what kind of commitment do we have that four years from now we won't have a different presentation from a different team saying, I don't know what they were talking about.

You can absolutely put geothermal in townhouses.

You see what I'm saying?

So sorry to put you on the spot, but I think these are important questions the community's raising.

Thank you.

Sure.

No, thank you for that.

I appreciate it.

I didn't mean to imply their small changes, they are big changes.

Yeah, I understand that the height, especially is probably the biggest change in the larger building.

It was not meant to be that way.

But I I do think as we sat down as a team, we really did want to do what's the best for long term.

And the 73 homes in single family homes, that was not in the original design, and that really drove us.

And I do want to say that two years ago, four years ago, there were not funding opportunities to build those single family homes.

So for us, we didn't think it was possible.

BCHA didn't think it was possible to build single family, which is another probably reason they drove the two duplexes in townhomes.

But we've seen a big shift in that funding now.

And so that's exciting for us to deliver on affordable homeownership.

As you know, that housing type is the least available housing type for people.

So not a lot of housing authorities do homeownership development.

It's a first for us at BCHA.

And I don't know another housing authority that's really doing projects at the scale.

So we're really excited to be able to deliver that too.

So yeah, I don't mean that there's small changes, absolutely not, but I do think that there are some really uh other like that between the IDD and the affordable housing for us, it was worth going down this road of big changes.

Thank you.

And our goals in four years that were you know before then cutting ribbons and you know seeing this vision route with the commitments in hand, uh, which is exciting.

It's deliverable now.

Thank you.

Counselor Gianolo.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much for the presentation, the discussion.

Um I I want to dive into some of the numbers just a little bit more to make sure I understand what we're looking at.

The neurodiverse housing, neuroinclusive housing is how many units?

32.

32.

And then the multifamily, I think it's 104.

I heard.

Correct, yes.

And then the single family detached?

73.

And all the single family detached will be a for-sale product.

Is that right?

Correct.

Okay.

Um we had a decrease in the number of for sales, just a slight number from the previous plan.

Um I'll say one math that's tough to pull together because you have phase one as well, is net net.

I believe we have one extra unit.

Yeah.

And the so it's 401 rather than 400.

Yep.

Nope.

And that I appreciate that.

Um the previous plan had townhomes, some of them would have been for sale, and some of them would have been not for sale.

Is that right?

That's correct.

Okay.

Um talk about parking a little bit.

Um, can you can you summarize the parking here?

Like how many spaces are we looking at for each you know, single family unit, and where are those at?

And then the multifamily.

So I can speak to the single family.

Um, there's two parking spaces on lot per unit.

Okay.

So it is a two-to-one.

It's still achieved.

It is in a mix of two-car garages and some of the larger units, single car carport with a single pad next to it, and then in the very smallest courtyard, a tandem parking spot for two cars, but all retained within the lot.

And I think that's kind of similar to how the duplexes in the townhomes were.

That's right.

And so then now for the multifamily, obviously, we don't have that on site.

So we have the uh the big parking lots there.

Um correct.

Okay.

Um, and there's no covered parking for the multifamily.

That's correct.

Okay.

Yeah, and it's you know, open for the community, kind of first come, first serve, not kind of uh exclusive spots.

Yep.

Okay.

Um, so there's flexibility there.

Yep.

Um I think in the presentation packet, uh I didn't hear too much about the community outreach that was done.

Um, so maybe can you talk a little bit about the outreach that was done for presenting this to us?

Sure.

Absolutely.

You want to come on?

Yeah.

But uh you were living there.

Yeah, we complied with all of Lafayette's um standard, and we uh had two engagements on site, one with Kurt residents.

Uh we had a lot of families come out.

We had um over a hundred residents have dinner.

We had 31 stay for the presentation.

Um, so we did receive feedback there, and then we also had one based on the mailings that went out, um, and we had seven people, I believe, attend, so it's low attendance, but we did all that we could.

I think we did more, it was on several websites, we did mailings, and we have more planned, so this isn't over.

There's we have several more in the works now.

I think our next one is in July.

I don't know the date offhand, but I will make sure to get it to you all.

But we're working really closely with city staff on that as well.

Okay, yeah.

I uh the re the reason I ask is I know there was a lot of planning and outreach that went into the previous plan, and I think it was for the whole site as opposed to just this sort of northern half of the site, half, I guess.

I don't know if that's about right.

And I'm concerned, you know, because there was this whole advisory group that was, you know, communities that are in neighboring communities, and it doesn't sound like those people were really reached out to in this you know outreach.

Is that right?

Correct.

I believe the ELAT group, they they no longer meet, and so I we did not do any personal reach to them.

Now several of them still attended, that meeting three of them, in fact, of the seven or former ELAC members.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

Um I think I'm good for the moment.

I need a little bit to organize my thoughts.

Counselor Joseph.

Um where are you getting the modular units that you are um purchasing?

Those are coming from Kansas City.

So given that we have a modular factory, why did you not consider that action?

Well, that's a good question.

Actually, Dan's here, but it's really exciting for us.

There's a couple of reasons.

Um, one of them being from my perspective, I'll let Walker talk about his is um the architectural side.

So they're new, they're a new mock still.

I think they're doing amazing work.

Dan's a great partner.

Um, but we couldn't, we didn't have flexibility on the design, and we really wanted that to make sure that it's matching the aesthetic that's currently built.

Say that again.

I'm sorry, what about the design?

So the way that the mod facility currently operates is they have just two plans, I believe, Dan.

Is that two?

Yeah, we've got one base plan and we're working on others.

Yeah, and so because they're new and they're just getting started, they don't have the architectural flexibility that we were looking for.

And can I speak to this?

Because Dan and I have actually spoken.

We're only talking about the first 40 of 73 right now from that factory.

The other 33 undecided.

Okay.

But it was considered just saying we did, we have talked to Dan.

And I'm still under consideration.

That's right.

Any other questions?

Council General?

I just have a couple more.

Um in earlier in your presentation, you talked about you know, we're doing this multifamily as a response to phase one, where now we have 73% are two and three bedrooms.

Can you elaborate on that?

I don't quite understand how that's a response, and I think it's just a lack of information.

I mean, what you see in typical um multifamily or apartment development is just a few select corners will be three bedroom units.

So usually that's eight to ten percent of the unit mix in working with Kephart, our architect and the design team.

We wanted to create unit plans that could also fit in line in the building.

Um obviously a little more space to accommodate, but you're accommodating families and more people and driving community and serving that need.

So, you know, in leaning into both the two and three bedroom units, you know, that was really based on finding three bedroom units were the first to we sub in phase one.

Um, I would just assume still have a waiting list.

So, you know, in observing the market, saying how do we meet this need that we're seeing you know extraordinary demand or or larger demand, um, the design that you see today is a response to that.

I see.

So we're we're trying to prioritize having these bigger units given that that's what really was that there was a lot of demand for those in phase one.

Do you know what the breakdown of one bedroom to two and three bedroom in phase one is?

I mean, I'm I'm trying to wonder like is it a number?

It it's sounds like it's a demand uh response as opposed to like well, we we had only very few two and three bedrooms in phase one, and there was demand for them, and so now we're trying to shift really come more into that.

Um, but maybe it's more we we know there's demand for it, so we want to prioritize that.

Yeah, and during lease up, our one bedrooms were the last ones to go, and currently they stay vacant the longest.

Or two and three bedrooms, Lisa quicker than any other ones.

We'll get the number exactly for you.

But we did do a market study on this, and it did show that it supported two and three bedrooms over one bedroom.

Yeah, and and and I think uh that seems logical to me given that families need a place to stay, and it just doesn't work in a one bedroom, right?

Um so that's great.

Um I guess I'm uh one other question I have is just I'm still not convinced about the inability to add townhomes or duplexes to this mix of housing types.

Um just would love to have a uh a little bit more response to that because we got a lot of land and just uh I don't want to call it a cookie cutter because I do appreciate the variety of different um single family detached that you've got there, but there was a lot of effort put in to get these, you know, community accepted townhomes, a lack of uh that type of housing in the area.

I mean, most of Lafayette is single family detached.

We're not adding new types of housing to Lafayette with this plan.

We've had that with the last plan.

So I'd love to have it.

So yeah, um, because that's a loaded question, right?

Um just a little.

So let me let me answer it maybe in two parts, right?

One is yes, you're not we're not gaining a new type, right?

In single family detached, but one thing I would say is we're definitely gaining a new type in size price point, and we're attached product typically serves a market rate, like take all the deep restrictions out, right?

It typically allows the smaller unit type, more entry-level unit type.

What's interesting and modular, and as you couple it with insurance now in the state and that market hardening with product defect.

Yeah, we are able to produce the smaller and single family detached home for less than the town home in an adjoined attached product.

Modules are big driver of that, right?

But another factor is in a lot of the the town home design, we've got a two-car garage, which actually ironically makes that the larger product in some of our deed restricted product.

It's not the entry level, it's more like you grow into the town home.

So, really, where we were looking at diversity of product type, trying to bring new product type, 900 square feet, a thousand, twelve hundred in modular with the amount of of off-site work that can be done without stitching them together.

It's it's actually more cost efficient for us.

Yeah, okay.

And I would say this the size of the lot, because that can be misleading.

How do we get 73 single family detached when there were only 80 townhomes?

These lots are just a few feet wider than the original townhome lot, or these are 16 foot wide structures with small side yards, really like designed into the inch, right?

Yeah.

Um, that's why we're yielding a very similar number.

Yeah, I I've been pushing tiny home in the land use code.

Just close.

This is this is as close as I smallest unit here to anything.

Which is my favorite plan is a two-bedroom, one bath, ranch style, age in place.

We even some of them were doing type A fully accessible, even though that's not a code restriction because we can.

It's that's the least expensive we can produce it.

Is in a modular form.

Interesting, really interesting.

It's only 900 square feet.

It's a great size home.

Oh, it's it's it's an awesome home.

I do just want to add that I I'm talking to a lot of people in my role.

I sit in on homeownership classes, and I hear over and over and over people can't afford anything that they're approved to up to to purchase, and they end up leaving Boulder County.

And so this was really important for us too.

One, bring in that low interest rate that we get to pass on to the buyer, which is incredible.

I really incredible, but also having the single family home.

It's just a dream for so many people, and to know we can deliver is is really important to me to me personally.

Thank you so much.

Any other questions from council at this moment?

I I had a question about that the two units that are up by Outlaw A that are now gonna be much closer to the world than they were.

Is there no solution to pulling them back a little?

Um that that feels like it's not very workable.

This is one thing, and we've been scratching our heads on this a little bit.

I think yes.

I think we can still achieve close to the same setback if we reorient some of the mix of the housing and end up with two of our smallest product of the two-story, not the 900 square foot, but the thousand square foot, which is actually a smaller footprint on the very edge of the product.

We're doing it, we're trying to figure it out right now, but I think it fits with the same setback requirement we were looking for in the 29 feet for the rest of them.

And then I have a related question on the MS No, the 120th side.

Um so you're gonna have the detention pond there.

Is the detention pond safe?

Uh is there a fence?

Is there anything to keep children from it?

You're now having much more action.

Maybe not a ton more, but a little bit closer for children to walk out their door and fall in a pond.

Um I'm just curious about what the safety situation is with the detention pond that's now closer to people's houses.

There it is.

Yeah, uh Connor Culligan, civil engineer.

Um so that detention pond is constructed today.

Um the slopes, there's no walls or anything like that on the west side.

It's kind of gentle slopes that kids would could roll down if they wanted to.

We generally try to keep people out of the pond.

You obviously won't get in there when there's water.

Um but the intent is not to close that off.

We want that to feel a little more open.

Um that whole pond is vegetated.

We'll also have a walking path around that pond that will follow the kind of natural shape of that pond.

So there'll be from kind of the top of that slope to the front of the house.

There's probably 25 feet or so.

Um that includes the trail, some planting, and then the front of your lot as well.

Do you have a diagram?

Well, you have this diagram.

I'm trying to envision it.

Um it's like 10 more to all nine more less feet.

And I'm just trying to.

So where's the where's the walking path in the diagram on the left?

Take the microphone here.

So this is that six foot, six to eight foot trail um that falls around the pond on the west side.

So this is kind of that embakement slope down into the pond.

And then this trail is gonna be kind of meandering, um, but generally probably five to ten feet from the edge of that walk to the edge of the lot.

Um and then that that'll be your home space behind that.

So that's where this kind of 20, 25 foot buffer uh to the pond is.

What if we didn't do that?

What would happen?

If we push these homes back.

If we kept the existing existing calculating.

Um I think you'd really start to lose the car ports and the parking behind the homes.

Um right now we have homes and the car ports.

You're parking your two spaces behind your house.

You as you lose that nine feet, you would almost lose that length for parking.

Or you would lose that length for parking.

Okay.

Uh and one of the main constraints there is there's uh the sanitary line that serves all the phase one is in that alley, so we we really don't have room to move those homes west because of that existing sanitary line.

Any further questions from council?

Counselor Jim.

Uh two quick ones, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um one, in tur uh is there any shift in terms of the parking considerations or number of parking lots between the the previous and what's on the table right now?

Not on the homeownership side.

Um, same what's that?

Same.

Yeah, it's it's two to one as well.

Okay, it's the same.

Yeah.

I thought it was one point seven in the uh one two be it is, correct.

Yeah, just on the homeownership is two to one.

Yeah.

The and really, you know, kind of the difference.

One, you know, we're kind of exceeding parking standards, certainly.

Um, but when you have a town home with two parking spaces behind a garage door that can be used by one occupant of that unit.

Um when you have the flexibility of parking, you know, that parking demand is really kind of driven by the community.

Um so you know, we're exceeding those minimums and also creating that flexibility in parking area at the 1.7.

Gotcha.

Thank you.

That's helpful.

And then I'm sorry to be pedantic, but um maybe slide 20, if you could skip forward.

This has been throwing me off.

Um I want to make sure I'm reading this right.

Um the right graphic, the sun is facing it the shade is wrong, right?

I'm not misreading this.

The sun would be hitting this on the south.

And okay.

Yep, thank you.

No worries, I'm sorry to be the dadic, I just afraid I was misreading it.

Um I just I did want to ask though, in terms of that we've we've grappled with this challenge, and I saw that there's solar panels on the roofs.

I was just wondering, had y'all considered other areas to add in solar panels sustainable sustainability measures for that very large parking surface.

Just thinking of the hail storm in Denver that slaughtered a bunch of cars yesterday.

Right.

I I think it's a worthwhile consideration as far as kind of right sizing or solar electricity generation or and protecting cars.

Um, I think the opportunity that we see here in those 2B buildings is a really nice southern frontage in that gable pitch of the roof.

Uh but I take the comment and uh thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Now, Counselor Gene Owen.

Can you pull up the the map that has the um the utilities on it if you wouldn't mind?

Yeah, here you go.

Yeah, here.

I just want to understand a little bit about the um the multifamily and the spacing between these buildings.

Uh it's hard for me to judge how close they are.

I mean, I think there was a little bit of talk of green space in between them and I understand that this is oriented like this because of this stormwater drain.

So maybe can you we'll start I'll stop talking, let you go from there.

I might have more.

Yeah, it's it's roughly 25 to 30 feet.

Thankfully I have Connor here.

Um, between those two buildings.

Um in many instances about a one-to-one you know, ratio from kind of height um to the bottom of the cable there to that green space.

And and really the goal was to create um also an east-west connector within the community.

Um so this then now can be kind of a landscape strip uh connecting the neighborhood as well.

Yeah.

I appreciate that.

I mean, it seems better than walking through a parking lot.

You go through a place that's got some some landscaping and pa other people maybe walking in through there.

Exactly.

This is not so and so this is not a car drive aisle.

Correct.

Okay.

It I maybe would point out that before half of that was a car drive aisle.

Uh or I should say a quarter for where the access was off of Canterbury to the west, so we're kind of creating a I would say a more comprehensive uh pedestrian path from east to west there.

Yeah.

Um Kate.

Um I want to talk a little bit about the neuro neuroinclusive housing.

I saw in the packet there was uh mention that the planning commission, you know, gave appreciation for it, but kind of nowhere in the packet did it really talk about this.

And so the old this is like my first hearing about it is tonight, you know, and so I'm just want to learn a little bit more about it, you know what makes it unique.

Why in the plan, it looks like it's multifamily.

To me, that just says it's apartments.

It does, you know, and so I'm I'm just feeling I'm learning this for the first time and I want to understand more about it.

I'm not gonna explain to you like the the programming or anything that because I don't know any of that.

We'll have uh the applicant come up.

I did want to kind of say why there's a light touch with it.

Is this will this is still falling under, this is a new change, but it's still falling under the approved PUD.

It is going to come back in front of you as part of a site plan architectural review.

Okay.

So it's about striking that at that balance where we want to present it and show it as a as a change and in a new housing product, but also not get too far into it so that you're not uh because you have it coming before you again is not at a public hearing, at a public meeting for a spot site plan architectural review.

So that's why we kind of took a light touch on it.

Okay.

And then I hope me if we get too far into the details of my own death, Mary Linda set a straight and keep us out of trouble.

Okay.

And then it looks to me like the the change from the previous plan is to reduce the size of that building in terms of number of units.

Because we've got this different arrangement of what works for this type of community.

We need to have more of these kind of dorm style or other services or things like that.

And so, in a way, you know, we're losing, I think by my calculation, it was like 18 units in that one building.

Maybe it was 14.

36 to 32.

It was it was 36 units and in four nine classes.

Oh kind of repeating.

I see.

So we're so we're losing a couple.

Okay.

I thought it was much more than that, kind of based on some of the numbers I asked about earlier.

And we're losing them, but we are adding them onto that.

Yep, those larger.

Yeah, countless stays.

Um, I think that's all I've got.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Counselor Jensen.

I just have not a question, but a comment.

Um I hear you saying that with regard to the parking, the way that we get to the 1.7 is because some people are not home sometimes and other people are home, and we don't need two parking spaces per unit because it's a mix of folks.

Um I have had some complaints from seniors that by the time they get home from work, all the parking close to their building is taken up, and I'm you probably heard that too.

I do.

And especially in the winter, if it's icy, then that's really a challenge.

And I just wanted to give you that feedback.

And it has nothing to do with what we're approving here today, but um I just thought you might I don't know if they shared that with you, and they've shared it with me.

Thank you.

Any other questions from council?

Okay.

Everybody went and I also have a lot of people.

Chair Norbeck, eight hundred East Genesee.

Good evening.

Tonight, you're reviewing amendments that amount to a complete rewrite of a planning commission and council approved sketch plan, and I'm incredibly disappointed in what I see.

I sent you the original sketch plan presentation on the weekend that shows the attention given to the community.

Traffic concerns were addressed with light circles and bus routes.

The height and scale of the development was designed to lessen the visual impact by putting the three-story apartments at the south side and coming down in height to the northern side at Emma, where the focus was on trying to emulate the look of Old Town with smaller scale homes and front yards set back from the street.

As a representative of Old Town, I was an advocate for those residents who would be affected by the addition of four hundred more housing units in an area that already deals with heavy traffic from peak to peak and takes pride in its uniqueness.

The issue was how do we lessen the impact of an entirely new neighborhood on our oldest.

For five years, I attended every ELAC public planning commission and council meeting pertaining to this development, as well as the groundbreaking grand opening events.

I easily have over a hundred documents in my laptop related to it.

I posted detailed updates about the process and plans on next door.

I was here when the council at BCHA's request authorized an $88,000 contribution for community outreach, and I spent many hours on the phone with Marcus Packner how to conduct that outreach.

I reached out to local historian Doug Conroe to get some history about this land, leading to it being called Willoughby Corner.

While a supporter of affordable housing going back decades, I was not involved to be a cheerleader.

Some might tell you I was a hard ass about this project, and they would be right.

I was pushing for the best outcome for the community, and I'm doing that again tonight.

BCHA went above and beyond to engage the community about this development and highlighted that in their 2019 presentation.

But tonight you were presented with what might be the best or is it the worst example of how not to build in Lafayette?

We have a complete disregard of all those years of work and outreach.

A new team has come in with a broad and heavy brush rather than a scalpel and swept away all that vision, done the bare minimum of outreach, and brought you a plan that seems to be the antithesis of what the city wants from new developments and what was promised to the community.

We see rows of the same housing type, three-story apartments in the middle of a development, towering over the single family housing behind.

I watched as you spent hours making point after point about diversity in housing, massing scale, and avoiding rows of the same housing type for other developments.

Current planning staff was not here at the outset, but we were assured that this would be handled the same as any other project, and that's what the planning commission did in May.

Commissioners pointed out the lack of housing stock in between apartments and homes, saying there was no middle housing to move up or down to, allowing residents to stay in their neighborhood as life changed, and pointed also to the small side yards that would require owning a mower instead of designing houses around a courtyard.

But the question of the night from Commissioner Phillips went right to the heart of the problem.

Why 400 units?

The answer because we have to.

That's what the agreement was.

But the agreement can be changed.

Imagine working on a jigsaw puzzle of a puppy and kitten that has too many pieces, but you have to use them.

You jam them in somehow, even if they don't interloft.

And now the puppy has three eyes and the kitten an extra leg.

That is the issue here.

It's not that the previous design was faulty.

It's that the number of units for the property was too high right from the start.

If that number can be lowered, we could get back to the kind of thoughtful design that was promised to the community, one we can be proud of.

I found out about this amendment on Lafayette Listens, and after proclaiming how dare they complained to staff about the lack of notification.

Susanna kindly reached out and arranged a virtual chat for Vicky Ulan and me.

We thought the changes must be related to funding issues, but instead it was shocking to hear her say the first plan was missing utility boxes and the roadways were not big enough, hence the changes.

We were also told that duplexes were removed because they are not wanted and are the last to sell.

The PC chair rightfully said speed of sales is not their concern.

This clunky new sketch plan is so far from what we were promised and what we deserve.

Tonight I ask you to push back on these changes.

What needs amending here is the unit count, not a complete rewrite of the original plan.

You have the power to fix this jigsaw puzzle and save us from the three-eyed dog.

Please do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we'll hear from Tony Munoz.

Hello, Council.

I'm Tony Munoz.

I'm located at 214 North Michigan Avenue, Lafayette, also known as 500 East Space Lane.

I am here to um this well, I I don't really agree with a lot of the changes.

Um I do have some concerns about the comment that uh they can't do geothermal in apartment buildings or multi-units.

Uh just being commons is geothermal.

So I I'm confused about that, or maybe uneducated on it.

So that's one question I would address right off the bat.

I was with um all of the uh planners.

Even our priest would go to these meetings.

These were meetings that we went to constantly.

There I was after work taking all these seniors looking for housing.

They were so excited.

I have since placed all of them.

The last person I took to Josephine Commons.

Okay, so we have to hire senior specialists just to get people into just into uh Willoughby Corner or just Finn Commons or a lot of our affordable housing programs.

Either the individual will make too much, not enough, they don't have the right percentage based on their availability of units and what uh what subsidiaries they're getting for this unit versus that unit.

Seriously, I don't know what that was about, but it's painful for all of these seniors.

Again, know our audience.

These are not people that are making $110,000 a year.

Therefore, they're not reading every day like some people.

Some folks are constantly reading and researching, and they're not understanding all of this.

They just know that they want a pretty unit to live in.

Okay.

Um, I feel like this is just the developer trying to change what they originally agreed to.

We gave them tax breaks, we went through a number of meetings.

I can't imagine that we were that unprepared or that uneducated, and now suddenly we're having to change this.

What's going to happen in three years?

They're going to change it again.

I think it has to do with profit margins.

Right now, you people are not buying as much as they used to, let's be honest.

And the 4% will help.

Kudos to that.

But the last time uh I had looked at the numbers, I have rentals, and they need to work on the purchase prices also because their rentals were not as affordable.

I have rentals, I know.

I've had a rental since 1992.

I've had rentals.

So it's not like I'm new to them.

Um, and all of mine are affordable, they're two bedrooms, and so I was really excited when this when this, you know, we were getting more housing for our folks.

Again, it just took so long and it was so complicated.

They went other places.

So I really feel like this is um I I don't feel comfortable with this being brought up.

I I just feel like there's a reason for these changes, and I don't think it's for the public.

Reduction in lot sizes, and you know, trying to get us to change our setbacks.

Um prices have dropped in housing, so now how why not, you know, sell more houses as opposed to townhomes, my profits better.

I'm in real estate.

The three-story.

Oh my gosh, are you guys kidding?

It's Lafayette.

We're not a big municipality.

Erie has so much land compared to us.

We were never designed to be a big community.

We're still not moving in that route.

The members of Lafayette, that's why they live here.

That's why we pay these prices to live here.

Now they want to reduce the to modular building.

Okay, I have mixed use on this, and I'm running out of time.

I have researched the geothermal, I have researched modular housing.

I just finished building a 900 square foot unit here in Lafayette.

It was a nightmare.

It was a nightmare.

With the quality of a modular home, they had best reduce the prices then, because they're going to, you know, there goes their profits are going up again.

They've got to give us a break as the city.

I think that's it.

Thank you for your time.

And please, everyone, let's really research this and not have it change in another three years so that we can change it again.

Let's get a plan going, stick to it, and see Lafayette just grow.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we'll hear from Vicky Euland.

Hi, I'm Vicky Ealin, 303 West Simpson Street, and I'm speaking to you tonight as a member of the East Lafayette Advisory Committee for Willoughby Corner.

With ELAC, I volunteered five years and hundreds of hours to helping the city and BCHA create an affordable housing development that is truly a part of the community rather than a disconnected housing project on the outskirts of town.

We felt like we'd achieve that with the PUD and sketch plan that was approved by council in 2022.

But now BCHA wants to completely change phases two and three of that plan with very little public input.

When the sketch plan was being developed, BCHA touted how much public engagement they had conducted.

They showed planning commission a slide about their community-wide outreach, including open houses, community coffee and backyard meetings, and working with ELAC.

For the major changes to more than half of the development that BCHA is asking for tonight, they did the minimum, notified neighbors within 800 feet of Willoughby Corner.

Because there are so few properties in this notification area, ELAC successfully lobbied for the BCHA to send out neighborhood meeting notices to all of Old Town and Flag Drive for the original PUD and sketch plan.

BCHA chose not to do that this time, nor did it notify ELEC members, even though Stephen Williams told us he suggested they do that.

So what you're seeing tonight is a sketch plan with no input from ELAC and minimal input from people who live outside of Willoughby Corner and will be directly affected by these changes.

That's concerning to me.

Also of concern is how this new plan ignores a key thing that neighbors had asked for in the development and that BCHA said in their initial sketch plan presentation that it was emphasizing, which is duplicating the old town residential character.

There are two key aspects of that.

The first is building heights.

BCHA and ELAC worked out a plan to put the three-story multifamily buildings at the south end of the lot where there were already tall industrial buildings.

Then there was a step down to two-story town homes and duplexes as the development near to Emma and Canterbury, which is more in keeping with the surrounding neighborhood.

As you know, the comp plan, the old town residential overlay zoning, and the draft land use code, all specs all specifically mentioned step downs.

Now BCHA wants to plop down three-story apartment buildings in the middle of the development.

So from south to north, the development would go from three-story to two-story multifamily housing buildings, then back to three-story multifamily, and then to two-story single family.

This patchwork of building heights is a major departure from what BCHA promised us they would build and what old town residential zoning calls for.

When Karen Orbach and I asked the BCHA executive director why BCHA wanted these changes, she said it was mainly due to two things adding neurodiverse housing, and that BCHA thinks they can sell single-family homes better than duplexes.

She also said this to planning commission.

Also, she said during phase one, BCHA didn't build the infrastructure, including utility boxes and road widths necessary to construct the duplexes and townhomes they had told us they would build.

Staff also mentioned this infrastructure issue during the PC meeting, which begs the question.

Why did this happen?

The other thing ELAC and surrounding neighborhoods asked for in order to duplicate the old town residential character is substantial front setbacks along EMA.

In 2019, we reluctantly signed off on reducing the front setbacks from 36 feet to 15 feet because BCHA said they needed that.

Now BCHA says they need eight-foot setbacks in order to build the single-family homes they want.

These tiny setbacks will not look like any of the residential properties surrounding Willoughby Corner.

Finally, the mix of housing BCHA now proposes, apartments and single-family homes, is not in keeping with the proposed form-based land use code.

The original Willoughby Corner plan called for three types of housing, multifamily duplexes and townhomes, which is closer to the four types of residences the code calls for in neighborhood mixed use centers of this size.

Now BCHA is proposing only two types of housing grouped together in a way that's in opposition to the form-based code.

What I'd like for you to do is to send BCHA back to the drawing board.

If they want to completely change more than half of the sketch plan that was originally approved by council, then I think they need to do more public input than the bare minimum of a neighborhood meeting.

Also, and I don't say this lightly, this is the most biased presentation I have ever heard from staff regarding a development.

I hope you will take that into account.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we'll hear from Christy Walsh.

Good evening, my name is Christy Walsh.

I'm 330 North 120th Street.

The ELAC spent considerable time and the city likely spent considerable dollars to find a consensus that was palatable to everyone.

I found out about these massive modifications from Karen and Vicky in their substack report at a political hobbyist in Lafayette CO.substack.com and the article entitled Bait and Switch at Willoughby Corner.

I wholeheartedly support everything discussed in the article.

But let's talk about some other things.

The outreach was billed as just another open house.

There is absolutely no indication in the outreach that this was a massive diversion from what had been agreed upon by the ELAC.

And I live across the street from the development.

I just as a neighbor and I was also a member of the ELAC, I feel completely blindsided by these changes.

During the Planning Commission meeting, the Bait and Switches just kept coming.

The BCHA left me with the impression they were completely unaware and uncaring of the agreements that had been released reached with ELAC.

Well, these are not contractual, they were handshake agreements with the community that decent honorable people honorable people should want to uphold.

Tonight they claim awareness of those agreements, but now say they didn't make any changes in the last month.

One tiny example is the style of housing.

This is one point that everyone on the agreement ELAC committee seemed to agree on is to have housing styles and characters with original old town.

No flat roofs, no weird shapes or roof sloped all to one side, requiring unnecessary height.

Just traditional charming housing styles.

A point that Norris designed, the only person on their group to be from the original development time is aware of.

And yet, based on the housing styles in their presentation to the housing committee and today, they are diverging from this simple, easily accommodated promise.

During the planning committee, planning for this development, the ELAC was led to believe that sufficient work had been done regarding utilities, traffic, and drainage.

This was presented for the entire development, not just phase one.

At least that's the way what they let the ELAC to believe.

For this to change now years later, leaves the impression that this was best case incompetent or worst case, just faked in.

BCHA told our political lobbyists that BCHA has determined that people don't want to buy duplexes, they would be hard to sell.

Short Google search shows that these are alive and well in today's housing market, just rebranded as paired homes.

Commercial developers advertise them as thoughtfully designed paired homes that offer the perfect balance of privacy, low maintenance living, and a connected neighborhood feel.

Seems to me that if people didn't want them, commercial developers wouldn't build them.

During the housing commission meeting, the BCHA essentially stated that the massive changes to this proposal development were really about wanting to shoehorn their pet project into a corner of the development.

BCHA once told me, different group, that they can't prioritize anyone for affordable housing.

Lafayette residents have no priority.

Nurses and teachers, people that are underpaid and significantly contribute to our community, have no priority.

Yet so much of the modification seems to be to build a building for a special community, calling out their need for low stimulus living.

I can tell you, living across the street from this development, uh, that this location is not low stimulus.

120th Street is busy and only getting worse.

Since the street was widened and the traffic burden has only become heavier and faster.

Large trucks from the truss plant, lumber yard, and cement plant travel this road regularly.

People treat the stoplight at Emma and the turn on to 120th off of or on flag off of 120th as the starting line for the Daytona 500.

Fast as they can go, loud as they can rev their engines.

There's also plenty of people trying to race down Emma to re to beat that street light before it turns red so they can make the left turn on 120th.

Sadly, people there's a lot more emergency traffic going to the senior housing.

This area is loud and fast.

There is excessive sound and pressure and motion from the traffic.

It is disturbing and stressful.

I live there, I know this.

I can't imagine what these stimuluses would be like for people, group of people who are especially so much.

Unfortunately, your five minutes are up.

We appreciate it.

Sir, if I could hand out homework, I would assign them a day at that location.

That was my last speaker request form.

I will just ask uh the room.

Is there anyone who hasn't had a chance to speak who would like to speak?

Seeing none, I will turn to our city clerk just to see if there's any calls.

Uh seeing no calls.

Uh, we will close the period for public testimony.

And just for the record, the time is 9.13 p.m.

I will now give the opportunity to the applicant to respond to the public testimony if they wish at this time.

Thank you, Mayor Tapia Vega.

Um, just a few things uh in terms of um profit margins, the housing authority.

We we don't uh we're not making money off of the sale of the homes.

Every dollar that we earn as a housing authority goes back into affordable housing here in Boulder County, and I'm really proud of that.

I don't get there's no bonuses tied to construction or lease up or anything of that nature.

Um, yes, multifamily is geothermal, which is why we would like to build the geothermal.

And it's uh not impossible, just not feasible on the townhomes.

I just want to make sure that that was clear.

That's what I stated in my presentation.

Um three-story already exists on the property.

So I just wanted to point that out.

It's not an entirely new thing, although, yes, new to this area of the development.

Um, and then uh on the rental prices, our affordable prices are dictated by federal and state law on the LITAX.

I just want to point that out.

If we could lower the rents, I would, but we are unable to, unfortunately.

I do want to also point out um that in this project, this phase of the project, we are advocating to put in those 16 vouchers, those um uh project-based vouchers to increase that deep affordability.

So that is important to us, and it was not done on phase one, so we are leaning into that.

Um, but the LITEC is um is why we have the rent set up the prices we do.

Um let's see.

I I don't know that selling uh single family is necessarily easier than the duplex, but as I stated in my presentation, it is more desired, and there are fewer options for affordable single family homes in the market throughout Colorado, the country, and here in Boulder County.

Um and we can in fact prioritize residents.

We have preference points that we are able to do during leasing, and we do intend um to do that during our IDD housing leaseup.

And um, let's see.

I think those are the main ones.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And just before we close the um public hearing, I just want to make sure there are no further questions from council for staff or for the applicant.

Council Gallegos.

So sorry, that wasn't on.

So since we've heard quite a bit of opposition to the height, if we were to revert back to the original height, how many units would be lost?

Was that 21?

28.

28.

Any further questions from council.

Mr.

Mayor, I have no questions.

I do have a quick comment.

Please.

Thank you, Mayor.

And thank you so much for the for the response and and for the the vibrant public input.

Um I would love to see a dialogue.

I understand ELAC is at least temporarily no more.

I would love to see a bit more dialogue with the residents.

I say that.

I also really appreciate a lot of what has been put on the table and and the answers that we've heard this evening.

I just want to briefly read uh a note that I got from uh a neighbor who I've never met.

Um and the and this individual writes in and goes, hey there.

My perspective is that I can't afford to live in Lafayette, at least not currently.

Lafayette needs to focus on allowing higher density, it's most desirable neighborhoods, like the single family area around Old Town, keeping the new developments looking in line with the neighborhood character to avoid too much blowback from residents, as we've heard tonight.

However, I favor placing new develop dense new developments in spots like Arapahoe and 287 wherever we can find them, and I'm completely flexible on the height and building density because I can't afford to live here.

I'm in Erie right now.

Um so I I really I I value that note um that I got from a neighbor in Erie, and something that I've heard from in this this evening in terms of height, and then we've heard in other dialogues is that Lafayette residents have concerns about height.

And so I wonder, you know, as we look at this again, whether there are uh ways that y'all could take another look at kind of the the gradation um to maybe make it uh a little bit more comfortable in the sight lines.

So I asked that.

I also personally am completely comfortable with height because we have to get people into affordable housing.

So I think both those things are true.

Um, and I thank that neighbor for writing it.

But thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Councillor Jensen.

Um it does this as a comment, not a question.

It does seem to me if our planning staff suggested you send something to EVAC and we didn't be an oversight that this group had you know worked so long to try to be part of this project that not to include them feels not good.

Um I I also do know that in the ELEC meetings, height was one of the things of most concern to people.

And we did think we had an agreement.

Personally, I am not opposed to the height because I believe to get affordable housing, it's one of the things we're likely gonna have to do.

Um we need density in certain locations, and this is an appropriate location, and the way you're doing it, which is the part closest to neighbors is smaller, and then you gradually uh you know make it higher, I think is the best way to do it.

But I also think we are in this position right now with opposition because nobody talked to people.

And I feel like that should have happened.

And so I I would encourage you.

I it sounds like you had a private meeting with uh with Vicky and Karen, but that is not the ELAC of whatever is left of ELAC.

I don't even know.

Uh but it feels like that group should have something should have happened there.

So um and and I I think whenever we short circuit any of our communication uh out, we heard it on the cemetery as well, that uh we end up with more concern than if we had uh spent some time on the front end talking to people.

So uh I am an affordable housing advocate, and I heard your responses tonight with a logical explanation of why we're these changes are being made.

One could argue whether you like those changes or not.

People could have different points of view about that, but I don't think you're off in left field.

I don't think you're doing anything all that weird, and I definitely don't think this was a bait and switch where you were deceptive about what the intention was.

Um I appreciate that you've answered my questions to my satisfaction.

I don't know if everyone else is satisfied, but I feel like you had legitimate answers to our questions, and one could disagree with them, but um I appreciate that.

Counselor Gianola.

Yeah, one more question for me.

Uh we kind of went through some of the numbers about AMI and kind of average AMI, and I'm wonder if we can just kind of get a summary of of that again just so that I can understand.

I have in my notes the neurodiverse housing averages of 48% AMI.

Um the single family homes are kept at 100% AMI.

What is the average AMI for the single family homes?

The range served is 60 to 100.

So I would put the average based on similar projects is probably right at 80.

Okay.

Upper 70 to 80.

Kind of mid-average of that, 60 to 100.

And since we only have those two.

And what about the multifamily?

55?

55% AMI.

Yes.

Yes.

That's okay.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Good.

Any final questions from council?

Seeing none, I will close public hearing.

And again, for the record, it is 9.22 p.m.

So there are well, the first thing I should say is this is, of course, sketch plan.

Let's remember we're not making any final decisions uh tonight.

We're but there are a few things, and it might be easiest to kind of go back on this slide and go piece by piece just to Did you have a question to I I feel like we've run into this before where uh we go straight into the uh questions from staff and we don't give the council an opportunity to discuss.

I know Councillor Jensen and Councillor Boulder kind of gave their comments, but I I want to make sure that we still have an opportunity for that beyond just addressing the the questions from staff.

Sure.

Is there anything you would like to start with?

I'm not ready.

But I just want to make sure we don't lose that.

Okay.

Uh is there any other counselor who would like to start us?

Maybe give Councillor Gianno a few minutes.

I'll start with I'll be brief because uh I I didn't go to the next slide, so that previous comment was part of this discussion, so my apologies.

Um broadly speaking, I empathize with a lot of the concerns that have been shared, but I echo Council Jensen's point a moment ago.

I I'm really impressed with uh what the team has put on the table.

Um I think the innovation is maybe not the right word, but the the creativity and thoughtfulness uh of the neuroinclusive um housing component, I'm really excited by.

I think that's a really great story for our community to tell.

So I I take the point that 120th is busy, but folks gotta live somewhere, and I I like the thoughtfulness that's been put on the table.

Um really appreciate the the modular housing component.

I'd love to see a lot more of that.

Um I think there may be some misunderstanding of the distinction between modular housing and manufactured housing, both of which, of course, are legitimate housing, but my understanding is they're they're very different in terms of sustainability and then maybe uh structural integrity.

Um then kind of kind of lastly, like I I share some of the frustration that well before our time uh previous plan was approved, it was very thoughtfully engaged.

I I think the the consternation some folks feel is really legitimate.

But to my ears, it does seem like a lot of thought has gone into all right, these were the constraints, some errors were made.

How do we get this right in this moment?

Um as folks know I'm very flexible when it comes to height, so I don't mind that.

I think for me, the main thing is I I do fear that this revised plan doesn't have enough community gathering spaces.

Um I see a lot of parking lots, of course, people are gonna park their cars, but I I would love to see more of a heart of a neighborhood than I currently see.

I stipulate there's a clubhouse and a little park hangout, but for the hundreds of residents that will live there, I would love to see a bit more like where they can gather, barbecue, hang out, outdoor movies, et cetera.

But by and large, I think we're roughly on the right track.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, counselor.

Any other counselors want to kind of jump in with general thoughts before we try to break this down piece by piece.

Sure.

Counselor Gianola.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I appreciate the fact that even though we're going from a wide variety of housing types, we're going to variety of housing sizes for the single family detached.

I think that's a really useful addition if we're not going to have duplexes.

At least we have single family homes and we have a variety of them.

If we're not going to have townhomes, at least we have a variety of different options for folks to get into.

The multifamily, this is where I feel like there's a bait and switch.

I I this was not in the original plan in this form.

We had those on the southern edge, and now we're cramming these big buildings right front and center, pretty much.

And I that's not where they were originally put.

They were they were tucked away by the industrial in a way that kind of made it so that there's a transition to the neighborhood, a transition to the school next door.

And I mean, I think a lot of folks have concern about height.

I mean, uh, I certainly do, and massing, you know, and that was one of the things that was appealing from the previous plan is that the mass was spread out in a few different buildings and they weren't so high, and there was good walking paths and way, you know.

And here the these big buildings just they stick out like a sore thumb.

I appreciate that the they are better set up for the geothermal, the the high efficiency where we're not kind of metering each home.

So it's I struggle with that.

Um the yeah, I I it it that's the part that just really feels like a switch that I think the community struggles with because we thought we had, you know, looking at the whole plan, we thought we had all the multifamily housing kind of set, and now we're bringing it back in a way that just feels like there wasn't good community outreach.

We had a ton of community outreach.

It sounds like it was years in the making.

And I feel like you know, to Council Bullier's point, this is maybe a communication problem.

We didn't have enough.

We need more.

I really think maybe they could be on board if they understood now that we're you know emphasizing the for families and these multifamily as opposed to individuals, and maybe we need to think about can we do that more if that's really the focus.

If you say that's the focus, like let's scrap all the one bedrooms.

If they're not renting and there's no wait list, and those are the longest to be vacant.

Like I feel like we're we're missing something here on the multifamily.

I think it just needs to be explored a little bit more.

Um the number of units.

I appreciate the keeping the number basically fixed.

This setback of the top, the northern north western edge, could be potentially solved by removing one unit to get the constant number of 400, and now you don't have one property, you can adjust the position.

Maybe it opens up that outlaw A up again.

I mean, there there are it feels like there's creative solutions that aren't being explored just based on the number of units trying to just make sure we get there.

I thought the the discussion of can we go back and work on that agreement and figure out do we need all these units?

I mean, I know we want to build affordable housing and that's a goal, but I'd love to see that explored more.

Those are my comments.

Great.

Thank you, Counselor.

Any other general comments?

I I just want to say that uh the original proposal for Willoughby was 500.

And through the ELAC process, uh and also just in order to make the design look nice, you know, uh and it was reduced to 400.

And I I feel like that was an agreement that we had at ELAC that I would be very reluctant to want to change at this point because there was a community group that came together to make that decision.

Um that same group would might not be able to be brought together again, you know.

But I there was a lot of discussion about the number of units, and I I would not want to mess with that because I feel like there was a lot of community talk about it.

However, if there's a really pressing reason to go to 398, you know, or something like that, I think it makes sense that that 400 is not uh magic, but as long as it's around there.

Sure.

I I would feel like you know, i i we could have conversations about that.

But I think we kind of promised the community 400.

I I feel like we promised the community a diversity of housing types as well through that discussion, and that's where I feel like I'm not I we're losing that with this this uh adjusted plan and how we can throw that out, but we don't throw this out.

Well, that that apparently wasn't important then.

No, that's a good point.

I I I think I was more convinced maybe than you that the neurodivergent, even though it's multifamily, is kind of its own type.

It there's nothing else like it on the so I would say that's a a third type.

And then the fact that the for sale includes four or five different so that convinced me that it was uh what I would be more concerned about is that we have a comp plan that says projects over a certain size should have this level of diversity and starting to just throw the complan out the window whenever it doesn't work as well, starts to feel like why have one.

Um but I was convinced by the conversation that we kind of do have diversity of housing types.

Um not not like the neuroinclusive is not like anything else anywhere.

So I anyway, that's was my thinking.

Just jump in on that.

I I think this proposed plan absent the neuroinclusive, I'd have much more significant concerns.

Um but I guess one thing that that really strikes me is I I wouldn't want us to make perfect be the enemy of good enough.

And I would hate for us to well again, I think there's growing consensus, Mayor, if I'm hearing folks right that we do want some more community outreach, whether ELAC success or adjacent.

But I also like I don't want us to uh spend months and months having the wide variety of community engagement for something that is essentially the same footprint as before, even though I I take your point there's a large building that's here versus right here.

But like people need someplace to live, and and we need to build those houses and the affordability crisis and obviously the economic shocks that folks are experiencing right now.

And also just in Candor, I I own my home with my wife, and I would feel very uncomfortable being like, well, I'm kind of set, so let's take some time uh to add into an item run out the clock when folks maybe don't have the opportunity for the homeownership that the presentation we've heard uh affords folks.

Um I I I take all your points, and I do agree with you that there's a bit of that's gone on that it's uncomfortable, but I don't want us to spend a lot of time when we need to build housing for people to live who want to join our community.

Yeah.

And and I guess my my goal here is to give a discussion have a discussion so that the applicant can take this and say, are there ways we can tweak our plan to address some of the issues here?

I guess one other issue that you know I kind of raised in the questions is about parking.

And the old plan, we didn't have these giant swaths of parking, and now we do.

And I feel like that is not being well used.

It's land that's not well used.

Now I understand we have to have parking and there's requirements, but I thought some of the discussion about, you know, can we pull a um a Medtronic and provide nice covered parking that's got some sustainability features and things like that, you know, and I I I think I asked about covered parking and uh you know, we someone else brought up the hailstorm as another example, and you know these are things that could be adapted in the plan um to address some of these things uh, you know, if if if they so choose.

Not to cut off the discussion, but I have certainly heard at least two of the things that we're gonna have to talk about tonight already discussed.

So I think at this point it's best for us to just get right into it and uh make this as guided as we possibly can make it.

Um so for the first, and these are the ones that we obviously want to hit and the ones that we want to give feedback on.

And just as a reminder, we're providing comments tonight, so we're not voting on anything.

I know you all know that, but I just want to make it clear.

Uh and starting with the first one, which is the one that I've heard the most of.

It's the housing types in the unit mix.

Uh actually it might be easier if we go back to the other one and we go slide by slide.

Um, that one right there.

Oh so I've heard a lot about housing types and about the the changes proposed here.

Uh which counselor wants to start us off here.

I mean, I I'm happy to start.

I I sort of said this already, so I don't have a lot more to say.

I think the single family detached is a different housing type than we've got.

It feels more like the tiny home discussion I've been thinking about for a long time.

The diversity of sizes and uh you know provide some diversity, neurodiverse housing seems it is a diverse housing type.

Problem is the multifamily, we already have that on the lot.

We're on the plan, on the site, on the whole site.

So we're not adding a new type here.

All right, any other counselors thoughts about the housing types.

I'm happy with what is there.

I get that the multifamily focuses more on more than one bedroom, and that's important, and we learned that from the phase one.

Um I actually think I talked to people with very large families who say I have seven kids, there's never going to be any place for me.

Um so I would love to see a four-bedroom unit uh in there, a few of them for people with very large families.

But that reduces our our unit count, and um but I I wouldn't mind seeing some of uh extra large housing.

Um but other than that, I'm happy.

Okay, thank you, Counselor Jensen.

Any other comments for the applicant on this one?

Great.

Seeing none we can move on to the second, which is the setback reduction.

I believe there's a few here.

Yeah, I think starting with this one is better and then going back to the outlaw taper.

Counselor Jensen?

I do not support the little two houses that are stuck out there right on the road almost.

And um if it means we lose one unit, as Counselor Giannola said, in order to um make those two have the adequate setbacks.

I I don't think you want to do that to anybody, you know, and put them right on top of the road.

So I I don't I think there's got to be another way.

But other than that, I'm okay with it because I I think that the drawing they put which showed there is a multimodal path and a tree path and all of that makes me feel that it's adequate.

I could just build on on Councillor Jensen's point.

I mean, coming back to my obsession with where the sun is relative to the earth, um looking at the parking lots for for these houses, they are gonna be prime sun exposure.

Like that's a great spot for a backyard.

And so I wonder if there's a way, you know, that the the front facing, right?

These are north facing, those they're gonna be permanently shaded in the front yard.

That's not a great front yard, and I agree with you on wanting more of a setback.

But I I wonder, is there a way to flip this where the parking spot is on the north side and folks have a bit of a yard in the front?

And if not, why not?

We don't have traffic engineering here, but my understanding that Amazon is supposed to function more like a collector, and so we want to minimize uh vehicular conflict points and having a driveway every you know 15 feet or so or 30, 20 feet off of wouldn't be minimum spacing requirements and other kind of No, I I stipulate that I guess if you if you flip it, you could have an alleyway that's not on Emma that flip roads, yeah.

The gum.

Just to address this point, so like the houses are not on top of the road, which you can have road noise.

And again, like a front yard that's right on a major road that's completely permanently shaded, icy in the winter, can't really garden there, you don't know barbecue and permanent shade.

I just wonder is there something as basic as just slightly moving that around to give folks potentially greater quality of life.

I like it.

I struggle with this discussion.

I mean coming back to the ELAC group, the the goal was of Emma was to make it feel like part of old town.

I hate this setback.

Eight feet, give me a break, personally.

Um it doesn't feel like old town.

It law that's lost here.

That's lost with your proposal of flipping these upside down.

Uh that seemed like a big important thing from the ELAC group, have this connectivity to old town.

Switching a single family house or duplex, uh that that could that works.

But putting these right up against the curb.

I'm lost.

But they're not they've got eight, eight, and five.

Yeah, but when we're talking about old town, it's like twenty.

And they went to fifteen was the compromise.

And everyone was happy with that.

Now we're going to eight.

Well, they have no.

So it's eight plus five.

You're right.

Plus eight.

You gotta look on the right side.

I see.

I see what you're saying.

Or eight, excuse me.

Right, not it was fifteen.

Yeah.

Sorry.

I can't read that far.

So eight plus eight.

Eight plus eight plus five plus eight.

So twenty-four, twenty-nine feet from the bike lane is what it is.

Is that path already built?

I don't think so.

I can't recall.

Yes, it is.

Is there a reason why eight-foot tree lawn can't be eight foot, a five-foot tree lawn and an eight-foot outlaw just to push the sidewalk back a little bit?

I don't know.

Just kind of brainstorming to make it feel like a bigger setback.

I I like that.

I mean, I'm I'm curious for for the applicant, you know, in your conversations, because I I respect everything that the ELAC effort put on the table, but frankly, I care more about the folks who are going to live there than about the community around it.

Because my opinion on someone else's home is just an opinion.

Care about who's going to live in the spot.

So in your dialogue with prospective residents, have you gotten a sense of what their comfort is with something like this versus what they would really not want to see?

Can I guess that's on?

Is that a good one?

Yeah, you can keep on.

Uh yeah, so we have talked to your residents about that.

When we what residents are most concerned about is the affordability.

We have a lot of senior residents who were really excited about the idea of owning again, maybe them owned and then moved into something smaller, and so they're like, wait, I can own something smaller.

So that is all that we've heard from current residents.

Is just affordability issues and or can not concern, but just uh information.

They're just excited about it.

Just to kind of put us back on on track here, I'll I'll just give my thoughts, which is I I don't really have an issue with the proposed plan.

Um if I'm driving on Emma, I I have that five foot bike lane plus eight plus an eight-foot multimodal plus a five-foot outlaw plus another eight.

I understand that there's a reduction, but it's a seven foot reduction from a from much larger setback, which it was originally.

So uh I'd love any other thoughts from council on this one before we move on, but Mayor Proton.

I'm okay.

I was literally just there yesterday.

No, it's not old town.

And that's still I don't know.

The mass looks like more than 20 feet away from the street with the tree line, a multimodal path, and the the outlaw.

I'm I'm okay with an eight-foot setback that's on there.

I'm not sure the extra seven feet is um I I honestly I uh the I'd rather see people be closer to not as crammed into that area.

I appreciate that uh that they could be a little bit further away from the parking lots and then access.

So I'm okay.

I'm okay with the eight foot.

I appreciate the discussion.

Uh and I feel like I've kind of come around and it sounds like maybe there's some flexibility that could be built in to kind of give this little bit of buffer and understanding that you know we're we're we're looking at more than I kind of originally thought.

And uh before we move on from number two, if you will, I do kind of want to hit the pond and just see if there's any thoughts from council on the setback uh along the detention pond.

Saying none.

Okay.

We can move on.

Uh to number three, which is the outlaw A revisions.

Um I heard some discussion here.

Councillor Jensen.

I'm uh just concerned that we not lose any community gathering spaces.

It sounds like we actually have maybe a little net gain here uh in this.

So if that is the case, and if we have a commitment to program that in some way with playground or vouchy field or whatever it might be that that would make that make picnic tables, you know, something uh where that is a community amenity on the south side that we didn't have before, then I'm okay with it.

I just don't want to see a net loss of any community amenity.

I feel like that's really important.

Thank you, Counselor.

And if that was a motion, I would second that.