Boulder city council advances building-height ordinance, tweaks exemptions

BOULDER – By early Friday morning, the Boulder city council had opted against nuking all ability for developers to seek exceptions to zoned building-height limits for the next two years, as the city’s planning board had recommended a week earlier.

But the council members did alter where in town they plan to allow such exceptions between now and early 2017 as the city hashes out how to address issues like growth, affordable housing and transportation.

In a special meeting that began at 6 p.m. Thursday night and ended just after 1 a.m. Friday, the council passed on second reading an ordinance that would restrict height exceptions to a few areas of town where there is a defined community vision. But because council made several amendments to the version passed on first reading last month, the ordinance will have to go to a third reading for final approval.

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While downtown, Boulder Junction, Gunbarrel, North Boulder and University Hill were all excepted from the original version of the ordinance, council members on Thursday removed the exceptions for downtown and all of North Boulder except for a redevelopment of the Boulder Armory site that was recently submitted for site review. Council also added the Twenty Ninth Street shopping district, where its owners have proposed someday adding floors to a few of their buildings, to the list of exceptions.

“I think Boulder’s on fire right now, and people are tired of all of the construction in town,” councilman Macon Cowles said. “I think a pause is necessary.”

An overflow crowd packed city council chambers at the meeting held to cover just the building height topic. One hundred people signed up to speak during the public hearing portion of the meeting, and council listened to passionate arguments on both sides of the debate for about three hours.

Current zoning in Boulder allows for buildings of up to 35 feet tall in most areas of town and 38 feet downtown. But developers can apply to construct new buildings of up to 55 feet tall through the site review process before the planning board.

A surge in major developments over the past couple of years – many of which have sought and received height exceptions of 55 feet – has led to outcry from a faction of the community that believes the mountain views and character of Boulder that make it unique are being eroded by the new projects. In response, city staff presented the ordinance to council last month to put a two-year moratorium on height exceptions for the whole city except for the certain specified areas.

Planning board took up the issue last week, however, and recommended such an ordinance come without any exceptions save for a planned expansion at the Frasier Meadows retirement community, which is trying to bounce back from massive damage suffered during the 2013 flood.

Planning board’s suggestions riled a large group of residents who turned out Thursday in favor of greater density, particularly in transit-oriented areas like Boulder Junction, where a bus rapid transit station will soon open. Multiple people suggested that any problem with recent new buildings in Boulder has more to do with unimaginative design than it does with building too high in areas like Boulder Junction, which was planned with greater density in mind in the first place.

“I think what we really have is a design problem, and we shouldn’t attack that with a sledgehammer approach,” said Sean Maher, executive director of Downtown Boulder Inc.

Those against further restrictions on building height in Boulder argue that the greater density is needed to keep fueling the city’s vibrant economy and to help solve the issue of affordable housing for many of Boulder’s workers who can’t afford to live in the community now.

Not everyone agrees that the density is necessary though.

“We don’t need tall buildings to be creative, to be innovative,” resident Lois LaCroix said. “Nor do we need them for our strong economy to continue.”

City council members seemed to try and find the middle ground in advancing the ordinance that would expire on April 19, 2017.

Their full amended list of areas and individual projects that would be excepted from the ordinance, and thus open to developers seeking height exceptions, included:

–Boulder Junction, bounded roughly by Pearl Parkway to the south, Valmont Road to the north, 30^th Street to the west and the railroad tracks to the east, an area that includes the recently proposed Sutherland Park mixed-use project that could have been in jeopardy had Boulder Junction not been granted an exception.

–University Hill, the commercial area that lies along the southwest side of the University of Colorado campus.

–Gunbarrel, where plans to create a town center and a mix of dense commercial and residential uses are well under way.

–Twenty Ninth Street, the redeveloped area of the old Crossroads Mall bounded by Walnut Street, Arapahoe Road, 28^th Street and 30^th Street.

–The Frasier Meadows retirement community.

–The Boulder Armory project in North Boulder.

–The recently proposed Reve, a redevelopment of the southeast corner of 30^th and Pearl streets, part of which lies within Boulder Junction and part of which is just outside Boulder Junction.

–Buildings in industrial zones with two or fewer stories that might have special needs for an extremely tall floor, such as the new facility built at Ball Aerospace a few years ago. Exceptions could also be made for certain equipment, like the hopper tanks outside Avery Brewing’s new brewery in Gunbarrel.

–Properties with extreme topography or sloping that makes complying with the height restrictions difficult due to the way the city measures the official height of a building.

–Developments that devote 40 percent of their floor area to affordable housing.

Any developments submitted for site review after Jan. 21 of this year that don’t fit into any of those categories would be ineligible to apply for height exemptions, though city council would retain power to amend the ordinance to include other areas or one-off projects down the road.

Council members removed the originally proposed exemption for downtown due largely to concerns that the city hasn’t come up with a defined vision yet for the area south of Canyon Boulevard that is part of the Civic Area Master Plan. Council members were all in agreement that downtown is an area where density is welcome, but wanted to better define what that should look like before moving forward.

The exception for North Boulder was removed because multiple council members argued that 55 feet would be out of character in that part of town.

“I think keeping it at 35 to 38 feet should be what we expect in the North Boulder district,” councilwoman Lisa Morzel said.

Assuming the ordinance is passed on third reading, council has several objectives it wants to accomplish during the two-year moratorium. Those include extending the linkage fee that developers of commercial projects would pay to help fund affordable housing to areas other than just downtown.

There was also discussion about what constitutes community benefit in a project when height exceptions are being granted. The city also plans to experiment with a form-based code pilot project as an alternative to the current site review process to help give developers a clearer picture of what type of buildings the city desires in certain areas.