Real Estate & Construction  April 21, 2016

Boulder planning board to weigh in on building-height charter amendment

The Boulder planning board on Thursday night is expected to offer its input on a potential charter amendment related to the city’s 55-foot maximum building-height limit.

The amendment would go before voters in the November election and would allow exceptions to the height limit under certain circumstances.

City council is seeking planning board’s input on the amendment ahead of its May 10 study session. Specifically, the council is asking planning board to weigh in on four questions:

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• Should rooftop patios above 55 feet be allowed?

• What are the appropriate uses for public rooftop space?

• What potential impacts or operational characteristics should be considered?

• What building elements should be allowed to extend beyond 55 feet?

City council recently brought up the question of whether the height limit should include exceptions for buildings to exceed the height limit to make rooftops available for use by the general public. The action is in response to the ongoing development of the “civic-use pad” site next to the St. Julien Hotel along Canyon Boulevard.

The hotel owns the land at the civic-use pad through a condominium association with the Central Area General Improvement District. As part of Boulder’s approval of the hotel development in the early 2000s, the city required that a portion of whatever ends up being built on the civic-use pad be devoted to public uses benefiting the cultural, scientific, educational, entertainment, artistic or civic life of Boulder.

Owners of the St. Julien are proposing a four-story addition to the hotel on the 11,000-square-foot pad that would include an event space on the ground floor for shared hotel and civic uses, with hotel uses on the second, third and fourth floors. There would also be a multi-use rooftop deck available for civic uses.

The problem is that the building’s four stories bump up to the 55-foot height limit, and the infrastructure needed to accommodate a rooftop patio — such as elevator and staircase lobby towers, storage spaces, canopies, walls or railings — would exceed the height limit with the current design.

The public space on the roof is something the city doesn’t want to lose, but hotel developers have said that reducing the size of the building by one story would make the development unfeasible.

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