The Boulder City Council is gearing up for a two-day retreat next week to set policy priorities for its current one-year term. The retreat starts on Monday, Jan. 12 at the Municipal Services Center.
Councilmembers will head into this year with a compressed timeline to achieve their policy goals as the city transitions to even-year elections starting this November. Five seats, including the mayor’s, will be up for election. The council’s term is typically two years.
Further constraining the council’s agenda is the arrival of the Sundance Film Festival in January 2027. The event is likely to attract tens of thousands of visitors and has already added to the council’s workload.
Even with this compressed timeline, the council has received dozens of recommendations for policy changes it should pursue, some of which have been described as “urgent,” “top priority” and “essential.”
Those recommendations came from the city’s boards and commissions, many of which advise the council on specific policy areas, and span issues including housing affordability, office vacancies, transportation safety and more.
Housing affordability
Several boards called for policy changes to incentivize more ownership and rental “middle-sized” housing, such as duplexes, triplexes and townhomes.
Exactly how this would work is unclear. The city’s Planning Board called for city staff to study how to change city code to allow for the construction of more of this type of housing. The Design Advisory Board said it could serve as a forum for vetting ideas. The Housing Advisory Board suggested monitoring development activity related to conversions of single-family homes into duplexes and triplexes.
Additionally, as part of the Comprehensive Plan update, the Housing Advisory Board said it supports making the Area III Planning Reserve in North Boulder eligible for annexation. Doing so would kick off a broader conversation about adding potentially thousands of housing units to a nearly 500-acre property located east of U.S. 36 and north of Jay Road.
The Housing Advisory Board also recommended implementing home-sharing initiatives to “efficiently use existing housing stock, reduce isolation for older residents, and create income opportunities for homeowners.”
Office vacancies
The boards and commissions said the city’s approximately 30% office vacancy rate downtown is undermining the “vibrancy and safety” of Boulder.
The Design Advisory Board recommended that the city expedite the time it takes for tenants to occupy spaces by providing “over-the-counter” or “fast-track” reviews for small commercial projects.
The Downtown Management Commission suggested exploring fast-track permitting specifically for the adaptive reuse of vacant office spaces, as well as identifying code revisions that allow for more “agile business models.”
The Boulder Arts Commission recommended that the city update zoning policies to allow more live-and-work, rehearsal, studio and cultural spaces across the city, as well as making underused buildings available for temporary or permanent creative uses.
The Planning Board recommended a study to evaluate whether current commercial space requirements for certain housing projects are actually “feasible and appropriate.”
Transportation safety
The Transportation Advisory Board recommended a street signals policy that prioritizes the safety of vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians and cyclists, over the “efficiency of vehicle movement.” This includes setting standards for protected left-turn phasing and no-right-turn-on-red rules.
The board also recommended the city conduct a “safe systems audit” of transportation infrastructure around local schools to create an inventory of hazards. This could potentially be a first step to addressing concerns related to kids riding e-motorbikes.
The Open Space Board of Trustees said the city needs to open up more bike routes on its southern trail systems, particularly for student mountain biking teams. Many trails in Boulder are closed to bikes, forcing riders to use roads. The request cited the death of 17-year-old Magnus White, who was hit and killed in 2023 by a driver during a training ride on the Diagonal Highway.
The Boulder Junction Access District recommended developing a connectivity plan between Boulder Junction and the Transit Village Area, both of which are located east of 30th Street, that prioritizes pedestrians and cyclists. This could include infrastructure such as bridges or underpasses to link the eastern and western sides of the train tracks.
Permitting reform
A theme across almost all boards is that Boulder’s regulations are too complex, expensive and slow.
The Design Advisory Board recommended moving away from “impersonal” online systems such as Inquire Boulder and instead assigning a specific case manager or point of contact to every project to help applicants navigate the process.
The Planning Board said it considers the Site Review application process, which some developers must navigate when building new housing and business projects, to be “challenging, time-consuming, and expensive.” The board recommended a formal evaluation in 2026 to understand the impacts of recent reforms and to help reduce risk for applicants.
The Arts Commission also recommended simplifying the permitting process for cultural events and reducing associated fees. The commission suggested updating noise regulations to allow performances in certain areas as well.
Climate and environment
The Environmental Advisory Board recommended creating a new city position to coordinate food-related initiatives. The board said food is Boulder’s second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions when measured by household, following transportation-related emissions, according to the city’s consumption-based emissions inventory, which estimates emissions based on what residents consume rather than where emissions physically occur.
The Open Space Board of Trustees recommended an amendment to the city charter to explicitly allow the use of open space lands for wildfire mitigation. The city already thins forests and mows grass on open space to reduce the risk of wildfires, and Dan Burke, director of Open Space and Mountain Parks, has told the board that wildfire mitigation efforts have never been halted for violating the city charter. But the change would formalize wildfire mitigation as part of open space management practices.
The Water Resources Advisory Board said recent increases in water rates are necessary to maintain aging infrastructure, but added that “there is a growing concern about affordability for residents, particularly those with limited incomes.” Water rates have increased by about 8% annually in recent years. The city is evaluating its water budget this year through a rate study, and the board said the study should take into account sustainability and affordability.
The Landmarks Board said it wanted to “reaffirm the essential role that historic preservation” plays in the city, including from a climate perspective. The board advocated for adaptive reuse of buildings, arguing that the “reuse of existing buildings conserves embodied energy.”
One example the city has pointed to is the Alpine-Balsam project, where it demolished the former Boulder Community Health hospital through a “sustainable deconstruction” process. City officials have said this included repurposing steel beams and using the hospital’s crushed bricks and concrete for structural fill.
To learn more about the recommendations from boards and commissions, see their letter to the Boulder City Council.