City Council hears suggested policy updates
The Boulder City Council on Thursday night heard staff’s recommendations for updates to the city’s land use and homelessness policy statements, which will better align the city with top regional, state and federal priorities.
During Thursday’s special meeting, Chief Policy Advisor Carl Castillo presented two changes: The first would update policy No. 22 — encourage local governments to adopt land use policies that reduce greenhouse gasses and discourage unnecessary single occupancy vehicle travel.
The recommended change states the city’s goal is to “support of limited state involvement in land use matters that furthers the city’s housing affordability, transportation, climate and equity goals.”
The second update was to one portion of policy No. 23 — homelessness. The amendment recommended would swap the sentence “oppose preventing local governments from banning camping in public spaces,” with “preserve authority for local governments that meet the above requirements to ban camping in public spaces.”
Castillo said this change may encourage other local governments to increase services for people experiencing homelessness, but added he is unsure if any legislation on the topic will be introduced this session.
Many residents who spoke during the public hearing Thursday supported the change to policy No. 22 while none supported No. 23.
“You may be surprised to learn I do not believe the solution to homelessness is allowing people to camp any and everywhere,” said Boulder resident Darren O’connor. “Some of you like Councilmember (Bob) Yates even shared — when you ran for your council seat — that we have over 80 parks and that we should be able to accommodate some camping for people experiencing homelessness yet we still have not.”
Due to the pushback from residents on policy No. 23, a majorly of the council — Mayor Aaron Brockett, Mayor Pro Tem Mark Wallach and City Councilmembers Rachel Friend, Yates and Tara Winer — agreed to send it back to staff for revisions before it is discussed at a future meeting.
City Councilmember Junie Joseph recused herself from voting due to her seat in the state House representing District 10.
Ultimately, a majority of the City Council, which included Friend, Lauren Folkerts, Brockett, Nicole Speer and Matt Benjamin agree to move forward with Castillo’s recommended changes to the land use policy.
“This is not set in stone,” Friend said. “This is something we can amend after we see what it is. We can also keep talking about it. This is basically just us being able to say to our lobbyists, ‘Hey, let’s get involved’ and and getting a seat at the table.”