UHNA Fall General Meeting Minutes
University Hill Neighborhood Association
General Meeting Minutes
Grace Lutheran Church, 10/20/2016, 6:45 pm-9:00 pm
A. Opening Remarks – Nancy Blackwood/Chair, UHNA
) Welcome and Introduction of Executive Committee.
) Upcoming neighborhood summit on Saturday 10/29/2016
) Neighborhood grant opportunities
) Fabulous new UHNA website – hillneighbors.com
) Beer pong issue – Amanda Nagle sent a letter to the Boulder Area Rental Housing Association (BARHA) with the recommendation that landlords take a more proactive approach re: informing tenants about cleaning up after playing beer pong and other table games.
B. UHNA Fundraiser – Beanne Rothenberg
) Wu Mountain Tea donation of their Real Tea brand of premium Chinese tea packaged in pyramid sachets; $15.00 donation per package of 20 bags of tea
) 8 types of tea available; descriptions are available on the website.
C. Police Update and Coordination with CU – Commander Jack Walker/Police Dept. and Susan Stafford/ CU Director of Off-Campus Student Housing
) Jack identified specific pockets of problem areas on the Hill.
) Distributed Play Smart handouts as outreach effort; information to go to students to remind them that Uni-Hill is not just a student neighborhood.
) Susan discussed neighborhood relations-building efforts:
Proactive efforts: door hangers placed regarding quality of life ordinances (e.g., noise ordinance).
Partnership with FourStar Realty which requires tenants to participate in a 35-40 minute orientation upon signing a new lease.
CU in the Neighborhood program, especially targeted in the 10th and College and 12th and Euclid sections of the Hill, educates student residents that they are living amidst permanent residents, and asks for mutual respect.
Reactive measures: student residents getting tickets for breaching local ordinances are referred to Susan who follows up with an email and information regarding the court process. They must take a 90-minute community living class regarding the ordinances. There is a very low recidivism rate of re-infractions after taking this course.
Response to Hillary’s situation (the Hill resident who was followed and had her car vandalized after confronting student neighbors who were partying loudly in the wee hours). The landlord was called; the offending student household was visited. A ticket was issued; the landlord paid for the damages to the car.
Anyone with a complaint can call dispatch; it is ok to remain anonymous.
D. Update on Sale of University Hill Elementary School to CU – Bruce Messenger/Superintendent of BVSD and Kelly Fox/CU CFO and Sr. Vice Chancellor
) Scott Thomas introduced Celeste Landry, who asked Bruce and Kelly to address the following 3 points:
Programming piece – bilingual education
CU/BVSD collaboration with CU School of Education and New Vista
Real Estate – voters approved a bond in 2014 to expand/rehab Uni Hill Elementary, but that is on-hold now.
) Bruce Messenger made the following points:
The BVSD has a commitment to a bilingual education pre-K to 8th grade program. The existing Uni-Hill Elementary School building and site lacks space to expand so BVSD is entertaining the possible sale of the school and use the proceeds to build a K-8 campus at the New Vista site at Baseline and Broadway.
They are at year 3 of their strategic plan, and are re-building 3 schools in the district at this point in time.
They are still deliberating on the real estate sale issue.
) Kelly Fox stated that CU has run out of room on the main campus for expansion. No decisions have been made about the school and site, and they are looking for ways to partner with the BVSD. CU has no preconceived ideas of what they would use the school site for, but are considering administrative or academic space.
) Question and Answer: Neighbors and attendees expressed concern about the perceived secrecy of the negotiations and were largely in favor of increased communication with the neighborhood regarding the future of the Uni-Hill School site. Neighbors expressed their happiness with having an elementary school in the neighborhood.
E. Update on Hill Hotel and Parking Structure – Chris Shears/Architect
) Nancy Blackwood introduced the architect and recommended ‘A Boulder View’, a recent video which aired on Inside Boulder
) Chris showed a video captured via a drone, which showed the location of the proposed hotel/garage structure. The height of the building will be less than the maximum 55 ft. height limit. A letter of intent submitted to the City Council has been approved. The city will ultimately own the parking structure and the developer will own the hotel property. The ground floor of the hotel will be retail space. A company was hired to identify the culture of Uni Hill.
) Sara Wiebenson/Uni Hill Community Development Coordinator is encouraging businesses that will be displaced by this project to consider moving into vacancies in the Uni Hill Business District along 13th Street and College Avenue. She also mentioned plans for making alley enhancements adjacent to the hotel property to connect with the historic Uni Hill core business area.
) Sara Wiebenson/Uni Hill Community Development Coordinator disseminated the Hill Projects Fact Sheet, which presents the Community, Culture, & Safety Tax initiative (Ballot Initiative 2A). This is a proposed 3 year sales tax increase of 0.3 cents to be used for City projects such as capital improvements to the Civic Area, University Hill Commercial District, and Boulder Creek path downtown, among other improvements.
F. Lincoln Miller/Executive Director of Boulder Housing Coalition (501 3C nonprofit) presented his views regarding the Co-op Ordinance.
Advantages of Co-ops:
Use 1/3 of energy per capita due to sharing
Familial environment
Motivation to be good neighbors
Skills building: cooking, gardening, consensus-building, group process training
The Co-op Ordinance (now at the 2nd reading at Council)
Allows 10-15 new co-ops per year
Types of co-ops include: rental with a landlord, non-profit (e.g., Boulder Housing Coalition, or any 501 3C), or equity co-ops (residents buy a house together and run it as a cooperative structure).
Density: minimum 500 ft required between co-ops
Oversight: They are looking at 3rd party certification to define what a co-op is, and to check the leases, by-laws, rules, etc. of co-op applicants. This body would ideally provide some classes to teach prospective residents how to run a successful co-op.
Q&A: Re: parking concern – all co-op members of the Boulder Housing Coalition are required to have a car-share membership; some co-ops have a jointly shared vehicle. Many in attendance are co-op members and view co-ops as an opportunity to ‘clean up’ the Hill. The main opposition stated enforcement concerns related to noise and trash ordinances. Another person in attendance expressed concern about the co-op structure being relatively untested, and perhaps the experiment should start with a smaller number of allowable co-ops per year.
Minutes Respectfully Submitted By:
Beanne O. Rothenberg
Executive Committee Member, University Hill Neighborhood Association