Planning Board recommends Boulder City Council adopt broad code cleanup with targeted amendments

City planning staff on May 27 presented Ordinance 86 97, a wide‑ranging technical cleanup of Boulder’s land‑use code that corrects typographical errors, clarifies definitions, updates graphics, and makes targeted changes to align the code with state requirements and local practice. Jeff Salmonson, city planner, summarized the ordinance’s purpose as “a periodic technical review of the land use code” to fix errors and codify existing practices.

Staff highlighted several substantive changes under review: clarifying which dwelling types may be allowed in certain districts; harmonizing terminology for impervious, semipervious and permeable surfaces in the form‑based code; revising duplex and bedroom‑type language to accommodate larger units; and tightening minor subdivision rules so that proposals requiring public improvements follow full subdivision procedures. The package also proposes removing a 750‑foot separation requirement for congregate, custodial and residential care facilities and allowing additional flexibility for hospital and medical uses in public zoning districts to account for larger floor‑to‑ceiling…