The Boulder Planning Board on Dec. 16 finalized recommendations it will send to City Council on its 2026 work-plan priorities, naming an urgent update to the East Boulder form-based code as its top item.

Vice Chair Laura Kaplan, who chaired the virtual meeting in the absence of Chair Mark McIntyre, said the boards letter will list its four suggested priorities in order and include short explanatory text for each. The board settled on the following prioritized list: (1) an urgent update to the East Boulder form-based code, (2) a study and actions to strengthen ground-floor retail activation, (3) an evaluation and refinement of the site-review process adopted in 2023, and (4) measures to advance missing-middle housing.

Why it matters: board members said the East Boulder form-based code has produced outcomes that differ from their expectations and that provisions for project open space and residential amenities need improvement. "We also find that the form-based code requirements for project open space and residential amenities are inadequate," the boards agreed paragraph states. Members urged council to prioritize the update to avoid more projects entering the review pipeline under the current standards.

On ground-floor retail, the board asked council to authorize "an unbiased study that evaluates whether current commercial requirements are feasible and appropriate, and which identifies policy options to ensure that commercial spaces are activated in a timely and consistent manner." During editing the board agreed to a staff-drafted clarification: "Such a study could help inform city code and area plans in order to strengthen the performance" of mixed-use projects, language Vice Chair Kaplan read aloud and the board accepted.

On site review, authors of the letter asked the city to "design and implement an evaluation of how well the new site-review criteria achieve the city's goals," including gathering input from the development community, staff, planning board members and diverse community members. Brad Mueller, director of planning and development services, told the board staff would conduct strategic outreach and use the citys racial-equity instrument in policy work.

On housing, the board retained a missing-middle housing item after a motion to remove it failed. Christopher Johnson, senior manager for comprehensive planning, told the board the comprehensive-plan update is already advancing policy to broaden housing types. He said: "The new land use framework is very supportive of broadening different housing types in more areas of the city." Board members nevertheless kept missing-middle housing in the letter to emphasize implementation details and to ask staff to study code changes or incentives to increase production of middle-sized ownership and rental housing.

Decisions and votes: the board removed three proposed items from the original seven-item list: landscaping for shade and cooling (removed by a five-to-one thumbs vote), preapproved housing plan sets (removed by five votes), and prioritizing area plans (removed by a four-vote majority citing timing and staff capacity during the BVCP/comp-plan update). The board decided not to call up two land-use items earlier on the agenda, clearing a proposed Rivian showroom at 1805 29th Street and a site-review amendment at 4760 Baseline Road to proceed without a planning-board call-up.

Next steps: the board will format the letter to make the top priority visually clear, send the draft to Chair Mark McIntyre for sign-off (or have the vice chair sign on his behalf if he prefers), and transmit the letter to planning staff for delivery to City Council before the call-up deadline. Kaplan said the board recognized councils limited bandwidth and tried to keep the letter concise while still raising large-picture priorities.

Additional notes: during the meeting staff announced that the city attorney, Laurel, had submitted her resignation. Planning staff thanked her for her service.