But on the other hand–Willa Johnson does have a point in the abstract if not in the moment–if we would like to see a fairer FAR we should try to say what we think that would look like, even though ordinary citizens cannot do that in the three minutes they are allotted at a public hearing.  So here is FairFAR’s initial alternative proposal.  But because we hope but do not expect that City Council will be open-minded enough to consider a proposal that doesn’t include the two-dimensional measures–FAR and building coverage–they seem to have already fallen in love with, we’ve also presented two sets of tweaks to their proposed regulatory framework that would vastly improve it.

Alternative Proposal 1 – FairestFAR

We suggest the fairest ordinance would abandon the two-dimensional tools (FAR and building coverage) that do nothing to address what is essentially a three-dimensional problem, and will in fact make the problem of perceived bulk worse by encouraging pops and scrapes.  Instead, we propose that Council consider putting into place a combination of a bulk plane standard similar to the one so far proposed, a second-story rear-yard setback for primary structures and staff design review guidelines for unusually shaped lots, sloping lots, corner lots, and two-story accessory structures.

Bulk Planes. While we generally agree that the proposed bulk plane standard is a much better idea than either of the two other components in the city’s current proposal, we have three areas of concern.  We think a particularly important part of the overall ordinance is granting a staff design review process the power to waive the bulk plane standard for sloping and irregularly shaped lots; many such lots require different roof forms due to solar and other concerns.

1. First, we do not think the ordinance provides for adequately-sized dormer exemptions when considered from the perspective of the people living inside the structure–an eight-foot wide dormer will provide an approximately a seven-foot wide space on the interior, which is simply not large enough to accommodate a queen bed and person-sized walkways on either side of it.  This inadequacy is magnified when one considers the effect of the sloping roof of a dormer (and the sloping ceiling under in) on the headroom of such walkways.  Thus, we do not think the dormer exceptions in the proposed bulk plane ordinance are large enough to be meaningful; twelve to fifteen feet is much more reasonable size.  But because we agree that dormers should be proportionate to the structure, we propose instead that the length of all dormers be limited to 75% of the roofline with no single dormer larger than 20 feet long.
2. Second, staff has not appropriately analyzed the relationship between the slope of a lot and the way in which the bulk plane envelope is constructed.  Consider an example in which the direction of the slope on a lot is from side-to-side rather than back-to-front (or front-to-back), as staff depicted in their diagrams.  Under staff’s current proposal, the bulk plane would be lower along one side property line than the other, and as a consequence the building envelope would be lopsided.  We have discussed a number of proposals about how to compensate for this, including excluding lots of a certain slope altogether, averaging the elevations of the two side property lines at their midpoints, and moving the point of measurement to the lot at setback rather than the property line.  We are also particularly concerned with how the proposed new standard might interact with the existing solar shadow ordinance, particularly on east- or west-facing lots  lots which slope downhill from south to north. Currently we would propose the averaging method on all lots with less than 4% grade and require a staff design review for all lots of a 4% grade or larger.
3. Third, the bulk plane ordinance was newly proposed in the draft ordinance and has not met the the same level of public scrutiny that other measures have. We do not think it is appropriate to enact a bulk plane ordinance until it has gone through a significant public outreach and comment process.

Rear-yard Second-story Setback for Primary Structures and Staff Design Reviews. Planning Board member William Holicky proposed the idea of a second-story (and above) rear-yard setback. We would propose a second-story rear-yard setback of 25% of the lot’s depth. While we find this idea to be very attractive in that it addresses issues of privacy and bulk by means of limiting building height, we have some concerns about existing structures located on the rear of their lots, sloped and irregularly shaped lots, corner lots, and small lots.

Staff Design Reviews. To remedy these concerns, we propose a robust staff design review process focused on ameliorating such issues.  For example, which is the rear-yard for a corner lot?  Many homes on corner lots have been reoriented to face a less busy street from facing what was once a quiet residential street but is now a much busier street.  It also seems appropriate that a rear-yard setback should apply to the relatively flat portion of some sloping lots, so that a lot which is large only by virtue of a sloping hillside behind it does not impinge on the rear-yard privacy of its neighbors to either side.  Likewise, the staff design review should have the option to grant an exception for a home which is on a shallow lot or when an existing home is located at the rear of the lot due to variations in the slope on a lot.  Similarly a two-story accessory structure that meets the bulk plane standards, such as an office over a detached garage, should be permissible if the staff design review shows that it does not have balconies or windows overlooking a neighbor’s yard.  The guidelines for the staff review in such cases could, for example, suggest that such structures instead have skylights placed on a sloped roof, but we believe that the guidelines for staff design review should focus on stating purposes and goals, including such suggestions as heuristic examples only.

Alternative Proposal 2 – SlowToGoFAR

Because the current FAR process has been focused on Newlands and surrounding neighborhoods, we do not think the studies that have been done have produced an ordinance that is adequately fair to all neighborhoods across the city, particularly those in its southern and eastern reaches. For example, Council and the city appointed only one neighborhood activist to be a member of its Technical Advisory Group, and that activist is a well-known proponent of the tightest possible FAR ordinance who is from the Old North Boulder neighborhood.  Similarly, the city sent out a survey to affected homeowners that depicted homes with detached garages such as are found in only a small minority of Boulder neighborhoods (like Newlands), while newer neighborhoods in south and east Boulder where homes almost universally have attached garages were not depicted in the survey diagrams at all.   To remedy the neighborhood biases in the studies so far, we propose initially limiting the geographic reach of this ordinance to the RL-1 areas of Newlands, Mapleton Hill, and Old North Boulder, with the neighborhoods included to be reconsidered when the ordinance is reviewed each year after they receive appropriate amounts of study.

Alternative Proposal 3 – FairerFAR

Because we are concerned that a majority of Council members will not be open-minded enough to consider the above proposals, either singly or together, we have also put together one set of tweaks that would make this proposal much fairer to all architectural styles, regardless of whether they are or are not currently trendy architectural styles.  We are especially concerned with ranch homes because they happen to be the single most common type of housing stock in Boulder’s RL-1 districts; we have confirmed this by sending out neighborhood volunteers to several of Boulder’s 1950-1970s vintage mass-produced neighborhoods to do hand counts, and we are currently at 2,346 single-story or story-and-a-half ranch homes as of 7/27/09).  It contains all the elements of the current proposal, although we still consider the building coverage and FAR standards to be misguided.

FAR. First, we propose that the FAR sliding scale standard be normed to a .55 FAR (7000 sf lot) to accommodate the home offices and two-car garages that are the reality for most working families.  If RL-1 is genuinely intended to be a single-family home zoning district, we must realize that the mass-produced homes of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s do not meet the needs of a 21st century family.  Those homes were built for a stereotype of the nuclear family where the father worked and the mother stayed at home to care for the kids; most families today have two working parents.  In times past, one generally left one’s work at the office; today, cellphones, fax machines and the internet have employers expecting their employees to work irregular hours; moreover, parents now need to juggle work and child-care duties in the home, so one or two home offices are often needed to meet the needs of contemporary two working-parent families.  Because garages, basements, and other kinds of unconventional spaces such as unheated storage rooms and garden sheds all count under the current definition of FAR, we feel there is no choice but to set an FAR limit which is probably higher than some proponents would find reasonable.  We would also strongly recommend that the FAR measure should not include “true” basements where there is either no basement access from the outside or the only exterior access is via a door that is entirely below grade and accessed by an exterior stairwell (we want to continue to promote good fire safety egress); walkout basements would still partially count as measured under the current proposal. If the definition of FAR were amended to exclude such spaces, the lower FAR of .5 recommended by the Planning Board might be a more acceptable maximum FAR.

Building Coverage. Second, we propose a smarter building coverage standard (though we still would argue that even in the existing framework, it could simply be done away with altogether.)  To do this, we propose that the sliding scale for building coverage should be normed to 40% (7000 sf lot).  Setting a building coverage standard lower than 35% will force owners of larger ranch homes to expand their homes by popping their tops in order to gain any significant amount of space, and we all agree that problems of perceived bulk and mass are exacerbated by multiple-story buildings.  There is no advantage in setting a building coverage standard that effectively encourages development on the second story when the stated goals are to reduce perceived bulk and mass and preserve the neighbors’ rear-yard privacy; moreover, encouraging first-floor only expansions also has the beneficial ancillary result of preserving neighborhood views.

We would also propose a sliding scale for single-story building coverage normed at 5% (.05) less than the FAR (7000 sf lot).  We would like to see the city encourage all single-story development for the same reasons; single-story homes simply do not have the same visual and privacy impacts that multiple story homes do.  To accomplish this, we propose linking the FAR and single-story building coverage measures; for a modest reduction in the maximum overall FAR, the community gains the benefits of lower impact, reduced height architectural styles.  We understand that staff and Planning Board raised two other sets of issues concerning this provision, namely that “single story” is hard to define and that in some cases a home that exceeded the single story threshold would be forced to remain single story.  We propose treating the former by setting a lower overall building height limit of 25′, an average wallplate height limit of 12′ or less, and requiring a more strict bulk plane standard (see below) to prevent flat-roofed two-story sections of the primary structure.  The latter concern we propose to handle by grandmothering in such properties so that they can either expand upward or outward–knowing that they would be limited in that expansion to a maximum of just 5% of their lot size.  By linking our sliding scale proposal to the FAR standard, we have also disposed of two other concerns raised by staff–inequities with large and small lots at the extreme ends of the scale.  The link between the scales ensures that the single-story building coverage never exceeds the maximum FAR on a large lot, and on small lots staff has already said that it is accepted that the maximum allowable FAR might not be achievable given the already existing regulatory constraints such as setbacks that do not vary with lot size; similar reasoning should be applied to the fact that the maximum allowable single-story structure would likely not be achievable on a small lot.

Bulk planes.  We propose the bulk plane standard with the same provisions and concerns we have above in Alternative Proposal 1. However, we would also propose that in the case of a single-story building coverage option for relatively flat lots only (grades of less than 4%), that there be a more strict version of the single-story bulk plane standard that is tailored to more tightly to a single-story building envelope.  Two possibilities seem equally plausible to us before detailed modeling on existing structures is conducted: either reducing the angle of the bulk plane to 30 degrees from horizontal instead of 45 degrees, as measured from the same 12-foot high point along the side property line; or measuring the 45-degree bulk plane from a point 12 feet above grade at the setback instead of 12 feet above grade at the property line.  Sloped lots pose additional challenges for any bulk plane standard, as we have pointed out previously, and we would suggest a similar combination of staff design review guidelines, neighbor input and other standards such as wall plate height be employed in such contexts.

Staff Design Review Process. We would propose a robust staff design review process and not an appeals-based, hardship-oriented Board of Zoning Appeals (BOZA) process.  By now it should be obvious that we foresee considerable difficulties in implementing this ordinance with respect to sloped and irregularly shaped lots.  To this end, we would like to see staff be able to grant up to a five-percent waiver to only one of the FAR, bulk plane or building coverage standards due to unique characteristics of the site, taking into account issues raised by the immediate neighbors and any design modifications made to accommodate such concerns.  We would propose that any more substantial variances go to BOZA, and that BOZA be given the authority to waive them on grounds other than hardship.   Alternatively Landmarks Board may serve a similar variance-granting role for historic properties, but not all homes should need to go through the Landmarks Board processes in order to gain a waiver that has nothing to do with preserving historic structures.

Reducing Fees and Expediting Permits for smaller improvements. We propose encouraging smaller homes and smaller expansions by expediting the permit process and waiving the increased fees for projects that clearly undershoot all three major standards of this ordinance. If a project undershoots all three major standards (FAR, building coverage, bulk planes) proposed in this ordinance by 10% or more, the increased fees–and the staff time spent–should be less.  Additionally, some increased documentation requirements should be waived for smaller projects on homes which do not approach these limits.

Zoning Districts treated. Finally, we endorse planning board’s recommendation that RMX-1 be excluded from this ordinance. RMX-1 is clearly nothing like the other zones covered by this proposed regulatory framework, and council and staff have repeatedly failed to consider how the homeowner’s privacy could be enhanced by building a sunroom, detached garage or other structures to shield themselves from the prying eyes of the noisy, tall, overbearing multiplex next door.  In all districts, but particularly this one, it is not only the neighbor’s privacy that should be considered–the homeowner’s privacy matters also.

initial draft, FairFAR, 7/27/09

minor revisions FairFAR 7/28/09

revisions to bulk plane section, separate out the notion of a staff design review, FairFAR 7/28/09