Concerned that the Pearl Street Mall is becoming a less vibrant space for pedestrian-oriented retail, the Boulder City Council on Tuesday night approved a surprise temporary ban on new building permits for financial institutions.

The ban, effective immediately, runs for 120 days and applies to ground-floor spaces on Pearl Street between Ninth and 18th streets.

It could be expanded in coming months to include additional restrictions or incentives designed to encourage what Mayor Suzanne Jones called “the unique, local businesses” that city leaders really want in Boulder’s central and internationally recognized commercial district.

The council approved the ban on a 5-4 vote, with Jones and members Sam Weaver, Mary Young, Lisa Morzel and Matt Appelbaum supporting.

“I don’t have anything against banks,” Appelbaum said, but “they don’t attract people, they don’t attract tourists and they’re certainly not open in the evening.

“They’re just dead spaces. … The point is to keep Pearl Street an active pedestrian place with ground-floor uses that are open in the evening. That’s what’s so critical.”

In the 10-block stretch identified in the ordinance, there are currently five ground-floor banks.

The newest of the bunch is a Capital One cafe-bank hybrid that opened this year in the space formerly occupied by the iconic and now-defunct Boulder Cafe. That space sits directly across from the Pearl Street Wells Fargo.

The council approved the moratorium on new building permits for banks — plus savings and loans associations, credit unions and ATMs — without consulting any members of the business community or the various council-appointed boards and commissions that might normally weigh in.

The ordinance also did not receive a public hearing on Tuesday, and was instead placed on the council’s consent agenda — a portion of the meeting agenda typically reserved for items that do not need discussion or can be approved without controversy.

‘An unusual approach’

Sean Maher, executive director of the Downtown Boulder Partnership, spoke during the open comment period before the consent agenda’s approval to ask the council to table the plan. He noted that his organization, the Downtown Boulder Business Improvement District and the Downtown Management Commission had not had chances to review the plan and issue recommendations.

“Since none of these key stakeholders were consulted prior to drafting the ordinance and rushing it to a first reading,” Maher said, “we urge you to remove it from the consent agenda and table it until those community members directly impacted by it have a chance to read it, to consider it and to provide you feedback on it.”

The council members disagreed over whether it was appropriate to take such action without notice or feedback.

“I do think this is an unusual approach to dealing with an issue like this,” Mayor Pro Tem Andrew Shoemaker said. “I don’t see the emergency aspect of this (and) I’m not happy with the process.”

Councilman Bob Yates called the proposal “sneaky” and said he felt “icky” about the proceeding.

“We have more than five restaurants, more than five bars, more than five women’s clothing stores. We’ve got more than five of just about everything on Pearl Street,” Yates said. “So I don’t see that there’s a big screaming emergency here.”

Councilman Aaron Brockett said he had “heartburn” over the process and Councilwoman Jan Burton said the council was being “disingenuous” by considering the proposal just two weeks after declining, at the annual council retreat, to place it on the 2017 workplan.

“From a governance standpoint, it’s surprising to me that we just had the retreat and it wasn’t on the workplan, and suddenly it appears,” Burton said.

‘It happens rather abruptly’

But others on the council felt it was OK, and perhaps even preferable, to issue the moratorium without warning.

“Generally when we do a timeout, it happens rather abruptly,” Jones said.

Added Young, “A timeout is not an unusual thing to do when you’re developing a new ordinance.”

Weaver said he did not think the bank ban was much different from the moratorium on new development on University Hill that the council approved at an emergency meeting in 2014, amid concerns that high-end student housing was being developed at the expense of commercial interests that might attract non-students to the Hill business district.

“This is very much like the situation on the Hill,” Weaver said.

The council members mentioned repeatedly that the ban should be supplemented by a broader approach to encouraging and discouraging certain uses of Pearl Street real estate.

But City Manager Jane Brautigam said that her staff doesn’t have the time to work out a more comprehensive ordinance in just 120 days. She said that to make that timeframe work, the city would likely need to hire a consultant, and that without taking that step, her staff doesn’t have time to address this “probably for the first half of the year.”

At some point between now and the ordinance’s unscheduled second reading, the Planning Board will review the plan, and the public will be invited to comment at that time, officials said during Tuesday’s meeting.

It’s also likely, based on council member comments, that the plan will be reviewed by other boards, commissions and business groups that didn’t have the chance to weigh in this time around.

The council did not discuss ways the ordinance might be expanded in coming months, aside from Jones’ remark that “maybe it’s not just banks, and we look at national chains.”

Eighteen years ago, the Boulder Independent Business Alliance proposed the Community Vitality Act, a law that would have capped the number of chain stores in the city and make it close to impossible for big-box stories to open in Boulder.

The business community was conflicted at that time, but mostly opposed the plan. The plan was never adopted, and no ban so broad or targeted has seen serious daylight in the city since.

Alex Burness: 303-473-1389, burnessa@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/alex_burness