A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 4338 Lipan Street in Sunnyside. Approves an official map amendment to rezone property from U-RH-2.5 to U-RX-3 (rban row-house, to urban mixed-use, located at 4338 Lipan Street in Council District 1. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 12-17-19.
Council is reconvening. We have two public hearings this evening. Speakers should begin their remarks by telling the council their names and cities of residents and if they feel comfortable doing so, their home addresses. If you are here to answer questions only when your name is called, please come to the podium, state your name and note that you are available for questions of council. Speakers will have 3 minutes. There is no yielding of time on the presentation monitor. On the wall you will see your time counting down. Speakers must stay on the topic of the hearing and must direct their comments to the council members. Please refrain from profane or obscene speech. Direct your comments to council as a whole and please refrain from individual or personal attacks. Councilmember Flynn, will you please put Council Bill 1361 on the floor? I move the council bill 19 dash 1361 be placed upon final consideration and do pass. Thank you, Councilmember. It has been moved and seconded. The required public hearing for Council Bill 1361 is open. May we have the staff report? Definitely. Good evening, Council. I'm Brandon Shaver, senior city planner with CPD presenting an official map amendment four 4338 Pan Street. The subject property is located in Council District one in the Sunnyside neighborhood. Zooming in a little bit closer, the subject property is located at the southeast corner of Lappin Street and West 44th Avenue. The land area is approximately 9300 square feet currently occupied by a church. The applicant is requesting a rezoning to your X3, which is urban neighborhood context residential mixed use with the maximum height of three stories to enable redevelopment with community serving users. Existing zoning on the site is urh2 point five, which is urban neighborhood context. Real homes up to two and a half storeys in height. The zoning continues south of the subject property and east across the alley. Gma3 zoning is across the street from the subject. Property and light industrial zoning with the billboard use overlay is found north across 44th Avenue. As I said, the current land use on the site is public, quasi public as it is a church and adjacent land uses include single unit and multi-unit, residential, vacant and industrial uses. These photos on the screen give you a sense of the building form and scale in the immediate area with the subject property shown on the top left. A range of residential building forms surround the subject property, including urban houses, duplexes and garden courts. This comparison table, excuse me shows the design standard differences between the existing versus proposed zone districts. The proposed zone district. Again, the U. R X3 introduces the shopfront building form which allows for a slightly greater maximum height at 45 feet, has a primary build t requirement and could result in a zero foot primary setback. Speaking to the process. Informational notice of the application was sent in late June. The applicant then made revisions and resubmitted in early October. The planning board public hearing was on December 4th, where the case was moved forward unanimously. To date, staff has received one letter of opposition from the neighboring property owner to the north across west 44th Avenue. This letter voices concern over the possibility of on street parking along West 44th Avenue should the subject property redevelop. Now on to the criteria. These are the four plans that impact the subject property beginning with Plan 2040. The proposed rezoning is consistent with many of the strategies in this plan, which are organized by vision element. This rezoning would allow for mixed use development at an increase in an increase in the load housing density near the new 41st and Fox commuter rail station, consistent with the equitable, affordable and inclusive goals and strategies in the plan. Similarly, the proposed zoning would allow for a broader variety of uses, including housing, retail services and employment at intensity consistent with the desire for an urban, walkable, mixed use community, which fits into many of the strategies and goals in the strong and authentic neighborhoods. Vision Element. Overall, staff finds this proposed rezoning is consistent with Plan 2040. Moving to Blueprint Denver. The subject property is mapped as part of the urban neighborhood context. This context is described as containing small multi-unit, residential and low intensity mixed use buildings embedded in single and two unit residential areas. As the proposed zoned district is primarily intended to accommodate residential uses with neighborhood scaled shops and offices, the request is appropriate and consistent with the blueprint context map. The Future Places Map designates the property as a low, medium residential area. Blueprint Denver describes the aspirational characteristics of these areas of having a mix of low to mid scale residential options, with some limited mixed use being appropriate along collector and arterial streets. As the proposed zone district allows for a range of residential and limited commercial uses along a residential collector. The district is consistent with the future street types and future places. Mapping and Blueprint. Denver. As far as being a part of a growth area, the subject property is located in in all other areas of the city. These areas are projected to account for 10% of jobs and 20% of new households by the year 2040. The proposed rezoning will allow additional housing units and offer the opportunity for additional jobs, which is appropriate given the change in the growth goal. Therefore, this rezoning is consistent with the blueprint. Denver Future Growth Areas Plan Direction. Moving to the 41st and Fox stationary a plan this was adopted in 2009 and sets forth and identify vision for the area and the land use concept map. The subject property is mapped as urban residential 1 to 3 stories. These areas are intended to create an improved edge for adjacent residences and the quick Newton homes directly across the Pan Street from the subject property. The requested zoning district allows for a wide range of housing types and again offers an opportunity for neighborhoods serving commercial uses. Therefore, this request is consistent with both the land use and building heights recommendations in the station area plan. Lastly, the Sunnyside Neighborhood Plan was adopted in 1992. That is still relevant and identifies the subject property as residential, but it does state the need for buffers to separate industrial and residential uses. The plan further suggests that small scale shops and offices would help maintain and stabilize the residential character of the neighborhood. And at the time that the plan was written, the subject property was zoned one which allowed for limited office uses. Therefore, the proposed zone district you are x three is consistent with this plan as it allows for a range of residential building forms and introduces the opportunity for limited neighborhood serving commercial uses. The proposed rezoning is also meeting the next two criteria, as it will result in the uniform application of zoned district building, form, use and design regulations while also furthering the public health, safety and welfare. This will be achieved through the implementation of adopted plans in facilitating increased housing density near bus and rail transit. The application notes changed in changing conditions in the surrounding area as the justifying circumstance for this rezoning. Recent physical changes within close proximity to the subject site include the opening of the 41st and Fox rail station and the addition of a multi-use path along Inka Street that connects the neighborhood to downtown. There are also several new predominantly residential projects in the immediate area, including townhomes across the alley and the SIA development on Anchor Street. Rezoning to a district that allows for ground floor retail will be necessary to providing neighborhood serving uses for new and existing residents in the area. Lastly, the proposed MAP amendment is consistent with the neighborhood context zone, district purpose and intent statements, and further discussion of this criterion can be found in the staff report. With that, CPD recommends approval based on finding all review criteria have been met. Thank you very much. All right. We have one individual signed up to speak this evening. So first up, Jesse Pearce. Good evening, members of council. My name is Jesse Paris. I'm representing for Denver Homicide Law, Black Star Action over for self-defense, positive action coming for social change as well as the Unity Party of Colorado and Mile News. And I'll be running to be your next mayor in 2023. I am against this rezoning. This area has been under rampant gentrification, ethnic cleansing. I want to know for civically, what am I level is going to be allowed in this rezoning, because right across the street is two quagga new land projects, which is the lowest income housing project in this area left. So I want to know if this rezoning is going to result in displacement of black and brown bodies that reside in the Quagga Noland projects. And we don't need any more unintended consequences from these redevelopments and these rezonings. So I know exactly what the RMR level is going to be for the proposed rezoning. There's nothing I'm going to tell you that's going to make you not pass this and meets all the criteria. But I would like those that question answered. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes our speakers on this item. Are there any questions from members of council? Council member Sandoval. Thank you, Mr. President. Although he's not signed up to speak, may I ask the applicant to come up to the podium to answer a few questions? Yes. And if you would just introduce yourself before the council member starts asking questions. Good evening, Council Members. Thank you very much. My name is Billy Wang. I am the applicant making the request for the reason. Thank you. I believe. How are you? How are you, Councilwoman? Good. So can you talk to me about the outreach that you've done in Sunnyside, and particularly with their planning and community development? Yeah. So the first goal was to at least make the presentation to SUNY PCD Board and reach out to the R.A., which we did. Our first presentation was just for review and in front of SUNY Pcdi, as well as the neighbors who have attended the actual presentations. The second one, which was I believe in December, was asking for a vote, which we did have unanimous vote to proceed with this rezoning. So right now it's a church. Ah, is the church renting out the space or talk to me about what you're doing with the space right now. So the space right now is rented out to a church. They, I believe, still have about a little less than a couple of years left. There is not a timeline for when we would implement the rezoning. We have done some massing and yield for this proposed new structure. And we believe our thought process was that the use of that land in that area would be beneficial, especially to the proximity of the Fox and Forty-firsts, to provide more affordable and attainable units, especially considering what will be happening across the railway on Fox and Forty-firsts. So as the public speaker spoke before, you talked about the area median income. Are you going to so Denver has a where you can either pay out a linkage fee or you could build units in your site. Q Can you talk to me about your unit configuration and will you be paying the linkage fee or would you be building onsite affordable housing? That's an excellent question, and I think we've discussed that. I would include affordable housing. Now, we have not actually quantified the amount. We've talked about an average and at 80%. But I've also engaged a couple of consultants that have expressed interest in potentially doing the high tech program there, which I think would be a great opportunity for a complete affordable housing process that we can discuss even further. Councilwoman. Thank you. So one more question. In this area, we have streets. The street grid runs north and south in northwest Denver, most of town. And our avenues are east and west. So with the implementation of the 41st and Fox station area, we've talked about how important it is to emphasize our streets not just north and south on the primary street, but the secondary street, which is east and west. So have your architect. Have you taken this into consideration as because it's a corner unit, it's going to wrap? Have you taken that into consideration within your development scheme? Absolutely. We've talked about implementing not only activating light pan, but also activating 44th with a corner retail commercial. I'd say probably more retail use for the community to benefit from some thoughts for like a bookstore with ice cream or coffee mixed in together. So we would definitely want to redo the streetscape and make it more engaging for walkability purposes. All right. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Flynn. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. Wang, over here. You don't currently have a developer for the project, or are you a developer? I would be the developer, yes. Okay. And when did you buy the the church? I purchased it, I believe a year and a half ago. I'd have to look at my records. The assessor records say 2018, but it was the same LLC. Okay, so about a year and a half ago. Thank you. Brandon, can I ask you a question about. I looked I saw in the staff report there were no comments submitted in support from the public at all. But there was one letter of opposition from the industrial user on the north side of the street, and his concern was that he has semi-trucks, semi-trailers coming in and out of loading docks on the south side of his property, and that they currently utilize the the full width of the right of way. Was there any discussion about the possibility of that having parking on the south side of 44th, should the church property redevelop and have curbside parking about the impact of that on the adjoining industrial use? And if so, what was the discussion? There was a discussion there. We had conversation with the engineering folks in Dotty about what would be required at the time that this property is redeveloped. They said that due to the neighbor to the north that at the time the site development plan is close to being approved. They would reevaluate if they would require on street parking on the south side of 44th grade. All right. Thank you. That's all I have, Mr. President. Thank you, Brandon. Thank Council member Councilmember Hines. Thank you, Mr. President. One question for the applicant. Council Member Flynn mentioned that there was a sale from an LLC to the same LLC. Can you? Maybe, maybe, maybe I misunderstood. Put that in, Councilman. That could be because the land was approximately 28,000 square foot parcel and we've parceled off a couple to implement a couple of front back duplexes. And so there's a remaining number, I think about 19,000, 18, 19,000 square feet. And we believe that there's a better and more optimal use for that than just putting up three more back and forth to our front back duplexes. So it could have been I don't believe that it was one LLC selling to another. It was maybe the street name LLC like 44, 32, sold to 44, 43, 38. But it wasn't one LLC selling to another now. Okay, thank you and thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilmember Councilmember Ortega. Mr. Wang, if you could stay there for a second. Sure. Councilwoman, can you just give us an idea of, given the site, how many units you could realistically put there? Absolutely. We did a massing yields very preliminary. We did it last year. I think we represented about 35 units. I have a poster board, I have a picture of it. And we do also have parking per unit as well. So would you. Underground that it's halfway underground and and. Yes. Okay. And that's a three story building. That's a three story with setbacks to the south and to the east. Okay. All right. I have no further questions. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. All right. See no other questions. The public hearing for Council Bill 1361 is closed. Comments by members of Council Councilmember Sandoval. Thank you, Mr. President. So in Sunnyside, your comments, Jesse, are real displacement has happened in northwest Denver. And I'm doing my best to work with the residents and the neighborhoods and the businesses to talk about as these sites get redeveloped, what are we doing to make sure that we're including a place for people to live? And given that the quick Newton projects are across the street, this one I have been monitoring since I was a council aide working for Councilman Espinosa. So this one is really near and dear to my heart. And with the investment of so much infrastructure along the 41st and Fox stationary stop, it's important that we redevelop these sites so that we are utilizing that infrastructure that taxpayers have paid for to get to the light rail. And if we don't do this in a thoughtful manner and actually emphasize our our avenues east and west throughout this area, this is a missed opportunity. So as these rezonings in Sunnyside come forward, you're always going to hear me talk about the East-West connection, not the North-South the primary, because I'm actually looking to CPD and Development Services and public works to come up with different design standards for sidewalks along this area because we do not have sidewalks. And so it's really important that as these infill projects take place, we're emphasizing sidewalks, sidewalks to get us to transit. So with that said, I know I've been working on. This project. And I would just support I would appreciate the support of my council members to support this project going in in an area that is being redeveloped , but in a very thoughtful manner. And that has taken the time. This was not rushed. He went to the community. He slowed it down. And those are the things that I can appreciate with the development community. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. All right. See no other comments. I'll just add a thank you to staff for putting together a comprehensive staff report and presentation for us. I think it's you've demonstrated that this clearly meets the legal criteria for rezoning, and I will be supporting this evening. Madam Secretary, roll call. I'm black. I see. Flynn. I. Gillmor. Herndon, I. Hines. Hi. Cashman. I can itch. Hi. Ortega. Like Sawyer. I. Torres. I. Council president. I. I'm. Secretary. Please close the voting. Announced Results.