A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 1521-1535 West 34th Avenue and 3400 Osage Street in Highland. Approves an official map amendment to rezone land at 1521-1535 West 34th Avenue and 3400 Osage Street from U-TU-B2 DO-4 to U-MX-2x (urban, two-unit to urban, mixed-use), in Council District 1. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 11-21-17.
Speakers will stay on topic of the hearing and must direct their comments to 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. Councilwoman, can each what you put council bill 1266 on the floor? Yes. And if I may, Mr. President, may I acknowledge our former colleague, Councilwoman Cathy Donohue, who's in the house tonight, as we try to have was in the house for a moment, but we try to always acknowledge our former colleagues. Thank you, Councilman. Yes, Mr. President, I move that council bill 1266 be placed upon final consideration and do pass. It has been moved. And second it the public hearing for Council Bill 26 is open and we have a staff report. Scott Robinson. Thank you. Council President Brooks and members of Council Scott Robinson with Community Planning and Development. This is a request to rezone 1521 to 1535 West 34th Avenue and 3400 Osage Street from YouTube to deal for. To you and X to x. Property is located in Council District one in the highland neighborhood at the northeast corner of 34th Avenue and Osage Street. The property is about 9300 square feet. It's currently a mixed use building on the property, including the Korean Japanese restaurant and several residential units. The applicant has stated they're requesting the rezoning to match the zoning to the existing uses and so that they can more easily maintain the existing uses on the property. So the request is to rezone from YouTube to dial for which is urban neighborhood context to unit residential. The B2 is about 4500 square foot minimal lot size, and the deal for is a design overlay that allows for reduced side setbacks on narrow lots. To resound to you and x to x, which is also in the urban neighborhood. Context mixed use two storey maximum height. The property is surrounded by the same YouTube to deal for zoning. For about a block in each direction with some other zoning further out. As stated, the site currently is mixed use with a restaurant and residential units on it, surrounded by a wide mix of uses, single unit to unit and multi-unit residential as well as some commercial, industrial and other mixed use properties in the neighborhood. You can see the subject property there in the center on the right. And a sampling of the types of residential surrounding it in the other pictures. This went to the planning board on November 1st where they unanimously, unanimously recommended approval, went to the Land Use Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on November 21st, where they moved it forward. The only public comment previously we have received is a letter of conditional support from the Highland United neighbors that you'll find in your pocket. In order to approve a zoning, the city must find that these five criteria have been met. The first criterion is consistency with adopted plans. There are three plans that apply to this property, first being comprehensive plan 2000 as described in the staff report to see that staff has found the process first rezoning is consistent with these six strategies from complaint to housing, mostly relating to encouraging infill and mixed use development. The second plan is Blueprint Denver. From 2000 to Blueprint, Denver designates the future land concept land use for this property as single family duplex, which calls for moderately dense residential areas with some complimentary, small scale commercial uses, such as what would be allowed in the U.S. next to X. It's also an area of stability which calls for, in some cases, rezoning. To align the zoning with the existing uses was, which is what this proposal would do. Both West 34th Avenue and Osage Street are on designated locals. The Highland Neighborhood Plan is from 1986, so an older plan, but it still applies. It recommends increasing neighborhood employment opportunities, stabilizing the housing market by encouraging a variety of residential and mixed use projects, and encouraging small infill developments such as mom and pop shops and low to low density multi-family housing, such as those that would be allowed under the EULEX two acts. It also includes specific recommendations for the small shopping district along a 34th Avenue at Osage and Navajo, such as sprucing up but maintaining the the small shopping district there. The subject property is also within so barrier 13 of the plan. It calls for improving and stabilizing residential areas, encouraging reuse of vacant or abandoned commercial structures. Likely this one isn't vacant, abandoned or vacant yet, but the rezoning would allow it to continue and discouraging further industrial and commercial encroachment. This is an existing commercial structure, so it's not additional encroachment, just maintaining the existing use. So staff finds that the proposed rezoning is consistent with the adopted plans. The second criterion is uniformity of district regulations. Staff finds that the proposed rezoning would result in the uniform application of the U.N. text to Zone District. The third criterion is to further the public health, safety and general welfare of the city. Staff finds that the proposed rezoning would do so by implementing the city's adaptive plans and facilitating reinvestment in an existing business and an existing structure. The fourth criterion is a justifying circumstance that finds that the proposed rezoning is justified by the change in changing conditions in the Highland neighborhood. There's been a significant amount of redevelopment in the area, an increase in population. That's increased demand for commercial uses, such as what is on the property and residential uses. So aligning the zoning with the existing uses so that they can be maintained was justified by the changes in the neighborhood. And the fifth criterion is consistency with the neighborhood context zone, district, purpose and intent. Staff finds that the proposed new annex to EX would facilitate development that is consistent with the urban neighborhood context and the intent of the Annex two zone district. So Steph finds that all five criteria have been met and recommends approval. I'll be happy to answer any questions. All right. Thank you, Scott. We have two speakers this evening. Ask them to come to the front. Alex Johnson and Chairman Sekou. Hi. My name is Alex Johnson. I understand representative of the property owner looking to request the zoning change from here for any questions. Okay. Thank you. All right, Chairman Sekou, you have 6 minutes. Yes. Good evening. My name is Chairman Sekou. I represent the Black Star Action Movement for Self-defense Resident City County in Denver, 65 years representing poor, working, poor and homeless people. We support this zoning change. For all the outlined reasons. Plus, this represents an opportunity for economic development for poor, working poor folk. And we would implore the. Folks as you go about doing this thing. To employ local folks and utilize some of the labor forces that are there so that. We as a city. Can come up with this project. Now part of the deal that we experience over and over again is that we are positioned. In the growth of the city and the planned developments of this city were, in fact, that were part of the labor force who helped build the city. And from that, we don't have the resources to have so that we can be vibrant, productive members. Of what's going on. So we need these jobs and we need them badly. And so I would implore folks as they go about their processes of development to. Get in contact with those resources that you have. Also a joint partnership with the union so that we develop the skilled labor in the process of doing this thing. And as we rush toward getting these projects completed, let's see if we can get some plumbers out of this deal for poor people trained and some painters trained. And not just people who stand on the corner holding the sign for traffic. We're actually skilled labor so that that labor can be transformed into a permanent position. So that basically we evolved from being poor and we advance ourselves up the scale. So the history of the city has been a top down organization in terms of how they go about doing things, and the trickle down process just doesn't work. And so by the time it trickles down, there's nothing left for us to do or that we're in training programs that last longer than the project. So then we're trained to be unemployed. And so we must bridge the gap on this thing. And in the time, lies have to be organized. And I salute you, Councilman Brooks, for being on top of this kind of thing, because I know you've been doing a lot of work in the community to get the laborers skills and whatnot being boosted up through community organizations like the Urban League and whatnot. So as we continue on this process of. I just want to again say. Thank you for taking on the task and to stay consistent with the process. And that's about all I got to say. So I'm gonna cut this short because I know you all really want to go to the big show. Everybody here for the big show. So I'm through. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Sekou. All right. This concludes our speakers for Council Bill 1266 questions. Members of Council Council Mauritania. Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to ask the applicants, Representative. I don't see anybody here from the honey neighborhood. If there is, maybe they could raise their hand and come forward. What I'm trying to find out is the letter from the neighborhood association, which looks more like a resolution than a letter, speaks to a number of conditions. And I'm trying to find out if there is if there were covenants filed or is this just, you know, a gentlemen's agreement between the neighborhood and the applicant who is proposing the rezoning? So yeah, with the the meeting with honey, one of their conditions is that when you file a deed restriction for any future development of the property to not exceed the building or any kind of characteristics of the building that's already there. To my knowledge, it was a negotiation that I'm assuming has been recorded already or is going to be recorded shortly. I was not a part of that process. Okay. Yeah, I was just speaking to the characteristics of any future redevelopment, which we don't have any plan right now. Okay. So the conditions that speak to noise hours of operation are related to the existing operation that's there or any proposal. That they talked about. The good the good neighbor agreement or the deed restriction. The good neighbor agreement. Okay. So in the U.S., the good neighbor agreement is a couple of years ago for the existing business. They were there, Kobe and the restaurant. Okay. But what, if any, of that changes? That's where the deed restriction comes in related to a potential re-use on the site and whatnot. Correct? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think that answers all my questions. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Councilman Ortega. Okay, we have Councilman Flynn. You're up. Thank you, Mr. President. I wanted to follow on because Councilwoman Ortega actually asked almost answer both of my questions. But the condition, the conditional support Scott or the applicant could answer from honey was basically predicated on the filing of this deed restriction. Is that correct? Were there any other conditions on Honey's support of this? No, that's my knowledge. It was the conditions outlined in the letter in the packet to be recorded in a deed restriction. Again, I'm not 100% sure where it is in the process, whether it's already been filed. Or will be done. But that was the condition and there were no others. That is what I was doing. Okay. And in the staff report, it said that is it. I'm sorry. Maybe you could answer was the owner does not intend to redevelop the property. Does the owner intend to rehabilitate the building? He already has. Okay. I haven't been up there since it was little Pilipinas broke my heart. I really did. If you bring back a little bit Pinas, I go to every day. But so the intent is to keep the building as it is. And this deed restriction would require preservation or would it require, if it were to be replaced or what? I'm going to ask you to come to the mike, because we're kind of having this side conversation here. So which one? So the deed restriction would require that if the building somehow were damaged, were were destroyed, had to be replaced, it would have to be replicated or the same character or the exterior. Same character, the setbacks, the height restrictions, the amount of residential units that would be allowed the, I guess, greenspace in there, the parking access, everything that is existing now would have to be replicated with any new building. The only reason right now that we're trying to get this rezoning is actually from another building of ours that had the same issue where it was used and was not the zoning did not match use. Right. And the building actually fell in on itself. And so that's when we realized we should probably go ahead and look at everything else. Because that up in the same neighborhood. It is. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. So that's when we started evaluating all the other properties that would kind of fit this criteria and this was kind of the best fit. Thank you for any of your sound. Thank you. I want to thank you for for doing that. For going that extra measure. Excellent. Thank you, Mr. President. All right. Thank you. Councilman Flynn. Councilman Espinosa. So I'm personally in sort of distress right now. So what is your role again with the project? I work for the property owner. But the property owner doesn't give you didn't give you any authority to speak on their behalf or you do. All I do. And they told me to be here. They're both out of the country right now. Never mind. Just got the confirmation. I was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there was some tense moments in the community conversation with the property owner leading up to this. And it's and I'm talking about things that aren't actually technically part of what we're supposed to be considering among our criteria. But it is fundamentally frustrating. And this sort of sounds like comment. Never mind. Okay. We'll we'll get you a comment. Thank you, sir. All right. Seeing no other questions public here for council Bill 26 is closed. Comments by members of council councilmen as one of them. So. So you you start to sort of started to see me sort of speaking to my sort of process or what have you. One of my frustrations in the zoning code, if you've been watching for any number of times over the last two and a half years since we adopted this new zoning code in 2010, it has had the provisions, just like the prior zoning code, to use incorporate waivers and conditions, which is customized zoning. You can modify any base zone district to accommodate certain things, but then we have these policies that are not law ordinances, laws, zoning code is law policies, not law. Those are rules. We can change them. We can deviate. But, you know, then all hell breaks loose if we don't follow our policy so we can amend our policy regardless of the thing I'm rambling about is when we rezoning the entire city, we re zoned it one size fits all. You know, we try to do the best we can, but we recognize that it is a huge area and it's got a lot of different things in our zoning code. Sort of tries to capture everything, but we recognize that there are differences. There are differences between Southeast Denver differences and Green Valley Ranch and Highland between South Broadway and Walsh Park or, you know, there's there's just a lot of variety, which is what's probably what's really great about the fabric of Denver. And in order to address concerns from one neighborhood to another, you could use waivers and conditions, or you can use any number of tools. But because of the impact, the lack of us willing to use our legal tools based on policy, yes, we've had to work with other tools that are essentially tacitly supported by our director of community planning development. I mean, Brad Buchanan has come to me and said, look, I, I prefer private party, third party agreements, developer agreements over codifying in zoning. The difference there is who enforces that when you codify it and zoning the city enforces that when you do it through a third party agreement that's between a neighborhood or whoever signs it versus the developer or whoever owns it. And so. But regardless. One thing that we we've seen repeatedly in northwest Denver, where we're experiencing sort of a rash of redevelopment pressures, gentrification and other issues, and some character altering new projects is when we have a rezoning that allows something that is very, very, very, very much by the book can be sort of, you know, if you're familiar with the Denver Fugly website, that is a that is a thing that's out there where you can go and you can see some of Denver's worst architecture. Those are used by right. Developments generally. And there is no constraint in or or or nothing in our zoning code that necessarily dictates esthetics or orientation to the degree that it, you know, should fenestration and what have you. So I'm rambling, but my point is, is that there is a a serious disconnect that we have as a community, work together on time and time again to bring forward tools, work with developers, because the reality is, is where the community is and the where the developer is are typically not as far apart as we might think. The developer, you know, but the the problem is, is the zoning code that one size fits all tool allows a whole bunch of other things that may not capture the community's desires or the developers desires. And so we have successfully used these third party agreements, these developer agreements to address those outliers and to bring both parties closer together and to an area where what would might be a contentious situation, not be a contentious situation. And so I've actually talked more than all of those presentations just in this thing, because what I was stressing about was all that the fact that we have all these balls that we have to juggle just to get everybody who's actually all rowing in the same direction in community, to sort of work around the fact that our zoning code actually would in fact allow something that was community disruptive and and potentially detrimental if we just went in a straight use by right situation. And there was good conversations between owner and community to address these concerns and to the to to my colleagues point, Councilwoman Ortega mentioned there was an October letter in here from a planning board hearing. So that's to hearing two public meetings before this one that where that had been discussed, but it had never been executed. And so that was what was concerning is that, you know, did we get to this point where everyone was in agreement, but we didn't have any written documents? And the problem is, again, that is not. Substantive to our decision making because our criteria remains the same, whether that third party agreement exists or not. But I can tell you that there are tools in the zoning code that could address these very same things. We just choose as a city, as a matter of policy that comes from the administration. To not do this. At that level where the city can enforce that. And so that is something that I wish would change. It could change. It should change. But until then, we have this thing. And so all that said, I want to thank you for and, your Honor, the person that you work for. I thank the city for sort of recognizing that it's there, but not and my my constituents and honey who aren't here because they actually support this measure for all coming to the table and agreeing on a way forward that works now and for the future. And and that is a lot of work that we've been doing time and time again in my district, sort of super normal. Hopefully, I've never overstepped my bounds, but I just I was in a bit of panic because I didn't feel like that had been executed. And the good faith, I didn't have any acknowledgment up until right now that the good faith of all that communication had had come to fruition. So I do feel relieved to know that development is going to exist in the way that it. It's already been moving forward. The community has assurances that things in the future would also be consistent with with the owners wishes and the community's wishes. And with that I will with all that rambling, I will be supporting this measure but having nothing to do with that and purely do with the criteria because it does in fact meet its criteria. And I should acknowledge that that this is our least intense. This is to X, right? This is our least intensive zone district designed specifically for incorporation in area, in neighborhoods, existing single family to unit fabric. So it is consistent with our adopted plans and all the criteria that we would normally meet with. And with that, I'll be supporting it. Thank you. All right. See no other comments. Madam Secretary. Raquel Espinosa. Hi. Flynn, I. Herndon. I Cashman. Hi. Can each new Ortega Sussman. Black clerk. All right. Mr. President. I please close voting in US results. 11 eyes. 11 eyes. Counsel Will 1266 has passed. Congratulations. All right, Councilwoman Kinch, will you please put Council Bill 1396 on the floor?