A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for multiple properties generally bounded by 38th Street, Walnut Street, 40th Ave. and the Union Pacific/RTD right-of-way in Elyria Swansea. Corrects the zoning classification for multiple properties described in Ordinance No. 20180015, Series of 2018, located near the 38th and Blake RTD Station in Council District 9. The Committee approved filing this bill by consent on 5-1-18.
Mr. President, I move that council bill 18 to 0 4 to 1, be placed upon final consideration and do pass. It has. Sorry. A little slow here on the uptake. It has been moved and seconded the public hearing for council. Fortunately, one is open when we have the staff report. Andrew Webb. Mr. President, members of the Council, thank you. I'm Andrew Webb from Community Planning and Development here with a short presentation on this request for an error correction to a recent MAP amendment. This request is in Council District nine. It's in the coal neighborhood. This is the map from Rezoning Proposal 2017 0122, which was adopted on February 12th as Ordinance 2018 0015. This was the the base district rezoning for the 38th and Blake project. So it established the incentive overlay and the River North design overlay and it also updated some of the base zone districts so that they would work correctly as intended with the overlay after that. And I want to highlight here that that's shown in red here on this map. Is the is the subject property for this request. Right after the adoption of the of that ordinance, it was discovered that an incorrect notation on a legal description exhibit that went with that request had caused for one chunk about 8% of the total base district rezoning to be given the the wrong the wrong base zone district. So it's a zone district not intended. This proposal would rezone approximately 13 acres right there at essentially at kind of Blake and 38th from C annex eight that's urban center mixed use eight storey with the you oh two billboard overlay and then the incentive overlay and the design overlay would rezone this to IMX eight that is industrial mixed use with an eight storey base height and the and the same overlays would be applied. This request would essentially correct an error that was made and the process. This request was referred directly to the Land Use Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. It was approved as part of the consent agenda on May 1st. This is the process allowed for in the zoning code for errors that on the zone map that occur as a result of a of a rezoning 21 day posted notification was provided at the site. We also reached out to all RINO's associated with the area and we also reached out to property owners and have not received any public comments on this proposed rezoning in terms of review criteria. The original staff report to request a 2017 EIS 00122 is was included with your staff report and consistency with the review review criteria can be presumed by the Council's findings in the original rezoning case from February. So with that, CPD recommends approval of this correction ordinance based on a finding that all conditions have been met. All right. Thank you. All right. We have two speakers this evening. Turman Sekou, you're up first. 3 minutes. Okay. Chairman Sekou. Black Star Action Movement for self-defense. The issue with correcting this error. Is that it doesn't even begin to address. What is really taking place. It's more of a dot and cross in the two. And so you can't argue with. What is taking place here. Can't do it. And as Paul said. This thing that we got going on now is complex. Yes, very simple. And reminds me of a grandfather analogy that he gave me called The Breakfast of Champions Nest Egg in Eggs. And then that process of building that breakfast plate, the chicken made a contribution by putting the egg on the plate. And the cow had to die and put his ass on the plate in order for us to have an excellent value meal deal so that we would be fulfilled. So the question becomes, is city council chickens or are they cows? Are you going to put your ass on the plate for what you believe in, or are you going to be a chicken and go for the ultimate thing? Can we all get sick? Sekou. So in the process, don't interrupt me because I understand what you're getting ready to say. No, actually, I can't interrupt you. Don't. Don't cuss in here. Go ahead. That wasn't the cuss word. Yeah, it was. Which one was it? What I say. Or to my bad. Okay. So I thought it was in the Bible. You could use it. So here we go. What are we going to be about? Councilman Ortega has already made it clear we've been struggling with this state for a long time. But now we got some new fresh blood in now. And we've got other folks out now because this is it for them. This is it. So what's coming? What's really come? More of the same old, same old. Or something fundamentally different that will restore the faith in this body by the people. If we allow this process to continue and keep playing semantical legislative language games, we are guilty of the betrayal of the masses of the people who deserve a better way of life. And it's our job to eliminate that suffering and make it possible. So this city is for all of us, especially for the ones who've been born and raised here, who are systematically being excluded. There is no excuse to continue this process at all other than you are in bed. With the developers. And that you have agreed to a standard. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you. Jessie Pearce, the struggle of liberation. Jessie Pearce, you're up next. Thank you. But Jesse Paris. Black Star Action Movement for Self-defense in Denver homicide law. Because what has already been stated. We have a crisis. Denver, not so much an affordability crisis. Can you can you stay focused on this book right in front of you? That's that's the focus of this. Housing, this building code. My whole thing is if you're going to change the building code. Once again, how many of these units are going to be affordable or anywhere even close to affordable? Because affordable doesn't even seem to be in the language of these business developers. So this 1300 dollars for a 450 square foot apartment seem reasonable to you? Honestly, who can afford that? Think about that and then think about the rapid gentrification that is going on in all areas of the city. Now, somebody really needs to take a stand on this. So like cycles already stated are just going to keep allowing this to keep continuing to happen and happen continuously. So we have to keep coming to these meetings and keep asking the same questions. Where is the housing? Where is the affordability? You want to change these building codes, then make these neighborhoods where people that have been in these neighborhoods can afford to live in the neighborhoods instead of having to be pushed out, having to live in a whole different other city, different county, because they can't even afford to live in the neighborhoods that they work in. It's ridiculous. This this building code change is so they can put in a 16 storey building. Again, how many of the units in a 16 story building are going to be affordable? That is my question to the city council. Can I please get a straight answer from somebody? Thank you. Thank you. All right. Questions by members of council. Councilman Espinosa Yeah, I was looking at it and it was confused because the incentive overlay would apply to either zone district. So I'm assuming it has to do with the existing use. That is correct. So the the C-Max and the IMX districts were were proposed in this area based on current adopted plan policy for future land uses in these locations and also existing uses. And there were considerable existing industrial uses happening in these this 13 acre area. And that explains it. Thank you. Thanks. Councilman Ortega. Can you tell me how we found out that this was an error? Absolutely. So we worked our our department worked with our survey team on putting together the exhibits for this rezoning. And as you may recall, they were pretty extensive, many pages long. And after the adoption, our staff was going through and making sure that they were applying the correct zone districts to all of the affected properties and noticed that. And you'll see it in the in included with the staff report there's actually a copy of the of the exhibit that has the error. And it's it's one letter essentially in a sentence that that essentially resulted in that chunk of properties being given the wrong base zone district. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Council President. I don't know if you're going to speak to what the overlay did, but I thought that might be important too. Yeah, actually, I don't know if you want to. Sure. Yeah. I'm glad you asked about that. Councilwoman Ortega, the overlays actually address seek to address affordability by establishing base heights and then allowing additional height above that base height in return for some community benefits, one of which is increased number of affordable housing units included with the development. Great. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Councilman Ortega. All right, see in no other questions before this body. Go to comments by members of council. I'll start since this is the project that never gets completed and I'm just talking we we've been working on this for a long time and you guys have been doing an incredible job. And this is, you know, folks didn't know that we actually do have incentive incentives for affordable housing in our zoning code. But this is the first to actually, you know, increase that incentive. And so there was a question as a 16 storey building, how many affordable housing units will be in there with no money from the city ? There's actually a 16 story building being built now, and it's going to be between 27 and 35 units. And so really excited about that. Without this incentive, that building would have no affordable units would be all market rate. So I'm excited about this and excited to see if it's, you know, in the future how impactful it is, but also that we have great staff to to catch mistakes. And so I'm glad you guys were able to catch this. Councilman Espinosa, I'm trying to understand that. So we're they're building a building with 27 to 35 units with no subsidy. Yeah. Which project is that? It's the Mcwhinney project. Okay. Yeah, I have an address because I was going to give you a straight answer and say no, because it's always going to be cheaper to buy out to get eight stories. But maybe I stand corrected. I will research the Mcwhinney project and confirm that it in fact does not have any subsidy going into it whatsoever. The because those public dollars are your dollars, whether they're coming from through your income tax and back through HUD or through. Now the new property tax that we charge all Denver residents or through, you know, indirect routes as well. So my I just wanted to comment because I'm a little bit torn here. I did not vote in support. I voted in support of the 38th and Blake incentive overlay. But I did not support in in favor of the rezoning, the massive rezoning, because I thought it once again raised it squandered an opportunity for that to to truly value capture that difference between the industrial land uses and this now 16 storey capacity. This is different because this is. This is an error. It probably should it never should have been CMCs because it's industrial use on this. So I am torn because I would not have supported. But we don't have the option to go back to its original zoning. We're only optioning between a correct zoning for the uses or CMCs. So if you see me vote in support, it's because I'm correcting the error, not because I still think that was a good idea. Thanks. Yeah. And Councilman Espinosa, just want to make this clear, because I think in our public hearing, when we had this on February 12th, it was unclear. You can't really buy out of residential. Some of the buyout functions are in the commercial aspects. And so we're excited about this project to be right across the street from the the rail station and should be coming soon. So. It's been moved to the Second Amendment. Secretary, roll call. Clark. I. Espinoza, I. Flynn, I. Gilmore I can connect. Lopez. I knew Ortega. I. Susman. Mr. President. I flew scores voting in US results. 11 eyes. 11 eyes. 421 passes. Thanks for your hard work on this. Now we got it. Got to. Right. Okay. For the last bill of the night. 561 Councilman, can you please put it on the floor?