A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 235 West Evans Avenue in Overland. Approves a map amendment to rezone property from I-A, UO-2 to C-MX-8 (industrial to urban center, mixed-use), located at 235 West Evans Avenue in Council District 7. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 4-6-21.
Certainly. Thank you, Madam President. And good evening, Council. This is an official map amendment application for 235 West Evans Avenue requesting to rezone from a of 2 to 8. The subject property is located in Council District seven, represented by Joel and Clark in the open neighborhood. Swimming and a lot closer to the site is at the court, the northwest corner of West Evans Avenue and South Bannock Street. It is just under two acres in size currently used as an industrial warehouse and they are rezoning to see a max eight to allow for residential uses and they believe have a concept plan with development services at the moment. As they stated, the existing zoning on the site is IAU two. That is a white industrial zone district with a built for use overlay. There is plenty of this sign that surrounds the subject property as well as S.R. x eight to the West. You are h two and a half across Evans Avenue in the South and G Avenue three as well. Current land use as industrial is surrounded on both sides by industrial zoning, except for a few single unit residential parcels across Bannock Street to the East. Some office uses scattered throughout and public quasi public uses along Evans. These photos give you a sense of the building performance scale with the subject property. Right now you can see some very significant residential uses across evidence on the top left and then some of those other industrial uses across Phenix Street on the bottom left. So comparing the two districts, you can see that the schematics were introduced at the townhouse and shot from building forms. Now, when we think about height, our industrial districts are controlled by a four area ratio. So in the current zoning, the maximum height is 75 feet, as long as they're within centered 25 feet of the protected district , which they are. The proposed zone district would allow for an increase in heights eight storeys in 110 feet. They would also introduce a bill to ranges and percentages and remove the floor ratio of maximum. There is a proposed affordable housing agreement with this application. It has been reached in principle with hosts, but however, the concept plan has not yet been finalized. Determine the actual count of the units. The terms are 10% of the units will be income restricted, with 90% of those serving 80% AMI and 10% serving 60% AMI. However, out of all the restricted units, one or 50% will be one bedrooms and 50% will be two bedrooms. And those are for a period of 99 years. Speaking to the process information letters were sent last August, revised application received in early, early this year and January. Planning Board was on March 31st where it was voted to move forward nine zero. And we are here today on May 24th. To date, we have received four letters of support, one being from the local R.A., which is the Overland Park Neighbor Association. The applicant has also negotiated a good neighborhood agreement with the R.A. and three additional letter of support from nearby property owners. Moving to the criteria. There are a number of plans impacting the subject property, starting with comprehensive plan 2040. These are the applicable common strategies that staff found consistent with this proposal, ensuring that the residents have safe, convenient and affordable access to basic services, creating a greater mix of housing options, encouraging quality infill and promoting infill info infill development where infrastructure and services are already in place. Moving to Blueprint Denver. This is mapped as part of the urban center neighborhood context, where we see a high mix of uses with good street activation and multi-story buildings with a high degree of flat coverage. The future place type is a community opportunity center. These places offer a mix of office, commercial and residential uses. The building footprints are larger and the heights are generally up to 12 stories. The street types are mostly local, with the exception of West Evans Avenue, the commercial arterial and the South Broadway, serving as a main street arterial. For our growth area strategy. This fits into community centers and corridors where we expect 25% of new housing and 20% of new employment to occur by the year 2040. As this is a rezoning that is going from industrial to a zone that allows for residential. It's important to include our future manufacturing districts map where you can see that this property is located outside of our manufacturing preservation areas. So commercial uses are compatible. Next we have this Evans stationary plan from 2009. This plan sets forth a vision for transit oriented development around the station. Also recommends transforming transformation of the industrial and commercial properties into accurate, active, industry oriented and mixed use communities. The specific land use guidance here is mixed use residential, the primary residence. The primary use is intended to be residential. The office and retail can also be supported and is seeking to have a mixture of housing types and active Graham. Graham for an urban form. We also have a height map in the stationary plan that recommends five stories. However, this is an area that is north of Evans, and the plan says that it is appropriate to develop higher and higher residential intensities for prominent buildings and intersections. Which staff found this intersection being compatible with a higher height, especially thinking about the Good Neighbor agreement they've negotiated with the R.A. and the affordable housing agreements and location . We're really close to the station. Staff found that this extra request is consistent with the height area, but the height map and the station area plan. We also have the Shattuck District Plan, which was adopted in 2000. The vision for this plan was a neighborhood with a mix of housing, employment and services, and it really speaks to putting underutilized commercial and industrial persons and to more productive uses of staff. Found that the proposed zoning district would facilitate a development that has a mix of residential and commercial uses and further the goals in this plan. And lastly, we have somewhat dated over the neighborhood plan from age 93. It mostly groups the neighborhood into sectors for commercial, retail and industrial and speaks to providing adequate transitions between those uses and supporting light rail and improve access to the future light rail station, which has been open since, I believe 2000, and staff found that based on providing a better transition to the residential uses across Evans Avenue, that this would promote greater beautification and clean up the immediate area, which is consistent with the plans in that existing proposal as planned. Moving to the next criteria. This rezoning will result in uniformity of district regulations and for the public health, safety and welfare, facilitating increased housing density in amenities and transit and fostering the creation of mixed use and walkable communities. A third justifying circumstance for this rezoning is change or changing conditions in a particular area. There have been a number of physical changes within close proximity to the site, including new streetscape improvements along South Broadway to prioritize pedestrians, as well as the construction of new multi-unit residential projects within the general vicinity and a future pedestrian bridge across Santa Fe. So we find that these conditions that are mostly largely changing justify this rezoning request. Lastly, we find the rezoning to be consistent with the neighborhood context. This understood purpose and intent statements that are further detailed in the staff report. And with that, CPD recommends approval based on planning. All review criteria have been met. I am joined on this call from a colleague and host. If you have any questions regarding the housing agreements and the application is also available. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Brandon. And tonight, counsel has not received any written testimony on Council Bill 21, Dash 0357. And we have two individuals signed up to speak this evening. And our first speaker is Andrew Davis. Yes. Can you hear me? Mm hmm. Go ahead, Andrew. Okay. Thanks. Council member Bob. Yes, my name is Andrew Davis. I'm the property owner at 235. West Evans and. I. Live here in Denver, Colorado. My address is 2372 South Humboldt Street. First of all, thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. I want to say thanks to Brandon Shaver first. He's been a huge help. In this process. And I'm not going to reiterate anything that he's mentioned. Just. For brevity sake. But I think a couple of things that I would highlight in addition to what he mentioned, I think, first of all, was the neighborhood outreach that we went through over the past nine months. And so we worked with your home park neighborhood association. And, you know, before we even got through excuse me, concept design, you know, back in the midst of COVID, met down there with masks on and walked some folks from the Overland Park Neighborhood Association through the site. You know what the vision was, what. Our thought. Process was, and wanted to incorporate as many of the comments that they had into the project. And so really over the last nine months I've been involved with them. And as Brandon mentioned, we've negotiated a good neighborhood agreement. You know, the high levels on that are, you know, the neighborhood association is going to host their future meetings at the site we're going to work on. You know, there's a dual pedestrian bridge that is being planned, so we're going to work with them on that. There is an Evans Bridge mural right now that is close to our site. And so we're going to take upon the maintenance and responsibilities, making sure that that mural, you know, which has been important for the neighborhood, stays intact. I think the affordable housing, which which again, Brandon mentioned was something that we brought up with the Overland Park Neighborhood Association and. Lots the. Conversation about it. One of. The things. That I think actually was was was great that came out of the meetings with the play was the desire to have more two bedroom units. And so initially when we had worked with Andrew Johnson and Brad winding on the host agreement, we had fewer one bedroom excuse me, fewer two bedroom units. But from our discussions with Europeana, they thought of having more two bedroom units would be helpful. So again, incorporating what we saw was good feedback from our neighborhood association into the host agreement. I think last or the last two parts would be local business support. You know, given that this is largely an industrial neighborhood. We have gotten neighborhood. Support from folks that have been in the business for, you know, greater than 50 years looking for, you know, in support of the project. And lastly, was working with Jody on the parking requirements to be a 2.75 ratio. And so we've worked through our concept design. Making sure that we meet that requirement, which. Was again a big requirement or a big request from the city with regards to. That ratio. So that. Thank you again. All right. Thank you, Andrew. And our last speaker is Steve Faris. Steve, you're going to have to go ahead and meet yourself. Oh. It looks like we might have lost Steve. Here in the meeting. So we will give it a second for Steve hopefully to get back reconnected with us since we are in our public hearing right now. Well, just. Give it a second here, I'm sure. Steve has since figured out that he got. Cut out of the meeting. So. And Steve, if you are coming back into the meeting, if you could raise your hand so that we can get you into the panelists. All right. Thank you for everybody's patience here. All right, Steve, I believe we have you back. With us. You're going to need to unmute, Steve. All right. Well, it looks like we have lost Steve again here. And I have that he was only to be answering questions. But we will give it a second. All right, Steve, do we have you? Well, give it a second here and see if his audio will reconnect. Madam President, he just texted me. Steve Ferris works on our team and he said he was only he's out of technical difficulties and he was only there to answer questions if need be. Okay. All right. Sounds good. Well, it looks like we might have gotten him connected to the audio. I don't know, Steve, if you want to try to unmute. One more time. All right. Well, we gave it our best attempt. And if there's any questions, we've got Andrew here to answer those questions. And so that will conclude our speakers this evening. Questions from members of Council on Council Bill 357. All right. Seen no questions by members of council. The public hearing is closed. Comments by members of Council on Council Bill 357 Council Member Clark. Thank you, Madam President. And I just want to say thank you to Andrew and team for really the deep dove with the community on this one. Open A is an R.A. that is very savvy when it comes to rezonings, because there has been a lot of change that they have long advocated for and they've been very involved , even though, as you pointed out, we have a neighborhood plan that hasn't been updated since 1990. We do have two different light rail plans that are much more recent that the neighborhood worked very hard on, on creating a vision for what they want for the community. And they're very savvy on this. And I really appreciate how much time you spent with them working through all of this. And I think a testament to that is not just that the neighborhood association voted to support this, but they voted 16 to 0 unanimously to support this. And I think that that is from the time spent working with them, working through things and not just coming forward and saying, hey, this is what we're going to do, and I'll sit here for nine months and listen to you. But adapting that and working with them to update the plan to reflect their vision. And so I really appreciate that. I think that this clearly meets the criteria for rezoning and it will continue to help deliver on the vision that this community has had around that light rail station and for their neighborhood. And so I will be voting to support that and ask my colleagues to do the same. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Councilmember Clark and I do agree with you that this rezoning does meet the criteria and happy to support it this evening. So, you know, their hands raised. Madam Secretary, roll call on Council Bill 357, please. Clark. I. Flynn. I. Herndon. I. I Cashman. I. Can each I. Ortega Sandoval. I swear. I saw as I. Black. I see tobacco. Madam President, I. Madam Secretary, please close the voting and announce the results. 12 Eyes. 12 Eyes Council Bill 20 1-0357 has passed. On Monday, June 21st, Council will hold a required public hearing on Council Bill 20 10498 changing the zoning classification for 1718 North Tamarack Street in East Colfax.