AS AMENDED a bill for an ordinance to amend Chapter 59 (Zoning) of the Denver Revised Municipal Code relating to the Denver Zoning Code and to amend and restate the Denver Zoning Code. Amends the Zoning Code with multiple substantive, clarification, and usability amendments in response to customer and community feedback, industry changes, and other factors. Amended 5-14-18 to fix a misprint in the bill by including the Code Effective Date in Section 3 as similarly cited throughout the remainder of the bill. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 4-10-18.
Speakers must stay on the topic of the hearing and must director comments to council members and refrain from profane or obscene speech. Direct your comments to council as a whole and please refrain from individual personal attacks. All right, Councilman Cashman, when you put Council Bill 323 on the floor. Yes, Mr. President, I move the council bill 18, dash 323, be placed upon final consideration and do pass as amended. All right. It has been moved. And second, in a public hearing for three June 233 23 is now open. May we have the staff report? Sara. Good evening. I'm Sara White with CPD here to present the staff report for the 2018 Text Amendment Bundle. So as you may be familiar with our bundles of the past, the text amendment bundle is part of our effort to keep these zoning code modern, clear, user friendly and updated, and for us to be able to respond to requests for changes to the zoning code. So city staff periodically reviews the code and prioritizes updates in response to customer and community feedback, industry changes and other factors. And we we try to do these bundles of tax amendments roughly annually. So the most previous bundle was adopted last spring, in April of 2017. So the bundle is intended to implement several of the comprehensive 2000 plan goals to ensure that the zoning code is flexible and accommodates the current future land use needs. It encourages quality infill development that's consistent with the character of the surrounding neighborhood, establishes development standards that encourage positive change and diversity while protecting character and identifying community design and development issues and target specific concerns with appropriate controls and incentives. So the bundle allows us to respond to these types of requests as we as we get them, and try to keep the zoning code updated in an annual fashion. So the process so far, we started the scoping of this text amendment last summer and really research and drafted throughout the summer and fall and then started some targeted stakeholder outreach in late 2017, early 2018. So even before a public review draft was available, we did want to start the conversation with stakeholders who may be impacted by some of the changes so that we could have the conversation, get the feedback, make any changes that were necessary as a result of that conversation. We also presented to the Agency Zoning and Planning Committee for an info item in late January, and then on February 12th was when we released the full public red line and included the full text of the changes and a summary in more plain English. Since these bundles tend to be a little difficult to wrap your heads around, this one in particular includes over 80 items that was on our text amendment list. And then when that was released, there was also notice sent to all RINO's and council members. As well. We did offer text amendment briefings to all council members during this time. On February 21st, we had an info item at planning board and then we also had an info item at Luti on March 6th. And then March 16th, we had our planning board hearing. So for planning board and for city council, we have six letters of comment for the bundle. One was in support of our mis informed changes that are proposed as part of the mixed use two storey districts. One was in opposition to those same changes, saying that they were inappropriate to restrict commercial properties. One was asking for restrictions on the location of many storage facilities, particularly close to downtown, which is a topic that this bundle is addressing. One was commenting on the proposed step back that is part of the two and a half story building forms with low sloped roofs. This was a comment planning board as well. Generally, some concerns with the number we were proposing to step back to be addressed at one with generally various comments about all of the changes and then an additional letter that was submitted at Planning Board from the Vision Zero Coalition in support of the proposed drive thru restrictions. At Planning Board. Planning board voted 7 to 1 to recommend approval with the following conditions. The first condition was that the draft continue to be edited for clarity, and then the next the conditions two and three, where staff recommended conditions. So number two was that we clarify the applicability of some of the lighting standard changes and to remove changes to the maximum height for all fixtures. So these were some things that were in the early drafts as part of the lighting changes that as we talked more through them with our internal departments, particularly development services, some concerns were brought about about how we might implement some of those and in terms of inspections and that sort of thing. So we clarified the applicability of what types of projects would be subject to these new changes. Number three was that staff removes changes to the side interior setbacks for the max aims to ax districts adjacent to protected districts. So those of you who are moody and had individual briefings may remember that one of the changes we're proposing is to increase the rear setback for our Amex to ex districts. And as part of that, we also made a slight change to the side interior setback and we realized that that was actually inconsistent with the intent of what we were proposing to do. So we are leaving the side interior setback as is in the code currently, but still proposing the increased rear setback. And then number four was a condition that planning board added, and it was a result of a lot of conversation about the comments, whether the step back for the two and a half storey districts was appropriate to be applied at 25 feet or if there was a different number. So Planning Board added the condition that staff further examine and consider in future changes regarding possible unintended consequences of urban house ten foot step back about 25 feet, and possible unintended consequences of low sloped roof definition and complexity of compounded slopes. So the one vote of opposition from planning board was due to the fact that the Planning Board member did not agree with adding the fourth condition. It was not that he disagreed with the content of the bundle. So we had three speakers at Planning Board, two internally from the city, one from Denver Environmental Health and one from the Vision Zero Coalition, both speaking in support of the drive through restrictions and how they relate to pedestrian safety and actually asking for them to be expanded in the future. And then the member that also wrote the letter that's included in your packet spoke about the concerns with the loss of roof definition and the if the step back was proposed at the correct number. And as you see in your packet, he wrote a follow up letter after planning board that conceded that the 25 foot was was an appropriate number to apply the step back at. After Planning Board. A City Council had the Luti committee on April 10th, which was a consent agenda item. First reading was the 19th and we are at our public hearing tonight. Just a reminder that the bundle is proposed to have a roughly six month grace period for projects that have been submitted before the effective date to align with the end of the slot home's grace period. Which is why I say roughly six months since that Holmes was adopted about two weeks ago, and we wanted to align the end of the grace period with their grace period so that our development services staff didn't have to juggle multiple deadlines. And the reason for the grace period is similar to Slot Holmes in that there would be some pretty significant impacts to projects that have already put a lot of time and effort and investment into submittals. And we wanted to give them some time to finish up. So because of the process that we've had so far and the fact that we had individual council briefings and we did have an info item for the committee, I'm not going to go into the details of all 80 items that are proposed as part of the bundle . Those were detailed in your packet. But what I am going to do tonight is I'm going to go through some of the changes that have occurred since you would have heard about it at a briefing or luti. So we continued to correct any errors and translations, continue to improve graphics, cross-references, clarifications, all of those things that the bundle is great for related to the many storage and drive through restrictions in SMEs and downtown zone districts and near rail station. So this is not something that has changed. So we did decide to continue to propose that mini storage be not allowed within a quarter mile of rail unless you're in an industrial zone district and four drive thrus within a quarter mile of rail to not be allowed unless you're in a suburban zone district with some additional restrictions. I just wanted to highlight this because this topic by far has gotten the most conversation out of anything in the bundle. And we've heard a lot of this is great. It should go further. We should apply it to more areas of the city. But we've also heard some this might be a little bit of an overstep. We want to make sure that we're supporting our density and our small units and giving them places to store their stuff. So we really think that the proposal, as is in the bundle, is a really good first step for treating these. We have heard a lot that we'd like that there are people who would like to see this potentially expanded to transit corridors or all corridors or all mixed use zoning, which is a really large impact on the city transit corridors. The reason that we didn't include them as part of this is because there's there's a lot less policy surrounding our transit corridors right now. There's a lot of planning going on, particularly with the Denver Moves plan. So as as that infrastructure fills in and as planning and policy kind of is solidified around those areas, I think there's definitely room to consider something further. But for now we are remaining with the rail station, quarter mile buffer and the downtown zone district changes. As I mentioned earlier, we are still proposing to increase the rear setback in our EMS and IMAX to ex districts when they're adjacent to protected districts. And a reminder, the reason for this is because these zone districts are intended to be embedded in residential areas, surrounded by urban houses and duplexes, that they really should reflect that character that they're intended to be placed in and not be allowed to build to the zero line and have a really large, hulking structure. And so, as I said, there was just a minor change that was proposed in addition to the rear setback for the side interior setback, we had proposed to increase that. But then we when we looked at it again, we realized that that was actually inconsistent with the urban House standards, which is what we were basing it off of. So we decided to keep that that standard at five feet. And then some more of the little shifts that we've done. We are still adding some standards to parking lot lighting. We're adding maximum illumination levels for certain uses, we're adding uniformity ratios for safety. Some of the things that we have changed a little bit since we talked with you earlier was some additional clarification on what projects would be applicable to these changes. So basically that projects that are submitted from here on out will be required to comply with these and not necessarily projects that are already built because that would be really difficult for our inspections to enforce. And then we had also proposed a mounting height limitation for fixtures. There is already mounting height limitation for freestanding lights in the zoning code, and we were proposing to apply that to all lights. But we realize that that could have some unintended consequences. It would prevent someone from having a patio light on their third floor apartment, that sort of thing. So that's something that we'd like to look at a little further. This is an additional topic that we've had a lot of conversation about through this bundle process. And again, this is kind of a first step for some lighting changes to our code. Our code doesn't have a lot of lighting standards right now. So we want to kind of start with the worst of it and continue to evaluate that through feature bundle changes and such. And then for the two and a half story forms of the low sloped roof, we are proposing a ten foot step back above 25 feet to essentially break up the mass of a building from the street. So you probably are aware that our two and a half story building form can result in something that really appears to be three stories, which is really out of context with a lot of what's built in the neighborhoods. So this step back above 25 feet is intended to make the building appear to be more consistent with generally the two stories that it's it's built around. This is what Planning Board had a lot of discussion about, based on Mr. Farley's comment, asking whether the 25 feet was the right standard and if there are other things that we hadn't considered as part of this. So we did study that number more, and we did come to the conclusion that 25 feet is the appropriate height to apply to step back at. And we also got the follow up letter from Mr. Farley agreeing, but we did actually use the unintended consequences portion of the Planning Board recommendation to consider and add the addition of an administrative adjustment for historic structures for this step back. So in our code, we already have allowed administrative adjustments for bulk and height for historic structures. And since this is a bulk related item, it was brought to our attention by the Curtis Park neighborhood that this could have some pretty large effects on the historic character by requiring the step back. So because in historic districts, there is an additional level of review, there's the design standards, there's L.D. Derby or LPC that has to make these decisions. We were comfortable adding an administrative adjustment that would allow, with the approval of the Landmark Commission, to get out of the step back in historic districts or historic structures. So moving on to the criteria that we use to address text amendments. The first is consistency with the city's adopted plans and policies. The first is comprehensive plan 2000, which I went over a little earlier, how the reason the bundle is consistent with adopt a plan, including requiring infill development to be consistent. We've done a lot in this bundle about consistent infill and bulk and mass. And then blueprint Denver. We have language in there that says amendments are recommended to implement adopted plans and improve compatibility with existing plans, as well as revise standards to make existing zone districts more compatible, which is what a lot of these mass and form changes are doing. It furthers the public health, safety and general welfare by providing clarity and predictability, facilitating planned and desired private enterprise and redevelopment. And it continues to implement adopted plans through regulatory changes. And it results in regulations that are uniform. The amendments regulations are uniform in their application to buildings and land uses within each zone district citywide, and it improves greater consistency in zoning regulations and removes conflicting provisions, which improves our ability to administer and enforce the code uniformly. So with that I o staff does recommend that the City Council approve the text mama 2018 bundle. I'm happy to answer any questions and talk about any of the topics in the bundle, especially since we didn't go into the details in the staff report. Thanks. Great. Thank you, Sarah. All right. We have three speakers this evening and asked them to come to the front. We have John Noble, Jesse Paris and chairman say COO. Joe, your first 3 minutes. Good evening, counsel. My name is Joel Noble. I live at 2705 Stout Street. First, I just want to say these these bundles are one of my favorite things as a zoning geek, because I get exposed to so many of the the things that end up needing tweaked, whether I hear about it through neighborhood organizations or comes through planning board or hear about something go through going through the board of adjustment for zoning appeals that it's always great when it's some time later, it takes a little bit of time. You see a fixed proposal that's been studied and carefully considered and you say, Oh, that's great. I knew that didn't work right. I was carrying that around with me and now I know it's getting solved. John Haden, president of Curtis Park Neighbors, sent a letter to council copying CPD last week, thanking CPD for the work on one piece here, which is the change to the administrative adjustment table. And he asked that I speak on on behalf of Curtis Park neighbors tonight as an advisory board member just conveying our thanks Curtis Park and perhaps other historic neighborhoods from the same era tend to be tend to have houses that are narrow and tall. And this new upper storey step back for low sloped roofs like Italianate structures would require them would actually prevent them from being as tall as they normally are. When we have infill in our neighborhood, that infill should fit in. If if a house is built strictly to the zoning code, it would look quite small compared to the historic context. Today we depend entirely on administrative adjustment, which is a great little escape clause in the zoning code that says the zoning administrator may, within certain limits, allow some dimensions to be exceeded or modified in order to fit the context better. If it's beyond that limited allowance, it needs to go for variance but within within bounds. And that works very, very well. We go through a landmark review because it is a landmark district and then whatever administrative adjustments are needed have never been denied. This new measurement was not available for administrative adjustment, so that that meant that any infill housing in Curtis Park that is as tall as our normal housing is or is our context would have to go all the way for a variance, which is an expensive, lengthy and uncertain process. And when we made that case to CPD, they knew exactly what we were talking about. They never react quickly. They want to always want to go away. Study came back within a few days and said, okay, this narrow allowance on the administrative adjustment table where you're in a landmark district and Landmark has reviewed it is the minimum necessary to to meet your concerns. And in fact, it is. So thank you to Sarah and thank you to Kyle Dalton and Jennifer Capito. We're thrilled to see this go forward. All right. Thank you, Mr. Noble. Jesse Pierce, you're up 3 minutes. Good evening, members of the Council. When I was in Paris, my 2842 Josephine Street and Brookes, District nine. My question is I'm neither for I'm neither for nor against this. I just need clarification on what is a protected district. Is that the same thing as a historical district? What is urban house standards? And is this in any way going to increase the already gentrification that is going on in the Curtis Park neighborhood? It seems like you guys have just given leeway to gentrification in historically black and brown communities. I just need clarification that this building bundle is not going to. Facilitate that further. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Chairman Seiko, 6 minutes. Okay. Here we go. My San Francisco to organize a black star action movement. Social change agency. Voice for the poor. Working poor. Homeless senior citizens and youth. This bundle. To. Pull all of these seemingly minor pieces. There are connected to each other. Is a. Good idea. Answers. Anytime you can find common ground with 80 different minor entities. And combined into one big thing. Is part of administration. And of course, a lot of talk about means and explanations that we don't have to go through here in this body today because the work has been done by planning. But now let's look at pulling the layers back. Of The Onion to get to the core about what is really driving this. And what are the values behind this theme that allows us to miss the first four trees? I mean, we got trees. It. And it's a big thing. But what's really driving this thing? What's really driving? And that becomes a question for the people, because when you do this bundling thing, when you combine all of these things that you do early in the meetings into one vote and in that one vote, there are hundreds of millions of dollars down taxpayers money. And they're watching this on television because it means you organize at a time where a rush hour traffic, Jack, they can't come down it. So they get it after the fact. And so one of the things we do with this process is to allow it to become a educational process for the people who can be at the meeting for further review. Understanding that there's a time frame that folks got 30, 60 days, whatever that is, to actually implement a change. Now for vulnerable communities. That's not possible because the people are caught up, especially the folks that I represent, and to day to day survival. How am I going to pay my rent? What am I going to do about my kids going to school hungry? How am I going to deal with this thing when the food bank is gone and ain't nothing to eat? Transportation crazy. I don't have that amount of money to ride bus, so I got to figure out skills I can walk to where I got to go. So caught up in that minutia. So that we don't have the time to look at the overview of the map. What are they planning for you now that's going to impact your future? And an outreach doesn't include the future for education processes and to gain them into a better position of being great citizens in a great city. You had no outreach. Two high school's student council. Great way to educate them about what we can really do to you. So the outreach has to be expanded into student government zones and universities and colleges who are preparing themselves to be a part of this, not in it, because using it to our nose and to do, but the people of the future, the youth are not included in the outreach, so why not invite them to the meeting or had the meeting at a high school where they're at? How about a meeting, too, on a college campus where they're at C? And now we're talking about expanding democracy and getting more folks involved in the participation of the future because it's the students then the youth, which are the future right now and their voices need to be done right now. So they understand what is like an industrial. See as you blow past it on the leak there. But none of that. And changing from this to that, they don't even have don't even know what this is right now. But we missed a golden opportunity to prepare the future leadership through our outreach that can be expanded. See. Also, the youth has to be included in this statement because they're the ones who are going to be sent up here. Because at one point you always used. Yeah, but you learn about this in your daughter. How about if she knew this now? What kind of adult citizens would that be? Outstanding. So in this process of having to work to make the dream work, the dream is about now and it's about the future. And it's about the children. It's about increasing this empty chamber full of kids who want to come down here and learn how to do this thing. On the taxpayers dollars because they are the taxpayers that are going to be paying for the future. Things that are happening at least we can do is educate them now in the state. So thank you, Mr. Cobb. Thank you. This concludes our three speakers for this evening. Are there any questions by members of council? Councilman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. I do have a question about the two and a half stories step back. And what I'm trying to understand is if that is only applicable to the residential zones. Is it specific to historic districts or is it how just help me understand how broadly that is applied. Sure. So it is applicable to all of our two and a half story residential building forms. Generally in our mixed use districts, we don't have the two and a half story building forms because the height limits are higher. So it's going to be your urban house, your duplex, your two and a half story row house across board. Okay. So where the code? Formerly allowed like half of a third story. Does this remove that? Help me understand. What that. Sure. So I'll clarify what the half story is, because it's not really a half story. Essentially what it is, is it's a third story that's allowed to be no greater than 75% of the floor below it. And what that was intended to do, I may have slide here. So this slide, this image on this slide on the top is from the zoning code. And it was really what the half storey was intended to do. When you have the traditional house with the sloped roof and it's two stories, you have that space under the sloped roof that's technically would be considered a third story and we wanted to allow it to be used as livable space. So we called about a half story when it's really 75% of the floor below. It's a third story. And you can see this is a photo example of infill that has used that and you can see it's generally pretty in scale what's surrounding. But essentially what's been happening is people take that allowance and when you use a flat roof form or as we're redefining in the bundle, low slope and you push it to the front of the building, it really looks like a full three stories and you can see it towering over the surrounding infill development. So what this is intended to do is to push back that third story. We haven't made any changes to the allowance of how much of it, but it's possible that there will be less allow for a allowed floor area if they can't get that full 75% after having to step it back ten feet from the front of the building. Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you. I have no further questions. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Espinosa. Do you want to take a stab at explaining what a protected district is? Sure. So a protected district is essentially in practice, a low scale residential district. We have a definition in the code. It's got a list of all of our zone districts that are considered protected districts. It's all of our single unit districts, all of our two unit districts. I think all of our House districts and one multi-unit district, EMU, two and a half. And what that means is when you have a mixed use zone district adjacent to something that's considered a protected district, things that are built on that lot have to comply with additional standards. Usually it's additional setbacks or additional bulk plan, that sort of thing, to protect the character of the low scale residential that it's adjacent to. But the disk we're only talking about the mapped district, the physical map district. It doesn't it's it doesn't matter whether or not the building is a low scale residential building. That's correct. All right. Hope that helps. Thanks. Thank you. No further questions. Okay. Thank you. Seeing no other questions, this concludes the public hearing of 323 comments by members of council. That assessment. Thank you, Mr. President. I just want to thank the CPD and the planning board for the work that you did on this bundle. It well, it is a lot of things. It really dives into things that we have had some concerns about that we hear about at committee, that we hear about from neighbors who are worried about construction going on next door. Thanks for the explanation of the 2.5 because I too was thinking it's really 75% of the top. But if they can't get the ten foot setback, it may not be 75% of the top of it. Right. Okay. And also four in, you know, increasing the setbacks. But but especially for the storage units, mini storage. And I think I have to thank my fellow councilwoman, Kendra Black, who also brought this forward, said this is a very good move, I think, to help us with getting activation around areas of transit and Main Street. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Dr. Sussman. Councilwoman Black. I want to thank Sara. You were really great with the Todd. Limiting the storage and the drive thrus. I wanted. To go a little further, but I acknowledge it's a good first. Step. And I appreciate you reaching out to the Storage Unit Association. We met with them and they were okay with it and the drive thru people never got back to us, so I really appreciate it. My district has five light rail stations and a. Lot of storage. Facilities and we don't want to have any more near a light rail station. So thank you very much. All right. Thank you, Councilman Black Espinosa. Councilman. Is there a drive through association? I also want to thank you again, Sarah, and staff for another text amendment. It's always nice to see these changes. I don't think I geek out as much as Joel does, but it is fun to see incremental change to our zoning code. The one thing that I you made it very clear that you're you're cognizant that there might be unintended consequences and you're sort of recognizing that there's still the ability for things you haven't considered to come about. And I think in an earlier presentation that sort of opined where I saw sort of something breaking down the so I'm going to go back to something I said I think two or three meetings ago, which is, is if staff is is seeing that speak up and let the zoning administrator know that there is this repeated incidents happening that may not warrant a meeting, may rise to an occasion where you're not following the usual text amendment, but then bringing it to Brad Buchanan and having him move forward with a quick change. It'll still be a public process. We will still have the ability to discuss it, but let's not wait for a repeated sort of habitual pattern to form and and get so deliberative in. If we're already recognizing that one change we've made has unintended consequences, that could be addressed maybe by coupling some form standard with a use exception or something like that, you know. So that's all. Just wanted to make sure that I'm probably going to keep hitting that point. Time and time again now, because it's sort of my one thing is how do we more rapidly address things that go south when when we know better? So that's it. Thanks. All right. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you, CPD, for for putting this forward. You know, I think you guys are starting to adjust to the many issues that we're seeing all over the city and really appreciate that everyone does love speed and we want this to be faster. But at the same time and I don't want to say but we want it faster, we want more speed. Let's just leave the period there. I will also say that I recognized the macro changes that were happening about this. The city and these unintended consequences have happened in my district. They've happened in other districts. And and I understand those are sometimes irreversible. And so I appreciate it. But as long as we can figure out how to turn a little faster on some of these things, it will be very helpful. The folks you see up here are on the front lines of dealing with a lot of our land use issues. And and we're getting we have a lot of ideas and so we want to see those things move. But thank you for your hard work and know it's very deliberative and we appreciate it. With that. Madam Secretary, it's been moved to a roll call. Black clerk. All right. ESPINOSA Hi. Flynn Hi. Cashman I can eat. LOPEZ All right. Ortega I. SUSMAN Mr. President, I promise. What? No, we're good. Okay. Please close the voting. US results. Tonight. Ten Eyes Proclamation 323 has passed. Congratulations. Okay. Excuse me. Excuse me. On Monday, June 18, 2018, Council will hold a required public hearing on Council Bill 365. Change the zoning classification of 3880 Holly Street in Northeast Park Hill Erekat Public Hearing of Council Bill for 22 Changing the zoning classification of 421 West Fourth Avenue and Baker and