A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 3217 East Yale Way in University Park. Approves a map amendment to rezone property from E-SU-D to E-SU-D1 (allows for an accessory dwelling unit), located at 3217 East Yale Way in Council District 6. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 12-15-20.
13 Eyes Council Bill 20 Dash 1457 has passed. Council Member Clerk, will you please put Council Bill 20 Dash 1471 on the floor for passage? Yes, Council President. I move that council bill 1471 be placed one final consideration and do pass. So I get that. All right. It has been moved and I believe. Councilman. Well, Madam Secretary, I will let you make that call. It's curtains Hines got on. The second I was going to say Hines. I thought so. So, Councilman Hines, you got the second. The required public hearing for Council Bill 20, Dash 1471 is open. May we please have the staff report? And I believe we've got Libby here. Yes. I will pull up my screen here. All right, you guys have my screen? Mm hmm. Go ahead, Libby. Okay. So good evening. I am Libby Kizer of CPD and we are looking at a rezoning request for a 3217 East Yale way. The property is in Council District six represented by Paul Cashman, and it's on the southern edge of the University Park neighborhood. The property is located north of E Steel way between South Steel and South Adams streets. It's approximately 9700 square feet and is occupied by a single unit dwelling. The property is currently in the urban edge single unit d zoned district and the applicant is proposing to rezone to urban edge single unit d one to allow for an accessory dwelling unit. The ESU. D1 requires a minimum lot size of 6000 square feet and allows for the urban house and detached accessory dwelling unit building forms. The subject property was previously zoned esu d x, which allows for the urban house and suburban house building forms. But in June 2019, the property and all other properties in the University Park neighborhood that were zoned esu d x were legislative re legislatively risen to ESU d at the behest of neighborhood residents and Councilman Cashman, as they wanted to eliminate the allowance of the suburban house form due to concerns regarding privacy, solar access and incompatible character . And this map shows the extent of that legislative rezoning that was approved in 2019. As outlined in red within the University Park neighborhood boundary and shown it in blue. The previous rezoning from east to east encompassed 183 acres and over 1000 properties. The Yellow Star represents the approximate location of the subject property. As far as the existing context, the areas land use is defined by single unit residential and McWilliams Park and Harbord Gulch Greenway. There is existing building form in scale or characteristic of an urban edge neighborhood context with a blend of urban and suburban features, including single storey , single unit homes on orthogonal and curvilinear streets with alley and front loading garages. The distinction between urban and suburban features is most pronounced at the boundary of East Young Way, as shown in the upper left photo. The subject property contains a single storey house with a parking pad in the front and an alley in the rear of the lot. The home to the west is also single storey and loaded, while homes to the east and south lack access and have front loading. Garages attached to sidewalks are public throughout the area. The public process kicked off in October of 2020. And since then, application notifications have been provided according to code requirements. As of present, six comments have been received by neighbors and the University Community Council supporting the rezoning request, stating it will increase the availability of diverse, affordable housing at space for residing and visiting family members, add value to area properties and help prevent the scrape and redevelopment of this lot. However, four of ten members of the University Park Community Council oppose the rezoning, stating it could set a precedent for short term rentals and segment of long houses. Moving on to the review criteria, it must be found that the requested rezoning is consistent with five criteria. And in this presentation, I'm going to focus only on those that require some explanation regarding staff's analysis. In regard to criteria one, there are three adopted plans that apply to the requested rezoning, including the Comprehensive Plan Blueprint, Denver and the University Park Neighborhood Plan. The rezoning is consistent with all of these plans, as stated in the staff report. But I'd like to focus on Blueprint Denver and the Neighborhood Plan specifically. So there is only request is consistent with the future place and street type and growth strategy, a blueprint number. But when it comes to the neighborhood context, there's a bit of nuance as the subject property is mapped within the suburban neighborhood context immediately south of the urban edge context. In this area, the suburban context cuts through the block and does not follow the curve of East Wayne, leaving a fragment of the block with a different recommended context than the rest of the block to the north. This also occurs on the two blocks immediately east, where east heel way curves south of the alignment of Yale Avenue. As a result, these three block fragments have a different mapped context than most of the University Park neighborhood, which is in the urban edge context. While this is not necessarily a mapping error, the subject property does exhibit characteristics more in line with the urban edge context, as it's located in a transitional zone between a rectilinear street cred with alleys and a curvilinear street network without alleys. Lots in the immediate vicinity are of a similar size. As are the blocks are generally rectangular and as I mentioned, south of Yale are generally more curvilinear. And as we often do, I'd like to just point out that page 66 of Blueprint Denver states that when a new zone district is proposed for a site, the boundaries of the context may be interpreted with limited flexibility if the request furthers the goals of Blueprint Denver and is consistent with the overall intent of the neighborhood context map. And in this case, the rezoning is consistent with the map intent and helps further blueprint goals related to 80 years. One of those blueprint goals includes Housing Policy four, which focuses on diversifying housing choice through the expansion of its use throughout all residential areas. An urban edge neighborhood context on district is also consistent with the University Park Neighborhood Plan of 28, which defines the subject property within a single family residential neighborhood. And one of the key recommendations for this area says that housing options should be appropriate for a central city location and limited editions should reflect the prevailing pattern of 1 to 2 storey single family homes. The rezoning is also consistent with criteria two and three regarding the uniformity of district regulations and furthering the public health, safety and welfare in regard to criteria for a city adopted plan is the most applicable justifying circumstance for this rezoning. If formal application requesting the rezoning of the previous ESU de Zone District to the current ESU district was received in December 2018 and adopted in June 2019 after significant public outreach that overlapped the public processes for the Comprehensive Plan and Blueprint Denver, both of which were adopted in April of 2019. Although the citywide plans were ultimately adopted before approval of the existing zone district plan goals, promoting its use, a greater mix of housing options and infill development near a mix of uses and transit are supportive of the rezoning request to ESU of D one. As mentioned previously, a rezoning TSD one is consistent with blueprints under guidance as the subject property is on the boundary of two neighborhood contexts. In this case, the urban edge zone district is more appropriate than a suburban zone district, as it maintains the neighborhood's desire to prohibit the suburban house building form. The rezoning would also be consistent with the zone district purpose to promote and protect residential neighborhoods and with the intent as a single unit district allowing only urban houses and detached to use with the minimum zone lot area of 6000 square feet. Therefore, CPD recommends approval of the rezoning request. And myself and the applicant, Brett Houston, are available for questions. All right. Thank you, Libby. Council has not received any written testimony on Council Bill 20 1471. And we have one individual signed up to speak this evening. It's Jesse Paris. Good evening, members of council. Can I be hurt? Mm. Go ahead, Jesse. That's when I was just in the shop. Harrison I'm represented for Denver Homicide Law, Black Sox. I'm over for self defense, positive active command for social change as well as the Unity Party of Colorado Mile High. No, I was the abolitionist and I would be the next mayor of Denver in 2023. I'm in favor of this rezoning tonight. As Libby so eloquently stated, it meets all five of the criteria consistency with adopted plans, uniformity of district regulations, further public health, safety and welfare justify circumstances, consistency with neighborhood context, zone, district and purpose. So since it meets all the criteria, then I, I'm in favor of this. I supported 80 goals when I ran for City Council At-Large in 2019 and I'll continue to support any use. We have a housing crisis in the city all while we have 26,000 vacant luxury apartments. So. Any forms of housing that people who are unhoused are on the verge of being high house could benefit from or I'm in favor of. So thank you. I'm in favor of rezoning. Good job, Cashman. You got this. Thank you. That concludes our speakers questions from members of council. Councilman Sawyer. Thanks, Madam President, and thanks, Libby. I guess I'm a. Little bit. Confused about the consistency with adopted plans because you you went into a lot of detail about the and the one piece of the, I guess, the crescent on the map and how it is. Can you just explain that to me a little a little bit more clearly? Because I understand. How it is consistent with the other two adopted plans. But I was a little bit confused about your explanation of how it is consistent with the one adopted plan. So Blueprint number two finds the neighborhood contacts. This one is right on the edge of the suburban and the urban edge. And so in those limited instances where it makes sense, we can still establish consistency with some flexibility. And so in this instance, as I mentioned, these property is just north of Yale. Do you exhibit many of the urban characteristics of the rest of the blocks that they're on to the north? Okay. Perfect. That was. Thank you for that clarification. I was just a little bit confused when you went into the explanation of what was happening there. But that is all I need to know. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you. Seeing no other hands raised, the public hearing for Council Bill 20 Dash 1471 is closed. Comments by members of Council. Councilman Cashman. Yeah, thank you. Council President Libby, thanks for the presentation. I do believe this application meets the criteria, but I really appreciated your bringing up the legislative reasoning that we passed a year or so ago because it puts kind of a wrinkle into this situation. You know what the rezoning did previously this the areas allowed both suburban and urban house forms for the for the uninformed. The suburban form allows two story construction pretty much from the front to the back of the buildable area of the lot, which ends up with second stories hanging over people's backyards, blocking what is we've come to recognize as a normal view of our neighbors down, down the row and so on. And so we did rezoning to eliminate that suburban form. However, now that we're considering a reuse, there is that danger with while this particular idea that we're considering tonight, as we saw, the home on the front of the property is a very modest single storey bungalow. But many homes in the zoned area are very large scrapes and rebuilds in the four or five 6000 square foot area. So we're in danger of adding a two storey adu in the back of a lot with a large urban form home that in effect may create some of the problems that we tried to get rid of with the by getting rid of the suburban form. So we've begun discussion a couple of residents and myself with CPD just to look at what type of design review or or design modifications might make sense for 80 youths in this community that would prevent the unintended consequences of allowing ideas I do believe they to use are a critically important part of our housing stock. But I don't intend to allow it to undo what the neighborhood decided was in its best interests. So with that said, I certainly support this application while recognizing those in the neighborhood council who have concerns. And we'll do our best to address those moving forward. Thank you, Councilman Cashman. Up next, we have Councilman Flynn. Thank you, Madam President. Just because I'm a math geek and because it came up in Libby's presentation, I had been studying this. Last week when it was on the agenda upcoming and read the staff report and looked at the curve and Yale that Libby brought up. And just for everyone's edification, for nothing else, the the subdivision to the north, Asbury Park was filed in 1888, and Yale went straight through. And in fact, the original Yale Avenue from 1888 has become the alley behind the houses on that curve on what is now Yale in the 1950 subdivision to the south, which is called Wilshire Hills. And and actually it is because that alley remains that I feel comfortable voting in favor of this, because otherwise, where there are no alleys, I tend to be a little more critical of of ideas when there is no alley access. But I just wanted to mention that the subdivision from 1888 and it wasn't till 1950 that that curve in Yale got put in by the Wilshire Hills filing. So thank you, Madam President. I will be voting in favor of it because of that. All right. Thank you, Councilman Flynn. And great history lesson as well. Appreciate that. Likewise. Seeing that all review criteria has been met, I will be voting in favor of this as well. Madam Secretary, roll call, please. Cashman. I. Can each. I. Ortega, I. Sandoval. I. Sawyer. I. Torres, I. Black I. CdeBaca. I. Clark. I. Flynn. I. Herndon, I. Hi. Hi. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, please close the voting and announce the results. 13 Eyes. 13 Eyes Council Bill 20 Dash 1471 has passed. Councilmember Clerk, will you please put Council Bill 20 Dash 1477 on the floor for passage?