A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 901 Navajo Street in Lincoln Park. Approves a map amendment to rezone property from I-A, UO-2 to C-MX-8 (industrial to mixed-use 8 stories), located at 901 Navajo Street in Council District 3. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 11-9-21.
I think, Madam Secretary, close the voting and announce the results. 12 Hours, 12 Eyes Council Bill 21 Dash 1325 has passed. Thank you, Libby and Jesse Paris for commenting on that. I was going to say members of the community, but we only had Jesse on that one. So up next, we've got Councilmember Herndon. We'd like you to please put Council Bill 1331 on the floor for final passage. Yes, Madam President, I move that council bill 21, dash 1331 be placed upon final consideration and do pass. Thank you. It has been moved and seconded. The required public hearing for Council Bill 1331 is open and I see we have Brad Johnson here for the staff report. Thank you. Good evening. Council members Brad Johnson in community planning and Development bringing in today rezoning requests for 901 Navajo Street from 802 to CMC. Applicant here is Denver Housing Authority or d h a. We're in Council District three in the Lincoln Park neighborhood just southeast of the 10th and Osage Light Rail Station. And again, the request here is for urban center and neighborhood context mixed use with a maximum height of eight stories. This would allow a mix of residential and commercial uses, including in the same structure within the townhouse general and shop from building forms. And again, applicants DHEA. The request is to get a zoning district that would allow for residential development as existing light. Industrial zoning would not allow for new residential zoned residential units there. Just a little more zoom in on this on this property as it exists today. There's an industrial building on the site and you can see some kind of outdoor storage stuff in the rear of the lot there. It's just under a year and a half and it's right along, as I mentioned, the rail tracks there. So we did, of course, provide the railroad safety report to the applicant. Existing zoning on the site again is that light industrial zoning key there again does not allow for new residential units does have the UO to billboard use overlays so that allows for offsite general advertising devices is not proposed to be retained with the three zoning . Immediately to the north and cross the street to the east. You see Cemex a zone districts, which is what's being requested here on the site. To the south and to the west you see a mix of light industrial and further to the west, a heavy industrial zone district. As you move further to the east, up into the neighborhood, a block or two away, you'll start to see cracks. Five and you t you be. Would just point out that that YouTube is a what's called a protected district in, uh, Denver zoning code. Uh, but I would also point out that, uh, uh, the closest property from the subject property to a protected district is something like 230 feet, something like that. Keep that in mind. Existing land use on the side is industrial and we'll see more of that down to the south, to the north and northeast, you'll see some multi-unit mixed use development and then directly across the street, some multi-unit residential course to the west immediately, as is the real corridor and railyard facilities further to us in that. This is the existing structure on the site, this kind of utilitarian industrial building. I'm used to the cup. Right and middle. Right. Some of that multi-unit mixed use development to the north or on Navajo. Uh, bottom right is, uh, townhome project immediately across the street to the east that at the time this picture was taken, um, was still under construction. And then this last picture on the bottom left is looking down Navajo and you see kind of that one and two story industrial development still there on either side of the street. Again. How broken is DHS? As I mentioned a couple of times. This property was purchased through a program called DHL Delivers for Denver or D3 program. That program does stipulate that development on the side of housing must include 40% of that housing as operated as supported housing, or that it's restricted to tenants earning below 30% of area median income. So we're talking about supportive housing are very, very deep with affordable housing. And I just want to mention now that Megan Young, key host, is here and available to answer questions after the presentation. We followed the required process in terms of notification and posting for a map amendment. We have received nine letters of opposition from, uh, from individuals. Those the high points of, or the kind of recurring themes of our position relate to the building height that would be allowed with this Cemex eight zone district being inconsistent with what's actually built on the ground in the area across the street and to the north. Uh, some concerns in there about, uh, views from private property off to the west to the mountains. And then some recurring concerns in those letters about the impacts of this development might have on demand for on street parking in the area. We didn't receive any official R.A. letters to CPD. But I think you'll see in your application materials that there is a letter of support in there that was provided to the applicant from the Lime Llama, Linkin Park, R.A.. So moving into the criteria will start with consistency with adaptive plans. These are the plans that are applicable to the site. We found that this rezoning meets numerous goals, objectives and policies of 2040, just a few of which are shown here. More. More are included in discussing your Stafford work. In terms of blueprint Denver Future neighborhood context is urban center and that does call for high intensity residential and employment uses, which uh, this Cemex Cemex eight zone district would allow. And therefore we found consistency with neighborhood context of the rezoning. Bear with me as I go through these next few slides. I just want to point out that this particular property actually has some dual designation on it as it relates to these aspects of Blueprint. Denver So you can see, for example, in this one, the majority of the site, sort of the more internal portion of the site has one designation. And then the piece that is there along and fronting Navajo Street has a different designation. So I'll have to I'll be speaking to both of those. So starting with future place type, the majority of the site again is community center and that calls for getting a mix of commercial and residential and office uses on the site. It actually calls for heights. Uh, of up to 12 stories here. And so, uh, certainly for that portion of the site, we did find the C max eight zone district to be within the range of what would be supported by blueprint driver in terms of feature place type. And then for the portion out along Navajo, uh, it's identified as high medium residential. So that calls for also a mix of uses, including primarily multi-unit residential. Uh, and that area steps down in terms of what it calls for, uh, for height, eight storeys. But again with the same six, eight, seven district we are, uh, the request is right in line with what's called Form Blueprint. Denver In terms of feature place type on that edge as well. Future Street type is local and designated, which footprint Denver provides for much flexibility in terms of what uses and what forms can happen adjacent to a local and designated street. So we did find this rezoning to be consistent with future street type. The growth strategy. Again, you have a dual designation here. The majority of the site is designated as community centers and corridors and says that blueprint says that properties designated as such around around the city are intended to accommodate 20% , 25% of new housing and 20% of new employment through 2040. So certainly this Cemex eight zone district would support both of those uses. And so we did find it to be consistent with. That part of the growth strategy for that part of the site. Next part out along Navajo Street, it's designated growth strategies high and high, medium residential areas and D and you see context. That calls for properties designated as such around the city to accommodate 15% of new housing and 5% of new employment. Around the city through 2040 and we did find the CM exchange rate zone district would would allow both of those things and therefore it would be consistent with the growth strategy. Oh. Sorry. There's a little bit nuance. So this is kind of a funky shaped parcel. It is located at the western terminus of Ninth Avenue there. And so you have a street that dead ends, but you have a property that's sort of creeping over. If the street was to go through would be sort of taking up the area that that is the generally that width of the right of way there. However, that little sliver there, which is about 50 feet and it's kind of a vertical dimension there in terms of depth, if you measure it that way, is part of what blueprint Denver classifies as a manufacturing preservation district. Uh. This is this is kind of what happens when you do city. You drive boundaries on city wide plans. You know, you use the centerline as a guide. And in this particular case, with this property, it ends up with this slight mismatch between where the property line is and where the line for the Manufacturing Preservation District is . However, Blueprint Denver anticipated that type of thing coming up and does provide for some flexibility with interpretation for this type of thing. And so even even though a bit of the site there is included in that area, we still did find it as a whole to be consistent with Blueprint and. And then to look at the area plan the long llama Lincoln Park neighborhood plan that plan we found this rezoning to be consistent with many of the high level policies of that plan. But I want to focus here on this slide on on the area specifically that this site is located with. And so that plan identifies what it calls character areas, where it identifies kind of vision and objectives for different areas around the plan area. And this area is in the character area called transit oriented development. So the policies generally center around sustainable higher intensity housing and employment uses and pushing for those, particularly as it is located immediately adjacent to that 10th and Osage station. In terms of high uh in this area calls out for heights between three and 12 stories as being appropriate including for this site. We did find this rezoning to be consistent with the MSA with guidance from this neighborhood plan. We also did find that this rezoning would result in uniform district regulations and would further the public health, safety and welfare of the community by implementing those plans I just mentioned. And also given the fact that there's. The restriction I talked about on on the side would clearly result in people affordable and supportive. Supportive housing. There's that that's worth mentioning here as well, I think. In terms of justifying circumstances. Again, the ADAPT plans call for a different kind of transformation of this of this property. The area itself has transformed significantly over the last decade, perhaps more particularly with the development that's occurred just to the north of the site and to the northeast. And then obviously this is in the public interest and that it would result in deeply affordable housing and or supportive housing on the site, which, of course. Everyone knows is badly needed. And then finally we found that this reasoning would result in consistency with neighborhood context, zoning, district purpose and intent. And so with that, based on the criteria for review and the Denver zoning code staff does recommend approval of application 2021 I that's 000 21. Thanks. All right. Thank you, Brian, for the staff report. We've got two individuals signed up to speak this evening. Our first speaker in chambers is Chris Pelkey. Introduce yourself for the record. Of course. Thanks for having me. Chris Bilkey, the chief real estate investment officer, Denver Housing Authority. My dress is 2663 Dexter Street number. So thank you for allowing us to speak and talk about some of the history here. This site was identified back in fall 2020 following the historic partnership of the DOJ delivers for DMR Bond Program and really in an effort to accelerate affordable housing production in the city. That includes very low income and supportive housing to serve homeless individuals. Part of this pipeline was to identify working with agency partners, strategic sites. So we're well located next to. Light rail bus services, as well as creating a mixed income community. And thus far we've acquired more than nine sites. So this is one of the earlier ones that we identified and working with hosts and other agency partners was approved prior to the acquisition and prior to the placement of the three funds. We did a concerted committee process where we worked with the R.A. over multiple meetings to make sure that the site was appropriate for the use of DH three and this particular future development. But it would require a reason why we're here today and indeed is intention post an approval tonight would be to work with the community and do additional studies that allows us to think about how to complete the overall South Lincoln Home's redevelopment hopes master plan and with adopted plans blueprint and with traffic studies to understand that the connection to nine and connection of the light rail. And then with that that developable parcel would be issued for a request for proposal to qualified development partners. And with selection of a development partner, we would further design. And part of that design effort would be to engage the community and really understand concerns and address that the achievable become the long term owner of the land through ground restructure as we have with other three partnerships. So we can we will hold that development partner to all the obligations consistent with the intergovernmental agreement next year with the city as well as anything that comes through that pre-development effort. I'm happy to answer any questions as they may come up. All right. Thank you, Chris. We're going to go ahead. Our second speaker for this hearing is Jessie Paris online. Yes. Good evening. Members account for those watching at home. My name is Justice Blossom, Personal Representative for Black Star Movement for Self Defense, Positive Action, Social Change, as well as the Unity Party of Colorado and for a long black nose. And I'll be the next mayor in 2023. I'm in favor of this rezoning, as you know. And as we stated on numerous council hearings, we have probably portability crisis in the city. Any time that this council gets a rezoning of this type, I'm in favor of. I just have a few questions. The first question is the presenter stated that 30% of excuse me, 40% of those are going to be at 30% are lower level. What is 60%? I think we're going to do a traffic study wondering if that have been done. Is the study going to be done? Is there a parking study? It's pretty alarming that the opposition in regards to this report on what is this square feet of units going to be, how many units are going to be in the South Lincoln project and are there going to be one or two bedroom? If someone could answer those questions, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes our speakers questions from members of Council on Council Bill 1331. We have Councilmember Ortega first. Thank you, Madam President. So I would first like to ask Brad. If so, I'm looking at an aerial map on Google Earth, and it looks like this site abuts the old Burnham yards. Is that correct? Well separated by the rail line, but. Yes. Okay. And does RTD go along the edge of that corridor? I mean, sorry if I can just look at my man. Yeah, I think the. The real line is kind of immediately abutting. The site. So. That's okay. It's the. Okay. So I know this has been abandoned in terms of railroad use, but the site has been purchased by C don. Right. Where they're in the middle of acquiring it with the intention of relocating part of the rail line so they can do the widening of I-25. And so I want to know how much. How much of a discussion there was around building a project adjacent to what might now have free and particularly freight that carries flammable liquids, hazardous materials. And what kind of mitigation, if you will, has been looked at as part of this project being within a close proximity to I don't know exactly where the rail line would be proposed to go. I mean, in in many cases across our city, our freight line parallels our commuter traffic. Right. So I don't know if that would be the case or not, because I think a lot of that's still in flux. But one of the things that I routinely ask is if this ends up being built abutting the tracks, what discussions were there around ensuring that the safety of the people who will be in those structures is is being addressed? It's part of our responsibility as elected officials under homeland security to ensure that we are addressing these issues. It's also part of our hazard mitigation plan that we have to submit to FEMA every year. So I just wanted to ask how much that was part of the conversation with DHS around this particular project? Well, yeah, and I appreciate that. I will probably defer most of that to the application. But I'll just say that we were certainly aware that we were aware we are aware of and routinely provide that study, the railroad safety study on two applications. And we did so in this case and I've had some preliminary discussions with the applicant in preparation for this that they could they could probably speak more to the actual concept for the actual site in terms of what's going to happen on that site. I mean, I have no idea either what's going to end up or where the rail line might be relocated to. So I don't even want to try to. And probably nobody in this room knows all that. Yeah, I don't think so. I won't even try to speak to that, really. But in terms of mitigations and things of that nature, I want to have a chance for the applicant to respond to that. That's right. Is that Chris? Go ahead. Yeah. Housing authority. I appreciate the question again is this rezoning allows us to then figure out what that program looks like. Stories, bedroom mix and earlier question allows us to then do a lot of the additional studies to respond to this new CMCs eight zoning. The other thing I did not mention as part of the D3 program, DOJ is committing 300 vouchers to this pipeline, so half of the very low income units or permanent supportive housing units that go in this development would have to go through a HUD environmental review process. Part of the part 58 review. And in that, there is always a lot of consideration that actually, as the city does for us to look at noise mitigation, environmental, even health and safety issues, and then with that process provides mitigating measures that the applicant would have to follow to satisfy. So we actually went through this just north. Our first phase in Mariposa was 400 unit senior disabled project where we had public housing dollars among public housing subsidy. So that required us to do a lot of measures within the building, in the building design to respond to those mitigation factors. Is that the senior building to the north? Correct? Yes. Into your admin building? Yep. Okay. That's the 1035 voltage. Ah. Yeah. So I did want to mention that we were successful in securing some funding as part of the 2022 budget in our Department of Transportation and Infrastructure will be issuing an RFP to identify an engineering firm that will be hired to look at which approach to use that will then provide some guidance to our agencies so that as they are reviewing requests for permits, rezoning applications, etc., they will have some very clear guidance on how to ensure that life safety issues are being addressed as part of development activity. So I'm assuming this is not a project that is going to be shovel ready any time in the immediate future, given that you have to go through the HUD environmental process, correct? It's just acquiring it with part of the funding. I think that's part of the host the funding that was approved by city council to ensure that we've got sites to to be building and to secure those vouchers, etc.. So accurate. That is accurate. And then as we select the development partner and then they'll develop they'll propose a program that will work with them jointly and with the city and our state partners to make sure that all the requirements for the funding that's required is met prior to an application to likely get tax credits to develop this. So just for your information, one of the things that will be happening is there will be some outreach to external partners or development interests to ensure that there is some back and forth conversation around the recommendations that will come out of that work done by an engineering firm. So that's why I thank you. All right. Thank you, Madam President. And I hear Mike's not on. But thank you, Councilmember Ortega, for your questions and the reminder about my mike. Megan Yankey, you had come up. Did you want to address some of the questions as well? Go ahead and introduce yourself and we can get it on the record. Megan Young from Host just wanted to come here to speak on behalf of the supportive housing element of this building. And just wanted to reiterate what Chris Bulky had to say about the voucher component and how much goes into the environmental review. We had a project at Walnut Street Lofts recently or within the last few years up in the Reno area that had to go through noise mitigation, different environmental things to just pass their environmental review. So I expect that we would have the same level of scrutiny in this particular case as it comes from vouchers, where we are the administrator of the Environmental Review as well as a funder and get financing eventually in this project. All right. Thank you, Megan. Next up, we've got Councilman Cashman. Yeah, thank you, Madam President. And Chris, I think I might have heard in your answer to Councilmember Ortega, but are you far enough along to have any wish list guesstimate to how many units this property might be able to provide? I know it depends on the bedroom, Max, etc.. You know, Paul, it's a little difficult to know based on, you know, some of the other studies that we need to do and even bringing in a private or even a public access, you know, bring in ninth and connected dosage. But if you taking my developer brain, you might net, you know, develop castle at an acre and usually typical 9% tax credit projects affordable and has a mix of very low income or supportive housing not requiring as much parking on site, you could probably yield 90 to 100 units. Okay. Thank you. That's all I need. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Councilman Cashman, Councilor Pro Tem Torres. Thank you so much. Chris, my question is for you as well. Some of the actually, all of the letters of opposition came from across the street was that land formerly owned by DOJ and DOJ homes at one time. Yes. And that was part of the Wing and Hope six redevelopment where there was a goal to have homeownership opportunities. And certainly at the time, as we saw of that back in 2012 looking at townhome. So we were working in the city and part of that plan was that was approved by HUD. We elected not to develop the highest and best use on that site so that we can get homeownership opportunities within the neighborhood. Part of the stabilization and program goals for the Hope six grant. Great. The you may have answered it, but I can't I can't remember if it was mentioned here in a previous meeting that we had, because I also had a question about the other 60% and what kind of affordability would be attached to that section of the project. Certainly. And I can tell you from experience and I invite Haley Joel here, who's been a great project manager for us and working to develop our request for proposals. And as we launched the three partnership with the city, we did do a roundtable with a lot of permanent supportive housing developers to understand how to design this program , all of which have a mission to do all affordable, usually doing a mixed and mixed affordable model. So likely, you know, up to 80% AMI or 60% AMI would be the remaining portion of that. Again, that all depends on, you know, what program, who we're trying to serve, larger bedroom types, you know, all going into that process . And that's where this great partnership has allowed us to, you know, bring to the table a host the state, to really look at each one of these projects and evaluate what's the right thing for the site and in consideration what the community has asked for. Okay. And as a result of the D three project, this would remain a Denver Housing Authority asset permanently, right. It wouldn't be something that that could be sold in the future. Correct. DHEA is part of this program, will do a ground is a long term premise and with it have the city's covenant that was included in the intergovernmental agreement. Okay. So will be perpetual affordability associate. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Thank you, counsel pro tem Torres. The public hearing is closed. Comments by members of Council on Council Bill 1331, Council Pro Tem Torres. Thank you so much. And thanks to DOJ and to host all of you for being here and putting so much into this project, and particularly a development that at some level is going to be 100% affordable. And it's always, I think, that 30% and below that transitional housing that we're always reaching for and I always find really hard to acquire. So I appreciate the project that made that available and something that you've been building toward on on this one. It's come up even in our conversations about the safe outdoor space that's in LA and Lincoln Park, that that hasn't been an easy project to take to get off the ground, largely because people really wanted to say, but what's the long term plan? That associates are not permanent, they are not a home. And and this is one of the projects that we point to, to say, but we are building them. We will be putting actual units of homes on the ground in Lincoln Park that provide that actual transition. So I really appreciate that this is one of those examples of where we're setting that forward. I did read every single one of the letters that was submitted, and just you want to say this doesn't affect the area that was designated as a historic cultural district that we designated recently for Lima, Lincoln Park. And this is exactly what was envisioned by the development not just of the DOJ property in the long term vision for Mariposa, but of the D-3 effort citywide and really to identify these locations for supportive housing. So I just want to thank you all and thank you for, I think, this larger vision for that area that's coming together of every neighborhood should have multiple layers of affordability, should be a neighborhood that's easy to access transit. This is only one of the two grocery stores in my district and they are on the farthest ends. But, you know, grateful for allowing Lincoln Park to also have a grocery store that is walkable. So a lot of different things. I think that that that make this a really suitable place for additional affordable, especially transitional housing. So I look forward to voting yes. And I appreciate the votes from my colleagues and support as well. So thank you. Thank you, Counsel Pro Tem Torres. And I'm also happy to support this this evening that meets all of the criteria and excited to see this get going. Madam Secretary, roll call on Council Bill 1331, please. CdeBaca. Torres I Black Eye Clark. Nine. Foot. High. Herndon. High High five. Cashman Ortega Sandoval High Sawyer I. Madam President, I. Madam Secretary, close the voting and announce the results. 12 US 12 Eyes Council Bill 21 Dash 1331 has passed. Thank you to the folks who presented this evening and the community members as well. Councilman Herndon, will you please put Council Bill 1332 on the floor for final passage?