A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 2101, 2119, and 2125 South Cherokee Street in Overland. Approves an official map amendment to rezone property from U-RH-2.5 to G-MU-3, (urban, row-home to general urban, multi-unit) located at for 2101, 2119, and 2125 South Cherokee Street in Council District 7. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 6-30-20.
Go ahead and move on to let me see. We're just waiting to see if we because we have this public hearing open. And so I'm going to gavel out of the public hearing 40546 and we are going to go ahead and move on to the hearing for 0612, and we will come back to the previous public hearing . And so, Councilmember Clark, could we please get you to put Council Bill 612 on the floor for passage, please? Absolutely. Madam President, I move that counts. Bill six one to be placed on final consideration and do pass. Thank you. It has been moved and seconded the required public hearing for Council Bill 200612 is open. May we please have the staff report, Scott? Yes. Thank you, Madam President. Scott Robinson with Community Planning and Development. This is a request to rezone 2101, 2119 and 2125 South Church Street from you are h 2.5 to GM three properties located in Council District seven. In the Overland neighborhood is at the southwest corner of Evans Avenue and Cherokee Street. This is where Evans Avenue goes up as a bridge to go over the railroad tracks and Santa Fe Drive. The property does not have direct access to Evans Avenue is served by the Evans Avenue Service. On the lower level there. It is about a block away from the Evans light rail station. Property is just over 15,000 square feet. Currently there are two single unit houses on the property. They said the request is to reach down from you. RH 2.5, which is urban neighborhood context rowhouse zoning with a 202 and a half storey maximum height to GMU three , which is general urban neighborhood context multi-unit residential zoning with a three storey maximum height. The applicant is requesting rezoning to allow for construction of a small apartment building on the property. Here you can see the surrounding zoning. It's the same you are it's 2.5 to the south and east with C imx 553 mixed through Sony immediately to the west and then industrial zoning to the north across those. And here you can see the existing land uses to the south and east, predominantly a single unit with a few two unit and multi-unit residential extend to the west. It has some mixed use multi-unit, residential and commercial and industrial with the station area and then to the north across Evans is predominantly industrial. You can see the subject property in the far right photograph there and then some of the surrounding properties, including the five storey apartment building immediately to the west in the left. The guy and his free zone district will allow a single unit to unit and multi-unit residential uses in the urban house, duplex, garden, court, townhouse and apartment building farms with a three storey maximum height up to 35 or 40 feet, depending on the building form used. This went to planning board on June 17th of this year, received a unanimous recommendation approval went to a on June 30th. You have in your packet 13 letters of support for the proposed rezoning. The applicant also entered into mediation with some of the surrounding property owners, but was unable to reach an agreement with those property owners. In order to approve a rezoning city must find that these five criteria have been met. The first criterion is consistency with adopted plans. There are four plans for the this property. The first is comprehensive plan 2040. After scrapping the staff report, staff has found the proposed rezoning consistent with multiple strategies from Plan 2040 relating to providing a variety of housing types and directing growth transit in terms of equity that finds the proposed rezoning consistent with recommendations or strategies from the equitable, affordable and inclusive vision elements of Plan 2040, including these two relating to, again, providing a variety of housing options in neighborhoods and in terms of climate. Step five Propose rezoning consistent with new strategies from the Environmental Resilience Vision. Element of Component 2040. Again relating to infill development and directing growth in areas where multiple transportation options are are in place. The second plan is Blueprint Denver. The future neighborhood context designation for this property is urban, which calls for a variety of housing forms, including single unit two, unit and multi-unit. This is different from the proposed zone district context of general urban. However, Blueprint Denver says it may be appropriate to shift the boundary or subtly change the the future neighborhood context in certain situations where the overall intent of a neighborhood context map still can't be met. In this area, it's between urban and set, an area where an urban context interfaces with an urban center context. Those in our transect are not adjacent to each other. General urban falls in between. So providing a general urban context here, the zoning is appropriate to serve as a transition from that urban center and more intense context to the less intense urban context. The Future Place designation is Community Corridor, which calls for a mix of office, commercial and residential uses. Those are not necessarily all on the same property. Properties can be all one use, but throughout the entire corridor of those, those uses should be mixed in. Calls for heights, generally up to five storeys, but with high transitions to nearby residential areas proposed supposed residential multi-unit. Three storey is appropriate. Evans Avenue is a commercial arterial, which calls for more intense uses. However, again, the property does not directly, but the commercial arterial portion of that is disturbed by Turkey Street and the Seventh Avenue Access Road, which are both local streets which are appropriate for this type of zoning. The future growth areas strategy for this property is community centers and corridors intended to accommodate 20% of new jobs and 25% of new housing by the year 2040. And then Blueprint Denver also includes additional strategies and recommendations, including this one land use built form, general policy, one strategy talking about directing growth to appropriate areas, including community corridors where transit priority streets are planned and Evans Avenue is designated a medium capacity transit corridor in the plan. So directing growth to this location is appropriate and the proposed rezoning is consistent with the recommendations of the Denver. The third plan is the Overland Neighborhood Plan. This plan recommends. Maintaining the residential character of the residential neighborhoods, encouraging reinvestment and investment in underutilized or vacant land with appropriate character and density. Again, this property serves as a transition from the lower density residential areas to the more intense mixed use and industrial properties to the Northwest. Consistent with the recommendations of the Oakland Never plan. And then the fourth plan is we have a stationary plan which again calls for maintaining that residential character of the residential areas, but does designate this property as mixed use residential, which calls for primarily residential uses, but some office or retail may be mixed in and calls for encouraging a mixture of housing types and densities, including rowhouses, stacked flats, millwork, low rise apartments and multifamily condos. And so three stories is the appropriate height in this location, all consistent with the proposed new three zone district. So staff on rezoning consistent with the adaptive plans and the first criterion met. The second criterion is uniformity of district regulations satisfies the proposed rezoning would result in the uniform application of the three zone district. The third criterion is to for the public health, safety and welfare of city staff. The proposed rezoning would do so by implementing the city's adaptive plans and promoting additional housing options near a transit station. The fourth criterion is justifying circumstances specifying for the proposed rezoning justified by change and changing conditions in the area. There's been new development around the station and on the north side of Evans increasing density, creating more of a mixed use transit oriented development. And this rezoning is appropriate to fit into that and help further that development. The fifth criterion is consistency with neighborhood context zoned district works and to on the proposed rezoning would facilitate development that is consistent with the general urban neighborhood context, description and a purpose and technology and three zone district. So staff finds all five criteria are met and recommends approval. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Scott. We have two individuals signed up to speak this evening. Dayna Jamieson. Janelle. Here. Can you hear me? Mm hmm. Go ahead. Hi. Good evening. I understand. I have 3 minutes. I have. I have found out all about this all today. I have several questions I'm going to try to raise through this because it's late. And I also want to thank you guys for doing the job that you do and working like you do. I know you do the best you can and you do an outstanding service for them. Okay. So I just found out that this was going to happen today and listening to this for hours. Now, I gather I was supposed to have noticed since I live with my husband, Chad Guidall, right across the street from us and definitely within 200 feet. This is not consistent with neighborhood purpose uniformity. It is not definitely not going to further the public health. And I have one chief reason for that, and that is noise. We purchased our home a year ago, and I live right across the street from. This planned. Rezoning. One thing we have definitely noticed is that the overpass underpass area, the multiple train tracks, the light rail, the five lane arterial of Evans and Santa Fe create a decibel rating of over 140 to 150 all day, every day. And sometimes that's without a train running. And I did all of that today and a few weeks ago, actually, because it's gotten louder around here. This kind of development would be more appropriate north of Evan's, in my opinion. I believe that the health and safety of any potential future residents, low income or whatever it is, I think that they would not benefit from this and their health would be harmed. I want to know if there are any environmental investigations that are going to happen recording this. There's a great deal of drug use in the underpass, needles everywhere. I will walk down there if you want to give me more than 3 minutes and I will actually film it all right now for you and show. You my Naish Decibel app. And I will show you how loud it is here. Without any traffic, it's probably more like 90. That's that exceeds the HUD, the Housing and Urban Development Regulation 24 CFR Part 51 Subpart B. And. This would be more appropriate. North of Evans, there's another eight story building incompletion right now. Sorry, I'm trying to just race through this. I want to know why I wasn't notified or my husband. I could have taken more action, been more proactive, and gotten some things signed. The sign itself is hidden actually on the wrong way against a one way street. The proposed building is about 13 feet from Evans. There's a one lane, one way access road. It's a mess. I want to see this development done the right way in our hood. And that's all I'm going to say. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we have Jesse Paris. Got. Good evening. Members of council members Jesse Patterson represented for Denver, homeless fellow black strikes and more with the self-defense. Can you hear me? Mm hmm. Go ahead, Jesse. All right. Similar for self defense, positive for social change, as well as the Unity Party of Colorado. Mile High knows and Universal asking people to argue that they and I will be your next mayor in 2023. I had the same questions the previous commenter had about the traffic in the area. I'm pretty familiar with this area and. Traffic over there is really bad. So I want to know if the occupant has asked about a traffic study, a noise study and also a pollution study. Because if you're going to put housing here, I'm assuming, and I wanted to know what the RMR level was going to be for that house. At the property because the AMP levels over there are 80% or higher and we have a housing crisis and we need to house people who are low income so to 30% so. I wanted to know if anybody could answer those questions for me. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes our speakers questions from members of council. Councilman Clark. Thank you, Madam President. SCOTT Or I think the applicant is Kevin And I think I saw him over in the thing. I don't know. We can or if he's already in here. But can somebody speak to the concern raised? I believe it was, Dana, about notification. And what was what happened with notification? Yeah. This application followed our standard notice procedure, which is that the capital register neighborhood organizations were notified by email of properties within 200 feet, were notified when the application was received and before planning board. We don't mail postcards before City Council. That's how it's set in the zoning code. And then the property was posted with the notice sign. So this application met the standards. That's why she didn't receive a postcard before this hearing. Should have received two postcards before the planning board hearing. Okay. And then the the what is on. So what is currently on site is not what the current zoning is looking at. It looks like it's single family homes that does share an alley with a five story building. Correct. Correct. And then the existing zoning that is being asked to change from a you RH 2.5 into GMU three. And so could you just get a quick roll through? You know, not the difference of what it would look like from what's on the ground today to this news on district. But between what could be built used by right. And this existing zone district. Yes, certainly. So there you are. It's 2.5, as you said, in the current zoning, which is rowhouse zoning with a two and a half storey maximum height. So the applicant or the property owner could build row houses, as the name implies, up to two and a half storeys or 35 feet. Under the existing zoning by right. And were we able to promote the applicant and. So I can't see you, Kevin. But if you're there, can you talk a little bit about why you're why why you were going after this zone district versus the used by rate zoning that's already on there? Yes. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Kevin Dickson and live at 1491 South Gaylord. My partner and I. Have owned this. Corner for about 12 years and the RH zoning, the other developers have been doing a row houses or townhomes that are selling for six and 700,000. And with the state of the affordable housing in Denver and the lack of it, we felt like the $700,000 townhomes, even though we could build ten or 12 of them, wouldn't be helpful. So we were looking at a small 20 unit apartment building and going for a more market rate, affordable one bedroom units and maybe some two bedroom units there. And this zoning. Would allow with the. Additional units and keep the cost per unit down. Thanks. And then you have you have any energy efficiency kind of you know, that's one of the criteria that we look at is, is with climate change, some of that and some of the other projects that you've done in Overland, I know you've done some other kind of think outside the box of anything planned with this when it comes to energy efficiency in construction. Yeah, as you know, John, we've been building tandem houses in Overland and they've all been turning out to be zero energy, some of them that are kept as rentals and I pay the utilities and so the tenant. Doesn't have a utility bill. And since I'd put so much solar on the house, Xcel Energy is sending me a check every month. And even though this 20 unit building would be much bigger, we should still be able to achieve zero energy. So you're looking for the whole the whole building. You think you're going to be able to get it. You are basically a net zero. Right. Okay. And then, Scott, one of the plans that always comes up in Overland is the Overland Neighborhood Plan. And I don't have it right in front of me, but remind me, it's from what year do you have it there? Yes, it's from 1993. 1993. Okay. I'll I'll opine more on that in the comments. But I just wanted to quickly be reminded what year that was from you. Those are all my questions. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Up next, we have Councilman Hines. Thank you, Madam President. Mr. Robinson, I've got a question for you about noise levels. 150 to 160 decibels, 140 decibels. Looking at the chart that I just found online, is a jet taking off. So it's. Is it possible that we have a neighborhood that has 150 to 160 decibels? Well, I guess that is not a question. Let me rephrase the question. Assuming that is accurate, is that something that would affect the health, safety and welfare of a neighborhood and affect all of the zoning of anything that has that kind of notable noise level? Potentially, as you said, you know, I'm not an expert in noise levels. When we get a rezoning application, we refer to multiple city agencies, including the Department of Public Health and Environment. And they are very good about reviewing these applications and providing comments. And you have those comments provided by THC in the staff report. They didn't mention anything about ambient noise levels. There's information in there about construction and the requirements you have to meet during construction, but they didn't raise any concerns about the existing noise level and we refer to them on those kinds of issues. Is there a bunch of construction around this site? I mean, I guess it's a high rate, but like what might be contributing to the noise level? I guess I could ever ask the applicant instead of asking you. So I want to redirect the question to the applicant. Is there other construction around this site? And then I want to ask you for your thoughts on are there really sustained noise levels of 150 decibels in this area? Thanks for the question. There are trains that sit there and idle next to the light rail station. And so you'll have about three diesel electric locomotives just sitting there idling. And that's probably the loudest thing there. Evans Avenue is busy and it's loud. And then just beyond the railroad track is Santa Fe. And so it's not like a jet taking off. No, but an idling diesel is kind of loud. But our building would block. The noise. For this, Jamison. So it would actually help her because it would it would be three story building in between her and the railroad tracks. Well, that's very kind of you to take this on for her. Okay. I don't have any other questions. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilman Ortega. It's her trying to open everything back up. Thank you. I have a couple of questions, both for the applicant as well as for Mr. Robinson. So when you all first saw this application, did you all look at how close that is to the railroad? And were they asked to check the box on the application form that they're within a close proximity? Think 200 feet is the distance to rail existing rail lines. Scott, your muted. Thank you. Let me look at the application here and see if that. This, actually, I think. Interesting. This this application is several years old. It came out in 2017. And then it went through that mediation process, which is why it's just now getting to you. But I believe that the application was submitted before we had the the roadblocks. That. Were roadblocks should have been in place for the last two years. Right. And so this came in 2017. So three years ago. So and so there's been no updates to it even during all that time to address railroad safety. Because when we talk about health, safety and welfare, that's a critical component of safety issues. Yeah, certainly. And, you know, as we've talked about before, those issues are generally dealt with at the site development plan and building permit stage. So about to meet all the standard requirements, go through the standard review when they go to start construction. Okay. So let me see. I think I had one more for you. Who generally checks the notification to ensure that the signage on the property that is notifying the neighbors as of rezoning that it is posted so that all the neighbors can see this. Yeah. The applicants have to provide a signed up. David saying the property has been posted and then provide photographs to us of the property with the sign posted. And so we review the affidavit and the photographs they provide to make sure that it has been posted properly. And and how do you ensure that the placement actually is the most visible for the neighbors to see? A statement from one of the speakers about her concerns that the actual location was not that visible for the neighbors to see. And I know in the past we've had applications that have been held up so that the signage could be done properly. Yeah, certainly. So we check to make sure that it meets the legal requirements and our our guidelines, staff guidelines, which are that one side be provided on each product. And so we again look at the photographs and make sure that signage is posted on each frontage without necessarily looking for the the best, best location. However, you might find out that it meets the legal requirements. Okay. And I do have one last one for you before I go to the applicant. In your statement, you mentioned there was no agreement with the property owners. Can you highlight what some of their issues were based on? The. Important that your agency received. Yeah, I know, I've probably deferred to the outcome on that. They were involved in that mediation, but my understanding was I was concern about the scale of development for the proposed proposed development. Okay. So. Mr. Dixon, if you can. Come on for a minute. Yeah. Yeah, we will. Can you just highlight what those issues were? I heard two comments about concern about traffic. We heard that about noise. It sounds like a lot of that's from both Evans as well as the railroad tracks. But can you just highlight what those other issues were? Yeah. So we went into mediation and the main issue was the parking and we originally providing about eight parking spots for 20 units and. So mediation started in late 2018 and in 29, early 2019, we purchased an additional duplex adjacent and that was going to give us four more parking spots. So we increased the amount of parking that was going to be proposed, and this was all laid out in the good neighbor letter. That was. Ready to be signed in 2019. But one of the close neighbors that was objecting actually passed away. And then another one is the one that we. Bought the duplex from. And and there was one neighbor. Left. That we were. Actually. Under contract. But I couldn't get that contract closed in 2019. And so. Those negotiations. Just kind of fell apart. And the mediator wrote a letter to that effect. So thank you for that explanation. Parking was going to be my second question for you. So, Scott, for a 20 unit development, that's I don't know what the distancing is that we use as justification for within the proximity of a rail corridor. But what is the required number of parking spaces for a 20 unit development? I don't have that up to my head. If you give me just a minute, I can put that up. Okay. And I know some of those were going to be two bedroom units as well as as one bedrooms. So just wanted to get an understanding of the city requirements on that. And we'll go ahead. And while you're doing that, I just wanted to ask Mr.. Dixon, if you wouldn't mind just sharing if you're looking at accessing any of the low income tax credits through the Colorado Housing Finance Authority to try to address the affordability of the units. Yeah. We met with Scott Robinson on that topic and it didn't really seem to fit. We just felt like we could go ahead and build 20 units and rent them at market rate. And I have other rentals in the area and you know, a one bedroom apartment for about $800 is relatively affordable. And that's the type of thing we were targeting. How how big are those one bedrooms? Just out of curiosity. That would be around six, 700 square feet. All right. Thank you. Scott, were you able to find that? I have the standards. The standard parking requirements in the urban context for multiple zones is one vehicle per unit. And then there are various exceptions that could be applied. So that's what I still. Trying to check those to see if that could reduce. But those details will be worked out when they go through the design and development review process. Correct your agency. But I think just having some understanding that those are going to be worked out so that the neighbors are having to deal with extra traffic on the streets and that kind of thing. Traffic is already a concern in the area and I know this looks like a site that abuts the sort of the underpass of of Evans down there. But still, if it's generating more traffic on the on the residential streets, I think those are what I was hearing as concerns from the neighbors. That concludes my question. So thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilwoman. The public hearing for Council Bill 20 dash 0612 is closed. Comments by members of Council Councilman and Clerk. Thank you, Madam President, and thank you, Scott, for the presentation. Thank you, Dana, for coming down to speak. I'm sorry that somehow that notification didn't get to you. You have an amazing neighborhood association in Overland Park Neighborhood Association, and I encourage you to get involved with them because they stay on top of things and just are an amazing group of individuals with a long and rich history in the neighborhood. I think that, you know, a couple of the things we we go back to this requirement to align to all adopted plans in the area. And I'm not going to complain too much about the Oberlin plan being a 1993 plan, because there are a lot of neighborhoods, including other neighborhoods that I represent and have no plan at all, have literally never had a planning effort. And so I'll continue to plug and we need to move quicker and more aggressively to make sure that every neighborhood has an adopted plan that's recent. On top of that, I can't complain too much about that right here because we do have the urban stationary plan, which is much more recent and does reflect the community conversation that we've had around this area. I just think that there's this missing piece in here is that even though we have this newer plan that was a great process and the neighborhood was very involved in, we still also have to tie back to a plan from 1993, the year that the Colorado Rockies were an expansion team playing at Mile High Stadium, the old Mile High Stadium, where literally half of the stadium would float on water and move. That's a different world. And the relevance of that plan to today is. Nonexistent and it's bad, especially when we have another newer plan. I don't know how we break and how we break up with these old plans until we get the new ones. But I think this is a perfect example of one where I don't think we should continue to be lining up with that plan when we have a two year plan. In the parts of Auckland where that plan doesn't reach that stationary plan doesn't reach in the Broadway station plan, and it's literally the only plan we have. Maybe that's better than having no plan at all. But in areas where we have newer plans, somehow breaking up with things that are that old and and not even for the same city that we live in today. I think a couple of things that, you know, the community was very intentional in planning around that that light rail station and about where density would go. And this is one of those places that does create that buffer between Evans in the same way that the five story of the beautiful building there that looks like it's been there forever but is relatively new. That five storey building provides some buffer between the light rail tracks and the consolidated mainline and the neighborhood. This court, this part of Evans adding a little bit more density. There is something that buffers and will ultimately make it quieter because it will reflect some of that noise back. I always appreciate my colleague, council member Ortega, who I was very lucky to sit on the committee that looked at, you know, train safety with her. And, you know, I'd love that she continues to push to make sure that we're living up to making sure that that is a part of our process. This particular property is you know, there is a consolidated main line. Then there's RTD tracks and there's a station, a parking lot, a road, a five story building, an alley, then this property. And so well, it is definitely close enough to walk right over to a wonderful station at urban station. It is quite a ways and quite a few things away from being right on the railroad. But some of the ones that we have seen literally there is building right on the railroad will have. And I think that, you know, as we heard, have been talking about Kevin, as you know, a lot of work he's very invested in this neighborhood is all the neighborhood association meetings that I can remember. He is better I mean, does very small built building tandem houses and 80 used in the neighborhood, but has really done some amazing things when it comes to energy efficiency and combating climate change and creating these zero energy or even where, as you heard it , is generating more revenue back, not just in the ones that he keeps, but for many of my constituents in Overland who have chosen to move into stuff that he's building from somewhere else in the neighborhood and start casting a check from there. Their solar installation, just really cool stuff with heat pumps and some stuff that as we're going through some of the green building stuff, other developers will tell us, You can't do that. You can't make a building that doesn't have this in it. And then I'll go over and over when you meet a constituent and Kevin and they show me that it can be done and it is being done in Denver today. And, you know, especially to have an opportunity not just as an ADU, but a 20 unit building that is going to provide more diversity in terms of what's available in the neighborhood than the row houses that are built and are very, very expensive, replacing, you know, these one storey single family homes. But you have to have all of that be potentially a net zero project. I think it is also very exciting to show that that's not just something that can be done at the 80 level, it's something that can be done to some level of scale here. So all of that being said, I think that, you know, the Stafford Board has shown that this meets the criteria for rezoning and I will be supporting it tonight and will ask my colleagues to do so as well. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilman Clarke. I agree that this has met all of the rezoning criteria and I will be voting in favor of it as well. Madam Secretary, roll call. Mark. I. Flynn, I. Herndon. I. Hines. I. Cashman. I. Kenny. Hi. Ortega. I. Sandoval. I. Sawyer, I. Torres. I. Black I. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, please close the voting and announce the results. 12 Eyes. 12 Eyes Council Bill 612 has passed. We are moving back to Bill 0546. Councilmember Clark, will you please make a motion to reopen the public hearing for council bill? 20-0546.