A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 555 East 8th Avenue in Capitol Hill. Approves a map amendment to rezone property from PUD 34 to G-MU-3, UO-3 (planned development to general multi-unit), located at 555 East 8th Avenue in Council District 10. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 12-21-21.
I. Madam Secretary, closed the voting and announced the results. Two of us. 12 Eyes. Council Bill 21 Dash 1526 has passed. Thank you to the member of the public who joined us on that one. And we're going to move to our third and final hearing. Councilmember Sandoval, will you please put Council Bill 21, Dash 1536 on the floor for final passage? I move that council bill 21 1536 be placed upon final consideration and do pass. Ticket and queue has been moved and we've got the second there as well. The required public hearing for Council Bill 21 1536 is open. May we please have the staff report? And I see we've got Brandon Schaefer joining us. Certainly. Thank you, Madam President. And good evening, members of the Council. I'm here to present the rezoning component for five, five, five East Eighth Avenue, requesting to resume from PVD 34 to GMU 303. Again, this request is in District ten in Capitol Hill at the northwest corner of East Eighth Avenue and North Pearl Street. The site is just under 12,000 square feet in land area and proposing three zone to GMI 303, which would allow for residential uses as well as some limited commercial uses if landmarked as a historic structure, which it just was. These uses include office, not including dental or medical clinic, art studio and bed and breakfast lodging. Detailed the existing zoning in the next slide. But you can see here and largely this part of the neighborhood is generally zoned gmu of some variety, some height, at least five stories, 12 stories, three stories, most of which include the historic structure use overlay. The current zoning was approved in 1980 and was intended for development a low rise office kind of cluster. You can see the subject property outlined in red on the top left. That dirt is personal to this was to be renovated and converted to office, which it was the maximum height for all three of these structures or anticipated structures was to be 55 feet. And most of the requirements were largely focused on the future development of personal three, which is to the Southeast and is still currently used as a parking lot. As this part of the PD would be taken out of this part of the this party would be taken out of the former Chapter nine code. And in the new code, staff did analysis and determine that there would be no adverse impact on the remaining properties. This is also within that she's been Park Botanic Gardens view plan which at this part would allow for maximum height of 130 to 134 feet. However, the requested zoning has a maximum height at much lower at 40 feet. I'm Karen noted a number of adjacent landmarks and historic districts which you can see here. And existing land use as currently office as anticipated by the current beauty and surrounding land users include single unit, residential, multi-unit, residential, additional office and some parking users. Here you can see the subject site on the bottom left and the remaining property to be left in the pad on the bottom right. Recent sent information notice of this application and mid lease September and moved to planning board in mid December where this was moved forward unanimously and to today. We have received two letters of support from the nearby RINO's as well as a letter of support from the property owner that's remaining empty. Three four. Moving to the review criteria, we have three plans to look at. This request is consistent with a number of strategies organized by vision element that include creating a greater mix of housing options, ensuring neighborhoods offer a mixture of housing types and services, and promoting infill development where infrastructure and services are already in place. The request is also consistent with the general urban neighborhood context map and Blueprint Denver and with the High Residential Future Place, which talks about predominantly multi-unit residential uses with some compatible commercial uses and buildings generally being the tallest of all residential places in the general urban neighborhood. Context. Additionally, this request is consistent with the future street types in this area, with East Eighth Avenue mapped as a residential arterial. And this fits into all other areas of the city growth area strategy where we expect 10% of jobs and 20% of housing by 2040 . And this also is consistent with a number of other strategies and Blueprint Denver that speak to preservation of structures, rezoning properties out of the former zoning code and limiting the site, limiting the use of custom zoning. This is also in the East Central Area plan. These strategies also speak to preservation of historic structures and facilitating adaptive reuse of those structures. And the East Central Area Plan maps. You can see again mapped to future neighborhood context as general urban and a high residential future place. However, the neighborhood plan does give us a little bit more guidance on height with the subject. Property in this plan mapped is up to three stories. Steph also finds the request to be consistent with the next two criteria, resulting in lead informing of regulations and furthering the public health, safety and welfare through facilitating residential use of the property and allowing those limited commercial uses. I spoke to earlier staff friends to justifying circumstances for this rezoning. The first being changed or changed conditions. I. Capitol Hill has seen a lot of reinvestment and redevelopment since the property was last resolved in 1980, and alongside that, the property retained the former Chapter 39 zoning after the city adopted the Denver Zoning Code in 2010. Lastly, this request is consistent with the general urban neighborhood context, the residential zoned district purpose and intent statements. Therefore, CPD recommends approval based on finding all review criteria at the Met. Thank you. Thank you, Brandon, for the staff report. And this evening counsel has not received any written testimony on Council Bill 21 1536. And we have four individuals signed up to speak this evening and I have the first speaker as Brandon Shaver. And so I'm imagining that's a mistake or I wanted to give you the opportunity. Brandon, if you did sign up for public comment. I think I said my, my, my piece, but happy to answer any questions. Thank you. All right. Very good. Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Bruce O'Donnell. Hello again. Members of Council Bruce O'Donnell, 386 Emmerson Street in Denver, District ten. And as I said earlier, I've been working with the owner, Mr. Christensen, for a couple of years now on this rezoning. And when we started out, we met with the community and immediate neighbors and RINO's and also with CPD, and we got very clear signals that the only path forward or an important component of a path forward on a rezoning was that the building be protected. It was obviously not designated in any way. And so Karen Christensen embarked on that effort. And thank you for earlier this evening, approving the landmark designation as a companion piece to the rezoning. It's very important to the neighbors of the community. And we also have two letters of support from the Rose Capitol Hill, United Neighbors and also Neighbors for greater Capitol Hill are both in support of the rezoning, largely in part because of the landmark designation. This property has been zoned in a real goofy, old 1980s PD that was very restrictive and bound this property to unrelated properties on the east side of eighth Avenue and it only allowed office uses where in fact this is a house and so getting it resounded. The G three, as Brandon explained, is consistent with every plan we have. We in addition to the two and all letters of support, the third letter of support is from the Denver Employees Retirement Plan, or derp, which is the direct neighbor across eighth Avenue and remains in the old pub. They are unaffected. And with all that I ask that City Council please vote to approve the rezoning of five five, five. The State Avenue this evening is a companion legislation to the landmark designation, and I'm available to answer questions. Should you have any? Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Karen Christianson. And you'll have to unmute yourself. There you go. Oh, it looks like you are muted again. Oh, there you go. We can hear you. Go ahead. Okay. I'm not getting video, though. That's all right. My name is Karen Christianson. I'm the owner of five, five, five East Eighth Avenue. I currently live in the mountains, but I would like to make this place my primary residence because it's getting harder and harder at my age to live in the mountains. It is a lovely old home and I want to live here. So I request the council vote to approve build 20 1-1536. Rezoning 555 you state avenue to g dash m. You dash three with a u. Oh. Dash three overlay. Thank you for your time. Thank you. And our next speaker is Jesse Paris. And we'll have our producers go ahead and move Jesse over into the queue. There we go. Go ahead, please. Jesse. But. Yes. My name is just the opposite for Black Star maximum for self defense, positive action for Social Change as well as the East Denver Residents Council, the Unity Party of Colorado and frontline black males. And I'll be the next mayor of Denver in 2023. I'm in favor of this rezoning, just like I was in favor of the landmark preservation of five, five, five East Eighth Avenue. So I am still in support of the rezoning as well. Like I stated earlier, it's going to be a multi-family dwelling though it says awesome as opposed to an affordable housing crisis and the occupant wants to move back into the Pueblo. And we saw from their consistency with adopted plans, uniformity in supply relations for this public health, safety and welfare means justifying circumstances, inconsistency with neighborhood context zone this intent. So it meets all five of the criteria for a rezoning and I'm in favor of it. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes our speakers this evening. Questions from members of Council on Council Bill 21, Dash 1536. Give it a moment for any questions. All right. The public hearing is closed. Comments by members of Council on Council Bill 21, Dash 1536. Councilman Hines. Council President, I. I want to urge support from my colleagues for this as well. I want to, um, I want to thank Ms.. Christiansen for for her hard work. I want to thank her also for reaching out. Two years ago, I we had we had these conversations right at the very beginning of the pandemic. Mr. O'Donnell even reached out before the pandemic started. But but unfortunately, by the time we were able to get our our meeting underway, that pandemic had started. So I hope some day that I get to meet Mr. Christiansen in person in three dimensions. But this is just such a great story. And I want to thank my colleagues for for designating this as a historic landmark, because as as Mr. Shaver mentioned, this is a growing, vibrant, new you know, there are a lot of historic buildings, but but there are a lot of them are going away in favor of some of the new development. So we can have development in our city while remembering where we came from. And this is just such an amazing example of where Denver came from. So I urge a yes vote and certainly I will be voting yes. Thank you. Council President. Thank you, Councilmember Hines, and happy to support this this evening. It's all of the rezoning criteria. And Madam Secretary, roll call on Council Bill 21 desk 1536, please. Ain't I? Cashmere. I can eat. I. Ortega. I. Sandoval. I swear. I. Torres. I am black. I see tobacco. I collect. I. Herndon. I. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, please close the voting and announce results.