AS AMENDED a bill for an ordinance providing for a moratorium prohibiting the approval of site development plans and the amendment of approved site development plans for construction of buildings using the Garden Court building form in the Denver Zoning Code for a period of approximately twelve months. Approves a moratorium prohibiting the approval of site development plans and the amendment of approved site development plans for construction of buildings using the Garden Court building form in the Denver Zoning Code for a period of approximately twelve months. This bill was approved for filing by Councilmember New. Amended 7-25-16 to allow current projects already in the pipeline to move forward as long as the projects comply with the added conditions.
It has been moved in second at the public hearing for 541 is open. May we have the overview accounts? A new share. Thank you, Mr. President. If you could please be silent while you are exiting. Thank you. Okay. This also is a second moratorium about an unintended consequences, about a garden caught building for form. And it's misuse right now. So let's look at why do we need this moratorium, just like we talked about the small court. And I believe I've always say this, you know, because the use of this form. But here's a garden court building form. A garden court building for them with no garden and no court. Just like a joke. And so I keep thinking that there's something wrong here. And I think we all recognize that. That we need to do something about this in the zoning code. There's a lot of language in there is very confusion, confusing. We see specific intent, but doesn't allow garden code form, but then we do allow it. So we've got to straighten out the language. It really conflicts with neighborhood character. You know, we're talking about increasing density and I think we all know density is coming. But but when you look at the zoning code, again, it says there's no maximum of the number of units on a parcel. I think we may be going a little too far. I think we need to have a little discussion about what what density means and and be able to make sure it doesn't affect existing neighborhood character and or quality of life. And I was glad to see that the community planning development, they recognized the unintended consequences of this and we need to review this. I don't think they intended to do this. The Zone didn't. It's one of those things. Too small. Too small. I know. We need to really take a time out and reevaluate. Okay. Go back to the next picture. This shows. You know, like the next back to the Garden Court. The other way. There. Go. One more. Here we go. This is the picture of this in the zoning code. You know, you think, well, this is you know, it's an old town, but looks like five units. But the main thing it shows it shows a central area that's a garden court. And these can be very beautiful kind of arrangements. You've got instances of of units on to the guard court and some on the street, but you don't have a garage. But the main thing is you have a very defined garden court area that can have wonderful, beautiful landscaping and be a very beautiful, designed building for challenges we see with it in the existing zoning code. He says, you know, a minimum width of the garden court is 15 feet. It's like a large sidewalk. And so we'll show you some pictures in a minute of how it's been implemented. It was really just a lack of sufficient space for any kind of landscaping. It has very insufficient solar access and and permeable surfaces. And also, he talks about having three sides of a building facade and just sort of like that diagram, we had three different buildings around a garden court. We don't see that being implemented as well. Also in some districts where the row house is is the zoning district is being used just as part of the garden court. We see there's a vertical overlap which is prohibited in the in the zoning code. You can't put a row house above a row house, there's no stacking allowed. And so it's not like some other building type, but and so you can't increase density but by doing stacking. And again, it's all about density affecting design. Okay. Here's here's an example. In D.C. District nine, Councilman Brooks District shows a picture of a nice beach house intended as an older area. We see. But you see on the picture on the right, you see the garden caught in the middle and the units all around on three sides. Now, here's one. Here's an example. It was being implemented. You can see where is the garden court? Where is the where is that area? Where are the three sides? All you see is is is apartments coming off of of a concrete sidewalk. Nothing really attractive. No garden, no court. Here's another example of this was an incongruous park in my district as another example of the yield of a garden court project you see around a beautiful garden. Court is a nice oval, beautiful design and you know, not very high density, but you can easily see where it could be more dense. But the main thing, the design of the garden court is really beautiful and attractive and a real asset to that community. In the next one. Next one. Here's one in my district. When I first saw it, I thought it was a prison. I looked at it and I said, Well, you know, the Department of Corrections is moving in. And so but this is a garden court for them. This is a 15 foot sidewalk down. It's not even 54 sidewalks, 15 feet from building the building and the sidewalk there. No, no landscaping. You see a paper and you can see the interest. On the third side is really an entrance to the parking garage below. So we're just not implementing as it was intended. So the real confusion in the zoning code, we just need to be real clear about what the what the language should be. We need to make sure that the language matches what we want to implement and encourage better development, better design. We know we'll have some greater density, but we've got to make sure that our language matches what what we want to be implemented. Neighborhood character. You know, the mayor's talked in the city. This dress talked about beautiful neighborhoods. We have we do. We have gorgeous neighbors. I know I have one of those in District ten and we want to make sure they stay beautiful. And so we need to match character with density. Density is coming, but there has to be a balance. And balance is a key word. We've got to have smart development, recognizing the unique areas and the building forms we've got. And, and we really want a very attractive quality of life area in a courtyard. If we're going to have a car garden court building for let's do it right. Let's make it beautiful and attractive like it can be. Let's do surfaces that attract good landscaping unless we have real clarity in the zoning code. Shouldn't be any confusion when you read the zoning code is should tell you what to do. You should be real clear about what it's doing. And so residents will have great predictability of what's going to happen in their neighborhoods. And also most important and really it needs to have a still a real greater community's sense of community with residents and developers. This garden court should be a real asset to the community. Right now. We've got we get we restarted the moratorium a couple of weeks ago. We had six applications in process in the first reading. Right now, three of them didn't proceed. You know, one of them was on Colorado Boulevard and our city council did not approve the zoning for it. It was going to be a garden court and it was going to be like a, you know, the density. There was going to be twice as twice as much as what was allowed. And so our city council wisely rejected that. And two other applications on, say, Paul and Lawrence to decide they decided not to move forward. So right now, we just have we have three applications using the garden court to a marine concept review, which means the design review, and then one is in final review. Just to show you some pictures. These are the ones that were withdrawn, just three different areas. Let's go to the ones that are in the. And then was Dover proposing an exemption? These are going through concert reviews or I remember tonight we were talking about allowing anything is accepted into its concept review to be to be moved forward. And so that's what these three are. Boulevard One is a special good example where it has a 50 to 60 foot garden chord. It's very beautiful, all rowhouses houses. So that's a very good example. So I'm looking forward to this moratorium. We have this discussion. So the big areas of our mortuary we're talking about with, you know, Castle Espinosa that are sponsoring this, and Councilman Espinosa, being an architect is really being so critical to helping develop some of this. And and the with his suggestion is the height of the building the tallest proposed building is the width of the garden quarry could be, you know, 30 to 35 feet stacking in the building in the zoning code. No. If it's a real house form, no stack is allowed the bounding buildings. We need to really make sure if we gonna have three sided garden core designs. Let's make sure there are three sides in there, have buildings in dwelling units, and unless truly create something that should be a garden court buildings around dwelling units around a garden port. So again, we have three applications to be exempt and denied just because they are accepted into the concept review. And this is a 12 month moratorium, we want to make sure that this is get done. We want to bring a lot of participation. All residents, architects and our city council. Just like with this small lot, we want a lot of good cross-section of people to talk about this. And and we're we're lucky that Kyle Dalton and his team are going to lead this, and they're excited about tackling this evaluation. So we're looking forward to hopefully gaining support for this moratorium tonight. Thank you, Councilman. Newt, I understand you are making an amendment tonight. And so I want you to read that amendment into the record so that the folks who are commenting tonight can comment on the the amended bill, the amendment that you're about to make. Okay. And proceed. Okay. Most of the amendments tonight are just technical corrections. My speed is. And so the most important section is the section that allows those applications that are scheduled for concept review to be exempt from moratorium. So let me read the the changes to the the bill. I'd like to move to amend Council Bill 541 as amended on July 25th as follows. Number one on page two, lines 17. Strike the word courtyard and replace it with garden court. On page two, line 18, strike the word courtyard and replace it with garden court. Oh, number three, page two, line 18, insert the word tallest before the word proposed. On page two, lines 18 and 19, strike the words buildings abutting the garden court. Oh, he said. Yeah, just. I'm sorry. Just the overview. It's fine. Yeah. Well, gave you a preview. Anyway, they're just general changes, and that's what they mean. It's all about the main thing is this the section that allows the those three applications to be exempt. Thank you. All right. We have 19 speakers tonight. And I'm going to call the first five speakers up to this first bench. So Robbie Hoban, George Mayo, Nathan Adams, Margie Valdez and Angela Steiner. Ravi. You'll be first. If you could make your way up, that'd be great. Okay. Go ahead. Oh, well, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen of the Denver City Denver City Council, for this opportunity to speak to you about garden variety. If you can, introduce yourself to you. Sorry. My name is Robbie Hoban. And I live at 24th and Glenarm and one of the cute six that were built in 1885. And I'm kind of an unintentional resident of that area. I used to live at 14th and high in a high rise and loved it. But when I broke my collarbone, I moved in with my then boyfriend, now husband, and thought, I never want to live here, but I ended up staying and I love it. We're so close to the library, the light rail. We walked for a not so safe way. I absolutely love living there. And some friends and I had been talking about a year and a half ago as we were starting to get concerned about the container buildings that were going in that didn't fit with the spirit of Curtis Park being over 100 years old. I've loved our neighborhood mostly, and I think mostly the thing that concerns me is it doesn't feel like so much of a residential neighborhood in some areas. We're in kind of an odd corner that got sliced by the Walton corridor, which we're happy to see go in. There are a few garden court forms in our area that feel like a hug, just like you described. I didn't realize how much work you all had already done with this. So, you know, the garden court feels like this, but some of the ones that are going in now feel more like this, or maybe if I can do this this way or maybe this way or this way. So as you're walking along, Maggie and I call it we love our walkable and Taco Bell neighborhood, we feel. But with these kind of apartments, we can't even get the delivery of the Curtis Park newsletter into some of these new places, much less knock on the door and ask, Have you seen my cat, Dinah? Which is like Shannon, who lived across the street or my cat recently, who escaped. So we really do in Curtis Park in Five Points Need Eyes on the street, which make for a more safe neighborhood. If you've been to our neighborhood at 24th and Glenarm, there's all kinds of folks who live in houses and not in houses. And many times we look out and see folks who need our help. And if you can't see the street. Oh, you don't want to see the street, then you can't see people who need help. And that's what I love so much about our neighborhood, is that we can look out for each other right now, or at least we have been able to. So I know that people can choose to live in high rise apartments. I chose to live in a high rise apartment and there's lots of places where you can do that all along. Welton and all over Denver. Really, honestly. But I'm here to speak to you, to ask you for the time to reconsider what this actually looks like, what we intended in 2011 with the neighborhood plan. I figured it fits northeast or Northwest Denver plan. But this spirit that we intended with, Gordon, Kurt, and what's actually being kind of corrupted, the negative effects that have on our streets. So please consider all of us who love living in a walkable, talk, able neighborhood, feel kind of neighborhood in the spirit that our neighborhood plan called for. And we are here to speak in favor of that moratorium. Thank you so. Much. Thank you. All right. Nathan Adams. Good evening, council members and President Brooks. My name is Nathan Adams from 2899 North Sphere Boulevard. I've been an active real estate broker and developer for the past 12 years. I've built several hundred homes, renovated hundreds of homes, and I've done all of this work by borrowing money. I work with investors, work with banks, and I say this as it's relevant. Developers are not an unlimited supply of money. I congratulate you on amending the bill so that the moratorium will include the people that are already in planning. It's pretty catastrophic to be in planning to own your land, have hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line, and to excuse me to simply not be able to go forward or to have the rules completely changed on you. That would be extremely difficult. I don't have a project that's at stake, so I'm speaking on behalf of those that. That's project. That's project maybe at issue. Also speaking towards the precedent that's set, I think it's a very dangerous precedent to change the rules and not allow the people that are already in planning to continue forward. I would even go so far as to encourage a 90 day period of time where those that have already purchased their land have the ability to still submit plans, still be able to come in under the existing rules. That the change that's being made via an immediate moratorium sets a very dangerous precedent anti-business, anti-growth message. I ask that you please consider my suggestion for a delayed, effective date. As a small business owner that knows firsthand how devastating it can be to making changes to development projects with little or no notice. It is imperative that the City Council be considerate of small business owners and developers when considering changes to government regulation like the one proposed tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Margie Valdez. Good evening, counsel, again. My name is Margie Valdez. I live at 2000 East 12th Avenue, Denver, and the inner neighborhood cooperation passed a motion directly from the floor supporting the moratorium. Unfortunately, the amendment language was not presented at that time, but in concept we do support the moratorium. I do think it's important for people's mental health to be able to have enough space to. Rehabilitate themselves at the end of the day, know their neighbors, know what's going on around them. It it I and C's mission is not to destroy developers by any means. We want to work with developers. We want to work with neighborhoods. That's what we're all about, is to make Denver the best city in the United States of America. And we appreciate everything that you're doing tonight. I think pause buttons are good. Sometimes you go too fast and you need to back up a little bit and think that we really intend to do that. So I support your efforts. Appreciate all you're doing. Thank you very much. Thank you. Angela Steiner. Good evening. My name is Angela Steiner. I live in Castle Rock while I work in Denver five and six days a week. I've also been a real estate broker for 16 years. Over the last several years, I've represented many developers and I can confirm that each and every one of these developers have been small business owners rather than faceless large corporations. Those developers livelihoods often depend on the success of every project, as they are not huge companies that can take losses or simply lower profits beyond a certain point. They have families and employees that depend on them. I do applaud the city council tonight to allow the projects that are already in the system exempt from the moratorium. I do feel that that is right, rather than to adopt a blanket moratorium that would be effective immediately and devastate some of these families and developers. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Okay. Okay. Robert Vogel. I'm going to call up I'm going to call up five others. I just we had a little malfunction here. Robert Vogel, Byron Beckman, John Albers and Cindy Piggott. Rob Pegg You might as well come to Rob Pegg. Come on. Come on to. All right, Robert Vogel, you're up first. Thank you, Mr. President. City Council Members. My name is Robert Vogel. I live at four, four. Six Cook Street in Cherry Creek North. I am president of the Cherry Creek North Neighborhood Association. And for starters, I want to. Thank our Councilperson Councilman New. And Councilman Espinosa for introducing this bill. Let me give you a little history. About two months ago, we learned that the nursery on Garfield Street was destined to become a 30 unit apartment house. And. Our thoughts. At that time, we called up our city council person and spoke with a very experienced aide. Who said. They can't do that. Because the city code is so ambiguous that it is not included in the intent of Rowe House buildings. We then called up city planning and they said, Oh yes, we know about that. And we've given temporary approval. And I said, Can you send us the form? And the form was as councilman who said, not a garden cart form. It had a 15 foot. Wide concrete pathway. Therefore no garden, no court. Within a couple of weeks, a speaker who will speak in a few minutes, Andy Piggott, collected 500. Names on a petition against the development in this form. And because of this, we started a dialog with the. Arnold family, and I want to thank them for their willingness to consider. Changes. In the form. Of their. Development, to make it compatible. With the neighborhood. And to enhance the neighborhood. We believe that the moratorium should go in place so that people don't have to call up their councilman to find out whether something is approved or not approved. The law should be clear. On this case. We believe. That 15 foot wide car doors are not. Gardens and cars. This is. Not the intended. Intention of the form. Through our dialogs. We have done away. With the stacking. That is not part of the row house form and we have decreased the density. And we have, I. Believe, a much more. Attractive form which includes gardens and courts. The intent is now made. We have an. Executed contract with the family developing developing this. We strongly support the moratorium. As you have heard, as a. Time out to. Reexamine. What is become a contrivance. Within the city of Denver. We want the moratorium is time to look. At compatibility with. Your. Surrounding circumstance. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Brooks. Yeah. Bye. Let's see. Byron Beckman. As Byron Beckman. Okay. John Albers. Thank you, Mr. President. My name is John Albers. I live at 45 Steel Street. I'm on the board of directors of the Cherry Creek North Neighborhood Association, and I serve that organization as the chair of its zoning committee. As has been said, we found ourselves in a situation where we had one project under construction in Cherry Creek North and another that was moving its way through the developer to the approval process under the garden form being considered and approved under the garden court form of construction. It was a surprise to us when we dug into the code to find that there was a great deal of ambiguity and in fact some conflict in the code as to whether or not the Garden Court was in fact allowed in a g r h 13 zone, which is the primary residential zoning for Cherry Creek North. And if it was allowed, there was not clarity in terms of what exactly constituted the appropriate design and construction of the garden court form. And as counsel menu has pointed out, neither of these projects had either a court nor garden. So from our perspective, while we were very happy to work with the developer on the project at 201 Garfield and, and that is excluded from this. While we were very happy to work with them going forward, we really need clarity. The residents of Cherry Creek North need to understand whether or not a garden court form is an approved form for the RH 13 zoning. And if it is under what what exact design forms, as Councilman News showed with the picture from the zoning code, what's in the zoning code relative to a diagram is much different than what was being approved. So we heartily and heartily and support the moratorium. We appreciate Councilman Espinosa and councilman's new support for this. We urge the City Council to support the moratorium and give us clarity or give the planning department time to get some clarity around these issues so that in the future we will know what's permitted and what's expected in this zoning area. Thank you very much. Thank you, Cindy Pickett. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I appreciate it. My name is Cindy Pickett. I live at 214 Garfield directly across the street from the proposed development that was under question. Webster defines specific as clearly in exactly presented or stated, precise or exact, free from ambiguity. We purchased our home four years ago. We inquired about the possible development on Garfield, as did our neighbors, with their investments in the surrounding area. We did the due diligence. The realtors and all potential homeowners check the zoning code. It stated The regulations provide certainty to property owners, developers and neighborhoods about the limits for what is allowed in a residentially zoned area. The specific intent of grh3 states, a multi-unit district allowing urban house, duplex and row rowhouse building forms not taller than three stories specific, precise and exact. In early June, we were blindsided by a Newbury employee telling us that this development would be three, three story apartment buildings and we should put the sign up now. We immediately contacted CPD. Chris Glacier's response was, As for the intent, the description is not meant as an exhaustive list of anything that can be achieved in his own district, but rather a brief summary of the. Development potential. Clearly, specific content should have been titled Possible Intent because it was most definitely not specific and the regulations did not provide certainty. Every other zone state specifically where garden courts are allowed in the intent definition not je rh three two words admitted. We still await an explanation. While we appreciate Councilman News and Espinosa's superior efforts in addressing this issue, we face more than double the amount of units that should have been allowed on this property and the potential of 50 vehicles in the span of less than one block. And quoting the CPD text amendment far greater density than intended by the adaptive plans and zoned district for the area. I'm sorry. I really have a dry mouth. This form is morphed into something unrecognizable. It is dwarfing existing homes, taking the light and leaving behind scars that affect the integrity and fabric of neighborhoods across the city, not just in Cherry Creek. It leaves no certainty to individuals that have invested and now must question what could happen next to them, in front of them, behind them, or even worse, on all sides, because that is the possibility. CPD knew this was an issue. The egregious development proposed on Garfield was possibly the straw that broke the camel's back and brought it to the forefront. Visualized two thirds of one residential block with three three story apartment buildings, three exterior doors and 215 foot cement gangways. Shame on them for allowing it to go this far. It should have been stopped. They knew it was wrong. Not clearly defined in the attempt and beyond any resemblance to a garden court. We encourage you to support the moratorium, gives CPD time to clarify the issue so it's not continue to affect neighborhoods throughout the city. Many have already paid the price into developers. That say this is what. The public wants. I challenge you to take a look at these neighborhoods, respect them the existing fabric, and create something that contributes. Your time is up. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. Thank you. Try to hold your applause as we get through all these. Speaker Wrap it. Thank you. I'll try and follow up on what my wife had to say. My name is Rob Piggott. I also live at 214 Garfield, and I appreciate what Councilman Nu and Councilman Espino Espinosa have brought forward in regard to the moratorium. I do have to say, though, that I feel that as a Cherry Creek resident that we we are a victim of a hit and run by city planning. Going back to early June of this year, city planning rebuffed our zoning inquiries regarding grades three. In response to the Newberry apartment and city planning, the MISS dismissed our argument that the current zoning of Grace three was under specific and ten calls for multi-unit district, allowing for urban house duplex and row house building forms. Nowhere in grace three specific intent does it call for a garden court or apartment forms after repeated inquiries. City planning did come around in late June, and foremost off the record, of course, that there is confusion and ambiguity in the George three definition that was followed up. Much to our dismay and surprise was see city planning advocating a 14 to 16 month moratorium at a city council planning meeting in early August. It is ironic that city planning suddenly got religion in regard to specific intent definition for Grace three, but only after allowing the Newbury Apartments to get in the so-called zoning pipeline. Is worth noting that some five families have moved the 200 Garfield block in the past four and a half years with Newbury Nursery and Retail, the elephant on the block. It was natural for us in the others to inquire about zoning relative to new areas. These families and individuals to the person were referred to their realtor, referred by their realtor and the seller sellers realtor to series three specific intent, which allows for urban house duplex and row house building forms. So my question to city planning why was gardening caught in apartment form, admitted in specific intent? She or age three and I would welcome their comment and I would also ask does city planning know the meaning of specific intent? With that said, I support the moratorium. But is present support. The moratorium is presented. Although I feel city planning has treated many of us adjacent to the Newbury Apartments very unfairly. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I'm going to call up the next five speakers and Cox, Peter Wall, Paula Arnold, Frank Locke and Toure and John Frey's. And Cox, you are first. Thank you for this opportunity. I'm an Cox. And I do support the moratorium because of the agreement worked out between S.C. Nay and the Newbury's. But I do so with my arm twisted behind my back and resigned to the fact that we can do no better. This moratorium emerged as a short term solution to an absurd and unintended interpretation of the garden court building form. Something is seriously wrong when the specific intent of the code can be so easily circumvented by developers. Neighbors had no real notice that 30 apartments could be built there, where zoning led us to believe that there would be 10 to 12 row homes. And no meaningful recourse. Density is not the problem. The problem is that the code does not address the consequences of density. Number one among them is parking. As we've just finished hearing and in great detail, parking is grossly inadequate in the five Denver neighborhoods affected by the Garden Court problem. The Newbury Project will have 26 apartments, 36 parking spaces and just one parking space per unit. The ten extra spaces could be visitor parking. Instead, those spaces we rented to the highest bidders, the tenants and their guests will park bumper to bumper on Garfield Street. Second, developers should have setbacks that conform to the character of the neighborhood. The Newbury slipped through a loophole that requires only a 20 foot setback from the street and a ridiculous five foot setback along Second Avenue. Eight other homes on their side of Garfield have forefoot setbacks. The code calls for setback, conformity. If there are three lots that have a bigger setback. In this case, there are eight homes on two lots. So that doesn't apply. Third, the code nominally requires development in harmony with the character of the existing neighborhood. Textual amendments to the code will, I hope, close the loopholes that allowed this awful garden court slot. Home Development. Development should also reflect harmony with other city plans. Here, Garfield is designated as a bikeway. It is dangerous to bike on a street that has bumper to bumper parking and a travel lane too narrow for two cars to pass at the same time. In closing, please make future developers provide adequate resident and visitor parking. Conform to the by setbacks on the block. Build in harmony with what already exists in the neighborhood and protect city bikeways. And I also ask that developers exempted from the moratorium be held accountable for adhering to the letter and spirit of the agreements that exempted. Them this time as a thank you. You all. Good evening, council members. Peter Wall, 1660 Lincoln Street here on behalf of the Newberry family and just wanted to make myself available for questions. Thank you. Paula Arnaud. I'm Paul Arnold, and I live at 201 Monroe. And I've lived in Cherry Creek my entire life. I was born there. I was raised there. I work there and I'll die there, I'm sure. Same spot I When we started into this, we were doing what was allowed by this zoning. And I want to first of all, I want to thank all the council members for listening and meeting with us. And also I want to thank Councilman who for working with us and also the Cherry Creek Neighborhood Association to come to an approved project that better incorporates what the neighborhood would would like. And I'm here if there's any further questions. Thank you. Thank you, Frank. I can talk. Good evening. My name is Frank Victoria. I live a 2145 East 16th Avenue and I am I was I against the moratorium. But I mean I think that the what you've proposed councilman to you know makes a whole lot of sense. And and my only concern here is that I feel like and maybe this is just because of tonight's agenda, it seems like moratorium is the go to and I guess I'm a little bit concerned about a continual, you know, slowdown of things when I feel like the the items that you put on up there were completely reasonable . And so I, I feel like there is somewhat of a simple solution of that, the ratio that there's a ratio of height to the width of the courtyard. And you know, I know that it's not that simple, but I do have to wonder about, you know, if moratorium is is the right the right process, you know, for this, you know, particular issue, you know, thanks. And I'll take my answer off the air. Thank you. John Frase. Yes. Good evening and thank you, Councilman Nu, and thank you to the Council for listening to us. I've been a 15 year resident of Cherry Creek. I have 15 other family members who live in Denver. So we're all very concerned about preserving the quality of neighborhoods. And I would just reiterate what my predecessors before me have have said about being in favor of this moratorium. I mean, it doesn't take a lot of common sense to look at the pictures that the councilman knew I was looking at and seeing a before and after view of something. And, you know, to think that it could have evolved, there must be a pretty big loophole for that to have happened. So I would appreciate any anything that can be done in this moratorium. I think it's very, very, very much needed. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to call up the last four speakers. Peter Benson, Justin. Archuleta, Julian. Joanne But I don't ever. Linda Herman How could they do that? Daniel puts electrodes. Peter. You're first. Then when I assume anything. Peter Benson with Coble and Company. I reside in Castle Pines and work in the city of Denver. I manage urban homes. We focus on walkable neighborhoods in Denver doing urban infill sites. I do want to state that I think the garden court form is an important form. I agree there's loopholes to it and there's challenges there. And I agree the states should be looking at that, but it's an important form. We've been working on a project in one of the last pieces in Lowry on First Avenue, inside a court that is an awkwardly shaped property. We struggle with the site plan, and we ended up with what I think is a great site plan. The amendment calls for it to be exempt tonight. And I've heard from staff and the sponsors of the bill that what they're looking for are opening on the street for the garden quarters over 50 feet at the entrance. It gets wider beyond that. It's actual gardens and courts. So there's there's no loopholes here. But I do want to stress that we've worked on it for over a year, spent a lot of money on it. And I would encourage you to support the amendment if you do the moratorium, because even if you approve tonight, we still think we're exempt from the language I have in the draft. Staff has told us that it would still take some time for them to review the moratorium, the language for exemptions and to for us to resubmit RSVP for the next round before we would know. So I appreciate the amendment proposed and I hope that gets approved as part of the moratorium. And I have a question you can certainly answer later before we're done tonight, but I didn't quite catch all the changes for the amendment and the draft I have in section one, on page two, around lines 19 and 20 and 21 , it exempts things where the courtyard is wider than the tallest buildings. So my question is, even beyond this tonight, as someone comes in in three or six months during the moratorium, can they submit, if they meet that requirement, that language still be in there? Well, I also have a request not to get into the weeds, but that's where we spend a lot of our time. And your staff spends a lot of their time, by necessity, in section two on lines 24 and 25. It talks about the drawings have to be side by side and not stacked and says no part of any dwelling shall be vertically above the other ones. And I'd like some clarification so that we can have appurtenances like eaves and gutters from other units overhanging others, because we have some units that are one and two and three story next to each other. So I think it'd be helpful for staff to have the guidance that we can have. Appurtenances overlapping them but not livable space. You know, all in all, I do want to reiterate that I think it's an important forum going forward. I agree it should be looked at in more detail. I think the opportunity was offered before that and the task force to people like us to be a part of the task force. We'd like to be a part of that. We think there's some good ideas we would have because it's always tough. And I don't envy staff trying to write the new language because it's tough to create great design with formulas and numbers. And there has to be some quantitative things that are for quality of space performance materials. Your time is up. Thanks for your time. I appreciate it. Justin Archuleta. Good evening. My name is Justin Archer Letta. I'm a homeowner. Homeowner at 1599 West Berkeley Place in District one. And I care greatly about how our city is governed. I'm here today in support of the moratorium as amended that would exempt applications that have already been submitted. I'd like to kind of reiterate what Council Member Brook said about development companies having the potential to have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into planning. But I would also like to echo the sentiment that. Development companies, some that are small businesses could have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars if not seven figures on land and be a week, two weeks, a month away from submission into the city. So this does leave. Many small businesses potentially hanging. And it's not necessarily just about this proposal, this moratorium. You are setting a precedent that this can be done. So I would echo councilperson ken each and that caution is required. There is a balance. I understand that intent and outcome aren't always the same. I Denver zoning code is long. It's complex. As someone who has worked with architects and developers, a lot of times it is manipulating the code to see what works. It's back and forth with community planning and development. But the fact of the matter is that there have been other Garden Corps apartment forms that have been approved, that have been built, that have set precedent for other developers. Councilperson Espinosa actually ran on a platform that he said what convinced him to run was one such development. But that was over a year ago. So developers have had a year. Looking to successful built projects. Having the implied approval from city councilor, from community planning and development. That those types of projects are okay. Now I understand that. I like like Councilperson Espinosa said, you don't leave the water running when you're trying to fix the pipe. But at the same time, you don't leave a broken pipe for a year and get mad at everybody else for taking advantage of the water. I'd also like to kind of echo councilperson ken each in that I think the rhetoric is somewhat fearful when we get into these discussions of development and density. I am someone that is moving into what is some people over term a slot home. I'm under contract to purchase. I'm extremely excited about it. My neighbors are excited. I volunteer in the neighborhood. I am a valuable member of the community. And just because my choices for the type of house that I would like to live in don't match what maybe previous generations. I mean, look at the generational gap and speakers here. There needs to be some openness, some understanding. Absolutely. I'll be doing my best to get other people from my generation and a chance to let your time's up. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Jahan Durrani. So John Barrios is. Yeah, we're working on it. Okay. So thank you all for your patience. I'm a lot less nervous this time around. So you've already heard my story. You know why this is important to me? I really want to advocate the importance of housing stock because I think contrary to some of the points that all of you express, I think one unit that gets added to the market, it doesn't matter if it's a family unit, if it's a single unit, it impacts the market as a whole. And I think we're really missing that bigger picture. So maybe you wouldn't like to live in a prison and maybe you wouldn't like to live in a 300 unit square home. But the developers don't invest things they won't sell. Those units are going to fill up and we're adding housing stock to the market by constructing those units. And so my concern is very similar to what Frank mentioned before, as now the moratorium is just becoming the way, right? So if I have a problem with something, I want a moratorium because I don't like something that looks like a prison. I want to make sure I have sufficient housing. And I think we're setting a really bad precedent because I think if we all think that in seven months, the other moratorium is going to go away and this one is just going to go away in 12 months, I don't think we're being realistic as to how this public advocacy process works. Right. It's the people who are most passionate, who have the loudest voices, who show up to the meetings. And so as a council, I think you have to be the voices for the bigger picture. And you have to think about housing stock. You have to think about the market and you have to think about all of these other things. That is really hard when you're an individual and you're kind of locked into your view. So just remember housing stock, it's really important. Don't forget, I absolutely understand that we need to make changes to the code, but you don't need a moratorium to do that, right? I mean, you can do that. You can make changes to the code, you can make adjustments. You don't have to stop development and an increase to housing stock to do that. So just something to consider. Thank you. It's a late night. Thank you guys for being here. Joann Barrios. Thank you. All right, Eva, Linda Herman. Good evening, everyone, and thank you so much for your time. It's been a long night. I do want to say something that was brought up tonight about how much money the developers are spending. We, the citizens, have also spend a lot of money and time. And I see everyone in our neighborhood which had beautiful trees. I see them all at Home Depot buying their flowers. We take great pride. So we have spent equally as much, probably much more so than all developers combined as individual people. So please keep that in mind. Before purchasing. In Cherry Creek North. I checked the zoning. Which states that we are zoned for single family dwellings, duplexes and row. Homes that the setback of any new development would have to meet the excess existing homes. But we are now facing an apartment complex claiming to be a garden court. With a deviation to the setback due to yet. Another. Loophole. We discovered all. These problems by accident and begin the process by contacting our city councilman and circulating a petition to bring awareness about this development. We acquired more than 500 signatures. What we. Didn't do. Was hire an attorney. Then, ten days before tonight's. Hearing, another Denver neighborhood advice is to. Hire a lobbyist and an attorney because the developer had both. Interesting. We had reached out to new that buried developers to no avail. But within hours. Of the developer. Hearing we had a lobbyist. They sent us a horrible plan 2026 stack units on 8/10 of an. Acre, doubling the. Housing on a block. By the way, we only had the. Lobbyist for a few hours because Councilman. You and Councilman Espinosa were helping us reach a compromise. We thank them for their work and because of their work. The stacking has been removed, but we are still stuck with setbacks that do not match the block. We are being forced to accept high density apartments. Why can't. The developer be forced to accept setbacks to. Match the block? That to me is a compromise. When both of us were a little bit unhappy, we understand that if the. Garfield. Apartments are not allowed to continue, in spite. Of all the problems recognized by the citizens. And CPD, then City Council will not pass the moratorium. In other words, the Garfield apartments are allowed. To live and we are the sacrificial lamb to save other Denver neighborhoods. But the developers are not budging. From 26 units on a 10th of an acre with insufficient parking and a non-conforming setback. So again, we are begging. You for relief. I have the dream that you city. Council will give. Us a Hollywood ending. That you will stand up tonight and at least give us the setbacks. That you will stand up and protect your citizens. That you will remember that on August 3rd you sat and. Heard CPD give a. Presentation stating that there is something wrong with the zoning code. Please stand up tonight and give us the setbacks for the integrity of the neighborhood. You have the power. Please give us that Hollywood ending. Thank you. Mr.. Ceremony. So you guys clapped and I couldn't. Ms.. Herman, can you please come back up here? You didn't state your name. I just want to make sure it's on the record. Thank you. I'm Evo. Linda Herman. I live at 215 Monroe Street. Nice Hollywood ending there. Okay. This concludes our speakers questions for members of council. Okay. I will start with my question. Oh, I can't see. Okay. Madam Secretary, I cannot see. Yeah. I can't see this because. Yeah. Councilwoman Black. Thank you, Mr. President. I had a couple of question, but I already. Forgot one of them. But, Kyle, this question is for you. So earlier we were looking at the small zone lot parking moratorium, which I know was a long process, as you stated. But can you tell us the difference between these two processes? I, I know this one is being rushed, and I know there were some concerns about that from CPD. So if you could just sort of explain the difference of how these two got to us tonight. Regarding the moratorium bill specifically, sir. So again, for the record, I'm Kyle Dalton with the Department of Community Planning and Development. Yeah, I mean, with the first one, the councilmembers approached us, I think about a month before the bill was filed, and we helped them draft the bill in concert with the city attorney's office. The other bill, we we weren't approached that far in advance. So we have as much time to, you know, help us include the language at least so we could better administer the bill. Now, since that time, the sponsor we we reviewed the bill after you published it on first reading and provided some technical comments which the sponsors have agreed to put forth in an amendment tonight that would address so that we at least we can administer the intent of the the ordinance. And a couple more questions. So it does say in the bill that. Garden plants can be processed as long as they comply with all applicable requirements with certain conditions. So it's not that all garden courts are going to be stop. It's just ones that have this very. Narrow courtyard and a few other. Things. Is that correct? That's correct. Anything that's got a concept review now moves forward regardless, and then future ones would have to meet the conditions in the moratorium. Okay. And then I know the answer to this, but. This does not address slot homes that have a driveway between the two. The buildings. Is that correct? That's correct. The garden court building form is just one building form in which folks build sideways facing row homes, slate homes, or whatever you call them. And it's not a very commonly used form. Okay. And and. In what zone district are those permitted in the slide homes? Oh, goodness. Dozens. I mean, they're they're allowed in more than five different building forms in dozens of zone districts across the city. Which is why CPD earlier this month initiated a text amendment that would look more holistically at the issue of slot homes and the design of sideways facing row homes. Because it is. It's bigger than this one building form where we're going to need to look at it. And all zone districts throughout the city where where these things are getting built, even the ones that that this moratorium has nothing to do with. Okay. But the garden court is just one aspect of that. That's right. And it's an important aspect, you know, but it's just one part of it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Black. Councilman Espinosa. Thank you, Councilman Black, for those questions because it sort of it gets to the specificity of this moratorium and it's actually one of the few easily captures or situations. Mike. My question is regarding Mr. Benson's questions about the actual ordinance and probably best for either you, Kyle, or the city attorney. He specifically mentioned a concern about section two on page, page two about the the whether ease and the like would be considered part of the unit. And do you have any sort of my sense is that the intent of the the the way it would be interpreted would be that we're talking about dwelling unit overlap and not actual eaves. I mean, generally ees are accepted by, you know, they're allowed to extend over, over, over setback lines and other things. So do you do we have a reading on that? Adam Hernandez, assistant city attorney. Just to clarify, Councilman, you're asking about. So maximum height in feet? No. So it is the following. So the line reads in section two and it's the first sentence after the colon. It says, in no part of any dwelling in is constructed vertically above any other part of any part of another dwelling unit and each built building bounding the courtyard shell. Well, it's really that the way this written is written and no part of any dwelling unit is constructed. We're talking about when when the concern about stacked spaces. It's not the wall with or projections or eaves and sills and things like that. It's actually the habitable space of the unit. That's the dwelling unit. Correct. It talks about a. No part of any dwelling unit constructed vertically above the one below. Did you want to? I'll just I'll just add. So when it comes to interpretation of language, I think it's a good question that our staff are going to have to look at in the context of a specific development plan. Normally in the code, we address the term dwelling unit by specifying whether we're referring to the use or the structure. The language here doesn't provide us that clarity, but we'll we'll use our typical process of bringing interpretations to the various zoning managers who are responsible for the interpretation. And then, of course, if the applicant thinks that we've interpreted wrong, they can appeal that decision to the Board of adjustment. Right. I think generally based on the comments I've heard from council and the public, they would be more they would be more in favor of details being able to project rather than clear flat facades with no with no detail. The other question also relates to Peter Vincent's about I want to make it clear he was concerned and actually other developers and members of the audience that spoke to concerns about moratoria. Mr. Hernandez This moratorium does allow the use of the garden court during the next 12 months, provided that it meets those exceptions, correct ? Correct? Yeah. So, I mean, the garden court is alive and well. It's just the the slot home version. And this goes back to the conversation we're having citywide about the use. I mean, this the slot home form that you won't find anywhere in the building code, meaning the zoning code. But it it does it is something you can create using general building form. And so while the community is going to have a larger conversation, this will at least address the use of this form in in certain zoned districts. And I'll save the rest for my comments later. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Espinosa. Councilman Flynn. Thank you. Kyle, can I ask you just a quick question to clarify? I understand that a townhome or a row home is all vertical and there's no stacking of units. But why is it why is it that garden court cannot have any stacking of units? What's the purpose of that? What's the reason for that? I should be clear as as we interpret and administer the Denver zoning code as it's currently written, you can stack your address on both. Okay. Yep. Thank you. The way I was reading this was that we didn't allow that at all. Well, it wouldn't be allowed in. The moratorium passes. Okay. That's a distinction between the code we administer today and what the moratorium would do. Okay. So then to clarify the garden court form during the moratorium, if they meet these other conditions can continue to be processed and accept accepted and processed, but only if they're not stacked. Among other conditions. That's correct. They will not be able to be stopped. Okay. Can I ask maybe Councilman Nur Espinosa why? Why that is. Mr. President, can I can I ask him? Yes, please. I thought they should respond right away. Councilman. So the real reason is if we. So the purpose of the moratorium and the reason to move this forward the way we did is to stop the egregious use of the form. And so the form was intended to be mapped to our former R2 zone districts, which were single-family duplex areas in the rowhouse was conceived as an idea in the specific intent, as a way of sort of increasing density, but still orienting these developments towards the street and managing mean having a healthy set back and whatnot. So it's the the, the, the issue. But so what, what the Garfield project in particular represents is actually what's specifically permitted and prevented in those rowhouses and districts is the apartment form, which would be a multi-unit stacked configuration. But by placing essentially two apartment forms 15 feet apart and calling a court between those buildings, the garden court, and then orienting the doors towards that thing, you're now effectively building two apartment buildings in a row house alone district. And so by getting rid of the mean life defining dwelling units as being non vertically stacked, we're at least getting to what even those egregious uses are already, which are sort of simple developments. You can still rent them, but it only gets at least one unit per door facing the street. Thank you. Does that answer your question? Thank you. I just want to. Make sure that. When the moratorium is over, then. A garden court forms applications can still be accepted. Can then be accepted when they include stacked units. No, that would be specifically. I think it's yes, but. Oh, I didn't understand the question. Yes. When the moratorium expires, it's no longer in effect unless the council changes that. Unless we change the definition. Okay. Thank you. That's a great clarification. I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. President. Yeah, thank you, Councilman Flint Kent. Councilman Cashman. Mr. Dalton, you almost got to sit down there. That was close. You were dreaming of the bench, weren't you? I'm just wondering if you could address the set back issue that was brought up as to why the proposed Garfield development apparently does not have setbacks. That reference, what's existing on the rest of the block? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm I'm only prepared tonight to speak to the to the bill and not to a specific project. I don't have those details in front of me. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you. I have a question for you. Thank you, Councilman Cashman. So I'm going to go back to Councilman Black's questioning around the what forms are allowed in the slot house fro homes is what folks call it in my district, fake row homes. You know, there was a there was a news article released saying that this moratorium takes care of all slaughterhouses. And so I just want to that is not true just for the public. What percentage would you say of this moratorium in front of us deals with the kind of fake row home in the slot home issue. So. So the best we can do is do an estimate, right? Because slot home isn't a defined term. What looks like one to somebody else may not to another. Our best guess of what we have in the pipeline today is approximately 8 to 10 times more projects being built that are sideways facing row homes in other forms than in garden court form. Okay, 8 to 10. So what percentage? So that would be, you know, 80% are not are not guarded. So 90%. So what what's in front of us today is about 10 to 20%. I think the councilman was correct. We have three in the pipeline right now. So it's it's a very small portion of what we have under review. Can you can you share specifically what other forms that I mean, I think you guys are looking at this at a macro level. And, you know, we're excited to hear what solutions you come up with, but what other forms are in this kind of sideways home, you know, slot home? Sure. So the most common ones we see are in the apartment building form or the general building form. Now, those forms aren't allowed in the zone district where that one project is that a lot of folks have talked about today. And I think Councilman Espinosa did a good job of explaining in the Rowhouse District, you can't do an apartment or you can't do in a general. But in our multi-unit and our mixed use commercial zone districts where those forms are allowed, that's where we're seeing the more often. Yeah. And so this is just a question to Councilman knew and and Councilman Espinosa, I know this was a I was out, so I'm just now getting this but this was an knows fast process. But was there any consideration for having a larger conversation around some of these other forms? To be honest, Councilman Brooks, that would be a very, very, very heavy lift for this council. That is, there are so many zone districts we couldn't even I we could we could quantify that. But it is a very large number and it would be very hard to I mean, you would basically be laying a moratorium on both the apartment form and the. General building form, which. Would be disastrous for the city. To be honest now, it just seems like this is a big issue citywide. And if 10%, 20% is what we're after, that it seems like I just want to make sure that we're looking at this whole thing. I mean, we are the legislative body of the city, right? The macro view of this. And so I am concerned about that. Other now Carl didn't speak with specificity over what we're looking at as CPD, you know, in the future and I know there's some others, but that's just my concern. That's just come up. Councilman, do. They, sir? Sure know. Walter said she would like to get into SWAT homes in the garden court evaluation. So? So they're thinking about similar kinds of forms where they really need greater definitions of. So I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't get into some of that. But the focus will be on Gordon. Gordon. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, CPD is is part in parallel with this garden court moratorium. They're spending the next 14 months specifically trying to address this at home in a task force community outreach manner. That said, and this is going to strike fear in every developer in the city. You know, the exemptions that we have written in here could actually be put forward in a general building form, basically requiring that, you know, because right now we have an unlimited number of buildings that can occur on certain zoned lots. And the building code only requires a six or ten foot minimum distance. So you could actually say, well, we're going to make it mean that any two buildings that are residentially occupied 100% really need to be separated by a certain you could address it. But yeah, so I think it's just an important, just important for our folks at home and the audience to to know that, you know, what's before us today handles a slice of some of the maybe the issues that we see in CPD, but not the full kind of breadth of it. Councilman. Councilman Cashman. Thank you. I appreciate that. Mr. DALTON. Let's let's talk more theoretically on setbacks, if we can. Is it. Accurate or even close to. We have a general policy of trying to keep uniform setbacks in zone districts. So it depends on the zone district. But many most of our residential districts include what we call a block sensitive setback. Right. So that requires that. On that, what people refer to as the front setback, be sensitive to the setbacks of other buildings along the block. Different rules apply depending on where you are in the block. And I think part of what's going on here is it's a corner lot where where there's a different analysis and the rule of measurement about which lots you look at in terms of what you have to be sensitive to. It's a it's a complicated part of the code. And that's that's part of why I can't answer on the fly. But yes, in general, we have a block sensitive set back and it would apply in the grades three zone district. Thank you. Would you mind doing that analysis when you have a minute and get that and give me that information for sure. Thank you very much. Thank you. Councilwoman Ortega. So I want to ask a process question. And, Kyle, you're probably the best person to answer this. So in terms of next steps, assuming this passes here tonight, what what are the next steps for how CPD will handle this? Will they be selecting who the people are that will serve as representatives similar to what we just talked about regarding the previous moratorium that we passed. So help me understand that as well as the timing of it in terms of how quickly that will ramp up and will that be done internally? Sure. Great question. Thanks for giving me the opportunity. So with regards to the garden court moratorium specifically, we will begin enforcing it as soon as it goes into effect, which would be later this week. The mayor signs the bill and so on. So that would that would start for all consent reviews. Typically, that happens after Thursday of this week. So so that's the garden court issue. But the bigger picture about the lot home text amendment that were that we announced earlier this month that we would initiate. We've spent the past couple of weeks assembling our staff team, assigning project managers, getting folks involved. You know, we've had to put other work on hold in order to prioritize this in our work program. So we've we've built a good internal team. And what we're doing over the next month and a half or so is as that initial work of ramping up a project problem identification and the rest, we announced that we would do a public kick off, we expect in October where we identify the stakeholder groups and we do think it's important to have a cross-section of the community and a cross-section of diverse perspectives on that stakeholder group, the task force, whatever it has called. So design professionals, architects, neighborhoods that are affected by this, you know, folks involved in finance. We think there's a broad perspective that needs to be brought to the table. The idea of a first task force meeting sometime later this year, maybe November, from kick off the best schedule we've been able to come up with so far would be 14 to 16 months. So we think we would have a package before this council at the end of next year. But but that process will will involve a lot of problem identification, upfront testing of solutions, using real life examples so we can find loopholes before we create them, write a new draft and do the drafting process. And then, of course, there's a series of public hearings and a public adoption process that would happen over the end of 2017. As with any of these large text amendments, like like a proposed square, like Cherry Creek, where we're tackling multiple diverse issues that that need that stakeholder perspective. We do expect to bring on board third party folks, particularly with the facilitation of those stakeholder meetings. But we may also draw on other third party resources we know will draw on outside design professionals to supplement our internal design staff. And there may be more resources to be brought to the table on this. So can you tell me how the work that's going on with Blueprint Denver, with the multiple consultants that we've brought on board to help us, you know, look at revising Blueprint Denver, how any of that correlates to the two conversations we're having here tonight or how these fit into that? Vice versa. I mean, the really. Different questions, right? So Denver, right. And Blueprint, Denver Update and the other plans that are part of the Denver right effort are citywide planning their vision, their future policy. So are these. What we're talking about here is a change to the regulation. So it's taking the code in and changing it. There's there's certain amounts that we think you can do with what you already have adopted in your plans that are calling for regulations that respect neighborhood character, that advance areas of change in areas of stability. There probably are issues that folks would like to address through this text amendment that instead need blueprint Denver guidance first. And so those would have to be in a future phase of regulatory implementation. I think of things like design review, like whole different bodies of staff, like things that aren't already embedded in the city's broad policy visions , that that's the kind of thing where Blueprint Denver in the Denver process will help inform future regulatory implementation. Well, and again, just getting back to the staffing issue. So did we factor in any. Leeway in those contracts to be able to utilize some of those folks that we're already, you know, that are already under contract with the city. These would be blueprint and some of the other planning efforts that we're doing. Well, not the Denver right contracts. What we'll use are the regulatory contracts that we have. Again, they're separate skill sets and they're different folks that we would need. So instead of the the the kinds of professionals we would use, like we use on Arapaho Square that we like, we use on Cherry Creek or that we would have used on Golden Triangle if we hadn't delayed that project to make room for this one. You know, we'll use those kinds of folks rather than the Denver right contracts. We're going to do that because we don't have that staff expertize or we just don't have enough staff. No. I think a third party perspective really adds an additional lens to, you know, can bring the kind of this is what other cities are doing. This is, you know, best practices around the world. Also, having a third party facilitator helps build trust among the stakeholder committee where the city is one of the parties at the table, but isn't the party steering. And so we found that to be an effective way that's really brought forth those previous amendments I've mentioned that have, you know, really come forward with folks in alignment on the outcome and the consensus building. That's where we find that third party voice is really helpful. Thank you. That was helpful. So I'll just touch on that because we just went through the Arapahoe Square text amendment and we had a third party come and walk us through that. And as neighbors and, you know, city council folks and developers, it was an amazing process that brought us to a I think a pretty good conclusion. So thank you for that. All right. Are seeing no other comments. Our our public hearing is closed for council. Bill 541 councilman new. Would you like to offer your new amendment to the council? Bill 541 Please read the particulars. All right, we will start again. Here again. I move that amendment council bill 541, as amended on July 21st, 2016, as follows. Number one on page two, line 70, strike the word courtyard and replace it with going forward. Number two, on page two, line eight, strike the word courtyard and replace with garden court. Number three on line two, lines 18. Insert the word tallest before the word proposed and before. On page two, lines 18 and 19 strike the words buildings abutting the garden courtyard, buildings abutting the courtyard, and replace with buildings whose facade bounds the garden court. Number five on page two, line 20, insert the words building form after the words garden court. Number six on our page two, line 21, insert the word R before the word units. Number seven on page two, line 23, strike the word court already replace with Gordon Court. Now read our page to line 24. Strike the word courtyard replaced with Gordon Corn on number nine on page two. Line 31. Add a new section which reads as follows Section five This moratorium shall not apply to complete applications for a mandatory review concept review pursuant to section 12 .3.2.2 of the Denver Zoning Code, which are which are submitted in advance of a required site development plan per section 12 .4.3.3 of the Denver Zoning Code and accepted by the Planning, Community Planning and Development Owner before the effective date of this ordinance. It has been moved in second to comments by members of council and the council. I'm going to go right to you, but I want to remind members of council this is on the specific amendment. Will then give you comments for the whole bill later. So, Councilman. No. Yeah. I think this is the most important part about this amendment is is allowing the pending applications, those three pending applications to go through. We appreciate the number Arnolds, as they've really negotiated and worked with the neighborhood to develop the project and refine the project. So and so I think this this section will address those issues, those three applications that we've mentioned to go through. So I encourage my colleagues to support this. Great Councilman Flint. Thank you, Mr. President. Putting on my old editor's cap again, can I bring out a correction that needs to be made to the amendment? The one line that's number six. Insert the word R before the word units. It should actually be after the word units. Let's let's look at Adam Hernandez. Is that would you concur? That is correct. Okay. So I believe at this point, Councilman Flynn would have to offer an additional amendment. Okay. And have that seconded and. Then down the ladder. Sorry, Councilman Cashman. Mr. President. May I offer then a motion? Just if the two are in secondary, agree to the change they can. Okay. So that would be okay. Does the mover in second agree to the change? Yes. Okay. So can Secretary. Do we need to go to that whole. Oh, okay. Okay. You can just do the change on the fly here. Or do we need to read it back into the. No. It'll be corrected. It's corrected. The only other comment I would make on is that we continue to have the issue with the pagination from word into PDF so that the amendments when it refers to line page in line has no relationship to what we're actually looking at. So it took me a little bit of time to find that mistake. Will that be corrected? Do we know in our new system? We'll get an answer to you. Later on. But thank you for catching that. That was good. Councilman Espinosa. I just want to thank my colleague, Councilman Nu, and his staff, Melissa Horne, for the work in getting getting to this amendment and getting to today. Thanks. Great. I'll offer a comment. This is this was probably one of the most important pieces for me supporting this piece. And I appreciate you included in as I had residents. Small business owners, developers who were concerned about this piece. So thank you so much. Okay. We have a first in a second. Madam Secretary, roll call on the new amendment. New Ortega. By. Black Eye. Clark. Espinosa. Hi, Flynn. Hi, Gilmore. I heard in. Cashman. I can eat. LOPEZ All right. Mr. President. I, Madam Secretary, announce the close of voting in US results. 11 eyes. 11 I's Council Council Bill 541 has been amended. Counsel No. We need a motion to place upon final consideration and do pass as amended. Okay. A move to Council Bill 541 to be placed upon final consideration, do pass as amended August 22nd, 2016. It has been moved seconded comments by members of Council. This is on the entire bill now. Councilwoman Black. Thank you. I'm talking so much tonight. I have a few comments. One, I want to say that the developers who have built this garden court farm with the 15 foot wide court on whether we consider it a garden or not. We're actually following the rules and I think it's unfair to accuse them of doing something wrong or unethical, but they were following the rules that the city had. And so in this example of on Garfield Street with the Newbury family, they were also following the rules. I don't think they were trying to put one over on anyone. They were following the rules and doing what was permitted under our code. But I do commend their willingness. To meet with the neighbors. And thank you to Councilman Nu for bringing everyone together and and coming up with a great compromise. I am going to be supporting this, but I would not have supported it without that amendment. Protecting those that were. In the pipeline. My third point is. That I have faith in our community planning and development. Office. They are professionals and none of us sitting up here are urban planners. So you have a lot of work before you. So thank you for your expertize at that. I think it's dangerous, as several people have said, that we might set a precedent of all of us sitting up. Here rewriting the zoning code. And I don't think that's what we. Want to do when we've got. Experts who know what they're doing. And lastly, just I was. Remembering a council meeting. Before I was a council person. And Councilman Clark's predecessor, Chris Nevitt, used the word cognitive dissonance to describe the fact that here in Denver we have a severe housing shortage, which several people referenced. And with our low supply and our high demand, our rents are high. It's a common law of economics. But we still. Have resistance to more housing projects. I'm not judging anyone or anything. I just think there's a lot to be said for that. We all. Acknowledge that we have a shortage, but none of us really. Can agree upon where we should build new housing. So just a little shout out to Chris Nevitt. Thank you. Councilwoman Black. Councilman Nu. I just want to come in and I really appreciate the collaborative process we've had. We've had a lot of discussions. I couldn't think of a more passionate group of residents and we haven't agreed. North They're just phenomenal to work with and and really explained issues to me so clearly that it helped me very much. And I really appreciate all the help that you gave me on this. We have a wonderful neighborhood association led by Bob Vogel and and John Albers. And and their leadership has been really appreciated in this and especially the Arnold Palmer and Paul Arnold coming to the table to negotiate this. And we understand that the code was the code, but but you're willing to to make the project even better and and being willing to share the design with residents too. And so the it should be an attractive asset for the for the neighborhood. So I really appreciate this effort and especially appreciate Councilman Espinoza and his architectural skills to help us with this. It's great to have that kind of qualification on city council to help us with these difficult zoning matters, you know. So thank you, everyone. Tonight, I look forward to and encourage all our our councilmen to pass this moratorium. Thank you, Councilman new Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to commend Councilman Nolan, Councilman Espinosa, for the real hard work that they put through on this. I as well was very pleased to see the amendment come forth. But if I'm understanding correctly, it wasn't simply, okay, we'll just let this slide through. I'm aware that Councilman Espinosa has been spending a lot of time working with with applicants, trying to create projects that that meet what they're trying to create out of the garden court form. And I very much appreciate that and I very much appreciate the Arnolds and the others who were willing to compromise along the way. You know, as far as. People were just playing by the rules. I'm going to take a little bit of issue with that in that the people that are interpreting our zoning code are very bright people. And you look at the book, you're an architect or a designer or an experienced developer, and you see the picture. Of what we're looking for out of a garden court and to look at that picture, if you have if your interest is in creating a community in Denver for the long haul, you're going to look at that picture of garden court and see that 15 foot minimum and go, huh? Something's something's wrong here, not you. We can we can squeeze something in here. So I want to again commend the Arnolds and their willingness to compromise and take to task the people out there who are looking for those loopholes because there's going to be loopholes existing. I remember when they first started talking about the zoning code update, I don't know, 2007, eight, six, whenever it was. And it was going to be simplified because we have this big zoning book, Chapter 59 zoning code was this big, monstrous thing. And we were promised this going to be simple. You're not envisioning like a copy of Mad magazine. You flip through it and you know what you're doing. Well, our current zoning code is bigger than the last one, so there's going to be problems along the way. So I think we need to hold ourselves and our development community to a higher standard of conscience to build the city that we want. So thank you. That's all I got. Thank you. Then again, Councilman Cashman. Councilman Espinosa, first thing, I want to thank Kyle for that that explanation and answer to the question about what's next and how that overlaps with Denver. Right. I just the whole time you were talking, I just thought that was the greatest answer you could have come up with. And that's it just tells me that we got the right person in the right place at the right time to help us get and negotiate this next iteration of Blueprint. Denver. So thank you for that, for that response. And then if I want to make it very clear that if you're looking for places to develop housing, including high density development housing, don't be afraid to call me. There are places really developable parcels in northwest Denver that could capture increased increased dwelling units on those properties and good projects. So if you're a good developer and you got creative solutions, feel free to call me and I will happily steer you to where we've got ample development opportunity. So as much pressure as we are feeling from development, there are still ample places that could use your creativity and I would be happy to sort of work with you on those. But specific to this moratorium, this moratorium is vital to give, are capable, truly capable, but overburdened community planning and development staff the opportunity to come up with appropriate standards to capture the intent of this form. The moratorium with with the exceptions, is to ensure that we aren't continuing to create a problem over and over in neighborhood after neighborhood. While changes are made to the garden court form standards and application for the sake of for sake of comparison, as was already mentioned, you do not leave the water running when you're trying to fix a pipe. The moratorium is a temporary shut off to fix the problem, and once corrected, improvements to the form and its applicability will allow for improved outcomes when the garden court form is used. So I am convinced this is not an easy task, but there are there is a need for this form and appropriate uses of this form and it's going to take a public process to hammer out how that should be. But as it is today, it shouldn't. I like to thank CPD staff, CPD and the staff for all their hard work on this moratorium. And I look forward to working together with CPD and constituents and stakeholders, including developers, over the next 12 months. Finding new solutions. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Espinosa. Councilwoman Ortega. Mr. President, I just wanted to make sure that anybody who might be watching this meeting isn't assuming that these two moratoriums are going to stop all development in this city. And, you know, we know that there are other sites available across the city, many of which, as I indicated earlier, we've already re zoned where we have the ability for high density housing. In fact, I was looking at some data and. What what's happening is we're seeing lots of apartment buildings being built because of the impact that state legislation on construction defects had for for sale housing. Now in my neighborhood, we've continued to have for sale housing being built, but it's at the top of the AMIS scale and we've seen somewhere in the ballpark of 20,000 units that have been built, apartment units throughout the metro area over the last year. And so it's not like the development isn't happening. The issue is that we have 100,000 people a year moving here from other cities, and that has created the demand and the pressures that we're seeing happen. And so I think being able to take this time out, we all know that part of what makes Denver such a great city is our great neighborhoods and and people. You know, as we've heard, a number of folks testify, they live where they are because they love the neighborhoods. And when we began to completely change the fabric of some of the neighborhoods, it's why we've seen residents across the city come out. I remember when the Sloan's like neighborhood was starting to see single family homes and being replaced with duplexes. We all know it started in Cherry Creek, but that, you know, has sort of begun to happen in in neighborhoods across the city. But these two efforts tonight do not in themselves prevent other development from happening across the city that will continue to occur. So I just didn't want people to walk away thinking, you know, this just stops all development across the city and that is not the case. So I will be supporting this tonight. I think, again, taking this time out to be able to ensure that the the information that people look at when they come to our planning department is is clear. And it gives clear direction to both neighborhoods and to the developers who are trying to do development in this city, particularly around this garden. And I just want to thank everybody who's been involved in moving this forward, particularly councilman new Councilman Espinosa, but really came from neighborhoods saying this is something we want to see addressed. So thank you. Thank you. Madam Secretary, call. New Ortega Black Eye Clark Eye Espinosa. Eye Flynn. Eye Gilmore. Eye Cashman. High Carnage Lopez. All right. Mr. President. I. Mental Secretary, please close the voting and announce the results. 11 eyes. 11 eyes. Council Bill 541 has passed as amended. August 22nd. Before we go to the next public hearing, I'm going to give Councilman Ortega a little bit of privilege and make that announcement. Since you missed the. Okay. If you could. If you could stay quiet as you're exiting. I appreciate it. Thank you. So I wanted to state that the city's local emergency planning committee, which I. Councilwoman, 2 seconds. If you're leaving right now, the stairs are closed and you have to take the elevator. Yeah, just letting you know. Okay. Councilman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. And I appreciate you giving me just a moment to do this. I forgot about this when we had comments at the beginning of the meeting. So tomorrow night. I was just trying to wait for. Can we ask you all to leave quietly so we can continue conducting our meeting? Thank you. So the announcement that I want to make is that our local emergency planning committee, which is an arm of the Office of Emergency Management for the City of Denver, will be hosting meetings in every council district. The first meeting is tomorrow evening at 615 at the La Alma Rec Center in Councilman Lopez's district. And part of what they will be doing is talking to neighborhoods about the emergency preparedness plan that we have for the city, which we are required to update at a minimum of every five years. And so this is part of that process where we're soliciting public input for the emergency preparedness plan that we have for the city of Denver. So I just wanted to encourage people to come out. The address of the LA Alma Rec Center is 1325 West 11th Avenue, right next to the Lincoln Park in the Lincoln Park neighborhood . Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilwoman. All right, moving on, Kels. Menu. Will you please put Council Bill 566 on the floor? Okay. Thank you, Mr. President. I move that the council bill 566 be placed on final version and do pass. It has been moved. Can we get a second? Yes, it has been moved and seconded. The public hearing for council bill 566 is open. Kels Menu. Are you giving us an overview or do we have a staff report? Carers. Okay. Can we have the staff report? Good evening. My name is Kara Hahn. I'm a senior city planner with Landmark Preservation at Community Planning and Development. This is a landmark designation for 1400 Lafayette Street, the First Unitarian Society of Denver, and this is an owner supported designation.