A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 3122 Marion Street in Whittier. Approves an official map amendment to rezone property located at 3122 Marion Street from U-SU-B1 to U-SU-A1 (3,000 sf minimum lot size to 4,500 sf minimum lot size) in Council District 9. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 3-6-18.
On the presentation monitor. On the wall you will see your time counting down. Speakers must stay on the topic of the hearing and must direct their comments to the council members. Please refrain from profane or obscene speech. Direct your comments to council as a whole and please refrain from individual or personal attacks. Councilman Herndon, will you please put Council Bill 169 on the floor? Yes. Council Bill 2018 0169 be placed upon final consideration. Andrew passed. It has been moved and seconded. The public hearing for Council Bill 169 is open. May we have the staff report? Good evening. I'm Sarah White with CPD here to present the staff report for the rezoning request at 3122 Marion Street. The request is to rezone from USC to B1 to USA A1. The subject property is in District nine in the Whittier neighborhood. As you can see here, it is in the far northwest portion of the Whittier neighborhood. It is on Marion Street between Martin Luther King Boulevard and 31st Avenue. It is one block east of Downing Street. The property is a little over 7300 square feet total and there is a single unit structure on the property and the request is to allow the development of a second single unit house here. So the current zoned district you as you B1 has a minimum zone lot size of 4500 square feet and the request is to rezone to Youssou A-1, which is a single unit district that has a minimum zone that size of 3000 square feet, which would allow the applicant to create two zone lots out of the existing lot here. The surrounding zoning is all U.S. sub one. And further to the north you can see there's some grow three zoning, which is a residential office district, some USA one to the northeast. And then as you would expect along the Downing Street corridor, there is some main street zoning. And I included this slide. This is a slide that shows the previous old code zoning here because it's a little interesting to show kind of the context of how this zoning came into place. So you can see that this a couple block and a half in the northwest portion of Whittier here actually was are for zoning, which was a very high density residential zoned district. And then the rest of the surrounding residential was are two, which allowed for multi-unit. So the translation here from the higher intensity residential, particularly in this two blocks, two and a half blocks that was kind of uniformly brought into U.S. US sub one. It's a little just a little interesting context here. So the site is currently a single family home. The surrounding block is a mix of single unit two unit and multifamily structures. And this is really a reflection of that previous zoning that allowed multi-unit development. And then, as you would expect along the west, to the west, along the Downing Street corridor, there is a mix of residential and retail. Here we have some photos that are just images of the surrounding context. The top image, there is an image of the subject property and you can see it has that large side yard there that would be split off, which would be allowed to be split off with the proposed zoning. The picture to the bottom is an example of the large single family lot across Marion Street. And then these are images of the character, generally of the multi-unit structures that you see in this area. So there's quite a few there, generally low scale kind of garden court or low scale real house type of structures. So what's interesting about this rezoning? Some of you may remember last year as part of last year's text amendment bundle, there was a portion of that bundle that removed the minimum area requirement for rezonings. So previously rezonings like this, you would have had to have had a minimum area to even request the rezoning, whether it was an entire block or an acre. And what we did as part of that bundle was remove that minimum area requirement because we were seeing requests that made sense and were supportable by plans and all of that sort of thing. But applicants couldn't request them because of the minimum area requirements. So this request is really the first one of these kinds of requests that has come through since we removed that provision. So just keep that in mind where we're learning how to evaluate these along with you guys. So this map here is a estimation map of parcel sizes. So, you know, that development in the city of Denver is based on zone lots. And as you as the request is, the the minimum zone lot size is what is part of the zone lot. So USDA has a minimum zone lot size of 3000. U.S. B is a minimum zone, lot size of 4500. However, we don't have zone lots mapped. Denver has this weird thing where we've got zone lots and we've got assessor parcels and a lot of times they are the same, but they don't have to be. And because we don't have zone lots mapped, but we do have assessor parcels mapped. We can use the assessor parcel mapping as a general estimation of what the zone, what's in the area might be. So keep that in mind while while I talk through these examples, they are our best estimate of what the zone sizes in these areas are. So you can see here I've got it's colored based on the minimum zone lot as equivalent zone district. So the green you see here are the zone lots that are upwards of 6000 square feet. So greater than even the current zoning would require. And then these are also the lots that would have enough square footage to split if they were to go to a smaller zone, lot size. The Yellow Zone. Lot sizes are really the the zone lots that are most consistent with the current zoning in place. So the UCB one with the meeting that zone minimum between 4500 square feet and 6000 and then the orange here are the zone lots that would be more consistent with the requested zoning. So the U.S., A-1, the 3000 square foot minimum and then the red lots are zone lots that are substandard that basically wouldn't meet any zoning requirements. And so this is where that kind of complication of the Celsius parcels versus the zone that's comes into play. So you can see, for example, the lot that is just a couple south of the subject property. You can see that looks like row houses, those are split and they're showing up as red because it's the ownership parcel. So, you know, with a row house and with a condo, they split up the ownership of the land. And so it's showing up as very, very, very small ownership parcels, whereas the zone that in that case would be comprising all of those ownership parcels. So that's just an example of where this analysis needs to be taken with a grain of salt when you're comparing it with the zone. What? So the process so far, we saw this matter at planning board on February 7th with a unanimous recommendation of approval. It moved forward through Luti committee on March 6th. All of the appropriate notification has been done. Signs posted. An aunt was notified and one letter of opposition was received from a neighborhood resident. And that's been included in your packet. Aren't you the five criteria? We do have several plans to evaluate here. We have plan 2000 and Blueprint Denver, which are the city wide plans as well as two neighborhood plans, the Northeast Downtown Neighborhoods Plan from 2011 and the Whittier Neighborhood Plan from 2000. This. This request is consistent generally with several goals in comprehensive plan 2000, mostly related to promoting infill development, promoting development where services are already in place, and promoting infill development that is consistent with the character of the surrounding neighborhoods. Blueprint Denver calls this area a single family residential area of stability. So the proposed zone district is a single unit zone district, which is generally consistent with the intent of a single family residential area to be a area with a single family residential predominant residential type, and then it being an area of stability. We know that that means promoting some reinvestment, but generally conserving the character of an area. And as I'll explain in in a bit, we do find this request is consistent with the character of the area and is consistent with the purposes and intent of the area of areas of stability. The Northeast downtown neighborhood plan from 2011 also calls this area a single family residential and generally has recommendations for low intensity development in these residential areas to maintain the current mix of low skill building forms such as urban house, duplex and row house, and allow new development to replicate existing development patterns, including small lots, shallow setbacks and high building coverage with parking access in the rear of the alley. So again, we do find this request consistent with the goals of this plan as it is still a single unit zone district. And we do think that it allows the existing pattern to be replicated. Finally, the Whittier Neighborhood Plan from 2000 does not have specific land use recommendations for certain areas, but it does identify that the maintenance of a strong, diverse, low density residential neighborhood is the central goal raised by residents. And it also acknowledges that the neighborhood is almost fully developed as is, and that as change occurs, additions to the neighborhood should complement the existing character. And again, because the proposal would allow a zone district that would allow the replication of an existing pattern, we do find it consistent with these goals. The request would result in the uniform application of the USA to a one zone district, and the proposed MAP Amendment furthers the public health, safety and welfare of the city through the implementation of adopted plans. Additionally, it would allow the development of additional housing near downtown, which places people in close proximity to employment and services, which also furthers the public health, safety and welfare. The identified justifying circumstances is that the lander, its surrounding environs has changed or is changing. There is development happening very close nearby, in downtown, as well as at the light rail station and 30 at 30th and Downing. And all of these are catalysts to reset multifamily development. And as such, the proposed rezoning will allow the development of small single family houses, which will help to maintain housing diversity near downtown. And then finally consistency with neighborhood context, zone, district purpose and intent. So this is where we take another look at generally the lot pattern in the area. So this map is a little different than the one that was shown earlier. The one that I had earlier on the slide was just all of the lot sizes in the area. What this map is showing is the lot sizes for the single family development only. So basically this is removed, all of those multifamily low scale parcels so that we really can compare like for like we're looking at generally what size zone lots do single unit houses have in this area. And so you can see here there's a significant amount in the surrounding area that is actually more consistent with the proposed usou , a one zone district as well as some additional surrounding that are consistent with the block size. And given that this pattern is in existence here of small, single family zoned lots, we do find that a rezoning request to usou a one is consistent with the neighborhood context in the zone district purpose and intent. So given that all five criteria have been met, would you recommend approval? Thank you very much. We have three individuals signed up to speak this evening. I'll call you up and you've come up to the podium for your time. First up, we have Matt Morgan Sky. Matt Moore, Jen Psaki, Denver, Colorado. And three. One, two, two. Marion. I'm available for questions if needed. Great. Thanks. Next up, Jesse Parish. Good evening. Members of council. My name is Jesse Paris. I'm a member of Black Star Action Movement for Self-defense and Denver Homeless out loud. I am against this proposal. This is becoming a recurrent theme. You change the zoning of this hood, historically black and brown communities, so you can continue to gentrify these areas. This is not acceptable and we are not going to stand for this anymore. These properties in question. Who is this really going to benefit? He said I should working for an inclusive Denver, but it's really an exclusive Denver. The so-called affordable housing you guys keep talking about is not going to be for those that were in these neighborhoods for generations. This is for these transplants that are moving in because of. The legalization of marijuana and other factors in the past few years. This is not going to benefit those that have lived in these neighborhoods for generations. I myself am one of those people. So I'm definitely against this. It can keep changing the zoning all you guys want. But the fact still remains this is gentrification and there's no way around that. This is not going to benefit people of color, specifically black people and brown people. This is going to gentrify this benefit, gentrification, white folks that are moving into these neighborhoods. So I am once again against this access. You do a further study of these properties in question because. At the end of the day. Got to follow the community. The community is not okay with this. Those that have been in these neighborhoods for generations are not okay with this. You are in the back caucus of these business developers. I understand it has become apparently clear. So I would ask that members of this council look further into this study, these properties and actually come up with. A sensible. The season. Thank you. Thank you. And our last speaker is Chairman Sekou. But even council. My name is Chairman Sekou, representing the National Action Movement for Self-defense. Client base of Homeless Youth. Senior citizens. Poor. Working class folks. And the folks that are voiceless, scared to come down here. Because it's intimidating and I have no experience with this. And so we kind of minimize that by coming down and being the voice so that this can be simply explained. So that they are encouraged to know that you guys are human beings. And then you open minded to hear things. And even if the council doesn't agree, at least they can consider poor folks who are voters in this town and tax payers about their concerns about how we do what we do down here. That's it. Anybody mad? Nobody. And we can work it out now. I'm for this. And as you can see, even inside our organization, there are various opinions on this thing. So we don't squash the opinion, we share it and then let you know how we feel. And the constitution of the organization that we represent, because we are down for freedom of speech. So we're down for this. And I'll tell you why. First of all, it fits all the criteria which folks are the considerable work and research and thinking about how are we going to do this thing called residents and how they do and empowered with the land that they pay for to development according to human necessities and needs. Now, my man, he's a preacher. He has a moral standing in the community. He is not the enemy of corporations that come in here and do this. This is a little guy has come to church. He's not a corporation. He's not the enemy. He is not down to just justification. And he needs to have the right to have the flexibility so that he can expand on his property and create the housing that poor people need. Now, of course, this criteria that we do with the LWD dude plans and this and that and other is down board has been voted on it in place. That's it. Now the question becomes your moral obligation us to do the right thing for the right reason. I'm trusting you. And I'm with you. Could you please take secure comments towards council? Oh, I'm sorry. You know, sounds good. So I'm holding him to his code of conduct. You know, I'm sad that somewhere along the way we got to begin to trust one another that you do what you say you're going to do. Now, if he don't do it, I'll be the first one up there in his church asking him what happened. So the pressure is on us to make them do what they say they're going to do. And it's only through the organization or the masses of the people will be able to do this. Is too much work for the few? We need many to get involved. Thank you very much. Time's up. All right. That concludes our speakers questions from members of council. The public hearing for Council bill 169 is closed. Comments from members of Council. All right. No questions. No comments. Um, takes us then, Madam Secretary. Roll call. Black Clark. All right. Sorry, Flynn. No. Gillmor Herndon High Cashman can each. Lopez. I knew Ortega. By. Sussman. I Mr. President. All right, Madam Secretary, please close voting, announced results. Sorry, but I'm going to make sure everyone is in ten eyes. One nay. Ten eyes, one nay accountable. 169 has passed. Councilman Herndon, will you please put Council Bill 171 on the floor? Yes, Mr. President. I move the council bill 2018 0171 to be placed upon final consideration and do pass.