Rezones property at 195 South Monaco Parkway from E-SU-DX to S-MU-3 in Council District 5. (NEIGHBORHOODS AND PLANNING) Rezones property at 195 South Monaco Parkway from E-SU-DX to S-MU-3 in Council District 5. A PUBLIC HEARING WILL BE HELD AT LEAST FOUR WEEKS AFTER PUBLICATION. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 2-4-15
That is not what you're considering today. You're just looking at a straight zone district and I would ask the applicant to answer questions regarding that potential restrictive land use covenants. But we are looking at is our review criteria. So we have five different criteria that we look at with the zoning code and review a map and then that application comes in. We'll first look at consistency with adopted plans. In this case, we have comprehensive plan 2000 and Blueprint, Denver, our Integrated Land Use and Transportation Plan. And with a comprehensive plan there is. This proposal is consistent with many strategies identified in Denver's comprehensive plan, including the Environmental Sustainability Strategy, two of which speaks of conserving land by promoting infill development within Denver at sites where services and infrastructure are already in place, designating mixed use design and mixed use communities and reducing sprawl so residents can live, work and play within their own neighborhoods. Laney Strategy three B which is encourages quality infill development that is consistent with the character of the surrounding neighborhood, that offers opportunities for increased density and more amenities, and that broadens the variety of compatible uses. Ebert Strategy one e. Modify land use regulations. Ensure flexibility to accommodate changing demographics and lifestyles, and allow in some places to encourage a diverse mix of housing types and affordable units in neighborhood strategy. One F to invest in neighborhoods to help meet citywide goals and objectives for a range of housing types and prices that Moore in the blueprint Denver which is again the land use transportation component supplement to the comprehensive plan. It is a single family residential designation in Blueprint Denver and an area of stability. It can be seen as a reinvestment area, though. I'll go into a more detail that in the next slide the nearby land use concepts, single family, the park and also with Buckley Annex just to the Northeast as actually employment with an area of change that features reclassification, which is also important in this case. South Monaco is a residential arterial, cedar is an undesignated local. Uh, back into the reinvestment area concept. That is an area of blueprint. Denver If you look the area of stability description of reinvestment area, it speaks of being an area of neighborhoods with a character that is desirable to maintain, but that would benefit from reinvestment through modest infill and redevelopment or major projects in a small area. These areas would encourage investment, but in a more limited and targeted way than areas of change. So there's definitely a thought there that there's a place for reinvestment in in areas of stability. There are strategies in blue for Denver that speaks to addressing that type of idea. Here's a list of a few of them. First one address and cap incompatible zoning and land use issues. Denver's zoning code identifies that single unit residential uses are primarily located away from residential and commercial arterial streets, whereas multi-unit, residential and commercial uses are primary located along arterial and collector streets. The City three zoning would allow that multi-unit development along South Bank Parkway, which is a residential arterial. The existing East Udc's zoning does not allow that compatibility between existing and new development design or development standards. The SMU three does have siting and design elements standards to establish compatibility between existing and new development, addressing edges between areas of stability and areas of change. I mentioned there's an area of a change just to the Northeast. The property is located on an edge of that area of stability. Assuming three, zoning can improve the edge of the single unit residential to the west of South Monaco Parkway, essentially creating a stronger buffer diversity of housing type size and cost . The SMU three will allow a variety of housing choices to strengthen the area of stability. So in that, we do see that CPD finds a rezoning consistent with the comprehensive plan and with Blueprint. Denver regarding uniformity of district regulations. The assuming three is adjacent to this. I mentioned that just to the south and is zoned district is found at similar locations along residential arterials within the city to further public health, safety and welfare. SMU three does facilitate redevelopment. The site removes a poorly maintained structure and improves character along Monica and residents have access to recreation, jobs and commercial activities. We're just buying circumstances. We look at change in changing conditions. States, the land or its surrounding environments has changed or is changing to such a degree that it is in the public interest to encourage a redevelopment of the area or to recognize that changed character of the area. If we look at the site in particular, the structure on site has been deteriorating and the properties and and reinvestment area within that area of stability. There has been a lot of change in this area with Lowry Town Center and the Annex activities. Multi-unit residential is typically located along arterial streets such as Monaco, which is the building type that is allowed in the SMU three zoning, but not the existing zoning. Consistency with neighborhood context, zone, district purpose and intent. It's important to know that, you know, we're going from one context to the other here, from an urban edge to suburban with the suburban neighborhood context. Again, the multi-unit residential is primarily located along arterial and collector streets, and it is typically separated from single unit residential. If we look at the map, again, not only it is Long Monaco Parkway, but the park itself creates a significant buffer, kind of isolating this property from the remaining part of XMR Park . So the staff felt that the suburban neighborhood context did fit the site more so than urban edge. With that, we recommends approval of this application to reason 195 South Monaco Parkway three students, two SMU three based on finding all review criteria have been met. I have four. Questions. Okay. Thank you, Madam Secretary. I understand we have 71 individuals signed up to speak this evening at 3 minutes per person. No, some have six. Some have six. Okay. So we have 71 individuals signed up to speak this evening. So I'm going to go ahead and call up. The first eight speakers. We've reserved the front bench for the speakers. So when I call your name, if you can go ahead and come up and we will do our very best to run this efficiently. Our first speaker is Peter Cutler. He has 6 minutes. Second speaker is Michael Warren, 6 minutes. Next speaker is Rick Peterson. Next speaker is john stafford. With next speaker is john fisher. Next speaker is denice reit h. Next speaker is Sean Maley followed by and KIRWIN. So if you can all please come up and have a seat in the front bench and we'll go ahead and started the. Peter Kudlow, if you could please begin. Good evening, Madam President. Members of the Council. My name is Peter Cutler. I reside at 2450 East Alameda Avenue. House number ten, Denver, Colorado. Madam President, we were informed that we could not do our earlier point this evening, and I was wondering if I could have permission to pass out a hard copy to members of the council . Certainly my. Would you like to continue? Yes, I. Would. Thank you. Madam President, I want to thank the members of the Council for this opportunity to present our plan. For this neighborhood. It has been a lot of great hard work. I'd like to thank the City Planning Department for its professional approval and guidance through the guidelines. I'd also like to thank the Planning Board, who also did a very thorough review of our plan. Tonight, I'm joined by Michael Warren, our development associate as architecture represented by Rick Paterson. Here's KOFLER Smith, civil engineer and traffic engineer. We're joined also by North East DeLay, landscape architect Foster Graham, our land use opportunity with David Foster and CRL associates, which are merely a developer representative. I'm basically looking through partner pages one through six. As noted, I founded Beacon Hill Investments in March of 1984 and also Metropolitan Homes in 1994. I am the sole owner of those two businesses. Our business forecast. Our business focus is to develop, build and manage investments that I am a partner in. We build, develop and operate for sale condominiums, townhomes, patio homes, single family homes. We build for rent communities, including condominiums, townhomes, patios and single family. And we also do a mixed use office retail, entertainment, restaurants. We have built 37 different projects in the overall metropolitan area. This has been in nine different municipalities. Some of our most notable opportunities and proud developments include new Sears in 1989. 90 Loft Rentals on 16th Street. 1997 Granite Ranch Condominiums. Townhomes. Single Family Patios for sale at Bolles and Wadsworth. 2002 Mayfair Lourie 120 townhomes and condominiums just west of the town center and second in Quebec. 2003, we built Lowry North Apartments to 208 residences for rent at 11th and Quebec. 2004. We've had the great fortune to develop 56 single family residence for sale eight in Quebec of Lowry Heights, 32 Condominiums for Sale, 11th in Quebec. 2005. We are very fortunate to have been a leader in the mixed use transit oriented development with Bellagio located Dry Creek and I 25. It's a development including 928 residences. It's a blend of for sale, villas, lofts, condominiums, townhomes and for rent apartments. Currently, we are developing property in Thornton, developing a parcel with Evans and Eagle Bellagio. Very notable opportunity for all of us during some very, very interesting times. It was recognized as the transit oriented development of the year in 2007 by the Denver Regional Council of Governments. By 2011, through very difficult times, we were also recognized as the live work play neighborhood of the year 2011. Our plan was and still is committed to neighborhood enhancement. A lot of people have asked me, why did I invest in this parcel? It is a public record that I have purchased the the site prior to any rezoning efforts. Why? Because I have believed in neighborhood enhancement since the day that I started development and building. I believe in providing diversified housing types. I believe in the city and county of Denver in its guidelines for growth. The planning department and the city officials and all of the individuals involved in making healthy decisions. I do believe in myself as a responsible developer and builder. I take a look at the Mickey Ziplines of the world and I'm fortunate to be around. That's great company. I have always believed in our integrity and we understand needs and we understand demographics. We utilize objective data. We respect all neighborhoods, no matter what the differences may be. I am financially responsible and committed to this plan and I think everyone for their hard work over a period of 17 months. And I ask for your support in the neighborhood support this evening. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Michael Warren. Thank you, Madam Chair. Other members of the council. My name is Michael Warren. I live at 3831 West 25th Avenue. I'm a development associate with Metropolitan Homes, and we were presented this opportunity back in November of 2013. We started our market research and immediately made some observations of the neighborhood. There's a strong level of respect and protection for Chris Moore Park. There's a strong sense of pride of ownership. People who live here want to stay here. We found that there is a limited supply of housing choices and diversification. And in reviewing our existing zoning and studying the adjacent properties to the north, the south, the east and the west, and further studying our location along a major arterial Monaco and have just north of another major arterial Alameda that our site invited an opportunity for housing diversification with for sale and for rent residences. From this, we established goals and objectives to address these observations from the area. These observations are included, but not limited to improving the pedestrian walking connectivity north and south along Monaco and east and west along Cedar into the park. So heavy traffic and vehicular access concerns, minimizing surface parking and the impact that that has. Being respectful of high quality architectural design. Height and size of the building. And responsible density and site development. So starting in January of 2014, we held meetings with neighborhood leaders, neighborhood groups, associations, and many individuals in the community. We evaluated a number of different options, including retail office and various housing choices, and arrived at our initial plan of a four storey age targeted building with 120 residences. We submitted our application for an SMU five zoned district with the waiver to four storeys in October of 2014. After conducting additional meetings and continuing our neighborhood outreach, it was apparent that the height of the building was still a concern. So we went back to our land plan, revised our rezoning application in December of 2014 to an SMU three zoned district. We enhanced access points and traffic management lowered the height to three stories. We continue to have multiple meetings with city and council or I'm sorry, with city and County of Denver planning staff, all of the referral referral agencies to confirm utilization of the existing curb cuts on Monica. So there would be no access points off cedar or locus. We increased the parking counts and we kept the density at 120 units. We took that plan through planning board in January and received approval. We then continued to meet with neighborhood groups, leaders and a mediator. There were still concerns regarding the density, parking and traffic, so we asked for a continuance in March to further enhance our plan. We continued our neighborhood outreach, made additional enhancements to the plan to increase parking to a 2.02 parking ratio. We enhanced the design of the buildings and further revise our plans from 120 residences to 25 for sale townhomes and 50 age targeted residences for rent. So in summation, again, our plan evolved from our initial plan of a four storey building with underground parking and 120 residences to a plan with a three storey building, 120 residences, improvements to parking, traffic and accessibility. Then in April of 2015, we revised our plan to what we are presenting here today, consisting of 25 for sale townhomes and 58 targeted for rent residences. In your package, you'll find a picture of an aerial of the existing site. As David mentioned, the site is currently 2.33 acres. The total developable site, including the roadways along Cedar and Monaco, is about three acres. There's significant park distance between our site and Kearny and to the north, about 1000 feet between our site and South Moore Drive. The current zoning for our site is Eastside, which allows for single family homes to the northwest corner of the existing townhomes are zoned at 2.5 to the east. The old cross Moore Downs is an are two A with waivers which allowed for over 700 units. It includes two story and seven story apartment rentals. The zoning for the parcel on the southwest corner directly south of us is SMU three, which is the same zoning we are applying for today. If you will look at your site plan elevation please. In the packet should be page 11. The orientation on the bottom of the page there is Monaco on the left hand side of Cedar Avenue and Locust above. We have our main building, which, as are the larger building, is a three storey residential building with underground parking. That's 50 age targeted residences. Then on the left hand side, the south portion of the site are 25 for sale townhomes. And I'd like to speak to a couple of things regarding this site plan. Access to the site is from two existing curb cuts off of Monaco. There is no access to the site off of cedar or locus, and that was deliberately to eliminate or mitigate cut through traffic in the neighborhood. Setbacks in the parkway enhancement. We have set back our apartment building 94 feet from Monaco. We have a parkway enhanced about 44 to 48 feet running all along. Monaco screened by a massively designed landscaping plan. Then we have our townhomes are set back about 44 feet from Monaco, 30 feet from Cedar, an additional 22 and a half feet from locust. Sidewalks. There's an eight foot detached sidewalk along Monaco. A five foot detached sidewalk along cedar. And a five foot attached sidewalk along locus, which doesn't currently exist parking to the site. We have 152 spaces, as I mentioned before, which is a parking ratio of 2.02. There are two attached parking spaces for each individual townhome. There are 58 underground parking spaces for the main building, and there are 44 additional surface parking spaces which we believe will continue. I apologize to interrupt, but your 6 minutes. Yes. Thank you very much. I appreciate your consideration. Our next speaker is Rick Peterson. Thank you. Good evening, Madam President. And Council Members. My name is Rick Petersen. I'm a representative of Ares architecture, the designer of the project. And I would like to pick up where Michael left off and primarily focus on the architectural style of the proposal. As he mentioned that the project is built up and broken into eight different buildings of two types. If you want to go to the next page after the after the. Site plan. You'll see elevations of the townhomes we have been following, the crest market filing to design guidelines and that call for an acceptable ranch style. And in doing so, we really are inspired by the subtypes of a ranch style, which are prairie and craftsman style. The townhomes are a mixture of three and four unit buildings. As I mentioned, there are seven of them and they really are represent a mixture of both the craftsman and prairie style. The next page that you have represents the elevations of the age targeted building. And as Michael. Mentioned, that is 50 units, it's self parked underneath. And this too follows the the crest more design guidelines and is a little more primarily targeted towards the prairie style. Finally these are these buildings, as he started to mention, are set far back from Monaco. And that really gives us a lot of opportunity for a landscaping buffer. It's quite generous and we feel that it's really going to result in an enhanced and an. Improved experience along Monaco. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is John said with an you also have 6 minutes. Thank you, Madam President. If I knew I was coming to a sign, I would have worn a towel. But you wouldn't want to see that. My name is John said with I live at 245 Carney Street and I'm president of the Crest Moore Park Second Failing Homes Association. The Crest North Park Second Filing Homes Association is an organization representing 490 covenant controlled single family homes, developed as a Denver neighborhood in the 1950s. And by the way, we are the closest R.A. to the north and to the west of the proposed project. Our community was originally built as ranch homes in large lots. By Denver city standards, there are no alleys in the former neighborhoods and by design, no sidewalks. The streets are wider than most Denver streets, and the covenants forbid the building of any structure and the front 30 foot setback of any home. Unlike our neighbor hilltop, by the way, we are not hilltop, we are customer park. There are no fences in the front of homes, thus maintaining a wide open, sweeping vista. As one looks up our streets, one of the greatest amenities of our neighborhood is the adjacent crest Moore Park. This park has a walking and has a walking and biking path mature trees, baseball fields, tennis courts, picnic areas, a children's playground and soccer fields. The eastern edge of the park borders on Monaco Parkway. And except for about a ten two story townhomes, the park is surrounded by single family, one and two story residences. During the spring and fall, the park is teaming with youth soccer teams competing, and the surrounding streets are lined with the park cars of parents cheering their teams. On some days, the congestion of cars and child pedestrians can feel overwhelming, especially as eager parents cruised the area looking for scarce scarce parking, illegal parking space or not. Our neighborhood is very walkable, and on any given day, one can encounter families with children, the elderly and the exercisers. Utilizing our wide open streets for access to the park and its paths. Dogs are walked, children are taught how to ride bikes, joggers jog and others leisurely stroll, admiring the landscaped gardens and beautifully kept homes. I hope the above gives you a feel for what is to be what it is to be. A resident of our neighborhood, of wide open lawns, wide boulevard like streets and single family homes. Now imagine a huge mixed use development. Lowry's Boulevard, one being constructed just across Monica Parkway from our neighborhood, as traffic from that development seeks to go west towards Cherry Creek and downtown and return in the evening where to find quicker access to arterials. It has found a shortcut through our neighborhood, the adjacent streets that development Quebec, Alameda and Monaco Parkway are overly congested by any measure. And as Boulevard one is completed, these streets will only get even more congested. There are no two ways around this conundrum. The cut through traffic will only get worse. This brings us to the proposed rezoning of 195 South Monica Parkway, as currently proposes to development, would add a minimum 75 units of townhomes and apartments and three story buildings. No comparable buildings at this density in height exist directly on Monica Parkway, nor is there any similar construction heading west from this construction site. It's a one reaches the Cherry Creek neighborhood. The developer of 195 South Monica presented several plans to the neighborhoods that surround this proposed development. The neighborhood organizations that are most affected by this proposed rezoning are unanimous in their opposition. But is this opposition just a NIMBY reaction to progress? To analyze this question properly, one must examine this application of the wider context of the development of Boulevard One and its future effect on the neighborhoods. Our neighborhoods are concerned about the same issues that arise and arise again when development is proposed density, height, parking, traffic and safety. But even more important to our residents is their way of life. The tranquility and walkability of the neighborhood and the wide open vistas. Look at our covenants, protect our neighborhood is not opposed to all development and in fact, welcome smart development that enhances our property values and adds to our quality of life. A suburban feel. Yet within the minutes of a vibrant urban city, our Neighborhoods Architecture Review Committee works with every developer building in our neighborhood to preserve and enhance our neighborhood. We have worked together on hundreds of remodel scrapes and pop ups to develop a win win project for developers. It creates more. The neighborhood characteristics of six more apart have been described above. We cherish our park, its openness and the feeling of serenity it brings to those that stroll its path and play on its fields . True buildings of this size proposed to him in that part of the eastern perimeter will change the characteristics that make this place this oasis in the middle of a vibrant, bustling city. The special place that it is. Our commitment to future generations of Denver sites is to preserve preserve these greenspaces at all costs because they can never be replaced. A parkway is defined as a broad landscaped thoroughfare. The proposed development would change the nature of Monica Parkway. Even the Boulevard One project maintains berms, grassy areas and detention ponds to separate its buildings to the parkway. Nowhere in Monaco Parkway from Liesl Drive to Smith Road are there any structures of the type that development proposes. Just as we must preserve our parks, we must preserve our parkways, our nature. Friends are meeting after meeting at survey after survey of sounding overwhelmingly rejected the developer's proposal for this 2.3 acre property. A survey taken across more second farming homeowners in January and demonstrates the residents concern and overwhelming opposition to this rezoning. The survey resulted in 218 households, not individuals, opposed the rezoning 54 in support and 14 with no opinion. At the Chris Moore Second Family Homes Association annual meeting held May 27th, attended by more than 100 homeowners representing 66 homes. Both sides of this issue were allowed time to make presentations to the residents. The presentations were followed by a question and answer period. A vote was then taken by households, not people. The vote with 73 opposed and one in favor of the current rezoning. To conclude, please vote to preserve our neighborhood and Monaco Parkway and to allow us to continue to enjoy our streets, our park, and our homes. In a unique Denver neighborhood, a neighborhood of stability and preserved open space. A neighborhood that is proud to call Denver home. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay. Politely, I'm going to ask you to refrain from applauding. We have several speakers this evening and I think it's fair that they speak and we get out of here before tomorrow. But do you say okay. Thank you, Mr. Said with Mr. Fisher. My name is. My name is John Fisher and I'm the president of the Crest Ma Homeowner Crest MA Homeowners Association first filing. I live with three, three, three, five, three, three, three, three. Ivy Street was the original farm home for all of Crest Ma Park. And if you're ever in the area, come on by. My wife is a gardener. She's expanded the gardens somewhat. And and it's it's a look like an English cottage. But the character of our neighborhood is pretty much, as John said with has very rapidly told you. I've known John for 16 years now. I have never heard him talk that fast for 6 minutes. But he said a mouthful and he said some of the things that I would say in in order to avoid redundancy, I'm not going to repeat any of what he said. But I want to underscore and emphasize a couple of things. First, our neighborhood, the first failing was built in the early 1930s and it was indeed belt built to be a very residential neighborhood. The second filing was built during the 1950s, primarily as ranch homes. If you're coming to the first filing, you'll see a lot of two story homes in the second filing, mostly ranch style, until they were made into McMansions over the last few years, but beautiful residential neighborhood with about one third acre lots. And this is the character that we are trying very desperately to preserve. These kinds of neighborhoods are never going to be built again. And I think we all know it and we all recognize it and we accept it, but we want to preserve what we have. Up until recently, the character has been preserved by the city and by the neighbors themselves by making sure that we because we're covenant controlled communities, you can't subdivide our properties and we preserve that whenever we redo our covenants. And the city preserved our character with redoing the zoning code in 2010 and making sure that all of our properties were zoned single family. So how do we arrive here tonight to debate why we should rezone a parcel of what, when you look at that, at the map that you've been provided, that is that is being considered now for rezoning, you see that it is actually contiguous to all of Chris Moore part. It is not contiguous to anything across the street on Monaco Parkway. Monaco is actually a buffer and we consider it one. And bigger development is going on across the street, especially Boulevard one. Yes, that's an area of change. Chris Moore Park across the street is not an area of change. I think the planning department got it wrong. And I will tell you, I haven't been involved in this kind of stuff until the last ten years. And during those ten years, I have learned that anybody can can take facts and they can change them to their liking to try to to try to convince people of what they want to convince them. And I think that is what is happening here to a large degree, because we are definitely an area of stability and that's what we want to preserve. I want to point out that one of the that that all of the residents of Chris Moore Park that recognize that this parcel should be redeveloped because it can be considered a blight. It's definitely fallen into disrepair and needs to be changed. But what we are opposing is not development, but over development. We would welcome, welcome with open arms, working with Peter Kudla to try to put in an all townhome community. We have proposed that two metropolitan homes and we have been denied that opportunity because they have made the financial decision. I believe that they need the 50 apartments and yes, they have made some concessions, but the concessions took us down from 120. That was, we think, absurd down to 75, which we think is still too dense. But we were we have worked hard. The community has the communities, the neighborhoods have reached out and held community meetings. We have invited the developers to come. We were reaching out more than the developers were reaching out to hold these meetings, inviting them to try to come to work collaboratively to find an alternative design that would be acceptable to the neighborhoods and acceptable to metropolitan homes. So let's begin with what we have in front of us. We have in front of us the proposal for 25 owner occupied townhomes and 50 apartments. We believe that that they what they did in a sense and I know this doesn't sit well with some people there is a developer's handbook. I think that is that happens in in some cities. It certainly happens here in Denver to a degree. When Buckley Annex was was first being redeveloped, the plan was for 1200 living units they came down to. 800 that is still being opposed is too dense. That was a one third reduction. Metropolitan homes started with 120, came down to 75. That's a 37% reduction. But there's an awful strong similarity between the two. And with that as a concession and then the others that you've already heard described, we still think the fundamental issue is this project is too dense for our neighborhood. The timeline, I think, is of critical importance. How did we get here? When when Metropolitan Homes looked at this site, they came first before purchasing the property to Councilwoman Sussman. They told her what they were thinking of doing. She explained that they would face an uphill battle because the neighborhoods got together and opposed a prior development that was proposed about six years before. That would have, in the end had 58 leaving you in a sense, in commercial space because of the opposition by the neighborhoods. That proposal was withdrawn. Your time has elapsed. Your 6 minutes. I miss the yellow, huh? Well, I think I got to the main part. All right. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Denise Rich, followed by Sean Maley and and Kerwin. My name is Denise Rich. I live at 125 Ivy. I have been a realtor in hilltop and cress more over 40 years. What is needed in the neighborhood? No one asks that question. We need senior housing, main floor, masters, patio homes, people that move out of their homes that are they can no longer maintain their yards or take care of those. I used to carry a snow shovel in the back of my car for the older people because there were no townhomes, main floor masters being built in the area. We do not need another three storey apartment. Or rental complex. There are 7300 units in this city that are on the market. Another 3700 units are coming on with a total of 11,000 units in the next two years. That's an incredible absorption rate for rental units. I have seen Denver boom and bust four times and we're in the state of it can never happen. When the market is top heavy with so many apartments being built and I'm not going to dispute all these people that are going to come in and rent. My opinion, it's a myth. The first part of the market to fall is the rental. It creates an inevitable disaster for the future safety and stability of a neighborhood. We already have 710 units directly across the street. Those units, there are ten currently to be rented that are anywhere from 1300 to $2000. And those are one bedroom. But there are also in that same complex. The Luxe eight two bedroom units that are to be rented with 13 acres of ponds and amenities swimming pool across the street. What is the planning board thinking? I mean, we already have it. Why do you have to ruin another neighborhood with density? There are five subdivisions that have nothing available for any kind of main floor living. There are sold out Hempstead selling at 8 to 900 in Lorry Carriage House. You never get an available unit there. The Biscayne Subdivision is the patio homes and those are on Florida and Monroe. Those are selling at the last one, just sold for 500. So if there is a need, it's a need for patio homes. The developer has not been honest in the valuation, nor has the planning department of what is needed and wanted by the community. Why should the city allow the developer to establish yet another unneeded, overbearing apartment complex? If the application is a lie, you have got to deny. Thank you. Our next speaker is Sean Maley. You have 6 minutes. Thank you. Good evening, Madam President and members of Council. My name is Sean Maley. 1660, Lincoln and Denver. I've been working with Metropolitan Homes for over a year now on this process. First thing I want to talk about is the process and we've held a lot of meetings. I won't go into detail, but we've tried very hard to be honest, collaborative and open minded to input. This was not a process where we started high seeking to settle in the middle or low. We started with a very honest 120 unit age targeted proposal for the site, which Peter Kudla and his team felt was the right decision for the market and for the site in the neighborhood. We made a number of changes to that site, but when concerns remained regarding the density and the all for rent aspect of the project, we continued this public hearing for about two and a half months so we could make additional changes and responses to the community. And that's ultimately how we landed at the 50 edge targeted apartments and 25 for sale townhomes. I want to talk briefly about Blueprint Denver. David Jaspers did a good job as always in a staff presentation, but we know areas of stability does not mean no change. Blueprint has a number of strategies for areas of stability. Talking about addressing incompatible zone districts edges between areas of stability in areas of change and promoting a diverse mix of housing options type, size and cost. The zoning code talks about locating single family zoning away from arterial streets and locating multi-unit zoning on arterial streets. Monaco as an arterial street. David also talked about reinvestment areas, and I bring that up again because I think the definition fits the site to a tee. Reinvestment areas are in neighborhoods with a character that is desirable to maintain but would benefit from modest infill or major projects in a small area. I wouldn't consider this to be a major project, but I do think that the 75 units we're proposing is modest infill. It continues in these areas and can encourage investment, but in a more limited and targeted way. In order to limit and target our redevelopment, we have limited the density to 75 units and we've targeted the for sale townhomes to Cedar and Locust and locating the apartment form on the more challenging Monaco frontage. The definition concludes with these areas face a variety of challenges, including concern about deteriorating or poorly maintained properties. Inappropriate land uses, inadequate buffers between uses and maintaining affordable housing. Again, I think if you look at this site and some of the challenges and opportunities it presents, it meets that definition quite well. And it's remarkable to see some of the foresight that the drafters of Blueprint Denver had in drafting these concepts, as we've been grappling with them for the last 18 months. The next thing I'd like to talk about is context, which is very important when considering the zoning of the site. This site is the only corner of the intersection of Cedar and Monaco that does not have multi-unit zoning. The the southwest corner is zoned SMU three, which is what we're seeking. The northeast and southeast corners are zoned are to a which is an old code multi-unit zoned district, which, as you've heard, allows for over 700 units of apartments ranging from 2 to 7 stories. Our corner is still zoned single family, which is likely a remnant from the original 1950s zoning code. A lot has been made about the context of Monaco being primarily single family on the west side of the street between George Washington High School up north to 38th Avenue near I-70. And that is true for the most part. However, what's interesting about those single family homes on the West Side is that except for a school. On Mont View. Not one of the single family homes on the west side of the street does not have a matching single family home on the east side of the street where single family exists on the west side. It is always met in parity with a single family home on the east side of the street. And for more than two thirds of this corridor, there's that gorgeous center median parkway between sixth and 38th that greatly aids in that single family context. When you look at our site, there is no center median parkway. There are no single family homes across the street. And instead you have that large suburban 710 unit apartment community ranging from 2 to 7 stories tall. Health care services and a little bit northeast. You have the Boulevard one redevelopment. This section of Monaco between Alameda and first is much different node than the rest of Monaco and that I think it is unfair to expect this site to perform as single family or even townhomes fronting Monaco. When this node again is unlike any other section of Monaco. Furthermore, many of the single family homes on the west side of Monaco, south of that median parkway, have over time turned their back to Monaco. And we've seen some of the architectural models that the Friends of Crest Marc Group have come up with. And in a number of their concepts, even their designs turn the backs of single family homes or townhomes to Monaco, which doesn't comport with the zoning code. And it also kind of proves the point of the challenge that fronting Monaco in this section is. Lastly, I want to talk briefly about customized zoning. We first sought to limit the density to 75 units via a waiver and condition. However, as the Planning Department has recently discussed, waivers and conditions are more suitable for items in zone district with a broad or citywide implication, such that they seek to address this in a future language amendment to the zoning code. And again, they're intended for items broadly applicable across all zone districts, not site specific. So limiting density on this site does not fit that purpose. And as for a PWD, the code requires unique and extraordinary circumstances to justify the use of a pad. Again, limiting density does not qualify as one of those unique and extraordinary circumstances. In closing, I would just like to say that the current proposal of 50 apartments in 25. Year time is lapsed. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Our next speaker is. And Kerwin. And you have 6 minutes. Yes. Hello. Good evening. I am Ann Kerwin. Our neighbor, a man named Aaron Swartz, could not attend tonight's hearing, but asked us to share some comments with you. You may have seen his piece in last Thursday's Denver Post. It was entitled The Human Cost of High Density Development on a spring afternoon last year. Aaron's pregnant wife and their three year old son had walked him to work at a nursing center at East Alameda and South Monaco Parkway a couple of blocks from their home. It was about 2 p.m. when he kissed them goodbye. After walking inside, Aaron said he heard the wail of sirens. There's a fire station nearby, so the familiar sound didn't raise any alarms for him. It should have. As Aaron's wife headed back to their house with their son falling asleep in the stroller, she crossed Monaco and then was waiting on the sidewalk to cross Alameda when she heard a terrifying screech. A car heading straight smashed into one turning left. That car spun, hitting Aaron's wife and throwing his son from the stroller onto the street. Aaron knew nothing of the accident until he received a call a couple of hours later from Denver Health. His wife and child were in stable condition. He raced outside and saw their blue stroller lying on the sidewalk and smashed cars nearby. He started screaming No, over and over. Aaron's mother took him to the hospital. As it turned out, his son had road rash all over his body, a deep gash on his head, and a broken collarbone. For weeks, the three year old had to be in a sling and could not run or climb. Remarkably, Aaron's wife had escaped major injuries. Through all the chaos, the little light shines through and ultrasound showed that the child in her womb was okay. And for the first time, they learned they were having another boy. Aaron Swartz family survived this harrowing ordeal, but he tells how their accident still haunts them. The older son is more hesitant and, of course, wary of cars. They like to walk me now every time they cross a. As these street fear grips them, they stand far back at intersections looking for cars that might hit them, Erin says. I hear Denver is one of the most popular cities in the country for young people like us. It's nice to live in a city that is thriving. But growth in Denver is also putting pressure on neighborhoods like ours. Developers and city officials seem to think that our city must stand, which in high density buildings everywhere we can. They know traffic will increase. They say the growth has to come first, then solutions to terrible traffic someday will follow. What they're forgetting is that poor planning leaves real people vulnerable in our relatively quiet neighborhood of single family homes. We are facing two proposed Joan zoning changes this month that could bring hundreds of new units and thousands of additional car trips a day. An Englewood developer wants to tear down a church on Christmas park and build townhomes and a high density apartment complex on this small 2.3 acre site just across from Monaco Parkway. The Lowry Development Authority wants to add 800 units. Aaron Swartz said he would love to know that an accident like the one that hurt his family will never happen again. The truth is, it can and it will. We desperately need safer, more efficient transportation in this neighborhood. It doesn't make sense to allow high density urban development here. We should add lower scale developments like townhomes and single family homes that fits our area. Let's build bigger projects near light rail lines. Let's plan for better bike and bus routes. Let's keep pedestrians safe. Aaron Swartz's family experienced the direct effects of too much traffic. He's lucky that his wife and son survived. Let's not put others in jeopardy. Please join me in asking the Denver City Council to stop allowing big high density projects and assuming the traffic solutions will magically follow. Thank you, Ms. KIRWIN. Okay. Our next round of eight speakers, I'm going to call your name and again, if you can come up to the front reserved bench. The first one is David Foster. Scott Robinson. Marty Reps. Patricia Hutchinson. Thomas Craven, Mark Siddall, Meg Sharp and John Huggins. You have 6 minutes, Mr. Foster. Thank you, Madam President. Members of Denver City Council. My name's David Foster. Address 360 South Garfield. Denver 80209. Here on behalf of Metropolitan Homes, thank you for the time this evening. I will try to beat the 6 minutes as Mr. Maley had identified. Well, let me start with the the lawyer in me, so I'd like to incorporate by reference into. The into. The hearing tonight blueprint Denver and comprehensive plan. 2000. In addition to that, notwithstanding what my friend John Fisher may have said just a moment ago about planning staff and the planning board getting it wrong, I actually thought that they got it right. And I'd like to enter into the record this as well. This is the CD from the January 21st hearing, you know. It's a CD from the Jerry 21st hearing before the Denver Planning Board. I also have a multitude of copies here. One more handout. And this is what Sean was beginning to address in terms of the land use covenant. So I will focus almost entirely on the document that you may have in front of you and that you'll be seeing here shortly as we have articulated the project. Notwithstanding the fact that SMU three has doesn't have a density requirement or a. Maximum amount of units that could be built. We have imposed that. Limitation on us. We have also imposed. A access. Limitation on us that all of access would come off of Monaco. We've also identified that on the site itself. We have both a planning area, A in planning R and B. Where certain forms, building forms will exist. And you will see that on sub area A, it's the exhibit B, sub area will have the townhouse building form. And so very a B will have the apartment building form. But very quickly, what I'd like you to understand is that this land use covenant will be recorded against the property , will run with the land. It has multiple parties to this agreement, both the landowner and a number of individuals who have either already signed or we are having them signed. Everybody has agreed to have their names associated with this land use covenant. It will in fact limit density to 25 individual townhouses on sub area A, it will limit density to a maximum of 50 apartment or condos. On sub area B it will. This property will only be used for residential development. There will not be more than a maximum of 75 units on its entirety. There will be two points of ingress and egress to this entire site. Those coming off of Monaco, there shall be no ingress and egress to and from the property from either cedar or locust. That was a very big point of contention with planning staff who wanted to drive the traffic off of Monaco and Cedar. And that was an issue that was raised very early on. In our conversations. We have identified what the setbacks will be. That's in 3D and in 3D discussion of the height limitations. A couple of other components to this land use covenant that I believe are important. The the paragraph five covenant running with the land. That means from owner. To owner, it is. Restricting the land and there are parties to it who can enforce. I'll get to that in a moment. That and I'm just going to read this language because there's been some talk in the community that, you know, the developer isn't willing to live by the bargain and certainly their lawyer isn't going to draft anything to have the developer live by the bargain. So I want to read this that notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained herein, if after all the townhomes and apartment or condominium units that are to be built on the property as contemplated by Section three have been completed and certificates of occupancy for all such units have been issued and the expiration of 20 years thereafter in the event the property is then re zoned, this agreement and all covenants and or restrictions contained herein shall automatically terminate. So that is the termination provision 20 years down the road after the property. Potentially, if it does get rezone 20 years from now, dispute resolution, all disputes will go to mediation, binding arbitration. All of those costs will be borne by the owner, by Peter Cutler. And then another issue that was raised early on is this is terrific, but we don't have the funds who are neighbors to enforce this. We have we will be placing within 30 days if the city council approves this rezoning, $25,000 into escrow in order for the neighbors who are signatories to this agreement to enforce this very agreement. So back two months ago, it was in the beginning of April, I submitted a draft of this document to a neighborhood, a group of neighborhood leaders. I did not hear back from any of them as it relates to any of the terms with good fortune. There are a series of neighbors, some of whom are here tonight, who will likely speak to their participation in this agreement, who reached out, hired their own independent attorneys, because, of course, nobody is going to believe a developer , nobody is going to believe a developer's attorney. So they have hired their own attorneys to review this covenant. Two independent attorneys have reviewed this covenant on their behalf. It's enforceable, it will be recorded. And so if I've heard it really once I've heard it many, many times through this process that the developer is really seeking to rezone the site, he'll sell it. And then nobody will live by the promise of. That he's made. I'd like to put an end to that particular conversation tonight. People may disagree with the ultimate project that Mr. Cutler is seeking to build and the rezoning that we're seeking tonight. But the conversation about whether or not he can build more than what he has represented tonight really should end with this particular land use covenant. I will say I have also been a part of this process for the last 17 or 18 months. The project that was submitted initially to two neighbors, to the planning board, to the planning staff of 120 units that did receive planning staff support and planning board support is not as good of a project as a project that is in front of you tonight. I think the process made this project better. I think the diversification of housing has made this project better. And I think we are the beneficiaries of that 18 month process. And I hope that you will see fit to support this project tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Foster. Our next speaker is Scott Robinson. And. You have 3 minutes. Thank you, council members and thank you for your time and effort that you put in down here. My name is Scott Robinson. I live on Cross Moore Park. I'm at 21 South Kearney. I've seen this project since the inception. I've seen it, you know, when there was access off of the side streets. And I want to tell you that I really appreciate the the neighborhood and the developer working together to lessen the impacts. And I really think they've done a good job with that. And I think that's important because it shows that everybody is working to make it right. You know what currently is on Monaco near the site, we had single family homes that were built probably ten or 15 years ago and they are blighted and have not worked. It's right on the north side of Alameda and it's just been an eyesore the whole time. The reason is nobody wants to live on Monaco and face Monaco. I understand why, you know, apartments work, but single family, you're not going to pay that much for a house that that looks out on to Monaco. It just doesn't make any sense. So I really I mean, I think, you know, more developer men or smarter development. I mean, I think you want smarter development. I think that's what this proposal is. There's a little bit of the the little Chicken Little. I mean, I went through the rezoning or the change on Fillmore when they took away the pedestrian access. And people said that that was going to, you know, make this place horrible. I'm in the office building next door to that. Cars go in and out. It works great. I don't understand, you know, what the outcry was that that how could you do this to our neighborhood? This is another one of those, I believe. And I really think that that what we're proposing here is right for the neighborhood and it makes sense. Lastly, I'd just like to say that, you know, some of the some of the misrepresentations of this has been astounding to me. I know that the homeowners association gave you a plan with or a a thing about how many residents were against something and all the comments for it. And I appreciate them doing that. But that wasn't even for the plan that's proposed tonight, and that's misleading. And I think that's a horrible injustice. So thank you very much for your time, and I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Robinson. Our next speaker is Marty Ripps. So you have 3 minutes. Thank you, Madam President and council members. And thank you very much for your attention. My name is Marty Rapp's. I live in Denver. I'm a realtor, a former lawyer for ten years in a past life. And I'm here as a concerned citizen. I'm here to urge you to uphold the rule of law, or specifically the law of rules. I strongly object to the erosion of blueprint Denver. Rules exist to to protect everyone and to guide decision making by everyone. And that's you and me and my clients and attorneys who advise my clients. Development can certainly upgrade an area, but it also can certainly degrade it. The proposed development is in an area of stability, yet the developer is proposing varying apartment complexes on a plot of land zoned for single family residences only, regardless of the ways you can wiggle and squirm to justify a change. Per the planning department, the issue is not whether you can, but whether you should. And whether it's a good idea to do so. We're told in The Denver Post that the developer took a risk when he purchased this property. Let's be clear. It wasn't a risk which can sound kind of edgy, kind of sexy. Maybe it was a gamble. And that gamble was a gamble that if the laws were flaunted, flaunted. And the system was played. Then that developer would get personal gain. Now, in a conservation easement context, context, if someone purchased a piece of land that had been protected by a conservation easement with the idea that everybody else had failed to purchase it, but gee, if they purchased it, perhaps they could get that easement vacated and then they could do the development and then they would gain. I think everyone in the room would say that's really kind of unfair. Well, this is exactly the same thing in an urban context. Protecting our existing neighborhoods is of critical importance and is the major stated goal a blueprint? Denver To approve this zoning change would be to undermine the certainty the blueprint Denver provides to foster confusion and to encourage rampant gambling by developers, since all rules would be considered mere suggestions. And that, in my view, would be a disaster. I also would like to comment on something that Mr. Foster said about his covenant. I believe in paragraph four. You can see that it says if the application and proposed development of the property by owner is abandoned. Now that could mean sold to somebody else. This agreement shall terminate and thereafter shall be known. Void for the time is up. Thank you. Our next speaker is Patricia Hutchinson. Patricia. Our next speaker is Thomas Raven. You have 3 minutes. Thank you, Madam President. Fellow council members. I'm Dr. Tom Raven and I live at 45 South W, which is actually in Hilltop. But I really came because I'm concerned about the traffic that is going to be developed around this whole area. Having lived in the neighborhood literally all my life, 74 years so far, with a few years in the military away. I've lived in Hilltop, so I've seen development from the Robinson Dairy with a barn on it to whatever is going to happen there now. And because I live on, I am exposed to and have seen over the years how how the development around is around us has driven traffic down down here. First of all, it's a connection between Leeds Stale and Glendale. So the traffic comes up, the stoplight and it's coming down. Delia, as the development goes around, it just gets busier and busier. And for a street that was really a rural street, it's almost a freeway now. And it's no one's everybody has sort of said, well, it doesn't make any difference. You live pretty far away from that development. But no, it doesn't. Every time another car gets added to this pile, it's adding up to traffic on an Alameda traffic at Monaco. And I can tell you that I drive through that intersection fairly frequently and I ride my bike through there fairly often during the summer. And I can tell the story that I heard about the crash. There is a happens or potentially is there. Almost every time I cross this cedar, Monica, I get that light. So I'm and I can see that is not going to get any better with any kind of development there, although I think there needs to be something done with the property and I'm all for it. I just think that what these people are trying to propose is a little bit much for this area and that neighborhood and is going to drive traffic down cedar one way or the other to get around that corner of Alameda and Monaco. So I really have a lot of reservations about this from the side. And since I've seen this development go on for years and years and get worse and worse. I'm I'm sort of feeling it. And I need to be verbal about the problem. And I don't really have any great solutions other than to say, let's be cognizant about what when we open up areas to more and more cars, there's going to be more and more issues around the whole neighborhood and not just this isolated area. Thank you. That's perfect time. Gosh. All right. Mark Sindel is next, followed by Meg Sharpe and John Huggins. Hi. Good evening. Thanks. Madam President and council. I hope not to use all of my time. I live at 201 Ivanhoe Street. I'm speaking in support of the project. So I'm a Chris Moore resident. I love my neighborhood. I love my neighbors. It's really this process and all these orange signs that popped up around the neighborhood that got me to really engage and pay attention. And I think this is a great example of the process at work. And I encourage you to to support the project. It's, in my opinion, a great example of the neighbors making the project better. I think until I learned, I didn't really know what was going on as I dug in a little bit. I think the vast improvements by restricting the access to Monaco and let's see, I like the investment in the neighborhood, especially at a kind of challenged corner there. I like the addition of housing options into the kind of palette of crest more. I like the building architecture. Reminds me a lot of third and Holly, which is very close to where I live. I kind of wish I could walk over this way like I can over there to a little bit of retail where I frequent the restaurants and shops and the cheese company and the like there. So that that would be nice. But I understand some people didn't like that. And I think this is a nice compromise. I think it's a terrific amount of setback and a lot of beautiful landscaping that I see in the picture that I've seen that separates the the street from the from the front of the project. You know, I heard about this restriction kind of self-imposed to eliminate the concerns of, well, what if they go put as much as they can in this three storey bucket? And I think I think it's a it's a great job. I commend everybody that worked on it. And I just want to remind you that Monaco's an arterial street, and I think that's exactly where this belongs. And thanks for your hard work. Thank you. Our next speaker, Meg. Champ, you have 6 minutes. Thank you. My name is MiG Sharp and I own a home at 430 South Newport Way, Denver 802 to 4. I live four doors north of the Denver Green School on Virginia Avenue and just a few blocks east of George Washington High School. I have raised three children in the Winston Downs subdivision over the last 20 years, purchasing a home twice within the same neighborhood. Today, I come to you as a member of the Winston Down Homeowner's Association, which represents over 550 homes bordered by Monaco, Quebec, Alameda and Lewis Dale. We are a mere two blocks from the proposed Mt. Gallia development site. We appreciate a councilman, Councilwoman Sussman, attending our annual homeowners meeting in April with a vote of our members showing overwhelming opposition to a 75 unit development currently proposed. Over 75 members attended, and out of those in attendance, only two members were in favor of the current proposal put forth by Mr. Kudla and Mr. Birkhoff. Many of us were also involved in the Lego Project and learned a great deal about considerations needing to be made before any zoning changes would be acceptable to our association or R.A. members. I would like to add that while these. I'm wondering whether some of the restrictions that we're talking about have been finalized and approved by the fire department or by traffic. When we look at looking at those zoning restrictions, we're so grateful to Councilwoman Sussman, who attended the Friends of Chris Moore Park early in May. Our meeting presenting several options with Legos, including the current proposal by the developer. My younger children are now 14 and also attended attended Lourey Elementary School during this time that Lowry homes were just beginning to blossom. I know it is important for us to develop appropriately properties around here that will improve our neighborhood. But tonight I come to you to say the proposed zoning change on this Mount Gilead site is not the appropriate alternative or in the best interests of our various communities that use the surrounding corridors and park. Well, there are numerous issues to bring up regarding this proposal. Out of respect for your time, I want to just speak of the traffic and more specifically the parking issues, which will be a huge challenge to several stakeholders whom I have known for many years as an active resident. In my neighborhood, schools and community, primarily, my children have grown up using Crest Moore Park as a place to go multiple times during the week, during soccer season and during bike riding season. We also live in an area with a large number of Orthodox Jewish families who use our streets heavily. From Friday, at sundown through late Saturday evening, the multiple use of our park and the surrounding streets adds exponential, exponential risk and liability to many. Streets are already quite congested. Add to this group of stakeholders, the children and families at the preschool directly across the street from this proposed and likely 120 unit development with rentals of apartments that may overlook some of the kids in the playground just across the street from this proposed three storey apartment. Both the increased traffic and high density development could cause the concern that that we see as a potential liability for children who may be in danger from either park parking or traffic problems, or are potential perpetrators located conveniently across the street looking down into the play yard. Emergency vehicles would be hard pressed to easily or easily or conveniently enter any of these apartments or preschool in the event of a fire or emergency. I see this as a perfect storm, which will impact these various stakeholders, including our children. This perfect storm may not affect the developers as much, though. In closing, I'm I'm also most concerned as a park advocate and visitor to family and friends in the surrounding park area about the parking. While two spaces have been promised for townhomes as required. I'm concerned that there will not be enough surface parking for visitors to this high density development, leaving guests to take up valuable and sparse available parking in the outlying neighborhoods. My concerns can all be wrapped up in the commitment that you, as representatives of our neighborhoods, have made to maintain the highest quality of life for the neighborhoods and your constituents. Our neighborhood will not benefit from such a potentially high density development, which is located a stone's throw from another 800 unit development whose building will coincide with this 195 South Monaco development at Lowry Boulevard one. Please do not approve this zone change nor use covenants or restrictions. They will not adequately provide protection of the character of our stable neighborhood. In my humble opinion, it will not enhance the livability of our neighborhood. Thank you for your time and thank you for your service to our city. Thank you. Our next speaker is John Huggins. Thank you, Madam President, and members of Council. My name is John Huggins. I live at 35 Eudora Street in Hilltop. I'm here not representing the project, but just as a neighbor. My daughter and I are frequent users of Crest Moore Park. My four year old. We love to bike there. I'm very familiar with this area and the adjacent neighborhoods based on my experience and community and economic development. And as you've heard tonight, the site is not appropriate for its current zoning. That is, the current zoning is not does not allow for plausible development of the site, given that it must be resolved. And I think that this 75 unit proposal is an appropriate amount of density, an appropriate mix of uses for the site. Most importantly, I think having more affordable housing choices, a broader range of choices, the townhomes and the age targeted rental units will be a positive benefit to our neighborhood. Zillow reports that the average home value in the neighborhood that includes Crest Moorpark is $855,000. That's up 53% over the last four years from the bottom of the real estate cycle. And I think having less expensive, more affordable choices for people who wish to stay in this community and continue, continue their family life there is very important. And therefore, I would hope that you would support this proposal. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Our next round of speakers Derek Coco. Venus. Bruce O'Donnell. Keith Whiteman. Richard Farley, Alan Singer, Monica Martinez, Marcus Werther, Amanda Cook and Jack Blumenthal. If you could make your way up to the front bench. Okay. Is Derrick nearby? Coco. Venus. Let's go on to our next speaker, Brousseau. Donald. You have 3 minutes. Thank you, Madam President, of members. Of the council. My name is Bruce O'Donnell. I live at 128 Eudora Street in Hilltop, and I'm here to speak as a neighbor in. Support of this rezoning application and urge your support of it as well. I would not have been in favor of the prior iterations of this. I think they were inappropriate in to dance and to intensive on the neighborhood. But this one has kind of been customized appropriately to fit into the Blueprint Denver niche that anticipates that there will be some change even in areas of stability. I want to speak with that in. Mind to two important topics tonight. I think in the general land use discussion in Denver, we often hear about how. Developers are unresponsive to neighborhood input. And that there's no way to hold their feet to the fire and get them to live up to their commitments. And this project. Which has been reduced by 45 units in. Reduced from four. Storeys to three and has targeted parking on monarch or excuse me, access on. Monaco. And in fact, capped density at 75 units is all in direct response to neighborhood input. And so this project is actually a good example. That neighbors can be heard and their good input can be valued in better results can be achieved because of it. Regarding the ability. To get developers to live up to their word and to. Protect their commitments. But not for your consideration tonight. But hand in glove with this entire effort is a protective covenant and a deed restriction. That the developer is proposing to place upon themselves to be bound by the commitments. Made this evening. And again for a city wide application. That's proof that there are tools available. The city doesn't have to. Enter into a contract. And the development that's been discussed. Tonight can be memorialized by a protective covenant, which in fact is what many of the neighbors and Chris Moore, the first few speakers tonight talked about that they have benefited in Chris. Moore filings one and two from the fact that covenants exist. That for the long term ensure the type of development that can occur. So the very tool that has made Chris Moore such a great neighborhood is available this evening. I also feel that. As has been discussed, Monaco is a busy arterial. This is not a place where single family detached homes facing. Monaco are going to work. One speaker earlier talked about how just a little bit south of here, closer to Alameda, there's been attempts at that that are failed. And this mirrors the scale of development on the east side of Monaco. And I ask that you approve it this evening. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. O'Donnell. Our next speaker is Keith Whiteman. Mr. Wightman. Key points. What is it? I can't hear you, Keith. Okay. Well, that's fine. It's. Yeah. Come on up to the podium. It's your turn. Yeah. And you have 3 minutes. 6 minutes. Oh. 6 minutes. I'm glad we have that straight. I'm Keith Whitelaw. My wife and I live at 6300 East Cedar Avenue, 200 feet from the parcel under consideration. However, given some breaking news, I'm going to interrupt my planned talk and add a couple of points to the proposed and incomplete site agreement. Covenants just revealed minutes ago. The status of this site agreement and its terms are new to me and to the community at large. So much for developer collaboration. This thing evaporates in 20 years. 20 years is nothing to a community. Started in the 1930s and carefully protected for 70 years. As to the dollars 25,000 for enforcement. Thank you. Litigation is expensive and enforcement case like this could last years and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I think the deficiencies of this notion would go on and on and hopefully others will speak to it. Back to the text. I'm a Colorado attorney with 40 years of experience practicing real property law. I've studied the facts, law and circumstances relevant to this case. I oppose this application as fatally flawed, legally and factually. It fails in the light of common sense. It mocks reason, the facts. The applicant, a multi-unit residential developer, bought this small parcel with no zoning contingency having despite having legal knowledge and actual no knowledge that it has continuously been zoned for single family residential use for decades. Further, he was informed by Councilwoman Mary Beth Susman that a previous attempt to rezone it for overly dense development had been vigorously opposed and and defeated. Yet he pursued it, assuming all risk, economic and otherwise, apparently assuming that as a developer for some reason he is entitled to a rezoning. He is not. You are mindful of the city's adopted plans and that as a matter of law, an application that fails to prove consistency with all of them is dead on arrival. In his overzealousness, the applicant has crafted an application that asks you to find all required consistencies. In this regard, this application deserves a very close reading. Some examples regarding criteria one consistency with comp plan 2000. In Exhibit F, Page 25, he claims that the rezoning will accommodate, quote, the needs and desires of Denver's current and future residents. The application applicant is merely reciting unsigned, unsubstantiated statements in order to fill in the blanks. He is feigning compliance. He cannot possibly offer any evidence of the, quote, needs and desires of unidentifiable future residents. An exhibit in Exhibit F, he claims that a, quote, change in zoning to SMU three not only increases the density on the site , but allows for more amenities like landscaped areas, places, plazas and open green space. Close quote foolishness. A simple review shows that the existing one storey church occupies less height and mass and space than will the proposed development. The truth rezoning will result in fewer of these and other amenities. The application is rife with such sham. Don't know how much time I have to give you the law, but it is important. In his unsuccessful attempts to to satisfy review review criteria to the applicant beginning on page 25, cherry picks requirements he addresses. Notably, he utterly disregards proof of compliance with Blueprint's key strategy at page 41, ensure quote compatibility with new and existing development and its Prime Directive in its quote, guiding principles. On page 141, respect valued attributes of the area, close quote. Recall Denver Zoning Code Division 3.2 Paragraph F Whenever this code places quote whenever this code places the burden of proof on an applicant, that burden shall be met by, at a minimum, a preponderance of the evidence. Here, the applicant offers absolutely no evidence. Skipping forward common sense. Consider the definition in the zoning code 13.3 dash for quote compatibility or compatible the characteristics of different uses or activities or designs that allow them to be located near or adjacent to each other without adversely affect compatibility. Oh. Some elements affecting compatibility include height, scale, mass and bulk of structures. Compatibility refers to the sensitivity of development. Development proposals in maintaining the character and context of existing development, close quote. That's the long look at the proposed development. I'm going to look at Chris Moore. This application is insensitive in the absurd. You have no duty to this risk taking applicants profit projections. Rather, the application fails on the legal requirements and you have a solemn duty to deny it. I respectfully request that you recognize the fatal factual and legal deficiencies, the inequities pervading it, and the abandonment of common sense it begs and denial. Thank you so much. Thank you. Our next speaker is Richard Farley, followed by Alan Singer and Monica martinez. Good evening, Madam President, and members of the Council. My name is Richard Farley. I live at 2500 Walnut Street in Denver, and I'm a professional planner and urban designer. And I'm and I'm an independent. I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm not quite sure why I'm here, but I do. But I'm not connected to the developer or to the neighborhood. But I do have a, um, you know, a love for Denver and for Monaco Boulevard. My Monaco Parkway. The Parkway really ends at this point. And it is more of an arterial than than a parkway. It's very difficult to have residences to be developed along it. And we can see the, you know, the aspects of that. Um, so this development I think is appropriate to the site. It's across from townhomes and seven storey apartment. It's matches the scale of the arterial. Um, you know, it's, um, you need to have something that's a greater scale next to a larger street. It's not really that high density anything. Small unit small parcels tend to get high numbers just because you get a few, you get 75 units on a little bit of property and all of a sudden you have a very high density number. But it's not it's not applied over a long, a big distance. So, um, you know, I think that the, you know, the development is a good one. It's within a half mile of the Lowry Town Center, within walking and biking distance. Uh, the architecture is sympathetic to the neighborhood, and, um, I think it would be a good, uh, entrance to the neighborhood just because it has parkway landscaping and the townhouses, uh, provide a detached walk and streetscape going into the neighborhood. So thank you. And I do support the project. Thank you. Mr. Farley. Ellen Singer. You have 3 minutes, Mr. Singer. Thank you, Madam President. Members of the Council. My name is Alan Singer. I'm a Denver resident. I live at two and five South Kearny Street, several blocks from the proposed development. I've lived in this neighborhood since 1999. Councilman Brooks, earlier today, I heard you speak when the council was discussing the vacating of work right away at Elliot Street. And you mentioned that a petition of 20 people in favor of the vacation was a ton of support. Well, look out in the audience here and look at the number of 300 letters that have come in opposition to this zoning change. And I will tell you that that is a ton of opposition. And now, Councilman Brown, I heard you speak earlier about barbed wire, sir. Yes. I heard the council speak about barbed wire boulevard. We do not live in barbed wire boulevard, and we have not asked anybody to come in and enhance our neighborhood. Now, I would like to speak about the issue that I came to speak about. There are many religious and observant Jews that live in this neighborhood. It is one of three communities in Denver that has an era of we don't need to go into what that is. But its purpose is to allow observant Jews to observe the Sabbath and walk and carry things. We do not drive on the Sabbath on any given Friday night and Saturday. You will see numerous women, children, men, women pushing strollers. You will see young children riding their scooters. We do not have large sidewalks like in downtown Denver or other large cities. This is a single family zoned area with either no sidewalks or very small sidewalks. And as a result of that, we often have to walk in the street. This proposal upsets the delicate balance that currently exists between pedestrians and cars that are parked on the street. Now, I know we're not here to talk about Boulevard One, but that development factors in to the consideration about this one because it adds on to the density and it adds on to the number of cars that will be transferring through our neighborhood. And it's for that reason that I ask the council, even though you may have under the authority of certain zoning rules and proposals and development planning to approve this zoning plan, I ask you not to approve this zoning plan. The members of this community do not want this zoning plan. It is something that is being forced upon us in the name of community enhancement. No one has asked anybody to enhance our neighborhood. Thank you, Mr. Singer. The next speaker is Monica martinez, followed by Marcus Werther. Hi. Thank you, Madam President. And City Council. My name is Monica martinez and I live in Hilltop and I'm here tonight. My my daughter is actually at her grandma's, and I thought I was going to have a romantic dinner out, but instead I'm here and I'm here because I feel compelled to talk to you and to my neighbors about why I think this is an important project for our community. I'm concerned about affordability in Denver. You can look at the paper if if you still read the paper. I do. And see that affordability is an issue here. We have historically low vacancy rates in our rental properties and our home prices continue to increase year over year. And I think we actually are only second to San Francisco in terms of our home appreciation last year. So I as a resident, I'm concerned because I don't think that middle class families will continue to live in Denver . I don't think our seniors will be able to downsize and stay in Denver if we do not add supply to the mix. And so I think this project would do that. I also felt compelled to come because I wanted to remind people that we had the Great Recession, and it does feel like we're being besieged by development . When I drive through Cherry Creek, I do. I do not like all the traffic and the congestion of the development and the construction. But then I remember that for four or five years we had no development in the city. I remember there was one crane in downtown for a good number of years. And so I need to remind people I felt compelled to remind people that we had nothing for many years. And so right now, while we feel besieged, it's actually because we're playing catch up. And so I wanted to come and talk about that. I also wanted to come and talk about that. I do feel like this design is compatible with the neighborhood. I feel like the developer who I don't know I just met tonight has made concessions to the neighbors and worked back and forth with them to go from an initial plan to now 75 units with a mix of housing, of rental age restricted 50 units and 25 townhomes. And I heard our community planning development person talk about how this is compatible with the, the comp plan and blueprint. Denver And so I feel like our zoning documents allow for this development. So it's not it isn't a surprise. It shouldn't be a surprise. I feel like it's consistent with what is there. There's high density apartment across the street arterial I think we've heard this word before tonight so I think it makes sense there. And then just before I go, I just I want to say something about the rhetoric that has been going on. I think the discourse has been very negative. And and I would ask council to not be swayed by that. I do I do respect the passion of these neighbors. But I think that the discourse has not been civil at times. And I would ask that council recognize that, because if this zoning proposal isn't accepted, I do think that it could be used as a template elsewhere. And I'd be fearful of Denver if our neighbor to neighborhood discourse becomes very aggressive. Thank you. Thank. Thank you. Our next speaker is Marcus Werther, followed by Amanda Cook and Jack Blumenthal. Good evening. Men and women of the city council. My name is Marcus Werther and I decided. To throw South Monaco. Parkway, which is also known as Lakeside Lowry, which previously was known as Berkshires, and before that was Chris Moore. It actually recently was taken over by new management. I'm providing this testimony over here, not as a homeowner, but as a renter. You have heard or continue to hear pertinent testimony from homeowners about maintaining the integrity of this community. But there are other stakeholders. I think one of them wished to share my view. Denver is facing unprecedented growth and due to myriad of. Factors, has an extreme housing shortage. I'm acutely aware of this issue. As I've been subject to rate hikes of over 20% per annum and living in a in a state of constant uncertainty. I'm at a stage where I ought to be looking at buying my own home, but I can't. Housing. Housing is my single greatest source of stress. Of stress. And I'm not alone. This is why I was really excited to hear about Peter's development project. But when I heard when I attended the original meetings, it became very clear that it was not intended to help young people. It originally wasn't intended to help out old people. It's intended to be luxury units. His original price was 1600 to 20 $600 a unit. Originally, there was discussion about whether there'd be an elevator in the complex. That was when there was 120 units. Now there's 50 units. If this is going to be for the elderly and there's a lot of older, elderly, my complex, there's at least there's five people that I deal with between the age of 85, 95 that I help out regularly. These are people that, you know, they have to park in the garage. And parking is an issue because there's no parking on the street. They park in the garage because they need a spot, but they can't shovel their snow. And what happens is, because of their vulnerability, all of a sudden parking was just free. Four or five years ago. Is now like $75 per spot per month. And that's my fear really, is that if we're going to go ahead and build a complex over here aimed at old people at the elderly, and this is a new this is new. This wasn't addressed at the last meeting that I was had. You really subjecting the vulnerable in a very tight market, people who aren't able to move very easily. And, you know, I think there's a lot of issues here that need to be addressed. It's nice that, you know, he that that there were concessions brought on, but they're brought on at this meeting, at least to the knowledge of most of the people here. And I believe that's very unfair. And in my mind, there's no doubt that we're in an exciting period of Denver's history and the growth is happening and and things will change. But the way I see it is that this project is a litmus test for our city council, because whatever is built here will likely be here for a very long time. This will define the history or the future of Denver, to be precise. Most of because this complex over here, once it's built, will then go and be a way for more complexes to be built over. Monica And that in itself lends itself to a plethora of of of stuff. You know, I guess. You were there. Your time is left. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Amanda Cook, followed by Jack Blumenthal. Amanda Cook. Jack Blumenthal. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. And City Council persons. My name is Jack Blumenthal. I reside at 60 Ivy Street, Denver, Colorado. Professionally, I led the largest CPA practice in the United States related to the issuance and the restructuring of tax exempt housing bonds in the United States. We had a market share of over 90%. So I understand what affordable housing is all about and the importance of it, because that's how I built my career. I'm opposed to Project Cedar and Monaco and the really two issues. I've heard a lot of other good things, but I'd like to come back with with two things. One is that the problem with the proposed project is it's not consistent with maintaining the architectural vista and community atmosphere of Monaco Parkway as it extends from I-70 on the north all the way really down to Greenwood Village. And there are just no apartment houses that are three stories high. What's on the street across the street at Lex or what used to be Chris Moore Downs or really townhouses and the high rise buildings or are set way back so that people can't see them. And so this would impact the quality of life and the image of Denver to people who use Monaco Parkway, both residents and nonresidents. It's a crown jewel of the city. The second is that I believe in an extension of the existing townhome complex of the ten. Townhomes which are on the adjacent property would provide increased density. Without impacting Monaco Parkway. So I respectfully request that the current zoning change be denied at this time, so that a pod resulting in appropriate and smart housing rather than destructive development can be put on that location. And finally, I'd just like to make one other observation after having been here this evening, and that is if the neighbors believe that the developer has reached out to them and has talked to them. Why are they. Out here in so much force objecting to it? Thank you very much for your time and have a good evening. Thank you, Mr. Blumenthal. Okay. Moving along. Our next speakers are Gloria Cohen. Miss Ghana. Test Failure. Bob Cohen. George Swan. Mike Kabuki. Gary Tessler. Stacy Decker. Virginia White. And Bob Moody. Our first speaker is Gloria Cohen. You think she's down the hall? Please. Okay. Gloria Cohen, we're going to go ahead and see if she comes in. Okay. Up there she is. Oh, there she is. Okay. Thank you for letting me know that. Hi, Mr. Cohen. You have 3 minutes watching TV downstairs. Thank you. We think. My first impression of this metropolitan hommes crew was they were very professional. It was a project, was well-researched, well thought out, well presented. They have compromised and downsized and and followed a lot of instructions. I and there is no way that I can think of them as criminals. Excuse me for coming upstairs. So maybe they make a profit. What's wrong with profit? This is. And this is America. It's an enterprise system. And I hope they do make a profit. I think it's a it's a wise idea. We live on Monaco. It's called Christmas Place. It's a little circle of townhomes that are set back from from Monaco itself. So we it's it's a nice, quiet little area. We're blessed with the view from our bedroom window into that that foundation that was dug seven and a half years ago. It's been full of trash. Before that, it was a nice, peaceful, vacant lot. At least now it's white weeds broken. And then to the north of us, the daycare center, which is okay, uh, and that unsightly church with its broken slanted sidewalks, the weeds, the truly unsightly. So we think this is the most exciting idea that's come along in years for us. We've been there for 20 years and then Hilltop before that. So we're in the neighborhood and yes, there are changes. Yes, there's more traffic. It's city. It's going to change. Oh. We are very, very much in favor of this development. We think it's a it's the ideal situation. It's the ideal answer to get rid of the mud puddles and some of the unsightly other things as far as the endangered Jews in the streets. They will have nice, wide, flat sidewalks instead of the weeds and and the trash. So I would encourage the city council, please, to approve this rezoning. We think it's a wonderful plan and it's exciting. Thank you, Miss Cohen. The next speaker is mosque is Miss Ghana. Test failure. How do I do? I pronounce your name. Mr. Garner testified in this class. Madam President, City Council, thank you very much for allowing me to share my thoughts on this rezoning application today. My name is Mr. Qantas Fire and my wife, two year old daughter and I recently purchased a single family home at 260 South Lyon Street, one block west and one block south of the property which is being considered for rezoning. Before we were married, we had and we had a child. My wife and I enjoyed city living. We embraced high density areas. We were big proponents of urbanization and efficient city living. We embraced my wife. Being a lifelong Denver resident, having grown up in North Park Hill, and I grew up southeast Denver, a little bit south, of course, more Moorpark. I personally lived in a condominium on the corner of 16th Street and Larimer Street for over seven years and served on the association. Board of Directors, Board of Directors four over four. We both enjoy city advantages such as public transportation, car sharing, bike sharing, and even the occasional ride sharing for a night on the town. In fact, I took a car to go to this meeting tonight. We're also huge fans of the Blueprint Denver Plan, which has designated this site as a stable and area and not on the table for rezoning. We relied on this plan and the zoning to buy our property because we knew Denver communities and officials mapped out a smart growth plan. I'm here today to oppose the rezoning of 195 South Monaco Street. I oppose this rezoning because of the things I just mentioned. Our city and state have invested a lot of taxpayer funds into public transportation and infrastructure that has made smart, smart growth possible. That infrastructure is not present in the area where this proposed development will take place to add unnecessary and unplanned and unwanted density to an area that does not have the appropriate public transit infrastructure simply reduces the quality of life for those that are already in the area. For example, based on my observations over the past year, living in a home on the intersection of South Lyon and Alameda, it will become a shortcut for the residents of this high density housing development during high traffic times. This increase in traffic could put my small child and other children on our block at risk for auto pedestrian accidents. These accidents are not hypothetical. They happen in our area as recently outlined in a Denver Post op ed. This is a very real danger for me and my family. Most of our lives we have wished to live in such a great Denver neighborhood like Crest, Moorpark. Many other young working professionals in Denver wish the same thing for when they settle down and raise a family. There's nothing wrong with having a low density areas within a city to allow for such a lifestyle. In fact, people pay premiums for real estate that can give them the location and family friendly environment provided by the Hilltop and Crest Moore Park neighborhoods. Rezoning this property will change the basic environment of the immediate surrounding development, surrounding area of the development. It will leave my family's real estate fundamentally different than what we planned our future on. Although this zoning change might provide a great investment return for a single real estate developer, it will leave those of us who made our real estate life investments based on historically stable, single family neighborhoods with much uncertainty. This is an inequitable proposition for us as Denver homeowners, based on the fundamental purpose of Denver's adopted plans alone, including Blueprint, Denver and the existing zoning code. The purpose of these plans is to provide predictability and stability and not uncertainty and speculation. We love Denver. We love Denver and that it's growing. We are glad people all over the world are waking up and recognizing how amazing this place is. However, Coloradans and Denver rights are smarter than just sticking as many residential units in every open, empty lot in order to make room for new residents. Therefore, I respectfully request that this City Council deny this rezoning application and defend the Blueprint Denver plan and the concept of smart city growth. Thank you. Thank you, Bob Cohen. You have 3 minutes, Mr. Cohen. Thank you, madam. Yes, my name is Robert Cohen. We live at 245 South Monaco Parkway. So when everyone is talking about Not in my backyard, this project happens to be a half a block away from our backyard. And we all myself, we do support. Or you've already heard from my wife. She supports it as well, too. And there are several reasons, but I think what's important is I've sat through today or this evening so many objections that have been raised by people and many of them very concerned, very sincere objections. But let's deconstruct a few of them. Number one, the issue of let's save the existing building. Well, that one's gone away because the existing building is frankly an eyesore and basically needs to be removed some way or the other to save that piece of property. Two, it's going to bring additional traffic. I'd like somebody to tell me what project any place and in this city and county get Denver wouldn't bring additional traffic. There's one way to stop it. Tell the car dealers to stop selling cars for two years. We might have less cars on the road, but that is not going to happen. By the way, I might add that I've lived in this neighborhood for 40 years and I've lived at the current address for 29 years. So like many other people, and I do think it's very nice and appropriate to see so many Bronco fans here in front of city council this evening. And I think I do appreciate that. I'm a loyal fan. I think part of the issue is that we don't want renters apparently in the neighborhood. Well, look across the street because we do. It's right across from where we live. And there are over seven and I believe it's actually over 800 rental units that have been there because I used to live there many years ago myself. So there are a lot of renters in this neighborhood. The I might say that the and I do think it's a very sincere issue that and I'm looking at a picture over here that city council probably has not seen yet that was in the newspaper indicating a group of apparently Orthodox Jewish people on the way to the synagogue. There's no question that many people live at LAX, cross over Monaco and walk to the synagogues. And this is an important issue. The issue, however, is that, in fact, the block that we're talking about, which is one block right now with cracked concrete, with weeds growing around it and whatever. That's the one block that is going to be developed if this zoning is approved. So to say that and by the way, that picture was eight blocks down the road. I checked it out today. So the truth of the matter is that the picture that you're going to be shown is eight blocks away from where it is . I do request that you support this rezoning. I think it's appropriate. I think we need to zoned it right. Thank you, Mr. Cohen. Our next speaker is George Swan. Thank you, Madam Chairman and council members. My name is George Swan and I have lived in Lowri since 2007. Had 180 Poplar Street. It's in a condo. We have about 160 units or so there. I am opposed to this bill and I think you should be too. I drive on Monaco and Quebec and Alameda every day. The traffic is a problem right now. The problem is we're looking out on 50 acres of development. Barclay annex has got 800 new units coming up. It's an unknown. When that was approved a few years ago, they said that the traffic was going to be a wash. There were 2000 cars that went to work there every day. And this wasn't going to be any problem because that's a dynamic situation. It's an unknown. And we're facing it right now. And, you know, we need at least a couple of years to digest the impact of this new development. If you approve this bill, then it's going to happen and which is going to be a double unknown on top of an unknown. If you oppose it now, we digest it. There's always time in the future. And that unit that's there now, that's an eyesore could get developed under the current code anyway. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next speaker is Mike Moody Judy. And while you're coming up, Gary Tessler, Stacy Decker, Virginia White and Bob Moody. Hello. Mike. 3130 or Night Street, Denver. 802200. I'm going to make this really quick. Okay. I live in the neighborhood. I live in Mayfair Park. Just on the north side of Boulevard One. And I'm in favor of this project. I think that it is a good addition to the neighborhood. I never mind having options. For housing in the neighborhood, and I think that it's a good. Asset for the community. Thank you. Thank you. Gary Tessler. My name is Gary Tesla and I live in Winston Downs, which is catty corner to the area that we're talking about. I want to congratulate Bellwether City Council. You are rules are such that they're much more stringent than the Congress of the United States who isn't necessarily always civil to one another. I my I have no knowledge of development. I'm not a builder. I was a talk show host. But I do know what happens in neighborhoods with traffic. And I've watched it happen in our neighborhood. And we're getting to that perfect storm that people that people have talked about right now. If you try to make a left or right turn off of Virginia, on to Quebec, you may sit there ten or 15 minutes if it's during high traffic. Right now, we have people cutting through our neighborhood because they can't go straight on Monaco during high traffic areas, during high traffic times. We're creating a tremendous traffic problem and we're not facing it. We're not dealing with it. Quebec is two lanes from lete stale to Alameda from six. It becomes two lanes all the way to Stapleton. Monaco is a parkway on the other side of first with houses that face it and it's 30 miles an hour. You're not going to carry heavy traffic on that street. I want to know what the city council is thinking about in developing both those streets and spending that tens of millions of dollars it's going to take to buy right away. And to pave those streets because that's next. And that's what's coming up. And it better be faced. You can't just keep putting in small. This is a small development. I'll agree with that. But you can't keep putting in developments and not expect the problem to occur. And it's coming up very quickly. We don't know what's going to happen with the development in Lourey. That's 2000 cars. This is another two, 300 cars. With that much more traffic. What's the problem going to be and what kind of bills are you going to have to pass and what kind of money are you going to have to raise to pay for changing the traffic patterns? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Tessler. Stacy Decker. I'm going to shake your shoes, your legs a little bit. I brought my own problem. I think I might be the only biker here today. My businessman knows how good I am. Thank you so much. Tonight, Madam President, and the entire city council. Your patience is amazing. I don't know if I could do your job. So, first off, I'm in support of the rezoning, mostly because of the changes that have happened from the original development through to involvement by the community. Having been through the ninth in Colorado redevelopment. I know what a blighted area looks like for a long term and you have no idea what's going to happen. I also know what the fear is with regards to having thousands of new people move into your neighborhood over a short period of time. This is a very short period of time. That's not me. This redevelopment is relatively small, yes, but it brings in a necessary infill. I've learned through years of experience everything that's happened in Denver, all the change, everything that's gone on, we adjust, we adapt. We are Denver and we do really well. I believe in density and I believe in fewer cars on the road, obviously, and I believe that we should have fewer parking spaces to actually enforce that. So thank you so much for staying out here tonight. Take the remainder of my time to please stand up for 2 minutes and shake your legs because you got to worry about deep vein thrombosis. All right. Thank you. Virginia White, followed by Bob Moody. My name is Virginia Annette White. I live at 255 South Kearny Street within four blocks of 195 South Monaco Parkway. The site under consideration for rezoning. I'm a third generation Colorado, and I raised my four children in Chris Moore. I have two grown children who live within two blocks of this site. My older daughter and her family, including two children, live on South Monaco Parkway at Nevada. My youngest daughter and her two children live at the luxe apartment complex at South America Parkway, Cedar Avenue. I'm an active member of the Orthodox Jewish community. My husband and I walk to sit and go every Saturday, and on each of the many holidays, I take two of my grandchildren in a double stroller with me to synagogue. I am very concerned about the safety in our neighborhood. I see cars running, sign running, stop signs on Cedar Avenue. I have trouble making it across the intersection of East Cedar, Monica, East Cedar and Monica Parkway before the light changes. I actually have to run pushing the stroller. This is difficult for me. A grandmother in high heels on a couple of occasions. Cards. Come very close to hitting me and the stroller holding. Two of my grandchildren crossing the intersection, pushing the stroller itself. Monaco and Alameda is even more hazardous. This is a dangerous intersection not only for pedestrians, but also for drivers. This is a. High accident intersection. And I won't go through. You've already heard about the baby, the woman that got hit with her baby in this stroller. And that is really the human cost of identity. I do have a concern with safety while walking along the streets, crossing intersections near this site, considering that considering current traffic hazards we already have and considering the . Increased hazards if this site is re. Zoned for high density housing, the fact of reality is that the Jewish Orthodox community works on the Sabbath on holidays. Many are pushing. Strollers and. Though they shouldn't, many walk in the street because they are in large groups. We have children and adults with disabilities walking elderly people in wheelchairs. Grandparents. With their grandchildren. I am grateful to live in such a wonderful community, a community. But I remain very concerned for its safety. In addition to safety of the Jewish community, I am concerned for the well-being of all the families. Playing organized sports in Chris Moore Park to walkers and joggers and bicyclists, dog. Walkers, children attending the preschool directly across from this site and their parents and the school staff. Those enjoying the parks, playgrounds, baseball fields and tennis courts, and folks at the Chris Moore Swim Club. Safety for all is a reason to oppose the rezoning. My family and I greatly enjoy the character of Colorado. Denver Chris Moore. We enjoy the peace of the neighborhood and the. Chris Moore Park. This quality of life is the reason that I live here and will likely remain here for the rest of my life. When I purchased my home, I was told that Chris Moore is an area of stability. I believe that I made a contract with the city of Denver. I pay my taxes on time. And the city in turn preserves and protects Chris Moore's stable environment for. My children, my grandchildren, for me and time. Also great grandchildren. I feel that if this rezoning is approved, the city will violate this contract. The city will be changing the rules in violation of its adopted plans and doing so against the wishes of the great majority of the citizens in the neighborhood. I have walked the neighborhood canvasing and soliciting input from the Chris Moore neighbors as well as in the surrounding neighborhoods, including Mayfair. What I discovered was overwhelming opposition to this proposal. To this proposal. Although I'm very opposed to the current proposed rezoning. I am actually much more concerned about what a rezoning here would vote for the future if this rezoning is approved. A harmful precedent would be set with harmful consequences, increased congestion, greater likelihood of accidents, and a diminished quality of life for us and future generations. I respectfully urge you to do the right thing. The thing that fulfills the bargain that. City. Has made with its. Citizens and the thing that is clearly. Desired by the vast majority of the. Residents. Of this and surrounding areas. Please vote against this rezoning. Also, I wanted to say that Monaco Parkway is is a national registered historic site or a historic property. And to put this on the corner of Cedar and Monaco. It's just not right. It doesn't fit there. It doesn't fit the character of our neighbor hood. So thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Miss White. Bob Moody. Good evening. Her late evening, I guess. Madam President. Council members. My name is Bob Moody, and my wife and I live at 122 South Locust Street and we are the town homes immediately adjacent to the subject site to the west. We are original owners and the residents most impacted by the proposed development. And I'm here today to testify in support for a number of reasons, many of which you've already heard tonight. But first off, the site, as you know, is an unkept eyesore that we have tolerated for 18 years. It has been used for bus storage and occasionally in the winter bus sleeping quarters with generators that run all night. The parking lot is unpaved and the muddy drainage runs over our property and has caused our to make numerous fence and landscape repairs. The site needs redevelopment, but a redevelopment that enhances, not detracts from our property. Based on 45 years experience in real estate. I do not believe that single family development at this location on Monaco would be successful for many reasons that you have heard about tonight. We do not want the failed single family or townhome properties that exist to the south at Alameda. That would be a disaster for us. People will not pay premium prices to front on Monaco at this location with no views to say nothing of the access issues that you've already heard about. Again, based on many years of experience and specific discussions with former colleagues, I have come to understand that more and more of my generation are opting for rentals as opposed to the hassles of ownership. We applaud Metropolitans efforts to accommodate seniors, Jewish residents and others who want out of the home ownership conundrum. We also believe in Denver and its growth and vibrancy and understand that as a landlocked city we must embrace some increased density. Denver is in a housing crisis. Issues around density, construction defect law and other issues cloud the debate. Supply can't keep up with demand, and affordability is definitely an issue. The proposed project will, in a small way help in addressing these issues, in our view. I do take some exception to claims by the opponents that they have huge majorities of residents that oppose this project. They have never. They don't talk to the people or survey those who disagree with them. And many who are in favor are so afraid of the score in a report, reprisals that they don't respond and are unwilling to testify. My wife and I and three other of our residents have or will have signed an agreement which puts money in an escrow that you've already heard about from David Foster. This is to be used in the event the developer does not abide by his stated Maxim Dancer. Moody, your time is up. Thank you. I appreciate your support. Appreciate it. Um, our next group of speakers Kim CU, Sarah K Shanahan. Susan Stretton, Mike Ruder, Chrissy Estes, Faraci, Katie McCrimmon, Don Hambrick, Mateo Prado and Sean Walsh. Did you please come to the front? This to Sarah. Quickly, I have a letter. From another supporter who wasn't able to stay, if I could just add to that. And the record. Kept 3 minutes. Thank you. Hello. My name is Kimberly Sara, my husband, two children and. I live at 6210 East. Cedar Avenue, approximately five houses from the church currently located at 195 South. Monica. Before I go any further, I want to. Disclose that I am currently employed as a senior vice president at Kroll Associates. Our firm is representing Metropolitan Homes. Who is the owner of the site in question? If, because of the circumstance you believe I have. No right to speak tonight, then please ignore the remainder of my remarks. I have a whole lot to say and 3 minutes. I'm going to save time by reading my comments. When we moved into our home in November of 2012. We were greeted by friendly neighbors all around. We met neighbors while shoveling snow. Our neighbors, who live across the street share gardening tips with my husband as they toil away together most days of the summer. We built a permanent steps. To all along our back fence so that our kids can talk to our neighbors kids whenever. They like. This is a great neighborhood. We enjoy the park, the mature trees and the generally quiet atmosphere, except, of course, during the frequently. Noisy parties at the Christmas Swim Club. In this, I think we share a lot of values. With our neighbors. As I watch. This project unfold over more than a year, it has become evident that there are extremely strong feelings in our neighborhood about this proposal. It is clear to me that my neighbors love their. Neighborhood and they are. Deeply frightened about the possibility of negative. Change occurring. This is understandable and I respect their desire to protect a place they love. I see this development very differently, though I see it as an asset to our community. Since the day we considered buying our home, I was disturbed by the dilapidated appearance of this church. It is common to see cars parked on the weeds. Last weekend I saw a mattress. Propped by the door for several days and the roof is peeling and appears unstable. I am a strong proponent of appropriately rezoning the site because it will help replace this dilapidated structure and we will gain something, I believe, to be very important. More eyes on the park and hopefully a great new. Set of friendly neighbors. You see, I am the mother of two daughters who want to spend time on their own or with friends in this beautiful public park. Outside of the few hours a day in the spring and. Fall when lacrosse, baseball and soccer practice and. Games are happening. Denver's Cress More Park is. Extremely underutilized when the time comes for them. To be on their own. I would feel a whole lot better knowing there are more guardians of the park. I also want to share our experience in a neighborhood we love dearly. Platte Park. In our former home, we lived across the street from a fully vacant block. When the time. Came for townhomes to go up, we feared the worse the street would get busier, our views would be blocked and the architecture would be poor. I am happy to report that while some of those things were true, the impact was far outweighed by the benefits of new neighborhood friends who helped watch our house when we were away and added to what we loved in our neighborhood. As a direct neighbor, I have reviewed the plans and renderings for this project and at the end of the day, I feel strongly that this redevelopment will be a benefit to my neighborhood, and I ask you to support. This rezoning in front of you tonight. And given my involvement. With the city for many years, I am aware of the criteria for rezoning. For the record, it is clear cut that this. Rezoning meets the Denver Comprehensive Plan and Blueprint. Denver and. As such is fully supported by CPD. Staff. Thank you for this time for your time this evening. And for those. Of you who think I shouldn't. Have an opinion as an impacted neighbor because of. My employment situation, you can safely. Turn back in now. Thank you. All right. Our next speaker is Kay Shanahan. You have. There you are. You have 6 minutes. Thank you, Madam President. And council members. I have two parts to what I'd like to share tonight. And I am against the. Rezoning to SMU. Three. My name is Kay Shanahan at 140. South Locust Street, Chris Moore, Vista Townhomes. Right between the church. Property and Chris Moore Park, Ground Zero, so. To speak. The proposed zoning change to allow a three storey apartment building with on limited units therein is in our backyard, literally. My husband and I own one. Of the nine townhomes on South Locust Street, just 60 feet from where this. Project may. Be built. Our Chris Moore townhome owners. Want a good new appropriate neighbor to replace the church property. Denver City Council. Please think of where you live today and imagine being in my shoes if you could on this. Looking east at a three story apartment building. 60 feet from where your back door is the same height as George Washington High School. There would be an. Additional approximate 12 feet of height. For roof objects. On this building. We townhome residents will be subject to the apartment. Resident smells. Noise. Sound of cars in and out of garages. Not to mention facing a sea of. Balconies and possible views into their. Bathrooms. The ability to grow vegetables, sun loving. Flowers behind our garages will be curtailed, most likely due to black sun from the height of the buildings. There is insufficient parking. With overflow parking. That goes right on to and will go on to our South Locust Street. And Cedar Avenue. Change is inevitable, but at what cost? I'm asking our quality. Of life and Chris Moore Park will be forever changed with this inappropriate. Development planned at 195 South Monaco Parkway. To make matters worse, there will be a life energy overflow. From all needed density and traffic. As a result of the 800 plus. Homes being built across Monaco Parkway Boulevard. One development The Old Berkeley Annex. A zoning change. To SMU three is just too much, in my opinion. Not a fit. For the stable, single family dwelling Chris Moore neighborhood, which blueprint Denver deemed solid. As recently as 2012, senior citizens could have their indicated desire. For single family patio homes. Here. Right on this. 2.3 acres of land area numbers showed that the need for apartments. Has been fulfilled by the lex previously Chris Moore downs across. The street, another Denver site. What is needed is the church gone and. New appropriate development of landscape townhomes, single family houses or granny. Cottages. That fits the setting of Chris. Moore Park. Please consider our neighborhoods desire for a development. Benefiting this stable. Residential area, not a plan to only line your developer's pockets. City Council Members. I close by asking you to ask yourselves why this developer refused to consider a project that the. Neighbors could support. Partner would with and would give a good return on investment. Please vote no on this rezoning to. Assume you three I have part to do this for the rest of my minutes. I'm also against the rezoning of SMU three. This zoning category does not limit the number of units that the developer can build on this site. If metropolitan homes gets the zoning change they are seeking, they can build a large apartment. Complex immediately. Adjacent to Chris Moore Park. And at one point, the proposed building is going to be as large as the Monica wing of George. Washington High School. The newest plans call. For an apartment building about as large as Sunrise Assisted Living. Building a cultural. Boulevard and Alameda. Avenue. The developers. Have said their building would be 260. Feet long, 70 feet wide, 40 feet tall, plus an additional 12 feet for roof objects. It is not appropriate to have a large monolithic building or on a site zoned for single family homes. Some questions I would like you to think about. Before you vote this evening. Why are the developers proceeding with a high density. Proposal when the opposition is overwhelming? Four separate surveys have shown. Overwhelming opposition, ranging between 76% and 90% of. Host Why is. This density appropriate for this area when there's. Nothing like it anywhere in Chris Moore Park, the prevailing density. In the Chris Moore areas. 2.6 units to the acre is. Proposed. Density is nearly 33. Units to the acre, triple. The proposed density. At Boulevard one and Lowry, just east of Monaco Parkway. Why won't the. Developers consider a project that neighbors can support? Neighbors have met with an. Architect and created. Lower density site models that would blend with our neighborhood of single. Family homes and develop a profit. Why did. The developer proceed with the purchase. Of $1.6 million of the property last October, when he knew. That the site was zoned for single family homes and that Chris Moore is an area of stability. According to Blueprint, Denver neighborhood leaders. And our councilwoman, Mary Beth Sussman. Have met with the developers. Far prior to the purchase and shared her many concerns. Why are the developers. Proposing inadequate parking and inadequate parking will force residents. To share. And your time is lapsed. Thank you. Susan Stanton. Good evening. My lack of a shirt probably, or an orange shirt probably gives you an idea of where I'm coming from on this issue. My name is Susan Stanton. I live at 87, 20/29 Avenue. I was actually one of the first residents in Lowry when Lowry was rumored to be many things that it hasn't become today. And my story is really my mother's story, because when we moved to Lowry, she left her community and called us Springs and moved to be with us. And so 17 years ago, she started on a journey in East Denver with us. She's moved six times. Because there there is no. Sorry. It's an emotional issue because she's now living with us, because. There are very few options. For seniors in East Denver. And so I encourage you to really think about the silent voices who are sleeping in their beds and. Would be the eyes watching the children at Crescent Park. And that would be my. Mother up on the third floor if there's an elevator, Mr. Cutler, I don't know if there will be one, but senior housing is so important in East Denver, and I've watched her move from the. Junior officer housing. That then was scraped, that was a rental. And then she moved to Amalie in Lowry, which was rental. Then she tried Stapleton rental product. And then we were lucky enough to be able to buy in Legends of Lowry when when construction defects hadn't really stopped condos. And she lived on a second floor unit. It was the only apartment we could find or the only condo we could find at the time. At 80 in December, she can't live in a second floor unit anymore. And so her choice was to move into our home. It's not her choice, probably her choice for the long term. And so you're really talking about shaping Denver for seniors and the adult children who are taking care of them. So I would. Encourage you to support this project and. Bring more senior housing into the area. Thank you. Mike Ruder. Madam President and fellow esteemed City Council members and neighbors. My name is Michael Ellen Ruder, but some people used to call me Mike, so that's okay. But I'm older now. I live at 245 South Locust Street, one half blocks south of the 195 South Monaco Parkway Parcel. And Susan, I'm so glad that I can follow you. We have a vision. We have a solution. I and I'm going to go through it, which is perfect timing. I oppose the steep rezoning of the current application of the parcel to SMU three. Our neighborhood is in favor of redevelopment of the parcel. We are yimby's. Yes, too smart growth in my backyard. We were eager to push the dialog beyond the simple know to the current proposed rezoning. So we put on our brainstorming hats and we launched a community wide effort to explore how to best redevelop the parcel, drawing on the many and diverse talents of our neighborhood residents, including expertize in land use planning, real estate, brokerage, real estate law and architecture. We performed a rigorous exercise which with, believe it or not, Legos. Our architecture expert guided us through the can that took the construction of different types of developments for the parcel. You can see them on this poster here. Our objective was very clear. We wanted to say yes to a plan that would be innovative 21st century. Provide a vision, provide a new solution to a growing housing challenge for Denver, and be consistent with the precepts put forth in Blueprint Denver which protect, preserve and enhance neighborhoods like ours , which are designated as areas of stability. We can. We constructed four models which are shown on this poster. We explained these designs to the greater community at a neighborhood meeting on May eight that became MH synagogue. We asked the 200 attendees for their feedback, soliciting both comments and also their preferences in the form of a ranking vote . Most preferred or first place to second place. The third to the least preferred or to fourth place. I'll explain the models first and then I'll share with you the results of the community's rankings. I want to point out that these are simply models. These are building blocks, Legos. These are not permanent ideas. These are for brainstorming. It's a point of departure. Model one, please. On the on the top left shows a bird's eye view of a design that includes five single family homes plus a small park. That's this guy right here. This model is consistent with the current single family zoning designation of E dash. As you dash d x, the parcel can be redeveloped right now. Tonight, we can break ground using this type of plan because there's no need to rezone. Model two on the top right shows a perspective view of a design which is similar to that of the developer. It includes an apartment building and townhomes. 75 units in all this design is the one that requires the steep rezoning of Shenmue three the proposal before you tonight model three on the bottom left shown here is a perspective view of a design of townhome structures which cover the entire parcel 26 units in total. This approach would require an up zoning as well, but a much more moderate designation of E than 2.5. Finally, model four on the bottom. Right. This is the one that's really cool. Shows a bird's eye view of a new approach to single family housing with what we call a granny twist. I wrote this before I knew that you were going to be talking. Really? There are eight single family homes which are shown in yellow, plus the five, the single single family homes with auxiliary dwelling units. These add use or additional dwelling units are what we're so excited about. The homes in with the ADU use are actually zone in a manner which requires the homeowner to live on the property, either in the main house or in the granny flat or the carriage house or the adu that's in the back. The other building can be used either as a home office or as a home for an aging relative who wants to live independently, but maybe not to an independently or even for a boomerang child who comes back home in their. Twenties. This is a solution which does require an up zoning but is moderate. It's consistent with Blueprint Denver and with our neighborhood. So when we asked everybody what they thought about it, that fourth option was the one that won. It garnered 70% of the first place votes. We were surprised by that. We really expected the status quo to win and it didn't. This shows that our neighborhood is saying yes to my backyard, yes, let's do something. We all want to see something new, but let's make it right for us. So let's partner let's partner with you. And let's build something that is 21st century. It's going to answer an extreme housing problem that we do have. And it'll be and an avenue to your being able to have a whole new niche of new developments that you can build all over the city in many different synagogues, temples, churches that are all that that may ultimately get sold. It's a whole new opportunity for you. Please reject this zoning proposal. Let's find one. That's right. For all of us. Thank you. Okay. That woke me up for sure. Okay. Just kidding. Okay. Chrissy Estes Faraci. And she left. Katie McCrimmon. Hello. My name is Katie McCrimmon and I live at 200 South Kearney Street, just a few blocks from this site. And I am a representative of the Kress Moorpark R.A.. It's a little confusing. And Chris Meyer, we actually have three rhinos. So you heard from two of the others at the very beginning. And our R.A. actually includes this property. And we went door to door. I even surveyed I don't know where she went, Kim Cassara, my neighbor, we had a great chat about how she really liked higher density and how we disagreed, but we went door to door to survey. The results were overwhelming that our neighborhood opposed this and then we've done more surveys. So the gentleman was concerned that we haven't offered people the opportunity. We did an online survey that was open to the public. Anyone could fill it out. That too was overwhelming, with about 94% opposed. And we had we were really impressed. We had people who provided their names because we wanted you to know that these are real people. And we turned in some of the comments from that. So I really appreciate your patience, most especially our councilwoman. This has been a marathon. It's a marathon tonight. And I'm sorry because we didn't want to do that. But it's also been a marathon for the past 15 months, and she's hung in there with us for some many, many meetings. But one thing I need to tell you is that, unfortunately, as much as they say they've been working with us, that hasn't been the case. They have never held a public meeting. We have. I've paid for them and so did some of my neighbors. We had public meetings when we did this Lego project. We were really excited. We invited them to come and unfortunately they did not. So when they've told you that they've been working with us, it's important to look at the details because unfortunately they have not. We did first hear from Mr. Kudla and Mr. Foster about 15 months ago, and unfortunately he had his mind made up on a project at that time, and he came in and he told us, this is the project we're going to do and we just may have to disagree. And we were really surprised to hear that since the site was owned, single family, as you know, Mr. Foster also at that time shared with us that his kids had played soccer for ten or 12 years in Cross Moore Park, and he was well aware of the congestion problems on Saturdays and even said to us, you're taking your lives in your own hands. So, you know, on those weekends. So it's surprising that they would want to add high density when we already have a situation like that. I want to clear up some of the of the facts that you've been hearing. Well, some of the unfortunately, their myths that you've been hearing tonight. Let's talk first about this issue of the deed restrictions. They did come to us a little while ago and showed us this document. And unfortunately, it has this very big exit clause. It has a hole. And so nobody from any of the RINO's was willing to sign this. It's also like private zoning. I think that they wanted a different zoning category, but because they wanted to move this through, they didn't want to take the time to start over. And I can understand that that would be frustrating. But it's it isn't fair to our communities to expect us to become zoning and planning and enforcement officials. That's why we have our city government. And so they couldn't find folks among the representatives in the leaders to sign these documents. And they found a couple of individuals who say they'll sign them. And I feel they have a very big responsibility if they're going to try to enforce them. So I don't know that I think that's a bit of a distraction and I hope that you'll see it for what it is. OSTER Also, Mr. Maley referred to context and I think it'd be great if you took a close look at that because the context of our neighborhood, the entire crisis in our neighborhood, with the exception of a couple of sites that they cherry picked, is the context where the urban edge and they picked, says suburban zoning. And we think that was because they wanted to do a bigger project. There's really appropriate urban edge zoning. You've heard about it tonight. Probably the most appropriate would be the th2 point five. But, you know, we we do have good opportunities and there are good zoning categories or a PD. I understand you're not crazy about PEDs, but it's a possibility that we could do it. I also want to talk about this myth of and that this is going to be affordable. What he's doing, I wish it were. We had a home and Chris Moore that went under contract in an hour for like $800,000. It's the original ranch and that isn't affordable. I mean, I have plenty of friends who would like to buy and Chris Moore and the young man who spoke who's at the Lex Mr. were there. He said he'd love to buy a single family home on Monaco because it might be a way to get into the neighborhood. So in addition to maybe finding opportunities for some of our elders to have, you know, the opportunity with the carriage house, a home on Monaco might actually be a more affordable option than these rentals. He is not doing affordable rentals. So we have to look at some of the details on that. We're concerned about the parking. You know, the overall numbers on the parking might look a little better. Each townhome has two a garage spaces. That makes all the sense in the world. That's great. Unfortunately, the apartment complex part of this only has 58 underground units for 50 units, and that's underground spaces. Sorry, for 58 units. And that just isn't enough. I wish we had light rail. We don't there's no plan for it. And so this parking just isn't enough. Thank you for your incredible patience. Thanks for looking at the details. And we appreciate you. Appreciate it, Don Hambrick. Mateo Prado. Prado. Pardo. Madam President. Council members. I'm Matteo Pardo. I live at 6130 Cedar Avenue with my wife and 15 year old daughter, and I'm against the proposal for rezoning at 195 Monaco Parkway. The entire premise it rests on is flawed. The parcel in question is not an infill. Despite what others have said. It's not. It's an integral part of our neighborhood. We don't suffer from rundown housing or poverty. We don't have you know, our vacancy rates are are low. So is unemployment. Public facilities are not are not distressed. We're not in a transportation corridor. We don't have transit stations. Our public facilities are not distressed. And I said we don't meet the criteria for a small area plan. And according to Blueprint Denver, our neighborhood, including the pastor, is an area of, as you heard many times before, an area of stability. We walked through all of this with with Councilwoman Mary Beth Sussman. And the current zoning, the zoning that was reviewed, just reviewed just a few years ago is is appropriate and it shouldn't be changed . Now, recently, Mr. Gaspar, the Planning Department has floated the idea that every neighborhood should have a small area plan. I really don't know what that means. Does it mean that the criteria don't matter? Does it mean that you, you they matter when you want them to and not when you don't want them to. Doesn't matter. Does it mean that you can pick and choose? I don't know. In any case, I just wanted to say something else about the church. It's. It's it's the work. The main part is. Is the work of a remarkable modernist architect. It's the venue of a thriving Baptist congregation that saw the integration of our African-American and Jewish communities. So please don't let it be replaced by a wall of of apartments that'll only add to our traffic part of our traffic problems. Now, I don't want to go on and on about traffic, but Mr. Cutler hasn't even given us a credible traffic study. I, I guess he's relying on the 2012 Matrix Report that was commissioned by the Lourey Redevelopment Authority. The Matrix report, of course, wasn't meant to to analyze the traffic impact of Boulevard One, not this proposed project. And furthermore, it's flawed just two ways in which it's flawed. It doesn't provide us with the output numbers. The numbers that it bases its conclusions on are not in the report. And it doesn't analyze either the vehicular or pedestrian traffic at the intersection of East Cedar Avenue and Monica Parkway, the intersection where this parcel where the rezoning is being requested is located. And that alone should make the report useless, so far as this is concerned. Now. One of the things about this dispersal that puzzles me is the way the intersection of East Cedar Avenue in Monica was the only direct outlet onto Monica for our neighborhood. It's also the only one of only two places where cars can enter or leave the Lexus at Lowry. And it's the only one that has a traffic signal. And it's right next door to the 800 residential units that are coming coming online at Boulevard One. So this raises several questions. How are cars going to enter and leave the proposed development? Is transportation going to allow cars exiting the apartments to cross two lanes of southbound traffic on Monica in order to enter the northbound lanes or allow cars to enter the site from the northbound lanes on monica, is the fire department going to demand a curb cut on locust or cedar? Jim Bishop, Mr. Cutler's architect, told us that the fire department, instead of asking for a far lane, would, would, would using it alongside a fire hose really, anyway? To make matters worse, there was a gang related double homicide at elected Lowry this past March there. There's a lot. It would probably it probably involved the Crips and the Bullets. Two young men were killed. What are gangs doing in the legs? Anecdotal evidence. Rumor would have it that they're fighting over new turf. Well, now, crime in the Hilltop Statistical District, as defined by the Denver Police Department, has gone up by 119% this year . Burglaries alone have gone up by 350%. That's a much greater increase than any of the statistical neighborhoods around us. A very inconvenient 2010 University of or Indiana University study found that, quote unquote, high density housing units promote serious violent crime while there they put neighborhoods at risk as poor as Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner, recently put put it in The New York Times. When big money moves into a desirable neighborhood. It destroys the things that made that neighborhood desirable. Well. All right. I've heard. What, Mr. Pardo. Your time is up. Well, I thank you very much. Thank you. Our next speaker is Sean Walsh, and you have 6 minutes. Wow. Good evening, Madam President. Council members. My name is Sean Walsh. And I live at. 1065 Emmerson Street. I'm here mostly on behalf of all of my all my own behalf. But first, I'd like to read a letter into the record from my mother, Sharon Walsh, who lives in filing two at 475 Carney. Street, which also happens to be the place I grew up and lived for for 20 years. Dear Denver City Council Members. In 1972, I. Bought my Crest Moore home at 475 Carney. Street and have continued to live there ever since. Gone are the days when a big wheel. Fixed every kid's bike Allard's drugstore provided ice cream sodas. And filled prescriptions. The Texaco station filled our gas tanks $0.36 a gallon. Bob's Barber Shop cut our hair and the bookstore kept us reading. Yes, a lot of things have changed in the. Past 43 years. Nixon is no longer president. Other things less. Tangible have changed as well. The retail, which we embraced in the past, is hard fought today. Third in Holly and Cedar and Holly both faced overwhelming opposition, which thankfully was unsuccessful. Two new, thriving neighborhood neighborhood businesses that cater to young and old. These amenities attract new families to our neighborhood, which is evidenced by the continual new housing and reinvesting. Reinvestment in the housing stock. Today we are face facing the same. Opposition for the development of. A needed housing mix development. On the end of more park. I currently live. In a single family home, but I appreciate the opportunity for a living situation where I could live affordably. Into retirement in the neighborhood I've called home for so many years. I strongly support the proposed rezoning of. 195 South Monaco. And I encourage you to do so as well. The time has come for Denver to zone all. Of Denver in an. Intelligent and. Insightful manner. Sharon Walsh 475 Carney Street. And if I could just add a thought of my own as a long time resident, there have been lots of periods of build. Out during the 1970s and of this sliver of the neighborhood were appropriate for single family. We would have seen it by now. Thank you very much for your time. And please, I encourage you to. Approve this rezoning. Thank you, Mr. Walsh. Our next group of speakers, if you can come up to the front bench. The first one is Patrick Allen, Stacie MacDonald, Barbara Volpi, Michael Hicks, John Tyrone's, Rick Stoddard, Chris Davis, Amy Hook and Mark Nestler. Hi. Hello. Madam President and members of the Denver City Council. Thank you for allowing me to make a few comments about the rezoning application at 195 South Monaco at the busy intersection of Cedar and Monaco. My name is Patrick Allen and my wife and I live at Increase Moore Vista. Ground zero, right in the middle. 60 feet from where this proposed apartment building is going to go in. We very much love living there. We've lived there since 2015, but I've seen some changes really sadly here in the last few years and especially these last ten months like to chat with you about. I'm very opposed to the rezoning and relieved that this decision hour is upon us. These last ten months has really divided our neighborhood. Ever since Metropolitan Homes brought this property some ten months ago, our beloved community and neighborhood is starting to come apart, and understandably so. We are talking about our homes, our community and our neighborhood. The only good thing that has come out of all of this turmoil is that our neighbors have grown closer. You've met a lot of bright people, and I got a chance to meet with them and I enjoy that. Regretfully, in some cases, we've become much further apart. It seems like we have development lobbyist and retired development lobbyist. Living in the neighborhood or friends or business associates of the development. They're not they're very out of sync with what this neighborhood wants. I want to speak with you a little bit about community and what it means to live in one of Denver's legacy neighborhoods. I'm an Army Reserve officer now, retired. But in March of 23, I, along with thousands of military reservist, were ordered to active military duty for our country's invasion into Iraq and the ongoing war in Afghanistan . I had two weeks to get my affairs in order, which meant closing down my business and laying two of my employees off. I gave them as much severance as possible and transferred my clients to one of my trusted competitors. My duty assignment was at the Pentagon and at the Army headquarters. I was only supposed to be there for six months, but obviously Undersecretary of Defense Wolfowitz, Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney's idea that the Iraqi war, that we would be welcomed as liberators way off the mark. Within ten days of our invasion, it was obvious that I was going to be there more than six months. My six months turned into two and a half years. We sold our home here in Washington Park and Park Hill and moved to beautiful Alexandria, Virginia and bought a townhome. It was a privilege to live in our nation's capital, but we missed Colorado and the communities we lived in. Washington Park and Park Hill. DC is very transit. Military members coming and going. Government workers coming and going. Every time the administration changes, the whole neighborhood changes. Political appointees coming and going. And thousands of lobbyists. Living there. It was not a community and we didn't know each other. Soon as we came back to Denver, I had a great real estate agent who was our friend and I asked her that I wanted to live in a community. She immediately knew what I was talking about. We looked around, but we came to Crest Moorpark, and I knew about Crest Moorpark. It was always up there, one of the places I wanted to live in. And Councilman Brown, it reminded me of when we both lived together in Washington Park on Vine Street. That was a community. We knew each other, took care of each other. I was very happy. We were spot on since we moved in. My neighbors had a very nice welcome. Who are you? Welcome. We had older people. We take care of them. Invite them over. Make sure that they're. When their husbands passed away, we would just jump right in like they were our own. We did our due diligence on the property and we knew that that property next to us. What's the deal here? It was zoned for one acre or whatever. Single family homes. That's what we bought this place. Now we're going to change the rules. Come on. No one wouldn't want somebody doing that to you. We can. We want the place developed. But as for single families townhomes, we met with the guy who developed our townhomes land, Cheyenne. He had a beautiful layout. How it was done. This idea that people won't buy homes on Monica. I'm not buying into that. Just walk over to Fourth and Josephine. Those townhomes are right on a very busy street. They have a berm. They put some time into that. They did a good job. I'm sure those people love living there. What I really liked about where I'm living is the diversity. And just the park itself. That first weekend, I watched Mayor Hickenlooper. Mr. Allen, I'm sorry. Your time is up. At three or 606. Minutes. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Stacey MacDonald. Thank you. Distinguished Council members. My name is Stacey MacDonald. I live at 5022 Mont View Boulevard, which is also. A historic. Boulevard. As a matter of fact, the property in question is not on the historic boulevard, and the Monaco. Parkway runs from first. To Mont View Boulevard. With that said, I am a certified residential real estate appraiser. I have been so for 17 years, and I've been in over 10,000 properties. I live within. Three miles of this property and I want to be make something. Pretty clear. I understand everyone's concerns about saying that Chris Moore should be zoned single family. This particular property, though, that is not a question. When highest and best use is being delivered or being developed by a residential real estate appraiser. We do not pay attention to zoning. We look up and down both sides of the street. And find out what's around. In this situation, there are no single family residences to speak of that would indicate that highest and best use for this property is single family residence. With that said, if a property was there and it was zoned single. Family residence, the appraisal would be marked highest and best. Use is not. Single family and most likely. There would not be financing done on this property, which indicates that if a single family residence was to be on this property, there would be no conventional financing for that property and someone would have to pay cash. A very unlikely scenario. It not only in this price point, it would have to be well over $1,000,000 for that to take place. And I think that we're all pretty clear that $1,000,000 property is not going to be profitable here on this property. With that said, again, I live in on Mont View Boulevard and we were equally as concerned about this Stapleton development negatively impacting us with traffic. And that just has not been the case. We still have the same charm and the same great neighborhood that we always had in South Park Hill. And I think that a lot of fears and concerns are unfounded. I think that most development that has happened, at least in my neighborhood, we have found. Even though that it has come up against great opposition. Now, those. Are beloved properties in my neighborhood. So thank you so much. Thank you, Miss MacDonald. The next speaker is Barbara Volpi. Madam President and council members. Thank you for staying awake. This is really amazing. And lest my people confuse you, I'm one of the orange guys, and I'm asking. You very seriously to vote against this zoning change. I'm one. Of the council. Members was quoted in the paper this weekend as saying that 10 to 15. Years of development has happened in about one and a half to two years in the city, and everybody is overwhelmed. And I think that's a very astute observation. I want to say just refute a few things that have been said. I don't think there's a need for this kind of diverse housing in that spot, because all a person has to do is. Walk across Monaco to Boulevard one. Which is a. Huge. Very dense development that has a wide range. Of housing opportunities and housing prices. There. So I think I think that's not a valid point. And I. Also think. We need to let the dust settle a little bit on the huge development of Boulevard One, which is now just coming online and the huge development in Cherry Creek because Chris Moore is. Right in between those two. And certainly when Lowry came on, it hugely increased the traffic through the Chris Moore neighborhood and Boulevard. One is going to do the same thing coming right out First Avenue, straight across into Chris Moore. So I would invite you to consider taking a deep breath and saying this zoning decision can. Wait until we we let. Some dust settle. I don't think it's a. Choice of a single family versus this. Very high density thing. I think there's something in between that can happen. It hasn't happened yet. And that's why I ask you very respectfully to vote no on this. And thank you again for your patience. Thank you. Michael Hicks. It's getting late. Madam President. City Council. I've been here a few times. Talk to you about development. I hope John Elway is watching Channel eight. I haven't seen thus much orange in the room in a long time. I am for this development. I came here as a volunteer. I'm an architect. I live in Observatory Park University Park, about two blocks from my neighbor, Charlie. And what you're going to vote on tonight is critical is critical for this city. And I am afraid of what's happening here. You've got a developer, Peter and his partner, who have tried and reduce the density and come up with a design. Peter, who has developed a walkable, livable community in the suburbs. He's hired an architectural firm with a 50 plus year legacy of award winning design. It's a beautiful design. It's a great site plan. It does a lot of things that the neighbors have asked. And you want to tell him? No. And your staff, your staff, professionals, urban planners, architects, landscape architects. They work for 17 months on this project. Blood, sweat and tears. They work with you on a lot of different projects and you want to say it's not good enough. And the message you're going to send to the world, whether you're a local architect, a local planner, you come from out of town. You develop and design a beautiful scheme on a great site. And you're going to allow the neighborhood to come in with their Legos and play Mr. Potato Head. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? This is not right. This is not correct. This is your decision. And I will tell you. Be careful what you do tonight. Think about this. This is about the future of Denver. The architecture outside of this building was done by visionaries. Single visionaries. If you want to take a racehorse and if you want to get a committee to redesign it, you're going to wind up with a camel. I am telling you, visionary architects, developers who listen to the community, developers who know what they're doing. You can't take a piece of property and revision it unless you own it, unless you take the risk. To fix your time yourself. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. My next speaker is John DeRose, followed by Rick Stoddard. And you had. A good evening. You have 6 minutes. Thank you. Good evening, John de Wrongs. I live at 40 Kearny Street on the north side of the park. I also happen to be a longtime real estate appraiser. That's amazing. We have two here tonight. I I believe that zoning, in a sense, is a compact with the community. This was a compact made just in 2010. It was affirmed. Single family. You want to let neighbors know what they can expect and ensure some compatibility of use. Now I like to measure stuff, but I'd like to share some numbers with you that are shown on this chart. The applicant is talking about confining 50 units to one acre on this site. So what is the density increase more? It's three units per acre. Across to the west in Lowery Smart Growth Community. A wonderful place. Five units. Are we at 50? Not even close. How about New Lowry Boulevard? One proposed houses going their way. 11 units. I mean, the LAX, the only multi-unit community is half the density of 50 units per acre. Where do you find 50 units per acre? We know where it is. There's a project at 16th in Colorado. It's on a state highway to Colorado Boulevard. Those arterials can handle the kind of traffic that this that these kinds of projects where you where you condense and you can find population to small areas can handle. This is a residential parkway. Other zoning categories can guarantee compatible use on this site. This category is suitable for commercial areas or an established multi-unit area, or Colorado Boulevard for that matter. Not in the XMR neighborhood. There's no doubt that multi-unit uses would dramatically change the character and. Okay. This is two blocks from the historically designated Parkway. Nobody. Nobody looks at it that way. And why shouldn't we extend that historic parkway 4 to 3 blocks to Alameda? We've got a project on one side that's brand new, new, new, new trees and so forth coming in. We can extend that historic parkway. Single family homes have been the use for over 100 years along there. Some will argue that Monocle Parkway is no place for single family use. But guess what? In the last two years, since 2013, there have been 58 single family sales on this section of Monaco. That's two per month. It's one of the most active residential areas. And why? Because lots of folks find that they can afford a home along Monaco and be in some of these neighborhoods. They can afford it within the area. The lonely house that somebody met mentioned a couple of times. That's in the bottom left hand corner. Somebody said this was blighted. Well, tell that to the buyer. They paid 510,000 for this at the end of 2012. The reason that it's it looks strange to people. It's sitting there by itself. Now, some people say this isn't a sustainable use. And I think there's an argument for that single family like this. But single unit means also townhome. It means some of the alternatives we've described here. It doesn't it doesn't have to be multi-unit. It doesn't even have to be detached homes. It could be attached homes. And it could provide some alternative. By the way, with what is a 40 foot high structure look like on a half block of Monaco. Somebody alluded this before. I mean, keep in mind that we have four homes on South Locust that are about 20 feet high, just on the block south of this project, 25 feet high. If you confine confine 50 units, this is what the kind of density and look you're going to get. Does that seem compatible? The eve right here is 44 feet slightly higher. But you get the idea. I mean, this is when you can find it to an area on Colorado Boulevard. This is perfectly compatible. A monolithic structure like this. But. But no homeowner here should suddenly have to live across the street or next to a structure of this size. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next speaker is John Studdard, followed by Chris Davis. Madam President, members of the Council, thank you for this opportunity. My name is Ric Stoddard. I live on Jersey Street. And Chris Moore. Several years ago, a close friend of mine, a former member of the city council, told me the secret to being a good council member is learning how to sleep with your eyes open during a public hearing. My congratulations on your stamina and thank you for your devotion. I'd like to talk for a minute about process. I, for one, am disappointed in the tactics that have been come popular in our city in these development battles. The first meeting has been labeled by the project opponents as contentious with subsequent meetings and getting more civil. That's because anyone who came to that first meeting and was open minded or let alone positive, was shouted down immediately, almost threatened. I think a close look at the record shows that any project supporters simply did not participate. After that, they did not want to exist in that kind of a hostile environment. I would suggest you look at the emails. Look at the survey itself. If you said you were in favor of this project in that survey, you were not allowed to fill out any more questions, any more answers. But don't take my word for it. Look at the email. Look at the survey. This was simply a lobbying effort to turn out opponents of this project. I really think that's too bad, because if I was in your position, I'd be very interested in what a true objective and impartial analysis of the residents of Crestwood think about this project and particularly this particular intersection. This type of intimidation is not the way to govern a great city. And don't misunderstand me. I think everyone in this room should be allowed to lobby fully on whatever their belief is. But what you should not be allowed to do is cast yourself as an impartial observer of an entire neighborhood, when in fact the process you engaged in was anything but. The opponents of this project say they would like to serve the suburban character of the neighborhood, and I love that, too. But we have to remember that 60 to 85 years ago, this was the suburbs. It no longer is. It is squeezed between two great urban developments, Cherry Creek and Lowry, which are success stories in our nation. It's a bladed side. Mr. Stoddard, your time is up. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Amy Hook. And then Mark. Christie. Apologized to Chris Davis and then Amy Hook. Thank you, Madam President, and members of the council. My name is Chris Davis and my wife and two children. I reside in Fourth and Monaco Parkway, just three blocks north of the park, of course, Moorpark. I'm a practicing architect of 20 years and an owner of bus architecture here in Denver. Actually, one of my first projects in Denver was an adaptive reuse project for Mickey's Zeppelin, where we converted the old Yellow Cab building into the original taxi building a phase one taxi. So my livelihood depends on development. I support thoughtful and intelligent infill projects, urban density change and creative thinking when it comes to zoning. However, I'm here tonight to express my passionate opposition to the proposed up zoning, or so we call it spot zoning and the proposed development by Metropolitan Homes. Because unlike Mickey's Uplands project, this is like lacking in the visionary component. I've been active in the neighborhood meetings and was present for the initial six hour planning board meeting several months ago and never before have a witness such an organized and resounding opposition to a proposed project. My hope is that you will listen to the United Voices of the Crescent Neighborhoods and vote against the proposed rezoning of this property to begin with, the existing church structure on site while in need of some TLC is a historic gem designed by one of the most prominent and important modernist architects of the 1960s, Jean Sternberg, who actually taught architecture side by side with Frank Lloyd Wright. He was responsible for designing several notable buildings throughout Denver, including National Jewish Hospital, Arapahoe Community College, and from master planning several historic neighborhoods such as the mid-century modern Arapahoe Acres. The church that he designed on the site that is going to be demolished is a relic of old press more. It was built in 1962, the same year as my house. It's a landmark and a reflection of the history of the neighborhood in the park and should not be allowed to be demolished. To disregard our city's history and to allow our public municipal buildings to evaporate is shortsighted and a crime in the truest sense. To put it bluntly, Metropolitan Home proposal is offensive and there's nothing to gain from this project. For the residents of Cress, more new development should add value to a neighborhood instead and to the contrary, this requested change in zoning is 100% inconsistent with our neighborhood. Excuse me. If a developer. If a developer wants to develop high density living units, which is his right, let him do so in a neighborhood that already has adequate existing zoning designations in place. The proposed rezoning is so inappropriate that I was shocked the planning board voted in his favor. However, after their decision, someone on the board said that it isn't the board's job to preserve neighborhoods, nor is it their job to preserve history. The board's job is only to interpret and enforce the zoning code. While this may be true, it's unfortunate and it does not give them the liberty to consider the bigger picture here. That person on the board, on the planning board went on to encourage everyone in the audience to attend the city council hearing, because he said that is the forum at which history and neighborhoods can be preserved. For all the reasons mentioned before me and for some, I'm sure that you'll hear from others speaking out for me tonight . This proposed project would be devastating for my already stable and amazing neighborhood. And more importantly, this project and the developer's actions are shortsighted. For the bigger picture and the greater context of the growth of Denver as a thriving city, as not only a resident of Creston, we're failing, too, but a property owner of an original 1962 single family home located directly on the west side of Monaco Parkway. I can speak very specifically as to the desirability of single family home living on Monaca Parkway. We love it form more than any other home or neighborhood we've ever lived in. So much so that we consider this house our forever home. To say that building. One more. To say that building more single family homes on Monaco Parkway doesn't make sense because no one wants to live there is ignorant and arrogant. I can also speak to how the Parkway itself contributes in a positive way to my family's quality of life. Just one block north of the part of the proposed property. More Monaco Parkway. The parkway itself is listed on both the Colorado Street State Register of Historic Properties and the National Register of Historic Places and for good reason . It's a very important piece of the historic fabric of Denver. It's a beautiful, majestic procession strengthened by its mature trees and plantings, its historic homes, its consistency and its lack of projects like the One Metropolitan Homes is proposing. And it's where I live. We are all here tonight to focus on the potential rezoning issue. And while that should be the primary topic of concern, Metropolitan Homes has also posted a sign on the property requesting a right away vacation for the Monaco Parkway edge of this property. This effectively this effectively means that the developers are requesting that the city owned portion of the land along Monaco be vacated or donated to the project and added to the usable, buildable portion of land for the project's development. Thank you, Councilwoman Sussman, for constructing the public works right away. Services to momentarily put a hold on this vacation request, this vacation request and the actions. You know, we've had a little. Problem with a timer, but I think that you've used up your 6 minutes. Except that it doesn't, is it? No. He still time. Okay. I can wrap. It up yesterday. Sorry. This vacation request in the actions of metropolitan homes and their proposed development is evidence of a much bigger picture problem here. The approval of this vacation request would erode the edge of Crescent Report Park and Monaco Parkway. It would erode the historic structure on site. And truthfully, it would erode our ability to trust in the leadership, which was ultimately put in place to preserve all these critical elements of our city. Rather than allow these arteries, i.e., Monaco Parkway, to be chopped up right to the edge of a historic designation, we should be looking for ways to extend them and stretch them into the city, reinforcing the strength in the history of Denver as a world class city with history. This project, if approved, would cause irreparable damage to my neighborhood and I'll be the one paying the price for it as long as I choose to live where I do. Please do not support this rezoning. Please do not support metropolitan homes in their endeavor to make money despite the lasting negative consequences that would be paid at the expense of Chris Moore Park, Chris Moore neighborhood neighborhoods and its residents. Please do consider the sanctity of your citizens livability over the grand plans of one single developer. You have the chance to do a great thing here tonight. Please support your constituents by voting against this proposal and against this rezoning. It's wrong. And it's so clearly wrong for our neighborhood. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Amy Hook. Thank you, Madam President. I really appreciate your attention. I'm Amy Hooke and I live at 245 South Locust Street in Denver. You can tell by my shirt that I oppose the zoning of 195 South Monaco to SM three. I live about one half block from the site of this proposed rezoning, and I'd like to make some other comments about the traffic, transportation and parking impact of this up zoning proposal. I think we all accept traffic and parking increases as a natural byproduct of smart, healthy growth in Denver. However, tonight we're. Considering a rezoning of a small. Parcel of land within the single family XMR neighborhood, an area of stability depicted in the poster. Rezoning is requested in order to accommodate a high density apartment complex. This is not smart growth. The traffic and parking consequences on the neighborhood streets of Chris Moore will be severe and potentially unmanageable. To explain these concerns to you, I'd like to go back to some basics of Blueprint Denver. Blueprint Denver is an integrated land use and transportation plan that, as you have already heard, has a primary commitment to preserving and enhancing areas of stability, such as a more neighborhood to blueprint. Denver This means never creating density for density sake, just to create more housing as being as is being proposed here, but rather matching desired density with appropriate surroundings. The density proposed here is actually equivalent to an urban density designation. And therefore, according to Blueprint, Denver should be paired not just with a parkway but with matching transportation, mixed use resources such as pedestrian or shopping corridors, light rail or commuter rail, HGV lanes, BRT, park and ride or mixed use destinations within. A convenient walking distance. Monaco Parkway does not have these resources, and otherwise this high density development is actually paired with small neighborhood streets such as Cedar Avenue and South Locust Street. Blueprint. Denver actually makes a specific commitment to minimizing traffic impact on neighborhood streets in areas of stability, such as the quest for neighborhood blueprint, Denver emphasizes managing pedestrian safety, traffic speed and traffic volume on residential streets such as Cedar and South Locust. Blueprint Denver specifically warns of traffic problems such as high speed cut through traffic and congested local intersections that will endanger residents and severely compromised neighborhood livability. There are already traffic problems in our neighborhood over the past two years. Denver's accelerated growth and therefore traffic impact has exceeded projections. In the XMR neighborhood, we already experienced the effects of increased traffic volumes such as crowded local intersections and high speed cut through neighborhood streets due to backups. On Monaco, Alameda and. Cedar. The congested intersection at Cedar in Monaco is the. One shown in the photos blueprint. Denver warns that these traffic symptoms already call for better traffic management, not for adding more traffic to already congested intersections and dangerous cut through traffic. There's also heavy use of more park for recreation, pedestrian traffic, as well as children and adult sports teams of numerous types, including soccer and baseball. On the weekends, the park area and surrounding streets are already a sea of cars, posing problems for parking and a hazard for children and families crossing the streets, such as the family involved in the tragic accident at the intersection of Alameda and Monaco. A high volume, very congested intersection. The proposed up zoning. And high density development will create additional negative impact on traffic patterns. At 195 South Monaco entry exit access options to the proposed development are limited and create predictable traffic impact problems. If access is confined. To Monaco, traffic engineering considerations suggest that the construction of auxiliary turnout lanes may be necessary to mitigate peak hour turning volume, and that northbound apartment residents will not be able to make hazardous left turns on to Monaco and therefore will need to U-turn on Monaco or cut through neighborhood streets such as Cedar and South Locust in order to proceed north. If access cannot be confined to Monaco. Access will be forced onto South. Locust and cedar, which have little or no capacity to absorb high density access traffic. It is also important to keep in mind that the traffic impact of the nearby Buckley Annex development will cumulatively. Cumulatively affect congestion on South. Monaco and on the crest more neighborhood streets. A 2012 traffic study of the impact of development at Buckley Annex projected a very poor, borderline unacceptable rating of the functioning of Alameda, Monaco intersection. Where the family was hit. Other than that. 2012 Buckley study, there are surprisingly no further traffic studies available describing the impact of this high density development on congestion at neighborhood intersections. Or how this impact could be managed. One such already congested intersection is Cedar in Monaco. Already shown to you in the photos. This intersection represents one of the few East-West alternatives connecting to Holly Street and already sees cut through traffic when there's congestion at Monaco and Alameda. Other currently hazardous intersections include Monaco and Bayard, or left turning on in Monaco currently causes frequent near accidents. Also, as has. Been pointed out, the. SMU three development currently. Proposed provides inadequate parking for residents and their guests, resulting in overflow parking onto our already crowded neighborhood streets. In conclusion, one If South Monaco should not be resolved zoned SMU three This deep. Up zoning to. Accommodate high density development is not supported by Blueprint Denver. It will cause a predictable worsening of current traffic problems, which will severely compromises safety and livability of the Chris Moore neighborhood. Thank you very. Much for listening. Thank you. Our next speaker is Mark Nasr. No. Okay. Let's move on. Our next group of speakers begins with David Schachter. Michelle Breslin's Jennifer Shearer LA's Bella Gratis Meg White La Brian Blakeley, Laura Pitman, Molly ECHLIN and Chris Crew. If you could all come to the front bench. Oh. See his David check tour here. He's gone. Okay. Thank you. Michele Breslin's. But, you know. But Michelle's whereabouts? No. Okay. We'll keep moving on. Jennifer. Sure. Okay. Keep going. Lars Bella guarantees. No, it's okay. Yeah. He's Lewis here, but he. No Lewis's whereabouts. Okay. Meg White La. All right, come on up. My name is Margaret Whitelaw. I live at 6300 East Cedar Avenue and I live very close to the proposed building site. Whatever else is. Said this evening, in the end, the decision of this council must be made by the rule of law. Zoning is a legal concept. The Church. The council may approve a map amendment only if the council also finds that the application meets one of the listed justifying criteria as well as the four general three general criteria of equal importance. The applicant. The developer on all these points bears the burden of proof, quote, at a minimum by the preponderance of the evidence. Under all these criteria and the facts. This application for zoning must be denied. It should be plainly stated what the legal. Standard is not. The legal standard is not that the developer could have built a five storey house in our neighborhood, so we should be happy that he is now coming down to a three storey building and reducing the number of units. So he is compromised and the neighborhood should just accept it. That is not. A legal standard. It is a statement of entitlement and presumed inevitability that one particular landowner in our neighborhood believes he deserves. He purchased he owns a single family owned parcel in our neighborhood. However, in doing so, he did not purchase all the legal rights in the neighborhood. Each one of us has rights, and we purchased our homes with the expectation that the zoning we counted. On and the character of our quiet. Neighborhood would not be upended. What are the facts about. Our neighborhood in this parcel of land? The facts in the form of the map and descriptions presented by the city are simply wrong. As blueprint, Denver accurately states, quote, easily identifiable borders help distinguish each neighborhood, unquote. Nothing could be truer of the crest more and hilltop neighborhoods, these neighborhoods and. On the west side of Monaco. To produce a map as the city did, that bundles this single family zone church on the West with development on the other side of the street and with the zone district to the south that the city has very recently drawn and inserted is highly inaccurate. Why has the church been zone single family in the first place? Obviously it is because all the housing across Cedar and for blocks and blocks contiguous to the church on the West are also single family. The large apartment complex, the Lex has been on the east side of Monaco since the late 1960s. Having the legs there all these years did not change the zoning of the church on the West Side, and it doesn't change it now. The church is part and parcel of our community park, single family neighborhood. The applicant is correct, though. The Chris Moore and Hilltop neighborhoods are an area of stability. The map affixed to Blueprint Denver clearly bears that out. The current zoning is consistent with the applicable plans, and the proposed suburban zoning is not. Blueprint Denver concludes wisely that growth in density should be directed to areas of change. Areas of stability are further divided between committed areas and areas of reinvestment. The Christopher Park neighborhood is most definitely not an area of reinvestment. Moreover, the church site is not an. Area at. All. It is. One. Parcel within a vibrant, desired housing area. A dissenting member from the Planning Board agreed with us on this point. One parcel does not an area make, and this parcel could be fruit fruitfully developed under its current zoning. The justification for rezoning given by the city was that the parcel was in, quote, a better state of repair. Five years ago, the correct legal justification standard is as follows The land is changing to such a degree that it is in the public interest to. Encourage. Redevelopment of the area to recognize the changed character of the area. There is no law that permits rezoning on the basis of deferred maintenance. The truth is, the developer continued to rent this, quote, poorly maintained church to its congregation up until one week ago. The city did not forbid the church as a place of public gathering due to safety concerns. This site functioned despite the fact that it needed sprucing up. Finally, nothing could be further from the facts than calling our vibrant, healthy neighborhoods areas in need of reinvestment. We strongly challenge both the applicant and the city and their assertions in Exhibit G that in order to facilitate the integration of Lowry, it is important to address the aging, urban, urban residential areas such as the Chris Moore and Hilltop neighborhoods. Exhibit G goes on to say that Hilltop and Chris Moore residents face concern about, quote, deteriorated and poorly maintained housing stock. Under no circumstances should the council endorse or approve assertions such as these or allow anyone to bootstrap these. Statements to bolster further. Incursions or claims into our neighborhood. They are, quite simply. False. Thank you. Thank you. You do not approve this, Tony. Thank you, Miss White La. Our next person is Michelle Breslin's. You have 6 minutes. Hello. My name is Michelle Burns. I live at 3229 Columbine. I'm personally in support of this rezoning. However, I am here tonight to share a statement from my friend Aileen Torres, who is a Lowry resident, and she is not able to make it this evening. She apologizes that she's not able to attend. But I do want to let you know of her support in this. These opinions are her own in and it's not in any professional capacity. And they're her personal opinions. She's a very strong supporter of the Lowry neighborhood, and she knows that, you know, a lot of these surrounding neighborhoods have been at the table with the Lowry planning process, as well as making. Excuse me, making their opinions and comments known for over 20 years in the same spirit as a surrounding neighborhood. She would like to offer her comments in support of this project. She knows you're familiar with the site and the huge eyesore that it is today. Like somebody just recently said, Mr. Stoddard had mentioned that the survey presented via the neighborhood based websites, did not provide an opportunity for support, let alone constructive comments regarding the potential pros of a buffer project along Monaco. The way the property sits today is an embarrassment for Chris Moore, for Lowry and for Denver and Schwartz. In the interest of time, she and I both appreciate your support and courageous consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Brian Blakeley. That evening, madam president, members of the city council who is Brian Blakeley live at 510 Grape Street in the. Hilltop neighborhood not far from the project. We'll keep it brief since it's late and a lot of the comments that have made in earlier kind of summarize quickly. I'm hearing the opposition, I think there's going to be detractors no matter where you go. There's always going to be someone who's not happy. You've got a project. That has been thoughtfully created and fits with with with the. Neighborhood, I think in a in a good way. You know, proposed changes are always, always controversial. But in the end, I think that the neighborhood is. One is is missing affordable. Product. It's missing homes for some of the, you know, older neighbor or older residents. And it's in this location. Long Monaco. Seems an ideal place to to put that kind of a project. Project and most of the increased traffic seems to me would be easily going along Monaco and not, you know, into the neighborhood where I think, you know, even if you did manage to stop the project, you're not going to stop the project or the increased density. So I encourage you all to look at the big picture and support the project is something that is needed in the city and needed in that area. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next speaker is Laura Pitman. Hi. Thank you for saving the best for last. You know, I own the priest. I'm not the last. Oh, bummer. Okay. I own the preschool that's right across the street at 2 to 5 South Monaco Parkway. And we have 80 children enrolled and 80 sets of parents. In my issue is safety, and I think I hear a lot of talk about money and progress and things like that. But I'm not hearing a lot about the children that spend 3 to 12 hours a day on that corner and our community that spends time at the park. We had a scooter accident a couple of years ago right out in front of our property where somebody was killed because it's a terrible intersection at Cedar in Monaco. We also had a car that came through our fence and landed on our playground. Playground. We used to walk to the nursing home once a week on Fridays to visit the elderly, and we're not allowed to do that as much as we used to because of the traffic is so bad and we fear that our kids will be injured walking across the street. There was somebody that spoke earlier about they wanted their mom to live on the third floor to look over at the children. You know, that they we should trust her mother in the third floor of an apartment. And I don't trust anybody looking out of a window of an apartment building. It matters that a family was injured on the corner of Monaco and Alameda. It matters that a car flipped through our fence under our playground, and it matters that safety is an issue here. I respect the fact that this is about money and it's about progress. But is it worth for a child to be hurt or killed on that corner? Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Molly Eklund. Anybody know where Molly is? Okay. We'll move on. Our next speaker is Chris Crew. Okay. All right, let's keep going. Our next speaker is Joe Reese. Let's see if they're downstairs. Coming up after Mr. Reece is Marcus Faulkner. And Laura Pittman. I had you down twice. You've already. Okay. Thank you. All right, Mr. Faulkner. Good morning, council members. My name is Marcus Faulkner. I offer 70 to 90 East First Avenue. I also live in Hilltop, so I go by. And near and through this site on a daily basis. I just want to say I'm one of the last supporter. Here this evening, so I'll probably talk a little bit in summary about the comments that have been made. First of all, I just want to very quickly clear up a few things. We think not that Chris Moore is an area that it. Is a very stable. Neighborhood. It is not all an. Area of reinvestment. We are talking about this site. This developer has been remarkably collaborative and working with this, and that's evidenced by. Three changes that have been presented to you. And lastly. After an 8 to 1 vote of planning board to support this for full plan support, the developer said, I have not gone far enough and voluntarily entered into a contract with nine units that share the zone lot to. Further restrict their. Zoning. It's not appropriate to do in the zoning code. They voluntarily entered into a contract to reduce that. All of you know better than anyone in here the pressures of development. Councilwoman Sussman made an incredibly astute observation. It feels like ten years of development in the last year and a half. The difficulty of all this emotion on both sides is, unfortunately, the fear of change. Combining this with Lowry. We have to strip that all away. And we have to talk about zoning. We have to talk actually. What's in front of you tonight. And I just want to encourage you to take one last walk around this site. Immediately. Across the street. Across the street. So out of Chris Moore is a proposed conceptual five story GDP that's been approved. There's Chris Moore down, that is seven stories and then a nursing facility. And then since we spent a lot of time talking about walking. Walk with me one last time on. Chris Moore side along Monica. You start with three abandoned lots. Single family does not work on Monica. It does not work anymore. It works north of here, not on this site. From there, you go to eight condos that have. Turned into each other. And don't face Monica because it doesn't work. Then you get to a daycare that is ironically zoned some, you three, the. Very zoned district that is being requested tonight. This zone district. Already exists in the neighborhood. It's right across the street. Then you get to this site and we have heard all of. These things, all of this description of what this site should be. Actually, I have to say, I think the. Chris Moore neighborhood in character. Has been described remarkably accurately. It is primarily. Single family homes that then make a remarkable transition to Monica, a street that's an arterial that has a lot of traffic that is. Hard to cross, all of those things. So here's a great. Solution for sale product that embraces the for sale product. It embraces the park. With this project, you will see eight new single. Family homes. On the park, eight on Cedar. To allow for a new pedestrian crossing. You will see. Seven. For sale pedestrian units that you will. Walk by and enjoy and embrace. The street. Only from Monica. On a site that engages only Monaco. Is the 50 unit. Apartment building. You will work. Hard to see this from the park. That's because it. Is what everyone's described. It's Monica Boulevard. It needs to embrace it. And I'm sorry, the last thing that I observed tonight, if it's not single family, what is this site? There's SMU three and there's SMU two and a half. What's the problem with SMU? Two and a half or urban edge? Two and a half. I'm sorry. Yes, yeah. I went to SMU. So I'm saying that too often the difference between two. And a half and three is for sale or rental. The same reason single family doesn't work. It's hard to add. To park New Year. Thank you very much. Please support this project. Okay. See, our next speaker is Gordon Palmer. Mary Valdes. Are you? Very. Come on up. Oh, she. She. What did she say? Okay. Pass. Thank you. Paul. David. Elizabeth Lund. Randy Nakagawa. I think we are you, Elisabeth. Okay. Let's see. Is Paul David in the mix? Okay. You're up, Paul. Yep. And Elizabeth will follow you and Randi will follow Elizabeth. And while you're getting started, will Carlyle call up Kevin? DHALIWAL. All right. So good. Good morning. Thank you. Madame President and city council members. A lot has been said here, and I've changed my comments about 25 times this evening just because I don't want to be repetitious. But there were a few things that were said here that I think needed addressing, and I'll try and get to all of them within 3 minutes. My first point, though, was actually, with all due respect, towards the city council. And then one thing that we are here is to impress upon city council the wishes of the neighborhood and the citizens. This is really our only chance. By asking us to not support fellow speakers, by not applauding. I thought it was a rather strange request because it's really our only chance to express how we feel about it. I go to the symphony and I applause and it's civil. I go to lectures and I applause and it's civil. I think we can applause our fellow citizens here, and it can be still civil. So that's just a side comment. And I hope that doesn't turn the city council against me. But I just had to get that off my chest. Now, the next thing is that we had a couple of comments here, and I would start by going back quite earlier this evening. There was. A presentation. I didn't get the name of the gentleman, but he was with the Planning Commission and one of the comments he made is that the XML park itself provides a barrier to the neighborhood. Well, I happen to live at 210 South Local Street. It's the second street away from the proposed development. Less, less than a few hundred feet away. So I'm ground zero, but on the south side, not on the north side, there's absolutely no barriers between my house and between the park. So that was one comment that I thought was rather strange, that there is a barrier created between the park and my home. The other comment that was made by the Planning Commissioner Gentleman, was that this kind of proposed apartment building will fit in with this type of structures that are on that street. And several people have noted that there is a building of seven stories of Chris Moore Downs, but it is not on Monocle. There is actually a row of townhomes or several rows of townhomes that separate that building. So it's not actually right on the street. So and also the comments were made that it's completely on the other side of the neighborhood. So I thought that was worth mentioning as well. Moving right along, I think that one of the things that people got to realize here and I'm going to speak on a free hand here is the t shirts are orange. They're not red. Nobody here has. Well, there's a few people who want to maintain things, the status quo. But a lot of people in this neighborhood are quite progressive and are really willing to work towards a solution. And these shirts do not say, and I just got mine tonight. But they do not say. Mr. David, your time is lapsed. Oh, sorry. You had 3 minutes. All right. Thank you. All right, Elizabeth. Thank you, counsel. My name is Elisabeth Lund. Please bear in mind that I am not personally at fault for. Speaking to you at 1230. You do have 6 minutes. I do have 6 minutes. I won't take it. But I live at Lowry. I live at 203 South Pontiac Street. I am very distressed about Boulevard one, but that's a different issue. I belong to the Crest Moore Community Association, so I use the park and the tennis and swim club a lot, and I'm very concerned about the traffic. But tonight I am here on behalf of Lund. Lund stands for Lowry United Neighborhoods. So it's kind of an umbrella registered neighborhood association. And on January 30 of this year, Lund voted at its annual. Meeting to. Submit a formal opposition to this rezoning application to the planning board, and then did so on January 21st of this year before the planning board. So the Lowry United. Neighborhoods are stand with Chris Moore. The City Council can act to protect crests, more residences and all. These wonderful people here tonight. With proper zoning, it is unreasonable to expect Kress more residents to have to go to court to enforce covenants. If covenants, which are restrictive in nature, are placed in deeds, and there's $25,000 in escrow. For that purpose. Why go that way? Why make citizens have to go to court to enforce their rights? Why can't this city council make the right zoning decision now so that nobody has to go to court? And the people here from Chris Moore are wonderful people. The last thing they want to do. Is be here at 1230 in the morning before a city council who they think will just blow them out of the water. They don't want to be here, but they feel. They need to be here because their voices are not being listened to. This developer with this present rezoning application is seeking to capitalize on what Chris Moore residents have built. Chris Moore Residents have lived in Chris Moore for decades and they have paid property taxes for decades and they have supported this city for decades and they have . For decades made Chris Moore the very special place that it is. And they are very nice people and they are here to protect their property. Please do not approve this rezoning application. Just say no. Look at. The Legos. And for the record, this city council is placed on notice that it does know of the already dangerous. Streets which surround this proposed rezoning application. And also finally, I would ask that you please consider rescheduling. The Boulevard One rezoning application, which is currently scheduled for the last. Monday of this month, because otherwise we will all be here past midnight again. If you could please reschedule that, it would be appreciated. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Lind. Our next speaker is Randy Naka. Nakagawa. Nakagawa? Yes. Thank you. Madam President. Council members. My name is Randy Nakagawa. I reside at 240 South Locust, about a half a block from the property under discussion. Living in Chris Moore for 24 years, but in Denver for almost 55 years, you've heard and may hear some more. Many rational and appropriate reasons why the proposal on change to an SMU three should not be approved. So what's a couple more at this time? I'll, first of all, address a small area of plans. Those of you were on the Neighborhood Neighborhoods Committee heard Councilwoman Sussman address this. As you know, small area planning is another key concept of Blueprint Denver and Plan 2000 outlines which neighborhoods should get small area plans first when we increase more asked about get in our own small area plan, we were told that we were not eligible. Councilwoman Sussman asked planning officials about this and was told We are not eligible because there's no evidence of blight, poverty. No plans for a transit station and no significant infill in our neighborhood. We don't have these change characteristics because Chris Moore has been a stable neighborhood for many decades. Planning officials later told Councilwoman Sussman that Chris Moore might someday be eligible for a small area plan, but that would be at the bottom of the list because we just don't meet the criteria. So simply the Chris Moore neighborhood does not meet the criteria for a small area plan. Then we are without a doubt established as a stable neighborhood where steeply up zoning, a small parcel of the neighborhood of single family homes to an SMU three. That only does not make sense, but it violates the basic objectives of small area planning and plan. 2000 and Blueprint Denver. You've heard a number of very good arguments in opposition to the proposed only change, and so I don't have any more arguments, but as opposed to I'll quantify some of those for you briefly, the crystal ball park neighborhood, as you know now is comprised of three neighborhood associations consisting of 786 homes. And in all our surveys, of the 786 homes in the entire Chris Moore area, 648 or 82% are opposed to the zoning change. Not to development, but to the zoning change of the 200 homes in the neighborhood organization that includes a church property, 184 or 92% are opposed to the zoning change of the residents of Chris Moore within 200 feet of the property. 22 signed a city petition to reject the rezoning of the property and that includes six of the nine owners of the townhomes that are joining the property. Not all of those town home owners signed a deed or an agreement with the developer, by the way. So that was erroneous before. One of the persons, I suppose, or groups did not sign happens to own the Lex outside investment group across across Monica Parkway. And by the way, Monaco Parkway, the LEX there are townhomes on Monaco. The apartment buildings are set back at least 90 yards and more to the interior of the Lex complex. So that needs to be corrected. Also, you heard about the largest neighborhood association, Chris Moore filings to and their vote, 73 households, two one in opposition. And in our separate online survey using SurveyMonkey, we yielded 1179 responses from not only Chris Moore but from Hilltop Lowry and former Chris Moore residents living as far away as Stapleton, downtown Denver and West Aurora. And in response to the question, Do you support the rezoning of the 195 South Monica property? 94% or 1008 respondents answered no and to correct a previous allegation that there was no way to make comments. If you voted yes. You actually could. Leave comments because I had to compile those comments sifting through a thousand 1107 nine excuse me surveys. So even with this level of opposition from Chris Moore, Park residents, the metropolitan Toms owner and paid representatives, they continue to press on. They continue to defy Chris Moore residents who are hardworking folks in all areas of commerce and. Fashion's summer single summer families with children range from infants to college age. Some are empty nesters and others are elderly. We are not gated community NIMBYs because if we were. We'd all be at home in bed by now. Actually, we'd be at home. We wouldn't have to worry about density, we'd have to about traffic, would have to worry about public safety. But because we're just public roads running through our neighborhoods, there are concerns. So we want the 195 South Monaco site developed, just not how Metropolitan Homes proposes to develop it. In the Federalist Papers, James Madison says. Government has been instituted because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint. In our situation, the desires of one man should not be able to negatively impact the lives of more than 700 families who are Cress Moore Park residents. So we appeal to you or council members to stop the proposed zoning change so we can actually work for appropriate development design from current neighborhood density out, not from a number of units pulled from the sky and put down upon us. We would like to see responsible development that starts with the neighborhood and complements it, not development that is imposed on it. Thank you. Thank you. Our final speaker is Kevin Galois. He left. Okay. He left. My goodness. Okay. That concludes our speakers questions from members of council. Councilwoman Fox. Thank you, Madam President. I have several. One. The first one is for CPD staff. Oh. Now he. He's here. Just. At least. No. No. Good morning. David Gaspar, CPD. Thank you. There was a reference to signatures for a protest. Why did. Why did the signatures not meet the legal protest requirements? The signatures was not the issue. It was the total amount of the square footage that was required to meet the protest petition was not met. So there was, I believe, if I remember right, at pricing 95,000 square feet required and the protest petition reached 82,000. Thank you. And for the developer, a couple of questions. Concerning the other proposals that have been given to you by the neighborhood, whether it's been in Lego form or other kinds of redevelopment, what is your response to whether those are workable plans? Thank you for the question. It's a great question. We got to spend a little bit of time with a few of the members of the community evaluating those plans. And there were a couple of the concepts, in particular the one that received the highest votes for or the most favorable from the neighborhood. And there were certain issues with that plan that conflicted with the current zoning code. For instance, the single family homes that were along Monica had their garages fronting Monica and the buildings need to actually front Monica. Then those fronts of those single family homes were actually facing the ADU units that they reference and the other five single family homes fronting Locust. So there were several issues with that. In addition to that, some of the other plans that they had proposed had access points off of cedar where access points off of locust. And that was one of the concerns from the neighborhood that we worked very hard to address. So I hope that answers some of your questions. Could you also just describe for me a bit more what you mean by age targeted? I mean, I'm thinking that I should have a right to be curious. So I want to know what benefit would it have for a person like me? Yes, absolutely. So. Age targeted is not assisted living. It is what we call active adult living. And we're coming to find is that people are starting to live differently than they used to. People like to move on from the responsibilities of ownership and deal in a low maintenance environment. They want to surround themselves with people of a similar demographic, similar interests. And so we design a product that we think attracts that particular demographic, and it's something that we've had a lot of success with at our previous developments. Currently at the Bellagio, we see people who are attracted based on the amenity package that we offered. So, you know, this may draw some criticism, but, you know, we don't offer a pool, we don't have the rooftop decks, we don't have certain amenities that would attract more younger, professional type of a demographic. It's something that is specifically designed with that age targeted demographic in mind. Thank you. Good. Councilman Ortega. I have a couple of questions as well. Let me start with. What's the status of the property right now? Is the church an operating church? Is the building completely vacant? Help me understand what the status is of the use of the building right now. Sure. Absolutely. So we closed on the site. We executed a short term lease with the existing congregation so that they could remain in the site and allow them enough time to find another location to relocate their congregation to. As of June 1st, they vacated the property. So as of last week, they have vacated they have found a new location temporarily, while they still seek to find a more permanent location. So the property is currently vacant. It is not being used. Okay. Part of the reason I asked is because someone had referred to. It's something about 18 years in in looking at different uses for this site. And so that that sort of threw me off. I wasn't clear about whether or not that property was occupied. I'd like to ask someone from the neighborhood that represents one of the associations. How long ago the last proposal was that you all saw on this particular property? Not by this particular developer. Someone made reference to that as well. And I just wanted to just get an understanding of how long ago that was. I just want to make sure I heard you right. You wanted to know about the previous developer's proposal? I want to know, when was the last proposal on this property? How long ago was that? About eight years ago. It was 2007 that Albert Ising was the group and it's actually the same architect. So they know well about what that was and it ended up being a 56 unit condo proposal and they withdrew before it ever came to council. And then after that, we, the Mount Juliet Church has been thriving there for many, many years. If we wanted to keep them there, our neighborhoods actually worked with them to try to help them get financing. We were hoping they could maybe build a newer building on the other side and do townhomes, financing it through townhomes. Okay. That answered my question. Thank you. And Mr. Tessler had talked about traffic. And I'm just curious, has a traffic study been done based specifically on the proposal that's on the table right now? And and what is that traffic study basically say? Yeah. So a traffic study has been completed on our proposal and ultimately what they have derived is the total trip counts generated per day is 329. And to break that down further so that I could at least understand it better, they told us what the trip generations would be during the peak hour in the PM peak hour and during the AM peak hour. That's one car every 2 minutes and 43 seconds entering or exiting our site and during the PM peak hour, that's one car entering or exiting our site every 2 minutes and 13 seconds. And to give that a little bit more perspective, there is currently approximately 30,000 trip counts on Monaco per day. So we are accounting for slightly over 1% of the total traffic generated on Monaco. Okay. Thank you. I'd like to ask David Foster to come forward. I want to address the agreement and specifically the covenant on the land. And I want to refer to page two, Section four, regarding the provision that basically says if. The city does not approve. So, first of all, let me ask, has this been signed by anybody from the neighborhood? Yes. Well, I think. You from there are a couple of pages that are blank. Yes, I did see signatures, but I don't know who those people are. Yes. So I needed that clarification. So in in this section, it says if the city does not approve the zoning or if the development. If it's if the property is abandoned. Help me understand what abandoned means in this particular case. So to begin, this is only a. Covenant that runs with the land, because the. First sentence there is really important that was skipped over by the woman who spoke earlier. So this agreement and these restrictions. Shall only be. Binding if and when. The rezoning of the property to Smith three zone district is approved by the city. So if it doesn't happen. Then this is no out. That second sentence is really as it. Relates to the fact that people have already signed this agreement in anticipation. Of a. Potential rezoning. And if it doesn't take place and at that point we. Would abandon the. Rezoning process because we would have been denied. We just. Wanted to put everybody on notice who was signing this, that we're not living. By these by this land. Use covenant because the property. Was not zoned. Right. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. At this time, I will yield to my colleagues. I may have some additional questions, but that's it for right now. Thank you. Councilman Ortega. Councilman. Commish. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. My first question was for the developer. Miss McCrimmon mentioned that the there were only 58 underground parking spots for 50 apartment units. I have a very different number in one of the documents associated with the project, so I wanted to understand whether that was an accurate statement. Yes. Thank you for asking that. That is not accurate. So as I had described earlier and if you'll reference in your site plan, we have a total of 152 parking spaces for the entire site. For the townhomes, there are two attached garages for every townhome, for the apartment building or the age targeted building, it is 58 underground parking spaces. That was correct. However, she neglected to mention the additional 44 surface parking spaces that serve the site. Okay. And is there anywhere where the parking itself is since these are above the code minimums, is there anywhere that this is documented, the parking commitment or it's just kind of is where does this commitment lie? The commitment was not documented in our land use covenant, but this is something that we are committed to building, just as we have committed to everything else that is in the land use covenant. Okay. Got it. Thanks. My next question was regarding the commitment to limit access to Monaco. I looked in the staff report and this one might be for planning staff report. Has the zoning going to all the departments? And I did look and see and it says fire. No comment. But the covenants restricting the access. I don't know that fire saw that because that's not in the zoning. So I guess I wanted to ask planning whether or not fire has specifically seen the access limitations and indicated that it would be okay. I don't know if there's any other code requirements such as public works, that might also need to weigh in on that. But I just want to make sure I want to understand whether that self-imposed limitation would would fly with the city. Sure. Well, there's always the distinction between planning services, review for zoning and development services on site plan. So from the planning services standpoint and the review of those other agencies towards this MAP amendment, that requires no comment because it wasn't tied to a specific development. I believe the applicant has gone through some site plan review and may have received comments there, but I'm not privy to that. Information. With the applicant. Like to speak to that and. Yeah. Thank you. So we have had I honestly lost count four or five pre-summit meetings with development services and all the referral agencies. And they have seen the site plan and they have approved of what we have here. So fire has reviewed this. Joe floors with fire and they have approved of this. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your forbearance, Madam President. I think I have one more question, depending on how that one goes, but planning again. There's been a lot of commentary about the context for this site being limited to the crest, more a statistical neighborhood. And so I guess I wanted to ask in in our. Law or rules. Is there anything that limits the context to the statistical neighborhood versus, for example, some portions of the statistical neighborhood are four or five times further away than areas in the neighboring statistical neighborhood that just happened to be across the street. So is there anything in the rules that limits the context to the statistical neighborhood, or is there has there been a practice? I feel like in other zoning, what we see is the vicinity. And so I just wanted to clarify whether. Where we were. At with that. To my knowledge, we are not limited to looking at statistical neighborhoods, but the vicinity of the area within the context of what is the appropriate neighborhood context to choose. Okay. Thank you. I'll go ahead and yield. Madam President. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Brooks. Thank you, Madam President. I will try to get all my questions in. And is John Sandwich, is he still there? Okay, great. Sabbath sandwich. Sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. I'm just going to call you John. I'm sorry for butchering your last name. You you talked a lot about stability in the neighborhood, which which was really good. And I just wanted to ask you a question around. And also, you talked about the covenants, neighborhood covenants. You know, one of the things we've noticed in the press, more neighborhoods is a lot of scrapes. And I'm just wondering, how does the neighborhood deal with the scrapes and are there covenants? Because we don't have any zoning requirements around that. Are there are there covenants against certain scrapes? The covenants. The covenants require approval of a budget by our Architecture Review Committee, and then there's an appellate process to the full board, and there are design guidelines that were adopted by the neighborhood a number of years ago. So when a if somebody wants to scrape, they have to come in with the plans. And the kinds of things we look at are the preservation of the front setback, the 30 foot front setback. We don't have fences as Hilltop does. There's no nothing in front of the houses. The we look at the side setbacks. We look at the material used. Those kinds of things. I don't know if that answers your question because I'm pretty tired. But none of that does answer my question. Has there not been any kind of community back? You know, in some of our communities around Denver, scrapes are a big issue. And so just wanted to know, does your guidelines set it such? So there is not that much of a community backlash. There's not a community backlash against the scrapes. It depends. But the the how do I put it? The the important thing to the community is that the proposed building where that scrape has occurred fall within or be designed within the guidelines of the covenants. Okay. Thank you, Chris Davis. So, yeah. Hey, Chris, you talked a lot about, you know, this kind of apartment building being an issue on Monica. And just help me understand this. There are, I believe, nine condos on locus. The townhomes. Oh, townhomes. I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. On Locust. And then the Lux Apartments. You know, as as as we're starting to look at this site plan. I know there was you talked about, you know, the this development being near the park. You talked about, you know, a number you know, a number of developments being right there on on. Monica, I just wanted to hear you talk a little bit about there's already some of that development there and how this particular development you think would adversely impact what's already there. Well, I think that the context Monaco Parkway primarily is a historic parkway, and it's primarily single family residential. I think there is a distinction between the east side of Monaco Parkway and the west side of Monaco Parkway, and there isn't a development of this scale on the west side of Monaco Parkway. It's literally attached to Crest Moorpark, which is a big component of, you know, its location as well. And the blue was called the Luxe Apartments. How how many how many units do they have there? You know, I couldn't answer that. Okay. Does it? I don't know. 725. Okay, great. Thank you. Sure. I appreciate it. Just a quick question for gas first. You know, the the neighbors are bringing up something that is relevant. And I feel like we have the conversation every single time in on a review and it's it's traffic. But given our scope tonight, we're looking at zoning. And have there been conversations with zoning to tie kind of traffic studies to approve zoning? And I know that we have a very strict guideline. But have you all had that macro conversation? I mean, the. Conversation with transportation and land use is a very important one. And I mean, blueprint Denver is the document that helps guide us there. And that that document does focus on the not just the designation material or a a local street, but the character. So that's where the mixed use for Main Street or residential designations. But that's as far as it goes from a guidance from our adopted plans. And it's important to note that when you're looking at zoning, it's it's the zone district that you're adopting, not the project. So that trail is always tackled at the site plan review level where they are evaluating and having things like traffic studies done. But but in. In our review, you talk about the public safety and welfare of a community. And so. Does that include any of kind of traffic impacts and things like that? I mean, we talk about this all the time. Well, I mean, obviously, I think furthering public health, health, safety, welfare is a criteria that we evaluate and the opportunity for redevelopment. The site does give some to have better sidewalks, etc.. But from a traffic standpoint, again, if it's we're not approving a specific development, it's very hard to nail down what those impacts are, just zoning. Okay. Thank you. And just last question for the developer. I don't know if you want to. Can you just kind of say for the record what the original plan was and what you all decided, what the current plan is for the development? Sure. So we we originally started with a SMU five zone district with over waiver four stories, and that was a 120 unit building in the shape of an L. It preserved a lot of the open space connectivity to the park. We then changed our application to an SMU three, but we kept the density at 120 units. We added a wing to the building, then we further and where we are today is 75 units. It's 25 for sale townhomes along cedar and locust and 50 age targeted rentals fronting Monica. Thank you. And if. Can you equate what that concession would be in dollars. I'll try. So when you look at a land. Development and you're trying to assess a monetary value, you typically will do it based on a per unit basis. And so when you look at comps, what Untitled Zoned Land sells for for multifamily, it's typically 35 to $40000 a door. So if you were to take that number, $40,000 a door and multiply that by 120 units, if anybody has a calculator, I, I think 4.8 million pretty close. Is that number. Okay. So if you were to look at it then in just a gross number and reducing the value or reducing the number of units from 120 to 75, if you take 75 units times that same, $40,000 per door, that number is. Three $3 million. So so that's a $1.8 million difference. And and there there are many other factors that go into play. If you're just looking at on an A gross number, that's one way. But with horizontal development, obviously, if you're spreading those same costs, the demolition of the building, the environmental abatement, those spread across a fewer number of units obviously impacts that significantly as well. So is that. A that's enough? Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it. I'm done. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Brooks, Councilwoman Robb. Thank you. Madam President, pro tem. Just a couple questions I thought I heard in some. Of the later testimony. Tonight. We've gone back and forth with whether we should have covenants to cut the number of units down or whether we should just rely on straight zoning. I'm fairly confident that covenants are effective, but I heard that this project, I think this is what I heard, that this project could be built under a townhome 2.5 and I checked the zoning code. That's, that's an option under both suburban and and edge urban edge zoning. Could this project with the multifamily building be built under either of those zoning? Maybe. Who wants to answer? I'm seeing people nod. You know, obviously, the the number there, it indicates the height. So with the SMU three, that allows that three storey apartment building to be built. So the 2.5 would be a it's actually two stories with some. I'd have to look at the exact details, but allow some three story elements to occur. But you couldn't really even do a multifamily building under a row home or townhome. So. Okay. Then my other question was, I want to understand why there's a need to vacate right away along Monica. I think that's a question for the developer. I heard we were going to have an eight foot sidewalk. Yes, ma'am. So when we were working with development services and planning stuff on our initial proposal, it was brought to our attention that the right of way along along this section of our property actually extends further into our property than it does anywhere else along Monaco to the north or to the south. And in our research, what we were able to conclude was that the right away had been vacated after Monaco had been expanded on the north, to the north of our site and to the south of our site. And for whatever reason, the right of way just wasn't vacated along our portion of the site. So what we were actually requesting was to align the right of way with the same line of right of way along the adjacent parcels of both to the north and the south of Monaco. Does that answer your question? Yeah, it does. I think there may be a lot of reasons for trying to figure out why the right away hadn't been vacated in just that section. So we we heard it and I was checking that on my iPad that Monaco is not a historic parkway this far south, but is there still a parkway set back in this section of parkway? And what is that parkway set back? Yes, ma'am. So the parkway setback that we have proposed runs between 44 and 48 feet. And so the parkway set back by code is only 25 feet. So we are actually going beyond that. Okay. I think I understand where you're going to put a bigger set back in than required by code. Yes, ma'am. Okay. And how does a right away vacation affect that? Does that give you more feet for that set back? It does a similar feat for the step back. Yes, we we are honoring the 25 foot setback for the distance between the parkway and the beginning of our surface parking fronting Monaco. So the surface parking fronting Monaco there as we propose it here is not within the parkway setback. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Kill some of it. Thank you, Madam Chair. The in in following all the. The arguments made tonight. Some were more persuasive than others, but I followed them all. The only argument that I couldn't follow, and I kind of want to follow up and see if I can understand it. Mr. Singer made this argument. I think Mr. Singer is still here. There you are. And Ms.. White also made this argument. I don't know if she's still here. So you both referred to the. Orthodox Jewish community that's here and that on the Sabbath, they obviously can't drive to temple. They have to walk to the temple. And and they're. Walking to temple through this neighborhood that by covenant has no sidewalks. And that was a source of anxiety. But looking at the diagrams of the project. This project appears to be the only thing that will have sidewalks. In the neighborhood, you will actually be a sidewalk for the first time from Monaco heading towards the west and along Monaco. So how is this project making that situation worse? I think the issue wasn't following. I think the issue was one which apparently is not available for consideration by the council, which is the issue of traffic and the increased amount of traffic that will occur in the neighborhood and people coming down cedar. And then also using the side streets. It wasn't necessarily that this particular development would have an extra piece of sidewalk on Monaco. We were talking about more the entire area surrounding the development itself, not just some new sidewalk that might be built where the church currently exists or on the on the Monaco side. But it was more of the increase in density of people contributing to the number of cars impacting our neighborhood. Listening to the comments of the council tonight, of course, that's not something that factors into the zoning. It was just something that we were more concerned about from a health and safety consideration. Got it. So. So the change in the built. Environment would have to be viewed as a positive because there's going to be a sidewalk there where there isn't one now. But the increase in the number of human. Beings living there and the. Associated traffic, that's what you were referring to. Not not the not the. The project itself, the people who are living there. That's the problem. First of all, I think there's confusion. We do have sidewalks. It's failing to that does not have sidewalks. So there there are sidewalks. All. The way from, uh, Monaco to Holly. That was I was looking at the pictures y'all were showing and they showed miserable, attached sidewalks of, like, you know, three feet wide or something. It looked pretty pathetic to me, but yes. Except for, you know, the were the proposed sidewalks. There's already it's the sidewalk there. I mean, I don't think that that's. He's having to slip through his large file. Yeah. Like and then there's a beautiful sidewalk. They put that curved in it and you walk through the park. So there is a sidewalk. Behind. That picture. I see. May I clarify? Sure. Of. Sorry. This is our now on. Let's see. That's not the picture of the folks walking into this picture. The city recently. Probably within the last ten years. Added a very wide sidewalk on the south side of Christmas Park in order to accommodate the safety of the Jewish community. There you go. That's it right there. So there's a great sidewalk on that south side and then excuse me on. Yeah, that's outside of the park. On the other side of the street is a more traditional small sidewalk. Our R.A. has sidewalks across more filings, too, which is just to the north. Does not. So that's the confusion. Got it. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Councilman Brown. Well, thank you, Madam President, who's on the rendering committee over there. Would you hold this one up, please, that you showed about three days ago? Feels like with the traffic. I mean, on on Monica, with the town, with the apartments in the background. And I would like to know, could you come to the microphone to ask about this? No, it was one it was one bites that dominated the whole. Board, the. Colorado. Boulevard. The Colorado the. Sunrise. Oh, it was it was no, it was a rendering for what you said, how close the development would be to Monica. And you asked would anybody like that and it showed cars. Yes. That's that's a it's a project on. That's it right. There. No, no. In your right. Hand. No, you just let go of it. The one that's on Colorado Boulevard. It's a project on Colorado Boulevard. There you go. Oh, so that's Colorado. That's not the. Okay. Example. Okay. Yeah, I know that project. Okay, I get it. Is hanging around my. Is Rick Stoddard still here? They haven't. Okay. Michael, let me ask you the question that I don't that I don't want to ask, but I will. What happens if this fails tonight? And what are the plans? We honestly hadn't considered that. And that's just because we are focusing all of our efforts on working with the neighborhood on a proposal that we think is the best, highest and best use for this site. So ultimately, you know, our answer would be we would have to go back as a team and and reevaluate, start the process over. Sit down with city and planning, city and county of Denver's planning staff. Go through the process again as to what zoning they would recommend for the site, continue the neighborhood outreach, and ultimately go from there. You cannot bring this back again, as is for another year. Correct? No. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Councilman Brown, Councilman Ortega. I wanted to ask a completely different question. And, Mr. Gaspar, if you wouldn't mind coming to the microphone, help me understand when it is. That. CPD requires a site plan and a traffic study and that level of detail. I sat on a council that used to see that level of detail on primarily most zoning applications. This one is a little different from all of those that we've been seeing since I've been back on the council. Many of them require a general development plan. So help me understand when CPD is requiring a site plan with some of the details that we're seeing here tonight versus, you know, when we're seeing a general development plan, is it based on the size of the site? Is it help? Sure. This is those have a review processes would occur in the site plan review, which is as a project manager or project coordinator in development services who coordinates a an internal staff meeting with the applicant present to review all of those issues. So that would be fire right of way access, stormwater, etc. So they'd be going through that process. On the development services side of CPD. What is said generally before or after the application. But an applicant can, you know, start that process at their own risk that if the zoning that they're seeking for their development does not, you know, come come forward, that they would be at a loss for for all work put into that. And I guess part of the reason why I'm raising this point is because I think oftentimes neighborhoods are expecting us to look at that level of detail. And and I appreciate what has been shared with us here tonight in terms of the level of information that we've received on the property, on the project. But many other neighborhoods don't get a chance to see this level of detail, and that gets worked out through planning office staff with the developer. And I don't know how much input once the zoning happens that neighborhoods actually get to have in that part of the process after the zoning has been done. So can you clarify that point? Yeah, that's an internal, you know, site plan review process that is administratively, you know, conducted. So it wouldn't have that public review process for those type of things. And there are certain instances a general development plan does have a public meeting. So if it would constitute that larger scale plan process, you would have public meetings, but typically on a site by site basis that is administratively approved. And generally, how large does a site have to be to have a GDP versus just. There's no set size for GDP. It's a case by case basis. Okay. Thank you. I just needed that clarification because we were not seeing the kind of detail in other applications that have come before this body since I've been on the council. Thank you. Any other questions from members of council? The public hearing is closed. Comments by members of Council. Councilman Sussman. Thank you, Madam President. She comes. Well, I guess I'll get started anyway. Thank you all for being here and for being here for so long. I just read that. And maybe it's not just because it's my district, but you also kept my interest for the last time. Both sides of it. To my fellow council people, this isn't a big project. It's not going to mean much to the overall picture for Denver. It's only a few acres. It's not an affordable project. It doesn't have some of that issues that we have for a bigger project. But you can see what it means to. My constituents in my neighborhood is what this little acreage here on the end of this park means, even though it's not very. Big and it doesn't mean. A whole lot to the city. I'm going to come back to this, but I think you heard that it also points and I and Councilman Brooks brought this out. It also points to the though the worry and the primary concern people have about traffic. I had the opportunity to speak to one my very thoughtful constituents. I said, Would you be opposed to this if it only meant more people and it didn't mean more cars? And this constituent said, Gosh, I never thought about that. What if it were just more people but who didn't have cars? And of course. That's. Not the reality of the situation, but it is what the what the issue is. And I think it helps perhaps my counsel people understand. What has happened in District five. Most of the development that has occurred in the. Last 20 years to. 515, let's say ten or 15 years have happened at Lowry and Stapleton and out by the airport. All of it in the Northeast. And so the amount of traffic that has come down, Quebec and of course, Quebec never even went through when the pace was there. And the amount of traffic that's come down Colorado Boulevard and the amount of traffic that has come down Monaco has been enormous. And you wonder, like, where did all. These people come from? And it's true. I did say that, you know, we've had a long time that we haven't had development since Stapleton and Lowry, but suddenly we've had Cherry Creek and suddenly Ninth and Colorado Boulevard is coming on and suddenly Berkeley Annex is coming on. And so it feels. And then Cherry Creek, I said, Cherry Creek. It feels like something that we thought might be five or ten years away have happened in about a year and a half. So I think what you're hearing about this is that. We don't we don't want this to happen right here because of the way we feel about our neighborhood, our concern about traffic. But it's more than that. You can look at a piece of paper and you can see, oh, well, we're going to build or, you know, Buckley Annex is perhaps coming online. And and it's got it's an area of change. And you've got you've got the apartment house, the Lex partner's house across the street, and you've got the daycare center here. And if you look at it out a piece of paper, it looks like, oh, looks like you could have an s-max or a three storey building here. But if you go out there to cross more, you'll see that the feeling of Christmas goes all the way to Monaco. And Monaco is a big moat. It's what I usually call it with very fast alligators. And the the thing that is on the other side of Monaco, the cross, more people don't feel like it is they are neighborhood. And I know people can point to the fact that we have big high rise projects on parks like the pinnacle at City Park or the ones that we have at Wash Park. But all of those are across the street in the in this particular project. It will look like that project is in the park. It will not look like it is across the street in the way in which the other places do so. So it is a feeling about one's neighborhood and how one feels about it and what the context is. But but you have to kind of be there to understand it. And somebody mentioned tonight and I have to we're never going to build another crest more in Denver, a neighborhood like this close in or another hilltop or the beautiful neighborhoods on the west side, because we just don't have the land mass and the land and land is very expensive. And actually, we know also that these the these kinds of single family detached homes on large lots aren't very ecological, and they don't do very much for our ability to create transit. And it just never going to happen again. So in in a way. And and, of course, much of our city is made up of these kinds of neighborhoods. And so in a way, we have to think about the preservation of them because we aren't going to make anymore. And I think that that is the feeling that people have about this particular project, even though it's a very small project. It. It it's very it's very closely held. In their hearts and in their imaginations of their. Of their. Their environment. And the last point I'd like to make, and I think this is really important and I think you heard this also a little bit from the developer. I believe there is still a compromise waiting to happen. They aren't saying no development. They're just saying not this one. And I do believe there is a compromise waiting to happen. And for these reasons, I will be voting against this zoning, and I urge my fellow council people to do the same. Thank you. Um, our next speaker, Councilman Fox, followed by Councilman Nevitt. Thank you, Madam President. You know, council has been criticized in the past for courtesy zoning. And the definition of courtesy zoning, as I understand, is when you just simply defer to the council person in the area and everybody automatically goes that way. Tonight, I want to give some reasons why. I hope, Councilwoman Sussman, you don't see this as discourteous zoning, but I cannot go and come to the same conclusion that you have. And I want to explain why. First of all, I really do appreciate the fact that the developer has downsized this to the third iteration. I mean, to me, I would have had more difficulty had they come in with their original proposal than I very well might have been with you. But I think at this point it actually has been sized for the space. I need to tell you the story of a neighborhood. We have the tale of two cities. Well, here we're going to have the tale of two neighborhoods. I look out and I see the people who are sitting here from Chris Moore. And it reminds me of a neighborhood in my district, in fact, very similar, quite quite similar in age, I would say my neighborhood may be slightly more ethnic, ethnically diverse. But other than that. Profession's much the same. Arbiter You've heard the term Pinehurst. I one of my areas is Pinehurst Estates and the residence. If I were to bring them right in here sitting next to you, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference except for the orange. And Pinehurst Estates is a single family area, primarily ranch. And it has the same kind of configuration that is being discussed tonight. You have the single family homes, a large area of single family homes. And then because Sheridan is bordered by Sheridan and Quincy to the south, so you have two arterials. You have multifamily density. Next. There is not a barrier. There's not a park. It is like some of the people said, well, gee, it comes right up to my house. Comes right up to their house. And then there is another large spot. And Mike Shanahan, you'll like this one. It is a sunrise assisted living right on the corner. And folks, it works. There are not complaints that come out of there. This works for the community. And Sunrise Island has been an asset in our area because we have people who have their parents who are getting older and they are already to the assisted living stage, or they have actually had the wife still living in one of the Pinehurst areas. And then they go into that assisted living. So. It's hard for me to identify with the fears that you are expressing, because I have that in my area and I know that it works for the citizens. Frankly, I like your plan even better with the age targeted home than the sunrise. But either way, I. I don't believe the fears are going to come about and my. My residents. Are happy with their neighborhood. It is still a neighborhood. So from that reason, I just can't get to the point that I can say no to what I consider is a reasonable proposal. And so I will be supporting it tonight. Thank you. Councilman fights Councilman Nevitt. Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I want to. When things like this happen, I want to thank everybody for being so engaged in participating and staying here. I mean, not not everybody that is still here, but many of you still are. And I know how hard those benches are. So it's a testament to how much you care and. Your eagerness to participate in this. So thank you for that. And I totally understand where the opponents of this project and this rezoning are coming from. Everybody loves their neighborhood, and when you love your neighborhood, you don't want it to change or. You only want it to change in the direction of the things that you already know and you like about your neighborhood. But this is precisely. The the. Kernel of the problem that we face as a city. And indeed, this is the kernel of the problem that we have faced in America. With urban development. Since the availability of the mass availability of the automobile. We have an image of the good life. A quiet street of single family homes, a large yard for kids to play in space in the back for a garden. And this is an entirely. Reasonable image of the good life for anyone to have. It's reasonable for anyone to want to seek out. And frankly, as you have tonight, it's reasonable for anyone to want to protect and. Defend once they find it. Unfortunately, we have a problem of scale. A problem of scale at the level of the individual. The pursuit of that image, of the good life is wholesome and positive. Unfortunately. When that image of the good life is multiplied across a large enough population. The result is far from positive. The result is sprawl. And we know what this looks like. It looks like Los Angeles. It looks like. Phenix. It looks like Northern Virginia. Nobody here wants to be those places. But nobody wants to compromise their. Image of the good life either. As was famously said by, I think it was the mayor of Salt Lake City. Our citizens. The only thing our citizens. Hate more than sprawl is. Density. That obviously is. Cognitive dissonance. And that kind of cognitive dissonance is not a formula for success. And we need to resolve that cognitive dissonance or we will fail as a city and we face particular pressure here in Denver with respect to that cognitive dissonance, because people. Are moving here in. Droves. People are moving here in droves. We can complain, we can lament. But since most of us are. Immigrants ourselves and we all know damn well why we came here, because it's such a great place and. Few of us have any interest in leaving it. We can hardly blame them. We are going to add in the next 20 years. You have a kid today, your kids. We going off in college. There will be a million more people here. A million more people. The population of the city and county of Denver is 650,000. We're going to add a million people in the next 20 years. Where are they going to live? I think we face one of three paths. The first is to maintain our cognitive dissonance. We hate sprawl, but we hate density more. And we're not going to sacrifice our image of the good life. We will keep Denver. A relatively low density city, and the bulk of the population growth will simply have to go somewhere else. The million. People who will. Move to Denver. They will move. To Denver, but they will have to live. In the surrounding suburbs, but they will still. Come into the city. To work. They'll still come into the city to have fun. And most of them will drive. And it will be awful for all of us. This is the secret formula, the secret sauce that makes Los Angeles such a wonderful place. Phenix is such a great. Desirable city to live in. We'll have preserved the built. Environment that we cherish, but we will have destroyed our quality of life. I don't think we want to go down that road. The second path is to make a radical course correction. If density is the solution to sprawl, then we'll have to. Dramatically densify our city. We can't be guided by sentimentality. Single family homes need to be replaced with row houses. Row houses need to be replaced with towers. The million people that are moving here can be accommodated in a much more dense, much more sustainable. And much more radically urban environment. And that, too. Frankly, it would be awful. That's a that's the secret formula of China. We'll have avoided. Sprawl, but we'll have lost the soul of our city in the process. And I don't think we want to go there either. The third path is the path. That I prefer and that in many ways we are already on. We are already executing this in Denver. We need to preserve and protect the homes. Of Denver's existing stable family neighborhoods. Denver's old neighborhoods are a key component of the character of Denver. What we love about Denver and they need to be defended. But at the same. Time, we need to take advantage. Of every single opportunity that we have to maximize density with redevelopment in the areas around light rail stations, along transit routes, on our major commercial districts and along major arterials. We need to maximize density. The million. People that are moving here can be accommodated. In more dense, more sustainable urban structures. But we don't have to sell our souls. To do it. And everyone needs to contribute. There is no neighborhood so precious and so perfect that it should not be asked to contribute to this enterprise, to solving this problem that we need to solve. In my own. District in South Denver, I have been a staunch defender. Of our stable, single family neighborhoods. I led the first neighborhood scale down. Zoning in Denver. But at the same time, I have. Also been a. Relentless advocate for dramatically greater density around our light rail stations, along our commercial corridors, and along our transit routes. This site that we're looking at. Is not in the interior. Of the neighborhood. It's on the edge of the neighborhood. It lies on a significant transit route. It's a block from another significant transit route. It's adjacent to an important amenity. We need to site the density we need at sites like this. I have the greatest respect for my colleague, Councilwoman Sussman, and I understand the difficult position that this decision. Puts her in. But I cannot stand idly by. And indulge the cognitive dissonance of abhorring. Sprawl. But refusing to do anything about it. I've chosen the third path for my own district. I believe this site and this development project represents that third path here. So I will be supporting the rezoning tonight. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilman Nevitt. Councilman Lopez. Thank you, Madam President, I. If there was ever a moment to record. Chris Nevitt That's probably it right there. I think you did a great job in summarizing that. But I think we're going to end up in totally different spots tonight. And I say that because. I think of that argument and I think of density and I think of or it's appropriate and I do think of that soul of Denver and where it's at and it's all over our cities. We tend to look at things when it's brought in front of us through a zoning code and this stream of code and ESU, suburban form, general urban, things like that. We tend to really hone in on that and geek out on that and just see the city like that. There are plenty of arguments that were right on point on both sides tonight. And I listen to every single person who came up to the microphone, took notes. And try to gauge where we were at back and forth and also just to feel the energy in the room. Now, we've had folks come in these chambers. And say, we got to stop this rezoning and oh, my whole neighborhood is opposed to it. And there's only maybe three or four people in the neighborhood, in that neighborhood, but in the chambers, they speak for the neighborhood. There is a few times that we've been up at night like this when the community really turns out and it's something that's very serious and we listen. The last time I can remember. Not supporting a rezoning. That I can remember. Was when I asked my colleagues to not support a rezoning at 645, Wolf, in 2007. There were other conditions at stake. Just traffic, but safety. It was the not the most appropriate use or request for density in the area. We just had way too many police calls. Yeah, way too much responsibility by the property owner. Completely different from this. And that's what I really, really want to hone into tonight and a message for a lot of the folks who are here from the neighborhood. I know that there are issues in your neighborhood that are serious. And I've heard folks talk about gangs. I've heard talk about a crime wave. These rezonings don't happen in a vacuum. I'd ask you and invite you to come into some of our other neighborhoods and see what it's like when we truly talk about gangs. And truly talk about violence and break ins and lack of police response time and property values. I can't see that right now because everybody's private values up in Denver, mostly. But when you hear these sirens that you hear outdoors tonight all the time. It's a completely different scenario. I don't want to belittle you when I say sometimes we have to look at our own privilege and understand where we're at. Right. But I also. Here. What you said tonight. And see you all here tonight. And how organized you are, how passionate you are about this. And, you know, I have friends on both sides of this of this issue, and I respect people on both sides of this. This vote tonight is wrong reasoning to me, but I couldn't agree more with Councilwoman Sussman. These are your constituents, Councilman, but they also are all of our constituents. And I respect what you have done and I respect your voice tonight. And the one thing I really have to say in terms of some of the testimony I really detest, when somebody belittles our community and belittles folks who come into this chamber and spend their time away from their families to come in here, and they're not paid to do it. I detest that. And I detest being threatened on city council saying or else. I really do not enjoy that. And the comments that were made tonight that belittle the community for using Legos, for using something creative, for understanding zoning. My community understand zoning that way. And we don't have the privilege to go to architecture and planning school to learn what you may know. But I detest that. I don't like it when folks belittle people in these chambers. It doesn't matter where they come from or who they are. I detest it. And that's what cost you the vote tonight for me. I think it says something that you all came out here. I think it says something that it's not. You're not the only neighborhood that's feeling this pressure. And yes, we have to figure that out. Yes. We got to determine what is. What is it that that makes Denver so valuable? And what is it that we keep and where do we put place density? Absolutely. I truly detest when folks belittle good community organizing and participation. So with that, Madam President, I am going to also vote no and be in solidarity with my colleague, Councilwoman Sussman, in this vote. Thank you, Councilman Lopez. Councilwoman Robb. Thank you. Madam President, pro tem. And thank you to all of you who are still here and looking at your listing quite intensely. This has been an evening of extremes. Number one, it's extremely late. But the other thing that I hear is single family homes or single family homes with granny flats or 120 units or maybe 75 units. But the difference that each side seems seems extreme that each side sees. I've heard that we need this density so that the so that we can have more affordability. And I've heard these units won't be affordable enough. I've heard that this conforms to blueprint and I've heard it defies blueprint. I have heard misstatements of fact. I have heard things that I agree with and things that I disagree with from both sides. You know, like Councilman Nevett, I was very involved in the 2010 zoning code in a good part of Capitol Hill that was zoned for multi-family high rise. We did indeed down zone. And we had our criteria and other in other situations, we did what I might call right zone. We looked at what the development rate was on that property and we tried to match it with the form in the new code so that it was about the same amount of square feet of development . And when I hope I not to take your name in vain, Councilwoman Shepard. But when Susan Shepard first came on to council, she faced an extremely difficult situation in her neighborhood, probably every bit as difficult, if not more than the one in front of us tonight. And she came to some of us on council and she said, The neighbors want me to downtown. Could you support me in that? I said, You know what? I feel sort of like we've had a compact here. I feel sort of like we gave our word that we we rights owned it. Unless you can convince me that we didn't, rights own it. I don't think I can change that. So among all the things I heard tonight, that term, while it's not a criteria for rezoning or not rezoning stuck with me. I have voted for numerous up zoning in my neighborhood, in other neighborhoods across the city, some very contentious, some really old are producing, some where I know I really disappointed friends and constituents in my district. But let me tell you how tonight's rezoning is different from those. First of all, there is not a plan for this neighborhood. It's different from a from a rezoning we did on South University that had a University Hills plan that said it could be that along that edge you could have 3 to 5 stories. We don't have a plan like that. We can sort of guess at that. We don't have that. It's different from Cherry Creek because in Cherry Creek we worked two years on a plan that, while controversial, got support at council. Would no one, as I recall, maybe one speaking against it. Secondly, this is an area of stability. Granted, there there are areas that are vacant that need development, but it's not an area of change like Cherry Creek. Thirdly. We did end up zoning. It was, I think, a PUD in northwest Denver for eligible shrine. I had some some quandary about that. It was an area of stability. It was a site. That, you know, they were loosely leaving an institution, but there was a real positive for the neighborhood because that particular institution while we up. So that particular institution was worth saving. So I see this as a rezoning where the neighbors have made a case for their opposition and that it conforms to criteria that I have seen. It's hard. I went back and forth during the meeting tonight as I listened to all of you. And let me tell you, be careful what you ask for. I did turn down a rezoning early in my time on council. I think it was probably as early as 2003 or very early 2004. Well, within the first six months I was on counted on council. I voted against the development at 55 South Garfield. There was Cherry Creek East. There were townhomes on the block, not single family homes. This rezoning would have been 28 units per acre. And it was a local street. The last project 12 years later just got built. There were only four city lots there 20, 28 units per acre, and it took 12 years and four different projects to get that done. So you better decide what it is you want there. I think this is an attractive project. I admired the developer for compromising and I really. Have. It's hard to decide on this, but I think the case is there that this zoning does not meet our criteria. So thank you. Thank you, Councilman Canete. Thank you, Madam President. I'll end this suspense by starting with the fact that I am undecided. So there you have that. I'm hoping a couple other people chime in because I'm not going to break the tie here. I guess that I want to start by thanking everyone for being here and for the thoughtful work. I do want to clarify, I feel like a couple of my colleagues have left the impression that the community is united against this zoning, and I actually don't think that's accurate. We had residents of Cress Moore, we had residents of Hilltop who are across the street and closer to this site than probably some residents of Chris Moore who testified today and others who are in the vicinity. So so I called what I the way that I describe this, I can list that I see a lot of people shaking their heads. But the Cohens are residents of Chris Moore. You have Bob Moody. You have people who've seen this. So there are residents of Chris Moore who testified in favor of this zoning tonight. So I don't want to see heads shaking. You have residents who are divided on this project. They are on the record. We have their addresses. You have a divided community. And that to me is important to note because I don't appreciate it when people say where United and the council voted against us. You have people with differing opinions in your neighborhood, some of whom have emailed us, some of whom were here tonight. So I think that that's important to acknowledge. So let me go through the points on both sides that that I'm I'm struggling with. So to me, the weakest part of this application is the changed circumstance. I do think that the change on this site I mean, I drive by this site probably four or five times a week . And it's clear to me that this site is struggling. It's you know, many of you described it. It's not an attractive site. It's in decline. And that is a changed circumstance in the same way that the base left. LOWRY That site changed, right? The hospital left ninth and Colorado, that site changed. But that's not really the same as describing an entire change in the area. And I think that point was well made by one of the speakers. And so I am struggling with whether there's enough changed circumstance to justify the legal criteria, which is really my job. My job is not to count residents for and residents against. It's to hear that input and use it to analyze the criteria. That's that's what the code tells me to do. Politics, you know, is is another piece of this. But but the code says you're here to help me interpret the criteria. So that's how I'm using your testimony tonight as well as the rest of the record. So that's the thing I'm struggling with the most. On the other side of it, I will say that it has always been my position and I feel like I've been fairly consistent in describing it, that I always look to see whether and how a community has impacted a development project. But it is never my belief that a community gets to decide what a landowner does on their property. Right. So those are two different things. I do not believe that any landowner who doesn't do what the community asks them to should not get their zoning. But I do believe that there has to be evidence of impact. And in this case I see a lot of evidence of impact. I see a significant reduction in the number of units. I see major access concessions, which I frankly think might be problematic. But if everybody's agreed that they're okay, I think that's a major win for this community. No one will be entering and cedar. No. Won't be entering on the back side. So I see some major concessions. And to me, that's that's the threshold. It's not does the community get to decide what a private landowner does? It's do they have an input? Do they have impact? And in this case, that's clearly met for me. Secondly, another clarification. You know, I know Councilwoman Sussman was very eloquent in her remarks, and but I did I felt a little concerned about one of your comments about the fact that this looks like it's rising out of the park. Nothing. This development doesn't actually touch the park. I think that's really important for us to kind of put on the record, on the on the on the north side of this project is a maintenance area which is not the prettiest part of the park . There's some trailers, there's some equipment. Again, I drive by the site a lot. You know, on the the west side, you have townhomes that touch the park that already exist. And then, you know, on the on the further west side, you've got you've got the street, you've got locust. So nothing on this development actually touches the park. And I just I think that that's a little missed. I feel like it's a little misleading to describe it as, you know, right in the park, because the truth is that there's already other things that buffer it, the maintenance area, the other townhomes and then there's street. So that's a point in favor in my in my opinion in my analysis of the zoning that that there is actually already homes closer to the park than these apartments will be. The third factor in this one, I will be very honest, might actually be the deciding factor is it really concerns me, the anti rental sentiment that I hear and not as strongly in some of the testimony tonight, but it certainly came out very strongly in the early communications from the neighborhood with the earlier proposal. And it certainly was a factor for the developer in making the decision to change from apartments to more for sale product. I have a strong believer in homeownership as a path to building wealth, and it's a really important factor. It's why I worked on the inclusionary housing ordinance. It's why I believe in more condos. But I really I mean, we do have a need for rental. Many, many seniors who want to downsize don't just want to get rid of the yard. They also want to rent. There are many of your children, my future six year old when he grows up someday who need rental as a transition. Or there's people who work service jobs in our city who may be able to afford a market rent but are never going to get the down payment for a house. And I have to say that if the deal breaker for this community that has been opposed is that they just don't like rental and they don't think rental belongs in Chris Moore, that just does not sit well. I really do believe that. And this is where I agree with Councilman Nevett that every community has an obligation to provide a mix of housing, and that mix needs to include rental. And so, you know, if this were restricted rental, it would probably be a very easy call for me. But, you know, we're talking about market rental. But I think about the traffic point here. And if I had a choice between 25 for sale units for families where there's likely to be two earners coming and going to work . And I had 50 units for seniors who are likely to be retired, whose cars probably state parked most of the time. You're probably going to have a lot more traffic with the single family home, with the dual income earner to afford the 500 to $800000 price tag than you will from the senior in the housing, just in terms. So I think that somehow the reputation of rental has really gone awry. And again, again, I see heads nodding, but again I have emails and I have testimony and we had a commitment from the developer to reduce the amount of rental and switch it to for sale. That came from somewhere, right? Those emails exist. That conversation, you know, it was brought up by several of the speakers tonight. Not by all of them, but by several. So. So that concerns me. So. So that's kind of what I'm dealing with. I have some concerns about the criteria being met. But I see a lot of places where I believe this is an arterial. I believe that the context closest to it matters most. I see a buffer for the park, and I also believe that rental is a part of a very strong community, that a mix of individuals is a fair representation of our city and a fair representation for each community. So hopefully someone who speaks after me will shed some light and help me make my decision. But I remain torn. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman McKinney. Councilman. Ah, take a. Well, I think this is. There were a lot of really important points that were brought out on all sides of this issue. And so it makes, I think, the decision a little bit challenging. But I want to hit on a couple of key points in some of them were related to some of the questions that I asked because. In the rewrite of the zoning code, it drastically changed how this body looks at zoning compared to how it used to. And tonight is an example of the kind of zoning we used to see and on a consistent basis. We were here pretty late dealing with the details that were in the application similar to what we're doing tonight. The Planning Office has, as you heard stated earlier, looks at these details after the zoning is passed. And and I think this is where some of the angst is that neighborhoods are feeling across the city where they don't really get to see this level of detail. You all push that envelope by, you know, hiring some of your own folks to look at details. Other neighborhoods, many other neighborhoods in the city don't have the luxury of having the financial tools or the expertize within the neighborhoods to be able to do that. But you all were able to force the issue of having this level of detail brought forward as part of this application. One of the things that that I'm struggling with a little bit is that we have many, many churches in single family neighborhoods that sit on large lots with large, you know, large parking lots where we've seen some of our churches struggle. And, you know, it it could be easy to just sell off that property. And then, you know, this could be seen as a precedent setting kind of move where churches now become the prime spot. Because, you know, if you look at our city, we don't have a lot of vacant lots where larger developments could take place. We have things that are happening more like what's occurring in my neighborhood where existing. Residential structures are being purchased of land assemblages happening and they're completely scraped and you're seeing the density changing and the character of the neighborhood changing quite drastically. I mean, to the point that we've got, you know, a Highland neighborhood coming forward with three overlay zoning because of the concern of the kind of effect it's having on the single family character of the neighborhood where they felt that part of that area was already, you know, a stabilized neighborhood. And so I think this this development pressure and as I was, you know, campaigning across the city, this issue was heard all across the board around, you know, density and development pressures. And in all of that. Councilman never hit part of the nail on the head in terms of the fact that we have a saturated market right now. We don't have a lot of available housing, both for sale and rental. And we've been building rental like crazy. But as fast as they're built and open, they're filled up. That's right. We've got people gravitating to this city. I'm struggling with the issue of the fact that we've we've got so many churches in our city that are in single family residential neighborhoods that are considered, you know, stable neighborhoods where we could see this kind of thing happening and in affecting the character of those communities. I appreciate the work that the developer has done in going the extra mile with the neighborhood, really trying to work through finding something that is is doable for you financially and doable for the neighborhood. Clearly, this project with the details on the table didn't get there based on the kind of input that we heard from so many neighbors tonight. So I'm I'm struggling with where I'm going to be on this vote as well. And it's it's not an easy one. I have tried to weigh this all out in my mind on all sides, looking at, you know, what's in the best interest of the city, the neighborhood, that particular location. But then I look at what we're dealing with across the city and other neighborhoods where the pressures are so great. They're dealing with their neighborhood just changing drastically. In in neighborhoods are coming out saying, okay, we want a historic district, we want an overlay zoning. We want we want tools to try to protect the residential character of our neighborhood because we've been identified in Blueprint in Denver as an area of stability. And so when you look at that, you've got to look at all of the details and, you know, the different tools that are available. And so in this case, I'm, you know, I'll wait until the vote comes down, but I'm I'm just sort of right on that teetering edge, trying to figure out what's what's the right the right call on this one. So I'll just stop at that. Madam President, I know I've got other colleagues that want to speak it, so. Thank you. Councilman Brown. Thank you, Madam President. I know where I stand on this issue, and I'm for it. And I'll tell you why. Because I 14 years on this council, I've heard much of the same comments that I heard from the folks who are against it on other projects. Like someone said tonight. Our way of life is at risk. Really? You don't believe that a? For the last couple of weeks, I've been driving around my district and looking at projects that I had. That were highly controversial. And that people thought the world was going to come to an end. If they were approved. And it was interesting to see them because you drive by you look at the landscaping as it has matured and. You just say, how can people be so upset? At this at this project. There was one last week, and I had my favorite tape of Garth Brooks. In his song about back when the old stuff was new. In this. These projects now look old already. After seven or eight years. Five years. This project on the ground. You wouldn't even think about it. It will blend right in XML Park. And I had the same problem in Washington Park. Washington Park is not a country club. Chris Park is not a country club. It's a public. And when comments are made, we cherish our park. It's not your park is a public park. So we need to start with that as a premise. And. I listened tonight to Scott Robinson, to Marx, Adele, to Bruce O'Donnell and Bob Cohen, and I think they hit it right on the head. That you guys. I worked with the developer. I think he bent over backwards and made considerable compromises and said, I've always said compromise is not a four letter word. And I think that thanks to you guys, this is a better project. I would not have liked the first proposal. Peter. And I'll tell you now, I could not have supported it. It was too much. But I think thanks to these neighbors working with you and you listening. It made it a better project. And that's why I'm pleased to support it tonight. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilman Brown. Councilman Brook. Thank you, Madam President. And I want to thank everybody for being here to AM. Obviously, this means a lot to you. And you talk about two groups or quick the neighborhood. You are well prepared for this debate. You work really hard. You you organize incredibly hard. I got a Facebook request from your neighborhood that's never happened before. So you all know what you see up here is a lot of turmoil, a lot of weighing about where our city is and which which direction do you go. And I think you should be proud. I've never seen this dais like this before. So well done. I want to thank the developer. You know, I think developers get a lot of heat in the city and $1.8 million is nothing to snuff out, especially when it's not your money. And so I know that the developer tried their best to get a solution that works. Here's what here's what I'm here's the major issue I'm walking away with. And it's traffic is transportation issues. Here's the good news, bad news scenario. The bad news is this is this is not our scope to deal with all the transportation issues and traffic issues in your neighborhood. The good news is we can deal with it. We had a budget conversation a year ago. Colleagues, you will remember this. We granted CPD 35 FTE, which they needed, by the way. And public works were not meeting their. Basic requirements. And we at that point in that budget meeting. Ask for more FTE for public works specifically around transportation. And. And the mayor did make an increase, but. Our our development is outpacing our transportation infrastructure improvements. That's that's one of the real issues that's going on in this city. You're articulating it. I'm hearing articulate in every neighborhood I'm downtown. So I use multimodal. But when I drive my car to Daegu, I realize how much traffic is going on in the city. I went we went to the the Hirsch Hirschfeld had an event in councilman assessments district. I went down, believes I was six and made a right on Quebec and it took me 45 minutes. What you are saying is real? My belief is this site will not dramatically increase it. But you are facing some severe traffic issues and we need to address it. Our our call, our legal obligation before you today is are the plans consistent? Are they in contexts? For approval. And for me, as I look at that and I think you've heard some some of my colleagues say. They believe they are. They believe they're not. As I look at this whole context as well as I look at this existing site, it reflects the context to me. Now, that's not the information that you want to hear, but it's what I believe is in front of us. 150 or 120 units was way too much. We came down considerably and you guys got them down. Is that the right makeup? We will see. The developer has gone on to make some more concessions to work with the neighborhood. And I believe they will have to live up to those. The developer will have site plan review. I hope that he's working with neighborhood representatives and you can ask for that now to continue to work with them on that. So I am I am voting in favor of this. I am torn, though, because you all made an incredible. Case tonight. This morning. And so, you know, I'll be I'll be supporting this because I do believe that it is an. In line with our plans that we have with the city and county in Denver in this area. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Brooks, any other. Any other comments by members of council? None. Madam Secretary. Roll Call on Council Bill 56. Susman No. Brooks, I. Brown, i. But I can each. Fast. Layman. Paz? Lopez No. Nevett I. Ortega No. Rob No. Shepherd I can each a layman. I. Ortega. Already voted Tory. Rob. Madam President, I. That's right. Madam Secretary, close the voting and announce the results. Nine eyes. Three nays. Nine eyes, three nays. Council Bill 56. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I voted one way and I hit the wrong button. So what was your goal? I don't know if yours is reflecting the way I voted. She voted no. You voted. No. Eight for. Doesn't change the outcome, but. I'll change it to a no. For the purpose. Of the ADA. Accurate nays. By Monday, June 29th, there'll be a required public hearing on Council Bill 346, changing the zoning classification of 301 South Cherokee Street. Any protest against Council Bill 346 must be filed with the Council offices no later than Monday, June 22nd. See no other business before this body? This meeting is adjourned. Denver eight. On TV and online. Stay connected to your community, your city, your source. You are watching Denver. Eight TV's Your City, your source.