A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for Geneva Court and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Rezones property at Geneva Court and Martin Luther King Boulevard from R-MU-20 (Former Code: residential, mixed use) with waivers to M-MX-5 (master planned, commercial mixed use, 5 stories) in Council District 8. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 8-3-16.
Okay, I'm on the second slide now. I think you've got numbers now, don't you. On your slides. No, no. Okay. I'm sorry. Just like this. Like less. Okay, great. So this is in Council District eight in the Stapleton neighborhood. I'm moving on to the next slide in the Stapleton statistical neighborhood, as I just said. The location slide shows you that it is in Southeast Stapleton at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard and Havana Street across from Bluff Lake. You can't see Black Lake in this, but southwest of the Denver City jail. So moving on to the request, it is about 0.83 acres or 36,000 square feet. The property itself is vacant. The applicant is requesting the rezoning to redevelop the property into a financial services dental office and hairdresser land use. So the again request is to rezone from r emu 20 with waivers to master planned context, mixed use five stories. So moving on to the current waivers, they relinquish the right to some civic land uses, including gallery, museum, boarding school, university or college. Some commercial land uses including animal sales, banking and financial services, medical or dental office and clinic, and the right to construct offices over 2500 square feet or aggregated over 5000 square feet of office space. So moving on to the context, again, the existing zoning is arm you toe with waivers. There is a Stapleton general development plan in this for the South Area adopted in 2001. The land use is vacant. This property itself is surrounded by residential, small scale residential and some commercial under development now. So looking at the context map zoning, you see that there's marks five to the north, there's mmx5, which is the mixed use zone district where they're applying for to the east and to the south and then to the west. The RMU, Tony, with waivers. Moving on to land use. The surrounding land uses are a mix of low density multi-unit and single family. And the blue on the map that you see on this slide is a daycare center. I would point out that the to the south, the triangular parcel, there are two restaurants underdeveloped there. And just south of our subject site is the site where the new King Soopers is being developed. They're being built just. So looking at building foreman scale, this gives you an idea of the existing buildings in the area. The day care center is the top photo. The the grassy field is the vacant property we're talking about. The lower right photo is some townhomes and single family homes directly across Geneva court from our site. And then all the steel girders in the bottom picture are the King Soopers under under construction. So moving on to process, an informational notice of a complete application went out to City Council and all of the affected renos on March 24th. Our planning board held a hearing June 1st on this and was duly noted, duly noticed electronically with a sign posted on the property and planning board voted 9 to 1 to recommend approval. And then we were on to the Land Use Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on August 3rd. They passed this item on to the Council for this public hearing. These are the RINO's that were notified and to date we have no public comment. So review criteria, you're very familiar with consistency with adopted plans, uniformity of district regulations, furthering the excuse me, public health, safety and welfare, justifying circumstances and consistency with neighborhood context and zone district purpose and intent. So the plans that apply to this property plan 2000 Blueprint Denver, the Stapleton Development Plan and the Stapleton redevelopment of the General Development Plan for the South Area adopted in 2001. So what I wanted to get into first was the sort of evolution of the location of this town center site. On the bottom left is the of the town center. Location side is the original location in the Stapleton Development Plan in 1995, which was going to be at 26th Avenue and Havana Street. Then by the time we did the GDP in 2001, the town center had moved slightly north and Martin Luther King, coming in sort of from the west in that middle picture, was going to divide and the town center was going to be in the center of that divided Martin Luther King. That was a little north of 26th Avenue. Then by the time we did, too, in 2002, when Blueprint Denver mapped the area, the town center had moved north to Martin Luther King and Havana Street, and Martin Luther King had not dipped south to connect to 26th Avenue like that center picture had envisioned. So there has been kind of an evolution of the location of the town center. I should note, though, that when we approved the zoning in 1995 for most of South Stapleton, the GDP very deliberately said the zoning should rule, and that's what we have adhered to since then. The GDP has not been amended. So I can't plan 2000. We have several strategies that we think this application conforms with telling us to promote the development of sustainable communities and centers of activities where shopping jobs, recreation schools are accessible to encourage quality infill development that offers opportunities for different densities and amenities to encourage development of focal points in communities where none exist, and to support development of neighborhood serving business centers. So I'm on to Blueprint Denver. Blueprint Denver land use concept is single family residential, and it's an area of change. The single family residential is described as primarily residential, with some complementary land uses such as parks and schools and some employment base that is definitely smaller than the housing base. Future ST Classification and Blueprint Denver. Martin Luther King is a mixed use arterial where we want to provide a high degree of mobility and. These streets are located in our higher intensity mixed use areas. 31st Avenue and Geneva are both under designated local streets. So I'm on to Stapleton Development Plan. This site is in District three in the Stapleton Development Plan. It is a to be an urban neighborhood, moderate density, significant natural amenities, as all of the Stapleton neighborhoods have, and strong ties to original Aurora as this is directly adjacent to Aurora on the east. So those key elements from that district, from the Stapleton Development Plan, that it's predominantly residential, that it has that district center, town center, that all Stapleton town centers have transportation elements and have either an elementary school or a neighborhood center of some kind . That's the one of the unique elements of this town center is that they they wanted us to develop urban design guidelines for the correctional facility on Smith Road as it's directly adjacent to the north of this area. So moving on to the GDP, the GDP and the mixed use zoning in the chapter, former Chapter 59 required general development plans. I'm sorry, the mixed use zoning required general development plans. So the GDP was based in the Stapleton Development Plan. There were 2155 acres in that general development plan, and it was generally shaped as most of Stapleton is, by the open space, walkable neighborhoods, mixed use town centers and neighborhood centers, regional retail and all different variety of land uses from residential all the way to industrial. And as I said before, specifically, the land use concept laid out in the general development plan, talked about the land uses may change and evolve over time, but would remain consistent with the mixed use zoning. So again, the mixed use zoning, the RSU 20 was put in place. It was primarily residential, but it was along some heavily traveled streets. And the mixed use concept of combining residential and neighborhood serving retail was present in the GDP. So I'm moving on to the land use slide from the general development plan and you see the red circle on the map there. It's a difficult map to read, but it was called residential on the general development plan. And then on the zoning map from the general development plan, we see that the site itself is the arm you tow with waivers zoning. And then the Street Network. I just wanted to point out again that the Street Network for as far as Martin Luther King Boulevard is did not develop the way the general development plan envisioned it. It did not split into two one ways, and it did not go just to the south and join 26th Avenue. It ended up actually pretty much being aligned east and west. So the master plan context under review criteria consistency with neighborhood context and zone district purpose and intent master plan context is intended for large redeveloping areas that are redeveloping in phases over time. And as I said before, the range of land use is ranged from single unit multi-unit, mixed use, large town centers, small town centers, transit oriented development, commercial, all the way to industrial land uses as we are developing a whole new community and the master plan mixed use zoning is intended to provide that flexibility for these master plan communities and to respond to market opportunities over time. And the zoning regulations were written to support these phased developments, allowing a variety of developments so it does the master plan mixed use five story does promote new town centers with mixed use neighborhoods that are five stories in height. So with that, staff believes that all of the criteria are met, that this proposal is consistent with the adopted plans, that it furthers the uniformity of district regulations by moving into a standard zone district from a custom zone district that, in adopting in implementing our plans, were furthering the public health, safety and welfare, that the justifying circumstance of changed conditions has been met, and that this project is consistent with the neighborhood context and zone district purpose and intent. With that, staff recommends approval. Thank you. Miss Lucero, we have one speaker tonight. I'm going to ask that person to make their way forward. Tyler Carlson. You will have 3 minutes. Please introduce yourself. Telecast. I'm a principal at Evergreen Development, so I'm the applicants and don't have a formal presentation. Just want to thank Theresa and staff for her help working through the zoning process. She's been great. And I want to thank the neighbors who are here. We've been working collaboratively with them over the last several months to make sure that the project we're doing here, which is basically a second phase of this bridge town center, is beneficial to them and the rest of the surrounding neighborhood. The impetus behind this request is really to remove the Byzantine waivers that are on it, which preclude financial services and a dental office. And we have leases with both of those use categories and we are leasing to them specifically to keep less intense uses in this buildings or service oriented uses versus the heavy restaurant mix we have in the town center immediately south. So we think this is a win win. It also cleans up the zoning for the overall parcel. And I want to thank everyone for their time and here to answer any questions. Great. Thank you. I also live in Stapleton and I work in the city in county of Denver, too. Sorry. Great. Thank you. All right. That concludes our speakers. Are there any questions for members of council? Councilman Herndon. Thank you, Mr. President. Three To start with you, the planning board. Nine The one who's the one and why? That was Don Elliott, and he had an issue with the location of the town center over time. He didn't. Believe that. Because Blueprint Denver didn't have a town center on the north side of Martin Luther King Boulevard. He didn't believe that this proposal conformed with Blueprint Denver. Okay. Fair enough. And could you go back to the slide where you showed the different zone codes? Yes, let me get to that. And my question is that parcel north of Martin Luther King, it has to zone codes, it has to the east, the x five, which is what the applicant is trying to go to, into the west. It has the RMU. And my question is why that is the case. You would think that that should be either or. And I'm curious why it's split. That's it. That's it? Yeah. Why? There's Army 20 with waivers. Parcel to the north. That's two different zone codes. So they are amused on the west. And then the next five was the applicants trying to go to is to the east. And I don't know if you know why that that is the case. Why in 2010 maybe we didn't write down the Army 20 because it had waivers. Okay. And the one to the north, it doesn't have waivers because it had a site plan that already governed it. So we didn't want to. We also did not reason. Site plan or PBGC, as we call them, plan building groups, because we didn't want to have to take back our approval of a site plan that was already approved and use. And you said this, but I want to make sure that this is understood. The current zoning right now, the RMU does allow commercial uses. As it's mixed. Use and which commercial uses could and actually actually, Theresa Tyler, I can call you up because I'm sure you've studied this a lot more, Tyler, if you want to come up. Thank you, Theresa. What can the. You don't even have to come here right now. You could have currently bought the property and done what to it. Currently. Yeah. The both categories allow for commercial retail, both allow for drive thru uses, both allow for actually high density residential. The only difference between the two categories is the waivers which limit you preclude you from doing financial services, medical, dental, that list that Theresa provided . I don't know why in the world it is so weird, but anyways, it is what it is and we're trying to remove it. But yeah, you could. The exact same building we're trying to build, you could do the only difference, as I mentioned the neighbors earlier this evening is if this was to not pass the waiver stuck , that I have to backfill my leases with the dentist office in the bank with more restaurants because that's the only the other viable use category and we both don't want to do that. But that's more intense uses by their homes. Correct. And that's why I, I think sometimes when people see are they think residential and I appreciate you bring up that point entirely. One more for you. And since none of them have signed up to speak against, I am assuming and I we've met with them that they are comfortable moving forward. But if you wanted to Tyler one, I appreciate the conversations you've had talking with the neighbors and their concerns and I'll speak a little bit to that during the comment, if you just wanted to talk about how those conversations have gone forward, they've gone great. I mean, it's it's a great group of neighbors who have normal concerns that anyone would have I would have if this was happening across the street from my house. They haven't been relating to the rezoning. It's really related to access. And we've tried to work through that with traffic staff to varying degrees of success, you know, which is a challenge for all of us, because I think we'd all like maybe a different access program than engineering's allowing to occur. But again, that doesn't concern the rezoning. But we continue to you know, we're doing some additional buffers. We're asking to be planting some trees on their side of the street to help mitigate some of the impact. We did something similar when we did the Sprouts on Colfax, where we had similar commercial adjacencies right next to neighborhoods. So we're trying to be good neighbors. And I live not too far away so they know where to find me. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Councilman Herndon, Councilman Espinosa, this might be a question for either Teresa or the city attorney. And this question really wouldn't have mattered at the time that it came to plan, Candy. But now that we've approved the linkage fee, if this plan set were to go for permitting after January 1st, is this still covered by the Stapleton housing plan or does this now fall under under the linkage fee? And the reason why I'm asking is one of those waivers allows a substantial, considerable more amount of redevelopment on this means of development on this site than the 2500 or 5000 square foot limitation. You know, this is a nearly 40,000 square foot site, TMX five. That's this can be a far more substantial project in what was originally codified. I'll defer to the city attorney. Mr. President? David Broadwell, Assistant City Attorney. The rezoning doesn't affect the fact that the language in the new linkage fee ordinance exempts out the entire Stapleton geographic area by virtue of the fact that it remains under the original development agreement adopted in the in the early 2000. So this rezoning doesn't affect the fact that the applicability of the linkage fee at all, that the the property remains exempt until the development agreement goes away. So why wouldn't we require somewhere in the process that that when we're granting so right now that the entire property parcel that's being redeveloped I mean re zoned has a 5000 square foot commercial limitation. Now obviously under residential, it could be substantially higher than that. But if it were to get developed commercially, every square foot of development in excess of 5000 square feet is in fact now not part of that redevelopment or. If it's an office, is it 5000 square feet? So any commercial use. Commercial uses don't have that. But now we're exempting that for the other waived uses that were so interesting. Yeah. Is that all your questions? Yeah. Okay. All right. Any other questions for members of council? A public hearing for council bill 430 is closed. Councilman Herndon. Thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate the questions and I appreciate the community from coming out. And this show that I have so few people coming out demonstrates Tyler's ability to work with the neighbors. I am so familiar with this area. If the U.S. went down a little further south, you would have seen my house, my first house at 26 in Fermanagh and 28 when I put down an offer on that. And I remember those signs that talked about the East Ridge Town Center coming and it's finally here and it's really exciting. Those pictures need to be really updated, particularly at the town center because it's coming. And I appreciate I'm excited to see the full parcel north of Martin Luther King as well. And I appreciate Tyler and Evergreen recognizing the community in the sense because as he said, he could have done more active uses where you could have had restaurants, where you could have things going on and like 9:00 at 10:00 at night, right across the street from the neighbors. But I think he recognized there's a way to do commercial as well as take the neighbors into consideration. I think that's a testament to you, Tyler, as well as you being a resident and being very familiar with the community. I appreciate neighbors coming through because we have spoken in length about their concerns, not particularly the zoning, but particularly on egress and access. And we've we're continuing to have those conversations. And I, I appreciate you being here. We're going to continue those conversations to make sure we can ensure that you can have your your concerns warranted, as well as making sure that the parcel that's going to be developed can be successful as well, too. So this is something that I, I certainly support. I hope my colleagues will. I, I just find those earlier photos very interesting. I couldn't imagine Martin Luther King dipping down to 26th Avenue now the way that is in those original when you think about how it is now. But this is something I certainly do support and I would encourage my colleagues to do so as well. Thank you, Mr. President. Yeah, thank you, Councilman Herndon. I will say one thing about this, not particularly this development, but I expect Tyler to do well with the neighbors because and in 2012, with the former sunflower site and you mentioned it, but now the sprouts that's on Colfax in a food desert, that was one of the most complex issues in working with neighbors. And still to this day, the folks over there are really excited about that grocery store. So I hope this works out for the Stapleton neighborhood as well. We this has been moved in second. Madam Secretary, roll call. Herndon. I Cashman. Kinney. Lopez knew Ortega. My black eye. Claire. Espinosa. Flynn I. Gilmore, I. Herndon, I guess again, I sorry, Mr. President. I please close the voting and thus the results. One moment. Ten eyes. One day. Ten eyes. One constable for 30 has passed. Congratulations. Lopez did wear you and I vote yes. Okay. Well, clean it to a 12. No, no, no, no. 11 eyes. One. There should be 12 eyes when they. 11 eyes were missing one specimen. It passed, though we do know that. So Council Bill 430 has passed. Congratulations. There is no pre adjournment announcements except that we forgot a hat again for Councilman Clark. Come on. Actually, let's go. He should be wearing a cowboy hat because they lost the border war to the lamb. Can't see it. No other business before this body. We stand adjourned a.