Approve the Denver Zoning Code Text Amendment #5 to establish the new S-MX-2A, S-MX-3A, S-MX-5A, S-MX-8A, and S-MX-12A zone districts. (NEIGHBORHOODS AND PLANNING) Approve the Denver Zoning Code Text Amendment #5 to establish the new S-MX-2A, S-MX-3A, S-MX-5A, S-MX-8A, and S-MX-12A zone districts. IF ORDERED PUBLISHED, A PUBLIC HEARING WILL BE HELD ON THIS ITEM.  REFER TO THE "PENDING" SECTION OF THE FUTURE COUNCIL MEETING AGENDAS FOR THE DATE. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 10-14-15.
organizations and city council throughout the city. At July 28th, Planning Board held an informational item and then held a public hearing. That was probably a notice to all registered neighborhood organizations in the city and all city council members. That hearing was on September the 16th, at which time they heard testimony from one person and then unanimously recommended approval. It proceeded to the Committee of City Council, the Neighbors and Planning Committee on October 14th, and City Council's public hearing tonight was also again notified notice with 21 days advance notice to all register neighborhood organizations and all city council members before tonight's public hearing. We received a total of two written comments which are both included in your packets that we submitted last week. One is a general comment, not specific to this text amendment from Virginia Vail Community Association. And then there was a comment specifically in support of the text of this text amendment from a developer of transit oriented development in the Pinion Boulevard Station area Four Bells. And he is here tonight. So here's the purpose of the text amendment. The goal is to create a brand new series of suburban context zone districts. So we're adding to the menu of current zone districts in the Denver zoning code with five new ones that are designed to fit within the suburban neighborhood context but have a more urban, pedestrian oriented character than the current menu provides in the suburban context . It does this by adjusting some of the building form standards in the suburban mixed use zone districts, and it does so in a way to try to increase the predictability and implement adopted plan goals and objectives from the citywide adopted plans. Here's a summary of the main provisions of the text amendments. They're further detailed in your staff report and in a lengthy red line ordinance, as well as a black line ordinance. At the committee meeting, we received valuable feedback from the committee members that perhaps these would be better shown through graphics. So I asked my colleagues with developing some graphics to illustrate the concepts, and so I'll walk through them here quickly. The first is there's an adjustment to the build to range. So on the left hand side of this slide and all the subsequent slides, it shows the current smc's suburban mixed use zone districts. They remain on the books and they continue to be mapped in various locations in the city today. The current rule in suburban mixed use is that there's a bill to range from 0 to 80 feet in most instances, although sometimes that goes as much as 150 feet. In this new series of zone districts, the smic's a zone districts the 2a42 stories 3a43 stories, 58a and 12 a that we would narrow the bill to range. So it would be from a minimum of zero feet to a maximum of 20 feet. There's also an increase in the percentage, which is the width along the zone lot that the building needs to be met. So in doing so, it brings buildings closer to the street and again, kind of seeks to achieve a more urban, pedestrian oriented character. The second thing that smacks a zone district is do as compared to the current suburban mixed use zone districts is to prohibit surface parking between the building and the street. So on the left hand side, you can see today surface parking is allowed between a building and a primary street and suburban mixed use in the new series is on districts that would not be allowed between the building and the primary street. So it need to be located to the side, to the rear in the building itself. The third thing that's different about the SMACKS makes a series of zone districts is the pedestrian access requirement. So in the suburban mixed use zone districts again today, already what the rules are on the left is they only require a pedestrian connection, which is a clear, visible path from the street to the building. On the right, you can see the new requirement in this Amex zone, districts which require a street facing entrance so a door in the building must face the primary street. Finally, there's the addition of a street level active use requirement. So today, although there there are built to and transparency requirements and all the other street level activation requirements I've talked about so far in the suburban mixed use zone districts. There's not actually a requirement that there be an active use in the building. What we're introducing with this cements a zone district series is a 40% street level active use requirement, which is consistent with what we require in our other urban, pedestrian oriented, mixed use districts in the city today. So essentially what that means is that within 40% of the width of the building that's meeting the build to requirement requires a use other than parking and a few others that are not very street lively and active. So you can see on the left today that could just be a parking garage behind the windows, whereas one example of what might develop within the new series of zone districts is a cafe or or any other use that isn't prohibited in the code as an inactive use. Another thing that the text amendment does is it only allows the general building form. What this does as compared to the suburban mixed use some districts is it essentially prohibits drive thru lanes and drive thru services between the building and the street, although drive thrus as you drive thru uses would still be allowed if locate if not located between the building in the street. So there are three review criteria for a text amendment. The first is that it be consistent with the city's adopted plans and policies. We provide a further detail in your staff report, but in summary, we find that it would be consistent with comp plan 2000 and ensures that the zoning code is flexible and accommodates changes over time . It will encourage mixed use and transit oriented development in those locations where it's mapped and identifies in response to community design and development issues that have been raised, targeting those concerns with appropriate new controls and incentives. The second criterion is that it needs to further the public health safety in general welfare, which the text amendment does by providing clarity through the New Zone District in terms of the building form and predicted predictability in terms of what the rules will be, and also facilitates plan development within the new zone districts and it continues to implement our adopted plans. And then finally, it must result in regulations that are uniform throughout each of these new zone districts. The regulations will apply uniformly to all buildings and land uses that develop within each of them again when they are mapped. So having reviewed it against all three review criteria, we recommend that you approve the text amendment. Thank you. We have one speaker for bells. Good evening. Four Bells two 2335 Glencoe, Denver. Thank you. Council President and Council Members. My letter has been submitted, but I wanted to, first of all, thank the planning staff for their efforts on this. The S-MAX is just not stringent enough for what we wanted to accomplish out there. But some of the other zoning designations really don't fit the context. As you know, we were wheatfield until recently, and fortunately we're under construction and putting infrastructure in and developing what we believe will be a leading transit oriented development that we'll all be proud of. And it might take ten years. It is 400 acres. So we believe this will allow for our pedestrian oriented streets to be truly pedestrian oriented. We really don't want a bunch of parking between our pedestrian oriented streets and our buildings. And so this helps us accomplish that by really defining what we want to accomplish and not having some X, just pure s-max and having like so. So we encourage you to support it and we look forward to moving forward. Appreciate it. Thank you. That concludes our speakers. Now time for questions. Councilwoman, can each. Thank you. One question for the planner, please, Kyle. Yes. Sorry. I just have a really basic question, which is you've described a lot of the requirements of this own district, but were any of these things not allowed in the prior zone district, or is there things that an applicant can do that they wouldn't have been in the other one? I'm just trying to understand kind of that tipping point of necessity versus what was possible. Sure. So in all cases, this will increase minimum requirements. So development, everything that's available in the new districts, you could also do in the regular districts. It's just that in the regular districts, you could do kinds of development that wouldn't be as compatible with the goals of the new one. So it is restrictive, more restrictive in all cases. All right. And I guess my main question there is I mean, it makes perfect sense to me, but in a case where an applicant can choose which one to do. I guess I'm still a little stuck on the need for a new zone district because anyone who doesn't want to do these things could just choose the old one. Right? We're not eliminating the old one. Correct. They won't be removed from the books. But we do think that there are instances where the smic's straight zone districts wouldn't implement plans and wouldn't be consistent with the city's adopted plan. So these will be more consistent in areas where we have stationary plans calling for a more vibrant character or pedestrian oriented character. Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off there. So let me just so if I understand it correctly, it's not that applicants won't still see that more permissive zoning, but you would be, for example, now that this exists, less favored to support it. For example, from a staff perspective, if you felt like this one was a better fit with the plan. You know, the planning board might be reviewing against this so so you it will in effect the existence of the to two comparative you know zone districts will will indeed result in some folks being steered this way who might not have otherwise. I think that's a fair statement. Okay. Thank you for helping me understand. Thank you. Councilman can. Councilman Ortega. I'd like to ask for bills, if you can come forward. So in looking at the documents, I didn't see a map that defined the boundaries. So can you both define the boundaries and tell us how many acres we're talking about that make up this area? So the entire area that was part of the stationary plan which was approved is from 56 to 60 fourth. And Pen Boulevard to Tower Road actually includes our land and some other landowners who also participated in the stationary plan and the general development plan, including Disneyland. I mean, this is truly our co-developer on this project. So currently that land is on the old zoning code, CMU ten, 20 and 30. And we are actually done preliminary submissions with the planning staff to rezone our land into the new zoning code. And this we will designate some of our land as some mix a as we come forward and obviously you'll see that when we come forward. So we'll be seeing other zoning applications come forward, is what you're saying? Yes. In fact, you will see we own about 150 acres of it. The EIA will not be, as I understand, submitting because they're the EIA and basically they have their own designation, which is fine. And how many acres are the A dia? 60. Okay. There's another landowner that's about another 150 acres. And they have not decided yet whether they're going to rezone. So part of this is just to give the development, the developers options between the two different zoning categories that are now available with. Yes, yes. We worked hand in hand with the planning staff developing this text amendment really to kind of craft it through what we desired on what I would call our most pedestrian oriented streets. So those pedestrian or streets will be our primary streets. So we will have the build to requirements and the transparencies along those streets, which are the key walkable streets. And four. Can you help me recall whether the Metro District covered the entire boundaries of all the acres that we're talking about? The metro district does include all of that. It's actually 380 acres. It has inclusion areas. They can take it up to over 600 acres. For instance, DIA is not in the specific metro district area now, but they can be included. In fact, we had ten metro districts that, as you may recall, we saved one for DIA if they want it. So it's generally the entire area? Yes. In an up to how many mills will that allow to be included in? I'd. Say that again. I'm sorry. So the metro district will allow the mills to be raised? Oh, yes. So is there what's the cap on? It's the standard that the city and county has approved generally, I believe, which is 50 mills for capital. And then you can have an operating a mill on top of that. Okay. So given the the role of. Special financing tool. What what is the commitment to affordable housing for any of the housing development that's going to be built on the site? We have not made a specific commitment to affordable housing. We are working with the local developer, MGM, to have our first project. They are having meetings with the city on some potential financing mechanisms to have a portion of their their apartments that would be rental be affordable. Okay. And is that a development that's moving forward now or. Yes, they are under contract. Okay. Okay. Those are all the questions I have. Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Ortega. Councilwoman Gilmore. Thank you, Mr. President. I think, Kyle, you're probably the best one for me to address this question, too. So first, I have to say thank you for including the schematics in the presentation and with the parking, you know, not being facing the street. Sometimes people wonder if there's going to be enough parking. But it's my understanding that there's going to be hundreds of parking spaces that are close to the platform. And I think that number was 800, is that correct? Or and that might be a question for Firdous as well or Dan. But you know, how much parking is there going to be and then encouraging that walkability through, you know, multimodal bicycles and other mechanisms, if you could talk a little bit about that. Sure. So I'll speak to what I know and then you can maybe address questions elsewhere. So this is a text amendment to add zone districts to the book. It's not actually being mapped anywhere tonight. And I'm not familiar with the details of any particular project. And I'm I'm genuinely not familiar. So what I can say is with the zone districts, when they are mapped, they will require the suburban neighborhood parking ratios, which are some of the highest in the city in terms of the off street parking requirements for the uses. I'll also note that the suburban context is not likely to be mapped at the platform itself. So immediately next to the platform is zoned DIA and will likely remains on the air. The next out from the DIA land is most likely to be an urban center kind of zoned district. That's what the plan would point towards being a steer towards. I guess the applicant towards rezoning to the suburban would be, you know, more appropriate, a little bit farther out, but where there's still a pedestrian related influence. But but I can't speak specifically to how many spots are are being proposed at this time. Sure. Thank you for it. Or Dan, could one of you speak to that, please? I'm sure Dan knows this as well, but it's part of the approval process with the Public Transportation Authority. We were required to do an 800 car parking lot for the rail stop, and that 800 acres is entirely on the air land. And it's right here just adjacent to the rail stop. And then so that is actually under construction. The zoning that we required is, as we come in, as kind of said, will be printed on the designation. We have some of our blocks that we've met and proposed to the city to be CMCs, which are the more dense and more stringent than even smoke say. But so some of them will be CMCs and will be, as some say, and some will be as. Some X as some x will be out by Tower Road primarily. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilwoman Gilmore. Councilman Flynn. Ferd could open up and down an up and down. In your letter of support, you said that this would that this zoning, this text amendment could help address some of the challenges of developing one of the only greenfield tod sites in the city. Explain what those challenges are and how this language helps you. Sure. We in addition to the two zoning that we will have, we also have the design guidelines and the design guideline speaks to a lot of the same criteria. Sometimes it's challenging to implement the design guidelines if you don't have the proper underlying zoning. So we believe this bolsters it and helps it in addition to have Cinemax throughout. Two 200 plus acres and then jump right to Suburban. In terms of transition, really didn't work as well. So I mean, this kind of allows us to transition from Tower Road, which is a more car oriented, if you will, into the site. So that's kind of the challenges we're trying to address. Excellent. Thank you for the clarification. And Kyle, can I ask you, this is a text amendment and there's no map amendment in front of us tonight. I'm not even from Mr. Bell's. Where do you see if, you know, does the city plan to propose any map amendments to institute this? Are we simply going to wait for property owners or or interested parties to propose to us? Yeah. At this time the city does not have plans to grow CBD. Does it have any plans to initiate applications. Other than Mr. Bell's and the property up there at the station on Pioneer Boulevard? Do we know of any other applicants who are coming forward now that we will have this? We don't what we did, we took a look at whether there would be other areas of the city where this might be applied in the future. And that's why we proposed it as a text amendment, because it may make sense near some other suburban transit stations, but we don't have any particular applicants identified. Okay. Thank you very much. That's all. Thank you. Councilman Flynn, Councilman Espinosa. Mr. Bell's. Sorry, you probably said this and I missed it. Is your metro district already formed? Yes, it was approved. Two and a half years ago. I believe in fight, but then city council. And then the design guidelines, the standards were concurrent or they followed that. They were they were they followed it and they are in or they're not formally in place. The design declaration that enables them is in place and so they are encumbered. The declaration is a covenant in our land and is actually a covenant on the dear land as well. So even though DIA will not be rezoning, they are going to follow the same design guidelines so that we have consistency, you know, between our acreage and their acreage. Okay, good. And the good news there is maybe they're already great to begin with, but man, you hear a lot about the talk about how we don't have any we can't grow out. We can only grow up. Well, this is an area where we can grow out. And it would be sort of not a very good sort of environmentally sustainable sort of approach if we didn't try to capture density here where we have this sort of greenfield opportunity with transit and recycled water systems and everything in place to do this right the first time. So I strongly encourage you when you're looking at your rezonings, to sort of try and capture more of these higher density ones. And CMCs that you're talking about in this in your master plan development proposals. Thank you. And one question for Kyle. Are any of these districts, maybe the two or the three? Are any of these considered protected zone districts? No. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Espinosa. Any other questions? 722 Seen. Let's call it. Okay. CNN public hearing is now a closed time for comment, Councilwoman Sussman. Thank you, Mr. President. And thanks for pointing out, Councilman Flynn, that we were we're looking at a text amendment. We're not looking at it a zoning. And while Mr. Bell's was in favor of it and gave us a very good description of how such a tax amendment would affect his project, we weren't we aren't talking about his project, but to me, this is a slam dunk. It's good design. It makes the suburban areas much more at a human scale. It's more pedestrian and bicycle friendly. And I was thinking, why shouldn't our suburban citizens also enjoy these design considerations that we enjoy in our more our older neighborhoods and are trying to reproduce where they aren't ? So I would recommend to my fellow council people to support this amendment. I think it's a really good idea of what what we can do in all of the green, the inside, the city and in our green fields. Thanks. Thank you, Councilwoman Sussman. Councilwoman Black. Thank you, Mr. President. And thank you, Councilwoman Sussman and Kyl. Thank you. Because in my district, which is suburban, where we have four light rail stations, this is exactly the kind of zoning we need for new development. So thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Black. Councilwoman Gilmore. Thank you, President Herndon. I wanted to really thank Kyle and the KPD staff and really, you know, in District 11, this is a game changer really for District 11 and the TOD Station. Really encouraging residents to be able to take the commuter rail to 61st and Pena and stay the entire day and walk in the area bike , you know, go to a full service restaurant, shop, everything. And I mean, you know, when you start talking about street level active use and patio areas and places where people will really enjoy the full, you know, urban feel but be close to home is something that is very much needed. And I just appreciate the conversations around making sure that this can become a reality, not only to encourage retail and multimodal transportation, but also to encourage the health of our residents in the area that you don't have to get into your car and drive a mile to eat somewhere and then drive another mile to shop. You will truly be able to do all of that in one area. So thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Gilmore. Councilman Lopez. Thank you, Mr. President. You know, I think about Councilwoman Gilmore's district and I think about the challenge as a mom, Belo and Green Valley Ranch, I think about some of these areas, especially along our my boundary with Councilman Flynn on Florida. And I think of Jewel and I think some of these areas that, you know, they were built to fit a suburban lifestyle, but now you bring them to this context. Now those strip malls own I mean, it's it's Family Dollar. It's, you know, they're mostly vacant. You really can't get much out of it because it requires you to jump in a car and get there. Not it's not very many services now that some of these strip malls are abandoned in some of these places, to be quite honest and be quiet unless you do a pod pod. There's really no zone district that's going to create that that that little Main Street feel to it, unless it's a big one where you can actually demolish a mall and and, you know, turn what you turn it into Belmar, basically. So, you know, I think this is a gray zone district. I like coming up with new zone districts and I like being able to think about that and how we apply it in the city. And I just want to keep saying, Marley shopping center. Marley Shopping Center. Marley Shopping Center. It's places like that that, you know, could really use a zone district that really kind of tailored to that suburban zone. But you got to remind ourselves, they were suburban areas in the fifties and sixties. They're not suburban areas anymore. You live in the city and county in Denver is it's urban even in a lot of parts. So we don't think it is. All right. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Lopez. Councilman Flynn. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank the the community planning development staff for seeing this need in this gap and filling it in. I'm very familiar with the 61st and Pena development, and if I were so fortunate as to have a rail rapid transit station in my district, I would be looking forward to this even so much more as Councilwoman Black is in her district. But as Councilman Lopez said, we we don't have that advantage in southwest Denver. But I do see a possible application for this along some of our rubber tire transit routes on Federal Boulevard, maybe even on Sheridan. When you mention Marley Village, I'm thinking of Target Village as well at Sheridan and Evans. This is an opportunity to take a relook at those at those opportunities, at those sites and see how this could be applied. So I'm very supportive of this and happy to vote. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Councilman Flynn. Councilwoman Ortega. The only thing I want to add to what my colleagues have said in support of this. This language, text amendment, language change is that by increasing the flexibility and the opportunity for development to occur in these suburban areas, it's an opportunity to keep our tax dollars in Denver. I know for folks who live out below and Green Valley Ranch, most of their shopping is done in Aurora. And so we don't capture those tax dollars unless they're actually shopping at King Soopers. That is at Green Valley Ranch. But I think this truly is an opportunity to look at the kind of need that we have. And I know at one point some time ago, our Office of Economic Development did you know a survey of how much leakage we have of dollars that leave the city and don't stay in Denver? And we may want to resurrect that as as we're looking at these opportunities citywide in trying to capture those tax dollars. So I will be supporting this today. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Ortega. In other comments. 722. I will just add to echo Councilwoman Gilmore's comments as being very familiar with this area. I think about all the exciting opportunities at 61st and Panya, we certainly know about Panasonic that's coming out there. And this this tax amendment will allow this to be a truly dynamic station and the possibilities truly are endless. So I want to thank CPD for the team for their for coming up with this. I appreciate and hope that all our colleagues will support this because this will be a great opportunity. And since the question was brought up of affordability, I will just bring up you know, there are several places in Denver that are really unaffordable, but I have to commend Pat Hamel, Green Valley Ranch at Oakwood Homes, because they they create a product that is affordable, high quality and very good space out of Green Valley Ranch. And so that is one of the few places in there, certainly others. But since we think about VR and affordability, I have to give kudos to Oakwood and the team for what they are doing out there and regards that. See no other comments, Madam Secretary? Roll Call 722 SUSMAN Hi. BLACK Hi, Brooks. Clark Hi, it's Vanessa Flynn. Hi. Gilmore I. Cashman I can eat. Lopez All right. New ORTEGA Hi, Mr. President. All right. Madam Secretary, please close the voting, announce the results. 3939 7722 has been placed on final consideration and do pass on Monday, November 3rd. There will be a required public hearing in Council Bill 828 designating 5115 West 39th Avenue, the Lamberts View House as a structure for preservation, saying no other business before this body. This meeting is adjourned. The.