A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for multiple properties in the Regis Neighborhood. Approves a legislative map amendment to rezone multiple properties from U-SU-C to U-SU-C1 (allows for accessory dwelling units), located in the Regis Neighborhood in Council District 1. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 5-3-22.
Direct your comments to council as a whole and please refrain from individual or personal attacks. Council Member Flynn Will you please put Council Bill 20 2-4, seven, seven on the floor for final passage? Yes, Madam President, I move the council bill 20 2-0477 be placed upon final consideration and do pass. It has been moved and seconded the required public hearing for Council Bill 20 2-477 is open. May we have the staff report? Yes, ma'am. Good evening, Madam. Council and Council. Good evening. Value from community planning and development filling in for my colleague Andrew Webb to present this proposed rezoning in the Regis neighborhood. The proposed Legislative Map Amendment is sponsored by City Council member Amanda Sandoval and would be rezoning properties with single unit zoning in the Regis neighborhood to allow accessory dwelling units for short adus. The proposed rezoning is in Council District one and is in the Regis neighborhood at the far northwest corner of the city. If adopted, it would rezone approximately 1025 parcels or approximately 145 acres to U.S., U.S. one or urban neighborhood context single unit residential with accessory dwelling units allowed. The next few slides will summarize existing context of the area, including current zoning, land uses and building firm and scale lithium. Existing zoning of the subject area is you as you see currently a single unit zone district in the urban neighborhood. Context surrounding zoning includes you as you see to the south of I-70, open space to the west in commercial corridor along federal to the east properties in the commercial area to the south of the Regis University campus are zoned for mixed use. The neighborhood to the north has city of Wheat Ridge ar dash to zoning a district that allows single unit and duplex uses. Existing line users in the subject area are primarily single unit residential users with a handful of duplex and multi-unit uses distributed throughout the neighborhood. Adjacent land uses include the university campus to the northeast, commercial and higher density residential along low levels south of the universe of university auto oriented commercial uses along federal to the east. A golf course to the West and I-70 to the north. This slide shows examples of the existing built form and scale in the Regis neighborhood. The image at the top right shows typical one and two storey residential development on the west side of the neighborhood. The image in the center shows a typical streetscape in the area south of university, and the bottom photo shows development along Lowell South at the university. In terms of public outreach, the applicant sent mailers and distributed fliers about the proposed rezoning in November of 2021 and held two virtual town halls in December. The District one office hosted an online survey from November 2021 to February of 2022, and of the 292 responses received, 89% of the responses said they supported this proposed rezoning. To speak to the process. This item went to planning board on April 20th, followed by Land Use Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on May 3rd, and is being heard today by City Council. With regard to public comment, staff has not received formal input from any Arnaud's in the area as of the date of the staff report . CPD has received more than 35 letters and written comments from residents indicating support for the proposed amendments as a way to add lower cost housing options and opportunities for the neighborhood. Staff also received two written comments in opposition to the proposal, citing concerns about additional on street parking demand. In order to adopt a legislative rezoning, the Council must find the proposal is consistent with these three criteria from the Denver zoning code. With regard to the first criterion, there are three adopted plans that impact the Regis neighborhood the Comprehensive Plan 2040 Blueprint. Denver and the Denver Office of Housing Stability. Five Year Plan. This proposed rezoning is consistent with Blueprint Denver's. Recommended. Sorry. This proposed rezoning is consistent with Blueprint Denver's recommended future neighborhood context of urban as the proposed US. You see, one zone district is within the urban context. Blueprint. Denver designates the subject area with a future place type of low residential, which is characterized primarily by single and two unit residential uses, and where Blueprint states that accessory dwelling units should be encouraged. The Regis neighborhood is served by a variety of street types, including residential collectors, commercial arterials and local streets. Rezoning to allow adus is appropriate for this grid of street types. Blueprint. Denver's growth strategy identifies the subject area as being within all other areas of the city where most lower scale residential growth is expected. The proposed rezoning is also consistent with several Blueprint Denver strategies, including recommendations to expand allowance for accessory dwelling units in residential areas and to prioritize larger scale legislative rezonings to implement plan recommendations. As you are aware, Blueprint also recommends analysis of rezonings with an equity lens by considering access to jobs and services, vulnerability to inventory displacement and impacts to housing diversity with regard to access to opportunity. The Regis Neighborhood House has averaged scores for access to health. Care. And lower than average child obesity. This rezoning will provide new housing in an area where daily needs can be met. With regard to volcanic vulnerability to displacement, the region's neighborhood is generally less vulnerable due to a higher than average household income and higher than average percent of home ownership. This proposed rezoning will allow more property owners to establish an accessory dwelling unit on their property, which can be an opportunity to build wealth and help keep current residents in place and provide more housing options for households who are vulnerable to displacement. Finally, with regard to housing diversity, this area has a lower than average number of lower cost missing middle housing and rental housing. This proposed rezoning will help increase the availability of both. The proposed rezoning furthers the furthers several recommendations of the host's five year strategic plan, including recommendations to encourage smaller scale development and affordable housing and expansion of accessory dwelling units. Regarding the other two criteria, this rezoning to you, as you see, one will resort real will result in the uniform application of zoned district building, form, use and height regulations. The proposed rezoning will also improve public health, safety and welfare by introducing a new type of housing in the area that allows people with a range of income levels to continue to live in the neighborhood. And by allowing limited infill development with a modest increase in housing units that provide opportunities for existing and new residents while maintaining the character of the neighborhood. With that Stanford recommends approval of this proposed rezoning case number 2020 1i00202 based on the finding that all review criteria have been met. Thank you. Thank you. We have five individuals signed up to speak this evening. We will start with Tyler Somers. Tyler. Mother. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Next speaker is Ana de Monaco joining us online. Can you hear me? And I. Go ahead. Hi. I just wanted to speak quickly in. Support of this. I saw this happening in other neighborhoods and. As a resident who also had grandparents who grew up in the same area. I hear these competing. Competing concerns about lack of. Affordable. Housing, as well as the neighborhoods changing too much and too quickly. And I feel like this is. A great way. To address. And both where you can add additional housing. But you don't have to change the neighborhood much at all. And I also had. Some neighbors who indicated. They wished they had a way to and. To have an ADU for aging. Parents. And so would be wonderful to be able to have grandparents move in the neighborhood. A lot of families struggle with this. And I would love for my neighbors to have that as an option. So just wanted to come and voice my support. There is also online, Jenna Farley. Hi, everybody. Just want to make sure you can hear me. Okay. Great. I've been having trouble with my microphone. Hi. My name is Jenna Farley. I also live in the neighborhood here at Regis in Regis University at 50th and UCLA. I have lived here for ten years, but I have been in the North Denver neighborhood for. I'm a sixth generation. Homeowner in North Denver. And so there's a lot of pride here. So I have been in this area for a long time. I also am. Here to speak on my support for adults in our neighborhood. I have spent the last year really working very closely. With an organization. To move people from the streets into stable housing. And I can tell you that there is not enough housing in Denver for anyone. And so I know that abuse in our neighborhood. Are likely not the answer to homelessness. I also don't. Think that there is any one single answer to our housing crisis. But I do believe that Adus are one. And so I am supportive of us building higher density housing. Housing opportunities in our own neighborhoods. And I think that the rezoning. For a to use in the Regis neighborhood is a good idea. Thank you. GIR is online. Candice Clark. I also do a audio check. So I come across clearly. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Well, thank you for District one and all the work they've done and for the council for bringing this up. I, too, am in support. I'm a homeowner in the Berkeley Regis neighborhood and now a little bit of a late bloomer as a homeowner. So as a single person household, I do look at how do I sustain living in this. House as I, you know. Age, age, out in in in the area. I'm five generations from North Denver. I'm proud of our area. And just all look, you know, just in support and looking for ways to support my community and make it affordable to continue to live there. Thank you. Thank you. And our final speaker is online, Jesse Paris. Members of council acting at home. So in Paris and I represent for Blackstar at the moment for self defense, positive action camera, for social change as well as the party of Colorado, the East Denver Residents Council, Frontline Black knows and I will be the next mayor of Denver in 2023. I'm in favor of this rezoning tonight as the previous speakers have already spoken. So affordability is much needed in this city and in this town. And this neighborhood has been rapidly gentrified. So. To see that the city is going to be putting affordable housing in an area that is underground. Gentrification is a good idea. So I'm there for support. I supported 80 use when I ran for City Council. At-Large, a large 29. Audio. Your connection froze if you want to turn off your video. I'm done. That connection that connects many, many questions from members of Council and Council. Bill 20 20477. Okay. Seeing that public hearing is closed. Comments by members of Council on Council Bill 20 2477. Councilmember Sandoval. Thank you, President. First and foremost, I'd like to thank Naomi Grendon for my office for taking on such important land use roles in northwest Denver. I remember sitting down with her in 2019 and charting a path, and I don't think that neither one of us had charting the path of rezoning all of northwest Denver to allow accessory dwelling units within our game plan. And we quickly pivoted when the community came to us. So thank you so much, Naomi, for your steadfast leadership and work getting us here to this tonight with Regis. As we all know up here in Blueprint Denver, when it was adopted in 2019, it called out the need to rezone neighborhoods by neighborhoods, not one off rezoning. So I took that seriously. And this will be the third rezoning of a neighborhood that I brought forward. I understand that there are some concerns about the how accessory dwelling units are added to neighborhoods. And as I was working on rezoning neighborhood by neighborhood, I went to the executive director, Laura already and talked to her about my concerns. And therefore we have an accessory dwelling unit task force that is currently being worked on. We have two of our council members, council member Black and Councilmember Herndon currently sit on that task force and they're going to talk about parking. They're going to talk about adaptive reuse as I have an older neighborhood that has older houses and so I'd like them to be adaptively reused. So thank you to CPD for pivoting as we are rezoning all of these neighborhoods. I believe this meets all of the criteria, so I would ask all my council support up here and thank you to District one for your belief in my leadership on such important land use issues. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Madam Secretary. Roco and Council Bill 20 20477. Sandoval. AI. Sawyer. I. Black. AI. CdeBaca. I Clark. Flynn. I Gilmore. Herndon High. Haynes High. Cashman. Can each I Ortega. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, closed the voting and announced the results. 12 hours. 12 hours. Council Bill 20 2-0477 has passed. Councilmember Flynn, will you please put council bill 20 2-0585 on the floor for final passage?