A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 990 North King Street in Villa Park. Approves a map amendment to rezone property from E-SU-D to E-TU-C (single- to two-unit), located at 990 King Street in Council District 3. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 4-13-21.
Councilmember Canete, would you please put Council Bill 407 on the floor for final passage? I move that council bill 20 1-407 be placed upon final consideration and do pass by the. Thank you. It's been moved and seconded. The required public hearing for Council Bill 407 is open. May we please have the staff report? And I see we have Jason Morrison here with us. Go ahead, Jason. Great. Thank you. Council President Gilmore and good evening, members of council. And my name is Jason Morrison. I'm a senior city planner with community planning and Development. And I'll be presenting the rezoning at 990 King Street. And the request is from ESU, which is a single unit district to e t u c which is a two unit district. The proposed rezoning is located in Council District three, which is Jamie Torres's district. It's in the Villa Park neighborhood. And the vacant property is located on King Street between West 10th Avenue and West Ninth Avenue. The property owner is proposing to rezone the property from Eastside to Ntuc, which would allow for a variety of building forms , including urban house, detached accessory, dwelling unit, duplex and tandem house. The proposed E2 C, which has urban edge two units with a minimum lot area of 565,500 square feet as the district is intended for use in the urban edge neighborhood context, which is characterized by primarily single unit and C unit uses located along local and residential arterial streets. The existing zoning is Eastside, which is a single unit district allowing the Urban House primary building for. Surrounding zoning in the area includes single unit mixed use and multi-unit zoning. As I noted, the site currently sits vacant. It is surrounded by mostly single unit uses as well as two unit multi-unit and some commercial and retail. This slide shows the existing context surrounding the subject site. With the proposed rezoning on the top left and nearby, you see examples of some of the single units multi-unit as well as some of the commercial. The Map Amendment application was unanimously recommended for approval by Planning Board and moved forward by committee since the staff report was published. We have received one letter in opposition from a resident in the area. This letter expresses a desire to see a commercial use proposed at this location. We've also received one letter in opposition from the Villa Park R.A., which expressed the concern over the lack of engagement and communication on behalf of the applicant. As a result, the applicant postponed his May 24th City Council public hearing to conduct further outreach with the community. In a sense, spoken with the R.A. and with various neighborhood residents and staff has received no additional public comment. As you know, there are five review criteria when analyzing the appropriateness of the request. The first criteria is consistency with adopted plans. There are three plans applicable to this rezoning and that's comprehensive plan 2040 Blueprint Denver and the Villa Park Neighborhood Plan. Starting with Comprehensive Plan 2040. The rezoning is consistent with several strategies and Comprehensive Plan 2040 listed here and also detailed in your staff report. Looking at Blueprint Denver The future neighborhood context is urban edge. These areas are characterized by single unit and two unit residential areas where commercial and mixed use development tends to be found along main corridors. As the rezoning would allow a two unit district in building forms that would address the street similar to the Urban Housebuilding Forum. The proposed district is appropriate and consistent with the blueprint Denver Context Description. Next, we're looking at a future place. The subject site is designated as a local corridor feature place type on the Blueprint Denver Future Places Map. This place type primarily provides options for dining, entertainment and shopping, but also includes residential uses and office uses. When a residential zone district is proposed, as is the case for this rezoning, it primarily be located to encourage active street frontages, where heights are generally up to three stories. The proposed E2 Zone District has a maximum allowable building height of two and a half storeys and allows residential building forms, including urban house detached accessory dwelling unit duplexes and townhouses, which is compatible with the local corridor or feature place designation. We print Denver classified North King Street as a local or on designated street and local streets can vary in their land uses and are found in all neighborhood contexts. They're most often characterized by residential uses. West 10th Avenue is characterized as a residential correct collector, which serves primarily residential uses. The proposed U.S. district is consistent with these descriptions because it allows for additional residential uses at the subject site served by both local and residential collector. Finally we're looking at the growth strategy, the growth area blueprint. Denver is all the areas of the city. These areas are anticipated to see 10% employment growth and 20% housing growth by the year 2040. The proposed rezoning is consistent with the growth strategy that is map for this area. And finally, when looking at the Villa Park neighborhood plan, the subject site is within the boundaries of this plan, which was adopted by September City Council back in 1991. The overall vision established within this neighborhood plan calls for the protection of neighborhood character, where the Villa Park neighborhood well will continue to be a neighborhood of mostly single unit houses, with a few small apartment buildings and apartment complexes interspersed within those houses. The proposed rezoning to ETSI provides additional residential building forms to the Villa Park neighborhood, which helps maintain the residential character outlined in the vision of this neighborhood plan. The maximum height and scale of this two unit district is sensitive to the existing neighborhood character of single unit homes and offers residents a diversity of housing options close to transit because the Knox station, as well as civic uses such as Lakewood Gulch and Parker Sanchez Park, while also providing compatible building forms among the existing single unit structures in the area. Staff also finds that the requested zoning meets selection criteria, the rezoning will result in uniformity of district regulations. Will further the public health, safety and welfare primarily through its implementation of adopted plans, providing a new housing type in a largely single unit area within close proximity to multiple transit options. The application identifies several change for changing conditions as a justifying circumstance. Additionally, the trends of the city and vision and the adopted plans focus on adding additional housing density around transit stations. With the addition of the Knox station, there has already been recent multifamily redevelopment and reinvestment in the area to support high frequency transit. Lastly, staff finds that the proposed rezoning is consistent with the zone district purpose and intent of the U.S. zoning district. Based on the review criteria, CPD recommends approval of application at 20 800161. Thank you. Council President Gilmore and was able to answer any questions. All right. Thank you, Jason, for the presentation. And we've received no written testimony in regard to Council Bill 21, Dash 0407. And this evening, we have two individuals signed up to speak this evening. And we are going to go ahead and start with our first speaker, Jamie Aguilar. Good afternoon, City Council President and good morning, Mrs. Aguilar and the president of the Park Neighborhood Association. It's been an active organization for over 30 years. We met last in person in February 2020. We met with the applicant briefly in the fall of 2019, and we have been meeting via Zoom as much as possible with the free until the fall of 2020, when we activated a website and our own Zoom account and started our monthly meetings in January 2021. The resumption of rezonings and licensing started to bombard us, and in March 2020 we had a meeting with those second to oppose this rezoning that we received in January. After watching the committee, there was concern about the comments about and and the comments of a game being played and the lack of presentation to our neighborhood that we got used to and the general comment that we were anti-development. And so that prompted a vote in April 2021 where it was opposed due to the lack of community engagement that other neighbors and other applicants have gone through. And they felt a little bit blindsided that we would support or not support something. So there was a vote called in May 2021. The applicant did attend our meeting and then what we set up as their neighborhood to try to reengage our community that we lost touch with as have office hours. And so the fourth Saturday usually following with some exceptions actually for the fourth Saturday happens before the fourth Wednesday. We had office hours on that holiday weekend. It was not very well attended, I'm sure. I was not able to attend. We did hear from the applicant at our meeting briefly. He was not on the agenda. We had already had an agenda set, but he said basically was one of the biggest takeaways was that he was not going to build an ugly and ugly maximized envelope box. And so I did get to speak to the applicant. I raised my concerns at lots of possibility and opportunities set in blueprint. And and we also submitted a letter just kind of outlining the reason why we oppose. And that's all I have to say. I wanted to yield my time to the parish for the officer that was following in November. Thank you. Hi, May. And sorry for the mispronunciation of your name in the beginning. Thank you for joining us this evening. And our second speaker is Jesse Paris. Yes. Good evening, members of council. And I'll be here. Mm hmm. Go ahead. Yes, my name is just Evolution Paris, and I'm representing for Black Star, a symbol for self defense, positive sentiment for social change, as well as the Unity Party of Colorado and for a long black nose. And I'll be the next mayor of Denver in 2023. We are in favor of this rezoning tonight and meets all five of the criteria. I'm excited to see that there's not going to be development here and there's going to actually be house and place here. We're in a housing crisis, so any opportunities are just helpful for us to create more opportunities to create housing. I'm all in support of. So I'm in support of this rezoning for me. Thank you. Thank you, Jesse. And that concludes our speakers for this bill. Questions from members of Council on Council Bill 407 Council Pro Tem Torres. Thank you, President Gilmore. Jason on the. We spend a lot of time in committee discussing the local corridor as it relates to blueprint future spaces. If this had not been a local corridor and had remained low residential like the rest of the surrounding context, would a t you see still also been allowed under that circumstance? I'm not necessarily so we would look at obviously the existing pattern and see if we would certainly rely on the area plans to to kind of speak to that a little bit if there was a desire to move the neighborhood in that direction or if the lot sizes you were kind of yielding that that development down the road and kind of you're seeing some of those changes. We certainly would analyze that, but that would not be the case had it not be have not been mapped for this corridor. Right. So under a local corridor, what are some of the other contexts that would have been allowed in a neighborhood like this? Yeah. So good question. So within a local corridor and because it is mapped as such, that does yield to a little bit higher intensity uses. So that's where you do see uses such as duplexes, tandem houses, row houses and the like, even kind of a small multifamily when it comes to residential. You also can see office uses as well as some of the mixed use. Okay. Thank you so much. I have some questions for the applicant if we can bring them in. Last name is Claudius. Yeah. Yeah. Michael moved. Over. Have either Zac or Stacy helping, but we need to move. Michael, caucus over, please. Thank you. All right, go ahead. Cancel them. Hi, Michael. Good evening, counsel. Can you remind us a bit of what your outreach looked like before you submitted your application? I have attended one hour. I had attended one R.A. meeting several years ago. And then. Yes. And what did it look like after Ludi came in? I had emailed about. I had emailed all my I'm sorry, not emailed. I had written letters to all of my proximal neighbors. I had spoke to. This is Pacheco and her granddaughter would be interested in. Anyways, I spoke to several of my neighbors as well as writing them letters. Okay. And then had you considered how did a duplex end up in kind of your your set of plans? Is it as an applicant, you know, you never lived in the house prior to its being torn down, right? No, ma'am. The home was. Unsuitable for housing. It was it had structural issues. It had it was laden with asbestos. So the only option for that particular structure was to be demolished and removed. And how did a duplex end up on your radar to be constructed? Well, the city desperately needs housing. And I thought that I would I could provide additional housing for Denver. One of the things that you mentioned the last time that we heard from you at committee were. Some comments about either the neighbors or neighborhood folks or our members. I can't remember exactly who you were referring to, but that they don't like new developments into that context. Was that conveyed during the R.A. meeting that you attended in 2019? No, I don't really recall how those comments were made or displayed. I think there were some. Misunderstandings during. The looting. Committee. I. I'm learning as I'm going here. So. So those were not things that were mentioned by neighbors during the R.A. meeting. Correct. Okay. And have you ever developed property anywhere else? The home that I'm living in is was purchased at auction and I remodeled it. I have not done a ground up development. I also manage three rentals in the around the city of Denver, all of which I have invested significant capital to make habitable. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Clegg. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't have any right now. All right. Thank you. Councilmember Torres. Up next, we have Councilmember Ortega. Thank you, Madam President. I want to first start with Jason. Jason, can you tell me when the West Side area plan is scheduled to be done? A no come from the Tories. You could probably answer that as well. But I know it's been handled through the planning department, so. Correct. So that is a very good question. I just so happens I'm not on that that area plan. I know that they are moving along. And it's my understanding that they and Councilman Councilwoman Torres, she may know this a little bit better, as my understanding. I think they're aiming towards the end of the year here. As I correct Councilwoman Torres, I should note that I apologize because. The the kind of end date is still kind of coming. We're waiting for draft recommendations is where we're at right now. So should be coming soon. But end of year, I think is a is a goal that we're at draft recommendations right now. Does it have any different recommendations for the 10th Avenue corridor in this area? There is mention of activation to be to be quite honest. You know, we're this this is one block or two one and a half blocks from the Knox Court light rail station. There is small retail at 10th and Knox Court. Uh, it is not too dissimilar from what Blueprint recognizes as a potential local corridor. Probably not any more than that as far as I can remember. Okay, so it looks on the map like it's really just a four block stretch along with 10th Avenue. Correct. So this is considered a local corridor? Yes. See, I wanted to ask Jason another question about what role did Ness play in this conversation? Great question. I appreciate the question. So as with every rezoning, the rezoning application is referred to various agencies. So are folks that hosted and did did see this particular application. However, given the smaller size of the redevelopments there, it was not necessarily on the radar for any type of affordable housing agreement or component. Okay. And then just one last question. Can you just clarify if the ADA zoning actually requires an existing structure on the site, or can a vacant lot be declared as a lot for an EDU, which means you could potentially build two units on the one. But it's the latter, so it can be constructed on a vacant lot. Okay. And then I just wanted to ask the applicant if there. And I'm not absolutely crystal clear that the EDU is one of the allowable uses under the ITU zoning. Is that one of them? It is. I can tell you my intent is not to build a navy. Okay. So you want to build a duplex on the site? Yes, ma'am. Which means you potentially could could build on the entire lot. Right. I mean, a lot of our duplexes across the city that are being built take up the entire lot. I mean, most of it's the structure part of it's the garage. Right. A lot of them are attached garages. This would be a detached garage. And I think as per the donee, the zoning code, you are only allowed to build up to 63% of the footprint. So actually a substantial portion of the lot would be for a garden or for backyard things of that nature. Okay. Thank you. I have no further questions. All right. Thank you, Councilmember Ortega. Next step, we have Councilmember Flynn. Hey, Madam President. Just some concern. I want to follow up on Councilwoman Torres. And this is in her district. So I'm not I spent a lot of time on 10th Avenue. When the West Rail. Line was under construction. So I am somewhat familiar with, but I haven't it up there lately. Now Blueprint Denver says that the future place type here is local corridor, as the councilwoman said. And I'm concerned that the applicant is seeking a zone district that specifically does not allow the definition of local corridor, provides options for dining, entertainment , shopping, but includes some residential and employment uses. The E2 zone would not allow. Dining, entertainment or shopping. Is that is that correct? That is correct. So I'm wondering how you determined that this was consistent with Blueprint Denver. When Blueprint Denver maps this as local corridor, which would allow some residential, but would also open up the possibility that the owner could develop it for some commercial use as the neighborhood association or one of the letters of opposition had said, this zone district excludes that. So I'm curious how you determined it was consistent. Sure. So as with any rezoning request, we would take a number of factors into consideration. So in this particular case, we certainly looked at the plan guidance. So you referenced Blueprint Denver. Well, the future place designation does allow for commercial and retail. It does also allow for office uses and residential. When looking at the street types, this particular property is on the corner of a local streets with residential uses as well as West 10th Avenue, which is a residential collector. So we look at that and kind of see how the uses might might comply with with the street designations in the area. We also looked at the the growth the growth types. So it isn't as it is measured as all other areas of the city, which does tend to yield more residential, it does allow for more residential growth as opposed to some of the commercial, commercial and retail. And then finally, we're looking at the Villa Park Neighborhood Plan, kind of the same thing there. I know that it is an old plan and we do have the West Area plan, which is currently in recommended developing recommendations. But within that Go Park neighborhood plan, it does fit quite a bit to maintaining that residential character in the neighborhood. And so, you know, on that particular note, with any rezoning, we do look at the surrounding context. And so when looking on not streets and then even along West 10th Avenue, there is primarily single residential, single unit residential. And so looking at kind of the appropriateness of the request as it relates to kind of that that existing and surrounding context. Jason, do you know, was there discussion about a a zoned district that would have allowed construction of the duplex but still would have also included a local corridor uses so that in the future, if the duplex units are not developed or if they get old and you know, in the future get replaced or scraped, that there could then be the a local corridor sort of use that blueprint Denver called for here. What were the other zoned districts. That would have allowed. Allowed the owner to proceed with the duplex but still be consistent with allowing in commercial use in the future? Unfortunately there is not within the urban edge context. So within the urban edge context, if the applicant were to go after a commercial kind of mixed use zone district duplex would not be an allowable use. Hmm. Interesting. Okay. Sounds like a problem with our with our districts. More so than anything else. I think, Madam President, that's all that I have at the moment. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Councilman Flynn. And I see council pro-tem Torrence your backup in the queue. Yep. Thank you so much. Councilman Flynn reminded me of a question under mixed use in the urban edge context. Jason either for mix two or three or M Main Street, two or three. Is the townhouse building form an allowable building form? It is, yes. So that the townhouse would be the lowest, I guess, lowest kind of quote unquote, in terms of residential use. So you can still get residential, even if you have a shopfront building form, you can still get residential out of out of some of those building forms. Correct. And you can get a townhouse. You just cannot get a duplex. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you, counsel. Pro Tem Torres. And not seen in the other hands raised. I had a question for the applicant. Mr. Claudius, I remember in Ludi when you joined us, it didn't sound like you had a. E just do all of those brown bean adjacent property owners and let them know your intent. And I know you sense talked with the R.A. in the area, but wanted to understand what additional communication you maybe have had with the surrounding property owners. Yeah. So. Thank you, Councilwoman. My neighbor to my south, Mrs. Pacheco. She would love to have her granddaughter move into one of the units so she could be close to her family and the people directly to the north across of King. I'm gonna see if I can get this right. Yeah, I believe that's right. Either to the north or to the west. Across the king there are kind couple they rent from a landlord there. I've met the families in the four plex across the across from ten and they are also kind people. I've also met the people behind the alley. I have not received any. I have not communicated with anybody who is concerned with either the building form or the disruption to the neighborhood. Everybody has been supportive and kind people. And so I appreciate that. And so you have communicated with all of the surrounding property owners that you're saying. Yes, you have. I have. Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Just have that final question. And seen no other hands raised. The public hearing is closed. Comments by members of council on council bill 407 council pro tempore us. Sorry. I was not physically raising my hand. My light goes off when I'm not moving at my desk. Okay. It's all okay. I was calling anyway, so. I thank you so much and I appreciate your final questions there. Council President Because it is the timing of all of this is also what hinges for me and Will I appreciate Mr. Clovis, the applicant, reaching out to neighbors and trying to engage a more deliberate conversation with the R.A. Those efforts took place after after Louis after committee, after the application had already been filed, including outreach to my office at Jason's encouragement. And so had any of these conversations taken place before, I don't know if it would have changed the outcome. I couldn't. I can't predict that. But what those conversations allow for is an opportunity to discuss both what's happening in that neighborhood now and because Mr. Clovis doesn't live at the property, hasn't lived at that property before, he does. He may not know those things, including the West Area plan and what neighbors and the entire West area have been talking about in terms of that particular node for activation and for housing. So it's not an either or conversation, but it is an exploration. And even diving further into what are some of the allowable contexts, what are some of the allowable zoned districts that can provide a multitude of things beyond a current vision that could allow for something down the road ? If Mr. Claudius either decides not to build his duplex or somebody else decides to build something instead of the duplex down the road, they would only be tied to a duplex. Right now, in an area where this community is envisioned, more pedestrian activation, things that neighbors can walk to, which has been wholly missing in this in this part of town. We do need housing and but we also need a conversation about what kind of housing is necessary. And just to give an example, though, I appreciate Ms.. Pacheco wanting to live next to her daughter. Some of the duplexes that have been built in Villa Park in the last several years are selling for over seven and $800,000 each side. So this is not about just building housing or how to make it affordable. Duplexes are not meeting that need right now, and this community has made a number of efforts to try to engage that conversation a little bit differently. I don't believe it has met the criteria, the last criteria in particular. So I'll be a no this evening. Thank you. Counsel Pro Tem Torres. Next up, we've got council member Flynn. Thank you, Madam President. I appreciate hearing the comments from Councilwoman Torres, my neighbor, to the north of my district, and getting that additional background. But I am not a member of the Luti committee, so I didn't attend that meeting. And I know that's basically perfunctory because they're entitled to a hearing. But I did start looking at this over the last week and reading the staff report, and I and I am I am. Convinced that it does not meet the. Consistent with the adopted plans criteria. Matter of fact, I believe it's inconsistent with blueprint. Maybe if this were a request, a block or two to the east or the West, it would be different. But to act, to have a zone, a rezoning to a district that does not allow the local quarter uses on a on a on a block where local quarter uses were outlined in blueprint. I think that is a deviation from the plan and not consistent. Consistent. So I will I will be joining my neighbor Council on Tourism voting now. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Flynn. Councilmember Sandoval. Hmm. Thank you. Madam President, I, too, will be voting no. I'm even though my council district is only a little portion of West Denver. I have participated in the West Area Plan and I have heard from the neighbors who have talked about wanting to extend the mixed use. And given that blueprint, Denver is called this out as a local corridor. I think this is a missed opportunity to explore which type of zone district that we can. And just kitty corner across from there is the next two ex zone district which would allow for residential and also could allow for future retail uses if needed. So I think that as Councilman Quinn so eloquently put, if we have local corridor mapped in Blueprint Denver for future places, I think we need to look to our adopted plans to give us guidance. Well, the West Area plan is being vetted and the recommendations come through. So I also will be a no thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Sandoval. Up next, we have Councilmember Hines. I thank you, council president. I agree with the concerns of my colleagues. I do want to just add one other thing. I want to thank CPD for their hard work and I know that you are working with. You know, the, the, the boundaries that you are given. We all have boundaries. And I want to I want to thank you for that. I want to encourage people as well that if they have thoughts about how they want to rezone their their property, I would encourage them to reach out to the council office before the application is filed so that there is there is the opportunity for dialog and and perhaps realizing something that might be even more in line with what the property owner wants and and also in line with what the community wants. Thank you. Council president. Thank you. Councilmember Hines. Councilmember Cashman. Yeah, thank you, madam. Madam President, you know, I've just been concerned. It seems there's been a little bit of a rash in these zoning applications recently where applicants don't seem to be doing their utmost as far as outreach into the community. And I think part of the problem may be that I think it's kind of appears to me kind of gray as to what CPD is actually requiring of applicants. I know that it's recommended that they speak to their neighbors. It's recommended that they speak to the council member. But there doesn't seem to be a straightforward form for replies to those requests. And I think it's awfully important for us in judging these to know what the to have some sort of evidence as to what the nearby neighbors are saying. So that's what I wanted to add to the conversation tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Cashman, and not seen any other hands raised. I will go ahead and weigh in. I did attend the leading meeting and it is very disappointing to me that the applicant before the rezoning application was filed, didn't reach out to the council office and from the conversation was dismissive of the surrounding property owners opinion. Thoughts about this folks can be very nice, but they also have an opportunity to have their voices heard and to fully understand the impacts of a rezoning and it being quasi judicial and the importance of broad community outreach, especially when development will affect surrounding property owners as well. And so I don't believe that what is being proposed meets the consistency of the adopted plans, and I will be voting no against this tonight. Madam Secretary, roll call on Council Bill 407, please. Torres No. Black. Now. CdeBaca. Clark. No. Flynn. No. Herndon now. HINES Yeah. Cashman No. Carnage? No. Ortega. Oh. Sandoval. No. Sawyer? No. Madam President. No. Madam Secretary, please close the burning and announce the results. 12 nays. 12 nays zero ays Council Bill 20 1-0407 has failed. We're going to go ahead and shift gears here and move on to our second and final public hearing this evening. Council member Kenneth. Will you please put Council Bill 498 on the floor for final passage?