A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 2600 S. University Blvd. (NEIGHBORHOODS AND PLANNING) Rezones 2600 South University Boulevard from OS-A (Open Space-3,000 square feet) to G-MU-5 (General Urban, Mixed Use, 5 stories) in Council District 6. A PUBLIC HEARING WILL BE HELD AT LEAST FOUR WEEKS AFTER PUBLICATION. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 1-7-15.
Thank you, Councilman Shepard, who's been moved and second accountable six approves the zoning map amendment. The Council is required by law to conduct hearings on zoning map. Amendments in the Council's actions are subject to court review in order to provide a record for court review. Testimony is recorded and any items presented to the Council are marked as exhibits and become a part of the record. And Speaker should begin the remarks by telling the council the names and sizes of residents and then they feel comfortable doing so. Their home addresses. A public hearing for council Bill six is now open. May we have the staff report? Thank you, Mr. President. Good evening. Members of Council. My name is Steven Chester, senior city planner with Community Planning and Development. Here's Brant present the staff report for 2600 South Emergency Boulevard map a rezoning map amendment from OCA to GMU five subject site is located within Southeast Denver in Council District six within the University Park neighborhood. The subject site is located at the intersection of University Boulevard Investor Avenue, directly adjacent to Harvard Gulch. Now, rather than kind of hiding the the the punch line to this free zone, I'm just going to kind of outline some of the unique history with this case. Prior to 2010, the subject site was zoned r two. It's due to the fact that we did not have a zone district for our open space. In the old code. It's been used as surface parking for the neighboring multifamily project since around the 1960s. The city sold the land to the current land owner back in 2005. During the citywide rezoning in 2010, it was incorrectly rezone to OSA, which is the zone district for city owned and maintained open space due to a mistake of fact. Pretty much in 2010, the data that CPD used during the citywide rezoning was incorrectly identified. This land is still owned and maintained by the city, thus the need for this rezoning. So more details about the site. It's about 4000 square feet. It's currently vacant use as surface parking. As mentioned before, the property owners are requesting rezoning to bring the parcel into conformance with the adjacent parcel. The city is then take it upon ourselves to be the applicant for this rezoning in order to correct the mistake that was caused in 2010. Thus, the manager of CPD is the applicant for this rezoning. The requested zone district is the general urban neighborhood context the mixed use five story max Jamie five quickly walk through the existing context of the site, starting with the zoning along University Boulevard, primarily the general urban and neighborhood context series of heights from 12 to 5 and three. The surrounding single family zone districts are all ESU X in terms of the surrounding land use along your see below for some high higher density multifamily development. It's high in mid-rise buildings and primarily single family stable residential neighborhoods surrounding the site along with you see here the directly adjacent Harvard Gulch. In terms of the building form and scale, you can see directly to the north that first picture is a 12 storey multifamily building. The second picture is the site directly north of the subject site, which is the one story multifamily project. The third picture is the current condition of the site, and the last picture is the directly adjacent Harvard Gulch. The process to date we received a 9 to 0 recommendation from planning board had a discussion. Neighborhoods and planning committee in here are today at a hearing at City Council. Public outreach has been conducted throughout the process as outlined in the Denver Zoning Code with public notification given of tonight's public hearing. I also received a note from the City Park Community Council. They voted 11 no in favor of this rezoning application. Quickly walk through the review criteria for all of our official MAP amendments, starting with consistency with adopted plans. The adopted plans for this site are the Comprehensive Plan Blueprint. Denver and the Mercy University Park Plan, adopted in 2008 compliant 2000, outlines a number of strategies which support this rezoning application, primarily around the idea of promoting infill development where appropriate, in order for neighbors to live, work and play within their own neighborhoods. In addition to land use strategies which talk about creating a. High quality urban design along our mixed use corridors and lane user objective to clarify and update Denver's zoning ordinance and related ordinances, regulations and procedures to be consistent with the goals and objectives of Denver's citywide land use and transportation plan. Moving on to that plan, blueprint Denver at the time. Blueprint Denver was was created. This was still owned and maintained by the city of Denver. So the future land use classification is open space. However, the surrounding context is all single family residential, in which single family homes is the predominant housing type. However, that does not preclude higher density housing from being present in these areas, especially along mixed use and residential arterial streets in which University Boulevard is designated. It is also an area of stability. Areas of stability are used to maintain the existing character of neighborhoods. However, that does not preclude new development and redevelopment in order to prevent stagnation. As I mentioned before, University Boulevard is a residential arterial street. Vesper Avenue is an undesignated local street. Moving on to the University Park plan, there's a number of goals and strategies in this plan which support this rezoning. Specifically within the Urban Design and Land Use Goals section in which the plan identifies this area as a main street urban design district. And in that classification, the typical skills 2 to 5 storeys, up to 8 to 10 storeys in transit, transit rich activity centers and nodes. This is in order to create a healthy neighborhood or healthy neighborhood edges and encouraging dense, compact transit, supportive growth where appropriate. Somebody finds that there is this reasoning is consistent with the camp plan 2000 blueprint Denver and University Park Neighborhood Plan. In addition, the uniformity of district regulations in furthering the health, public, public health, safety and welfare are met due to the implementation of the city's adopted city plans. The justifying circumstances for this rezoning is a mistake of fact. As mentioned before, CBT finds this criterion is met due to the data used during the 2010 citywide rezoning incorrectly identified this parcel as city owned and maintained open space. Lastly, consistency with neighborhood context zoned district purpose and intent. The general urban context is primarily characterized by multi-unit residential uses and a variety of building forms. The proposed rezoning to Jimmy five brings the incorrectly zoned parcel and to closer alignment with the surrounding neighborhood context. CPD finds this criterion is met based on the plan recommendations for this area along with the existing and desired character of this neighborhood. With that, CPD recommends approval based on finding all review criteria have been met. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chester. We have one speaker this evening, Mr. Texter. Fat tax of 45.35 Julian Street, Denver, Colorado. Members of Council. It was simply wrong for you to give yourselves a pay raise while the camping ban is still in effect and you have not provided for the home as a tax. Denver Mr. Texar, please stay on the topic of the public hearing, please. You made a factual error just as you did in this rezoning ordinance. And worse, you don't have enough respect for the people to submit it to a vote of the people. Thank you, Mr. Texar. So that concludes our speakers. Are there any questions from members of Council? Kathleen Robb Thank you, Mr. President. Well, this is pretty much technical rezoning. I am concerned that we have a blueprint map that shows this is open space from 2000 to 2003. So I worry about the consistency with the cities. Adopt a plan and I return to the question that I ask in committee. Why did Parks sell this? I understand it's been used for parking for a long time, which was on the first slide. But I'm wondering if it's a case of real estate not understanding that the land use concept was park. I want to know if Parks and Rec were advised of the sale and approved of it, and I haven't had a real answer since committee though I have to admit I didn't spend a lot of time following up until a constituent brought it to my attention this afternoon. Excellent question. In terms of Blueprint Denver, we'll be updating that in the near future. So hopefully we'll fix any of these inconsistencies in terms of the kind of reasoning for the sale back in 2005. Greg needs to go from Parks and Rec is here. Maybe you can provide a little more insight into that sale back in 2005 and kind of my search haven't been able to find any sort of official documentation with any sort of reasoning for the for the sale. But okay. I do really appreciate your being here from Parks and Rec. I'm sorry if I mispronouncing last name. Good evening. Greg Nowinski. I'm the park surveyor for the parks, familiar with property records and these types of issues. This was a real estate deal. Parks was not involved in this decision to sell this part of property. Originally, it was acquired as part of the Harvard Gulch drainage area. And as time goes on, these areas were incorporated in the parks maintenance category. So far is being consulted on the sale of it. Parks was not consulted with with this as far as I'm aware. So being city property, this was used as a parking lot by the adjoining property owners real estate saw fit to confirm that use and sell this property to the adjoining property owner. So it's not designated park property. It wasn't acquired to be park property, but it was in parks inventory as part of the Harvard Gulch drainage area. Do you have any idea if Parks and Rec was involved in that Blueprint Denver map that shows it as open space and identifies it? Our minutes from committee says Prior to 2002, the property was owned by the city and parks and the Parks and Rec land use concept was noted as natural open space. It would have been in parks inventory and noted as green or as park. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Thank you. Councilman Rob Carter. I'm going to take it. First, I want to thank Councilwoman Robb for that question, because that then makes me wonder how many other parcels do we have that are next to parks that might be might have been sold off? Or and I know that there's been a great effort in the city to try to wrap our arms around all of the park land and dedicate officially dedicate it so that it is protected land. So thank you for asking that question. My question is a little different, and it's about the choice of zoning that this is being changed to. And so I'd like to ask if you wouldn't mind coming back up and help us determine how that was decided? Because I had heard you say that originally it was our to land and this is GMU five and there is a difference in density between the GMU five and the older are two zoning. So how was that decided? And is there any I'd have to look back at the map to see if there is any other Jimmu five zoning adjacent to this property. So great question. So the Jimmy five was decided because is the the zoning of the parcel directly adjacent to the site along with the plan recommendation from the University Park Neighborhood Plan in terms of identifying. Pull that up on the map. Sure. Well, we're talking. Um. Yeah, that's probably the best one. So. University Boulevard. It's identified the plan as a in blueprint Denver and in the neighborhood plan as a residential arterial street. And so there's a primarily the general urban context is found at a variety of different densities you see some give you three directly north of the site is Jim U 12. And so Jim, you five is the site that's directly adjacent to this parcel. And it was CPI's recommendation that this parcel also be reason to give me five. So when you say adjacent it's actually across the street and beyond an additional property to the is that the north and. The the Jimmy five is directly kind of touching this parcel. Right. And the 12 is across the street. Yes. That's correct. Okay. Yeah, I was just trying to understand that because it didn't seem to make sense that this was next to open space, but yet we were going from an AR two zone to a GM U five. And so the property to I'm not sure is that the east on the right side of the property? Mm hmm. What is the zoning on that? So that would be across the alley between this property and property. Directly to the east is ESU d x. So a single use zoning district, single unit. Excuse me. So that's more in contrast to the old r-1 zoning, is that correct? Typically. But there's some differences. Okay. All right. Those are all the questions I have for right now. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Take it. Councilman Robbie, another question. I do. And thank you for your indulgence on this relatively straightforward rezoning. My question is, I see the bread Buchanan or CPD as the applicant on this, which indicates a technical error that you've found. But do you have any idea how the land will be used in the future? Is the current owner the same person who owns the adjoining GM? U5 Because I know it's addressed for university, it's not really right on university. So the parcel directly to the north is owned, is also owned by this this land owner of this subject site. And is this property necessary for him to to meet his parking requirements? Correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Rob, any other questions? What was seen on public hearing is now closed. Time for comment, Councilman Brown. Thank you, Mr. President. There are some things I wish that could be done administratively. Unfortunately, this could not be a yes vote will correct a mistake of fact. Surely we all want to correct a mistake of fact. So let's vote yes. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Thank you, Counsel Brown. Any other comments? Councilwoman Robb. I will be supporting this tonight, but I do want to express my concern about the disconnect which was previous, not current, between real estate and parks, because I think people have become aware of those differences. But this has caused some problems in the past. Parks is very dedicated right now to designating as many parks and making sure there Servais is correct. But my if I voted against this, it wouldn't change the past. And right now it's being used this way. And there certainly is a use by right, I believe there on the property. So I will support this. Thank you, Councilwoman Robb. Councilwoman Ortega. I just want to explain my vote as well. I think the last question that Councilwoman Robb asked about whether this particular property is needed by the adjacent property owner. I think by changing the zoning to a higher density, it affords the opportunity at some point in the future. If that owner wanted to change the what's on the site, they would be able to do something that is much bulkier if they level the building that they have now. But I think in general, the fact that it is being it is needed and is being used and will continue to be used by the adjacent property owner that I'm okay allowing that to move forward with the zone change. I would like at some point to see that whenever there is park land that is not dedicated, that is being proposed to be sold, that we are at a minimum informed about it, but should be allowed to vote on it as well. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Ortega. Any other comments on Council Bill six? CNN on. Madam Secretary, roll call. Brown. Hi, Fats. I can eat Lemon Lopez. Hi, Monteiro. Nevitt. Ortega. Rob. Rob, I. Shepherd Sussman. Hi, Brooks. Hi, Mr. President. I am secretary. Please close the belly, announce the results. 3939 As Council Bill six has passed due to the President Day Holiday Council will meet next on Tuesday, February the 17th. Seeing no other business before this body, this meeting is adjourned. Denver eight TV. Your city. Your source. Denver. Eight on TV and online. Stay connected to your community, your city, your source.