A bill for an ordinance providing for an extension of approximately two months of an existing moratorium enacted by Ordinance 20160498, Series of 2016, prohibiting the use of the Denver Zoning Code’s pre-existing small zone lot parking exemption for certain projects. Extends an existing moratorium prohibiting the use of the Denver Zoning Code’s pre-existing small zone lot parking exemption for certain projects by adding approximately two months to the original moratorium adopted in August of 2016. This bill was approved for filing on the floor by Councilmember Brooks on 2-23-17.
I. Police close voting announce results. Lebanese 11 eyes spell 84 has passed. Congratulations. All right, we have. You can clap. You can clap. Okay, we have one more public hearing. Councilwoman, can we please put council to 77 on the floor? Thank you, Mr. President. I move that council bill 277 be placed upon final consideration and do pass. It has been moved and sang in it. The public hearing for Council Bill 277 is now open. Can we have none other than Jeff Hurt? The small lot leader was just joking. Come on over here. Are you all. Okay. So Jeff is not doing a staff report. I'm going to read what this is. This is. Oh, sorry. We got. We got our wires crossed there. We just. This is the. I'm going to read this. This is the council about 277. This is a bill for an ordinance which basically extends of approximately two months existing moratorium enacted by ordinance 201620498 Series 2016 Prohibiting Use of Denver Zoning Codes. Preexisting small zone lots exemption for certain projects extends an existing moratorium prohibiting the use of new rezoning pre existing small lots parking exemption for certain projects by adding approximately two months to the original moratorium adopted in August 2016. This bill was approved for following the floor by me. And just to give a little bit of explanation, there are people in the community. Community groups, neighborhood groups and members of council who said, you know what, we need more time for discussion on this very complex bill. Even though this bill deals with lots that are very small and are very small, less than 1% of all the parcels in the city of Denver. It's an important bill for many neighborhoods that have these small lots embedded in them. And so folks need more time for discussion. And we felt like that was applicable and we had a conversation and this is why this bill is forward. So that's the explanation of the moratorium extension. And we will now get a chance to hear from speakers. We have six speakers this evening, and I'm going to ask all six to come to the front so that we can get things started in, actually. Mr. Hurt, do you have the dates on the date that the moratorium? I believe it's May 20. It's it's May 26th or 27th. I need to double check. I believe it's 26th. Okay. And Madam Secretary, if you could verify that it's the Monday it's the last Monday in May of believe it's the 27th. But just for the record, we'll get that. All right. While she's pulling that up, I'm going to call up Bob Hickman, John Rickey, Valerie Brown, Mimi, Florence. Frank Lock and Tory. John Joseph Neiman. I believe that's all we have. I'm thinking. Heard me say the. Last Monday in May. The last Monday in May. Would be the 30th, but that's a holiday. So May 23rd. Oh, okay. We have the 23rd, so it's probably the 20. So you're saying the 26, as far as you know. Okay, we'll get a verified date. But right now we're talking about May 26 is when the moratorium will expire. Okay. We have Mr. Hickman. Bob Hickman, you're up first 3 minutes. Thank you. Council President. Good evening, council members. My name's Bob Heckman. I live at 1081 South Gilpin in Denver. I'm in favor of the 60 day moratorium extension. And I would. Commend Council President Brooks for bringing this forward. After more than a year of effort. A small extension such as this is. Not that significant. But I do hope the next 60 days will provide time for additional neighborhood input. And allow counsel to better understand and weigh all the issues involved. Thank you for your time. And I would like to take 10 seconds. Moment of silence for the passing of Ralph Reed, the fourth. Did you know that? I didn't know that. Ralph Reed, the fourth person today. I'm good. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. I'm really. I'm sad. Thank you, Mr. Hickman. Ralphie is the Buffaloes mascot for all you guys don't know. Okay, um, let's see. We have next. Buffalo Chairman. John Rickey. You have 3 minutes, sir. Hello and good evening. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. I'm here to see a particularly councilman new, as you are, my direct counsel person. My name is John Rickey. I live at 945 Washington Street. I am here today to speak against the extension of the moratorium. This moratorium comes at a time of great need and great opportunity for Denver. The extension is proposed in order to study further changes to the GOEDERT code regarding car storage. Twice the issue of parking has been studied in Denver and twice the recommendations have been similar, more or less to exempt the first few floors of development from requiring any parking in cities across the world. In the nation, elected leaders have recognized the flawed economics behind parking minimums. They have acknowledged the increased cost of housing that results and the decreased economic activity when productive land is used to store cars instead of build wealth. So while there are impacts to neighborhoods when minimums are reduced or eliminated, we know that they are in fact positive impacts, reduced housing costs and increased economic activity being but two. So why then are we considering extending the moratorium? Here's how I see it. Many of your constituents vocal ones I'm sure are reluctant to see their on street parking become more difficult. They are upset at the quick pace of redevelopment in their neighborhoods. They are frustrated because they feel like some unspoken bargain has been broken between the city and themselves. I am here to tell you today that there are other constituents who do not feel this way. Ones who see the protection of street parking as an undeserved subsidy. Ones who are eager to share our great city with newcomers and see the pace of redevelopment as a positive force to build community, create more sustainable neighborhoods, and raise revenues. And ones who acknowledge that no such unspoken agreement exists between the city and private car owners to protect their parking privileges on public city streets. This isn't even to mention the great number of people moving to the city who were forced to seek housing in the suburbs because of our reluctance to allow more development. They too, would be your constituents if given the chance. Our code works just fine and is probably better as written than whatever compromise is eventually made to appease car owners. Car owners who don't wish to share the street or risk being forced to provide for their own parking. Which, incidentally, is exactly what they're demanding of others. I urge you not to let panicky people, with their in-built prejudices and lack of desire to acknowledge the evidence, trap you into stymieing much needed and desired redevelopment. Be the kinds of leaders which bring their people along with them into a better future, rather than follow the popular sentiment against all evidence nationally, locally and economic that parking minimums do more damage than good. Please cast your vote against the extension of the moratorium. Thank you. Thank you. Ms.. Rickey. Valerie Brown. A second Mr. Hickman's support of the 60 day moratorium. I do think we need more discussions on the subject and specifically where it relates to other alternative forms of transportation. And as Mr. Espinosa has pointed out, it's often a case of what things are like on the ground as opposed to a kind of concept for an entire city. And I'm wondering about the codification of this sort of plan for the entire city of Denver, even though you say, President Brooks, that. You know, there are small number of these lots. But, you know, when you're talking about 108 units and possibly 108 additional automobiles that need to find parking spaces in an area that's already quite dense, we need more time to discuss and reach some more compromise, I think. Thank you. Mimi. Florence, not pass. The. Miss Brown, can you come back up to state your name just for the record? I'm Valerie Brown, 1623 Ogden Street, Denver. Thank you. And Ms.. Florence. I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you. Frank Legendary. Thank you. Thank you. President Brooks and City Council members. My name is Frank Lucas. Tory. I live at 16th and Gaylord 80206 City Park West Area and I am speaking in opposition to extending the moratorium. When we first moved back to Denver in 2006 and we started getting engaged in the community as we wanted to be, you know, active participants. We started getting involved, going to meetings, meeting about City Cheeseman Park Master Plan. You know, we would go to that first question out of the gate. What about parking, go to a another meeting about homelessness issues. First question out of the gate, what about parking? It became clear to me that no matter what the issue, we were going to talk about parking unless I was the first person to ask a question, which is exactly what I started to do. And I started to ask any question that was relevant to the topic at hand about energy or the park system or whatever. And that directed the conversation in the way that I thought the intended meeting was supposed to go. I bring this up because we are potentially going to extend the moratorium for another couple of months. I will, even though I oppose that. I'll grant that maybe that's what's going to happen. Okay. But every time that we continue to talk about parking, it's an opportunity cost. We're not talking about the the impacts that are causing gentrification in communities. We're not talking about homelessness. We're not talking about affordable living. We're not talking about how we can be a more energy efficient community. We're not talking about anything else that really has any real matter, you know, to our lives as members of the community. And and we're talking about a land area in Denver that is less than 1%, likely less than a half a percent of our land area. And we're spending all of this brainpower and all of this brain damage. And what I beseech you is to we've got to try it. We've got to collect the data and let some of these things happen so that we can see the actual impacts on the ground. I when when it was first brought to me as president of Uptown on the Hill, when I was a part of that, when president of that R.A. about the 16th and Humboldt before the meeting , I just did a little Google View, and I saw and I counted a hundred parking spots within a block of that development. I was like, If we're going to talk about parking, let's talk about housing, please. I'm getting tired of talking about parking. I'm sure you are, too. Let's talk about issues that matter. Thank you. Mr. Locke and Tory John Joseph Nieman. Yeah, I haven't. It was John Joseph Nieman 2786, South Wall Street. I'm the president of the Inter Neighborhood Cooperation, and the Internet Corporation addresses citywide issues. And this has been one of those issues that has come before and seen. It's also part of we do a survey every year asking neighborhoods what are their top concerns? And parking is one of our top five concerns. And so we had a very heated discussion during our ANC delegates meeting and the motion strongly urging city council to extend the moratorium as necessary for permits for small parking exemptions, which is due to expire March 30th, 2017, and search for a more equitable solution with balance between the parking requirement, constraints of development and the associated impact of increased neighborhood street parking. After a very good discussion. The motion carried 44 nine against and five abstaining, including Joel Noble. So I wanted to make sure that that was in the official record. I know you guys are probably aware of that and I won't take any more of your time. But this is an important subject and it's something important to the neighborhoods and therefore something important. I see. All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. This concludes our speakers. Are there any questions by members of council? All right. Oh. Councilman Espinosa has a question, but. Might as well have a couple of questions. Frank? How old? I mean, how long have you been the bad president? I am the executive director. I'm not on the board. And it will be a full two years at the end of this month. And do you have any sense of how old Colfax in Colfax is. The boulevard over the avenue? Well, it's had a number of names, but this road has existed since the gold rush. It was called the Golden Road to get to Golden and not find gold. Great. That was it. No further questions. And then one for Mr. Rinky, and I'd say that. Right. All right. Ricky. Ricky. Since you've made a bunch of generalizations about who people who are in favor and who are opposed, many of which I don't know what facts those are based on. I would like some perspective. So how long if you were you a native to Denver? I've lived here since 1990, on and off. So. Okay. And always in the Capitol Hill community that you're in now. When did you move to Capitol Hill? I moved to Capitol Hill in October of 2015. Okay. So you're now you were you subject to these sort of the sort of Capitol Hill sort of parking constraints and conditions prior to that? No, I lived in the Clayton neighborhood before that of single family homes, easy street parking. Okay, great. And thank you for that. Sorry. Okay. The public hearing for Council Bill 277 has closed comments by members of council. I brought this forward. So. So. So actually over the last couple of minutes when I was. Yeah. So. I wasn't going to talk about it. But, you know, I've heard these arguments time and time again here. I heard him online. I heard him everywhere. And, you know, what we're trying to do is bring responsible development. And so I just want to speak to this. I've been here. I don't get to claim Native rights, but I've been here since 86. So that's a considerable amount of time. Denver has changed dramatically in 30 years, dramatically. So to assume that there's no development rights or whatever and we're squeezing out development. When I came here 30 years ago, there were viaducts going over acres and acres and acres of railroad tracks down at the river, Central Platte Valley, the riverfront and that whole area. We have opened up this city to massive amounts of development and it still persists today. Even if this moratorium would go on for another five years, we would still be able to develop hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of square footage, square foot of affordable housing, market rate housing, high end housing. And it's just it's this fallacy that this little moratorium is going to somehow disrupt the entire system or this if we don't make this one change and put this stranglehold on these communities that are impacted by this, that will never change the way we transit in Denver. I'm sorry, this is not that solution. TDM has the potential. There are other conversations that we could and should be having that we're behind the eight ball on. But I just can't. I can't. I can't stand here as a representative of people that built their communities for decades, built their communities. And, you know, you mentioned you were 16, ten Ogden. There are houses over there, beautiful mansions that people were you know, there were drug dens. There were there were horrible places that people went in there and and built those things and restored them, nurtured them and created the sort of desirability of that area through a long period of time, through iterations of Colfax, iterations of Colfax. The fact that all these areas are desirable today is because of that work. So to then belittle people who want to sort of stand on principle and say that, no, enough is enough, we need to be more measured, more calculated and more thoughtful about this thing is sort of a NIMBYism forgets the fact that these guys have put in a lot of mileage and a lot of blood, sweat and tears into Denver. And I'm not saying you guys don't. But you know, it's not just the Johnny come lately that now have the trump card over everything that we do. I guess, you know, just because you have good access and a megaphone doesn't mean that you're always 100% right. A measured 60 day moratorium is nothing counseling. Which is a comment. Yeah, but we said we wouldn't do the attacks, and now it's getting more attack. Okay. Well I just and I lowering we lowered the parking requirements as a city in 2010. We lowered them. And so I want people to understand that, that our parking requirements were much, much higher than they were in 2010. So we've made a dramatic reduction, even with a moratorium in place on a zero exemption. So I just I just want. I just I support. I actually support zero parking requirements, zero parking requirements. And I actually support them in a whole lot of others own districts, not just these small lots, but we need to be more thoughtful about it. We're trying to have that conversation. That's what we're talking about. And I don't want us to get hung up on this one little thing and and to sort of continue to undermine people who want are trying to have they're trying to push that conversation because of the illumination that came to light on some of the usury conduct behind this one exemption. This one exemption is is just not fair to wholesale blocks of people in this in this city. And so I, I appreciate I honestly do appreciate people on both sides pushing this conversation because we will I am one of those people and you seen it week in and week out that I believe we actually get better legislation when we do battle these things out. And they are a split vote because going along to get along doesn't necessarily get us to a better place. I mean, we see that at the federal level. You got to question these things some time in order to hammer out a better way forward. So thanks. Okay, Councilman Clark. Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to once again, thank you, Mr. President, for your leadership on this issue, for the dialog that is generated and for bringing forward this extension. I'm happy to support it. Thank you very. Much. Thank you. Councilman Castro. Thank you, Mr. President. Yeah, I just don't think it does anybody any good. There's demonizing of people that want to have a discussion. There's we're still talking about parking because there's two sides to the story. There are two valid sides to this discussion. So that's why the conversation is continuing. And I'll just echo a little bit of what what Councilman Espinosa said. I mean, last year we permitted development over $4 billion in our city. We're developing at historic levels. We're developing to the point where when the city tries to get bids on construction projects, we sometimes get no. Bids. Because there aren't crews available. Homeowners can't find people to do renovations because there aren't crews available. We're developing in this city and besides that, the amount of parking that's being asked for on Councilman Brooks's bill and even with the amendment that that Councilman Clark will put forward, we're not asking for one car per unit, we're not asking for a half a car per unit. I think at the max it gets down around a quarter. You know, it's. I'll just leave it as it's a valid discussion. I wholeheartedly support another couple of months and if we need more than that, I'd support more than that. There's two sides to the discussion. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Councilman Castro. Councilman. No. Yes. Two months is not not too long for a continuous session. There's a lot of I just surveyed my constituents and had about 700 people responded, District ten. And it's real clear to me that more discussion is needed to make sure we understand what this bill is going to do and what the parking requirements will have. And so I favor the extension for 60 days. And and there's nothing wrong with ever having more discussion with your constituents and with your neighborhoods and making sure we're making the right decision. So I hope our colleagues will vote for the 60 day extension. All right. Thank you, Councilman. New Councilman Lopez. Thank you. Mr. President. I look, I. Most of the colleagues have said exactly what I wanted to say. I just think, well, I support this because in my years being here as a councilman, great policy, the best policy policies that we have adopted have always been very thorough. They've taken time. They've required a lot of thought and a lot of input. And I think that's you know, that's just this is just another example of that. I supported the moratorium and I look forward to all the conversations. Thank you, Councilman Lopez. Councilman Espinosa? Yeah. I just wanted to say one thing. Based on you cutting me off, I sort of realized that maybe it sounded like I was going after a couple of individuals. So I want to make it very, very clear to both Frank Lo Cantor and John. They're both great public servants and community activists. The work that you're doing on the on Colfax is incredible. And the city is, in fact, much, much better for the work that you're doing. And John, as a as a volunteer with I.N.S. on Parks Committee, the same thing that is that is wonderful work. And and and I apologize because I woke up on three and a half days of bed rest from being sick, and I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. So I'm impassioned, more so. But I do want to recognize both of you guys for wonderful work that you're doing. And I do believe that the work that you're doing, both in your advocacy, that you have moves this city in a better direction. Sincerely. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Espinosa. I will be supporting this moratorium going forward. And just a couple of comments being, you know, we all have passions. We all have things that we're working on on city council. Small lot parking exemption was not one of mine when I first came on city council. But because it's become and you can see the passion on this day, the passion in the audience, you can see that it's an issue that we've got to talk about and we got to figure out what solution works best today and in the future of Denver. And and that's the heart conversation. And as long as we don't, you know, ostracize individuals on both sides, but really try and find that balance, I think we're going to be okay. I was I was ostracized in this paper called the Glendale Chronicle. But if you can see in this audience, you don't see one developer. You may see him in the audience. None of our speakers were developers. They were community people on both sides. And I think that's important for us to really understand that this is about our communities, about our neighborhoods. And I think it's easy to have the conversation about this is development versus neighborhoods. It's actually folks on both sides, the neighborhoods in here having a conversation. And so let's not jump so easy to the easy arguments to castigate and ostracize. Let's have the hard conversations. And we will be having those conversations. I'm going to give you the dates because I didn't do this earlier. April 17th will be second reading and it will also be the public hearing for the small lot parking tax amendment April 17th and May 26th will actually be the last day that the expiration will happen on small lot parking. And so with that, Madam Secretary, it's been moved and seconded. Roll Call. Black Eye Clerk. Hi. Espinosa. Hi. Flynn Gilmore. I Herndon Cashman. Can eat Lopez. I knew Susman. Mr. President. I please because voting as the results. 11 eyes. 11 eyes control to 77 has been passed. Thank you all for showing up, putting money in the meters and going through security to be in here to have a conversation. Monday, April 17, 2017. Council will hold a required public hearing on Council Bill 161, amending the zoning code to revise parking exemptions.