AS AMENDED a bill for an ordinance amending the Denver Zoning Code to revise parking exemptions for pre-existing small zone lots. Approves a text amendment to the Denver Zoning Code to revise the Pre-Existing Small Zone Lot parking exemption. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 2-14-17. On 2-27-17, Council held this item in Committee to 3-20-17. Amended 3-20-17 to ensure that the parking exemption is applied for all uses. Some parking requirements are calculated based on gross floor area while others are on number of units and not explicitly for gross floor area, to further clarify the legislative intent of the proposed bill to emphasize the city’s commitment to more comprehensively address transportation demand management strategies in the short term, and to require a Zoning Permit with Informational Notice for all new buildings on Pre-Existing Small Zone Lots that request to use the small lot parking exemption; Enables all expansions to existing buildings to receive the full parking exemption; and clarifies at what point an “existing building” is considered 
An assessment has called out council bill 161 for an amendment. Madam Secretary, will you please put 161 on the screen? Councilman Lopez, will you make a motion to take 161 out of order? Want to remind everyone this motion is not debatable. Thank you, Mr. President. I move to take Council Bill 161 series of 2017. Out of order. All right. It's been moved the second it. Madam Secretary, roll call. SUSSMAN All right, Black. CLARK All right. Espinosa. Flynn. Gilmore. Herndon. Cashman can eat. LOPEZ All right, new. ORTEGA Hi, Mr. President. I. Close voting announced results 13/39. That's the second third of America's 13 ice. All right. 13 ice caps. Well, 161 has been taken out of or kills for Lopez. Will you please put counsel BELL 161 now on the floor. For publishing. Are we putting it into final consideration? You can just put it on the floor. There'll be no vote. Just put it on the floor. Replace it to be amended. Okay. All right. Are. Mr. President, I move that council bill 161 to 2017 be placed upon the floor. Final consideration to pass. It's been moved and. I need a second grit. It's been moved and seconded. Councilman assessment. Go ahead and offer your motion to amend. Thank you, Mr. President. I move that council bill 161 be amended in the following particulars on page three. Line eight. Strike the number two. Strike two and replace with three. All right. That's the only change. Okay. It has been moved and seconded comments by members of Council Councilwoman Sussman. Thank you, Mr. President. I know that we've seen this bill a couple of times, and I want to thank Councilman Brooks and Councilman Joe Allen, who worked on this bill so diligently and continue to do so. I'm bringing what I hope is a friendly amendment tonight that retains some of the work that Councilman Brooks did and some of the work that Councilman Clark did. It retains the definitions of a transit corridor as a quarter mile and retains the definition of a station corridor, train station corridor as a half mile. It retains the lower exemption for development outside of these corridors to the first floor. It's only changes to return to the three storey exemption for development within transit and train corridors. Change two three from the two story exemption. One of the big concerns that I mentioned about the lowering of this exemption within our corridors is the effect it could have on our efforts to revitalize Colfax and other of our main streets . Such as federal and Broadway. Lowering the exemption can frustrate our efforts to preserve the environment of our main street corridors where there are stores on small lots. On Colfax, we have the added barrier. Of lots that have very little depth. To meet greater parking requirements. We are incentivizing the preferred development that retains that Main Street feel of small businesses along what we hope will become even more pedestrian friendly streets. Development with this may have to create assemblages of several lots to meet the parking requirement and thus may be building larger structures that thwart the esthetic of these unique streets. We're working hard on Colfax, many of us, to bring more neighborhood serving businesses to the street. Requiring more parking just makes that effort more difficult. I understand that people are going to come with cars. But I feel confident that we can leave the parking requirement to the market. People won't rent or buy apartments if the lack of parking is a concern. And development will adjust to the market demand. Remember that we are not setting maximum parking requirements. Only minimums. The three story exemption is a significant departure from the original zoning that exempted all development on these small lots. Significant. For us in the communities who are seriously concerned about our dependance on cars and our city, state and countries. Historic practice of both subsidizing and incentivizing car use. I think the decision to lowering the parking exemption even further is antithetical to what our council has been encouraging for the six years I've been on council, and that is better pedestrian bicycle access and greater transit use. This is really a small change, but because of its considerable discussion and work. I believe it has big significance for what we stand for. And the significance to our work on transit oriented development. I asked my fellow council members to consider what it means for at least a good effort to be responsive to those special corridors in our city that we want to see retain their main street feel and meet some of our goals for a more livable city. I therefore urge everybody to pass this amendment. Thank you, councilman. Assessment. Councilman Clark, I see you logged in some just. Okay. Councilman Clark. Thank you, Mr. President. You know, I feel like we're having a little bit of deja vu, because last week I read strike three and replaced with two. And so I'm you know, I think that we've hashed this out. We've had this conversation. The will of the council last week was to move from 3 to 2. And I guess I don't see this as an amendment, but as a repeal of most of the work that was done last week. And that amendment I don't want to get back into the all the reasons that I said I was bringing the amendment forward last week again, other than other than to say that, you know, in large part for me in my district, the zoning in these transit corridors is three story zoning. And having three floors exempt means that that's a full exemption. And that was not why I supported the moratorium, was to take a look at this. You know, this this bill is far from perfect and has been, you know, a work in progress. But I feel that that going from 3 to 2 was a good compromise. And I stand by that. I would encourage my colleagues to to reinforce what we voted last week and defeat this repeal of the amendment that was offered last week. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Espinosa. Yeah, I would like the city attorney just for the viewing public, because this is already posted and we keep making amendments to explain to the viewers how it continues to be acceptable that we keep modifying things that will definitely impact communities within the posting period. Mr. President, you want me to answer? Yes, David. You can try to answer. David. Bravo, assistant city attorney. The there is no council rule that prevents you from revisiting and re debating something even when you voted on it once. In other words, you don't have anything like a settled question rule. So the motion is in order to to go back and revisit the issue of two stories versus three on the issue of publication and posting. I've consulted with the other city attorneys in our office and consistent with prior advice we've given. You can stick with I believe it's a May 1st hearing day. Do I have that correct? You can stick with a May 1st hearing date, even if if the motion is successful and is modified again to return to the three stories, it will not require reposting. Because traditionally we have advised that if in between first and final on a zoning a an amendment is proposed to make the regulation stricter, then you need to repost and move out the public hearing. But if an amendment makes the restriction less strict than current law or than the current proposal, then you don't need to repost. So it'll be possible if council chooses to pass the motion and to stick with the May 1st date and then the public hearing will occur on the proposal as amended. Great. Thank you for that. So then. Well, that's that's my only. Question or comment. And we're. Both. So there's only. Thanks for the clarification. The only other things I wanted to sort of point out is that the an even less restrictive law has been in place on Colfax for 11 years. And so if the goal is to now make this an additional change that is still more restrictive than what has been in place for 11 years, more restrictive sort of debate, the validity of that. But that said, again, I go back to having a third of these parcels in my district and the fact that this half mile transit corridor definition largely affects, you know, the bulk of it in my district is along the I-25 corridor, which isn't a high frequency transit quarter, but that's where the rail system is that serves District one. It's on the other side of the railroad tracks and the other side of the highway. And I only have five crossings to get from District one to that rail. And of those five crossings, only two would sort of well, one pedestrian and one bike would sort of satisfy any sort of modicum of what is a desirable way of crossing the highway. It's not 23rd Avenue that's never been safe, but we've worked as a community time and time again to increase the rail height, to add guardrails , to to dedicate some bike portion. It's only 15th Avenue and 15th Street and the pedestrian bridge. But the rest of my district is cut off, severed by physical impediments to getting over to the high frequency transit. And so when we do this sort of blanket definition of TOD as being this half mile radius, we're not actually articulating what areas are truly accessible to those. Tods In the way that I think is desirable, a number of minutes traveled how safe that access is and what not. And so I've always articulated this should have been a mapped boundary where we made this exemption in this this without negatively having potential net negative impacts to communities that are very real and very present. And so, I mean, I've articulated that time and time again in different ways. So once again, I'm just trying to get would like my colleagues to recognize and understand that there are very, very real consequences to making this change to areas that are not truly served by high frequency transit corridors, but yet fall in the as the crow flies mapping of it. So I would encourage everyone to vote. No, thank you. Okay, Councilman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. I was pretty quiet last week when this came up. I didn't make comments, but I just first want to thank you and Councilman Clark for initially working on this issue and Councilman Susman for attempts to try to, you know. Address it once again. But I guess what I want to say is that in this city, as we're seeing development pressures all over the place. We are not a city that has addressed first mile and last mile connections. And until we do that, people will still drive their cars. Yes, we should do as much as possible to try to encourage people to get out of their cars and use transit. And if we were really serious about that, we would not be building a 22 lane I-70 corridor. But I'll put that aside for a minute. So I think that as long as people continue to drive their cars, as they move into this city or already live here, they're going to use their cars to go to the mountains. You know, if they can't get to transit and I've talked to a number of people in Councilman Flynn's district who, you know, may live half a block away from a bus stop. But that bus doesn't get you down to transit to any of our train lines that could afford them the ability to get downtown. So we need to address that first mile last mile issue in order to encourage people to get out of their cars. I had an opportunity to go to Seattle to take a look at some of the micro-housing units that were being built there. We had met on numerous occasions with the developer of that project, who is also interested in doing development here in Denver. And, you know, their focus was attracting millennials to their development because they don't own cars. Well, when we went and met with some of the residents, what we learned was a good number of them owned cars , and they were challenged with where to park them if they did any grocery shopping. When they came home, they had to walk three or four blocks away because there was no place in the immediate area to park. So as much as we want to get people out of their cars, it's a reality that we are dealing with and it's an impact that is imposed on the adjacent neighbors. So I think the the request that. Was put on last week that amended this bill. Is reasonable. And so I am going to continue to support that particular amendment that was made to this bill. And my hope is that's what we have the public hearing on. So for all those reasons, I will not be voting for the amendment tonight. Okay. Thank you. Councilwoman Ortega, a jump in because this was my bill that presented for. No, it's Clarke's bill. This has been this has been we've talked about this a lot. And there's a lot of issues around this. And I really respect Councilman Clark in the conversations we've had around this and the folks that he's representing on this very important subject. And I just see councilman new poppin. Go ahead, Councilman Neal. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Sorry not. To. Press the wrong, but I really appreciate what Councilwoman Sussman is talking about, because we've been working hard on Colfax redevelopment, and I'm looking forward to seeing that prosper and be a wonderful street that's going to be full of affordable housing. And people won't need a car. But I'm also worried a little bit that we haven't had enough discussion about this whole issue. You know, I think we extended the moratorium and was hoping that we'd have a little more discussion because I'm still getting a lot of feedback from our residents about the provision of the bill that's talking about the exemption and other new developments that are beyond their the quarter mile. And in in areas of the neighborhoods and especially got an area in Congress Park the 12th Avenue this you know it's about a half mile from. It's not a rail station, but it's it's a corridor. But maybe it's walkable to transit on Colfax. But again, there's mixed use there, small or large, that they could be developing and may not be good for the character of that neighborhood. So I'm really concerned about about this sort of support, the three stories for Colfax, but I'm not sure that's good for the whole city. So I'm really torn from from what all my constituents are telling me about the need for less exemptions from parking. So I look forward to hearing more discussion and I hope we'll have more discussion about this. And unfortunately, I think I'll have to vote against the the amendments. And I. Okay. Thank you, Councilman New. I'll just say that I think Councilwoman Sussman brings up an important conversation around this around our transit corridors. It's not just Colfax, but it's it's many corridors within our city that that are affected by this from federal, colorable, a ton of corridors that we have in the city. And so I think it's important that we look at it. I think it's in a compromise of the compromise of the compromise. And it looks at just transit corridors, not the other part of this bill, which is outside of the transit corridor. So I'm in support of this. You know, this this council, the city has talked about the importance of affordable housing. And one of the things we did in the discussions, the nine months of discussions we had around this is talk about, you know, what is the actual cost of one parking spot and how does that actually affect housing prices? How does that affect the cost of overall development? And we know that it is higher costs. We know that any parking spot now on a on a lot to create, it is between 20 and $35,000. And so when we add this, we are adding costs to our residents for the particular services they're looking for. So I will be supporting councilwoman assessments amendment moving forward. So it's been moved and seconded. Madam Secretary, roll call. SUSSMAN I black? Clark No. Espinosa No. Flynn No. Gilmore I. Herndon High. Cashman can eat. Lopez No, no, no. Ortega No, Mr. President. I. All right. Madam Speaker, I'm sorry. Close voting announced the results. Six, eight, seven, eight. Six, eight, seven nays. The amendment to council Bill 161 has failed. Madam Secretary, we're just going to move on to the next item if everything is right. Okay, great. Okay. All other bills for introductions are ordered published. We're now ready for the block vote on resolutions and bills for final consideration council members. Remember that this is a consent or or block vote and you will need to vote otherwise. This is your last chance to call an item for a separate vote. Councilman Lopez, will you put the resolutions for adoptions and the bills for final consideration on final passage on the floor? Thank you, Mr. President. I move that the following resolutions be adopted. So I'm sorry. Our series of 2017. This is 365 337 363 360. Three 7408. Yeah. All right. All right, Madam Secretary. Two weeks. There's more. There's bills on final. Yep. The bills on the. Final bills are fine. I still use the paper. Yeah. All right. In the bills for final consideration. 338. 330. 331. 332. 333. 343. 29. 352 Oh, right. It has been moved and seconded. Ma'am. Secretary, call black clerk. I Espinosa. I Flynn. I Gilmore. I Herndon Cashman. Kenny Lopez. I knew Ortega. I assessment i Mr. President. I Please go to the voting announce results 3913 ays the resolutions have been adopted in the bills have been placed upon final consideration and do pass since there are no public hearings, and if there are no objections from members of Council, we will not take a recess in other business before us.