A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 4230 Elati Street in Globeville. Approves an official map amendment to rezone property from I-A UO-2 and I-A to C-RX-8 (industrial to urban center, residential mixed-use), located at 4230 Elati Street in Council District 9. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 5-14-19.
11. 811 are as comfortable. Four, four, six has passed. Councilman Gilmore, will you please put Council Bill 448 on the floor? Yes, President. Clerk, I move that council bill 0448 be placed upon final consideration and do pass. It has been moved and seconded. The required public hearing for Constable four for eight is open. May we have the staff report? Good evening. I'm Courtney Livingston with Community Planning and Development. This is the rezoning 442303 excuse me, L.A. Street. It's rezoning from IAU to district to CRC district. It is in Council District nine in the Globeville neighborhood, and it's located at the in the 41st and Fox station area at the corner of 42nd and LRT Street. The site is about 36, a little under three, 36,000 square feet in size. It's currently used as a storage area. The requesting Teresa on the property to facilitate redevelopment. The current zoning, as I said, is IAU two, i.e. is a light industrial district. The use of two is a billboard use overlay. With this application, they are proposing to remove the billboard use overlay and the surrounding properties in the area generally are the light industrial with the billboard use overlay Xerox eight and C-Max 20. So it's used as industrial. Right now you have industrial uses to the north east, you have some residential and industrial uses also to the south and west. The building forming scale. Here's some photos of the existing site. You'll see that on the left here. And then the photos to the east or this or the right to that are the surrounding properties. In terms of process, the this went to planning board on May 1st and it was unanimously approved public comment. We received three letters of support. Those are in your packets to from nearby property owners. The applicant did reach out and met with Globeville Cares and Fox Street Business Association and received verbal support from those Arnaud's. So review criteria, as you know, the Denver zoning code requires and for a council to approve the rezoning that the five zoning code review criteria are met first with the consistency with adopted plans, there are four adopted plans that apply to this rezoning the Comprehensive Plan 2040 Blueprint, Denver, the 41st and Fox Station Area Plan, and the Globeville Neighborhood Plan Comprehensive Plan 2040. There are multiple goals that all support this rezoning very mentally resilient, strong, authentic neighborhoods, all encouraging quality infill development that is consistent with the surrounding neighborhood offers where services are already in place. Next will move to Blueprint Denver the recently adopted there four different things in blueprint Denver that we take a look at the context, the place, street types and the growth strategy. First, with the neighborhood context, it's currently mapped as the urban center neighborhood context. The requested zone district is consistent with Blueprint Denver as it is within the urban center context. Next Blueprint Denver Future Places. This is shown as high, medium residential mixed uses, including multi-unit. Residential heights are generally up to eight storeys. There's a high lot coverage and shallow setbacks in the Blueprint. Denver Future Street Types. We have 44th Avenue to the north as a mixed use cluster and then Fox Avenue, Fox Street to the west as also serving the site. In terms of the growth strategy blueprint, Denver shows this as a high and medium high residential area and the downtown and urban center context. That means citywide we can anticipate to see about 30% of new housing growth and 5% of new employment growth. Next, we move on to the 41st and Fox station area plan that was adopted by council in 2009. It's shown in this plan as proposed open space. However, there is a note saying that parks are conceptually shown on the land use plan and the actual locations are not determined. Future park space in the station area require working with private property owners, parks and recreation and developing funding partnerships. That said, we took guidance from the more recently adopted Globeville plan showing a urban residential. That definition is also in the 41st and Fox stationary plan. Those are aligned and it's intended for those two plans to be aligned. The urban residential is intended for to date stories, new moderate density neighborhoods, providing a range of housing, types of about support, pedestrian shopping and employment base. Next, moving on to the Globeville neighborhood plan. Like I said, that was adopted in 2014. The kinds of land use for this parcel is shown as the urban residential. That's the 2 to 8 storeys in height. And it's intended to be consistent with the 41st and Fox station area plan. It talks about being a diverse, transit supportive, environmentally sustainable urban center in this area. It also talks about creating a broad base of new jobs in diverse economic centers sectors by redevelopment opportunities throughout the neighborhood. The zero eight would all help support these goals. Next, we'll move on to the second through five review criteria uniformity of district regulations. The request is consistent that in terms of furthering public health, safety and welfare, it implements adaptive plans. It helps re facilitate redevelopment in a station area. The justifying circumstances the application. The application notes for change or changing conditions? Well, we see the recently adopted plans investment in the area. Also the G line that came in just recently came on board. Those are all appropriate justifying circumstances for this rezoning. Consistency with neighborhood context, zone, district purpose and intent. The zero eight zone district applies to residentially dominated areas served primarily by arterial streets where building scale of tree stories is desired. This site is, like we said before, being served by those two collective streets and it is within the 2 to 8 story range. So we feel that that is consistent with the neighborhood context zone, district purposes intent. That said, CPD recommends approval based on finding all review criteria have been met. Thank you. Thank you very much. We have three individuals signed up to speak this evening on this item. First up is Megan Jones. Good evening. I'm Megan Jones. I'm an unincorporated Adams County resident. And thank you very much for the presentation and I'm available for questions. Thank you. And next up, Chairman Sekou. Do. Excuse. Chairman Sekou Black saw some movement for self-defense. Upon hearing and looking at the. Thirdly, you know, I got some questions about this thing. Now looking at the area, it could use some residential development. No question about it. And if we're going to obey stories, this becomes housing for who and who can afford it. Not affordable housing, because in this area is also underdeveloped. And you have a large pocket of poor people there who need housing. And are they going to be able to afford to be able to live in their neighborhood? And with the look in terms of actual economic viability, we're looking at a place that had a lot of industrial use in it. And I ain't heard nothing about the cleanup that's been done up there in terms of the soil to invite families to live up in that. And so I need some clarification about those tests and what is actually happening. And if that's a requirement of the pre-development and the plan, then we need to look at some stuff here. Because once you approve this, then it's own. And from looking at the public comment that was involved in this thing, this has been an ongoing kind of issue for that area. And so not to cast aspersions on the intent or what people are working toward to make this happen. I would suggest that we postpone this and put this back in the committee to take another look at this thing, because there's some gaps in this, some serious gaps in this, and there are some serious questions on those questions leads to other questions and other questions. And now we're road ball in this thing. And so I'm neither opposed to it nor am I for it. I just need some further qualifications. If we can get that from you guys, then I'd appreciate some help. You'd like to come up here? Okay. That's it. Thank you. Next up, Jesse Pierce. Just the pairs represented for Denver Homicide allow black socks movement for self defense and positive action committed for social change. And I was on top of the ballot this past May 2019 election for city council, where a large, almost 50,000 votes with no money. We are in favor of this rezoning for the exact reason that was stated previously. We have a housing crisis in the city. We need at least 26,000 homes built to even attempt to address this housing need. In this whole election campaign, we were told we can do better. So if we can do better, I would like to see the council do better and actually create attainable housing that people can actually afford in the city and county of Denver. Not affordable, but attainable. That means RMR levels between zero and 30%. So my question was, what is the RMR level for this rezoning? Do you even know? And who is going to occupy this space? Because this neighborhood has been neglected. Globeville, along with the area, and Swansea has been neglected for years by this city. Now all of a sudden it's become an opportunity zone and there's all this development coming to an area that is not even built infrastructure wise for it. So I want to know what is the RMR level for this and who is going to reside at this? Thank you. Thank you. That concludes our speakers. Are there any questions from members of council tells me just another. Question for staff. What are the two local and I mean the two collectors and all articles that serve this? That would be Fox Street to the West and then 44th to the north. That's about a block and a half to the north of the fourth, and that's a block west would be Fox Street. And I apologize. My recovering from an illness and laryngitis over the weekend. So where is CPD or public works with the team. Yeah ideas the parking maximums or the limits that they're talking about on on on this section and it's. Called the next step. Study. Is that. Yes. Part of. The yes. So then the 41st and Fox area next step study is fully underway right now and it's anticipated to be completed by 2020. And with the parking overlay that was determined to be either, you know, started to take a look at at during the 41st and Fox next step study but really to let that process go through and then after that process dove back into the parking overlay potential. But we need to see what comes out of that next step. Next step study from the 41st and Fox area plan in that they're looking at the infrastructure there. How was the the how was this reconciled in the in the Globeville neighborhood plan, the fact that there was, you know, considerable promotion of toward a more dense urban redevelopment of this area. But the limitations that are with those two collectors that you've identified as being those streets that would carry all the vehicular traffic that would do it this this new density would would support what are there? Did there were there other solutions that were contemplated. For the Globeville? CLINTON Well, we do have the the transit stop, which is like 1000 feet away. So there's we have right now to with the the public works rules and regulations that are in place with the traffic study requirements for the site development plan process that in tandem with transportation demand management strategies help with the congestion in the area, but also the proximity to 41st and Fox station area was heavily leaned upon within the Globeville area plan. See, that's what's sort of tough here, right, is the criteria requires us to contemplate its proximity to these arterials and and collectors, not to commuter rail. So to talk about commuter rail and is not part of the criteria, is it? Is it. The criteria? No, but it is served by those essentially because the close proximity, they can essentially, you know, be considered to be served by. Okay, I'm worried because it's a bit of a slippery slope to justify rezonings and we've done it already previously, as you can look at the map and see that justify this level of intensity, intense re mean entitlement when it isn't directly served by local mean by a collectors or arterials and but then we already know that those collectors and arterials are potentially going to be overburdened to the point where we would actually cap the ability to to bring cars into this area. And so it seems odd to me that we would sort of put our head in the sand about those realities of infrastructure. And and and they make that leap continue to make that leap and say, well, this meets the criteria when we have these deficiencies. And and I'm I'm somewhat perplexed that your answer to the parking overlay is that it will now be kicked down the road for the next step study because, you know, at some point I need the confidence that we have. We're considering how the infrastructure marries itself with the land use, because what we're not doing right now is is developing anything out there according to plan. In four years of major rezonings in this area, we have yet to see any outcomes that are consistent with these adopted plans. So should we be continuing rezoning to the to this degree and adding entitlement when when we might need to to pull back some other infrastructure? I mean, other other aspects of the regulations that are currently allowed. I mean, you are contemplating right now reductions in an entitlement with regard to parking or or changes in entitlement. As part of the next subsidies. Are you. Or are you. The scope of the next steps? Are you? Yeah. Yes, I'm I'm not 100% sure, but I do believe that it looks at the infrastructure at a high level. I'm not sure to what extent it really will be covering parking in depth like. So we. Postponed a parking overlay, Mr.. President. Yeah. So we postpone, you know, can answers real quick. They are looking at parking demand management and this will be completed at the end of 2020, much further ahead than anyone could get entitlements to build anything at this site here. Much further. So parking demands, the infrastructure investment that we're talking about will all be in place prior to any development that this could that could happen at this site that we are proving right now to like. So within the next eight months. Yes. She said it will be completed in 2020. Okay. I'm sort of, again, having to put a lot of faith that somehow we're going to be addressing the infrastructure problems. If we if I'm going to overlook the fact that the arterials and collectors that service this area are, in fact already overburdened and couldn't withstand the maximum level of development of the existing entitlement, let alone the planned entitlement of this area. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Espinosa, Councilwoman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. So my question first is, do you have a number of how many zoning we've done in this area to date? Um. I don't. I'm not off the top of my head. No. Okay. I, I mean, I can count at least 8 to 10 that have come before this body, which have all been asking for significant density increases. And that includes the 43 acres over at the Denver Post site. Can you tell me if every developer coming in asking for density increases are being asked to financially participate in the next step study and to be part of the solutions that will come out of that. What I do have to say is that with the public works, the rules and regulations that they have to do a not only a traffic impact study for before they get out of concept for their site development plan, but also a transportation demand management plan in order to contribute to that. The next step study is fully funded and underway. Here's here's the. Problem, Mr. President. Can I just add. I cannot finish. I've answered a question for you real quick. So there have we we did ask the developer to pay into the next step study. And so there are folks who are paying into that. And we'd be happy to give you a breakdown of this study as well, because we wanted to make sure, like you said, Councilman, that we have developers making sure that they're invested into this project. So so part of the issue with this area of town is. We should not be looking at 44th Avenue as a collector road into this site, because what you're going to do is exacerbate all of the traffic problems for the Globeville neighborhood, because that's exactly where it's going to put them, is right in front of Garden Place elementary school to get, you know, on and off at Washington Street or to use Lincoln Street. And my concern is that we're we're looking at this where we're continuing to change the zoning and increase the density or, as Councilman Espinosa said, the entitlements. But we haven't addressed any of the infrastructures on the front end. We're waiting till the back end after we do all these rezonings. And the expectation is we, the taxpayers, will be looking at how to solve the problem. So, for example, we've got CDOT doing the next step study. I mean, I'm sorry, the health study on 25, but it does not include this particular interchange at 38, Fox, I-25 and Park Avenue. And that interchange is what traffic coming out of downtown is going to have to go through to get into this site. So there's just that one road and I guess. For us to be asked to continue to change the zoning without addressing any of the infrastructure issues. And this is part of the problem with the changes that happened with zoning. Gentlemen, I just want to check, make sure your saw in questions and you can you can more than we're going to do this in comments or we're taking questions now. Okay. Get you back in the queue for comment. Yeah, I asked my two questions. Okay. Thank you. All right. Seeing no other questions. The public hearing for counsel, four for eight is closed. Comments by members of Council Countryman Brooks. Hey, thank you, Mr. President. Appreciate it. This rezoning is in my district. And I just want to say a couple of things. This is at 41st and Fox. Many people call this Fox Island. If you've not been there, I would encourage you to go into this neighborhood is very interesting. There is only one way in, one way out of a road. And it's it's problematic. There are some issues. We have never put the kind of mobility focused investment in that we're putting in right now. Now, there's no dollars committed at the city, and I think there should be some concerned over that. But there is a lot of effort from CBD and public works to actually put the vision together. I've been a part of that. I really encourage council people who are, you know, worried about this area to be a part of the conversations. Because right now the regulations and the ask of what we're asking from developers to put into this place is being formed and put together. The other thing that we're looking at here is a transportation demand management system, which I think is really important. And we have a lot of developers pushing back and we need community folks. We need council folks at the table saying this We can no longer over park these developments. We've got to make sure we got a multi billion dollar rail system that's right across the street that we're not even using. And so demand management means and parking demands means you can only park your building to a certain ratio. And so that's what we're looking at. We hope to have that that all done. Well, I won't be doing it, but the city hopes to have it all done by 2020. That kind of like going to January 2020. And I think that's going to be a very important process for everyone to be a part of saying that understanding that this rezoning is in this area. I will also say this. We have resolved a lot. I was just in this area a week ago and it's really interesting. I've never seen so many rezonings and no cranes and no construction. For whatever reason, the market has not come to this location yet. The only construction is the RTD construction that was built and now the train is work is running, which is great, but there has not been some construction. So all of the fear that we're going to overbuilt, I think you don't have a market to build it just yet. So what we need to do is make sure that we have a robust demand management system that the private sector pays for, that the public sector invest in, so we can move forward. Mr. President, because this rezoning particular rezoning meets the criteria, I will be supportive. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Brooks. Councilwoman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. So as I was saying earlier, you know, this particular area is problematic because of the fact that there is one access into the site that's off of Fox Avenue. You then have 44th Avenue that goes to the Globeville neighborhood, which is a two lane road with no pedestrian walkway. Although we do have kids who live on this side of I-25 that that walk along 44th Avenue to Garden Place Elementary School. There is a project to put sidewalks along this bridge, but right now they're not there. The I-25 Pal study is really critical to this area, and it doesn't go this far because major changes to that interchange need to happen to be able to figure out how we move traffic through this particular area. You have a baseball game letting out and if it rains, traffic is going to back up into downtown because anybody trying to go into north Denver can't go through because that underpass floods. We have a serious flooding problem in this area. It's the Utah Junction outfall. And Councilman Brooks, we've been engaged in ongoing conversations with the North Denver Cornerstone Collaborative with. Chris, who's our team person. My concern when we talk about parking maximums, which is what the overlay is, is discussing. My concern for anybody rezoning in this area is, you know, if it's if it's first in all, those folks are going to want their parking and whoever wants that cap happens. Anybody else wanting to do their development, if it's already been capped, a bank isn't going to finance a project without any parking. And and so these are some realities that we deal with in in the development world. And so I don't know that we're creating unrealistic entitlements or expectations by continuing to put the highest concentration of high density development in this small geographical area that only has this one road in and out. And so I don't think that we're adequately addressing. The the. Health, safety, welfare of the community that we're encouraging by, you know, by by rezoning all of these properties to be in this area, by not addressing all of the infrastructure as part of the big picture. I know early on there were discussions about a road that would connect over to the Sunnyside neighborhood. I've heard as as early as today that that may not happen. Now, that was going to provide a different access point for people trying to get in and out of this area. And we don't know what the next step study is going to recommend at this point in time. So we're continuing to add to the volume of density that's going to be in this area without knowing how the infrastructure issues are going to be addressed. And that's that's a fatal flaw in how we're doing zoning these days because. We don't we don't know how that stuff is going to be worked out. And I mean, I think we need to go back and look at making some changes to our zoning code that allow city council to see the level of detail that helps us to fully understand what we are proving, that ensures that we're addressing the health, safety and welfare of of a community. So, you know, I know we've done a number of zoning in this area, but I'm not comfortable continuing to increase the densities and the zoning where we. We just don't have the pieces to the puzzle all figured out. So I'm not going to be supporting this one tonight, and I will continue to be involved with the folks working on the next step study and insert our input. We have been involved in those meetings through through my office and hopefully we'll find some some of the right solutions that can ensure that the people who will be living in this area once all this development happens, can move in and out without putting their lives at risk, because we're going to have, you know, more cars in this area. So thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Ortega. Councilman Espinosa. It won't be the first time I will have opposed an hour x eight in this general vicinity. I had one on Jason Street, so it's two blocks on my side of the railroad tracks and it's served by the same arterial and in fact, it's you could argue it served. It's better serve because it's somewhat proximate to pacos. But the criteria is is is pretty clear that it has to, you know, ideally, I mean, these things need to be served by arterials and collectors. And what we know about Fox Island is that the roads that do serve it are taxed, which is why there's these other conversations . So it's I, I for 1 a.m. not at all surprised by the complete lack of redevelopment on Fox Island. I have said it at least three times and I'm going to say it a fourth time. At least now that this is a mexican standoff. What is happening over there is people are gaming, are plans to cash in, and when they cash in, they suck dollars out of Denver and community. What they have right now is a industrial zoning which doesn't allow them to build one single residential unit on that property. But now they would get eight stories of redevelopment for potential going, zero setback on all four sides of their property. And for that, it's a $1,000 fee for one acre of property. And so what do you do when you grant that much entitlement for $1,000 plus the time that you've taken as you've created an opportunity for that person to sell that land, to flip that land for way more money than they bought it for. And when they take those rights and sell those rights, they siphon money out of the project. That could go into better design, into affordability, into the infrastructure needs of this community. And we don't have a process right now, but it clearly we're having a conversation about how to do that in the future when we should have done it a long time ago. We've been we spent millions of dollars on that rail. But guess what? The rail is not part of our criteria when considering rezonings, and that is stupid. There should be zone districts specifically for Tio D's that do three things. They have minimum development requirements. You have to go up over a certain height. You have to have ground floor activation where appropriate. You have to have better street standards. Streetscape standards. Actually, there's a fourth. And you have to encourage mode shift. You you you put those parking maximums on there or you make no parking. You you tell them that there is no possibility that you can put parking in your project. But the emphasis has to be. Use that rail. We spent millions already of your taxpayer dollars. We don't have that. So we are not on a collector. We're not on an arterial. We are against three local streets, LRT. Fourth and third. We are on an island that is poorly served by existing roads that do collect those locals. And so until the city. Well, for as long as I'm on council I will be voting no on further rezonings. That and this is you know you can say I'm pre-meditated or presume whatever this stupid word is that the lawyers don't like that, but I'm not worried about it for obvious reasons there. This is a call to the city that we need to get out of the business of granting entitlement when we have too much development entitlement right now in this city that we could capture all the growth that we need in the available square footage that we could develop. And that if we're going to emphasize re you know, if we want to see the outcomes in our plans, we have to codify those outcomes in our regulations so those don't exist here. I have been a mixed bag on prior rezonings on Fox Island. I have voted both for and against for a whole host of reasons. But this one this far away from the rail station, this far away from local. I mean, for collectors and arterials that are taxed to the point where we don't know how we're going to ever capture the growth that we're that we that we've planned for. This area tells me that we need a solution to our transit infrastructure before we go further with any intensified entitlement. So with that, I'll be voting no. Thank you, Councilman Espinosa, seeing no other comments on this item, Madam Secretary, recall. Black eye. Brooks Espinosa. No. Flynn I. Gilmore, i. Herndon, I. Cashman. PANITCH. Lopez All right. Ortega No. Assessment. I. Mr. President. All right. I'm secretary. Please close the voting. Announce the results. 9 hours, three days. Nine days. Three Neighbors Council bill four for eight has passed. Councilman Lopez, before we jump into the next hearing, I understand that we have a special guest in the chambers. Would you like to recognize our guest?