A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 3801 Himalaya Road. Rezones property at 3801 Himalaya Road from B-2 with waivers and conditions to S-MX-3x (suburban, mixed use, 3 stories, less intense use) in Council District 11. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 7-20-16.
Yes, Mr. President. I move the count to a five away, be placed upon final consideration and do pass. It has been moved in second in the public hearing for council bill 507 is open. May we have the staff report? Mr. Tim walk into the House. Evening Council Members. Tim Watkins. Community Planning Development. Presenting application 2015 AI 151 And this is property located in Northeast Denver in Council District 11, taking you back a little closer to the airport again in the Gateway Green Valley Ranch neighborhood. And you note that the property is just at the southern boundary of Denver, at the southeastern extent of the city, sharing the boundary with Aurora and Adams County. Now, the reason I'm turning your world around 180 degrees in this image is to provide some land use context. So north is down, south is up, and you see the emergence and the development of industrial development in Aurora. And then you see the predominantly single family residential development in Denver. 38th Avenue is planned in both the city of Denver and Aurora transportation master plans. Uh, in case Denver moves or the the Denver plan to extend further east to Picadilly. So somebody that arterial street will continue and so the property is four acres and the owners requesting mixed use mixed use district that would allow for zoning that would allow for residential tenures on the site. The current zoning for just in context is B2 or Neighborhood Business District. This district provides for goods and services intended for surrounding neighborhoods, and it also allows for residential development, including single family and multifamily. However, in this case, there are waivers that restrict both drive thru services for commercial as well as multi-family residential. But still allows for single family residential. And then there is a condition for a 30 foot landscaping buffer along 38th Avenue. You know, the surrounding zoning is are to with various waivers conditions as well as an R to A and what's particular interest is the ah to a and one of the other ah to with waiver sites is actually zoning that would allow for multifamily. However it was built out as single family. The requested zone district is s or suburban mixed use three story and this is a zone district appropriate along corridors for larger sites and a major intersections. It's intended to provide for pedestrian skill development of 1 to 3 stories and to positively contribute to established residential neighborhoods intended to improve the transition between commercial and adjacent residential development and allows for flexibility of mixed use development in the suburban context. Existing land use is predominantly single family residential to the north, east and west of the site. But you saw in the earlier image that south in Aurora and Adams County you see developing industrial development. And that is seen here in the lowest image. And in the center, you see the site, the vacant property and the surrounding single family residential that backs primarily back to the the streets. The rezoning process has included public outreach by CPD and the applicant to the R.A. is listed here and all of the written and posted notice requirements have been met leading up to the council hearing this evening. The applicant has conducted several outreach meetings and attempted to engage as many residents as would participate in reviewing the proposed development and rezoning proposal. And this has resulted in three letters of support. These letters expressed support for the proposed residential townhomes and that some also some opposition has been generated to group emails, one in April, one in July expressing concern about increased density and possible traffic increases, a concern of negative impact on property values and parking. And some prefer the current B2 zoning hoping for neighborhood services and also citing the landscape of open space along 38th as a desired element. At the planning board hearing on July six, there was a comment of support. A resident that lives adjacent to the site suggested that residential townhomes were preferred over commercial development, that this would likely be a less intensive development than commercial uses. And then two opposing comments suggested that single family homes are preferred or neighborhood serving commercial or other types of services. Let's go on to the review criteria and the consistency with adopted plans. The proposed rezoning is consistent with infill development strategies recommended in comp plan 2000 as detailed in the staff report. The Gateway Concept Plan in 1990, which was also amended in 1993. Provides a recommended land use of office research, but doesn't provide any particular detail or further description. But it is somewhat of a obviously a commercial type of land use that was originally envisioned there. And then the Montebello Green Valley Ranch Neighborhood Plan from 1991 does not provide a future land use designation, but shows a map of the existing neighborhood zoning. And at the time it was before a general business district. And then some of the surrounding zoning, you see the are two which would allow for single family as well as multi-unit dwellings at 14 and a half to use per acre and then also an R two way allowing between 22 and 29 to use per acre. But that that was the vision at the time expressed through the current zoning at the time. Blueprint Denver concept land use a single family residential, which is defined as being the predominant development type, but still allowing for a variety of housing types as well as complementary land uses such as stores, parks and schools with a significantly smaller employment base than the population base. It's also an area of stability which is intended to maintain area character while accommodating some new development and redevelopment. The street classifications in Blueprint Denver include a residential collector classification for 40th Avenue. And for Himalaya Road north of 40th Avenue, it's shown as a residential arterial intended to provide more intra neighborhood and regional connections to employment and commercial centers. And then Blueprint Denver is somewhat silent on the classification south of 40th and along 38th Avenue, showing them as on designated. However, the Public Works Department has a street classification of arterial that I've outlined here in the darker color the bottom line and these are intended to connect neighborhood to commercial centers and other major transportation facilities. Here's an image of 38th Avenue looking west from 38th and Himalaya. And here we are at 30th and Himalaya looking north. And you see these are three or four lanes and accommodate a fair amount of trips, trip capacity. Here's 40th Avenue and we've received some questions throughout the the application process why this was classified or might be considered by Blueprint Denver To be a collector street and a residential collector street, it measures about 43 feet in width and then does widen to accommodate turning movements at Himalaya Road and back to this vicinity. Graphic Showing the land use context. The St 40th is highlighting. You note that it's quite continuous and I think that's what the. From whence it to rise the. The collector designation is that it's provides. Connection and continuous travel through the neighborhood where other local streets connect to it or run for much shorter segments. So CBC finds that the proposed Zone District has some x three is consistent with the adopted neighborhood plans. The second criteria would be met is CMC's three would result in uniform application of the district building form, use and design regulations and third criteria would be met as. The zone to further public health, safety and welfare by implementing recommendations from the adopted plans, the justifying circumstances, a change or changing condition of the property and its surroundings. Specifically single family residents of development around the site between 1999 2002 has taken place. And yet the site that was intended for commercial development for single family homes has remained vacant. And really there hasn't been sufficient population base to support some of the anticipated commercial services at the location. And meanwhile, we have new emerging commercial industrial uses developing south of 38th Avenue in Aurora. The proposed x three zone district is consistent with the suburban neighborhood context and provides the purpose and intent of providing pedestrian scale development of 1 to 3 stories to positively contribute to established residential neighborhoods and to improve the transition between commercial and adjacent residential. CPD's finding is that all review criteria have been met. Our recommendation is approval and planning board recommendation is approval with the 822 vote. Thank you. Thank you, Tim. We have one speaker tonight and that is the results. You have 3 minutes. Hi there. I'm Lila Rose. Alice Terracing, a design in Denver, and I'm just here to answer questions as the applicant. Perfect. That concludes our speakers questions for members of council. Okay. Oh, here we go. Not, of course. Uh oh. Okay. Here we go. Councilman Espinosa. Uh, Tim, there's a letter from this week for last week talking about. A prior attempt to use use the site for storage. My understanding, just looking at the code here that the storage would be a permitted use and the smx3. Is that correct? Indoor storage? Yes. And let me read through this and I might have further questions. Thanks. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Gilmore. Thank you, Mr. President. Lila, I have a couple of questions. The first question is, could you talk a little bit about the outreach that you conducted with the surrounding neighbors and what were some of their concerns and some of the things that you did to adjust or accommodate some of their concerns? Absolutely. I'd be happy to. We actually had three different neighborhood meetings that we held over January through April and to discuss the proposal of the multifamily. And the reason we actually ended up with letters of support from the two neighbors that are directly adjacent to our site and most impacted. Some of the concerns that came from other neighbors were multi multifold. I'll say a few of the neighbors wanted commercial on the site. That's what it's zoned for now. And so they were thinking that they would be able to get some neighborhood services or something at the site. The owner of the properties owned it for 18 years, I believe something along those lines. Unfortunately, no no ability to bring in a commercial user into the site. It's if you look at the region, it is it's just very remote. Yes, there's a lot of houses around it, but there's also a lot of other commercial centers that are much more appropriate for commercial uses. And it's just a very isolated four acre parcel that we just couldn't find another user for. So the Townhomes was a great use for this particular piece of property being that is a small four acre site. So there were some concerns around that. There were some concerns around traffic. And again, with the property being zoned commercial today, we really feel like the existing zoning would generate a lot more traffic than the townhomes or the multifamily proposal that we have in front of you today. So that was another concern. I'm trying to think. I think those are the two big ones that kind of came out from the conversations. And like I did mention, I spent a lot of time talking to a lot of the folks and a lot of the letters of opposition came in, you know, February, March timeframe. And since then, we've spent a lot of time kind of working through some some issues with them. And that's why they're not here tonight. I think I think we've kind of made everybody happy. So one one additional question. Yeah, there was there was some conversation about, I guess, the fence or sharing a fence or something. Could you talk a little bit about what the resolution was to that issue that was brought up? I'd be happy to. We've got two neighbors that are directly adjacent to our site, so we share our fence. And those are the two neighbors that showed letters of support or who came to the planning board. But what we said we would do for them as we would, we were going to go in and we're going to rebuild the portion of the fence that we share. And, you know, it's an older fence. It was built in 2003, maybe. So it's kind of starting to fall down a little bit. And so we're going to go in and rebuild that. And then also that will be maintained by the town townhomes or that development. So they won't be responsible for maintaining it either. So we're going to work with them on what kind of fence they want and kind of get that particular form. Okay. One final question. And so you kind of led into that. So the townhomes that will be built there. Could you tell a little bit about how many bedrooms there's going to be? Is there going to be some sort of HRA or covenant or kind of how will the management look like of these townhomes? Absolutely. We are proposing a 48 townhomes on the site. They will be loaded front, loaded onto the surrounding perimeter streets. They are two and three bedroom. I believe. The square footage is between 1013 hundred. Range on those. And they will be there will be some sort of archway or covenants or I'm guessing it's an away because there is a metro district out there. So I'm thinking that'll be nature way. That will do the exterior maintenance as well as the landscaping and snow removal and all those types of things that are required for a townhome project. Okay, great. Thank you. Sure. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Espinosa, your backup. Yeah. So. Sounds like you. You gave the community some assurances. What formed those take? So that they're sort of enforceable and that, you know, that compel you to follow through on those commitments. On the fence as an. Example. Yes. Yes. Good faith. We're good. Good neighbor that's been developing out in Green Valley Ranch for 20 years. So good faith and our promise to get that done. And we told you in front of everybody. I know about the fence. You made it sound like there was more there were more agreements than just the fence, though. I mean, there's eight houses impacted directly across the street of 40th. Did you make any commitments to those residents as well? I did agree to do two story units. On those particular. Plants and the plans that are actually going to be submitted to a CPD tomorrow after hopefully, assuming we get approval, do demonstrate that we've got two story architectural elevations on those. Okay. And again, I'm posing in front of all of you. No. No. You know. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you, Councilman Espinosa. Any other questions? Seeing none. Public hearing for Council Bill 508 is closed. Comments by members of Council. Councilwoman Gilmore. Thank you, Mr. President. So clearly we have a housing shortage in Denver. And to look at this area, this corner that I have driven by numerous times, and it's sort of a troublesome corner, just the way that the traffic flows goes. You know, it's the property's been zoned B to B two since the early 2000s. If we have not been able to attract commercial development on this site in our current economic, you know, status of the city, with this boom, we're not going to ever get it. And so really looking at the small side, I would be more concerned if there was a rezoning in front of us today to do some sort of commercial 7-Eleven, that there would be lights on 24 seven, there would be activity, right, in a single family residential neighborhood. And this will not be the case. This is housing that is so needed in our city and at the planning board. It was specified that the site was really supposed to be a buffer, a buffer site between the housing and the industrial that was across the street. And so to have a little bit higher density, when you look at 48 units of townhomes on four acres, it comes out to 12 dwelling units per acre. And it's well within the recommended blueprint Denver recommendations, which are 10 to 20 dwelling units per acre area wide. And a lot of residents have brought up the concerns of traffic at 30th and Himalaya. Actually, I was able to drive some folks from public works around the area and they did agree that there needs to be better traffic calming measures at this intersection. And actually, the conversation evolved that when there is a little bit higher density with these 48 units of townhomes, that would actually help get more infrastructure at that corner because there would be more of a push because of the little bit higher density on this corner. And so definitely I'll be keeping public works apprized of this project and, and see what we can do knowing that the 48 units, the residents are not all going to leave nor come back to the community at the same time. So, you know, these these 48 units, that's assuming that every single one has a car. And the last piece I just can't reiterated enough, we have families who are looking to rent products. And, you know, in downtown we have micro units and they pose their own set of unique issues and challenges. But to my colleague, Councilwoman Ortega's comments that we need 2 to 3 bedroom units for our families and for families to have an entry level product to come into the Green Valley Ranch neighborhood. It's a beautiful area, a vibrant community, and we need to provide housing stock. That's a great entry level unit for our families. And maybe they will be able to become single family homeowners at some point in time. But this is a great entry level for them. So I will be supporting this rezoning tonight. Thank you, Mr. President. And thank you, Councilwoman Gilmore. Councilman Espinosa. I just am, you know, the same forces that are probably going to make this make you guys show up tomorrow with your concept. Ready to go are the sort of same forces that took modest developments and made them pretty egregious in my neighborhood. So I just caution people that are watching that when you get into these agreements with developers, get them in writing, you know, because, you know, I believe that you're going to follow through on all these things. But markets change, economies change, and things projects then evolve. And so just as a general caution to to constituents get these things in writing. Thanks. Okay. Let's see what we have here. Any more comments from members of council seeing? None. Madam Secretary, roll call. Gilmore, I. Herndon. I can. I can eat. Lopez New Ortega. Sussman Black. Clark. Espinosa. Hi. Flynn. Hi. Mr. President. I close voter USA Results. 13 Eyes. 13 Eyes Council Bill 508 Passes. Congratulations. Before I make the closing announcements, I want to make one announcement about a person here on city council is going to have a birthday tomorrow. So happy early birthday, Councilwoman Ortega. Thank you. All right. Pre German Announcement on Monday, September 26, 2016. Council will hold a required public hearing on Council Bill 549. Change the zoning classification for 3030 201 Walnut Street. Require a public hearing on Council Bill 551 changes on a classification of 4402 Umatilla Street and require a public hearing on Council Bill five nine to change the zoning