A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 2812, 2814, 2816, 2821, 2828, 2830, 2836, 2840 and 2842 West 25th Avenue in Jefferson Park. Approves an official map amendment to rezone property located at 2812, 2814, 2816, 2821, 2828, 2830, 2836, 2840 and 2842 West 25th Avenue from G-MU-3 UO-3 to G-MS-3 (general urban, multi-unit to general urban, main street) with waivers in Council District 1. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 10-31-17.
This should be just 112 voice. All right, 12 eyes can spell. 1076 has passed. Congratulations. All right, on to the last public hearing of the evening. Councilman Black, will you please put Council Bill 1143 on the floor? Yes, I move that council bill 1143 be placed upon final consideration and do pass. It has been moved. Looking for a second. Great. It's been moved and seconded. Public hearing for council and for three is open. We have the staff report. Sarah FuckUp. So tonight I am here to present 28, 12, 28, 14, 2016, 28, 21, 28, 28, 28, 30, 28, 36, 28, 40 and 28, 42 West 25th Avenue. The proposal is to reason from GMU three, Euro three to James three with waivers. This application is sponsored by Councilman Espinosa. Again. We are in District one, this time in the Jefferson Park neighborhood. You can see the map here. We are just east of the 25th and intersection and commercial node and we're about two blocks east of federal. And just some context here on the north side of the block, immediately to the west of that one parcel was a recent rezoning, which was very similar. And we'll see that on the zoning map as well. So the property in total is a little over 30,000 square feet, has single family and duplex structures and associated accessory structures , and the request is to rezone to allow neighborhood mixed use. So again, rezoning from GMU through with you three overlay, two gyms, three with waivers. A reminder that the Gems three zone district is the general urban context Main Street with a three storey maximum height, and there are several waivers that are part of this request. So one, the request is to wave out the drive thru forms which generally would be allowed in the GMC Zone districts and also to waive in the urban house and duplex forms with the appropriate residential use restrictions. And the reasoning for this being some of the street level active use waivers are waiving out residential we'll still talk about in a second. And waiving in the urban house and duplex forms would mean that the existing houses and duplex would not become non-conforming. So that's the purpose for waiving in those use forms. So the rest of the waivers are all applicable to the street level active use requirement. So this is generally the front of the building for 75% of the width of the lot and then for a minimum depth of 15 feet. So these following waivers are only going to apply to that 75% of the width, 15 foot depth. So to waive out certain incompatible primary uses from our street level active use requirements. So right now, those are those are pretty broad. All that you can't do is a carwash parking and mini storage. So the request is to waive out residential and then some other kind of higher intensity uses like utilities, automobile services and others, and also waiving out some incompatible accessory uses. So the zoning in the area, the subject site and surrounding to the northeast and south is all GMU you three and directly to the west along the the whole kind of grouping is G three and again those two properties immediately to the west on the north side were recently rezoned from GMU three to GM's three. Earlier this year. So the site is currently a mix of single family and two family residential generally, as is with Jefferson Park, the surrounding is a mix of single family two unit low skill multifamily, and then to the west is the commercial node at 25th and Elliott. So you can see here the top picture is an example of one of the houses on the subject property. The bottom picture is an example of the character that you see at 25th and Elliott. The top picture is an example of some of the multi-family that is being built in the neighborhood. That example is further north on 26th. And again, another example, excuse me, of the 25th and Elliott commercial note. So the process so far, planning board heard this matter on October 4th and voted unanimously, unanimously to recommend approval. We also had several speakers in favor. The committee moved this forward on October 31st. All of the appropriate notification has been done and a letter of support from the Jefferson Park United Neighbors. R.A. was submitted with the application. And then onto our five review criteria. So we have three plans to consider consistency with your comprehensive plan 2000 Blueprint Denver and the Jefferson Park Neighborhood Plan. The request is consistent with several strategies and comp plan related to quality infill development. Focal points in neighborhoods promoting mixed use development. Blueprint. Denver calls this out as a single family residential area of stability. But we are proximate to the neighborhood center that is surrounding Elliot and 25th. Additionally, Blueprint Denver has language in it that says the boundaries of our land use. Building blocks are not fixed and some areas are in a strict state of transition. So in areas where you're on a border, there may be some wiggle room. And in this case, we do find it appropriate to evaluate the request under the neighborhood center area of change recommendation. For our waivers that are requested here. You may be familiar with CPD's waiver policy of only supporting waivers of conditions when they are a bridge to a future text amendment. And that policy comes out of this language from Blueprint Denver, which was before our current code and had kind of called for the abolishment of waivers and conditions in general, or to gradually reduce how much we use them. So that policy came out of Blueprint Denver here. And usually when we have waivers and waivers that CPD is supporting, again, it's a bridge to a future text moment and we like to get as close to the future solution as possible. And a reminder, when we say bridge to future text amendment, it means that we have acknowledged that there's a problem. There will be a text amendment in the future to solve that problem. But in the meantime, before we get to that, we can add waivers or conditions to rezoning to kind of take care of that in the meantime. And so what we're talking about here is kind of it's a conversation that's happening in the city at a lot of different levels and that's related to street level, active uses and mixed use buildings. Currently, even in our mixed use zone districts where we have street level active uses, you can have a 100% residential building and the thought is that maybe there is a need to have some sort of zoned district or overlay or something to account for these neighborhood skilled areas that probably were the planned direction calls for mixed use. And we want to have a way to at least require some of that ground floor residential to provide that character that the plans are calling for. Now, this case is a little unique because we know it's a really big question. It's a city wide question, and it's not ideal to evaluate these waivers on a case by case basis, because we know it affects different areas in the city differently. But in this case, the we've figure that the waivers do a good job to tackle the issue now and knowing that this will be a much larger conversation as we move forward with NPI, with Blueprint Denver and the kind of policies that might come out of those planning process to help us guide how we might solve this problem in the future. So at this time, we do think that the waivers proposed are appropriate to address this issue and it is consistent with the blueprint. Denver Plain Language regarding waivers and conditions. Looking to the Jefferson Park neighborhood plan. The plan has some overall framework, goals and recommendations about maintaining enhancing the character of Jefferson Park, creating focal points within the neighborhood, calling out West 25th and Elliott as a focal point and also calling out West 25th Avenue, generally as a principal neighborhood corridor. So acknowledging that properties along 25th are special, they should maybe should have a different character. And then we do have sub areas in the Jefferson Park plan. Again, we have language here that specifically says that boundaries between the sub areas are not absolute and that characteristics overlap subquery boundaries. So we do have the properties on the boundary between the 25th and Elliott Sub area and the core residential sub areas. And given this language and the support that we've received from the neighborhood, we do find it appropriate to evaluate the request under the 25th and Elliott Sub Area recommendations. Which include recommendations that neighborhood commercial Siberia should include older buildings that will be carefully restored and vacant lots developed in a manner that reinforces the historic character of the neighborhood commercial district. Strengthen the neighborhood retail center to support the neighborhood, encourage new construction to be mixed use with residential and retail. So again, we have plain language here specifically calling for mixed use and that new buildings in this area should be compatible in scale and character with the existing buildings. So the proposed GM's three zone district does have transparency build to requirements that do help to maintain the character of the existing 25th Elliot commercial node and again, the three storey height limit. So given all of that, we do find that the request is consistent with adopted plans. It will result in the uniform application of the GMC three zone district with the exception of the proposed waivers. But given that the waivers are consistent with CPD's waivers policy, we do find it meets this criteria. It furthers the public health, safety and welfare by allowing additional mixed use development that is pedestrian in nature. Encourage people in the neighborhood to have more neighborhoods serving retail. So we do find that it is consistent with the furthering public health, safety and welfare criteria. The identified justifying circumstances is that the land or its surrounding environs has changed or is changing to such a degree that redevelopment should be encouraged. We know that there's been a significant amount of redevelopment in Jefferson Park and a lot of new residential units. And so that means there are more residents, which means that there is a strain on the existing neighborhood serving commercial. So allowing some more area to redevelop into neighborhoods serving commercial would be in the benefit of the neighborhood. So we do find that this criteria has been met. And the request would be consistent with the purpose and intent of the GMES three zone district. So given that we find all five criteria have been met, would you recommend approval of the proposal? All right. Thank you, Sarah. We have five speakers this evening. I'm going to ask all the speakers to come on that front row there. Justin Potter, Jay Edwards, chairman, say COO. I'm sorry all of you guys still come up, but unless Nathan Johnson, you're first. Actually, Mr. Johnson and then Sean Booker is last. All right, Mr. Johnson, Nathan Johnson's first. Thank you. I am the owner of the piece of property. That's the slice of land on the north side of West 25th Avenue. I'm in support of the new zoning. For the simple reason that the balance of the block is basically being transformed in this process. And I'm also in support of the concept of live, work and play. We are looking for environments where we can combine those uses, have a holistic neighborhood that allows for both residential uses, commercial uses and recreational or retail type uses. And I think the zoning will provide that enhancement to the neighborhood. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Justin Potter. I thank you for taking this under consideration. I'm speaking on behalf of Jefferson Park, United Neighbors, the R.A. for the neighborhood. We started this process probably about a year ago. The developers came to us and expressed interest of potential rezoning going to commercial. Similarly to what happened on the north side and the neighborhood at the time was open to it. We definitely feel that there's a need for expand and commercial in the neighborhood. And we've we're seeing a lot of the slot homes go in. And we kind of felt that we would rather work with a developer to get something that we wanted instead of having additional slot homes built that could have been built there. As I mentioned, we we worked on this for about a year. We've had multiple meetings in the community outreach, the newsletter and whatever else, and solicited a lot of feedback from from the neighbors and ultimately decided to take a vote to have Councilman Espinosa file for the his own request on our behalf. So thank you, Mr. Potter. Jay Edwards. Thank you, counsel. My name is Jay Edwards with Dublin Development. We have contracted an assemblage within the proposed new block here. And originally, you know, at the JMU three zoning, we were planning on 12 to 14 townhomes and then the discussions with the neighborhood. We've been very active in Jefferson Park. We've office in Jefferson Park and love the neighborhood and talking with John and other members of the neighborhood. We all felt it would be better to go with a mixed use type project where we can bring more affordable, more attainable condos. So we're looking at, you know, right now 28 to 30 condos with approximately 5000 square feet of retail on the ground floor to bring, you know, strengthen the retail presence in the neighborhood. Obviously, with the added density in the last few years in Jefferson Park, there's not enough retail to support the neighborhood. So we're in support of the zoning change. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Edwards. All right, Chairman Sekou. But to say chairman looks different. Okay. Terrorist who likes our action movement. Self-defense. Poor, working, poor, homeless people starting to talk like Kelly. We support this for same reason as we support the last one key component include the police in this in terms of manpower. What they're going to do is security's there. This one's bigger than the last one. And this, this. What she was talking about with all these layers of stuff that folks got to do in order to get this thing done. That last person I just talked to my son before he could put a shovel in the ground. This thing started in February and it took him $25,000 before he even got started. Hear me now in terms of development, that's crazy. All right. When it takes 5 minutes to approve this stuff. A rezoning thing. $25,000. Eight months later. Are you kidding me? Now, of course, I'm not a very patient guy. I'm a revolutionary. I believe in this. Doing things immediately. Get it done, be finished with it, and be efficient. And do the things we need to do to protect the community interests. So we have to learn and find some process. Think outside the box, because I don't know how long it took you to get this. You said you start a year. I don't know how much money is spent do this, but it's going to take five, 10 minutes to prove this. That's crazy. They don't make the system. All right. So somewhere along the line, we've got to tweak this process, all right. To make it more effective and cost less so that even a small developer can get involved in this kind of process. A mom and pops kind of develop, you know what I'm talking about doing. You know what I'm saying on the construction thing. So I understand Paul and folks of his doing the social development and then the combination with the commercial economic development and we combine the two into socio economic development, then we make this thing work in a better way so that we can move this thing on down the road and have a community that's moving effectively so that we can provide the housing that's necessary not only for the middle class, but also for poor, working poor people, because we need a hurry up kind of process to tell for our needs because we are under bridges. We in cardboard boxes. So if you can't do this for middle class people, you know it's going to take us forever. So this top down thing, bottom up thing, trickle down whoop to do what they know. That's got to stop. That's got to stop because it's not working for the people. And that means everybody, regardless of what station you in, with you on the top to bottom. Low to middle. Cut the red tape. Cut the layers. Not deregulate, but cut the unnecessary stuff that she's talking about. Because this is crazy. I mean, for real. Well, maybe not. Maybe I'm just crazy. That's all I got. Thank you, Miss. Miss Siku. All right, Shun. Book. Book out. Did I say that right? Yes, sir. All right. I don't know how. I follow that, Mr. Sekou. Thank you, counsel. Thank you for. Let me speak. My name is Shawn. Book out on the co-owner of Double in Development with Jay Edwards. We're here in support. Of the reason we're very active in Jumpstart. We've built 36 townhomes. We have a condo project at Pershing right now, and we'd like to. Do this project as well. It's going to bring smaller, more affordable units in Jefferson Park, as well as retail, which is which is much needed. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Berger. All right. This concludes our speakers questions by members of council. Councilman Flynn. Thank you, sir. Sir, could you talk me through again when Blueprint says that we ought to eliminate waivers and conditions? What are the criteria under which CPD would nevertheless find this in conformance with something that seems to be directly opposed to using waivers and conditions? And how do you evaluate that against any other situation? So we get requests from from you guys, from the public, from our internal departments for things that did to amend the zoning code, as you all know. And when we get a request, we we talk about it internally. We talk through it with the requesting party to understand it. And then as long as everyone agrees that it's a worthwhile endeavor in the future, it gets put on our list of future text amendments. That is a long list. And so we have we're always constantly trying to evaluate our work program to decide how to tackle those. And it is because of that long list that that we get to this recommendation on waivers. So even though Blueprint said eliminate them, we know realistically right now that that probably isn't isn't going to happen. But we do have this policy to to have a better, more strategic way to approach them, because in the past, when we've done waivers and conditions, they're they're very, very specific. They they vary widely across the city. They're very difficult and time consuming for our development services to administer, especially over time as things change. Then you have more rezonings just to get out of very restrictive waivers that were maybe applicable 20 years ago but aren't now. So it's kind of this whole world. And with this one, like I said, it's a little tougher to evaluate the specifics of this waiver because we know it's a really big question, but it's a question that keeps coming up again and again. It keeps coming up in 30th. And Blake, it comes up in Berkeley, it comes up in Jefferson Park, all in slightly different context, with slightly different requests. But we know it's going to be something that we're going to have to address. And like I said, we don't know how that may be. We don't know if it maybe new zone districts overlays, combination amending or current zone districts. So all of that is TBD. And so the waivers that are proposed by Councilman Espinosa, we think, are a really rational way to approach it right now for a site specific neighborhood serving retail. Mm hmm. Does that answer your question? Yeah, it does. And I'm very happy to hear that, because, frankly, I, I, I favor more use of waivers and conditions. I know it makes more work. It's harder to enforce, but. But that's your job. And a city is a messy place. A city is a place that needs flexibility. And and sometimes I cringe at the need for uniformity when specificity and flexibility and site specific conditions are are required. So I'm very happy to hear that explanation. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Councilman Flint, councilman as well. You have a question on your own, Bill? Not really. I should I was just going to offer myself I should probably gone out there and just signed up to offer myself up to answer any questions because I did author of the waivers that you're considering today. Great. Thank you. Thanks for that clarification. All right. Seeing no other speakers, the public hearing for Council Bill 1143 is now closed and now we'll open up with that comes from the council sponsor himself, Councilman Espinosa. I don't know where to start. It was it was a long process. It started with three properties. It's now seven properties and completes the totality of of of properties between our central business district at 25th and Eliot and the remaining properties on the blocks that haven't been developed. This is an area that has undergone radical sort of deviation from the plan recommendation. And, you know, in Sarah's presentation she had a mapped so sub area that was white that was supposed to be single unit to unit scale development. And that's where you see the lion's share of slot home flavors that we're coming up with in Denver. And so when you're faced with that, which is more of the same, which is getting a wholesale different I mean, getting an address citywide through the slot home task force because the nature of the outcomes that you're getting, you know, is there a way to, you know, the community basically asked, is there any way to to to to get an improved outcome? And this is a situation where, fortunately, the developer and the community and the business district basically put their heads together, having seen what was previously zoned across the street and said, that's something we can we can adapt to. And getting getting all those people and the additional property owners sort of to the same place took some heavy lifting. But I think everybody that was involved to the patients, the conversations you had, the patients you had and sort of the the community sort of emphasis and, you know, pushing me in the direction with you. And so my hope is that, you know, you know but and that I should acknowledge Sarah was was this is this is this was tough sledding. You know, she talked about the whole landscape of the nature of these sorts of the nature of this sort of these sort of waivers that we're putting on the the . For active use requirements. You know, that was you know, that was not you know, I went in there just like any other developer making this request and trying to to to make make it very clear how consistent this was in all the parameters that they that were required to, to, to consider. And I think that she she did a very, very professional job when maybe I wasn't the most professional individual in in maintaining the city's position. And because of that, the waivers that that that we finally authored and put I finally authored and put forward, I was really pleasantly surprised at how well-received that was by the planning board and the comments that were made there. You know, that sort of made it very clear the need for the city to to carry on that conversation about appropriate uses and appropriate restrictions and limitations on ground floor. So yeah, so long, long story short, I'll wrap it up. The real impetus for these waivers was when the prior rezoning across the street occurred that one had an M.O. you in covenant, much like the prior rezoning tonight, which put these similar limitations on on redevelopment of those properties. And it put it gets you in a weird gray area, which is if the community is is in support of the recognizing the change of conditions in the development pressures that exist, and they're trying to get different outcomes in their central business district through a zoning change. But the zoning change actually allows the exact same form that they're trying to, to, to, to address the only way to, to, to reconcile the two, which is that the change is appropriate because it can capture these other things. But the change also allows the one thing that they're trying to avoid is to actually put constraints. And I don't think it's appropriate necessarily in that situation to put it on a developer agreement, especially when we're talking about a significant area. And waivers were in fact the right way to address the growth and redevelopment of that area. To that point, though, I did share with my colleagues a couple of images and and one of them is a slot home in Jay. It is one of your projects. So I'm not a I'm only sharing it with you because it's a recent slide home. But it is my concern. It touches on it's the the one on Eliot Street. And. And then a project at the corner of 44th and Tennyson, which is a is a mixed use zone district. I don't know if it's Main Street or not, is it? The good news about the one at 44th and Tennyson is that you're not allowed to do that kind of development. That ground floor activation rules have changed substantially, and now this one goes one step further. So my point is, is that throughout this conversation with the community, is that they or they have high expectations that that the nature of your development, your redevelopment of this area not only has the sort of mixed use components and the in the affordability that you're trying, you know, the units that you're the project that you're you're proposing in, you're working on the architecturally that it resonates with the human scale. And these are things that zoning can't, can't do, but it is sort of beholden to mean it is your responsibility as developer and architect and your team. And so it's fine to do projects that that net profit. But please, this neighborhood has been good. Very good for your bottom line. Maybe this project has been a little bit challenging in that regard. But but you know, my to the degree that you can please continue to have that dialog that you've already had with the neighborhood on the design side and voluntarily commit yourself to sort of getting the best sort of outcome that you can physically. And and it's not just to you, it will apply to anybody that develops in that area as well if it goes through. But so my comments my my the whole point of my commentary, though, is that this was this was wrought by the community. I'm happy to be in a position to have used my prior background as an architect to sort of articulate how we might shape that and bring it forward, because this is a community derived solution where it's a win win win between developer bid and neighborhood. And once again, just like the prior rezoning, the reason we're not here with sort of massive opposition at the scale of this re rezoning and they noting the close proximity to even single family residential is because everyone's rowing in the same direction and let's just keep up that momentum. With that, I'm going to support this rezoning because I have faith in everybody involved. Thanks. All right. Thank you, Councilman. And, you know, I just want to just let the public know we do have legislative rezonings where council members will support a rezoning for the larger community that is a not a quasi judicial matter. So a councilmember supporting the rezoning can actually vote on it and obviously comment it. We've received a couple of comments about that. So I just wanted to let folks know that. All right. So see, no other comments has been moved and seconded. Madam Secretary, roll call. Espinosa. I Flynn. I. Gilmore, i. Herndon, Cashman. I can eat new Ortega. Sussman Clark. Clark All right, Mr. President. I please cause very nice results. I see. Sorry. There's a. Couple. One missing, one hanging fire. Oh, we got it. 12. There it is. 12 eyes. Council Bill 1143 has passed. Congratulations, everyone. Thanks for the hard work and seeing no other business before this incredible body that we have here extended your.