A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 8101 & 8351 East Belleview Avenue in Hampden South. Approves a map amendment to rezone property from B-8 with waivers and conditions, UO-1, UO-2 & B-8 with waivers, UO-1, UO-2 to S-MX-8 (former chapter 59 zoning to suburban, mixed-use), located at 8101 & 8351 E Belleview Ave in Council District 4. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 2-1-22.
11 Eyes Council Bill 20 2-1 16 has passed. Thank you, friend, for being here this evening. Councilmember Sawyer, would you please put council bill 20 2-1, two, five on the floor for final passage? I move that council bill 22 does zero 1 to 5 be placed upon final consideration and do pass. Thank you. It has been moved and seconded the required public hearing on Council Bill 20 2-125 is open and we have Brandon Shaver here for this is the staff report. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Madam President. And good evening, Council. I'm Brandon Shaver, senior city planner with CPD presenting an official map and application at 81, a one in 8351 East Bellevue Avenue. I requested to three zone 2smx8. This request is in Council District four at the far edge of our city in the Hampton South neighborhood, just at the northeast corner of South Ulster Street and East Bellevue Avenue. This is a larger site, just under 14 acres currently used for commercial retail. And the proposal here is to rezone to allow for a variety of building forms at a maximum building height of eight storeys or 110 feet. Existing zoning on these two parcels, as well as most of the surrounding area is B eight, with waivers with the adult use and billboard use overlays. Also further to the east, there's an open space zoning as well as some single unit. And then Arapahoe County of the city of remote villages directly south. So on the first side of 81 on one he's of the avenue has some waivers in a condition that were approved in 1988. These waive certain fabrication uses, waive the sale of goods and certain structures also provide a maximum of 2 to 1 and lock them into a condition of a site plan that was approved the time of the last rezoning for the other site, 8351 East Bellevue Avenue. These waivers were approved in 1978 and are very similar. Weaving fabrication uses the sale of goods and certain structures, waiving the gross floor area to 2 to 1. They are also waiving the right to erect structures in excess of two and a half stories and waiving the right to erect freestanding retail or strip retail shopping areas. As I mentioned, both of these sites are currently mapped with the use overlays. However, these are not wanting to be retained by the applicant. The first adult use overlay staff found that there is sufficient remaining land left in the city for folks to exercise their First Amendment rights and for the billboard use overlay again not to be retained and there are no existing billboards on the site. This is largely due to the Denver Tech Center Architectural Control Committee, which provides protective covenants independent of the city's land use regulations and particularly relevant to the site. They prohibit adult uses, prohibit billboards, and require a 40 foot minimum building setback along both South Ulster Street and East Bellevue Avenue. This site went through a large development review as it was larger than five acres and was found to have regional significance in the evolution of the tech center. This produced an older framework which outlines potential regulatory steps and the sequencing, as you can see on this slide. O. The R also requires a community information meeting that was led by the applicant team. This was held back in July of 2020 and we had more than 70 attendees. The applicant team presented their development plan and CPD staff was present to explain the regulatory processes, sequencing and present equity analysis. Overall, most of the comments received were positive and supportive of the project. Again with existing land use on the site is commercial retail. Some commercial retail also exist in the surrounding area as well as some office and multi-unit residential uses. Here are some photos to give you a sense of the building form and scale in the immediate area with the subject properties on the bottom left. In the bottom right. Moving to the design standard differences between the existing versus proposed zoning. The proposed zoning again would allow for a maximum height of eight storeys or 110 feet, would allow a variety of building forms and also introduces, build to and transparency requirements. There is also a proposed affordable housing agreement that has been executed prior to this meeting. This is a little complex, more than we see usually as it contemplates three options for the developer to choose from. Options B and C would result in more units are a D for affordability, more in line with the current expanding housing affordability proposal, which is under public review. This application was sent out for notice last July. Between now and then, they've worked on the infrastructure masterplan and negotiated the aforementioned housing agreement. This was the planning board on January 19th, where it was moved forward unanimously in favor. And to date we have not received any letters or comments from our nos or the public. Moving to the review criteria first being plan 2040. This request is consistent with the number of goals and objectives and strategies which organize by vision element. Moving to Blueprint. Denver This is also consistent with the suburban neighborhood context and the regional center feature place, which envisions a high mix of uses and larger scale buildings. It's also consistent with our future street types, as both East Bellevue Avenue and South Ulster Street are commercial arterials. This fits in to our regional centers growth area strategy, where we expect significant growth for the year 2040 to the amount of 50% of new jobs and 30% of new housing. Also consistent with a number of strategies here and Blueprint Denver, which speak to encouraging higher density at our regional centers, rezoning properties out of the old zoning code, and aligning our high density areas, high density residential areas and your regional centers. As part of this application through the sites we did a full in the equity analysis to consider this provides three equity concepts which I ran through briefly. I ran through these with the applicant at the Pre-Application phase and provided them with an equity brief and then they provided us with an equity response for staff review. Overall, the subject sites were pretty well on all these measures, but significantly lacking in the number of income restricted units. So first, with access to opportunity, the site has more than average access. The low access is only two. There is no access to a full service grocery store and staff finds that the processes would allow for a broader range of commercial uses, potentially being a grocery store or fresh food options. For vulnerability to displacement, this area, of course, is less vulnerable based on all of our metrics, except for the percent of renters. Therefore, staff finds that this rezoning would allow for additional increased residential densities and also provide an opportunity for housing for additional housing options, including for sale units if we can ever get those developed under city . So we also use supplemental data for vulnerability to displacement. This helps us better understand how neighborhoods and areas change over time. And again, while this area does square less vulnerable, some of the data points are included in the staff report and presentation that helped tell that story. So what I thought was interesting is that racial composition of this neighborhood is much less diverse than we see citywide. However, it is becoming more diverse by the city is becoming more white. Also our population over the age of 65. This neighborhood does have a greater proportion of residents that fall into that age category. It is increasing at a much faster rate than we see citywide. Also, when it comes to median household income, this part of the city does have a little bit higher above median household income, but these incomes are not increasing as quickly as we see citywide. This course is having moderate housing diversity. Again, I mentioned that we have zero income restricted units down here and it's also less diverse when it comes to bedroom counts. So staff found that this rezoning, in conjunction with the Affordable Housing Agreement, would allow for more housing, including affordable housing, and provide some two and three bedroom units for jobs. Diversity. Not surprising, since it is in the tech sector, these jobs skew more towards innovation categories and the rezoning would allow for additional retail jobs. But overall, no limited no impact on overall job diversity scores. So what do we get from the equity analysis? There are some guaranteed outcomes, those income restricted units and some three bedroom units. There are also some commitments that are still under discussion through the development of the infrastructure master plan. Those include an upgraded RTD bus stop, a better connected street network through the site, and an increased open space more so than we see in our user requirements. And there's also another need that came through the equity analysis, and that's the need for a grocery store and or fresh food options. This was also noted in the community information meeting and the applicant has been working diligently to make some kind of commitment to one of those options. This also meets the next two criteria as it would result in the uniform application of the Sun District building form, use and design regulations in the state and further public health, safety and welfare by facilitating increased housing density, air services, amenities and employment. The justifying circumstance of this rezoning is that the city adopted the Denver zoning code in 2010, but the property remained in former Chapter 59. Lastly, this is consistent with the suburban neighborhood context, the mixed use district purpose and intent statements for x eight. Therefore, CPD recommends approval of this application based on finding review criteria have been met. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Brandon. We have four individuals signed up to speak this evening. Our first speaker is Thomas Reagan. Eddie. Madam Chairman, two members of council. This is Tom Ragged Eddy, and I'm here to answer questions if they if subjects arise that require my comment. All right. Thank you. Our next speaker is Randy Frye. Yes. My name is Randy Frye. I'm with Shea Properties. I'm here to answer questions as the need arises. All right. Thank you. Our next speaker. Their last name is Mander. And Jerry. And I have that they're going to be in person. It doesn't seem that we have anybody here by that name. All right. We'll go ahead and move to our fourth speaker. Peter Culshaw. Good evening. I'm in person. Thank you for your time and consideration of our rezoning application tonight. I'm Peter Coles from the Executive Vice President with Shea Properties in Colorado. And we're joined virtually by everyone I can imagine that can answer any question as well as a workman who's been working on our outreach to the community, which has been extensive. I'm pleased to say that to my knowledge, we don't have any public opposition to this, which probably means I've just jinxed it, but hopefully not. I mean, Square is on the south edge of Denver. It was developed in 1979 and at the time was really cutting edge and very cool retail center. It was relevant. Now, a little like me, it's past its sell by date and we're looking for a new energy for that part of the Denver Tech Center. Our vision is for an exciting, vibrant, mixed use redevelopment, which will add energy to this area and the surrounding uses. We've worked extensively with city staff and it's been terrific to work with, work through the LDR, process the equity analysis and reach what I think is a innovative, affordable housing agreement with most redevelopment is intended to be in keeping with consistent with the city's applicable plans and studies. So again, I'll be brief as I can. Thank you for your time and consideration. All right. Thank you very much. That concludes our speakers questions from members of Council on Council Bill 22. Dash 125. Councilmember Ortega. Thank you, Madam President. I just wanted to ask Mr. Gulshan if you wouldn't mind coming back to the podium. On The Affordable. I know it gives three options, but do you know which of those three you would choose to partake in? We don't yet. Our intent and our desire would be to do the option which has the most affordable housing, which is the third option which is off site. Yeah, we've actually done a number of affordable projects in the metro area and this is something we have made a major commitment to do. You already have another site in which you would do that if you choose to. Go that route? We have some options. We have not kind of gone forward with them pending kind of thing. All in Denver. I'm just curious whether any of them are in the adjacent county next door and if they are, how that sort of applies to I see one of our staff from the host. I mean, everything we will do will be in the city and county of Denver. Okay. And we have done affordable housing in the adjacent counties. But what we would do is we would do it in Denver. I'd like to ask our host representative if we are if we allow any of our developers to build something on an. Adjacent. In adjacent county and count that towards Denver's on or do we mandate they have to do it in Denver? Brad wanted staff of Department of Housing Stability. I would love to compel affordable housing development in Greenwood Village in another county, but I, I don't have that ability. So we have the realm of our city boundaries to work to work with in to this wasn't a question you asked, but in the agreement for the off site satisfaction , the location has to be within the either hand in South or South Moore Park neighborhoods, partly because that's an area where we don't have hardly any affordable housing to speak of. There's a lot of opportunity down there, a lot of great access to schools, jobs, amenities. And it's a it's a there's a dearth of truly restricted affordable housing and into because there are the affordable housing development in their own right. And we were we were willing to work with them on an offset agreement that would generate 2 to 3 times more affordable units than the onsite component would traditional agreement. So this is one that was fun to work on and happy to support it. Great. Thank you. I have no further questions. All right. Thank you. Councilmember Ortega, Councilmember Flynn. Thank you, Madam President. Brandon, could you address a couple of points that I find a little confusing on Slide eight? There's a map of all the adult use overlays around the city. And then on map or map on slide nine, there's a reference to the Tex Center Architectural Control Committee. That looks like it's in conflict with the adult use overlay map. First of all, on the map, I'm kind of surprised to see a bunch of adult use overlays down in my neighborhood. I will address that at another hearing. But the entirety of what appears to be the tech center is covered with the red overlay, which is the adult use overlay. Yet on Slide nine, it says that the architectural control committee has protective covenants and then stresses relative to this site prohibits adult uses. So how do we have the adult use overlay over the text center? But they have an architectural control committee says you can't have them. Is that true? That's a great question and you are correct. Thank you. I ask only great questions. Thank you. Maybe would attorney Tom Ragan Eddie, be able to address that? How do we reconcile that? Because we have to have. You know, a certain. Acreage or acreage. To allow that. So how can we have the entire tech center with that use overlay? But we have a committee at the tech firm says we don't allow it. I don't know if Tom can. Maybe they can answer that. Councilor Flynn, I can answer that question if you'd like. You know, this is a it's a result of historic practice. The you know, the public regulation that the city enacts is wholly different than the private covenants that are. Applied by the developer. And have been applied by the developer, the. Tech center from the beginning. They control the private governance. You control the public regulation. And what the law says is the stricter controls. So where the city would permit adult amusements and activities and an overlay, if the covenants, the private covenants which are imposed by the tax center on their property, prohibit those. Then the law would enforce that regulation. Because of the stricter. Good time. It is that the city's point of view as well? Yeah. Thank you. Councilman Flynn. Good afternoon. Good evening. Members of Council, Neighborhood Services and city attorney. I do agree with Mr. Reagan that as far as enforcing the stricter regulations in this case, it would be up to the tech center to enforce those. You are correct as well, Councilman Flynn, in that we have to, as a city, provide reasonable alternatives of communication for for that type of speech. And at this point in time, there still exists you will one throughout portions of the city. Thank you. Speech. The adult. The adult uses her speech. What did I say? I guess that's true. It's. It's free speech. I, I just I'm not familiar with the how many words are actually spoken in those establishments, but. Thank you, Brandon. Other requirements and maybe Tom. Mr. Magneti, you could address this also under requirements in the architectural control committee beyond the ones that we've addressed in the presentation that might have an impact on this rezoning. Also a good question. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. Mr. Haggerty or somebody else on the applicant team is better aware of other protective covenants other than the city might have on this property that I didn't look at for the zoning section, perhaps. Okay. And Brandon, I noticed I noted that there are two properties in this application and that one of them was the original rezoning or zoning was in 1978, I think, and the other was 1988. And in one of them in the presentation you said, Let me see if I can get to the right one, that one of the one of the waivers was waiving the amount of gross floor area to be greater not to be greater than two times the area of the zone lot, which implies that you could have a structure taller than two and a half storeys that's different than the one in 1978 that waived the gross floor area not greater than two times. But it also had a waiver of the right to erect structures in excess of two and a half storeys. So on the larger parcel, could there have been a taller structure because you have the the two times air, but with a smaller footprint you could go up four or five storeys. That's a good distinction. And you were correct. There could have been a structure. They were different waivers. Thank you. All right. It doesn't matter since we're getting rid of both of them, I imagine. But I appreciate it. Thank you, Madam President. That's all I have. All right. Thank you. Councilmember Flynn, did you want to hear from Mr. Reagan? If he if he had anything to add on whether there are other regulations of the architectural control committee that have implication or application to these two parcels? Okay, great. I know our producers had him in the queue. Councilman Flynn, I'm not aware of any. Thank you, madam. All right. Thank you, Mr. Reagan and Councilman Flynn, Councilmember Kenney. Thank you. Council President. I had a question for Brad Weinberg. First, I want to thank the team. I think we talked before you filed as you were exploring. If I recall correctly, that, you know, thinking about the site and housing options. I'm a little surprised to see the increased number of units at the lower a am I. That's unusual. And it tells me that they're unlikely to choose that option. And I see that it has a higher number of two bedrooms. So anyway, it's a higher standard and that's the opposite of what we usually do. So I just I'm trying to figure out is, is this kind of a red herring? It's in here to look like maybe we'll do 60, but we really won't because why would you do a higher percentage at a lower AMI with more two bedrooms? It's just it's an unusual option. On the surface. Councilwoman, I would agree with you again, Brad Winick with the Department of Housing Stability. Both of the stand alone onsite and the offsite options would require the support of low income housing tax credits through traffic through Chaput. So we wanted to support them in creating a life tech opportunity in these neighborhoods, if they could. We need the first option as a fallback plan in case they are unable to achieve an allocation of of taxes and bonds or low income housing tax credits to support those options. We went right to my next question, which was they're also unusual percentages without particularly see without a subsidy. And so how does it you know, I guess I'm a little again, tax credit projects would be a much higher percentage of units. Right? They would probably be 100% affordable, maybe not all at this exact, am I? But we don't do a lot of you can't tax credit one fifth of a building or one third of a building, in my experience, maybe some 4% crazy thing. But anyway, it's. They're. They. Again. Why wouldn't we just say try for a tax credit project on site with a minimum of 50 units or try for a tax credit project offsite? And if those are unsuccessful, then move to the fallback. Why make them such small percentages? Because the tax credit project would not be 12 percentage of units. I guess we could have gone about the that that way. But the percentage is relates to the number of market rate units on the subject property. And so if they end up building 500 unrestricted market rate units on the property, they're in the process of trying to rezone. They would need to come up with if it was 20%, 100 units offsite. So they wanted to allow themselves some flexibility in terms of the size and scale of the offsite development. Depending on the parcel, they were able to identify the the low tech program for which they would apply. That might be the best fit. Got you. Okay. So I misreading the slide. I want to say it back to you. It's not a standalone option where 12% of the units in the building are affordable. It's a standalone option that represents 12% of the units on the site. Correct. The slide does not communicate that, but that. Just because all this went into one slide. Brandon. Right. Right. I know. I know. You guys get your less real estate. Okay. That clarifies for me. The other question I want to ask is, what does the agreement say about what skin in the game comes from developers? So this is all about the idea that, you know, it's a way of exchanging height for affordability. I mean, that's the fancy way that these agreements work, right? So you're getting some additional entitlement, you're doing some affordable, but generally speaking, you're doing that without subsidy. If you go with option two or three, you've got, you know, federal tax credit subsidy, potentially gap money from the city. What's the equity in terms of the developer? Does it limit the gap financing from the city? Does it require the land to be provided to the project for free? How is it that we're not completely taking the obligation off of the developer and moving it to the public side if we go with option two or three? So with either of the options two or three, if they were to also accept funding from host for a gap financing, we have the right to negotiate for more and deeper affordability as part of that development. But if otherwise, if they're able to proceed successfully with a Chapa ward, we're we're okay with the outcome because the outcome produces an order of magnitude but 2 to 3 times more affordable units at a deeper affordability and what we would be able to negotiate via an integrated option on site. And so and we also are requiring that in order for them to pursue those options, they have to, for example, the off site option. They have to show evidence that they own a parcel that is sufficient to meet the needs and record a covenant against it before they're able to pull permit on the the subject property we're discussing this evening. Yeah. And I think that's tricky. Very few projects are able to satisfy the city attorney's offices timeline requirements. So I, I support creative solutions and off site, we did this at the Globeville area, you know, with, with the recent agreement there. And in that case, they avoided that issue by just doing a transfer of cash so they didn't have to time all of the transactions properly. Let me share my concern with you, and then you can tell me again what the agreement says, because I'm not sure if the agreement addresses my concern. My concern is the city of Denver get something like maybe 3 to 5 tax credit allocations a year period. We probably have a dozen projects that could use them, which means that when you get it. So I want two things. When I'm looking at an affordable housing agreement on a big redevelopment site, the first thing I'm looking at is, is the city getting mixed income community, right? Is there a mix of housing happening at the site or is it all just, you know, upper income? And and so any housing on the site, no matter who pays for it, no matter how it happens, is, is is achieving that mixed income goal. The second thing I'm looking for is that I want to see a net additional number of units than I would have seen otherwise. Right. I want to grow the pie of housing if I just move a tax credit project from some other half acre site with the developer who's applied it and instead I move it here. The city is not actually getting more affordable use units because we only have 3 to 5 tax credit projects. So I can move the pieces around the board, but I'm not actually getting more units. So here's my concern. I have never supported an agreement that gave a development credit for a tax credit projects unless there was a way that their actual contribution ensured that the city was getting more units than we would have gotten overall, i.e. the land is free. They don't get any gap financing. Somehow they are paying for that housing in the same way that they would have if they did an option. A for example, if they do option A, the development is subsidizing housing, right? It's doing it through, you know, spreading the cost throughout your entire proforma. If you do option B and C and you're simply financing it with tax credits, and if you come to the city for get financing, but even if you don't, let's say you're just using all public sources, but you've. Charged. An affordable developer or a different LLC within your company for the land, you know what I'm saying? So I guess you've got to share with me, Brad, how does the agreement ensure that this development is subsidizing the cost of B or C to the tune where I'm not just moving a project that might have been elsewhere onto this site and the city's not actually growing the net supply of housing. Our team too. And then if the team from Shea wants to to year for them as well but. In order that the B or C would not happen, you know, but for it. Right. I mean, so it's it's again, I think given that the need and the lack of affordable housing in this area, normally I want the same. You want council woman. I want mixed income opportunities throughout the city. That's why we're working on the city wide policies we're working on. But in this case and in this location, there are so few deeply affordable units and yet so many offices and retail establishments that employ and pay salaries that for for folks who would qualify to live in more deeply affordable units. We're getting 2 to 3 times the number of units via A, B and C and at a meaningfully lower level of am I right in terms of what the tax credit program can provide versus what can reasonably be integrated into a market rate development. And so that's why we're willing to. To negotiate this off site agreement opportunities and options for this development, and also because they have a track record of successfully developed developing properties. And so they have a like a better or higher likelihood of being successful in the Tampa process, given their experience. Would you guys like to speak to it? And then I'll just I'll ask you a follow up question, Brad. So don't go far, but happy to hear if you have something that I mean. Maybe clarify how we've been doing our other deals. And that has been we've been either acquiring or contributing the land so that that's how we've been putting these deals together. And the second part is that we've been trying to do more scalable projects. It allows the staffing to be more cost effective. You can staff it more appropriately. And so the genesis was maybe bigger than it sounds, but it was it was our intent would be to go and buy a piece of ground and contribute it and make it happen that way. When you say contribute, you mean provide at no cost. Right. Okay. Brad, does the go ahead? Well, a lot of the time we've been putting it in as a tail subordinate bond so that if there is any cash flow, we can we can get a little benefit. But that's the intent. Got it. So I just want to clarify, Brad, does the agreement require that? It does not speak directly to that now. So and I just want to ask really very clearly if this development. Got 100% subsidy for 60% of my units and option two or three. And they didn't provide free land, but they got money from chaff. They got money from the state. And our agreement would allow them to get credit even without any cash contribution or land contribution to the project. Yes. That's problematic for me. I appreciate your intent. Our agreement should reflect that. It should reflect the fact that this is. You know, I had the same conversation Councilman Flynn may remember with Loretto Heights when that was being negotiated. It's not enough to say that we're supportive of a tax credit project happening, and we'll introduce the people who own the land to the people who are going to buy the land. And then it all happens. You know, this is about the development participating. And so it concerns me that we didn't negotiate that that that level of protection from the entire project being publicly subsidized. That's that's what concerns me. I'm very hearing. You very clearly about the benefit of having a tax credit project in this part of town. So I'm willing to think about it for a minute. But I just this isn't you know, that's not what other other developments that are negotiating agreements with the city, generally speaking, are covering the cost of the housing. They're not just going to the public sector for the same am-I. If you said to me they can only get credit if they do additional lower emissions than I'd be with you. But you're telling me they could completely publicly subsidize this? Am I? And that's the part that I'm struggling with. So I'll let it sit there. I'll consider the other criteria that, you know, have been discussed in terms of the plan, criteria, etc.. But I'm struggling a little bit. Thanks. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Councilmember Canete. Councilmember Ortega read a little bit more. Don't go too far, Brad. Know. So what is host's expectation in terms of the timing of when the affordable units get built versus when the project that's before us tonight gets to move forward? Sure. So as I mentioned, again, red wine and Department of Housing Stability, as I mentioned earlier. Right. They they need to evidence that they have ownership and record a restriction against an off site property before they were able to proceed with the development on this property. And then if they are unsuccessful in delivering or starting the start of the development process for the affordable units within three years of starting here, then it reverts back to onsite integrated option one and they would have to immediately record a covenant on the 81 one and neighboring property and then work to integrate the onsite affordability into that so that if either through no fault of their own or some other externality, they're unable to get tax credits or bonds to finance it. Then we still have the ability to ensure that there is affordability as part of this development. What's the trigger for when the three year starts? Is it within three years from when the project is completed? Is it three years from when this process tonight happens? I believe I believe it is from permitting for the for the first phase at the subject property. But I have the agreement on my computer and can come back up if I'm wrong. Okay. And then one last question for the developer. Is this intended to be a for sale project or a rental project? It's it's all rental. Rental market. Rate, rental. Market rate rental. Okay. Well, it's going to be a mixed use, so there'll be retail, uh, multifamily and then office. Right. Okay. So I guess part of my question or concern is that if, if it gets all leased up and it gets built before the affordable is ah. Done, you know. It's like when we did Stapleton, we made sure that the Affordable Is were tied to as development was occurring so that we didn't push it all back to the end and never see it get done. And so that's part of why I'm wanting to make sure we have some clear understanding of when when this affordability of housing comes online so that it's not something that never happens. We would write the leases on the market rate with the provision to allow for this. We wouldn't want to be caught by not being able to fulfill the affordable portion of the agreement. So you're saying you would reserve some units within yours if the if trying to do this off site does not work out? Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. Okay. I just want to briefly. Fahad, you want to finish off? We knew we weren't going to be able to fulfill options two and three. We would reserve the units within the homes, within the market rate development. And what what's going to determine whether you will know that is that whether somebody is able to secure the low income tax credits, because we know that's critical to a project being able to write down the cost to provide it at a lower EMI level. I think it's a mixture of things. I think it's bond allocation, it's tax credits, and it's also securing the right piece of ground to do it on with the right approvals. So there's a bunch of moving parts. We have done a number of these. And in is that timing spelled out in the agreement? It is, councilwoman. So for the offside they would have to construct and market all of the income restricted units within three years of the issuance of the first certificate of occupancy for a residence, a residential building on this property. But keep in mind too, so if within three years are unsuccessful, one, they have to integrate back to the onsite integrated option upon lease renewals within their property. Right. And so as leases turn, they would have to kind of revert to the 10% and 80% requirement on site and there would still be a property granted underneath their control, but it would have a recorded covenant against it that would require affordable housing on the offsite location. And so even though that the timing may not work out perfectly in that instance, we're getting some on site and we still have another property that has a recorded a covenant against that to ensure affordability also in the future . So just to be clear, Brad. The Certificate of occupancy on. You said. Within the first round of the certificate of occupancy. For the first residential building on this. That was my point. So it could not apply to the commercial. It's only the housing. Piece that the commercial components will be. We'll pay linkage fee. Got it. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Brad. And thank you, Councilwoman Ortega. Councilmember Black. Thank you. I just have a couple of questions for one of our city attorneys, maybe Nate. Nate Lucero, I. I have a question. We're talking about the affordable housing agreement. And can you just remind us, is that one of the things we should consider when we are evaluating the criteria for this rezoning? So I know that there are changes coming down the pike with respect to affordable housing. And and so moving forward is going to be required not only in the inclusionary housing housing ordinance or whatever we're going to call that from now on and part of zoning. But right now, affordable housing is something that is separate from from zoning, and it's not necessarily part of. The review. Criteria. However, we do have statements in our plans, our comprehensive plan blueprint Denver that that ask that developers in the city consider affordable housing when rezoning. Okay. Thank you. And then, Peter, I have a question for you. The property you're hoping to purchase, Brad mentioned it needed to be in that statistical neighborhood or the south, more statistical neighborhood, which are both in the Denver Tech Center. So I just wanted to clarify that those were the neighborhoods. And have you all started looking at possible properties in those areas? Yes. We're obviously very familiar with all the properties that are available so that we have actually had preliminary conversations. But pending tonight's outcome, we we have not taken it beyond that. Okay. And can you tell people on the council who may not be familiar with this part of town, just sort of about the character of this part of town and the Denver Tech Center? And it's not it's not really a it's a it's more of a commercial suburban area and not a residential suburban area. I'll let you describe it. There's a lot of tall buildings and there's at the Bellevue Light Rail Station is there. That goes up to 20 stories. Yeah, basically, the north part of the tech center really started out as an office park. It was pretty much all office buildings. We've been guilty of developing some of those. Over time, it's morphed into a little more mixed use with more residential. But it's really predominantly a business park with with multifamily. There are some condos before we had construction defect litigation which got built. But it's, it's, it's a true mixed use business park in that sense. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Councilmember Black Councilmember Kinney. Thank you. You might have said this, Peter, in your presentation or prior, but are you all master developing and anticipate having separate vertical developers? Are you self developing? And just refresh me again on the size of the parcel and the scale that we're talking about in terms of the residential potential, I know that it's early and phased out all those caveats, but if you can just refresh me, please. Sure. It's 13.8 acres. Um, it currently we're thinking that it would be between. And I'm going to give a range 4 to 500 multifamily units. About 50,000 feet of kind of high end service retail and then an office building probably will round it out with another 100 to 120000 square feet. So I don't know if that answers the question where we are. We will be the developers of all of those portions. We actually develop all of those products and we hold for the long term. Typically, we don't sell, so we're taking a very long term view to how this is developed. We obviously buy and sell affordable as well. So I don't know if the answer to your question. Yeah, I think so. Brad, I have just one more question for you about the accompanying agreement, which I understand is separate. And we are not voting on the content of it today, but it is, of course, you know, connected to the equity criteria that the staff were analyzing. Does the agreement contemplate any freezing or committing on the linkage fees, or is it just that you will pay the applicable linkage fee at the moment that the commercial development is created. Is the latter. So they're not guaranteed at today's linkage fee rates, whatever the fee is when they build the commercial, is what they will pay. I don't believe something. It's not written into the agreement, but I'm trying to think through the. All right. If the agreement silent on it, then presumably they would pay whatever it is when they pulled the building permit. I think. Right. Building permit is the time for linkage fee. Okay. All right. Thank you. No other questions. Okay. All right. Thank you, Councilmember Canete. And thank you, Brad, for answering those questions. The public hearing has closed comments by members of Council on Council Bill 20 2-125. Councilmember Black. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you all for being down here tonight. Brandon, I did want to thank you for speaking really quickly during your presentation. We appreciate that. And I asked Peter about describing the character of this part of town. And it is a lot of office buildings and a lot of surface parking lots. And we are starting to see infill of housing, which is much needed. And it's an area that I said earlier is near the Bellevue Light Rail station and there's a lot of employment down there. And so it's much needed that this development that they're talking about is called Marina Landing, which is a very funny name for the Denver Tech Center that does not have a marina. Um, but I do remember when it was built, I was in high school and it was very cool. But if you look at it, it is one story. There is no density surrounded by parking. It's very car oriented and it is exactly what we don't want in Denver and we don't want in this part of town. And as Peter commented earlier, it will be mixed use and it's all uses that people were interested in. And when we had the public meeting with for the large development review, that's what we heard from people that they would like it to be mixed use. And one thing we did not hear from community members was opposition. There was no opposition whatsoever. Um, I will be supporting this. It meets all of the criteria. I think the affordable housing agreement is creative. I know that this developer has a very good reputation for doing what they say they're going to do, and they do have experience in building affordable housing. So I encourage my fellow council members to support this, and we will contribute to our overall housing stock in Denver, including adding housing units that are affordable. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Black Councilmember Kinney. Thank you. Council President, I appreciate the staff presentation and the the criteria that were laid out I to celebrate the I know Councilwoman Black has worked to bring more urban format and walkable development to the district. And I recognize that this represents all of that. I, I wouldn't be able to support this on the equity piece and the conformance with plans. Unless I knew that there was another vote coming from this council, if there was an affordable housing agreement. And I just want to explain what that means. This council gets to vote on all contracts over $500,000. I have not seen a tax credit project with 60% of my housing that didn't need that much or more money from the city of Denver to come together. And so what I think that means is that this council gets another vote. If we go with option, if this developer's able to identify land and put together a tax credit project, they will be coming before this council with a request for gap financing of some level. And at that point I will not vote for it. If the land wasn't free and if there wasn't adequate financial contribution from this developer, it may come when I'm off this council. So I say this to my colleagues. I do not support any financing for a tax credit project if the commitments made today are not brought forward. So that, I think, is the chance we have to correct what was not fully negotiated in the agreement, simply because I think that's how the economics will work. Right. If you're able to do a 60% my tax credit project with no gap money from the city, well, then with and with none of your own money, I guess you'll be creative enough that I'll just congratulate you. If the state puts in that much money or some other entity puts in that much money and you don't need our money. So I feel like what we have is a backstop to make sure that the adequate amount of investment from the project is part of making it happen . And so I hear the point and especially, you know, given the the dearth of of this housing in this part of town, I feel like I'm weighing the risk of, you know, the financial exposure question versus the benefit of getting a tax credit project in this part of town. And it seems worth it to me. So. So with that, I feel like I'm comfortable that the plan criteria of, you know, getting to the equity outcomes and ensuring a mix of housing is is met. And I'll ask everyone to keep an eye on it with me, if you wouldn't mind. That's just my plea to my colleagues, but I will be supporting it based on those criteria. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Each and I'll go ahead and chime in. Since we don't have any other speakers, I appreciate Brandon and Brad for their answers tonight. I'm constantly asking Brad, why do we get all of the affordable housing in D11 and different communities? And we don't see it around the city. And so I appreciate the work that's been done on this and definitely take that cautionary tale. Councilwoman can reach that. We need to keep close eyes on this and make sure we get everything that has been proposed and more if possible, when the time is right. And so I will be happy to support this tonight as well. Madam Secretary, roll call on Council Bill 20 2-1, two, five, please. Black I. Clarke. I. Flynn. I. Herndon, i. Cashman. Kenny Ortega, I. Sandoval. Hi. Sawyer, I. Torres. Hi, Madam President. Hi. Madam Secretary. Please close the voting and announce the results. 11 911 IES Council Bill 20 2-125 has passed. Thank you to the speakers and the staff for the presentation. Our pre adjournment announcement on Monday, April 11th Council will hold a required public hearing on Council Bill 22, Dash 209 changing the zoning classification for 3455 North Birch Street