A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 1245 Quince Street in East Colfax. Approves an official map amendment to rezone property from E-SU-Dx to E-SU-D1x (allows an accessory dwelling unit), located at 1245 Quince Street in Council District 5. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 5-14-19. Community Planning and Development has determined that the requirement for a legal protest (signatures by the owners of 20 percent or more either of the area of the lots included in the proposed change or of the total land area within 200 feet from the perimeter of the area proposed for change) has been met (petition signatures represent 0% and 21.6%, respectively).
Nice 11 nice. Comfortable 494 has passed. Councilwoman Gilmore, would you please for accountable 447 on the floor? Yes, President Clarke, I move the council bill 447 be placed upon final consideration and do pass. It has been moved and seconded and the public hearing for Constable four, four, seven is open. May we have the staff report? Just cleaning it up. All right. I'm Alice, Stevie. And this is a proposed rezoning for 1245 Queen Street. We are in Council District five in the East Colfax neighborhood. The subject property is a little over 7000 square feet, and the proposed rezoning is from the current Eastside X to Eastside one x. So the difference being that the proposed district allows an accessory dwelling unit, including the detached accessory dwelling unit building form, the subject property and surrounding properties in all directions are Eastside X transitioning to Main Street zoning along Colfax to the north, and similarly the site and surrounding properties are single unit residential land use with a few public , quasi public and higher intensity residential uses in the area. So the subject properties on the bottom left and some surrounding residential buildings are shown on the right. So Planning Board recommended approval of this rezoning. On May 1st, KPD received a statement of support from the East Colfax Neighborhood Association. As of the time of the staff report, we also received 18 letters or emails and support two in our position and one comment that was neither in support or opposition. The support letters included 14 forms circulated by the applicant, returned by neighbors to indicate their support. And then we. A protest petition was submitted for this case with valid signatures of the owners of just over 20% of the area within 200 feet of the subject property. So for the rezoning criteria, we have four plans to consider in this area. The proposed rezoning is consistent with comprehensive plan 2040 and that it will enable increased development at a location where infrastructure, where infrastructure, including transit service, is already in place. Blueprint Denver mapped this area as the urban edge context. The requested ESU D1 X is consistent with the planned direction of predominantly residential areas that are generally single unit and two unit uses. The requested ESU D1 X is consistent with the future places mapping of this area of low residential, which is single into unit and accessory dwelling dwelling units are appropriate. So under the blueprint growth strategy areas including the subject property are expected to see 10% of job growth and 20% of housing growth by 2040. The additional accessory dwelling unit permitted by the proposed rezoning is consistent with that and additionally, blueprint includes a policy to diversify housing choice with the expansion of accessory dwelling units throughout all residential areas. One strategy that specifically references how this policy applies to rezoning is, quote, a citywide approach to enable it to use as preferred until a holistic approach is in place. Individual rezonings to enable adus in all residential areas, especially where proximate to transit are appropriate. Unless there is a neighborhood plan supporting a to use rezoning should be small an area in order to minimize impacts to the surrounding residential area. Housing and inclusive. Denver was adopted in 2018 and contains recommendations that are directly relevant to this rezoning. The plan recommends expanding the development of accessory dwelling units as they are as they incentivize affordable and mixed use housing. It also promotes development as a of aid to as a wealth building tool for low and moderate income homeowners. So the proposed MAP amendment to ESG one X is consistent with these recommendations. Finally, the East Montclair East Colfax Neighborhood Plan was adopted in 1994. This plan proposed rezoning. I'm sorry, this proposed rezoning is consistent with that plan, including vision statements around protecting residential character and promoting a mix of income levels in rental single family homes, and in policies like encouraging homeowners to add on additions and modernize single family homes. So staff found this rezoning is consistent with adopted plans. The proposed rezoning will result in uniform application of zoned district building form, use and design regulations, and it will further public health, safety and welfare through implementing adopted plans and facilitating increased housing density near a mix of uses and transit. Staff found that the proposed rezoning is justified through changed and changing conditions. The staff report details development and redevelopment to provide services and retail near the subject property and would be accessible from the additional residential unit that would be allowed by this rezoning. And additionally, the adoption of the blueprint update and housing an inclusive Denver include policies that specifically support this rezoning request. And finally, the context zoned district purpose and intent of Eastside one X are all appropriate for this particular location given the surrounding area and adopted plan guidance. So given the defining that all review criteria have been met, staff recommends approval of the proposed rezoning. Thank you. All right. Thank you. We have 16 individuals signed up to speak this evening. So I'm going to call the first five speakers if you could make your way to the front bench. And please remember to state your name for the record, your city of residence. And if you're comfortable, your address. And so first up, the first five, we have Steve Elkins, Allison Tawfik, Alan West, Dimitri Cervantes Ski and Amy Mattern. So Steve Elkins. Good evening, members of the Denver City Council. My name is Steve Elkins and I live at 1245 Quinn Street. I want to start by thanking my neighbors and neighboring property owners who have been on this journey with me. You didn't ask to come on this journey, but I appreciate you coming along anyway. I want to thank the East Colfax R.A., where we have strong leaders like Tim Roberts and Tom Fishing. I'm here tonight to celebrate that I'm a yimby and I mean that quite literally. I want to build an accessory dwelling unit to you in my backyard. When I saw our new citywide plans in draft form, I was excited about Denver taking the next steps to implement it to use as recommended by housing and inclusive Denver. I love my neighborhood and I'm excited about the opportunity to share it with other people who love it too. This idea for me started with a neighbor who was concerned I was going to tear my home down. I kept thinking, How do we save these great small homes on large lots? I had walked by 1188 Quint Street many times, which has had two small homes on one property since 1912. The property shows the concept of two small homes on one property has been in my neighborhood for over 100 years. Gentle density isn't new to Denver, except now for the first time, we have plans that have explicitly caught up with our desire for general density. I remember speaking to an overflow crowd at the January Jan R.A. meeting. I found neighbors who are hungry for a solution to combat a growing trend new, large, expensive homes in place, the small homes that are more affordable and in keeping with the character of our neighborhood. At the meeting, one neighbor was concerned about my outreach efforts. Her concern led me to send 40 letters to neighbors, property owners and tenants where I describe my project. How to contact me, how to contact staff. And if they chose to submit a support form in favor of my rezoning. Between my letters and staff book staff's inbox, my application received 18 statements of support. I learned of the owner of 1255 Quinn Streets opposition from Ms.. Stevie, who recommended mediation and not from the owner herself. I then reached out to a mediator who told me the owner declined mediation. This petition, the protest petition before you tonight was signed by a total of eight property owners. The petition got me thinking. After all my outreach efforts, no one in opposition has reached back out to discuss his or her opposition with me. A bedrock of Denver's rezoning process is outreach. However, for outreach to work, it requires people with questions or concerns to reach back. I have made myself as available as I can, but I don't really know how to move forward with opponents who can't communicate their opposition to me directly. I stand here tonight to request that you empower my neighborhood to take an active part in directing how growth will shape our lives. We need gentle density of our small homes to survive as we face increasing pressure for our homes to be replaced. I want to be able to say to that neighbor who is concerned that I would scrape my home, that we have solutions now to shape our neighborhoods growth instead of that growth shaping us. Thank you. Next up, Alison Tawfik. I'm Alison Tawfik. I live near East High School in Denver. I'm a proponent of increasing density. I think this is a great one of these great, huge lots. My next door neighbors had one of these great huge lots that was filled with alley cats and things like that. And now there are two little houses on it, too. Little duplex side by side because he owned the whole thing. What him what he could have done was scrape the whole thing off pit for a big fugly mansion on it with a pop up and go corner to corner. But this neighbor wants to just put in two little houses to match the little neighborhood that was there in 1912. I think it's a fantastic way to increase a little density, find a little add a little place for someone to one or two people to live, to add some housing to the area that will have it's right by transit. It's right by it's walkable, it's bikeable. All of the cars would be a moot issue because there's already plenty of cars. If you look on Google Street maps, you'll see plenty of room for car parking if that's ever an issue. But I think if you ended up scraping it and putting in a big McMansion with a five car garage, you'd have a much worse issue than if we have these two cute little houses. Thank you. Thank you. Ellen West. My name is Eleanor West and I live in Denver and I own 1255 Squint Street, which is immediately north of the property seeking to change. There are many reasons why I oppose the zoning change, but my focus on only two issues one the need to preserve the meaning of zoning codes. And two, the need to preserve affordable housing first, relating to the meaning of zoning codes. I purchased 1255 six years ago as a backup plan for old age should I become unable to maintain my current three storey townhome. I was drawn to the property because of the quiet nature of the street. Sturdy construction of the home, proximity to family members and the tree shaded backyard. The block and much of the surrounding area is zoned single family. It never entered my mind that someone could buy the home next door and get a zoning change to be able to build a second home, possibly larger than the original in the backyard next to mine. That's what could happen. It would permit another home that could be as large as a thousand square feet to be built on the property. I printed an aerial view to help you visualize the space. 1245 is the one with the red marker. The existing home and attached garage together are about 1000 square feet. Keep in mind that when building another dwelling, you need to keep five foot setbacks and maintain the driveway area to access the garage. Because of these current constraints, there would not be much rent yard remaining for two homes to share. Most likely, a peaceful enjoyment of my backyard and nearby homes would be compromised. Question Should one owner be able to obtain a change in zoning that will negatively impact surrounding neighbors and remain with the property forever? Second, preserving affordable, affordable housing, which is critical in Denver. If approved, the change would have a negative impact on affordable housing, albeit just one property. Homes on Queen Street, similar to 1245, have been selling for about 325,000, which is affordable and attractive to young families. If you add the cost of an accessory dwelling unit, which could easily be 150,000, it would remove the property from the affordable category and there's no insurance that the unit would be offered at a rental rate considered affordable because most likely there would be a construction loan to pay off. And most importantly, once zoning changes have been made, it sets a precedent, making it easier for others to follow suit and more homes could become unaffordable. Finally, the staff report recommending approval of a zoning recommendation raises much of the argument on consistent with consistency with adopted plans for the future development of Denver. To proceed with the future vision zoning code should be systematically changed. I doubt that the intent of the documents was to give license to individual property owners to obtain zoning changes one property at a time. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Dimitri Zorrilla. Fortney. Hi, City Council. My name is Dimitri Xavier. Right now I live at 1950 North Logan Street in Denver, and I just come here to say that I love to use and I'm pretty sure Denver loves to use as well. In fact, in Blueprint Denver. You know, that whole. Process was very much in favor and allowing a to use to be implemented across the city that's including attached and detached to use and across all neighborhoods in all residential zoned districts. Additionally, until neighborhood plans can be put in place, I believe the East Area plan is still in process. Blueprint called for individual rezonings to be allowed in all residential areas, especially where they're close to transit. Aside from that housing and inclusive Denver, which is Denver Council's adopted housing plan, it specifically recommends it to use to combat gentrification and displacement in neighborhoods such as East Colfax, which is a neighborhood that is pretty vulnerable to displacement. City Council has also approved these these rezonings in the past as well. I think additionally, the East Colfax Ana's is in favor. Finally, Denver has a history of allowing it to use, especially after World War Two. You know, we have a tradition of this and we have many neighborhoods in the past that have allowed this. But, you know, I do want to applaud the neighbors for coming out and engaging, you know, their civil duty. It's it's a wonderful thing. But I think their their fears are misplaced. I think, you know, if they say that they're going to ruin single. Family home neighborhoods. I think they're actually going to use they're going to save them. I think, you know, when Blueprint Denver calls for a single family member, it's absorbed 20% of Denver's population growth by 2040. This is one of the. Tools and this is one of the ways we can do it. You know, one of the great things about it to use is they put eyes on the alley. They they activate the alley in a way the garages just can't, you know, and lots like these, you know, we've seen lots of these be scraped all across the city and replaced with McMansions. I think this is an opportunity to save this property, to save this house, allow for more density, allow for more opportunity for people to live next to transit along corridors such as this. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up, Amy Mattern. Hello. My name is Amy Matter and I. Own a property. Directly. South of the property or the applicant here, and I can appreciate his efforts to add additional affordable housing to Denver, but I stand in opposition to the application. I don't think it'll add affordable housing and I'm a first time homeowner. I'm really, really grateful for this wonderful neighborhood allowed me to get on the property ladder. I am really fearful. That if they add an accessory dwelling. Unit, it'll make the property unaffordable for other first time homeowners that come behind me, because they'll be two units on or two dwellings on one property, therefore affecting the values of the property. I think it's important to make opportunities in the city for people to become first owners like myself. Also for Miss West, who is having a backup retirement plan, it offers wealth building for people. I think homeownership has also got to be a consideration in this neighborhood or my house was built over 70 years ago. It was built in my neighborhood for GIs coming back from World War Two. They had cute little houses with tons and tons of character. I do agree that scraping these houses would be a tragedy because they're such great little houses. They have great green spaces that add to our quality of life that we will not have if there's accessory dwelling units on there. I don't think it meets the criteria for public health, safety and general welfare of our neighborhood. It is right between two major arteries of traffic Colfax and Quebec. These arteries are running at or above capacity all the time. And although it's nice there's public transportation, it's likely that people are going to need a car to access the grocery store or retail as things stand right now. So you think the traffic will increase a lot, which is not good for the neighborhood or its welfare. Also, a lot of us use the alley to access our garages and having additional units on the alley is a potential safety hazard. I don't know because they're going to be reduced. Greenspace, perhaps small children living in those dwelling units are going to use the alley to play in and that kind of thing. So I think that is a concern as well. I'm a little concerned about the comparables that were used in this application. First of all, 1188 Queen Street was built over 100 years ago. There's two units and they're on a double lot. They're you know, they could probably be legally severed and have ample separate lot. So I don't think that's very comparable. The other comparables were also built prior to the zoning laws. And so I'm. Sorry, but your time is up. Okay. I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. I'm going to call the next five up to the front bench. Adam Astrof, Chairman Sekou, Kevin MATTHEWS, Jerry Saltzman and Jeffrey Baker and Adam Astrof, you are up. Hi. My name's Adam Astrof. I live in the Baker neighborhood in Denver, and I actually. I'm here to speak in favor of this project. I think that ADAS are probably the most important tool we have in our toolkit to provide the needed housing for the various populations that are moving to our city. And I wanted to talk about why I support this project based on the block I live on. We're also first time homeowners and we were only able to afford our property because it's a smaller lot. It's 2000 square feet next to us. There's an apartment building, two units down, there's an EDU, there is rental units, there are affordable rental units, there are expensive rental units. There is housing stock from $300000 to $1000000 all on my block. And I think that's the kind of flexibility that we really need to be looking for. And this is why, you know, you guys all approved it. You citywide with the Blueprint Denver plan. I think that these are very important because they allow us to preserve these existing small homes, you know, that have been built over the last hundred years in our city. They those allow us to maintain, you know, a unique neighborhood character. And there are so many ways you can use an Adu to make a home affordable. If you're a senior. And you're. Aging, you can move into the edu, you know, rent out your main house to cover your expenses, or you can have an in-home caregiver live there. If you're a young family starting out, you could use the rent payment that somebody would give you for the ADU to subsidize the cost of your child care with a live in nanny or just, you know, to subsidize the cost of your mortgage. You know, I. I wish we weren't here. Frankly, I don't think that a single project like this should come before our city council, let alone require the same vote as impeaching the mayor. But I hope that you all all choose to support this, ADU, so that we can make sure that Denver remains an accessible place for everyone. And I'll just add, as far as the alley concerns, you know, again, we have a lot more density in Baker and there's there's no issues with parking in the alley. And I don't believe there would be some from this project either. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Next up, Chairman Sekou. Yes. My name is Chen Masuku. Martial Arts and self-defense. Man, I don't know how you do this. Okay. The idea what is a use? We're a couple of things. One to. Help the housing stock. For folks who had jobs and had no house. And this land that was on these lots could be used to help build housing for folks who could afford it. The other idea was God came in from the church yesterday. Part of our mission is that we want to give poor people shelter. So we want to build one of these aid you so that we can take poor people off the street and put them in a unit so that they can get housing. And that was for the homeless. This is not a homeless activity here. It is going down. What are we talking about here? This is for folks who want to create wealth. Period. And I ain't got no problem that. As America does it. It's a matter. So folks who want to take what they got and make some money on that and do whatever they need to do, that would. That ain't none of my business. You do what you do. For folks who want to come and take poor people off the street and give them shelter in a blizzard so they don't lose their lives. Chairman, could you please. Speaking of my phone. You do that. That ain't none of my business. You got a choice to make, and you're going to have to live with decisions you make. I know ideas are not going to solve the problems of homeless people, period. It's not going to happen because you don't have those kind of folks in a large majority that have that kind of goodwill. This is America and it's all about money first so we can stop bullshitting up in here. Please watch your. Language. Let them do what you let other folks do and do this thing and our position on it. If you don't like this happening in your neighborhood, you have a choice. Move. You got the money. Move. And let these folks do what they do. Thank you. Next up, Kevin Mathews. I am Kevin MATTHEWS. I live at 1020 Madison Street in Congress Park. I want to share a quick personal story about ideas and the positive impact they can have. My father and stepmother live in Andover, Massachusetts, a suburb about 25 miles north of Boston. They have a Aidoo or a mother in law unit that they built in their early nineties. It's a one bedroom, one bath over their garage with a small living room and a full kitchen. Now, technically, these units are illegal, but at the time, they received a medical exemption from my grandmother, who had health issues. She lived there for about. Ten years. And died in early 2000. And since then, it's said vacant for about a decade, which leads to my stepbrother Mark and his wife, Pam. These are two of the millennials that you keep hearing about in the news who are $100,000 in debt each for advanced degrees and can't afford the expensive metro Boston housing market, which is even more expensive than the Denver market. So they pay now. They live they live there. It's not an ideal situation. My brother did not want to move back in with the parents, but it is a private unit. They pay a nominal rent and they live in a town that they could otherwise not afford and take advantage of the local communal line into Boston where they both work. My father told me that over the last few years they occasionally shared meals together when they need their privacy. They might not see Mark or Pam for a week or two. That is until about two years ago when they had their first. Daughter. And having doting grandparents nearby can act as childcare when needed. You can imagine how beneficial that is considering the cost of child care for my father and stepmother. On the one hand, this. Is also provided to be very beneficial. The house is very large and they my dad has just had his 82nd birthday. He's had heart issues for about. 15 years and. Has had a couple of surgeries. He can no longer take care of the home, and having that additional help has been an incredible benefit. What I want to point out is this arrangement has allowed my parents to age in place in their own home and without having to leave the community to which they have deep ties and friendships. Now, considering the benefits for both of these parties, I can't imagine why anybody would say that this arrangement should be illegal, but it apparently is. I talked to my dad this past weekend and he affectionately refers to this as snob zoning, especially for a town like Andover. There are also a couple of towns nearby. I just want to point out the town of Lawrence, Massachusetts, Lowell, Massachusetts, that have undergone a lot of development and a lot of gentrification over the past several years. And it's because of people who would like to live in towns like Andover. Who can no longer afford it. So it's not the development that's causing those towns to be developed. It's the lack of development in towns like Andover that is causing that gentrification. Help me support this project and so much. Thank you. Next up, Gerry Saltzman. My name is Jerry Saltzman. I live one block north of Steve Elkins at 1369 Quint Street. I have lived in the neighborhood for 21 years and I fully support Steve's proposal to build an 80 U. I don't think that people realize that our neighborhood already has several 80 youths in it. The carriage house and duplex across the street from my house has been there for over 100 years without any negative effects. 80 views are great for our neighborhood because they allow neighbor homeowners to care for elder family members while creating independent housing, provide affordable housing, improve neighborhood security by having more eyes on the street, and may also help keep the homeowner within their home by supplementing their income. When I attended the January East Colfax R.A. meeting, there was standing room only a near unanimous support for Steve's application because everyone was so excited about doing the same thing with their properties. Since City Council has already passed several policies that encourage affordable housing, let's move forward and enact those policies. Our neighborhood, as well as our city, is struggling to provide affordable housing. What more can Steve do to help solve the affordable housing crisis in our community? Then build an ADU. Even though it's very easy to let fear of the unknown or what if's prevent us from doing the right thing. I'm proud to support Steve's effort to help solve the affordable housing crisis because he's going to be adding one housing unit to Denver's rapidly declining housing stock. Since Steve's application devotes over 24 pages to detailing exactly how his 80, you will comply with every single term and condition of every single piece of legislation that affects the growth of our neighborhood. I don't see any reason to not support his proposal. Doesn't everyone here tonight prefer to see an edu in Steve's backyard as opposed to a gigantic two and a half storey home? Isn't an Adu much more in line with maintaining the character of our neighborhood? Thank you for letting me speak here tonight. Thank you. Next up is Jeffrey Baker and I invite Sarah Sander, half Tina Winston, Logan Meier, Tim Roberts and Leslie Talkhouse Gorski to the front row. Go ahead. Good evening, counsel Jeff Baker. 2422 Tampa Street. I'm not going to go long. I'm going to go real quick on this. A lot of people already mentioned this has been in Blueprint Denver. You guys know the benefits of this. So I'll just restated again. Multi-generational families, rental income, housing security, aging in place, nanny quarters keeps McMansions out. Denver needs us. Let's do the first rezoning with new blueprint. Denver tonight. Thanks. Thank you. Next up, Sarah Sanders. Hi, I'm Sarah Sanders. I live at. 1378 Raleigh Street. I live in an Adu and an affordable adu. It's a rental unit. That I rent from the owner and I'm here in support. Of Steve with his a this rezoning proposal. We have a huge affordability issue right now in Denver and we need to do everything we can to get more people into affordable housing. 80 uses one solution to this with the comprehensive plan and blueprint Denver being adopted. I encourage all of you to move forward with this rezoning. I think that there is some fear out there with some. Homeowners in the neighborhood. And the one thing that I can say living in an EDU is it does help to activate the alleys. There's I have a parking spot dedicated to me. And so there isn't any parking issues that we have to deal with. The idea that I'm living in so I think that there is some fear out there around. I encourage everybody who does have that fear to get out there and take a look at these ideas and really see that this is gentle density that our city needs to be moving forward. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up, Tina Winston. Good evening, council members. My name is Chris and I own a home in the Val Verde neighborhood. I'm currently thinking about adding an avenue to my property because my mom is aging in Philadelphia and I would like to move her out here with me. She's currently on a fixed income. She's unable to afford to continue to live in Philadelphia. And so as a family, we're trying to figure out what's the best thing to do for her currently. As we looked at pricing for assisted living or temporary kind of living arrangements for her, we realize that a nursing home with semi-private would be like 70 $400 a month and a private nursing home room would be like 80 $500 a month, which we cannot afford. So we're thinking about, hey, maybe we'll like put her out in the back of his. House kind of thing. So I met Steve Elkins when in Utah a couple weeks ago, was the first time I ventured out into this avenue of interest. And I support his idea. Basically, I support it because it would actually benefit me and my family as we move further down the road in this process as my mom ages. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Logan Meyer. Exactly today. To answer that one, I was curious how economically productive it is. Turns out East Colfax of 116 neighborhoods is 23rd from the bottom or 93rd overall. Where a neighborhood needs to produce a dollar six per square foot of residential land to pay for its own infrastructure. East Colfax only produces $0.23 per square foot of residential land in property tax. Lastly, maybe Colfax is just meant to be single family. But then I checked and only 56% of housing units are single family in the East Colfax neighborhood. So a neighborhood that can't pay for its own infrastructure in a city with an affordable housing crisis, in an area that has lots of multi-unit development. We are requiring city council approval to build one housing unit in the backyard of a local owner. No wonder young people and old people alike are struggling to find affordable housing in the city. Thanks. Thank you. Next up, Tim Roberts. Thank you. My name's Tim Roberts. I live in Denver and own a business at 7935 East 14th Avenue in the East Colfax neighborhood, where I'm the president of the Registered Neighborhood Association. We had a widely publicized well attended by some 50 people, a diverse neighborhood meeting on this rezoning on January 15th, 2019. The issue was in many ways really fully aired. And we then had a vote that unanimous that was unanimously in favor of the rezoning. We continue as a neighborhood to support Mr. Elkins and the engaged, thorough and considerate way he's brought this project forward in too many ways to cover here. He seems to have provided us with an on the ground model for how to use can work, and I think many people are grateful. One thing I want to say about the East Colfax neighborhood is that we are fighting to maintain as much affordability as we can. We were heartened by the recent announcement of two new affordable housing developments along East Colfax Avenue, but we know we still have far to go. It's been stated that we have as much as 70%, a clear majority of our population of about 12,000 people who fall into the category of vulnerable to displacement, with well over 30% of people listed in the category of in poverty in our neighborhood. Property valuations recently bounced up in our area by over 30%. This on top of a very similar severe increase in the last evaluation cycle. The resulting property tax increases are expected to potentially be the last straw for many of our residents. Either through direct tax or increased rents. We are. Losing people. We also recognize that addus and the considerable resources that they take to build are not a fix for what can probably be called an affordability crisis in East Colfax. We need as many as 1400 0 to 30% MRI units to, in fact, not just mitigate, but to prevent displacement. I feel like many realize that while the neighborhood was constructed primarily as single family homes, the growing density of Denver has simply overtaken it. So that to fight for the completely intact preservation of this particular built environment becomes increasingly untenable for a whole range of reasons. That said, on a daily basis, you can see people of East Colfax embracing the kind of openness and diversity I'm talking about. We're excited. To see equity taking root. Around us, and we'll continue to applaud Mr. Elkins and others like him for their work and willingness to invest some. Certainty in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Leslie Torrijos key. Thank you. I'll be brief because it's late. My name is. Leslie Terry Gaskin. I live at 1754 Olive Street. It's within a mile of of the adu that has been applied for. I'm here to speak in strong support of Mr. Elkins application. As Jerry noted, there's many adus already existing in our neighborhood. I think this would fit very well, and I hope to have one as well in the future. So thank you. And before I go, I want to say thank you, Councilwoman Sussman. Councilman Espinosa and Councilman Brooks, for all you've done over the last 4 to 8 years. And I look forward to working with you all in the future. Thanks. Thank you. Next up, Jesse Pierce. They're certainly not loose. Jesse Pierce representing for Denver Homicide. Low Black Star. It's a moment for self defense and positive for social change. And I was on top of the ballot for our lives this past May 2019 election. Almost got 15,000 votes with no money. We are in favor of this. As I stated previously, I support attainable means of housing in the city while we're dealing with a housing crisis. So that includes 80 youth along with tiny home villages, encampments and etc.. So yeah, I approve this. I'm in favor of this. So yeah, I already know you're going to approve this. And we saw the criteria and it's a step in the right direction. We can do much better, though. So since we can do better, let's do better. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes our speakers. Are there any questions from members of Council on this item? Councilman Espinosa. A question for the applicant or maybe actually staff, actually. Now either one. What is the size of the zone lot? And then given it was mentioned that the existing structure is a thousand square foot footprint. Given that size relative to the lot, how big of a of a footprint would be the maximum for an ADU on that parcel? All right, the. Thing. About this. Uh, the zone lot is it's about 7320 square feet for a lot of that size, the maximum to use detached to you building form would be up to 1000 feet. And I am not sure myself about the existing foot footprint. And so what would if that 4000 would be allowed with the maximum lot coverage? But I believe that it would. I don't know if the applicant. Not so, Councilman Espinosa. My current house is 719 square feet. There is approximately a 300 square foot attached garage. By the code, a thousand square feet is allowed. However, then we get into setbacks. Then we get into the fact that I still would like to have a yard. Then we get into the fact of I have a driveway at the south of my property, which I'm not interested in getting rid of. So all of these factors start whittling down that 1000 square foot footprint pretty quickly. And then what is. Is this. Sorry, I could have looked it up, but I didn't. Is this one of those? Is the decks one. One of those in districts where the bulk gets relaxed on the edu. When you have an attached, I mean, a detached accessory structure. The rear and the rear 35%. I'm not sure what you mean exactly by the book. Relax, but I do have the book plane. Okay, I'm here. So for the SD one X, the bulk plane vertical height is ten feet and the slope is 45 degrees. Even for an accessory structure, yes. That is for the detached accessory dwelling unit building form. Great. Thank you. No further. Thank you. Councilman Espinosa. Councilman Flynn. Thanks, Mr. President. Hello. Could you clarify for me the issue of the legal protest? The staff report attachments say that there was it has a map and it has 46,000 square feet out of whatever it is. It's about 21% just over the threshold yet in your report. There's also an email to I believe it's to you. And there is a an email earlier from the person who lives at one of those properties that is listed as contributing to the 20% stating that she is not in opposition. What is so is this a legal protest or not. So that the the the properties are showing up in green did have valid signatures for those properties. I was not involved in the signature gathering that is purely done by a member of the public. We just provide the information for it. So I'm not sure what conversations went on. What if there is a change of opinion? We do sometimes get people who have sent the case manager a letter in support and then they later reply and say, Actually, I'm in opposition or the other way. I didn't hear back from anybody. So I didn't like change the tallies because no one reached out to me. So I'm not really sure what that discrepancy was around. Okay, Mr. Brown, I just wanted the record to note that one of the properties listed as contributing to the 20%. There are two pieces of correspondence in the record that state they are not opposed. So I'm a little bit confused about that. I'm sorry. The owner, Mr. Elkins. Okay? Yes, Councilman. Thank you. You have a an attached garage and you access it from the alley. Correct. You have a long driveway off the alley. A very long driveway. Okay. So your garage doors in the back of the house. It is. It's interesting because I've seen this pattern. I'm looking at on the map here as. I've seen other houses. There's a Tudor house on the north side of Colfax where it's the same. So if you look at my house from Quint Street, it appears to be a white ranch home. And the one across the alley from you as well. When and actually I know how long that driveway is because I've shoveled it out a few times this past winter. Okay. So what you're saying is that with it, with the setbacks and with your desire to maintain that driveway, to access your garage, have you looked into what what the footprint of your ADU would be? I have it. You know, there's also been a conversation with the neighbor whom, as Steve said, neither was opposed or supported, where she and I engaged over a few emails where she considered asking me to consider and attached to you. So I have considered converting the attached garage into an idea which would further limits its impacts. Okay. And then maybe put a garage back toward the alley for yourself? Maybe. But I'm much more about housing people than cars. Mm hmm. Okay. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Flynn and Councilwoman Sussman. Thank you very much. Mr. President, I wanted to follow up on, though, on Councilman Flynn's questions about the legal protest. And this is directly related perhaps to this particular issue. But it is something that, as I leave the council, is something that I wish that we would maybe look into it more carefully. So we take this particular situation. The legal protests requires not 20% of the landowners around a property, but. Owners of 20% of the land. That's correct. And that's a very, very important distinction. It's the owners of 20% of the land, so that the more land you own, the more your vote means. In this particular situation, how many votes, how many signatures would have been needed to get a legal protest. Given this normal lot? So, so so this legal protest, just it needed every property that was included, but it included three that were only partially within the zone law. So I apologize. I cannot do math in my head after 10 p.m., but I believe it would probably be more like six if they were all within. That would be kind of the minimum number of people. Yes. That that might have gotten you over that threshold. That's exactly right. As I was calculating that to get a legal protest in this case would only require six votes. How many votes did they get? There were the property, the owners of eight properties, and two of them had two owners listed. So it was a total of ten people who signed the petition, including. Who were it was sort of a nebulous about what their vote was. Right. I won't weigh in on their final opinion, but there there was some there was there were some people who had voiced opinions seemingly in both directions. That's right. Okay. So it's not directly related to some, you know, something that you know about ADOS, but it is something that I would exhort my fellow council people to take a look at in the future about what illegal protest means and what it means to one person, one vote. Think, Oh, wait, I had another question. The Ms.. West, can I ask can I ask you a question. Is last one. You said that you had bought your home in anticipation of retirement. Do you live there? Is this directly north of hit this home? Right. It's directly north. I do not live there now, actually. My granddaughter lives there now. She's custodian of it as she's taken good care. Okay. So she rents rented from you? Yes, she does. Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. Councilwoman Sussman, Councilman Espinosa. Sort of a question for Councilman Flynn. I didn't go through those attachments enough to see. Do you know if the letters that are from the person that lives there is from the property owner? Yeah. Okay, that's that was it. Because if we're clarifying for the record, I want to make that distinction because it's the property owner that has the say in the legal protest, not necessarily the person that lives there. So thank you. Thank you, Councilman Espinosa. All right. Seeing no other questions. The public hearing for Council Bill 19 20447 is closed. Comments by members of Council. Councilwoman Sussman. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank everybody for staying so long before this, for this particular item and to what I what I thought was a very interesting council meeting. But I don't know if you all felt the same way. I particularly want to thank the neighbors that live in East Colfax, and particularly Tim Roberts, the R.A. president, and how much he has done for the neighborhood as as previous presidents have, too. I was at that meeting that he spoke about when there were about 50 people. The East Colfax Neighborhood Association has a meeting every month. So unlike most of our neighborhoods every month, and they get 30, 40 and 50 people every time. So it's a very engaged neighborhood. And they thanks to Steve, they were all, you know, very familiar with your project. You did a great deal of outreach to the neighbors and it was an overwhelming support for the you. And I think it just meets a lot of the criteria that are found in the new blueprint, Denver and the comprehensive plan and the neighborhood area. So I'm going to be in support of this and urge my fellow council people to do so as well. Thank you, Councilwoman Sussman. Councilman Brooks. Thank you, Mr. President. And Dr. Sussman, it's lovely to follow you one last time on this rezoning. And I just Mr. Elkins, I just want to apologize to you on the city's behalf. The fact that we spent three years to talk about the importance of aid use, the fact that I just worked on 80 or 80, used for an affordable housing component for folks displaced for I-70. We do this in all of our neighborhoods. And that's you spent 4 to 6 months to go through a rezoning process. Did you get to do them at the same time to put your permits in, or do you still have to go through permitting? Okay. So he's going to have another probably 3 to 4 months before one person can live in that space. And, you know, we talk a lot about affordable housing. We talk a lot about the importance of making sure people can afford to live in the city of Denver. But we have archaic permitting processes to get us there. And so, you know, I'm sorry, I apologize for that because we're not really serious as a city. We're serious when we start expediting processes for affordable housing. We're serious as a city. When we start saying, hey, we've implemented this plan and now we're going to give incentives to build a use. We're going to waive tap fees, we're going to do these things. And you have to now make sure that you have these 80 issues at 80%, 60%, 40% am I to live there? Their deed restricted because that's what we did in Swansea. And so that's where I'm at. I'll be supporting this because it meets the criteria because we spent three years talking about this. I know that everybody doesn't love it, but I got a chance to move into the whole neighborhood in 2012. Actually, I moved there in 2008, but in 2012 about another house there and I bought it for $290,000. That's amazing. Now. If I moved into that house, you can't buy a house there for $200,000 now. If I said to everyone, I hope everyone gets to move into this house, this neighborhood, because it's quaint. It's amazing. My kids are growing up there for $280,000, but I say no one can reason, no one can. All these infill projects, no one can have in any of those. There are affordable housing folks, projects that are 0% AMI and they're going to be homeless folks living there. They can't live next to me. No, you can have the tiny home village over here next to me. I have created a wall. I have created a gated community. That's not who we are, y'all. That's why I'm supporting this project. And that's why, even after eight years, I'm more emboldened to create this city that we all dream of. So I'll be supporting this. I'm sorry, Mr. Elkins. We're going well. They're going to get better at improving processes. And I'm sorry. City of Denver. We're going to get better at telling people what we really believe. That we really do want to create an inclusive Denver. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Espinosa. I'm sorry and I'm not sorry. A little over three years ago, I sat down with our legal counsel and asked him to draft a an ordinance that would allow would legalize Adu citywide the way people had been asking. So that, in theory, would help you. But the the way I was justifying that was I was actually asking that the property owners within 20 feet essentially had veto. Right. Meaning that you would go in, you would you would have legal right to do to you. You would bring your permit drawings in and you would have to post. Sort of like we do with a zipline or something like that. And that's when your neighbors could opine and you would lose. If they vetoed you, then you'd lose the right for three years to sort of come back. But the idea being that then you could actually know that and have that conversation with those property owners that are most directly impacted about siting. And if you're going to be a humble developer and we're conscious of that, you could probably be through that process or not, depending on how amicable your neighbors are. So hopefully it would have worked out for you and this would have never have happened and we could move on. And I am articulating that now. So maybe the city can still consider that. I do have the language that I gave the city attorney back then. If anyone wants to see it that said, the I do want to give a little bit of an admonition to the yimby folks. The Blueprint Denver process did not legalize this or say this happens everywhere, period. It says that it should be considered as part of a citywide process. These one office buildings are here for a reason because we have not gone and embarked on that citywide process. And so this is not carte blanche or legal license to do this everywhere, even though I have yet to see us deny an ADU, you know, a zoning request, that is essentially for the specific purpose of of to use. It does bother me that we're using that language in the new adopted plans that is intended to support that citywide process to then support these these one off rezonings. That's because it does create this air of. Is there any what are the conditions where it's inappropriate. And until we hear from those communities that truly have a need or desire to not have to use for whatever reason, it makes all communities vulnerable. That said, I prior to my tenure on council, I was a member of the Board of Adjustment and I was probably consistently the one member of the board that always allowed illegal adus. I mean, I supported them to exist and I said it before and I won't go into my family history, but that the stories that were articulated here were very much part of my community when I grew up. Having these units is is important to a healthy city. That said, it's not I'm not going to use my personal bias to make the render the opinion, but it is because I'm going to say also there was a lot of talk about Ali Al activation as a member of council. I can tell you that an ADU has been a big problem in one of my neighborhoods. Why? Because there's a lot of ali activation, but it's from the drug dealing that goes on out of that. ADU And so it happens to be the son of the mother who lives in the primary structure, who then has a criminal record, lives in the back and and does his dealings. And he's been twice busted, but he's released and he goes back to his old ways. The property is poorly maintained and it is a criminal. It attracts other criminal elements. So while we have all these nice anecdotal stories of how wonderful all these things are, they can be nodes for a different kind of attention because there aren't a lot of eyes on that, Ali. So. I just. I just want to know that, you know, when when that isn't always hunky dory, we aren't always going to get the outcomes. But this is an area east Colfax is an area that has struggled to activate and we are investing in major redevelopment and efforts along East Colfax. And the key, just like it's been key in northwest Denver, is having density of population in order to support a more robust urban fabric. If we want to see reactivation of East Colfax and you're in your commercial corridors, you have to have more people with more disposable income. And there are two ways to doing that, you know, granularly like this or with massive redevelopment like you've seen in other places. And so we have to pick our poison and you could say, no, we don't. But this, you know, our plans do call for this area to capture up to 10% of new growth. And this is one way, but I hope that as part of a citywide process, we don't create carte blanche. The conditions where once again, areas like this remain depressed because we create we create these redevelopment opportunities in areas where people want to spend their money, because that's what happens. You see investment in hot areas and reinvestment in hot areas and Cherry Creek doubling and tripling itself in northwest Denver, eating itself alive because they're desirable. And if we grant this same development entitlement across the board, city wide, that same things will happen in those same areas and these areas will then stay stagnant again. So we have to be strategic going forward. This rezoning process for the time being is the appropriate process until we've had that citywide discussion that starts to consider these bigger issues. With that, I'll be supporting this research. Thank you, Councilman Espinosa. Saying no one else in the queue for comments councilmembers. This a reminder that since community planning and development has determined that the requirement for a legal protest has been met and ten affirmative votes instead of the standard seven affirmative votes of counsel are required tonight to pass this bill. Madam Secretary, roll call on Council Bill 447. Susman. I black eye. Brooks Hi. Espinosa. Hi Flynn. Hi Gilmore. Hi, Herndon. Hi Cashman, EJ Lopez. Hi, Ortega. Hi. Mr. President. All right. Madam Secretary, please close voting and announce results. 12 hours. 12 hours, CONSTABLE four for six has passed. On Monday, August 5th, Council will hold. On Monday, August 5th, Council will hold a required public hearing on Council Bill 584, amending Chapter 59 of the Denver Revised Municipal Code to revise the amendment procedure for land retaining planned unit development zoning under former Chapter 59, saying no other business before