A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification of 1601 W. Jewell Avenue. Rezones property located at 1601 West Jewell Avenue from E-SU-Dx to PUD G-14 (office and telecommunications tower to planned development) in Council District 7. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 11-29-16.
On the presentation monitor. On the wall you will see your time counting down. Speakers must stay on topic of the hearing and must director comments. The Council members please refrain from profane or obscene speech. Direct your comments the Council as a whole and refrain from individual or personal attacks. Councilwoman Gilmore, will you please put Council Bill 161166 on the floor? Yes, Mr. President. I move that council bill 1166 be placed upon final consideration and do pass. It has it has been moved in second at the hearing for council bill 161166 is open. I mean, we have a staff report, Curt Upton in the house. Thank you, Mr. President. Members of council. Good evening, Curt Upton with Community Planning and Development. Tonight we have a rezoning at 1601 West Jewel and Council District seven. It's in the Ruby Hill neighborhood, and specifically it's located adjacent to Ruby Hill Park, just west of Ruby Hill Park and just east of Raritan Street. The current zoning for the site is ESU X, which is a single unit zoned district, and it's surrounded by single unit districts of former Chapter 59 zoning code as well as the current Denver zoning code. Open space to the East, which is Ruby Hill Park and to the Southeast, some industrial mixed use or IMX three. The subject site is almost nine and a half acres and the requested zone district is a PWD plan. Urban Development as requested to address unique use and uses and the unique location of the site. So I'll give a brief overview of the proposed PD g 14. There is two base zoning districts that were used to create this custom zoned district. The mx2x district was used as the base zone district to prepare design standards and form standards. But some of the customizations in the PD include very large building and tower setbacks. One of the proposed uses on the site is a replacement telecommunications tower. There's an existing telecommunications tower on the site, and the setbacks will limit development on the site to only approximately a third of the total site. All square footage combined in new buildings will be limited to 100,000 square feet, total or less. The building height is limited to 35 feet, which is the same as the current single unit zoned district as well as the surrounding single unit zoned districts. There's also a design standards that limit the bulk and the visual impacts of the proposed telecommunications tower. And the PD will require an improved and visible public pedestrian walkway through the site that connects the community to the north, to the public right away on Jewel Avenue to the south and a bus line. The second based on district is the Jaro district, which is a residential office district. This zone district was used to create customized uses for the PD, so office and residential uses are allowed in the PD hotel or any lodging. Medical offices are not allowed and there are some limited commercial uses that include an eating and drinking establishment with some additional restrictions, one being what we call a Z pen, which requires a public information notice. And there are limitations on the distance or the proximity to residential zoned districts. Any eating and drinking establishment would need to be located a minimum of 150 feet away from a residential zone district, and the total square footage for that use would be limited to 5000 square feet or less. So now I'll get in a little more to the existing context. Again, the existing use on site is a telecommunications tower and a very small office slash storage facility surrounding it as single family multifamily industrial in Ruby Hill Park to the east. Here's some photographs that gives you a sense of the existing context. A large open area characterizes the site. Again, with existing telecommunications tower and smaller nonresidential structure in terms of the public process, it was very extensive, the most extensive zoning process I've ever been a part of. For a single case. It was nearly a year long, very collaborative with the neighborhood and the applicant is here and we'll get into more of the details of that process. There's also a summary of the process that's included in your materials and then the standard notification in terms of planning board signs and so on and so forth were provided. There's a letter of support in the materials from the Ruby Hill Gottesman Neighborhood Associations and letters of support from the Denver Housing Authority, former councilman Chris Nevitt and the Overland Neighborhood Association as well. So we'll get into our review criteria, the first being consistency with adopted plans. There are two adopted plans for this location a comprehensive plan 2000 and Blueprint. Denver Blueprint. Denver character designates this location as open space as an area of stability and Jewel Avenue as a residential collector to the south, air is a stability. The goals of areas of stability is to maintain the existing character of an area while accommodating some new development and redevelopment. While Open Space Limited is not specifically designed to find in the blueprint. Denver Open spaces are generally described as places that range from neighborhood to community parks to larger preserves and natural open areas that provide places for the community to gather and for wildlife habitat. Residential collectors are designed to provide a balance between mobility and land access, with a mix of uses that include residential, commercial, industrial areas and are designed to emphasize walking, bicycling and land access over other forms of mobility. And significantly, for this site to create connections that emphasize walking, bicycling and vehicular connections to Denver's parks. So with that, I will move on to the uniform of district regulations and furthering the public health, safety and welfare. We do find that this rezoning proposal is consistent with the goals of Blueprint Denver and Complement. Plan 2000 noted that the rezoning limits development on the site significantly, nearly two thirds of the site will remain as open space due to the design standards in the PD, which we find consistent with Blueprint Denver, as well as the designation for Jewel Avenue to create more of a mixed use collector's streets, which this Stone District does facilitate. We do find that it furthers the uniformity of district regulations, public health, safety and welfare. Justifying circumstances include significant improvements and investments in the adjacent Ruby Hill Park. There has been some additional recreational facilities, but also cultural facilities. Significantly, the pavilion is under construction now, which will create a community gathering spot for the neighborhood and create more of an active park. And obviously this proposed rezoning is consistent with the idea of creating Ruby Hill Park as a as a as a rural neighborhood focal point and a gathering place and as a neighborhood destination. We all find. We also find that it's consistent with the neighborhood context and the zone district purpose and intent. The urban edge and neighborhood context requires a varied development pattern, promotes a greater mix of uses, and improves a transition from commercial and residential uses. The grow or residential office zone district allows, obviously both residential and office uses, but specifies a low to moderate scale residential building form. And the proposed PD meets both of these intents in the Denver zoning code. There's also additional review criteria for pads in the Denver zoning code, and I'll quickly give a summary of those criteria. The first is unique and extraordinary circumstances. This site is unique in that there is an existing large telecommunications tower on the site that's located in an interior location of a residential neighborhood and adjacent to a significant city asset in Ruby Hill Park. Because of the existing location and the existing uses on the site, we feel that it meets the criteria for unique and extraordinary circumstance that requires a unique approach and a customized approach to the zoning regulation. Public benefit is the second review criteria. As I mentioned previously, there are very large setbacks are required and the proposed PD that limits development on the site to approximately a third of the site. The zoning will also allow a greater mix of uses to encourage that neighborhood gathering area and community destination, as well as a required public pedestrian walkway that connects D.J. and the neighborhoods to the north through the site to transit facilities on the south. The third criteria is that the proposed development is not feasible under any other zoned district. There is no other zoned district in the Denver zoning code that has these specific design standards and uses as those proposed in the proposed pudi. The next criteria are that uses are compatible with adjacent land uses. We find that the limitations on retail, hotel, lodging and medical office uses does lend itself to being compatible with the adjacent residential character and neighborhood surrounding and that the building forms are compatible with adjacent building forms. Again, there are very large setbacks that require a very large distance from adjacent buildings. The maximum building height, again in the proposed zone district, is the same as a single unit district to the west. It's also the same as the current zoning on the site, which is a single district, and there are tower design standards. And one of the significant benefits of the tower design standards is that it prohibits guy wires, which are the wires that create visual clutter and bulk, and those are existing on the site. Now with the existing tower, the new replacement tower will be prohibited to having guy wires. So with that, CPD does find that all of our review criteria have been met and therefore recommend approval. All right. Thank you. Kurt, we have three speakers for Council Bill 1166. And I'm going to call them up right now. And you can come up to the front here, Jenny Gentry, Bruce O'Donnell and Sharona Thompson. Jenny Gentry, you're up first with 6 minutes. Thank you. I'm Jenny Gentry. I'm the senior vice president for finance and administration at Colorado Public Radio, where I've worked for the past 33 years. I am grateful for your time this evening to hear about our exciting final conclusion, I hope, to the zoning process. I want to tell you first a little bit about Colorado Public Radio and who we are. We're a501c3. We've been serving the Denver community since 1970. We now have three program services. We have all news, all classical and a new format, which is open air, new music, which has been on the air since 2011. We have 30 signals around the state. We have approximately 600,000 listeners every week, and we have another 200,000 that tune in online in a given month. So we have a pretty huge footprint serving the state with what I like to call 72 hours of programing a day. The budget's $17 million. This year, we have about 110 employees. We're currently housed in a building down in Centennial that was donated to us in 2004. We are as we began this conversation years ago, we are at a point where we will outgrow that building at some point in the fairly near future and are looking at our options of where we could move our headquarters and our studios and all of our employees. One of the first places we looked is at the nine and a half acres that we own on Ruby Hill. After preliminary conversations with the city, it became very clear that we had a number of zoning issues to tackle. The unique situation that Kurt has described between the park and the neighborhood. We have a tall tower that's a currently illegal non-conforming use with a residential zoning, and we're in the Ruby Hill View plane. I think one thing Curt didn't mention is we did get The View Plain approved by Planning Board late last year. So when we began talking to the city, what they suggested would be a great idea was that this would be a good project to have a conversation with the neighborhood and engage the neighborhood before we filed an application. And that was important to us and we had no preconceived notions of what that would look like. Sharona can talk a little bit about how that went, I think, from the neighbor perspective. For us, it was a wonderful opportunity to try to meet our needs, the neighbors desires and work within the Denver zoning code. City CPD has been amazing to work with Dolan's office and previously with with Councilman Leavitt's office is where we kind of started the conversation. So it's really been this ongoing conversation of how do we make it work for all of us. The example I always like to use is we said if we develop this property, we're going to need the tower, a building and parking. One of the first things the neighbor said is We want the parking as far away from the houses as we can get because of heat and and other considerations. Great. We can do that. So let's put the parking blocks. So when you see kind of the blocks that we came up with, we can put the parking, you know, over on the side. So it was that kind of interactive process. We went through a full use table when we went through the grow use table and the uses that that Curt outlined. We actually did that collaboratively with the neighbors. We had multiple meetings, we had a working group, and then we would go back to the full neighborhood association over a course of meetings. It's a very interactive process. Steve Charbonneau helped facilitate those meetings. And it was really a great way to engage all of us to come to a what I believe is a good solution. All of that was done before we filed the application. Um. I think that's all I've got. I'm happy to answer questions. I'm here for the evening. I thank you for your consideration and would respect. Respect, respectfully request approval of our rezoning. Thank you. Mr. Gentry can have a seat there. Bruce O'Donnell. Good evening, Mr. President. Members of Council. I am Bruce O'Donnell, 770 Sherman Street in Denver. I've been the CPAs owners. Rep on this for I think three. Years now almost. And I'm here in the. Event you have any questions I can answer. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. O'Donnell. Sharon Thompson. Sharona Thompson. Sorry about that. It's okay. Hi. My name is Sharona Thompson, and I am currently the Ruby Hill Gottesman, co-president. And I've been a resident of Ruby Hill for six years and serving as a president for my third year. I actually live on Raritan and Jewel Street and my house backs that big open field of nine and a half acres. And I know that field pretty well. I can see it out my window. And a lot of the neighbors that border, that field have been very concerned about fire problems, which we actually had this summer. And the fire came up to about ten feet behind about ten houses. And those guide wires actually go right behind my house and they pop when there's static. And so when CPR approached our neighborhood about the possibility of building their headquarters, we were very interested. And, you know, we had a bunch of meetings about possibilities and they've been very receptive and listening to our concerns. One of them is that public housing has apartments over at Ruby Hill Park, and I see a lot of people walking through the field to get to the bus stops or to school, and they're trudging through snow in mud. And they've been really receptive to building sidewalks for our our neighbors to take care of their needs. We've taken one step at a time, going through the zoning and what that looks like. They've been receptive to even the interest that we have in our neighborhood of promoting pollinators and planting zero escaping pollinating plants as part of their landscaping. So we have a lot of people who want to get involved and are interested in using the space for community events as well. We appreciate that, though. They're willing to put the parking lot on the other side of the building. And we we're really excited that that offers more parking space for concerts in the evening because as we've been working with Leavitt Pavilion in parking areas, that is another thing that we can offer to concerned neighbors. And so it's really been a pleasure working with CPR and that they came in willing to work with us and not just impose something on the neighborhood, but really collaborate together. So all 13 houses that back that property, everyone is in support of CPR coming to our neighborhood. Thank you, Ms.. Thompson. All right. This concludes our speakers. You guys can go back to your seat or you can sit up here. We're going to have some questions for members of council. Any questions for members of council? All right. Seeing none of the public hearing for council. But. Oh. I had my name plugged in. Councilwoman Ortega. Go ahead. Please excuse the knock. We're going to go with that. I just. I just wanted to find out who maintains that open space right now. Is that done by CPR or is that done by Parks and Rec? And will that change after the move and then construct the development of the new building? CPR is on the land since 2001 and we maintain it and that would continue to be the case. Great. Thank you. Okay. Then look down one more time. Okay, good. All right. This concludes the council. Bill. 11166 is not closed. Comes firms of counsel, counseling clerk. Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to you know, this was an interesting one that came very quickly after I was in office, had already been started by my predecessor, Chris Nevitt. The conversations and this has all of the pieces for a recipe for something that's very contentious it's right by a single family homes is adjacent to a park and it's in a view plane. You know, if you could write anything that would be more controversial. And I have been so impressed with the process here, and I think that that's evident tonight. And seeing that everyone here is in support and everyone's feeling like this has been a really good process. I remember observing at one of the early meetings when the CPR team said, Look, if you don't want us to do this, then we won't. And I think that that kind of approach really is very different than somebody coming in and saying, hey, we're going to do this. And here's our here's what we what we want to do. Is there something we can throw in to make to sweeten the deal for you so that you'll stop complaining? And it wasn't that at all. It was very much a we would really like to be here. We would like to be a part of this community. We have some needs. This is a strange piece of property with a lot of stuff going on that doesn't fit into our normal zoning code. So let's have a conversation about what it would look like for you all to want us to be here as much as we want to be here. And so it was just I just want to commend the process, the CPR team, everybody who is involved. Sharon, on my awesome R.A. presence, thank you for all of your time that you put into this and to everything else that you do for for Ruby Hill and Local District seven. And so I think this has been a great process and I'm very excited to support this and ask all my colleagues to support it tonight as well. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Councilman Clark. Councilman Espinosa. Yeah. I just wanted to speak to that as well. You know, it's it was it's refreshing to have something that could be controversial, but have a good owner owner that puts together a good team and good dialog with the community. And to somehow get to, you know, to to to avoid what potentially could, could flare up and go a whole lot of sideways actually be a really, a really, really nice thing. So I just wanted to say that that was observed throughout the process. And so thank you all for for doing what you did. And I'm happy to be supporting this as well. Thank you. Councilman Espinosa. Councilman Flynn. Thank you, Mr. President. I don't want to let this moment go by without making a historical note, if I might. What a pleasure it is to see Colorado Public Radio occupy that site. It was known for many years as Chateau Ruby Hill and the home of my former colleague. The late and much beloved Jean Abell, who founded was a co-founder of Kadeem and Cave Body, which broadcasts from up on top of Ruby Hill in the fifties and sixties. And and a lot of folks from Denver will remember those days. And it's a particular pleasure that the classical format that Jean loved, he'd like to wake people up with Vivaldi in the morning that that will be broadcast again from from the top of Ruby Hill. And I very much treasure that memory. So I'm very pleased to support this zoning change and wish you much, much success. Thank you, Mr. President. Councilman Flynn, our council historian. Thank you, Councilwoman Ortega. Thank you. Yes, that's always a tough act to follow. I just wanted to add my support as well. I have enjoyed spending time in Ruby Hill Park, having played ball in the you know, in the ball fields there on various teams. Over the years, my grandkids have played there and have really seen the transformation of the park as a whole. And with CPD's commitment to, you know, moving moving back to Denver, if you will, I think it's it's exciting to see all the synergy that's happening with, you know, the the work that was done with the pavilion at the top. When I first came back to the council, we actually had a of a barbecue up there for all the council members to get to know one another because we had so many. New people coming on at the same time. But to see that it's all been embraced by the communities is really the exciting part about it all as well. So I just want to say congratulations for the collaborative work that you've done with the neighborhood and the neighborhood, embracing them, being there, and the improvements that will happen as a result of that. So I'm happy to support this tonight. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Madam Secretary, roll call. Clerk AI. Espinosa. Hi, Flynn. Hi. Gilmore, I Herndon Cashman. Hi. Can each new Ortega assessment? Hi, Black. Hi, Mr. President. I police lost voting and as a result, 12 eyes 12 eyes council bill 1166 has passed. Congratulations.