Rezones property located at 1290-1292 King Street from PUD 573 to G-MU-5 (General Urban, Multi-Unit, 5 stories) in Council District 1.   (NEIGHBORHOODS AND PLANNING) Rezones property located at 1290-1292 King Street from PUD 573 to G-MU-5 (General Urban, Multi-Unit, 5 stories) in Council District 1. IF ORDERED PUBLISHED, A PUBLIC HEARING WILL BE HELD ON THIS ITEM.  REFER TO THE "PENDING" SECTION OF THE FUTURE COUNCIL MEETING AGENDAS FOR THE DATE. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 4-15-15.
Yes. Thank you. Councilwoman or President Pro Tem Monteiro. Good evening. It's been a long evening. My name is Steven Chester, senior city planner with CPD here to present the staff report on 1292 1292 King Street PD 5732 JIMMU five. Here we are in West Denver, located within Council District one in the West Colfax neighborhood. The subject's site is directly south of 13th Avenue at the intersection of 13th and King Street. Also located directly north of the Knox Court Light Rail Station. Property is about 9.2 acres currently on the site as a single storey residential office type building, along with a three story shelter for women. The property owners are requesting rezoning due to the overly restrictive constraints on the current property due to the former Chapter 59 pad. They're hoping to redevelop this site along with the neighboring site, but they are back and can speak more about their plans for redevelopment. It's also important to remind you that approval of rezoning is not an approval of a proposed specific development project. So the request is for GMU five star general Urban Neighborhood Context Multiple Unit five story max. We'll walk you through the existing context, starting with the zoning in the area. It's a mixture of GMU five and three. The actual transit corridor is zoned E2. You see, that's left over from when this entire area was zoned. R two Prior to then, the new zoning code. There's some open space they could Gulch and Sanchez Park in the area which is zoned OSA. There's a quite a bit of u03, the use overlay three, which is a use overlay for a restrictive set of commercial uses in existing historic buildings. And then the current site or the site that's currently zoned PD 573. So they said it's a former Chapter 59 PD that's restricted to the building forms that are currently on the site or uses under AMI 30. The existing context pertain to land use is a mixture of single family and multi-family residential housing, with some scattered civic uses in the area, along with the transit corridor and the open space of Lakewood Gulch. Here's a picture of the subject site. This is that the shelter that I spoke of before. It takes use of the topography of the site. It's kind of a strange looking building, but and it's reached the end of its kind of useful life. Thus the rezoning. To the north is a Denver housing authority development. It's a mixture of two and three story buildings. As seen on the screen. Directly east of the site is a townhome project and a also affordable housing project up on the Hill. Their mixture of two and three stories and the largest building in the area is directly west of the site. It's a six story building also owned by Denver Housing Authority. The process to date in terms of public outreach. All the Arnaud's notified this application where the West Colfax Association of Neighbors Salons like Citizens Group, I.N.S. and the Denver Neighborhood Association. To date we received a letter of support from WECAN, along with a letter from the salons like Group. They do not take official positions on rezonings. However, I've been supportive of the public outreach process. We received a complete application on February 11th and April 1st, received a 9 to 0 recommendation from Planning Board. On April 15th, the case was moved out of Neighborhoods and Planning Committee. On May 11th, all the property was posted of notification of this public hearing. And here we are today. On June 1st, we'll walk you through the review criteria for this rezoning, starting with consistency. With adopted plans, there's three adopted plans pertaining to the site plan blueprint, Denver and the West Colfax plan. For the current plan, there's a number of strategies which support the rezoning, speaking to promoting infill development, increasing a diverse range of housing types, promoting infill development along with promoting transit oriented development, providing mixed income housing, especially along transit lines as well. CBD finds that this rezoning is consistent with the current plan. Moving on to Blueprint Denver the land use concept for the site is urban residential. Urban residential is a higher density primary residential land use with mid to high rise structures providing a mixture of housing types. It's also designated an area of change in Blueprint. Denver Areas of change are where we like to channel growth within the city in order to improve access to jobs, housing and services providing fewer and shorter auto trips. This application is consistent with the Blueprint Denver land use concept in terms of street classification. Knox Court is a residential collector. 13th and King Street are both on destiny local streets. Through this sudden here. This speaks to the recently completed two D strategic plan for the city. The Knox court station is identified as a urban station. In our 2D typology, urban stations are provide some small scale, mid-rise multi-family residential in nature with consistent moderate setbacks and a balance of pedestrian bike and vehicle use. This is done to reflect the kind of really neighborhood focus of the Knox Court and Paris stations there. They serve as walk up stations, not necessarily the highest intensity, highest density, two d that you see at some of our urban centers. Moving on to the West Colfax Neighborhood Plan, which was adopted in 2005. On this map here, you can see that the subject site has been designated. Urban residents are an urban neighborhood station. Land use. The urban neighborhood station district is a variable, compact and dense development pattern. Typically 1 to 5 stories of single family and multifamily residential uses. Development is encouraged to make to take into account for underutilized parcels and dated and declining properties. Some more significant and welcome redevelopment may occur, adding small and medium scale apartments or condo buildings in close proximity to the station area. CPD finds that this rezoning is consistent with the current plan 2000 Blueprint Denver and the West Colfax Neighborhood Plan for the next two review criteria Uniformity of district regulations and Furthering the public health, safety and welfare have also been met due to the adopt or the furthering of the city's adopted city plans. Moving on to justified circumstances of the land or its surrounding environs has changed or is changing to such a degree that is in the public interest to encourage a redevelopment of the area to recognize the changed or changed character of the area. Some of those indicators of change or the area of change plan, direction and blueprint. Denver The adoption of the West Colfax Plan, the opening of the West Rail Line, along with just general increased development activity along our transit corridors. The last review criteria consistency with the neighborhood context zone, district purpose and intent. In terms of neighborhood context, the general urban neighborhood context is made up of multi-unit buildings, primarily residential uses in a variety of building forms, moderate to high scale residential buildings, and a balance of of pedestrian bicycle and vehicle mobility. CBRE finds that this rezoning is consistent in that neighborhood context. Moving on to zoned district purpose in intent. The purpose and intent of this in district is to promote and protect higher density residential neighborhoods, promote safe and active, pedestrian scaled residential areas, and allowing for a multi-unit district with a variety of residential building forms. With that, CPD recommends approval based on funding. All of the review criteria have been met. We also have the applicants here today who can answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you. We have five speakers tonight. The first one is Turnell Curtis. Second is Richard Taaffe, Cindy Harvey, Adam Kantor and Carol McLennan. Madam President, pro tem council members, thank you for your time on a nice late night. I'm Terrell Curtis. I'm a resident of East Hill in Denver, and I'm the executive director at the Dolores Project. We are the property owner in question. We are seeking the rezone in order to fit, as the staff report showed, fit within the context of newer zoning plans that Council has adopted. It also facilitates future redevelopment of our site that I can answer more questions about if that's of interest. But we are eager to be able to preserve affordable housing in this very quickly changing neighborhood in West Colfax, and also to remain in context with the existing neighborhood of multi-family housing, affordable housing and especially very low income housing. We do seek we will be seeking to redevelop our site in order to add a multi multi income housing, particularly 0 to 30% AMI housing that will be permanent supportive housing for people who've been chronically homeless with a disability, as well as units of workforce housing at 40 to 50% ami. With that. I'll leave it at that. I suspect there may be questions and I'm here. All right. Thank you, Richard Taft. Madam President Pro-Tem. Council members, thank you for your time. My comments are very brief. I'm Dick Taft. I'm president of Rocky Mountain Communities. We're a nonprofit, affordable housing organization in the city of Denver. We provide affordable housing for families across the state of Colorado. We are very happy to be in this partnership with the Dolores project because it affords us the opportunity to provide a continuum of affordable housing at a site that is a TOD site right on the Knox Court station. It includes replacement of shelter beds. It includes inclusion, a development of new 35 units of permanent supportive housing, and takes 27 units of affordable housing and turns them into another 75 units. So. We're very happy to do this because this is the type of project that is of scale for affordable housing that this city and this and frankly, the state of Colorado so desperately needs. Thank you. Thank you, Cindy. Harvey. Thank you, council members. My name is Cindy Harvey. I'm with Kepler Community Planning Architecture. We're the architecture and planning firm for our applicants, and I'm here to answer any questions. I'll just put this brief. Thank you. Adam. Cantor. My name is Adam Cantor. I'm also with Gephardt, and I'm just here to answer questions. Thank you. Adam. And our final speaker is Carol McLennan. Good evening, members of council. My name is Carol McLennan. I'm a Park Hill resident, but I'm also a property owner in the West Colfax neighborhood and our member of the Land Use Committee for the West Colfax Association of Neighbors. And I'm here tonight to express we can support for this project. As you know, we have sent a letter of support, but I wanted to let you know that the applicants provided a presentation to our general membership in April before the Planning Board hearing and. Unanimously voted to support this project. As you know, we. Can is very strongly supportive. Of a healthy, safe and sustainable. Neighborhood. And we felt this is very important to support our current neighbors. Who are the applicants in doing this work to keep our neighborhood very diverse? We hope you support it. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes our speakers. Are there questions from members of council? Councilwoman Shepherd. Yeah. So, applicants, I want to give you a chance to tell your story a little bit better. I think it was a little bit piecemeal there and a little bit difficult to understand. So I think one question that folks might have is whether the shelter continues to operate and then exactly how many how many units are being built and what is the breakdown between permanent supportive housing and the low income housing? And I think it would be also good to explain any relationship between the shelter and the other housing units. Yep. Thank you. Absolutely. The shelter will continue operating. The Dolores project has operated on this site for eight and a half years, providing shelter every night for at least 50 unaccompanied women and transgendered individuals. In the wintertime, that number does go up to 60 or 65 in total to accommodate the need during cold weather. The need certainly hasn't diminished in the last eight and a half years. We don't see it going away in the next several years that it will take to get this project off the ground. And so it is absolutely an essential component that the shelter continue operating. In the initial site planning, we've been able to develop a plan in which the shelter can actually continue in place during construction of a new shelter building that will include 35 units of permanent supportive housing above it. So those are housing units for 0 to 30% AMI for people who've been formerly homeless with a disability. The Delores Project would be providing the ongoing supportive services for those residents. In addition, we are we're maintaining independent ownership of our properties. But with the adjacent property of Rocky Mountain communities, we will be joining the land use and creating 75 units of affordable housing at 40 to 50% ami. One more question I think I missed. So just to connect all the dots, is this permanent supported, supportive housing for the clients of the shelter or is that open more broadly? It will definitely be open more broadly. I mean, we probably couldn't fill all 35. Right off the bat. But we the Dolores project is and always has been a very collaborative model and we're very much a part of the continuum of care with other shelter providers and homeless service providers. So we would be doing outreach to our provider network to ensure that those units are filled regularly with people in need. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Council winner take care. Would you be able to identify whether or not there will be a change in the number of shelter beds? Mm. We don't intend to change the number of shelter beds given our model of service. There certainly has been interest in increasing the number of shelter beds. Given our model of service. Increasing above 50 is we don't feel we can provide effective services above that. And with the staffing that you currently have, you'll be serving more people that will be in the housing units. Support units. Yeah, we'd be adding staffing. There will absolutely be at least one case management position added, probably another layer of program direction, and will be partnering with Rocky Mountain communities for the property management, which is an essential part of permanent supportive housing. Very essential. Can you speak to whether or not low income housing tax credits have been committed to the project yet? Have you? Not yet. Application We submitted an application for 4% bond credits and the state tax credits that we did not get allocated at this round. We anticipate going back again in January. We've got and really very clear and very positive feedback from Schaefer. So we're restructuring the project somewhat to address those needs, and we'll be going back in January or when those when that application to open again. Good luck with that. Thank you. Madam President, I just want to make one comment. I wish that that Tesco was here to see that we're actually working to support a project that does serve the population that he often speaks about. And we had the same conversation back here. Thanks. Thank you, Councilman Ortega. Councilman fights. I saw your name and then it disappeared. Did you have a comment? Councilman Shepherd. Councilwoman Sheperd asked my question. Okay. Thank you. Are there other comments? Those are questions de none. The public hearing is closed. Comments by members of council. Councilwoman Shephard. Thank you, Madam President. Pro Tem. I'm very excited to support this project and I'm very glad to be able to say that I'm a big fan of both of these organizations and both of these leaders, and I'm really a fan of the work that you do for our community. And this is exactly what we need to be doing here. And. I'm glad that we're going to be able to provide the services for the sheltered women and then permanent supportive housing, as well as the low income units that are needed here. And I know that we have the right leadership and this zoning is very appropriate. And having been a fan of Delores Project for such a long time and having been in their building on multiple occasions, I can definitely speak to the need to upgrade the facilities because there's really important work happening there and I think you need a little bit more space. So and then of course, this is great that it's on the and I don't know why I'm so emotional, but this is important work and I'm really happy that it's on the light rail. I mean, like immediately adjacent to the light rail. I mean, you can literally I mean, I don't even know if it's like 100 steps or whatever from the front door currently, but it's it's right there. And so that is often been a difficulty, I think in our shelter system is how clients can actually access these things. So now we have to figure out, you know, how to get affordable fares for them so that they can actually come to the facilities. Because often people are coming from downtown and it's you know, as long as I've lived on the west side of our city, there's so many physical, literal, physical barriers to being able to get there from the downtown area. And I think it's a testament to how great the work is and how well you work with the community, that there's no opposition from the community. And this is an area of change and this is exactly where we should be building this type of facilities. And it's also been designated in our work with the inclusionary housing ordinance as a high need area for for our most vulnerable citizens. So I really do wish Mr. Tech was here tonight to hear this. So I'm an enthusiastic support, and I would hope that all my colleagues are as well. Thank you. Councilman Shepard. Councilwoman Ortega. Well, first, I want to thank Councilwoman Sheppard for her heartfelt comments. I was at the Denver Department of Human Services when this particular building was put out to bid for the use of a shelter. I wish there was a way in this process we would have been able to keep the location undisclosed because of the nature of the work that you do and the protection that is always at the forefront of ensuring that women's lives are being protected, that you all serve day in and day out. That being said, I. I'm pleased to support this. And the need is so great not just for the 0 to 30, but also for the 40 and 50% of the RMI that's been targeted to be served as well. And if I can write a letter of support to accommodate your request that goes into Shaffer, please let me know. Because, you know, those dollars are absolutely critical to low income housing projects. And like Councilwoman Shepherd, I enthusiastically support this moving forward and wish that we could have more and more of these across the city because the need is so great. Thank you for the work that you do. Thank you. President Ortega. Councilwoman Kennish. Thank you, Madam President. For the applicants, I think that what stands out is the innovation of this proposal and really thinking creatively beyond silos and really thinking creatively about the ways to maximize very scarce, very difficult dollars and to come up with a concept and to not be afraid to take on a zoning request, which we know is costly and very expensive. So and you know, the staff very thorough report in terms of how this fits into the neighborhood context. So I appreciate that. I thought it was really important, though. I so appreciated the West Colfax neighborhood representative Carolyn being here because I as an At-Large member, I try to go to as many meetings as possible about the siting of affordable housing and homeless housing. And I get asked from, you know, every single neighborhood, why us? Why is every service in our neighborhood? And there's so much concentration. And it's funny because there are seven or eight different neighborhoods who all think they are unique. And and it's it's very interesting to me because this area, as you showed in the map, isn't just a shelter provider. It's a public housing provider. And quite a few units spread across numerous buildings. We're not just talking about one building. You have not. And two, if I if I remember correctly, there are two separate nonprofit providers, then Rocky Mountain, and then there's another is Del Norte. Or I forget who the other owner is, but I don't know of any other part of the city that has quite that concentration of providers, you know, probably two or three block area. And yet we not only don't have a neighborhood full of opposition, we have a neighborhood with enthusiastic, unanimous support, which says a lot about this community and it says a lot about the way that these providers have clearly interacted with that community. And so I'm proud I'm proud to live in a city where there is a community and a group of housing providers where, you know, we may not, in retrospect, have wanted to concentrate people in that same way. Right. We probably would have built it a little more diversely from day one if we were starting over. But in spite of that, you know, lack of foresight 50, 40, 38 years ago, we are continuing to move forward with this commitment in the face of what we know. I mean, this is the thing about the map that Councilwoman Sheperd mentioned about the inclusionary housing ordinance. People are shocked when they hear that this is a high need area, but it's because of the gentrification that will come with the transit. And so that's why, especially those 40 and 50% of Army units are so important. So I feel very proud. I feel very proud of this community for achieving this approach, a very practical approach to a very human challenge of poverty and needs. So with that, it's a land use decision we make today. But just like I said before, right, infrastructure and land use pave the way for how people live their lives and whether they're included or whether they're not. So with that, I'm going to be supporting this tonight and I want to thank the neighborhood for coming out as well as the providers. Thank you. Thank you. Madam Secretary, roll call on Council Bill 212. Can each layman I? Nevitt Hi. Ortega Absolutely. Rob Shepherd I Susman I. Brooks I thought. I. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, close the voting and announce the results. Ten Eyes and Eyes Council Bill 212 has passed. Congratulations. On Monday, June eight, there will be a required public hearing on Council Bill 302 approving an amended and restated Ironworks Foundry Urban Redevelopment Plan. On Monday, June 22nd, there will be a required public hearing on Council Bill 312 approving a text amendment to the Denver Zoning Code creating the Scottish Village Conservation Overlay, a required public hearing on Council Bill 313, changing the zoning classification for multiple properties, roughly bounded by 32nd Avenue, Clay Street, Dunkeld Place and Zuni Street. A required public hearing on Council Bill 319. Approving a text amendment to the zoning code creating the Potter Highland Conservation Overlay. A required public hearing on Council Bill 321. Changing the zoning classification for multiple properties, roughly bounded by 38th Avenue, Federal Boulevard, 32nd Avenue and Zuni Street. A required public hearing on Council Bill 322 approving a text amendment to the Denver zoning code, creating the side interior setback design overlay a required public hearing on Council Bill 323 Changing the zoning classification for multiple properties in the Highland Statistical neighborhood. A required public hearing on Council Bill 324 approving a text amendment to the Denver Zoning Code, creating a new zoning district, the Campus National Western Center and a required public hearing on Council Bill 325. Changing the zoning classification for certain properties within the National Western Center campus located in North Denver in the Elyria neighborhood. Any protests against Council Bill 313 321, 323 or 325 must be filed with the council offices no later than Monday, June 15th. On Monday, June 29th, there will be a required public hearing on Council Bill 345, changing the zoning classification for approximately 99 Quebec Street. Any protests against Council Bill 345 must be filed with the Council offices no later than June 22nd. See no other business before this body? This meeting is adjourned. Denver eight on TV and online to stay connected to your community, your city, your source. You are watching Denver. Eight TV's Your City, your source. And what?