A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 2391 South Sherman Street in Rosedale. Approves an official map amendment to rezone property located at 2391 South Sherman Street from U-SU-B1 to U-TU-B (urban, single-unit to urban, two-unit) in Council District 6. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 4-3-18.
On the wall you'll see your time counting down. Speakers must stay on the topic of the hearing and must direct their comments to the council members. Please refrain from profane or obscene speech. Direct your comments to the Council as a whole and please refrain from individual or personal attacks. Councilwoman Sussman, will you please put Council Bill 325 on the floor? Gladly. Mr. President, I move that council bill zero 3 to 5 be placed upon final consideration and do pass. It has been moved and seconded. The public hearing for Council Bill 325 is open. May we have the staff report? Thank you, Mr. President. And Council. Scott Robinson with Community Planning and Development. This is a request to rezone 2391 South Sherman Street from U.S. Sub one to You Tube. The property is located in Council District six in the Rosedale neighborhood. It's at the corner of Wesley Avenue and Sherman Street, across from Rosedale Park. And the vacant Rosedale Elementary School property is 6250 square feet, and there's currently a single unit house on the property. The request is to rezone from U.S. sub one, which is urban neighborhood context single unit zoning with a 4500 square foot minimum lot size and in one indicates that accessory dwelling units are allowed on the property and the request is to rezone to the YouTubes Zone District, which is still urban neighborhood context to unit zoning with the same 4500 square foot minimum lot size. And the request is to allow for the construction of a duplex on the property. As you can see, the property is surrounded by the same UCB one zoning except for the park across the street, which is OSA. But if you notice, one block to the north and one block to the south are the requested YouTube zoning. You can see in the surrounding area, it's mainly single unit houses, but there are a mix of two unit and multi-unit residential properties immediately around it as well. And then you can see the mixed use development on Broadway, two blocks to the west. The subject property is the top left photo here. Then you can see some of the other surrounding houses and the park and school playground across the street. This went to the planning board on March 21st, where it received a unanimous recommendation of approval. There was one member of the public speaking. I went to the Land Use Transportation Infrastructure Committee on April 3rd, and we received no other public comment on this application. In order to approve a rezoning, the city must find that these five criteria have been met. The first criterion is consistency with adopted plans. There are three adopted plans that apply to this property. First is Comprehensive Plan 2000, as described in the staff report. Staffers found that the proposed rezoning consistent with these four strategies from the plan relating to infill development and providing a variety of housing types in neighborhoods which the proposed YouTubes and districts would be compatible with. Blueprint Denver from 2000 to has this property with a concept land use of urban residential, which calls for a variety of housing types, from single family to townhouses to small or large apartment buildings. Consistent with the proposed two unit zoning, there is also designated as an area of stability, which calls for maintaining the existing character while accommodating new development. As I mentioned earlier, there is a mix of single unit two unit and multi-unit in the area, so the proposed rezoning would be consistent with the existing character. Both Wesley and Sherman Street are designated locals, which are appropriate for the requested zoned district. The Evans stationary plan is from 2009. It also designates the property as residential, which again calls for a mix of housing types, including single family duplexes and row houses, again consistent with the requested zoning of two unit. The plan also calls for an increase in the amount and variety of housing, which the proposed rezoning would do by allowing a duplex on the subject property. So staff finds that the first criterion is met. The second criterion is uniformity of district regulations. The proposed rezoning would result in the uniform application of the YouTube Zone district. The third criterion is to further the public health, safety and general welfare of the city. Staff finds that the proposed rezoning would do so by implementing the city's adopted plans and facilitating additional housing in the area which is needed. The fourth criterion is justifying circumstances. Staff finds that the proposed rezoning is justified by the changed and changing conditions in the area. There's been investment along Broadway. The city has invested in new streetscape elements along Broadway, and there's been significant private investment along Broadway and in the larger Avenue Station area that has changed the character of the area and increased the need for additional housing, which justifies the proposed rezoning. And the fifth criterion is consistency with neighborhood context, zone, district purpose and intent. The proposed rezoning would facilitate development consistent with the urban neighborhood context, description and the purpose and intent of the YouTube zoning district. That staff finds all five criteria have been met and recommends approval. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much. We have two individuals signed up to speak this evening. So if you could make your way to this front seat. And first up, we have Will Cryer, followed by Chairman Sekou. Everyone. We just wanted. To come up and kind of. Give a little background. So could you introduce yourself, say your name for the record. Thank you. Sorry. My name is Will Crier. We are. And my wife, Kelsey Crier, where. Residents at 2391. South Sherman Street, Denver, Colorado. I just wanted to say kind of thank you. We appreciate that this process exists and we had the option to even pursue changing the zoning on our property to kind of pursue something that would help our family. We've I've lived there since 2012 and she's moved in since we got married. And we love the neighborhood that we're in and are hoping to stay there for a long time and think this would kind of enable us to to make that more of a longer to term solution. And one of the things, Scott, in the Planning Department, for all the help from the Pre-Application process all the way through to today, and that was really merit. So thank you. Thank you. Next up, Chairman Sekou. Yes. Good evening. My name is Sherman Sekou. I represent the Black Star Action Movement for Self-defense, focusing on poor, working, poor, homeless, senior citizens and youth. We support this ordinance change and. You know, it's moments like this that I really am encouraged and excited about the process of how we go about doing these changes. This because we sit here and we do the corporate changes for the corporate folks and you know, that's an enduring process because there's a lot more unions involved. And then we have every day for regular folks, working folks that want to improve their property, that will have an effect, that will improve the neighborhood and to help us . Attack this housing shortage thing. Even if it seems small, it's significant. It really is the small ones that when you add them. Up are. Really more inspiring because they come from. The hearts. Of the people who not only want to change their property, but they still want to live there. Why they make it open to invite other people to enjoy that space. So we want to thank the leadership of Councilman Cashman, and I'm not going to do it like I did Ben Franklin down there where he has to do a disclaimer. But thank you so much for bringing this forward and leadership for bringing this forward. I just have one question. And that would be for smaller projects, housing projects like that. It seems to be there should be an expedited process that they can go through that ain't. As onerous. As those of the corporations who are built building bigger units so that we can get this thing on the table, move it forward, and then they can begin the process of having that satisfaction, of seeing the project underway without having to spend a whole lot of money before you even put one shovel of dirt in there to get this thing done. And so I would ask that city council kind of look at that in the subcommittee meeting and see how we can cut some of the red tape for the smaller folks so they can move the project forward. Last but not least. We have a special guest tonight, my cousin Gregory. He's a security guy, so he's came here. This is his second assignment. I forgot to mention he was here with my family and outstanding young man, and he's been helping me to watch the clock. So he's my official clock timer. So I'm going to quit now. And Gregory, thank you so much for being here and get to know these folks because they're outstanding citizens and they are worthy of your protection. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. That concludes our speakers. Are there questions from members of council? Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. I think your microphone might be off. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you very much. So how far does the the radius of the Evans Station plan extend? I believe this property is just inside the boundary. Is that correct? Yes, it is towards the edge of the boundary of the even stationary plane. Okay. Do you have any idea how far does it extend up the hill to to grant? No, I do not believe it does. I think this is basically the edge of it right at Grant, actually. Okay. The other question I have is so this is a corner site, the current residence, while it has the Sherman Street address , has its primary entrance facing. Is it westerly there? Yes. Does it matter to CPD how the units would be situated on this site? No. When they go through the building permit process, they would work with our development services division to meet the code and situate the the building on the property. But I think it could face either Wesley or Sherman. All right. And then there was one once the speaker at the planning board. What was. Yeah, it was a neighbor who lives in the neighborhood. He said he was not necessarily opposed, but was concerned that some other neighbors may be. They have concerns when the 2010 rezoning went through. There was, according to the speaker, pretty significant discussion with the neighborhood about the appropriate zoning. And he was concerned that some members of the neighborhood may feel like the zoning was settled in 2010 and would be concerned about a change at this point. And he said he was not personally concerned and we haven't heard from any of the other neighbors at this time. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Cashman. Seeing no other questions, the public hearing for Council Bill 325 is closed. Comments by members of Council Councilman Cashman. Thank you again, Mr. President. And I do need a disclaimer for our previous speaker that this was no leadership from council. This was brought forward by the applicants themselves. The reason I ask about the the Evans Station plan is for me that was an important part of this for my colleagues. If you. Drive. Lincoln and Sherman between Evans and Yale, Duplex is not an unusual use at all. There are literally dozens on those blocks, including several on the block that the applicants on which the applicants live. However, I don't take up zoning lightly. And so it was the the fact that this remains in the the Evans Station plan that that tilted it for me. So as I say, there's plan support. It's a common use in the area. I appreciate the fact that it adds additional housing to to our stretched inventory and also. I would just put forward that for those who might be thinking in that neighborhood of extending the duplex use and onto blocks that which it's not a common use, I would think that plan support would be more questionable. So I do plan on supporting this this evening. I appreciate the staff's report. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Cashman. Councilman Lopez. Thank you, Mr. President, I. I'm supportive this I have something very similar in in my district and I can speak to this in 2010 when we did the rezoning, a lot of the angst, a lot of these properties, especially ones like this with this two unit zone district people were very wary because of the time and because of the era that we were in. We were just coming out of a recession, of moving to them, graduating, taking it to a two unit. And so and because also because people didn't know what the form was going to look like, they didn't know if we were going to bounce out of the recession in order to do this. They thought it was going to probably very expensive to do. Tune in. So what they did is they said, well, maybe we should do the ADA use. And I think that B one is the ability to do an EDU in the back and they're nodding. Those ideas are just as expensive as building another unit. And so in a lot of ways, it was a lack of foresight on Nas. But but also because it was new in the conversation. Had this been the case? Now what we know now, if we knew then what we know now, some of these designations, these these B ones, these D ones did end up being ada2 unit because they are, in fact, another unit. It accomplishes the same thing here, except the fact that but the need to you at least the property owner would have to live in one of them or the one or the other. So this allows that this zoned district is absolutely appropriate for that area. I remember seeing the map in that area, Councilwoman, and it's a lot like mine and it's a if I can think of that. BLOCK It's very similar to some of the ones that are in my district where we haven't seen those ideas come to fruition because they're actually pretty expensive to build. You could enter to build, build, say, to say to unit, and it's almost the same cost and you're able to do a lot more with it. So and then it fronts the street. So anyway, I'm supporting for that reason. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Lopez. Seeing other comments, I'll just add that, you know, I appreciate, Councilman Cashman, you focusing in on the plan support. I think, you know, based on the information presented, this this application does meet the criteria. We're lucky that the Evans stationary plan hits this part, and I don't know the rest of Rosedale because that's not my district. But right across the street in both directions is and there is no neighborhood plan in Plot Park. And the neighborhood plan in Overland is over 20 years old. And I think it really highlights the need for us to continue to put funding and effort towards getting every single neighborhood in our community a neighborhood plan. Because if you're not within that circle of that, there isn't that, you know, low that real low micro planning effort that's happened. And I do think that that could lead to a lot of confusion when there is a plan here and across the street there there isn't. So but again, tonight, I think it's been demonstrated that the criteria been met and we'll be supporting this. Madam Secretary, roll call. Cashman. Lopez. I knew. Ortega. Sussman, I. Flynn, I. Gilmore, Herndon. Hi, Mr. President. Hi. Madam Secretary, please close the voting, announce the results. Nice. Nice.