A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 4000-4090 North Jason Street & 4001 Inca Street in Sunnyside. Rezones property at 4000-4090 North Jason Street and 4001 Inca Street from I-A UO-2 to C-RX-8, (industrial to residential, mixed-use) in Council District 1. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 6-6-17.
Thanks, Mr. President. Maybe Scott could address this. We Want Away is not a public street. It's a private street. Correct. And so the the metro district will take care of the maintenance on that repaving, etc.. So it's not a responsibility of the city. Correct? The street is already built and it is maintained by the metro district there. Okay. And the applicant, what is your relationship to the Donato Metro District? I'm actually the architect and the planner for this project. Okay. What was your. Are you. Are you in any way affiliated with the Metro District or you just own property or the master. Developer originally ran the infrastructure and. Helped to form the metro. Okay. So we we still retain one parcel. Yes, very like that. Okay. Thank you. That's all. Right. Thank you. All right. This concludes a public hearing for 633 Thomas by members of council. As a representative, I'll go first again. Kind of the same comments we've met, reached out. This meets all of our criteria. I hope that again for this rezoning that the same criteria for design standards and guidelines will be met. And I'm grateful that we're capturing a linkage fee into our city wide linkage fee. I would love for it. Affordable units to be right there by that station, that billion dollar station. But I do recognize that every every project has to make their own decision. And so I'm glad we're capturing something. Councilwoman Canete. Thank you, Mr. President. I just couldn't resist the second bite at the apple on this same conversation, which is just that I, I, I don't know of a single project that has had an absorption problem at 60 to 80% of Am I in Denver right now? I know that Austin also has some rent challenges, but I don't know that they have been as acute at the percentage levels that we have. And, you know, all of the over construction of the luxury market has not trickled down. And so, you know, I'm thinking about three or four projects in Councilman Brooks's district that closed their waiting lists with 400 names on them for 80% of my units. So I just I would encourage you to spend some time talking to the Office of Economic Development and talking to those folks who are building that product. I think you will find that there is not been an absorption problem with the price point that you're describing. And I think there is an opportunity to do what Councilman Brooks has described within your project, and I hope you'll take a look at it, because I will say this, the Tiago Market affordable housing plan, and this is no fault of anyone sitting up here. It was it was before most of our time, but is the weakest in the city. If you look at the Central Valley, if you look at Green Valley Ranch, if you look at Stapleton, no other major redevelopment area in the city had such a little requirement. I'm not quite sure how that happened happened during a time when I was transitioning between kind of work. But but I do think it's a missing piece of that neighborhood. It's not just a missing piece in the city. That neighborhood itself has not really lived up to the mixed income potential that we expect of other areas. And so I hope you'll you'll spend some time just doing the research on it rather than dismissing it on comparison. That said, I understand the vote tonight is on the criteria, and I understand that the criteria are met, so I'll be supporting it. Thank you. Great seeing no other comments. Great comments. By the way, Council can each see other comments. Madam Secretary. Raquel Black. Hi, Clark. Hi, Espinosa. Hi, Flynn. Hi. Gilmore, I. Cashman. Kenny Lopez. I knew Ortega. Sorry, Mr. President. I please. Very nice. Results. Ten eyes. Ten eyes, 615 passes. Thank you very much. Congratulations, Councilman Lopez. As I said, 615 tonight. Madam Secretary. Oh. You're supposed to catch me on that. It's 616 has passed. Just for the record. Congratulations, Councilman Lopez, will you please put Council Bill 633 on the floor? Now, Mr. President, I move that council bill 633 be placed upon final consideration and do pass. It had been moved in. Second, did the public hearing for council bill 633 is now open. Jeff Hurt. Welcome back. Thank you, Mr. President. So Jeff heard was CPD. So this is a request for a rezoning for properties at 60/40, an inker to go from IAU oh 2 to 0 eight. It's in Council District one. Look at it in the Sunnyside neighborhood. So this these properties encompass most of one city block. It's sort of bisected by an alley. And you have one portion of the site sort of carved out for the the commuter rail pedestrian bridge platform in the northeast corner. All told, the properties are about two acres. So the subject site is zoned I.A., which is a light industrial zone district. And you oh two, which is a billboard use overlay district. And they are not requesting to retain the billboard use overlay. The surrounding zoning is to the West IMX three six industrial mixed use and to the north is the same zoning as the subject site light industrial you go to. And then to the south southwest you start to get some more into the residential with the you t you see. So the existing uses on the subject property, most of it is currently vacant. There is some industrial and office uses. And you look at the surrounding properties to the north, you have more industrial and then to the west and you transition more into the residential. And then soon to the east you have the railroad tracks for the commuter rail and freight rail as well. So looking at some images of the subject property, so this is standing on the commuter rail platform looking south, that sort of the the eastern half of the site that's across the alley. So you can see the proximity to downtown. This is a subject property looking north from 40th Avenue. So you see the alley that bisects the properties and then the image on the bottom of the screen is looking northeast, standing at 40th and Jason Street. And then since this is a large site, a couple more pictures. So this is a subject property from Jason Street looking northeast. You see some of the existing office uses. There's a residential structure that was converted to an office use some time ago. And so this is looking south at adjacent properties. So looking south from 40th Avenue, you see to the right on this top image is, I believe, a four unit residential complex and to the left, a warehouse that I believe is not there anymore. And then the Bonhomme image looking south. I'm sorry that I don't know that. That's right. So that's 40th Avenue looking east in the subject. Property is on the right, so you can see the more industrial uses to the north. From Jason Street looking west. So you see some residential. The top image is sort of the southern half of the that block of Jason Street. You see some warehouses and industrial type uses and then the bottom image is more than north half of that block. So immediately across Jason Street where you see the residential, so the requests to go to CRC, which is commercial, it's a residential mixed use district that allows for up to eight stories. The process for the rezoning followed our standard rezoning process that led us here tonight. We did receive there were no comments received in error in time to make it into the packet, but we did receive a letter of support from the Sunnyside United Neighbors. I'm not sure they came in to me today. I'm not sure if that made it to all the council members. But it was a letter of support for the request to S.R. eight. Public outreach went to all the Arnaud's listed on the screen here. So pretty extensive. And so these are the criteria that staff uses to evaluate each of the rezoning requests, and I'll just hone in on a couple of them. Certainly more detail in your staff report. So as far as city wide plans can't plan, Steph does fine. The requests are consistent with the comp plan and a number of strategies are listed here, most of which relate to the idea of promoting infill development and in areas that are well-served by services and infrastructure which this property is, particularly with the new commuter rail station immediately adjacent to it. In addition to utilizing underutilized or vacant land on which this property, in staff's opinion, is underutilized land, given the proximity to the station blueprint, Denver has all of these surrounding streets as designated locals, but it does show the subject property as within an area of change and an urban residential concept land use. So as far as area specific plans, we have both the Sunnyside plan and the 41st and Fox station area plan. The Sunnyside plan is more dates from 1992, so the guidance isn't as specific as the 41st and Fox stationary plan, which was done in 2009. That does that plan does call for urban residential 2 to 8 stories on the subject property. So staff does find the request consistent with that designation and to hone in on one other criteria justifying circumstances. This is an area that's seen a significant amount of change recently, not only with sort of public infrastructure, with the commuter rail station and pedestrian bridge over the tracks. But you also see an excellent new multimodal connection with the with the off street pedestrian and bike path that follows anchor and actually takes you right into downtown, sort of over and under the highways and 38th Avenue. So a lot of new changes to this area, areas for the public infrastructure, a lot of not only rezoning requests but site development plans in this area as well. So a lot of development activity in this area. So CPD does recommend approval of the request based on the criteria, and I'd be glad to answer any questions. All right. Thank you, Mr. Hurtt. And then you since parking. Okay. We have three speakers this evening. Please come to the front, Tony. The simian is first. I'm sorry if I missed. I pronounce your name. Ambrose Cruise and Sid Container. Please come to the front here. All right, Tony. All right. Thank you. My name is Tony de Simon. 430 in the street in Golden. And I'm here tonight. I represent the applicant council and companies, and I'm here to answer any questions. Great Ambrose Cruz. How's it going? Ambrose Cruz, third generation North Sider. I live very close to the proposed area of this application, the zone request. I'm also here as a represent representative of United Northside neighborhood and we are strongly against the zone changing because of for one of the area that it's in. It's very congested already because there's already multiple areas for housing, for a site, for apartments, for shops and things like that that are very nearby and walkable distance. Something like this will just bring congestion to that area even more, even in a place that there is no real emergency exits. The highways are very there's one area, one way and one way out, not very many areas to be able to transport things around. So congestion with traffic will be a very big issue over there. That will mean you won't be able to get ambulances and won't be able to get a fire fire department in there and things like that. We just won't be able to happen with this type of congestion that it'll bring to go eight storeys up. It'll bring a lot of people here and we don't need that anymore. I mean, like I said, within walking distance, we have everything that is possibly could be bought with this type of zone change. Again, it's in walking distance from this area. It would be irresponsible to add this this amount of congestion again to our community. But for us city council, there needs to be a stopping point to this this type of gentrification in communities like that's happening in our communities and we're all being displaced. People can't afford with these these buildings are going to be put up. Nobody that lives in that community longer than ten years can afford it. The people that are going to be displaced because of the property taxes will not be able to afford these places that are going to be put up there. So it would be totally irresponsible for this council to approve this application just along with any other ones that come up like this, alcohol or anything like that. It's coming to a point where we have too much there. You need to realize that you can be the city council that's known for the ones that allow the congestion and things like that to happen to the city. And it'd be overpopulated. Yeah. Maybe some areas are underutilized as they're being. That's been stated. But to utilize these places properly, we don't need condos, we don't need yoga studios, we don't need these businesses. We have plenty of them, but we need these community centers that have already been displaced by this. We have one community center left for an entire district. I think city council dropped the ball on that one. If nobody here can can see that that's a problem in a community that's that's under the poverty line to some people that live there, a high number of people that still live there under the poverty line. And we have one community center that's irresponsible. I got to say. Thanks for screws. Sit on a. Hello. Good evening. My name is Quintana. I'm a member chairperson of R.A.. I am the original North Denver individual. I was born and raised there and now living quick. Newton projects three blocks from where you're talking about. All of what Mr. Cruz said is absolutely the truth. Come and spend the day at my house. Because if you park, you better not move because you won't have parking to come home and unload your groceries. I'm 67 years old. They pulled me out of the closet. It's time that you guys realize that. North Denver. Needs to be left alone. This zoning six storey building. How are you going to fill a IT truck down there? I know. I played on that street. But I do represent at least 300 residents that are not ignorant. They've been ignored by the city in council, city council and city of Denver. We're still there. I'll be representing them and fighting no on this. Because we don't need it. If we needed it, it'd be different. We don't need it. Gentrification. Has anybody done any studies on what it does to the people? I don't see anybody raising their hand. You remember that were there? We've been ignored since this gentrification. And this is our last stand. And we're going to stand diligently. And I represent a minimum of 300 residents in north Denver. We're not ignorant. We've been ignored. And it's time you stop ignoring us. And we say no to this project. You've tore down our whole community. You've okayed this. It's not okay with us. You haven't asked us. We haven't been here. We're not ignorant. I'm here. He used to my face because I'm going to be coming back. We need to place our kids can play. We need a community where we can park at our home. It's so congested and so full. I'm going to jail for stopping my car every time somebody asks me to do over the speed limit in a residential area. If you're that late, get up earlier. It's that simple. We're so congested, we can't do anything. Superintendent. Your time is up. That's good. Thank you. Thank you. Nice to meet you all. I'll see you again. Thank you. Hey, Jeff. This is now. Question. Question portion. Jeff, can you tell me what what neighborhood plan did? Did you all use doing your analysis? There's the 41st and Fox station area plan and the Sunnyside Neighborhood Plan, but the 41st and Fox stationary plan is the most recent of the most clear guidance. Okay. That's from 2009, I believe. Okay. 2009. And do you was there a community outreach process that allowed stakeholders in Sunnyside, in the neighborhood to be a part of the rezoning efforts? Yeah, you know, it was before my time, certainly. But, you know, it's well documented in the plan itself and in the supplemental documents, the engagement that did happen. So there were numerous community meetings and a lot of it centered around land uses and building heights and things like that. Yeah. Okay. Councilman Espinosa. Yeah. The. So I brought this up in, in a in ludi on a, on a rezoning in the same area about the concept plan that is in the. You know, it's a it's exactly, I think two pages away from that site plan. Yes. Two pages prior. So what I'd like to do is I've seen what's been shared with the community and isn't part of this rezoning. But I think I would like my colleagues to the degree that it is an actual it's here to be discussed and it's actually in the in the the owner or whoever is capable or yourself as comfortable talking about. But the city has invested in part on this property. Is there any agreement related to that that we, the community, can sort of be assured that certain things are going to be delivered by this development that would come with this rezoning? I'm not aware of any. We wouldn't typically include that as part of the rezoning process. But I don't know if you. You know, as part of this project, we've been at it for about 16 months and we originally agreed to do the project. We committed to to to bring in 21% of our of our units, both for sale and for rent to the community as affordable. We call them workforce. That's that's in the end, that's going to equate to about 87 workforce or affordable units that we'll be bringing to this community. And so I know this was discussed with the previous applicant of of do you do you build those units out or do you pay a fee from a developer? It's much easier and much less risky just to pay the fee. And that's not something that that we want to do. This is a property that we want to own long term. And that's why we're looking at 40 year financing on it. And we want to control the experience. And so with that, during those 16 months, we reached out to the community. We not only had one, but we had four meetings in the community in a public setting with the Sunnyside neighborhood. And as Jeff mentioned, we had a a glaring report of of support that came through. And I apologize that you guys have not seen that. But in those public meetings, I know Councilman Espinosa has been there and we've gotten a lot of support. So I'm a little disappointed to hear that, that there's some opposition. And, you know, we didn't know about those those issues. But this is the right place for density. And we're trying to create a walkability in this community and help get some of the cars off the road by doing that and allowing access to that light rail station. So with that, there's also a need during those meetings for neighborhood retail space. And if you look at a lot of the the housing in the neighborhoods is not as walkable as you would think. And we've heard a lot of different concerns over over retail that the neighbors would like us to bring there, and we're actively seeking that. So I you know, I can't commit tonight that we're going to do that, but we're going to try the best we can to do that. So as far as what's what's coming, it's 21% affordable workforce. Okay, good. Councilman Espinosa, I'm sorry I missed the. What was the number of affordable? 81, I believe. I, I don't want to get pinned down on a number because we're still working through the planning. It's 21% right now, but that works out to 20. To 20% affordable units with. 21%, sorry, 87 total. At what level am I? So it's a combination between 80, 80% and 95%. Okay. All right. Go ahead, Councilman. So. Was it always that because so you know, I be I became first cognizant of the potential development proposal back in June of 2017, 2016. Yeah. I thought at that time there was some greater, deeper levels of affordability or my mistaken. I don't I don't believe that to be the case. Okay. So but it is both for sale and rental affordable. Right. And I think that's a unique thing about this property. And we control both sides of that and so on. The on the condominium side, those are going to be for sale, affordable. Again, 21% of those will be workforce or affordable. Okay. One of the things that is, is the city money still involved and will continue to be involved in this development or not? Currently, there is a loan in place with the Office of Economic Development. Yeah. In in that to some degree allows you the latitude to sort of enter into the sort of a of some affordability that you might not otherwise choose to do. Right. That's correct. And I think the other key point here is the ability to go eat stories also helps because at the end of the day, as I mentioned, you either pay a fee or you subsidize internally. And that's what we're able to do here, is subsidize those affordable workforce units by increasing the density on the project , and that allows us to deliver those so much higher. In the early discussions when we were talking, you know, the potential for a project and the potential for a rezoning, I made it very clear that my concerns were essentially eyes on the pedestrian bridge. So to sort of ensure safety for anybody crossing over the bridge that, you know, there was some comfort level that people were and there was activity around that and people were watching. And there was early consideration in in sort of schematic design, further consideration and development of that design. Even though we're not talking about projects here, I think it's important because a lot of times you hear council people lament. The fact that we're not talking about project is that I'm a little worried that, you know, the ground floor retail component that seemed to be part of integral into any scheme might be on the block is the activation around the stair tower and the elevator in the bridge also is subject to going away. No, that's that's still currently part of our plan. That whole street frontages is frontage by retail space as well as trying to create that pedestrian plaza. Right. Right. Where that stair platform, you know, comes down to the street. You know, we've taken a lot of other comments that have come through both both meeting with you and the neighborhood. And instead of kind of creating a community that faces inward, we've created one that faces outward. And so we've activated the alley, allowing pedestrians to come through through the community, as well as create outdoor space that faces outward and gets eyes on the street and kind of handle some of those concerns. Yeah. So, so again, we're not looking at projects. I wish we were, but to the degree I mean, it's a shame that you don't have the the level of development and how far you've progressed because, you know, that is what has been shared with the community and got you the support that you earn. And, you know, I'll reach out to Ambrose and said, I actually go ahead and actually I'd like to maybe ask you both, have you seen the development proposal that was shared with the community? I've seen the development proposal that was shared the community with the mixed use Mr. Quinn container come to the so that you could be on record. Mr. Cruz. Okay. No, it's not. Here it is for you. Go ahead. Yeah, it was at the public meetings. Where were you able to see it? What was being proposed? Yes. Okay. And you're still opposed? No. Yeah, I'm not. I'm opposed. Okay. Absolutely. We don't we don't need it. It's we talk about density. How? Against when I don't want to be rubbing elbows with you. Yeah. I don't want to be sharing my parking space with you. You're not paying my rent and I'm not paying your mortgage. And that makes a difference to the people that still live there, the people that have been ignored. And there's a large group of them. And they haven't been ignored. And they don't not come here because they don't care. In Arkansas, they have to work and feed their kids. They have to worry about the traffic that congested streets that their kids don't get here. Yeah, that's what we have to do. We don't have time to be coming. The city council. They picked the old guy. So you got to go. And this is where our vote is and their vote is now. Okay. So you've abuse our our communities been abused. With this gentrification, we still have people older than me that were born and raised in North Denver. And I happen to know. And they they don't. They have nowhere to go. I'm not going to plead with you's. But there's enough families there to make a difference and their vote is no. Period. We've been abused enough. Give us a break. Give us a moratorium on this rezoning and this gentrification. Let us breathe. Let us enjoy. Let us enjoy a year of our life to make these important decisions. But they have to have me come up here. So that they can get their kids in bed, so they can finish their work from their job. That's 300 people. That's 300 families. That's why I'm here. Thank you. Said. Thank you. You're welcome. Jeff, I have a question. The the. The. I just want to let you know, every resident I talk to in the area, there had no idea of this proposal. None. No. And I've talked to almost every resident that lives within, like, a three block radius of that area. I went personally and knocked on all their doors and showed them what was happening. And none of them knew. No. Two of them, like 30 people or 30 doors are knocked on, knew what was happening there on Jason and in the street, two out of the three doors nearly got knocked on. So no, nobody knows about what's going on because they're too busy trying to live. The outreach that he's done, I never got a call about the zone changing. I'm the chair of R.A.. I never got a call. So there's your answer. No, people don't know. My struggle there. Cruz, is that your ANA was notified at every point in the process and I wish you had reached out to my office. We would have been happy to advise you. Like you said, though, some of us are trying to survive. But I have reached out to your office for a number of things. And when I do reach out to your office, I'd appreciate a response from you directly, because you are who I'm trying to speak to. Okay. Or Jeff. So my question is. The the stationary a plan which I am going to reach out to both Ambrose and Sid in particular on the stationary plan. What's that? I have to go. Okay, but I want to reach out to you on this stationary plane because there's a lot here you need to know about. On the stationary plan sort of conveniently ends before it gets too quick. Newton. Do you know where Craig Newton and the residents of Quick Newton specifically are specifically involved in the stationary planning process? I don't know. I could certainly find out, but I don't know. Okay. The reason why I ask is to some degree, yeah, there is a there is no onsite parking for all those units. It is all on street parking and it does get congested over there. And as we know and that's what I want to, you know, advise my my constituents on this that plan does call for 2 to 8. It does have relaxed parking because of its proximity to the station. So the things that they were speaking to specifically are exactly exacerbated by the plan recommendations. And it's concerning to me that there might, in fact, be a disconnect between, you know, existing long time residents and what the stationary plan calls for. So. Thanks. Okay. But before we we we get in to two comments, I'm just going to ask you one more question. You know, I think before councilman. Lopez did a couple West Side plans, neighborhood plans before Council Monteiro before me did Global or Swansea. There wasn't great attendance in the neighborhood plans meetings, right. And I guess that's where I'm kind of struggling with and CBD is acknowledge that neighborhood plans have been largely Anglo represented and in communities of color they've really struggled in that. I think that we're seeing that here today and I wouldn't just ask them had they been a part of the process they say they haven't been reached out to. And so I guess I want to know more about that 2009 plan. You weren't here, so it's unfair. There's no one else. So I'm just going to leave it as an open question. But I would love some folks to get back to me around that 41st and Fox. I know my side of the tracks in Globeville there was, but I'm not sure about the sunny side. And it's troubling. And as you can see, this is this is what we're seeing in our neighborhoods. That's kind of a question. All right. This closes. Councilman Espinosa, you back up, are you? Yeah, I'd like to say a few comments. Okay. Council Bill 633. Public hearing is now closed. Councilman Espinosa. Yeah. To what you're saying. The thing. The reason why I was bringing up the context plan and I did bring it up in the in ludy on it, on a related rezoning or in the same area, is that the context plan shows a stepping down. Shows the highest density right at that right along Inca. And then it transitions down. It even shows illustrations and and visuals, photographic visuals of what that transition should be. And even though it's not for consideration, the project, the project that has been shared and, you know, acknowledges that mean it does, in fact, step down. It transitions from an eight story approximately down to a five storey as you go at least south on the site. And you know, where if you look at that concept plan, it is very consistent with that transition into the neighborhood. And that's important because that is one of the things that I have heard from people that I know were part of the of the station area plan in 2009. That said, because we've done so many rezonings across the tracks in the 12 and 20 story range, I don't have any problem saying that. Yeah, I, I believe the plan should actually be revisited because maybe the density wasn't enough to go to, to, for this opportunity. That said, you know, eight storeys is consistent. A storeys was supposed to be along Inka Street and then transitioning down into the neighborhood. I wish there were language to to capture the transition, but this is the this is the way we go about things. You know, I wish the developer luck and I will be supporting it because the the activation, you know, the things the core things that they've communicated as desires seemingly can be captured in this rezoning have been