AS AMENDED a bill for an ordinance relating to the Denver Zoning Code, to modify certain building form standards in response to slot home construction. Approves Text Amendment #3 to the Denver Zoning Code to create a new Town House building form with revisions to other related building forms to address “slot home” development through new or revised zoning standards for side-by-side residential development. Amended 4-16-18 to make reference to a corrected version of the text amendment filed with the clerk. The previously filed text amendment incorrectly stated in five locations that certain dwelling units located within 20 feet of the Side Street Zone Lot Line shall be oriented to the primary street zone lot line. The language in these five sections should have stated that the dwelling units shall be oriented to the Side Street Zone Lot Line. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 3-27-18.
11 eyes. 11 I as accountable to 91 has passed. Councilwoman Stutzman, will you please put Kels Bill 306 on the floor? Well, certainly, Mr. President, I move that council bill 306 be placed upon final consideration and do pass as amended. It has been moved and seconded. The public hearing for Council Bill 306 is open. May we have the staff report? Good evening, members of council. My name is only spoke with CPD here to present the tax amendment to address human development comprehensively throughout the city and county of Denver. So just a quick reminder of what our slot home's it's not specific to one building form nor zone district. So this is really a comprehensive citywide issue that we've had to tackle holistically. But generally speaking, slot homes or any sort of multifamily development that is side by side with the predominant characteristic of being side facing at the street. On the slide you can see a couple of diagrams as well as images illustrating a couple of different common slot home configurations. So at a very high level, the purpose of this project was to develop changes to the Denver zoning code in a way that holistically address home development to better engage the public realm. Consider the neighborhood character to be more in context. Address the human scale minimizes vehicular auto oriented impacts of the existing design while ensuring equity flexibility and predictability. And I'll get a little bit more into each of those items. But first, I want to talk a little bit more about the process that has gotten us here today. In the fall of 2016, CPD announced that we would be taking on this tax amendment. Smaller changes were made to the zoning code in prior years that were some of the quick wins. But understanding that this building form was occurring in a variety of zoned districts and a mix of building forms, we needed to really start holistically looking at it and specifically identify what that problem was. We had heard a lot from the community as well as from council members too, that this is an ugly form. We don't like it. It's not within character of our neighborhood, but we really needed to further identify that. And so the first phase of the project was really existing conditions, analysis of studying the neighborhoods and the zoning standards that were being exploited to create this form and then really creating and crafting with our task force. That problem statement, as we mentioned, we had a task force that was really critical and crucial to guiding this process. And that task force was a diverse representation of developers who were common, who commonly developed this type of building form architects and designers, community advocates and neighborhood representatives as well as council members here. So we really had a great diverse group of people with varying opinions on what the solution should be. But we started that off by getting a solid footing of what that problem is, and then went out to the general public and had a public meeting and Council District one with great attendance. About 80 people came out to really help us craft and refine what the problem is that we were solving for that resulted in the problem ID report. And then we started moving along to evaluate different zoning tool strategies that could be used to effectively address this problem. We also looked at Peer Cities to determine what sort of tools were going to be most effective. Here we had another series of task force meetings, also started doing some additional outreach to registered neighborhood organizations, to the planning board, as well as an informational item to really kind of kick start where we were. The bulk of the work was really in this third phase where we were selecting that strategy. And what I mean by strategy is a set of zoning tools that was going to be used to address lot home development, acknowledging that that strategy was going to vary based off of neighborhood context as well as our zoned districts. So with that, we had five different task force meetings. We had another community open house as well as six R.A. meetings that we went to and then the release of the strategy report as well as an additional planning board info item and LUDI infill item. We also consulted various industry representatives that were not on the task force to give us additional external gut check to really make sure, are we closing all the loopholes that we're intending to? And also, are we still allowing for a buildable product to be completed at the end of the day? So really where we are is a culmination in this final phase and that's the adoption phase. So with that, we had our final task force meeting in which we reviewed that draft redline review of the Text Amendment, which was informed by that strategy report. We also continued to go out to the R.A. and provide additional information and feedback there. And then we also released the public review draft for over 30 days prior to that first planning board public hearing, then went to Lou de Council and are here before you tonight for consideration of that text amendment. As of tonight, we have received eight letters of support from various Arnaud's excuse me, seven letters of support from various R.A. within the city, an additional letter of support from an individual, and then a couple of other comment letters that either express explicit support or not, but rather further refinements. Some of those refinements have been integrated into the draft before you when they were consistent with the overall strategy report and those objectives. So as you can see, that was a very comprehensive process that really started out with crafting this this problem statement. And also at a high level, what we found was the problem was it wasn't engaging in the public realm as you can. See on that top right photo. The pedestrian entry was a fire access control panel, and only the fire department is going through there, not the guests or the residents of the property. There was no window transparency as art and other alternatives are being used. And then you had kind of a predominant dry vial. So you don't have that public realm engagement, nor is it in character with the neighborhood design. The building mass scale, as you can see, is out of proportion to the existing buildings in the area, very clearly oriented with predominant drive veils running through and also interrupting that pedestrian experience along the sidewalk as well as those impacts and neighbors, especially with those rooftop decks in the rear. We also as well as having that problem statement, it was important to craft criteria for successful solutions that we were constantly going back and checking ourselves on the first one really being effective. This text amendment needed to and does effectively address that problem statement for us to arbitrarily proposed changes to the zoning code that would not be in alignment with this effective statement. It was also important that this met the needs of all the stakeholders, which was why it was so critical to have such a diverse and robust task force as well as maintaining housing options. We know that side by side residential is not going anywhere any time soon. So how can we improve side by side residential to still maintain that as an appropriate housing option throughout our city while allowing for flexibility, understanding that market design demands of our market is going to change over time and we need to build in that appropriate flexibility. Contrasting with it, though, but complementary is the important aspect of predictability. It's important for developers to understand what the zoning code means in terms of what their development potential is. It's also important for property owners and neighbors to understand what can happen across the street from them, next to them to their rear. So improving the predictability of is also a key element of this process. So in terms of kind of how this played out, we evaluated that existing slot home, looked at the existing conditions and crafted that problem statement and criteria for successful solutions. And that bulk of phase two, we really evaluated a variety of different zoning tools to really determine which ones are going to be most appropriate and what districts. And then we kind of broke it out into three different solutions or strategies, starting with the mixed use zone districts and mixed use districts are AMC's aims are some districts in that kind of third category. And these are typically our most intensive mixed use. Some districts that not only allow for residential uses, but also commercial office and even light industrial uses in some cases. So what we did is we actually introduced a new building form, the townhouse building form, which I'll speak to a little bit more . Then we also made similar changes into our multi-unit zoned district, which is typically restricted to residential uses and then down to our lowest intensity multi-unit zoned district, the row house zone district. And on a walk through each of these from highest intensity zone districts to lower intensity zone district. So on the screen, here is an example of an existing slot home that could have either been built in the general building form or the shopfront building form. And through the changes proposed in this tax amendment before you, you would no longer be able to use building forms to construct side by side residential dwelling units. Instead, if you're going to be using the shopfront of the general building form, you'll need to be doing either stacked units or a mix of uses or something else that you may not be using these building forms any further for side by side residential configurations. Alternately, though, we're still allowing for you to do side by side residential, but you're going to be using a new building form and that's a townhouse building form. And as you can see, the main tool here is that dwelling units that are located near the street must be oriented to the street. So allowing for additional density to occur in the rear and all the different standards that we're using are really intended to address that problem statement and ensure that we're meeting our criteria for successful solutions. So the biggest one here is creating a new standard that requires units that are located near the street to be oriented towards the street. So it creates more of a row house appearance from the street. We've also increased our primary street setback as well as our side street setbacks previously in the general or the shopfront building form. Those were zero foot setbacks and they didn't allow for the appropriate transition of public to private space, which is more appropriate for a residential development. So we've increased those setbacks, but then also allowed for porches and canopies and other required entry features to encroach into that space and create human scaling elements that are consistent with the neighborhood character. We've also reduced the building height and so we're no longer going to be getting four storey up hearing buildings and three storey zone districts. So better aligning building height and feet with building height and stories as well as requiring entry features such as canopies or porches and increasing that transparency standard of windows required at the street level as well as revising building. New standards to eliminate loopholes and garden walls that weren't creating outcomes as intended for the build, too. So these are kind of the high level elements that are applied to the mix. You. Some districts you can see in the red line review draft of the further details. Multi-unit zoned districts include multi-unit as well as our residential office. Some districts we have two building forms that we were seeing a lot home outcomes, the first of which was in the Garden Corp building form. And as you can see, this is an example of what could have been constructed in the Garden Corp building form and with a required width of only 15 feet for that garden court, it was much more like a slot than a court yard. So you may no longer construct an outcome that might look like this, but ultimately something that looks a little bit more like this. The big items to know is that we increase that courtyard width to a minimum of either 30 feet or 33% of the zone lot with whichever is greater, adding a proportional standard that is more appropriate. We've also required landscaping in the courtyard where none was previously required. We also introduced a transparency standard where none previously existed required entry features and required residential uses to enclose that garden card. So before you could just have your garage as an enclosure, which is not traditional or in alignment with that form, and hence no residential uses need to be enclosing it. We've also limited the off street parking area to the front of the lot, so you can't have dry vales coming along the side and accessing it and creating the outcome and increase the zone lot standards to 75 feet wide or 9000 square feet to ensure that this building form is in alignment with where it could actually be built. The other building form that was problematic in the multi-unit zoned districts was apartment building form. And as you can see, you could build something like this, which is no longer going to be allowed in apartment building form. If you want to use the apartment building form, you'll need to be doing a stacked unit configuration as opposed to a side by side dwelling unit configuration. What we have here is how the new townhouse building form that you would be required to use in the multi-unit zoned district. Once again, all of these standards that we're applying here are intended to address that problem statement and be consistent with the criteria for successful solutions. Once again, we're requiring dwelling units to be oriented to the street. We've also revised the primary street and block sensitive set back in these districts to create a better transition over time. And we've also increased that side interior setback greatly. A big difference between the mixed use and the multi-unit zoned districts is that that side interior setback for dwelling units that are not oriented to the street have been increased to 12 and a half feet while still allowing for some encroachments like canopies to occur in this area. But acknowledging that these are residential zoned districts, those impacts, the neighbors are going to be greater. So that's a significant change there between the two zone districts, as well as reducing building height, requiring entry features and increasing the transparency standard with revisions to the build to standard. Our real house zone districts are our lowest intensity multi-unit zoned districts. And what we had here was existing Garden Corp building forms. Once you can see not really a garden, not really a court. And we looked at exploring and utilizing many of the tools that we use in the multi-unit zoned district. But upon further evaluation and discussion with the task force, the Garden Corp. building form really wasn't going to be an appropriate building form for our lowest intensity, multi-unit zoned districts. So ultimately, we have eliminated that garden court building format as an allowable building form in the row house zone districts as well as townhouse. And instead, if you have a large plot like this, you're going to be doing a side by side townhouse construction where no additional dwelling units are located in the rear. We are also seeing configurations like this occurring within our rowhouse zone districts and this was an exploitation of a standard that required each dwelling unit to have a street facing entrance. And as you can see, there's another set of dwelling units in the rear that are street facing entrances, but they did not create the intended outcome of a row house. So what we've required now is that each dwelling unit must be oriented to the street, and there's more dimensional standards that require each of those dwelling units to be oriented to the street, not allowing for additional dwelling units to be tucked away and located in the rear, as this is our lowest intensity multi-unit zoned district. Also, just want to speak to a couple of overall code changes that go beyond the specific zoned districts in terms of improving predictability. A lot of our intent statements were created in 2010, but our zoning code has kind of evolved and changed over time. So we really wanted to make sure that each of these building forms were adequately captured. And so changes to those intent statements have been made, as well as graphics that more accurately illustrate potential outcomes for those building forms, improving supplemental design standards and rules of measurements to have a more clear, consistent administration occur and then also eliminating loopholes. We are also seeing a lot of loopholes occurring and in smaller building forms. And so those have also been eliminated as well. And then we've also made some some improvements to improve overall flexibility by revising the vehicular dimensional standard. Previously, you needed a 23 foot wide driver, which is the same as what you might need in a parking lot for a Walmart. But realizing that these are smaller developments that's been reduced down to 20 feet. So utilizing more space more effectively, we've also made some revisions to set back encroachments to allow some additional flexibility there for building articulation and canopies and so forth. And then we've also built in flexibility to the new standard such as unit orientation. So allows for slight variations and dogs to occur, understanding that those constraints on certain zone lots might be greater than others. And then we've also introduced a new kind of incentive for building heights with the pitched roof. So now pitched roofs, instead of being measured exactly the same as flat roofs, almost have an incentive as they're offered greater height for pitches. So in terms of this tax amendment, there are three review criteria that staff evaluates us against its consistency with adopted plans, furthering the public health, safety and welfare and results in uniform regulation across zone districts. So with this, I'll be focusing on the two citywide land use plans, the first being comp plan 2000, which is further detailed in the staff report, but really talks about encouraging infill development that's consistent with the character of the surrounding area. And what we were finding was that homes weren't consistent with that. So we are now applying new standards that further reinforce the neighborhood character, as well as ensuring that the new Denver zoning code reinforces the quality of urban design. So by improving standards such as transparency, pedestrian entry unit orientation, these are all in alignment with the comp plan. 2000 Recommendations Blueprint Denver at a high level talks about improving compatibility to the buildings and surrounding areas. Additional tools have been introduced regarding protected districts and so forth. And then I'd even talk specifically about developing standards to regulate building dimensions as well as unit oriented. And so really in alignment with some of those strategies for Blueprint Denver Blueprint, Denver also provides recommendations for areas of stability which are most commonly mapped in mixed use and Main Street areas. And what we're wanting to do is not only maintain the existing character, but also still accommodate for some new development and redevelopment, which this text amendment does still allow for, while improving compatibility and maintaining diversity of housing types and costs by allowing for side by side residential to occur in these areas. Excuse me. And then for areas of change, we have similar types of recommendations, but also really speaks to the importance of pedestrian supportive development standards. So really focusing on enhancing those those zoning standards that are at the street to ensure that we're creating an appropriate transition from public to private space in a way that's compatible with the neighborhood and the zone district, also eliminating auto dominant standards or removing that driver from splitting down the middle of these buildings and maintaining a diversity of housing types so that CPD finds that this maximum is consistent with the city's adopted plans. We also find that it furthers the public health, safety and wellbeing welfare by providing clear, predictable zoning regulations that reinforce the desired character of the neighborhood while implementing the city's adopted plans. And that these regulations will result in uniform application for side by side residential across the city. Thank you. Thank you very much. A lot of information to get through there. I appreciate it. We do have six individuals sign up to speak this evening. So I would ask that if you signed up to speak on this this evening, if you could make your way up to the front bench so that we can get through everybody efficiently . First up, we have Heather Noyes. Thank you. My name is Heather Noise. I live at 4492 Xavier Street and I was on the task, the slot Home Task Force. And my role on the task force was to represent INC and I was very happy to do that. On March 10th, CPD came to the and presented to the delegates at INC and they voted on a motion. The delegates were presented with a motion and they voted to support this test. The slot Home Amendment 52 in support zero opposed to abstentions. And I asked tonight that you support the the amendment. I think it's fabulous. I want to say big kudos to CPD. Annalise Hawk and Mike Hughes developed, managed and facilitated a just stellar process. It was accessible, transparent, inclusive, very thorough. And but it was not easy. It was super challenging. It was contentious at times. It was tedious, as we discussed and and argued about nomenclature and inches and feet. And this truly is a compromise. I don't want anybody to think that this is a win for the neighborhoods. It is not. I think we left a lot of things on the table, especially in my role as a neighborhood advocate, and it doesn't go far enough. You may hear from developers tonight that says that that will tell you it goes too far. But I really believe that this is a long overdue course correction. And I want to thank CPD for a great job. I have two comments. A vibrant, evolving city is a result of multiple systems functioning simultaneously, and there were many comments raised by the task force, by the public, by residents, the slat homes that pertained to and actually warranted the engagement of other departments, public works, forestry and solid waste. And some of these issues remain unresolved. And I say to you that in 2018, the days of siloed planning processes should be far behind us. The second comment I have is I've had developers tell me that if there's loopholes in our zoning code, they're going to find them. They've said that to me privately. They said it to me at the slot Home Task Force. And so it leads me to believe that this isn't the last time that we're going to see building forms that subvert the intent of the zoned district. And when this happens, CPD staff should have the authority to raise a red flag and put a brake on the replication of any building form that does not meet the intent of the zoned districts. We are spending millions of dollars as a city on visioning and we need the tools. And I'm. Sorry I missed noise, but time. Itself needs the authority to stop it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up, Jesse Paris. Jesse Paris. Denver. Homeless out loud. Black Star Action Movie for Self-defense. So it's my understanding that there is a moratorium on this lot homes as of right now until November. It looks like these spot homes are not affordable by any means. Like their lowest starts at $220,000 and goes all the way up to $700,000. This is definitely not addressing the affordable housing issue that Colorado and Denver is experiencing right now. Also. These do, I would ask members of council if you do approve this was it seems like you are leaves room for. In amendments. Such as? Am I such as? Is this going to be just for ranchers or is this going to be for ownership? Is it going to be a combination of the two and also north south orientation of the slot homes? So if a developer or owner wanted to put a solar panel up, they could and. Yeah. I'm just not in agreement with this. This is not the answer to the affordable housing crisis that Denver is experiencing right now. So I would ask members of council to actually vote no on this and actually take more in-depth research and observation into the effectiveness of this lot homes. And really, who is going to occupy these slot homes? Thank you. Thank you. Next up, security grant. Good evening, members of Council. My name is Gertrude Lagarde. Grant and I live at 242 South Lincoln Street in Denver, Colorado. I'm a member of an R.A. that goes from Downing to Broadway, Spear to I 25. And we already have several of these slot homes in our neighborhood, one of which was constructed before the zoning code was amended in 2010. And my experience in delivering leaflets or fliers to these slot homes has been very discouraging. It's as though they don't want us to come to their front doors because their front doors are so at least the ones that I've gone to, they never come out. They never go out their front doors because there is no real front door. It's a door down on the ground. The dust, the leaves, everything is blown around. And it's as though they really don't want to be part of the neighborhood. There is no engagement, as they say. I love this term in the public realm. I'm not good at articulating this language, but I'm hopeful that this zoning code amendment, the zoning code amendments, will make it easier for the people that live in those houses to engage with the neighborhood and for the neighborhood to engage with them. So I support the zoning code amendment, and I can't believe Annalise Hawk got through that whole thing so fast. I wondered if she was breathing. It was amazing. Thank you. Next up, Charlotte Lindenberg. Good evening, members of Council. Charlotte Winsberg. I live at 590 South Sherman Street in the West Washington Park Neighborhood Organization, which, as you probably know from the letters we've sent, supports this amendment. As good said, we just have a few of these, but we've seen how much damage they did. And I want to really applaud the task force, especially up there and CPD, for the beautiful work they did on this project. Though these new designs and shapes look as though it would be a place people would want to live, not something that they would take because it was the only thing they could get in their price range or their accessibility. The changes in the setbacks are wonderful. I'm not going to take up more, much more of your time just to say that this is an amendment that really deserves your support and perhaps maybe not only the. Poster child for unintended consequences as we go down the road. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Chairman Citigroup. Chairman Sekou Black starts a movement. Contrary to. Many popular beliefs. Organization is not opposed to folks that got money. We're not. You're not. And we believe in the freedom that people need to have in terms of movement and selecting the neighborhoods that they choose to live in according to their ability to pay to be in that neighborhood . And so we approved this because of the work that was done by the task force. And considering all of the elements that are involved in terms of making this happen without actually pitting the neighborhood against itself and acrimony where folks don't want to live next door to each other because of zoning changes and building changes and architectures and whatnot. Know me personally. And I know sense and my. Looking at that up there for half million dollars. That's ugly. That's ugly. I, I just. But who am I to tell you? Well, it looks pretty for you. And what neighborhood you want to live in. Ugly house for half a million dollars. Buy it. And congratulations on a real estate broker who can sell it. Outstanding marketing. And. Thanks the folks who participated in this because reading it on the agenda, it was kind of confusing, you know, in terms of you don't want it to be slanted to here. But it was said it was going to be over there 20 feet. And that's not right. Because supposed to be like this only. Really? And then it's like. How did that happen? Because this is a big change in terms of what was said in the text and what we're now proposing in terms of the orientation of being a primary street versus a side street. And it's like. Okay. So I think planning for catching up and making a change to that because that's what happens down here, that this is not a perfect process, it's not perfect people. And the truth is to make this thing work. And I'm close with this. This is the teamwork that we were talking about that makes the dream of this city work. And we catch it when we catch it, and we're not throwing nobody on the bus for it and we move it on down the road, because for this city, it involves everybody. No matter what your income is, no matter what your tastes are, esthetic values and whatnot. So I'm close with that group. Thank you. Thank you. Last up, Maggie Miller. Good evening. Thank you for your service to this city. My name is Maggie Miller. I live at 451 24th Street and I have served on the slot Home Task Force since January of 2017. I am here to speak to the process that led to this day and ask you to please approve amended Council Bill 18 0306. Let's see. I hate slot homes. Hate them. Have you walked down a street with slot Holmes? I know some of us have here. It feels like being in a canyon. Slight. Holmes turned their shoulders to the street. So all you see as you're walking down the street is just a big blank wall. Denver at its best is a city of neighborhoods. DENVER It's at our best. Our good neighbors to each other. Imagine yourself walking along a sidewalk in your neighborhood, or maybe the neighborhood of a friend that doesn't have slot homes. Picture yourself waving to the elderly lady on the porch, chatting with the young couple, tending plants on their front stoop, or just saying hi to the guy sitting in front of his house coming out his front door. None of this can happen with slot homes, so I'm so glad we changed this about the process. It brought different voices into the room. It was very well facilitated and structured and it was informed by really knowledgeable people. The 16 of us were a varied group. We had developers, architects, neighbors like me, city council members and more. We definitely brought her different perspectives to the table. I learned about a lot of things I had never thought about before, and I felt heard. It was incredibly well facilitated. Mike Set It Up, was our facilitator, and he did an amazing job of keeping us moving forward while still making sure that everyone had to say we refined our problem statement criteria. We had a solid foundation for productive conversations. And in one of the slides, I don't know if you noticed, but we were on a field trip and we actually got to visit real slot homes and that was a bonding process. CPD staff and again, a shout out to Annalise Hook was amazingly knowledgeable. My hat's off to them. I'm in awe of them, frankly. So I'll wrap this up by saying that this process brought a variety of people to the table. It was very well facilitated and structured. It was informed by excellent, live, knowledgeable people. And I hope that you will approve this. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes our speakers. Are there questions for members of council? Councilwoman Cannick. Thank you, Mr. President. I was just wondering whether or not any of the city. Staff had passed on the kind of list of items that were outside your scope, but pointed to the lack of coordination or even consistency between departments that I. Think it was Heather who. Referenced in terms of forestry and conflicting requirements. So is there some follow up plan for those types of items that didn't fit this amendment? Yeah, absolutely. So this law home tax amendment was really focused solely on addressing side by side residential. And so broader items like tree lawn requirements that apply to any development was something that was a little bit beyond the scope of this project. And we did city staff work to reach out early on, especially in the process with various agency departments, letting them be made aware that this was a process that was going on that we were hearing from our task force members and members of the public that there were comments that were related to them. So they've all been forwarded on and are aware of that in terms of specific projects to move each of these items forward. I can't speak to that as that would be a little bit beyond the role of CPD. But absolutely our intent is to make sure that we're not just siloing and only looking at the impacts of this within the zoning code, but understanding broader development. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman. At least can you talk just a little bit to clarify the moratorium and also the November deadline, please? Oh. Just is going to throw this up. So as Made mentioned before, there's actually been two moratoriums that council has passed related to the sex movement. One is back in 2016, and that was a moratorium on the garden court building form, which primarily addressed the garden court building form and row house. Some districts, but probably more notable is the moratorium that was passed earlier this year in March, on March 10th, I believe that was. But essentially what that created was an earlier deadline. Typically the night of the council hearing is sort of that final deadline for projects to either be submitted or approved, depending on the ordinance language. What that moratorium essentially did was create an earlier cut off date. So any project that wanted to use existing regulations and essentially create a slot home outcome needed to be submitted with a formal site development plan prior to March 14th of this year. Any of those projects have until November 10th of this year to gain approval. If a project were to come into our door today, they would not be able to use old criteria and would be needing to use the new tax amendment review criteria. We have seen people submitting concepts and staff has been reviewing those concepts under the public review draft as well. At least that was the compromise of the task force. Right, to give a little extra time to use the old criteria for the developers that were not correct. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Sussman. I thank you, Mr. President. And Liz, thank you again for a wonderful presentation and speedy presentation. I have a question about the garden court. Can you bring up the slide of the one that has the garden in front of the buildings that shows the picture? Okay. Thank you. I was walking my neighborhood this weekend and we have some beautiful garden court areas in in my district, built in the thirties and the forties. Single family homes around a very wide garden. When I look at this. I understand that there are still going to be able to build something like that. Right. But it has to be. Is it 30 feet across instead of the 15 feet? Are they going are they going to be required to have transparency up against the. Because I notice that the ones that I have built in the thirties and forties, they don't necessarily have big wide buildings or big wide windows facing the street, although they're lovely. Are they going to be required to have that kind of transparency on the street? So these will be required to have a level of transparency. So it's not going to be as high as the townhouse building form or, say, an apartment building form. That transparency will be 30% of the building fronting the street. So it's going to be more than what is required today, which is none. But there will be a transparency requirement, and we're still wanting to engage the street with some some amount of activation. You said it would have to be 30% of the of the. Of the. What is it, the square feet, you said. So it's 30% of essentially that linear distance of the street level building that is near the the street. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Ortega. Thank you. And let me say I have a question for you as well. On slide number 35. There's a statement that says, eliminate auto oriented standards. Can you just elaborate on what that means? Yeah. I mean, I see the pictures, but that doesn't really tell me what that means. And those photos are just really illustrating the areas of change within our city of Denver. Ultimately, by eliminating auto oriented uses, we're wanting to remove those auto oriented uses away from the public realm, away from that public street, and put it to the rear closer to the alley. So we're not having drive sales cutting across where people are walking and, you know, improving overall pedestrian safety, as well as not having parking areas or driveways that are really visible and predominant features from the public right of way. That's very clear. Thank you very much. I have no further questions. Thank you, Councilwoman Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. My question actually is for our attorneys. I'm wondering. Does is there anything that would. Prohibit vesting power and whether the director of community planning and development to step in when when a. Loophole is found. And the obvious intent of an ordinance is undermined? Adam Hernandez, Assistant City Attorney. I would just say that the charter vests this body with the zoning powers for the city. So if there were changes, they would have to come back through this body as some sort of action. In other words, we would need to craft an ordinance giving that power to the director of CPD. Potentially. I mean, we would really have to look at what that language looked like. I would just refer that, you know, the charter really gives this. Body the power that if. There was some sort of loophole, it. You know, the the charter says that it should come back through here for some sort of zoning text amendment. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Espinosa. Along that line, Adam, is the ability for the director of part of the director of CPD to initiate text amendments. Is that solely in the zoning in the in the ordinance or is that in charter as well? I'm gonna have to look at the zoning codes because I'm not sure the manager doesn't initiate text amendments. I think that is a council process. The manager of CBD can initiate text amendments. Can, yes. And in this case, CBD initiated this text amendment. Okay. Oh yes. That's I'm sorry. That's, that's often. The reason being is if we played that out, I guess what you, you, the manager would always have that ability to, to recognize and to sort of immediately put forward a text amendment to address, you know, a potential pitfall, sort of what we do with our text amendment process as it is. But it could be sort of closer to real time. You know, they wouldn't necessarily have the ability to stop something per se, but they could make a decision that then gets appealed to the Board of Adjustment. And during that amount of time, it certainly could come before council. It's just saying that's a possibility. Thanks. All right. Thank you, Councilman. Seeing no other questions, the public hearing for Council 306 is closed. Comments by members of Council. Councilwoman Black. Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to thank Annalise. I've come to other looting meetings for your presentations, and you're incredible. It is so professional. Your presentation. You explained it in a way that everyone can understand. And I think you just did a really incredible job. And I think a lot of people are really happy. This is a big problem in our city. I don't have any of my neighborhood guys and I'm glad I don't because I agree with you. They're really ugly. So thank you and thank you all for serving on that task force. I know that's a big commitment to. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Espinosa. Yeah. Girl, I should have asked you a question on how many public hearings you've spoken at and how many of these things you've been involved with. Because you you you said on a least was our analysts or I've been saying it wrong all the time is amazing. And she she is. And she was. And the and you also mentioned that CPD staff was. Yeah. It was a great adjective. Something like it wasn't quite as amazing, but it was close. So I just wanted to reiterate those sorts of things. I wish I could remember the word because in the presentation slides 20 about roughly 23 to 29 is really a quick fire going through all the changes when they're sort of stacked stacked graphics that you don't really get into. And what was in there and was evident is not I don't think not necessarily evident to everybody in the room throughout the process. But who did get discussed is sort of the totality of concerns that have been raised and CPD has been tracking and they did get some measure of addressing throughout this process. And so the comprehensiveness of this within the framework of zoning is to me amazing. And I was watching it happen as an as a member of the task force. But a lot of times I was sort of just I was struck at how how the process was working to get to get at as close to the right outcome as possible. And in some cases, a better the outcome than I thought was possible in many cases, actually. And that's a credit to both the facilitator and to an Elise's managing in guiding us through the process and also getting us all up to speed, because there was a very, very vast knowledge gap between the stakeholders that were present. And to get people that generally don't talk about these things comfortable with sharing their ideas and conveying them, and then being understood and getting developers who try and sort of, you know, nuance these things to death to get their outcomes that benefit them and have that discussion. So that we we got to this point was was impressive to observe and and just yeah as long as it did take it was I think some of you guys acknowledged it it was actually pretty quick. In some regards, it's a long time coming. But it was pretty quick in the end. And. And. You know, it's so in the end, I'm just I agree with Heather, your comments and concerns about it not going all the way. But there are certain things that fall outside of zoning that relate more to addressing the sort of final bits of concern. With respect to public realm and design guidelines and standards that I hope and I trust that that that the city is working on, not hopefully in a faster timeline than what we've seen with addressing these big picture things on onslaught homes in general. But as far as what what we what we created in 2010 and how far we could go to compromise. I am really, really impressed with your work on police and your work staff. All you guys and all the people that also you. You're probably about a third to a fourth of the different CPD staff that stepped into that room opined on different things. And I'm sure there are others that never stepped into that room that were part of this process. This was a lot of work, and you guys hit every little touch point that needed to be addressed that that fell within your bailiwick. And I look forward to sort of supporting other conversations within, you know, with respect to public works and solid waste and the city forester trying to address those through other means where we can in a case in a sort of more local based basis. But as far as a citywide effort to address this unintended consequence and the potential outcome, I think will result in sort of better public realm, better civic engagement, at least by those occupants that are on those those those units oriented towards the street and engage the public realm on a regular basis. And it will it will be a way to capture increased density still in a way that is more conducive to our the character of our of our neighborhoods. So. That that is. I don't have enough. I've already said too much. But at the same time, I just. I could go on and I won't. All night. About how well you guys did. And how happy and impressed I am with the work that you guys did. And the way you shepherd, you in particular, shepherded this entire group. And I don't feel like anybody felt like they were left behind or unhurt in this process. And so I just really appreciate it. Thank you. And thank you, councilman. Councilman do annalisa i guess everybody is just praising you tonight and i will to you. Great leadership. You provided the team, too. You know, we had just great research on what we were doing and they just provided us with such great information and ideas. And I love the the visits we made. We saw some of the ugliest homes in the world and some of the some that really worked out pretty good. So it was very interesting the way it was all handled in. And I'm sure that with all the praise you're getting and I was watching and ready to give you a raise tomorrow, I'm sure Task Force was incredible. Was absolutely incredible. Yes. From the comments. Yeah. From Heather. Maggie, you can tell how our intelligent our test workers were. They did great for representing our neighborhoods. Great. And developers were very interesting. We had a lot of challenging comments and a lot of great discussion. So I was real pleased and it was is amazing too. That hadn't been mentioned is we came up with unanimous decisions on what we proposed and what we came forward with in terms of timeliness. And and so it was a, a task force that worked well together. And, and council council should be pleased to have in council as well as with their expertize in architecture is really helpful as well. Real pleased with the professional way we things have changed the design now and really feel good about the new criteria and how it's really going to help neighborhood character and support our neighborhoods and and is really going to like have a vision. It's going to bring better intent to the zoning district. We had a real problem trying to figure out where to turn when it did match some of the building forms. And this is a really great way that this being straightened out is so, so. And one interesting thing is our family and my colleagues will appreciate this because I finally met some architects to look at our debate now, Councilman Espinosa, at the task force meeting. So but anyway, it was an incredible job. We were really pleased. We pleased to support this. And it is going to be a great addition to the zoning code. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. Pro Tem, I just wanted to add my appreciation as well. First to my colleagues, Councilman Nu and Councilman Espinosa, who really kind of pushed bringing this issue forward, trying to get CPD to assign staff to to work on this issue in. And Luis, you done an outstanding job along with your colleagues who were in the room today and obviously with the input from the residents and the developers coming to a place where normally this room would be packed with folks on both sides of the issue sharing their opposition or their their favor for this piece of legislation. And the fact that we pretty much had everybody in support of moving this whole thing forward speaks a lot to the process. And the fact that people really, as was stated by my colleagues, felt like they were listened to and input was incorporated into what's been brought forward to the floor of council tonight. And I just want to say thank you to all of you who were involved in making this happen. You can drive through neighborhoods across the city and see some of these sprinkled throughout. You can drive through the Sloan's Lake neighborhood and see them all lined up on certain streets where they basically have wiped out single family homes and are, you know, kind of throughout that neighborhood. And I think these changes will be really great for not just the neighborhoods that these are being placed in, but for the folks who will be living there, who will feel like they are part of the neighborhood as well. So congratulations to all of you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Lopez. Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to congratulate a lot of the folks in the community, our staff, CPD staff, but two councilmen over there we knew and Rafael Espinoza. I know this is a this was a growing issue as a lot of head scratching. And, you know, this council has a lot of talent. And it was able to I think, you know, every every council member brings different things to the council. And this is one of those examples of what they bring in and how we were able to work with the community and with staff to create a solution where there was a lot of folks kind of scratching their heads in frustration. I think without a doubt, these slot homes were an abuse of our zoning code, plain and simple. The robbed our neighborhoods of character and the rob residents of community. So I'm glad to see that tonight. At least they'll be one measure in place to, uh, to correct an issue. So. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Espinosa. Rebecca, I've. Forgotten two very important things. I want to thank my colleagues throughout this process, recognizing the importance of this process. Because it was that recognition. Repeated questioning of of things as we went along that lent the support to Councilman New and myself throughout this process. But I also forgot to acknowledge that none of this would have happened without weighing, you know, really initiating the first the moratorium that, you know, needed to happen on garden court and then sort of creating the path, a creating a pathway for us to actually get to this task force by sort of encouraging the use of resources that were always at the ready, but that were very much in need and in so many things in this city. And so thank you, Councilman knew working with CPD director Brad Buchanan in sort of initiating this whole thing and letting it happen. I think it's clear it needed to. And and so. Thank you, councilman. You. And colleagues. Thanks. Thank you, Councilman. Well, seeing no other comments, I'll just add, you know, this is great because not only does it clearly meet the criteria and it's a feel good in the room with everybody supporting, but it's going to directly lead to better development in our communities, which is really important. And so I want to thank everybody who on the staff side, on the council side, on the community side, who work together to bring this forward, make it happen. I'm excited vote yesterday and I just want to give a shout out to Charlotte and 32 of my district seven residents who spent more of their time and their talent and their expertize and their knowledge advocating for their community than anybody I know. It's inspiring to me to see you out at these things time and again and at every meeting, and just you constantly fighting for our neighborhoods. And so thank you for what you do as well. With that, Madam Secretary, I think we are ready for roll call. New Ortega Sussman. Black Espinosa. Hi, Flynn. Herndon. Cashman. Canete. Lopez. Hi. Mr. President. I am Secretary. Please close the voting and announce the results. Lebanese 11 I as council three or six has passed as amended, seeing no other business before this body. This meeting is adjourned.