Rezones property located at 2698 South Federal Boulevard from S-MU-3 to S-MX-3 in Council District 7. (NEIGHBORHOODS AND PLANNING) Rezones property located at 2698 South Federal Boulevard from S-MU-3 (Suburban, Multi-Unit, 3 stories) to S-MX-3 (Suburban, Mixed-Use, 3 stories) in Council District 7. IF ORDERED PUBLISHED, A PUBLIC HEARING WILL BE HELD ON THIS ITEM.  REFER TO THE "PENDING" SECTION OF THE FUTURE COUNCIL MEETING AGENDAS FOR THE DATE. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 9-2-15.
Testimony is recorded in any item presented to the Council are marked as exhibits and become a part of the public record. Public hearings for 573 is now open. May we have a staff report? Good evening. So community planning and development. This is a rezoning or a map amendment. Location of the property is 2698. Federal South Federal Boulevard. The proposal is to rezone the property from suburban multi-unit three storey to suburban mixed use. Three storey. So the property is located in Southwest and in the City Council District seven in the College View South Plant neighborhood. This gives you a little closer view of the location. It is on the northeast corner of Yale Avenue, West Yale Avenue and South Federal Boulevard. It is about 9000 square feet. Currently a single family structure or office structure. Property owner is requesting this rezoning to allow the existing office use. And again, the proposal is to rezone from suburban context multi-unit three storey to suburban context mixed use three storey. So the suburban neighborhood context is consisted of single family, multi-unit, commercial strips, commercial centers, office parks, single unit and multi-unit. Residential uses are usually located away from commercial streets and resident and arterial streets. Multi-unit, on the other hand, and commercial uses are located on arterial arterial streets and collector streets. The street and block pattern can be very different when we usually have a modified grid, sometimes not alleys, sometimes not detached sidewalks, cul de sacs. So our block shapes vary, and we have pictures here that kind of give you a flavor of what the suburban neighborhood context is. So the surrounding the existing zoning, as I said before, is suburban context, multi-unit, three storey height limit. There is a view plane that covers the property from Ruby Hill. So the height limit on the property would be 98 feet. Obviously, a three storey building isn't going to be that high. So the new plane is going to have very little effect. The current land use is an office and the current building form is this one story structure. This just gives you a little bit of context on the zoning surrounding it. The property. Where it says SMU three and s 12. All of this property was zoned R for under former Chapter 59, which was our highest density residential zone district under Chapter 59. And in the 2010 citywide rezoning was re zoned to fit the context a little bit better of the existing structures. So the. 612 directly across federal is a 12 storey building. It's a senior housing facility. And then the surrounding buildings to our property, to the subject property are three storey multi-unit structures and then a little south. We've got a pretty that's the kind of a strip mall and another pudi across from that and more residential three storey that ended up being CC three a little further south of that. And then in the larger context, we've got an elementary school to the east and then more commercial along Federal Boulevard in here. So as I said earlier, the existing use is office. The surrounding uses are multi-unit 112 storey and then several three storey. And the vacant property just east of our site that shows up white on this existing land use map is currently there are currently some three storey townhomes under construction on that property. So that this just gives you a flavor for what's surrounding our our property. So the upper left is the property itself. It was a single family home that was rehabbed into an office building, the 12 story office. I mean, senior housing is on the bottom left. And then the two, three story multi-unit to the north in the upper right, the three story townhomes under construction to the east of the property in the middle. Right. And then lower right is the across from that across from that, another three story multi-unit structure. So a planning board heard this on August 5th and unanimously recommended approval of this on September 2nd. This application was heard at the Neighborhoods and Planning Committee and it was moved on to the full council floor. And then, of course, here we are today and all of the proper notices and sign postings have been made. The Arnaud's affected by this are the College View Neighborhood Association, Denver Neighborhoods Association Inc. In our neighborhood cooperation and we have had no public comment on this application. So you're well aware of the criteria, consistency with adopted plans, uniformity of district regulations, furthering the public health, safety and welfare. Justifying circumstances and consistency with neighborhood context and zone district. Purpose and Intent. So the pertinent plans for this property are a comprehensive plan. 2000 and Blueprint. Denver. There is no local neighborhood plan. So a comprehensive plan tells us to support the creation and growth of neighborhood business to encourage quality infill development that's consistent with the character of the surrounding neighborhood and to continue to promote mixed use development. Blueprint. Denver The land use concept is commercial corridor for Federal Boulevard. These are linear business districts, usually oriented to arterial streets with high frequency transit routes. This is an area of stability where we want to maintain the character of the area and area while accommodating some new development and redevelopment. As far as for future street classification, South Federal Boulevard is a commercial arterial. These are. Our streets that serve a citywide function for mobility mostly. And. Our commercial streets obviously balance that mobility with access to business. A federal boulevard in on the Blueprint Denver map is also an enhanced bus transit corridor. These are corridors where we want to study, enhance transit and where we want to incentivize it with the possibility of mixing uses or transit friendly uses. UCL Avenue is an undesignated local street, but across Federal Boulevard on the west side of Federal Boulevard, Yale Avenue is a residential arterial street. So staff believes that. This application is consistent with our blueprint Denver Comprehensive Plan 2000 and that it will have no effect on the uniformity of district regulations as this as Annex three will be treated the same as every is mx3 in the city, and that by implementing our plans, we are furthering the public health, safety and welfare. The justifying circumstance is. Changed conditions. Per the Denver Code zoning code, the land or its surrounding environs has changed or is changing to a degree that is in the public interest to encourage the redevelopment or to recognize the changed character of the area. Sorry, I'm losing my voice. Let me take a sip of water. So the changed condition here is that the property had already been being rehabilitated or rehabbed into an office right about the time that the city was doing a citywide rezoning and zoning it for multi-unit. Unaware that the property was being changed, the use of the property was being changed. So we're trying just to acknowledge that change in the use of the structure with this rezoning. So we did talk a little bit earlier about neighborhood context, the suburban neighborhood context. These commercial uses on arterial streets in our suburban neighborhood context are fairly common, along with the adjacent multi-unit structures. The other commercial buildings on the block. We believe that this all forms a commercial strip on Federal Boulevard that's consistent with this suburban neighborhood context and the specific intent of the S-Max three zone district and applies to these areas in intersections where local and collector streets at a scale of 1 to 3 intersect with those corridors. And we believe the commercial corridor is very accepting of this kind of mixed use zoning as is. I said as I said before, our enhanced transit corridors, we want where we want to encourage a mixture of uses that support transit. So we do believe that this is this application is consistent with the neighborhood context and the zone district purpose and intent. And we do recommend approval of this application. Thank you, Mr. Sarah. We have to speak or sign them, and I'll call you both up. First is Garrett Jones. Second one is that Texar? So, Mr. Jones, you can come on it. Good evening. My name's Garrett Jones. I'm the owner of this proposed site and in short purchased the property early 2009 and commenced rehabbing the property into its current use, which is my office. During that period of 6 to 8 months of remodeling and going through the process with the city of Denver, the letters that were sent out about the overlay rezoning process that was happening back then were being sent to the previous owner and not to myself. And so I was unaware of what was going on with Denver's rezoning structure. And so I applied and was granted permission to commercialize the building and put in the ramps and all the necessary things to to receive a certificate of occupancy and deeded the city part of my frontage to meet their criteria that they needed to meet to make it a commercial building. A few years ago, I went to test the market and actually put the property up for sale and received two offers on it. But neither one could close simply because I wasn't aware it wasn't zoned commercial. So that ensued. The process of applying to have it resumed, and that's where I'm at now. The difficulty in having it as an SME U3 building is it doesn't have a kitchen or even a bathtub or a shower or anything that a residential property would have to be able to market the property as a residential property. The whole units commercial was just a sink toilet and a drinking fountain. So that's, in short, why I'm here. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Okay. That Texas. Fat tax of 4535. Julian Street, Denver, Colorado. Mr. President, for the second time, I have to object to the fact that this Council clearly has a different set of rules of speech for speech that it supports as opposed to free speech it's supposed to. Tonight, the room was allowed to be overcrowded despite the council rules. And interestingly, the same people who were cut off when they sought to do a demonstration in opposition to the camping ban were tonight allowed to engage in a loud demonstration and were not expelled from the room as they were previously. It is simply unconstitutional to treat speech that you support. Mr. Text and speech. Are your comments really? Thank you. All right, that concludes our speakers. Now time for questions from members of the council. Councilwoman, can each. Thank you, Mr. President. Just a quick question for Teresa. Why is commercial not an acceptable use in the SMU? What is the mix of uses if it's not commercial? Is it just retail and residential that's allowed in that zone district? I brought a copy. Oh, my goodness. Multi-unit. Okay. That's. Yeah, it's. Are you? I think my colleague just answered my question. I agree. I think I was I was misremembering what the acronym stood for. A unit, melting unit. And there are not very many commercial uses. All right. Got it. Thank you. Thanks, Kendra. Thank you. Councilman McKinney, Councilman Clarke, you have a question for the microphone. Thank you, Mr. President. Yes. So I just want to clarify in the report, it says that when this was converted to commercial, it was an allowable use in the old zoning. And it was just missed that it had been converted. No, when it was converted was in 2000, late 2009. We were in the process of redoing our zoning code and taking a look at all of the zoning citywide. So this was zoned R four, which is another multi-unit zoned district. So when we took a look at this building and it looked like a residential structure and the structures around it were multi-unit, we zoned the whole area multi-unit thinking this was a being used as a residence. And I'm sorry, maybe I didn't clarify my question up in the report. It says that at the time it was zoned r four and that the office use was an allowable use under the R for zoning. Is that. Correct? Yes. Okay. So at the time it was converted, it was an allowable use and then the zoning was changed, which made it not in law will use after it had already been converted because of what we citywide rezoning. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Carter. Any other questions? Public hearing is now closed. Time for comments, Councilman Clark. Thank you, Mr. President. And and thank you for the hard work on this, Miss Lucero. You know, for me, this isn't an easy one to support. I think we're fixing something. That was a glitch in the changeover. It was converted. It was a it was an allowable use when it was converted. And some were got an oversight that has affected our the land use that was allowed and permitted at the time. So I will be voting to support this. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments on 573? Scene on Madam Secretary, roll call. Clark. I Espinosa. I Flynn. I Gilmore. I. Cashman. High can each. I Lopez. Hi new Ortega. I assessment i black. I Brooks. I. Mr. President, hi. Madam Secretary, please, for the vote in our results. 1339 as Council Bill 573 has passed. All right. Next one is 615 as amended. Councilman Brooks, will you please put Council Bill 615 as amended on the floor? Yeah. Thank you, Mr. President. I put Council Bill 615 as amendment on the floor. Final consideration to pass. It has been moved and seconded. Public hearing on 615 is now open. May we have that for. Thank you, Mr. President. And good evening, council members. I'm Kyle Dalton with the Department of Community Planning and Development. This application is at 620 West First Avenue and is includes a portion of 90. Galapagos Street is located in Council District seven and it's in the Baker Statistical neighborhood, midway between Santa Fe and Broadway and midway between sixth and Alameda. It. The rezoning faces First Avenue east of Gallup Peg and it's along the west side of the alley, and it's on the eastern edge of what's known as the Industrial Crescent area of Denver. It is located outside the Baker neighborhood historic Landmark District, which is shown on this slide with the Goldenrod dash line. The historic district is to the east and this is to the west outside of the historic district. The property to be risen is 6340 square feet. It includes a four unit to I'm sorry for you in a two story residential building on a 4600 square foot parcel. And then the remainder of the property is included with the larger 90 Galapagos Street property, which has a one story office building and accessory surface parking. And the property owners are the ones making the request. They are requesting rezoning in order to enable a zone lot amendment to conform their zone lots to their current parcel lines. There's not a specific development proposal here, and if nothing else, this slide will really explain why they're here before you. Tonight has to do with a parcel line adjustment that was done since the time of zoning in 2010.