A bill for an ordinance approving the East Colfax Corridor Urban Redevelopment Plan and the creation of the East Colfax Corridor Urban Redevelopment Area. Approves the Urban Redevelopment Plan for the East Colfax Corridor Urban Redevelopment Area to reduce or eliminate blighted conditions as well as to stimulate growth and redevelopment in the East Colfax Corridor, generally bounded by Monaco Parkway on the west and Yosemite Street on the east in Council Districts 5 and 8. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 7-30-19.
Evening speakers should begin their remarks by telling the council their names and cities of residents and if they feel comfortable doing so, their home addresses. If you are here to answer questions only when your name is called, please come to the podium, state your name and note that you are available for questions of council. Speakers will have 3 minutes and there is no yielding of time on the presentation monitor. On the wall you will see your time counting down. Speakers must stay on the topic of the hearing and must direct their comments to the council members. Please refrain from profane or obscene speech. Direct your comments to council as a whole and please refrain from individual or personal attacks. Councilwoman Gilmore, will you please vote council 744 on the floor. Yes, President Clarke, I move that council bill 19 dash 0744 be placed upon final consideration. And do pass. It has been moved and seconded. Councilwoman Black. I understand you have a motion to amend. Thank you, Mr. President. I move that council bill 19 0744 be amended in the following particulars on page one strike lines 29 through 33. On page three, strike lines eight through nine on page three. Line ten, replace 11 with ten. And on page three. Line 14, replace 12 with 11. It has been. Do we have a motion and a second on the amendment, Madam Secretary? We do. Excellent. Thank you. Third has been moved and seconded comments by members of the Council. Council in Black. Thank you, Mr. President. This amendment is to conform to the amendment made last week at City Council to remove the establishment of tax increment areas. All right. Thank you. So, Secretary, I think we're gonna do work on the amendment before we open this up. Correct. Okay, so roll call on the amendment. Black I. CdeBaca when I. Gillmor, I. Herndon Hines. Cashman. Kenny Ortega I see Novo. Sawyer, I. Torres, I. Mr. President. Hi, Madam Secretary. Please. Because the voting in notes results. 12 US. 12 Eyes Council Bill 744 has been amended. The public hearing for Council Bill 744 is open. May we have the staff report? Good evening, Mr. President. Members of City Council. My name is Tracy Huggins. I'm the executive director of the Denver Urban Renewal Authority. And Dura is requesting City Council approval of Council Bill 19 074 forward to approve the East Colfax Corridor Urban Redevelopment Plan establishing the East Colfax Corridor, Urban Redevelopment Area. The Denver Urban Renewal Authority. As the city's redevelopment agency is statutorily charged to pursue the elimination of blighting conditions through thoughtful redevelopment and development. Therefore, a fundamental component of the proposed urban redevelopment plan is the determination by City Council that the approach that the proposed urban redevelopment area is blighted as is defined by state statute durect cannot undertake. Catch myself up here. Bear with me for a minute. There we go. Dura cannot undertake an urban redevelopment project in an urban redevelopment area unless the area has been determined to be blighted. While the neighborhoods in which the proposed urban redevelopment area is located have experienced varying levels of investment and growth over the last 50 years . The properties within the proposed urban redevelopment area along the East Cortex corridor have not experienced significant reinvestment. The creation of the East Colfax Corridor, Urban Redevelopment Area, as part of the approval of the Urban Redevelopment Plan, will allow various public improvement projects to be pursued, and it will allow assistance to the private sector to encourage projects, including commercial mixed use and housing developments and other statutorily authorized projects throughout the urban redevelopment area. When considering the creation of an urban redevelopment area, the boundaries of the area must first be determined. State law requires the boundaries to be drawn as narrowly as possible to accomplish the development objectives of the urban redevelopment area. The boundaries were determined in coordination with the city's planning department. Once the boundaries were determined, Duran engaged a consultant to conduct a condition study. When conducting a condition study, Durham must notify in writing. Each private property owner in the study area that their property is being included in the study area. During notified each property owner by mail, we then hosted a meeting of the property owners to describe the condition study process and then hosted a follow up meeting to share the results of the study. In making the determination of blight, City Council relies on evidence presented at this hearing, including the condition study. If the area is determined to be blighted, Durham will provide notice of the determination to all property owners. The proposed urban redevelopment area is comprised of approximately 80 acres and is located in the far eastern portion of the city and county of Denver within the Montclair, South Park Hill and East Colfax Statistical neighborhoods. The eastern boundary of the urban redevelopment area coincides with the boundary between the city and county of Denver and the city of Aurora. The urban redevelopment area is focused along Colfax Avenue and the real property parcels in the blocks immediately to the north and south of Colfax Avenue, including the Colfax right of way and other public rights of way that are adjacent to these parcels. The urban redevelopment area is generally bounded by Monaco Parkway on the West and Yosemite Street on the east. The urban redevelopment area encompasses all or portions of 48 city blocks, which are all primarily within the Main Street Zone district due to their orientation along East Colfax Avenue Transit Corridor and the commercial nature of the area. Der commissioned Matrix Design Group to conduct the study to determine if the area is blighted. That study, dated February of 2019, has been filed with the city clerk as part of the record of this public hearing. The study addresses each of the 11 factors and summarizes why or why not. A particular factor was determined to be present in the study area. For purposes of this draft report, I will only be speaking to the five factors constituting blighting conditions that were found to be present in the study area. Deteriorated or deteriorating structures. An onsite survey was performed in the study area to document existing conditions. Buildings as well as property were surveyed. Many structures in the study area were found to be dilapidated, with characteristics such as broken and or boarded windows and doors peeling paint deteriorated, fascia and or sockets and broken signs. Some structures were in good condition, but many more lacked proper maintenance, especially buildings that were vacant. The prevalence and frequency of dilapidated structures in the study area was significant enough to impact the overall character of the study area. As a result, there is a finding of slum deteriorated or deteriorating structures. Unsanitary or unsafe conditions. As part of this study, crime records from the Denver Police Department over the last five years, plus the year to date, were examined. During that time period, there were over 6000 reported incidents in the study area, not including minor traffic incidents that were not classified as crime by the police department. Over the same time period, the three official neighborhoods that encompassed the entirety of the study area again South Park Hill, Montclair and East Colfax had 16,512 reported crimes, not including minor traffic incidents. The three neighborhoods had nearly three times the number of crimes as the study area alone, but over an area 38 times larger, giving the study area a crime density and order of magnitude much greater than the surrounding vicinity. It should be noted that the three neighborhoods considered in this analysis are entirely developed and do not include a significant portion of vacant land or parkland. All three are composed of streets on a grid, contain high density housing, and all three are solidly within central Denver. In other words, population density is spread fairly evenly across the three neighborhoods, but crime is concentrated ten fold within the boundaries of the study area. Based on the high concentration of violent crime in the study area, a finding of unsanitary or unsafe conditions has been made. Deterioration of sight or other improvements. The conditions that apply to this play factor reflect the deterioration of various improvements made on a site other than building structures. These conditions may represent a lack of general maintenance at a site the physical degradation, degradation of specific improvements, or an improvement that was poorly planned or constructed. Overall, the presence of these conditions can reduce the site's usefulness and desirability and negatively affect nearby properties. During the Field Survey, a lack of adequate site maintenance was noted to be a common occurrence. Several properties had discarded mattresses or other types of illegal dumping. Others had deteriorated parking lots, overgrown vegetation or dilapidated retail signs or other improvements. Finally, broken or crumbling sidewalks and other pedestrian surfaces were commonplace. These issues were not universal. Many properties were found to be in good condition. However, the frequency of issues found warrants a finding of deterioration of site and other improvements. Unusual topography or inadequate public improvements or utilities. The focus of this factor is on the presence of unusual topographical conditions that could make development prohibitive, such as steep slopes or poor load bearing soils, as well as deficiencies in the public infrastructure system. Within the study area, that could include deteriorated public infrastructure such as streets and alley pavement, curb gutter sidewalks, street lighting, storm drainage systems, lack of public infrastructure, the presence of overhead utilities or billboards, inadequate fire protection facilities and hydrants and inadequate sanitation or water systems. The topography of the area is generally flat and does not present a limitation to development. However, sidewalk infrastructure in the study area is generally present along Colfax, but in poor condition. Many sections of the sidewalk were noted during the field study to be absent along side streets or in other cases, severely damaged. Current conditions contribute to a general sense of a lack of maintenance and lack of infrastructure. Finally, the presence of billboards along Colfax Avenue through the study area has the potential to complicate redevelopment projects due to active billboard leases. The infrastructure needs mention to support a positive finding of unusual topography or inadequate public improvements in the study area. And lastly, the existence of health, safety or welfare factors requiring high levels of municipal services or substantial physical underutilization or vacancy of sites, buildings or other improvements. Municipal service calls are elevated in the study area, as described earlier. The study area covers a heavily developed mixed use area, but many structures and units within these structures in the study area were vacant during the field survey and many of these vacant buildings were among those found in the worst repair. Furthermore, due to the historical development of East Colfax in the area, many buildings cover a low percentage of their respective properties and devote the rest of the land to parking, contributing to a sense of underutilization. The current Main Street Zone code allows for three storey buildings in some portions of the study area and five story buildings in others. Envisioning a significantly higher development intensity than currently prevails. However, the lack of investment in the area means that the current character of the study area largely remains noncompliant to the code and is instead grandfathered in maintaining an abundance of parking lots. Low development intensity and automobile oriented buildings large, often empty or nearly empty parking lots are a common feature of the study area and contribute to its overall underutilization. The high levels of municipal service calls the the prevalence of vacant retail and commercial buildings and the underdeveloped character of the study area are grounds for a positive finding of the existence of health, safety or welfare factors requiring high levels of municipal services or substantial physical, underutilization or vacancy of sites, buildings and other improvements. These blight factors, individually and collectively impair or arrest the sound growth of the municipality and constitute an economic and social liability and a menace to the public health, safety, morals and welfare of the area. In bringing forward this urban redevelopment plan, Darragh has sought to align the goals and objectives of the plan with the existing city plans for the area, including the Denver Comprehensive Plan 2040 Blueprint, Denver, the East, Montclair, East Colfax Neighborhood Plan and the Park Hill Neighborhood Plan. Additionally, the Urban Redevelopment Plan requires any project to also be consistent with future plans, including the East Area Plan. Plan. 2040 is the holistic and sustainable vision of the city and the guiding document for shaping the city. The goals and strategies within Planning Plan 2040 are organized under a framework of six vision elements. Equitable, affordable and inclusive. Strong and authentic neighborhoods. Connected. Safe and accessible places. Economically diverse and vibrant. Environmentally resilient and healthy and active. The Urban Redevelopment Plan will help realize the visions of Plan 2040 by furthering many of the goals and strategies outlined under each vision vision elements. So by way of example, as we start in the upper left with equitable, affordable and inclusive, the outcome that is noted in in Plan 2040 is to build housing as a continuum, to serve residents across a range of income, ages and needs. This would be also reflected in the urban renewal plan. Strong and authentic neighborhoods create a city of complete neighborhoods. Build a network of well-connected, vibrant, mixed use centers and corridors, connected, safe and accessible places, promote transit oriented development and encourage higher density development, including affordable housing near transit to support ridership. Economically diverse and vibrant. Targeted investments and small business support to the most underserved or distressed neighborhoods. Environmentally resilient, focused growth by transit stations and along high and medium capacity transit corridors. And finally, healthy and active. Expand the efforts to recruit and retain fresh food retailers in low income and underserved areas. These are just several of the plan components that are also noted in the Urban Redevelopment Plan. Blueprint. Denver is the city's integrated land use and transportation plan. BLUEPRINT Denver aims to achieve an equitable integration of land use and transportation throughout the city by realizing the plan's vision for a city of complete neighborhoods and transportation networks, an evolving city and an equitable city. The Urban Redevelopment Plan will support Blueprint Denver's Vision for the Urban Redevelopment Area. Starting with a city of complete network, Complete Neighborhoods and Networks blueprint. Denver identifies that the urban redevelopment area primarily lies within the urban edge neighborhood context. The urban edge context is predominantly residential and acts as a transition between more intense urban contexts and suburban areas. Blueprint Denver foresees the majority of the urban redevelopment area evolving into a community corridor, community corridors within the urban edge contexts or destinations with an extensive mix of uses that draw visitors from surrounding neighborhoods and are characterized by a pedestrian oriented environment. Colfax Avenue, the arterial street running through the center of the urban redevelopment area, is envisioned as a Main Street arterial. Main streets are characterized by a mix of active street level uses that prioritize people walking or rolling. The Urban Redevelopment Plan will support the complete Neighborhood and Transportation Network Vision for the Urban Redevelopment Area, as depicted in Blueprint Denver. An evolving city. Focusing growth in centers and corridors helps to provide a variety of housing, jobs and entertainment options within a comfortable distance to all Denver sites, and is a key element of building complete neighborhoods throughout the city. Collectively, throughout the city, community corridors are anticipated to see 25% of new housing growth and 20% of new employment growth growth by 2040. The Urban Redevelopment Plan aims to stimulate the development of housing, retail and office space in the urban redevelopment area, which is consistent with the city's growth strategy. An Equitable City blueprint. Denver incorporates equity into the planning process by measuring three key indicators across the city. Access to opportunity. Vulnerability to displacement and housing and jobs. Diversity. An existing analysis demonstrates that the urban redevelopment area is in an area which has low access to opportunity, high vulnerability to displacement, and low job density and diversity. The neighborhood falls in the middle range for housing diversity diversity. The Urban Redevelopment Plan will foster development that will improve the urban redevelopment area's equitable outcomes as measured by these three indicators. These include incentivizing development of affordable housing, community serving amenities and new employment opportunities. Blueprint Denver provides policy recommendations and strategies to create complete neighborhoods and networks, guide future growth and promote equitable development. The Urban Redevelopment Plan will further many of these recommendations. As noted earlier, the urban redevelopment area lies within three statistical neighborhoods which have adopted neighborhood plans. The first is the east Montclair East, North East Colfax Neighborhood Plan. The East Montclair East Colfax Neighborhood Plan promotes a pattern of land use, urban design, circulation and services that contribute to the economic, social and physical health, safety and welfare of the people who live or do business in the East Colfax Neighborhood. The East Montclair East Colfax Neighborhood Plan is applicable to the portions of the urban redevelopment area, north and south of Colfax between Quebec and Yosemite, and to the south side of Compacts Avenue between Monaco and Quebec. The East Montclair East Colfax Neighborhood Plan envisions a more pedestrian friendly, landscaped and thriving commercial district along East Colfax Avenue. The vision for the East Colfax corridor also includes an improved image and a, quote, cleaner and more beautiful, inviting business district that will strengthen existing businesses and attract new businesses to the area, end quote. Additionally, the East Montclair East Colfax Neighborhood Plans Transportation Vision for the area imagines a neighborhood friendly to walking and biking. The Park Hill Neighborhood Plan intends to promote patterns of desired neighborhood change. Urban Design. Housing development and preservation. Business development. Traffic flow. And safety and other public services. All of which contribute to the economic, social and physical health, safety and welfare of the people who live and work in Park Hill. The Park Hill Neighborhood Plan is applicable to the northern portion of the urban redevelopment area along Colfax Avenue between Monica Parkway and Quebec Street. The Park Hill Neighborhood Plan identifies Colfax Avenue as not only the main street for the neighborhood, but also for the city's metropolitan region. The Park Hill Neighborhood Plans primary goal for Colfax Avenue is to create a stable, safe, attractive, well-lit retail street with a mix of offices, neighborhood businesses and destination businesses that attract customers from out of the geographic area and with anchor tenants to increase activity and uses for other businesses. The city is currently working on the East Area Plan as part of the broader Neighborhood Planning Initiative, which, if approved, will replace the existing East Montclair, East Colfax and Park Hill neighborhood plans. Any future urban redevelopment project will need to demonstrate compliance with the objectives of the then current neighborhood plans. The proposed urban redevelopment plan seeks to eliminate blight through the creation of the East Colfax Corridor Urban Redevelopment Area. The main goals of the Urban Redevelopment Plan are as follows. First, eliminate blight to renew and improve the character of the area. Encourage the creation of complete and equitable neighborhoods. Encourage mixed use development and redevelopment that is socially and economically inclusive. Encourage the growth of existing uses that are suitable to the area more effectively. Use underdeveloped land within the area, and encourage land use patterns that result in a more environmentally sustainable city. It also looks to encourage the participation of existing property owners in the redevelopment of their property to promote a diverse mix of attainable housing options, encourage affordable business space for small, independent businesses, improve access to healthy transportation options, healthy foods, and open space. And minimize the displacement of communities serving businesses or residents. When approved, the Urban Redevelopment Plan will describe the area and plan objectives. It will describe project activities and authorize tax increment financing. It will require projects to conform with Plan 2040 and its adopted supplements, which have a very intentional focus on equitable development. They will also require the application of the existing DURA programs, including project art, first source hiring, small business, enterprise utilization, enhanced training opportunities and prevailing wage if the project includes trunk infrastructure. As important as it is in describing what the urban redevelopment plan will do, it is equally important to describe what it will not do. Approval of the plan will not tonight approve approve an urban redevelopment project. It will not approve the use of tax increment financing. It does not authorize the use of eminent domain, and it will not rezone any property within the urban redevelopment area. Any future project that may require tax increment assistance will require City Council approval and which will require the project to meet the objectives of the plan. In approving this Council bill, council will be making the following findings. The urban redevelopment area described in the plan is found and declared to be a blighted area as defined in the Colorado Urban Renewal Law. And the conditions of blight constitute an economic and social liability and a menace to the public health, safety, morals or welfare. This is a legislative finding by the City Council. Based upon the blight study or other evidence presented to City Council that the boundaries of the urban redevelopment area have been drawn as narrowly as feasible to accomplish the planning and development development objectives of the plan. If any individuals or families are displaced from dwelling units as a result of adoption or implementation of the East Colfax Corridor Urban Redevelopment Plan. A feasible method exists for the relocation of those individuals or families in accordance with the Urban Renewal Act. If business concerns are displaced by the adoption or implementation of the East Colfax Corridor Urban Redevelopment Plan, a feasible method exists for the relocation of those business concerns again in accordance with the Act. That written notice of this public hearing has been provided to all property owners, residents and owners of business concerns in the resolution setting this public hearing. City Council requested der to undertake this task. Written notice was mailed first class mail to all known property owners, residents and owners of business concerns in the East Colfax Corridor. Urban Redevelopment Area. On July 24th, 2019, which was more than 30 days prior to this public hearing, find that no more than 120 days have passed since the first public hearing before City Council on the plan. Tonight is the first public hearing before Council on this urban redevelopment plan. You will be finding that this is the first consideration of an urban renewal plan for this site. And thus the City Council has not previously failed to approve an urban redevelopment plan for this site, and as such, the requirement to wait at least 24 months since any prior public hearing is inapplicable. Conformance with Denver Comprehensive Plan. On July 17th, 2019, the Denver Planning Board unanimously found that the Urban Redevelopment Plan conforms with the Denver Comprehensive Plan and it's applicable supplements. A letter to that effect has been submitted as part of the record of this hearing and that the East Colfax Corridor Urban Redevelopment Plan will afford maximum opportunity consistent with the sound needs of Denver as a whole for the rehabilitation or redevelopment of the urban redevelopment area by private enterprise. The Urban Redevelopment Plan does not consist of any area for open land, which is to be developed for residential or nonresident residential uses. Nor does it include any agricultural land. Finally, again, want to emphasize that no acquisition by eminent domain is authorized by the plan. In closing, Dura is very pleased to be working with the city and county of Denver to bring forward the urban redevelopment plan for this area. During staff has spent over two years working with community planning and development, the partnership as well as area residents, businesses and property owners through the East Colfax Corridor Condition Study Process, the city's east area plan effort and in preparation of this East Colfax Corridor Urban Redevelopment Plan, the potential for Darra supported redevelopment captures many citywide goals, objectives and strategies that are found in the Denver Comprehensive Plan 2040 Blueprint, Denver and the Neighborhood Plans. We look forward to working with the property owners, business owners, community members and others to bring about the revitalization opportunities outlined in these plans. With that concludes my staff report, and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much. We have 15 individuals signed up to speak this evening. What I'll ask is if you're sitting in the front row, sorry, but if you don't mind, maybe moving over to that row so that we can I'm going to call five people up at a time so they can be close to the podium, so that we can get through everybody quickly to have time for questions and all that good stuff. So I'm going to call up the first five if you want to come to this front bench and be ready to step right up to the microphone when your name is called. So first off, John Neal, Tim Roberts, Cathy Speed, Brendan Green and Jesse Paris. And John Neal, you are up first. My name is John Neal. I'm the secretary of the East Colfax Neighborhood Association. I was present at and recorded notes for the general meeting held Tuesday, August 20th, when I emailed the notes to Tim Roberts, president of the association, the next day, August 21st. I stated, quote, I did not include the so-called vote at the end of the meeting since it was not conducted properly. That is, there was no advance announcement of a pending vote in the agenda. Also, there was no consideration of a quorum. A number of the attendees had already left by then, and there were abstentions that were not counted. I hope you do not state to city council that the association voted to oppose the designation, since that would be a gross misrepresentation. Naturally, your passion and opinion certainly should be expressed at the city meeting on Monday. However, please do not abuse your position as President of Act Now to speak on behalf of all of the membership. Close quote. Tim replied quote I did add info on the vote to the minutes. It could have been less messy, but it certainly did happen. And that fact is all we are reporting going forward, close quote. In his letter to city council members dated August 23rd, Tim stated quote At the conclusion of the latter meeting, we voted with a show of hands to oppose approving the you are a 8 to 4 . Close quote. I respectfully disagree. Article nine of the bylaws of the association entitled Parliamentary Authority States quote The rules contained in Robert's Rules of Order Revised shall govern the association's conduct of business in all cases to in all cases to which they are applicable. Close quote. Pursuant to Robert's Rules of Order. Quote The formal steps in handling a motion or the making of a motion having a second. Stating the motion. Having debate on the motion. Putting the motion to a vote. And announcing the results of the vote. Close quote. These basic steps of parliamentary action were not followed. In addition, since there was no mention of a proposed vote in the agenda as announced prior to the meeting, attendees were, in effect, blindsided by the purported vote, which took place at the very end of an extremely long meeting during which attrition had reduced the number of eligible voters. I ask the Council to disregard the so called vote of the East Colfax Neighborhood Association, since it was not conducted properly. In addition, paragraph number three of the letter you received regarding Dern. I'm sorry, but your time is up. Thank you. Next up, Tim Roberts. Thank you. Um hmm. I am an unpaid volunteer and I. Need some training. Let me think. First of all, the people. I'm Tim Roberts live in. Denver, East Colfax, business owner and president of the East Colfax Registered Labor Organization. I want to thank the people of East Colfax who have so far stepped up to grapple with this complex issue. I don't think it's easy. Thank you. We look at East Colfax, which close to 70% folks struggling to keep their homes, well over 30% in poverty. And we know that Doura does not have a record of protecting these communities. They seem in many instances, to have accomplished the opposite. For example, we know about the displacement in five points. We know about the severely homogenous community in Stapleton. How could we then be expected to stand by for any phase of a plan constructed by an organization that still tells us the city needs to be, quote, revitalized, or that areas where people currently live are, quote, blighted. We had a well publicized and well-attended R.A. meeting with the most vigorous debate I've seen in this R.A.. We were lucky enough to have the Dora director attend, and we argued back and forth for quite some time. The debate went on so long people were complaining, vote already. And finally we did. And it was 8 to 4 against. Again, this was a show of hands. It was relatively informal at this point. We're faced with a city council vote on a preliminary. But deeply structural. Policy that very likely will have massive effects on the neighborhood, just like it has on other neighborhoods. And when we go and try to make predictions, what we see associated with durable projects is a vast amount of displacement of exactly the populations we represent, not just once or twice, but for years on end, repeatedly not learning from things. Make no mistake, this vote is to stand with the people of East Colfax because we are working with, we are working with but in some sense under siege by the dirge generated community. To our north in Stapleton another Dora project in the south and Lowry and from the west by South Park Hill, now openly co-opting the east area plan. We are an outpost surrounded. We ask you to vote for a reset to an old school financial giveaway with a progressive mask. We own up to the truth that the value systems that are being overlaid on disadvantaged communities are themselves the blight we need to confront. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Cathy Speed. Thank you very much for your time tonight. I've looked at the. East Area plan and I am. Neither for or against it. I find elements of it that I enjoy and I also. Find elements that are somewhat challenging, that are missing. There are things in there that are ill defined, like the. Accessory dwelling units. There's no definitions. There's nothing in there that goes to how that works. And there's a June 2018 letter from. The OR I should say, a memo from the zoning administrator that gives definitions. But none of that was incorporated into the exterior plan. So that's an area of or an example of where there are some things that are not well defined within the plan, but there are other things that are great about the plan where. Adding in a new community center like UNITA and Colfax. Or Yosemite and Colfax, that's great. That would be a great addition to that area of town. But I rise really tonight for one reason, and that is I am a long time homeowner in this target area and. Starting back in. 1994. The area plans that were in these neighborhoods promised to redevelop Quebec Street. We are a stand watched neighborhood between Lowry and Stapleton. You had. 30,000 people added in. At Stapleton. You have 25,000 people that were added in at Lowry. Our neighborhood is compressed between those two areas. And the area that has been promised over and over to us to be redeveloped is a two and a half mile stretch of Quebec Street. It is still remains a two lane road. And in the East Area plan, there was a tabled item there that indicated that the funding for the Quebec Street renovation and renovation at $23 million was going to be postponed and tabled under consideration of. The East Area Plan. So I would really. Suggest and hope that City Council would at least earmark that $23 million in funds so that it does not get spent on something else while we continue to really. Struggle. With that area, because that's going to be a huge deal for us. Thank you. Next up, Brendan Green. Point of order, Mr. President. May I just ask if some of the speakers are referencing a plan that is not on the agenda tonight? Can you please clarify the scope of this hearing as opposed to or can the staff please clarify that? Just I think everyone's voice is important, but I want to make sure folks understand what we have before us tonight and what we don't. Thank you, Mr. President. Tracy, do you want to come up and clarify? Certainly. Thank you. And if I may go back to a slide that I used previously. Which, of. Course, may be easier said than done, but we are here tonight asking council to consider is the urban renewal plan. The Urban Renewal Plan is also a planning document that draws upon the goals and objectives of other existing city approved plans. So we talked about Plan 2040 Blueprint Denver. Currently, the neighborhood plans that we are drawing references from are the the East Montclair East Colfax Neighborhood Plan, as well as the Park Hill plan. The city is also working on the East Area plan, but that has not been adopted. And so therefore today the urban renewal plan does not reflect what is what may be included in the East Area plan. That is a separate, different planning effort than the urban redevelopment plan that's being brought forward for consideration tonight. Councilman, does that get to what you were looking for? I just wanted the public to make sure that we are not voting tonight on an east area plan. That term is used by community planning and developments. So I just want to. There are two separate votes at some point the council will vote on. So I just just wanted to make sure they understood that. But again, all of the testimony may still be relevant. I just want to make sure that that was clear for the right thing. Councilman, Councilwoman CdeBaca, do you have a point of clarification? Yes. On slide 16, the plan compliance. It shows the pyramid of how these plans interact together. If I recall correctly, you said that if approved, this replaces the East Area plan, Park Hill and Montclair, and essentially supersedes those plans. Am I correct? That is correct. So we kind of are. Okay. All right. We will get into some debate and questions. Just to clarify, again, this is the bill that we have in front of us, so to speak. Speak to that bill. We've heard some clarification up here, but we're going to move along, giving people their time at the microphone. Brendan GREENE. Thank you. My name is Brendan Green. I'm a long time resident of the East Colfax Corridor, grew up on 23rd and Forest graduate of East High School. I currently live on 13th and Wabash Street. I'm the new community organizer for the Facts Partnership with 20 years experience organizing. Most recently was the campaign's director for the past ten years for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. The main focus of my work is going to be to organize, to preserve and protect local residents from displacement as the pressures of gentrification come our way. I'm extremely excited to be able to organize in my community to make sure that the development of our community is in line with our community's vision and that it prioritizes affordability and places a value on diversity and maintaining the vibrant mix of cultures. That makes East Colfax what it is. I'm here to speak in favor tonight of the urban renewal area for my neighborhood. As someone who grew up in between North and South Park Hill. I've lived the impact of gentrification and seen my old neighborhood change dramatically in my lifetime. My block used to have a great deal of diversity, and now that has changed as property values have skyrocketed, and many in my generation can no longer afford to live in the neighborhood. In East Colfax, we still have an opportunity to be intentional in our planning and make sure that we develop in a way that protects local community from displacement and places a value on economic and cultural diversity. I see the urban renewal area as an important tool to provide incentives to private entities to bring much needed investment to the neighborhood for affordable housing projects such as PHENIX on the Facts and the Supportive Housing Project on 7900 East Colfax. We can grow in a way where our community prospers and our communities are valued. We can fight and build our neighborhood in a way that pushes urban renewal and not urban removal. Most importantly, I trust in our community and I trust in you as our city council to be responsive to our community feedback and make sure that we only approve projects through this urban renewal area that our community is serving and that prioritize the construction of new affordable housing units in line with the blueprint Denver and the East Area plans. We will be highly organized. We will be closely monitoring projects. And we will be president here at the city council meetings to provide checks and balances and make sure that projects meet the desperate need to create more affordability in our neighborhood. I'm confident that the leadership exists in our in our neighborhood and that we can partner with you, our city council, to make to you to use this tool wisely to protect the cultural and economic diversity of East Colfax and expand affordable housing. We look forward to partnering partnering with East Convex Neighborhood Association members, community organizations and local leadership to monitor proposals that come to a vote. And we really expect that you are council members will be sensitive and responsive to our community's needs and feedback on which projects should and which projects shouldn't move forward. Thank you for your time and I ask you for a yes vote. Thank you. Next up is Jesse Paris McCall, the next five up to the front of you. As for Thomas Fussing, Megan Atwater, Lee, Larry Drees and Marsha Casey. Go ahead. Jesse Parris represented for Denver Homicide Law, Black starts a movement for self-defense and positive action command for social change. And I was on top of the ballot for at large May 2019, almost 15,000 votes with no money. I'm neither for or against this. As the previous status have already stated. We have a crisis in the city. We have a housing crisis. We have 23,000 vacant apartments that need to be filled. But yet we want to redevelop all these areas of town for who this area is predominantly black and brown neighborhood. It's been that way since as long as I've been living, which is 32 years. So why was this neighborhood blighted for so long? For 30 plus years? Why was there no kind of development going on the past 20 years in this neighborhood? It just leads into the degradation this was caused. This is cause and effect. We don't need any more unattended consequences. You guys don't understand. You're literally gentrifying the whole city. Every side of town is being gentrified. North, east, west, south and north, east, west and south is being gentrified. We are being ethnically cleansed out of our neighborhoods. I am a native of Five Points in East Denver and I do not feel safe at home or. Welcome. In my own neighborhoods that I was born and raised in and grew up in. So what we want to know is how many affordable units are going to be built in this neighborhood? Exactly who is going to be residing in this neighborhood? Because, like we've already stated, we are being gentrified, ethnically cleansed out of the city. So who is this being built for? Who is this being redeveloped for? Because obviously it's not for us, because when we were here for the past 20, 30 years, you guys did not care one bit about what was going on. And this is why the degradation occurred and this is why the deterioration occurred. I've seen it with my own eyes. I've lived it. I've lived in these motels on the facts in this neighborhood. This is purposely being done. And we are not going to sit up here and sit around and allow you to keep continuously doing this. So I want to know exactly how many affordable units are going to be built, what the amount level for these units is going to be. Because I know salaries is being talked to affordable housing. But I want to know what the AMA level is going to be because we need 0 to 30% housing across the board and we don't need areas of concentrated poverty. So if you're going to build 0 to 30% housing, need to do it in every single neighborhood, every single district, not just in certain districts. We don't want the same thing to happen in this neighborhood that happened on the west side of Sun Valley, that happened on the north side and in Sunnyside and what happened on the east side in five points. So if somebody could please ask them, I'm. Sorry, your time is appreciated. Thank you. Next up, Nabeel Assefa. Hi. Thank you. My name is NAB. Never go as far. I'm a community organizer in the Ethiopian community, which represents the second largest foreign born population in the state of Colorado, with our roots in East Colfax. My role in the community includes organizing the annual Taste of Ethiopia Festival and co-chairing the Ethiopian American Development Council. Ethiopians have been making significant contribution to the economic development and cultural richness of Denver since the seventies, and we're proud to call the city home. Unfortunately, though, over the past decade, our community has been on an exodus to Aurora. This is largely due to the consequence of hyper development and gentrification that has effectively pushed out many minority and immigrant communities from Denver, East Colfax and the far northeast Denver have been the exceptions in this, where our community has been able to stay and prosper, where we have become significant contributors as small business owners, homeowners and positive cultural influencers. However, and the East Colfax neighborhood, many in the community feel that our fate is uncertain and are anticipating to deal with displacement, which has already begun. The reason for displacements are many, including the city's nuisance ordinance, which has been weaponized to close down many women, minority and family owned small businesses on East Colfax Avenue. The writing is already on the wall. Denver is increasingly becoming a different town, one that does not include us. This is why, by large, our community is fearful of the East Colfax Development Plan, oppose and opposed tax incentives like TIFF to private developers that have a track record of destroying communities around Denver. By large, we agree on that principle to revitalize East Colfax. However, we oppose the status quo approach. The status quo has failed us throughout Denver. Take, for example, the great promises. All this great promises were also made to five points. However good the intentions may have been the end results of our displacement and gentrification. Also, let's look at other neighborhoods like Reno, Stapleton or Lori. Have the promises been kept? Where are the affordable houses? Where is the racial equity diversity culture or the inclusive character that represents the spirit of Denver? Is this the type of neighborhood we want to turn East Colfax into? Is there a place for the poor and working class in the city as you consider your vote today, I would like to kindly ask you to consider who will benefit from this change. Are we setting up the foundation and institutional framework for displacement? Are we putting a target on the backs of East Colfax residents and small business owners? Are we creating an environment that incentivizes the wrong people? With all this challenges, these cold facts is a beautiful neighborhood with character, beautiful people and culture worth preserving. Please vote no. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Thomas Fessing. I'm Thomas. Fizzing a steering. Committee member on the East Area Plan and also a resident of the East Colfax neighborhood, which. Is in the urban redevelopment. Area. In the last 28 years, I've lived in every neighborhood along East Colfax from this building all the way to the rural border, which is my last stop. This urban redevelopment plan gives focus. It gives guidance. It gives a framework for development. Development is going to happen eventually in this area. It's already starting to happen on its own through private investors. But through. This program, it gives more of a framework. There's checks and. Balances. To make sure that it is. An equitable growth. The majority of our housing stock that is in the neighborhood that is low income or affordable housing is actually not within the boundaries. The boundaries of this. Urban renewal plan, when you look on the map, essentially is 15th, 14th to 16th Avenue along Colfax. The majority in the East Colfax neighborhood, specifically of that housing is in the far southeast corner of the neighborhood. Outside. Of the boundaries. But for the actual redevelopment on Colfax. I and the folks that live in the neighborhood want it to be equitable. We want the diversity to stay in the neighborhood. That's one reason many of us have purchased homes. The last ten years in the neighborhood. The other thing is the. Neighborhood plan. As it exists now. The East Montclair, East Colfax neighborhood plan is 25 years old. The South Park Hill plan. I think, is even older than that. South Park Hill Many of the things in the plan actually have taken place in the East Montclair East Colfax neighborhood. None of them. Have been 25. Years. So I think this gives a lot more guidance to the city, to the residents, to the future. Of this part of East Denver. Thank you. I support the plan. Thank you. Next up, Megan Tortorella, you. My name is Megan Tortorella, and I'm on the board of the East Colfax Neighborhood Association and I also live in the neighborhood. I'm here to. Urge council to oppose the approval of the East. Colfax Corridor Urban. Redevelopment Area. Here's what I know. More than half of East Colfax residents. Are struggling and at risk of displacement. It seems certain that designating the East Colfax corridor as an urban redevelopment area will accelerate. Gentrification and people will. Be forced to leave our neighborhood. The primary goal of our R.A. this year. Has been to increase participation and better represent all. Of the more than 1000 East Colfax residents. And if I have learned anything from the outreach process, it's that our neighbors have a real sense of fear that the city's agenda for East Colfax does not include many of its current residents. I am especially concerned about comments from last week's city council meeting. And the picture they painted of there. Is outreach efforts. I'm paraphrasing here, but it was said that Dora has gone above and beyond to ensure. That problems that often exist with urban redevelopment, such as displacement, will not happen in East Colfax. It was also stated that the city and borough are doing. Everything they. Can to involve the community in this process. At best, those comments were a gross exaggeration of efforts that have been made. Well, it is true that Tracy and others from Dora have attended and presented at several East Colfax R.A. meetings. It's completely disingenuous to say that extensive outreach has taken place in our community. There's been no attempt to include our most vulnerable our most vulnerable neighbors. In this conversation with Dora, attending a few R.A. meetings with 20 to 50 people in attendance is not the definition of doing everything that can be done to involve a community. I'm not naive, and I recognize that development is coming to East Colfax regardless of how the council votes tonight. But I have big concerns about incentivizing this development, particularly before East Colfax residents understand our is complex plan and the impact it will have on their ability to stay in their homes. Thank you. Thank you. Next to Larry Drees. My name is Larry Reese. I live on 1160 Verbena Street. I am a board director as well as East Colfax Neighborhood Association and have been active in the association for six years. Lived in the neighborhood for 15. I am for urban renewal specifically because it's a chance for quality of life for everybody right now. Any one of you want to walk with me from my house two blocks down to Colfax at 830 at night to go eat? Come join me. I beg you. It's quality of life for the whole neighborhood. And it's important that we have the opportunity to have our own town center like other parts of the city. We don't we have. Car lots. Some very good restaurants and some convenience stores. That's it. We need this change. And I don't see this neighborhood has always been extremely diverse. There's 27 different languages that are spoken in our neighborhood because of the refugees there along Yosemite. They're not going to get to this place. Why not build affordable housing for people that are living in rundown shacks in the area because their landlords don't care? That to me is more important, making the neighborhood better and better. Quality of life for everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Marsha Casey and then call the last five to come up to the front bench. Stacey Loucks, Lashonda Weston, Kelsey Clarke, Monica martinez and Darian Horne. I mean. Have mercy. Mercy a Casey. Nope. Stacey Loucks. Kelsey Clarke. Hi. My name is Kelsey Clarke. And I am the business service outreach manager at the Facts Partnership, a community development nonprofit in East Colfax. And thank you so much for the opportunity to speak. In January of this year. The facts launched an East Colfax Business Support Office. With the support of the city of Denver to be an advocate on behalf of and provide assistance to our local business community. The majority of the businesses that we work with are located on the proposed urban renewal area from Monaco to Yosemite. Since January, we have been on the ground proactively and authentically getting to know our diverse and culturally rich business community. The facts recently concluded a business, a needs assessment, a survey, and receive an overwhelmingly 30% response rate. With their permission. I'm representing a handful of those businesses. Mr. Tank, owner at tanks, world class. Barbers quote Many of my current customers are having. To move due to high rent. End quote. April SS Office Manager at Kids Dental. Quote It is important that we stay where we are. Due to residential displacement, we worry that our patient base may be moving, making it more difficult for vulnerable children and their families to have access to quality dental care, end quote. The fact supports. The urban redevelopment area because the plan states that it will encourage affordable business space for small, independent businesses, including the promotion of diverse mix of attainable housing options. The facts will ease that TIFF is a valuable tool for developing affordable housing on this important transit corridor so that the Mr. Tanks and the assessors and their customers and their patients can stay in this community that we all love so much and continue to support these local businesses. Moses Alice Walker, property and business owner at Econo Emissions quote The property is my retirement plan for myself and for my wife. It is important to me that I work with people I trust when I decide to sell. I see the partnership as a trusted partner and quote the facts. Who believes that urban redevelopment area will help provide incentives to developers to invest in communities serving businesses and community benefiting development through our relationships and expertize? The facts will be. On the front lines of supporting our local businesses and we promoting such development opportunities. And we see TEF as an opportunity and a tool that will help us achieve that. Thank you again for your time. Thank you. Next up, Lashonda Weston. Hi. Thank you. I'm here to vote. Hopefully I'll vote against. I've been in community for a while. Long time, most of my life. And when Dora said that, they. They they notify people. This is my notice. It's just that there was a meeting tonight. I'm here because I feel that. That our area is very diverse. What I'm I mean, that I'm right off of Colfax. I'm on 15th in Colfax, so I'm literally right off of Colfax. 15th acknowledged. So my area I've seen grow. But to me, if Dora wants to help the neighborhood, there's plenty of opportunity to go up and down that street to help the people that are already in there. We have barbershops. We have restaurants. We just got a new brewery. We have Ace Hardware. We have many, many things on that corridor. And if they. Most of them are, you know, up to par in my standards. Some of them, yes. Can use a paint job or whatever. But the area that is there, people there, they support their businesses. They support their neighbors. And everybody gets basically alone. Yes. Our neighbor. And when people keep saying affordable housing, what does that mean? Because my house now, when I bought a long time ago, I can't afford to move back into that same house that I bought in 1980, which is very, very sad. So when you say affordable housing, what does that mean? It doesn't mean that you have to make over $100,000 like we do now. Like five points like we do probably in Swansea once they finish that, that new build. So when people say that that's just a word, it doesn't mean that's what they mean to me. It means they affordable to them, not to the majority of people. And when you have immigrants and all the other people, it has to be affordable to everybody. Currently it's affordable to everybody. Otherwise they would not be living there. So I vote for you guys. I asked you guys to vote no. Sure. Door got plenty of money, but with that money they can go like we just had. A 7-Eleven built there is already closed down. Why? Nobody supported it. Nobody wanted it. So they didn't support it. It was there maybe three years. The building still there. So if they want to brand new building door can go in there and work with the private or whoever they want to work with to upgrade that or get somebody in that building because it's brand new, right on the corner of Colfax and Monaco. So there's plenty of opportunity for door instead of to come through, knocked everything down with their developer and they raised the price up so high that they just want to gentrify it. Just forget about the black and brown in those whites that are not making $100,000 a year. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next up, Monica martinez. Hi. My name's Monica martinez. You've heard from a couple of my staff members tonight. The Facts Partnership. It's a501 C3 that has been working on the East Colfax corridor since 2004. We have been advancing a vision of redevelopment without displacement. We've had some recent successes, and those votes have come to you all. The city of Denver acquired two parcels on East Colfax, and both of those will be deed restricted, affordable housing. We're really proud of that. And that's our vision to add higher density deed, restricted housing, where it matters on East Colfax. But we know that city finances are very restricted. And so as a result, the facts has been promoting this urban renewal area because we know that the city can only acquire so many properties and the private development is not building the housing that this community desperately needs. East Colfax renters, 40% of them are housing burdened. We have a 35% homeownership rate compared to a 50% rate in the city at large. So we know that we need development that will benefit this community. But instead what's happening is a pre that was submitted for a McDonald's on East Colfax. This community is considered the highest community with the highest health inequities as defined by the Department of Environmental Health. It is a food desert. It has high levels of childhood obesity, but instead the private market is going to build a McDonald's. So I believe we need intervention and using bold public policy that will have extensive community engagement and approval by you for any sort of tiff that's really provided. As a result, we might get something like the Mecosta project on West Denver that is a deed restricted affordable housing project that Gorman built its 42 units and it received $2.5 million tiff investment for a project that was $14 million. So TIFF was used to help get the community a nonprofit space and 42 dude restricted units. Or we might get Lowenstein, which is further down on East Colfax, and that became the home of beloved Tattered Cover and Twist and Shout records that received $3.9 million of tax increment financing in a historic rehab project. We know these projects are tough to build. And so as a result, I encourage you to adopt this urban renewal area so that we get the development this community needs and not what the market thinks that it can build. It does have it may have the consequence of increasing investment, but the facts partnership is going to be on the ground through our business support manager and our community organizer and proactively promote the kind of development we need, as well as turning out supporters to ensure that we get the types of projects that this community deserves and this type of the types of development this community needs. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Darian May Horn. All righty. Thank you. I appreciate the time to speak with you all. My name is Dorian Mae Horne. I'm a resident of the East Colfax neighborhood with the nearest intersection to meet me in Mountain View and Rosemary, within District eight. Well over a year ago, I went to a public meeting at Johnson Wells, where Tracy from Dora and Monica from the partnership introduced the study that would lay the foundation for considering East Colfax, bounded by Monaco in the West and Yosemite on the east as blighted. Tracy has explained at that meeting and at the very various meetings afterwards that this definition is legislatively defined and I would imagine defined with objectivity in mind. While the term blighted may seem jarring as defined, it is accurate. I work as an engineer for the federal government at the Federal Center in Lakewood, and since I aim to live a lifestyle that considers sustainability and our society's resilience, along with maintaining my mental health as our traffic increases, I use my eco pascal on the 15 hour to get to civic center and from there I use the 100 hour to get to the federal center. So every day I spend a great deal of time on Colfax as I get on and off the bus and make my way home and support the various different local businesses on Colfax, including the Barbershop that was mentioned earlier. So from the missing sidewalk connectivity to the underutilized properties, it is clear to me that the city has neglected truly public investment within this corridor. While the infrastructure of this corridor may be blighted. I echo what everyone else has said, which is the people and the culture within the broader East folks. East Colfax Community has been and will maintain its vibrancy. I was reminded of that on Sunday as I engaged in outreach with neighbors regarding a upcoming block party that will be hosted by the Neighborhood Association. I saw the diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, culture within our community, and what I believe the adoption of this plan will do is allow our community an opportunity to be intentional with how we incentivize development that aligns with our community's priorities in ways that we may not otherwise have a seat at the table. As others have mentioned, development will come to our neighborhood regardless. Without an avenue like this to have a thoughtful discussion. I'm excited for the new community organizing role that Brendan will take on at the Facts Partnership and Tracy's leadership at Dora to ensure that there is significant public engagement regarding potential projects, ideally before they even arrive here at City Council. Again, as a resident of the neighborhood, I believe we have an opportunity to have development that eliminates the blighted conditions while maintaining and supporting the local, diverse businesses that already exist in the area. I thank you for your time and I support the approval of this plan. Thank you. That concludes our speakers. Are there questions from members of Council Councilman Herndon. Thank you, Mr. President. I would like three people in the queue. I first one to start with Tim Roberts, if you could come up and then Tracy and then the honorable Dr. Aguilar, I'll have a question for you at the end. So, Tim, I want to have a conversation about this vote because I think it's really important for people to understand. I wanted to give you the opportunity to speak to some of the thing. So was the vote that's happened at East Colfax, was that notice prior to the meeting? We didn't use the word vote in the email that went around. What happened prior to the meeting was what I indicated in the opposition. Letter and that was a couple of different meetings with different ones focused specifically on tax increment financing. And then we had a reading group on blight and then we had our most recent R.A. meeting, which. Was where the vote took place. I can remember. Typing out I. Have a lot of people in the queue, so I wanted to make sure I be respectful of their time. So I'm going I want to read what I'm looking at the East Colfax Neighborhood Association post that you had for the agenda. And correct me if this is not right. Yeah. Denver Urban Renewal Authority Doura. Well we'll plant. We will plan to discuss the upcoming August 26 City Council vote on the proposed East Colfax Urban Redevelopment Area and how it might serve East Colfax residents and businesses. Details of the council session are here. Page 13. So as you said, and I'm reading this, there's nowhere in this notification that you're actually going to vote, you're just going to discuss it. So this is acting right. And but it followed. On an extensive engagement with this issue and with this construct of of influences. No, I absolutely understand. But I just want to say, for this notification, it is not mentioned anywhere that you're going to vote. And that's what makes sense, what. I just. Said. So my next question is, was, did you if you're going to have a conversation about Doura, did you or is anyone from the East Colfax Neighborhood Association invite Darrah to the meeting? We did not, and I did that intentionally. We because we had already like I just said, with all due respect. I had a number of engagements with Dora. So my my intention, again, as a volunteer, an unpaid. Volunteer who is untrained. Entirely and I just started in January. Though Robert's Rules of Order. Does have my name attached to it. The the intention was to clear the decks a little bit for the. Neighborhood and not have a professional planner present at the discussion so that we could then air whatever we wanted to without being afraid of. Getting. Shot down or whatever it is again. I didn't I went back and forth about using the word vote, but I honestly thought it was so obvious that. It I, I just. You know, I just. Don't want to do it. So going to the actual vote, so what are the rules and procedures for people allowed to vote? So the the first speaker spoke to that there was not a motion. How could you said the vote was 8 to 4? Do you know which individuals voted in support in opposition? Is there a list available? There's not a list available. And I like I. Was saying before, it was an informal it was an informal vote. A show of hands. It was the end of a two and a half hour meeting. I when we wrote the opposition letter, I tried to make that clear by just saying it was a show of hands. And I mean, yeah, so that's that's really what there is not a list and it was I could probably say who who did vote for for and against. I mean, I know that John Neal voted against or for the plan and others a couple others here. So I, you know, I, I think that there is a. A major issue. In this city. Okay. I absolutely. For but I want to give I have a feeling you might you might get called up for another speaker looking at the list. But I just want to make sure I want to speak to the particulars of the vote. So thank you so much. That's all I had for you, Tracey. I wanted to give there was. I know we did. We're just all we're doing now. We're just defining the you are a can we just take a step forward. So what would be an example of something that could happen just so that the community and the people could understand what might possibly be a next step? So what might possibly be a next step provided the council approves this redevelopment plan? Is that through the outreach of the sex partnership? There is a property that is identified and a developer that is interested in developing it for there is a property that is identified in the existing owner is interested in making some type of an initial investment. If that would be the case, that person or entity would then have to come to Dura. They would have to submit an application for our assistance, starting with a letter of support from the council member that it is a project that they are in support of. We would evaluate first and foremost, is this a project that meets the criteria of this urban redevelopment plan? Does it address all of these things that I just spent a very long time walking through? If it does, then we would begin an evaluation as to whether or not it even needs public financial assistance. So there is a very stringent underwriting process that we go through to determine what amount, if any, the project would both be able to generate and therefore be able to utilize in its redevelopment. Once all of that preliminary underwriting work is done, then we would continue through an approval process. But let me pause for a moment and say through all of this conversation, it isn't just a hand off from the partnership. The partnership to us in this example, there also would be community outreach as well, and recognizing that there could be a project in one of three different neighborhoods that could be in in East Colfax. It could be in East Montclair, it could be in Park Hill. But the development is going to impact the entirety of the area. So we would be talking with the community at that time about what this project is, what it means, what is the level of support that finally then culminates in us coming back to City Council because it is a formal amendment to the plan to add a project and to add tax increment. And part of that process as well is to then enter into agreements with the other taxing entities regarding our ability to capture property tax, if that was being requested. So a lot of different iterations there. But I want to focus on on on the community outreach, on making sure that any project that comes to us, we can stand before this body and indicate how it meets the objectives of Plan 2040, of blueprint of the neighborhood plans and the urban renewal plan to then be able to come back to ask for approval. Thank you. So just to focus, though, if a community is fearful that if council approves this tonight, there will be multiple opportunities for community to hear and give input on a potential URI project. Yes. Perfect. Thank you, Dr. Aguilar. Your work that you do with Nest. I just wanted to give you the opportunity, because I've seen you in East Colfax several times as you've been working in your job. And thank you for that. If you could in my apologies, Mr. Perez, this is my last question to give you the opportunity just to to speak on the work that you have seen along East Colfax in your thoughts on the potential you are. I'm sure in in the interest of full disclosure, I came in and said we can't do a you are and these Colfax is going to gentrify it. And then people sat me down and talked to me about what it means to do you a and how it could potentially help. And what I would say is the vote tonight, in my mind, is the easy one is just acknowledging that there are bad conditions on East Colfax right now. The harder votes will come to you when projects come forward, and that's really where you really need to do your due diligence. You need to make sure that it really is about for and that what you're incentivizing is affordable housing, is affordable business space, and is not things that will lead to gentrification. I see this as a tool because hopefully it will bring more projects to your attention because as you may or may not know, East Colfax is an opportunity zone under President Trump, President Trump's tax act. And so there's already great incentive for investors to buy properties there and do whatever they want. Our hope would be that they would come to us looking for it and bring these projects to our attention and give you another opportunity to work with them to make sure these projects actually help the community. We are aware of the the fact that this is an underserved community and that we need to really build it up. And as the director of Nest, one of my goals is to see whether we could actually demonstrate that it's possible to do development without displacement. As you heard, the city has invested in two buildings in the area, one of which will provide permanent supportive housing to, I think, approximately 70 people with chronic brain injury, another which will provide affordable housing to about 80 families, including a child care center on the ground floor. Someone mentioned, and it is true that there are a number of housing buildings there that are currently occupied by immigrants and refugees. And so we are working with those folks as well to ensure that that community has the support it needs. And actually through the East Area Plan, investigating whether this might not be made into an international corridor. And so I think it really provides an opportunity for us. This will just give you another tool in your toolbox. And and I would be there with the community making sure that anything you approve to fund would be for the benefit of the community. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman CdeBaca. First line of questions is for Ms.. Higgins. Can you explain to me there's a slide in here that shows that the original. So an idea to do these plan to do this plan is started by the city council member and a developer. Who were the original initiators of this idea? Sure. And just to be clear, the presentation that you're looking at would have been from the council committee. Correct. It's not tonight's presentation. And that is a a depiction that we use frequently when we are talking about the urban renewal process. So in this instance, and I actually was looking back at my files, this is a conversation that started back in 2015 that included several council members, predecessors, as well as members of the city administration, the Planning Department and the Office of Economic Development, as well as the Facts Partnership in their role as representing the businesses and community along the corridor. Were any of those council members or are any of those council members present? They are not. Okay. Can you explain to me the structure of Dora? Is this it's confusing to a lot of people because we call it an authority. But what I understand is that it's not a part. It's not a city agency. So can you explain a little bit about the structure? Sure. An urban renewal authority has its opportunity to exist as a result of state statute that put in place the ability for a municipality to create an urban renewal authority. That legislation was first introduced in 1958. That was the same year that Dora was created. That was a an ordinance that was approved by the city to create Dora back in 1958. Currently, we are an organization that works within through city government. As you can see tonight, there are very few, if any, things that we can do without city council approval. Our we are governed by a 13 member board. 11 members are appointed by the mayor and confirmed by city council. There is also a position for an elected school board member representing Denver public schools and there is also a position representing special districts because of the overlap between the utilization of tax increment financing and what that means from the property tax and those the impact on those other taxing entities. State statute was amended in 2015 to make sure that those voices were represented on the Dora board as well. The board directs policy of the staff and then as we work through all of our efforts, again, it is really with and through the city government to make sure that as we are affecting plans, they are consistent with the city planning objectives in order to achieve our our mission of blight elimination. And so can you explain the funding structure there? What percentage comes from city? What percentage is private? So our funding. There was a point in time when all of our funding came from the city. That is no longer the case. I want to be clear. There are two functional departments of the Urban Renewal Authority. One is the redevelopment department. The other is our housing department. Would like to have an opportunity to talk about what our housing programs do and can do in this area as well. We have been longtime partners with the city and county of Denver in implementing a number of affordable housing programs that are intended to help existing single family homeowners stay in their homes by making necessary repairs. So we have our housing department, we have our redevelopment department. The Housing Department gets funding through the contract, the annual contracts with the city and county of Denver in implementing these programs. The redevelopment department gets its funding through the projects that we support. So a portion of the tax increment that is generated on each project is made available to Dora to pay for our operations. What portion is that? Is that consistent across projects? It is. It is quite consistent. Each project that we undertake is unique. And so it is it is negotiated separately, but it is typically 1%. Of the amount of the commitment that we are putting into a project we are able to take as revenue for the the operations of the organization. And so are you guys technically a five on C three or what's your tax status? We are not. We are a public body. So again, created under state statute and I am in no need to look over my shoulder and make sure legal counsel is giving me the the indication that that is correct. We are a a quasi governmental entity. Is is that a corporation? Is that what kind of we are, a public body. Okay. So I'm going to need some more information on that from counsel, if possible. But going back really quickly to what you just mentioned, the two branches of the work that you do. Is it possible to do any of this work, this redevelopment work without the plan? It is the housing side. On the housing side, yes. And in fact, that's it. The next question, the tip piece of this. So there are slides that are contradictory. One of the slides, I think it's the second to last says that let's see the actual wording. It says that this plan does not approve the use of tax increment financing. But then on slide 15, it says that we're authorizing TIFF. Correct. Can you explain what is happening there? Sure. In the urban renewal plan, you can, again, under the statutory language, include in the plan language that allows for the use of tax increment financing. That's the authorizing language that is in the plan currently. However, we don't have a project to apply that to, nor are we asking for a tax increment area to be established at this time. That would be that secondary step. If a project comes to us, we come back to City Council. You formally amend the plan to approve the project and approve the establishing of a tax increment area that there that therein allows for the use of tax increment for that project. So one lays the foundation, that's the language that is in there currently. That's the authorizing. When we bring a project back, if we bring a project back, that would be that step to approve the use of tax increment financing. So we're authorizing it. We're just not picking where we're getting it from. You are not approving a project, so it cannot be used until you set a tax increment area and approve a project. Got it. And so it was said multiple times that the purpose of urban renewal plan is to attract new capital, primarily through private growth and to incentivize private entities to invest in the area. Is that accurate? There is a condition in state statute that looks for us to maximize investment through the private sector. However, again, we have a balance of the ability to use tax increment to advance both public projects, infrastructure projects, as well as development through the private sector. But yes, it is the intention of the urban renewal statute to look to put that burden on the private sector as opposed to the to the public sector. And the authority doesn't do housing, affordable housing development. You all just hope that the projects that start up or catalyzed include affordable units, correct? No, that is not correct. Well, we are not the direct developer. We have a requirement in any project that we participate in that includes housing, that there be a component of affordability. So in our redevelopment agreement, which is a contract arrangement between the Urban Renewal Authority and a developer, it will have a requirement as to what the affordable housing requirements may be. And what is that typically? It again, it depends by project. You know, there's been comments made about the the Wilton Corridor. The first project that we made along Whelton was 100% affordable. It aims not to exceed 60%. Which project is that? 2300 Whelton. Can you talk a little bit more about where there have been urban renewal plans and the successes and challenges of them here in Denver? Sure. I think we've had we have a number of urban renewal areas that establish a number of urban renewal plans, that establish the urban renewal areas. And then there can be multiple tax increment areas within that. They really run the gamut of the city. We have spent a lot of our time since I first joined Laura in 1992 focused on revitalizing downtown. A primary objective of that urban renewal area was to make downtown a neighborhood. Back in the early nineties, no one lived downtown. Businesses were leaving. Retail in particular was leaving as quickly as they could. At the same time, when we had just built a new convention center and we were looking for ways to attract visitors back to our city. Dura emphasized historic preservation also emphasized the importance of workforce housing. And so we have a number of examples of projects the Denver Dry Goods Building, the Bank Lofts Building, Mercantile Square, Rio Grand, all of which represent two opportunities for us, together with the private developers to acquire properties that were vacant, repurpose those as from a mixed use standpoint very frequently, including housing and not just housing, but workforce housing as well, to help stimulate overall development downtown. In addition to that, we have been in virtually every council district. Safe for you. Councilman Cashman I do not believe we have undertaken a project yet in your district. Some of the more recent projects include One on one Broadway, which again is an affordable housing development in an existing structure. On on on Broadway. We've also had opportunities to work in in the former St Anthony's redevelopment site, again focused on affordable housing and historic preservation, including a project that we are doing with the Denver Housing Authority. We have worked at Stapleton and in Lowry in being the financing mechanism for the infrastructure that supported that development. And then in in West Denver, along South Federal, we have worked extensively with the Vietnamese community on facade improvements as well as additional infrastructure improvements on those area. So we've had a number of projects throughout the city. All part of those are all urban renewal plans. Those are all we can only undertake an urban renewal project in an urban renewal area. The only way an urban renewal area is established by approval of a plan. Okay. So yes. And so on. The downtown one that you mentioned that coincided with the era of white flight, correct? I am not as I don't know what you are referring to as white flight. This is an era that started in the late eighties with the economic downturn where businesses were leaving, large retailers were leaving, businesses were closing. And the blight conditions. So at the end of this presentation, it says that it will not authorize eminent domain. But is blight a blight determination a precursor to eminent domain? Yes, in order for eminent domain is a power that is afforded to urban renewal authorities if granted by city council in order to make that determination. If we ever were in that position, there would have to be a certain number of factors of blight. The number is five that are found in order for eminent domain to be used. It is a different standard than if if eminent domain is is not to be used. But I want to be clear. Eminent domain is not being requested for approval in this plan. On a specific project. Kind of like the tiff. Okay. It just is. It's not authorized. Okay. And so if this plan is not approved tonight, you all have to take 24 months before you come back to us. Correct? If it fails tonight, yes. We can not come back for. For two years. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman Torres. Just a question for Liz. Hi, Liz. Can you clarify the questions that were raised about this plan replacing any neighborhood plans? Yes. I'm Liz Wagman with Community Planning and Development. I'm one of the project managers of the East Area Plan. This is an ongoing neighborhood planning process to create a community driven vision for several neighborhoods along the Colfax corridor. That process is still ongoing and will be brought forward in the future to City Council for consideration. The clarity point here is that the East Area plan will supersede existing neighborhood plan, so once it is adopted, it would replace the guidance from the Park Hill Neighborhood Plan and the East Kovacs and East Montclair Neighborhood Plan. This urban redevelopment plan in no way predetermine the outcome of the East Area plan. The point that I believe Tracy was making is that a future project that comes forward once the East Area plan is adopted, that east area plan will be used also to evaluate a project. Thank you very much. All right. Next up, we have Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Madam President. Pro tem. Let's see. I guess this is for either CPD or for Ms.. Huggins. I'm wondering. It's kind of an. Along the lines of councilwoman tourist. But why are we doing this first rather than waiting for the plan? So to answer that question, I think that we feel it's really important to put tools in place that can help us achieve that equitable vision for is COVAX. And rather than waiting for the area plan. To be adopted. This sends a signal that we're looking for that equitable, inclusive growth for any project that may come forward in the future, and with the fact that any future project would have to be consistent with any adaptive plans, we think that still puts that tool in place to be used once the East Derry plan comes forward. We think that makes sense to me. Tracy. Just just to clarify, it's your position, your understanding of the reality of an urban renewal area that it neither stimulates nor prohibits growth of small business or growth of affordable housing. It simply puts in place an area for projects to be presented that would then be up to us to evaluate. That is true, Councilman. But I would add that with the framework that has been put forward, again, drawing out the objectives of Plan 2040, a blueprint of the existing neighborhood plans, it is more focused to say these are the type of projects that we want to be able to support to to again, give that different focus to affordable housing, to emphasizing the importance of being able to support the existing businesses. So that would be the only change I would make to your statement. Thanks for the clarification. Thank you, Madam President. Next up, we have Councilwoman Sawyer. Thank you, Madam President. Tracy, don't go anywhere. Just one quick question for you and maybe it's not that quick. We've talked about this a lot in the neighborhoods and at the many of the meetings that we've been to. Tell me a little bit about what is going to be different about this this time. That is a great question. Thank you. And I certainly would be remiss if I stood here and said, I think we have all of the answers about how it is going to be different. But one of the things that I think is most different and it's really a carry on to what I just answered for Councilman Cashman , is the intentionality of the city plans that again, the urban renewal plan sits atop top of that is giving a charge to each of us that we need to be thinking about it differently. We already believe that affordable housing is a really important component to neighborhood stabilization. Make sure that as there are different economic pressures, that people have places where they can continue to to live and to be able to stay in the neighborhood. I again want to emphasize, even though it is separate from the urban renewal plan, the importance of those city housing programs that Derek administers to already help, to help those people who are already in the community deepen those roots by being able to make improvements to to their homes. I think the work of the office of Dr. Aguilar and Nest is going to be very, very critical to cause us all to make sure we are looking at development differently, community outreach, trying. The Office of Economic Development is working on a predictive tool to help us try to better understand if this then what? That is a different dynamic than what we have had before. While emphasizing that, we've always been mindful of the impacts that we have had on a community. But I think we have a very different collective charge, a mandate for all of us. And as was stated previously, as a project comes forward, this is going to be a continuing dialog between and among the community, the developer, the Urban Renewal Authority, City Council, to make sure that we are trying to do everything we can to avoid those unintended consequences and see if we can in fact be successful in rising up while still maintaining the importance of the things that the community. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilwoman. Up next, we have Councilman Hines. Thank you, Madam President. Pro tem, Madam Director. So I recognize that you are saying that that this project would supersede all plans. I want a reference blueprint anyway, because it is a plan that had a robust stakeholder engagement and has been voted into, you know, voted by city council and accepted. So while I again recognized that that this doesn't have to conform to or report to blueprint, these are things that people have said they want and and city council has agreed. So just a one of the tenets of blueprint is about land use in built form. And so can you help me or can you describe so inside land use in both form? One of the tenets and blueprint is to integrate mitigation of involuntary displacement of residents and or businesses. Can you help me explain if that is one of these charges in this urban renewal and in how it. So a couple of things, and I'm going to answer your question and then remind me that I want to come back to where you started. So, yes, it most definitely is a tenant that is in the urban renewal plan that is drawing out, again, the objectives, a blueprint to be able to cause us to think about how we undertake the work that we do in a way that meets that objective. So, yes, absolutely. And the urban renewal plan is going to be an expectation that a project works to, in combination with other activities, mitigate involuntary displacement. Now, the other thing that I want to come back to, I want to again emphasize that approving the urban renewal plan doesn't change any of the plans beneath it on that on that pyramid. So if the East Area plan is approved, it replaces that second to the top regarding the neighborhood plans. But it doesn't the urban renewal plan doesn't change the neighborhood plans. It doesn't change Blueprint Denver. It doesn't change plan 2040. Instead, we look to take those objectives that are consistent with what the outcome of this corridor is looking to achieve and call just upon those. That would then include the criteria regarding the mechanisms to to try to help address involuntary displacement. So if we were to approve this tonight and then next week, you know, obviously this is hypothetically, but we were to then consider a zoning variance in this zone. Then we would still consider comp plan 2040, Blueprint 2019, and those would be factors that we would consider. So it isn't as if we would just throw them out and and just consider this urban renewal plan in a vacuum. That is correct. And I'm going to look at Liz. Is there anything more you want to add to that? She's the planning expert. Hi. Welcome back. Hello. So just to reiterate that the the urban redevelopment plan must be consistent with our adopted plans. It does not supersede them. That going forward, any project would again be evaluated, whether it is consistent with all of our plans. And for rezoning specifically, that's one of our criteria is consistency with our adopted plan. So that would not change or would be the comprehensive plan and its supplements, which include Blueprint Denver and any area plans. Got it. So, Madam Director, I have another question for you also from Blueprint. Blueprint talks about increasing the development of affordable housing in mixed income housing. How can this let's say we vote this in tonight, how can this augment that charge from Blueprint? Sure. As was noted earlier, the devil if if the delivery of affordable housing were easy, it'd be happening everywhere. But it's not. It is hard. It is expensive. It is complicated. And so being able to bring another tool, that being urban renewal in tax increment to the conversation of helping to deliver housing and affordable housing in particular is really what we would be looking to achieve. Okay. And another tenet of blueprint is mobility. Colfax has another project going in. I think that would also help blueprint with, you know, the blueprint charge of increased mobility. Does this help the BRT at all? What this would do would be to help support the objective of of having there be access to housing and services near transit. So as BRT or any transit activity continues to occur, helping to promote development that is consistent with increased ridership with reduced use of the automobile would again be something that we would look at as the project comes to us. And one more question, Mr. President. You looked different than just a couple of minutes ago. The what is to keep other than the city council just saying no, what is the key? Let's say again, we vote this in tonight. What's to keep someone, a developer or whomever, to just immediately go for 12 storeys because they want to, you know, one of the concerns, a real or imaginary and this is I guess the nature of my question is that we will approve this tonight and tomorrow. Developers will go bonkers and we'll have, you know, 80 plus story buildings all along this renewal area. So can you help address that or so? And again, Liz, I don't don't go far. Approving the urban renewal plan does nothing to the existing zoning. So right now, that type of development is not possible because it is contrary to the existing zoning. In addition, we can help a project that comes to us. If the developer is looking to do something that is already within the existing framework of this city, they can do that. It's in these areas that are a challenge that we frequently find that there there is a project that wants to be done, but because of a variety of conditions can't be done without some amount of additional public investment. That's where we can come in and that's where we can begin to. In addition to the project that is put forward, make sure that it is meeting as many of those objectives that that we've already talked about, that it includes the affordable housing, that it pays attention to the job creation, that it pays attention to the businesses that it would be bringing and the impact that they may or may not have along others trying to effect development along transit. All of those things now become available to us if the urban renewal plan is in place, because now that's a venue for Darrah to participate. Okay. Thank you, Director Huggins. And thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman. Before I go to the next member, I just want to address there were some concerns about sounds they might be hearing outside. Sound like gunshots. And Denver Police Department is calibrating the gunshot detection system, also known as ShotSpotter right now. So that's what's going on. If you're wondering about that, just want to put everyone at ease, Councilwoman Cannick. Thank you, Mr. President. Tracy, if I can ask you to come out, please. Thank you. My first question is, are you willing, from this point forward to ditch the pyramid and come up with a new visual about the plans? Don't answer just. Okay. Thank you. I think one of the questions underneath what's happening tonight is about trust. And I think evidence is more helpful than promises when it comes to building trust. So can you talk about Mary Crust as a specific example of how an area that is vulnerable to gentrification on the border between Denver and Adams County working class neighborhood? How? Al Doura and Teff were used in ways that promoted equity and give just specific examples. Don't go into the history. Just give the specific examples of the outcomes related to equity there, in particular the housing and the way they used the training funds. You might want to put the slider that shows some of the policies that it has. While you're talking. I can get past the pyramid. There we go. Certainly. And and then I have one more. So just go quick and then I'm going to ask for another. So so the Mary Chris comment site is a former convent located in far north west Denver. It was acquired by a developer. And I think this is really fundamental to the answer as well, Councilwoman, is that this was a developer that was committed to embracing these goals and objectives of the city. And the intention of that development was to create a very different type of neighborhood. It has a very unique mix of housing options, including co-housing, very focused on affordability and attainability, focused on the community around it, making it be very, very inclusive. So tax increment was used both property and sales tax increment is being captured on that development site to help pay for some of the necessary infrastructure to to support that development. And there was local food production to help address the food desert. Yes. Yes. And there was a specific use of the ETO or the training dollars to do training for folks who needed career training in construction. That is true. And in councilman, we councilman, we have changed our program. It used to be such that you could either pay a dollar amount to the Urban Renewal Authority and then we would further deploy that in our construction employment opportunities programs or the developer could create their own program. This was a circumstance where that latter alternative was utilized, where there was a program that was put together by the developer that focused not only on construction but really women in construction as well, to be able to help build that segment of our economy. And when there's retail on that site, it'll do local hiring. That will include giving the first opportunity to jobs for folks from Denver who might be in need. That is true. All of our projects require there to be participation in our first source hiring program, and that is a program that says that any new job that is created in an urban renewal project, first opportunity to apply for that job has to be made available to a low income Denver resident. Great. And then can we just talk for a minute about one of the things that's been raised and I think one of the most important concerns raised tonight is about business ownership from immigrant and refugee communities and minority business owners. And so Doura had some experience in the District three with the Vietnamese business district there. And so can you talk for a minute about how urban renewal worked in terms of there were two different projects. The first one is there was a Lowe's where there was a concern about displacement. And and I'm going to talk to you in a minute about how some of these came to be because they did not fall from the sky. But can you just talk about the two projects there and the retention of businesses and how that was arranged and how that came about? Sure. And I want to make sure you're referencing the Alameda Square project as. Well as. Langley. The later there were two different. Is the one because there are two urban renewal areas, there are two urban renewal areas and the district boundaries have shifted over time. But one of them is the Alameda Square former shopping center. That is where we worked for a very long time to try to repurpose the back portion of that property, in particular, while there were existing minority owned businesses in the front part recognizing the need for there to be balance. And so there were several starts at that that finally culminated in the back portion of the site being redeveloped as a Lowe's Home Improvement. But meanwhile, then the existing businesses that were there had an opportunity to reinvest in themselves and to improve the overall functionality of the businesses that were there to the extent they they chose to and participated in. So Kingsland Restaurant you may be familiar with was is continues to function very similar to how it did at the beginning . There were two Vietnamese grocery stores. One of them decided to leave when they sold a portion of the property. The other had the opportunity to significantly through the tax increment as well reinvest to and enhance the tenant experience as well as the customer experience. Great. And then my last question, and it's kind of a compound question, so hang with me, but some of the things we've talked about are dairy policies and some of the things we've talked about were site specific agreements or. Commitments or outcomes. Would you say that involvement from community was key to achieving both of those things? I mean, did Dara just think of these policies on its own? Did Dara just think of these outcomes and what was the role? Because I think one of the questions that folks are asking tonight is how do they really know that community can impact your agency or these projects? And so I think that I just want to have you point to where these things came from and who they came from. Sure. And and I'm going to take those in two pieces as well. I'm going to talk about the the programs that we administer. And then I also want to talk. About in the generic. Don't go through each one maybe. But understood. You understood. Most of those have been brought to us by concerns from from the community. And I'm going to define the community rather broadly where there was recognition, particularly when we were becoming more active in downtown, that as these projects are happening, where is the opportunity for that low income Denver resident to be able to apply for a job? Where is that opportunity for there to be additional resources made available, particularly when we are still in an area where we are struggling to find construction workers to work on these projects? How can this public investment be a mechanism by which we can effect these different outcomes? So it really. Almost. Always were brought to us, evaluated, and they have been longstanding programs that have had a high degree of success. That's the program side. On the project side, there's, you know, I think some of our our best projects going back, Councilwoman CdeBaca, to how do these projects start when they really originate from the community? And case in point is the Dahlia Square Shopping Center in District eight, where it was a a dilapidated shopping center that at one time had been the largest African-American owned shopping center in the region. Certainly a very, very large region. But traffic patterns changed. The center fell into disrepair and the community said we need something else. What they really wanted was another grocery store and we had to work with them to help them appreciate that just the location of that was going to make that very, very challenging. But we worked with that community to better define how it is that site could be redeveloped with them. It is now at the home again to a Denver health clinic. It is home to senior affordable housing and it is home to the mental health center of Denver. Every single one of those development aspects was met with great support of the community because we worked so closely with the community every step along the way to work as hard as we could to make sure that anything that happened on that site met with those continuing community goals and objectives. Last question not every project originates with the community. Sometimes the project originates with a developer. Yes. Would you say that there is experience, though, where the where there is a community that is organized and exerts influence both with the council as well as with your agency and with the developer, that outcomes are sometimes achieved even where the idea did not come from the community. Yes, yes. Very, very frequently. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman Gilmore. Thank you, President. Clerk Tracy. I have a couple questions for you. So do you have some examples of when there's been an urban redevelopment plan in other parts of the city? How has that affected the surrounding property taxes of single family residential? Councilwoman I do not have that direct data and that has been a question that is asked, has been asked of us before. And are the the information that we have really is limited to the increase in the taxes in the tax increment area itself. So I know that it is happening. I know we looked at the the outlying impact when we worked on the Highland Garden Village redevelopment, which was the infill redevelopment of the former ILA to site when it moved out of northwest Denver into the Central Platte Valley. But I don't I don't have specific information regarding the the direct correlation. You talked a little bit about a predictive tool that Dito is working on, and it sounds like it might incorporate some of or might be able to generate some of that information. Or could you talk more about that predictive tool? I would really prefer that that question be answered by somebody in the Office of Economic Development. I just know that in part of our broader conversations, which again, I think is a really important component of this, is recognizing that every city department, many city departments, not every many city departments have their finger on the pulse of development , whether it's Parks and Rec, whether it's CPD, whether it's public works, urban renewal, the Office of Economic Development. And it's in those collective conversations that I'm beginning to hear about this. But again, I would ask that you ask that question of somebody from the Office of Economic Development lest I mess it up. Okay. We can do that. In the slide deck, it talks about 20% of new employment growth by 2040. And I wanted to understand a little bit more what sort of employment might that be? And are we looking at how we incorporate existing residents and businesses? So that is a statistic. And Liz, I'm going to look to you as well. That is a statistic and a goal coming out of Blueprint Denver that is again trying to, as I understand, focus development along corridors throughout the city. So I want to make sure it's clear that it's not saying that 20% of all of the new jobs are going to be in the East Colfax corridor. Right. It really is across the city in those corridors. And it will be a new employment of of all different sorts. But I will stop there, Liz, and ask if you want to add anything more. That is correct. That's the blueprint guidance that generally in our community corridor is we want to see 20% of employment growth. I think one of the objectives of the Urban Redevelopment Plan and something we've heard through the East Area Plan process, is looking at opportunities for affordable business, play space, community serving businesses. There's the ability, I think, with this with the urban redevelopment plan to help foster some of those opportunities that may connect existing or future entrepreneurs in the area or small businesses to help them stay in the area and expand those opportunities. Those are objectives that are included in the plan that may help us with achieving some of those goals. So it sounds like at this point we don't necessarily have a framework, though, in how to implement that and make that happen to be inclusive of the current residents. To answer that first. I think, again, that it's an objective of the plan. So it would be something that we would be using with a project that comes forward to evaluate the project. So how is it helping to further those objectives? Okay. My next question is for Irene Aguilar. It was mentioned previously by another speaker that there's 30% homeownership in the area. What are the investments that the city is currently making to ensure that we stabilize and not reduce that 30% homeownership? Thank you, Councilwoman Gilmore. Actually, we are compiling right now lists of people who are delinquent on their property taxes. And we will be doing door to door outreach to them both, warning them of the hazards of predatory mortgages that might be approaching them and ensuring that they are aware of our programs that we have available to help with rebates. And then Office of Financial Empowerment. And that would be starting probably next week. And what exactly, I guess, is that outreach going to look like for because it's a very, very diverse area. Thank you. So for this first day, we're going to start with door to door knocking and we will leave behind fliers with some of this information on it. And a contact number to contact will hopefully do this partnership with the facts, partnership either them or NEST. And then we will ask to be giving them information on the programs that door has available for homeownership and improvement. And I understand I have a meeting actually tomorrow with Energy Outreach Colorado, because they may have some funds to do some energy improvements in the area as well. So we're hoping will be able to notify them about all of them. We have a small internal team that's been meeting probably once a month to talk about how are we going to actually get out there and do outreach on East Colfax and specific. And I'm excited that we're finally going to be getting started. And so the programs that are going to support homeowners, I'm assuming that's the same property tax refund program that we have within the city that is only at the 35% and 40% average median income level. Right? So that's the property tax program that's available. There's actually a state property tax program available as well that for those who are over the age of 65, we should make them aware of it. The ability to have the state pay their taxes, put a lean on their property, get that back when they sell their property and then ask to talk to them about some of the home improvement programs that exist through organizations like Brothers Endura. And so what are kind of along those similar lines? What are the supports for current business owners along this corridor? So are tools for business owners are more limited right now. But the Economic Development Department is has started up a pilot program this year, and we're hoping to expand the funding next year through business services to do a business improvement. I thought it would bias stands for I'm sorry, but to provide support for them through construction and through remodeling to help them further improve on their area. And then there are there is East Colfax bid, not just East Colfax, but all of these Colfax. And then the other thing we're trying to do is support the effects partnership to see if we could help them evolve to become a community development corporation so they can begin to provide funding to increase and stabilize that community as well. Okay. Thank you. I have another question. And as far if you could come on up. Thank you. I wanted to learn more. What you're hearing from current property owners or members of the Ethiopian community, specifically about what has been transpiring along this stretch of Colfax and where you see some gaps? Yeah. I mean, people overall, especially in the therapy community, are just nervous. And honestly, people are saying, we're going to move to Aurora. There is already, as I mentioned earlier, issues with small businesses being shut down as one reason or another, like the nuisance ordinance that the city has that's been used to close down small businesses that some newcomers consider an eyesore. But those businesses have been part of the neighborhood for decades. There's just overall, historically, when you look at other neighborhoods as well, our community has already been pushed out. This is, you know, a larger therapy community and a city park area. Like 20 years ago, we had a large community in five points. They're all in Aurora now, you know, and that's what's happening in East Colfax. That's the perception of what's happening in East Colfax. And all of this is happening very, very soon or rapidly, even though I know they've been working on it for years. But the other thing is all this details honestly are very confusing to a lot of people. And I know during your last meeting here, there was a passionate speech made by Councilwoman CdeBaca that really, like, got people's attention and say, oh, this is what it means. So there was also a lot of misunderstanding. And now there is a lot of alarm in the community saying, you know, we're next and East Colfax is next. And so, you know, that's why there is a lot of fear and nervousness. And, you know, some people are already making plans to to find a home or a business in Aurora. Have you gotten feedback or been part of the neighborhood outreach process? Can you repeat that? Have you been part of or had feedback on, I guess, the inclusiveness of the process so far? Yeah, the partnership has been great. They've been attempting to reach out. You know, we've worked with Nest to help reopen some of the businesses that have been closed. So we've had some success in that. But the issue is that, you know, as many times as you meet with this agency, it's an organization's first of all, it's hard to get this is a different community where a lot of the residents work two or three jobs, you know, single mothers or even the small business owners. They can't afford to hire a lot of staff so that, you know, the owners are working 16, 18 hours a day. So when there's a crisis, we'll make a call. People come out. But usually when you call people for planning, you know, the participation level has not been that great. And people just trust that, you know, a council or, you know, the good people take care of it. But there has been you know, I give a lot of kudos to the fact partnership and there's been a lot of attempts to reach out, but. This thing is very complicated. A lot of times people don't understand it. There has not been a lot of opportunities for a great deal of the community and not just the Ethiopian community, the immigrant community, the African-American community. I've talked to a lot of influencers from multiple of those communities, but not the fault of the good folks that are trying to put this together. But the reality of that community is that people don't have the luxury to actively participate and have a say. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman CdeBaca, you back up for questions. Just a quick question for Ms.. Aguilar. You were mentioning the the state tax program and that Alene would be put on their house for the payment. And you said that the lean would need to be paid back upon sale. What happens in cases where there is no sale and the person passes away? Because that's usually what happens when a senior is seeking support. Thank you, Councilwoman. It's similar to the Medicaid program where they would when the house was sold, they would take their portion and the remains would go to the family, the remaining value built up in the home. So the hope would be that on some of these homes that were perhaps purchased for 100,000, that in four or five years they'd be worth closer to 500,000. And what was behind on taxes to be taken out of that? And the difference in equity could go to the family for intergenerational wealth. Does that require a will? The I think my understanding is that the state would take their portion and then ideally the family would have a will to say that how the low equity in the home gets distributed once the family member has died. But otherwise, the usual inheritance structure. Or if there's no will, does it go to the state? Not if you have living relatives as like. There's a a listing of who gets it next. Like if you have a spouse, even if you've only been married to them for a year or two, they're first on the list. Unless Mom has, you know, drafting something up saying it goes to my kids or my grandkids. And it really behooves people to do that, even if it's just a handwritten witness by somebody, because that still has legal standing in their state. And in cases where there is nobody identified because that's that's what happens. Otherwise, they'd go to their family members for support. In those cases, what happens to the properties? To be honest, I don't know for sure. I know we have unclaimed property funds that come to the state and so I presume it would go there, but I'm making that up. I don't know. That is a fact. And do you know what percentage of Coloradans or Colorado seniors utilize that program? Very small. I think it's not well known among people. And as you know, there's a lot of distrust. And is there hesitance to sign that leen or documents that allow that lean to exist? Yes, I think that's part of the distrust. Interesting. The only good part about that, if you will, is that when you have that line on your property, if somebody comes to try to do some kind of predatory, mortgaging process on you, it will go through the the state or the city first so that you'll be counseled about the potential risks of that. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Councilwoman. Seeing no other questions. The public hearing for Council Bill 744 is closed. And we're going to move on to comments by members of Council Councilman Herndon. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I got to tell you, thank you. That we don't have a public hearing for climate change tonight. You know, I. I wish we weren't having this conversation because that would mean as I leave the city and county building a hangar. Right. I'm Cherokee and I head east heading to my house on Colfax. And I see the vibrancy in District ten, District nine. Grocery stores, amenities walking. You hit Monaco and it's a virtual wall. You hit Quebec and you go in a time capsule because you go back to the 1950s when the Colfax was I-70, prior to I-70 , and you still see the same services and shop that you had back then. If you're curious, from Monaco to Yosemite, from this just under two mile stretch right now, there are 21 car oriented businesses, used car dealers, mechanical shops, auto body shops. 16. I say motel's I use that term loosely. I have been in those motels and the state that we have these individuals living in and the amount of dollars that they pay to stay in there is is a disservice to those individuals that are trying to survive. And I appreciate Doctor Aguilar, because you hit the nail on the head. This conversation tonight is easy. East. Colfax needs the support. And this is a tool. And this is all it is. This is not a silver bullet, but this is a tool that will give us the opportunity to serve a community that is in desperate need of it. I don't know if you're familiar of the community planning development done because we talked about equity in Comp Plan 2040. Each statistical neighborhood in the city and county of Denver recently received what's called an equity score. It runs from 2 to 4.4, and that equity score is built on five factors. And I read some of them to you socioeconomic families that are in poverty, educational attainment, the built environment, access to full service, grocery store parks or open space health care, first trimester care during your pregnancy, more morbidity, child and youth, overweight and obesity . Mortality, life expectancy. So they took all these different factors and they spit out a number. The neighborhood that has the lowest in the city and county of Denver is East Colfax. We cannot do enough to serve these people. People that have been neglected for a very long time. And I want to applaud the city because in the past few years we have recognized that and we have taken steps to move forward with it, investments in our infrastructure with the 2017 Bond acquisition of two parcels. And I'll come back to that as we talk about housing, making investments in a community that has been neglected for a very long time. And there was a conversation about the local businesses. And we support this. We support the small businesses. But I will tell you right now, and I'll look at the East Colfax neighborhood there in this front pew, there are businesses right now in East Colfax that are not serving East Colfax. And we are using the tools that we have in place to either have them turn around and serve those communities, or we will handle that accordingly because I've been in those stores. And it's not because we are picking on a particular group of business, not because you're not serving the community. And I want to welcome any of my colleagues who walk Colfax with me, because I've done it, walk through with the neighbors to see how can we better serve this community at night picking up trash to better serve this community. When it comes to gentrification, the first thing you need to do is build housing. And that's what we're doing as a city. 83, 15, 82. Units. One, two, three, four bedroom units. 60%, Ami. And if you're curious what that means, if you are a family of four, maximum income is $55,000 and below. Yes, we cannot. These are the tools that we're using as a city to support those in this neighborhood. So I encourage my colleagues to support this, you know, so that we have another tool that we can help this community be a part of it. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Torres. Thank you, Mr. President. Just a couple of comments, because district three in particular, Westford was mentioned a couple times, and I just Stacy failed to, I think, adequately mention how much of an impact that had along Alameda and South Federal. And so I just want to make sure that folks here and appreciate the amount of work that goes into both the areas and the utilization of the turfs and how it can be a benefit. But always remember that it can also be taken advantage of. And so it is the investment of the people who live there. It is the investment of the communities who operate businesses there to pay attention over many decades of what's going to be happening in these corridors. So I saw it support housing and small business development. 42 projects were done in this particular area. One directly placed affordable housing at Alameda and Irving, 98 units under 60%. AMI because the project was mentioned, 42 units, 30 to 60%. AMI and their nonprofit actively working to support the economic success of West Denver families. Significant facade improvement including New Saigon bakery and and restaurant if anybody's not been there you should the retail malls on both sides of south federal Mississippi. These were years long process to build trust with dozens of individual owners. Each individual business was an individual property owner. All of them had to be brought along to approve facade improvement in their entire retail area. This took years and involved the creation of an actual alley behind one of them. Those business owners were taking trash home because they didn't want to take it behind their business. These projects were tough. Trust did not exist between first and second generation immigrant business owners and government. Not a shock. My work there was with the Asian American Pacific Islander Commission who wanted to understand what those business owner retail concerns were . Safety and upkeep and growth of their businesses were paramount. They wanted to be able to pass down their businesses to their kids. It took years of relationship building, years of tenacity by Tracy and her team, resulting in actual renovations, actual placemaking. And now we're seeing the burgeoning Little Saigon business district start to grow there and walkability and pedestrian access start. To be advocated. For. The successful outcomes come from partners, deliberate support and trust, and we all play a role in that, especially those who live, work and really love these particular neighborhoods. So I just wanted to mention a few of the successes that I've seen in West Denver that really can result from investment in our communities that need them. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman Sawyer. Thank you, Mr. President. I just want to start by thanking everyone who came out to speak tonight. And I know it's a it's a long evening. It's a tough thing to stand up and speak. And so we appreciate your advocacy and your bravery for getting up there. I know there's been some confusion with this vote that's before us, and I believe we kind of owe it to everyone to just make sure we're setting the record straight about exactly what this vote is about. You know, it is not about the east area plan. It is not about whether to use TIF money for any project specific project along East Colfax. It's not about whether tax dollars should fund TIFF. Our decision tonight is about whether or not that's an option on the table. Whether it's a tool in our box if we want it down the road. To not have that option available to us, I believe, is shortsighted. I've been attending East Colfax Neighborhood Association meetings for a long time, and I just want to point out what a unique R.A. it is. Tim and the rest of the leadership have truly engaged this community, its community, members of all ages, of all cultures, of all nationalities. And, you know, we might not always agree on the outcomes or how to get there, but we can all agree that this is a level of community engagement that has kept the East Colfax neighborhood a vibrant place, even given the challenges that it faces with safety and affordability and the threat of gentrification and displacement. One of my aides lives on East Colfax and in the East Colfax neighborhood, so my familiarity is very, very deep and you guys are well-represented in my office, just. So you know. To say that there's a lot happening on the East Colfax corridor right now. Kind of an understatement, right? It's an economic opportunity zone. There are five active Reno's two active business improvement districts. It's two council districts. You know, they're talking about the pilot BRT program that you Syria plan is being developed there. It's home to a thriving immigrant community that brings a rich cultural heritage, but it's a place that faces a lot of challenges. The lot sizes along East Colfax are very shallow, which makes it difficult to do anything really on the land. The city of Denver requires that small businesses to tackle the significant costs of infrastructure upgrades to the alleys and the sidewalks on any parcels in this area and in all areas. But in this area in particular, and even though the data shows that the crime is down, we still have a lot of work to do. All of this adds up to significant barriers to entry for new business and development in the area. I've spoken to some of the parcel owners and most of them tell me the same thing. If it were economically feasible for them to do anything else on these parcels, they would have done it by now. It's just that simple. Denver has one of the strongest economies in the country, in one of the strongest national economies in our nation's history. Yet still right now, the East Colfax corridor is struggling. And if economic indicators are correct, we're headed for a market correction which is only going to make a shift in this area more economically difficult. So what do we do to change this? If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, how can we create a shift on this corridor? Like many people I've spoken with, I don't believe that doing nothing is an option, and I believe that imperfect action is better than perfect inaction. With all the economic uncertainty we have to do, we have to use every available tool in our toolbox, which is like altering the financial options in the area through TIFF down the road is an option that we shouldn't eliminate prematurely. Is there a perfect? No. Historically, it's had its challenges. But this isn't the dura of 1975. It's 2019. Jura isn't asking to use eminent domain here, or frankly, I wouldn't support it. And the scope is limited to very specific parcels that are bordering East Colfax. Tracy and her team have been working their tails off to do the outreach that is needed to be done. Discussing this with community members, answering questions, making herself available to discussions with concerned neighbors. I mean, look at how many questions she answered tonight. That's pretty amazing. You know, Darrah is walking the walk and talking the talk and showing their commitment to the neighborhood through their actions. And we have examples in Denver, like we just talked about the Vietnamese community over on federal and Alameda, where Dora was successful in revitalizing the community while still ensuring that it maintains its authentic character and that the community was not displaced. We need to make sure that as potential projects come in front of council, we vet them through the lens of equity and we are careful about the choices we make. But tonight's vote isn't related to a specific project. It's a vote to leave all the available options on the table in a time when we might be facing economic uncertainty. And this evening, I will be supporting this designation, and I ask that you do as well. Thank you. Councilwoman. Councilman CdeBaca. Thank you so much. I wanted to take a minute. Having heard these presentations, as well as having recently completed our race and social justice initiative, training as body and again highlight several of my comments from last week during our race and social justice initiative training. We discussed several times the policies that have impacted and exacerbated race and social justice injustice over time. Several times we saw that urban renewal has deepened race and social justice in our in our injustice in our country and our community here in Denver, under the guise of helping us. Here we have a plan that was initiated in 2015 through the leadership of council members who are no longer members of this body for various reasons. One perhaps being that residents did not feel adequately represented by said representatives. 2015 was also a time when we were not aggressively acknowledging and mitigating our housing and displacement crisis. We have an area of town that this plan itself recognizes as high risk for displacement. We've heard several members of marginalized groups share their fears and concerns with this plan. Tonight, through emails, through phone calls, 70% of residents are struggling to stay in the community and this plan is attempting to incentivize private development. Most of them are not owners and instead are renters. They have a very different level of access to the improvements and planning that owners have and that have been discussed on other projects. Doura is determining blight and the plan overall was not catalyzed by residents. In fact, outside of notice for this meeting, residents who are not property owners have claimed that they have not been a part of this process. There was a statement made that this plan, if that if this plan was accepted and relocation was required for displaced businesses and residents, that a feasible method exists to relocate them. That makes me very uncomfortable. I also understand that while we're not approving a TIV project, we're authorizing the use to generate funding for the promised improvements of future projects. Two Financing draws a boundary around the same neighborhood. That's asking for affordability, and 70% are at risk of displacement. To impose those necessary taxes that will effectively tax the properties in the area to pay for the new improvements. While tax increases and instability is one of the primary factors causing homeowner displacement across our city. This is already a trump opportunity zone that incentivizes private development in the area with federal dollars. A denial tonight is not a permanent denial, but a two year pause while Denver recalibrates, as we have promised our residents we would to address this housing crisis. Derek can also continue to work through their housing branch to help facilitate improvements along the corridor without the plan in place. We can also move forward with our upcoming neighborhood plans and decide if through those plans they still want to catalyze the same level of private development. I'm not comfortable with hoping that communities are organized enough to fight back and achieve the sometimes decent projects. That is too big of a risk to take right now. Knowing that all of our families are facing and I think Miss Aguilar's thoughts, while Miss Aguilar's thoughts have changed to realize how this might be used as a tool to mitigate displacement, I believe her original instinct was based on knowing the data we have. I'm going to have to again go with the many years and projects of proof. We have to show that the urban renewal plans have corrected blight of poverty by eliminating the poor, black and brown and driving them out. We need to press pause. We watched the devastation of what happened with Walton Street and the redevelopment of that area. I respect my colleagues underscoring projects that had satisfactory outcomes, and we can do those projects on a project by project basis. We know a lot of change is coming to this corner of our city. We've heard multiple tools that are being utilized by Nest and Ms.. Aguilar has been in her role maybe a year at this point. And we need to give those efforts a chance to work without using the same tool that we know catalyzed massive disruption in several areas of town. So for this reason, I still do not support this plan. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman. Thank you, Mr. President. Many of my comments were stated by Councilwoman Torres. I think, you know, I had an old saying, which is that urban renewal is like fire. It can keep you warm and alive in a winter or it can burn your house down. And it's all about how you use it. Part of the responsibility for how it gets used is on government and in particular how we institutionalize more policies to ensure that if this tool is used, it's held accountable. There were movements it took to make the policies that are in place, and we probably it's time for us to update those. I think there is pointing direction that points that way in our plans that we've adopted. And so it was not the case very recently that there was a policy of always including affordable housing and it's not a written policy. So there is definitely room for improvement for institutionalizing the government accountability. But I will always believe that it is important that there is wisdom in the community and that one of the most important things we need to go forward if this passes tonight, is to help make sure that the wisdom of communities who've gone before get to directly share their experience. With this community. So I think we need to pair the Vietnamese community that Councilwoman Torres talked about with some of the immigrant refugees in this quarter and create an opportunity for shared learning and then to create more resources for those communities that are now activated. I started tonight thinking that we were doing this too soon, that we should have waited until we had actual projects. But actually, as I listened to the discussion and all of the really important testimony tonight, I realize it's really important that we're doing it tonight because now everyone is paying attention before there's any project. And so we have to seize that. We have to resource this community with organizing dollars and the ability to self-organize, to learn about community benefits agreements and how to negotiate. And so together, we have to have accountability in government, both in the agency as well as the council, because we will vote on anything that moves forward, as well as finding a way to channel and collect the wisdom that's in the community about how to ensure that that power lives there. So I hope that those are steps we can take. I'll be looking forward to seeing what the first round of grantees are from the funding that is going to be out there for equity organizing . And if it doesn't include this neighborhood, how we ensure that there is more resources going forward. I'll be hosting an event on community benefits later this fall. I will make sure to invite those of you who are here tonight from the neighborhood to learn more about that model. And then we will continue, I think, to have an important conversation. I'm really glad the questions were raised. This agency has in recent history not had the same policies it has today, and it needs to continue to grow and evolve. And that responsibility falls on us. It is the history of this agency's evolution has been an inside and outside organizing period. It hasn't been one body. It's required both. And so I think if we continue to focus this important conversation, we can hold any future projects really accountable or reject them. And we can also make sure that the next plans that come forward potentially have even more mitigating tools built into them from the front end. Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman each. Councilman Hines. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank everyone for coming. It's. It's late. I don't even know what time it is. Oh, 1030. Yeah, it's like ten past my bedtime. And. And I also want to thank people for. For, you know, sharing your views and your thoughts, regardless of what side of this particular discussion you you're in. I think that this is a framework and and not an actual implementation. And I want to say, I think this is I think this is good. I think that we should have additional development, particularly if it encourages locally owned businesses and affordable housing and allows people to age in place and continue to run their businesses in place. I would also say if you're a developer who is looking at this vote and starting to salivate and think, I don't care about race or social justice, I agree with Councilwoman CdeBaca. We need to consider that as a middle aged white male. I you know, obviously, I don't I don't experience the struggle, but we need to make sure that everyone is is considered and heard. And we and I heard the our recent training on race and social justice. And if you are a developer who is not going to consider that, don't expect this urban renewal to be a green light. For me, the last thing I'd say is my colleague to my left talked about the vibrancy of Colfax and District ten. I invite all of you to come, maybe as you go home tonight, but please do visit Colfax on District ten, west of Colorado, and enjoy our wonderful, vibrant businesses. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Gilmore. Thank you, President. Clerk. I appreciate I appreciate everybody for Lee. And my comments will be brief. You know, my husband and I, our first home was at 1960 Verbena before Stapleton was redeveloped. And, you know, Saturday's was the location that we gave folks to make left off of Colfax to get to our house. And there hasn't been the investment by the city in this area at all for decades, specifically Québec and other areas. But. Really came forward for me. Today was a great conversation with Neb and. I value your opinion and I value that of the Ethiopian community. And I'm very concerned. I'm very concerned because I haven't heard tonight the plans that we need to really have in place to make sure that we are providing every resource possible to our residents and our businesses. And I can't in good faith vote on this tonight knowing that we don't have a predictive tool that is ready to roll out. We don't know how this investment will affect the property values of surrounding single family homes and businesses, and how are they going to mitigate and navigate those rising property values? How during this development we're going to keep local businesses in the neighborhood? I didn't specifically ask the question, but I purposely didn't because I wanted to hear someone tell me how for that barber shop, how for the dentist's office that was shared tonight. Where are they going to go? What's the interim plans to make sure that they stay in the neighborhood? And so with that, I'm not going to be able to support this tonight because I don't feel like there's the infrastructure in the plans to support our most vulnerable residents and businesses. Thank you, President Clark. Thank you, Councilwoman Gilmore. Councilman CdeBaca, I see back in the queue, we don't generally go back around to second time programs. All right, then. See nobody else up for comments. Madam Secretary, roll call. Herndon, I swear I black I. CdeBaca No. Flynn I. Gillmor No. Hines. I. Cashman. Kenny Ortega. Sandoval. Torres, I. Mr. President. All right, Madam Secretary, please cause voting in those results. Tunis 11. Nice. Tunis Lebanese Council 744 has passed. Councilman Hines, will you please put comfortable 745 on the floor?