A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 2112 South Emerson Street in Rosedale. Approves a map amendment to rezone property from E-SU-B to E-SU-B1 (allows for an accessory dwelling unit), located at 2112 South Emerson Street in Council District 6. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 1-5-21.
Yes. Council President, I move the council bill $21 0006 be placed upon final consideration. Get ready and do pass. Okay. Very good. The required public hearing for Council Bill 20 1-0006 is open. May we please have the staff report? And I believe we have Libby with us. Yes. Um. Can you see my screen and hear me? Mm hmm. Awesome. So my name is Libby Adams, and I'll be presenting the Third Avenue case that you'll be hearing this evening for the Wrap amendment application at 2112 South Emerson Street. This application is located in Council District six, in Councilmember Cashman's district in the Rosedale neighborhood. The property is near the intersection of South Emerson Street and Evans Avenue. The applicant is requesting to rezone from Urban Edge Single Unit B to Urban Edge Single Unit b12 to allow for an accessory dwelling unit. I'm associated. Previously, the existing zoning is ECB, which allows for the Urban House primary building form and typically has a minimum zone size of 4500 square feet. The site is occupied by a single unit residents. It's surrounded by mostly other single unit residences. There are some two unit and multifamily kind of scattered throughout the neighborhood and then more commercial uses located along Evans Avenue. This slide shows the existing building performance scale with the site of the proposed rezoning on the right hand side of your screen, and then one of the multiple units just to the north along at the corner of South Emerson and Evans Avenue, and then one of the single unit homes across the street. This map amendment was complete in mid-October. A postcard notifying neighboring property owners and registered neighborhood organizations within 200 feet of the site was sent out on October 20th. Today, we have received one comment from the Platte Park Peoples Association concerned that this rezoning will lead to spot rezoning. However, spot rezoning occurs when a proposed district does not meet adopted plan guidance and when there's no justification for the rezoning. But staff has found that this rezoning is consistent with adopted plans and that there is a justifying circumstance warranting a change in zoning and which I'll discuss in the coming slides. So we don't do that. This would enable spot rezoning. And I also do want to point out that the Park People's Association was notified of this request because they are within 200 feet of the proposed site, but they are not the R.A. that is for this site. That would be the Rosedale Harbor Gulch Neighborhood Association. The Denver zoning code has five review criteria, which I'll go over. The first is consistency with adopted plans, and there are two plans that are applicable to the site. The proposed rezoning meets the goals and strategies in the comprehensive plan by creating a greater mix of housing options in the Roseville neighborhood and allowing infill development where infrastructure is already in place. The future neighborhood context and blueprint. Denver is urban edge. These areas contain elements of both the urban and the suburban neighborhood context and are mostly single and two unit residential areas with some multi-unit and mixed use embedded throughout. Blueprint identifies the subject property as the low residential place site. These place types are mostly single unit residential uses is accessory dwelling units are compatible and can be integrated throughout the area. And then South Emmerson Street is designated as a local street, and these are most often characterized by residential uses, which is consistent with the proposed rezoning of a single unit use with an accessory dwelling unit. The growth area strategy is all other areas of the city. This is where we anticipate to see 10% of employment growth and 20% of housing growth by 2040. The proposed rezoning to allow in a view is again consistent with this, as it would allow a slight increase in density consistent with the proposed housing growth. Blueprint. Denver also identifies specific policy recommendations. So the land use and built form housing policy for strategy states that individual rezonings to allow ideas are appropriate and should be small and area to minimize impacts. And so the proposed rezoning of just a single property is consistent with this strategy. South also finds the requested rezoning meets the next two criteria. The rezoning will result in uniformity of district regulations, and it will further the public health, safety and welfare, primarily through implementing adopted plans, also providing an additional housing unit that's compatibly integrated and also providing an additional unit in an area with high opportunity. This is less than a mile from a hospital, as well as an RTD station and less than half a mile from a public park and a full service grocery store. This stuff also finds a justifying circumstance for this MAP amendment, with the newly adopted plan, guidance and blueprint Denver to allow it. And of all of our residential neighborhoods. And lastly, the proposed rezoning is consistent with the urban neighborhood context. The residential districts purpose and then the specific intent of the ESU be one zone district. So based on finding our review criteria have been met. Staff recommends approval of the proposed rezoning. And that concludes my presentation. I do know the applicants are on the call, but I did not give them the link to sign up to speak at close by the time I sent it to them. But they'll raise their hand when the time comes. And I can use my presentation. Very good. Thank you, Libby. And tonight, counsel has not received any written testimony on counsel Bill 21, Dash 0006. And we have one individual signed up to speak this evening and we are going to go ahead and get started. Jesse Paris. Yes. Good evening. Remember, for those watching at home. My name is Justin LaShawn Paris. And I'm representing for Black Star Xtreme over for self-defense. Positive. Come in for social change as well as the Unity Party of Colorado and mile high north. And I'll be the next mayor of Denver in 2023. I am once again in favor of this rezoning. Tonight, we have a housing crisis. We had this housing crisis before it, and we still have it now. So any opportunities council gets to approve rezonings of this type I am in full support of. I supported Adios when I ran for City Council at large in 2019 and I will continue to support them. We have a housing crisis while we have 26,000 vacant luxury apartments. So I am in full support of this rezoning. I believe this is in Cashman's district. Good job, Cashman. You got this. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Jesse. That concludes our speakers this evening. Questions for members of Council. Councilman Quinn. Thank you, Madam President. Let me could you clarify for me what does CPD consider? When does CBD consider a parcel to be in a transit area? When I heard you talk about this being near an RTD station, it's actually in the staff report. It says it's it's several blocks away from a bus stop and there's probably any property in the city that's several blocks from a bus stop. The staff report also mentions proximity to the Evans light rail station on the Southwest corridor and the DU Station at the university up on, I think, High Street of Bucktown. Neither of those is within any reasonable walking distance routinely for somebody who wanted to use that for transit. So could you clarify what is CPD's measurement or standard for saying that a property is near transit? So it's typically within, I would say, a half mile. So you're right, this is a little bit farther outside of that area. And this started the bus stop along. Evans would be a lot closer, but that would potentially take you to the light rail station. Or if someone, you know has a bike that could very good bike to the station. Okay. Is there an outer limit where CPD would say, well, this site is not near transit, but we recommended that name? I mean, I don't I don't have a problem seeing this as my criteria. I do quibble with the notion that it's near transit just because there's a bus stop nearby. And I say that as someone who for five years when I worked at RTD, walked a half a mile every morning to a bus stop. Yeah. You know, that is. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Something else. Is there a limit to is there a beyond which CPD would not say this is near transit? Oh, that's you know, because most of our city is served by at least a bus line. I would say so. I think for the most part, we would say that it's now some places are closer to higher frequency transit. So a bus line on Evans is probably going to run a lot more. We're on Colorado if you're close to Colorado Boulevard or Downing Street's more frequent. Um, so that varies throughout the city. But I mean, for the most part, our city is served by our two busses. Depending on where you are. Some are greater than other areas. Certainly. Certainly. All right. Thank you. That's all, Madam President. All right. Thank you, Councilman Flynn. Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Madam President. I see just Hastings. The applicant is in the queue. I wonder if we can promote. Yep. Well. Get that done here. Are you there, Jesse? You'll need to unmute. Yup. I'm here. Can you see and hear me? Yep. Absolutely. Can you just tell us what your thoughts are for what you want to do on your property? Yeah. We're looking at building a. Three car garage up the alley that has a two bedroom apartment above it. We've hired an architect with a lot of experience with use, so we're being very conscious to try and match the existing buildings architecture. And there's been a lot of talk about privacy concerns tonight and we definitely agree with that. Um, you know, we've talked to both of our neighbors who were very close to the, to the south and to the north. And we're gonna make sure we take every precaution to preserve that and try and have everything fit with the neighborhood's best we can. Okay. And what? Do you have any particular use in mind at this point? Out of the gate. We're looking at either a long term or a short term rental. I think the previous two people had a couple of really good examples of how a short term rental, even though maybe it has a negative connotation, the real positive thoughts with that. I have parents who actually live in Nebraska. We have a two year old daughter who they've come out to visit quite a bit and our house is pretty small. So that's something where the flexibility of having a short term rental, if we have relatives coming to visit and stay with us and they can stay on the property , but outside would be really nice for us as well. So that's something we're very interested in. Great. Well, you're should this pass? You have plenty of options on what to do with the property. We're looking for zoning, not the particular use. But I did appreciate your sharing your plans with us. That's all. Madam President. Thank. All right. Thanks, Jeff, and thank you, Councilman Cashman. And see no other hands raised for questions of council members. The public hearing for Council Bill 20 1-0006 is closed. Comments by Members of Council. Councilman Cashman. Thanks again, Madam President. Yeah. You know, for the reasons that we've talked about tonight, I do think accessory dwelling units make a a much needed addition to our housing inventory options. And I do need to just raise the name of Bob Sperling, whom I've talked about before, who is going office to office city planning for years when no one would listen to him. And he was talking about Granny Flats at that time, and he would come to my office hours, Pete's Cafe on a weekly basis and sit and yell at me, trying to get someone to listen to him. And finally, people listened. And unfortunately, Bob passed away a couple of few years ago before this latest involvement of accessory dwelling units. So he lives on and and did more good for, I believe, for his community than he probably even realized at the time. So with that said, thank you, Madam President and I will be supporting this application and would hope my colleagues would join me. Thank you, Councilman Cashman. Councilman Flynn. Thank you, Madam President. I will support this also, and I believe that it meets the criteria. I especially like the fact that it is on an alley and has adequate access as the other two tonight did have. But I just want to take the opportunity to urge CPD to refrain or to be a little more discreet about using the transit access. I did look up the schedules and it's 30 minute frequencies on the on the 21 and the 12. And that's by no means a high frequency at all. And I'd like to reserve that for something that truly is near a high frequency transit corridor or train station. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Flynn, and see no other hands raised for comment. I'll go ahead and chime in that seeing that this meets all of the criteria, I'm happy to support it tonight as well. Madam Secretary, roll call. Cashman. I can each write Ortega a. Sawyer. I. Black. I see tobacco. I. Clark. I. Flynn. I. Herndon. I. Madam President. I and on Secretary, please close the voting and announce the results tonight. Tonight's Council Bill 20 1-0006 has passed and our pre adjournment announcement is on Monday, March 14th. Council will hold a required public hearing on Council Bill 21, dash 0083 Changing the zoning classification for 2650 Arkin's Court 3205 ten Argo Street 3218 Argo Street and 2700