A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 6972 North Argonne Street and 19300 East 72nd Avenue in DIA. Approves a map amendment to rezone property from C-MU-10 w/waivers AIO, C-MU-30 w/waivers UO-1 AIO and C-MU-30 w/waivers & conditions UO-1 AIO to I-MX-8 w/waiver UO-1 AIO and I-MX-8 w/waiver AIO, located at 6972 Argonne Street & 19300 72nd Avenue in Council District 11. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 3-29-22.
Ten Eyes Council Bill 20 2-352 has passed. Councilmember Hines, will you please put Council Bill 20 to dash three, four or five on the floor for final passage and. Move the Council Bill 20 20345 be placed upon final consideration. And do pass. Thank you. It has been moved and seconded the required public hearing for Council Bill 20 2-3, four, five is open. May we have the staff report, please? Yes. Good evening, Scott Robinson with community planning and Development. So this is a request to rezone 6972 Argonne Street and 19300 72nd Avenue from CMU ten with waivers IO CMU 30 with waivers you are one IO and CMU 30 with waivers and conditions. You are 102i annex eight with waiver you will want eight. I know. And I annex eight with waiver. Oh, so I know there was a lot of gibberish, but I will explain what all that means in just a minute. As you know, this property is in Council District 11 in the DIA neighborhood. It is just south of Pena Boulevard and the Boulevard and the RTD line tracks and east of Tower Road, abutting Adams County to the south and east. The requested Annex eight zone district is industrial mixed use with a maximum of eight stories, which allows a variety of industrial, commercial and residential uses in general, in the townhouse general and industrial building forms. And the applicant is requesting rezoning to allow for the Pepsi Bottling and distribution facility to be built on the properties. So the requested waiver to the proposed Annex eight zone district would change the requirements for the manufacturing fabrication and assembly and general use. So currently that use requires a zoning permit and special exception review, which means that it has to go to the Board of Adjustment for uses that are larger than 60,000 square feet that operate overnight , which the proposed use would do. So the requested waiver would remove that zip C requirement and instead the use would be allowed as a standard zoning permit handled administratively. The i o is the DEA airport influence area overlay which prohibits residential uses and surface parking primary uses on properties in the area. So I mentioned that the IMF generally allows residential uses, but with the I know this would not be allowed. And then the other one is the adult use overlay that allows certain adult uses. The existing zoning, as I mentioned, is CMU ten and CMU 30, which are both former Chapter 59 old codes on districts that are commercial mixed use or that allow a variety of commercial and some industrial uses. The waivers and conditions on those properties prohibit residential uses and also prohibit a few other heavy industrial uses and require an application is meant to be signed with the airport. The site is currently vacant shows a pure agricultural surrounded mostly by vacant land with the hotels and other commercial uses along Tower Road and the Gaylord Hotel in Adams County to the Southeast. Here you can see the subject property in the bottom right with the Gaylord Hotel there in the background and then some of the surrounding properties that are along Argonne Street. This probably went through the larger development review process in 2021. That process called for the Foreign Office an amendment that you just voted on, the GDP amendment that was discussed earlier, this rezoning and the mobility study which has been completed. The General Development Plan is the high point GDP, which lays out the locations of future streets and open spaces and currently calls for a mix of office and mixed use on the site and also open space along the West Fork of the Second Creek and a trail along that corridor. As discussed earlier, the GDP is in the process of being amended. Following tonight, it will be amended by the Development Review Committee. That amendment will reflect the revised Street Network called for in the plan and call for industrial uses instead of those of the commercial office mixed use uses. The subject site is also subject to the Denver Gateway Urban Design Standards and guidelines, and those would remain in place. This went to planning board on March 16th, received a unanimous recommendation of approval. Was that ludie on March 29th? As discussed earlier, the LDR of the Plan Amendment went through an extensive public process. The applicant has also signed the Good Neighbor Agreement with the Master Association in the area addressing truck routing. You have in your packet two comments in support discussing how the applicant is a good member of the community and would bring important jobs to the area. And three comments in opposition, mostly concerned about traffic and noise from the proposed development. In order to approve a rezoning, the city must find that these five criteria have been met. The first criterion is consistency with adopted plans, and there are three plans that apply to this property. First is Comprehensive Plan 2040. As discussed in your staff report, staff has found that the proposed rezoning is consistent with multiple goals and strategies in Plan 2040, mostly relating to providing appropriate development, inappropriate locations, and providing for more business and jobs. So I won't go through all of these, but did want to point out a couple of them. One, relating to equity. The proposed rezoning would improve equity by improving access to resources in areas that are currently undeveloped. And also in terms of climate, would promote in-fill development, inappropriate locations and focused growth in places served by existing transportation infrastructure. So staff finds the proposed rezoning consistent with a comprehensive plan. 2040. The second plan is Blueprint Denver. That was will be updated or was updated by the amendment to the far north east area plan. So what I have here right now are the maps of what was the context in place type. So I'm actually going to skip over these and we'll talk about context in place with the far northeast area plan and its recently adopted amendment. But there are other strategies and recommendations in Blueprint Denver that I want to address. One is recommending rezoning properties out of former Chapter 59 into the Denver zoning code, which this amendment would or this application would do. Second is one that recommends against using customized zoning like waivers unless it's a unique or extraordinary circumstance. In this case, the amended for Northeast Area Plan calls for allowing these types of uses without additional review by the Board of Adjustment. So we find that the proposed waiver is consistent with the Blueprint Denver policy. And then third is to maintain existing regulations that limit residential and other inappropriate uses near the airport, which again the proposed overlay would do. Because the property is larger than five acres. We also did an equity analysis in terms of access to opportunity at scores between one and two out of four, which means it has less access to opportunity. Mostly that is because there's no street network on the property built out right now. So we can actually access the the community corridor along Telfer Boulevard, which have a road. In terms of vulnerability to involuntary displacement, it scores a two out of three. But again, there's no housing on the property and no housing allowed or would be allowed. So by allowing additional well-paying jobs in the area, it would potentially help limit involuntary displacement elsewhere in the neighborhood, but not directly on the site because no housing would be allowed. And similarly, for housing diversity right now in scores of three out of five. But again, no housing is currently allowed. No housing is there, and no housing would be allowed. So wouldn't have an impact on housing diversity. And finally, in terms of jobs, diversity, right now, jobs in the area skewed towards innovation. So allowing more manufacturing jobs in the area would help balance out the the job mix in the neighborhood. So staff finds the proposed rezoning consistent with Blueprint Denver. The third plan is the far northeast area plan as amended. So now the context designation for this is district, which calls for specific uses such as industrial, which is consistent with the proposed rezoning. The future place designation is value manufacturing, which again calls for things like industrial mixed use, which is consistent with the proposed Annex eight zone district. And the revised height map in the plan calls for an eight storey maximum. Consistent with the proposed zoning. Future streets are local for the most part, with High Point Boulevard and Dunkirk and 71st as collectors to serve the property and the locals making those final connections out to Tower Road, which is an arterial. The front of this plan also has some relevant recommendations, including calling for large scale employment opportunities in the area which this rezoning would do. And also, as I mentioned earlier, calling for allowing those manufacturing uses without additional review. So consistent with the proposed waiver. So that stuff finds the most resounding, consistent with far northeast area plan as amended and the first criterion met. The second criterion is uniformity of district regulations that finds that post rezoning would result in the uniform application of the annexed eight zone district with waiver. The third criterion is to further the public health, safety and general welfare of the city. Staff finds the proposed rezoning would do so by implementing the city's adopted plan and providing for additional jobs and development in this appropriate location. The third criterion, or the fourth criterion is justifying circumstances that finds the proposed rezoning justified by the new adopted plans in the area calling for this use and the fact that the property has retained former Chapter 59 and this would bring it into the Denver zoning code. And the final criterion is consistency with neighborhood context, zone district purpose and intent. And staff finds that the proposed rezoning would result in development consistent with the description of the industrial context and the purpose of the intent of the Annex districts. So that staff finds that all five criteria have been met that recommends approval. I'll be happy to answer any questions. All right, great. Thank you for the staff report. We have five individuals signed up to speak this evening. Steve Lawrence is first. Okay. He's declining to speak. That's all right. That's all right. We'll go ahead and move on. We've got Martin Lawrence or Martin Wallace excuse me on Zoom. Martin Wallace. Go ahead. I'm happy to. Answer any questions. All right. Thank you. Next up, we have Brian Conley. Good evening. Council members Brian Conley again with the law firm Abidin Johnson representing PepsiCo Beverages North America. I had intended to use this time to speak to our public outreach process that we've gone through. But but we were able to cover that during our discussion of the plant amendment. So I appreciate Scott putting together a very thorough presentation. We certainly agree with everything in it and would respectfully request your approval. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to go ahead and move back to Zoom. Katie, Your Highness. Hi. My name's Cleo Jennings. Thanks so much for. Letting me talk today. I currently live in Denver. I'm a Denver. I'm a Colorado native, grew up here, went to Colorado State and started with Pepsi, started my career with Pepsi right after right out of school. So I've been with Pepsi now for almost 20 years. I'm in support of this. It means a lot of good things, not only for the community but for Pepsi as well. You guys have hit on a lot of the high notes, but I just want to speak a little to my experience with Pepsi and why I found it so valuable that we're looking to expand and invest in this Denver area. They've always been a good company to me, and most importantly, their acceptance of inclusion and diversity and women in the workforce, especially in a tough manufacturing environment. That's something that I don't think is is common everywhere. And this. Opportunity here in. This Denver area to grow, to increase technology, sustainability. A lot of the notes that you had mentioned before is very exciting for me, not only as an employee, but as a Colorado resident. So thank you so much and. Thank you for my time. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jesse Paris. Yes. Good evening. May I be heard? Yes. Yes. My name is just Wissam Paris, and I'm represented for Black Star Movement for Self-defense and Positive Action Command for Social Change, as well as the Unity Party of Colorado. The East Denver Residents Council Front Frontline Black News. And I'll be the next mayor of Denver in 2023. And I reside in District eight in Councilman Hernandez district. I'm in favor of. The Bill to change the classification for 6972 North Oregon three and one nine 300 is. 72nd Avenue. And yeah, my only concern is the traffic in this area. As has been stated by previous speakers at a previous hearing. This is going to cause a very, uh. Traffic catastrophe. If the infrastructure isn't built out to supply all of these trucks that are going to be coming in and out of this area. So I wanted to know if there had been a extensive traffic study done on this proposed area. Yes. There's going to be this is going to bring jobs to the community, to the city. However, it doesn't negate the fact that this is going to be a traffic catastrophe if the infrastructure is not built out. So if someone could please answer that question about the traffic study. How that factors into the comprehensive plan 2040 and the is far northeast plan with the added amendments. I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks and have a blessed evening. Thank you. That concludes our speakers this evening. Questions from members of Council on Council Bill 22, Dash three, four, five. Councilmember Ortega. Yeah. This is for the planning department. So why the CMC? Hi. It's an x y man. Jerry. That was the the Africans choice their refuse in districts, as I understand that would work for what they needed and were consistent with what we were hearing from the community about the the the plan amendment. So does this cap heights at all? It is based on? Yes. Yeah. The Annex eight has a maximum height of eight stories and 110 feet, I believe. Okay. And I'm assuming the structure is not going to be eight storeys high. If someone from Pepsi can address that or if you can address that in the documents that have already been submitted to the planning department. I just wanted to confirm that it is eight stories, 110 feet is what the zoning would allow and let the Afghans speak to the proposed building. Again. Brian Connelly for Pepsi. I'd be happy to address the height question. The reason that we requested IMAX aid is that the I mentioned in the hearing on the area plan amendment that one of the technological features of the plant is what's called an automated storage and retrieval system. So it's a it's a tracking system that's internal to the building that uses guided vehicles and uses automation to store finished product in the it's it's sort of a ready made structure and it's shipped in parts, but it's assembled on site and it requires about 90 to 100 feet of height to actually have that racking system in it. It will not be the entirety of the building. The building itself is is very large, small portion of it. But that was the internal discussion that drove the height question and then also to the point that Scott made the the plan guidance for this area both before and after the final revised area plan amendment that you all approved this evening did indicate support for eight stories of height. Okay. So I guess, I think like way out into the future. I believe this investment is being made to be here for a very, very long time. But if there were to be some reason that Pepsi were to be sold off and moved away to some other place, then the entitlements for this parcel allow somebody to build the entirety up to eight stories. And so that's why I'm asking the question. And. If someone were to buy it at some point in time in the future, they wouldn't necessarily have to come back before Denver City Council. Many of us would be long gone by then to, you know, do something different with the site. So so Scott, I don't know if you want to add anything more to that, but I really do believe this is going to be there for a very long time. Pepsi has been at its current location for I don't even know how many years, but as long as I can remember. So go ahead. Yeah, you're absolutely right that this this request is not specific to Pepsi. It's for the property, whoever owns it, you know, there's no guarantee that Pepsi will build what they're proposing. Right. There could be changes in the next year that that they end up selling it off before they build anything. And so we evaluate this based on is this the zone district that's appropriate for this property regardless of use or ownership? And is it consistent with those five criteria? And based on the plan, as we went through, as Brian said, the plan calls for it stories, calls for value manufacturing. That's consistent with the proposed dynamics, a zone district, regardless of of who ends up building or using the property. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. I thank you, Scott. And thank you, Councilwoman Ortega. Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Madam President. Just to put a pin in that, if you wouldn't mind, schools would come back up. So remind me the totals, I understand, were the plans you're talking about could change. But the plan the size of the building. Is. It's about a million square feet. Right. And the plan, the size of the eight storey racking area, which you describe, is a small portion of it. How how many square feet would that be? 150,000 square feet. 150,000 square feet. About 15% of the building. Okay. Thank you. I would also just add in response to Councilman Ortega's question that I think the reason the plan had originally suggested eight stories in height was because of the future there, the potential for a future commuter rail station there to support transit oriented development. So perhaps in the 100 plus years when Pepsi is no longer there and the future commuter rail station exists, then you could have eight story structures around it. If I may, Madam President, this is within the LDA noise contour. If it would have a lot to say about whether or not we tried to place residential within that area. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Ortega and I agree. And that's why we have been very consistent in not allowing any residential past 64th Avenue out in the far northeast and no single family residential past 56th Avenue as well. And so appreciate that. All right. Not seeing any other questions from members of council. The public hearing is closed. Comments by members of Council on Council Bill 22, Dash three, four or five. And I'll go ahead and give my comments since this is then my council district and this has been a very, very long process. We made sure that we reached out to the community. And I really want to thank the community steering committee members and all of the far Northeast community members who went to plenty of meetings, who gave their follow up input, who stayed very involved in this entire process. And I want to especially thank Mr. Benitez for being here tonight for both the Far Northeast Plan Amendment and the rezoning. And I'm really confident in going forward you staying in contact with the Pepsi representative, with Community Planning and Development and my council office as well, because we've developed some relationships and requests that we quite frankly, made of this development applicant about being a good neighbor, about making sure that they were investing in our far northeast infrastructure as far as traffic signals, making sure that they were reducing the negative effects of hopefully electric soon tractor trailers, and that we also have a great opportunity to work with your students and talking about the career path that they could look at, especially around the automated side of this Pepsi manufacturing plant. And they're starting to do some of that work already. They're going to be training at the current Pepsi plant in this new technology. And so I just hope that we can stay in contact and make sure that we're lowering any negative issues with the church and the school youth right there in kind of the same area. I also want to thank Lily with the CPD staff. She's done a great, amazing job and really explaining things that are complicated and that, you know, folks had worked on the far northeast plan a bit ago and she had to get us all back up to speed and having those conversations. I would like to thank the planning board and then a special thank you to Deborah Cameron with our Denver Economic Development Office. I know that there were times in this process that I was probably going to give Deborah a heart attack on it, and it was all making sure that we got the community's voice front and center and that they were heard. And that's indicative of this is a massive project for the far north east. And on each hearing, we've only had five speakers and we don't have community members saying they don't want this in the neighborhood. They're they're definitely informed and they know the benefits of it. And then thanking Brian Conley and all of the PepsiCo staff, because they also went above and beyond during this process answering hard questions. And so this is going to facilitate a large manufacturing campus. It's going to bring almost or close to 500 jobs that are high paying jobs, and that really creates a workforce development and training facility in our community. On top of what we're doing out of Denver International Airport and through our collaborative efforts with various community organizations and residents, we really created a framework that I believe sets a path for intentional growth and economic development. I don't know how many of you have heard me say it, but I will say it again on the record that I'm not going to go anywhere in the far northeast. And after my time on council, I'm certainly not going to get stopped at the grocery store. Or at a community event by a community member who says, you know what, you didn't you didn't do your due diligence. You didn't ask the questions. You didn't carry forward our wants and needs. I feel confident that we have carried that forward and that we've answered that and that we will continue to answer those questions as this project moves forward. And so I would ask my colleagues tonight to vote in favor of this. This is a game changer for the far northeast in having close access to a large scale employment center. Folks could actually ride their bike to work and that's a big deal in the far northeast. And so appreciate it. And with that, I will close out my comments, asking my council colleagues to vote in favor of this rezoning. And we'll go ahead and move to Councilwoman Kenny next. Thank you, Councilwoman. President. And I want to thank all the teams. It's been a lot of detailed information between the prior presentation and vote in this one. And I especially want to thank our council president because her diligence and her set up for the community engagement and conversations to make sure that stakeholders with a deep understanding of these plans understood the changes that were going to come forward is evident tonight, right, in terms of the depth. You know, I just wanted to comment for a minute about, you know, this concept generally of industrial, you know, in in in a long ago era when we created these highly separated zone districts in the early 1900s. You know, manufacturing was a harmful process. You know, it always involved dangerous chemicals and or loud noises. It was always deeply destructive to water air. There are still forms of industrial that are impactful in those ways, but less and less so every day as technology gets cleaner, as these processes are modernized, as there's more technology and they have an important role to play in our city and in our. In. Our in our economy. And I want to bring up two things in particular. One is job quality and wages. Our city cannot survive, in my humble opinion, on low wage retail and food service and hospitality jobs and high end housing alone. Right. And so I think that these jobs tend to have wages that are a notch higher and they are still accessible for those who may not have a college degree, which, by the way, we still have a lot of residents in our city who do not and they deserve to have good paying jobs. My mom was a factory worker. I'm going to share that. And, you know, we didn't have a lot of extras in our house, but there was food on our table and there was health insurance in our house. And that was because of her manufacturing job that she stayed at for 42 years with her rural high school education . And, you know, I think that that creating space in our city for those jobs, particularly in zones like this, they're not going to be residential, but even sometimes adjacent to residential because it is cleaner, quieter and less impactful than its 100 year ago. Ancestor is really important and it's important for the residents of far northeast in particular in terms of the workforce efforts that are going to be made because we have working class residents up there who may want to work closer to home than they do today and may not have a college degree and deserve to continue to have a good quality of life. The second thing that I want to flag is our conversation about property taxes. One thing I know about residential is that it pays a lower property tax rate in our city, but still growing because values are going up. And our residents demand a lot. Of services. Right. They require schools and they require, you know, libraries. And they they use a lot of city services. And that's appropriate. That's what we exist to do, is to serve residents. But the proportion of property tax paid in compared to services out is is a pretty high ratio for residents. What we know about industrial employers is they do have impacts on our roads. Right. We hope they don't have impacts on our air quality or our other things in this newer generation like this, like this particular facility will be modern and not have some of those historic impacts. But their use of services is very limited and they pay three times the property tax rate of residential. So if you care about property tax rates in our city for residents. And you care. About how the economics of providing our services in our schools work, then you got to care about keeping industrial employers in the city because they have a lot of square footage. And, you know, to their credit, they are taking on the obligations of being a member of our community. Yes, they're receiving some incentives, but they will also be taking on some obligations. And included in those are property taxes and other pieces of the contributions that people make when they're part of our community. So we have to keep working to keep these types of facilities and spaces both zoned and placed in our communities. We do not win. If every single inch of our city turns to residential or retail, that's not the right city for our future. And it's it's already happening. I recognize the the horse is out of the gate a little bit on that. But every vote we take, even on individual projects, matter. And I think that, you know, given the enormous community process input, the way this fits with the larger vision of the plans, even if a few tweaks were needed, all of that, the work that Councilwoman Gilmore and the team have done, I will be supporting this tonight and just wanted to say a little more about why. So thank you very much. Thank you, Councilwoman Kenney. Madam Secretary, roll call on Council Bill 22, dash three, four, five, please. Black. I abstain. CLARK All right. Fine. All right. Herndon, I. Hines Cashman. Kenny Ortega. So here. I. Am. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, closed the voting and announced the results. Ten eyes, one abstention. Ten I's Council build 20 2-3, four or five has passed our pre adjournment announcement and thank you everybody for being here for the hearings. Appreciate it. On Monday, June 13, the Council will hold a required public hearing on Council Bill 22, Dash 471 changing the zoning classification for 2070 South Franklin Street in University and a required public