Changes the zoning classification from R-MU-30 with waivers (former code Residential Mixed Use, higher density) to G-MU-3 (General Urban Context, Multi-Unit, max. 3 stories) for property located at 3099 Arapahoe Street in Council District 8. (LAND USE, TRANSPORTATION & INFRASTRUCTURE) Changes the zoning classification from R-MU-30 with waivers (former code Residential Mixed Use, higher density) to G-MU-3 (General Urban Context, Multi-Unit, max. 3 stories) for property located at 3099 Arapahoe Street in Council District 8. A PUBLIC HEARING WILL BE HELD AT LEAST FOUR WEEKS AFTER PUBLICATION. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 12-3-13.
Ortega, i. Madam President, I. Madam Secretary, close the voting and announce the results. 12 eyes. 12 eyes. The bill does pass. Councilman Herndon, we're going to our next hearing. Will you please put council bill 862 on the floor for final passage? Yes, Madam President, I move that council bill 860 to be placed upon final consideration and do pass. Okay. It has been moved and seconded. I'm going to open the public hearing and we're going to ask for the staff report first. Good evening, Madam President and council. David Gaspar is with Community Planning and Development. With the rezoning of 3099 Arapahoe Street from RMU 38th wavers to GMU three. This is a parcel that's located in Council District eight and is in the Curtis Park neighborhood. It's right adjacent to Curtis Park itself. It is an existing parking lot on the northwest corner of 31st and Arapahoe Streets. And and there's a visual of it right there. It is formerly used for the Epworth Church, which is just adjacent to it. So approximately 12,000 square feet. There's no structures on the on the property. And like I said, it's an existing parking lot. The property owner is a mixed constructors. Representative David was here tonight on behalf of McSwain and the reason takes from our new 30 with waivers. That waivers is for a height limit of 55 feet to the new zoning code, which is the general urban neighborhood context, multi-unit residential with a three storey maximum height. And I think the driving reason that MAXINE is looking for this reason to go to a new zone district that allows a consistent lot with to the historic Curtis Park neighborhood for some single family homes. The existing zoning, besides the AMI 30 adjacent to it, there is JMU through to the north and south, as well as an urban rowhouse to the east. And some more to our new 30 on the block to the west. And the land use includes multi-family and single family residential, the former church that I mentioned in the park. This map here kind of shows where that all lays out from our church. Just to the west there, the villages of Curtis Park, DHEA property is to the north, the single family homes, both to the east and south and west. And the Generator Enterprise Center is also on this block on 30th. Few visuals here at the Villages occurs part to the north, the historic single family homes to the south. There's the park and also some new single family homes to the east, just on the other side of Arapaho. Those are actually built by Mark Steyn just earlier, I believe, in 2013, I believe. I wouldn't be similar to the product that would go on this lot. I do. Here's the Epworth Church to the West. During the process, Planning Board had unanimous approval on November six, 2013, and Faludi in December. And we have a city council here, a public hearing on January 13th. We did receive a letter of support from Curtis Park neighbors supporting this rezoning. We took a look at five different review criteria for a rezoning. We'll focus on the consistency with adopted plans with a comprehensive plan. 2000 Blueprint Denver and the most recently adopted Northeast Downtown Neighborhoods Plan Conference. The plan does have multiple strategies that are consistent with this proposal, including promoting infill development at appropriate locations, development that's consistent with the character of surrounding neighborhoods, investing in neighborhoods and citywide goals, providing a range of housing types and prices. Here's the map and blueprint. Denver. It is urban residential. It is also an area of stability, but very close to an area of change and could be seen as a reinvestment area, acting as a buffer between the historic neighborhood and the kind of changing, mixed use character along Larimer and Lawrence. The Street Classification, Street Classification and Blueprint is residential collector, which again is consistent with this rezoning. Northeast Downtown Neighborhoods Plan speaks very specifically about this stretch between Larimer and Arapaho or Lawrence and Arapaho having a designation of urban residential to reflect the more dense residential land uses that comprise the villages of Curtis Park development. And that three story building height is also a recommendation in the plan. So CBRE does see this rezoning is consistent with those adopted plans with the existing Jami three nearby. There's uniformity this regulations as well as furthering the public health safety and welfare there justifying circumstances in this case is changed or changing conditions that was adopted plans support redevelopment of the site and there's also consistency with the neighborhood context zone, district purpose and intent found in the zoning code. With that, CPD does recommend approval based on the findings of all the review criteria have been being met. Any questions? Thank you very much, Mr. Gaspar. As we have four people signed up to speak, and I'm going to ask them to come up to the front pew while they are David, where Joel Noble, Sekou and Keith Prior. And I'll call Mr. David. Where to the podium first. Thank you, dear member of the Council. Madam President, I'm David, where I reside in Denver. Before you tonight is a public hearing and consideration of council to rezone a vacant parcel at the corner of 31st and Arapaho from AMI 30 with waivers to G three. And this low this parcel location is within Curtis Park neighborhood and is in council. Brooks's district is bound by the Epworth Church. Narrow, single, narrow lot, single family, Curtis Park and the project mixed. Dane is requesting the rezoning of this parcel, in essence to reduce the minimum zone lot size and reduce 34,000 square feet to the allowable 3000 square feet within the GMU. Three Zoning. The reason we're requesting this is to facilitate the construction of four single family detached homes with two car detached garages. The existing ami you 30 zoning will not facilitate nor allow the smaller lot zone lot size predominant within the neighborhood. The rezoning request will also remove the current 55 foot tall height restriction and will establish a new height limit of three stories or 30 feet. Based on our residential context, I bet it's not often you get a developer before council requesting a reduction in height and density. These days the GMC 30 excuse me, the GMC three zoning is the predominant form within the immediate vicinity of the person as found throughout Curtis Park. The Zone District is compatible and consistent with the existing neighborhood forms and context. Some exchange strongly believes this is the best solution for this location and reestablishes the narrow lot residential ideology upon which Curtis Park was founded and extending neighborhoods is about building a better world for us all, our neighbors and our customers. Neighborhood context based development seems to be missing the mark these days. It's being a good steward, listening and understanding and making the best decisions for all those involved. These underlying principles have laid the groundwork for our success. The first project shown was a mixed lane project right across from Curtis Park. We won the 2013 Mayor's Design Award. I Want to Live Here. This evolved into our second project on Curtis Street. We won the 2013 Mayor's Design Award. It just fits in. That same project is up for Best Urban Infill Project, 3000 square feet and under in the Nation, which we will find out in February. All this is done with working with the Curtis Park neighborhood landmark and others. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. I strongly and I strongly believe our intentions for this development are aligned and consistent with the neighborhood and its neighbors. Ask your support of the rezoning from AMI 30 to Jim three, and I'm available for any questions. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Joel Noble. Good evening. Council President Council members. I'm Bill Noble live at 2705 Stout Street and I'm president of Curtis Park Neighbors in August of 2013, Curtis Park Neighbors took a vote to support this rezoning. It was taken at our regularly scheduled board meeting, which is noticed throughout the neighborhood in our Curtis Park Times newsletter, delivered door to door and with open participation solicited. We're fortunate in that we've had two neighborhood plans the 1987 Curtis Park Neighborhood Plan, which was then updated, I believe 2011 with the Northeast Downtown Neighborhoods Plan. These collaborative documents give space for neighborhoods to talk about their vision and to debate ideas independent of the heat of any particular project. And I would strongly advocate that any neighborhood that doesn't have a neighborhood plan should have one, and CPD should have the resources for doing that. Because later, when there's a development that comes up and it wants to have different zoning than it has today, the the person who owns the property in the neighborhood can look at the vision the community adopted. And city council ratified in the area plan. And it's easy. This is easy. What's being proposed here is exactly what was called for in the area plan, as the staff report said, and we wholeheartedly endorse it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Noble. Sekou. German siku bless our action movement. I was a group of poor working poor homeless people reside 2514 Chapel Street right down the street from this project. We stand opposed to the rezoning of this project. As for real simple reason. Listen. At some point, we have to declare ourselves opposed to the illegal ethnic cleansing of this neighborhood. And as we speak, city council, along with neighborhood associations and those who have been participating in this process over the last 25 years are under review by the United Nations Committee on Ethnic Cleansing, who indicted Yugoslavian government. And as we speak, you qualify for nine of the 18 categories and you only require one in order to go to jail or suffer the death penalty. Now, I know you've taken a serious and as you continue going on in Bolton for this, you are indicting yourself in a process that has been declared illegal. Who going to be in these units? Ain't going to be no black people is going to be further white settlers coming into the neighborhood trying to get a real estate deal, because now there is a focus on this area as prime real estate, because there's $4 billion of investments coming in here. And now folks are scurrying like a bunch of bloodsuckers trying to capture this moment. So you asked them about the previous projects when you did those other things, how many black people were in that? And you make it financially responsible and possible for poor people and people who were born and raised in that area. To dig in. Please keep your voice down, please. And so, yeah, we raise our voice in opposition to this because it is a part of what we do here. And there's no shame here. And the hypocrisy is evident as you proclaim out Nelson Mandela and you will proclaim Martin Luther King and you participated in everything that was counter oppose to everything they represented because you refused to stand up and bring the pressure to stop this menace. But it's okay because I guarantee you to my last breath, I won't be here every day until I die. Keith Prior. Thank you, Madam President. Keith Pryor. I reside at 2418 Chamfer Street. Just better disclosure, I'll be one of the ringleaders that'll be listening this project. But I've been a resident in the community for over about 20 years now and have worked with Mr. Kane on their other two projects that have been amazingly successful. And the main reason for their success is because they've listened to the neighbors, they've met with the neighbors, they've redesigned their projects. They've asked us what it is that our community needs and how that product fits in with the existing fabric and and nature of our of our neighborhood. And the zoning that we currently have was a part of the overall enterprise center. And when that got resound because of its main tenant on that block, the Enterprise Center in zone, which was a great incubator for the city but no longer had that way of that zoning no longer fits. And having this down zoned and fitting back in with a 25 foot lots of what has historically been there since the development of this neighborhood as a mixed income, as a mixed use neighborhood with that fabric coming back into light. It's been phenomenal to work with mixed staging because they have really focused on good design and their first two projects were on vacant lots. This one is on another vacant lot. So we're actually re fabricating what, you know, this community once was and that was a great community with a lot of mixed income, different sizes of houses , different price points of houses. And it's just going to be nice to see this lot, which again is a blight of a vacant parking lot become back into life and having some really nice neighbors coming back to the neighborhood and seeing that revitalization. So we look forward to working, you know, further with McSwain on some great other infill projects in the area and getting rid of these vacant lots that have been an issue for the neighborhood and seeing that fabric come back together and as this neighborhood just continues to see itself revitalized. So thank you. And we definitely would like your support on this. Thank you, Mr. Pryor. That it finishes our speakers questions from Council Councilman Brooks Yeah. Devitt I have a question for you. I had a question for you in committee around this is to folks they don't know this is on the Enterprise Center which has been it was bought by Indigo Development, sold into three parcels. And this parcel is there is a piece of the parking lot. And I talked about, you know, when we begin to divide up parcels in red zone, what kind of you know, what kind of level do we set around parking, right? How do we know we're not taking up parking for the next development or anything like that? So were you able to look into that and do you have an answer? Because I am kind of concerned about it for this, but it's more of a macro question for more developments and infill now. It's a good question. I brought up the map here. And as you mentioned, the Enterprise Center and the Upper Epworth Church was one ownership, but it has actually been split. I spoke with the owner of the Epworth Church, and that that split actually occurs in the parking lot that's along the lawns between the former Denver Enterprise Center and the Epworth Church. And so any, you know, re-use of the church would actually have off street parking on that parking lot. Okay. So when they, you know, you know, separate those two parcels, they had a discussion and and were able to split the properties of both would have access to parking in that parking lot along Laurens . Okay. So, but on a, on a larger perspective, you know, around the city, how do you how do you go about that? Well. You know, parking is tied to the use, whether it's in the new code or the old code. So in Chapter 59, it would depend on what use would go into that that church, which is in the army throw. So it's hard to know until you actually have that use whatever parking requirement is necessary. And here's where I feel like we're in a pickle because we don't exactly know the use of the church just yet. And so, yeah, how do you know if it's you know, they're saying it's not going to be residential, but, you know, how do you know? You know, do we set some kind of standards as a city? Yeah. I mean, I guess that's a broader policy discussion. But from a from a zoning perspective, you can only look at the actual parking requirements within his own district. So I did look at the the potential uses in AMI 30. And you know, if you look at, you know, an office use, for example square footage, the parking that's associated with the former church would would accommodate that off street. And there's always always the. Beyond street capabilities as well. Okay. One more question. Go ahead. So this is kind of a larger question as well. And it has to do with when a developer is going through a rezoning process. They have to first, you know, we have to approve it. And then they go to the building department and submit their application. Mm hmm. Are you all working on dual tracks so that, you know, running these deals on parallel tracks? Once it maybe passes planning board, it passes committee. And it it looks like it's getting that nod for approval that they can submit there to the building department. And just, you know, just so we don't get so many so many issues clogged up in the building department. No. And I believe they might have actually done that with this case because they're doing a he's doing a lot of amendment as well to split up these this one one lot into four and then as well go through the typical building permit process. So whenever a rezoning comes in and they're looking to do that, we try to accommodate. And I'm more talking about the building department, you know. So let me let me actually ask David just to just ask him about his process. And as we were in this and you've submitted your zoning, were you able to submit into development services and, you know, submitted to the building department as well? Not right off the bat. You know, that's the goal of most developers. We know that this has multiple tiered parallel processes based on the complexity of sites. Some are more complex than others. We felt that this was very straightforward and the developer was willing to, you know, take the risk of plan, review fees and everything else. What our main intention was was to meet with David, have a pre-application meetings, prepare a planning board commission, and then shortly after Planning Board Commission, go on and, you know, attempt to submit the building permits to the city. Building permits take now 60 to 80 working days. And if he'd back that up to where we are tonight, that would have been the absolute trigger to come out of here tonight with the rezoning work with Kimber and the group and development services to record the zone, layout amendments to split the floor, take that information over to the building department process, tie out the addresses issue permits. However, we were only able to submit permits to the city and county of Denver upon first reading of City Council after January 3rd, December 13th, which now is going to push our permit timing back to March. So, you know, now I'm on hold a little further and I would like to, you know, the city to look at kind of these parallel green light, other projects that are very complicated. We definitely understand that. But in other jurisdictions we work in around the front range, we're willing to take the risk. We're willing to invest the time. We're willing to coach and learn and listen. And I think, you know, it's a proactive approach the city can take. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Burks, Councilman Nevett. Thank you, Madam President. This is a question for Mr. where it's maybe just a little bit off the subject. I was a big admirer of Maxine's work. There was a big mixed team project down in South Denver, and I was under the impression that Mixed had gone under. But here you are. You risen from the dead or were you just I think every developer in the recession went under one way or another. We were able to recapitalize. We shed some assets, we capped some projects and kind of hit the reset button in 2010. So an exchange not gone away. We rejuvenated, along with the rest of the economy and the booming that we see going on. We're much smaller or much a number now, more nimble or smarter than where we were. And when you have, you know, millions of assets that overnight turn into dollars of assets, that creates problems. And that's where a lot of us got caught in it, especially on the residential game. So we're glad to be back in here in front of you tonight. It's great to have you back. Thank you. Counts benefit and I see no other questions. So I'm going to close the public hearing and ask for comments from council. Councilman Brooks, do you have a comment? Yeah. Thank you, Madam President. This is this site has a lot of history. Obviously, the old Enterprise Center, which many of you know about with the city, and it was bought by Integral Development. And Integral Development does affordable housing within the neighborhood. And they team up a lot with the VHA and do a lot of developments. And so they purchased this whole parcel including and sold it to me, saying a piece of the parcels to me saying sold a piece of the Epworth Church to Saint Charles Town Company. And in the church, which is a historic church there, they're going to be there like. You get office uses and also a restaurant. But this parcel and and then there's this. It's almost looks like a school building where the old enterprise center was. And it's a lot of square footage. And they're looking at a food co-op in that place where you can you can go and buy your groceries. But also, you know, it is an opportunity for folks to to get fresh food in the neighborhood, especially at affordable prices. This is a and you know, I want to credit Antiguo development with just having a vision for this property and mixed in and jumping at the opportunity to continue the the excellence in their design and building some single family homes. It looks like we're going to reuse a space, a space that has has gone dormant for many years. And so we're excited about that. And we're excited that there's someone coming in who is not just gonna throw something together. But as David said, he, he's received many design awards and I didn't even know about the national awards, so congratulations on that. And so, you know, I'll be supporting this, you know, for just the conversation about affordable housing. And in the neighborhood of Curtis Park, Denver Housing Authority is the largest landowner in Curtis Park, and they're doing some of the most creative, affordable components. I mean, it's a really a national motto, as you all know. And so I'm very although things are changing in Curtis Parks and there are you know, there are other houses that are incredibly expensive. They're because of the creativity and creativity of VHA. There are some incredible affordable components. And so I credit film a lot for this, but I'll be voting in favor of this and be excited to see this entire development. All three parcels come together and activate this part of the city. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Brooks. Seeing no other comments, Madam Secretary, roll call. Brooks. Hi, Brown. But I Herndon. I can eat lemon Lopez Montero, Nevitt Ortega. I Rob Shepherd. Madam President. Hi, Madam Secretary. Close the voting and announce the results. 12 eyes. 12 eyes. The bill is has passed. Now we come to our last public hearing. And Councilman Herndon, will you please put Council Bill 950 on the floor for final passage?