Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Introductions of council members, and I will start

to my left. Amanda Sandoval, North West Denver district one.

Flora Alvidres, lucky district seven.

Jamie Torres, West Denver district three. Yes. Approved. They have Wonderful.

And do we have any council members online? Okay. Go ahead and introduce yourselves.

Oh, Councilmember Lewis.

Okay. We will have Councilmember Lewis. Hi. Wonderful. Wonderful. Glad you're here with us today. Okay. Well, we have a briefing from CPD to talk about the annual work plan. So I'd like to invite you up. So if you could just introduce yourselves and then whenever you're ready to get started.

Good afternoon, council members. My name is Brabby Buchanan. I'm the executive director with community planning and development.

Hi, everyone. I'm Sarah Showalter, one of the deputy executive directors for CPD.

Hello, everyone. I'm Andrea Donaghan. I'm also one of the deputy executive directors at CPD.

Just to be clear, that's all the deputy executives. Don't let anybody think we have, like, six. My dream state. Great. Are we ready to jump in?

Yes. I would just like

to also both drop in.

Hi. Sorry I was late. Sawyer,

thank you for joining us.

Please. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. So we'll just start out just really quickly on the high altitude overview. CPD is responsible for visionary city planning, historic preservation, development review, and ensuring safe and sustainable buildings. And we do that in a lot of different ways, we're gonna talk about that today.

We're going to dive into these sort of four buckets of our agency goals. First, continue the fundamental shift in permitting led by the Denver Permitting Office and improving customer service implement regulatory reform to improve the development process and development outcomes, advance neighborhood planning and catalytic developments across Denver, and promote a climate resilient Denver. And we have a number of strategies and outcomes for 2026 in our work. So our major projects for 2026. First of all, two plans in the Neighborhood Planning Initiative near Northeast and Far Northwest, the Burnham Yard Small Area Plan and associated entitlements, the people's budget, the cycle three of the people's budget, Denver Resilient Landscapes project we're working on unlocking housing choices, regulatory reform, an update to the Denver Energy Code, and a number of permitting improvements all geared towards launching Prop 123 affordable housing fast track permitting processes.

The Near Northeast Neighborhood Plans, the first one we're gonna focus on. This is in Council Districts 8 And 9. And with a public launch this spring, in fact, the kickoff meeting is on May 21. Anticipated council consideration and hopeful adoption in 2027. The second neighborhood plan starting in 2026 is in Council District 1, the Far Northwest neighborhood plan, public launch this summer, and anticipated council consideration adoption in 2027.

A lot of work being done obviously as well in the around Burnham Yard. Step one is the small area plan. It is underway. This will guide the eventual rezoning, the infrastructure master plan, and other land use associated processes around all of Burnham Yard. But first is considering the bigger picture and the influences acting on and within Burnham Yard.

The current phase we're in right now is community engagement and a visioning process and anticipating City Council adoption in late twenty twenty six with additional follow-up land use processes in early twenty twenty seven. Cycle three of the people's budget, it is fully funded, we are pleased to say. This is our community driven budgeting capital projects. Cycle three includes a million dollar for citywide projects and a million dollars for near Southeast NPI planning area projects. This summer, project delegates will lead the process, put together ideas for the community to vote on, and is anticipated to be completed by end of this calendar year 2026.

We're also working on a project called Denver Resilient Landscapes, which really is about consolidating all the different places in our city where landscape regulations exist. This will be across multiple departments. This Saturday, April 25 at CSU Spur on the National Western Center campus, there's a community symposium that starts at ten a. M. For any listeners who are interested in joining that.

We anticipate City Council adoption in late summer. August is our target date. Lots of conversation going on around middle income housing and unlocking housing choices. And so community engagement is happening right now, March and April. We'll step into the phase one process right after that, which we are hoping for council adoption by the end of this year.

We are also going through a substantial effort that's been going on for over a year now, started in 2025, a regulatory diagnostic of our zoning code. This is looking at streamlining. Are we getting the outcomes we want? Are we telling our customers and users in rational and logical ways the outcomes that we want and giving them a path to succeed. It's divided into a couple of phases.

Phase one is currently scoped. We met this morning about it and will be advanced advanced throughout this year, hopefully Phase one adopted by council in early twenty twenty seven. We're also just commencing an update to the Denver Energy Code. Submittals will be collected this spring for ideas. There's a broad stakeholder group that will be considering those proposals brought to the committee for a vote.

In the fall, committees will decide which amendments to bring forward. We will draft this winter and hope to adopt in early twenty twenty seven. ERCO rolls right off the tongue, universal recycling and composting ordinance. I was glad that they changed their name from Waste No More. There's a phenomenal organization endeavor called Waste No More that does incredible, incredible work for communities around food and baby supplies and all kinds of things.

So rules and I'll start on the second one first, actually. This will affect most projects. So this is residential and commercial projects, all demolition permits. Rules and regulations have been drafted, working with some subject matter experts, and we'll be posting those for public comment the first week in May. And we'll be using a web based tool to take in customer input and to more easily show their compliance and to automate their approvals through these process because there'll be a lot of them.

Obviously, every project will have a piece of this. Significant effort by technology services to integrate all these accounting elements into our processes and make it easy for our customers to understand. So it was about a year ago that we launched the Denver permitting office. And with its one hundred and eighty day goal, Prop one, two, three cuts that in half. And we're working hard on how to integrate a fast track, an even faster track process for affordable housing projects that have Prop 123 funding.

We'll be launching that this spring. The good news is we are permitting processes. I think we just had our seventeenth week in a row where we were over 90% on time, running 93% on time year to date this year. We've that's a result of a lot of folks figuring out smarter mousetraps, but also we've enjoyed also and all this isn't great for our city, it's great for our reviewers. We've seen about a 4% reduction last year over the year before in the numbers of permits, so the volume is down slightly.

And then you might have read recently some press we got. We and you approved, thank you very much, the contract for the CivCheck AI tool that will be used for using for intake, which we see hundreds and hundreds of things come in every single day. And then lastly, just for you and your aides and for the viewers at home, these three links, which have a ton of information for folks who want to know what's going on in their neighborhood, in their community, on their main street, they can see details around major development projects on our site development plans link. Our e permits website, you can search up permits by address. And we have information also on property inspectors and zoning and more.

So we have great user links here. I'll also give a shout out. There was some information that went out last week, Denver permitting office went live with a number of web pages around the great work that that group is doing as well. I think that is the end. That is a brief list of a lot of things.

Well, thank you very much, and thank you for all resources and putting links to it. That's really great. We have a few people in the queue, and we'll go ahead and get started with Councilmember Torres. Thank you

so much. Thank you all. Appreciate it. One, I just want to thank you, Brad, and coming over to CPD has made a noticeable improvement and difference, not just, I think, in what I'm seeing and experiencing in my interaction with CPD, but I feel like of the morale of the department as well. So I really want to thank you for taking on that hard work and doing it with gusto. So thank you. Thank you.

I appreciate it.

One question I have, I think inclusive of the two NPIs that are coming through this year, are there eight more that need to be completed after that?

That's a great question. I actually don't know the exact number. I'll try to do a quick count from our map.

Or roughly, what do you think?

I think it actually might be more just a handful we're down to. Okay. It's less than eight. It's like at least One, two, three. Yeah. I think more around five or six.

Okay. So I will just give you a heads up. One of the policies that I recommended for counsel to submit to the mayor's team is to finish those in the next couple of years. And what it takes for us to get to that potential goal, because I feel like we run up against who doesn't have plan guidance and this and that on a just constant basis. So I would love to see that monkey get off the city's back a little bit.

And I don't know what it would cost or what it would take. So just a heads up for you all, I've asked that question. The other obviously, we're doing the Burnham small area plan, I've often joked with folks who are following the small area plan and the large development review process bless you that the small area plan is larger than the large development review. It's in smaller geography. But how many others of those do you anticipate we have to do?

Because it feels duplicative, like we're going to have to come back to La Malincan Park and look at the whole neighborhood, Baker, like all of the neighborhoods that are currently contributing to small area plan. Just the process feels like we're gonna have to gear up for this again in a couple years. I know if the Broncos do move, we have the current stadium site. But are there other small area plans that are needed elsewhere in the city?

That's a great question because and it's funny, I haven't even really thought about that. We use large development review because it's a comparison to other types of development review, and a small area plan in comparison to a neighborhood plan. But you're right, it's much bigger. And the whole point of those small area plans is to be a little more nimble. Sometimes we've done them even in situations where as recently as a year or two beforehand, we had no idea we'd be doing one.

So I think River Mile is a great example where as soon as there became change in ownership and a huge development proposal, it triggered, oh, wow, Difficult to talk about what should happen there. Same thing for Loretto Heights is another great example, right, without having a more in-depth and nuanced plan in place. So right now, we do not have plans for anything beyond Burnham. And you're right. We we will still need to come back to do the bigger South Central MPI area and make kind of the comprehensive neighborhood plan for that whole area.

But, yeah, as of now, we do not have an immediate plan. But I that said, like, there are still other places left in Denver where you except for the one that you already said, which is kind of obvious, which is the Old Mile High site. Like, we will wanna do make sure we have a good community plan in place for that. But then there are still places left in Denver that are large areas under large or could in the future anyway be under one ownership, or a huge master plan idea could come up. And at that time, we'd have to tackle based on existing resources and everything, do we do one here?

Okay. That feels like something to know. Obviously, Burnham was left out of the Lama Lincoln Park neighborhood plan when that was done, and so it was like an empty space. Right? Mile High Stadium area was left out of West when we did the West Neighborhood Planning Initiative, so another empty space.

So it might be helpful now because it is such a suck on resources and timing for everything else. So just something I was thinking about a little bit more. For unlocking housing choices, I'm serving on that committee with Councilman Flynn. I think your team is doing a really good job, especially in having to pivot to adjust for layoffs and loss of staff associated with that. I'm very interested in what comes of the three proposals that are before the community right now.

But also, I don't think we're putting any emphasis right now on anti displacement policies. I've had a group discussing those things with Councilwoman Lewis and Parity for a while, but we're definitely trying to put our brains together on anti displacement policies. One of those is likely to be, can we have pre approved plans in place for certain things? So I just want to understand where you guys might be coming from on whether that's a possibility or not.

We're really supportive of that concept, and we certainly have a lot of peer cities we've talked to that already have programs in place. I think the biggest, like, barriers to entry is just getting the somebody putting the resources in to actually get them drawn up and then submitted to us for approval because the city staff themselves can't actually create the templates. Yeah. So but we're we're very supportive of the concept for sure. Yeah.

Seen pretty mixed results too around use of those in fewer cities, some more, some not very much at all. We can figure out what was the secret sauce and the ones that worked really well so we avoid the pitfalls of the others.

Okay. And my last question on that, would it be possible to start with ADUs? Like, West Denver Renaissance has, like, their go to models for studio one bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom ADUs. Like, is it possible to start looking at those and whether or not that could be like a starting point?

We've had multiple meetings with her name, Martina Stone.

Okay. All right. Hopeful on that. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Senator.

Thank you. Council member Albitres.

Thank you so much. Piggybacking off of my colleague, I think we all have similar questions. I'm curious. It doesn't necessarily say when the South Central plan will start on your website. It still says 2026, 2027. So where is that on the work plan?

Yeah. And you'll have to direct me where it says on the website because we should update it. Not planned

new link, and then I'll send it over.

Yeah. Yeah. So the South Central plan is not kicking off the next year or two. It's the plans we just talked about. So the Near Northeast plan is about to publicly launch, like we said, in May and then Far Northwest. So South Central will be in the next round, and we anticipate that starting in 2028.

Okay. And that's due to staffing?

Largely, yes. Because as you might remember, we went through reductions. One of the outcomes was reducing the number of the big neighborhood plans we're doing at one time from three to two.

Okay. That's good to know. And then can you share about the community feedback and how that's been going for unlocking housing traces?

Yeah. We had many thanks to some of you. Your offices really helped us promote, and in some cases, even attended the recent round of community meetings that we did. We had four in each quadrant of the city and then a virtual as well that just happened last week. They were relatively well attended, some more than others, and the feedback's been really mixed.

I think overall, the sentiment was positive in just the sense that people are showing up and they seem to understand understand the goals and the reasons behind this project. But then we we really heard a range of opinions from people who are incredibly supportive and even sometimes asking, like, can we even go a step further? Can we get even more density in some of these areas? To people that have concerns and were pretty direct about saying, we think that we should still allow the market to build really large single unit homes. Because one of the things on the table is not just about allowing more density in exchange for preservation of a unit or affordability, but to also amend some of the basic design parameters for homes and cap the FAR so that when homes are getting built, one of our goals is to disincentivize a lot of what's happening right now in Denver, where smaller homes are getting scraped for another single unit home that is much bigger.

So we heard just a real mix, which makes sense on a topic like this. There's a big mix of opinions. But it was actually pleasantly surprising, I think, in some of the neighborhoods how many residents, even longtime residents that have been there for a long time, are supportive of this concept and appreciate the focus in particular, I think, on looking for ways to try and encourage keeping the existing home on the site and or encouraging affordability.

Interesting. I appreciate that. My other question is I'm curious more about the regulatory reform scope. You kinda just brushed right over that. What are the scopes that you're considering or looking at?

So phase one, we just reviewed that this morning, a series of items that we think we can get through this year. They have a lot to do with simplifying measurement rules. One of the big ones is that today we have a well intentioned, but I think hard to regulate and sometimes hard to understand for our customers requirement around height using stories and what and defining it by stories. And we're going to move to feet, like number of feet so that because we really don't we don't care as much about how many stories there are. We care about how how what the mass is.

So it's it's things like that that wouldn't take map amendments. I mean, is that a fair statement? To do. So they're more regulatory and some design guideline things that wouldn't take map amendments.

With the design guideline things, and you're aware of this situation on South Broadway, I'm very concerned that we're losing historic signs that we've had that are all of a sudden not allowed via zoning even though they've been in place for, like, seventy years in some cases. How does that fit into this?

That that's not in design guide. That's in the zoning code. I mean, the signed the signed code is part of the zoning code, which we created, I think, in 1956. And, I mean, I'm super familiar with the with the the South Broadway sign you're you're referring to. And we're working on a case by case basis with these customers.

And I I don't think I mean, signs can remain when they are when they haven't been removed. Signs some signs have been removed and replaced or redone with new content, and that changes changes things. So

So just changing, like, the business name from one to another is a reason to have them need to do an entire new sign?

No. No. But in the case we're talking about, the sign was removed and then put back up at one point.

Okay. Well, I would like to just know more about that because there's a lot of signs on Broadway that I'm sure that are not in compliance with zoning and also add to the character and historic content that South Broadway has. So I look forward to continuing that conversation. And then the other issue that has come up a lot is around where, not just taco trucks, but, food trucks are allowed. That has been a big issue.

And so I'm curious, what does that look like? Because these issues, when we're getting in the news that we're not supporting our local restaurants, we're not supporting our local businesses, and yet they're getting cease and desist orders over signs and taco trucks that have been there for a long time are no longer allowed, I would say is urgent. And so I am concerned that I don't see where that fits in this work plan.

You wanna talk about that? I mean, haven't had issues except for in the case where you're the one that we had a really difficult time with just over the holidays last year was a case where in the lot next to it, it would have been allowed. Literally 15 feet away, it would have been allowed. One site was new code, one site was old chapter 59. We have remnants of old chapter 59 in a number of places that don't allow.

I'm talking about Table Public House in my district that has had a food truck operating there for a long time that is a staple. And, so we are going to include that in the legislative rezoning for the Southwest area plan. But I it doesn't make sense to the common person that a food truck would not be allowed here or there, but it is on that corner and not on this corner. And so I so there's multiple food trucks. It's not just one. And there's multiple signs. It's not just this one. I've had it all along Broadway. I can think of Meijer's Skis has brought it up to me. Wash Perk coffee shop has brought it up to me.

That's just off the top of my head in the last year of signs that have caused financial harm to local small businesses. And so, again, I'm just concerned that I don't see, like, food trucks and sign issues that are harming our local small businesses in the work plan. And so I'd love to see how that fits because I think it is an urgent issue. So I'll just continue to lift that up.

And I'll just add, I think it's a great point. I think food trucks kind of is on the work plan, although we didn't exactly call that out because it's not like it's but it falls into the bigger picture, all the efforts we're doing to get out of the old code. Because a lot of what you're bringing up, and I agree with you, it's very confusing. It's like, why would it just because you're on this site that has different zoning than this site right here? It's not even in a lot of cases just that it's different zoning.

It's it's entirely different zoning code. And, you know, we are trying as much as we can, particularly through these legislative rezonings, get out of the old code. But I hear you. And the challenges with the signed code are real. And the reason why that's not in phase one is, like Brad said, we've tried to identify lower hanging fruit we can get through quickly, but it is definitely on the list. We're trying to package out the regulatory reform into a couple of different phases, and the need to update the sign code is definitely on the list. And I think in the meantime, what we need to do is spend some more time with your office on some of the specific signs you're hearing about and see what we can do.

Thank you. And I think low hanging fruit is one thing, but urgent when we have declining sales tax revenue and funding, that needs to also be part of the contemplation. So thank you. Thank you, committee chair.

Thank you. Council president Sandoval. Thank you. Thank you all for all the work that you do and the partnership. I couldn't have gotten a lot of the overlays done, the ADUs done, or any of the things that I've been able to get done as a land use commissioner without your partnership.

So I always appreciate your partnership. To piggyback what councilwoman Torres mentioned, our budget workshop is coming up May 14. And I too have put that I would like to see I didn't have as much specificity as councilman Torres, but I said I wanted to make sure that the legislative rezonings come in to play because in Northwest Denver, that has created an opportunity on twenty second and federal to have a rezoning come. We didn't rezone it to eight stories. They're gonna I mean, five stories, they're rezoning it.

But I was able to implement the overlay, the active street use overlay, and it's being accompanied by a by a development that's gonna use the height incentive and go up to seven stories and be able to have active street use right along Federal Boulevard where the the BRT is coming through. So it's been really nice to have clear plan guidance for that plan of the five stories incentive. But at the same time that I was able to do that overlay so a lot of people are worried about the active retail and if I wouldn't have been able to partner with CPD and do the implementation of the Near Northwest plan, it would look a little bit different. And one of the other things that we did for the implement when we did the plan is we changed the blueprint context of Sunnyside and now that we're working with Denver Housing Authority, hopefully that will come to fruition. And I was talking to director Buchanan the other day that we need jobs in Denver.

And a lot of things I remember when I was a council aide and all of the warehouses were being bought up by the marijuana industry. And now guess what? Mexico and all the other states have have their own marijuana and now we aren't the leader in the marijuana industry and so these warehouses are coming back online, and it's a opportunity to have people who live and work in their neighborhoods. I was at at my cousin's house on Sunday for dinner, and we were talking how far everyone's commute is. And I was like, oh, I can get from my house to the City And County building in twelve minutes on a good day and twenty eight minutes on a bad day.

And then I can get to Platt Street in like ten minutes on a good day and maybe fifteen minutes on a bad day and how lucky I was. I was probably one of out of 15 of us only able to actually work in my neighborhood. And we were talking about how that a privilege that is and so all of the work that you all do, and I've emphasized this to the mayor numerous times, we can't have you all without a partnership if we can't if we're gonna attack the affordable housing issue, if we're gonna be able to attack people living in Denver and being able to be generational Denverites. My husband is like a fourth generation Denverite. I'm a third.

We're raising the fifth generation Denverites in Denver. And my 24 year old had to move out because she can't afford to live in Denver. And my 22 year old still lives in my house with me, but I'm slowly like, if you can get out of here soon. I love you, but I don't want you to leave in my house at 22 years old. But those are the things that I think about when I think about your work plan are how are you all fitting into the piece of the puzzle that we can work on.

And I do know on the regulatory aspect, I think I was interviewed by the team that you are looking at and I I mentioned to them, I gave them an example when I was interviewed that would before we did the update to the accessory dwelling units. Remember it was two and a stories and it caused all of this mass chaos in the ADU form. Everyone was like, what do I do? And you couldn't get them and they were having to be approved. And once we figured it out and we streamlined that process for the ADU, the bulk and how what it could build, now you saw them come online more.

And that's what we ultimately want to do, right, is we want to make sure that in that regulatory environment we're making it a little bit easier. In Northwest Denver, I have a fall, like, on 26th Avenue and 23rd Avenue all the way down from the Platte River up to Federal and figuring out where the base plane starts and like where you build and like where it's established. Like I've actually gotten into like and looked, you know me, I'm not telling you anything though, don't know. I'm like, show me where the base plane is. And everyone all my developers developers are are like, like, why why do do you you wanna see that on the blueprints?

Right? And on the schematics. And I'm like, well, because then I can explain to my community how tall the building's gonna be. And but when you have a fall from one street to another and it's 26 feet, it's really hard to figure that out. And what it does is create unpredictability in our communities and I think that's what the the cool thing about zoning for me is it can create predictability.

So I feel like your work plans along with Dottie's work plans are hosts are all part of what we all need to do to get this done. And as you all know, you can't update the regulatory environment without us. You can't update the building code without us. Other departments can because they have a lot of rules and regulations. I always say that CPD and us, we have a very weird unique relationship because your codes have to come to us for adoption, where if you think about it, a lot of other agencies don't.

So we are we are we we're really intertwined. So just wanna say thank you for all the work and thank you for the partnership and being able to go into other jurisdictions and figure out what they're doing. I know I've talked to director Buchanan a lot about our affordable housing crisis, and I don't think I think we're all leading at the same time. And that's a really hard place to be because normally we always go out to other jurisdictions and say, what are you doing? And I think that unlocking housing choices, it's gonna be a little bit explosive in Northwest Denver.

There's a lot of people who are really supportive of it, and then there's a lot of people who have a lot of concern about it. And I think the more that we can get out and educate people about what it is, the better that we will be off because I don't wanna be when I first got elected, I I was at the very tail end of group living, that was, like, so crazy. So I'm hoping that it doesn't turn out to be that again. So thank you. Thank you,

madam chair.

Thank you. Captain for Sawyer.

Thanks, madam chair. Thanks. You guys really appreciate this. The conversation about the sign plan really, I think, is an important one. I've been here seven years, and I will say that when I got here seven years ago, people were talking about the fact that the sign plan needed to be updated, because for two reasons.

Number one, because it it wasn't it was put in the code in, like, the nineteen fifties, and it still talks about lumens, which are which are not a thing anymore. So, like, we it needs to be we need needs to be updated because it's not logical anymore. But secondly, this is the space where I think I see a number of my big developments in particular get held up in the timeline because they have to do comprehensive sign plans in order to go with their major developments that happened at Boulevard 1, it happened at 9th in Colorado, it's happening in Lowry right now. Like, not only are they, required to do the sign plan, but then when they want to amend the sign plan to put, like, hang up a tiny sign outside of a small business. This is a true story.

It's happening in Lowry right now. Like, they have to go through an entire sign plan amendment to get it done. Right? And that is months of work. So I think I really appreciate you guys' work trying to speed and the permitting office and trying to speed up how we do these things.

But I am gonna push back a little bit on the idea that the sign plan is not a major piece of this because the sign plan is a major piece of this. It it adds significant time for very little benefit if you look at it from an ROI perspective. So I will just say that it is there was one time I had to go to planning board and get language put in to the ninth and Colorado comprehensive sign plan amendment because there was, like, no other way to get it done in a way that wouldn't hold up the sign plan. And when we're talking about infill development and we're talking about these big developments with these really bright signs, in this particular case, it was the AMC movie theater. We all want the AMC movie theater.

We all are thrilled that it is there. It is also across the street from single family homes that have been there for a hundred years. So finding the balance between making sure that sign can go there and making sure that it doesn't stay so bright so late at night that it shines in the windows of the residents who were there first, it's an easy balance. It's a thoughtful balance, that's exactly what we should be doing. But it took months to get that done.

I think in terms of addressing the speed at which we're approving these kinds of things, the sign plan is a big holdup. So I do think that it's a little bit more important than you guys are thinking it is. So that's all I got for you. Thanks.

Thank you. I just had I'm just going look online. We had I have a question, one in particular about the Denver Energy Code update. Is that a broader community process, or can you talk to me can you tell us a little bit more about that? I know that I hear about the energy code a lot in my district.

Yeah. It's definitely a broader community process. So we actually used this model before, it's worked really well. Because there's so many different kind of disciplines and areas, we'll have stakeholder committees that are focused on the different topics. And so that's a great in addition to just kind of broader community outreach, we use this committee model to get a variety of stakeholders together and give input throughout the process, and they inform and even get to vote on or, like, heavily influence the final recommendations that go into the package.

Have those community members already been selected?

I know we're in the process right now. Chuck, do you know where we are on actually They you want to introduce yourself and probably come up to the mic?

Afternoon. My name is Chuck Bartell with Community Planning Development. I'm the commercial building plan review manager. Great question. This is going to be a very public process with the Denver Energy Code. The committee members who are going to be voting, we've sent acceptance emails to them and we're waiting for to to get the response for all the committee members. There will be a commercial committee and a residential committee. And then throughout the summer, there will be a group of subcommittees, is a larger group of people that will be public as well, so you'll be selected and then we'll also have public welcome to join those committees to help develop those proposals that the final committees will hear.

Okay, thank you. What would be the best way for me to see if, like, the folks that are giving me input to should I just have them connect directly with you? I don't know if they've been on if they're selected on the committee or if they are somehow engaged, but it seems more appropriate that they would be talking to you about some of those concerns.

Yeah. I mean, they could reach out to to me there or the debragov.org/energycode is the website and then any community member can sign up for regular updates on the code process, but if there's anybody in particular, I'd be glad to help or field that question.

Thank you. That would be great. And then about the landscapes. Thank you. So I know Deborah Water has been doing a lot about resilient, you know, and a resilient landscape and shifting from bluegrass. Are you working in coordination? Are there things that our residents can do to have more resilient landscapes? I know we're doing it for city buildings, but I'm also just wondering kind of, like, what is the city doing to help also help promote that?

That's a great question. So Denver Water's an important partner in this project. They've been very involved as we look at how to not just consolidate our landscape regulations, but make them much more climate friendly and water wise. So as you note, they've already done a great job developing different programs to encourage residents. And so that's a huge thing we'll continue to do is partner on education outreach.

So this symposium that Brad mentioned that's happening on Saturday is a great example. Like, a lot of what residents can find there are resources on how to do more water wise plantings, and we even have seed giveaways, for example, for plants and things that can work well and use less water. But then the regulations themselves are going to change, so it won't thing. I want to make that clear. You own an existing property that already has turf grass, for example, there won't be a requirement that you have to rip it out and replace it.

That will continue to be an area that it's more incentives and education. But going forward, if you did brand new development or a really significant change to your property, what's in concept now anyway, you'll be the deciders on the final regulatory package, but would significantly change our current regulations so that on private property as well as the public property, like you've already mentioned, we made a lot of progress there. There will actually be rules in place to limit how much non usable grass you can have. So we say that meaning if it is a property that is designed for recreation use with a field or something, that's in a different category. But your typical multi family, single family, all those kinds of things will have new rules in place to limit the amount of not just turf grass, but also try to have regulations in place that really encourage water wise planting overall.

That's helpful. I think there's just so much opportunity with all of the lawns that are in Southeast Denver. There's a lot of bluegrass, and what we see right now is people are like, Okay, I'm gonna save the water, and then nobody waters anything, and somebody I have a neighbor who just dumped a whole bunch of rock in their land, and I'm thinking, I don't know if we want that either. But I think it's a give and take, so as much as we can do to be helpful and supportive and also just cut down on our water use would be amazing. And then finally, just I think also to emphasize your point, Council Member Torres, the Northeast or not the Northeast, but the neighborhood plans that are in the queue.

I know that Southeast Denver is one of those. You know, I think we're looking past 2030, for when that might be completed. And I think that what I'm seeing now is there's a lot of development. There is people want to be able to have good land use. We still have places that are in Chapter 59. So the sooner the better for us, for sure. I know. Yes. We've talked about it. But anyway, are there any other questions? Okay. I

do have one one more if I can.

Council member Alvidrez.

Thank you. Let me get back to my notes. Another question that I had was that councilman Flynn had mentioned he'd been working with you in my district in general grandfathering in. Is that fit into the work plan at all, or where would that be?

It is. And and for for the folks watching, there's been an issue around, say, someone buys a home and and they do an addition on their home, inspector comes out, zoning inspector comes out to confirm the work and sees something else that was not in compliance typically built by a previous owner, maybe a long time ago, maybe twenty years ago, long time ago. And so we've had that case come up here recently a few times, very frustrating for our residents, very frustrating. And so we're trying to figure out an approach with that. And I know Councilman Flynn and yourself, Council Member Albuquerque.

And so stay tuned, more to come on that, but we agree that is an issue that we need to lean into sooner rather than later.

Great. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. You had one more

Just one comment for the group. I think this is I've been around Denver a long time, and it's an interesting moment to me right now. We're seeing market rate housing. Just let's just talk about the micro market of of downtown where, you know, class a apartments are now renting it under a a 100% area median income. We haven't seen that in decades.

We are seeing class B rental units and class C units. And when I say class C, these are not bad units, they're just older, that are renting at the 60% AMI level. There are market rate Class C units that are renting at or below what our restricted affordable housing units are renting at right now. Yes, we are in a bit of a slowdown in our marketplace right now, but this is such an opportunity to me. This is an opportunity for us to continue to backfill our supply pipeline.

Expensive affordable housing unit is one that the private sector builds itself at no cost to the public sector. And so when I think about unlocking housing choices, that's that's such a great example of that. I mean, because when we make when we create housing choices, we need to make them at every project type. Right? If some people want to live in a mid rise or a high rise, great.

If some folks want to live in more of a single family context, but a in a multifamily ADU kind of arrangement. I I think it's very exciting, and I think Denver is doing a lot of smart things right now around leaning into all of these opportunities. I really look forward to the unlocking housing choices conversation. It's gonna be hard. There are strong feelings in both directions.

It's gonna be challenging, but I hope we'll keep our eyes on what the possibility is here to solve something that has historically been unsolvable for not just our city, but most major successful US cities that have been wrestling with this affordability challenge. Thanks for letting me step out of order.

Yeah. Actually, Council Member Torres first and then Thank

you for raising that, and I appreciate your perspective on it and your leadership on it. One thing that I've noticed is Unlocking Housing Choices is oriented around a developer example or sample of who's out there and what does it cost to build. And I still have residents who would like to understand what's my flexibility with my own property, and how do we carve out here's what unlocking housing choices might mean for the prospector, the developer who's looking for places to do their projects. But then how do we also carve out, here's what it looks like for you as the resident, the owner of your property, to build a cottage on the back or a duplex on the back or whatever kind of the example we come through, knowing you already own the property and the home, maybe you've even paid it off, how do we actually make their experience doable where they don't have to get a billion consultants? We've totally carved out a space for capitalism in this conversation, but not a place for homeowners to really use it to their best potential.

And so I just want to raise that because I've got residents throughout my district who have no idea they could even split a really large parcel that they own and build another duplex. How do we put more of these economic tools and opportunities in our own residents' hands who own this property while we're also looking at development opportunities.

Could not agree more. And you're talking about how we create aging in place opportunities, how we allow families to stay in neighborhoods together by still affording their home and getting some additional income if it's a rental or proceeds if it's a sale of some of these additional units. So 100% agree with you. I don't think that anything in UHC right now would preclude that.

It wouldn't, but what I'm seeing, especially in the last, this week we had a meeting where we learned about like are certain things feasible for the development community? It's a totally different conversation to go, is it feasible for the person who already owns their property, and how do we get them pipelined through to understand what their opportunity is to do? So it is, I think, two different veins, one that feels much easier and a huge way to support our existing property owners.

The ADU prototypes we talked about earlier is a step towards that.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you for that. Councilmember Alvidrez.

Yes. Couldn't agree more. Those are those are great points. I really appreciate what you said there about the affordability and this moment, and we could become very unaffordable very quickly. Yes. And that's, I think, what you're talking about with this particular moment in time. And I'm curious, all that data that you shared, I'm or is that being included and talked about as we make the housing needs assessment with host? Because I wanna make connected. Yes. And then I also just wanna say the market's never gonna build 30%, you know, AMI.

And so continuing to make sure that we know that is something we need to create and figure out and support people with, and maybe it's less of the 60. And so I'm hoping that comes out in their needs assessment as well. So

Yeah. Private sector is never going to build, to your point, 30%. But if our with our precious and scarce resources often, this if the private sector is building more of the 80 and above or maybe even 60 and above, it allows us to focus our resources on that which is most needed and that the private sector isn't going to construct.

I agree. Thank you.

Well, as you can tell, we could

sit here and talk to you all

about this. It's been a great presentation, and thank you for all of the information. We have four items on consent. And with none of those being pulled off, we are adjourned. Thank you again.