Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I have I just haven't, like, written on that green light, guys. Please. You made me well.

What? I need

to know.

There it is. We're on air. Alright. Welcome to the community planning and housing committee of Denver City Council. We're feeling a little punchy today in the room. It is Tuesday, 05/12/2026 at 01:30PM. We'll start with introductions. I'm Sarah Parity, council member at large and chair of the committee, and I'll go

to my left. Wow. Alright. Amanda Sawyer, District 5.

Darrell Watson, fine, District 9.

Jamie Torres. Step for District 3. I'm really I'm here.

Afternoon. Diana Romero, Campbell Southeast Denver district four.

Laura Litres, lucky district seven.

Great. And I'm pausing in case we have any council members online.

We do. Got Lewis. There she is.

Hi. Councilwoman Chantel Lewis, District 8. Great.

I think that is all of us. And so we have three action items on deck today. So we'll try to keep them to thirty minutes each starting with Joe from c p some from CBD with a rezoning at 831 South Monaco Street 260608.

Hello, everyone. My name is

Joe Green.

Thank you. As you said, we're looking at a rezoning at 831 South Monaco. We run through the request to then provide a little bit more information about the location, go through the process that the application has been through thus far, and then look at the review criteria. So the applicant's requesting to go from S M X 3 A to S M U 3. I have a little more information about the difference between those in a couple slides.

Property's just over 7,000 square feet and currently has a single unit house on it. So this is the zoning map. You can see it's S M X 3 A to the south and across the street, and just to the north is that single or the multiunit three. The applicant owns kind of the parcel they're requesting to rezone and the parcel just to the north, and they're hoping to combine those parcels and redevelop both. So this is part of the AHART program.

They are the units on that northern lot where the multiunit currently exists. There's 28 units. They're with a mix of bedroom counts. The goal of the applicant is to build 75 units with a mix of AMI from 30 to 60% and they are applying for low income housing tax credits later this summer. So the SMX three means suburban mixed use three stories.

The a in this instance denotes design standards that basically encourage pedestrian oriented environments, allows a couple different building forms. The suburban Multi Unit 3 just allows multi unit, the other district allows office, retail, and residential. This one just allows that residential and it can be built variety of different building forms. So getting into the location, this is in Council District 6, but it's just across the street from Council District 5 to the Washington Virginia Vail neighborhood. Again, the existing land use is that single unit residential with that multi unit just to the north.

You can see a picture of the house on the top part of the screen there and then some of those existing units off to the right and it is right across the street from a King Soopers and some other retail. So looking at the process, the application was submitted in early March. The notices went out March 3. We went to planning board May or April 14 and then are here today. This date is wrong. We were there last month, not last year. We'll get that cleaned up. But the board voted unanimously to recommend approval.

And we haven't heard from any of

the RNOs or and haven't received any official comments from the public, but the applicant did reach out to the registered neighborhood organizations. So looking at the review criteria, starting with consistency with adopted plans and comprehensive plan 2040, there's basically the plan talks about a mix of housing types in all neighborhoods. It talks about expanding access to opportunity, building more affordable units here right across from the grocery store and bus lines, expand access to opportunity, and promoting infill development where we already have infrastructure. So we think it's consistent with comp plan 2040. And looking at Blueprint Denver, it has the neighborhood context as suburban, so largely single unit in these areas, but lots of mixed use and specifically higher intensity residential as well.

We find it consistent with that neighborhood context. Looking at that place type, it designates a community center, so it does call for that mix of office and commercial and residential uses. This application would be fulfilling the residential part of that three, and it does call for heights up to four stories. The applicant's only seeking three. So we do think it's consistent with this language.

The plan also talks about increasing affordable housing, near transit, and amenities, which as I mentioned during the comp plan section, this would do. And then getting to the Near Southeast area plan, it also calls a community center, also designates it to have heights up to five stories. So for the same reasons, it's consistent with Blueprint Denver. We find it consistent with this part of the plan. And then it has a number of affordable housing goals talking about locating them near transit and other amenities and providing those affordable housing options.

So we think it's generally consistent with the Near Southeast area plan. Looking at the public interest criterion, does this application further the public's interest? It does implement plan guidance in the following ways with the affordable housing near transit and amenities, it expands access to opportunity, and it does allow infill development where we already have services. And then finally, we do find it to be consistent with the neighborhood context, zone district, and purpose and intent statements found in the Denver zoning code. So staff does recommend approval. I'm available for questions. Justin and Megan from the applicant team are here as well.

Thanks, Joe. I have councilwoman Alvedrez first in the queue followed by councilwoman Sawyer. Was she? I got kicked out of all my apps, so it's possible I messed up the queue. Anytime. Okay. We'll start with blur.

Now I was just going to comment really that having the area plan is so helpful because it shows that there was already work done, and that's all I was gonna say.

Yeah. Seconded hardly, though. Alright. Councilor Merser, follow me. Councilor Torres.

Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. This is a 100% consistent with adopted plans has been thoroughly discussed in the Near Southeast area planning process, so I have no problems with it. I'm just curious the difference between SMU I mean, obviously, SMU is multiunit, so there can't be commercial on the property. But what can't they build under s m x three a that they can build under s m u?

So I think they can generally build very similar things.

Right. That's why

I'm asking why why go through this.

Yeah. This they wanna match the zone districts to the north. So Oh. It's kind of their properties that they're wanting to redevelop has split zoning, basically.

Got it.

So they have the large property has the multiunit zoning already.

Yep. Okay. Cool.

That was all. Thanks.

Great. Thanks. I'd like to welcome council president, and council member Torres is next in queue, and then madam pro tem.

Thank you so much. Is the plan just to add new housing to the new lot or to demo the big lot and replace with all new housing?

My understanding is it's the latter to replace the housing. Okay. The applicant's here if you wanna

Yeah. That'd be great. Who's representing the applicant? Hi. Can you introduce yourself real quick?

Yeah. Justin Raditz. I'm executive director of Catholic Charities Housing. So, yeah, to answer your question, the plan is so the the the lot the subject lot today, single family home, that home has already been abated and demoed. It's it's it's no longer there. Then the existing housing that we own at 801 South will be scraped as well, and then those combined parcels will be able to triple the density and get 75 units of affordable housing.

Okay. Thank you for that. Can you tell me a little bit about are there any protections for those residents? First right of return, do they have costs covering their movement? Are you required to place them anywhere else while you're under construction? Anything like that?

Yeah. We are. Absolutely. We have to follow some pretty rigorous standards under the Uniform Relocation Act. So we'll have to identify alternative housing for them during the construction period. Certainly, they can they're welcome back into their units, and we hope that they'll come back into a brand new building. If they choose not to, we also have to provide some other benefits to them, other options.

Okay. That's super helpful for me to understand then.

Yeah. There's a spread between one and three bedrooms in there. We want to serve some larger families, but then also serve some singles as well, some individuals.

Okay. So you'll replace those. Those will be available to the folks who are there now.

That's right. Okay. That's right.

And there

are there are a few four bedroom units as well. So, basically, we're gonna replace one for one what's there. And then the delta is gonna be a couple of different types of for the unit mix.

Okay. Super helpful. Thank you so much.

Yeah. My pleasure.

Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Romero Campbell.

Thank you. And thank you for some of those questions because that was a question that I had. Can I talk to the applicant again just real quick? With the housing that's going in, does it also include, like, community space? Or I just think of how busy it is on Monaco. I know that this is for the zoning. Will things be opening up towards Monaco? Or is it facing the other I know the street is on the other side.

So if you enter off of Monaco, there's gonna be quite a bit of community space on that ground level. Mhmm. One of the things that we're really trying to do is create an environment where families can come together. We're thinking about things like really long table with 15 seats, you know, where these families can kinda come together because there's a of kids in the building already. We've also developed a, what we'd like to call, a robust courtyard for the size of the lot, right, with a sport court, with a different area with some greenery and some more private bistro tables, things like that. So to the extent that we could, we've maximized the site for some of that community space.

Great. Thank you. Thank you, madam chair.

That's my head. Hard saying when you mentioned places for kids to play outdoors. Council president?

Thank you. So for the applicant, so ex explain to me just curiosity. So in the existing zone district, do you have general and shopfront? And in the proposed, do you have suburban house, duplex, row house, and apartment? From what I understand with development, everyone wants general. I don't like general because you just it's like egregious look. It's because it's the general form. Right? Yeah. So are you wanting explain to me why you don't want the general form or is it financing to get you the even the zone district that may get you better outcome?

Sure. Yeah. Great.

Well It feels like a lot of

it feels like a lot

of rigmarole Yeah. For

Yeah.

Like five because even in heights, you get more in your current phone district. You can go up to 45, and then you actually even get better primary or, like, your your primary skill. Your build to all of it is Sure. Much better. Sure. So this is fascinating for me. Like, what's happening?

Sure. Yeah. So I'll speak to some of the limitations we have because of the funding. Yeah. And then Megan can speak to some of the more planning decisions that we made. So effectively, we're applying for the 4% LITEC with the state. Competitive and because it's competitive and because of some restrictions is basically the the cap that you can you can earn from an award. When that cap is established, that also caps the number of units that you can build because of just the the development budget. So in theory, if we had an unlimited bucket of tax credits, we could build up higher and more units, but this is really the max that we could develop given the size of the award that we're planning and receiving.

Got it. Yeah.

Hi. I'm Megan Cranston. I'm with Cushing Terrell, the architecture team on the project. And so essentially, we're just trying to match building form on this project. So we have, obviously, the apartment building form at 801. And so we're just going with the apartment on the 831. So that was our primary driver for the rezone, was just so that we could do the lot line amendment and build across both lots to get the larger multifamily structure. Yeah. And also, it's kind of reassuring to the neighbors as well that we're not going to build a huge high rise popping up on their neighborhood. So it also kind of helps to stay within the context of the neighborhood.

Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. Good question.

I just have one question that's mostly coming from curiosity about the timing of your LITEC application and always worried about we're seeing so many people applying for LITEC. Yeah. Can get it. So just curious about that.

Well, we originally intended to apply for tax credits last August, and we were about four weeks away and then realized that we had this particular hurdle to to cross in a different way. So we deferred for a year. August 1, we're going to apply for tax credits. Typically, you know, the awards are announced in October. We're very hopeful, although every applicant is hopeful for an award.

If for whatever reason we don't get an award, we could possibly slide to the 9% application of February or wait a whole another year for August 2027. But, you know, we think this project really aligns with a lot of goals for the city. We think it's a strong competitor for financing And like every developer, we're hoping for the best.

I would appreciate if you all could reach out if you don't get your lie tech. I would love to know that. Not that I can eventually do anything about that, but I would really love to know that. Absolutely. Be in touch at that time when there's nothing pending and, you know, that's not inappropriate. And I'm glad it looks like we have plenty of time to get you through our process by August. So council president, you have another question?

Using prop one $23?

We won't on this one.

And with any of the transportation bucket dollars?

No. We're not tapping into any of those. At

the state funding?

Yeah. That's right.

So it's just LITECH and then cap like, private equity or Yeah.

LITECH and depending on availability between host and Colorado division of housing, that's gonna pull together basically the extent of the budget. We take a few of our own dollars into in the form of deferred developer fee, but it's a fairly lean budget.

And how can we go through, like, a transit oriented development budget? That's what we're in the city.

When when we were reviewing it last year

Oh, it was last year?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we basically were putting this deal together about eighteen

months ago. Long working now

in 2020. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Sure. Okay. That got it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Michael.

Thank you, Michael. Any other final questions? Okay. Can I get a motion in a second? So moved. I heard Sawyer I saw Torres. It's first. Sawyer followed by Torres. It looks like everybody's good to go. Pausing. Okay. We will see you guys on the floor. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks, Joe. Appreciate you. And next up, we have 0619, which is a rezoning at 1767117675 East 64th Avenue with with mister Lechuga from CPE.

Alright. Good afternoon. I got a full table here. Yeah.

You never know which rezonings are gonna turn the council members out. It's kinda interesting.

So my name is Tony Lechuga with Community Planning and Development, and I'm here to present the proposed applicant change to the zoning classification at this long address at East 64th Avenue. So let's start with the request. So the applicant is requesting to take this property from three different former chapter 59 zone districts into PUDG 40. So that's planned unit development general 40. For those in the crowd who don't know, a planned unit development is Denver's process for creating customized zoning for unique properties.

So this property, you can see on the map outlined in red, it's just under a 114 acres, making it a very large parcel. It's currently vacant land. There is some minor agricultural uses to the west. There's two different small active farms that are operating on the site here. Talking about location.

So this is in Council District 11. You can see it on the map as that red star in the far northeast corner of the city, Council District 11 represented by council member Gilmore. Here, you can see its location within the DIA statistical neighborhood. So it is one of the few areas of the DIA statistical neighborhood that has development that is not actually the airport itself. You can see it in that bottom left corner there where you can also see Pena Boulevard crossing around and looping towards the airport as well as the a line.

And it's an area that has a number of different uses at the moment, which are kind of reflective of its zoning. So you can see much of the area still retains its former chapter 59 zoning. That includes the two districts on this site, CMU 30 and CMU 20. Both of those are sort of general commercial use districts where you could build a diversity of things. The only, the one property to the east there that has that gateway zoning, that's also a former Chapter 59 district that's used to promote sort of, like, airport operations, diversity of commercial uses.

But lately, we've seen a lot of newer developers following our plan guidance and coming in to rezone properties into the Denver zoning code. So those properties to the south that have the SMX eight, you can see the properties to the north that also have that SMX eight and eight a, and this property is seeking to sort of match some of that zoning through the PUD. I wanna note a bunch of things about background. So there are some urban design standards and guidelines that apply to this area. They are the design guidelines for Denver Gateway.

They lay out a vision for land use, urban design. They were adopted quite a while ago when this area was vacant to sort of envision what this could look like as it moved forward. So there are some guiding principles, intent statements, and some standards. They are reviewed administratively by staff at the time that a site development is submitted. In terms of existing context, you can see a lot of this area is still sort of greenfield development. That means it's a lot of open spaces, some of it used as agriculture. But you can see, especially along Road there, there is a dense diversity of uses. There's a bunch of commercial retail. There are a couple of offices. There's a couple of schools, which are those public and quasi public uses there.

And then you can see South Of 64th, there's a number of residential uses. So 64th is traditionally a boundary where above that we have the airport influence overlay or AIO that prohibits residential uses North Of 64th in order to make sure that anything built there is supportive of the airport and not inhibiting the airport's ability to function successfully. So south of that, we see a lot of multiunit development being built, but north of it, we see a lot of this commercial. We don't have a lot of pictures of the site. Google Street View doesn't come through here all that often, but we do have this one site to just give you sort of an aerial of the site.

Largely vacant. You can see those two farms along the Far Western edge there. You can also see the proximity of the a line tracks that run through here and then Pena Boulevard farther in the distance. And to the east there, you get a a visual of what some of those commercial spaces are like. A lot of them are very suburban, very auto oriented, but you do have a number of pretty tall buildings in some of the hotels out there, actually.

Further background information. So because of its size, this project was flagged for large development review. So the purpose of large development review is to coordinate various studies, identify infrastructure improvements, develop different requirements, and outline other regulations that will apply to the property. This proposal has been in the works for years. They first came in and went through LDR applicability back in 2023.

Because of that, they had their community information meeting in March 2024. They then submitted their large development framework in the 2024, followed quickly by their initial infrastructure master plan, and their infra infrastructure master plan is being completed now in 2026. So it's been multiple years of ongoing discussion about how to best build out this site over time. And alongside that has been robust community engagement that the applicant team can talk about and you can reference in your application package. So some of the reasons that it went to a large development review, as I said, were the size, but also the Far Northeast area plan explicitly calls for large development review for large properties like this.

And it's because so much of this area is unbuilt and undecided at this point. So, I already outlined these few things. The large development framework was included in your package of materials. I wanna note a couple of highlights that came out of putting together that document alongside the applicant. One is it was very important for us throughout the process to recognize that the applicant is United Airlines, which is Denver's single largest private employer.

They currently have over 18,000 pilots that train at the flight training center off Quebec And Martin Luther King Boulevard. That's every single pilot within United's fleet. One of the goals that they had when they came to us was to expand their flight training center to this portion of, property that they bought alongside myriad other possible uses in the future. So it was important for us to understand what the phase one uses were and what future uses might be moving forward. As such, it was understood that phase one was going to be this flight training center, and we needed to build an infrastructure master plan to under site understand site circulation that reflected those future uses.

The large development framework also helped inform the parks and open space standards that will be required through the zoning. So let's talk about the proposed PUDG 40. So a couple of purposes. One is to facilitate the diversification of land uses throughout the site, to encourage innovation in what could be a future corporate campus, and through that, to allow for the differentiation from traditional business agglomerations. Because this is a single property owner with a diverse set of uses, this is not the Denver Tech Center where we're, again, anticipating a singular type of office use.

This could be a diversity of different uses all within one established campus. And as part of that, we wanted to establish standards, both building form standards and use standards that were compatible to the site and to the neighborhood context. So we did a couple of things. First and foremost, it's important to understand that within the PUD, we created two subareas. Subarea A, as you can see on the map, is the majority of the site.

Subarea B is a smaller section of the site that's located at that important intersection of Yampa Street and East 64th Avenue. And while Subarea B looks small, comparatively, it's actually a really big site. Keep in mind that we're talking about a 114 acres of land here. So now we're gonna talk about building form customizations. So that's one part of us creating custom zoning for the site.

So within Sub Area A, we established a base zone district that is Campus E I. The E I stands for educational institutional. This is a standard district for campuses throughout the city, whether it's some of our university campuses, hospital campuses, things like that. What we ultimately did in terms of building form standards for this section is a very light touch. We essentially said that we'll follow the campus EI standards with one exception.

The heights will be lowered. So typically heights in the campus EI are up to a 150 feet. The applicant proposed to lower them to a 110 feet. As we'll get to in a second, the plan guidance very explicitly calls for heights in this area of up to eight stories. Our eight story districts cap heights at a 110 feet. So they were trying very much to match that plan guidance and lower the height. It met their needs and it met the plan guidance. Customizations in building forms for subarea b. We took a different approach for subarea b also to be reflective of some of our plan guidance for this area. So subarea b generally follows the building form standards of SMX 8.

If you look at the PUD, you can see that SMX 8 offers two different options for building forms depending on the size of the building, depending on the size of the lot. This matches those. But ultimately, what it requires is stricter build tos than what we would see in a campus zone district. It requires screening requirements from parking, which we don't see in a campus district, and it requires certain transparency requirements, which we don't see in a campus district. And the purpose for this was to say that at this intersection, where south of it, we do see some multiunit residential, we might actually see more pedestrians crossing 64th here.

We might see more pedestrians walking along Yampa to access some of those commercial spaces. And so we wanted to build in some standards that gave them flexibility for the campus, but also built in some of these stricter requirements to say, if you are building buildings close to the street, there will be transparency requirements. There will be build to requirements. If they're a little farther away from the street, as is appropriate in some SMX districts, there will be better screening requirements that include garden walls and things like that to make the experience for pedestrians more appealing at this one major corner. And then I wanna talk about some more customizations that are happening across the totality of the site, so both subareas.

So the first bullet point is actually a really big and important one. So the uses are a blend of those that are allowed in campus districts and that are allowed in suburban mixed use districts. So when the applicant first came to us, they did explore using standard districts, either a suburban mixed use eight district or a campus district. And what they found is that given the long term approach to the site and the flexibility that they're looking for, neither of those districts alone worked. And a big part of that had to do with uses. So often our campuses are envisioned to be embedded in low scale residential

neighborhoods. And so some of the uses on those campuses are actually limited

often so that they do not have negative impacts on adjacent residential districts. Think about the people who live immediately across the street from Regis University or immediately across the street from the University of Denver. In this case, we actually felt like on a 114 acre campus, North of 64th where there is no residential allowed, there were certain uses that we could build back in that were appropriate for for the applicant team. And I wanna note just a few of them. If you look at the PUD, this is page eight of the PUD.

So the uses allowed to build in some of the lodging accommodations, like they could build a hotel on-site if they wanted to, which is appropriate for the number of pilots they have coming and going in and out of their site year round. But it also allows them a diversity of retail uses such as a food market or foods, or grocery store, but some other more heavy things like heavy vehicle equipment, sales, rentals, and service. The applicant noted that there's a possibility that they might want to build some sort of maintenance facility on-site in order to work on airport or airplane parts. Part of this could be an educational program, could be part of just their regular manufacturing process. We felt like that was appropriate located within a 114 acre site.

And so this is a good blend of those. You'll notice on that same list, we allowed the continued use of agriculture so that those two operating farms could continue to operate even though the zoning is changing, and they could develop new agricultural buildings if they needed them while United continues to consider their options over the next twenty, thirty years, something like that. Other things within the PUD, while the AIO applies generally north of 64th, we reaffirmed in the PUD that residential uses are not allowed. Surface parking is also not allowed as its own permitted primary use. Surface parking can exist accessory to a primary use, but it cannot be its own primary use.

And then the final one I do wanna linger on for a second. So we did allow 12 foot fences. If you recall, when we wrote the PUD for the women's soccer stadium, we wrote in very similar standards. For security purposes, we do allow them to have taller fences. Typically, standards max create a maximum fence height of eight feet.

We allowed them to say, yes, it can go up to 12 feet, but we built in unique requirements for the type of materials that need to be used on that fence and the level of transparency. So they cannot just build a 12 foot brick wall around their campus and call it pretty. That that would not be allowed. But we did want to respect some of the unique security concerns around things like multimillion dollar flight training simulators. And that's a rough summary of the PUD.

So let's talk a little bit about process. So while I noted that they have been working with the city since 2023, in terms of the rezoning package, the informational notice went out back in March. This had its planning board hearing, last week, and it's here at committee today, and we anticipate it having its public hearing at the June. In terms of public comments, we've received no public comments from RNOs. We have received one letter of support from an adjacent property owner who noted the plan consistency as well as the value of having a long term landowner of this property who plans to develop it over the next twenty to thirty years and hold it for a long time.

I mentioned that planning board held their hearing last week. They did vote unanimously to recommend approval. Things that they noted were the appropriate use of a PUD in a circumstance such as this, the unique nature of the proposed development as well as this landowner, but also its plan consistency. So let's dive into the review criteria. So different from the last presentation, this is a PUD.

So there are the initial three review criteria, and then PUDs are required to have an additional five criteria that we review. So we'll start with the initial three, which starts with planned consistency. And we have three plans with this area, lucky for us. So in terms of comprehensive plan twenty forty, we do believe that this would produce a more equitable, affordable, and inclusive neighborhood by bringing about quality of life improvements that could include cultural and national amenities, health care, education, parks, recreation, nutritious food, and the arts. All of those things are allowed and embedded within the PUD, especially some of the open space standards that will be required if a development is large.

We do believe it would create a more strong and authentic neighborhood by creating a more people oriented place, with thoughtful transitions, aspirational design, and we believe some of the standards that we built into it would help engage the public realm in better ways through unique fence design as well as the, building standards of the SMXE District. Again, in terms of healthy and active, this site is required to provide a substantial amount of open space around the site. They are actually exceeding the minimum required in terms of open space, and that would help ensure equitable access to parks and recreation. If you look at the large development framework, you can actually see that the proposed open space connects to a regional network of other parks and trails to help produce better connectivity throughout the region. We think it meets a number of the economically diverse goals, that include, creating economic opportunities for training, career development, wealth creation, encouraging businesses to work with local workforce training and education organizations, which the applicants can speak to, and then also strengthen Denver as a global city that would be competitive.

So as I noted, this facility would have a diversity of jobs, not just training pilots, but also the various staff that help keep the business, keep the buildings functioning day in and day out. And then there are a couple of regional goals that we rarely reference in these types of settings, but we do believe that this PUD helps embrace Denver's role as the center of regional growth by helping to locate a major employer, next to the airport and to capitalize on our role as a transportation hub. Now we'll turn to Blueprint Denver, the city's, citywide land use plan. So Blueprint Denver calls for this area to be considered suburban. And while suburban has a range of uses, it is meant to be walkable, bikeable, but mostly reliant on cars.

And one of the things that we strongly wanna note is that Blueprint Denver is explicit that our campuses are to be embedded in various districts. So when Blueprint Denver was adopted, some of the only places that campus was put as a designation were where they already exist. So when we see new campuses emerge, we might see a divergence between what is being proposed and what is in the plan, but that's because campuses, inappropriate situations can be embedded in all contexts. That same logic is true here where it calls for a a land a future place of community center. Now community centers are considered to have a mix of office, commercial, and residential.

As noted, there is no residential allowed in this area, but the proposed development would produce a mix of office and commercial uses, amongst a diverse range of allowable uses. And notably, this calls for heights up to five stories. We'll get a little bit into why the proposed, heights are different when we get into the small area plan. We wanna know two things about street types, which we don't always reference in these presentations, but both, but 64th is known as an arterial street, which is known for having high vehicle throughput, low property access. Given that definition, we actually think a large campus, which will have very few access points, is appropriate.

And Yampa is known as a collector street, which, again, has high vehicle throughput and is known for conveying trance traffic to our arterial streets. So, given this unique location, we believe that the campus designation is actually appropriately embedded here and we've worked to match some of the the future place designation language. In terms of growth, this is considered a community center and corridor growth area. Again, there is no new housing, but these types of areas are anticipated to have 20% of new employment growth, and we believe that the PUD can help achieve that. Okay.

Because of its size and because it went through LDR, it also included an equity analysis. I do wanna note that the equity analysis was done at the time of the community information meeting. Given how long ago that was, we have updated it throughout the years to continue conversations with the applicant team and the community around what would be most beneficial here. So because of its isolated nature, some of the values that are applied to the equity analysis are actually really hard to draw conclusions from. If there is residential population within the statistical boundary, then you can't really draw too many conclusions about the population of the area.

So we were cognizant of equity scores to in adjacent areas. But we believe some of the things that would most improve equity in this area are improved access to open space and a higher diversity of jobs for people throughout Northeast Denver. And now we'll turn to some of the Blueprint Denver goals. So, again, as you've seen many times in presentations, Blueprint Denver calls us to take things out of former chapter 59 and push them into the Denver zoning code, which this would help us achieve. It meets some of our economic goals where we're called on to protect and promote DIA as the primary economic engine for the state of Colorado, and as a sub strategy to that to encourage commercial development near the airport that helps support DENS operations.

And we believe that this very strongly meets those goals. And we believe that this addresses some of our climate goals by locating denser development near transit and in proximity to DIA, making the campus less auto dependent. So currently, United operates a number of shuttles bringing pilots, trainers, anyone coming to their facilities from DIA, sometimes to hotels downtown, sometimes to Central Park. This locates them closer to where they'll be coming into the city, thus reducing the number of auto trips between their various facilities. Now we'll turn to the Far Northeast Area Plan, which was adopted in 2019 as the first plan in our ongoing neighborhood planning initiative.

And as is our custom, we actually, when adopting a neighborhood plan, update blueprint to reflect that plan. So this actually calls for the same neighborhood context of suburban, the name same future place, and the same growth strategy. The one difference is that this small area plan actually refined the height guidance and said that eight stories was actually appropriate here, which is why I said in the, at the beginning, you see eight story zoning to the north and the South, and applicant proposed to have eight stories as the maximum height here as well. The Far Northeast Area Plan has a couple of very specific narrative goals that we think are supported here. The first of which is that it very specifically says the vast greenfield sites North Of 64th provide an opportunity to retain employment centers that require large footprints or operational needs.

And we believe that this is the exact type of employment center that was envisioned for these large open spaces in the plan. It also notes that greenfield sites coupled with restrictions on housing create an opportunity to support employment centers, and maintaining those jobs in Denver is a top priority in the Far Northeast Plan and that this area has a competitive advantage from its because of its proximity to both the A Line, Pena Boulevard, and DIA. And then there are a number of additional goals. Again, the plan recommends moving out of former chapter 59. It says we should support rezoning efforts that will result in development of significant job opportunities and the expansion of employment sectors.

We believe this is very explicitly meeting that goal. It calls for us to support employment growth in this part of the city and to grow parks and recreation access and diversify the number of services and programs that could be here. As I mentioned before, this will necessarily result in the growth of parks and recreation space. We believe that it meets the second review criteria of public interest. We believe that this is the implementation of our adopted plans.

We believe that it is, encouraging the use of greenfield sites for airport supportive commercial, which is called for in all of those plans, and building out important connectivity in Far Northeast, not just the parks and recreation access that I mentioned before, but also building out future roadway networks that do not exist through this site currently. And then the third criteria of the standard review criteria is consistency with neighborhood context, zone district purpose, intent statements. And with a PUD, we're actually called on to give more refined reflection on these, and so I'm gonna move on to the five criteria of the PUD review criteria. So the we'll go through them one at a time here. So the first is that a PUD district should be consistent with the intent and purpose of such districts stated in article nine division 9.6, which is where we house PUD's within the Denver zoning code.

And it lists specific reasons under which we should utilize PUD. And we believe that it's appropriate because this site has special characteristics related to the scale of development, as well as the timeline of development that call for a more customized approach to create successful outcomes that we wouldn't see under standard districts. We also think that this PUD, by bringing in some of the use standards that we've brought in, will allow for better diversification of land use, than we would normally see under standard development. We also believe that this PUD is written advances numerous city goals that might not be achieved through a standard district. And, therefore, we do find that it's consistent with the intent and purpose of applying a PUD as stated in the code.

Criteria b says that the PUD should comply with all applicable standards for PUDs. Embedded in the PUD, there's a line that says it shall cons it shall comply with all applicable standards and criteria. So it meets this one. C, we get a little more nuanced. It says that the proposed, the development proposed on the subject property is not feasible under any other zone district and would require an unreasonable number of variances and waivers and conditions.

As I said, we spent years looking at different standard districts to see if we could meet the overall intent of the developer and what we agreed was appropriate in the large development framework. And the conclusion that we came to was no. We actually needed a PUD to create the most successful outcome through the combination of building forms and uses. Alright. Criterion d.

Does the PUD establish permitted uses that are compatible with existing land uses adjacent to the subject property? We believe that it largely does, that it is consistent with this criteria. The uses allowed on this site are consistent with either the campus zone district or the S M X 8 zone district. There are no allowed uses in the PUD that are not part of either of those two districts. And as noted, SMX 8 is the district applied both to the North and the South.

And given the scale of this, site, we believe that some of the campus uses embedded within it are appropriately applied as well. The final criteria, the PUD establishes permitted building forms that are compatible with adjacent existing building forms. Similar logic, we built in building forms that are allowable within a campus district. Campus districts are appropriate within all neighborhood contexts. And then at very at one very key location, we built in additional building form standards that match those of the adjacent districts.

And so, therefore, we do believe that it meets criteria e as well. So finding that all eight review criteria have been met, CPD recommends that the committee move this on to a vote of the full council. I'm happy to answer any questions. The applicant team came out in force today to answer questions as well.

It's true. Thank you so much, Tony. That this is a huge lift, and it and it's well presented as always. I do have a very full queue starting with councilmember Sawyer followed

by councilmember Alvidrez. Thank you, madam chair. Thanks, Tony. That was really great. I think this question's for you guys. It's around usage of kind of resources. Right? This is an area that's kinda short on water. We saw Swire Coca Cola fall apart because they didn't have electricity out there. Like, have you guys had a conversation with whoever you need to have a conversation with? There's lots of teams in that pot to ensure that this 114 acres is gonna have the right infrastructure in order for you to be able

to Yeah. Implement this.

Thank you, council member. Ms. Ryan Cordero with United Airlines Government Affairs based here in Denver. Yes. We have had conversations with Denver Water, with Xcel Energy, and we are collaboratively planning for the development of the site and don't foresee lacking any resources.

Okay. Especially power? Yes. Are you guys gonna build your own power plant?

Not that I know of, man.

Okay. I mean,

I'm just like a 114 acres worth of power when we saw Swire Coke fall apart because there wasn't enough energy out to their site. Like, it is concerning. Right? So okay. That's good to know.

Do you know the power needs, if you don't mind? I have no idea of the machines, the simulators.

I don't

think it's high or yet. So do they? Like at your existing flight center, does it have what are the power bills like there?

Yeah. I can't give you the details of the Right. The usage is significant. They operate 363 a year, twenty four hours a day for those days. I guess what I'll say and hopefully answers what you're trying to get at is our plan is to develop the site, you know, in phases. And so for this next critical phase to United, which is additional flight training, which we need before the end of the decade, we believe that we're in a good place in terms of power and other resources.

Yeah. Just checking because I I would hate to move this forward and then discover like we did previously that you can't do it in the place you wanna do it in because the infrastructure is not there. That is that we have no control over and you have no control over. So you know?

Okay. Cool. That's good to know.

One other question for you all in terms of the campus zoning. So I do think everything is consistent and really appreciate the level of thought and detail that went into this. But I'm trying to envision, like, what does this look like for a human who is walking down 64th. Right? And I think part of the beauty of the campus zoning is that it is created in such a way that it is specific to, like, incorporate people into it.

And you can't do that for lots of reasons, security reasons that make really good sense, which is why you're gonna have a 12 foot fence all the way around it. So in terms of the, like, user experience kind of in that right of way in that area as you're on 64th And Yampa, what are you what are you envision like, how are you envisioning integrating that? Is it gonna be that that fence is gonna be set back further to sort of, like, give extra space? Or, like, how is that? How are you gonna try and make sure that it is not just, a giant even if it's got slats in it, you're one over on in Central Park, like, giant 12 foot fence all the way around that says don't come in here, and and no judgment on that.

We don't want people in there, but also, like, there's gotta be a a thoughtful balance when it comes to that that user experience in that on that corner.

Thank you. I the first thing I have to say is thank you to everyone at CPD, everyone at the city that has worked with us through the last three years on this process. Tony, I think you might have a better answer than I do where we can talk a little bit about the green the green space, but we have thought about that experience in particular. And I'll I'll let Tony go first,

and then I'm happy to

Okay.

Yeah. This this is this has been a concern of the cities as well for a long time is making sure that this is not feeling like a Come uninviting space. Right. So as part of the infrastructure master plan, we've outlined what, you know, the detached sidewalks will have to look like. So they will have to build out those sidewalks that don't exist today. They'll have to lay out that grass. They'll have to plant those trees. So that's sort of phase one of making the sidewalks actually nice. Depending on the building type that they have, they will likely have to push those fences back because we will be requiring sort of the garden wall building form along especially that corner of 64th And Yampa. And so Okay.

The garden wall requires, like, sort of enhanced landscaping along that corner. Yeah. So, yeah, that's And,

like, a little bit further back for a little more space.

Yeah. So that 12 foot fence won't be right at the street line the way we see them kind of if you're walking along Quebec or MLK. Right. The sidewalk typology will also not be same because we have modern standards for those. So we will have sort of, like, enhanced landscaping with those fences pushed back a little bit. But I also think one of the benefits of applying the campus zoning to the majority of the site is that campus zoning does kinda give you your big sandbox to put a building here, put some green space, put another building here.

Right.

And so we do anticipate that the visuals through the fence will, you know, not be the worst. Right. It's not an industrial site. That's yeah.

Fair. And I really appreciate that. And I'm not so much worried about, like, what happens inside Yeah. Right, because you can't go in there from a security purpose. So and I and I do think, you know, that we have a very comprehensive process that addresses sort of the internal piece. I just am really curious about, like, the external piece because we do not want to allow for something that then you essentially have to drive around because it's not welcoming. It's not functional for you to be able to, like, move around it any other way besides comfortably in a car. And that, I think, is the like, the garden wall explanation helps me visualize it a little bit better.

Yeah. The only other thing that I would

say to enhance, like, the understanding of the site is that the negotiated open space, which is you know, the minimum is 10% of the site. What they're providing is over 10% of the sites in the LTF. You can see where that is. So the open space is located on that western edge and the northern side where it follows Dog Dogwood Gulch, I think is the name of that gulch there. So those are actually publicly accessible open spaces as required by code.

They have to be open from dawn to dusk every day of the year. So those are not private enclosed spaces. So especially along those two edges, you'll have open spaces with connected trails, lots of open those will be really nice open spaces along those edges. And then, yeah, along those southern and eastern edges is where we're kind of relying on the IMP to create good street designs that we have our detached sidewalks with good trees and then the garden wall standards.

Got it. Okay. Great. Thank you.

Okay. I have council member Albedrez next.

Thank you. Don't go anywhere, miss Raman. My first question is for you, and it is how many jobs do you anticipate this adding to the city?

I don't know is the short answer. When we calculated using the city's formula, we are we're working on a development that could host up to about 5,000 jobs. Again, we plan to develop this site in phases. Currently, at our fully developed site on Quebec, we have upwards of about 1,300 employees. This would be slightly smaller than that. So, you know, depending on the math, I don't know.

Okay. That's helpful. I also just wanna thank United for I recently heard about helping the Spirit Airlines employees that were let go and reached out when there was a recent death of one of the employees, and you were able to share what a great employer you are and how you were taking care of that family. So I wanted to thank you for your efforts there. Another question I have, I know on the slide where it talked about climate impact, it kinda just said it didn't really say a lot to me.

And I'm curious if there's plans, you know, what does overall United what are you what are your plans as far as emissions and for this building as far as energy efficiency and meeting Denver's climate goals?

Sure. We we are fully aligned and have a plan in place with Electrify Denver. Our current site at Quebec is Silver Lead, and we intend on having that same standard or or exceeding it if possible at the new site. We our our goal as an entire enterprise is to be 100% emissions by 2050, and we're working towards that right now. Actually, working on something with the state legislature to begin sourcing sustainable aviation fuel to Denver International Airport this year with legislation that just passed.

Can you tell me a little bit more about what that legislation is doing?

There is there's this fuel called sustainable aviation fuel. It's made out of a lot of different sources, but it's it's understood to be zero emissions or close to zero emissions. And the cost of it is prohibitive if it's upwards of twice the cost of jet regular jet fuel. And so we've been able to with support from governments around our hubs to source sustainable aviation fuel close to at parity with the cost of jet fuel to every hub except for Denver. And we are working on converting an existing tax credit that the legislature has into a per gallon tax credit.

It would bring it not fully up at the same price as jet fuel, but very close. And we've already secured fuel that we can bring to Denver and and buy when once we have that credit. And so we're anticipating we should be able to bring it before the end of the year.

That's amazing. I really appreciate that. And then just the last thing I wanted to mention was that this is completely privately funded, including all the infrastructure additions that mister LaSuga

Yeah. This is 100% privately funded.

Appreciate that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Sure.

Thank you. Great questions. Nice to hear I'm going back over to my queue. It looks like council member Torres is next, followed by madam pro tem.

Thank you. Tony, my questions, I think, are initially for you. You used a phrase called screening requirements referring to parking. What does that mean?

That's a good question that I might defer to my DS colleague who's here. If you look at

the I can actually answer that

and give you a really

good example of Oh, hello. Great.

At night in Colorado. That's why I know about it because Colorado

That's what you're talking about in terms of the visibility. Yeah.

And the campus zoning, the way it's set, so like that part that big parking garage there, like it is screened. It has like artwork on one side and it's sort of like they have closed so you you can see that it's a park, but you're not that's why I was like, oh, I can answer that one. That's that's what that's really doing requirement is. Yeah. Okay. It is like a big a large parking structure that is screened to soften visual that it is a large

like headlights so that headlights are straight on you.

Yeah. That's a whole big Super helpful. Thank you. I was looking at the LDR framework, and the phase phase phase 1a one and phase 1b are the only currently planned out maybe, Ms. This might be for you, sections. The vast majority of your land space is unplanned. How do you complete an LDR if you aren't really planning out the rest of the property?

Do you wanna start or you want

me to start?

You start.

Yeah. So I think for us, what's important, when setting out the framework is understanding the diversity of desired uses they might have to know, are we okay with the appropriateness of those diverse uses? And then the framework for us was really about laying out. So then where are we gonna anticipate roadways? Where are we going to accommodate the open space to ensure that we're meeting those long term goals of both the city and the developer? So with a framework like this, we are kind of allowing for a big sandpit to exist there where

That's what you were referencing before.

We could locate buildings in a lot of places here. It's not entirely different than, like, the PUD we wrote for Regis University where, like, they came in and they said, like, oh, we wanna do a diversity of uses. Could be residential. University buildings. Could be some private commercial buildings. And so we sort of anticipate, like, oh, a diversity of uses over time. Where would we have roads? Do we have the necessary infrastructure? Are we gonna meet the open space standards? Things like that.

Okay. The LDR referenced even some and maybe this is just it started a while back, like the a zone district that isn't one of the zone districts districts in the current in the current land area. I think it mentioned CMU 10. That's not one of the zone districts that's so is it just old? Was the LDR started a long time ago, and they contemplated only going to CMX 8?

Yeah. So at the time that the initial LDR application is submitted, that was submitted in 2023. By the time we get to the LDF, that was 2024. And so, yeah, like, there were years of exploring different zone districts that came after the completion of those documents. Okay.

Okay. I guess I'm just trying to understand how do you how do you arrive at your future development for the future site? Like, how does that come back to CPD and comply with whatever the PD says?

Yeah. So the framework, I think what's important, and I I think this is difficult for community members to understand also, is that, like, the framework is not meant to be sort of like a master plan. It's meant to provide sort of like broad goals towards an end product. And that end product is largely undefined because of the size of these large developments. And so I think really the LDF is meant to provide sort of goals for an outcome. And then we build the zoning to say, like, would this zoning be supportive of those desired outcomes?

You know?

Miss, does the future site, you intend to build on it eventually? Yes. Yeah. Okay. But no plan on when or what it would look like?

Yep. Whatever whatever forward looking statements he would have made about anything beyond phase a, you couldn't really, you know, bank on. But this is this is pretty much the only land that United has really available to grow global assets on, assets that benefit our entire global network such as flight training. And so, yes, we do estimate that we will be continuing to fill that site.

Okay. Caitlin, did you have Yes.

Hi, Caitlin Quandler, Land News Council. So I would just add, as Ms described, the phase one with the flight training center, that really is kind of a known and would be going through a site development plan process. And so I think that's the piece to just add is that as development comes, each of those lots, depending on the size, would come in and do a site development plan and go through the city's process at that time. Okay.

Got it. That's helpful.

Yeah. Actually, that's a great That's a wonderful point. Well said, Caitlin.

We're amend the podcast. Oh, man. Plumbing is yours.

This is why we're still not on air. Yeah. I mean, obviously, so the framework helps us because when they submit that site development plan, you know, the framework to fall back on. And if something they're proposing isn't in line with the goals of the framework, we can always Got it. You know, hold that

up. Thank you. Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you so much. Just a quick note on time. We're at the half hour mark for this item, and so we're leaning into our time for the next item a little bit, which I don't think will be controversial. And I want people to get their questions asked, but, you know, talk super quick. Right? So I have madam pro tem next in queue and then madam president and then councilman Lewis.

Great. Thank you, madam chair. I'll ask real quick. Wondering about the transportation Mhmm. And the traffic flow. We often hear from our council colleague around the traffic that happens on Pena and also what would that be?

What was the street? 64th.

Yeah. On 64th.

Can you talk to us

a little bit about what that plan is and what you expect the impact? I don't know if it's you or miss, but what you expect the impact to be with 5,000 people coming and going from there?

We can both talk about it. So as part of the the large development framework, as part of the IMP, some of this stuff is imagined out to determine what the road network will need to look like in order to accommodate conceptual levels of traffic, whether it's people walking, biking, or driving. The other thing I'll say is that, like, we're not approving any of their development at this point. So as each building comes along, as Caitlin brought up, it will have to go through site development plan. Each of those site development plans will have to include some analysis of the appropriate transportation and determine, like, can it be built and accommodated on here.

The other part of this is that they will have to comply with the transportation demand management plan. As each phase comes online, they will have to continue to explain to DOTI how their transportation demand management plan is adapting to that new development to accommodate additional growth on And that could be commitments they have to make to build new bike facilities, new transit access opportunities, shuttling, carpooling, providing, you know, memberships to their staff, things like that.

Hello there, madam chair, members of council. Sean Maley, CRL Associates, zoning and outreach consultant to United. I'll be very brief because I know time is short. So we are expanding 64th Avenue into that commercial arterial that Mr. Lechuga mentioned.

We are also connecting Telluride Way to the North and to the South. The trail connections on the North along Dogwood Gulch, as mentioned, kind of connect regional trails. And then the big emphasis is connecting to Pena Station, which is about a three to five minute to the south just at 61st. And so there is a full infrastructure master plan with transportation demand management. And then just the last piece on the use.

A single user office use is actually less intensive from a trip generation standpoint than a fully mixed use with retail and apartments and commercial office and things like that. So just overall for the size of its 114 acres, the actual intensity and trip generation from the use is not as much. There's no truck traffic really associated with the long term use of the site. And then the last piece is, as Ms. Mentioned, it will develop in phases. So this is not going to hit all at once. It'll be a long period of time as this iteratively develops.

Thank you. And then just one last more of comment, and maybe we could follow-up afterwards. Thinking about the fence and the space being just a lot of open space in future development, A lot of the fences that are being built, and especially, like, in Southern Colorado, allow for that space for little furry critters to get under and not people. But it's just kind of like thinking of how do you also not block off how animals that are there currently living there. So anyway, just something for consideration, but I think that there are a lot of really good

I know, they're little sweet.

Sorry. Else. But I think that, especially since it's so much space and if you have an operating, you know, farm out there, etcetera, there's a lot of innovation in design for fences to allow for wildlife to be able to cross under and not people. So Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. Yeah. Thank you.

You stole some of my questions, so thanks for that. I have madam president and then council member Lewis.

Thanks. So one question. Right now, along this corridor, the NEPA study is happening. Are you all involved and how does, like so when the record of decision comes out for the NEPA study and what happens I can't figure out the buffer, the the I'm getting all technical here, but how much land there is between the a line and where your property line is on United. There's like a little sliver as it turns. So I keep thinking about the NEPA study and I keep thinking about this. And the future development, yes, it's on the corner. It hugs the corner. Right? Subsection a, subsection b.

But just thinking about because you're adjacent right there and this huge NEPA study is happening, how are you all involved in that? And how does would that I'm sure that record of decision that broad would impact anything that you could build on that western edge. Does that make sense?

Yes. It it makes sense, madam president. Our property, though, is east of the a line. And so I think the bulk of the area that will be impacted will be between the a line and pin.

I have to meet the study further than that a little bit,

though. It's possible. And then immediately after the a line, then it would it would encounter first the green the green space. We're building for the city.

NEPA study Okay. For sure.

Okay.

That space right there. Mhmm. I

we we are much more engaged from the airport's perspective.

Yeah.

The fact that, you know, our customers really would love to see an expansion and ease easier travel to the airport, but

I would just not as a landlord. Put it on your radar. Right? NEPA study is gonna be same as like the when the I 70 came out, I 70 East. It just impacted things in that buffer. That's usually about that record that NEPA study does to see how that impacts all of you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Councilmember Lewis is online. Just wait until she's

I am here. I just actually have one question for miss. So, you know, there's quite a lot of property of United in District 8, and I just wanted to and you all gave me a briefing on this, but I just wanted to make sure we got this on record that you all do intend to stay in council district eight as you all are operating your training facility currently.

Thank you, councilwoman, for the opportunity to say that. I'm not going anywhere from there.

Thank you, miss. Bye.

Thank you.

Alright. I would love to ask questions by way of curiosity, but I think we're we're ready to move on to our next item. So could I get a motion and a second?

I'll move.

Moved by Alvedro, seconded by madam Protem. Anybody have any concerns? Thumbs up? Nodding heads? Great. Alright. We'll see you guys at full council. Thanks. Thank you. And with that, we would love to hear from Landmark about the web house.

We've been getting great, interesting Landmark presentations lately in this committee. It's great to see you again. Okay. Well,

thank you. I'm Abigail with Landmark, and I will try to run through this somewhere quickly since I know you

feel sorry about the short time.

Have a long no problems. Problems. So I am here today to bring the designation of the Wellington E And Wellington J Webb House at 2329 North Gaylord. So it was built in nineteen o two, and the Webb's purchased it in 1971, and it is still their house today. So it's located in Council District 9 in the Whittier neighborhood, and the proposed boundary is the lot lines of the property.

Designation eligibility, as a reminder, needs to be more than thirty years old or exceptionally important, needs to meet at least three of 10 criteria, and retain integrity. So the web property is being proposed for designation under criteria b, for its association with recognized persons who have had an influence on society. For criteria c, for having visible characteristics of an architectural style or type. And then finally, under our culture criteria for criteria j, for its association with social movements, institutions, or patterns of growth that contributed to the culture of the neighborhood and the city. So to go through those, b.

So association basically with the Webs and their influence on diverse society. Have heard

of them?

Yes. Twice. So the Webs purchased this home in 1971, and from here, really built careers that were rooted in public service, civil rights, and community leadership, and really worked to help open doors for future generations of black leaders while reshaping Denver's political, cultural, and civic landscape. So it is being designated equally for both, you know, them together and their individual significance. So for Wellington Webb, beginning with his role in the Colorado House of Representatives, then regional director for the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare during the Carter administration, executive director of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies, then his role as Denver auditor, and then finally as Denver mayor from 1991 to 2003.

Leaving a legacy, huge, but just to to have a few short items here, led Denver through a major peer period of growth, including completion of the Denver International Airport, Courts Field, and new arena agreements for the Avalanche Nuggets. Really, legacy is a symbol of the growing influence of black leadership and municipal government and really kind of shaping Denver's national image, economy, and civic identity during his term as mayor. And then we have significance for its association with Wilma J Webb. She served in the Colorado House of Representatives from 1980 to 1993, was a very active first lady of Denver from 1991 to 2003, was the region eight chief administrator for the Department of Labor under the Clinton administration, and the chair of the Martin Luther King Junior Holiday Commission. Some of her legacy includes the effort that she led to establish Colorado's Martin Luther King Junior Holiday.

She's the founder of Denver's MLK Marade, that idea of combining a march and a parade, and was an influential civil rights and civic leader through her legislative work, cultural leadership, and advocacy for education, equity, and historical recognition. So then on to criteria c. So embodying the distinctive visible characteristics of a four square. So it has all the characteristic features of a four square, that square plan, two story height, hip roof for the central dormer, and that full width front porch. And it's a more decorated version of a four square than we often see that is exceptionally in good condition, but it does include a lot of classical details, the doric columns, modillions and dentals, and a decorative frieze there at the middle of the 2nd Floor.

The house was built by Nils Andrew Isaacson, who was a Swedish immigrant and a carpenter who did small scale residential development in Denver in the eighteen nineties and early nineteen hundreds. And it really reflects the kind of early twentieth century construction trends where a lot of houses were done by small developers who did a house or two a year, and represents the development of Whittier. This whole stretch of this block here was all four squares all developed within a year or two of each other in the early nineteen hundreds. Then finally, criteria J for being associated with social movements, institutions, or patterns of growth or change. First, as being a hub of civic and civil rights activity, The house is really where the webs kind of planned their campaign, so it really became a political strategy center.

It was a gathering place for community leaders, the site of coalition building, and they hosted many local, state, and national figures at their home. Then finally, also under Jay, really significant for kind of being a symbol, a symbol of the expansion of black political leadership, of civil rights era gains in leadership, and also the increasing access to homeownership in Northeast Denver, representing the movement of the black community from 5 Points into the Whittier neighborhood. The house really has exceptional integrity in its original site, has an intact residential context with other adjacent four square properties, though I think this is one of the more elaborate and intact of those. It retains its historic materials, the architectural detailing is preserved, and it has a strong connection to the Webb legacy. So the period of significance that's being proposed is kind of two separate periods of significance.

So one period of significance is nineteen o two, which represents the construction of the building and that history, and then we have a second period of significance that goes from 1971 when the Webs purchased the property to 2003 when mayor Webb left office. Our ordinance also says that the historic context should be considered when looking at a designation, and this is a property that is really associated with many, many historic contexts, but some of those being the development of Whittier and the streetcar residential growth in Northeast Denver at the turn of the century. Then later, the evolution of Struggle Hill and the eastward movement of black residents from 5 Points into Whittier. So associated with civil rights gains and expanding opportunities, including increased access to homeownership, education, and political participation, really tied to history of black representation in Colorado government, and then finally, really associated with Denver's civic, economic, and downtown transformation during the nineteen nineties during mayor Webb's term in office. So We are recommending that you move this forward.

It is over 30 years of age, meets criteria b, c, and j, retains integrity, and the Landmark Preservation Commission has recommended it for designation and forwarded it to you. Wonderful.

That was really fun and cool to see. I will let the district councilmember go first if you'd like to. Councilwoman Watson.

Thank you, council member Parody, and thank you so much for your good work, walking through this. It was it is, such an important home, not just because of the historic structure, but because of the people who who live there. Honorable mayor Webb and first lady Wilma Webb. And I I it's funny to see the picture on the of the house on the screen because you're so accustomed of walking by it. A quick thing across the street, there's the French American school, and then there's Loyola Catholic Church, and I think they may have a smaller school in there sometimes for daycare.

But I was meeting with the the young folks from the French American school and they pointed. We got to walk by the house and saw mayor Webb and first lady Webb walking out there and they were so ecstatic that they understood the history because at the school, they're taught the history of the folks who live there. So as a resident of Whittier, I lived just three blocks from there. Folks may not be fully aware. Councilman Parity lives one two blocks from me.

Council member Lewis, her parents live one block from us. Former council member Elba Wedgeworth lives just, I think, three, four blocks north of us. And so in that small neighborhood in Whittier, twenty third to MLK, Downing to York, it has been a hotbed of of black political engagement. Mayor Webb and First Lady Webb, has led that charge. So so ecstatic about this process, and thank you for your team and and John, Diefenbaugh and and all the folks for the good work that they're doing to elevate this important historic preservation of their home.

Thank you. I have council president next.

Thank you. I love learning about these designations and what up until I think it was La Alma Lincoln Park. We didn't have cultural. Like, it wasn't it had been most of the time 98% of our historic applications have been prominent white men.

Yep.

And that is what historic like it that's either prominent white men or prominent white women. And I think the first one was La Ama Lincoln Park. There was another one and then La La Raza Park. And so this is just like telling a different story. And I'm so glad that we changed the criteria when we did because this couldn't even come through had we not updated our criteria in 2019.

It couldn't have happened because it didn't exist for having someone who like had a historic background. So I love that. And one funny anecdote is when I was at UC Denver one time for a project with their school of architecture, You used to be able to order a four square in Sears catalog. And it's people don't realize that and you used to be able to tailor them to like how what what side was the window shine like the window so that you could get passive heat and you didn't have to use your and so I thought about some of my critique on the new form and it really helped me think about things on my critique when I was critiquing new things coming into the Highland neighborhood and North Denver. As I was like, those are ugly and then I was like, oh shit, those are like actually things you could replicate as well and who knows in like fifty years, seven years from now, they might be like, oh, those are I mean, the craftsmanship's a little bit different but it's fun fact that I did not know you could order those in the Sears catalog.

And then direct developers would buy little plots, plot them off, build them, and then move on. Yeah. So fun little fact, but I'm so supportive of this and Yeah. I'm happy to move this forward and I'm glad that a lot of people don't get to see their their preservation of the structures until they're gone. And so it's been my privilege to be able to do that in Northwest Denver with Larasa Park, and what a privilege to have this for his family in the future and not ever have to have think of redevelopment on the site. It's the perfect use of that tool. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam No, thank you. Madam Chair?

Just real quick, I think one for the form of the building, the Denver Square. So much of growing up and passing by a lot of the Denver Squares and always imagining, I wonder who lives there. And to be able to recognize the historic structure, not only the Denver Square, but also who lived there, is pretty darn remarkable. So very excited about it. I know we're limited on time,

but Thank you. Thank you. This is a special item, and I look forward to being on the floor and getting to hear more about it in that context. I'll just say is, as my colleague mentioned, also a resident of Whittier living a few blocks away, it's an honor for me to live in that neighborhood. I am a gentrifier in that neighborhood, but I really love and respect the history that I that I walked into when I got lucky enough to buy my little duplex there.

And one of the other things about that neighborhood that I hope we make some progress on recognizing is how many of the addresses all throughout our neighborhood used to be the Green Book addresses Yeah. Where the, you know, the jazz performers would come and stay, and they had they would look at where the safe rooming houses were and the, you know, the safe barbershops. And my address was a filling station. My house is plunked right on top of what used to be a gas station, so it is not a historical, needless to say, or a Denver Square. But that address is in the green book because it was the place where you could stop and fill up when you were traveling through the West. So our neighborhood just is such a huge part of the black history of the country.

District. Come on. You gotta

be. It's

the civil rights,

you know, a stretch of the West in addition to being adjacent to 5 Points and the Arts District and everything else. So it's a special place to be. I love to see this getting on the map in the way that it should, and we'll we'll meet with the floor soon. Who wants to move in second?

I'm not on committee. I'll

move. I'll I'll move to a second. Sorry. Sorry. It's alright. I'm on. I'm just taking it. I'm on the committee, by the Thumbs up. Many thumbs up.

I'm not on the committee.

And we'll we'll get

to see that.

Sure. Thanks. Thank you, Abigail.

Thanks, Anne.

And with that, we are adjourned. Yeah. Not on the table. Nothing I can say.