Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the Community Planning and Housing Committee with Denver City Council. Your Community Planning and Housing Committee starts now.

We do that all the time. Good afternoon, everybody. Sure. Welcome to community planning and housing. Sorry, you caught me. I was snacking, eating lunch. Today is August 18, and I'm Councilwoman Amanda Sandoval. I have the honor of chairing the community planning and housing. We have a great agenda today. We have something that my colleagues have asked for. for this to come before us and then one action item. Before that, we'll get started. Let's go out with a round of introductions. I'll start to my right.

Good afternoon. Amanda Sawyer, District 5. Good afternoon. Diana Romero-Campbell, Southeast Denver, District 4.

Good afternoon.

Darrell Watson, District 9. Good afternoon. Paul Cashman, South Denver, District 6.

Laura Alvarez-Lucky, District 7.

Jamie Torres, West Denver, District 3. Great. So before us, we have an update to the data center working group. Oh, thank you. Councilman Online. Sorry.

Hi, everybody. Serena Gonzalez-Gutierrez, council member at large.

So we have a great agenda and I'll pass it over to my colleagues.

Where's yours? Good afternoon. Thank you, colleagues. Thank you, Committee Chair Sandoval, for creating space on today's agenda for this briefing on data centers. We're going to provide the update on data centers as we stand, the status of the creation of the working group, our planned community engagement process, and then our next steps. And we look forward to answering questions from you and providing to the community here in the room as well as community members viewing online some background information that is absolutely necessary and we're looking forward to doing that. I want to start first by thanking the city department supporting this process throughout. The mayor's office, especially Victoria who's not here and I hope you're feeling better for facilitating our planning process. The department leads and the mayor's office are here and available to assist the council co-chairs or council co-sponsors of this with answering questions. And I want to thank the community members that are here in the chambers as well as those online and those who have been providing us continued feedback throughout. I want to turn this over to Pro Tem Gonzales Gutierrez for some comments and then to Council Member Cashman to kick off the presentation.

Thank you so much, Councilman Watson. I do want to thank both you and Councilman Cashman in the partnership and work that we have been doing leading up to this update. I'm grateful that how far we have gotten so far and the fact that we're going to provide, I think, these very important updates for the public and for our colleagues so they kind of know what's coming up next. And the last thing I'll just say to preface the presentation today is that we realize that. Although it's a 1 year moratorium, we are prepared and we know and councilman Cashman said this from the beginning is that if it's going to take as long as it needs to take. because we want to do the work and we want to do it the right way. And so I really value everyone that has been part of this process. And thank you to Councilman Watzman and Councilman Cashman for doing the lifting today and presenting. Since I am virtual, it just will make more sense for them to walk through the slides with everybody. But I will be here and will be available for questions as well and to assist my colleagues. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilman Gonzalez-Gutierrez. So, next slide, please. As you can see, we have 50 data centers in Denver, from the smaller size to quite large. Five of the buildings are used entirely as data centers, and others are secondary operations. Next slide, okay, background. If you've paid attention at all, you've become aware that data centers in Denver have no regulation and data centers anywhere have a large community impact. Matters of the enormous electricity use that data centers can consume, the enormous water use, a variety of other health And pollution concerns, noise, and so on, as well as basic everyday zoning. As I always say, we build 20-story buildings or larger downtown, but we don't build them everywhere. There may be a spot for data centers, but it's not going to be everywhere. So we need to pay attention to that. And this body voted through a moratorium in the middle of May, May 18th, as Councilwoman Gonzalez-Gutierrez as pointed out, it's a one-year moratorium, but as the coordinating committee that's been working to put together the working group has decided, it's starting to look like the proposed cadence of meetings is not gonna get done within that one year, so it's increasingly likely at some point we'll be coming to the full body to recommend a continuation of the moratorium. And moratorium was signed on May 21st, so as of May 21st of 2027, until that date at least, all new data center development and construction is halted. If there are plans in process that have been permitted, they will be allowed to proceed. Next slide, please. The coordinating committee led by the CASR director, Liz Babcock, hired a facilitation group, a couple of organizations, Group 14 Engineering, and Civic Consulting Collaborative. Together, they will lead the working group process and they are, I believe, online. I'm not sure if we have anyone in the audience from the consultants, but they're available to answer questions. Councilman Watson, why don't you take it from here?

Thank you so much, Councilmember Cashman. The working group, to provide a little bit of background, and we shared this at the last committee meeting, but we wanted to make sure we repeat it during this meeting. The working group will include the three council sponsors of the moratorium, so that's Councilmember Cashman, Pro Tem, Gonzales Gutierrez, myself, folks from the utilities, Xcel Energy, union members, industry reps, advocacy groups, and community members, as well as subject matter experts, or what we're defining as subject matter experts, with city staff playing a supporting role. We want to also be very clear, as the city council member that represents District 9 and the one data center that's being built currently in the city is in Globeville area, Swansea, we are going to focus to ensure that community participation on that board reflects the geographic impacts of GES as far as the number of folks from that are going to be community members on that working group, not the board. Council members, mayor's office and the city staff will initially recommend specific working group members and that recommendation has been made already. And then also what we're going to do is send out an application to community-wide so community members can apply, including the initial folks that were identified through that first step process that began in May. So community members will be able to have an opportunity to apply to be a part of this working group. It's our expectation to have a clear list of who the members of this working group in is by October. to the latest and we'll have more specifics. And once again, the consultants that we hired and we wanted to make sure we had a consulting group, someone outside of the city, someone outside of the mayor's office, outside of city council, actually going through and leading and facilitating that application process. We thought that was important. They have a criteria for how we will be selecting and a selection group that's gonna be doing that, but we look forward to that. Our focus is to ensure an equitable process and so the open public call for applications will begin to serve for folks to serve in the data center working group and we will launch this August 21st. So more information will be provided on that.

Councilman has found out today applications will be due in by September 4.

That is awesome. So the application will be in by September 4th with the expectation that we will have a clear list of working group members within the next several weeks after that. Next slide, thank you, sir. The working group will focus on some of these topics as high level. Obviously, there are other impacts from data centers that we're gonna look at based on the folks who are in the working group, but at a very high level, we're gonna look at, obviously, public health, community health, community impacts, direct impacts, whether it's physical, geography, location, proximity, climate goals. We have an amazing team of folks here with the City and County of Denver that has been providing us direction on this thus far, and it will continue to provide us direction, fair utility costs, We're going to be continuing working with Excel on utility to ensure that this process looking at impacts to communities near data centers, that they're not adversely impacted by utility costs or changes. Technology needs, so we'll have folks on the working group that can speak to technology needs and then any additional development questions. So we expect to have a wide range of individuals from lived experience to professional experience on this working group providing direct feedback to the team with the expectation that we will help build regulation over that 12-month process that we have for that 12-month moratorium. The working group will pay special attention to vulnerable communities and adversely impacted communities. So we're going to have an equity lens as we identify the folks for the working group and apply that lens throughout this process. The goal is to review and propose updates to Denver's zoning and municipal codes, building and energy standards, and other city policies. So there is a material outcome of this working group. As we elevate those voices, we want to make sure at the end we have a regulatory environment within the City and County of Denver to regulate when, where, and how data centers can be built. Public participation, I'll share this at a high level. Once again, I believe the consultants are online. If they're not, we have members from the city that can speak deeper into this criteria, but the city's launching several ways for community members to get involved and make their voices heard throughout the process. The open call, as we just described, is being sent out by the end of this month. Public comment and participation at virtual and in-person meetings, and there will be town halls for community members to attend throughout as well. There will be a website dedicated to this. There will be communication. Everything will be with language access. So it will be in English and Spanish primarily and obviously throughout the city we have the ability to translate to other languages. We'll have designated email to capture community feedback so folks will be able to communicate directly back to an email if they're not able to participate in person or virtual at some of those touch points. As I stated, language justice and interpretation to ensure all voices are heard. And then we'll publish a draft policy recommendations for public comment. Obviously, the regulatory process will go through the regular City Council process, which means we'll come back to City Council at the end of this process and throughout to make sure we have the full public vetting of the possible regulations. go through the City Council vote whenever that process concludes through the end of May or longer if we have to prolong the process. We are not trying to finish by a certain date time. We have a 12-month moratorium, but we will go until we are completed, until we have a regulatory architecture that we think is ready for the floor, ready for City Council to debate. high level timeline. We had an initial discussion about data centers back in October 2024 at the Johnson Rec Center. And I won't go through each of these, but we wanted to put a few of the touch points that we've had thus far within this process. And then we are here today presenting before this committee with the hope and expectation to begin the process, a call for working group members and going out by the end of this month. immediate next steps. We're going to launch denvergov.org data centers, backslash data centers. That will be a website that will hold all of the information, all of the input around data centers so folks have a one-stop shop to look and check on information around data centers. We're going to issue the open call for public applications where we begin collecting community feedback and questions and we're already collecting that information right now. So if folks have provided feedback on data centers, that information is going to be continued collecting and that's by the end of August. By the end of October, we'll select, finalize, announce the working group members, host a public meeting with working group members and launch more resources and ways for public participation. Lots of information. I appreciate everyone's attention turned over to our co-sponsor to see if there's any last thoughts and then opening up for any questions that folks have.

Thank you. And I will. Let me pass it on to Councilman Gonzalez Gutierrez. 1st, see if pro tem. Do you have any additional comments you'd like to make now to make now?

I don't think so. You guys did a great job, but definitely open for questions.

things that I would add to what Councilman Watson said. As far as utilities, Denver Water is also expected to be at the table. And as we were, even though the working group has only begun to accept applications along the way because of public some of the categories that we had looked at. For instance, academics, we had one academic plan, now we've decided on two. We've added two public health subject matter experts, so trying to involve the community all along the way, and I ultimately think we'll come up with a great working group that will represent the community real well. So questions?

We want to have the facilitators introduce themselves so that we could, if we have questions, because I have a... Is Marisol online? There's two groups, correct?

Correct, and I believe we have Marisol.

Producer, do you see if the facilitators could raise your hand if you're online and you'll be promoted? And just if you'd introduce yourself and your role on the data center and give us an overview of your scope of work, that'd be super helpful.

Sure, thank you so much. My partner Jacob could not be here today, but I am Marissa Rodriguez. I'm with the civic consulting collaborative and yeah, we have been hired to be the where it's partnering with group 14 who I don't believe is here there. They'll be the technical partners, but will be the facilitators of the working group and leading public engagement.

You might find a little bit of your scope of work just at the top. I know you're going to get specific questions from council members, but anything that you can provide would be helpful.

Sure, the full scope is that we'll be leading the all 8 of the working group meetings will also be helping to facilitate the sub topic subgroup meetings and then we will be leading all of the public planning and leading all of the public engagement. So, from the online to the neighborhood meetings, um. To helping scope the meetings in a box that we can talk more about and I do have to apologize. I have 9 minutes left before I have to leave, but I am happy to answer any quick questions. Does that give enough of scope? Or would you like additional scope?

Let's go to council questions. So we can make sure you're here for those questions. So folks have questions on the facilitators. Maybe let's ask those for us before she has to bounce.

So we have several council members in the queue. Council members Swayer, President Romero-Campbell of Alvidrez, do you have questions for the facilitator?

I don't. I do. I do. Okay.

So, Councilwoman Serra, go ahead. Okay.

Thanks. Hey, Marisol. It's so good to see you. Thanks for doing this. Wanted to just ask whether you guys will be looking at all of the applications and putting together the working group or like who's doing that? Who's making the decision of who's on the working group based on all the applications?

That's a great question Councilwoman Sawyer and good to see you again. It's been a long time. So, Jacob, and I will be doing the 1st round of screening just to ensure that everyone is. It meets the basic criteria, which is living in the city of Denver. From there, we will be doing some phone screens and putting together the rubric to make sure that the process is smooth. But no, actually the three council members and then city and staff, sorry, city representatives from the mayor's office and Liz Babcock will also be on the selection committee. So we as the facilitators will not be making the decision. We are just organizing the process.

Okay, great. Really appreciate that clarity. Council Member Cashman, do you want to?

There will be a third member outside of the three council members. There'll be the mayor's office, Liz Babcock, and another. We're looking at either CPD or DDPHE, whichever agency.

Sarah's like, CPD from behind you.

That was a discussion that wasn't finished yesterday. Yeah.

Got it. Okay. Really appreciate that. And I think that makes a lot of sense because my next question was going to be where is CPD in here because it seems like the zoning piece and the building code piece, both of which are going to be impacted and both which are managed by CPD, they've got to have someone as the point person for that. Thank you for answering that question. And I think that was it for my question for the facilitator. Do you want me to get back in queue so you can ask your questions, Marisol?

Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, great. So you mentioned a meeting in a box and how do you go about that? And then my second question to you is, The history of these neighborhoods and the injustice that they have gone through since their existence—I mean, 80206 is one of the most polluted zip codes. The injustice of having three Superbund sites within these neighborhoods. How, how are you all going in there acknowledging the environmental injustice that these neighborhoods have seen and knowing that oftentimes their voice is not at the table? So how do you, how is you as the facilitator approach that work in a really thoughtful manner so people feel included in this process instead of talked to?

I think that's a great question. Sorry, I'm getting a box that says my. Can you all see me?

Okay, you're fine. We're good.

Okay. Sorry. So it's a great question. Thank you so much. So, the 1st, to explain meetings in a box is actually 1 of the reasons we wanted to do meetings in the box is because. We will create the facilitation guides, and then each working group member is given the guide and the resources along with gift cards to provide food, whatever that means for them, along with community members. So we did this process when we did Denver's Climate Action Plan. And so community members can facilitate their own conversations without us being there at all. We feel like this is the way that community can have their own conversations guided by what We need to know, and the information we need to gather, we will then get all that information and we'll process the data. But that means that they can have it when, when they want, where they want making their community members feel the most comfortable. And yet we give them the resources, both the written resources and the financial resources in order to host these meetings. So that's what meetings in a box is. is literally we hand them the materials in order to host these on their own time in the way that makes them feel the most comfortable and in their communities that makes them the most comfortable. So that's one engagement strategy that we plan to use. The second, all working group members will be required to host two rounds of these themselves. So that's the other reason why we want to make sure that the working group members themselves have really amazing ties into their community and that the working group is representative of the communities that are being most impacted by data centers. So that's one strategy. Another strategy, and this will be in conjunction with the working group, we have two rounds of five either neighborhood or community-based facilitated meetings. they may not be facilitated by me necessarily. I'm very well aware that I may or may not be the right facilitator to go into those, but I will help ensure that we are working with our community members, working with the mayor's office community liaisons, working with our city council liaisons to go and to bring the people together. We're also working with neighborhood organizations or the organizations in these communities to bring the right people to the table and then bring the right facilitator, which like I said, may or may not be me, but it may be someone that is from the community. So those are kind of the different strategies that we're using. I hope that answers your question. I can go into more detail or follow up with you if that would make you more comfortable.

For right now, that suffices. I might want to follow up with you later. And just so we're clear, everything will be bilingual, right? All the meetings in a box will be bilingual. Everything is bilingual.

Yes, and maybe even additional languages if need be.

And the website will be bilingual given the majority of people in those 3 neighborhoods. That's their native language. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

Thank you. All right. So, let's go back in the queue 1st step comes member. So, thank you. Thank you.

This is really fantastic. You guys, I really appreciate all of the work and the thought that has gone into this. And I just want to acknowledge how. we we always say our budget is our uh our reflection of our values right and um it is clear that there has been budget dedicated to this and in a way i we rarely see um which means that it is a reflection of our values that this is an important conversation that community involvement is an important piece of that um and so i just want to acknowledge that because i think it's pretty rare that that happens in the city of denver and it's kind of exciting Um, so just in terms of, I know you put a timeline up, um, and the rest of my questions were answered. It was about CPD and about who was going to put together the working group. But I just had 1 last question around timeline. Um, right and I know that we talked about this being a year. Um, but my straight up question for you, because I won't be here after July of 2027. Is is this something that this council is going to have an opportunity to vote on? Is that our goal to get this done by July 18th, 2027?

You know, I guess the way I would. No, I don't think it's the way I would say it. I mean, the intention is that this work be done. Thoroughly and completely and whatever time that takes that time takes so that that will be the guideline. And if you don't mind your further comment about. values and budget. And this was brought up initially by our facilitation group. They brought up the fact of the need to possibly provide stipends to community members for their time. And our last meeting the other day, we weren't able to finalize exactly how much or whose budget it was coming out of. But I'm very confident that community members that participate in the working group will receive some stipend for their time. And that, like I said, that came initially from the facilitators who were willing to provide some funding out of their budget without increasing the amount.

I don't know if you wanted to say that, but yes. But they did. They offered some, but I wanted to say to the council member, I believe, and I'm sure my co-sponsors believe as well, that we will have some level of the architecture of what that regulatory environment will look like prior to this council, the folks who are sitting around, the 13 of us, prior to those changes, 12 of us, those changes occurring. So there should be some level of architecture of some sort, I would say, prior to July, even if we're still extending and going. We would have extended beyond the May moratorium date. I feel pretty confident we'll have at least some level of that architecture of what that regulation should look like. And even if it's to come back to a briefing to council members, so.

Okay, I really appreciate that. I guess my question is more around, so I think in Gantt charts, right? And so for those of you who know what a Gantt chart, don't know what a Gantt chart is, a Gantt chart is where you take the deadline and you work backwards from it, from all of the different pieces of what has to happen to get to like a reasonable timeline, right? So if the Gantt chart has, you know, early July as the final date, and then there are Cpd requirements for publication for any and notification for any changes to the zoning code that are required and then there's that's a month and the council process is a month and You know from committee all the way through like if we are talking about Extending the moratorium because we've got to have the time for all of these regulations to be approved in late May, June, and July of 2027. That's one thing. If we are talking about extending the moratorium because we aren't even done with the facilitated work yet, that is a totally different thing. Those are two totally different things that we're talking about here, and that is concerning to me. I guess I just need some clarity on

what that really means. I would tell you that everyone's intention is to get this work done as quickly as we can get it done. But it's so important that to state any other ultimate goal than to do it right is why I'm just hedging a bit. But everyone's aware of the timelines and the importance to get it done for any number of reasons. For the community security, you know, So we'll be working hard to make it happen.

Okay, really appreciate that. Thank you.

Good question.

Thank you. Next up we have President Romero-Campbell.

Thank you, Madam Chair. A lot of my questions have been answered, so I just appreciate that. I was, I think maybe a little bit more around the community outreach. I know that Marisol had to go, but just the community outreach being citywide and then what we as council members, or do you already have a plan that's set out for what that community outreach looks like? How about if I ask it in that way?

Yes, multiple in-person meetings, as they say, websites. The meetings themselves, the working group meetings, will be open to the public. There's a tremendous awareness that transparency is critical in everything we do, some things more urgently than others, and I would put this in the urgent basket.

And I would share, Council President, also at the onset of this, we asked some council members to identify individuals within their communities that they would want to elevate and put their names to be possible participants in a working group. That is still the case and the application process will be sent to anyone that's been identified by city council members. So not only will the ongoing community process be citywide, we also want to make sure we are hearing from voices from across the city as well as possible participants within the application process for the working group.

Thank you. And then if I see this correctly, because, you know, people are going to ask us, and I'm going to refer back to this meeting and to the PowerPoint. They say, when is the group going to have their first meeting? Is it the end of October? So by end of October, select, finalize, announce working group members. So, like... beginning of November. That's when the timeline and the work starts.

I don't have the schedule in front of me.

Yeah, I would share, Council President, we'll have solid dates after we send out the application process. So the Gantt chart, we spoke about it and we're building it from the end back to now. So right now, at least for this briefing, end of October. Our expectation is to drive towards that end of October for that first working group meeting. My expectation is that it'll be sometime

My soul has her hand raised. She's there. Oh, do you have answers?

Actually, the 1st meeting is October 9th.

Okay, do you have we can't hear you? You said October 9th for 9th? The 1st meeting is October 9th. Okay, and then do you have this already mapped out? So, like, when people say, hey, what am I committed to? They can plan around those. We do.

Yes, we have the full schedule mapped out. We've cleared it. All the council members have it on their schedule and it will be published along with the application process. So people are very transparent about every meeting when it is and what they're signing up for.

Awesome.

That's helpful.

Thank you. And then just 1 real quick question. If I heard correctly, it's not off the table, but very possible that we could go to an extension of the current year extension moratorium. That's right. Then it takes that's what I'm hearing. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Next step. We have. Thank you. Thank you all for your work on this. I would agree that I think you need a full year to do this work. Not like, we've already been working half a year just to get it off the ground. So I think we need a lot of time to make sure we get it right. I did. I'm a little confused. You know, you're saying one thing about the work group, but the slide about the work group really doesn't say much about who will be on it. You mentioned public health. I don't see that on the slide. So I'm curious. What number of people are we talking about? What's the ratio of community versus city staff? And I agree, CPD needs to be a big part of this. And so I'm a little bit concerned that I don't see enough of that written out, that CPD is going to be on there. How many people are we talking about? What does that look like? And then you mentioned about the application process. Will that be open to the public or is this like select pre-group of people that you've already been talking to?

The application is open to the public. That's correct. And what we will do in this presentation, we didn't provide the breakout. We did in the last, the first time we came to the committee, we'll make sure even right now, some of our staffers are sending that around. So we didn't change that criteria outside of the two slight changes that Council Member Cashman stated with two healthcare identified folks.

And then I've got what the- I'll have that in a minute. Yeah.

So that's gonna be sent up, but that was provided before that listing of folks, not the exact number of how many total community members will be on was provided. And we have a list that we'll send it to all council members.

So is that something you're gonna work through, through the application process?

they've got a base and like i said i'll have it for you in just a couple of minutes yeah we have a basic um number of a basic category and how many bodies per category that we've been working with when we accept when we decided to uh expand past the number we had originally been taught talking about again at the urging of the facilitation group felt there was room for more people and wanted to open it up to an open public process. But like I say, if you give me a minute or two, I'll give you those categories.

Great. And then Marisol said she still had her hand up and I was wondering about the Community group meetings and compensation because it does sound like a heavy lift for the work group members and also the people that come to these facilitated meetings. And so, and I know there was conversation about we're showing our budget with our values. What is the budget for this work? Do we have a budget?

I don't know those numbers. We can get those from DOF. And so we can identify what those exact numbers are. I don't know if Marisol wants to speak to the

She's gone now.

So we can provide, I mean, we have, I mean, the facilitators was their strong recommendation that there was some level of stipend. We are, as a group, we're looking between where those funds would come from. So it is our intent to make sure that there's some level of compensation because, as you stated, this is a heavy lift. And also, as Councilwoman Sawyer stated, This is a rare kind of already investment. And so there is a clear budget, but there is a line to what that budget is. We'll provide that and that will have clear transparency. So folks in the public will know exactly how much what this cost. But I don't see anyone from DOF here that I can speak to.

Councilmember, Senator Pro Tem Romero-Gonzalez has her hand up.

One of those, one of those double names. Okay. I just wanted to provide some clarity around, because there's questions around like which entities have been identified. I think Councilwoman Alvey, that as you were asking, I know Councilman Cashman was trying to search through documents. So I'm going off of, you know, from the last time that we have had these conversations, we have utilities, unions, Industry industry is specified as somebody who knows how data centers work. Um, so not like a, um, in a lobbyist or government affairs capacity, um, then non governmental organizations, including, like, nonprofits, neighborhood groups, advocacy groups, et cetera. And community members, and with that, I know part of this is the number of people in the group is. Depending on how many applications we are receiving, especially from community. We are hoping that that will be a large group, large part and portion of the working group. And right now we're looking at at least at least 7 seats for community members. And so. Academia, healthcare and air quality are the groups that we're looking at. And then as far as like the city agencies, those are, they will also be part of this work, but in an advisory capacity. So they're part of the working group, but in order to provide us with like technical assistance as it relates to city agency work.

Madam Chair, the list that the Council Pro Tem was referring to, what we had been working on, utilities, 2 seats, which we have envisioned as Xcel and Denver Water, unions, 2 seats, industry, 1 seat, the non-governmental organizations, at least 3 seats, community members at least seven seats, academia at least two seats, healthcare at least two seats, and air quality at least one seat. So that's where we've been working. So I would expect the total number of seats will grow a bit.

And will all of that information be on the website? There's transparency so after committee we can go somewhere and look at it.

Okay, got it. 100%.

Anything else come up? Yes, I do have a couple more. I know that the facilitator had said that people have to be in Denver. I'm assuming that doesn't go for academics, that doesn't go for public health, that doesn't go for a city worker. Is that just for the seven community members?

that's my understanding that that is that was the the thought process um because we may have someone from and i'm going to ask for liz babcock i think our hand was up to answer part of the other question but we have folks from the city that may not live in but their work is this work so yes

Okay and then I just want to emphasize, well I want to ask the question and I think this is like the elephant in the room is like what is going on with the current data center? This doesn't affect it at all or will any requirements that come out of this? I saw online like how loud it can be out there with like the generators and so I'm curious about that.

I'm going to ask Sarah if you comment on where things stand with permitting. There's one building under construction. Can the other buildings proceed?

All that type of stuff. Yeah, you bet. One quick question. Liz, did you want to say something to address something before Sarah? Because you've had your hand up for a long time. I'm sorry. I was just going to answer the question. You have to come to the mic because we can't hear. Thank you. And if you'll just introduce yourself. Good afternoon. Sorry to cut you off, Sarah, but I just know that she's been there for a minute.

Liz Babcock, Executive Director of CASR, the Climate Office. To answer the budget question, we have just over $400,000 set aside for the entire process. So the facilitation, the community engagement, providing food, community compensation, childcare, et cetera. translation, interpretation, technical support. So if there's a need for any kind of research where we would go out and learn about a subject, we have some ability to have the consultant bring that information back to the working group. So that's the budget. We're actually looking at adding a little bit through a purchase order to cover some of the additional community compensation that we've been discussing as well.

Is that all coming out of the budget? It's coming out of the Climate Protection Fund. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks. Thanks, everyone.

Sarah? Okay. Good afternoon. I'm Sarah Showalter with Community Planning and Development. So about the current moratorium, the purview of that is for any new data center or a significant expansion of one. So if the use has already been established, like the course I want to think there's a question about, there was some news coverage about generators, then in general, the ongoing permitting there is not impacted. However, the SDP or site development plan that was approved for that site only entitled the phase one building that's already there today. There are future plans to potentially add more buildings and that would be impacted by the moratorium. I don't believe they're planning to do that anytime soon. So most likely what it means is that when the new regulations are in place next year, they will apply to any additional buildings they might add there. But the moratorium doesn't impact building permits and the work that's happening to finish up that existing building and site that was already in place at the time it was adopted.

Okay, so basically this has nothing to do with the current CoreSite site?

Right, the current building at that site.

I would think that some of the recommendations could be applicable to that and the harms that could be caused if this turns out to reveal that there's a harm that could come from that site, we should be taking that. into consideration, especially when it comes to even just that the diesel generators and the air quality of that neighborhood. So I don't understand why like that question and those concerns can't be also questioned and studied in this process.

The building under construction will be subject to all of our air quality and noise regulations. But as Sarah said, if they should decide to add a building too, that will be subject to whatever new regulation we come up with.

And I would hope that that new regulation is there for a reason because public health officials and community members are advocating for these things. And it would make sense that you would also look at the existing building and the concerns there. I don't think we should say that just because they already started construction automatically they are completely exempt from everything that comes out of this.

What I was saying is it would appear to me that this building will be open and functioning before the working group's work is done. So up until then they'll be subject to our current regulations. You know, environmental regulations change and so I can envision In the future, perhaps there will be new requirements on them, but as far as construction. And all that that's relating to any new construction and I'll speak definitively.

I mean, there is the impacts from core site that 1 building that's being built development. there is nothing that the moratorium can do. However, being informed as far as any of the environmental, energy, air, noise impacts, this council has not relieved our power to do that as we do with any other industry, whether it's Suncor, whether it's Purina. There are steps that we as a regulatory body, we as a legislative body can take, and those steps do not change and will be informed by this working group. And the individuals informing the process for any data center that's being built. So they're not excluded from the outcomes. They're just simply not part of the moratorium, meaning they have to stop building. That's the only thing that they're not a part of.

Okay, I'll accept that there's just one more thing to echo Council President's comments around the whole city. I consider my district the mirror of the global area of Swansea as we also have the highway going through it and that is where these things are generally concentrated and so I don't know what kind of zoning recommendation or where the zoning will be for this type of thing but I will remain concerned and hope that there is deep engagement not only in the areas impacted right now but where it could be impacted in the future.

That's our commitment, Councilwoman Alvarez. As I stated, we're going to make sure that we have folks across the city involved, and every city council member, we're going to make sure your voice is also heard throughout the process.

Thank you. Councilwoman, what I would add, the working group is not passing a bill. We'll make recommendations. It will be up to this body to look at those recommendations and decide which of them apply and which may not.

Thank you. Thank you. Next up we have Councilwoman Torres.

Thank you. A couple things that I've been tracking. I was just looking at Chicago's activity. They're also doing similar efforts right now. Mayor, The mayor of Chicago just did an executive order. They're launching a moratorium. But they're also basing it on 18 months of some environmental work. One of the things that they mentioned in that environmental report is transparent data reporting and accountability. And I just want to flag that as something that I hope you guys can take up as well, because we should be able to get reports from existing data centers make that information available to neighbors, to the public, as you guys deem necessary. A variety of different things probably could be shared and just visible when it comes to what kind of data we gather and report out. The other thing that I wanted to mention is that the way that this... I think the... I don't know, the straw that broke the camel's back on this one, the GES data center really was only kind of made visible to us because of certain intersections with our process. And so I just want to ask that there be a couple other things considered as you're looking at kind of who gets notified and for what purpose when this is coming through because we were being asked to provide a huge tax break. to these folks and approve that. And so how do we process future decisions from economic development around tax break investment and how we're considering that? So I just don't want that to fall off the radar. That was, I think, one of the first things that let us know that something needed more attention. The other is the right-of-way applications. So this was initially applied for as a Tier 3 right-of-way, not a permit that came through us, right? We didn't approve a data center in GES. It was a right-of-way permit. And so that's an additional kind of intersection point where if you're going to be adding layers of review for data centers that need a particular, a higher look, an additional box that gets checked, something that we know what it is that's requesting this. It's not just a fence in a community, it's a data center asking for a wide of way application. That goes through DOTI, right? So there's just a few other kind of intersection points in addition to all, I think all of the good things that you guys have on the list to review that I just want to make sure didn't get lost because those were actually how we arrived at this conversation this time around. Thank you.

Thank you. So on the working group with CPD there, and I think this is probably a question for Kazir. How are you going, how are you tapping into subject matter experts? There's, and I'll just give a reason why I'm asking. So I'm a member of Urban Land Institute, ULI, and there's all these different product councils, and they actually have a data center product council. So I'm just wondering how do you, because there's playbooks in other areas on how to do zoning and how does this all intersect with different utilities, right? We have to have our utilities at the table. How are you gathering all of that information and making sure that it, when you're sharing it back to community, that it's in a way that A, it's understandable, B, it's archived somewhere so we can all have, because if you're pulling information, I would love to read that information so that I can understand these better in the future because I don't think they're going away. So it's more of a broad question. How are you getting all this research and where from and how are you parsing that out? Does that make sense?

Yes, thank you for the question. Liz Babcock, executive director of CASR. So we've talked with everybody who's been involved in the process, the council members, city staff, mayor's office, and the facilitators. One of the ideas that we had was to do a resource fair where we have people who are experts or who have information either from the city or external partners where people can come and learn about the different topic areas and what resources are already available. I will have to come back to you about the website. I think the website is a great place to be a depository for a lot of that information, but I don't know that just putting factual information or resources on the website is the best way to get the information out. But we'll have that conversation as we kind of get a little bit more into the process. We've talked about the subgroups under the working group that will focus in on different topic areas, whether it's zoning, energy, water, et cetera. Having experts come and present to those groups from external bodies, whether that's academic institutions or think tanks, nonprofits, others that have information that is valuable for the working group. And then we've talked about having other ways to kind of disseminate that information broadly to the public. The final recommendations will also be out for public review, so that will be very transparent as well, and people can look at all the information that's been gathered to date. They can access the resources that we provided throughout the whole process and then provide direct feedback on the recommendations themselves if they think there's a best practice we missed or there's some other new report that came out that we didn't see previously. So there's gonna be a lot of different ways that we're gathering that and would love your feedback if there's other things that you can think of that you've seen that have worked well about how to bring in those reports, that information, experts that know a lot about the topic.

Okay, great. One thing that I keep thinking about council members and to the working group is if you would come back, because I think one of the hard things is that in my lived experience of being here in the city, you go in your realm and everyone gets in the working group and people are talking and then you don't know how to bring in the rest of the city. And even though the data center is in Guadalupe and Swansea and being built currently and being erected, their current data centers are other places. And so as this comes to light, we're getting issues about current data centers, right? And how are they impacting us and do those data centers come conforming non-compliant buildings and how do they all get incorporated and making sure that in the working group you have hopefully someone who has a data center right now because if you update their zoning they might be, there is this thing called conforming non-compliant. So we're having those discussions because Making sure that we all are brought into this together, it's going to be huge because it's all over the news. I just listened to a Wall Street Journal article on Sunday about Kentucky and how they're buying up Acres and acres and acres and acres. And so what do we do in areas like you, Councilmember Watson, who has a boundary? I have a boundary. I could have a boundary. It's fascinating when you have a boundary because in Adams County could just start putting data centers everywhere and we don't know and it's still resourcing. So I think the more clarity that we could add around this and knowing that we're sharing this information out is gonna be really important as we... come up with solutions and then you can bring us along instead of like oh now we have the solution let's get it on city council committee and brief us because that's normally what we do and i just don't think that that process i'll commit to making time in this committee So that we can have these frequent updates so then we can tell our community members go watch this update and then they can go to a different open house if there's another one because outside your working group you're going to have a lot of other people who are going to be interested and wanting to understand how this is moving forward.

That's awesome. Absolutely.

And I just want to say to Cassar and Liz, thank you so much for dedicating and finding the resources. I know that this is what, when we sent that, I think it's the voter-referred money. And I do feel comfortable. It's a lot of money, almost a half a million. But I do feel comfortable. I feel like that was what that voter referral was for. And it specifically said in that voter referral, communities that were impact—disproportionately impacted. And I just want to keep centering this conversation that Globeville, Lurie, and Swansea are literally the three neighborhoods in the City and County of Denver that have more historical injustices and have been impacted than any other neighborhood ever in the City and County of Denver. And right next to it is Suncor who is still polluting them and is still offering this and it's not gotten better. I just was out at an event the other day with Councilman Alvidrez and she said, did you see Suncor? And I said, yes, you could not not see it driving down I-70. And so we have to just remember that as the other neighborhoods are interested that we just have to be centered around the social injustice that has happened in these neighborhoods because it cannot continue and it should not continue. And we have to just make sure that we're always, that's gonna be our North Star because it can impact all of us. And I remember when we allowed marijuana, when the state amended our constitution, Guess where they went? They went in community Baker and all the girls' houses and Sun Valley. All of our proportionally disadvantaged communities and that cannot happen and that's oftentimes, as you all know, I love zoning. And when you've gotten a zoning code, you push it into those communities and those communities were created where industrial and residential are right next to each other because we didn't have a zoning code to protect people of color. And we push them through redlining into certain areas through our own policies. And so we cannot continue to create that harm policies, which were created to be exclusive. They are not inclusive. And so I'll get off my soapbox. But I just want to say to Kassar, thank you for dedicating the $400,000. getting a facilitator, making sure it's online so we can get access to all the meetings. And my last question will be, will you be sending this out to all the council offices? I wish it would have gone out. I mean, I send mine out September 1st. That's not a lot of time for people to be interested, but it is some time.

100%.

Okay, so colleagues, you'll get that for your September newsletter. And remind us, when does it close?

uh set goes out august 21 it closes september 4 and i just wanted to add that the the issues you mentioned of social justice and equity have been top of mind in virtually every discussion we've had since this was brought up unless you've been living in a cave you know the abuse the GES community has historically suffered and zoning for all communities is going to be one of the areas top of mind.

Okay. Well, I'll work with the sponsors to figure out a cadence for this to come back so that we can all understand when that is so other community, all of us know on council if they want to be part of that conversation to clear their calendar and have a little advance notice so they could join these committee meetings.

We're available as well as Council Pro Tem. If any of you all would like to sit down at any time and get a how's things going, we'll be glad to inform you.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you all. Next up, we have Community Planning and Development. Action Item Ordinance 1185.

Thank you.

All right, Edson, the floor is yours.

Good afternoon. My name is Edson Ibanez with Community Planning and Development. Before you today, we're looking at two parcels. at 3418 West 14th Avenue and 1371 North Julian Street. The request is to go from an RH3 to an MU5, so from a row house up to three stories to a multi-unit up to five stories. So I will go through the request, we'll look at the location and context, talk about the process, and dive into the review criteria for this request. And so the site itself, is two parcels, just roughly under half an acre, so 21,777 square feet. It is owned by the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. It has an existing church and a single family house. The single family house is used for like youth groups and sometimes it has folks that are helping out the church stay for Basically it will stay for the summer, but it really doesn't really house anyone. It does have like young adults meetings that happen on the single family house. So no one is really being displaced in that single family house. And then we have this church here. And one of the things that they're looking to do is that they're looking to rezone so that they can sell the property. And so I know that they're, we can talk into the details of what that looks like for them specifically. Like I mentioned, the request is from a GMU-5 to a GMU-5, so it's a multi-unit up to five stories. And so looking at the location context, it's located in Council District 3, Councilmember Torres' district, and it's located in the West Colfax neighborhood, just south of Colfax. As you can see, like I mentioned, the current zoning is GRH-3, which is at Rojos 3. Directly to the south, we have Paco Sanchez Park. And then, as you can see, predominantly the area has GRH3, which is that row house up to three stories, but we do see some GMU5 in close proximity, just about a block in multiple directions. As you can see here, they're all kind of the same color, but you see the GMU5 to the west and to the north, we have just like less than half a block to the north as well. So the current land use for the site is public, quasi-public, but the neighborhood consists of single family, multi-unit residential, and then parked directly to the south. So as you can see, the subject property here, as you can see the church here, consists of about a one to two story structure, and then the single family house here on the bottom right as well. The site consists of, like I mentioned, multiple single-family houses, but we do have some apartment complexes, as you can see in close proximity to the site, that range in multiple different stories, from two to five stories. So now looking at the process, there was an informational notice sent back in December, and then it went before the planning board on the fifth of this month. The reason why there is a huge gap is just Typically when an application is submitted, we need certain types of documents to prove that we need. So there's certain documents that we need in order to justify that this applicant can sign on behalf. And typically the board, churches are unique in the sense that the boards change so many times. that sometimes they need to update certain documents and that just takes time and approval from the board as well for churches. So I've worked on multiple rezoning with churches where it just takes a while just to get the right documentations in. So that's kind of what happened in this scenario. It just kind of took a while to get the appropriate documents and then we started the process here from the time. uh when we started this but it went it did go before uh planning board and it was approved unanimously this month um some of the things that were highlighted during planning board is that they felt that this rezoning application met the criteria but they did highlight that grh3 the current zoning and what you see in this block is a protected district so when there is a development in the future it is going to require some protected those protected standards which are applicable on the site interior, which is right on the alley. And so, you know, they did discuss the, you know, any future development would have to adhere to those protected district standards, which is common for, similarly to some of those GMU-5 that you see in close proximity, they have to adhere to that as well. And so it's before you today, and tentatively scheduled before, to go before you for City Council Park hearing on 9-28. And so, so far we have received no public comment from RNLs or members of the community for this application. And now jumping into the review criteria. So there are three review criteria that every zoning have to follow, which is consisting with adopted plans, public interest, and conceived with neighborhood context, zone district purpose, and intent statements. And so for this application, we're looking at three plans, which is Comprehensive Plan 2040, Blueprint Denver of 2019, and the West Area Plan. So there's multiple strategies and goals that this specific application falls under, but I just want to highlight a few under equity and climate goals. So under equitable, affordable, and inclusive goal one strategy, increased development of housing units close to transit and mixed use developments, as well as under the strong and authentic Neighborhood goal one, strategy B, ensure neighborhoods offer a mix of housing types and services for a diverse population. Additionally, under climate goals, environmentally resilient goal A strategy, A, promote infill development where infrastructures and services are already in place. Under Blueprint Denver, the site is classified as general urban, and then the place type is classified as high-medium residential, where we want to see a mix of low to medium-scale residential units with heights up to eight stories. And then 14th Avenue is a residential collector. Within our growth area strategy, it's classified as all other areas of the city where we anticipate 20% of new housing growth and 10% of new employment growth by 2040. Under climate goals for specifically multi-unit buildings are more energy efficient than low density residential development types. When we jump into the West Area Plan, it is very similar to Blueprint Denver, which, you know, it's classified as general urban. It's classified as medium, high-medium residential. But the difference here is that instead of eight-story recommendation, now it's recommending five. So the applicant is pursuing five stories here. I do want to highlight that there was a rezoning west area plan memo that was sent out, but that one is specifically tailored to single unit residential. It was more concerned that developers market rate developer coming in and rezoning single unit to row house or small multifamily and displacing specific renters that have been in the area. And so that specifically halted, when that was going through the process, it halted rezonings there and really started asking these developers to consider displacement and to consider what exactly how those impacts. So that doesn't apply for this specific scenario because we're dealing with already an RH3. It's not a single unit zone district. And so with that, it's also applicable with several policy recommendations, such as E3, overall housing diversity. So expand diversity of housing types and affordability to support houses of different sizes, ages, incomes, and then ensure compatible redevelopment and or repurposing of institutional sites within the neighborhood. It is within the public interest as specified within the adopted plans as it does call for high, medium residential, up to five stories. Blueprint says eight stories, but the neighborhood plan says five. We do see that throughout the neighborhood as well. And then it's overall consistent with the neighborhood context on district purpose and intent statements as specified in the staff report. Therefore, CPD recommends approval that all the findings have been met. I am available for any questions, and the applicant who represents the church is also available for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Torres. Thank you. Thanks, Edson. I want to go back to the West Area Plan refinement. I think it's the... future places map. Is that the only thing that it's referring to when it says refinements from blueprint map? This property is specifically identified as having been refined differently from blueprint. Is the only refinement have to do with the height recommendation? Okay. Nothing to do with the density recommendation, just height. Okay, thank you. On the height recommendation 5, can it still use incentives to go to 7? It can. And what would be involved in utilizing incentives?

There's an affordability requirement. Typically, depending if it's for sale or for rent and so typically requires a certain percentage that ranges around 10% of the units that would have to be de-restricted and they would have to work with our Department of Housing Stability to do an affordable housing plan which happens not at the rezoning stage but would happen during the site development plan review process and so during that time

to get those height incentives and then fee reductions as well they would have to go through that process if they want to get up to six or seven stories so as it relates to the protected uh zone district uh kind of sideline that it's got along the alley what would that look like if it were five stories and what would that look like if it were seven i have it loaded right here so let me tell you that exact

So when it's above 27, and head pushes back about right over 27 feet, it pushes back about 25 feet. And then when it goes up 51 feet, then it'll push again for 40 feet.

Okay. So kind of wedding kicking away from the alley and more towards Julian. Do you know whether it's 14th or Julian, which one of those is its primary street?

Um, I don't know that would be.

Oh, so we just had this in district 5, which is why I know the answer to that. So that's a determination that is made by Dottie. Okay. Later there is a yes in the site development plan part daddy's rules and reg state that the lowest volume street is the primary street. Okay.

So that's likely Julian. One of the things that I'll just mention and the applicant rep, is that you? If you wouldn't mind coming up, this is just for your awareness as well.

Go ahead and introduce yourself real quick. My name is Alex Smith.

Thank you, Alex. One of the conversations that our office has had with Parks and Recreation was about turning the street right above Paco Sanchez Park, which is Yes, exactly. Into not a street but with right of way but as a parks and parking lot. Do you recall that ever coming up or has that been mentioned to you at all in your conversations with the church ownership? No. Okay. That's been brought up since COVID as a safety maneuver so that we can enforce curfew, frankly, for cars that are parking on that street overnight, even though it's a really weird section of a street, right? Because it just L's right into Julian, which is right at your property. So I will probably elevate that conversation again. especially if the church is not aiming to develop it themselves, but sell it at some point, so that conversation gets included there, because I'm still encouraging Parks and Dottie to designate that street a parking lot. It would have implications for Julian, which is the feeder there, that I wouldn't want to leave somebody out of on your side.

All right.

Thank you for that information. And since you're up here, can you let me know a little bit more about what the church's process or decision-making process would be around this? Would it go up for sale if you received the zoning? Or do you have a seller interested or a buyer interested?

Neither. This is just kind of planning for the process to start more in earnest in the near future.

Got it. Okay, thank you. Has any interaction taken place with the West Colfax Association of Neighbors, the RNO?

We did send out some communications. I don't remember off the top of my head if that was one of them, but the documents are inside the application, who we talked to, who we reached out to.

Okay. If you can go back to that and just jog your memory. I don't have a problem with this going through committee, but just so we have a clearer answer when we come back for the public hearing. of what the communication was and how it was left. Really, there's only one West Colfax RNO. There is a Sloan's Lake RNO that covers this area as well. So I'd be interested if there was any back and forth between those two.

Okay.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, awesome. Council members, do we have any other questions? Do we have a motion? I'll move. Second. Motion by Councilman Torres, second by Councilman Sawyer. Seeing no other actions before this committee, do we have any consent? Two consent items. We stand adjourned. Thank you all. Thank you.